“There are holes in the party wall upstairs,” Bobby remarked.
“You’ve found them?” she asked. “I used to watch. Sometimes I thought I would wait till he was asleep, but I knew I wouldn’t ever dare. I got to know things.”
“What things? What for?” Bobby asked.
“That Mrs Tinsley,” she said vaguely. “I thought some day I might get hold of something I could use.”
“Did you?”
“What was the good? Every one knew. She knew all right—his wife, I mean. She took no notice if you hinted. She only stared at you and waited—and then you went away. You never know with her, only she makes you afraid.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. She does, that’s all. I thought at first she had done it, but I don’t now.”
“Do you still say you heard typing after the time the doctor says the attack took place?”
“It’s why I don’t think it was her,” Mrs Jacks answered. “She’s not used to it. She’s slow. And this was some one doing it quick, the way Miss Grange does, without ever stopping.”
“You are sure you didn’t see or hear anything else that could help?”
She shook her head and repeated that she had told everything she could. Over and over again, she added. So it was no use asking her any more. But Bobby was not convinced. He felt it was very possible she might be keeping something back. She herself was by no means cleared of suspicion, and Bobby was much inclined to think she would be more willing to help rather than to accuse any one she believed guilty. Almost certainly she would do anything she could to assist whoever it was had killed a man she admitted she herself had wished to kill.
“You said you have seen Mrs Tinsley—” he began, but she interrupted quickly.
“It wasn’t her,” she said. “I heard him call after her as she was going.”
“Your evidence seems to clear every one else,” Bobby said with a slight emphasis on the last three words.
She evidently noticed it, but she said nothing for a moment or two, and when she looked up at him she had suddenly the air of one who was tired to the extreme of exhaustion.
“I didn’t do it,” she said slowly, “but I don’t care if you think I did and get me hanged for it. I wanted to all right, but I didn’t, and I don’t know who did. That little Italian perhaps. It was a knife it was done with.”
“He isn’t an Italian, you know,” Bobby remarked. “British by birth apparently. And it isn’t only Italians use knives. Besides, why should he?”
“It might be her made him,” Mrs Jacks suggested. “She can make people do what she says. She’s like that. She tells you and stares and waits for you to do it. And you do.”
“Not murder, surely?” Bobby said. He went on: “I expect we shall have to see you again. I’m rather hoping you may be able to remember more next time. Things come back to you, don’t they? You were in Mr Findlay’s room that morning, you told us. Tidying and putting things straight. There were guinea pigs in two cages, you remember. Was that usual? I mean, did Mr Findlay often use living animals in his work for experimenting on?”
“I don’t remember he ever did before. Why?”
“Did you notice anything about those guinea pigs that morning?”
“Two were dead. I noticed because two in one cage were quite lively and running about, and the other two in the other cage were so quiet, I looked. I thought at first they were asleep, but they weren’t, they were dead. He must have been doing experiments on them.”
“What became of them?”
“Do you mean the guinea pigs?”
“Yes, the dead ones, their bodies. The cage was empty when I saw it. There was fresh food and water though. Did you take them away?”
“No, I never touched his things, only what was in the waste-paper basket, and that wasn’t much. He had a sort of electric stove he used to burn things in. He didn’t like anybody to see anything of his.”
“I looked in the electric furnace,” Bobby said. “I don’t think it had been used that morning. If it had, it had been most carefully cleaned. Some one must have taken the guinea-pig bodies away.”
Mrs Jacks shook her head and repeated that she knew nothing about that, nothing. If the bodies of the animals had been taken away, she had no idea by whom or why, and she plainly didn’t think that it mattered in the least.
“I think that’s all I can ask you at present,” Bobby said. “Oh, yes, there’s one thing. A question I’m asking every one. You know fresh ’phone calls have been made, threatening Mrs Findlay again? Have they come from you?”
“From me?” she repeated. “How could they? Of course not. I was here almost always at the time. More like it was her. You never know what she’s thinking when she looks at you with that hidden stare of hers, asking and asking.”
“Hard to tell what any one is thinking, hidden stare or smiling face,” Bobby remarked.
“You mean Miss Grange? She’s got a smiling face, but it couldn’t be her very well, could it? Not unless—”
“Unless—?”
“Nothing. Unless it was, that’s all.”
“You know she thought she had been insulted by him?”
“She slapped his face for him,” Mrs Jacks said. “Hard, too. She meant it. She was in a tear. If there had been a knife handy she might have used it then, and I wouldn’t have blamed her. But she didn’t go near him that morning. She said she would never have anything to do with him again or speak to him or anything, and she meant it, every word of it.”
But Bobby remembered that it had never yet been explained how it was that Kitty Grange had known the exact price offered for her fur coat she wished to sell. It was a point he had left untouched at the time, but now it would be as well, he decided, to question her about it.
He asked if Lord Newdagonby had said when he would be back, and Mrs Jacks said she expected him for lunch. So Bobby said he would wait, but had no need to, for as Mrs Jacks opened the door of the room where they had been talking, the front door of the house opened too, and they heard Lord Newdagonby speaking to a companion.
“There’s his lordship,” Mrs Jacks said. “I’ll tell him you’re here.” She went away, and in a few moments came back. “He’s in his room,” she said, and added: “Mrs Findlay’s with him.”
CHAPTER XXIII
“PEOPLE WILL BE AMUSED”
“MR OWEN,” ANNOUNCED Mrs Jacks and closed the door behind him.
Lord Newdagonby, thin and upright, was seated in his usual chair, between the fire and his writing-table. Mrs Findlay was wandering round the room, apparently giving all her attention to those remarkable examples of modern, or advanced, or abstract, or what you will, art with which the walls were adorned. She bestowed on Bobby her usual coldly questioning stare, and then, as if to imply that she found him and his errand equally devoid of interest, resumed her inspection of the paintings, one or two of which seemed to be new additions. Bobby found a wild desire rising in his mind to put her across his knee and apply a slipper where it was likely to do the most good. He rebuked himself sternly for indulging in such Utopian and unofficial thoughts. Lord Newdagonby said severely: “I do hope you have at last some progress to report. It is high time. All this notoriety is most unpleasant, most unwelcome. I feel Mrs Findlay and myself have reason to complain.”
“Just possibly,” Bobby remarked, “your son-in-law also felt he had some reason to complain as he lay dying upstairs.”
Lord Newdagonby scowled. He had a peculiarly vicious scowl. He felt this remark to be in the worst possible taste. Mrs Findlay paused in her interested inspection of the very latest new art on the walls and turned to bestow on Bobby another of those cold, questioning stares of hers.
“Have you anything to tell us?” she demanded.
“I was rather hoping,” Bobby explained, “you might have something to tell me.” He spoke to Lord Newdagonby: “Can you inform me of any purpose for which Mr Findlay would be likely to require guinea pigs?”
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“Guinea pigs?” repeated Lord Newdagonby. “What guinea pigs? What do you mean?”
“There were two in a cage in his room,” Bobby said. “Perhaps you did not notice? I think they are still there. Mrs Jacks was asked to look after them for the time. Apparently there had been two others, but they had died and the bodies removed. I don’t know by whom or why.”
“Did you expect them to be carefully preserved?” inquired Lord Newdagonby. “Every fool”—he quite plainly included Bobby in this category—“knows guinea pigs are used for experimental purposes. May I suggest that you should turn your attention to more serious matters?”
“Death is a serious matter,” Bobby answered quietly, “and death visited that room twice. Once it came to a man, once to two guinea pigs. Do you think there might possibly be a connection?”
“Nonsense—a purely frivolous suggestion,” snapped the other, but Mrs Findlay had now lost all interest in the new art.
She came across the room and sat down near her father, facing Bobby.
“You say there were two dead guinea pigs up there?” she asked. “How do you know if you didn’t see them? You say they had been removed?”
“It seems a reasonable deduction from the evidence,” Bobby answered. “You were in Mr Findlay’s room that morning, I think.”
“You’ve said so, I haven’t,” she interrupted him.
“So I was wondering if you could tell me anything about them,” he went on, taking no notice of this.
“Really,” protested Lord Newdagonby, “this all seems entirely beside the point. Frivolous in the extreme, a waste of time.”
“Oh, I assure you,” Bobby said. “I do indeed. I can’t help asking myself what killed them and why the bodies of the poor little beasts have disappeared. It does rather look as if some one wanted to get rid of them.”
“The first thing surely any one would want,” Lord Newdagonby interposed.
His daughter turned to look at him, and when she spoke her tone was less cold, less aloof, more human in a way than Bobby had ever heard it before. Indeed, he almost thought there was a touch of amused affection in it as she said:
“Dad, aren’t you being rather obtuse?”
“Obtuse? Me?” repeated Lord Newdagonby in a very surprised tone indeed, and he blinked as if not sure he could possibly have heard correctly.
“Definitely,” Mrs Findlay said, and to Bobby, she said:
“Well, go on.”
“Unfortunately,” he answered, “that’s just what I can’t at present. For the moment it’s full stop. I was hoping you might be able to help.”
“Why?”
“I imagine there must be things you know,” he answered. “Things that for one reason or another I have not yet heard about. And I take it you are anxious to know who murdered your husband?”
“Oh, but I know already,” Mrs Findlay answered in her most casual tone.
“Eh? what?” exclaimed Lord Newdagonby, sitting even more upright than before. “Don’t fool, Sibby. This is serious.”
“I never fool,” she answered, and Bobby felt that that at least was true.
“Will you explain who you mean?” he asked. “And your reasons?”
“Certainly not,” she answered. “I’ve no proof, I might be wrong. Shall we say a woman’s intuition?”
She was mocking him now, that was evident.
“A woman’s intuition is often most valuable,” he remarked. “But I admit facts are more useful in court. I learned some yesterday, for instance, when I went to interview relatives of your husband’s—the cousins who took over the family farm when old Mr Findlay died.”
“That appears to me to have been most unnecessary,” Lord Newdagonby said with more heat than he had hitherto shown.
“I suppose you mean you’ve raked up that old story about Mrs Jacks’s daughter committing suicide?” commented Mrs Findlay.
“Exactly,” Bobby agreed. “Your intuition again?” he asked, and now there was a touch of mockery in his own voice. He went on: “Anyhow you knew about it?”
“Of course. My husband told me. Mrs Jacks hadn’t even changed her name. He recognized her at once.”
“Did she know?”
“Know we knew?” Mrs Findlay made a faintly contemptuous gesture. “It was never mentioned, if that’s what you mean, neither by her nor by us. After all, it was an old story, over and done with.”
“There are so few things that are ever over and done with,” Bobby told her.
“If the object of this mud raking of yours,” Lord Newdagonby said, still with considerable heat, but also with a slightly relieved air, “is to suggest that Mrs Jacks is guilty, I must say I consider the idea absurd. Mrs Jacks is not at all that sort of person. I should advise you to turn your attention to Mr Lake, the young man who appears to own an extremely expensive restaurant.”
“We’re not forgetting him,” Bobby answered. “I heard other things in the course of what you describe as mud raking—and I agree it would be much nicer if there were no mud to rake in. A pity there so often is and that mud so often hides well, what mud may be useful to hide. I was told of an old scandal. It seems there was a general belief that old Mr Findlay was not the father of the first child—a boy—born almost immediately after his marriage with a girl who had formerly been in your lordship’s service.”
There was a sudden silence, broken by a high, abrupt laugh from Mrs Findlay.
“Well, now, dad,” she asked, “what have you to say to that?”
“Please ring for Mrs Jacks to show this person out,” said Lord Newdagonby, whose voice, however, was less calm than he could have wished. “I do not propose to take any notice of his impertinence.”
“Not impertinent, I think, in one sense of the word at least,” Bobby told him. “It may turn out to be very pertinent indeed.” He got to his feet. “I am perfectly willing to withdraw if you wish it,” he said, and though he did not know it, his voice had taken on a grim and menacing note as he continued: “I suggest, though, that it would be wiser to discuss this in private. Rather than in court at the inquest. You will certainly be questioned about it, you know.”
The door opened and Mrs Jacks appeared. It did not seem she had been far away, and she looked very anxiously from one to the other. Mrs Findlay said hastily:
“It’s all right, Mrs Jacks. Don’t trouble.”
Mrs Jacks stood for a moment in the doorway, silent and very still; and for the moment, so strangely she looked, she might have seemed one of the dreadful sisters, exultant that their long pursuit was at last drawing to its destined end. Then in the quietest, most ordinary of tones, she said:
“Very good, madam.”
The door closed, and again there was silence; for that moment, so still, so quiet, had made its impact on all three of them. Lord Newdagonby spoke first. He said in an angry, injured tone:
“Nothing to do with us. What’s the matter with the woman?”
“She hates us for it all the same,” Mrs Findlay said. “Because you helped him and I married him.”
“Absurd,” pronounced Lord Newdagonby. “Mere unreasoning emotion.” He turned to Bobby, and his voice was still very hurt and indignant. He said: “I do think common decency should have suggested to you that this was not a suitable subject to discuss before my daughter, before any woman. Common decency,” he repeated. “Of course I knew of the stupid, scandalous, utterly unfounded gossip you’ve managed to get hold of. I contemplated taking legal proceedings. I was advised not to. Undignified. Likely to cause more talk. I was told it would soon die out and be forgotten. I accepted the advice. I deeply resent this old, foolish, long-discredited tale being raked up. Especially in my daughter’s presence. I shall take steps to make my resentment felt.”
“Oh, come off it, dad,” said Mrs Findlay.
Lord Newdagonby, quite taken aback, gasped and stared. Bobby said:
“I think Mrs Findlay means she knew all about it and always has.”
“It was plain enough,” Mrs Findlay said. “Ivor wasn’t getting all that done for him simply because he was a nice, promising boy. Not likely. I wondered why. It didn’t take me long to find out. Nobody wanted to say it outright, but they looked down their noses, and now and then I got hints. It wasn’t difficult to put two and two together.”
“Did you never wonder,” Bobby asked a very disconcerted-looking Lord Newdagonby, “why your daughter wanted this marriage so much?”
“It was her own choice,” Lord Newdagonby muttered.
“Not his, do you mean?” Bobby asked. “Did it never strike you that Mrs Findlay was also showing a rather unusual amount of interest in Lord Byron?”
“What on earth has Byron to do with it?” demanded Lord Newdagonby, his bewilderment now utter and complete.
“The bad Lord Byron,” said Bobby. “There was a film with that title. I haven’t seen it. I wonder if it shows Manfred magnificently meditating on a mountain-top, posturing in defiance of God and man—both rather uninterested, I imagine. I wonder if Mrs Findlay ever saw herself like that in her search to go beyond both good and evil.”
“Trying to be funny, are you?” snarled Mrs Findlay. “Or just to be rude?”
“What on earth—” repeated Lord Newdagonby, but his bewilderment was too complete to allow him to get any farther.
“Anyhow, if I wanted to marry Ivor, I wouldn’t want to murder him, too, would I?” Mrs Findlay asked. “If that’s what you’re trying to hint.”
“Yes, but—Byron,” interposed Lord Newdagonby. “Why Byron?”
“If you remember,” Bobby said, “there was a good deal of talk about him and a half-sister of his. I suggest Mrs Findlay imagined she was marrying her half-brother and was going to emulate Manfred on his mountain-top and even perhaps be known in the future—in a film—as ‘The Bad Mrs Findlay’.” He paused and permitted himself a chuckle. “The point is,” he explained, “that the possible half-brother died when a baby, and no one has ever suggested that Ivor Findlay wasn’t his father’s son and therefore no blood relation to the Dagonby family. I’m afraid Mrs Findlay got it all mixed up—two and two making not four, but sixes and sevens. It all sounds rather silly, doesn’t it? But then you know it’s difficult to be bad without being silly as well,” he paused again and looked at Mrs Findlay, and he spoke rather viciously, for he felt she deserved what she was going to get and more: “I don’t know if all this will come out at the inquest, but if it does—well, people will be amused.”
Everybody Always Tells: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 17
