“It could have been, sir. It didn’t strike me at the time. It was someone about Waveny’s build. I couldn’t say more.”
“There’s more to it, still,” Ulyett went on. “Waveny has an ugly-looking walking-stick, formidable looking thing, heavy silver knob. Well, we got hold of that and had it examined. On that handle there are traces of human blood. The group has been established. It’s the smallest group known, and it is the one to which Macklin’s blood belonged.”
Bobby listened in considerable bewilderment. It seemed as though a strong case were being built up against Waveny. He said:
‘‘Yates would hardly show up very well in the witness-box, would he?”
“No, very badly, very badly indeed,” agreed Ulyett. “There’s more to it. The notes taken from Macklin have been traced. We haven’t got them all in, but a number were passed at the West Central greyhound racing-track, and Waveny is known to be interested in greyhound racing. It seems he has a share in a small kennel. We haven’t been able to find he’s been at the West Central track lately, but he goes there all right, and he would be likely to think a greyhound racing-track a good place for getting rid of the notes. It all fits.”
“Yes, sir,” said Bobby. “That means taking Mr. Albert’s confession for a fake.”
“Most confessions turn out duds, don’t they?” remarked Ulyett. “I don’t think we had better arrest yet, but we’ll pull Waveny in and question him as soon as we can find him.”
“Isn’t he at his address?” Bobby asked.
“No, disappeared,” said Ulyett. “Probably with the Farrar girl now she’s got back. No trace of her, either, they haven’t heard of her at her hat shop, and the cottage still locked up. And why has Waveny bolted unless he’s guilty? Why should an innocent man run?”
“Panic,” suggested Bobby.
“It’s the guilty who panic,” retorted Ulyett. “The innocent know they are innocent and so they don’t, because why should they? Waveny will have to be brought in, but he seems to have found a good hide-hole for the time. I hope he’s not got abroad, though I don’t see how he can. We’ve his passport.”
“It’s certainly strange he should have vanished,” agreed Bobby, vaguely uneasy.
“He’ll be brought in soon,” said Ulyett, “and when we get him, he’ll have a good few questions to answer. Most likely when he sees how much we know, he’ll come through with the rest. They generally do.”
CHAPTER 26
OLIVE’S MESSAGE
It was late before Bobby had completed the full report he had been instructed to write out. He had been told also that though he was to remain in touch with Headquarters in case he was required, yet for a day or two, until he had fully recovered from his recent experiences, he would be excused active duty.
Bobby would much rather have continued to take an active part in the investigation which he felt uneasily might presently lead to very unwelcome and he was still persuaded erroneous conclusions. But to himself he had to acknowledge he had not yet entirely thrown off the effects of all he had been through. He was indeed glad enough to get to bed and once there he slept so soundly it was nearly noon next day before he wakened. A late breakfast or early lunch completed the restoration of his energies, and he was feeling very much himself again when he went out to sit in Regent’s Park.
There stretched out in a deck-chair in the sun he went over and over again in his mind the doubts and questionings troubling him.
Had Peter’s confession been a fake?
Had the dramatic intensity with which he told his tale been merely an effort of a vivid imagination?
Was there substance in this new case the Yard seemed to be working up against Waveny?
What had become of Waveny?
Were those, the presumed employers of Macklin, who had shown such determination in pursuit upon the high seas, likely to continue their attempts on land?
Above all, where was Olive and why had she also disappeared?
Well did Bobby know as he sat there in the sunshine, gossiping nurses all around and children playing in the sun, that what lay so darkly and so heavily upon his spirits was a deadly fear that presently facts might emerge appearing to implicate Olive.
And what was there he could do but watch and be afraid?
For who could tell into what strange ways Olive might have been led by her friendship for Peter, her devotion to the cause of the Etrurian People’s Party? One thing at least that long night at sea had taught Bobby and that was the strength of Peter’s character, his capacity for leadership, the burning power he possessed to light others down the path he wished them to follow. Bobby himself could have said, paraphrasing Agrippa:
‘Almost thou persuadest me to be a revolutionary.’
Little though would the Yard care for such considerations, little for the motives that might lie behind any breach on British soil of British law. And only too probably would it soon become his duty to aid in the collection of evidence to support any such charge the Yard might have in mind. Yet would not even that be easier than to sit here alone and watch the nurses knit and gossip and the children play, and know nothing of what things were happening elsewhere?
Life hitherto had been simple in a way. He had seen his duty plain. He had done it to the best of his ability, helping to make firm that sense of security on which civilized life must rest. But this was different, this was all dark and tangled, and upon his heavy meditations there broke a familiar voice:
“Morning guv’nor,” it said. “You ain’t been and gone and got done in then, same as they was saying?”
Bobby looked up, startled and not altogether pleased to recognise Clarence. His first impulse was to tell that worthy to clear off, and then he changed his mind, reflecting that possibly Clarence might have information to give.
“Who was saying that?” he asked.
“It was all over everywhere,” Clarence told him.
“Didn’t know I was so famous,” commented Bobby.
“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” corrected Clarence gravely as he lowered himself into a deck-chair by Bobby’s side, “famous is what’s Greta Garbo and Tommy Farr and them sort, ain’t it? But all the boys knew about you turning up missing, and some sort of looked pleased like and wished as they had been there to see, and some said that for a busy – well, there was worse.”
“Nice of them,” said Bobby, quite touched at this tribute.
“Though I did hear,” added Clarence, “that up at one of the night-clubs, the Cut and Come Again they call it, there was free drinks going the night they heard.”
“Free drinks, eh?” exclaimed Bobby. “Wish I had been there.”
Clarence pondered this for some minutes. He was sure there was a catch in it somewhere but was not sure what it was. Finally he saw it and announced triumphantly:
“If you had, there wouldn’t have been none.”
“Too bad,” murmured Bobby.
“I didn’t put much stock in it myself,” Clarence continued. “When they told me as you was done in, I wouldn’t pay for no drinks on the strength of it. I just ups and says: ‘Wait and see,’ I says. ‘Talk of the devil,’ I says, ‘and up he pops.’”
“True enough,” agreed Bobby.
“And I was right,” continued Clarence, “for there you is.”
“True again,” agreed Bobby, once more.
“So as soon as I knowed you was back, I came along.”
“What for?” asked Bobby. “Who told you I was back?”
“Same as you blokes knows about us blokes,” explained Clarence. “Organization. Brain work. Kept an eye constant, me and my pals, on where you doss, so as to be the first to know if you did pop up again. Which when you did, soon as I knew, I was there watching and followed you when you came out, and here I am. Got a fag, guv’nor,” he added abruptly.
Bobby meekly produced one.
“What’s it all about?” he asked. “You aren’t generally so anxious to interview the police, are y
ou? More often, the other way about.”
“ Ah, but I’m running straight now,” declared Clarence virtuously, “only I’m sort of worried like – upset, if you know what I mean, and not the comfort in a glass of beer there ought to be. I don’t want no more nonymous letters, saying as I’ve put no bloke’s light out, especially now the Honourable Charles Waveny has turned up missing same as you was, only with him more like to be permanent like.”
“What do you mean? How do you know?” demanded Bobby, sitting upright.
The chair attendant came up before Clarence could reply, but that gentleman waved him carelessly aside, with the remark that his friend would pay. Bobby dutifully provided the required twopence and repeated:
“What do you know about Mr. Waveny? How do you know he is missing?”
“Ain’t you blokes been asking about him at every pub he ever used?” demanded Clarence. “But she ain’t going to pass nothing on to me this time, not if I know it. If she’s done him in, too, that’s her biz., but I ain’t taking none, not if I know it.”
“What do you mean by ‘she’?” demanded Bobby.
“That there Miss Farrar.”
“If you say things like that, you’ll be getting yourself into trouble,” Bobby said furiously.
“Sweet on ’er?” asked Clarence, greatly interested. “Lummy, think of a busy being sweet on a skirt what’s done in a bloke what –”
“Shut up,” ordered Bobby, glaring at him. “What are you talking like that for? What do you think you know? What grounds have you for saying things like that about – about anyone?”
“Missing, ain’t he?” retorted Clarence. “And if he ain’t been done in, what’s he missing for? And ain’t she the sort as would do in any bloke soon as look at him? Remember,” said Clarence feelingly, “the way she turned that hose right on me and me mouth open, and not expecting nothing like it, so as I ain’t hardly got rid of the taste of the water yet, I haven’t, it sort of laying heavy on my stommick so I can feel it still.”
“I wish,” said Bobby, equally feelingly, “it had choked you for good and all, and you listen to me –”
But Clarence didn’t intend to, he much preferred that Bobby should listen to him. He swept on unheedingly:
“There’s more than that,” and Bobby winced a little, so uncomfortably did that phrase remind him of Superintendent Ulyett. “Wasn’t it him as was at her cottage that night me and you found her pushed in her garage? After something, wasn’t he? and got it, didn’t he or why did he bunk?”
“Because he heard someone coming,” snapped Bobby. “Don’t be a bigger fool than you can help. Waveny’s being at Miss Farrar’s cottage, even if it was Waveny, proves nothing.”
“Ah, you’re sweet on her,” said Clarence tolerantly, “and if you wasn’t, you would see it was only natural like she should want to get her own back after that garage do, and her being what she is, as shown by putting a hose on them as hadn’t never done nothing to her – well, there you are. Only there’s more than that, which I ain’t telling you, for there wouldn’t be no sense in putting a man on his own girl, nor it wouldn’t be fair neither and against all natural feelings. What I have to say,” said Clarence with dignity, getting to his feet as he spoke, “had best be said to others what hasn’t got no tender feelings engaged.”
By a supreme exercise of self control Bobby resisted various atavistic impulses such as hitting Clarence as hard and as often as he could, forbidding him to dare to say another word, demanding that he should explain himself fully, threatening that if he did he would suffer for it.
But then he told himself that only as big a fool as Clarence himself would pay the least attention to anything that worthy said. Before he could make up his mind what to do, Clarence suddenly turned back and thrust a note-book into his hands.
“If there’s any nonymous letter trying to bring me in,” he said, “I’ve got it down in writing just where I was all the time, so as I can prove an alibi and there it is which will show you, Mr. Owen, sir, as I’m innocent of nothing like the babe unborn, and there’s the proof as you can read it for yourself.”
Very much surprised, Bobby looked from the little notebook so oddly thrust into his hands to Clarence’s retreating figure and then back again in continued wonderment. This then was what Clarence had really wanted. He had been badly frightened by the previous accusation made against him and had adopted this method of protecting himself against any future accusation. He had not enough intelligence to realize that what he himself wrote about himself was hardly proof of its accuracy and Bobby smiled at that and then grew grave again as he reflected that at any rate it proved that Clarence was very much afraid of future developments and quite likely had good reasons for his fears.
Turning over the soiled and dog-eared pages of the little book given him, Bobby found to his surprise that Clarence had not been altogether unaware of the need for confirmation. Several of the entries had initials or signatures of witnesses attached, or gave details that could be checked. One, for instance, ran: ‘Said how do and was there a hot tip for the three o’clock to Police Constable XX99, who said not to be funny and get out, if not wanting a lick over the head, and did so according.’ Another ran: ‘Thrown out of the Red Lion, High Street, hitting nose on pavement,’ and this was initialled with the note: ‘Correct, and warned not to come back.’
“Clarence has got the wind up all right,” Bobby reflected, and even though he could not help smiling a little at such careful precautions taken to prove an alibi if one were needed, yet all the same the fear and foreboding dread Clarence so plainly experienced Bobby found communicating itself to him.
He left the park and from the first call-box he saw rang up the Yard and ascertained that his presence was not required. Thence he went on to Olive’s hat shop in the side street just behind Piccadilly. From what Ulyett had said he guessed it was being watched, and that therefore his visit would be reported, but then he meant to send in a brief report of his talk with Clarence and he hoped that would be taken as a sound reason for going there. Though he looked round carefully when he got near his destination he saw no sign, however, of any such watch being still in force. Of course, a newspaper seller or someone like that might have been employed to report any sign of Olive’s return. Or the Yard might be contenting itself with ringing up now and again to ask if she were back.
He entered the shop and found there the divinity he had seen before, but this time prepared to be quite human. Also she was evidently a good deal worried. Miss Farrar had not been near the shop since the time when she left for her Epping Forest cottage.
Business matters required attention. Letters were remaining unopened. None of her friends knew anything of her. At the cottage, no sign of her. Altogether it was very worrying and disturbing, said the divinity, now turned into quite a friendly and normal and rather anxious young woman; and Bobby’s own troubled thoughts were no easier when he left to report at the Yard and deposit there Clarence’s somewhat pathetic little note-book.
Fortunately no one seemed disposed to take Clarence’s rambling accusations very seriously or to share the apprehensions aroused in Bobby by his forebodings. It appeared the general impression that for the present at least all Clarence said could be disregarded. He was most likely still suffering from the fright he had experienced when he knew that an anonymous if evidently unsubstantial accusation had been made against him.
“Though I suppose it is just possible,” observed thoughtfully the inspector to whom Bobby was talking, “he does know something – for instance he may know Waveny has been murdered now. And if he does, perhaps it’s because it was him did the job.”
The same thought had been in Bobby’s mind, though he had not wished to give it expression.
“If Waveny has been done in and Clarence did the job,” the inspector continued, “then it makes it look as if Waveny did in Macklin, and Macklin’s pals know it, and they’ve used Clarence to make it evens. A lot in this case hasn’t
come out, and the S.B. just look down their noses and won’t say anything – probably because they don’t know anything. But the Macklin-Waveny- Clarence idea looks right to me, and that makes Peter Albert’s confession a fake to help Waveny. He knew his alibi made him safe, he put nothing on paper we could hold him to, and his confession was bound to put us off and muddle things a bit.”
It was a plausible idea and Bobby retired to the canteen to think it over and to get a cup of tea before returning home, where he had a second tea since his landlady had it ready and he hated waste. He was balancing the respective merits of going to bed, a quiet read, and a visit to the nearest cinema, when there came a ring at the door and there appeared the servant girl.
“It’s a lady in a car,” she said. “She says, please come at once because it’s urgent and important.”
The girl looked quite scared, as though the urgency and importance of the message had communicated itself to her. Bobby got up quickly and went to the front door. A car was there and he was not much surprised to see that it was Olive at the wheel and that she was leaning out and beckoning to him. He crossed the pavement to her. She said:
“Get in. Quick. Quick. Something’s happened at The Manor.”
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered, her voice coming in little gasps. “I think it’s murder. I don’t know. Oh, get in, please, and we’ll go and see.”
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