The Conqueror Inn: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Got, I suppose,” Bobby told himself gloomily, “to look out for someone with a black eye. What a hope!”

  The third report dealt with the wooden box and its contents. A preliminary examination of the bank-notes had been without result. They were all notes that had been in circulation and there were no consecutive numbers. No possibility of tracing them, though they would each be examined again and separately, on the chance of some useful discovery being made. The rough wood the box was made of had taken no impressions but there were minute traces both of coal dust and of fish scales. Though caused before or after it had been used for packing bank-notes, there was nothing to show. The interior of the box had produced only such non-committal dust as could and might be accumulated in any place at any time.

  Nothing, it seemed, in these reports to narrow the field of inquiry or to provide a starting point.

  Routine inquiries were naturally already in progress. A man was dead and therefore somewhere someone must be missing from his circle of acquaintances and work. In some public house a regular customer might be missed, or a landlady might be wondering what had become of her lodger, or a tradesman be noticing with surprise that one registered customer was drawing no rations. Every constable in the district was already on the look-out for some such hint and soon every police force in the country would be asked to report at once any unexplained disappearance they might hear of.

  “We shall get something soon, sir,” Sergeant Payne declared with confidence. “Young fellows don’t vanish without somebody knowing. Well nourished, too. Must have fed somewhere. Ten to one there’s a girl asking herself why her best boy hasn’t turned up lately. The clothes, too. We may find them stuffed down a drain or something.”

  “They may have been burnt,” Bobby said. “Make a note for all men to be asked if they’ve noticed or heard of any smell of burning cloth or anything like that. Clutching at straws, I suppose. Our job’s like that. Blundering about in the dark till at last you stumble on something. Or else you don’t. Or else you don’t realize it counts till it’s too late.”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Sergeant Payne, “only all the same no one can just drop out without someone knowing.”

  But Bobby was not sure. He remembered the Rouse case. A dead man there of whom nothing was ever known or will be either, who he was or whence he came.

  “I think,” he told Payne, “I’ll drive over to Ingleside camp and try to get a talk with this Captain Wintle. He seems to have been the only recent visitor to the Conqueror Inn. I would like to know if there’s any reason for his visits. He may have seen or noticed something. I don’t know how I am going to spare the time but I’ll have to manage it somehow.”

  “Why not ask him to call here?” suggested Payne, not altogether unaware that his superior officer’s absence would most likely mean a good deal of extra work for Sergeant Payne and no chance of getting home in time to take his wife to see that picture she had been talking about.

  “Army captains in war,” Bobby pointed out, “are important people. As likely as not he wouldn’t come, couldn’t spare the time. On duty or something like that.”

  Payne looked slightly shocked. To his mind an inspector of the county police, more especially an inspector who was also head of a C.I.D. that but for the war would by now have been a model for Scotland Yard itself instead of being, as it was, in a state of sketchy and suspended animation, more especially still an inspector marked out to be a chief constable some day, was much more important than a mere captain of infantry.

  After all, he reflected, an army captain is small fry to a major, hardly exists in the sight of a colonel, is not even perceptible to a general, whereas a chief constable has no superior save God and the King. And some chief constables are not even very clear about that.

  In peace time Bobby would have taken a companion. No telling on such an errand when help or a witness may not be required. Not, of course, that this was to be a formal interrogation. Merely a kind of friendly, informal inquiry. But police work has been doubled, and police staff halved, since the beginning of the war, and Bobby had to go alone.

  It was growing late when he reached Ingleside camp, and there was more delay while he explained his errand and while efforts were being made to find Captain Wintle, who was in the camp somewhere though no one seemed to know exactly where. However, presently he was discovered, and into the mess ante-room where Bobby was waiting came a broad set, good-looking youngster, young for his rank in an army in which opportunities for promotion had not been numerous, with a scar on his left cheek that was a reminiscence of Dunkirk, a broad forehead, a thrusting nose, and bright, quick, blue eyes, one of which, Bobby noticed with interest, was in that stage of returning to the normal a badly bruised eye might be expected to show after an interval of some forty-eight hours.

  CHAPTER VII

  EVERYTHING HAS A MEANING

  CHEERFULLY WINTLE APOLOGIZED for having kept Bobby waiting so long.

  “I was with the CO.,” he explained. “Police, aren’t you? None of our men been getting into trouble, I hope?”

  “Oh, no, no, nothing like that,” Bobby answered and paused, looking pointedly at that eye now recovering from a bruise which might well be of rather more than forty-eight hours’ standing.

  “Well, what is it, then?” Wintle asked sharply, as if aware of and not much approving the direction of Bobby’s gaze. He added: “Result of a collision with a doorpost in the blackout the other night.”

  “Oh, yes,” Bobby said, wondering if it were not an uneasy conscience that had produced so prompt an explanation there had been no obligation to offer. “Oh, yes,” he repeated and added smilingly: “I was thinking perhaps there had been some sort of scrap going on here—or even perhaps a mutiny in the camp.”

  Captain Wintle gave Bobby an extremely unfriendly glare, the one Bobby suspected he kept in store for the slackers of his company.

  “Did you?” he snapped, making it sound as if he thought it like Bobby’s cheek to think anything at all, and a pity he couldn’t be given three days’ ‘C.B.’ on the spot. “Well, what is it you want?”

  “I think you know the Conqueror Inn,” Bobby said; and when Wintle only stared again, but this time with evident surprise, Bobby added: “You have stayed there two or three times, I believe?”

  “Suppose I have?” Wintle retorted, and now his eyes had grown alert and wary. “What about it?”

  “Well, you see,” Bobby explained, “we are anxious to get all the information we can. A murder has been committed near by.”

  “A murder?” Wintle repeated, and now he had become suddenly very pale. “Good God, man, what do you mean?” And when Bobby did not answer instantly. “Who?” he almost shouted. “Who?”

  “We don’t know,” Bobby answered.

  “What do you mean? Don’t play the fool with me,” Wintle said angrily. “Murder? What murder?”

  “A murder,” Bobby repeated, “but that is all we know at present. The body of a young man shot through the heart has been found only a mile or two from the Conqueror Inn.”

  Wintle sat down abruptly. So far he had neither seated himself nor offered a seat to Bobby. He was evidently greatly disturbed, greatly shaken, and yet, Bobby thought, oddly relieved as well. It was almost as though at first he had feared something worse than merely murder, though what that worse could be, Bobby found it difficult to imagine. Looking up at the still standing Bobby, he muttered:

  “A young man? Are you sure? Who is it?”

  “That is what we are trying to find out,” Bobby said.

  “What is he like?”

  “Impossible to say,” Bobby explained. “The features have been deliberately mutilated so as to make recognition impossible.”

  Wintle made no comment on this. He got to his feet again and went to the window and stood looking out, his back to Bobby. Bobby wondered if this was to keep hidden any emotion his features might show. Presently he turned and came back to where Bobby was standing waiti
ng by the fireplace. He said:

  “Well, there’s nothing I can tell you. I know nothing about it.”

  “Oh, well, you see,” Bobby explained, “it often happens that people who think they know nothing at all, can in fact give very useful information. It seems that what was almost certainly the murderer’s shot was heard at the Conqueror Inn by Miss Rachel Christopherson.”

  Wintle went away to look out of the window again. When he came back he said:

  “It’s a most extraordinary story. Miss Christopherson? Yes, of course.” He stared hard once more at Bobby, a little as if conveying some mute challenge or defiance. “She heard the shot?”

  “So it seems. She told her father. He went to have a look round. He noticed recent digging. He told us. We found the body of a young man. He had been shot. His features had been destroyed. All clothing had been removed.”

  “A queer business,” Wintle said, frowningly. “You mean there is nothing to show who he was?”

  “Nothing,” Bobby said. “The bullet had apparently been fired from a point four five service revolver.”

  He paused. Wintle seemed about to say something but then changed his mind, and remained silent. Bobby continued:

  “There’s something else that seems curious. The medical report says that the body shows recent bruises. They suggest that the dead man had been recently mixed up in some—” Bobby paused and deliberately used the word ‘scrap’ he had employed before. “In some scrap,” he said. “In fact, that he had had a good thrashing about forty-eight hours ago.”

  Wintle said nothing. His features had become wooden, expressionless. But his eyes were attentive. One had the impression that so he always looked when danger threatened, that so perhaps he had looked on the beaches at Dunkirk. What danger threatened now, Bobby wondered. He waited, hoping that Wintle would speak. But the young soldier remained silent. Apparently he understood that speech offers openings that silence denies. But that is a reflection likely to occur only to those who have reason to fear where an opening may lead. A thing to remember, Bobby told himself. He said:

  “A coincidence.” When Wintle was still silent, Bobby added: “I mean, that the dead man should have been injured in some sort of—scrap—about the same time I should judge that you had your collision with the gate post—was it? You agree?”

  “I agree,” Wintle answered steadily, “that I see what you are attempting to imply. I suggest that if you want to make any direct accusation, you know, I suppose, how to go about it. In the meantime I can only tell you that I know absolutely nothing about the dead man, neither his name, nor where he came from, nor who murdered him. What connection is there between the fact that he had a thrashing—if he had one—a day or two before his death with his being shot later on?”

  “I don’t know,” Bobby answered. “Evidently there may be such a connection. Captain Wintle, I am afraid I must now go so far as to warn you that while you are not obliged to answer any questions, and while you are entitled to legal assistance if you wish, yet refusal to answer questions is likely to give rise to certain conclusions and to certain suspicions it would be very easy to avoid.”

  “Is this,” demanded Wintle, “the classic warning before making an arrest?”

  “No,” Bobby answered at once. “There’s nothing to make me even think of such a thing. But I do not think you are being entirely frank. For an officer holding the King’s commission not to be entirely frank when asked for help by an officer of police, seems to me very unfortunate. You will allow me to remind you that such an attitude may have grave results?”

  “I don’t think the reminder is necessary,” Wintle answered quietly. “I have told you already, I know nothing about it. So there is nothing I can say that could help you in the slightest.”

  “Apart from knowing, is there anything you suspect or guess or believe—or even imagine?”

  Wintle looked slightly disconcerted.

  “You know all the questions, don’t you?” he muttered. He hesitated a moment and then said: “If I did, I should think a long time before saying things very likely all wrong, quite unfounded, likely to upset and distress other people for no reason.”

  “I won’t press you any further at present,” Bobby said, “but I hope you will think it over and possibly change your mind.”

  “There’s one thing I will tell you,” Wintle said. “You would most likely hear it anyhow. Christopherson lost a son at Dunkirk. He was in my platoon. I was platoon officer. He saved my life during the retreat. I was in a bad fix. Young Christopherson helped me out—at the risk of his own life. At the cost of it for that matter. He was hit by a bomb a Jerry plane dropped where he was standing after helping me and then there was no trace of him. Or his lorry or the men with him. That’s why I went there—to the Conqueror Inn, I mean. To tell them about their boy. Of course, they knew, but it seems to help people if they can talk a bit and ask questions. More personal than just merely an official notice. And, of course, if it hadn’t been for their boy, I shouldn’t be here to-day.”

  “Thank you,” Bobby said. “It may be a help knowing that.”

  Wintle, who had spoken with some emotion, at that gave Bobby a hard look, much as if saying that if he had thought it would help, he would not have told it. He went on:

  “I have been back there several times. It helps. They haven’t much custom now. It’s quiet, too. A change. One gets sick of the sort of community life you lead in a camp. A change,” he repeated. “But I don’t suppose you can realize what the quiet of the high moors means after hours of shouting and being shouted at on the parade ground.”

  Bobby was inclined to deduce from this offer of a multiplicity of reasons that there was another one—the real one—which Captain Wintle did not wish to tell. He got to his feet.

  “I won’t keep you any longer,” he said. “In a case of murder one has often to ask many questions that must seem impertinent—in both senses of the word. I can only hope that if on reflection you feel inclined to say anything more you will let me know and I think I ought to say that most likely I shall find it necessary to come to see you again.”

  “I have told you all I know,” Wintle said briefly. “Wait here a moment.” He left the room and came back, bringing with him his service revolver. “Better test it,” he said, “and make sure the bullet wasn’t fired from it. As a matter of fact it hasn’t been fired for some weeks.”

  “Thank you,” Bobby said, taking the weapon. “I will have it examined and returned to you at once. Of course, I am quite sure it isn’t the one the bullet came from. If it had been, you wouldn’t have given it me.” He added: “We may think it necessary to ask for permission to examine all service revolvers in the camp.”

  “Good Lord, there are dozens of them, hundreds,” Wintle exclaimed.

  “That would make no difference,” Bobby explained. “We have gone to a good deal more trouble than that at times.”

  “Thorough, aren’t you?” Wintle muttered.

  “It’s the only way,” Bobby said. “In everything. Wasn’t there someone once who took ‘Thorough’ for his motto? It has to be the police motto anyhow. And I do hope, if there is anything at all that occurs to you, anything you remember in thinking it over, even the merely trifle, you will let us know. The tiniest detail may be a pointer in the right direction. A casual remark that didn’t seem to mean much at the time. Or for that matter, even a silence.”

  “You mean,” Wintle said slowly, “that everything has a meaning?”

  “You could not,” Bobby told him, “put it more clearly.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  DEEP WATERS

  LATE AS IT had now become, Bobby drove from Ingleside Camp not home, but to the company headquarters of the Home Guard acting in the Conqueror Inn district.

  There the cautious inquiries that he made confirmed him in the belief that no great effort had been made by Mr. Christopherson to retain the patronage of the Home Guard night patrols.

  “They’re
a good bit too independent there,” declared the Home Guard lieutenant to whom Bobby was talking. “Why, the landlord—Christopherson’s his name—wouldn’t take a delivery from one brewery because it wasn’t the special stuff he wanted. You can’t pick and choose like that in war time, you know. Consequence was, he got none at all. In the end we made up our minds to use the Black Bull instead. Much more obliging there. No one wants to go back to the Conqueror Inn, though it’s much handier for some of our chaps. Lies higher, too. Good observation.”

  “You still keep an eye on the road there, though?”

  “Oh, yes, rather. Just the place for air-borne troops. Or spies. Drop a spy there and he could be in Midwych in a few hours. We are by there every night—rather late at night now.”

  “Have you ever had any report of any unusual incident?” Bobby asked, and explained why he put the question.

  The Home Guard lieutenant was very interested. Never before in his life had he been in such close contact with anything so startling and so sensational as a murder. He referred to reports. He rang up one of his platoon sergeants. All he could find to vary a monotonous succession of ‘Nothing to report’ was that once nearly a month previously a light had been noticed at the Conqueror Inn. Two men had had to be sent in a motor cycle and sidecar. The light, shining from an attic window, had been visible for miles, and Mr. Christopherson had been lucky to escape with a severe warning.

  The explanation he offered was that he had fallen asleep while reading in bed and that a gust of wind, which had risen during the night, had blown down a black-out curtain too heavy for the bamboo pole supporting it. The two Home Guards had been invited to verify this for themselves. They had done so; and as it was certainly true that the force of the wind had increased suddenly and violently about midnight, it had been decided in the end not to issue a summons.