Advisable, Bobby decided, to pay her a call. There was a chance that Colonel Godwinsson’s interview with the possible Joey Parsons might be connected with whatever new scrape the young lady had got herself into. She might be able to give some information about a personality already beginning to seem strangely enigmatic. Bobby got her address from the telephone directory. It was that of a large and expensive block of flats in the north-west district of London. But first he drove to the police station nearest to the flats—a convenient place to leave his car—and there he asked a few questions about Lady Geraldine.
“Off on the spree again,” the station sergeant informed him, smiling broadly. “Been away a week, the porter told our man on the beat, and no one knows where. Doing a good old soak somewhere most likely.”
“Does that happen often?” Bobby asked.
“Oh, no,” answered the station sergeant tolerantly. “Now and again. In between whiles you wouldn’t think butter would melt in her mouth. All prunes and prism, if you see what I mean. And then that time when it took three of them doing all they knew to get her into the cells. But afterwards she came round handsome to say how sorry she was—apologizing all round, shaking hands and wanting to kiss to make it well where she had bit one man. And I do believe,” said the station sergeant, severe now, “he would have let her if I hadn’t been there. And came down handsome for the police orphanage.”
“When was this?” Bobby asked.
“Let me see now,” said the station sergeant, trying to remember. “She came in to do her apologizing—and very pretty, too—the same week the Wharton jewels went. It was her and another young lady gave the alarm. They went upstairs, found the door of the duchess’s bedroom locked, and asked one of the maids if it was all right. Which it wasn’t. A ’bus conductor had just seen a man climb out of the duchess’s window, and he had dialled 999, so our men were on the spot before the young ladies had finished explaining. That was a night, that was.”
“I remember,” said Bobby, who indeed had been called from slippers and arm-chair to take part in the hunt started by one of the most sensational of the many sensational robberies that have disgraced post-war London.
“What she wants,” pronounced the station sergeant, “is a husband to put her over his knee now and again. Discipline. And plenty of it. Then she would settle down all right. But at present, no self-control. Irresponsible.”
“Seems like it,” agreed Bobby. “Expensive where she lives, isn’t it? Wasn’t the earl bankrupt when he died?”
“He was,” agreed the station sergeant. “And when he lived as well. Never had a penny to bless himself with. In and out the bankruptcy court all the time. Lummy, what a life—being an earl and not a brass farthing with it! But there,” said the station sergeant, tolerant as ever, “I daresay it’s hard, when you’re an earl, like, to roll up your sleeves and take a job like the next man.”
Bobby, who had himself an impecunious and aristocratic uncle, agreed heartily. He asked how Lady Geraldine managed if her father had left nothing but debts and if she had no employment. The station sergeant said he didn’t know. He supposed she had come in for some money somehow. Anyhow, she spent freely, met all her bills without delay, paid £400 or £500 rent for her flat, possessed an expensive limousine as well as a small sports car, and frequented fashionable restaurants and exclusive night clubs. No, there was no rich man in the background, or, if there were, he kept himself very much there, and very carefully. The station sergeant, still tolerant, accompanied this information with a wink; and Bobby, repressing an inclination to wink back, went on to the flats. The one Lady Geraldine occupied was on the first floor, so without troubling to wait for the lift, which was in use, Bobby walked up the stairs. When he knocked there was no answer at first; but when he knocked again the door was opened by a young man so good looking that Bobby’s first impression was that he couldn’t possibly be real, but must have walked straight off the screen from the latest superb film masterpiece. He had yellow curly hair, large very bright eyes—’lustrous’ eyes, shadowed by long, silky lashes calculated to rouse the envy of any girl that ever lived—and nearly perfect features. Tall and well made, too, and a dazzling smile that disclosed teeth almost too good to be true. Bobby, though slightly overwhelmed by this vision not so much of a Greek god as of a Viking hero from ancient Icelandic saga, asked for Lady Geraldine, and was told that she was away. No, it was not known exactly when she would return. Any moment, but nothing certain. Bobby explained he was a police officer and had called to make a few inquiries. Did the young man live here, or was there any one else of whom he could ask a question or two?
“About Gerry?” the young man asked. “What for? I suppose if you are a cop that other bloke was, too, though he swore he wasn’t.”
“What other bloke?” Bobby asked, but the young man did not answer. Instead he went back into the interior of the flat, leaving Bobby standing in the doorway, and Bobby heard him calling: “Mona. Mona. Where are you? There’s a bloke here says he’s a cop, and he’s asking about Gerry.”
There appeared a small, young, pretty girl—dark, dark eyes, dark hair, dark complexion, her only unfortunate feature a nose a little too long and narrow for that small oval face. Bobby remembered the brief description Dawson had given of the fashionable-looking young lady whom he had seen in Angel Alley. He wondered if this could be the same. She asked him to come in, and led the way into a sitting-room. It was furnished in a frivolous feminine fashion, very up to date—eccentric dolls, knick-knacks, cushions, and so on—and not a single comfortable chair in the place, not one that Bobby felt he could sit down on without considerable risk of its collapsing under his weight. There was a large cocktail cabinet, and on the walls some astonishing pictures of the very latest French school. Bobby had visited a recent exhibition of the kind, and was almost certain that at least two of them were hung upside down, but he didn’t suppose that mattered much. Mona—if that was the girl’s name—impressed him as looking somehow slightly out of place in these exotic surroundings.
“What is it?” she was saying now. “Why? Has something happened?”
“Not that I know of,” Bobby answered. “Are you the young lady who was in Angel Alley the day before yesterday?”
She looked at him steadily—too steadily and too long. She said:—
“Angel Alley? Where is that? I thought it was about Lady Geraldine?”
Bobby let the Angel Alley question drop. He was fairly sure it meant something to her, even a good deal, and he was even more sure that she did not intend to say what that something was.
“Not about Lady Geraldine exactly,” he answered. “I’m told she is away and you have not heard from her for some time. Is that so? Has it made you uneasy at all?”
“Well, she didn’t say anything about stopping away, and she didn’t take much with her, and then there was a visit to some friends in the country she meant to make, and they haven’t heard from her either,” Mona explained. “That’s all, only when Mr Godwinsson said some one was asking about her, I thought perhaps there had been an accident or something.”
The tall young Wagner-like hero Bobby had spoken to before had now returned, and was standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, looking both sulky and troubled. Bobby regarded him with fresh interest. He had noticed the name used, ‘Godwinsson,’—the same name as that mentioned by the porter at ‘The Line’. An unusual name, so almost certainly there was some connection, and that connection might, or might not, be significant. For the time, however, he decided it would be better not to press the point. He said to the girl:
“May I ask your name? Do you live here?”
“My name is Leigh—Monica Leigh,” she answered; and he had the impression that since his mention of Angel Alley she spoke with caution and restraint. “Lady Geraldine is an old friend and school-fellow, and I am staying with her till I get a job. I’ve just been demobbed from the Wrens,” she explained, and Bobby felt she mentioned this as a kind
of guarantee of respectability.
“If you wish it,” he said, “we can make inquiries for you. The hospitals and so on,” he explained.
“Oh, no,” she exclaimed quickly. “I expect it’s all right; it’s sure to be. It’s only your coming, and then that other man. I thought something must have happened.”
“The man Mr Godwinsson spoke of? The one who said he wasn’t a policeman?”
“That’s right,” the tall young Godwinsson said. “I suppose he was, wasn’t he?”
“Not if he said he wasn’t,” Bobby answered. “Can you describe him?”
“Big sort of chap—about forty or so. Gone to seed a bit. Red face and smelt of beer. I didn’t notice particularly.”
Not much of a description, Bobby thought, but one that could very well apply to ex-Sergeant Stokes.
“I think I know who you mean,” he said. “If you will let me use your ’phone, I think I might be able to get a photo I should like you to identify, if you will.” The girl nodded an assent. Bobby rang up the Yard, and asked for a special messenger to be sent immediately with a photograph of Stokes. If possible, he would like one of a group in which Stokes appeared. The identification would be more sure if he could be picked out from among others. “I ought to tell you,” Bobby said, turning to the two young people, who had been watching with obvious unease, “that if it is the man I think, I don’t much like it. Sounds a bit like mischief—as if something may be wrong. What did he want to know?”
“He asked for Gerry,” Mona answered. “Where she was. He asked a lot of questions. I couldn’t understand what he meant. He said he wasn’t a policeman. At last I told him to go away, and he did. That’s all.”
“I wish I had been here,” young Godwinsson muttered. “This is what I came about,” Bobby said. He produced another of the Joey Parsons photographs. “I wanted to ask if Lady Geraldine knew this man. Have either of you ever seen him?”
Monica gave the photograph only a casual glance and shook her head, then began to look puzzled. But young Godwinsson stiffened as if in recognition of some threat or imminent danger, and his first air of startled apprehension changed to an expression so blank, controlled and stiff that Bobby was at once convinced that he both knew and did not mean to tell—perhaps even that he dared not.
CHAPTER IX
URGENT MESSAGE
Bobby waited patiently. He felt as certain that Mona knew nothing but was going to say something as he did that young Godwinsson knew something and would say nothing. When Mona did speak it was to Godwinsson. She said:
“You never met Mr Brown, Gurth, did you?”
“I don’t know. Who is he?” asked the young man, who apparently owned the unusual first name of ‘Gurth.’
“He’s a clergyman,” Mona answered. “He comes to see Gerry sometimes.” She picked up the photo and looked at it again. “He has a much fuller face and a little pimple or something by the side of his nose, and it’s a different shape, too, and the eyes are ever so different. Only it’s funny, because somehow it reminds you of Mr Brown—almost like a sort of family resemblance.”
“Could you give me Mr Brown’s address?” Bobby asked.
“I’ve no idea,” Mona answered. “He comes to see Gerry about a boys’ club he runs somewhere near the docks, I think. He gets her to subscribe.”
“Does he, though?” said Gurth, impressed. “One up to him.”
Mona looked severe.
“Gerry’s never mean,” she said, “and Mr Brown is awfully impressive.” She paused, flushed slightly, and then said with a little air of defiance: “Last time he was here he had us all on our knees—he just made us, Mrs Cook, too.”
“Good Lord!” said Gurth. “Gerry as well.”
“He’s rather frightening,” Mona said. “He makes it all sound so real. It would scare any one.”
She looked hard at Gurth, defying him to say a word. He didn’t. Bobby was still looking at the photo. An air of Joey Parsons about it? A kind of family resemblance? But fuller cheeks? Could that mean padding? A ‘pimple or something’ at the side of the nose, and that nose of a different shape? Yes, but much can be done with the aid of flesh-coloured wax. The eyes different? Not even the most expert and careful touching up can give life to the eyes of a dead man. Bobby said absently:
“Who is Mrs Cook?”
“She is out,” Mona answered. “It’s her day off. She is Gerry’s cook and housekeeper and everything.”
“When you see Mr Brown again, will you please ask him to get in touch with us?” Bobby asked.
“Well, he doesn’t come very often,” Mona said. “He was here a few days ago. I didn’t see him, but Gerry told me. He touched her for five pounds for his boy’s club.”
“Good Lord!” said Gurth again, and he shook a disbelieving head.
A knock at the door announced the arrival of a dispatch-rider from Scotland Yard with a group photograph in which ex-Sergeant Stokes appeared. Gurth Godwinsson pointed out Stokes at once.
“That’s the bloke,” he said, and to Bobby he said with a slight air of ‘caught you this time’: “Thought you told us he wasn’t a cop?”
“He was, but he isn’t,” Bobby answered. “His name is Stokes. He left the Force some time ago. I don’t understand what he can want with Lady Geraldine. We shall have to pick him up and ask. It needs explaining. If he comes again, let us know at once—dial 999—and a flying-squad car will be here immediately. I’ll warn them to be on the look-out for any call from you.”
“I don’t understand all this,” Gurth said, “I think you ought to tell us what it’s all about.”
“Perhaps I ought, but I can’t, because I don’t know,” Bobby answered. “What I want is to get information about the original of this photo I’ve shown you. He is under suspicion. He seems to have been annoying people, and Lady Geraldine’s name got mentioned. It was possible she might be able to tell us something. Now you say this man Stokes has been here asking about her. Very likely there’s nothing to it, but it is a trifle disturbing.” He paused, and then said, speaking very slowly and carefully: “There’s nothing much to go on, and it may all mean nothing, but there is a suggestion of rather serious complications in the background. A mare’s nest, very likely. One never knows. A mare’s nest has to be searched for even if it isn’t there.” Looking from one to the other of the two listening young people, he said: “I hope you are both telling me all you know. I hope very much you are being absolutely frank. I shall probably have to call here again. Meanwhile will you both please try very hard to remember anything at all? Even the merest trifle may help.”
“Help what? How?” Gurth grumbled. “How can we, when we haven’t the foggiest idea what it’s all about.”
“It’s about,” Bobby replied, “why Lady Geraldine hasn’t come back? What Stokes wanted? Who is Mr Brown? Where is his boys’ club?” He paused, and bestowed upon them his most amiable smile. “Why? What? Where? Who?” he said. “There ought to be a ‘When’, too. Shall we say ‘When we three meet again’?” Once again he paused, looking from one to the other. He said very slowly: “I do most earnestly ask you to be absolutely frank.”
Mona flushed slightly and looked away from Bobby towards Gurth. Gurth’s eyes were hard and stubborn, his expression angry, defiant. For a minute or two they were both silent. Then Gurth mumbled: “Of course,” but his eyes remained as hard, as hostile, as before.
“Thank you,” Bobby said. Carefully making his voice quiet and as ordinary as possible, he continued: “I felt sure I could rely on you when it may be something serious. At least, I think it may, and I think you think so, too. Good-bye for the present.”
Then he went quickly away. It was never his practice to begin by trying to press a witness or to drive him or her into a corner. If necessary, that could come later. But at first it was always the wiser course to allow time for thought. The willing witness had opportunity to remember and to reflect, so recollecting forgotten details and perceiving meanings not b
efore understood. The hostile or guilty witness had time to grow uneasy, to see danger, to seek ways of safety that as often as not involved him in fresh difficulties, even in self-betrayals. There was of course the hostile witness who remained obstinately silent, finding in silence a sure refuge. Fortunately that is very, very rare, so great and pressing is the human urge to talk.
At the entrance to the flats Bobby spoke to the porter on duty, showing his card and explaining who he was. As it happened, by a slip, he gave his private card, with his private address and telephone number. The porter, learning Bobby’s identity, was plainly impressed. He had seen a paragraph in the papers about Bobby’s record and recent appointment to Scotland Yard, and he was quite willing to help. When shown the group photograph sent at Bobby’s request from Scotland Yard and asked if he recognized any one, he picked out Stokes at once.
“That bloke was here yesterday,” he said. “Been drinking, if you ask me. I saw him come in. I didn’t take much notice. It wasn’t as if he was selling anything. We clear that sort out quick when we spot them. Tenants don’t like it. Then he came down again and went out, and popped back at once, scared most to death, by his looks. The way blokes looked when they saw the tanks coming and them in the open. I asked him what was up. I thought maybe he was wanted—police, I mean. I had a look, but there wasn’t any one—not to notice. I asked him, and he said it wasn’t cops; it was his wife. He said if she saw him she would be sure he was after a girl they knew about here and, anyway, why wasn’t he at work? He said could he go out the back way? Well, me being a married man myself, I said O.K., and he did. But afterwards I began to think he was lying, and it was more than his wife made him look the way he did.”
The House of Godwinsson: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 6
