The Conqueror Inn: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “You don’t know what you ask,” she interrupted, and her voice was so heavy and so strange that Bobby fell silent, wondering what she meant.

  Presently he said:

  “Is the dead man Larry Connor?”

  She began to laugh. It was rather horrible. She stood and laughed, and he listened to it in the darkness and knew that it was false.

  Abruptly she said:

  “Here is a letter from Larry I got this evening.”

  She held out something towards him. He could see the paper in her hand, faintly white in the darkness. He took it and he said:

  “Well, that proves Larry isn’t the dead man, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, so it does,” she agreed, still laughing and her laughter was still rather horrible, the laughter of a lost soul welcoming another. Then she stopped laughing, abruptly, as if it had been cut off as one cuts off an electric current. She said: “Well, I’ll tell you. The dead man was Rachel Christopherson’s lover and I think she killed him, but it may have been her father, and I don’t know why.”

  Before he could say anything she slipped by him and was running towards the house.

  He could not follow. He heard her steps die away. He heard a door open and shut. Everything was silent then. He went back through the gap in the fence and along the alley to where Briggs still stood guard over his car.

  “I tried to speak to the girl,” Bobby said, “but she ran off to the house. Nothing we can do.”

  “No, sir,” agreed Briggs, still uneasy, “only it seemed a bit queer like and being told to report anything out of the way—no matter what it was . . .”

  “That’s all right,” Bobby interrupted. “You were quite right to ring up. Cut along home now and in the morning try to see if you can pick anything up. Don’t much expect you will, though. Deep business this and more to it even than murder, I think.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Briggs and saluted and retired, and Bobby drove off home to the supper there awaiting him.

  Over it he told Olive of the events of the day and examined very carefully the letter Maggie had thrust at him before rushing away back to the house. It was a stiff little letter, written in a stiff angular hand, dated from London, giving no address, and it said in effect that the writer had thought it best to leave Midwych for a time, was not sure of his future movements, but would write again and would Miss Maggie please be patient till then.

  “What do you think of it?” Bobby asked.

  “Fake,” said Olive promptly. “And Miss Kram knows it.”

  “I thought it might be a fake,” Bobby agreed, “but why do you think she thinks so?”

  “My good lad,” said Olive, “do you suppose for one moment she would have handed it over to you like that if she hadn’t known it was a fraud?”

  “Um-m,” said Bobby, considering.

  “No um-m about it,” retorted Olive.

  “If it’s like that,” said Bobby, “it means the dead man most likely is Larry Connor, but how are we to prove it?”

  “Fingerprints?” said Olive hopefully.

  “Where are we to get them?” Bobby asked. “So as to be sure they are his? The people who did what they did to hide his identity will have looked after that.”

  “The Micky Burke man?” suggested Olive. “He might help. You say he is said to have been fond of his nephew?”

  “Like father and son, they say,” Bobby agreed. “But Micky is in it up to the neck, whatever it is.”

  “Can he be the murderer?” Olive asked.

  “Why should he? There seems plenty of confirmation for the like father and son story. It’s certain he brought Larry up from a child. Why should he murder him now?”

  “Why should anyone?” asked Olive.

  “Yes, I know,” agreed Bobby. “We may have got the identity part of the puzzle solved, but there seems no hint of any motive as yet except—”

  “Jealousy,” Olive completed the sentence. “Miss Kram says it was Miss Christopherson. When a woman murders, jealousy is a likely motive. But then Maggie Kram may have said what she did out of jealousy, too. At any rate, I think the solution lies in the Conqueror Inn.”

  “Likely to stay there, too, for all I can see,” Bobby said, looking dispirited. “There was certainly a shot fired this afternoon by one of those two at the other. But no way of knowing which. Unless one of them tells—and then most likely it wouldn’t be true.”

  “Put down what you really know,” Olive suggested, “and see what it looks like on paper. If you get all the actual facts together, you may be able to see where they lead.”

  So Bobby got a piece of paper and started to write but found there was no ink in his fountain pen. So he got a pencil instead and wrote:

  “Fact 1. A man killed and great pains taken to hide his identity.

  Deduction: Hiding his identity was as important as hiding the murder itself.

  Fact 2. Larry Connor vanished and a letter arrives signed by him, but possibly a forgery.

  Deduction. Attempt by the murderer to prevent Miss Kram from making inquiries.

  Fact 3. Miss Kram was in a state of great distress to-night.

  Deductions. Various and uncertain. She may think Larry is dead. She may be afraid someone else is dead and Larry is the murderer. She may be the murderer herself, there was fear as well as grief to-night. Or—”

  “I don’t,” interposed Olive, “call that deduction. I call it guessing.”

  “Objection upheld,” said Bobby, “but what else can a detective do but guess and guess till he makes one that holds?” Then he struck out all he had written from the word ‘Various’ and substituted ‘Many and doubtful.’

  “That’s better,” said Olive.

  Bobby went on writing.

  “Fact 4. An attempt was made to break into the Conqueror Inn last Saturday night, but nothing was taken, or so the Christophersons say.

  Deduction. There’s something there somebody wants to know about.

  Fact 5. Captain Wintle won a black eye about the time the dead man had a thrashing which seems to have been about the time of the attempt to break and enter.

  Deduction. Captain Wintle and the intruder came into contact; the black eye and the thrashing mutually resulting.

  Further deduction. Captain Wintle knows why the breaking and entering attempt was made and was there to stop it.” Here Bobby paused and considered the last sentence.

  “Is that sound reasoning?” he asked.

  “No, it’s guessing,” Olive answered. She took the pencil out of Bobby’s hand and wrote instead:

  “Further deduction. Captain Wintle was on the spot for an unknown reason.”

  “Unknown reason,” said Bobby bitterly, reading this. “Why, it’s all one unknown reason.”

  Then he took his pencil back and wrote:

  “Fact 6. A fiddle and music stand were in the Conqueror Inn barn.

  Deduction. Someone at the Conqueror Inn plays the fiddle.”

  “Well, why shouldn’t they?” asked Olive. “Didn’t you say the son who was killed at Dunkirk was a violinist?”

  “Yes,” said Bobby, “but as another guess—suppose he wasn’t killed there and suppose he’s the murdered man. That would suggest Larry Connor not as victim but as murderer—explain why he’s bolted—explain the mutilation—most of the people about there would know Christopherson’s son.”

  “Oh,” said Olive, very surprised, “oh, I never thought of that. Oh, but why?”

  “We haven’t got as far as ‘why,’” Bobby told her. “Not by a long way. You see, there’s that story of the light in the attic window at the inn and the inspection by the Home Guard to prove the black-out curtain had been blown in and so it was an accident. Christopherson said he had been sleeping in the room, but if so he and his wife occupy separate rooms, which I don’t think likely, and anyhow, why an attic?”

  “I see,” said Olive thoughtfully and added with all the reluctance of a wife praising a husband and risking giving the creat
ure a swelled head: “You know, it was rather clever of you to think that out.”

  Bobby beamed; for praise from a wife is praise indeed—so seldom does the poor mutt deserve it. Then he continued with his writing:

  “Fact 7. Miss Kram went to the Conqueror Inn, saw Miss Rachel there and a shot was fired.

  Deduction. One of them tried to kill the other.

  Only which and why?”

  “Not a very useful deduction,” observed Olive. “Put it: Deduction. One of them was jealous of the other. Because, I’ve told you before, if a woman shoots at someone, it’s always jealousy.”

  So Bobby wrote that down too and yawned and looked at the clock.

  “I expect I’ve forgotten all the most significant facts,” he said.

  “You’ve forgotten Loo Leader for one thing,” Olive said.

  “Not me,” protested Bobby with energy. “I’m putting a man on to see if he can find out anything. You remember what I told you about Leader that morning when we were digging up the dead man’s body?”

  Olive shuddered slightly, for that grisly story had always seemed to her one of unusual horror, and Bobby went on:

  “Well, there are the main facts so far as we know them at present, and it does seem as if, if you put them together, some sort of pattern does show some sign of beginning to emerge.”

  “Does it?” asked Olive, not without irony.

  “Only I’ve not an idea in the world,” added Bobby with a sigh, “how we are going to get the evidence to act on. Oh, by the way, I wanted to ask you—what are tinned eggs?”

  “Tinned eggs?” repeated Olive. “There aren’t any, not that I ever heard of. Dried eggs you mean, don’t you?”

  “Leader said ‘tinned eggs,’” Bobby replied. “I wondered what he meant.”

  Olive shook her head, said she had never heard of ‘tinned’ eggs, perhaps it was some sort of joke. Bobby thought that very likely, and leaving the subject of eggs, Olive said:

  “There’s one thing you’ve never said a word about and very likely the most important of all. All that money—£2,000, wasn’t it?—left lying in the road.”

  “I’ve not forgotten it, not by a long way,” Bobby assured her. “I only left it out because I can’t even guess where it comes in. If it was the motive for the murder, why was it left lying behind in the road?”

  CHAPTER XV

  VOLUNTARY STATEMENTS

  NO GREAT SURPRISE to Bobby when he reached his office next morning to find that Mr. Kram was already there, anxious for an interview.

  A trifle embarrassed he seemed how to start the conversation, nor did Bobby give him much help but waited patiently for him to begin.

  “All cards on the table,” Mr. Kram explained, “that’s my slogan. And I live up to it.”

  He paused. Bobby waited. Mr. Kram continued:

  “Of course I should like you to understand that what I want to say is private—private and personal. Very private.”

  He paused again and Bobby said:

  “Mr. Kram, this is a public matter and I am in the public service.”

  “Oh, it’s not that at all,” protested Mr. Kram. “Only Maggie’s my girl, and a girl’s got her pride, and the truth is, she’s badly in love with Larry Connor.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Bobby. “Micky Burke’s nephew. Yes?”

  “Breaking her heart about him,” said Mr. Kram gloomily. “You can guess how I feel. I don’t know if she told you last night?”

  “No,” said Bobby.

  “She said you had been asking her questions,” Mr. Kram continued. “She’s only a girl. Don’t you think it might have been fairer to wait till she had her father with her?”

  “No,” said Bobby.

  “I thought she was in her room,” Mr. Kram went on, accepting this negative quite meekly. “Then I heard her come in. All upset she was. Crying her eyes out. I knew she had had a letter from Larry because I saw the envelope and I knew the writing.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Bobby, interested.

  “I didn’t say anything. Let well alone. Let bad alone. That’s my slogan. Not easy to live up to, either. You see, it’s this way, Inspector. Larry wasn’t in love with her.”

  “It would have been a good match for him though, wouldn’t it?” Bobby remarked.

  “I’ll say this for him,” Mr. Kram said. “I don’t think that counted. It was just that he didn’t feel like that. Not very nice for Maggie, not very nice for me in a way. Very unpleasant situation all around. The thing is, Larry had a girl already.”

  “Did Miss Kram know that?”

  “Infatuated she was,” Kram said. “Larry had a way with him—the Irish way. Share his last penny with you. Go to any amount of trouble to do anything for you. But two minutes after he had left you he had forgotten that you even existed. The Irish way. I may as well tell you the whole story. I gave him £10 to go back to Ireland. I don’t want Maggie to know. She would never forgive me. You won’t mention it?”

  “Not unless it becomes a relevant fact,” Bobby answered. “Nothing relevant can be hidden in a case of murder.”

  “That’s what made me notice the letter when it came,” Mr. Kram continued. “I thought he hadn’t lost much time writing and then I saw the postmark was London. That worried me because what he said was, he would go back home and write and say good-bye. Made me a bit uneasy when I saw it came from London. To tell you the truth, I was more than worried. I thought perhaps it was to ask her to join him.”

  “Do you know what was really in the letter?”

  “No, she didn’t tell me. But I knew it wasn’t that because the poor kid looked as if she were going to faint. And she started to cry. Well, I pretended not to notice. Well, at last I felt I couldn’t stand it any longer. So I asked her. I said her letter was from Larry Connor, wasn’t it? She didn’t answer. She just ran out of the house and I can tell you I felt about as bad as she did. I suppose if her mother had lived—I lost her when Maggie was a kid, she hardly remembers her—well, I suppose it would have been different. But I didn’t know what to do. I just sat there feeling bad and telling myself she would get over it in time. Then she came back, looking all washed up, and said you had been asking her questions. I don’t know what right, Inspector, the police have to do a thing like that.”

  “Surely,” Bobby said, “anyone has a right to ask questions. Why not? I would like to ask you one if I may. Do you know who the other girl is, the one Larry Connor is in love with?”

  “Well, yes,” Kram answered slowly. “Yes. At least I think so. If I’m right—Rachel Christopherson, the girl at the Conqueror Inn.”

  “Can you tell me what makes you think so?”

  “Something he said once put in my mind that was why, why he wasn’t taking any interest in Maggie,” Kram answered. “I asked Micky Burke. Micky Burke didn’t know for certain. But he said it might be that way. He said Larry had seemed different since they began stopping at the Conqueror Inn. Micky didn’t like it. Words they had. You see, Micky and Larry, they are both Roman Catholics. Put quite a lot of store on their religion. But Christopherson’s a free-thinker. Doesn’t hold with religion. Reads books about philosophy, Micky says. Like father, like daughter, that’s Micky’s slogan, and he hated to think Larry might marry an atheist and perhaps become an atheist, too.”

  “But why atheist?” Bobby asked. “A Roman Catholic can be a philosopher, can’t he?”

  Mr. Kram seemed to think this was more than doubtful and Bobby decided he wouldn’t refer to St. Thomas Aquinas or the ‘Summa Theologiae,’ especially as he knew very little about either. Mr. Kram went on:

  “Micky was upset, too, because he had a sort of idea that Larry might have been out there on the quiet at night, visiting the girl. He didn’t know, but that’s what he thought, and he didn’t like it.”

  Bobby considered this. He was not inclined to put too much trust in Mr. Kram, but the story was plausible, it hung together, it explained much of his daughter’s conduct. Jealousy
, Olive had said, was the only reason that ever drove a woman to the use of a revolver. Here was the jealousy motive. Again here was a possible explanation of that breaking and entering at the Conqueror Inn. Possibly Larry, locked out, had nevertheless effected an entry, and Rachel, whether she had yielded to him or not, had been unwilling to raise an alarm.

  “When did you see Larry last?” he asked.

  “Monday morning, when he went off with Micky. He often went with Micky to lend him a hand.”

  “When did Micky see him last?”

  “That would be the same evening, after they got back. Larry said he had been promised a lift on a Holyhead lorry. Apparently he went to London instead. Micky was as surprised as I was when I told him Larry’s letter came from London.”

  “Have you any examples of Larry’s writing?” Bobby asked.

  Kram looked a little startled at the question but shook his head.

  “His signature to a pay sheet, for instance?”

  Again Kram shook his head.

  “Larry wasn’t working for me,” he explained. “I never paid him anything—at least not directly. Once or twice I gave Micky something extra if he said Larry had been helping and I suppose he passed it on. But that’s all.”

  “Where is he? Micky, I mean.”

  “Loading up. You might catch him before he gets off if you like to give my office a ring.”

  Bobby said he would try, and over the ’phone learned that neither did Micky possess any specimen of Larry’s writing. Larry seldom wrote anything more than a postcard and Micky had never kept any of them. Had Larry a bank book? Bobby asked next. Micky didn’t know but he didn’t think it likely. A free lad with his money, and if Larry had a bank book, he would have it with him.

  “Not the saving sort,” said Micky over the line.

  So Bobby thanked him, asked him to come round for a minute or two’s talk before he started, and rang off.

  “Not that I expect he’ll be able to tell me anything,” Bobby remarked to Kram, “but you can never tell. Some small detail or another. By the way, I don’t think you’ve ever happened to mention where you were that Monday night?”