Dictator's Way

by E. R. Punshon

  “I don’t know,” she replied at once and with relief, as if glad their mutual silence had at last been broken. She said suddenly: “You said there was a man in the cottage?”

  Leaving the sentence unfinished she flashed by him, running to the cottage. He followed. He noticed how quickly she ran. A finely built, vigorous girl, he thought, with plenty of physical strength. He followed her into the lounge of the cottage when he found her kneeling by the side of Yates’s body.

  “Who is it? I don’t know him,” she said over her shoulder as Bobby came in, and there was relief in her voice, he thought, as though she had feared it would be somebody she did know. “He’s not very badly hurt, I think,” she added.

  “You have never seen him before?” Bobby asked, and when she shook her head again, he repeated: “What happened?”

  “I come here for the week-end,” she explained slowly. “It’s quiet here. To-night I left them at the shop to close and I came out in my car. As soon as I got indoors almost, I had just taken off my hat and gloves, someone threw a cloth or something over my head. They must have been waiting in the lounge. I couldn’t do anything. I was rushed out to the garage and pushed inside and the door banged. So I put some things before the door to prevent anyone getting in, if they tried, but they didn’t. I thought whoever it was would go away presently, and then perhaps I could break the door open with some of the garage tools and get out. The windows are too small to climb through.”

  “Do you think this is the man who attacked you?”

  “I don’t know, I didn’t see anyone. The cloth thing prevented me and then I was just pushed along. It was all done very quickly. I hardly knew what was happening. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t kick or anything. I hadn’t even time to be scared.”

  Bobby thought to himself that perhaps she was not very easily scared. She did not seem very much upset by what she had gone through.

  “Were you expecting anyone to be here?”

  She shook her head but again with a quick glance at him as if wondering why he asked, and he thought, too, that the question disturbed her. With a gesture towards the still unconscious Yates, she said:

  “He ought to be moved.”

  “Better wait till the doctor comes,” Bobby said. “Probably he’s just been knocked out – concussion, I expect, and the less he is moved the better. Quiet, rest, and warmth is all the First Aid wanted. It’s a warm night but it might be a good idea to put a rug over him.”

  She went away for a moment or two and came back with a warm travelling rug she arranged over Yates’s body. She said to Bobby:

  “Do you know who he is?”

  “I think his name is Yates, he’s in Mr. Judson’s office,” Bobby answered. “Can you say why he came here? Has he ever been before?”

  She shook her head but said nothing for a moment or two. She was evidently thinking deeply. She said after a time:

  “If he is one of Mr. Judson’s clerks, he would know Mr. Macklin?”

  Bobby wondered if her remark meant that she saw in this connection between the two men an explanation of the presence of one of them in her cottage.

  “Does that suggest anything to you?” he asked. “Has Mr. Macklin ever been here?”

  “Not that I know of,” she answered. “I don’t see how he could know I had a cottage here. How could he?”

  “Yates did apparently,” Bobby observed gloomily, and this time he thought she had denied too much too readily.

  “I am going to make some coffee,” she said. “I’m feeling all in.”

  She went into the tiny kitchen. He followed and stood in the doorway – there was hardly room for two people in the kitchen itself – watching as she busied herself lighting the oil stove and filling the kettle from a filter into which ran apparently, rain water from a big tank outside. He found himself wondering whether all this bustling activity so suddenly developed, was to avoid his questioning, or perhaps to give her time to think before she answered. Well, she would have more and worse questioning to face soon, he supposed, and from that nothing could save her. She was grinding coffee beans in a small mill now and she said to him:

  “By rights they ought to be freshly roasted, but you can’t have everything in a week-end cottage.”

  “No,” he agreed, though wondering if her words had a hidden meaning and, if he were right in thinking he detected a touch of mockery in her voice. “You are sure you have no idea what Yates wanted here?”

  “None, how could I? I’ve never seen him before.” She went on with her task. When she was brewing the coffee, she said to him: “You will have some, too?”

  “No, thank you,” he answered.

  “I thought,” she explained, “from the way you were staring, you were dying for a cup.”

  To his intense annoyance Bobby found himself blushing. He was furious. He had had no idea he had been watching her like that, but now he realized, that his eyes had been following every action of hers as she moved to and fro in the little kitchen, intent upon her coffee making. He knew that he could reconstruct in memory every single little action of hers, the curve of her throat as she turned to look for something she wanted, the gesture of her lifted arm as she took down from a shelf the crockery she needed, the kind of grave attention with which she arranged the tray she had now ready. In spite of his refusal she was preparing two cups and he had an idea that though she had never once glanced at him, she had really been watching him almost as closely as he had watched her. She said thoughtfully:

  “But perhaps you only stared because you were afraid I might run away. Keeping an eye on the suspect, I suppose?”

  “Are you suspect?” he asked moodily, well aware now of the mockery in her voice.

  “If I am not,” she flashed back, “why am I honoured by the presence of a policeman in my house – uninvited?”

  “If a policeman wasn’t in your house – uninvited,” Bobby retorted, “you wouldn’t be in it yourself – you would be locked in your garage still.”

  “Yes,” she agreed gravely. “Apologies.”

  The coffee was ready now and she poured out two cups. Bobby said:

  “Is there anything missing?”

  She shook her head.

  “Nothing in the place worth taking,” she declared. “You heard no one else arrive?”

  “No, no one.”

  “Can you make any suggestion who attacked Yates?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest.”

  “Could it have been Mr. Peter Albert?”

  She had been in the act of lifting her coffee cup but at that she started violently, so that coffee splashed on her frock and on the floor. She put down the cup untasted. She said:

  “I don’t see why anyone should think so.”

  “Do you think it’s possible?”

  “Oh, possible, I suppose, anything’s possible.” She paused and burst out passionately: “Have you got to ask me all these questions?”

  “I am afraid you are going to be asked a great many questions,” Bobby told her. “You will certainly be asked a good many more times by a good many different people if you have really no idea what Yates wanted here.”

  “Well, I haven’t,” she answered. Her voice was sulky now, a little afraid as well. She drank her coffee and filled her cup once more. It was very strong, almost black. She made no attempt to press Bobby to take his that was still untasted. She said: “I’ve no idea what you want here, either.”

  “I was instructed to get a statement from you,” Bobby explained. “A man has been murdered. You were on the spot at the time. Anything you can tell us may be a great help, anything at all. You were present sometimes at Mr. Judson’s parties at The Manor, I believe. Macklin was there too generally. Anything you can tell us may be important. Even if it’s only negative, it helps to clear the ground. Then you are friendly with Mr. Peter Albert. You are very old friends. Our information is that Mr. Albert knew Mr. Macklin, though he denied it. If you can tell us why he –”

 
; She was on her feet now, blazing with indignation.

  “Do you think I’m going to spy on my friends,” she flamed. “I think it’s loathsome to be a policeman.” Bobby was used to attacks on police work, from indignant motorists convinced that laws were only for the other fellow, from city gentlemen whose business activities in finding the dearest market for the cheapest shares were being hampered, from club proprietors who could not understand why a willing buyer and a willing seller – of champagne – should have to look at the clock before concluding their bargain, indeed from all those citizens who are convinced that the police are really a great nuisance and far too fond of interfering with other people. As a rule Bobby, like most of his colleagues, made no attempt to answer these reproaches which they all took as part of the day’s work. But this time there was an accent in Olive’s voice that stung.

  “I’m sorry,” Bobby said. “I don’t think it is loathsome myself to have the job of looking after public order, keeping the King’s peace they used to call it years ago. Do you remember at school reading that in the days of one Saxon king the peace was so well kept that a woman with her bosom full of gold could walk in safety from one end of the country to the other? Well, that’s the job of the police and I don’t feel it’s loathsome.”

  “No. Sorry,” she said. “Apologies again. I seem to spend my time apologizing, don’t I? But I shan’t tell you anything about any of my friends.”

  “You don’t trust them then?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you trusted them, you wouldn’t be afraid of the truth, would you?”

  “Well,” she muttered, “there’s such a lot you don’t know.”

  “That’s why I’m asking you questions,” Bobby pointed out very reasonably. He added slowly: “It’s why you’ll be asked a lot more.”

  “I won’t answer,” she told him and added: “Nobody can make me.”

  “Oh, no,” he agreed. “There’s been a murder,” he added, looking at her.

  “I know that,” she retorted. Her voice had grown shrill, she looked pale and excited. “Well, Chinese women and children are blown to bits by the thousand and nobody does anything. Sailors are drowned in the Mediterranean, people are shot wholesale in Russia and Spain. What is one murder, more or less, against all that? Haven’t we all been shown what human life’s worth?”

  Bobby had been standing all this time but now he sat down heavily and he looked very tired.

  “You have answered most of my questions now,” he said. “I rather wish you hadn’t. Of course, I thought it was that before.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said uneasily.

  He was trying not to look at her. To keep himself from doing so, he began to talk, more or less at random.

  “I don’t know anything about all that,” he said. “It’s all over my head. I don’t know whether human life is like striking a match at night and you blow it out and it’s dark again or whether it’s the only thing that really matters in the whole Universe. I don’t know whether snuffing out a life is like pouring away waste water or whether it’s denying the purposes of God – which is a bit of a responsibility. Our job in the police is just to see the rules are kept, because if they aren’t, there’s such an awful mess all round.”

  “I wish you would drink your coffee,” she said unexpectedly. “Do you really mean there’s something I’ve told you?”

  He nodded.

  “Must you she began and paused. “Do you –?” she began again and paused once more. “You needn’t tell anyone else, need you?” she asked in a sudden rush of words that were all jumbled one on top of the other.

  He did not answer that. She jerked her chair nearer to his, till they were' sitting almost side by side. She put her hand out towards his. In a very low voice she said:

  “I didn’t mean to, can’t you forget it? won’t you?”

  It was such a barefaced, almost innocent attempt to beguile, more like the coaxing of a child than anything else, that Bobby almost smiled, even though his mood was far indeed from smiling. At that she lost her temper. She jumped up and stood facing him, her fists clenched, her face furious, contorted with a spasm of rage that should have made it as ugly as anger always is, but somehow failed to do so.

  “I don’t care,” she cried, “I shall say I didn’t and I didn’t either because I didn’t mean. I think you’re just Beastly. Go on. Arrest me. Why don’t you?”

  He made no answer to that. She went on after a pause. “I didn’t murder Mr. Macklin and I don’t know who did and I’ll never say another word to anyone.”

  She was walking up and down the room now. His eyes followed her, but he still said nothing. She said, still walking up and down so far as the narrow limit of the tiny room permitted:

  “I suppose you think you know who it was.”

  “I think you think you know,” he answered then.

  “I don’t. Who?” she cried, facing him with a kind of controlled fury.

  “Peter Albert.”

  “Oh, oh,” she gasped. “I don’t. I don’t. I don’t,” she cried, her voice rising hysterically. “How dare you say I do?”

  “I suppose because it’s the truth and nothing matters but the truth,” he answered.

  The sound of cars drawing near became audible. They both listened.

  “They'll be here in a minute or two,” Bobby said.

  “Peter’s not a murderer,” she muttered.

  “What I said,” Bobby answered gravely, “is that you thought you knew he killed Macklin.” He went to the door and opened it. “It’s the superintendent,” he said. “Superintendent Ulyett.”

  CHAPTER 17

  OLIVE GOES

  At the door of the cottage, in the light of the lamp shining behind him, Bobby stood waiting the arrival of the help he had summoned. The big police car drew up outside, a little past the entrance gate where stood Olive’s car turned ready to be backed into the garage as she had left it on her arrival. She had followed Bobby to the doorway and was standing close behind him. She said to him in a low, unsteady voice:

  “Are you going to tell them what I said?”

  He had no answer to make. He felt a little dizzy and he was glad of the cool night air blowing in on them now he had opened the door. He watched the tree tops across the lane bowing right and left as the soft breeze blew. He said bitterly:

  “You don’t trust him much, do you? If he is innocent, what is there to be afraid of? If he isn’t – is he still your – friend?”

  “Yes,” she answered, though so softly he could hardly hear the word.

  “Ah,” he said, and then they were both silent.

  The police car had now been manoeuvred past the obstruction caused by Olive’s car that so nearly blocked the narrow lane wherein her cottage stood. Ulyett came striding up the garden path, followed by two or three others. An Inspector Simmonds was among them, a man Bobby was not glad to see, for Simmonds was one of those who liked to describe Bobby as a favourite, a ‘pet’, and to declare that such success as Bobby had achieved was due merely to his having been given special opportunities.

  “If you want to be in the Cabinet,” Simmonds was fond of saying “you’ve got to start by going to Eton. Then you get the chances. Same here. Mr. Blooming Favourite Bobby Owen gets it handed to him on a plate. All his bleeding lordship has to do is to mind not to let it drop.”

  There was a chair in the hall. Olive was sitting on it now, or rather, she had collapsed upon it. Her head drooped, her hands hung helplessly, she looked pitifully broken, only half conscious. She did not even raise her eyes, she seemed unaware of it, when Ulyett came striding in. He looked round quickly and uttered the traditional police inquiry.

  “Now then, what’s all this about?”

  Bobby did not answer. He made a step or two towards Olive, his attention concentrated on her. Ulyett said angrily:

  “Well, what’s the matter with you, Owen? Gone deaf?”

  “Pretty girl,” co
mmented Simmonds from behind.

  Bobby swung round quickly, recalled abruptly to discipline and duty.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I thought Miss Farrar was going to faint.”

  “Where’s the doctor?” Ulyett asked, and then as a middle, aged man came up, he said to him: “Oh, doctor, have a look at that girl, will you? Is she drunk or what?”

  The doctor went forward. Bobby repressed a wild desire to hit Ulyett, a still stronger desire to kick Simmonds who had giggled audibly. The doctor smelt Olive’s breath, looked at her eyes, felt her pulse, spoke to her, shook her slightly. She took no notice, she seemed hardly aware of him. He said:

  “Dazed condition. Shock probably. Not drunk, no sign of drugs. What’s it all about? Hasn’t had a blow or a fall, has she?”

  “Well?” Ulyett snapped at Bobby.

  “I had your instructions to take a statement from Miss Farrar,” answered Bobby. “She was not at her town address. This address was given me. I came on here. I found Clarence apparently watching the cottage. While I was talking to him we heard pistol shots. I saw a man running away.”

  “Didn’t you stop him?” demanded Ulyett.

  “I hadn’t the chance, sir,” Bobby defended himself. “I only had the merest glimpse of him.”

  Simmonds coughed. It was a cough eloquent, expressing surprise, doubt, dissatisfaction, ironic amusement. It said as plainly as possible that any police officer of intelligence or energy would have pursued and captured the fugitive. It was perhaps the influence of that cough that made Ulyett demand next:

  “Didn’t you follow him?”

  “No, sir, it seemed useless in the dark with the start he had.”

  “I suppose he would be armed, too,” murmured Simmonds in an audible aside.

  Bobby flushed at the insinuation but took no other notice of it and continued:

  “Also I thought I ought to find out what had happened. The door was locked but I broke a window and got in. In the room there” – he nodded to the door of the lounge – “I found an unconscious man on the floor. Clarence identified him as Yates, one of Mr. Judson’s clerks, living in the same block of flats as Macklin. There was no one else in the cottage. I found Miss Farrar locked in the garage. I released her. She was in a very distressed condition. She said as soon as she arrived she had been attacked, put in the garage, and locked in. She did not see her assailant and had no idea who it was.”