“Well, I don’t know that it matters,” Roy answered slowly. “I don’t know if I ought to say anything. There’s a chap called Osman Ford. He had a most frightful row with Anderson a little while ago. It was only when Anderson said to ring up the police that Osman Ford cleared out; and he was muttering about what he would do and getting his own back and all that sort of thing, all the time he was going. He thought he had been done out of some money, thought Anderson had embezzled his wife’s trust fund. Well, Ursula and I have seen him hanging around by Ends Bridge and you could tell he was up to no good by the way he sneaked along, keeping out of sight as much as he could, behind hedges and that sort of thing. I said at once he was up to mischief, and so did Ursula, too. You could tell, the way he crept along. I don’t know if I ought to have told you, because of course it may have been nothing.”
“I’m glad you did mention it,” Bobby said. “Everything has to be considered in a case like this.”
As he seemed to have nothing more to say, Bobby sent him off to join Ursula and then, though by now it was growing late, he managed to secure a search warrant. With it and Sergeant Wright he set off for Rose Briar Cottage. Not that he thought the search warrant was likely to be of any practical use, it was chiefly for psychological effect. He had much too high an opinion of Mrs Jordan’s abilities and probable experience to suppose that, if she had any pistol hidden, it would be easy to find. Not for her the usual feminine top of a wardrobe. When they arrived, Mrs Jordan, who was sitting in the garden, greeted them without cordiality.
“Back again, are you?” she said. “What is it this time?”
“Have you heard about Mr Anderson?” Bobby asked.
“You’ve found him?” she asked and then quickly: “Is he dead? Murdered?” She seemed to read the answer in their eyes as she looked quickly from one to the other. “Anne was right, then,” she muttered, more to herself than to them. “She knew. She said she did.”
“How did she know?” Bobby asked.
Mrs Jordan seemed to miss the significance of this question. She answered slowly:
“Anne’s a queer girl. From the very beginning she said it would end badly. She said it had to. She’s like that. I don’t know where she gets it from. Not from my side. Was he shot?”
“Why do you ask that?” Bobby said. “Why shot?”
“You come along and I’ll show you,” she answered.
The garden was surrounded by a high, close grown, quickset hedge on which the blossom of May still lingered. It was closely trimmed, it had an impenetrable air. Mrs Jordan paused when they had gone a short distance along the path it bordered and pointed to where a loose end of string dangled.
“I wrapped the pistol, that young fellow Dwight, or some such name, left behind him, in a bit of old mack and pushed it way down there in the hedge with a bit of string tied to it to pull it up by if I wanted. Well, now it’s gone. Someone’s taken it. Someone must have known.”
“Have you any idea who it could be?” Bobby asked.
She shook her head.
“Did Miss Anne Earle know where it was?” he asked.
“No,” she answered, and then turned round and stared at him. “You aren’t such a fool,” she asked, “as to think she killed the man she loved?”
Bobby did not answer, but a familiar line of poetry came into his mind: ‘Each man kills the thing he loves.’ Perhaps each woman, too. Mrs Jordan was speaking again. She said:
“He was shot, wasn’t he?”
Bobby nodded. She said:
“I suppose next you’ll be thinking I did it. Well, I didn’t. Why should I?”
There might be many possible reasons, Bobby thought. But he did not say so. Instead he remarked:
“We have information that you and some unknown man were heard quarrelling one night. Apparently something was said about someone being pushed into the canal. Mr Anderson’s body was found in the canal. Is there anything you would like to say about that? Would you care to say who the man was you were talking to?”
“No,” she answered angrily. “It’s all a blasted lie. That copper of yours again, sneaking and snooping and listening. It’s all a lie.”
“Well, think it over,” Bobby said. “If you remember anything and like to tell us, it might help.”
“Help who?” she sneered.
“You,” he answered, “you, or even Miss Anne Earle.”
CHAPTER XI
MRS FORD’S ANGER
IT WAS TOO late for anything more to be done that night; but as early as might be, telling himself that a farmer would probably be an early riser, Bobby appeared at Roman Ends farm. He was still in the act of alighting from his car when he saw Osman Ford standing at the door of the house, looking at him gloomily.
“I thought you would be around,” he said as Bobby came up. “I saw in the paper that Anderson’s dead. Foul play, it says. A bullet in the back. That spells murder. You can’t shoot yourself in the back. Been swindling someone else as well as us, had he?”
“So far as is known at present,” Bobby answered, “there is nothing to suggest that. Yours is the only suggestion of the kind that I’ve heard of.”
“You had better come in,” Osman said. He led the way into a sitting room, a bright cheerful apartment, with a pleasant outlook over the garden. “I reckon we shall know all about that soon,” he went on. “His affairs will have to be gone into. If my missus’s money is still there, I shan’t have to wait any longer for my rights. That’s one good thing. Blythe’s straight. He won’t hang on to other people’s money, pretending it’s for their good when all he wants is to keep it in his own clutches. Blythe promised me.”
“Promised you what?” Bobby asked.
“Promised that if he ever became trustee as the deed provided if anything happened to prevent Anderson acting, I should have my money. Blythe’s straight. He won’t stand between me and my rights. He told me as much himself.”
Bobby was watching him closely and with curiosity. The man seemed quite unaware of how strong a motive he was giving himself for desiring Anderson’s death. But he might have realized that the facts would soon be known and that it would be more prudent to make a display of an innocent frankness. As easy for guilt to take on the semblance of innocence as for innocence to find itself caught in dark clouds of suspicion. Bobby said:
“What I am trying to establish is when and where Mr Anderson was last seen alive.”
“I can’t tell you that,” Osman answered instantly. “I haven’t seen him since that day I came to you and you wouldn’t do anything because I didn’t know it all already. Evidence you wanted, you said. I always thought that’s what police were for, to get evidence. What you meant was you didn’t believe me. Well, now we’ll know all about it, when his affairs are gone into, and we’ll see whether I was right or whether I wasn’t.”
“I suppose so,” agreed Bobby. “Did you know he often drove along the road that skirts your land by the canal?”
“No, I didn’t. Why should I?” retorted Osman. “You can get to Midwych that way, though it’s round about. Not many do, but you can.”
“Mr Anderson used it frequently.”
“What about it?” Osman asked, but with uneasiness in his voice now. “Suppose he did, how should I know? Nothing to do with me.”
Before Bobby could reply the door opened and Mrs Ford came in. Bobby remembered her as a small, shrinking, insignificant sort of person with a trick of slipping away unseen and unnoticed. ‘Suppressed’ was the word that had occurred to him. Now she had an altogether different air. She gave rather the impression that it was the other fellow who would want to slip away, unnoticed and if possible unseen. She even looked taller, as if somehow she had added several inches to her height. One of the aggressor class now apparently, and her voice was vibrant with the energy of attack as she snapped out:
“What’s all this? Who is this man? What’s he want?”
“Well, you see, my dear,” Osman began, “it’s about
Mr Anderson—”
“Rubbish,” interposed Mrs Ford, though what she meant was ‘rubbish’ did not clearly appear, even if it seemed probable she meant the word to include her husband. She gave Bobby a look indicating that in her opinion to call him ‘rubbish’ would be to pay him a high but totally undeserved compliment. “If it’s true Anderson’s been murdered,” she said, “what’s that to do with us?”
“Apparently a good deal,” Bobby pointed out, “if one result is to release your capital he was holding up.”
“Rubbish,” said Mrs Ford, still more loudly and fiercely.
“Do you mean that is not the case?” Bobby asked.
“Rubbish,” she repeated.
It seemed her favourite remark, Bobby thought, but reflected also that this was not a case in which repetition increased conviction. Nor did he find it enlightening. Abruptly she turned upon her husband.
“You great empty-head,” she demanded, “what have you been telling him?”
Osman shuffled his feet uneasily, and Bobby was aware of an impression that he often did so when his wife addressed him. He made no effort to reply, and Bobby said:
“Mr Ford has very wisely been quite frank in explaining about the trust fund that Mr Anderson was holding up and that his death may release. Of course, we should soon have learned the facts, but it was much better, more satisfactory in every way, to hear them from Mr Ford himself.”
“Why?” demanded Mrs Ford truculently. “It’s nothing to do with you or anyone else.”
“Now, now, my dear,” began Osman Ford hesitatingly.
“You keep quiet,” Mrs Ford ordered. “Talk, talk, talk, that’s you all over.”
Osman Ford shuffled his feet again. Bobby remembered bewilderedly that once he had believed Osman Ford was a bully who by threats and violence had forced a timid little woman into marrying him and who had continued to bully her ever since. He even remembered how concerned he had once felt for her. He still felt concerned but not for her. He even began to have an uneasy feeling that he might be feeling concerned for himself before this interview was over. He said:
“I was explaining to your husband, Mrs Ford, that I am anxious to establish when and where Mr Anderson was last seen alive. Our information is that he often used the canal road skirting your land. We have received further information that Mr Ford was seen near an empty cottage on that road and that he appeared to be trying to avoid observation.”
“Just like him,” said Mrs Ford, withering her unlucky husband with a glance.
He shuffled his feet uneasily under her glare. Then he said protestingly:
“Well, what about it? Our land, isn’t it? Can’t I go for a stroll at night on our own land? Anything wrong about that?”
“Mr Ford,” Bobby said gravely, “I am carrying out preliminary inquiries. Certain facts seem to be established. The death of Mr Anderson probably releases your capital. The last known of him is that he was driving along the road between your land and the canal in which his body was found. So it is at least a possibility that the murder was committed on that road, somewhere near the Ends Bridge. You do not deny—”
“How dare you—?” interrupted Mrs Ford furiously.
“Now, now, my dear,” her husband interrupted in his turn.
“You keep quiet,” commanded Mrs Ford, whirling round on him. “Talk, talk, talk, that’s you.”
“You do not deny,” Bobby continued, “that you were seen near the unoccupied cottage on that road, not far from the bridge. You say that it is your own land, which is perfectly true, but hardly explains why you chose that particular part of it for an evening stroll or why you appeared to be anxious to avoid being seen.”
“If you want to know,” Osman grumbled, “some of ’em told me there was a lot of canoodling going on down there towards park and I don’t want that sort of thing on my land.”
Mrs Ford made sounds expressive of extreme disapproval, though whether of the ‘canoodling’, or of her husband’s dislike of it, was not quite clear. Her wrathful glances were being pretty equally divided between Osman and Bobby. Osman, still apt to shuffle his feet whenever his eye caught hers, kept an apprehensive watch on her. Bobby was apprehensive himself, he felt by no means sure that the little woman’s anger would not presently find physical expression. There was an ominous, occasional curving of her fingers for instance, and Bobby observed, still apprehensively, that she appeared to cultivate particularly long and sharp nails. He said to Osman:
“Did you see anyone?”
“No. I went down there to look round two or three evenings but I didn’t see anyone.”
“Which evenings were they?”
“I go out most evenings, just for a look round and smoke a pipe before turning in. It was the early part of the week I went down by there.”
Mrs Ford interposed.
“Why don’t you say right out what you mean?” she demanded fiercely of Bobby. “Trying to make out Osman stopped Anderson and murdered him?”
“Now, now, my dear,” said Osman.
“Talk, talk, talk,” cried Mrs. Ford despairingly. “Nothing will stop a man’s tongue.”
Osman shuffled his feet and looked depressed.
Bobby said:
“I am, if you like, trying to establish whether that is a possibility to take into account, and if in Mr Ford’s case—”
Mrs Ford interrupted him with what seemed almost a crow of delight.
“Now you’ve said it, young man,” she cried, shaking a finger in his face. “I’ll have the law on you for that. Scandal and libel and all. I’ll see if just because you’re a policeman you can go about saying things like that about respectable folk.”
“Now, now, my dear,” murmured Osman once again.
“Talk, talk, talk,” said his wife mechanically, but hardly giving him a glance, so intent was she on watching Bobby to see how her threat affected him.
“But, you see, I haven’t said anything ‘like that’,” Bobby told her with a smile which evidently irritated her greatly. “Police never do. When we do feel able to, we don’t. We make an arrest instead. Fortunately in this case there’s no question of that—yet. I am trying to get information. In any case my questions are what lawyers call privileged.”
“Well, then, I’ll give you some more information,” she snapped. “I followed him.” She flung out a hand to point at Osman who at once shuffled his feet again, and murmured “Now, now, my dear”. “I followed him,” she repeated loudly, ignoring his faint protest. “I thought I had best know what he was up to.”
“Now, now, my dear,” protested Osman, looking very surprised.
“Can’t you hold your tongue just half a minute?” demanded his wife fiercely. “Talk. Talk. Talk. That’s you all the time. I heard that story about the canoodling that was going on down by the canal road and when Osman went sneaking off with that disgusting pipe of his, I just thought I would like to see who was doing the canoodling. You can’t trust a man any further than you can see him and there’s that hussy he’s got to keep his accounts for him.”
“Now, now, my dear,” said Osman, this time a trifle more loudly and firmly than usual.
“If you can’t keep quiet for just one moment,” Mrs Ford told him in a blaze of concentrated fury, “I’ll…I’ll…” Her curved, threatening fingers with the pointed nails flew up so near to Osman’s face that he hurriedly jumped back. She gave him another fiercely warning glance and then turned towards Bobby, who was prudently edging towards the door. “Talk, talk. Chatter, chatter,” she said. “That’s a man all over; and if you’ve got a man, you’ve got to watch him, haven’t you?”
“I expect it’s just as well,” agreed Bobby.
“That’s why I thought I had better keep an eye on him Tuesday night, prowling round at that time of night,” she went on, indicating with a gesture the wretched Osman who almost automatically responded by a fresh shuffling of his feet, “and I did, too, and I can take my oath he never saw a soul or spoke a w
ord to anyone or did a thing except potter about like a great booby, and then go back to the house, smelling of—tobacco,” and what a world of scorn she flung into that last word. “There was no Mr Anderson anywhere and what’s more I don’t believe he ever was by there. Just police talk. Talk, talk. Chatter, chatter,” she repeated. “Police that is, all over.”
“Well, that’s evidence,” Bobby agreed, remembering that if a wife cannot be made to testify against her husband, more than once her evidence in his favour has secured an acquittal. “That means there’s evidence now that Mr Ford was in the vicinity of the scene of the murder that Tuesday night but that he did nothing except stroll, smoke a pipe, go back home.”
She looked at him gloomily and for the first time with doubt.
“Think you are smart, don’t you?” she said. Then she added with conviction: “You are smart, too.” With a sudden and total change of manner, of voice, of everything, so that she almost became a different woman, she said gently: “But you aren’t smart if you think Osman would murder anyone. He won’t even swat a wasp. If it’s pig killing, he’s always something to do as far away as he can get.”
“See here now, Violet,” interrupted Osman, really roused this time, “you know that’s not true. It’s only just happened once or twice that way when there was pig-sticking. I—”
“You’re a great softy,” she interrupted in her turn and she made the last word sound like a caress, so full was it of a deep affection. Embarrassed, Osman went very red. In fact, he blushed like a school-girl. To Bobby, she went on: “I’ll tell you something he doesn’t know. There was someone hanging about near the empty cottage. It was Mr Castles. He looked as if he was waiting for someone. I thought perhaps it was a girl. Not that I cared. So long as it wasn’t Osman. Osman was going back towards the house and I slipped round ahead so I could get in first. That’s all.”
The Dark Garden: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 12
