It Might Lead Anywhere

by E. R. Punshon

  Mr. Spencer laughed very much. He thought the remark naive in the extreme in its innocence and vanity.

  “Youth,” he said at last. “Six feet of youth and a bulging chest get the women every time. Women’s rights are all the go, but the one right they all really want is a six footer of their own they feel can look after them, bless ’em. Primitive stuff, of course, but it goes deep.”

  “I suppose it does,” agreed Bobby, “though I’m still wondering.”

  “Well, don’t ask your wife,” Mr. Spencer warned him. He looked a little melancholy. He said: “If I were only twenty years younger, I can tell you you wouldn’t have it all your own way. No, indeed, not by a long chalk, you wouldn’t.”

  “How old do you think she is?” Bobby asked.

  “Oh, nineteen or twenty, not more,” Mr. Spencer answered, a little surprised by the question. “Why?”

  “Oh, I just wondered,” Bobby answered vaguely. Her looks and manner were indeed those of that age, or even less, and yet once or twice Bobby had thought that there seemed about her a suggestion of an age, an experience, considerably greater. But then he supposed it sometimes was like that with quite young girls. They could in some strange way combine the freshness, the ingenuousness, of youth with what seemed an odd inherited maturity, as though there were innate in woman’s soul the knowledge and the wisdom of past generations. But Mr. Spencer was thinking that really it wasn’t at all dignified for two responsible officials engaged on the investigation of a brutal murder to be gossiping about the possible age of a girl acquaintance. Why, if they didn’t mind, they would be talking about her eyes next or the fascinating gaiety of her manner. With a touch of austerity in his voice, he said:

  “About Miss Jebb? Very nice girl but not very popular, too stand-offish. Intellectual. Been to the university. That sort of thing. Won’t help her to cook the dinner, though. Makes some boys feel out of their depth and they don’t like it.” Mr. Spencer shook his head and Bobby was conscious of a faint and unworthy suspicion that at times Miss Jebb might have made even Mr. Spencer feel out of his depth, too. Mr. Spencer continued: “What do you think she can have been doing at the back here? Just curiosity?”

  “It might be,” agreed Bobby cautiously. “How about asking her? She lives somewhere near, doesn’t she? I think we ought to know what she was up to, if it’s the fact she was there.”

  “The fact?” repeated Mr. Spencer, surprised. “I thought you said Miss Foote saw her.”

  “I said Miss Foote said she saw her,” Bobby answered. “You can’t accept uncorroborated statements until confirmed. And pretty little blue-eyed girls can lie with the best of them at times.”

  “Oh well, yes,” agreed Mr. Spencer, though slightly shocked all the same. “Of course, there are some girls who are born liars,” and quite plainly in his own mind he excluded girls as charming, pleasant and smiling as Miss Foote—especially when so ready to display those qualities for the benefit of the middle-aged. Why, he could still hear her happy, innocent, girlish laughter. He continued: “Well, I suppose we had better see what Miss Jebb has to say for herself. Just a woman’s curiosity, I suppose. Going a bit far though, trying to get in.”

  Bobby agreed that was going too far altogether. Miss Jebb should certainly be asked for an explanation. He thought Mr. Spencer was quite right in insisting upon that. Mr. Spencer nodded, looked determined, and said Aspect Cottage was only a few minutes’ walk away, nestling as it did in the somewhat depressing Victorian shade of St. Barnabas. A very great age, the Victorian, but not at its best, one feels, in architecture. Bobby eyed the building with a faint distress. He found himself wondering if from Victorian neo-Gothic and from Georgian cubes and squares there might not emerge some day a new beauty. Wishful thinking, no doubt.

  “Here we are,” said Mr. Spencer.

  Aspect Cottage showed itself a fair-sized house, formal and dignified, erected by a man who had never even thought of producing an architectural gem, but whose inborn sense of proportion had resulted in something at least pleasant and restful to the eye—the sort of thing at which, when you saw it first, you would hardly trouble to look again, but that nevertheless would always give you pleasure when you did see it another time.

  Mr. Spencer knocked. The door was opened by Miss Jebb herself, still in her outdoor things. Evidently she had just returned home. She was a tall, dark girl, her low forehead, broad cheekbones and heavy-dark brows giving her a somewhat striking and unusual appearance. Far removed in looks and manner she seemed from Miss Foote’s doll-like prettiness and sweet, beguiling ways. The other extreme, indeed, with an expression too withdrawn and serious for her youth, though the gravity of her expression would break at times into a slow, delightful smile. She greeted Mr. Spencer pleasantly, though with evident surprise, and at Bobby she looked somewhat questioningly and doubtfully. Mr. Spencer asked if they might have a few words with her and she looked still more surprised but invited them in.

  She led them down the passage to the drawing-room. As she was opening the door Mrs. Jebb, a plump, pleasant-looking woman, appeared from the back regions where she had been busy with some household task. She, too, looked very surprised as she greeted Mr. Spencer and looked with even more surprise at the tall figure of Bobby in the background. She evidently assumed that Mr. Spencer’s visit was to her, not to her daughter. He had to explain in a somewhat apologetic tone that there was reason to think Miss Jebb might be able to give some useful information about the murder that had taken place in the town the previous night. No doubt they had heard of it.

  Miss Jebb said of course. Nobody could talk of anything else, the war for once forgotten, even a good supply of fish in the shops less thrilling than usual. Mrs. Jebb said tartly how could Janet know anything about it?

  Mr. Spencer tried to suggest tactfully that he and his companion, whom he now introduced as the deputy chief constable of Wychshire, thought it might be better if they saw Miss Jebb alone. Mrs. Jebb bristled. She said with cold indignation that she thought Janet would prefer her mother to be present. She could not imagine what anyone could possibly suppose Janet knew, and she gave Bobby a very nasty look; evidently blaming him for this unmannerly intrusion, of which she was convinced Mr. Spencer, an old friend of her late husband, would never have been guilty.

  So, as there was no way short of main force to prevent the determined lady from joining them, they followed her meekly into a small nearby room, originally, no doubt, intended for a breakfast-room, once used by the late Mr. Jebb as a study, and still bearing signs of former masculine occupation. They were evidently now considered unworthy of the drawing-room. In a distinctly hostile tone, Mrs. Jebb began the conversation.

  “Perhaps,’ she said coldly, “you will explain your reasons for supposing that Janet knows anything about this affair. I don’t think you had ever even spoken to the poor man, had you, Janet?”

  “I just knew him by sight and where he lived,” the girl explained. “Everyone knows everybody in Oldfordham.”

  “Yes, of course, quite so,” agreed Mr. Spencer.

  “Well?” said Mrs. Jebb defiantly.

  Mr. Spencer, feeling very uncomfortable, for he valued his popularity in the town, and saw it now exposed to the wrath of an offended mother—of which, beware —looked pleadingly at Bobby. Coming to his rescue, Bobby said:

  “A statement has been made to us that Miss Jebb was seen a short time ago trying to enter Mr. Brown’s cottage.”

  “What?” said Mrs. Jebb.

  “Me?” said Miss Jebb.

  “Fiddlesticks,” said Mrs. Jebb in a voice like an exploding bomb.

  “Oh, I never,” said Miss Jebb. “Why should I?”

  “You must please understand,” Bobby said, “that we are merely inquiring into a statement made by a witness who claims actually to have seen Miss Jebb trying to open the back door of the cottage.”

  “Who told you such nonsense?” demanded Mrs. Jebb, all afire with the lust of battle.

  “I am
afraid we can’t tell you at present,” Bobby said. “Such a statement is confidential and privileged unless and until it’s been tested. Miss Jebb, I understand, says there’s no truth in it.”

  “Certainly not, it’s silly,” declared the girl.

  “You have been out, I think, just returned? Do you mind saying where you’ve been?”

  “In High Street. I had some shopping to do. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, we shall have to try to clear it up,” Bobby said. “At present we have a direct statement by a person claiming to have been an eye-witness, and we have your denial. That’s where we’ve got to leave it for the time. Of course, it would have been more satisfactory if you could have told us you had been somewhere at the other end of the town or with a friend all the time you were out. We can only deal with facts. The story told us, your denial, and the further fact that you were in the neighbourhood at the time.”

  “Do you dare to suggest—” began Mrs. Jebb and choked. “Will you please leave my house immediately?”

  “Mother, they had to ask, hadn’t they?” interposed Miss Jebb mildly. “If somebody told them that about me, they had to say so.”

  “They ought,” said Mrs. Jebb, unplacated, “to have known better. Someone’s been making fools of them.” She managed to indicate, very clearly, that this, in her opinion, was a matter of no great difficulty. “Utter fools,” she repeated with relish.

  Mr. Spencer started to stammer apologies—quite uselessly. Bobby interposed to ask if Mr. Kayes was in. Mr. Spencer, glad of the interruption, wiped a perspiring forehead. Mrs. Jebb said with infinite scorn in her voice:

  “No, he isn’t. Has someone seen him trying to get in at someone’s back door?”

  “Not that we know of,” answered Bobby equably, “but there are one or two points on which he may be able to help us. Could you tell us when he is likely to be in?”

  “No,” snapped Mrs. Jebb and this time her voice indicated clearly that if she did know she wouldn’t tell.

  The two men took their leave then from a still fiercely indignant Mrs. Jebb, from a still extremely puzzled Miss Jebb, and the last thing they heard as the door was closing behind them was Mrs. Jebb’s loud, clear voice, saying:

  “Well, of all the impudence, of all the idiots—”

  “She meant us to hear that,” said Mr. Spencer unhappily.

  “She did,” agreed Bobby. “Very much so.”

  “I suppose you can’t wonder she was annoyed,” sighed Mr. Spencer, knowing well he had now a bitter and implacable enemy whose tongue would never cease till she had made life intolerable for him in Oldfordham’s small and pleasant town.

  “Was it only anger?” Bobby mused aloud. “Or was there fear as well?”

  “Fear?” repeated Mr. Spencer, astonished. “Fear? What of?” He paused and stared, standing still. “You can’t possibly mean,” he gasped, “you suspect Janet Jebb of being mixed up in—in a murder?”

  “I always suspect everybody,” Bobby answered. “Why, I’m fully prepared to suspect you or the vicar of St. Barnabas or anyone else.”

  Mr. Spencer grunted. Privately he considered this remark in poor taste. He began to walk on. He said: “Personally I would as soon suspect Janet Jebb as—well, as the little Foote girl.”

  “So would I,” agreed Bobby promptly, and Mr. Spencer gave him a startled glance.

  “You don’t mean—” he began.

  “Only what I say,” Bobby assured him. “I never mean more than that. It pays,” he observed thoughtfully, “just to say what you mean, neither more nor less, it puzzles people. They keep trying to guess what they think you might mean, and sometimes it starts things moving. It’s almost, but not quite, as good as saying nothing at all.”

  Mr. Spencer considered this. He wasn’t sure he agreed. He was trying to formulate his objections when a small boy dashed up to them.

  “Oh, please,” he gasped excitedly. “Pop’s upside down in a tree and he’s stuck and he can’t get down and please come quick.”

  CHAPTER IX

  ILLUSION AND REALITY

  Bobby grabbed the boy by the collar. Experience, even bitter experience, had taught him to beware of small boys. A deadly breed. He said:

  “What’s that? What do you mean? Trying to be funny?”

  “It’s Ted Allen,” Mr. Spencer said. “Allen’s on duty outside Brown’s cottage.”

  “It’s my dad,” protested the boy, beginning to cry. “It ain’t funny, upsides in a tree.”

  Bobby released the lad and began to run. Apparently something had happened. Mr. Spencer followed, the less swiftly as he was the more portly. The youthful Ted Allen had, however, taken a too pessimistic view of his unfortunate parent’s predicament, for when Bobby arrived on the scene Constable Allen was once again right side up on terra firma, though his helmet, perched coquettishly on one of the branches of a nearby tree, offered circumstantial evidence of the truth of his son’s story. Now, truncheon drawn, Constable Allen was advancing on the cottage, his expression firm, for he knew his duty, his knees unsteady, for his recent arboreal experience had not been reassuring. It was with a very considerable and very natural relief that he saw reinforcements arriving in the shape of Bobby at a run, Mr. Spencer in the distance, his own small son pounding along between them, the boy’s short legs unable to keep pace with Bobby’s long ones, but his lesser weight helping him to outdistance Mr. Spencer.

  “He’s in there,” Allen said as Bobby joined him, his watchful eye upon the cottage door.

  “Stand by,” Bobby said and threw the door open.

  Within, Duke Dell was standing, his hands clasped before him in an attitude Bobby later on grew to know as characteristic, his huge bulk even more noticeable in the small cottage kitchen it almost seemed he filled from floor to ceiling, from wall to wall. He gave Bobby’s quick and violent entry an uninterested glance but did not move or speak, returning as it seemed to the rapt meditation in which he appeared to be sunk.

  “What are you doing here?” Bobby demanded.

  Duke Dell looked up mildly. He seemed a little puzzled at first, as if recalled so abruptly from his own thoughts he had not fully grasped Bobby’s question. Then he said, speaking slowly and as gently as his naturally loud reverberating tones permitted:

  “Is it true what I have heard? Is it true that our Brother Brown has been called hence by unlawful violence?”

  “Unlawful violence,” snorted Allen from behind. “What about throwing a bloke up in a tree?”

  Mr. Spencer arrived, followed by small Ted Allen, who had till now been hesitating in the doorway.

  “Now then, now then,” panted Mr. Spencer, too much out of breath to say more.

  “That’s him, I saw him, I did,” piped up Ted. “He put my dad upsides in a tree, so he did, I saw him.”

  “You cut off home,” ordered his father, finding unprofitable this renewed insistence upon detail. “Off you go now. Quick.”

  Ted fled instanter before a large and threatening paternal hand. His father banged the door and turned a hostile but still wary eye upon Duke Dell. Even at odds of three to one—counting Mr. Spencer as one which only a strong sense of discipline allowed Allen to do—Duke Dell looked a formidable proposition. Allen said:

  “He come up and I said: ‘Move on, please,’ and he said: ‘I want to go in,’ and I said: ‘Well, you can’t, no one can’t,’ and he up and took a hold of me before I knew it and there I was in that old beech tree out there, wrong way up, and my neck broken as like as not, only it wasn’t, which I then got down and was proceeding to effect arrest when you gentlemen came along.”

  “Is it true,” asked Duke Dell, ignoring this long complaint, “that Brother Brown has been called hence by another’s violence? So I was told as I spoke on the green of Lainham village. I returned in haste to learn the truth.”

  “Is it the fact you assaulted my constable?” demanded Mr. Spencer.

  “When that man would have hindered me, I dealt with him
as I was guided,” answered Duke Dell calmly.

  “Oh, you did, did you?” snorted Mr. Spencer. “Do you realize that you have committed an offence for which you can be fined or imprisoned or both?”

  “Those who have seen the Vision,” Duke Dell answered as calmly as before, “can commit no offence.”

  “What do you mean?” demanded Spencer, impressed even against his will and reason by the simple certitude with which this was said.

  “He’s crazy,” said Allen from behind. “That’s where he gets his strength. There’s no fairness in it, a lunatic madman against a sane man.”

  “You make a big claim there, Mr. Dell,” Bobby said. “When the Vision has come, you claim nothing,” Duke Dell answered. “Then all is yours.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Spencer said peevishly. “What vision? What’s vision got to do with it?”

  For the first time Duke Dell showed some signs of interest, even of animation.

  “That is what I am here to tell those who have ears to listen,” he answered. “Have you?” he demanded abruptly.

  “The fellow’s off his head,” said Mr. Spencer despairingly.

  “Mr. Dell,” interposed Bobby, “will you please tell us what you know of Brown?”

  “You have not told me yet if what I heard is true?” Dell countered.

  “Mr. Brown was found late last night,” Bobby answered, “or rather early this morning, lying dead with his head battered in. There was nothing to show who was the murderer. The poker had been used.”

  “It is well,” Duke Dell said slowly, as if indeed musing aloud. “It is very well. For his call came after he had seen the Vision and now he knows the truth and now he can never deny it. To deny the Vision is the only sin that those who have seen it can ever sin and for it there can be no forgiveness. So now is Alfred Brown saved for evermore and it is well.”

  “Oh, is it?” snorted Allen in the background. “Been and done it himself as like as not and that’s why he thinks it a bit of all right.”

  “Will you tell us,” Bobby asked again, “anything, everything, you know about him? When did you first meet? Did you know him before you came here?”