The House of Godwinsson: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Stop that—you.”

  The fellow turned slowly at Bobby’s summons. He was staring at Bobby, from whom, indeed, he had hardly ever removed those eyes that glittered and shone like pin-points through the slits in his mask. He said now:

  “You think you know me, don’t you?” When Bobby made no reply, he went on: “I saw the way you looked at me.”

  “You didn’t ought never to have done it,” Pitcher mumbled again. He had picked up from the floor the mask he had been wearing and was holding it in one hand. “Now you’ve made it so it has to be,” he complained.

  One of the two other men spoke for the first time. He was the taller of the two, and he held in one hand a short iron crowbar. He said:

  “What’s that dispatch-case on the table? Looks as if they had got it.”

  “Not them,” said the man with the knife. “Or they wouldn’t be hanging about still.” He changed his voice suddenly. It became soft and silken, very different from the high, cracked tone he had been using before. He said: “O.K., Mr Owen. I know you, too, and I know you think I’m Cy King. That’s right, isn’t it? Very clever of you to spot it. You’re a bit of a nuisance, Mr Owen. We expected only one of you bogeys here, and we reckoned to fix him and no bother. Tie him up and be done with it. Pitcher’s job to out him if he tried to give trouble. You’ve messed things up, Mr Owen, messing and meddling and snooping around. It don’t make sense. But no harm done, and we’ll call it square if you’ll step downstairs, you and the other bogey, and let us have this room to ourselves, private like, for a bit of a talk between ourselves, for half an hour or thereabouts. Then we quit and you come back and everything nice and cosy all round. Call it a deal?”

  “What’s the big idea?” Bobby asked. He was playing for time now, for he felt more than ever that there was danger in the air, and he hoped Ulyett would soon make an appearance. The man who had called himself Cy King was still fingering and stroking that knife of his as though it were a living thing he had difficulty in controlling. When no one spoke to answer Bobby’s question, Bobby said again: “Well, what’s the big idea? I take it none of you four had anything to do with the murder, or you wouldn’t be likely to come back here. Why not tell us what you know? You might find it useful some day if I could put it on record that you helped. What about it?”

  “We know nothing about any murder,” King answered. “Not our affair. Whoever did it can swing for all we care.” He had edged back towards the door now, apparently convinced that his efforts to slip behind Bobby unnoticed were not going to succeed. He said: “Better go while you can.”

  “Why not begin,” Bobby suggested, “by throwing that knife of yours away? Can’t talk comfortably while you’re playing about with a thing like that.”

  “I’ll give you another chance,” was all Cy said, still fingering his weapon.

  “They mean murder, sir,” Dawson muttered in Bobby’s ear. “He’ll knife us as we go out.”

  Bobby nodded. He was of the same opinion. He waited. “Rush ’em,” Cy yelled suddenly, and in a moment it had begun.

  CHAPTER V

  ROUGH HOUSE

  The plan of action had evidently been settled in advance. To Pitcher Barnes had clearly been allotted the task of ‘liquidating’ Bobby, ‘liquidating’ being the word that had actually been used, as Bobby learned later. The other two members of the gang had as clearly been instructed to deal with Dawson. Cy King had assigned to himself the position of strategic reserve; and now hovered in the background, his knife-blade flickering in the dull afternoon light, his dry and protruded tongue passing ceaselessly over his dry lips, as in an attempt to moisten them.

  But though so carefully and well planned, this first attack did not go well. Dawson, less nervous in time of action than during moments of suspense, adopted the policeman’s traditional method of defence against a rush attack, using his drawn truncheon, not to strike with, but to thrust. Unexpectedly and very hard he drove it into the stomach of the first of his two assailants. The man gasped, doubled up, bending forward, and Dawson flung up his knee, smashing that bony bit of himself violently against the other’s face. The victim went reeling back with the loss of a few teeth and collapsed on the floor, his mouth and nose bleeding profusely, his tongue badly bitten; and Dawson had time to use his truncheon, both to ward off the blow the second man—the one with the crowbar—aimed at him, and to return it, though without great effect. Crowbar against truncheon, the two men faced each other, alert and cautious; while the first gangster swore and cursed, trying to raise himself from the floor and spitting out blood and teeth, and Cy King began again his crab-like progress, sidling along the wall of the room.

  Nor had the attack launched by Pitcher Barnes against Bobby met with greater success. Carelessly sure of himself, over-confident in his knowledge that his fame as a professional boxer who had fought in famous contests generally, assured him of victory without the trouble of having to fight for it, Pitcher dashed forward at Bobby, swinging his great arms like flails and mouthing fearful threats. Least of all did he expect not a hesitant, half-frightened defence, but swift attack.

  Bobby, however, had no attention of passively awaiting the big man’s rush. He leaped, he struck. With two tremendous blows, right and left, delivered in such swift succession as to be almost simultaneous, he sent Pitcher reeling back, astonished and dazed—so much so, indeed, that had Bobby been able to press home his attack, he might have succeeded in disposing finally of an adversary whose mind for the moment had ceased to function, whose arms dangled helplessly at his side. But Bobby had seen Cy King’s tongue slipping in and out over his dry lips like the fangs of a snake ready to strike, had marked that sidling progress along the room wall as King crept nearer and nearer to work his way behind Dawson’s back. Not an instant, nor the fraction of an instant, was to be lost, for the flickering knife was poised and ready. Since needs must, Pitcher had to be allowed time to recover as Bobby sprang aside to aim a blow at King—a blow that had behind it all the force and energy he could give it, all the hot anger that he felt against this crawling creature with the knife. Had it landed, it would, as Bobby meant it to do, have settled accounts with King for some considerable time. But King, though much the smallest of all engaged in this confused and confusing struggle, was as quick, as ready, as watchful as the weasel he so much resembled. He stooped, as it were shrank into himself. Bobby’s blow only grazed the top of his head, though still with force enough to send him sprawling. His knife dropped, tinkling. Pitcher had already recovered, and was coming again. Bobby had but time to kick away the fallen knife into a dark corner of the room and leap to meet this fresh menacing advance.

  This time Pitcher was better prepared, because less confident. He was remembering now, he was calling once more upon the experience and skill gained in the battles that had at one time brought him within possible reach of a world-championship contest. To Bobby it was apparent that the chance of swift victory had passed by, and now there was nothing for it but blow for blow, given and returned, in equal exchange, with superior skill and strength and endurance to decide.

  If …

  If, that is, skill and strength and endurance were allowed to operate undisturbed. For the moment, indeed, Cy King was out of the fight; ‘unserviceable’, as they used to say in the Army. He had lost his knife—kicked away. He himself still sprawled angrily and harmlessly on the floor, yelping again as Dawson and the second gangster, truncheon against crowbar, circled each other, cautiously, alert and watchful, and as they did so kicked or trod on the recumbent Cyrus.

  With no space for ring craft, for manoeuvre, Bobby and Pitcher stood toe to toe, breast to breast, and traded blow for blow. Bobby had taken a left hook that had shaken him, and two very heavy body-blows that might well have been decisive, so heavy and well placed were they, had his physical condition been less sound than it was. Pitcher had many advantages. His reach was longer, his skill greater, he possessed those heavy bony ridges guarding small, deep-set ey
es, which are such an advantage to the boxer, which, indeed, had already prevented a right swing Bobby had got in from closing one eye. There was swelling, but that was all; and Pitcher had only grunted and shaken his great head when Bobby landed another on the side of the temple with such clear force as would have sent most men to the floor.

  Yet if in these respects Bobby was inferior, he had one advantage, one likely to be decisive in the end if he could hold out long enough in this close exchange of blow for blow, when actual physical strength counted and footwork was at a discount from lack of space to move in. His physical condition was superb. Pitcher’s was very much the reverse, and already he was showing himself troubled by a succession of half-arm jabs Bobby had landed over his heart. His breathing was becoming irregular, his heart was beginning to miss a beat or two and then hurrying to catch up again, his movements were growing slower as his less taut nerves responded less swiftly to the given impulse. Subconsciously he was aware that unless he could end the fight soon with some smashing and decisive blow, he must lose it for the lack of power to continue.

  The table and chairs had been overturned and broken. From the lamp that had been standing on the table and been overturned with it, a pool of oil spread slowly across the floor, a floor that shook and creaked, that swayed and shuddered beneath the heavy-footed stamping of the struggling men. King, crying with pain, for Dawson, dodging a vicious swing from his adversary’s crowbar, had trodden on his hand, bruising it badly, was groping for his fallen knife. The gangster Dawson had incapacitated for the time in the first rush was getting to his feet again, urged by a snarled and angry order from King. Bobby had to give back to a fiercer onslaught from Pitcher, as Pitcher, feeling his strength beginning to ebb, called up all his resources to make an end before it was too late. Now Bobby had his back to the wall and could go no further. Now Dawson, seeing his chance, struck with his truncheon and all his strength, but as he did so his foot slipped in the spreading oil from the overturned lamp. His blow missed, he lost his balance. Before he could recover, his opponent, seizing the opportunity, hit back with his crowbar. The blow landed full on Dawson’s helmet, smashing it in and sending its wearer senseless to the floor.

  Bobby, taking a heavy blow from Pitcher on his forearm, smashed his own right against the side of Pitcher’s head. It had no apparent effect. One might almost as well have smacked a brick wall. King had recovered his knife and was slipping towards them. As he passed the prostrate and unconscious Dawson he paused to kick him viciously in the face. It was an act of senseless brutality that had an unexpected and unforeseen result. It gave Bobby just the second or two of respite he needed in which to recover from so fierce an exchange of blows, given and received, as to leave him for the moment almost defenceless, as it had also caused Pitcher to go reeling back, exhausted, too. King said softly:

  “Leave him to me, I’ll finish,” and he poised his recovered knife on the palm of his hand, ready to throw.

  “No, leave him to me,” Pitcher gasped; and, whether by accident or not, trod heavily on King’s foot as he lurched forward.

  King, no stoic when it came to enduring pain, gave a loud yell, and once more dropped his knife, that once more Bobby, recovered from his momentary exhaustion, kicked away as he sprang to grapple again with Pitcher before King came back. Unprepared for this renewed and desperate assault on which Bobby knew hung his hope of life, Pitcher went crashing to the floor, and Bobby with him, but uppermost, and with his mind made up to end it somehow, then and there, within or without the rules, since now it seemed so certain there was murder in the air.

  But for this there was no time nor chance. The impact of their heavy fall was too much for the already shaken, weakened floor. It gaped, gave way. With a rending scream of breaking wood, in a cloud of dust and dirt, they were all, in a confused, struggling mass, precipitated into the room beneath, just as a police car drew up at the entrance outside and Divisional Detective Inspector Ulyett came leaping out with the traditional inquiry:

  “Now, then; what’s all this about?”

  CHAPTER VI

  TECHNICAL DISCUSSION

  Ulyett’s inquiry through the shattered window of the downstairs room, through the dense and baffling cloud of dust and dirt rising within, received the prompt reply of a heavy fragment of broken brick, hurled with force and precision. It took him between the eyes and sent him back, stunned and bleeding, into the arms of his attendant sergeant.

  When the floor above gave way, Bobby and Pitcher, closely entwined, had been the first precipitated into the room below. Fortunately for Bobby, he was uppermost and so remained, escaping injury, as Pitcher’s large body provided a very efficient cushion. In his capacity as cushion, however, Pitcher himself suffered somewhat severely. He was bruised all over, had a broken rib or two, a badly damaged knee, and was so shaken as to be for the moment entirely uninterested in his surroundings. After him had come tumbling first Dawson, still unconscious from the injuries he had received, and then the two other gangsters, both with longer warning of what was happening and more time to protect themselves. Neither had been much hurt. Last of all arrived Cy King, lowering himself quite comfortably and alighting on his feet. When the floor collapsed he had been in a corner of the room near the door, trying to recover his knife Bobby had kicked away. He had still not found it when, the floor giving way under him, he had been forced to make his more careful, restrained descent into the room beneath.

  He it was who had answered Ulyett with that well-aimed half-brick. He shouted a command to his companions to make their escape. Bobby, a little dazed himself, not quite certain what was happening, was scrambling to his feet. Through the door burst Ulyett’s constable-chauffeur, trying to distinguish objects through the blinding, choking clouds of dust that still hung in the air.

  “There’s one of them,” he yelled, seeing Bobby, now upon his feet and in his turn trying to make out his surroundings. The chauffeur dashed forward, tripped over the debris, nearly fell. Bobby caught him and held him up. He gasped out: “Good Lord, it’s Mr Owen.”

  “So it is,” agreed Bobby. “They’ve got away. No one left. Through the back and across that bombed area. What about Mr Ulyett?”

  “Knocked out,” called a sergeant, Ulyett’s assistant, through the window. He also had recognized Bobby. He came scrambling into the room. “You hurt, Mr Owen?” he asked. “There’s one of them,” he said, pointing to Pitcher, now more clearly visible as the clouds of dust began to settle and making himself heard by a loud groaning, a result not so much of returning consciousness as of his many and competing aches and pains. Then the sergeant saw Dawson and bent over him. “Looks bad,” he said with concern.

  “Get an ambulance,” Bobby said. “Your wireless working? Good. Get busy. Dawson wants attention. Report to the Yard, but the ambulance and a doctor first.”

  “What about the crooks?” asked the chauffeur as the sergeant vanished.

  “We’ll have to pass them up for the time,” Bobby said. “Ten to one they had a car waiting. The flying squad can have a try, but most likely by now they’re having a comfortable cup of coffee in a cafe somewhere with a proprietor ready to swear they have been there the last hour or two. Only one of them marked as far as I know, and they’ll hide him.”

  “There’s this one,” the chauffeur said, bending over the prostrate and still-groaning Pitcher. “We’ve got him, anyhow. Why, it’s Pitcher Barnes,” he exclaimed. “Knocked out all right,” he said. He looked at Bobby, and began to take more notice of Bobby’s appearance. “Things been happening, Mr Owen, sir?” he asked with much interest.

  “Quite a lot of them,” Bobby agreed. He had been trying to make sure none of his bones were broken and to get rid of some of the dirt and plaster with which he was covered. Now he was examining with some distress the condition of the unfortunate Dawson. He told the chauffeur to get water, clean towels, brandy, from the public-house at the corner. “One of the brutes kicked him when he was unconscious and couldn’t
protect himself,” Bobby said. “It was Cy King, I think.”

  The sergeant had returned from sending off his message, and heard the name. He said with some excitement:

  “Cy King? Was he one? Are you sure, sir? Can I send out a call?”

  “I don’t think so. Not yet, anyhow,” Bobby answered. “I’m sure enough myself, but not to swear to, though he didn’t deny it. I never saw his face. It was masked. I think he meant murder.”

  “But if he admitted it?” the sergeant protested.

  “No proof,” Bobby answered. “It could have been some one else just saying it to put us off. Unfounded claim. I’m sure myself, but that’s not good enough.” He went to look at Pitcher, who by now had managed to get into a sitting position and was still groaning loudly. “Don’t make that row,” Bobby said unsympathetically. “No bones broken, I think. Looks like that knee dislocated, though.” He turned away and asked the sergeant: “How about Mr Ulyett?”

  “I’m all right,” said Ulyett himself, making a somewhat un-steady entrance and looking anything but ‘all right’. He was bleeding badly from a cut over the right temple, he could hardly see, and was still much shaken. The chauffeur returned with a basin of warm water and some brandy. Bobby began to wash and clean Ulyett’s injuries, but Ulyett, a strict teetotaller, refused to touch the brandy. “Don’t like the stuff,” he said and added, looking at Bobby: “Been through it yourself, haven’t you?”

  “We’ve got one of them,” the chauffeur said with satisfaction. “Pitcher Barnes.”

  “I never had nothing to do with it,” Pitcher protested, trying to sound injured and indignant. “It was Mr Owen there as set about me something cruel. Innocent as the babe unborn, so I am. Some blokes I don’t know from Adam stood me a drink and said to come along and meet some pals of theirs, because of me being famous like and proud to meet me. As often happens, and me suspecting nothing; and why should I? They said to come upstairs, and I did; same as dropping in anywheres for a friendly chat, and next thing there was Mr Owen going for me like a bagful of wild cats, and me defending myself, though taken unexpected, same as any one would.”