“The shooting didn’t come from us,” Bobby said.
“Well, who was it, then? Was it one of Lord Vennery’s people? The women had to own up, with all the fuss and excitement, but Lord Vennery backed ’em up good and hard. Very sporting, too. Though I rather think one reason was that he didn’t much want anything in the papers. Sort of private confidential talk he had on—house-party only camouflage. Post-war planning. Big business post-war planning, that is, not the other sort. No harm done, and I expect he was like me, and thought least said, soonest mended.”
“Yes, I see,” Bobby said, but was not at all sure that in fact he did see. The story might be true as far as it went, but was it all the truth? The collaboration of Miss Wood and Captain Dunstan might easily bear an interpretation very different from that given it in the story just told. He asked:
“Have you known Miss Wood long?”
“Oh, all her life, worse luck. In the nursery. First time I ever saw her she scratched my face and grabbed my slice of cake. She’s an aunt of mine.”
“A—what?” said Bobby, not quite sure he had heard aright.
“Aunt,” repeated Dunstan. “Maiden aunt. Everyone thinks it damn funny. I don’t know why,” he added resentfully. “She and my mother are sisters. Of course, mother’s years older, but they are sisters all right, and Polly—Aunt Theo otherwise-seems to think it gives her a right to boss me about.”
“Leads the poor boy an awful dance when she gets the chance,” Kitty interposed gravely.
Her father indulged in a chuckle. Dunstan looked sulky and grumbled:
“There’s some fool will some old ass of a great-great uncle or something made, and Polly pretends that by it she is my guardian and trustee till I’m thirty. It only comes to about a couple of hundred a year, but she has to sign some silly paper, and she always says she won’t if I don’t do what I’m told, and promise to go to bed early, keep my feet dry, and always wash behind the ears.” He was grinning himself now. “I had to go jolly near to putting a spider down her neck once,” he confided, “before she would behave. That did bring her round in a hurry, though.”
“I think it was brutal,” observed Kitty with severity, “and very ungentlemanly.”
“No good being a little gentleman with Polly,” retorted Dunstan.
Bobby, from his experience of the young woman in question, was inclined to agree. On the whole he supposed all this made more probable what he had been inclined to listen to somewhat doubtfully. Nevertheless he could not feel completely satisfied. He said presently:
“You are using false identity cards. That is an offence against the Defence of the Realm Regulations. It seems to provide a proper reason for prosecution.”
For the first time the seated Jove that was Sir Gervase Arlington looked uneasy.
“Can’t you use another name if you want to?” he asked. “Surely it’s quite usual. I crossed to New York once in the same ship with Mr Montagu Norman of the Bank of England. He called himself Professor something or another.”
“That was before the war,” Bobby pointed out. “No identity cards then. Now it is an offence to pass by a name other than that by which a person was commonly known before the beginning of the war. My difficulty is that all this is mixed up with the disappearance of young Ned Bloom. That is what is really serious.”
“Why are you so sure he won’t turn up again when it suits him?” Sir Gervase demanded. “You say the story that his body has been found isn’t true?”
“The body found is a woman’s,” Bobby said. “Her death probably took place two years ago. It is possible we may soon find Ned Bloom’s body as well, for now I think I know where to look. But even if I am right about that, I shall still have to ask who put it there.”
CHAPTER XXXV
WHOLE STORY
THERE WAS AGAIN another silence. Then Bobby, looking at the clock said he must not keep them any longer from their beds. He began to move towards the door. But Kitty said:
“Father, now it’s gone so far, hadn’t you better tell him everything? Now he knows so much he can easily find out the rest. If you explain in confidence, then you can ask him not to tell anyone.”
“I can listen to nothing in confidence,” Bobby said quickly. “But I can assure you police do not talk about private affairs unless they have to in the course of their duty. Police know and keep many secrets.”
“I daresay Kitty’s right,” Sir Gervase said. “Probably you had better know the whole story.”
“I’ll go, shall I?” Dunstan said, moving in his turn towards the door, but Sir Gervase called him back.
“No, you had better hear it all, too, if you and Kitty are thinking of getting married,” he said.
“Oh, I told him I wouldn’t,” protested Kitty.
“Yes, I know,” retorted Sir Gervase. “Your mother said that—went on saying it.” To Bobby he said: “There’s a son of mine. We have the two children—Kitty and this boy. Some years ago he made a mess of things. The details don’t matter. There might have been a criminal prosecution. If it had been pressed, there might have been—well, it might have meant penal servitude. Things could have been made to look that way, though really there had been nothing worse than carelessness and extravagance and muddle. I made myself responsible for a large sum of money. That put an end to any threat of prosecution. We could show the money was still there. But to raise the money I had to scrape up every penny I possessed. It wasn’t enough, and I had to borrow on the strength of my half-pay. I gave my lawyers a power of attorney to collect from the bank. A mother will do a good deal for her son, and my wife was more than willing. It meant sacrificing Kitty, too. I had no right to ask that, but—”
“It wasn’t sacrifice, father,” interrupted Kitty. “I wasn’t going to stand by and let anything like that happen to Tom.”
Sir Gervase turned in his chair and looked at her. In a voice that sounded almost casual, he said:
“If you ever have children, I pray God Almighty they may be to you as you have been to your mother and to me.”
Turning back to Bobby, he continued:
“I felt we had to get away from friends and their questions. It wouldn’t have been easy to explain. So we went to live in France. I had enough left for immediate needs, and I bought a cottage near Tours. It had a good garden. I expected to be able to manage with the garden and what money I had kept. Kitty said she would help by teaching English. She did, too; she had several pupils. It helped considerably. Then the war came. We got away just in time, but we had to leave everything. I used our real name in France. I called myself a retired ‘fonctionnaire’. No one asked why a retired civil servant had come to live in France. They all felt it only natural that any one who could would come to live in France. I expect the Germans would soon have found me out, though. I’ve met a good many of their officers, both Navy and Army. I didn’t want to risk giving my real name when we got back. I should have had all my old friends asking and wondering why we were living as we are, what it was all about, why Kitty was a waitress in a tea-room. The truth would have come out. Tom is doing his best to get over the past. He is in the Army, hadn’t long to wait for his commission. Any scandal would have ruined his chance of making a new career for himself. He’s a prisoner in Germany now, but he got his promotion and a D.S.O. first. When the war is over and he gets back he will have a chance of a fresh start. I called myself Skinner when we returned—the name of neighbours of ours in France. They had lived there many years. Skinner owned a small garage. They had no friends or relatives in England, and even when the French looked like folding up they decided to stay on. I made up my mind to borrow their names and identity—I knew they came from Nottingham, and I knew their ages were much the same as ours, so I could give all details. I didn’t know there was anything illegal involved. Since then we have heard that Mr and Mrs Skinner and their daughter were all three killed when their garage was bombed. To raise the money to put Tom’s accounts right we had to sell the sapphire e
arrings and pendant you were talking about. We couldn’t sell the necklace. Life interest only. It was listed as an heirloom. The earrings and pendant were heirlooms, too, originally, but somehow or another in the last century they got left out of the inventory. Only the necklace is mentioned. My lawyers have been trying to get permission from the courts to sell it as well. Now permission has been given. That is why the necklace is here. The lady who bought the earrings and pendant is willing to buy the necklace and to give what the valuers say is an exceedingly good price—a much higher price than we should be likely to get in the ordinary way. But she wants the sale to be private. I suppose she has her reasons. She may not want the exact price she is giving to be known, or perhaps she doesn’t want people to think her extravagant in war-time.”
“Polly,” observed Dunstan, “says she wants to be able to boast she gave twice what she really did. I daresay Polly’s right. She’s up to all the tricks, because she knows them all herself. I should guess what she really wants is to be able to sell again without any one knowing what her profit was.”
Kitty shook her head.
“No,” she said, “no one who has those lovely, lovely things means to let them go again if she can help it,” and there was that in her voice which told how she in her time had longed for those exquisite, shining toys, and how much it had cost her to forego her right to them. Then she added: “Of course, only some one very, very rich could wear them ever, and I suppose no one to-day ought to be very, very rich.”
“Turning bolshevik,” grunted Sir Gervase. “Well, I suppose we all are—me, too.”
“Oh, daddy,” Kitty exclaimed, “you bolshevik!”
“And why not, girl, why not?” demanded offended Jove. “The Russians can fight, can’t they? Not much wrong with bolshevism if it makes people fight the way the Russians do.”
A doubtful argument, Bobby thought, since for bad causes, too, that strange animal, man, can fight with ferocity and conviction. But he did not want to pursue the subject. He thanked Sir Gervase for his story, assured him again nothing would be disclosed unnecessarily. But he had to say that the matter of the identity cards must be straightened out, though he thought and hoped that in the circumstances prosecution and consequent publicity might be avoided. That, however, was not for him to decide.
Then at last he left, and managed to get home in time for an hour or two of sleep. Breakfast that morning was a somewhat silent meal, however; for Olive, too, was tired after sitting up most of the night, waiting for Bobby’s return. But strong coffee—a veritable Hercules among coffees—and a reckless use of the bacon ration conduced to revival, and Bobby said presently:
“Last night cleared up a good deal. The Rev. Martin Pyne is admitted to be the same person as McRell Pink, the music-hall artiste, and Ned Bloom knew it, and Martin Pyne knew he knew it, and was worried. It’s admitted he made one of the three ’phone calls, Mrs Bloom made another; but who made the third? Question, did Mr Pyne fear exposure and a possible scandal to the Church enough to make it possible he would resort to extreme measures? He had a split personality—cleric and music-hall performer. Perhaps he had a third as well—killer.”
“Oh, Bobby, it’s not possible,” Olive protested.
“Anything’s possible when it’s a question of the human mind,” Bobby said. “Saints have killed for the sake of the Church before to-day, and might again. Then the identity of Skinner with Sir Gervase Arlington is established, and Ned Bloom knew that, too, and it may be Sir Gervase knew he knew it. If he did, and if Ned came within arm’s length, I think it’s possible Sir Gervase might, as he put it, twist Ned’s head off. And if that happened, or something like it, I feel sure Dunstan and Miss Kitty, too, would help to hide the body.”
“Oh, Bobby,” Olive protested again, “not Kitty—she’s a dear.”
“A pretty formidable dear at times, I think,” retorted Bobby. “It has to be considered. But there’s one thing. I said I thought I knew where Ned’s dead body was concealed. I was watching them both when I said that, and neither seemed at all disturbed. But then again—how much did Ned know about the sapphires? He certainly did know something about the chance of a burglary at the Theodores place they call Tedders—to make it easier, I suppose.”
“That doesn’t implicate the Arlingtons,” declared Olive.
“No,” Bobby agreed; “and possibly what Ned knew provides the link between the attempt on the Skinner cottage and the attempt on Lord Vennery’s place. But again that link may be provided by Dunstan and his aunt—if she is his aunt. I’ll have to check up on that. You have to remember the possibility that what it all means is Dunstan and Miss Wood plotting together to get hold of the sapphires. Dunstan comes into the picture both with regard to the murdered woman whose body we’ve found—because she may be Mrs Veale’s missing daughter and the elopement story put about to keep Mrs Veale quiet—and with regard to Ned, who may have found out something there, too.”
“There’s still nothing to show what’s really become of Ned,” Olive said. “There’s no proof he isn’t alive and well all the time.”
But Bobby shook his head.
“I think that he is dead is as certain as anything can be,” he said, “and I think I know what happened and where the poor lad’s body has been hidden. I am having a watch kept, on the chance the murderer may come to see all’s safe still. But we are coaling, if I am right, with a man as cautious as he is dangerous. I’m not too hopeful that the watch will be successful. If it isn’t, we shall have to act. We can’t wait indefinitely. He can. Only too glad to.”
“I suppose it is always the same person,” Olive said.
But again Bobby shook his head. It was a point on which he was by no means sure. One more question mark in that maze of doubt and wonder wherefrom as yet he saw no clear outlet.
“There’s Mrs Bloom,” he said. “I wish I could get her out of my mind. She could tell us a good deal if she wished. But it seems she won’t. And Miss Wright. Why is she always going to Mrs Bloom’s for her tea?”
“I’ll go there for tea again this afternoon,” Olive said. “Perhaps one or the other will be ready to talk.”
CHAPTER XXXVI
TWO STORIES
IT WAS EARLY, earlier than usual, not yet three o’clock, when that afternoon Olive entered the Pleezeu Tea-Garden. The weather was fine and warm. She sat down at one of the outdoor tables, the only customer who had as yet appeared. The little red-cheeked, smiling, zealous maid who was Kitty’s chief assistant came up, and Olive gave her order. It was brought her by Kitty, still at work as usual, till some one could be found to take her place. With the sale of the necklace, necessity had passed, but she did not wish to leave without the due and proper notice to which Mrs Bloom was entitled. Olive thanked her and poured out a cup, but had not tasted it, had neither eaten nor drunk, when she saw Jane Wright appear. Jane saw her, too, and came towards her, stood for a moment as in doubt, and then sat down at the same table. She said:
“I know who you are.”
Olive did not know what to say to this, and so remained silent. Liza, the little red-cheeked child, bustled up to take the new-comer’s order. To her Jane said:
“Tea. That’s all. Very strong. I don’t want anything to eat.”
“Well, you never eat it anyways, nor drink your tea neither,” the girl said; and then, when Jane looked at her, scuttled away in a great hurry.
“You’ve frightened her,” Olive said. “The way you looked at her. Why did you?”
“I know who you are,” Jane repeated. “I know what you want. It’s no good.”
“What’s no good?” Olive asked.
“What you are waiting for. For me to talk. I shan’t, and you can’t make me.”
“No one can make you talk,” Olive agreed. “How could they? Except yourself.”
“Well, I shan’t,” Jane told her. “Not me. Why should I? Not me. Don’t you think it. But I’ll tell you why I come here. You want to know that, too, don’t you?
Because Mrs Bloom and me—we are two. See?”
Olive had no idea what this meant, and so made no answer. Though she did not know it, her silence and her tranquil presence were having their effect. Kitty brought the tea that Jane had asked for.
“It’s double strength,” Kitty said. “You said you wanted it like that. There’ll be an extra charge.”
“There always is,” Jane said moodily. “That’s a thing you can’t ever get away from—the extra charge.”
Kitty looked puzzled, but said nothing and went away.
“Drink your tea,” Olive said. “You’ll feel better.”
Jane took no notice. She might not have heard. Perhaps she didn’t. Olive poured herself out a cup of tea. Presently Mrs Bloom came as silently as she had done before from behind the hedge near by. She sat down on Olive’s other hand.
Jane said:
“Now we are three.”
“If you would drink your tea, it would do you good,” Olive repeated.
“No, it wouldn’t—not me,” Jane answered.
“Leave her alone,” Mrs Bloom said unexpectedly. “She and I, we can’t keep away from each other. That’s all. She knows that she must come, and when I see her I know that I must go to her. It’s quite natural.” To Olive she said: “It’s nothing to do with you, but it makes all the difference, your being here.”
“I shan’t say a word,” Jane declared. “Why should I? I’ll go.”
But she made no effort to move.
“I think you know that in the end you must,” Olive said.
“It’s nothing to cry about,” Jane said, staring at her. “What are you crying about? That won’t make me.”
Olive said fiercely: “I can cry if I like, can’t I?”
“I never cry,” said Jane. She looked at Mrs Bloom: “She doesn’t either,” she said. “Not now. What’s the sense?”
“It’s only that I’m so sorry for you both, but most of all for you,” Olive said.
Secrets Can't be Kept: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 21
