The Conqueror Inn: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Anyhow, it isn’t just one of those tomfool attempts to be funny,” Payne observed. “If you ask me, sir, I should say the revolver will be there all right.”

  Bobby agreed. Payne departed on the errand already assigned him, and Bobby sent another plain-clothes man to relieve Briggs, whom he had decided to take with him in token of appreciation.

  “I thought you might like to be in on the job,” he told Briggs when the man reported. “It may come in very useful, knowing that that message was from Mr. Kram, as it’s quite certain it did, though unfortunately we can’t prove it.”

  “No, sir, I see that,” Briggs admitted. “If the post office would only record all messages, it would help us a lot.”

  “So it would,” agreed Bobby, “but also hinder us a whole lot more. Can’t have Gestapo methods and the trust and help of the public as well. Two incompatibles. And two-thirds of police work depends on the public co-operating.”

  Before long he and Briggs were on their way in the little Bayard Seven that was Bobby’s private property but that on account of the petrol scarcity he now used almost exclusively for official purposes. He had told Briggs to put spade and pickaxe in the car; and in the hope of escaping notice, for he well remembered how in its solitude the Conqueror Inn seemed like a lonely sentinel on watch over all that countryside, he left the car, duly immobilized and as far as possible hidden in a fold of the moor, nearly two miles from their destination. The rest of the journey they completed on foot, though to do so necessitated making a wide detour.

  So far as they could tell, their arrival in the two-acre oat-field in the corner by the thorn bush passed unobserved. They began work, taking it in turn with spade and pick, though the latter implement was not really required. It was not difficult to see where recent digging had taken place, for indeed the archæologists tell us that a hole in the ground is the one thing that can never be concealed.

  The task was neither long nor difficult. Barely a foot below the surface they found the revolver, wrapped in soiled and dirty paper. On the butt was a stain that looked to Bobby very like blood, but of that, of course, he could not be sure. Very carefully avoiding touching it more than was absolutely necessary, he packed it in the prepared box he had bought. Then he turned his attention to the paper wrapping. With some surprise he found it was not a newspaper but a sheet of an ordnance map.

  “The largest scale, too,” he remarked. “Six inches to the mile. What do you make of that, Briggs?”

  Briggs, eager though he was to confirm and if possible enhance his newly-acquired reputation for exceptional brilliance, could only look puzzled. Then he brightened up and said:

  “Lorry drivers often have maps, sir. Useful if they get put on a fresh route.”

  “On the six-inch scale?” Bobby asked.

  “Well, I don’t know about that, sir,” admitted Briggs. “It does seem a bit queer.”

  “So it does,” agreed Bobby, “and I don’t like things that seem a bit queer, not one little bit do I like them. I wonder who it belonged to? Not much chance of finding dabs on it now after it’s been buried.” He held it up to the light on the remote chance of perceiving some greasy stain that might have survived burial in the damp earth. A vain hope; but all the same he continued to look and the longer he looked the more interested and puzzled he appeared. At last he lowered it and said: “Someone has been making tiny holes all over it, pin pricks they look like. What do you make of that, Briggs?”

  Briggs made nothing of it, and, admitting as much, looked so puzzled and downcast, and so much as if he felt that now he had lost all his previously acquired merit, that Bobby hastened to say that he made nothing of it either. But he added that he thought the map might repay more careful examination. This being safe ground, Briggs said with enthusiasm that he thought so, too, and had the inspector noticed that now someone had come out from the inn yard and was standing there, watching them?

  Bobby, engrossed with their discoveries, had not seen this and turned to look. Rachel, he thought, though it was not easy to be sure, for whoever it was stood against the grey background of the old barn. But a woman he felt sure and then she slipped away and when she re-appeared it was in the company of a man.

  “Watching us,” Briggs said briefly.

  “Come along,” Bobby said, “we’ll see if they have anything to say.”

  To the inn accordingly they proceeded. The two figures by the old barn stood for a time as if waiting and then first Rachel went away and next her father followed her.

  Through the yard Bobby and his companion passed and on to the back door of the inn. It was open. Bobby knocked. A voice called to them to enter. They went into the kitchen. Christopherson and Rachel were standing there, side by side, their tense attitude, their strained faces, their air of a mutual support that each felt the other needed, that each gave to each as each from each received it, all alike declared their apprehension and their dread. Nearer the inner door Mrs. Christopherson was standing, but as Bobby and his companion appeared, she gave a low cry that was half a sob and went away at a sort of shuffling run. To the other two, the father and the daughter, Bobby said:

  “I think you know what we have found. Is there anything you would care to say?”

  Christopherson shook his head. Rachel made no sign. Bobby continued:

  “If you will not speak, things must take their course.”

  They were silent still, but it was a silence more eloquent, more charged with deep emotion than ever could words have been. Bobby said:

  “I have my duty to do.”

  “I would ask no other of any man,” answered Christopherson.

  “I take it,” Bobby said, “you know this revolver I have found buried on your land is the one used in the murder?”

  They still remained silent, but Bobby saw how Rachel’s hand stole out and held her father’s, held it in such a grip that the knuckles showed white with the unconscious strain.

  “If you do not wish to make any statement,” Bobby went on, “there is nothing more for me to do at present. Expert examination will soon make it certain whether this is the actual weapon used. If that is so, you can understand what conclusions will of necessity be drawn. I am sorry.” He hesitated and then added in a lower voice: “I wish I could help you.”

  He turned to go. Christopherson sat down on a chair near by. Rachel stood by his side. She had drawn herself to her full height, her head high, in curious contrast to her father who seemed to have shrunk in upon himself as he sat, so that the giant of a man Bobby remembered appeared now as of less than ordinary size. As Bobby put out his hand to open the kitchen door to go, Rachel spoke.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I think you want to be kind. I think you were kind to come and tell us you had found—that. But there is no help that you or anyone can give us.”

  Bobby bowed slightly and went out of the room. Briggs followed. Bobby had a last glimpse of the tall young girl bending above the stricken form of her father. As they crossed the threshold into the inn yard, Briggs said:

  “Do you hear that, sir? Do you hear?”

  “Yes,” said Bobby.

  “It’s a woman crying,” Briggs said. “The girl’s broke down.”

  “No,” said Bobby, “she will not break while she lives. That is the mother.”

  He walked on and Briggs followed. Briggs said after a time:

  “Wouldn’t ever think those two were a pair of murderers, would you, sir?”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  CAPTAIN WINTLE’S STORY

  DUTY CAN BE a harsh master, the search for truth a dreadful task; and back again in his office Bobby, hard as he tried to concentrate his attention on the events of the afternoon, found it wandering continually to the two strangely contrasted, tragic figures of Maggie Kram, torn by the fearful suspicion that her father was the murderer of her husband; of Rachel Christopherson, upright and protective by her father sitting bowed under some other, some different, some equally heavy fear.

 
“If only they, or even one of them, would trust me enough to tell me the truth,” Bobby said aloud, “I might be able to do something to help.”

  But he supposed perhaps they dared not, and then no doubt, as he reflected a little bitterly, to them he seemed merely a policeman, an enemy, hot and eager in relentless pursuit.

  He wrenched his mind from these thoughts and applied it to his work. Already he had communicated with his superior, Colonel Glynne, the county chief constable, now in London, where he was still wistfully hoping that on one pretext or another he might presently get somewhere near the fighting line. After all, a retired Admiral of nearly seventy had managed it and was now in Libya, and all the colonel’s deepest instincts revolted from the thought that what the navy could do, the army could not. So he was pulling strings hard at the War Office and, knowing this, Bobby decided that he might as well pull them for police purposes, too. So he had rung him up, ostensibly to report developments, really to ask him to obtain without the customary official delays, all possible information concerning the service revolver bearing the serial number of that found on the Conqueror Inn land.

  Then the weapon itself had to be packed with care and dispatched for expert inspection and report, and the large scale map in which it had been wrapped had to be given a meticulous examination.

  Because to Bobby it seemed unlikely that all those tiny pin holes with which it was studded, plainly visible when the map was held up to the light, had been made merely to pass an idle hour. Almost certainly they had a purpose and a meaning, even though he had not been able so far to find any significance in their apparently random distribution.

  The hour was late and he was still dissatisfied with the result of his long continued poring over the map when there came a call from London. This time Colonel Glynne’s string pulling had been successful. His War Office friends, unable to dispatch him forthwith to the thick of the fight—and often they were sorry not to, and the thicker the fight, the better—had been glad in the faint hope of keeping him quiet for a time to help him to get the information he wanted. Every priority and urgent tag they could think of they had attached to his request. So now here was the reply to the effect that the revolver bearing the number quoted had been issued to Captain Peter Wintle, at that time a newly commissioned second lieutenant.

  Bobby listened grimly, thanked the colonel for his assistance, and agreed with the suggestion that Captain Wintle should be asked immediately for an explanation. A call put through to Ingleside Camp brought the information that by a lucky chance Captain Wintle was in Midwych and could probably be found at the Central Station where he was on duty in connection with the dispatch of troops to the north. Thinking a personal message delivered by an inconspicuous civilian might be less likely to embarrass Wintle than would be the receipt of a police ’phone call, Bobby sent a plainclothes man to ask for an interview as soon as the captain was free. He was to ask, too, if Captain Wintle would come to police headquarters, or if he would prefer their chat to take place elsewhere? Just as the captain liked, any place he cared to mention would be agreed to, the plain-clothes man was to say. But he was also to make it very plain that no delay in time could be accepted.

  The plain-clothes man came back with Captain Wintle’s compliments and he would be happy to call to see Inspector Owen as soon as possible. Probably within the hour, as his duty was nearly accomplished. In less than half an hour in fact Wintle appeared, looking worn and tired and as if he had slept but badly of late, a result perhaps of army cares and worries, but, since he had a wary and apprehensive air as well, due more probably to other causes. He accepted stiffly Bobby’s invitation to be seated, refused even more stiffly the offer of a cigarette. He would be glad, he said, if whatever business the inspector had with him could be dealt with as quickly as possible, as he was anxious to return to camp.

  “I’ll do my best,” Bobby promised, “and I am sorry to have to trouble you again. The fact is there has been a grave development in the Conqueror Inn case.”

  He paused, watching Wintle intently. Easy to see the stiffened attitude, the increased nervous tension, the other showed. There was a quickened apprehension in his eyes, a tightening of the lines about his mouth, even his voice was less steady than usual as he said:

  “Yes. Well. What is it and how does it affect me?”

  “Can you guess?” Bobby asked.

  “No,” Wintle answered. “I don’t deal in guesses. I prefer facts. What are they, if you have any?”

  “This afternoon,” Bobby said, “a service revolver was found buried on land belonging to the Conqueror Inn. It has been identified on official army information as having been issued to you in 1939.”

  Wintle stared at him blankly, shrugged his shoulders, made an impatient gesture with one hand.

  “Oh, nonsense,” he said. “Impossible,” he added after a pause. “Some mistake,” he added again when Bobby made no comment. “Or are you just trying some form of police trap or bluff?”

  “Captain Wintle,” Bobby said sternly, “please be good enough to understand that I am speaking as a responsible officer of the law, engaged in the investigation of what seems to be a cold-blooded and rather specially brutal murder. The revolver found to-day bears the serial number of the one army records show was issued to you. No doubt official records may be mistaken. I think it unlikely in this case. I think an explanation is necessary. Can you give one?”

  “No,” answered Wintle. “I should think it’s impossible. I lost my revolver and pretty well everything else I had at Dunkirk. I don’t see how you can possibly have found it where you say. Anyhow, I have no idea how it can have got there.”

  “There may be links,” Bobby said. “It is my business to try to find them. In this case, Derek Christopherson.”

  “You know, I suppose,” Wintle answered in a voice a little too unmoved, “that he was reported killed at Dunkirk?”

  “I remember your telling me he saved your life there,” Bobby remarked. “I got some details. Mr. Christopherson showed me letters he had received from the boy’s C.O. From one or two of his comrades too. I wonder if you would mind telling me exactly what happened?”

  “I don’t see why you want to know,” Wintle answered. “What has what happened at Dunkirk more than a year ago got to do with this story of yours about finding my old revolver here? Anyhow, there’s not much to tell. I don’t suppose it would sound anything at all to a man who has never been under fire.”

  “Not many of us in England, man, woman or child,” Bobby reminded him, “but knows now what that is like. I should really be greatly obliged if you would tell me the whole story.”

  Wintle still looked very much as if he would have liked to refuse but apparently could think of no reasonable excuse to offer for any such refusal. Ungraciously enough he said:

  “A shell burst upset my car. It was full of S.A. ammunition I was taking up to the firing line. When the car went over I was trapped. Couldn’t move. The thing was lying right across my legs. It caught fire and the ammunition started popping off. Also the Jerries had a machine gun trained on me and kept it going pretty briskly. To make sure, I suppose. I started praying my hardest one of their bullets would get me. I could feel the flames beginning to bite. I could smell my trousers starting to singe. I thought a bullet would be a bit easier than getting burned alive. But they all missed and I remember cursing Jerry for a damned bad shot. I don’t suppose you can guess what it is like to lie under machine-gun fire and pray that one bullet will score a direct hit because you can feel the heat of the flames increasing, watch the flames growing bigger and nearer and nearer and bigger. I remember managing to wriggle my revolver free and making up my mind that if Jerry’s bullets wouldn’t do the trick, I would end it myself. I know you ought to take what comes to you, but I didn’t feel up to lying there and burning. And those damned flames were very close and very hot. Then young Christopherson came along and somehow—God alone knows how, he is not a big man or a strong—I shouldn’t
have thought it possible—sometimes I think it wasn’t possible, even though he did it. He got his shoulders underneath and he heaved once and then he heaved again and I saw the flames all round him and the bullets flying by, and me praying now that they would miss. He gave a third heave and he held that car up in midair as I thought no man could have done. I crawled out and if you think I can remember—or cared—what happened to my revolver or anything else, you are mistaken. That’s all. I know it doesn’t sound much but it was a lot to live through.”

  “Yes,” Bobby agreed. “Yes. I think I can understand how you feel. It was the act of a very gallant man.” Slowly and thoughtfully he added: “You know I have been wondering a lot what might be the after effects of such an experience on any nervous, highly-strung temperament.”

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE COST OF TRUTH

  TO THIS COMMENT or suggestion perhaps, Wintle only answered by a bleak and hostile stare, as if in some way he resented what Bobby said or else perceived in it some hidden menace. The latter, Bobby thought, and thought that such quick suspicion confirmed the theory that now was growing in his mind to a coherent shape.

  “Well, if that’s all you wanted to know—” Wintle said and made as if to rise and go, but Bobby checked him by an almost imperceptible gesture. Wintle frowned, sat down again, and said: “I don’t know what it all has to do with you. I don’t know why I told you, only I suppose you could have found out for yourself. I made a report. I wanted some recognition given. But there’s no recognition they give a dead man—except the V.C. You can get that when you are dead. Nothing else. It was worth a V.C. what young Derek did all right. No independent witness though, so it didn’t count. Besides, V.C.s were earned by the dozen out there on Dunkirk beach.”

  “Yes,” said Bobby. “Yes,” and again Wintle gave him that bleak and hostile stare in which so much of apprehension seemed to show as well. Bobby went on: “What happened after Derek released you?”