“I suppose about the only word of truth in all that,” Bobby remarked as he closed the door of the empty library and drew his captive back down the corridor to the entrance hall, “is the part about the thousand pounds. Which means, I imagine, that you were trying a spot of blackmail. Probably Colonel Godwinsson threatened to give you in charge, and you couldn’t face that, so you knifed him and ran for it. Does that mean you are yourself the murderer of Joey Parsons and of Lady Geraldine?”
“Me?” demanded Cy, his voice rising almost to a scream. “Me? I never had nothing to do with it, only for thinking when I heard Joey had been outed, and it wasn’t none of his pals and no one knew why, only most like it was about his girl, as how there ought to be a chance of getting hold of the Wharton stuff we all knew he had hidden somewhere. Angel Alley, like as not, and I might as well have it as the next man. Only then there was you again, at Angel Alley, always interfering, always busy. I only wish,” he went on, and confirmed his wish with an oath or two, “I hadn’t ever had nothing to do with it. Never had so much as a smell of the stuff, and look where it’s got me. Me as innocent as can be, and you trying to pin a murder on me, and twisting my arm something cruel. It’s hurting most awful.”
“I expect it’ll hurt worse presently,” was the unsympathetic reply Bobby gave him.
They had reached the hall again now, and once more Bobby shouted, and once more he got no answer. The utter silence was, however, now broken again by a repetition of that strange, muffled thumping Bobby had heard before and that seemed to come from the direction of the library, though there was no one there.
Uncertain what to do, almost as much the captive of his prisoner as was his prisoner of himself, embarrassed, feeling even slightly ridiculous—‘frustrated’ is the fashionable word of the moment Bobby stood there in the hall. He wondered if there were cellars in which Cy could be locked till help arrived. But he did not know if any existed, or, if they did, how to reach them. Or for that matter if any of them could be securely fastened. He seldom carried handcuffs, and had none with him. If there had been any cord available he would have tried to tie Cy up. A difficult task that would be, though. A job for an expert, for Cy was agile enough to wriggle himself free from any but the most secure fastenings.
It began to look as if he would have to wait there, Cy and he, giving a kind of absurd Siamese-twin act, till help arrived. He supposed help might have been gone for, and that might be why the house seemed deserted. Why Stokes had disappeared, perhaps. What, then, had happened to Colonel Godwinsson? Had he after all been only slightly injured, and had it been possible to take him, or for him to go, in search of medical help, instead of waiting for it here? Or was perhaps his dead body lying somewhere in the house, and had the frightened inmates fled from it in horror and in terror? Impossible to say.
“A-i-ee, I can’t bear it, Mr Owen, sir, I can’t—my arm,” Cy whimpered, and went limp in Bobby’s grasp.
Bobby suspected this was largely pretence—at least, as far as fainting went. No doubt Cy’s arm was hurting him, but Bobby had no intention of allowing that fact to interfere with the necessity of keeping his prisoner secure. With intense relief he heard sounds outside, and then a cautious and respectful knocking at the front door.
“Don’t stand there,” Bobby called impatiently. “Come in here, and quick about it.”
A figure in uniform appeared, and regarded with considerable astonishment the odd spectacle presented of Bobby standing in the hall, supporting the limp figure of Cy. But now help had come Bobby was not inclined to support it any longer. He let it go thump on the floor, and Cy said: “Oh,” rather loudly, for that had been unexpected. Then he said:
“Can I have a drink of water, please?”
“No,” said Bobby, who was in no gentle mood.
“You Mr Owen?” asked the newcomer.
“Yes,” Bobby answered. “You are the relief man, I suppose? I’m giving this man in charge—attempted murder. Have you handcuffs? Good. Fix this fellow up with them. But take care. He may wriggle free. Stay with him for the moment and watch out. If you let him escape, you’ll be for it. Don’t let him fool you with drinks of water or anything like that.”
“Very good, sir,” said the constable, and handcuffed Cy accordingly.
“I’ll watch him. Colonel Godwinsson’s place, isn’t it, sir?”
“Yes,” Bobby answered, “but there doesn’t seem to be any one in. I’ve been shouting, but there’s no answer.”
“There’s some one knocking,” the constable said, listening to that recurrent muffled sound that had now begun again.
“It may be from upstairs,” Bobby said. “I’ve not been up there yet. I’ll have a look down here first, though.”
Leaving Cy in the constable’s charge, not without a further warning to take good care of a prisoner as cunning as a wagon-load of monkeys—a comparison which brought a faint smile of approval from Cy—Bobby made a quick tour of all the other rooms on the ground floor, including the domestic offices. All were empty. One or two were in dustsheets, as though in the present shortage of domestic help they had been closed for the duration—of the peace this time? Bobby came back to the hall, made sure that Cy was still safely in custody, and ran up the stairs, still calling as he went to know if there was any one at home, still getting no reply, still conscious at intervals of that recurrent rhythmic thumping.
The landing at the head of the stairs was spacious. There was a great window with window-seats and two suits of armour—genuine, not Birmingham—guarding it. Several doors opened from it, and two corridors stretched away to the remoter regions of the vast old house. He opened two doors into empty rooms. In the third were two people. On the bed lay Colonel Godwinsson, very still and pale, his eyes closed. By his side half sat, half lay a woman. Bobby recognized Mrs Godwinsson, whom he had seen in her invalid chair on the lawn during his previous visit. She had apparently collapsed. She opened her eyes when Bobby entered.
“Doctor,” she murmured, “doctor … I got him here … Jane helped … and a man … they went for help … I couldn’t any more.” More loudly she said: “Have you come too late?”
Bobby crossed to the bed. He thought at first that it was indeed too late. Collar and tie had been removed and the shirt undone, so that apparently some attempt at first aid had been made. A clean handkerchief had been placed in position, Bobby lifted it and saw a small incised wound. It had bled only very slightly, and Bobby thought that was no good sign. He thought there was little to be done till a doctor and further help arrived. With a wound of this nature, and probably interior bleeding, he did not dare try to administer any stimulant. He wiped the colonel’s lips with a little brandy from the flask he carried and he felt the feet. They were very cold though they rested on a hot-water bottle. He said to Mrs Godwinsson:
“You have sent for a doctor—for help?”
“Jane went,” she answered. “With a man. He was there. Aren’t you a doctor? I thought you were. Jane had to go because we couldn’t use the ’phone. It’s broken. There’s a man in the library. He’s making a noise.”
“I’ve been in there, in the library,” Bobby said. “There’s no one there.”
“Yes, there is,” Mrs Godwinsson insisted, “only you can’t see him.”
CHAPTER XXXV
GURTH’S STORY
Bobby made no attempt to ask for an explanation of this cryptic saying. Mrs Godwinsson was in no state to be questioned. She had sunk again into that kind of comatose condition in which he had found her. The mental shock of what had happened, the physical effort of getting the dying man upstairs, had plainly been too much for her. Bobby saw that she was fairly comfortable where she half lay, half sat. He found a cushion to put behind her back and another for her head to rest on. He took a coat, too, from a wardrobe to throw over her as a precaution against any risk of chill in the present lowered physical condition of her body, and then hurried downstairs again.
There Cy, handcuffed as he
might be, was under careful watch, and could hardly move a muscle without being told gruffly not to try that on. His guardian had no intention of ‘being for it’, as Bobby had warned him, and in a tone that made the words sound ten times more formidable, he would be if he let his prisoner escape. To him Bobby said hurriedly:
“Colonel Godwinsson and his wife are upstairs. He has been stabbed. I think he is dying. He’s unconscious. We can’t do anything till a doctor comes. Mrs Godwinsson said there was a man in the library, but you couldn’t see him. I don’t know what she meant.”
“It was him did that knocking,” the constable said. “Hiding he must have been. Now he’ll have done a bunk.”
“It was all the old fool’s own doing,” Cy said. “Ran right on the knife same as he meant it, and me thinking no harm.”
The sound of that distant, muffled knocking became audible again.
“Lummy,” said the constable.
“Innocent,” said Cy. “That’s me.”
“Come on,” Bobby said to the policeman. “Bring him along—and watch him.”
He hurried the constable and the handcuffed and sullen Cy, still muttering about his ‘innocence’, down the corridor to the library. As he did so he said that if they couldn’t find any one, the constable had better cycle back to the village and use the ’phone to report to his superiors and to make sure that help was really on the way.
“It was only to do my finger nails I had the knife out,” Cy said. “How could I tell he was going to chuck himself right on it?”
They came to the library door. Bobby threw it open.
“No one,” said the constable. “Done a bunk all right. Look at that window.”
“That was Cy leaving in a hurry,” Bobby said.
“Well, there’s no knocking now,” said the constable.
As he spoke it began again. Bobby shouted. There was no reply, though he thought the knocking increased in energy. It seemed to him to come from behind one of the book-lined walls, the one to the right of where they stood in the doorway. He went nearer and listened. The knocking was louder now. On one shelf the books, a series of heavy tomes of eighteenth-century sermons, seemed in disorder, and one had even fallen to the floor. He swept them in an armful to a chair conveniently near. With the books went a thick, felt pad that had been behind them, so that now a voice came through quite clearly.
“For God’s sake, let me out, quick,” it was calling, and Bobby, in some bewilderment, said:
“Who are you? Where are you?”
But now he could see that behind where the books and the felt pad had been was a small panel in the wall, pierced with tiny eye-holes. Through them some one was peering, and from behind it came the voice, shouting again:
“Don’t waste time. Get me out of here. The door’s locked. I’m locked in. Hurry up.”
“How do I let you out?” Bobby asked. “And who are you?”
“I’m Gurth—Gurth Godwinsson,” the voice answered. “My father’s been murdered. I saw it. I couldn’t do anything. I’m locked in. Get the key. Don’t stand gaping there. Where is he? My father, I mean. Is he there?”
“He is upstairs in his room,” Bobby answered. “Mrs Godwinsson is with him. I am afraid he is badly hurt. Help has been sent for. There is nothing much we can do till it comes. Where is the door? Is it behind these shelves?”
“There’s a knob in the woodwork at the top on the right,”
Gurth told him. “Get a chair or something to stand on, and you’ll see it. Press it down hard till it catches. It’s stiff. When it catches the shelves swing out, if you pull.”
Bobby followed the instructions given. But when the central portion of the shelves swung out in obedience to the pull he gave them, release did not seem much further forward. True, a careful look showed the outline of a door, though so cunningly and well fitted into the wall as not to be immediately visible. There was a tiny keyhole, too, close inspection revealed, but there seemed no way of getting the door open.
“Hurry up,” Gurth called impatiently. “I can’t stop here for ever.”
“I can’t move it,” Bobby said. “It must be locked. Where can I find a key?”
“Dad must have it,” Gurth told him. “It’ll be in his pocket. Or in a drawer of the writing-table. Look there first.”
Bobby did so. There was blood on the leather-covered surface, but only a little. He opened the drawers in succession. There was no key, but in one drawer pushed away at the back was a pistol of that same somewhat rare, now obsolete make, from which, in the opinion of the experts, had come the bullets causing the death of the man found in Angel Alley, whatever his right name might be. Bobby looked at it thoughtfully and gravely, and then with precaution put it in his pocket. Gurth was calling impatiently to know if the key had been found. Bobby said:
“It doesn’t seem to be here. I’ll go and look upstairs. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Tell me first. Did you see what happened.”
“I saw it all. I heard it all,” Gurth said. “Dad told me a man was coming to try to blackmail him. Dad wouldn’t say what about, but he wanted me to be a witness, and I saw it all—everything.”
“And me all innocent and unbeknowing,” Cy exclaimed indignantly. “A dirty trick,” he pronounced.
“Let Mr Godwinsson see him,” Bobby said to the constable, who promptly pushed Cy into Gurth’s line of vision.
“That’s the man,” Gurth cried at once. “Thank God you’ve got him. I tried to get out—when I saw Dad jump up, I mean, and try to collar him. The door wouldn’t open. I tried all I knew, but I couldn’t budge it. I must have shaken it, and shaken the shelves behind, because the books fell down and blocked my view. Dad had fixed them so I could see, but after they fell down, I couldn’t. I hadn’t any idea he had locked the door.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Bobby said again. “I think I can hear a car at last,” he added with relief.
He hurried to the entrance hall. It was a doctor summoned over the ’phone from the village. Bobby explained briefly and took him upstairs. There he shook his head gravely over the colonel’s condition and said that he wasn’t in a fit state to be moved. He did not say, but Bobby felt sure he thought, that the end was not far off. What was immediately needed, Bobby helped him to do. It was agreed then that the constable should drive back to the village in the doctor’s car, taking with him that perpetual embarrassment, Cy King, for safe disposal. First, though, he must summon over the village ’phone the fresh help needed, and then report to his superiors. Efforts Bobby made to find the key of the secret chamber remained entirely unsuccessful, and as soon as he could Bobby returned to say so to the imprisoned Gurth.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait till we can get a locksmith,” he said. “There were keys in Colonel Godwinsson’s pocket, but none small enough to fit this lock. It must be quite tiny—keyhole’s not much bigger than a pin point. Of course, it may turn up somewhere. There hasn’t been time for a real search.”
“How is my father?” Gurth asked.
“The doctor’s doing what he can and he’s sent for more help—a nurse and so on,” Bobby answered. “But he isn’t being very optimistic at present. I am afraid you must be prepared for the worst, though of course one can’t tell for certain. There is always hope. Just now there is nothing to do but wait. The county police will be here before long, and I’ve asked them to bring a locksmith in case the key doesn’t turn up. Will you tell me a little more fully what you saw and heard and why any one should think they had a chance of blackmailing Colonel Godwinsson? Did it seem to be something Cy King thought he knew about your father? Or was it about you? Or your brother, Leofric?”
Gurth hesitated. When he spoke at last it was with restraint and caution. He said:
“It was all so sudden.”
“Take your time,” Bobby said. “This place where you are—what is it? Some sort of secret room? Is it properly ventilated?”
“There are air-holes somewhere, up ne
ar the ceiling,” Gurth explained. “It’s the old priest’s hole. Been here for centuries. Some one, years ago, had the idea of fixing it up as a kind of strong room. That’s when the lock was fitted. Every one knows about it, of course.”
“You could see all right through that kind of Judas arrangement?” Bobby asked.
“Oh, yes, till the books toppled over when I started hammering at the door to try to get out,” Gurth answered.
“Yes, I see,” Bobby said. “How did it begin? Did Colonel Godwinsson say what the blackmailing idea was founded on, or who was affected? He himself, that is, or you or your brother? Of course, you understand you needn’t answer if you don’t wish to, and that I shall be asking Cy King for his side of it presently.”
“Dad said he was being accused of having murdered Gerry. Well, you know … I laughed.”
“Yes,” Bobby said. “What else?”
“I told Dad to let me handle him,” Gurth said. “I wanted to kick him out and then tell old Tommy Layton—he’s the Chief Constable here. He’s a very decent old boy, old friend of Dad’s and all that. Same school tie. But Dad said he wanted to hear what the fellow had to say, and he asked me to wait in this place. Now I can’t get out. He fixed the books so I could see and hear what was going on. So I could all right till the books toppled over.”
“Yes. Go on,” Bobby said.
“Dad brought in that fellow you’ve got,” Gurth said. “He said a lot I couldn’t make head or tail of. He said a lot of rather filthy things, quite ridiculous, about Dad and Gerry and about the rooms where he said Dad used to meet her.
I would have wrung his neck for half what he said, but Dad listened quite coolly. I suppose it sounded too silly to get angry about. Dad was the cleanest-living man possible. Then he accused Dad of having murdered her. It didn’t sound real. I started by being angry, but it began to sound such perfect, utter nonsense I got to feeling more like laughing. And what do you think was the reason why Dad was supposed to have murdered Gerry?”
“What was it?” Bobby asked.
The House of Godwinsson: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 23
