Triple Quest: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  The deduction then—flawless, Olive would have said—was that Hyams had another establishment elsewhere, and that this address was known to his wife who had been provided with a telephone so that she might warn him if he were needed for any reason. No doubt they had separated by mutual consent and probably he was making her a liberal weekly payment she was not willing to lose by any complete breach in their relations.

  This report Bobby put down on his desk, and turned to the second. It was from Ford and said simply that he believed he had now secured good evidence on which a charge could be made. And once a charge could be made and accepted, then it became almost certain that much more would come out. One knew at least where to look and whom to question.

  In answer to a summons from a hopeful but even more doubtful Bobby, Ford now appeared to present his evidence—not an elaborate chain of reasoning, no stronger than its weakest link, that still more careful reasoning might destroy, but just one, or rather two concrete facts. And these Ford placed on Bobby’s desk in the shape of two pawn tickets—doing so with just a touch of that excitement C.I.D. men are not expected to show and indeed seldom do.

  “Both made out to J. Jasmine, Esq.,” Ford said as Bobby picked them up to look at them more closely. “One for a gold wrist watch with initials on back, J.J., and one for a pigskin dressing-case with fittings.”

  “Where did you get these?” Bobby asked.

  “Stolen property, sir,” Ford confessed. “I’m the ‘fence’, I suppose, receiving them. Miss Evangeline Fitzgerald, otherwise Emmy Fitz, had them; and who could she get them from but Duke Groan, and how did he get hold of them, and why did he hand them on to her to keep? Seems to me Duke Groan has a lot to explain—specially what’s become of Jasmine.”

  “Steady, steady,” Bobby warned him. “You are going too fast altogether. But it does give a point to start from and that’s a big step forward.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Ford. “What I thought, sir. But Emmy Fitz hadn’t got the picture which was my first guess. What I was really after. But getting these instead may mean as much or more.”

  “What made you think of her having the picture?” Bobby asked, surprised, for he himself had never thought of connecting this woman with the lost Rembrandt.

  “Well, sir, I looked at it like this,” Ford explained. “It did seem as if it were Duke Groan all the way. He came running to you first thing. I worked it out that was because he reckoned we would start an inquiry as soon as Atts’s disappearance was reported, and it wouldn’t take long to find out Atts had been employing him so he had better say so at once, and make a great show of being worried and puzzled. The more conspicuous you are, the less you’re noticed. That’s the idea. You’ve warned us all about that trick yourself, sir, in some of your talks.”

  “So I have,” agreed Bobby. “Well?”

  “I looked at it this way,” Ford continued. “Atts had got hold of the picture and he got it through Groan he was already employing to get evidence for the divorce he wanted. But Groan, instead of turning it up, thought he might as well cash in on it himself. So they had a row and—well, Atts got the worst of it and Groan got the picture. Only too hot for Groan to keep himself and none of his crowd he could trust with as much as a bad penny. But there was Emmy Fitz. He had always kept in touch with her since they parted when she thought she could do better on her own. Gave it her in a suitcase to keep for him and didn’t tell what it was. That was all wrong. She hadn’t got the picture but she had those two pawn tickets and there they are.”

  “So I see,” Bobby remarked, a little doubtfully. “How did you get them?”

  “One of my contacts,” explained Ford. “Calls himself Smith. Been inside several times and will be again before long most likely. Educated man, too, and says there’s nothing like having been inside for making you appreciate being outside.”

  “Well, that’s a point of view,” Bobby remarked.

  “I did him a good turn once,” Ford went on. “A house-breaking charge. He was in it all right. But he set up an alibi that he was in Hammersmith at a dance hall when it took place. I happened to see him there, dinner jacket and all, all very posh, I hadn’t noted the exact time, but it was about the time of the housebreaking. I reported and was called as a witness. The jury didn’t think anyone could have dressed up and been seen enjoying himself at a dance hall with so narrow a margin of time. It was the dinner jacket did it.”

  “An eye for detail, your Mr. Smith,” Bobby remarked.

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Ford. “They didn’t think dinner jackets and housebreaking went together. So he got off. A bit of luck he thinks he owes me and he tries to do me a good turn, too, when he can. Well, I got in touch with him. I gave him ten pounds—she charges high now—and told him to use what was left for champagne and brandy and lots of both.”

  “Nothing neglected,” commented Bobby. “Sailing a bit near the wind, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Ford cheerfully, quite unabashed. “So I thought, sir. Why I didn’t tell you beforehand. Smith says Emmy has quite a nice little flat near Leicester Square. Kept a treat. House-proud. Well, it wasn’t so long before he had her dead to the world. It might be there was something else in the brandy to give it extra flavour. I don’t know and didn’t ask. Anyhow, I made sure she’s all right by ringing up and asking for an appointment. She told me to go to hell, she wasn’t feeling like business that evening, and if she has missed the pawn tickets she didn’t say anything. Not likely she would, but they do give us a tie up with Groan.”

  “So they do,” agreed Bobby, though with less enthusiasm than Ford had hoped for. “But where do we go now? If we produce those tickets we shall be asked where we got them, and there’s no corroboration for Smith’s story, even if he were willing to repeat it in Court—which he probably wouldn’t be.”

  “Yes, sir, I see that,” Ford agreed. “But don’t you think it does give us a point of departure? Facts to build on. That’s in your talks, too, if you remember. Facts to build on first and foremost.”

  “That’s the worst of saying things,” Bobby lamented. “Always apt to get up on their hind legs and hit you. We shall just have to lie low for a little and hope for developments. If Jasmine has been murdered—and we can still hope not—possibly he had the Rembrandt and perhaps the other painting, too. He certainly did the copies. The reward is only offered for the ‘Girl Peeling Apples’, but where the one picture is, there will be the other, too, I take it.” He lapsed into silence, staring gloomily at the two tickets he was beginning to regard as merely an added complication. He roused himself to say: “Of course, we could impound the things and warn the shop people to detain anyone who asks about them. Probably it would only be a stooge. We might bring in your Emmy Fitz for questioning or on a charge even, if there’s evidence enough. But these women take an occasional fine as merely a necessary overhead. And we must be careful, very careful. There’s always the risk that if we cut too near the bone both pictures may be destroyed for good—burnt or something. If that happens our name will be mud through generations yet to come.”

  “Do you think so, sir?” asked Ford with an appearance of more concern than he really felt, for little in fact did he care for what future generations thought or felt.

  “I’m sure of it,” Bobby said, gloomily contemplating probable future notes in the catalogues and art histories of the year 2,000, or even 3,000, recording how the lost masterpiece ‘Girl Peeling Apples’, undoubtedly Rembrandt’s greatest picture, had been destroyed through the vandalism of a brutal and ignorant officer of police, named Bobby Owen. Bracing himself to face this sad prospect, he continued: “We’ll have to keep a sharp look out for developments, that’s all. Take care there’s no let up in the watch on the S.B.G. I have a feeling it’s there as likely as not the next break may be. The hospital people won’t let us see Manley yet so that’ll have to wait, but I don’t expect he’ll have much to say or want to say it. He’ll be too afraid of losing his job to talk eve
n if he wanted to. I want you to arrange now to put a tail on Hyams when he leaves for home to-night. But don’t let him find out if you can possibly help it. He evidently has two addresses and I would like to know the second. I think it’s the one where he lives, probably with another woman. I remember Sir Walter Welton telling me he had a number of reproductions of the S.B.G. pictures he shows his neighbours, advising them to go and see the originals at the S.B.G. I don’t see the inhabitants of Mirable Road taking much interest in a suggestion of that kind. We’ve got to be on our toes. It’s not merely two great paintings at stake. Human lives are involved.”

  “We’ll all do our best, sir,” Ford promised soberly.

  “Oh, and one thing more,” Bobby added as Ford turned towards the door. “Don’t go too far. We’re stuffy about rules in the Force and publicity-hunting politicians are always on the lookout for a chance to make mountains out of molehills.”

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  THE LOWER FLATS

  NEXT MORNING, HOWEVER, it was a slightly less perky, less confident Ford who presented himself in Bobby’s room.

  “Afraid we hadn’t much luck last night, sir,” he confessed. “Funny thing is, we weren’t the only ones. There was another car—fast sports model—tailing Hyams.”

  “Was there, though?” exclaimed Bobby, interested. “Who was it? Do you know?”

  “No, sir, couldn’t say. Two men in the front seat but very dark night and they had their hats pulled down over their eyes and their coat collars turned up to meet, nearly.”

  “The Monkey Baron lot very likely,” Bobby suggested. “I’ve been half expecting them to turn up again. They may have more information than we’ve been able to get hold of. It looks as though Hyams may be in more danger than he knows of. Well, what happened? You mean there was one tail on Hyams’s car and you on the tail of Hyams’s tail?”

  “That’s right,” answered Ford, nodding agreement. “Sounds silly. I’ve never known anything like it. Regular procession. Hyams must have spotted the sports car but I don’t think the sports car spotted us. Do you know the Lower Flats, near the river, Dartford way? Dreary, lonely place, and last night foggy as well. Hyams stopped there and got out and walked away. He didn’t come back. The sports car drove on three or four hundred yards and then stopped. So did we, about the same distance the other side of Hyams’s car.”

  “It was about half-way between you and the sports car?”

  “That’s right,” Ford said.

  “You saw no more of Hyams?”

  “Not a thing. No sign. About twelve the sports car packed up and drove off. We waited a little longer and then we found a phone and I rang up. Got instructions to return but to communicate with the locals first. They have reported the car still there this morning.”

  “We shall have to inquire if he has reported for duty at the S.B.G.,” Bobby said. “But not yet. I don’t want to start any more talk than we can help till we know more.”

  “There’s one thing struck me,” Ford said presently, when Bobby did not speak again but seemed sunk in deepest thought. “In my view you couldn’t find hardly anywhere a better place to hide a dead man’s body. Dig deep. Pop in the body. Put back the turf and precious little showing in a week or two.”

  Bobby regarded this remark with some disfavour. There was a picture in his mind. A picture of a lonely man struggling through the damp and the fog and the night to keep a tryst where death was waiting for him. He put that dark thought firmly aside and said briefly:

  “No need to think of that yet. Trouble enough without imagining more. Hyams may be back at work already at the S.B.G.”

  “Yes, sir, so he might,” agreed Ford, feeling just a little suppressed. “Should we inquire? I could go myself and see if he’s there. They don’t know me. If he isn’t, I could make some excuse for asking about him.”

  “Why, yes, it might be a good idea for you to go,” Bobby agreed, and Ford perked up again. “Report back as soon as you can. It rather looks as if Hyams’s second address is somewhere that way. He would hardly want to have too long a walk home at that time of night—unless he spent it quite comfortably in the car as soon as the coast was clear. I expect he is living with another woman under another name and doesn’t want the S.B.G. to know. Sir Walter is said to have very strict ideas about that sort of thing. If I can find time I’ll take a look round there this afternoon and see if I can manage to pick up anything useful. And you had better put some of the Ghost Squad men on trying to find out what the Monkey Baron lot are up to. If they are only reward hunting—well and good. But there may be more to it than that.”

  “Yes, sir, Jasmine, sir,” said Ford. “When a beat-up gang gets going, they can easily go too far. Especially when there’s chaps like Irish Joe in it. Marked for the gallows in my view. Very good, sir.” He moved towards the door and then turned and said: “They do tell how murderers often feel they’ve got to return to where it was done.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Bobby exclaimed. “I’ve got enough ideas of my own of that sort without your giving me any more.”

  “Yes, sir, certainly, sir,” Ford said, and vanished; only to appear again almost immediately. “Message from the locals, sir. Re car abandoned by Lower Flats. Car left standing so long, considered advisable to remove same. On examination, picture found, marked ‘Reproduction of “Boars Fighting” by Snyders as executed for Philip III of Spain.’ Nothing else.”

  “I know the thing,” Bobby said. “Jolly good. One of the best things in the S.B.G. Now, what’s the connection? Or isn’t there any? Wait a moment and I’ll ring them up and see what they say. I hope to goodness it doesn’t mean it’s been stolen and another fake put in its place.”

  He rang up accordingly and waited for a reply. Presently he got it. Luckily telephones are impervious to the language they convey. Otherwise this particular instrument would probably have gone up in flame and fire. Was Mr. Owen, it inquired fiercely, trying to make out that every painting in the S.B.G. was a copy? The solicitors for the Trustees would certainly have to be consulted if this intolerable persecution continued—but at this point Bobby put a cloth over the instrument and for a moment or two continued studying another report that was waiting on his desk for attention. Then he took up the receiver again. Now the phone was spluttering indignantly:

  “Are you there? Are you there? Why don’t you answer?”

  “Just a temporary technical hitch,” Bobby explained. “Yes, Sir Walter, I entirely agree with all you say. I will see representations are made in the appropriate quarter.” He meant to his wife, Olive. “Thank you so much. Goodbye.”

  Therewith he hung up and continued with his work till at last his desk was fairly clear and the hour for lunch had come. That meal having been dealt with—adequately—Bobby set out for the Lower Flats and found them as desolate, lonely, damp and uninviting as apparently Ford had done the previous evening. But daylight showed also, what fog and night had hidden from Ford, that while towards the north the Flats soon faded into the mud of the river bank, to the south the ground rose considerably to where stood what had all the air of being a busy urban community, though Bobby was not sure enough of his position to be able to give it a name. Ahead again was another ‘built-up area’, as they are now described, so that he had two populated districts in which—as he now rather ruefully put it—to chase his own particular wild goose.

  He was tempted indeed to abandon it and to adopt the more orthodox methods of inquiry, including the close questioning of Hyams himself. But that would mean abandoning the suspicions slowly solidifying themselves in his mind into certainties, and to run the risk of that happening he so ardently, even passionately, wished to avoid—the utter destruction of one of the world’s great paintings, the ‘Girl Peeling Apples’, and perhaps of others as well.

  For a great painting is part of the spiritual heritage of man, and once destroyed, is irreplaceable, though human life must ever come first, since one is the work of man and the other the cre
ation of God.

  For a little Bobby hesitated between the two districts. Then he reflected that the road he was on led straight, without, so far as he could see, any turning till it reached the ‘built up’ area ahead. It might well be that Hyams, presently discovering he was being followed and knowing that the object must be to discover where he now lived, had deliberately chosen a direction he thought likely to mislead and one too that gave easy opportunity to disappear into the dark. On this somewhat slender reasoning, or rather guessing, Bobby drove back to where he had noticed, shortly before reaching the Flats, a by-road leading south to the rising ground which seemed, too, much more thickly populated, an urban district, in fact, as they are now called.

  There he left his car at the local police station, learned, what he knew already, that no such individual as had been described to them had ever come under their notice. Nor was there, they were convinced, any building in that district in any way resembling the one of which they had been sent a drawing. So Bobby wandered away, hoping against hope that somehow or another he might stumble upon some useful clue. After all, sheer luck often plays a great part in any investigation. So he drifted away, visited various public houses, inquiring of those perennial sources of information, the barmaids, who know so much of the private and not so private lives of their customers. He questioned postmen, too, but they know only addresses, not names. Then he talked with milkmen who know almost as much as barmaids—but from the wife’s point of view, not that of the husband—and always he asked for a tall, thin man, interested in Art matters, one who sometimes invited friends and neighbours to admire his array of reproductions of the works of the old masters. The risk had to be taken that the news that such inquiries were being made might soon reach Hyams, though, Bobby hoped, not so quickly but that he would be able first to carry out the action he contemplated.