Everybody Always Tells: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “There’s a Mrs Jacks who is Lord Newdagonby’s housekeeper in London,” Bobby said. “Keep that to yourself for the present. I don’t want any more talk than we can help or anything getting into the papers. Mrs Jacks will most likely have to give evidence at the inquest, but that’s been adjourned. Do you know anything about her or her family?”

  “They were Birmingham people, friends of the Ferdinand Findlays. That’s what brought Mrs Jacks here. She was a widow and came to be housekeeper to old Dr Kaye when he lost his wife. It was Mrs Ferdinand got her the place with him. After what happened to her girl she went away and hasn’t been back since so far as I know. Seemingly, she put some of the blame on Mrs Ferdinand for not stopping it, but Mrs Ferdinand said she thought it was honest courting and not just Ivor taking advantage.”

  Bobby had been listening to all this very intently. He thought the implications were grave. The peepholes seemed to fall into place now. Only what significance to attach to them? But the missing guinea pigs which had been worrying him so much were fading away apparently. Had he, he wondered, been mistaken in attaching possible importance to the one pair being no longer in their cage? He supposed, rather ruefully, that there could quite easily be any number of perfectly simple explanations.

  On the other hand, the puzzled, searching, seeking figure of Mrs Findlay seemed emerging into prominence, drawing sensibly nearer to the centre of things. Then, too, there were all those vague hints about ‘blackmail’. Had they acquired a new significance? Could Mrs Findlay have learned from Mrs Jacks this old story of a distant tragedy with its hint of a dreadful guilt? Could it have been used by Mrs Findlay to force marriage on a reluctant Ivor? A far-fetched theory, but one that could not be ignored.

  “I take it,” Bobby said, “there was no question of charging Ivor Findlay with the murder of this girl? Nothing more than talk and gossip, was there?”

  “That was all,” the sergeant agreed. “Not a hint of anything solid to go on, and him with a good, sound alibi as well.”

  “Well, I wonder if whoever killed him in his turn will have an alibi, a good, sound alibi?” Bobby remarked. “Not that we’ve got anything like as far as asking anybody for one,” he added.

  He got up and went to the window. Opposite, on an old hoarding, was a tattered advertisement of a film—‘The Bad Lord Byron’.

  “Ever seen it?” he asked the sergeant, and the sergeant, a little surprised at so abrupt and irrelevant a question, said he didn’t go very often to the pictures, hadn’t got the habit of it, like the young folk. Hadn’t the time either, not with always being on duty and the garden and one thing and another that kept you on the go all the time. Not like town, where you went home at night and shut the door and nobody bothered you.

  Bobby said that was one way of looking at it, and he would write to the sergeant’s superintendent to say how grateful he was for, and how helpful he had found, the very complete information the sergeant had gathered together.

  “I hardly know how you did it at such short notice,” he said to the highly gratified sergeant.

  “Well, you see, sir,” the sergeant explained. “In a little place like this folk remember. Nothing like poor Mary Jacks’s death ever known here before. And not so many leaving the district either. There’s some I went to see as were on the jury at the inquest and remember it like it was yesterday.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  “HOW ABOUT TAILING HER?”

  AS BOBBY WAS returning to town by rail, not by car, he had plenty of time, sitting in the corner of his carriage, to try to integrate into the pattern of the Findlay murder all this new information he had now been given.

  He had not much success. Nor did he find it easy to decide what steps should next be taken. It did seem as if the hitherto divergent and uncertain lines followed by the investigation were drawing closer together, centring on Mrs Jacks and the bitter cause, now disclosed, she had for enmity against the dead man. That, too, seemed to bring the peep holes Bobby had found in the party wall at Dagonby House into closer relationship with what had happened. Yet it is a long way from spying on a man to murdering him. Nor had there yet appeared anything to show why on this particular day and hour so dreadful a crisis had been reached.

  Then, too, those strange and ominous threats made over the ’phone had to be considered seriously, since previously such threats had been the precursor to murder and might, Bobby felt, well prove to be so again. Either this time of Mrs Findlay herself or possibly once more of some one else.

  But that in some way or another, as principal or in the background, consciously or unconsciously, actively or passively, Mrs Findlay was deeply concerned, Bobby felt well assured. Nor had he yet succeeded in expunging from his mind his conviction that the disappearance of the two guinea pigs concealed a vital clue if only he could manage to discover it. Or bring to the test a theory floating vaguely at the back of his mind.

  There he had to leave it for the time. He arranged to see Simons next morning to tell him what he had learned and to talk it over, and in his correspondence, when he arrived at the Yard, he found the first fruits of his visit to Abels End. The constable’s young son had taken two snapshots, one of them of a stranger, a man, the other of a woman in whom Bobby recognized at once Mrs Tinsley.

  “Her second visit there,” he said to Inspector Simons when that officer presently arrived. “What do you think she can be up to?”

  The Inspector said he had no idea, so far nothing to show she had any interest in or any connection with the Actons, husband or wife.

  “How about tailing her?” he asked.

  “I think that may come, but not yet,” Bobby said. “We might ask her first.”

  “Ask her what she was up to?” Simons said doubtfully. “Well, she won’t tell, will she?”

  “Oh, everybody always tells,” Bobby assured him again, and Simons shook his head more doubtfully still.

  “Lies mostly,” he opined.

  “All the more interesting,” explained Bobby. “Lies are so much more colourful, and where there’s colour there must be light somewhere, mustn’t there?”

  Simons pondered this optical theory, but plainly did not think much of it. So Bobby proceeded to tell what he had learned the previous day on his visit to Monmouthshire. To this Simons listened with great interest, equally excited and puzzled.

  “Don’t know what to make of it,” he said. “Seems to point all ways at once, don’t it?”

  “More like chaos than a pattern emerging,” Bobby agreed. “I don’t like these renewed threats though. I don’t like them at all.”

  “You don’t think it could be Mrs Findlay herself been doing it, do you?” Simons asked. “Or Mrs Tinsley? She didn’t seem to like Mrs Findlay very much.”

  “She didn’t,” Bobby agreed again. “Anyhow if we go to see her now we can ask her that, too. Take a ’bus, shall we? We don’t want to attract any more attention than we can help.”

  A ’bus accordingly took them to the corner of the street where were the flats in which Mrs Tinsley lived. When they knocked Mrs Tinsley herself appeared and showed no sign of being pleased to see them.

  “I suppose you had better come in,” she said grudgingly. “I do think you might do something though to keep reporters away. They’re pestering the life out of me.”

  “Sorry,” answered Bobby with real sympathy. “But keeping reporters away is beyond human power. The price we pay for a free press. The best plan is to ask them in, give them a cup of tea, and talk hard and long about the weather. It annoys them very much, and it generally works in the long run.”

  This—very good—advice did not seem to be much appreciated. Mrs Tinsley muttered something uncomplimentary under her breath, though whether about newspaper men or about himself, Bobby was not sure, and led the way into the lounge, to use the word that in the full tide of evolution has replaced the almost primaeval parlour, the more recent drawing-room and is probably destined to be replaced in its turn by ‘bar’.


  “You know,” Bobby began, “how before Mr Findlay’s murder, threats against Mrs Findlay were received by ’phone. That’s started again.”

  “You don’t mean some one’s been ringing up to say she’s to be next?” Mrs Tinsley asked. She stared at Bobby as if wondering whether he were serious, and again she looked small and formidable. “Don’t believe it,” she said at last. “At least, not unless she’s doing it herself.”

  “Have you any reason to think that?” Bobby asked.

  “Probably she’s trying to pull wool over your eyes,” Mrs Tinsley snapped. “Not too difficult either,” she added, still staring at him.

  “I daresay you’re right there, regrettably right,” Bobby said. Simons emitted an angry grunt. He always thought defiant witnesses were guilty witnesses. Bobby went on, speaking very smoothly: “But it may be just a little more difficult to keep it there.”

  Mrs Tinsley’s stare wavered a little, as if she were not now feeling quite so confident. With what seemed like a sudden change of tactics, she said:

  “Haven’t you guessed yet who did it?”

  “This isn’t a guessing competition,” Bobby told her.

  “It was her,” Mrs Tinsley said. “Tired of him, got him and then didn’t want him any more.”

  “What makes you say so?” Bobby asked. “It’s a serious accusation to make.”

  “She’s trying to put you off, that’s all,” Mrs Tinsley repeated, without attempting to reply to his question. “She’s bad, bad, bad all through.”

  “What you say to us is privileged,” Bobby told her. “But if you said that to any one else, it would be slander and actionable. It is a curious coincidence that the same accusation was made in these ’phone calls. Or is it coincidence?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I must ask you whether it was you who ’phoned and who made the accusation against Mrs Findlay you have just repeated?”

  “No, it wasn’t,” she answered with vigour. “And there’s no coincidence about it. It’s plain enough. Of course she did it. Who else?”

  “That’s what we are trying to find out,” Bobby said. “Have you changed your mind yet about telling us why you went to see Mr Findlay shortly before his death?”

  “It was something private, nothing to do with any one else.”

  “You understand you are sure to be called at the inquest?”

  “What about it? There’s nothing I can say. I’ve told them so. I suppose what it all means is you think it was me? Well, it wasn’t. Why should I? He was my friend. I expect you know that. I expect you mean to bring it up at the inquest. I don’t care if you do.” She was on her feet now, speaking with a kind of controlled intensity of anger. “I expect the porter told you. He would, the spying, snooping swine. I don’t care. I’m not ashamed. It’s all right.”

  “Was he ceasing to be your friend?”

  “No, he wasn’t. That’s a lie. Mrs Findlay told you that, did she? She would. I know what you think. There were other women. There weren’t. Not to count. It was only me. He never wanted to marry her. He had to. He told me so. Oh, she’s a wicked woman, wicked.”

  “If she wanted so much to marry him, why should she kill him?” Bobby asked.

  “She’s wicked,” Mrs Tinsley repeated, more calmly now. “She says so herself. She says she wants to be. She says she wants to know, to find out. That’s why.”

  Bobby let this pass without comment. He said instead:

  “I was hoping you would change your mind about letting us know why you went to see Mr Findlay that morning. It does mean you were probably the last person . . .”

  “Yes, I know,” she interrupted him. “So you think that proves I killed him, don’t you?”

  “I haven’t said so,” Bobby answered quietly. “There’s no real evidence as yet, no substantial grounds for suspecting any one more than any one else. What I was going to say was to ask if you were willing to tell us why you went to Abels End yesterday and at least once before.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she exclaimed angrily and hastily. “I never was, never.”

  Bobby produced the snapshot taken by the Abels End policeman’s son.

  “I think this is you,” he said, showing it. “It was taken there yesterday.”

  “Well, suppose it was?” she asked sullenly. “What’s it got to do with you? I haven’t got to ask your permission when I go anywhere, have I? Did you put that boy up to it? He said he was trying to work up a business. He offered to let me have copies.” She was staring at him again, flushed and angry, and now afraid as well. “You’ve no right,” she said. “He was doing it for you, was he? A dirty trick.”

  “Was it?” Bobby asked. “I am afraid we find it convenient to be able at times to check what people tell us. Do you care to say why you went there?”

  “It’s Sibby Findlay,” she answered slowly. “There’s something between her and Charley Acton. I think perhaps he knows it was her and she thinks he may tell.”

  “What makes you say that?” Bobby asked.

  “It’s what I think,” she answered. “There’s something. They’ve always hated each other. But then she hates every one nearly. There’s a story going about that she means to marry him.”

  “Because she hates him?”

  “Well, why not? Sometimes you can’t bear being away from any one you really hate. It’s all the same.”

  “Does Acton hate her?” Bobby asked.

  “He’s afraid of her,” Mrs Tinsley answered. “She makes him run after her like a little dog.”

  “Count Ariosto, too,” Bobby observed.

  “Oh, him,” Mrs Tinsley answered contemptuously. “He’s only some one she likes to bully.”

  “Acton is married already,” Bobby reminded her. “So how can she expect to marry him?”

  “There are ways,” she answered moodily.

  CHAPTER XXII

  “I DREAM OF GUINEA PIGS”

  INSPECTOR SIMONS LOST no time after they had left the flat in expressing to Bobby his opinion of what they had just heard. They were still going down in the lift in fact when he declared with some emphasis:

  “Crazy, plumb crazy. The whole outfit. In a way,” he added, more slowly. “There’s method. I ask you—wants to marry him because she hates him.”

  “Well, it’s a reason,” Bobby remarked. “Better than marrying for no reason at all like some people. It’s been said they aren’t so very different—hate and love.”

  “Wants to know what it’s like to be wicked,” Simons went on, ignoring this last remark, which he thought merely silly. “Well, if it was her did him in, that’s wicked all right. So she knows already.”

  “If,” Bobby reminded him. They were walking away from the flats now, both of them as bothered and worried as any one could wish. “A lot in an ‘if’. I don’t believe she either hates or loves—not at present. Too much occupied with her soul.”

  “With her what?” demanded Simons, open-mouthed.

  “I’m not sure I shouldn’t describe her as a ‘malade imaginaire’ of the soul—a sort of spiritual hypochondriac, and of course any doctor would tell you that if you think you’re ill when you aren’t, then you are very ill indeed. It may be something like that with her.”

  “Well, where’s all that going to take us?” grumbled Simons.

  “I’ve no idea,” Bobby admitted. “Not the least. Except to the fact that we’re up against it pretty badly. I dream of guinea pigs.”

  Simons gave him a quick glance, inclined to think for the moment that perhaps Bobby was trying to be funny—unless of course he had been indulging in too many early morning cocktails.

  “Guinea pigs?” he repeated doubtfully.

  “Oh, sorry,” Bobby said. “I’m really rather worried. Mrs. Findlay is a bit of a problem. But I’m not sure she would count murder as quite what she means by wickedness. I’ve heard her call crime merely vulgar.”

  “Isn’t it wicked, too?” demanded Simons
.

  Bobby agreed. Simons said he thought he ought to be getting into touch with some of his men. There weren’t enough of them, he complained, to follow up so many different lines of inquiry. He departed therefore, and Bobby strolled on slowly, his mind full of many thoughts, till presently he reached New Dagonby House. There, when he knocked, Mrs Jacks came to the door. Before he could speak, she told him Lord Newdagonby was out.

  “Well, it’s really you I’ve come to see,” he explained. “Do you think you could spare me five minutes?”

  “Is it about what’s happened?” she asked mistrustfully. “I’ve told you everything I can—all those questions and questions over and over again.”

  “Are you sure you’ve told us all?” Bobby asked in return. “You know the inquest has been adjourned? The coroner’s officer has seen you, hasn’t he? When it’s held, you may be asked still more questions. It might be a good idea if you made a preliminary statement to me if you care to do so. I was making some inquiries yesterday on the Dagonby estate in Monmouthshire. There was an inquest held there once. A long time ago. But I do not think you are likely to have forgotten.”

  She was very pale now, and her breath was coming in quick, uneasy gulps. She put out her hand to the wall as if for support. Without speaking, she turned and began to walk away. He followed her. She opened the door of a small plainly furnished room and went in. She sat down, a little as if she could no longer stand. She said:

  “How do you know? Who told you?” When Bobby did not answer, she went on: “It was my girl. He murdered her, and it’s only right he’s been murdered too. I wanted to, but I never dared. I was afraid. I got some poison once, but I threw it away. I was afraid,” she repeated. With a sudden outburst of passion she exclaimed: “He murdered my girl, even if he didn’t push her in that night. He swore he didn’t, but what’s that worth? It was him made her do it, and now God has made it come to him.”