Everybody Always Tells: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  Bobby judged the time had now come to make his questions a little more direct. He said:

  “There is a Count Ariosto, a man of British nationality but Italian descent and still using an Italian title. He is a friend of Mrs Findlay’s. Is he also a friend of yours?”

  Mrs Tinsley hesitated, and Bobby felt she was considering rather carefully how to reply.

  “Not a friend exactly,” she said at last. “We meet occasionally. We have mutual acquaintances. That’s all.”

  “I must ask you to be careful in your answers,” Bobby said, for this reply had not impressed him as being entirely frank. “It does appear as if you must have been almost the last, probably the very last person, apart from the murderer, to see Mr Findlay alive.”

  “It’s so dreadful,” exclaimed Mrs Tinsley. “So impossible. I can’t realize it even yet.”

  “We have information,” Bobby continued, “suggesting that you were at any rate at one time in possession of a key to the side door at Dagonby House. Did you use a key to let yourself in by this morning?”

  “No, certainly not. I told you. Ivor let me in himself.”

  “He was expecting you then?”

  “He rang up. He wanted to see me. It was private business. I said I would come at once.”

  “It was important then?”

  “Oh, no, not at all. Something private. I said so. Who told you such a wicked, wicked story?”

  “The suggestion is,” Bobby went on, “that you were seen to hand a key to Count Ariosto and heard to ask him to give it back to Mr Findlay?”

  “It’s all nonsense,” Mrs Tinsley protested, looking more angry than ever, “and I don’t think you’ve any right to listen to such horrid lies. Besides,” she added triumphantly, “suppose I did give it him, I couldn’t have used it this morning, could I?”

  Obviously not, Bobby agreed. “But equally obviously any one with a key can easily get duplicates made. I understand you to say you never had any such key?”

  “Never, never,” Mrs Tinsley insisted. But now the anger she had shown before was beginning to change into uneasiness, even into some appearance of fear. “I—why are you asking me all these questions?” she demanded.

  “A murder has been committed,” Bobby answered gravely, “and every scrap of information we can get may be of importance. At present we are very much in the dark. As I said before, you appear to be most likely the last person to have seen Mr Findlay alive, and that makes you an important witness. You don’t wish to tell us why you visited him this morning—”

  “No, and I won’t either,” she interrupted him, angry again now. “It’s my affair, and nothing to do with him being murdered or anything else.”

  “Of course, you are quite within your rights in refusing to answer questions if you don’t wish to,” Bobby told her. “But it’s not very wise. However, I won’t press you about that just now. I would very strongly suggest though that you would do well to see your lawyers.”

  “I haven’t got any,” she interrupted again.

  “It’s a serious matter for a witness to refuse to answer in court,” Bobby explained. “Judges and juries get a bad impression. I think you would do well to obtain legal advice. In the meantime, are you willing to tell us anything you know about Mr and Mrs Findlay? You said you couldn’t understand why they married. And some one else suggested that it was her doing. The expression used to us was that she blackmailed him into it.”

  As once before, this word ‘blackmailed’ had an immediate and remarkable effect. She stared, started up in her chair, and then sat back again, tried to speak but did not. Yet the impression she gave was not of fear, but of utter surprise, bewilderment, and doubt, and yet also it was as if the suggestion were at the same time overwhelmingly revealing. When she spoke it was almost to herself, almost as if she had forgotten the presence of the two men.

  “But she couldn’t, could she?” she said at last. “Not Ivor—poor Ivor. She’s capable of it, of anything—Sibby I mean. But it doesn’t make sense, does it? If he had murdered her, and I wonder he never did, you could understand. Sibby’s a beast. She boasts, I’ve heard her, she boasts she wants to be wicked. Beyond good and evil, she says.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  “NO HOLDS BARRED”

  AS THEY WERE leaving Topper Court after what had seemed, to him at least, just another inconclusive and baffling interview, Simons said, rather gloomily, almost reproachfully:

  “Well, Mr Owen, do you still think it better not to say anything about those ’phone threats? They did suggest murder, and murder’s here all right. Not the same person, but there must be a connection, in a way.”

  “Oh, yes, sure to be,” Bobby agreed. “I was hoping some one would say something to give us a line to follow up. They haven’t. Not so far, that is.”

  “Well, if we don’t say anything about it . . .” Simons protested discontentedly. “In a way, if we don’t, how are we ever to find out?”

  Bobby looked at him with the blandly innocent air he sometimes put on when it suited him.

  “Oh, we’ll ask ’em,” he explained. “Nothing like asking when you want to know. They always tell.”

  After that he and Simons parted. Simons had to see to all the routine work that had been going on, and that now more than required his attention. Bobby, for his part, felt it was time he returned to his own office, where there were, he knew, pressing matters waiting for him. As soon as these were either disposed of or postponed, he went on to the very exclusive and expensive and up-to-date restaurant, managed, directed, and very largely owned—nominally, that is, the real owner was the Great Southern Bank—by Mr Noel Lake.

  There, when he entered, he was welcomed with grave courtesy that became rather less so when he explained that he wished neither to dine nor to sup, for by now it was late and that indeterminate hour when a meal can be either. He had, he told the slightly scandalized waiter, just had some bread and cheese and pickled onions, and it was on business that he wished to see Mr Noel Lake. A suggestion by the waiter that Mr Lake only saw people on business during business hours, Bobby put firmly aside. His business, he said, was private and important—and pressing.

  An air of authority he could assume when he wished ensured first the summoning of the head waiter and then the prompt delivery of his message. Waiting for a reply, Bobby picked up a menu card. It was beautifully produced, and it was composed in the very best French, not indeed of Stratford atte Bowe, but of the kitchen. He found it interesting, as he observed to the still more scandalized head waiter, to notice how far a five-shilling limit could stretch and stretch, till elastic in comparison was rigid as a bar of steel. Then he pocketed the menu in the face of obvious disapproval, and he knew well that this would be regarded as an attempt to prove familiarity with an establishment whose threshold the head waiter was proudly sure Bobby would never in the ordinary way venture to cross. Which incidentally was true enough, since neither his income tax, his expenses sheet, nor his personal inclinations would have made any such visit seem very attractive.

  A reply came back that Mr Lake would be happy to see Mr Owen, and Bobby was accordingly conducted to a comfortable, efficient-looking office. Its occupant was a tall, strongly built young man with a thin, dark face and prominent, well-marked features. He wore thick glasses, and the left cheek showed a scar running from below the ear to just under the eye. Apparently he had guessed the nature of Bobby’s errand, for he began by saying he had half expected a visit from the police. It was in all the evening papers for one thing, and Miss Grange had been to tell him what had happened. A terrible, a wholly inexplicable affair, Noel said. Not that Ivor Findlay had ever been what you would call a friend of his, he explained. He had always thought Ivor Findlay a bit of a swine, even though that was hardly the thing to say about a dead man, and one who had just died so mysteriously and so tragically.

  Bobby asked a few unimportant questions, explaining that he was trying to get a picture of the background. If he could
succeed in obtaining such a picture, accurate, fair, complete, then it would be a great help towards fitting into it the murder that had just taken place. Noel, who was showing some nervousness, and who as he talked kept arranging and re-arranging in an aimless sort of way the different objects on his desk, said he supposed ‘fitting into it’ meant discovering who was guilty. Bobby agreed, and Noel said he didn’t know what he could do to help. He only wished he could. It was all pretty awful, and then there was that odd business of the telephone messages Miss Grange had told him about. He supposed, he said, sitting back in his chair and thrusting his hands deep into his trouser pockets, that almost any one who had any acquaintance with Ivor Findlay came under suspicion.

  Bobby explained that it was merely a matter of routine, and Noel didn’t look as if he thought this suggestion very comforting. Routine or not, suspicion remained suspicion. Bobby, for his part, was finding it difficult to form an opinion of the other’s personality and character, and wished he had been able to interview him at home, in more personal surroundings, instead of in this soberly and efficiently equipped office.

  One or two clear impressions he did receive. Nervous, sensitive, and imaginative, Bobby thought him. Probably cautious in preparation, but apt to be rash and hasty in execution. The thick glasses hid his eyes, most expressive of features, and that he possessed business acumen and organizing ability was proved by the commercial success he had achieved. Dexterously, Bobby turned the conversation to Noel’s own past, and learned that Noel had served all through the war in the R.A.F.

  “Rotten luck I had, too,” he said gloomily. “Of course, I’m alive,” he conceded as a kind of after-thought, “and most of the others aren’t. But I never once got a chance to be in at a really good show.”

  “Isn’t that scar of yours a service memento?” Bobby asked.

  “Not from the Hun,” Noel explained. “From a pal. An egg of his went off out of line and a splinter nearly gave me mine. So they took me to hospital while he went off to about the best show our lot ever put up. Got him a D.F.C. and promotion, lucky beggar. It’s why I have to wear these glasses. One eye got damaged. Put me finally non-operational. It had been like that before. I was always getting grounded for one thing or another, and when I did get a chance our own flak shot me down.”

  Bobby said it had certainly been rotten luck all round. He was inclined to think all this meant that Noel’s self-esteem had been badly hurt. Perhaps he had even been subjected to a certain amount of teasing about the way he was always missing when things were at their hottest. Some of the teasing might even have not been too good natured. To a young and ardent man it might well be galling that he had served so long in the R.A.F., and yet had nothing to show for it, not even a record of fighting service. Injured vanity? And was that something Bobby ought to remember? Could Noel have felt some morbid urge to assert himself? He was going on talking:

  “It’s how,” he explained, “I came to take on this sort of show. I was so often non-operational, I kept being made mess officer. If I couldn’t fight with the chaps, anyhow I could see they were well fed.” There was again that note of bitterness and disappointment in his voice as he said this. He went on: “The chaps seemed to think they weren’t done too badly. Gave me the idea of starting this show.”

  “You weren’t in the restaurant business before?”

  “No, the Bar was dad’s idea—the other sort of bar,” Noel answered. “K.C. and all that was what I was to be headed for. But I didn’t feel like going back to it. Too many exams for one thing. You don’t have to pass exams to feed people. They’ve got to eat though, and some of ’em like to eat well.”

  Bobby agreed.

  “And even to drink well,” he suggested, and Noel admitted that it was generally on liquor—naturally so—that such an enterprise as his floated to success.

  He added that he was supposed to have a flair for choosing wine, though he didn’t know what that meant, except knowing a good thing when he came across it. Bobby felt sympathetic. He also was supposed to have a flair, and he also didn’t quite know what that meant—except perhaps knowing a bad thing when he came across it. Judging that after these preliminaries the time had now come to get to closer quarters, he said:

  “We have information that there had been a serious quarrel between you and Mr Findlay? Is that the case?”

  “We had a blazing row the other day, if that’s what you mean,” Noel admitted. “Who told you? Lord Newdagonby most likely.”

  “What was it about?”

  “Oh, we just had a row, that’s all.”

  “Mr Lake,” Bobby said, “in a very grave and serious matter like this, it would be better to be entirely frank, even in the smallest detail. The suggestion made is that you strongly resented Mr Findlay’s behaviour to Miss Grange?”

  “Well, suppose I did. What’s it matter? There’s no need to bring Miss Grange’s name into it.” He added rather sulkily: “She told me it was no business of mine.”

  “There’s every need not to try to keep any one’s name back, not in a case of murder,” Bobby told him, a little sternly on his side. He went on: “You spoke of the ’phone threats or warnings whichever they were. No one else has mentioned them. Did you send them?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Noel answered angrily. “Has that old devil been saying it was me?”

  “You mean Lord Newdagonby? Why should you think so?”

  “It would be just like him,” Noel answered. “Besides he did sort of try to hint it might be me. As it happens, the first time I was in Scotland fixing up a contract for a supply of salmon. And it’s Ivor Findlay, isn’t it? not Sibby, and it was Sibby the ’phone talked about.”

  “That’s a puzzling feature,” Bobby agreed. “But murder was threatened, and murder’s happened. It seems as if there must be some connection. Possibly the murderer had what he was planning so much on his mind he had to mention it even if he didn’t give the right name. Or it may have been a kind of general warning. If we knew, it would be a help. Do you know if Mr and Mrs Findlay were on good terms?”

  “Oh, they got along like most people. I do think it was more her idea than his. Not that he was likely to object to a wife with her money. He was always hard up.”

  “The word ‘blackmail’ has been used,” Bobby said. “It has been suggested that she blackmailed him into marriage.”

  This time the reaction was first a look of astonishment and then a laugh.

  “Rot,” Noel said. “How could she? Besides, it was a jolly good match for him. Lord Newdagonby has heaps of influence and all the money you want. The only thing human about the old boy is that he would do anything for Sibby.”

  “Anything?” Bobby asked.

  “No limit, no holds barred,” Noel averred. “Not if it’s her. She’s all that keeps him in touch with ordinary life—except his family pride. I suppose that’s a human trait, too.”

  “I gather,” Bobby remarked, “that you aren’t on very friendly terms with him either.”

  “Just as well he isn’t the one that’s been murdered, or I suppose you would be after me at once,” Noel said. “Anyhow, he began it. He made it jolly plain he doesn’t like me. Instinctive. Opposite of love at first sight. He knows I mean to marry Miss Grange if I can, and he means I shan’t, not if he can put a stopper on it.”

  “Has he made any open objection, or do you mean he just seems to dislike the idea?”

  “Well, he seems to think I’m a sort of head waiter. Of course, every one in the hotel or restaurant line ought to start like that, and as a matter of fact I did a few weeks as a waiter while we were trying to get on our feet. He knows that, and seems to think I would soon have Kitty—Miss Grange I mean—on the same job.”

  “Oh, well,” Bobby remarked, for Noel, tired apparently of fiddling with the various papers and so on on his desk, had risen from his chair and was moving restlessly about the room, “at any rate you don’t suffer from the waiter’s occupational disease of flat feet.”


  “Wasn’t on the job long enough,” Noel answered as he seated himself again. “Look. Tell me. Is it true Findlay was killed by a stab in the back with a kitchen knife?”

  CHAPTER XIV

  “PROPER RING-A-RING OF ROSES”

  THE QUESTION STARTLED Bobby. He was not sure whether it was not intended to convey a hint or a suggestion of one kind or another. He regarded Noel with close attention, but could discern nothing except the uneasy restlessness that had been so obvious before. He said slowly:

  “There are so many of them.”

  “Kitchen knives, you mean?” Noel asked. “We’ve dozens of them here for that matter,” and again Bobby wondered if this time, too, the spoken words carried some hidden meaning—or defiance. Noel went on: “It’s what Miss Grange said. She was very upset. You had been asking her a lot of questions.”

  “She answered very clearly,” Bobby said.

  Noel was beginning again to fiddle with the various objects on his desk, and there was a long pause before he said:

  “She nearly broke down altogether, telling me. It’s all pretty awful. I expect she managed to keep a grip on herself with you. I wasn’t sure if she had got it right about it’s being a kitchen knife.” He changed the subject abruptly. “Look,” he said. “I don’t know what rot you’ve got hold of about Sibby Findlay blackmailing people. Piffle. And don’t get all worked up about her saying she wants to be wicked. If you are wicked, you don’t have to try to be.”

  “I think that’s true,” Bobby agreed. “But it’s true, too, that it’s easier to start than to stop. If you raise the devil, you may find when you’ve got him that he’s out of control.”

  “Mrs Findlay’s not like that,” Noel said. “She’s just awfully puzzled about things and herself, too, and she wants to find out. That’s all.”