The Conqueror Inn: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Left us both,” confirmed the second of the two men, “standing with our mouths open, staring after him.”

  Once again the pair of them were left open-mouthed and staring, as Bobby without a word ran out to where he had left his Bayard Seven by the kerb with Peel sitting, or rather overflowing, inside. Leaping into the driver’s seat, off he drove at a speed such as Micky Burke first of all and then Maggie Kram had shown, all three of them at utmost haste for the Conqueror Inn.

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  CHASE AND PURSUIT

  SO NOW HERE upon the road to the Conqueror Inn were Bobby and Maggie Kram and little Micky Burke, that dangerous but attractive man; each driving at a speed increasing to its utmost as one by one in succession they passed beyond the limits of the town and came to the long bare road across the moor, where neither other traffic nor police nor control of any kind hindered them or delayed their furious progress.

  It was a dangerous road on which they drove so dangerously; a difficult road, in bad repair, for under war-time conditions it had been neglected, made slippery by recent rain, with many sharp turns and hairpin bends where those who in ancient days had traced its course had striven to avoid for themselves or their pack-horses the swampy places and the steeper slopes or the patches of tangled brushwood or other obstacles long since vanished.

  First of this odd procession then thundered Micky in his great empty lorry that for lack of a balancing load leaped skittishly and bounded like a ball thrown by a child. Indeed only by the favour of good fortune and the application of a skill Micky himself might perhaps have been less able to show in moments of less tension, did it hold its place on the road.

  Next came Maggie Kram, hatless and coatless, as she had run from her office desk, driving every whit as recklessly; and she had gained a little, so that now she was not far behind. But though her car had been built and designed to travel at a very high rate of speed, higher than that ever intended for any lorry, it had been out of use for some time and was in poor running condition, so that twice the gain she had anticipated would enable her soon to overtake Micky she lost by minor defects. Micky, too, looking behind, had seen her car racing in pursuit; and though he could not at that distance distinguish the occupant, yet he took alarm when he saw such speed to match his own, and set himself to tear a yet greater energy from the lumbering vehicle he drove.

  A strange thing it was how in some way he seemed to inspire the wood and iron and steel of the lorry with something of his own fierce resolve as he set it roaring round corners, crashing along the straight, bounding and leaping over ruts and holes, tearing up steep slopes as if still upon the level ground.

  Finally, far behind, for the others had had a long start, yet gaining steadily, drove Bobby, his little Bayard Seven jumping along at a speed of which the makers had been wont to boast as well within its power but had never much expected to see tried out upon the open road. Yet it was better suited for the conditions of this queer chase and race than either the huge, lumbering lorry Micky controlled or the ancient car Maggie was sending along at a speed beneath which its long disused mechanism was protesting at every yard.

  It was beginning to run better though, to gain more rapidly, and Micky, looking back, saw how much nearer it had grown. Bending low in his driver’s seat, he tried still to force more power from his engine.

  Uselessly now, for it had no more to give. The big old car was close now, very close, and close behind them both scampered the little Bayard Seven rather like a lively kitten chasing a couple of tigers. And each of those two in front far too intent upon the other to have any heed for the third behind.

  The Conqueror Inn was well in sight now, and here a cottager from the nearby village, brought by some errand of the season to cross the moor, leaped only just in time from the road to leave it clear and to watch aghast while lorry and great following car and the little one behind went screaming by like the wind in torment. It was a tale he often told, of the sight they presented as they fled by so madly and so wildly across the slow, bare moor where haste and speed seemed such exotic things as to have no place there.

  Closer still now to the Conqueror Inn. Aloof and still, like a solitary watchful sentinel it waited tranquilly their coming, as heedless of the frantic, nearing rush as always it had seemed to the passing of the years.

  Now the big car, running ever more smoothly with use, like an athlete out of training beginning to find his muscles responding to old habit, was so close to the lorry as to make plain it soon would overtake and pass its rival. Seeing this Micky adopted different tactics and began to swing his lorry from side to side, so that on that narrow road the pursuing car could not pass without the certainty of a collision in which it, the lighter vehicle, must receive the greater hurt.

  But Bobby, in his small light car, well balanced by the weight behind of the unlucky Peel who by this time could show a bruise on almost every inch of skin, so had he been tossed and thrown about, saw presently an opportunity where an easier stretch of the road ran across a more level tract of the moor. Taking the risk of some hidden obstruction that might be lurking there to cause disaster, he left the road, taking the ditch at its side in a leap from which luckily his car descended on all four wheels and still upright, and so went bumping across the moor to join the road again in front of both lorry and car and with no worse damage done than an extra bruise or two to the unlucky, sadly suffering Peel.

  A yell from Micky when he saw the manœuvre successful and the little Bayard Seven leap as it were from nowhere into the road ahead, passed unheard in the clamour of that triple race. Micky’s attention thus distracted he forgot for a moment the reckless skill with which he had tossed the lorry from side to side to prevent the pursuer now close on his tail from passing by. As reckless as himself, Maggie saw her chance and took it, thrusting her car to the lorry’s side so that they raced abreast, side by side, while in front Bobby kept his place ahead and Peel wished earnestly they were still in the rear, for he was keenly aware of what Bobby in the high flush of his pursuit had quite forgotten—that now if disaster came, the disaster so far so miraculously avoided, then it would probably strike them first as they were in the lead.

  There entered a new element, for Maggie had brought a pistol with her, that pistol of which her father had reported the loss and of which she, for her own reasons, had taken possession. She began to use it now, firing at the lorry’s engine and at its tyres. But the shots missed or were without effect on any vital part, and the small, sharp reports were lost in the roaring of the clamour of the chase.

  By now the roar of so wild, so fierce a race, such as this lonely road across the moor never yet had seen in all its long existence since first skin-clad man of the Stone Age came that way, had penetrated within the quiet rooms of the inn. From it came hurrying Christopherson himself, followed by Kram whose car stood before the inn door. But within Peter Wintle and his companion the postmistress had mentioned and Rachel were busy with their own affairs and took no notice, and next Loo Leader, with whom Kram had finished his business, drove at this moment his heavy lorry from the yard where it had been standing, out into the roadway.

  Bobby saw its nose appear and was just able to get by, suffering not even a scratch, cheating catastrophe by almost literally a hair’s breadth, for in actual fact there was not a much greater distance between lorry and car. But the narrowness of that tiny space between the two was yet enough for safety. Behind a crash was inevitable, with Leader turning in his seat to shout after Bobby angry protests at so reckless an exhibition of speed and thus oblivious to the even greater danger thundering on him from the other side.

  Both of them, Micky in his lorry, Maggie in her ancient car, as they still raced side by side, saw clearly the collision coming but too late to avoid it. Loo Leader’s lorry was half across the road, sideways on. Micky struck it fair and square. Maggie wrenching her car sideways did save it from piling up on the tangled mass of the two wrecked lorries, but in the sharp turn at that
great speed it failed to keep its balance. It overturned and somersaulted, threw Maggie clear, somersaulted again, came to rest upside down, while Maggie, by some miracle unhurt except for bruises and a broken rib or two that at the time she had no knowledge of, scrambled again to her feet.

  She began to run towards the piled up lorries. She still held her pistol in her hand, though unconsciously. The lorries were beginning to burn, the petrol catching fire. On the road at some distance lay Micky Burke, crumpled and broken, thrown with such violence against the hard surface of the road, so shattered by the violence of that awful impact, that death must have come to him before he even knew it threatened.

  Loo Leader had had better fortune—or worse. He was hurt, dazed, his head badly cut and bleeding, but he was still alive, on his feet again, still able to stand, even though uncertainly. Maggie, herself still so suffering from shock she hardly knew where she was or what had happened, came towards him, and he saw her and saw the pistol in her hand. At that, almost mechanically he drew a revolver from an inner pocket made for it in the lining of his leather driver’s jacket. He took a step or two towards her, his pistol lifted as if he meant to fire first. Bobby had managed to halt his car and was running back up the road towards them. Peel, who in the general excitement had not even noticed a few more bruises gained when the Bayard was so abruptly halted, came pounding behind. Bobby, seeing Maggie and Leader, each pistol in hand, facing each other, shouted. They took no notice. Leader flung up his pistol hand and cried out to Maggie to keep away. Christopherson had run back into the inn for water to throw on the lorries beginning to burn. Kram, bending over the dead body of Micky Burke, no longer attractive, no longer dangerous, looked up and saw, too, how Maggie and Leader faced each other, pistol in hand—though in fact Maggie had emptied her weapon, firing at Micky’s lorry, and it was now harmless. He shouted, too, his voice also unheard and unheeded in the general confusion. Leader shouted again to Maggie to keep off and still she came on, too confused and bewildered to realize clearly what had happened or what was passing. Leader fired. The bullet flew wide. Maggie did not even know it had passed not more than a foot or two away. Her father cried out again and began to run. Bobby flung himself forward, snatched at Leader’s arm, by a dexterous, unexpected twist wrenched the revolver away.

  He gave it a quick glance. He saw it was a service weapon, a point forty-five.

  “The evidence I’ve been wanting,” he said. He said to Peel who had come to his side: “Look after this man. I’m charging him with the murder of Larry Connor.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Peel, unmoved, and laid a heavy hand on Leader’s shoulder.

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  FOUND

  BY NOW CHRISTOPHERSON had extinguished the flames that had threatened to destroy the two wrecked lorries. He and Kram were standing by the dead body of Micky Burke. Bobby helped them to remove it from the road to the shelter of one of the barns. Captain Wintle had brought Rachel to look after Maggie who still seemed dazed and had begun to complain of the pain in her side that afterwards was found to come from two or three fractured ribs. Rachel took her upstairs to one of the bedrooms. When the three men had left dead Micky Burke lying in the barn where they had placed him, Wintle said to Bobby:

  “I have found Derek Christopherson.”

  “It was he you had with you in your car, was it?” Bobby asked.

  “Oh, you know that too, do you?” exclaimed Wintle, astonished.

  Kram, who had not been listening to this, said to Bobby:

  “What have you done with Loo Leader? He has some business papers of mine, way bills, and so on. I’ll get your man to let me have them.”

  “They are in my pocket,” Bobby answered. “I took them from him. He will be charged with murder. You will be charged as an accessory after the fact.”

  “Oh, that’s nonsense, you can’t do that,” Kram protested, but looking startled and alarmed; and he made a move towards his car, as if he contemplated departing forthwith.

  “I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” Bobby warned him. “It wouldn’t do you any good.”

  “You can’t do that,” Kram repeated. “How could I be an accessory? I wasn’t there. I didn’t know anything about it.”

  “You held back information,” Bobby reminded him. “I think you will also be charged with offences against the food regulations. If you wish to make a statement you can do so.”

  “What for?” demanded Kram, recovering a little from his first dismay. “I’ve nothing to make a statement about. You’ve got it all wrong. Look here. About those papers of mine Leader had. Way bills. That sort of thing. You might let me have them. They’ve nothing to do with it.”

  “If they haven’t,” Bobby said, “why did you take them from where Burke had them hidden under his bedroom floor?”

  “Oh, you know that, too?” Kram muttered and looked even more disturbed than at first. “Besides, I didn’t. You can’t prove it.”

  “Well, I’ve the note you left in your own writing,” Bobby told him. “A silly trick. I suppose Micky knew, too. Or guessed. When he found his papers gone and heard you had been there. At first he thought we had them, but when he heard about your visit he knew it was you. That’s why he came after you in such a hurry. Just as well for you it’s turned out as it has or it might be you that was dead, not Micky, and I might have another murder case to handle. Didn’t you know what a dangerous little man he was? I think you had better change your mind about that statement. I can’t make you any promises. I have no power to. But the courts often take full confession into consideration. You are in a serious position, Mr. Kram. You may be charged as accessory to a murder, with illegal traffic in food and other supplies, and with treasonable activities in association with Micky Burke. Rather a big bill to answer.”

  Mr. Kram was looking more and more uncomfortable. He was not so much pale now, as a sickly green. His voice was shaky and uncertain as he muttered:

  “Well, look here, listen, I hadn’t any idea what Micky was up to. That’s why when I got suspicious I went to his house to see if I could find out and I took his letters and things just to make sure. Look here. I’ll make a statement if you like. Listen, Maggie knew nothing. I’ll swear she didn’t.”

  “I think anyhow she knew,” Bobby said, “that Micky had sworn to himself to treat you as you treated dead Larry Connor when you made his features unrecognizable because you were afraid that if his identity were known, so would be his connection with you; and then your black market deals might come out. That’s why she followed Burke, because she was afraid of what he might be going to do to you. She will be asked to make a statement, too, when she is fit.”

  “Oh, well,” Kram muttered. “I suppose this is the end. You know it all, don’t you? All right, I’ll make a statement if you like. But leave Maggie out of it, she doesn’t know anything.”

  Bobby took him into the inn and left him in one of the rooms with paper and pen and ink to write out his statement. When Bobby came out of the room Wintle was waiting for him. Wintle said:

  “Does all this mean you know who was killed that night and who did it?”

  Without answering this question, Bobby said:

  “Where is Derek Christopherson?”

  “In the kitchen, they are all there,” Wintle said.

  As he was speaking the kitchen door opened and Mr. Christopherson came out. Bobby said to him:

  “You have found your son again.”

  “Yes,” the big man answered. He looked slowly and doubtfully at Bobby: “Are you going to take him from us?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Bobby said. “I think there is no fear of that.”

  “I am going to ring up the doctor,” Christopherson said. “Rachel says Miss Kram is hurt. Rachel doesn’t think it is serious but a doctor ought to see her.”

  “I was going to ask you to do that,” Bobby said. “Let me know when he comes. He must see Burke’s body, too.”

  Rachel was coming down t
he stairs. She had left Maggie in one of the bedrooms. She was grave, composed, tranquil as ever, but her quiet eyes were shining, her calm features as it were illumined with happiness and relief. She saw Bobby and said to him:

  “Derek is here, my brother. You will be gentle with him, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Bobby.

  “Thank you,” she said; and put out her hand towards him and then towards Wintle, who took it and held it in his.

  “He came to the camp,” Wintle said. “They couldn’t make out what he wanted. It was reported to me. They said there was a civilian talking about Dunkirk and so I went to see and it was Derek. He knew me, but he didn’t know where he was or why. I reported it and asked permission to bring him here to be identified.”

  They all went into the kitchen. A young man was sitting there, Mrs. Christopherson at his side. He looked somehow a smaller, weaker, more frail, less tranquil copy of Rachel. There was a strong family resemblance, but one felt that there had not been bestowed upon him that strange serenity of spirit that was hers. He got up when Bobby entered and said:

  “Up there they seemed never to have heard of Dunkirk. That’s where I was when I lost my uniform—at least, I suppose I was, but I don’t know how I got these civvy clothes.”

  “That’s all right,” Bobby said. “There’ll be a court of inquiry about that. Perhaps they’ll stop it out of your pay. Nothing to worry about very awfully even if they do.”

  “It’ll be a shame to do that,” protested Mrs. Christopherson.

  “Oh, the army’s full of shames,” said Bobby cheerfully; feeling he had achieved his object of giving Derek something small to worry about that would keep his still disturbed mind from dwelling on any greater worry and so help it to a composure much more easily so attained than by any facile and not easily received assurances that everything was perfect.

  “I think something must have happened,” Derek was saying now, “I mean at Dunkirk. I don’t seem to remember getting back. I bet we licked old Jerry at Dunkirk, but it was a bad show at first. If our chaps are there still, how have I got here?” He paused and looked puzzled again. “What did happen?” he asked. “I can’t get it clear in my mind.”