The Conqueror Inn: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Partly,” explained the Home Guard lieutenant, “because he lost a son at Dunkirk. Promising lad. Musician or something. Played the violin. Had a job with the Midwych Philharmonic. Everyone knew how proud the old man and the family, too, were of the boy, and there was a lot of sympathy when he was reported killed. Personally,” added the lieutenant thoughtfully, “I never cared much for the violin. Give me a good accordion and you can keep your scratchy stuff.”

  Bobby uttered a few platitudes about war being like that. It was always the best and most talented who went the first. To himself, he was thinking that this story presented some curious and possibly even significant facts. Two details at least, he decided, it would be well to keep in mind, even though, as was very probable, they turned out to be entirely irrelevant and unimportant.

  “But all that happened a month ago,” the lieutenant pointed out, “and there’s not been a shadow of a complaint since. So there can’t be any connection with a murder this week.”

  Bobby, preferring agreement to argument, said he supposed not, and asked what traffic there was on the road by the inn. The lieutenant said there was very little, though more lately. Congestion on the main road, the more direct route, had induced some drivers to make use of this secondary road. If that grew more common, something would have to be done about maintenance which had been neglected of late. Only in exceptional circumstances would a lorry be challenged. Pedestrians, at night after dark, would very likely be asked to show their identity cards. Patrols were apt to be zealous in the discharge of their duties, zeal being often a product, said the lieutenant, of monotony and boredom.

  Bobby thought this was very true, and, encouraged, the lieutenant declared that the most boring job imaginable was to mooch along a deserted country road in the dark. Rarest thing in the world to meet anyone. It had happened though, he remembered now, last Saturday night. The patrol corporal had mentioned an encounter with a young woman near the Conqueror Inn. But as her identity card had been in order and she had given an address near the village on the main road, there had seemed no reason to question her further. Her name was recorded as Emma Jones. The address was Wayside Bungalows, known to some of the patrol as a cluster of bungalows recently erected and now occupied almost entirely by Midwych evacuees. The young woman had been out on an egg-hunting expedition round the neighbouring farms and cottages, and had succeeded in obtaining two she displayed with some pride.

  Bobby surprised the lieutenant by showing some interest in this incident. The report did not include any description of the young woman’s personal appearance, but the lieutenant thought the corporal in charge of the patrol might remember something about her, if the inspector thought it worth while to go round to see him. Bobby said he supposed he might as well. ‘One never knew,’ he said vaguely, and so the lieutenant gave him the corporal’s address and Bobby expressed his thanks and departed.

  Bobby was fortunate in finding the corporal at home, but the description he received was extremely vague and would have fitted a very large proportion of young women. For one thing it had been dark; and the patrol, though zealous, wished also to be polite, and had not cared to shine a torch in the girl’s face so as to see her more clearly. On the small side, the corporal thought, and spoke with a pronounced London accent the patrol all thought very funny and that the corporal now imitated very effectively. Bobby, wishing, like the patrol, to be polite, laughed and said it was jolly good, and he ought to know because he had lived in London once. Encouraged, the corporal now recalled that one of his men had said after a time, and after much thought, that the two eggs of which Miss Emma Jones had given them such a triumphant glimpse, had looked less like the genuine article than like china eggs, such as those sometimes put in a nest in order to cajole a recalcitrant hen into rivalry and laying.

  So Bobby said that was interesting, too, and thanked him and drove off back to Midwych, judging it now much too late to do anything more that night.

  At the county headquarters he found waiting for him various reporters whom he got rid of by assuring them that he knew no more than they had heard already. They had, however, his full authority to assure their readers that the police were pursuing their inquiries and had every reason to hope that they would soon be in possession of an important clue. The gratitude the reporters expressed for this information was of a limited character, and Bobby, a little hurt by such lack of appreciation, pointed out that any competent news-hound could easily make two thrilling columns of two such exclusive items.

  Then, declining further argument and ignoring coldly an invitation to define the word ‘exclusive,’ he sent them away, and sent instead for Sergeant Payne to whom he gave careful instructions for the morrow.

  “I want you first of all,” he explained, “to find out if Captain Wintle slept in camp or had leave during the weekend, and if it would be possible for him to get out of the camp and return without being noticed.”

  “Do you think it’s possible he can be the man we want?” Payne asked with some excitement. “An army captain!”

  “Possible,” Bobby answered, “because all things are possible. I feel sure he comes into it somehow just as I am sure the Christophersons know a lot more than they’ve told. I must check up on Wintle’s Dunkirk story, I suppose, though it’s sure to be true. It gives a good plausible sympathetic reason for his stopping sometimes at the Conqueror Inn. The thing is, is there anything behind? Anyhow, mind how you go about the job. I want to know everything I can about him, ready for when I go to see him again, but I don’t want to start any gossip. For one thing if we did we might get official complaints through the War Office. Have to handle army officers carefully these days. Besides, it’s quite likely he has nothing to do with what’s happened and there’s no sense in starting stories that may damage an innocent man’s career.”

  “Yes, sir, I see, sir,” said Payne thoughtfully. “Very odd case, sir.”

  “So it is,” agreed Bobby. “With a good deal behind it, I think. Next, I want you to find out if at Wayside Bungalows there’s a Miss Emma Jones, an evacuee from Midwych, who talks, oddly enough, with a strong Cockney accent, and went egg hunting last Saturday. If you find her, you might ask her where she bought her eggs. If you can’t find her, tell Smithers—that’s the name of the local constable, isn’t it?—to try to find out if any farm or cottage within walking distance had a visit that Saturday from an egg-hunting evacuee.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Payne again. “Speaking with a strong Cockney accent, you said, sir? You wouldn’t expect that from a Midwych evacuee, would you?”

  “You would not,” agreed Bobby. “Suggestive, eh?” and when Payne nodded in slow agreement, since the probable significance of this had at once occurred to him, Bobby added: “In the same way, if it’s a fact that the two eggs she showed were only of the artificial porcelain variety—well, it suggests a good deal of forethought and caution, doesn’t it?”

  “Deep waters, in fact, sir,” Payne said, and Bobby nodded in full agreement.

  CHAPTER IX

  SLOGANS

  IN THE MORNING, first thing, before even going to his office, since a ’phone call had assured him that nothing there demanded his immediate attention, Bobby made his way to the address of the K. and K. Midwych Transport Company. Once this had been an imposing private residence, the home in bygone times of one of the merchant princes of Midwych in those spacious days of old when a dozen or so domestic servants could be had without difficulty and when their combined wages did not amount to much more than a competent cook would ask to-day. So, too, what once had been a majestic front drive for the solemn reception of the carriage and pair was now a paved forecourt where various lorries were receiving, discharging, or awaiting loads.

  A busy scene, suggesting a busy prosperity, and indeed, as the man, Loo Leader, had remarked, road transport is of evergrowing importance. Among the lorries a young woman moved, her hands full of papers, giving instructions, apparently, and receiving reports. She seemed on
excellent and even noisy terms with the lorry crews, laughing a good deal, exchanging with them a good deal of backchat. Bobby noticed, though, that what she said was listened to attentively, and that orders she gave were carried out promptly. At the first glance, so small and young she looked, though of a certain plump and comfortable roundness of figure, one might easily have overlooked her in that bustling scene of busy men active about the great waiting lorries. Yet a second glance seemed somehow to suggest that in some curious way all revolved about her personality, and that it was at her will and by her direction that these men toiled, that these huge lorries came and went.

  One of the men noticed Bobby standing watching. He called the girl’s attention to him. She came towards him and Bobby went forward to meet her. He noticed that in speaking to him she dropped the broad, even somewhat exaggerated, Midwych accent she had used in talking with the men.

  “Good morning,” she said. “Anything we can do for you?”

  “Could I see your manager?” he asked.

  “Certainly,” she answered. “In the office.”

  She had small active eyes that he felt were examining him with close attention. Not a pretty girl, by any means. Her mouth was much too large, her nose flat with large nostrils, her other features irregular, her hair coarse and straight and not apparently the subject of much care. None the less with an indefinable air of energy and power about her, her movements swift and decided. It was as though she exhaled a sort of passionate zest of life, a kind of passionate eagerness of appetite. Bobby’s mind went back to the withdrawn and tranquil atmosphere with which Rachel Christopherson managed somehow to surround herself. An odd contrast, Bobby thought, between those two young women: the one like a clear calm hillside spring, the other like a mountain torrent dashing impetuously on its way. He found himself wondering what they would think of each other, if, by any remote chance, they ever happened to meet. Not that there was much chance of that, he supposed, and then he became aware that those small active eyes of hers, which, while these thoughts chased each other through his mind, had been so busily examining him, had now abruptly changed. It was almost like a conjuring trick. Where before they had been eager, searching, probing indeed, like small points of darting light, now they seemed to enlarge themselves, grow soft and receptive. Even her voice changed. As the harsh Midwych accent had gone before, so now went the brisk business-like tone that had followed. It grew gentler, it took on what could almost be described as an accent of welcome and invitation. She surprised him still more by a girlish giggle she gave as she continued:

  “It’s my dad, you mean, I expect. I’m Maggie Kram.” She paused momentarily as if to offer him a chance to give his name and when he did not take it, went on: “This way, please. K. and K. are always pleased to answer all inquiries.”

  She walked by his side, looking very small by contrast with his full six feet. He noticed that one or two of the lorry drivers were looking sideways at them and that since she had begun talking to him the rhythm of activity in the forecourt had distinctly slackened. She peeped up at him and giggled again and said:

  “I wish I were tall. It’s horrid to be so small. People won’t take notice of you if you are small, not unless you simply make them.”

  It rather looked, Bobby thought, as if she were very ready to start a flirtation with him. A fast moving young woman, he told himself, with some amusement. But there are some girls, he knew, ready to flirt with anyone, anywhere, at any time, with anything that wore trousers, especially if it were six feet or so in height and possessed a good chest measurement. He was too modest to add, in this case, the further qualification of moderate good looks.

  Oh, well, he said smilingly, “I expect people who aren’t so very tall don’t bump their heads as often as others.”

  Before she could answer, a small wizened elderly man, slightly bowlegged, appeared from behind one of the lorries and came towards them. She shook a small hand at him, waving him back. Bobby noticed that she had very small hands and feet, and he was inclined to guess from this and other small gestures he had noticed that she was proud of them. He noticed, too, how decisively she turned a shoulder towards this newcomer and the hard note in her voice as she called:

  “Not now, Micky, wait a minute.”

  The man she addressed scowled but turned back towards his lorry. Bobby guessed that this might be the Micky Burke of whom the landlord of the Conqueror Inn had spoken. He said:

  “One of your drivers?”

  Maggie answered only by another giggle, and Bobby wondered if this giggling trick was a proof of congenital weakness of mind, her idea of being friendly to a potential client, a protective armour she adopted in intercourse with the men she worked with, or a mere idiosyncrasy. They were quite near the house now and from its front door emerged suddenly a small round man of middle age, neat in appearance and brisk in movement, and so like Maggie with his wide mouth and flat, full nostrilled nose, his small and hidden eyes, that it was easy to guess he was her father. He saw them approaching and waited at the head of the steps that led up to the door, steps that once no doubt had been scrubbed and whitened every morning to gleam impeccably in the morning sun, but that now were washed only by the rain.

  “Gentleman to see you, dad,” Miss Kram called.

  “Good morning, sir, good morning,” Mr. Kram responded. He rubbed his hands together and beamed in a manner oddly reminiscent of his daughter’s trick of giggling. Again one was not sure whether that beaming smile were friendly or protective or merely meaningless. He went on: “Now I wonder what K. and K. can have the pleasure of doing for you? Move anything anywhere and the earth if required. That’s our slogan, sir, and we live up to it.”

  “Well, I must say you look busy enough this morning,” Bobby agreed. “You are Mr. Kram?”

  “That’s me, sir,” the little round man agreed and beamed again, just as Bobby felt his daughter would have giggled. “Merton Kram, of the K. and K.M.T.C.—initials, sir, that one day will be as well known as L.M. and S. Yes, sir, the railways will always have their place, no doubt, but take it from me, sir, road transport is the transport of the future. From door to door, sir, that’s our slogan, and we live up to it.”

  Bobby, slightly overwhelmed by so much exuberance, wondering, too, how many more slogans Mr. Kram had in stock and lived up to, produced his official card and explained that he had come to make a few inquiries.

  “I don’t know if you have seen the paper this morning,” he said, and Mr. Kram shook his head.

  “No time for the papers,” he said, “not till we’ve got all the lorries off. Eh, Maggie? Come inside, Inspector. Some of our men been speeding? They will do it if they get the chance. Half an hour saved on the road is half an hour more in the pub. That’s their slogan and they live up to it; ha, ha. No accident, though, I hope?”

  As he talked he turned back into the house and led the way across a wide tessellated hall, many of the tiles badly cracked, into what once had been most probably the breakfast-room. A clatter of typewriting in the distance suggested that the former dining-room on the other side of the hall was now the general office. On a table near the window in the room into which Mr. Kram conducted Bobby, lay two or three newspapers, still apparently untouched. Maggie Kram, who had followed the two men into the room, went across to pick one up. The headlines announcing the discovery made near the Conqueror Inn north of the city were conspicuous. She did not speak, but there was a sudden stiffening of her whole body. When she turned she had become very pale and her eyes, those small and active eyes of hers, that had later become soft and receptive, showed now as withdrawn into two far-off specks of shining light.

  She held out the paper to her father.

  “There’s been a murder near the Conqueror Inn,” she said.

  He took the paper from her. He spoke slowly. His face was impassive, too impassive, Bobby thought.

  “Oh, yes, I didn’t see that,” he said.

  “Who is it?” Maggie asked in the
same soft low voice she had used before.

  “Now, my dear, don’t you see what it says?” he asked. “Unidentifiable. Injuries to the face. Anyhow, nobody we know, I take it.”

  Bobby thought that this, carelessly as it seemed to be spoken, was meant to reassure the girl. She seemed to pay no attention. She came nearer to her father, thrusting her face forward. Neither of them spoke. She was shaking now from head to foot and the newspaper dropped from her hand to the floor as though she had no longer power to hold it.

  “Now, now, Maggie, my dear, now, now,” Kram said.

  Without answering she moved towards the door. Bobby put up his arm to stop her, for he wished to question her. But as he began to speak, she, without looking at him, dashed down his arm with a strange, unexpected strength, passed, and ran out into the hall. He followed and called after her, but she took no notice and ran on, her footsteps loud and rapid on the broken, tessellated floor. She disappeared through the open front door and he did not attempt pursuit. He went back into the room and across it to the window. As he had half expected, he saw her running fast towards that lorry from behind which, a little before, had emerged the small elderly wizened man she had addressed as Micky, and whom he had in his mind identified as the Micky Burke of whom Christopherson had spoken. She disappeared behind the lorry. Bobby turned back to Kram who was now sitting at his desk. He said in the same impassive, indifferent tones:

  “You must excuse my daughter, Inspector. Maggie’s very highly strung, very nervous. Has been since a child. Almost hysterical at times. A bundle of nerves.”

  “I think there’s more to it than that,” Bobby said quietly. Then he asked: “Who is Micky Burke?”

  CHAPTER X

  MICKY BURKE