The House of Godwinsson: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  The library was a fine, spacious apartment with large windows affording a pleasant outlook over the rhododendron bushes to the orchard and the road beyond. On the lawn, between the house and the rhododendrons, an elderly woman was sitting sewing in an invalid chair. On a table close by were some books and papers, and there was an unoccupied basket chair. Bobby guessed the lady was Mrs Godwinsson. The Chief Constable had mentioned that she was an invalid. Probably the basket chair had been or would be occupied by the colonel. Bobby turned his attention to the bookshelves that lined the walls from the floor nearly to the ceiling. They were filled with ancient tomes, including many of those volumes of sermons which seem to have provided the light reading of our ancestors. There were, too, what Bobby thought were first editions of such works as Clarissa and Tom Jones. He noticed also a first edition in five or six volumes of Pope’s Homer, in which, in the list of subscribers appeared the name of Harold Godwinsson, Esq., of Ing Wain. There were a great number of legal books, both old and new, these last being the only modern works visible. Apparently the Godwinssons had always studied law, possibly with the idea of being sufficiently instructed to be able to sustain their claim by an ability to cite analogy and precedent. There was, for example, a formidable eighteenth-century ‘presentation’ in nine volumes of Roman law, and next to it in two volumes a study, published about the same time, of the ‘patria potestas’ which the author evidently approved. Another volume, published about half a century ago, discussed the same subject very learnedly, and with special reference to Sir Henry Maine’s theories. Maine’s own work, Ancient Law, was itself represented in three different editions.

  “Legal minded,” Bobby told himself. “Think too much of formal rights and precedents and all the rest of it.”

  The door opened and Colonel Godwinsson came slowly in. At least, he always somehow gave the impression of moving with slow dignity, though in fact he moved as quickly as most people. He waved Bobby, who turned away from the bookshelves on his entrance, to a seat; a little with the air of finding it proper and commendable that Bobby had remained standing while waiting for him. He seated himself at the big writing-table that stood near one of the long, straight, rather narrow windows. He said:

  “I understand you have a communication to make.”

  “I am afraid,” Bobby said, “it is one that will distress you.” He paused. The colonel waited impassively. Bobby said: “Your former ward, Lady Geraldine Rafe, has been found dead.”

  The colonel remained silent. He might not have heard. Only a tightening of his hands clasped before him till the fingers showed white under the strain betrayed emotion. Bobby waited, watching intently. At last the colonel spoke, in slow, level tones.

  “In what circumstances?” he asked.

  “In circumstances that suggest murder,” Bobby answered.

  Again there was no apparent reaction, no sign of emotion or surprise. Only the clasped hands clasped each other more closely still, and Bobby saw a spurt of blood appear where the nail of one finger dug more deeply into the flesh. Again Bobby waited. At last the colonel said in the same quiet, level tones, dropping each word slowly, one by one:

  “Can you give me any further details?”

  “You do not seem surprised,” Bobby remarked, wondering at such iron self-control.

  “The possibility has been present in my mind for some time,” the colonel answered. “Lady Geraldine was passionate, reckless, avid of experience and yet knowing little of life. I considered it probable that she had made undesirable acquaintances of whose real character she had no knowledge. Her disappearance seemed inexplicable. I had begun to contemplate the possibility of such an eventuality as you tell me has occurred.”

  “Can you give any information likely to help in the discovery of her murderer?” Bobby asked.

  “I am afraid not,” came the slow answer. “I have known for a long time that she was not giving me her full confidence. She said her life was her own.”

  “Her death, too,” Bobby said. “I understand, then, you think there is nothing you can tell us?”

  “Nothing,” said the colonel. He was not looking at Bobby. He said again, and he made the word sound like a pronouncement of doom: “Nothing.” Then he added: “Except, indeed, that killing does not go unpunished.”

  Bobby was not so sure. In a higher sense, true. No crime, no sin can go unpunished, since their punishment is in themselves. In a lower sense, who can say, since who knows what murders are committed and never come to light? Bobby went on:

  “I should tell you further that near the place where Lady Geraldine’s body was discovered, and at about the same time, on Saturday night, an attack was made on your son, Mr Leofric Godwinsson. Apparently a kidnapping attempt. We were in time to prevent it from succeeding. The attackers escaped. Mr Leofric was injured, and is in hospital. I understand there is no danger, but the doctors forbid questioning at present.”

  For the first time the colonel allowed himself to show surprise, alarm, even bewilderment or incredulity.

  “Leofric? Kidnap Leofric? Why should any one want to do that? Are you sure? Isn’t there some mistake?”

  “Very sure,” answered Bobby, and nearly said very sore instead as he felt his bruised ribs. “I had a hand in the affair. Quite lively while it lasted. They actually had your son in their car. I tried to pull him out. In the end he managed to jump out just as the men were driving off.”

  “You let them escape?” the colonel asked with severity.

  “I don’t know that there was much ‘let’ about it,” Bobby answered ruefully. “Anyhow, they didn’t get your son, which seems to have been their object. Can you suggest any reason?”

  “None whatever. The whole thing seems incredible, fantastic.”

  “It happened,” Bobby remarked. “Incredible, fantastic perhaps, but it happened, and for the incredible and fantastic, as for everything else—indeed, more especially for the incredible and fantastic—there must be a sufficient reason.”

  “If this happened on Saturday night,” the colonel said, with increased severity, “I should have been informed before this.”

  “It was felt necessary first to make certain preliminary inquiries,” Bobby explained. “To be certain of Lady Geraldine’s identity, for instance. Of Mr Leofric’s identity we had immediate evidence, as he was recognized by one of our men as having been detained for questioning at the time of the theft of the Wharton jewels.”

  “That was a misunderstanding,” the colonel said quickly. “He was released at once with apologies.”

  “Quite so,” agreed Bobby. “Merely coincidence. Another coincidence that he was there, close to the place where presumably the murder was committed, at the very time when it was discovered. He will have to be asked for an explanation. In the meantime he is in no danger, and no visitors or questioning are allowed. One of our men is waiting on the spot ready for any information he can give us to help to identify the men who attacked him. We think we have a good idea who they are, but we have no certain proof, unless he can supply it, and we are quite in the dark as to the motive.”

  “You can’t suspect—” began the colonel, and stopped.

  He was plainly much disturbed. “You can’t—” he began again, but got no further. He seemed oddly shrunken; he had lost his customary air of dignity—aloof, unassailable. Only too-clearly he had been shaken to the depths. Bobby was not watching him now. Rising to his feet, Bobby went to stand in the corner by the nearest window, looking out over the rhododendrons. It was on these now that his eyes were fixed intently. Stammering a little, the colonel said: “My boy … Leofric … a good lad … you can’t imagine, you can’t suspect him of smothering a woman and pushing her body into a packing-case.”

  “Colonel Godwinsson,” Bobby said, but still it was the rhododendron bushes that he watched, “I told you nothing about smothering, nothing about a packing-case. How did you know?”

  “How did I know?” the colonel repeated. “How did I know? I won
der. It was a dream I had. I dreamed I saw a man put a cushion over a woman’s face, and then I thought I saw him lifting her body into a packing-case.”

  “Who was the man?” Bobby asked.

  “In my dream that man was I,” the colonel answered.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  CY KING AGAIN

  Bobby remained standing motionless by the window. His eyes were intent upon the rhododendron bushes, his mind intent upon what he had just heard.

  His eager, searching glance allowed no least movement in the bushes to escape his notice. His eager, searching thoughts ranged over every possible interpretation of the colonel’s strange statement. Had it been, he asked himself, a veiled confession, giving relief to the mind without being a complete commitment? Or could it be a subtle attempt to explain away the knowledge shown of the circumstances of Lady Geraldine’s death? Or was it a father’s desperate attempt to divert suspicion from a beloved son, known, or at least feared, to be guilty? Or, again, could it be that in some paranormal way Colonel Godwinsson had indeed seen in dream what had occurred in fact?

  Bobby had known too much that was strange to feel able to rule out this last explanation, however doubtful and suspicious it might be. Even science, though not every scientist, has grown humble in admitting that the processes of nature include uncertainty. Colonel Godwinsson had not spoken again. He sat impassive and immobile, it was as though he was no longer there. Presently Bobby, his eyes still as intent and watchful as before upon those rhododendron bushes, said as if to himself: “Dreams may be true.”

  “It seems this was,” the colonel answered.

  “Was it a dream?” Bobby asked.

  “What else?” the colonel asked in return.

  With sudden flashing movements Bobby tore open the window and hurled himself through it. With all the speed his long legs could provide him with, he raced towards the bushes. He saw a small figure he thought he recognized emerge from among them, and, agile as a monkey, swing itself over the orchard wall. Bobby ran harder still. But now he had reached the rhododendrons, and they barred his progress. One cannot hope to rival the hundred yards record while dodging through and round a tangle of bushes. By the time he had reached the orchard wall and climbed it, the sound of a motor cycle starting up had become audible. Bobby ran across the orchard, climbed the farther wall, dropped into the road beyond, and was just in time to see a cloud of dust diminishing in the far distance. He watched ruefully.

  “Of all the elusive eels in or out of Christendom,” he told himself, “that fellow takes the cake.”

  He sighed, a frustrated man. Then he examined anxiously the knees of his trousers, for he knew only too well what Olive would say if he had to ask her to mend torn knees, and no more coupons available. To his relief, no damage was visible. After so happy an escape, he was not going to risk his trouser knees again by climbing any more walls, so he walked on to the Ing Wain entrance gate.

  It was a fair distance, and took some time. However, when he was admitted by a butler whose worst suspicions had now evidently been confirmed, he found Colonel Godwinsson still seated in the same position, as if he had not stirred or moved. He seemed as remote, as withdrawn as before. Indeed, there was that about him which made Bobby feel that dreams and visions and the second sight were from him just now to be expected. He did not even look up when the ancient butler, opening the door to admit Bobby, announced:

  “The person has returned.”

  Bobby crossed the room and seated himself in the chair he had occupied before. The colonel took no notice. Bobby said formally:

  “I must apologize. I had for some minutes noticed movements in the rhododendrons that made me think some one was hiding there, and then I saw a man evidently trying to slip away, so I went after him. But he was too quick and he had a motor cycle waiting. I had my run for nothing.”

  The colonel seemed less remote now. It was as if his spirit had returned from the remote and awful regions into which it had wandered and was beginning again to concern itself with mundane matters. He said:

  “I think I remember hearing about a man asking questions in the village. It is not unusual, but apparently he was rather persistent. This house interests many people, and it is known that my family is one of the most ancient in the world. I gathered, though, that this man hardly seemed a person likely to be interested normally in such things.”

  “Were any steps taken?” Bobby asked. “Were the police informed?”

  “What of?” the colonel retorted. “There was nothing unusual. Many people visit the village and seem to think my house is a show place open to the public. It isn’t, though I am always prepared to allow visits from persons with proper credentials.”

  “Yes, I see,” Bobby said. “Most likely it was the same man I saw. If so, he was up to something. If I had been able to catch him I could have charged him with being found on enclosed premises for a presumed unlawful purpose. It would at least have given a chance to search him and take his fingerprints. We have never been able to do that so far. A slippery customer.”

  “If you know him, why can’t you arrest him now?” the colonel asked, evidently suspecting lack of energy and zeal.

  “No charge,” Bobby answered. “I think I know who it was all right, but I couldn’t swear to it. I never saw his face, and no court would accept recognition of a backside and a pair of vanishing legs.”

  “But who is he? And why does he want to hide in my rhododendrons?”

  “Cy King’s his name,” Bobby answered. “Dangerous as well as slippery. He’s the boss of one of the post-war gangs that infest London. He tried to murder me once, and will again, given the favourable opportunity I intend to see he doesn’t get. He is rather more than suspected of one or two murders already.”

  “But surely in that case—”

  “No proof,” Bobby answered. “The Public Prosecutor wouldn’t even be amused if we took it to him. No proof even that the missing men are dead. But that is what is being said in the underworld, and they generally know. If the attempt on your son had succeeded, I think it more than probable he would never have been heard of again. Cy King is one of those rare killers who like to kill. His luck was out that he never got the chance of a job in a German concentration camp. Suited him down to the ground. I can assure you that he would cut your throat—he specializes in knife-play, considers guns clumsy, noisy, inartistic—as soon as look at you if he got half a chance, either with or without any sort of reason.”

  “I shall have to be careful,” the colonel remarked with a faint smile, “but I can’t understand either why he was paying us a visit or, for that matter, what any criminal gang should want with Leofric.”

  “Colonel Godwinsson,” Bobby said, “I will ask you a question—who returned the Wharton jewellery?”

  “I did not even know it had been returned,” the colonel answered. “I haven’t seen anything in the papers. Naturally, I heard about the robbery, and I remember admiring the jewellery the duchess was wearing at a ball shortly before the second German war. Of course, too, Leofric, told me of his own absurd misadventure and of the ample apology he had received. I was annoyed, I admit, but I know mistakes do happen. I am glad to know the jewellery has been returned. Have you any idea why?”

  “Possibly because the thieves found things getting too warm for them,” Bobby said. “There’s nothing to show. It happens sometimes. There was one case when an extremely valuable pearl necklace was stolen, and finally discovered in a matchbox in the gutter. The thieves found it too difficult to dispose of, the pursuit growing too hot, and at last got rid of it like that. Or there may be some other reason. In this case one seems to catch a glimpse of many different and complicated, and even contrasting motives.”

  “Is it generally known that the Wharton jewels have been returned?”

  “We want to keep it quiet as long as possible. We had reason to believe rival gangsters were fighting for possession. There has been one killing, though we don’t know whether it
is a result or a cause of what was going on in the underworld. Of course, we knew we couldn’t keep the return of the Wharton stuff quiet for long, and it’s getting known now. We stopped the mouths of the newspaper men by telling them in confidence, poor dears. They do hate that, and now they want a release. We shall have to agree. But we are trying to put it about that the Whartons haven’t got the famous Wharton blackamoor pendant—the three black pearls, you know. Everyone’s heard of them. And that they haven’t the Charlemagne jewel either. I take it the Charlemagne jewel is one of the best-known things in the world; worth any amount almost.”

  “You mean the thieves have still got them?” the colonel asked. “That’s bad.”

  “Well, no,” Bobby answered. “Neither the thieves nor the Whartons have them, for the very good reason that we asked permission to take charge of them ourselves for a time. We hope the gangster hunt—if there is one, as we believe—will still go on and some move will be made to give us a chance to act. I am telling you this in confidence, of course. I thought it necessary as Cy King is showing himself in the neighbourhood, and I think you would be wise to take precautions. I think, too, it would be as well to warn your other son—Mr Gurth is his name, isn’t it? It may be that whoever made the attack on his brother will turn their attention to him next.”

  “It hardly seems possible,” said the colonel. “I don’t pretend to understand all this—not in the least. If this Cy King you speak of does try to pay me a visit, I shall certainly take care to be ready for him.”

  “There’s just one other thing,” Bobby went on. “One never knows how an investigation of this sort is going to develop. My visit to-day has been more or less unofficial. It was thought you might be able to help us over the attempt on Mr Leofric. Possibly it may be thought well to ask you for a formal statement. That would probably be for the county police—” and Bobby named the Chief Constable whom he had talked to earlier in the day.