Music Tells All: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “A small automatic pistol is easily disposed of,” Bell said. “If you had had one and produced it, we could have made sure it wasn’t the one used. Have you had any firearm in your possession since you came here?”

  “No,” said Rhoda. “None.”

  “I may have to ask you to make a written statement to that effect, miss,” Bell told her.

  “Don’t forget me,” said George in the same jeering voice. “We won’t,” promised Bell, who was growing tired of the young man’s aggressive manner. “We have received some further information. It is to the effect that there has been quarrelling between you, Mr. Rogers, and this man, Biggs, and that you and he have been seen fighting. Is that true?”

  “No, it isn’t,” growled George, but in a much less confident tone.

  “Both stories then, you say, are untrue,” Bell remarked. “Both this one and the one about the pistol?”

  “I don’t go about fighting people,” George said resentfully. “Biggs may have been fighting someone but it wasn’t me and there’s never been any pistol here. I wouldn’t have one of the beastly things in the house. I suppose that fat-headed old vicar knew Rhoda had been in the A.T.S., and probably he thinks all the girls went about armed to the teeth, and still do.”

  “Thank you,” Bell said. “I think that’s all. Do you think there’s anything else we ought to ask, Mr. Owen?”

  “I understand Biggs served in Egypt,” Bobby said. “Perhaps we might ask Miss Rogers if she knew him there. I think she served in Egypt, too.”

  There was a silence then, a silence so complete that in it the ticking of a small clock on the mantelpiece became suddenly audible. Rhoda could not well become more pale than she had been before nor could her intent and blazing eyes seem to burn more fiercely. Yet it was as though both these things happened, and the utter stillness and rigidity of her attitude appeared a mere camouflage of intense inner awareness. George’s scornful and superior manner left him too, as a roof may leave a house when a bomb bursts near. With an effort, in a shaken voice, he said: “You’ve no right to badger us with a lot of pointless questions. Tell them you won’t answer any more, Rhoda.”

  “That is your right,” Bobby said. “But is it wise? Inquiries can be made in other quarters. We have information that a court martial took place in Egypt and there seems to have been an idea that there was something behind that didn’t come out at the time. I expect that could be inquired into.”

  “Damn you,” said George furiously.

  “By all means,” said Bobby cheerfully, “but wouldn’t it be better to tell us all about it now? You’ll have to in the end and it might be better if Mr. Bell heard your version first. Of course, you can take time to think it over. Or you can consult your solicitor. But I warn you. Secrets can’t be kept. That’s my experience. Things are bound to come out in the end.”

  “Oh, all right,” Rhoda said. “We lived together in Cairo.”

  “Now you’ve got your bit of dirt,” said George. “Hope you’re satisfied.”

  “It’s not dirt,” Rhoda flashed, turning on him in a fresh and fiercer blaze of anger.

  “They’ll make it sound so,” George retorted. “To the dirty mind, all is dirt.”

  “Shut up,” Rhoda said. She turned to the two detectives. “We met out there,” she said. “We couldn’t marry. He was a private. I was an officer. That’s what upset them at their court martial. If I had been living with an officer, that would have been all right, that would have been normal and proper, provided you didn’t do it openly. Most likely all the court martial lot were doing it. Men officers could with other ranks in the women’s services, but not the other way round. That was outside the rules. Not that a word about it was said at the court martial, not a word or a wink. We all knew about each other but we never said. Only a spiteful old fool did once. I gave her the scare of her life. That’s what the court martial was about. I wish I had done what they said. Tried to shoot her, I mean. I fired miles over her head, and she squawked like the old hen she was. I could have shot the pips off her shoulder if I had tried, but I didn’t. They said they let me off lightly because of the state of my nerves. What they meant was they made it as bad as they could because they weren’t going to have officers living with privates. An insult to His Majesty’s commission. My nerves are all right. If you want to know, Fred and I are getting married soon.”

  “More fool you,” said George.

  “No one asked your opinion,” Rhoda retorted.

  “Fred is Mr. Biggs?” Bobby asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” said Bobby. “One thing more. You are acquainted with Miss Bellamy?”

  “Miss Bellamy? Yes. Why?”

  “Do you know on what terms Miss Bellamy was with Mr. Biggs?”

  “On what terms? I don’t know what you mean.”

  “They think they’ve dug up something else,” George interrupted. “Go on. Tell us what it is.”

  “I should like Miss Rogers’s answer first,” Bobby said.

  “I don’t know anything about it,” Rhoda answered.

  “Our information,” Bobby explained, “is that he has been seen visiting Miss Bellamy’s cottage late at night.”

  Rhoda only stared. She shook her head and said with some contempt:

  “Is this some sort of trap? It’s all nonsense. Of course, he was acting as Mr. Fielding’s chauffeur and Mr. Fielding and Miss Bellamy are very friendly. I believe in the village it’s expected they’ll get married soon. I suppose Fred might have been taking a message.”

  “It might be that,” Bobby agreed. “I expect Mr. Bell will think it’ll have to be inquired into. Very unpleasant but things have to be sorted out.”

  “The trouble is,” said Bell sadly, “that Biggs has got to be found before we can ask him anything.”

  Rhoda said and she spoke slowly and heavily:

  “What do you want to find him for? Fred would never murder anyone. You don’t think he did, do you?”

  “There is not enough to go on yet,” Bobby said, “but I think you think perhaps he did.”

  Rhoda stood looking at him. She changed. All at once she ceased to be the tragic muse she had seemed before and turned into a small and frightened girl. Slowly, disconcertingly, silently, with painful difficulty, she began to cry.

  CHAPTER XIV

  WEALTHY CHAUFFEUR

  “Conscientious objector,” Bell said unexpectedly as he and Bobby left the bungalow. “Might be a pretty good camouflage.”

  “Why, yes,” agreed Bobby. “I hadn’t thought of that. But I don’t think so. He has the hallmarks—aggressive and dogmatic.”

  “What about the pistol?” Bell asked. “I mean about its being really a gaslighter the vicar saw?”

  “Struck me as pretty thin,” Bobby answered. “The best Miss Rogers could think of probably. Even the most unworldly clergyman should be able to tell the difference between a gas lighter and a pistol. I should guess she has given it to Biggs, or it may have been his originally, and now she is terrified for fear Biggs is the killer and the pistol what he used.”

  “What made her break down the way she did?” Bell asked thoughtfully. “Does she know her brother and this Biggs bloke and the dead man are all in it together? That smash and grab raid of yours must come into it somewhere.”

  “The opal ring proves that,” Bobby agreed again. “Only where?”

  “What about lunch?” asked Bell, changing the subject.

  “My wife’s expecting us,” Bobby said. “There won’t be much but she’ll have fixed up something.” This was said with all a husband’s easy optimism and then he added, “I don’t know about your chaps.”

  “Oh, they’re all right,” Bell explained. “The canteen is sending over sandwiches and bread and cheese. I suppose,” he added, “the pub will have some beer?”

  “Not,” Bobby assured him, “not for cops. If the village saw their beer going down the throats of cops there would be a row. Riot probably. Lyn
ching I expect. Your chaps will get no beer here.”

  “And we are told,” Bell said sadly, “that we can always rely upon the co-operation of the public while engaged in the execution of our duty.”

  “We must make allowance for the weakness of human nature,” Bobby pointed out and Bell said gloomily that he didn’t see why.

  Then he said he thought he must pig in with his men. He could share their sandwiches, their bread and cheese, and their thirst. He felt he mustn’t impose upon Mrs. Owen, already no doubt driven distracted by useless efforts to provide for Bobby’s enormous and ferocious appetite, satisfying which probably meant that she herself went hungry to bed every night. Bobby, slightly pained, retorted that he ate practically nothing, just pecked at his food so to say, and wasn’t there a lot of unnecessary grumbling about the rations? In his view they were ample for anyone for at least three days a week. Anyhow, out of airy nothings and mere unconsidered trifles to concoct a meal was part of every housewife’s daily round. Besides, it wasn’t fair for senior officers to pig in with their men. What other chance had the men to tell each other how badly the affair was being handled and how much better they could do it themselves?

  Bell, admitting the force of this argument, then accepted Bobby’s invitation. Olive was in fact expecting them, and, if she had not exactly prepared a meal from airy nothings, had at least done so from materials that in former days would have roused her to hearty laughter. She was not altogether displeased that they disposed of it in a hurry—‘gobbled it down’ was her own expression—and rushed off immediately, because thus any indigestion they suffered could be blamed upon their haste and not on what they had eaten.

  First they visited Miss Cann again. When they entered the little shop and Miss Cann appeared, there followed her from the inner regions a smell so savoury as to set the mouths of both men watering.

  “No austerity meal in progress here,” Bobby murmured.

  “You don’t supply lunches as well as teas, Miss Cann, do you?” Bell asked wistfully.

  “No, I don’t,” said Miss Cann, repulsing wistfulness with firm decision.

  The inner door opened again and there emerged a small, square-set man with a square face, incongruously adorned by a round little blob of a nose. He was wiping his mouth as he came in and he said aggressively:

  “Our dinner’s our affair, isn’t it?”

  “Of course,” agreed Bell.

  “If an Englishman’s home,” Bobby explained gravely, “is his castle his dinner is his keep.”

  “Eh?” said Cann suspiciously.

  “It’s an aphorism,” Bobby explained.

  “We’ve never had any, have we, aunt?” declared Cann. “We never got a smell of any blessed thing off the rations.”

  “We only thought what a nice smell it was,” Bell told him. “You know a man has been found dead this morning in the grounds of Mr. Fielding’s place?”

  “Nobody’s talking of anything else,” Cann answered. “That bloke with the sham jewellery, isn’t it? Is it true Biggs did it and you’re after him?”

  “Biggs seems to have taken himself off,” Bell answered. “We would like to question him if we could find him. That doesn’t mean he is the murderer.”

  “Well, I haven’t seen him since last night. He was standing at the entrance to Mr. Fielding’s as I was passing. We had a bit of a chat and then I came on home and had supper.”

  “What time was it when you saw Biggs?”

  “Ten o’clock. I remember the church clock was just striking. Aunt will tell you the same. Aunt and I sat up a bit talking.”

  “That’s right,” said Miss Cann.

  “A bit after twelve it was before we got to bed,” Cann asserted.

  “What I told them before,” said Miss Cann.

  The doctor, said Bell, “seems to think the dead man was shot about twelve. Most people were in bed and asleep. Hid you hear anything like a shot?”

  They’ both denied it, but, or so Bobby thought, with unnecessary emphasis. It wasn’t likely they would hear anything, Cann pointed out, considering the distance. Both the detectives were inclined to agree, though on a quiet night sounds travel far. In reply to further questions, Cann said he had left his employment with Mr. Fielding because he wanted a change and had heard of another job he thought might suit him better. But he hadn’t liked it and so he had thrown it up and come home for a holiday before looking for fresh work. No trouble about that. A man, providing he knew his job, could pick and choose at present. And it certainly wasn’t true he owed Biggs a grudge for displacing him at Mr. Fielding’s. Nor was it true that he and Biggs had quarrelled. The story about their fighting was just a silly pack of lies. His aunt had told them, hadn’t she? that it was that young swank pot, Mr. Rogers, who had had the fight. If you could call it a fight. Young Rogers hadn’t stood a chance against Biggs. Biggs was tough. Biggs could whip a dozen like Mr. Rogers with one hand tied behind him. No, you couldn’t call it a fight. Biggs had simply turned the young man round and dismissed him with a couple of hearty kicks. Asked how he knew, he replied that Biggs had told him, and Bobby reflected that one story is always good till another is told.

  There was nothing more however that apparently Cann knew, or at least was willing to tell, and the two detectives retired, profoundly dissatisfied.

  “They’re hiding something,” Bell said as they went away, and Bobby was in full agreement.

  “Something,” he said thoughtfully, “that happened about midnight, or why are they so anxious to establish an alibi for then?”

  “Have to keep an eye on Cann,” said Bell, “only why should he want to do in this salesman bloke?”

  “We’ve no hint as yet,” Bobby reminded him, “of any shadow of a motive.”

  They walked on, still talking, to Middles, where Mr. Fielding was alone, the vicar having left some time before. Bell asked once again a few questions about Cann without learning more than he knew already. Biggs had applied for the job on his own initiative. He said he heard at the London garage, where Mr. Fielding occasionally parked his car, that Mr. Fielding required a new chauffeur, and as he wanted a job, and understood Mr. Fielding was a good employer, he came along. Mr. Fielding engaged him on the spot, only too thankful to get the vacancy filled so quickly. Biggs had shown his discharge papers from the army and with that Mr. Fielding had been satisfied.

  “Competent, decent men are hard to get,” he said.

  With regard to his present disappearance, no news of him had been received. Mr. Fielding said he had been round to the garage once or twice. He couldn’t understand it.

  “You’ve got a man there,” he remarked. “He wouldn’t let me into my own garage.”

  Bell apologized. A necessary precaution. Would Mr. Fielding accompany them there now? Both he, Bell said, and his colleague, Mr. Owen, thought the time had come to make a closer search. There was a locked cash box they had found during their previous visit. They had decided to open it, and would be glad, when they did so, of the presence of a responsible witness. Mr. Fielding agreed. Not too willingly. He was feeling the strain. A most dreadful business. What he wanted to do was to go away and pretend it had never happened. Bobby remarked that that was a not uncommon wish, and Bell said he didn’t suppose any amount of wishing would ever make things better. Worse probably. After this plunge into philosophy they went round to the garage where a bored, hungry and forgotten constable, who had never received his share of the sandwiches and bread and cheese from the canteen at county headquarters, was very pleased to see them. He had nothing to report. No one had been near the place except Mr. Fielding himself to whom, as ‘per instructions received’ he had refused admittance. Bell said that was all right. Mr. Fielding quite understood; and the constable could cut off now, tell the sergeant to send someone else in his place, and himself collect his share of what was left of the bread and cheese. Respectfully the constable submitted that this would be just exactly ‘nil’, and Bell said severely that the constable
must learn to look on the bright side of things. So the constable saluted and departed and Bell opened the garage door. Mr. Fielding hung back a moment.

  “Hear it?” he asked.

  “Hear what?” Bell asked, listening.

  “I think it’s music,” Bobby said. “Music from the cottage down the lane.”

  “Oh, that,” Bell said and went into the garage.

  “It sounds like a funeral march,” Bobby said, still listening.

  Mr. Fielding said nothing, but he seemed even more pale than before as he followed Bell, almost at a run. Bobby followed, too, and Mr. Fielding banged the garage door behind them. It was almost as though he wished to shut the music out.

  “The thing is,” Bobby said, “why should anyone, anyone at all, want to shoot the man?”

  “Perhaps no one did,” Mr. Fielding said, as if to himself. He said: “Things happen.”

  “Or is it that we make them happen?” Bobby asked.

  Mr. Fielding did not answer and Bell had not heard. They went on up the stairs to the rooms above. Bobby produced the cash box from its unobtrusive place in the wardrobe. Bell produced some tools they had brought with them. The lock was of cheap construction and gave no trouble.

  Within were papers, including a list of investments amounting to rather more than £3,000. There was also a cheque book issued by a London branch of the Great Central Bank and a letter from the manager of the branch, giving the credit balance as about £400. There was also a small sum of money in one pound notes but nothing apparently of a personal nature.

  “With all that money,” Bell said, “what was his idea, taking a three pound a week job? He could have started on his own or bought a share in a business.”

  “Four pounds a week,” said Mr. Fielding. “That’s what I was paying. You have to. I had no idea I had such a wealthy chauffeur.”

  “He may have been just putting in time, looking round and waiting for an opening,” Bell suggested.

  Bobby, lifting some of the papers left in the cash box, disclosed beneath them two clips of cartridges.