The Dark Garden: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  It was near lunch time and Bobby decided suddenly that even if it meant cutting down the time he allowed himself for his midday meal—the war had long since ended that comfortable arrangement of the leisurely days of peace by which he had been able to motor home each day at noon—he would spare a few minutes to call at Messrs Castles’s office. One could always judge a man better if one saw him in his accustomed surroundings. Osman Ford’s smouldering anger; Anne Earle’s brooding passion; unpleasant Mrs Jordan; Rose Briar Cottage with its artificial appearance, its mysterious visitors climbing out of first-floor windows and its pistol shots subsequently denied; in the background, the tale of the man who years before had died in the muddy canal to clear the path for a rival; all that had combined to awake in Bobby’s mind a foreboding of ill things to come. Yet he hoped they might still be avoided by a more complete knowledge and a wider acquaintance with the characters of those concerned.

  He arrived at Chief Building. Messrs Castles’s offices were on the first floor, to which there was access, not only by the lifts, but by a fine spreading stair, whereof the dignified upward sweep added much to the imposing character of the entrance. True, it ended on the first floor, thence succeeded by a narrow winding stair no one even thought of using. But that great sweep of stairway facing the entrance almost compelled use, and Bobby, ascending it, found himself facing a large double doorway on which was painted the name of the firm, and, in smaller letters, an injunction to ‘enter without knocking’.

  Obeying the invitation Bobby pushed open the door. Within was an enormous room, well lighted, extremely well fitted up. Desks for the staff were arranged round the walls, and in the centre stood a large shining mahogany table, on which lay most of the morning and financial papers. Mr Anderson, the senior partner, during a visit to America, had there seen and approved the new fashion of accommodating all the staff, senior and junior together, in one big room. It was a fine idea, democratic, friendly, intimate, making for goodwill and understanding all round, Mr Anderson had declared. When the firm moved from the dingy old offices previously occupied into this modern building, he had made it a condition of his tenancy that this enormous room should be provided for the staff. It had the further advantage, Bobby reflected, of keeping the whole staff continually collectively, and comfortably under the eyes of their employers, so that opportunities for gossip and general slacking were limited. But that no doubt was merely, so to say, a by-product.

  Near the door, on the right as one entered, was a large writing table, marked ‘Enquiries’, spelt with an ‘E’. At the moment, there was no one there. Bobby, glancing quickly round with eyes trained instantly to take in details, saw that all the members of the staff, even a small office boy, were furnished with big, brightly polished mahogany writing tables, all, even the office boy’s, covered with masses of papers calculated to impress the casual visitor and possible client with the great amount of business being done. At one end of the room were three doors, marked respectively, Mr Anderson, Mr Blythe, Mr Castles. Another door was marked ‘Registry’. Two other doors were marked, the one, Reception Room; the other, Waiting Room. Later, Bobby found out that the Reception Room was for ladies, and for clerical and country clients or others presumed to be of the most unsophisticated type. It was furnished in a comfortable, homely, friendly style likely to induce a pleasant confidence in the possibly nervous client little used to visiting solicitors. The Waiting Room was for business men, and was furnished in an efficient, plain, no-nonsense-about-it style, equally calculated to inspire confidence in the man of affairs.

  So again in the great outer room the writing tables, where the lady members of the staff sat, were graced with flowers, while the men had to be content with desk ’phones, though as they could all communicate with each other by getting up and walking across the floor these were but little used. The whole place indeed gave an air of careful arrangement, of a belief in the value of appearances very natural in an age that judges chiefly by appearances. It breathed friendliness (flowers) and efficiency (desk ’phones) against a background of knowledge and experience suggested by shelves lined with works of reference and bound volumes of legal periodicals.

  It was all quite impressive at first sight; and only later did Bobby come to recognize here the same thing he had noticed at Rose Briar Cottage, where the first impression of rural charm and innocence had come so soon to wear an arranged and artificial air, just as here also there was too much carefully arranged show. Something ‘phoney’ both about the cottage and the office, Bobby came presently to tell himself. At the cottage, innocence; here, confidence and trust, were so loudly suggested as almost to suggest the opposite, that neither innocence nor trust-worthiness existed where both had to be so violently suggested; ‘forced’, so to say, on the visitor as a conjuror forces on his unsuspecting victim the one special card he intends to be chosen.

  No one for the moment took any notice of Bobby. The staff had been allowed to understand that notice should not be taken too quickly of the entrance of visitors. So constant was the flow of clients, it was to be subtly indicated, that the appearance of one more was altogether likely to escape notice.

  Coming towards Bobby as he stood by the door was a plump, fair, blue-eyed girl, with fair, curly hair that seemed exceptionally to owe its curls to nature rather than to the genius of Monsieur Marcel, with a complexion of cream and roses surprisingly unspoilt by that craze for cosmetics by means of which so many women seem to think they can enhance their charms in presenting to the world a countenance strongly resembling an egg. And though eggs have many and striking, occasionally very striking, merits, charm is not among them. It was this newcomer who presided apparently at the ‘enquiries’ table. And Bobby noticed, too, that at a table near sat Anne Earle, busy at her typewriter with that same air of doom she had shown before, as though indeed these were death warrants that she typed.

  To the fair-haired girl as she came up to him, Bobby said:

  “Is Mr Anderson in?”

  “I’m so sorry,” she answered. “He had to go out to an important conference and I hardly think he will be able to get back just yet. Our Mr Castles would be at liberty in a few minutes, I think. I could inquire, if you would like him to see you.”

  “Oh, I won’t trouble Mr Castles, thank you,” Bobby told her. “I daresay I can see Mr Anderson some other time. It’s nothing very pressing.”

  He was turning away when Anne, who had not seemed to be taking much notice, got to her feet. She had a swiftly sudden, somewhat disconcerting speed of movement. She had left her seat and was standing between Bobby and the fair girl before Bobby realized she had stirred. In that deep, harsh voice of hers with the ringing undertone, she said:

  “Ursula, one moment.” Then more directly to Bobby: “Miss Harris didn’t mean Mr Anderson would be so very long. I am sure he would like to see you.” To the fair girl she had called Ursula, she added: “It’s Inspector Owen.”

  Her full deep voice had great carrying power, and large as was the room, and busy as was, or appeared to be, every one in it, they all turned and stared, for Bobby’s name and status were by this time well known in Midwych. The sudden interest thus shown Bobby understood, for he was a policeman, and the visits of the police on duty bring often their own excitement with them, but it was plain that there was also unease, almost apprehension, as though beneath the smooth surface of this ordinary, busy solicitor’s office ran under-currents of doubt, of suspicion, and of fear.

  One young man, for instance, when he heard the words ‘Inspector Owen’, turned round so quickly that he knocked a book from his table to the floor. It was a heavy book, it fell heavily with a resounding bang, the noise of its fall made everyone start afresh and turn and look, but of all that he himself took no notice, so entirely did his interest seem absorbed by Bobby’s appearance. He was a tall, fair-haired youth, long limbed, a little thin as yet but likely to fill out in a year or two; his face pale, thin, and long like himself, with a smudge of a moustache b
eneath a big aquiline nose and above a small mouth with red, curved lips, a mouth indeed that in a girl would have been called a rosebud of a mouth. Not that there was anything effeminate about the thin, eager face, a face indeed that narrow and pointed as it was gave him almost a predatory look. His eyes were concealed behind thick, round glasses in heavy horn frames, and above these were thick and heavy, overhanging brows. Those heavy brows, the thick glasses, gave an odd impression of ambush, as though they hid a searching and intent gaze that little escaped but which itself often went unsuspected.

  “That chap’s more upset than the others, what’s he so nervous about?” Bobby found himself thinking, and, remembering Constable Smith’s account of how easily he had been outrun, reflected that this young man’s long legs would soon take him out of the reach of most people, especially out of that of a stout middle-aged country policeman. Smith’s description, too, had mentioned ‘fair hair’, and this youth’s hair was of a noticeably pale tint.

  This was neither the time nor the place to stress such suspicions though, and then he became aware that the attention of the office was concentrated not only on himself but on someone who had just entered, but so quietly that Bobby had not heard him come in and with his back towards him had not known that he was there. Turning now he saw a man of middle height, made less by an habitual stoop. He wore, against the present fashion, a small beard and moustache, and his large head was crowned by a mass of snow-white, still curly hair that he wore a little long, and that served to give him a dignified and even impressive appearance. Those snow-white locks were belied, however, by the brisk youthfulness of his manner and his movements, and indeed his actual age was well under sixty, which is young enough in these days. Not now is a man of those years addressed as ‘venerable’ as was the philosopher Hobbes when he could count as many. His eyes, for instance, were as bright and keen as those of any youngster, though deeply sunk in a thin, ascetic face, of which the fine bones showed clearly beneath the pale, almost transparent skin. An unusual face, Bobby thought, the face of a keen, determined man, but one whose interests and ideas would never be bounded by the conventional or the commonplace. He said with a very friendly and pleasant smile:

  “Inspector Owen? Oh, I’ve heard of you. I’m not often in court. Mr Castles looks after that side generally, but I think I remember you there once. Come along into my room. I’ve been wanting to see you. Colonel Glynne is laid up, isn’t he? It’s about the county police band. I’ve been wondering if I could get hold of it for a fête I’m getting up. Hopewell House, you know. Perhaps you could see the colonel for me and let me know what he thinks.”

  He went on chatting amiably as he swept Bobby, who knew that the police band was one of the chief constable’s chief interests, through the door marked ‘Mr Blythe’. “I’m Mr Blythe, George Blythe, you know,” he explained in parenthesis as he hustled Bobby along in a way that suggested he never recognized an obstacle to his wishes or was much used to consult the will of others, and so into a comfortable, light, plainly furnished room, that would have resembled that of any other solicitor in good practice had not the walls been covered by rows of photographs—Hopewell House, itself, its workshops, its gardens, its swimming bath, Hopewell House cricket, football, swimming teams, the Hopewell House dramatic society presenting various plays, Hope-well House old boys who had done well in life, a whole series, in fact, representing the life of Hopewell House in every aspect. He motioned Bobby to a chair, took another himself, offered cigarettes and a drink, and nodded approval when Bobby declined both on the plea that he was bound to set an example to the rank and file who were strictly forbidden to smoke or drink on duty.

  “I’m a teetotaller and non-smoker myself,” Mr Blythe explained. “I don’t mean I have any strict views about it. I certainly can’t imagine there’s any more harm in a cigarette or a glass of beer than there is in a lollipop or a cup of tea that’s been brewing in the kitchen all day long.” He laughed pleasantly. “Example, in my case, too. I want my boys—Hopewell House, you know—to realize a man can be a teetotaller and non-smoker and quite a normal person all the same, not the least a Stiggins. The man who doesn’t know when to stop and the sour-eyed fanatic, are equally a nuisance, I think.”

  Bobby agreed politely and Mr Blythe, rising from his chair, began to talk about the photographs on the walls. For several minutes he talked about them with a pride and an affection that showed how thoroughly he entered into the Hopewell House life, and that Bobby found a little touching. Then he checked himself and turned away apologetically, murmuring that he was always boring people to death with Hopewell House.

  “You must forgive me,” he said.

  In his eyes, though, there still shone a gleam of something like fanaticism that seemed to find expression, too, in his thin, finely-drawn features and general air of the ascetic who cared nothing for the ordinary pleasures and aims of life, who indeed lived as it were outside the common orbit of humanity. Bobby was oddly reminded of a picture, ‘The Inquisitor’, he had once seen in some picture gallery. It represented a white-haired ecclesiastic, the crucifix in one hand, the other pointing to a rack. But for the difference in costume, it might have been the same man, so strongly resemblant were attitude and expression, and even the thin, fine features. Not much, Bobby felt, that this, by definition, hard-headed, dry-as-dust solicitor would not sacrifice to further the interests of his beloved Hopewell House. Then once more Mr Blythe’s expression changed and again appeared that pleasant smile, which so entirely altered his expression till he seemed neither the fanatic nor the lawyer, but just the pleasant, easy-going, friendly man of the world.

  “I know I’ve been boring you,” he apologised once more, and waited for the denial that Bobby gave with much sincerity, for he felt that Hopewell House was in fact doing exceedingly good work for boys at the dangerous age of adolescence when it is so easy for lads to go wrong. Not only girls, by any means, can take heedlessly that ‘wrong turning’ which leads to ruin and a wrecked life, to a fate truly ‘worse than death’, instead of to what might so easily have been a useful and honourable career.

  “I got the notion from a place in London that I heard about,” Mr Blythe went on. “I developed Hopewell House on the same lines, though according to my own ideas. Before I took over, it was being run like a reformatory—regulations, restrictions all the time, the lads treated as a bad lot, collectively and individually. Of course, the consequence was, they became so. I’ve changed all that. And I think the lads appreciate it. Look what they gave me last Christmas.” He showed Bobby a fine pair of motoring gauntlets, lined with an expensive fur. “They put their pennies together,” he said. “Two or three guineas, or more, those gloves must have cost. Far too smart and expensive for me, of course, but I have to use them in spite of the risk of making our clients think hard about our fees. Of course, I gave the money back in a subscription from my very useful friend, Mr Anon.” He paused and smiled to himself with a kind of odd, almost secret satisfaction, so that Bobby wondered if ‘Mr Anon’ had not proved even more useful on some other occasion. He put down the gauntlets. “Well, I mustn’t lose them,” he said. “I’m a little apt not so much to pick up unconsidered trifles as to strew them all around where I’ve been. Well, Mr Owen, I didn’t lure you in here to chat about Hopewell House. Or even to sting you for a subscription, and doing that has cost me a client or two, I believe. The fact is, I’m seriously uneasy.”

  CHAPTER V

  MR BLYTHE’S PROBLEM

  ONCE AGAIN THE same note of fear, of warning. It seemed to Bobby that in connection with this office, he was hearing it a little too often. He glanced up sharply. Mr Blythe was not looking at him. The lawyer’s gaze was fixed on one of the Hopewell House photographs, one showing a group of the senior boys and members of the staff seated on the lawn before the building. He said:

  “All those boys in that photo have had a good start in life and they are all doing well, one or two very well indeed. One of them is training for
his wings in the R.A.F. That counts,” he added with almost fierce emphasis.

  Bobby nodded gravely. He did indeed believe that no better work could be done than to rescue a boy from the handicaps of neglect and ignorance and to give him a reasonable equipment for the battle of life where equipment counts for as much as it does in modern war. But he was faintly puzzled by a remark which seemed to have so little connection with what had been said before. No threat or menace could possibly come from that group of boys all fully launched on their careers. Mr Blythe spoke again. He said, as if referring to what he had said before:

  “Everything told the police is strictly confidential, isn’t it?”

  He said this more as if making a statement rather than asking a question that required an answer, but Bobby replied quickly:

  “Nothing told the police is confidential if it in any way affects the course of justice.”

  “Of course, of course, that’s understood,” Mr Blythe agreed at once. “But everything else.” Without waiting for Bobby’s confirmation, he apparently took for granted, he went on: “We always try—it’s a tradition with Castles, we’ve tried to carry it on—to take a real interest in our staff. We try not to interfere but we do want them to feel we are all friends together. Well, one result is that we do know a good deal about them, and one thing I happen to know is that one of our staff paid you a visit the other day. Miss Earle. We have to employ women nowadays, everyone does, but I often wish it wasn’t necessary. Complications. I must say I like the purely masculine atmosphere at Hopewell House.” He paused for a moment as though he liked to linger on the name of the place that meant so much to him. “Not a woman in the place. Cooks. Sickbay attendant. All men. The lads do their own chores. Fatigue party for this, that, and the other in regular rotation—even one for mending socks. I like it. I think they do. I agree I’m a crabbed old bachelor. I get told so sometimes by some of my friends’ wives. They hate it because they can’t marry me off.” He paused and laughed pleasantly. “I tell them Hopewell House is my wife, my child, my family, and they look indignant and say I could have a wife as well. So I tell them I don’t believe in bigamy and that makes them still more cross. All the same, if you get men and women working in the same place, things are bound to happen. Complications. Nature, I suppose. Mind, I don’t want you to think I take it too seriously, but it seems Miss Earle does, and when I heard she had been to see you I thought I had better mention it, too.” “I don’t suppose,” Bobby said, “I should have paid Miss Earle much attention, only that the man himself had been in a day or two before. He did rather give me the idea that he had to be taken seriously.”