Bobby began to laugh at this version, which he thought admirable in its sheer impudence, but stopped at once, for he found laughing painful. He sat down on a broken box, and began to feel himself all over, trying to discover which parts hurt the most. Ulyett said:
“All right, Pitcher. You can tell that yarn in court.” To Bobby, Ulyett said: “What’s the charge?”
“Well, I’m not sure,” Bobby answered slowly. He had not forgotten that timely foot Pitcher had placed on Cy King’s toes with an emphasis sufficient to distract his attention from the use he had seemed to be contemplating of the knife whereof Bobby had all the time been so acutely conscious. Then, too, Bobby was not displeased with the way in which he had found himself able to stand up to Pitcher, whose reputation was still formidable. The story would, as Bobby knew, soon be told, probably with many embellishments, all through the underworld, and through his own comrades of the police as well. His prestige would be increased considerably, and prestige is always useful. Then, too, for some inexplicable reason, one is apt to have friendly feelings towards the man with whom one has had a brisk exchange of lefts and rights. Probably there results a mutual heightening of masculine self-respect. Anyhow, Bobby had no wish to prefer any charge at present. He said, as Ulyett, looking faintly surprised at this hesitation, waited for a reply: “It was fair enough while it lasted, as far as Pitcher was concerned. The rest of them played dirty, but not Pitcher. We had it to ourselves, and I think Pitcher got as good as he gave.”
“More,” groaned Pitcher. “Me being all unsuspecting like and knocked about cruel before I knew where I was, in a manner of speaking.”
“Now, Pitcher,” Bobby warned him, “don’t start telling too many lies, or I may change my mind. At the moment I’m not thinking of making any charge, and when the ambulance comes you can go along and get patched up, no questions asked—at present. But don’t think you’ve heard the last of this, because you haven’t. And remember—what begins with murder may end in hanging.”
“Mr Owen, sir,” began Pitcher earnestly, but Bobby stopped him.
“That’s enough from you just now,” he said. “Put in a little quiet thinking, though—hard thinking.”
Pitcher subsided, looking very disturbed. Bobby began to occupy himself feeling his bruises again.
“Anyone got a bit of a looking-glass?” he asked. “I want to see my face.”
“I wouldn’t try, sir, not if I were you,” the sergeant advised him earnestly, though producing a small mirror he sometimes found useful for observing people and things without attracting attention. “No, sir, I wouldn’t,” the sergeant repeated. “You wouldn’t know it again.”
Bobby took the mirror, but not the advice. He looked sadly at it and sighed. He said in a depressed voice:
“I’m going to get into an awful row at home. What my wife is going to say—” and for lack of suitable words he left the sentence unfinished.
“That’s women all over,” observed Pitcher sympathetically. “No understanding, no feeling. Nag, nag, nag, all the time they’re doing you up.”
“It was fair enough while it lasted,” Bobby said reminiscently. “That left hook of yours, Pitcher … !”
“A fair sleeping-draught if it gets there,” Pitcher agreed with satisfaction. “Only it never did same as it ought. It was that straight left of yours kept me off—seemed to run into it every time, so I did.”
The conversation became technical—abstruse and technical, for experts only, as it might be Messrs Whitehead and Russell on actual entities. Ulyett contributed some criticism, hotly contested by his sergeant, who had once won an inter-divisional boxing championship. The chauffeur put the point that a boxer wins more often and more easily with his feet than with his fists. Bobby conceded this, but observed that as regards recent events the remark was irrelevant, since, in the room upstairs with a good deal else going on, there had been no room for footwork. By the time the ambulance appeared they had got to the stage of cigarettes all round. Other police presently arrived, and with them the superintendent of the division, at first inclined to smack his lips over Pitcher Barnes, and then disappointed when informed that no charge was being made. After the departure of the ambulance with the damaged men requiring attention, Bobby had to tell his story again and to explain why he wished Pitcher to be left at liberty, for the time at least.
“He ought to be more useful at large than doing six weeks in gaol,” Bobby said. “We can keep him under observation, and then he did happen to tread on the toe of a man who was playing about with a knife in a way I didn’t much like. Besides,” Bobby added with what might have been a smile had his face been in any condition to produce such an effect, “it was a good clean turn-up on both sides while it lasted.” He said reflectively: “I don’t think I’ve ever known a better.”
“Sounds,” grunted the superintendent—“sounds as if you had rather enjoyed it.”
Bobby looked alarmed.
“For the lord’s sake,” he exclaimed, “don’t let my wife hear you say that, or I shall never hear the last of it—never.”
“Bad conscience,” said the superintendent severely.
CHAPTER VII
“THE LINE”
The next day Bobby spent in bed. This was not his own wish, but force majeure, for Olive had arisen, terrible in wrath, and he had quailed and obeyed under threat that if he didn’t, he would have to stop there another week, most likely. And in fact, when he was allowed to get up, he not only felt a great deal better, but also looked almost respectable—almost, but not quite.
He was due that morning to preside at a conference on steps to be taken to deal with the current outburst of armed banditry. There had been too many cases, almost unknown before the war, of armed and masked men breaking into houses and flats and using violence towards their occupants. But he had no formal engagements in the afternoon. He made inquiries about the progress of the Angel Alley case, and found little or none had been made. Ulyett’s injuries had proved more serious than appeared at first, and he had gone on sick leave. There was evidently a tendency to regard the murder of the man known as Joey Parsons as the result of a gang feud and a good riddance to bad though unimportant rubbish. The visit of the other gangsters to the scene of the crime was, it was being said, due to mere curiosity. There are always crowds to stare and gape at any spot where murder has been committed. As for the scrimmage that had taken place—well, imagine Bobby’s horror, indignation and surprise when he found it was also being said that every one knew Mr Owen would rather scrap than eat any day, and most likely he simply hadn’t been able to resist the chance of a bit of a turn-up with Pitcher Barnes. Never in all his life had Bobby’s feelings been more deeply wounded.
Still all ablaze with inner indignation, determined to prove, as indeed he was convinced, that there were strange and hidden motives for the desperation of the attack made on Dawson and himself; certain again, as he was in his own mind, that all these happenings hovered on the outskirts of something that reached very far into the dark London underworld, he set out to make a few inquiries on his own account. He knew from the reports he had called for and studied over luncheon that the attendant at the car park in Canon Square, whence cars had at one time so frequently vanished, was emphatic in declaring that none had been taken recently. Another report pointed out that that part of the High Street bordering on the bombed area behind Angel Alley was busy, congested, and extremely narrow. No car could have been left there or lingered, or even returned at short intervals, without being noticed. Nor could the presence be traced of any car in any of the poverty-stricken side streets, where cars were sufficiently rare to attract notice. As a result not much attention had been paid to Canon Square, and Bobby decided he would begin his own inquiries there.
He found the car attendant to be an alert and intelligent man, unfitted for heavier work, as he had lost an arm and an eye in the war. He was quite clear in his testimony that no car had been removed unlawfully and that he had seen n
othing in any way suspicious or unusual. Bobby had provided himself with photographs of Pitcher Barnes, of the dead Joey Parsons, and with a description of Cy King, who for his part had always been very careful never to allow himself to be photographed. The car attendant examined the photograph of Pitcher Barnes with great interest. He knew all about Pitcher’s boxing record, but had never seen him, certainly never in the vicinity of Canon Square.
“Not a bloke,” said the car attendant admiringly as he gazed on Pitcher’s battered features, scarred by so many combats, “as you wouldn’t notice—old-timer and done his bit in the boxing game, you would say at once, and most likely ask who he was.”
Of Cy King he knew nothing, and he was only puzzled by Bobby’s reference to the lobe of an ear that was attached to the cheek. It was not a thing he had ever heard of. But over the photograph of Joey Parsons he wrinkled a puzzled brow.
“It does look a bit like a bloke I saw with a gent, as it might be a week ago,” he said, after long consideration. “But I couldn’t swear to it. I noticed him because him and the gent, were talking rather intimate like, if you see what I mean—a bit as if the gent, was wanting something the other bloke wasn’t agreeable to.”
“Would you know the gentleman again?” Bobby asked, but the car attendant shook his head.
“He had his back to me most of the time,” he said, “and I didn’t notice much, except for wondering what they were talking about so interested like. Tall gentleman he was, back like a poker. Old Army officer—you could see that much and a real swell, as you could immediate tell—Spit-and-polish type, if you ask me. In the service I should have spotted him for a bit of a tartar the moment he came on parade. Lost an eye, too, I think; but of course I couldn’t be sure—only an idea.”
“What made you think that?”
“It was something in the way he walked. I’ve lost an eye myself, and it makes you notice.”
There seemed no more the car attendant could say, and even Bobby wondered if so slender a clue was worth following up. He went back to his car and sat in it for a while, smoking a cigarette and thinking. A ‘real swell’ and an old Army officer. What had he been doing in this neighbourhood, and why had he been talking so earnestly to a man who might or might not have been the dead Joey Parsons, and what was it he had been wanting that the other had not been willing to agree to? Or was it all merely that the car attendant had been allowing his imagination to run loose? Bobby did not much think so. A ‘real swell,’ an old Army officer? Then possibly he might belong to one of the West End clubs. ‘Spit-and-polish’ type? At a guess that meant an infantry man. Infantry give more attention to ‘spit and polish’ than do the specialist corps, and infantry officers are often more easily recognizable as military men than are engineers and others who tend more to the normal professional type. One eye only?—not much help there; too many have suffered that loss.
All very slender grounds from which to draw any conclusion.
Bobby lighted another cigarette and was minded to go home. Still, one never knew. There were several military clubs in London—the Cavalry, the Guards, for instance. Others as well, including the ‘The Line’, where the men of the ‘P.B.I.’ do chiefly congregate. Bobby decided that on his way home he would stop at ‘The Line’ and ask a question or two, slender as was the hope of any useful result. Still, the most slender clues—a lost button, a dropped pin, a forgotten cigarette end—had all proved at one time or another signposts pointing the way to follow.
Interesting and a little puzzling, he told himself as he threw away what was left of his cigarette and started his car—this abrupt intrusion of a ‘real swell’ into the story of the death of a man hitherto thought of as a ‘spiv’, a ‘lay-about’, a hanger-on of some criminal gang or another. Of course, there was that underclothing the dead man had been wearing of such unexpectedly good quality—almost of the ‘luxury’ type, indeed. Surprising, but quite possibly merely the casual result of some shop theft or black-market transaction.
Outside ‘The Line’—occasionally known as ‘The Line-up’—Bobby parked his car, and went in to interview the head porter, by good luck a former member of the Metropolitan police, though ill health had forced him to resign after only a few years’ service, and still with relatives in the Force. He was very willing to help, but he shook his head over the photograph Bobby showed him. It had of course, though taken from the dead man, been touched up to make it look as much like life as possible.
“No one I’ve ever seen,” he said. “And no one who ever worked here.”
So that seemed the end of Bobby’s faint hope that if there really were any connection between any member of the club and the dead man, he might have been noticed in the vicinity.
“It was rather a shot in the dark,” Bobby admitted. “We have some reason to believe that this man has been watching a gentleman who might belong to your club and that the gentleman has noticed it and spoken to him—asked him what he wanted, perhaps. It’s possible another of these robberies is being planned. If we could get in touch with whoever is concerned, we could take precautions. Our information is that he is tall, very erect, ‘back like a poker,’ and is probably blind in one eye—from war service, perhaps.”
“There’s more than one like that,” the head porter remarked; and agreed to Bobby’s suggestion that the photograph should be left on his desk and that any member who seemed to recognize it should be asked to communicate with Scotland Yard.
With that, and feeling he had gone to a good deal of trouble with very little to show for it, Bobby departed. Next morning, on his way to the Yard, he stopped at the ‘The Line’, and again the head porter shook his head as he saw Bobby come in.
“None of our gentlemen noticed it,” he said. “One or two gave it a bit of a look—sort of wondering what it was doing there, most likely—but they didn’t say anything. I saw Colonel Godwinsson pick it up and look at it, so I told him it had been left by the police because it was thought he had been annoying people, and the police would be glad of any information they could proceed on.”
“Did Colonel Godwinsson say anything?”
“No, just ‘oh, yes’, and asked for his letters, so it’s not him, though I did think it might be, being tall and very stiff and erect, and lost an eye at Mons in 1914, which is why they kept him at home this time. In charge of a training camp, and kept them at it all right, too, if you ask me. Very nice gentleman, and always very pleasant; but I wouldn’t like to be on charge before him. Strict in his ideas.”
The description interested Bobby, but he made no comment. “No use bothering him,” he agreed. “He would have said so if he had recognized the photo. Does he use the club much?”
“Country member,” replied the head porter, with a slight suggestion in his voice that these were of a lesser breed. “Only comes when he’s in town, and that’s not so often. Only when Lady Geraldine Rafe has been getting into a bit more hot water than usual and he has to try to get her out again.” Bobby smiled at this, said he had heard of Lady Geraldine, who seemed a lively young lady, and he only hoped she wouldn’t go a bit too far some day. Was she any relation of this Colonel Godwinsson? The porter said he didn’t know. Colonel Godwinsson was her godfather. Very likely there was some relationship as well. The colonel belonged to the oldest family in the country, or so he claimed, and Lady Geraldine, though an only child and without close relatives, was connected in some way with everybody who was anybody. The title had become extinct when her father, the Earl of Sands, died. In his opinion, said the porter, a good many of the young people of the day needed a touch of discipline—the sort of discipline Colonel Godwinsson always looked as if he were ready to provide.
Bobby expressed a mild opinion that young people to-day were no worse, and probably better, than their parents and grand-parents, though no doubt at times inclined to kick over the traces. A general habit of the colt not yet broken to harness by the hard discipline of life. There was a little more desultory conversation, turning l
argely on the prospects for the three-thirty that afternoon. Then Bobby departed, leaving the head porter wishing he had a nice easy job like that, with nothing to do except ask a lot of footling questions that couldn’t possibly lead anywhere.
CHAPTER VIII
LADY GERALDINE
Bobby had been interested, and a little amused, too, on hearing that Lady Geraldine was a god-daughter of Colonel Godwinsson, who seemed to give every one he met such an impression of sternness and severity. Possibly he had overdone it as regarded his god-daughter. High-spirited young women are apt to resent too heavy a hand. Though Lady Geraldine did seem inclined to let her high spirits carry her much too far. Two or three times she had appeared in the police court, escaping with a lecture and a small fine when the presiding magistrate happened to be feeling paternal, though once, from a less paternally inclined magistrate, she had narrowly escaped a prison sentence without the option of a fine.
A rowdy, irresponsible young woman, it appeared, and one whose behaviour was tending to render her less and less welcome in such aristocratic circles as still upheld Victorian traditions. But also more and more welcome elsewhere, where those enriched by the war were swiftly forcing their way into that Society of which the capital ‘S’ is becoming just a little worn. Nothing, though, had ever been hinted against her private life. She would flirt with any one, from a dustman to a duke, she would distribute ‘darlings’ and kisses with a liberality that went even beyond the genial customs of the day, but there it stopped. It was even said that she had used a champagne bottle, not without effect, on the head of one too-pressing admirer; and had chased another, who had allowed a straying hand to stray too far, into a corner where, under threat of a brandished carving-knife, he had begged forgiveness on his knees. A handful, Bobby told himself, for an old Army officer with strict, old-fashioned ideas to feel responsible for.
The House of Godwinsson: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 5
