“Why didn’t you tell us all this before?” Bell asked severely. “We don’t like people who only talk when they’re cornered. They may be keeping something more back for all we know.”
“I’m not, why should I now Potter’s been putting you wise?” Cann asked, sulky again. “All I wanted was not to be mixed up in it and be asked what was I doing there that time of night, and Potter swearing it was me he saw, and a lie if ever there was one. It was pitch dark nearly, and I heard him coming and I cleared off long before he was near enough to be sure. Just guessing, that’s all, but ready to swear to it all the same, perjury being nothing to a keeper, if he thinks he can make a case. And what’s more,” Cann added in a burst of candour, “I wouldn’t have said a word now if it hadn’t been for Potter’s lies, saying it was me and him never nearer than twenty yards on as dark a night as ever you saw,” and Cann sounded very hurt and indignant, as though the keeper, in recognizing him, had not been playing fair.
As however it did seem that he had told all he knew, the two detectives departed. When they were a little distance away, Bell said, and in his voice there was just a touch of doubt and mistrust.
“Was it from this man Cann talked about—Potter, wasn’t it? —you got all that from? You never said.”
“I never heard of him till to-night,” Bobby answered promptly. “A gamekeeper about here evidently, but that’s all I know.
I suppose you’ll get on to him? If he confirms Cann’s story, if he did come across some poacher that night about twelve, and if he did in fact trip and come a cropper while in pursuit, as Cann said, I take it Cann will have to be considered cleared.”
“Well, where did you get it from?” Bell asked. “You didn’t build the whole thing up merely because there was a nice smell of cooking in the kitchen that first time we were there, did you?”
“Oh, well, not entirely,” Bobby answered, a little amused at the note of incredulity he had seemed to detect in the other’s voice. “There was that, of course, but chiefly one or two other things I noticed. It wasn’t difficult. If you put two and two together, it’s bound to make four, isn’t it?”
“It is,” agreed Bell. “I’ve noticed that much all by myself. Only there is getting hold of the two to add to the other two.”
“Oh, well,” Bobby explained, “I happened to remember Fielding’s saying something about keepers having less work and more rabbits now Cann had left. It seemed suggestive, though at the time I only thought it might explain why Cann had taken another job, if he thought the local game-keepers were getting after him. And I knew he was lying when he said he had been talking to Biggs at ten o’clock that night, because I saw Biggs myself at that time and Cann wasn’t with him. I suppose Cann wanted to explain why he was sure of the time. He heard the clock striking when he saw Biggs at Middles, so all he had to do was to say ten instead of eleven and make it sound convincing. Detail is always convincing, but then, for another thing, the times didn’t fit. Neither that nor the nice smell of cooking in the kitchen that almost shouted rabbits or some sort of game, would have counted for much alone, but taken together I thought it was good enough. As it was, because if you show you know a good deal, then an uneasy conscience always thinks you must know the rest as well. As you’ll have noticed yourself.”
“Oh, yes,” Bell agreed. “That’s right—only you have to be sure you’ve got the right two to add to the proper two to make the correct four. What about Cann’s story of Fielding being scared of Miss Bellamy? Are we to take it as meaning something? Or was the old lady right when she said it was only the way any bachelor is scared when he knows a woman is on his trail?”
“More to it than that I think,” Bobby said, “though it’s hard to say what.”
“If there is,” Bell asked in his depressed way, “what’s it mean? Where does it come in? How about adding that two and two together and telling me what sort of a four it makes?”
“I’ll have a try,” Bobby promised. He glanced at his wrist watch. “Time for bed,” he suggested.
“That’s right,” Bell agreed, quite cheerfully for him, “and me that’s been hard at it since all hours, and not, like some I could name, snoozing comfortably away all day in bed.”
Bobby, unable to think of an appropriate reply, contented himself with a mild threat to ring up Bell at the very beginning of his beauty sleep to inform him of some fresh difficulty.
“Lots of ’em for that matter,” he added, as gloomily as Bell at his gloomiest, and then they parted, Bell to find his car and drive home and Bobby to seek supper and bed, both equally welcome in spite of the long daytime sleep.
Supper was there all right, and Olive waited till her man was fed before she said:
“Miss Bellamy has been playing again. It sounded so strange. I went down the lane to listen. Do you know, Mr. Fielding was there, listening.”
“At the cottage, you mean?”
“Yes, not inside, in the lane, huddled up against the hedge opposite, almost as if he were hiding. I shouldn’t have seen him, only Miss Bellamy stopped playing and he moved. It gave me such a start. Do you know … ?”
“Know what?” Bobby asked when she paused.
“It sounds impossible, I know,” she said, “but really and truly, it was almost as if—well, as if he was hiding. Do you know … ?”
“Go ahead,” said Bobby. “Everything seems impossible in this affair.”
“It was exactly as though he was most awfully relieved to see me. He seemed to think my being there was a kind of protection. He said, thank God you’ve come, and I said, Why? He said to get away quick. He took hold of my arm and it was just like a child wanting to hold your hand in the dark. All the way back up the lane he was talking at random and laughing in a silly nervous way. I asked him what was the matter but he didn’t say anything. He just went on talking. I thought at first he had been drinking, but it wasn’t that. Why was he glad to see me and why was he crouching there in the hedge, outside her cottage, as if he were hiding or waiting or whatever it was?”
“I’ll have to ask him,” Bobby said. “To-morrow morning,” he added, glancing at the clock. “Or Miss Bellamy,” he said.
“She started playing again,” Olive said. “All the way up the lane we could hear her. It was almost as if the music were pursuing us.”
“That’s the second time I’ve heard that said to-night,” Bobby remarked, and he looked grave and thoughtful.
CHAPTER XXVIII
IDENTIFICATION
One of the most valuable gifts Nature had bestowed upon Bobby was that of being able to put all doubts and worries out of his mind and sleep untroubled through the night, no matter how deep in perplexity and apprehension his thoughts had been during the day.
Ungratefully enough, he was apt to complain that the soundest sleep never provided him with any solution to his problems. Not for him, as he had read it often was with others, to wake up with a clear answer to his difficulties; handed to him as it were on a plate by his unconscious mind, hard at it during bodily slumber. Olive’s occasionally proffered explanation that this was because he hadn’t got an unconscious mind, he tended to regard with some suspicion since he was not altogether sure of the spirit in which it was put forward. However, if his unconscious fell down on the job as usual, there arrived, during breakfast, by special messenger, a note from Bell to say that his inquiries showed that during George Rogers’s so brief sojourn in gaol, there had been another inmate, on the verge of release, a man named Burden, known now as the leader of the gang which was rather more than suspected of responsibility for that smash and grab raid hovering so curiously and in so puzzling a manner on the perimeter, so to speak, of these events. Also there were included seven or eight photographs together with one of the Mr. Burden in question. These were to be shown to George to see if he could pick out that of the man he had noticed talking to Biggs. In addition there was a photograph of an elderly man with a short white beard. It was that of a man named Frank Bardsell about to
be released on ticket of leave but who had committed suicide during Rogers’s stay in the prison. Bell thought it might be useful. Bobby thought so, too. Olive asked why but Bobby wouldn’t tell her.
“You ought to know,” he said severely. “A long shot, of course, but it may come off.” He added: “Bell doesn’t say anything about the handkerchief.”
“What handkerchief?” Olive asked, at a loss for the moment. “The one I borrowed from Fielding,” Bobby reminded her. “It’s been sent up for examination.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Olive said. “I know. Of course, if that stunt of yours comes off—”
“It isn’t a stunt,” Bobby interrupted indignantly.
“Well, tour de force,” Olive corrected herself.
“That,” agreed Bobby, placated, “is much better.” He added: “I made sure it was fresh from the laundry. It had to be. Fielding had none left before the laundry came.”
Olive asked for no explanation of these last somewhat cryptic remarks. For the moment her mind was much occupied by an incredible rumour that had reached her to the effect that just possibly oranges might be on sale some time during the day. So, as breakfast was now over, she departed as on a search for lost El Dorado, and Bobby went to show the snapshots to Rogers to see if he could make the hoped for identification.
Rogers, untidy, unshaved, unwashed, in a worse temper even than usual, was still at breakfast—the meal consisting chiefly, to all appearance, of burnt and lumpy porridge. An old newspaper was doing duty for a tablecloth and the room had an untidy, unkempt, unswept appearance that reminded Bobby of his own bachelor existence when once he and a friend had tried to run their own small flat for themselves. Before he showed the other photographs he had brought with him, Bobby produced that of the unfortunate elderly man who had committed suicide in the prison. George had a vague memory of having heard of the occurrence, but knew nothing about it and had never seen the victim or known anything of him or the circumstances. So Bobby put it away, while George made a few remarks on how this suicide showed up the brutality of the prison system and the inhumanity with which it was administered. It could, in George’s opinion, give points to the Spanish Inquisition at its worst and as for the comparatively mild Nazi concentration camps—
However, Bobby cut this tirade short by spreading out the other photographs he had brought with him and Rogers picked out that of Burden at once.
“That’s the man,” he said. “What a crew,” he added, and indeed they were an ill looking lot. “What are they? Some of Mosley’s fascists?”
An ill looking lot they had, of course, to be, for such was Mr. Burden, or even more so, and had they been markedly different the identification would have been valueless.
“Burglars. Habitual criminals. That sort,” Bobby explained. He let his hand hover lightly over the row of photographs and then he indicated carelessly two of the worst and most repulsive. “Conscientious objectors,” he observed.
This statement was entirely without foundation and no excuse can be offered for it. It is good to be able to report that when he told Olive later, expecting approval, he was suitably and severely rebuked. Rogers received the untruthful information with a scowl. He went back to his breakfast, filled his cup from the teapot, and looked surprised.
“Damn,” he said, and for once sounded quite human. “I must have forgotten to put in the tea.”
“Put the kettle on again,” Bobby suggested helpfully.
“There isn’t any kettle any more,” said Rogers, surveying sadly a cup full of clear and limpid water. “I forgot to take the thing off after I had filled the teapot, and now it hasn’t any bottom.”
“Hard luck,” said Bobby, sniffing at the porridge.
“Things burn,” Rogers explained, not without indignation.
“Nasty trick they have,” agreed Bobby.
“It’s all there is,” Rogers said, sniffing in his turn. “I can’t even find the toasting fork and where Rhoda’s managed to hide the tin opener, goodness only knows.”
“Miss Rogers away?” Bobby asked.
“At Miss Bellamy’s,” Rogers said resentfully. “Spent the night there. God knows why. And left everything in a muddle and not even the supper things washed up.”
Too bad, Bobby said, and for the moment the two men forgot all else, united in a common bond of masculine martyrdom.
Bobby began to gather up the photographs. Rogers continued to gaze disconsolately at the breakfast table. Bobby, his preparations for departure completed, remarked casually:
“You wouldn’t care to make any further statement, would you? The inquests will be held in a day or two. Superintendent Bell may ask for an adjournment. I expect you may be called.”
“What for? I know nothing about it,” Rogers retorted. “All I can say is, I don’t know, and that’s all I shall say.” He paused, hesitated, and then blurted out, with less self assurance this time: “I suppose you still want to think it might be me—or Rhoda?”
“Oh, yes. That’s obvious.”
“Jolly for us.”
“It would help if you would try to be a bit more candid and tell us the whole story. I mean, that is, if you are both innocent. Of course, if you are guilty—one of you …”
Bobby left the sentence unfinished, but he could see plainly that now there was unease, fear, in the young man’s eyes. Not surprising, Bobby told himself. Few, innocent or not, could hear with equanimity that they were under suspicion of complicity in murder. But Rogers remained silent. He might be uneasy or afraid, but he was still obstinate. Bobby nodded, said good morning, and moved towards the door. Rogers watched with relief. At the door Bobby turned and asked:
“Seen the papers this morning?”
“No. Haven’t had time. Why?”
“There’s a very good photograph of the pistol used to shoot Myerson. First class reproduction. It was found near by, the pistol I mean. I expect you heard?”
“How do you know it’s the same pistol?”
“Oh, that’s easy. The ballistics expert can prove that easily enough. Same basic idea as finger prints. Markings made by different pistols never the same. Nature is always unique. What the books call the inherent individuality of the real. No finger prints, though. Wiped off probably. Or rubber gloves. You go in for photography, Mr. Rogers, I think? I wonder if you use them—rubber gloves, I mean. Some photographers do, I believe.”
“I don’t,” Rogers snarled. “I know what you mean. I know what you’re trying to hint.”
“Just this,” Bobby told him, “that it would be a lot more sensible and save a lot of trouble and worse perhaps, if you would tell the whole truth instead of making us dig it out by degrees.”
But that appeal, too, went unheeded. Bobby again turned to the door, reflecting that an obstinate man must go his own way. He was on the threshold when Rogers called after him.
“No one can identify a pistol from a photograph,” he said.
“Oh, well, you have a look at it,” Bobby answered. “There’s a mark on the butt that shows up rather well. It’s quite plain. The ballistics experts think that most likely some time or another a bullet grazed it. Must have been a narrow squeak if it was like that. It might have got talked about, might be remembered. If so, someone may come forward to tell us. That will give a starting point and then it may be possible to trace the possession of the pistol. Only a chance, of course, but detective work is like that. If the idea does work, it may be very important. We may be able to trace the pistol and identify the last owner. Then he’ll have something to explain. Think it over, Mr. Rogers, and do try to believe me when I say again that it’s best in the long run to tell the truth. Bound to come out in the end.”
Rogers still made no attempt to reply. It seemed better to leave him to think over what had been said. Bobby closed the bungalow door behind him and walked on. But he had gone only a few yards when he heard Rogers call. He looked back. Rogers had come to the door of the bungalow and was standing there. He called s
omething Bobby did not hear distinctly and went back inside, leaving the door open. After a moment’s hesitation Bobby returned. If this meant Rogers had changed his mind and was willing at last to talk, it would be better to hear what he had to say. Rogers was sitting at his waiting table, his head in his hands. When Bobby came in, Rogers began to talk in a low, rapid voice, without looking up. He said:
“I expect it’s our pistol all right. Rhoda had it when she found those Egyptian spies at the safe in her office. One of them fired at her and the shot hit her pistol and knocked it out of her hand. That’s when she grabbed a tommy gun and turned it on them. Everyone out there knew the story. I expect dozens of them will be wanting to tell you all about it.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve told me first,” Bobby remarked, “though I wish you had before. Superintendent Bell will want you to make a statement. Will you go at once to find him and do that?”
Music Tells All: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 20
