“Oh, all right, I suppose I had better,” Rogers grumbled.
“Much better,” Bobby agreed. “Have you any explanation of how the pistol got where it was found?”
“No. I had no idea it was Rhoda’s, not till now. The last I saw of it was when Biggs had it.”
“Biggs?” repeated Bobby, surprised and doubtful. “How was that?”
“Biggs was trying to get hold of Rhoda. At least, that’s what I thought. I had no idea that they had been together in Egypt. Rhoda only told me afterwards. I felt I had to warn Biggs to keep off. Hang it, a man’s got to protect his sister and I didn’t want her mixed up with a man like Biggs, a surly brute at the best, a chauffeur in private employ. He had been exceedingly rude to me as well. What sort of a future could he have offered her? Wanted to get hold of her money most likely, I thought. And then I knew there was gossip about him and Miss Bellamy.
I made up my mind I had to take steps in her interest, but I knew he was a violent ruffian and he had already used threats towards me—punching my head, vulgarities of that sort. So I think it was perfectly natural for me to slip Rhoda’s pistol into my pocket. You agree?”
“Go on,” said Bobby.
“Of course, I had no intention of using it. I merely intended a precaution, a warning to keep his distance. I did not even know it was loaded.”
“Go on,” Bobby said again.
“There was a kind of scuffle, an undignified—scuffle,” Rogers explained reluctantly. “I was entirely unprepared, taken unawares. I unfortunately slipped and fell. Biggs took the opportunity to—to—”
“Administer a kick or two,” suggested Bobby without sympathy.
“They might have inflicted serious injury,” Rogers said. “I suffered great pain and inconvenience for some days.”
“And the pistol?” Bobby asked.
“Biggs put it in his pocket. That was the last time I saw it. He said he would give it back to Rhoda but he must have kept it.”
Bobby listened to all this with close attention and some discomfort. Did Rogers understand, realize, the full implications of these last words of his? For they seemed to suggest that Rhoda herself was the last person in possession of the weapon with which murder had been committed. Could the young man’s story be accepted? It was a question to which Bobby felt he could give no very confident reply. It might all be a clever invention, an ingenious mixture of truth and falsehood designed to clear Rogers himself of suspicion. Even that casual remark about Biggs’s promise to give the pistol back to Rhoda might be merely an attempt on Rogers’s part to save his own skin. Bobby was not willing to believe that, but it would have to be taken into consideration. Was it possible that George knew his sister was guilty and had deliberately mentioned Biggs’s promise in order to put the police on the right track? Or did Rhoda know that it was her brother who had killed her lover? Was that why she had left home and sought refuge with Miss Bellamy? A tragic supposition. Had she perhaps threatened to denounce him and was that why he in his turn had directed suspicion towards her? Or had the remark slipped out inadvertently and without intention? Bobby felt himself in such a sea of doubt as he had not often known. He said at last:
“Have you any proof of what you’ve told me, any evidence to confirm it?”
“What’s the good of my saying anything if you don’t believe it when I do?” Rogers demanded as with a sort of desperation he helped himself to the burnt porridge in an attempt to satisfy with it his matutinal hunger.
“I didn’t say I didn’t believe it,” Bobby pointed out. “I asked if you had any supporting evidence.”
“I wrote a full account in my diary that night, if that’s any good,” Rogers answered, apparently deciding as he put down his untasted spoonful of porridge that hunger was a far, far better thing.
“That would certainly be a considerable help,” Bobby said “May I have it?”
“The diary?” Rogers exclaimed, quite startled. “Oh, no. I could copy out an extract for you, if you like, but I don’t intend the diary itself to be seen until it is published and that will only be after my death.”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be much help at present,” Bobby pointed out. “But why not?”
“It is,” explained Rogers, “in all probability the most ruthless and penetrating analysis of human motive and character that has ever been made. In it I explain what lies behind the behaviour of all I meet, including myself. I tear away the veil and show the hidden motive.”
“Dear me,” said Bobby, interested in spite of all the other thoughts and doubts that filled his mind. “What are they generally?”
“Startling,” Rogers told him. “Startling in their revelation of the essential bestiality of the subconscious mind. What often appears the most innocent action can be shown quite clearly to have its origin in the sexual urge, the merely brutal, the wish to dominate, to possess and to enjoy regardless of anything but the gratification of the ego.”
“All according to Freud?” asked Bobby. “By the way, is that the way to pronounce it? I think G. K. Chesterton said it ought to be pronounced as if spelt—fraud.”
“Oh, no,” Rogers answered, unfortunately missing the point. “The way you said it is correct,” he added graciously.
CHAPTER XXIX
POUSSINS AU HENRI QUATRE
Leaving Rogers struggling to open a tin of pilchards by the aid of hammer and chisel, Bobby went on to Miss Bellamy’s cottage. Necessary now, he decided, to question Rhoda, now that her brother, intentionally or otherwise, had directed suspicion once more towards her.
There was no immediate answer when Bobby knocked. Not till he had knocked again, and more loudly, did Miss Bellamy come to the door. She was wearing a large cooking apron and her gaze seemed as ever to wander away into far off and remote regions as she waited for him to speak.
“Sorry to bother you so early,” he began, “but I believe Miss Rhoda Rogers is here.”
“I thought you were the chickens,” Miss Bellamy said, as if with difficulty recalling her attention from whatever distant lands it had seemed to escape to and be lost.
“Chickens?” Bobby repeated.
“I ordered two,” she explained. “They should have come last night. I hope they won’t be long. I only got them as a great favour, but they are paid for and they were promised for first thing. You see,” she explained, as if realizing, probably because Bobby was looking rather bewildered, that some explanation was needed, “Mr. Fielding is coming to dinner to-night, and so I am going to give him poussins au Henri Quatre. That needs two at least, you know. And preparation. Luckily I’ve got the mushrooms. And cream and sherry, too.”
Bobby didn’t know, and didn’t care, whether it needed two chickens or a dozen, or any, or no, preparation. Miss Bellamy went back into the cottage but left the door open as if expecting him to follow. He did so and said:
“Will you please tell Miss Rogers I should like to speak to her if I may.”
“I must have something special to-night,” Miss Bellamy said. She was returning towards the kitchen as she spoke. She explained: “That’s why I thought of poussins au Henri Quatre. I know most people would say it was too difficult in a little place like this. Nothing you really need, just a case of make-do. I should think it rather silly if anyone else tried, but then no one else would—ever. I think I can manage, though.”
She was back in the kitchen now, as if she had entirely forgotten, or had made up her mind to ignore, Bobby’s presence. Impatiently, he said:
“Will you please tell Miss Rogers I am here and wish to speak to her?”
“She’ll be asleep still,” Miss Bellamy told him over her shoulder. “I expect she will be down presently.”
“I have no time to spare, I wish to see her immediately,” Bobby said with even more impatience than before. “Please tell her I am here and ask her to dress and come down as quickly as possible.”
“I don’t expect she undressed,” Miss Bellamy remarked thoughtfully. “W
e were talking all night—she was. I listened. She fell asleep when it was nearly light. I got her upstairs to lie down on my bed. She’ll be still asleep.”
“Haven’t you been to bed either?” Bobby asked.
“Well, there’s only the one bed and there’s so much to do,” Miss Bellamy explained. “Mr. Fielding is coming to dinner to-night,” she told him again.
If she had been sitting up all night, she showed small sign of it. The dark pallor of her countenance was unchanged, her gaze far off and inscrutable as ever.
“What were you talking about all night?” Bobby asked.
“She thinks it may have been me who shot those two men,” Miss Bellamy explained. “So she came to ask.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I didn’t. I don’t know if she believed me. She went on talking. It got rather hysterical at times. It’s all been too much for the poor child. It’s those two Egyptians she can’t forget.” After a pause, she added: “To remember too well and too long is worst of all.”
“What do you remember?” Bobby asked.
The question seemed both to startle and to disturb. For almost the first time she began to bestow upon him her full attention. Her eyes were no longer distant, inscrutable, but intent and bright and searching. She was almost staring at him as she asked presently: “What do you mean? Why do you ask?”
“For the only reason why I ever ask a question,” Bobby told her. “Because I want to know.”
“Well, then,” she said, and stared at him more intently still. It was as if only now were she fully persuaded of the reality of his person and his presence. “I shan’t tell you,” she said. “At least not now, not yet.” She went on: “Rhoda thinks if it wasn’t me, perhaps it was her brother.”
“That her brother killed Biggs? Do you?”
“I have thought so sometimes,” she admitted. “They had quarrelled. George Rogers is very old-fashioned in some of his ideas. What makes it worse is that he thinks he is so terribly advanced. He will talk all day about complete sex equality and the rate for the job and so on, and still expect Rhoda to wait on him hand and foot, day and night.”
“Could it have been Rhoda herself who shot him?” Bobby asked, neither surprised nor interested to hear that George’s theories and his practice had small connection.
“I have thought sometimes it might be her,” Miss Bellamy said. She came back into the room and sat down. She said: “When you care for anyone very desperately, then I think sometimes it is more than you can bear. Perhaps when you have killed once, then there’s a kind of desperation comes upon you. I don’t know. She had lived with him and she never had with anyone till then and now she wasn’t sure any longer. I think it may have been like that.”
“I take it,” Bobby said, “you know that many people in the village think that it was you?”
“Oh, yes,” she agreed indifferently. “I can see them looking at me. Very likely you think so, too. I didn’t, but I expect I should say so even if I had. I daresay that is what is in your mind.”
“What we think doesn’t matter,” Bobby answered. “What we need is evidence. Of course, we can’t just accept denials. Have you any idea yourself who might be guilty?”
She did not answer, only stood and looked at him, and yet now again as if she did not see him, as if indeed she saw nothing that was there, but only her own thoughts, her own memories that she would not tell. When she had been silent some minutes, Bobby said: “Will you not tell me what you think?”
“Not yet,” she answered. “Not now. Never, I think.”
“Will you tell me this? Why is it necessary—I think you said ‘necessary’—to have something specially good for Mr. Fielding to-night?”
“It may be the last time,” she answered, speaking very slowly. “At least, that is what I think.”
“The last time?” Bobby repeated. “Why?”
“I think so,” she said slowly. “I think it may be that to-night he will ask me to marry him.”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” Bobby said, surprised, for he had not expected this. “I … would it be too impertinent to ask if you mean to accept him?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. She was still seated, and once again she seemed to have withdrawn herself, not into herself but as if to regions that as yet did not exist. There was something unearthly, even terrifying, in what seemed so intense a contemplation of the as yet unknown, unseen, unexperienced. It was as though her spirit wandered where none had as yet any right to be. In a voice as remote as her own gaze, she said: “Perhaps there is something else that may be in his mind,” and there was a quality in her slow voice that sent through Bobby a chill of apprehension and of fear.
“What do you mean?” he asked sharply.
She did not answer. Perhaps she did not hear, so withdrawn seemed now again her mood. She got to her feet and went back into the little kitchen. Bobby followed and stood in the doorway, watching her doubtfully.
“What do you mean,” he asked once more.
“As to that,” she began and then paused. “Well, there it is,” she said and turned her attention to her culinary preparations. “It would be the end, wouldn’t it?” she said abruptly.
“What would?”
“If he asked me to marry him and I did. It would end it all,” she said again, “and then there wouldn’t be anything to be afraid of any more.”
“Are you afraid?” he asked, and he knew very well that at least he was.
But she shook her head.
“I think he is,” she answered and presently she repeated: “I think he is.”
“What of?”
This time it was long before she replied, and then it was with an almost solemn gesture that she pointed to the grand piano that filled so much of the other room. But still she did not speak, and, having made that gesture, she returned to her work as if she had no other thought in her mind but that of preparing with care a dish of unusual excellence for a specially welcome guest. But to Bobby it was as though he watched not a woman busy getting ready a meal but, rather a priestess of some unknown altar occupied with the solemn rites of an impending sacrifice. To whom or what, he did not know. When he spoke again he had to repeat his remark twice before she seemed to hear what he said, and then she only answered by a glance that could be taken to mean assent when he said:
“You mean it is your playing he is afraid of?” Then he said: “Is that because you put into your playing your memories you refuse to tell me?” She was still silent. He said: “It may be I can guess them.” She seemed a little startled at that, and she made a slight negative gesture, slight but expressive. For it indicated very clearly that she held that to be quite impossible. He said then: “It would be very much better though, if you would tell me what they are.”
“Not yet, not now,” she repeated. “Never, I think. You must find out first who killed—and that I think you never will.”
“Unless I am very much mistaken,” Bobby said gravely, “I know both who and why. We have enough information by this time to feel that what we need now is not to know but proof. It is useless to put forward evidence that the defence could show might conceivably point to some other. The jury would get confused and would naturally prefer to say ‘Not guilty’. That could mean a murderer going free and that might well mean more trouble presently. Memory can be a poisonous thing. You’ve said that yourself or much the same.”
“Have I?” she asked. “I didn’t know. I think it’s true.”
“For instance,” Bobby went on, “my present information is that the weapon used in one of the murders was last in Miss Rogers’s possession. There seems to be direct evidence that Biggs got hold of the weapon and meant to return it to her. That must be cleared up. If it is known to have been in the possession of one of two people at the time of the murder and one is dead and one is left alive, the inference is obvious.”
She had now a strangely troubled air and presently she said: “Does all this mean you thi
nk it was Rhoda?”
“It only means she is one of those against whom there is evidence which must be satisfactorily answered. You are one yourself, of course. You realize that?”
“If only I could make up my mind what I think,” she said slowly. “But I can’t. I know it wasn’t me, but it’s no good saying so. It’s no good any more trying to get it all clear playing. When I do, everything only gets more confused—more doubtful and more strange.”
Bobby went on:
“If Mr. Fielding is going to suggest marriage to you to-night, then that means he must be what is called in love with you?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I wonder. I don’t know.
I don’t suppose he knows either. He may be. I think—”
But what it was she thought she left unuttered, and Bobby said: “Or you with him?”
“Oh, no,” she exclaimed at once, in a very startled and surprised voice, as if such an idea were as unexpected as unwelcome. “Oh, no,” she repeated, but now with a puzzled air. She seemed to be thinking it over. She brought, as it were, that distant gaze of hers back to nearer things, though still she seemed even now but half conscious of the presence of any other person. All the time it had been much as if she were talking to herself, expressing her own thoughts to herself to clear her own mind and inform herself, rather than with any wish to communicate them to anyone else. Bobby waited. “Am I?” she said at last. “You ask such questions,” she complained. “No,” she said more loudly. “No. It is only that I have great pity for him—for him and for me and for all of us, for I think we are all caught and trapped in what we never meant.”
“A child’s excuse,” Bobby said. “If you choose a path to follow, it’s up to you to know where it leads.”
“There’s Rhoda,” Miss Bellamy said. “I can hear her moving. I expect she heard us talking. She’ll be coming down. I’ll make some coffee—strong. She’ll need it if you are going to ask her questions like you have me.”
Music Tells All: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 21
