The Conqueror Inn: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “We all came home again,” Wintle said grimly; “at least not all of us. To make a fresh start,” he said.

  “Those chaps at the camp didn’t seem to know,” Derek complained. “I couldn’t get any sense out of them. I thought perhaps the news hadn’t come through yet. They keep things quiet sometimes. If we’re going back I must report or I’ll be getting left behind.”

  “You needn’t be afraid of that,” Wintle said, more grimly still.

  “All you’ve got to do at present,” Bobby told him, “is to go to bed and get a good sleep. You look as if you needed it.”

  “He must have his dinner first,” said his mother firmly.

  CHAPTER XXXV

  CONCLUSION

  LEAVING DEREK IN his mother’s care, Bobby and Wintle went back to the front of the inn. Christopherson had just returned from calling the doctor who had promised to come along at once. Bobby said he would wait to see him and then went to speak to Peel, keeping guard over a sullen and silent Leader. When Bobby came back, Wintle said:

  “I ought to get back to the camp. You don’t want me any more, do you? Why have you arrested Leader? I never thought of him. Is there any evidence against him? I suppose there must be, but what made you spot he was your man?”

  “I’ve known that long enough,” Bobby answered. “I mean, I knew who was the killer. The difficulty was to know who had in fact been killed. That’s what made this case so awkward to handle and so different from any other. Generally we know all right who has been killed. Our difficulty is to identify the killer. This time it was the other way round. Not much doubt who had done the killing but difficult to be sure who had been killed. There was always the possibility that the dead man was Derek. Even his father, his sister, couldn’t be sure the body was not his. We had to remember there was official proof Derek was dead long before that Monday night. And if we went on the theory that the dead man was Larry, we had to face the possibility of his turning up alive and well. Both Miss Kram—Mrs. Connor really, his wife—and Micky Burke were saying they had letters from him. If you had told me exactly what you knew, Captain Wintle, it would have made things much plainer. It’s a wonder I didn’t arrest you and I’m rather sorry I never did. It would have served you right and there was a good case.”

  Wintle looked more than a little sheepish.

  “Well, you see,” he argued, “it’s not as if I really knew. I didn’t. Not a thing for certain. I told you so and it’s perfectly true. I did see someone here and he did remind me of Derek, but all the same I wasn’t sure. Honestly I wasn’t. And the War Office said he was dead. You soon find out in the army that what the War Office says, goes. No good bucking against the War Office.”

  “You kept quiet about what happened the Saturday night before the killing,” Bobby went on with undiminished severity. “If I had known for certain it was Larry Connor you saw—”

  “How could I when I didn’t know myself?” Wintle interrupted. “It’s quite true I was near here that Saturday night and I admit I wasn’t too keen on your knowing and I didn’t see it mattered anyhow.”

  “What brought you here?” Bobby asked. “It was late, after dark.”

  “That was why,” Wintle explained. “Training. You have to know how to lead your men in the dark. If you like to inquire, you’ll find a good deal of stress is laid on being used to getting around in the dark.”

  Bobby did not ask how it was that this zeal for nocturnal training had led Wintle to the vicinity of the Conqueror Inn. He thought he knew. Lovers have been known before now to sigh in solitude beneath the loved one’s window. And Wintle had become extremely red. So Bobby did not pursue the subject. Instead he asked:

  “Well, what happened?”

  “There was a chap hanging about. I asked him who he was and what he was doing. I had no idea he had been inside—broken in, I mean. I just thought it a bit suspicious. He didn’t say a word, he just let out and caught me a whack in the eye. You noticed that eye. I suppose it did look a bit suspicious. Well, I went for him. I gave him a good hiding. I let him go when I thought he had had enough. Didn’t know what to do with him anyhow, so I told him to get out. He went off in a hurry. That’s all. I hadn’t an idea it was in any way connected with the murder. Are you sure Leader’s the man?”

  “I’ve been sure of that long enough,” Bobby repeated. He was a little excited to think that the long pursuit had come at last to an end and was inclined to be more talkative than his wont. By now the village policeman had appeared on the scene, and had gone off again with Peel, taking the prisoner with them. Bobby saw them go. He came back into the inn to wait for the arrival of the doctor. He sat down and said: “It was proof I wanted, the sort of proof you’ve got to give a jury before they will convict. I’ve got it now.” He showed the service revolver he had taken from Leader. “I’m not going to believe,” he said, “that two of the people on the spot that night had service revolvers and yet neither was the weapon used. The one Derek threw away didn’t fire the shot that killed Larry Connor. So it must be this one.”

  “If it’s a service revolver, where did Leader get it from?” Wintle asked.

  “Plenty of them knocking about,” Bobby told him. “Officers kept them after the last war as souvenirs and lost them; or died and the things were got rid of as lumber, or stolen, or anything. Batmen, too. Men were often in such a hurry to get back to civvy life they didn’t care what became of their equipment, and their batmen took what they had a fancy for. Or any other soldier for that matter. I’ll try to find out if Leader was ever a batman when he was in the army.”

  “What made you think it was Leader?” Wintle insisted. “If you knew, why did you suspect us others? Or did you?”

  “Oh, yes,” Bobby answered. “Very much so. I knew it was Leader all right. But also I knew I might know all wrong. Quite usual to know all wrong. Sometimes I was afraid it might really be Derek thinking himself back at Dunkirk, and very often I felt almost as sure it must be Kram. Or Burke for that matter. Besides the chance that it might turn out to be one of the Christophersons—father or daughter. Or both of them. I was never sure what they were thinking, but I was sure they were hiding something. And there was always Captain Peter Wintle. There was the strongest case of all against him and a toss up whether to make the arrest or wait a bit.”

  Wintle grinned again and even more sheepishly.

  “There was more than once,” he said, “when I could almost feel the handcuffs. I didn’t expect to be hanged. I didn’t see how you could prove I did what I knew I didn’t. But I knew it would be the end of me in the army. I’m glad it was Leader you pitched on in the end. But I wish you would tell me why and why he wanted to murder Larry Connor.”

  “He didn’t,” Bobby answered, “either Larry or anyone else. It just happened. It grew out of what went before. Things often do. This is no static world. Easy to sow a seed but not so easy to tell what the harvest will be. All these things happened because some enemy agent in the Eire spite hole—some German or Italian or Japanese—offered Irish revolutionaries money for a list of factories in the Midwych district. I suppose it seemed a good chance to earn money they needed pretty badly to keep their agitation going. Larry Connor was one of their officers. He had always kept in touch with his uncle, Micky Burke, and with Midwych generally, and he knew about Kram. Kram had just emerged from a discreditable bankruptcy and wasn’t likely to be troubled by any scruples. But they had to have a hold on him, so the first thing was to push him into the black market business. I don’t suppose he wanted much pushing. He was always one of your ‘get-rich-quick’ merchants. Once he was mixed up in that sort of thing, he was in their power. He swears it was only recently he realized what Micky was up to or why he was so often taking lorries out in different directions. One of the conditions of the loan that had enabled him to start fresh was that Micky was to have a free hand. I expect Kram took good care to keep his eyes tight shut. In any case he knew very well that the moment he showed any sign of t
urning restive, his black market activities would be reported to us. That would have meant ruin—prison probably. They had him hard and fast. But then Leader came into the picture. Not at all as the first murderer, just on the make himself, just another of the ‘get-rich-quick’ merchants. He heard a story about Micky and eggs and at first thought that was all there was to it, just Micky collecting eggs on the moor to sell again in town at a profit. He soon saw more was going on than that. He heard about Kram wanting to use the Conqueror Inn barns. He wondered why and began to make guesses. Micky had picked up talk in the village, or at the ‘Ritz’ snack bar, about the Conqueror Inn and about the Christopherson family behaving strangely. Kram had been made sure of. This looked like a chance of making sure of someone else—someone whose occupation of an inn in that lonely spot would be very useful indeed. I think it was Larry Connor’s idea. I think Larry was always the brains of the affair. He sent Kram first to have a look around. I don’t know if he guessed young Christopherson was being sheltered there. What he did was to break in one night.

  “There was an unexpected result. Derek, in his unstable mental condition, was thoroughly upset by Larry’s nocturnal appearance. Another unexpected result was that Maggie Kram became violently jealous. She knew he was showing great interest in the Conqueror Inn and got it into her head that Rachel might be the attraction. So she started prowling round to find out if she really had a rival there.

  “All this time Leader was watching. He found out that Micky was due to pick up a big load of black market stuff that Monday and he hit on the idea of holding Micky up on the return journey. ‘Hi-jacking’ the Americans called it in prohibition days, I believe. He reckoned Micky wouldn’t dare lodge any complaint. I suppose it seemed safe enough. So he waited in ambush on the lonely road he knew Micky would use, a mile or two beyond the Conqueror Inn.

  “Things didn’t go according to plan though. In the first place Micky hadn’t got his load. The man who was to deliver the stuff got a warning that he was under observation and didn’t turn up. So Micky was running back empty. Then Larry showed fight. There was shooting and Larry was killed. Leader hadn’t bargained for that. He and Hall panicked and cleared out at top speed. Then Derek, restless as a result of Larry’s midnight visit, was out on the moor, heard the shooting and came along. Probably with a memory of Dunkirk and the fighting in France. Thought he was back there perhaps. What happened completed his mental upset and afterwards he wandered off. He wandered about till he happened to see soldiers at Ingleside. Then he remembered he was a soldier too and tried to join up again.

  “But meanwhile his disappearance left it uncertain who the dead man was.

  “Because Kram, warned by a code message that things had gone wrong, got scared and drove out to find Micky, and, if he had the load on board his lorry, tell him to jettison it somewhere instead of bringing it to their depot.

  “What he found was Micky by the side of the dead body of the boy who had been to him like his own son. Micky was more or less dazed by what had happened so suddenly. Kram persuaded him to agree to a secret burial on the spot. He told Micky that not only would their black market activities come out if there was an investigation and Larry’s connection with them was discovered, but that also Micky’s own secrets would become known. If there was one thing Micky thought as much about, as he did about Larry, it was his connection with his Irish revolutionary friends. The young Nazi thought he would save Europe and the world by conquering it for its own good, for Hitler—and for himself. Gandhi thought he would save India by betraying it to the Japanese. Micky thought he would save England by seizing Ulster. People get these ideas. Like Torquemada, who thought he could save people’s souls by burning them alive. Micky consented to the secret burial and to the removal of the clothing, but he hadn’t expected the mutilation of the dead boy’s face. That took him by surprise. He never forgave it. He swore to revenge it. The candle burning on his mantelpiece was there as a constant reminder.

  “Only he decided to wait for a time till there was no danger of his revolutionary secrets being discovered.

  “Something else didn’t go ‘according to plan.’ Larry’s disappearance had to be accounted for. A forged letter was sent to Maggie in his name. But it didn’t deceive her and when she heard of the Conqueror Inn tragedy, she was at once afraid that the dead man might be Larry. She thought Rachel must know, she may have even believed Rachel was concerned in the murder. She took her father’s pistol with her in an attempt to frighten Rachel into telling her what had really happened. Rachel’s personality was much the stronger. She quieted Maggie, took her pistol from her, refused to tell me anything. Later on I suppose she gave the pistol back to Maggie.

  “At first Kram thought they had made themselves safe by making identification impossible. But in the excitement, the general confusion, the panic at the sudden death breaking in on all their careful plans, they overlooked the loss of the box filled with bank-notes Larry had been nursing on his knee. They didn’t notice the map that had fallen out of Larry’s pockets, perhaps while his body was being undressed. Nor did they know that Derek had thrown his revolver away and that it was lying there in the dark by the side of the road.

  “When Christopherson came from the inn to see what had been happening he found the box of bank-notes and rang us up to tell us. Then they discovered Derek was not in his room upstairs. So he went out to look again and he found the map which he didn’t think mattered at all and the revolver and—the grave.

  “I don’t know how they stood up to it—the strain, I mean, their ignorance of what had happened, their inability to tell whose the body really was. Somehow they seem to have some hidden, strange reserve of strength. I don’t know where it comes from. A country innkeeper and his daughter.”

  “One man cracks,” Wintle said, “and another holds, as all Britain held in June after Dunkirk. But I don’t see what there was in all that to help you dig things up the way you did?”

  “Eric,” said Bobby.

  “Eh?” said Wintle. “Who’s he?”

  “Little by little,” explained Bobby, but Wintle still looked puzzled for he had not been brought up on Dean Farrar. Bobby went on: “Plain enough Leader was in it somehow. He was always hovering on the outskirts, so to say. I had to ask myself why. He admitted being not far away that Monday night. He had to. He knew we should find out. Might have been a coincidence. Other people were in the neighbourhood, too. But he was the only one who came back next day. Another coincidence? I don’t like double-barrelled coincidences. And I thought he showed too lively a curiosity. Other lorry drivers went by without bothering their heads about what Christopherson and I were doing. He had to get down and see. I suppose he had to know what was happening and whether the man he had fired at and seen drop, was really dead or only wounded. He had to know if anything had been discovered. Possibly he had even thought the body might still be lying there and he might be in time to remove it. Or any other signs still visible. I expect it was a tremendous relief when he drove by the first time and could see nothing to attract attention. But when he returned, which he did as soon as he thought he could without making people wonder why he was driving up and down—then it must have been an even greater shock to see digging going on. Too much to suppose he, or anyone else for that matter, would have the sense and self-control to drive straight on. If he had, I shouldn’t have known he had driven back the same way so soon and I shouldn’t have wondered why. By good luck, Christopherson had mentioned seeing him go by that morning, so why had he come back again? And why did he want to know what we were doing unless he knew a good deal already? Those are the kind of little things that don’t mean much in themselves but may be pointers to put you on the right path. I noticed, too, that both he and Hall seemed really upset and shocked when they saw how the dead man’s face had been mutilated, and they seemed to know without being told that he had been shot. Not that that was much to go on. A natural guess perhaps. But it did seem probable that Leader might be th
e killer, but that the mutilation had been done by someone else. Why? Why should anyone but the murderer wish to prevent identification? Then when no one came forward to claim the money, it seemed clear the reason was the same. They daren’t claim the money, they daren’t allow identification. What else could that mean but something seriously wrong? Black market suggested itself at once. There are some people who seem to think that sort of thing is merely a kind of smuggling and no great harm. Quite surprised if they are told it’s a kind of treason and they ought to be shot. Still more surprised now when they get a good stiff dose of imprisonment, instead of a smiling admonition not to do it again.

  “Well, I was beginning to see light but there was still Micky Burke to be accounted for. If he were merely an innocent employee why was he helping to hush up his nephew’s murder?

  “And if he were concerned more deeply than an ordinary lorry driver, had he had anything to do with Kram’s sudden and rather mysterious accession of capital that had enabled him to start again in a fairly big way?

  “Again Micky was no teetotaller. Kram had described him as a steady drinker and yet he never went to any of the public houses near his home. Was that because he had his secrets and feared neighbours’ gossip? When I told him of Larry’s marriage he refused to believe it at first because Larry was ‘vowed and sworn.’ But when I asked ‘to what?’ first he wouldn’t say and then he began to suggest Larry was promised to a girl at home in Ireland. But I could find no trace of any woman besides Miss Kram in Larry’s life, and so I had to ask myself what else there was to which a young, eager man could be ‘vowed and sworn’?

  “There was still no proof of the dead man’s identity, but it did become clear, though only slowly, that Christopherson had been concealing his son and that since that night he had disappeared. Equally possible that he was the murdered man or that he was a fugitive because he was the murderer. That he had disappeared without the knowledge of his family was plain, or why was his father neglecting his work to walk the moors as though in search, why was his mother sitting at the attic window of the inn as though on watch, why did Rachel rush away at full speed when I mentioned I had seen her father on the moor with a companion? She thought it might be Derek come back at last. If she had stopped to listen, I could have told her it was only the curate her father had happened to meet. Then there was the violin I saw in the old barn where they had encouraged Derek to play at times, beyond the hearing of any stray customer in the bar. Fair proof of identity when I knew Derek was a musician. And the story of what had happened at Dunkirk made it evident Derek might have survived after all, though possibly with injuries to the head or from blast shock that might have affected him mentally. Blast plays queer tricks on the human organism as I remember saying once before.