“And I tell you even more plainly,” Bobby said, “that if, as I think you mean, you may take the Law into your own hands, then the Law will deal with you as with any other criminal.” Mauley might not have heard, so little notice did he take, so unchanged remained that sombre, unwinking stare of his, and it was in a very troubled mood that Bobby, since it seemed there was no more to say, took his leave.
That night Bobby wrote home to Olive. Part of his letter ran thus:
“… It’s all going to be difficult. There seems no chance of finding any physical clue. No good solid stuffy like fingerprints or bloodstains you can slap down on a table for everyone to see. All psychological stuffy and that’s always tricky. Show a jury a fingerprint and they’re impressed, though it’s no proof of action, only of presence, which may be innocent. Talk psychology to them and all they want to do is to say ‘Not guilty’ before they get too bored to say anything at all. Even the weapon used can’t be found. Lord Adour’s gun probably, but no proof even of that; and, if it is where I think it is, it never will be found. On the face of it, it all centres round Miss Helen Adour, a young lady who seems to be able to set any man standing on his head merely by passing. I am very anxious to get a talk with her to-morrow, and then I shall be able to form my own opinion. But something quite different may be what someone or another once called ‘the efficient cause.’ Money? It seems Bain Products is in difficulties with the change-over to peace conditions, and apparently Itter Bain was wanting more cash all the time for his inventions. Yet he spent two thousand pounds on buying Lord Adour’s motor launch. Why? And why does the launch keep popping in and out of the story as if it had something to do with it, though obviously it hasn’t.
“As for the personalities involved—I can’t call any of them suspects yet—I’m beginning to wonder about Haile. He’s been very busy, and I was thinking of trying to have him called off, but I’m feeling now it may be as well he is here where I can keep an eye on him. If Martin Winstanley is telling the truth, he has been in this neighbourhood before, so why did he keep that back when he was talking to me? Winstanley himself is a bit of a dark horse. Identity of time, place and opportunity is admitted; so is motive. But identity of time, place and opportunity applies both to Helen Adour and to her father. And both may be thought to have motives. Lord Adour is said to have objected to Itter’s bothering Miss Adour and to have warned him off. Itter may have replied by threatening violence, Lord Adour uses his gun. His running back to the house for his camera and his story about the kingfisher could be merely camouflage. Or Helen Adour may have met Itter, found his attentions a little too pressing, picked up her father’s gun to frighten him away, and the gun may have gone off again. Prescott Bain had a quarrel with Itter over the money Itter spent on the motor launch. Did that quarrel lead anywhere? Is his alibi as good as it seems? Mauley Bain is a strange and, I think, rather formidable character. He will need careful watching. He means mischief. What and why? Why isn’t he content with what we are doing instead of apparently wanting to act on his own? And, finally, I told you, I think, I met that scamp, Wayling, here. Does he come into it somewhere, I wonder?
“I don’t like it, Olive. I don’t like it at all. No good, sound, plain evidence, not so much as the smell of a fingerprint. Nothing but psychology and an atmosphere of doubt, menace, and suspicion.”
The remainder of the letter is of a private nature.
CHAPTER X
SALE OF A MOTOR LAUNCH
It was still early next morning when Bobby presented himself at Kindles, a comparatively small but comfortable-looking house, dating from Georgian days, though with a certain number of modern amenities added from time to time. It faced south, the situation affording a glimpse here and there of the sea, obtained through a fringe of ancient trees that marked the boundary of the large garden that was indeed almost a small park. Since the outbreak of the war this had been chiefly devoted to vegetables, though the spacious and lovely lawn in front of the house had been left undisturbed. Beyond the garden and its fringe of old and stately trees lay two fields, part of the Kindles property, but now let to Martin Winstanley of the River Farm. Originally pasture, these fields had, under the stress of the drive for more food, been ploughed up and cropped. Further on again was Coldstone Spinney, though this was really more a small wood than a spinney.
A very pleasant little place, Bobby thought it, as he motored up the long semi-circular drive to the house, though certainly small for a man of Lord Adour’s social standing and reputed wealth. Ten or eleven rooms in all, Bobby thought, trying to count the chimney stacks and making them eleven. But then, as Bobby knew, as most people knew, the Adour town house in the London West End had been wiped out by a direct hit from a German bomb, and the stately Adour country home in the Chilterns was still in the possession of the military authorities, who could give lessons to the most persistent and enduring of limpets. It was general knowledge also that Lord Adour’s business interests had been largely on the Continent with the big French and German industrialists, and that therefore he had been badly hit by the outbreak of a war, in the possibility of which he had refused to believe up to the very last moment.
Bobby was admitted by an elderly maid, who showed him into a room probably originally intended for the breakfast-room, but now looking half library, half study. There the maid asked him to wait while she went to announce his arrival. A very comfortable room, Bobby thought. Well-lined bookshelves and one or two good pictures on the walls; a Bonington, Bobby decided, and two others that looked like Cromes, though whether “Old” Cromes or by the younger man, Bobby could not tell. The owner, however, would be perfectly sure they were the work of “Old Crome,” whose output does seem somewhat remarkably larger than that of his less-talented son. Two comfortable armchairs stood by the fireplace and two smaller ones by the window. An enormous writing table occupied the centre of the room. On it were basket trays for letters and neat piles of documents, carefully docketed and secured by indiarubber bands. The work table, in fact, of a man much occupied with affairs. A lower shelf of the nearest bookcase held a number of box files and in one corner stood a card-index cabinet. A typewriter and a telephone completed the impression of the busy, tidy, slightly fussy, methodical temperament of the room’s occupant. On one of the chairs was lying also a swansdown cape, presumably left there by one of the women of the household, the almost legendary Helen Adour no doubt.
Not much sign, though, of any interest in sport, either fishing or shooting, such as might have been expected from a man who, as a matter of habit, picked up his gun when he went out. But these two sides of life, business and sport, might be kept rigorously in separate compartments. Or, indeed, the gun could be something of an affectation, that of a city man living in the country and determined to be as countrified as any farmer of them all. Or it might be a return to early habits before the young Adour, heir to country estates and responsibilities, had become absorbed in city life. All possible explanations, Bobby thought.
He walked over to the bookshelves, giving them a rapid and comprehensive glance. Neat and tidy rows of volumes, arranged, he thought, more with an eye to size and binding than to subject. They were so tightly packed it was clear they were not often disturbed. It would be a struggle to get any one of them free. Not a bookish man, Lord Adour, apparently. There was one exception, though, for one shelf showed signs of use. One book was even standing upside down, a pleasant break in the monotony of so much careful planning. It was a shelf on which all the books it held dealt with seamanship, navigation, yachting. One was an old-fashioned manual treating of “Great Circle Sailing.” Then there was the last, the pre-war, issue of Lloyd’s Yacht Register; the year-book of a well-known yachting club; and so on. There was a business-like-looking chart case, too, and Bobby noticed that one chart had apparently been consulted recently, as it was lying on the top of the case. Clearly Lord Adour had been enthusiastically interested in cruising, and Bobby wondered what had made him sell his launch to t
he dead man.
The door opened. Lord Adour came in, a tall, thin man with a long, thin, worried-looking face in which incongruously were set two round and childlike eyes. Bobby turned. He had not attempted to touch the chart, and just in front of him hung the water colour he believed to be a Bonington.
“I am admiring your Bonington,” he said. “It is a Bonington, isn’t it?”
Lord Adour slightly surprised, admitted that it was indeed a Bonington, and even a good Bonington, and remarked that not so very many people could tell a Bonington at a glance.
“Oh, well,” Bobby explained, “he did a lot of his stuff round that part of the French coast, didn’t he—Calais, Boulogne and so on? Rather desolate and lonely, much of it, and must have been more so in his time, but I suppose it appealed to him. And then his father lived somewhere there, I think. Are those other two Cromes? They look like it.”
“Yes, ‘Old’ Crome,” said Lord Adour, and began to look a little doubtful. He consulted Bobby’s card he still held in one hand. “You are Mr. Owen?” he asked. “The detective officer from Scotland Yard?”
“Well, as a matter of fact,” Bobby explained, “it was the Home Office who sent me along, though Scotland Yard was asked to suggest someone, I think. Of course,” Bobby explained, “they are frightfully busy themselves. At the Yard, I mean. When these foreign bigwigs come over, the Yard has to work forty-eight hours a day—or so they say, though they may exaggerate. But they have to make sure there’s no shooting, which seems the favourite form of argument in Europe just now.”
Lord Adour was evidently still slightly worried, a little doubtful. All this was not quite what he had expected—something more like Hawkseye the detective, of happy childhood memories, was what he had looked for. Not a man who could spot a Bonington at a glance and showed no sign of being overawed by the other’s tide and social position. However, he invited Bobby to occupy one of the large and comfortable armchairs, seated himself at the writing table, and said:
“I’ve been expecting you for a day or two. I put it to the Home Office very forcibly—I went to Town for the purpose—that they must do something to stop the very unpleasant talk that was going on. I imagine you will have been informed of that?”
“You mean the gossip that you yourself committed the murder and that Commander Seers knows it but is shielding you out of class feeling and prejudice?”
Lord Adour’s round and childlike eyes opened wide. They looked hurt—or was it frightened? But which? And why? Bobby was finding his lordship more difficult to sum up than his room and surroundings had suggested he would be. Lord Adour said: “I suppose I need hardly tell you that the suggestion is merely absurd?”
“Oh, no,” declared Bobby heartily. “Just as I am sure you won’t misunderstand me if I say that I shall have to keep the possibility in mind.” This remark did not appear to be much approved of, and in the round and childlike eyes there showed plainly a flicker of unease. “Murderer or not, he has something to conceal,” Bobby thought, and went on aloud: “I’ve read the statement you made to Commander Seers. He tells me it was entirely spontaneous. He hardly put a single question.”
“That is so,” agreed Lord Adour. “Seers is very conscientious and in his own way very capable. But he is certainly rather set in his ways, and I do feel that now he is somewhat out of his depth. That is one reason why I used what influence I have to get assistance sent. I strongly object to spending the rest of my life under suspicion as a murderer. I don’t want it said I should have been hanged if I hadn’t happened to be a peer. I should have thought this Government would be only too glad of a chance to hang a member of the House of Lords. Communists are in strong force about here and more so than ever since Prescott Bain joined them. They’ve made him Chairman. Absurd. Most mischievous. I suspect them of starting all this objectionable talk.”
“Of course, I know and care nothing about any political side to it,” Bobby declared with emphasis. “If I do hear any loose talk going on, I’ll try to stop it. I am sure Commander Seers will, too. I’ll remind people that only statements made directly to a police officer are privileged. Anything else is slander or libel, and actionable.”
“Only makes more talk if you go to court,” complained the other.
Bobby agreed that that was so, and went on:
“There does seem to be a general belief that Mr. Itter Bain was bothering Miss Adour, that you objected strongly, and that you told him to keep away. The idea seems to be that you might have seen him in Coldstone Spinney, told him again to keep away, and that a quarrel resulted and ended fatally. I’m told Itter Bain had a very violent temper and was quite capable of using physical violence or threats. It seems to be suggested you might have acted in self-defence.”
“Nonsense,” Lord Adour said. “I hope you won’t pay any attention to such rubbish. Rubbish on the face of it. Everyone knows Itter Bain had the devil of a temper and rather liked a fight when he got the chance. He was a fine boxer and more than a match for most. But he would never have thought of anything like that with a man of my age—I think I may say, of my standing. And I shouldn’t have given him the opportunity. I certainly asked him some time ago to make his feelings for Miss Adour a little less obvious. I said it was doing him no good with her. I told him she felt strongly about it.” Lord Adour paused and shook his head. “Young men are so very apt to lose their heads over Helen,” he said. “It’s not the first time I’ve had to try to warn off youngsters making a nuisance of themselves. I can’t see it myself.”
“See it?”
“What it’s all about. Of course, Miss Adour does certainly inherit the Adour good looks. Anyone can see that. It runs in the family.” Lord Adour paused and looked complacent, and Bobby wondered wildly if his lordship included himself. Bobby emphatically did not. If Helen Adour were really so extraordinarily good-looking, she must be a throw-back to an ancestor—a somewhat remote ancestor, Bobby thought. “Even Jane has her share,” Lord Adour concluded.
“Jane?”
“A relative—a cousin. She is staying with us at present. A great help.”
“Oh, yes,” Bobby said. “There is one other point I should like to mention. I noticed that in your statement Miss Adour’s name does not appear, and that there’s no hint of any—well, tension on her account.”
“Yes, I did want to speak to you about that,” Lord Adour said quickly. “Commander Seers agreed it was quite unnecessary and indeed undesirable from every point of view that my daughter’s name should be mentioned. Most undesirable,” he repeated firmly. “I am sure you will agree. Miss Adour dislikes all forms of publicity. She is constantly receiving requests to allow herself to be photographed. I’ve been told privately that one or two Academicians would be only too glad of a chance to paint her portrait. I’m happy to say she always refuses. She even had a most insolent letter from some firm of soap-boilers offering quite a large cheque if she would say she used their particular brand. I asked my lawyers to reply. Both she and I detest this modern vulgarity of ceaseless advertisement. I rely upon you entirely.”
“Lord Adour,” Bobby said gravely, “you can rely on me for one thing and one thing only—to do all I can to discover the truth concerning Itter Bain’s murder. Miss Adour’s name will certainly not be mentioned unnecessarily. No one’s will be. But no more will any name, either yours or hers or that of anyone else, be kept for any reason out of any report in which it would otherwise appear. It is the first duty of all police to be no respecter of persons.”
Lord Adour stared at Bobby angrily, or was it with more than anger? Vicious indeed might be thought the best description of the look in those round and, Bobby now felt, deceptively childlike eyes. There was even a new sharpness in his lordship’s voice as he said after a pause:
“You misunderstand. I am sure you will always do your duty, and I was not aware I had suggested anything else. I spoke as a father and the father of a young girl.”
“Very natural,” agreed Bobby; “and I
hope and trust you won’t find any reason to complain. All I mean is that duty must come first. There is just one other point—quite a small point. I think I am right in saying you had no business dealings with Bain Products?”
“None whatever.”
“I understand you recently sold a motor launch to Itter Bain?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Was there any special reason for the sale? Was there any dispute or difficulty about the transaction?”
“No. Why should there be? I don’t quite see the relevance of all this,” and Bobby felt that there was uneasiness over this turn in the conversation. Lord Adour’s eyes were flickering to and fro with sudden brief concentrations on Bobby, as though trying to perceive what was in his mind and why these questions about the sale of the motor launch. Lord Adour went on: “I sold the launch because I have not been able to use it and because I very specially didn’t want Helen to use it while there are still mines knocking about. Bain offered me a good price and I accepted it. I don’t know why he wanted the thing. I suppose he thought he would like an occasional cruise. I believe he did say something about some idea of his for increasing the power of marine engines. I don’t know. I’m quite ignorant about engineering.” A shadow fell across the window. Bobby, from where he was sitting, had not seen who it was. Lord Adour said:
“Ah, there is Helen passing by.”
CHAPTER XI
PLAIN JANE
“Oh yes, was it?” Bobby said, a little disappointed that he had missed this opportunity of getting a glimpse of the young lady. “By the way,” he went on, “there are one or two small matters I would like to ask Miss Adour about. Matters of routine. Do you think that would be possible? There are a few points on which I would like her personal opinion.”
Helen Passes By: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 8
