Secrets Can't be Kept: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  He began to look at the books on the shelves. There were several manuals of police work, including Sir Norman Kendal’s edition of the monumental work by Hans Grosse. There were also a few books on puzzles and cyphers, others of travel and exploration, and some about boxing and prize-fighting. Fiction was represented by the tales of Edgar Allan Poe and the Sherlock Holmes stories. There were one or two box files as well, marked ‘private and confidential’. When Bobby took one down, opened it, and began to examine the contents, Kitty was moved to protest.

  “I don’t think you ought to do that,” she said. “Those are Ned’s private papers. He wouldn’t like it.”

  “I shall be only too pleased,” Bobby told her, “if I get a chance to apologize to him.”

  “Did Mrs Bloom say you might?” she asked, still doubtful.

  “No,” he admitted, “but while I was talking to her, there was a word got itself spoken.”

  “A word?” she repeated, puzzled.

  “Murder,” he said, watching her closely.

  She stared at him and then began to laugh. Yet he was not quite certain that that laughter was quite natural.

  “Oh, that’s silly,” she declared.

  “Let’s hope so,” he said amiably.

  “Who on earth would want to murder Ned?” she demanded, still amused.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, and went on glancing through the file he had opened. As Kitty continued to look doubtful, he added: “I don’t think I’m the first.”

  “The first what?” she asked.

  “The first to have a look at Mr Ned Bloom’s den in his absence?”

  “Why? what do you mean?”

  “He was rather tidy and methodical, wasn’t he?” Bobby asked. “Box files. That sort of thing. A place for everything and everything in its place idea. That’s the first impression you get here, isn’t it?”

  “Ned’s like that,” she agreed.

  “Well, if you look carefully, you will see that nothing is quite as it should be. Look at those books. Several of them upside down. He is right-handed. I know that, because I’ve seen him, you know. But the pen-tray on this writing-table is to the left. I think some one has picked it up and put it down in a different place. The rugs are crumpled. Been lifted, I imagine, and not replaced too carefully.”

  He showed her, too, the marks on the floor which suggested to him that the table had been moved slightly.

  “That arm-chair, again,” he added. “If you sat in it where it is now, your legs would be cramped. If you wanted to read, your book would be in the shadow. I think some one has been here before us.”

  “Yes, but,” she said, with a somewhat bewildered air, “what . . . why . . . what for?”

  “Searching for something, at a guess,” Bobby said, “and not with a big magnifying-glass, either. Look at this, too.”

  He showed her the interior of the box file he had opened. It contained a number of newspaper cuttings, and here it was easy enough to see that they had been disturbed. They were all in an untidy heap now, and Kitty said:

  “They do look upset. You do notice things, don’t you?”

  He went on glancing through the cuttings. They were all reports of criminal cases, of suicides, mysterious disappearances from home, or similar events. A few had pencilled comments. One or two of the cuttings dealt with cases in which Bobby himself had been concerned, and these were endorsed with severely critical comment. Bobby read them with interest.

  “He spotted where I went off the tracks once or twice,” Bobby remarked aloud, “but he missed a lot, and some of the worst bloomers, too, that I could have told him about.”

  “Are you going to be long?” asked Kitty, who was beginning to show signs of impatience.

  “May be all night,” Bobby informed her. “No telling. Police work is like that. My wife says that if you marry a policeman you never know anything about him, except that he’s never where you think he is.”

  “Are you married?” Kitty asked, evidently surprised, as if she had not hitherto supposed any policeman ever had any but a strictly official background.

  “It happens,” Bobby told her, shaking his head gravely. “It happens to many of us. Why, some day it may even happen to you.”

  Kitty looked extremely haughty and indignant, and would certainly have said something crushing if only she had been able to think of it. Bobby, continuing to turn over the cuttings, came to one marked in blue pencil:

  “Follow this up.”

  The cutting, from one of the more sensational Sunday newspapers, was headed ‘The Strange Case of Admiral Sir Gervase Arlington’, and was to the effect that among his service friends and in the circle of his private acquaintances there was much speculation and gossip over the whereabouts of the Admiral. He had a high reputation in service circles, and, before the outbreak of the war, though on the retired list, he had been thought of as likely to be entrusted with a responsible post. But he had been entirely lost sight of. None of his relatives or friends, private or service, knew what had become of him. It was known he had gone abroad in the spring of 1939, and that was all. The paragraph was worded very carefully, and had probably been passed as safe by the paper’s legal advisers. But it was easy enough to see the underlying suggestion that possibly Admiral Arlington, like another British Admiral, had had Nazi sympathies and might be one of those potential Quislings of whom the Home Office has some knowledge.

  “Just, but only just, on the windward side of criminal libel,” Bobby commented. “Unless, of course, they’ve hit on the truth. But why did Ned Bloom find it interesting, and why did he want to follow it up? Was that what he wanted to tell me about?” Bobby whistled softly and discordantly to himself, a habit he had unconsciously adopted since domestic influence had been brought to bear to induce him to give up a previous habit of rubbing the tip of his nose which had begun to infect all his staff. To Kitty he said: “I think I must take possession of this, so if our young friend turns up unexpectedly, you can tell him I’ve got it.”

  He put the cutting down. Kitty picked it up to see what it was. Bobby closed the file and got up to replace it and to take down another. Kitty put the cutting back on the table and went to the door.

  “I don’t think I’ll wait any longer,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Oh, are you going?” he said. “If you don’t mind you might tell Mrs Bloom—”

  He broke off abruptly, for Kitty had already gone, without waiting to hear what he had to say. An abrupt departure, Bobby thought, and not very polite. He went to the door, thinking perhaps that she had seen some one there. Nobody was in sight, nobody but Kitty herself hurrying away. Bobby went back, took down another file, and was sure that it also had recently been subjected to a hurried inspection. This time it was a collection of accounts of acts of courage displayed either in actual fighting in the war or else during the attacks on towns and villages by German bombers.

  “Significant enough in its way,” Bobby told himself, “but not much help to knowing what last night’s visitors wanted.”

  He continued his search. There built itself up in his mind a picture of a young man, morbidly conscious of his physical disability, brooding over it, resenting it, trying to atone for it by an acquisition of knowledge, of knowledge to give power.

  One box file was entirely empty, but had plainly been used. Then there was a steel deed-box, provided with lock and key. But this, too, was empty, and Bobby wondered if it had contained whatever had been the object of the previous night’s search. He noticed that it had not been forced open, but had either been found unlocked or opened with the key.

  He turned his attention to the drawers of the writing-table. There, too, he felt sure another searcher had been before him, but in one of them he found two receipts for registered letters, and both were addressed to Mr McRell Pink at the New Grand, Midwych. The letters had been posted at an interval of a week, and Bobby put both receipts carefully away in his pocket-book. It was getting late now; and, as
he thought he had looked in every conceivable spot, he decided to go. One final glance round he gave, and noticed a letter-rack hanging on the wall. It held several old soiled envelopes and one or two circulars, apparently pushed there out of the way. A memory stirred in Bobby’s mind, a memory of that story of Edgar Allan Poe’s in which a man in possession of a highly compromising letter is supposed to baffle those searching for it by placing it in the most conspicuous position he can think of—in a letter-rack, in fact, hanging on the wall of his room.

  CHAPTER VIII

  SNAPSHOT SPECIAL

  FOR SOME MOMENTS Bobby sat there, looking at the letter-rack and half ashamed of entertaining an idea so fantastic. But then he felt that Ned Bloom, driven in upon himself by a physical defect which his willpower had been insufficient to stand up against, which necessarily excluded him from many of the activities natural to youth, had sought compensation in fantasy. He had seen himself as the great detective; he had identified himself with the heroes of those exploits to the accounts of which one of his box-files had been devoted; he had imagined himself as the power in the background, contemptuously aloof from, but yet aware of, the secrets of others. Anyhow, it was easy to make sure, and Bobby went across to see what the letter-rack really held.

  A postcard giving the date of the next meeting of the ‘Green Dragon’ darts club committee, an old bill or two, an empty envelope, an out-of-date local ’bus time-table, a scrap of paper bearing notes of various small expenses, another envelope that when Bobby opened it proved to hold an unmounted snapshot.

  Bobby took it over to the light to see it more clearly. A strange photograph. It was blurred, indistinct, under-exposed probably in bad light and badly developed. But it showed a table, or rather a table-top, covered apparently with some such material as American cloth. On it lay in the foreground a triple row of beads—or were they pearls? Farther back lay, carelessly pushed together, what looked like a pile of jewellery—brooches, bracelets, rings, pendants. Above two hands hovered, one from each side; one hand, Bobby thought, that of a man, the other, smaller and of finer make, probably a woman’s.

  They made an odd impression, those two hands, held poised above what seemed as if it might be, if the things were genuine, jewellery of great value—of greater value than ever in days when some mistrust all forms of currency, mistrust even such tangible possessions as are not easily portable or as a bomb may destroy, but tell themselves, confident in human vanity, that women will always greatly desire jewels and men always be eager to win their favour by such gifts.

  Was it this photograph, this evidence of such a hoard accumulated somewhere in the neighbourhood, for which the hut had been ransacked so thoroughly? Was this the secret at whose possession Ned Bloom had hinted during his visit to Bobby? Was it this, Bobby asked himself, gloomily, that had cost the boy his life?

  No need as yet to take so extreme a view. Ned might well be in London, interviewing some private detective and showing a copy of this snapshot as proof that he must be taken seriously.

  But, then, nothing to show, even if the photograph was all that it seemed to be, that this triple row of pearls—if pearls they were—or that pile of jewellery, however genuine or no matter of what monetary value, had been acquired dishonestly. It might all be the lawful property of the owners of those two hands held up above it. Bobby reflected that even if young Bloom had shown him this snapshot, there would have been nothing much he could do. No evidence, unless expert examination of the photograph showed some, of unlawful possession. None the less, Bobby knew very well that in London recently there had been two or three large-scale jewellery robberies. Lady Abbey, for instance, had lost her great pearl necklace, said to be worth, Bobby had forgotten how many thousands of pounds. Then Mrs Stokes, wife of the manufacturer of the famous Stokes breakfast food—‘Stokes for stoking the fires of health’—had had her jewel-case stolen on one of those railway journeys which are no doubt really necessary. A country mansion or two had had nocturnal visits, with results distressing or gratifying, according to the point of view of burglar or occupant. Nor had so much as a ring or a pin been recovered nor the slightest clue to the culprit or culprits.

  No good sitting there, though, staring at this enigmatic print that might mean so much or so little—anonymous photograph, so to speak. Bobby roused himself, fastened the hut door by a bit of broken board in such a way that removing it would upset with a clatter an empty tin behind, and returned to the house. When he knocked, Mrs Bloom came to the door. She stood there, waiting and silent, and once more he was aware of that impression she gave of one who walked in the darkness of past tragedies, of one who had endured so much that ill fate had now no longer power upon her.

  A curious idea to have, Bobby reflected, about a woman who spent her days in the quiet, the commonplace, the homely task of providing cups of tea and toasted scones for casual holiday-makers. What does Melpomene in an atmosphere of currant buns and special teas at one and nine? None the less, Bobby could not shake off the sensation of unease and discomfort he experienced, as though it were unpardonable to intrude upon the deep and troubled thoughts of this waiting, silent woman.

  He began to tell her what he had done and how he had fastened the door of the hut.

  “Some one searched the place pretty thoroughly last night,” he said. “Have you any idea who it could be or what they wanted?”

  She made a slight negative gesture, and he went on:

  “I shall put a man there to-night on watch. To-morrow I had better have another look and make some more inquiries. Of course, if Mr Bloom returns, that will be the end of the matter. At present I still feel uneasy.”

  She made no comment, standing there still and upright, absorbed, it seemed, in her own dark memories of evil things long past. It was almost as if she had not heard what he said, and yet he was certain that little escaped her attention. He had the idea that part of her mind lay shadowed in the past and that part of it was alert and vigorous to the present.

  “Mr Bloom had a camera, I think, hadn’t he?” Bobby went on. “Was he keen on photography?”

  “He had a small kodak,” she answered. “He took snapshots occasionally. I don’t think he was very interested in it.”

  Bobby asked if he could see Ned’s bedroom. She took him up to it—a small, tidy, impersonal room. Evidently everything private or intimate had been kept in the hut Ned had called his den. Bobby, before leaving, expressed some conventional hope that the morning would bring good news, and she thanked him in equally conventional terms. She added that if the constable he intended to put on watch would come to the house any time during the night, she would make him a cup of tea. Bobby said that was very kind of her, but he could not dream of allowing her to be disturbed like that. She answered that it would not be disturbing her in any way. She would be sitting up, waiting.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to try to rest?” Bobby asked. “No good breaking down for want of it. Nothing like a good sleep.”

  “Nothing so terrible as sleep,” she answered, and he did not dare to ask her what she meant.

  He went away then, and he had to admit to a feeling of considerable relief, once he was away from the house and her strange presence. He went on to the small local police station, where he arranged, over the ’phone, for a man to be sent out from headquarters to undertake the watch he proposed to set over ‘The Den’.

  “A plain-clothes man,” he told Sergeant Young. “Of course, if Ned Bloom turns up safe and sound, as is quite likely, he will just report to you and go off duty. Oh, and tell him when he gets here that Mrs Bloom says she will be up all night and he can have a cup of tea any time he likes to go to the house and ask her for it. Tell him that will be all right so long as he isn’t away more than a few minutes.”

  Sergeant Young did not look very enthusiastic.

  “I’ll tell him all right, sir,” he said, “but if it was me I wouldn’t go up there at night to take a cup of tea with Mrs Bloom, not if you paid me for it, I w
ouldn’t.”

  “Why not?” Bobby asked.

  “Lord, sir,” Young answered, “I would as soon go to the churchyard at midnight to have a cup of tea with a corpse fresh out of its grave.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” Bobby exclaimed, but Young shook his head.

  “It’s the way she takes you,” he said.

  “Well, her tea-garden seems to do pretty well,” Bobby pointed out. “The people I saw there didn’t seem to feel like that.”

  “Does well, and why not?” agreed Young. “Everything of the best. Tea always fresh. Cakes and buns like there wasn’t any war at all. But those who drink her tea and eat her cakes and things don’t ever see her. I tell you straight, Mr Owen, sir, if she came out and walked about that place of hers, all full of afternoon trippers taking tea, she would empty it same as the passing bell.”

  CHAPTER IX

  DEAD ENDS

  ALL NEXT DAY there continued to come in replies to the various inquiries Bobby had instituted. But all were of a negative nature. London reported that no private detective agency admitted having heard of any Mr Ned Bloom. Not entirely conclusive, of course, since, while the more reputable agencies could be trusted, reputable private detective agencies are in a minority. The others would not hesitate to keep to themselves any piece of information out of which they saw any chance of making profit—if they thought they could do so with safety. Nor did London art dealers appear to know anything of Mr Roman Wright. Again not conclusive. Picture-dealers are often inclined to secrecy while engaged in that mysterious process known as ‘building up’ an artist. There have been instances, too, of artists almost unknown in England and yet enjoying a good market abroad—America or elsewhere.