Diabolic Candelabra: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  “Rogue and vagabond. Public danger. If you had done your duty—” Leaving the sentence unfinished he emptied his glass and then came back to his seat. He went on: “The fellow ought to have been stopped long ago—killing people. That’s what he was doing. Served the fools right. All the same, there’s half a dozen in their graves I could name ought to be alive and well to-day. But they went to him and they swallowed his stuff and there you are. They all come to me fast enough if a car turns turtle or a man puts a charge of shot into himself instead of the rabbits. And very likely all the time all of them, behind my back, drinking the filthy muck that old fraud gives them and listening to his lies about vivisection and vaccination and anything else none of them knows anything about.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Bobby, who knew Maskell held a licence to practise vivisection. “I gather at one time you did attend Mr Crayfoot?”

  “What about it?”

  “Mr Crayfoot,” Bobby explained, “didn’t return home last night. He left his car at the ‘Rawdon Arms’ after lunching there and it hasn’t been claimed. Mrs Crayfoot is afraid something must have happened. Is there anything seriously wrong with him? Any likelihood of his having had an attack of any kind?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Maskell answered. “He was sound enough except for a touch of sciatica. That’s all. Painful. So people make a fuss about it. People can’t stand pain,” he added contemptuously. “He thought it might be cancer. Utter rubbish.”

  “Do you think there was any nervous trouble?”

  “And what,” demanded Maskell ferociously, “are you pleased to think you mean by ‘nervous trouble’?”

  “Well,” Bobby answered, though slightly taken aback by this demand, “what was in my mind was a lapse of memory. Sometimes these cases of missing people turn out to be cases of lost memory.”

  “Lost memory fiddlesticks,” snapped Maskell. “I won’t say it doesn’t happen, especially when there’s a physical cause, but it’s rare. Very rare. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s merely an excuse. Fellow finds his past inconvenient and decides to cut loose. Business troubles, family troubles, another woman, that sort of thing. Simplest card to play is lost memory. Eyewash. Nervous trouble. Bah! What’s it mean? I’ll tell you. Mental trouble. When people talk about nervous trouble to me, I tell them what they mean is mental trouble. They don’t like it. True though. Tell a man he’s nervy and he’s as pleased as Punch. Tell him he’s weak minded and he’s offended.

  Maskell paused, apparently contemplating with surprise this not surprising fact. Then he said violently:

  “I hate humbug. Fatal. Gangrene. Got to be cut out. Or it kills. Humbug. Gangrene. Fatal both of them.”

  “Then you know of nothing in Mr Crayfoot’s mental or physical condition to account for his disappearance?” Bobby asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “If he really got an idea that he was suffering from cancer, would there be any risk of suicide?”

  Maskell stared; and then produced a harsh, rumbling sound that was evidently intended for a laugh.

  “Suicide?” he repeated contemptuously. “Far too big a coward—the fellow panicked at the mere thought of dying. Came to me once with a pain in his tummy from eating too much roast pork and wanted to know if there was any danger. Scared to blazes. Goodness knows why—death’s a biological necessity. Nothing more. Ends it all and that’s all there’s to it.”

  “Some people share Hamlet’s doubts,” Bobby remarked.

  “Coppers quote Shakespeare,” the doctor sneered. “Wonders will never cease. Anyhow, you can take it from me—there was nothing wrong with Crayfoot or likely to be, except from swallowing the poisons he was getting from that old humbug in the forest.”

  “The man they call Peter the Hermit?” Bobby asked, and once more Maskell broke into a fierce denunciation of the old man.

  “A murderer,” he shouted at the top of his voice, “that’s the proper word—a murderer. A murderer you police don’t trouble your heads about. Why? Tell me that. Why can’t you stop a mischievous old fraud like that? Eh?”

  “Police carry out the law, they don’t make it,” Bobby answered mildly. “I understand he doesn’t take money for his stuff?”

  “That’s what people say,” Maskell admitted grudgingly. “Some of them have had the cheek and insolence to tell me that when I send in my bill. You may be sure he gets his pay all right on the quiet—one way or another. I caught one girl making up pots of honey to send him.”

  “Was that Miss Mary Floyd?” Bobby asked, remembering Mary’s bees.

  “Why? How do you know?” Maskell asked suspiciously.

  “Oh, police, you know,” Bobby answered vaguely; and by way of turning the knife in the wound, for though he had kept his temper well under control it was not of so meek a mould as to prevent him from seeing an opportunity to repay the other’s rudeness, he added: “The mother was a patient of yours at one time, wasn’t she?”

  The doctor nodded and, to Bobby’s surprise, with more of regret than resentment in his tones, he said:

  “An interesting case. Injury to the spine—the nervous system. Unusual reactions. I was trying different remedies and taking careful note of the effect. Then I found that ancient fraud of a so-called hermit interfering again—relieving pain, he called it.” Maskell snorted. “I told them I couldn’t have my treatment interfered with. My results had to be pure if they were to be of value. I explained that. They didn’t seem to understand the importance. I—” He went very red, he made the admission with evident reluctance. “I even went back after I had said I wouldn’t.” He paused to glare angrily at Bobby who had small difficulty in guessing that this return had not met with any gratitude or welcome. “There’s a little impudent brat there—running wild, ought to be sent to a home. She had the cheek—imagine it. A child of that age. Insolence. She actually stood there between me and her mother and told me to go away—told her mother to send me away. Said I cut up animals alive. I would have boxed her ears for her if I had got hold of her.”

  “Just as well perhaps you didn’t, doctor,” Bobby remarked dryly. “Magistrates are apt to be sticky these days about boxing the ears of other people’s children.”

  “Bah,” retorted Maskell, getting to his feet; and that was the last impression Bobby had of the doctor that day, a tall, big, formidable loosely-built man of intense vitality, drawing himself to his full height and uttering a ‘Bah’ of the most concentrated contempt for anything, everything, for all the world outside his own sympathies and activities and understandings.

  CHAPTER XIII

  PORTRAIT IN OILS

  AN INTERESTING MAN and an interesting interview Bobby told himself as he pursued his way, and he thought how odd it was that these two motives, the recipe for chocolates, the lost El Greco pictures, should be so continually crossing and re-crossing each other. Not that there could be any real connection, he supposed.

  He came soon to the outskirts of Tombes. ‘Bellavista,’ the Crayfoot residence, proved to be a prim little villa in a prim little garden, surrounded by other prim little villas in other prim little gardens, all of them taken together giving an impression of an order, peace, and the calm regularity of an established way of life nothing could ever change or challenge. Bobby surveyed the scene with approval.

  “Smug,” he reflected. “The apotheosis of the philistine.”

  And he reflected that after all, in a world in turmoil, there is much to be said for the regular and settled life of the philistine as against the sloppiness of the bohemian. A reflection which, of course, stamped him at once as the most philistine of philistines.

  Leaving his car by the roadside he walked up a neat gravelled path bordered by standard roses and knocked at the ‘Bellavista’ door. When he explained his errand he was shown at once into a conventionally furnished drawing-room evidently only used on the rarest occasions. He gave the quick, observant glance round to which he had trained himself—the trick was afterwards to shut
the eyes, try to remember as much as possible, then open them again and notice how much had been remembered and how correctly. This time, though, his attention was caught and held by a small oil painting on the wall to the exclusion of all else. It was the portrait of a young girl. The technical merit was small. Bobby had some knowledge of painting, the knowledge acquired by an occasional dabbling in the art, and could tell that at once. The surroundings were conventional, the dress was old-fashioned, yet somehow or another the artist had managed to catch in the expression a hint of the ethereal, a suggestion of a detachment from common things, that reminded Bobby very strangely both of Mary Floyd, and, more especially, of the younger sister, little Loo.

  He was still looking at it with a deep and puzzled wonder when the door opened and there came in Mrs Crayfoot, an anxious, worried-looking woman of middle age, a good deal alarmed by this visit, for she had at once jumped to the conclusion that Bobby was there to tell her of some dreadful accident of which her husband had been the victim.

  She seemed relieved, and yet a little disappointed, too, that the suspense must continue, when he explained that his purpose was only to obtain what information she could give that might be likely to help the police in their inquiry. It was not much she had to tell, and for her part she still insisted she was sure there must have been an accident. The roads were so dangerous. The papers were full of stories of people being killed or injured. Mr Crayfoot himself was a most careful driver. He made it a rule never to exceed thirty miles an hour. If other people would do the same, these dreadful accidents would be avoided.

  Bobby agreed, but pointed out gently that Mr Crayfoot’s car was safe and undamaged in the ‘Rawdon Arms’ garage. That did not make it seem very likely that any road accident had occurred. Mrs Crayfoot was not much impressed by this argument. She thought it very likely that the other person involved, and obviously the one to blame since Mr Crayfoot was a most careful driver, had left his victim by the roadside and garaged the car in order to escape discovery. What else but accident, she demanded tearfully, could account for Mr Crayfoot’s failure to return home?

  Bobby didn’t know. Indeed, from all that was said a picture built itself up of a quietly prosperous business man leading a sober and well-regulated life. Apparently he had no hobbies. His sole interest in life was his business. True, in his youth he had indulged a good deal in rock climbing, but on his marriage he had given it up.

  “I wasn’t going to have him breaking his neck,” said Mrs Crayfoot firmly.

  Nowadays his recreations were an occasional motoring trip, an occasional visit to the cinema, an occasional game of family bridge with neighbours. As for forest rambles, whereat Bobby had hinted, Mrs Crayfoot was sure such an idea would never occur to him. They had their car; and if you had a car, declared Mrs Crayfoot, you obviously didn’t go ‘hiking’ as people called it. In Mrs Crayfoot’s opinion and experience walking might be all right for boys and girls, and for the poorer classes generally, but most certainly not for prosperous business men.

  Bobby felt that she felt that one definitely lost caste by walking. Except young people. They might go ‘hiking’. He turned the conversation to the subject of business. Mrs Crayfoot was calmly certain that the business was as prosperous as ever. They had very nearly a monopoly of the best custom in the neighbourhood. The war had helped, if anything. There was more money about and fewer people had been away for those long holidays during which their custom was in abeyance. In nothing that she said could Bobby find the least suggestion of any worry or trouble having recently appeared in Mr Crayfoot’s life or manner. A passing reference to chocolates brought no response. Mrs Crayfoot never ate chocolates herself. She considered them fattening. Nor had Mr Crayfoot had any visitors recently—no strange visitors, that is. There had been the vicar, of course, and one or two of the neighbours, and young Mr Richard Rawdon from the Abbey.

  The last name came out casually, as if young Mr Richard from the Abbey were so frequent a visitor his call had nearly been forgotten. Bobby left the point for a moment and asked:

  “I believe Mr Crayfoot suffered from sciatica and used to take a herbal remedy. Can you tell me where he got it?”

  From a Miss Mary Floyd, Mrs. Crayfoot explained. Miss Floyd came to the shop to sell her home-made sweets or cakes or something—Mrs Crayfoot was not sure what exactly. Miss Floyd had heard of Mr Crayfoot’s sciatica and had offered to provide a liniment made by an old herbalist she knew. A man who lived alone in the forest and knew all about plants. Very economical; because in the first place Miss Floyd said the herbalist never made any charge and, secondly, one only used an eggspoonful twice a week, so that it lasted a long time. They had only had two bottles and the second was still half full, so Mr Crayfoot could not have been visiting the herbalist to secure more. Besides, if he had wanted a further supply he would have asked Miss Floyd, especially as, so far at least as she was aware, Mr Crayfoot had no knowledge either of the herbalist’s name or where he lived. There had been nothing else wrong with Mr Crayfoot’s health. The liniment had relieved the sciatica more than all Dr Maskell’s stuff and there had been no reason for Dr Maskell to take offence. It was Dr Maskell’s business to provide better remedies than others could, just as it was Mr Crayfoot’s business to provide better bread and cake than others. If either of them failed, then they lost custom. But Dr Maskell was known everywhere for his domineering ways and rough tongue and no wonder his practice was declining. Even the shortage of doctors since the outbreak of the war had not helped him greatly. People were merely tending more and more to try to get remedies from the herbalist of the forest. That is, when he could be found, which was often difficult. To hear Dr Maskell talk, one would think that the herbalist was a murderer and that to consult him was merely a quick way of committing suicide.

  Bobby agreed with all this and came back to the subject of Mr Richard Rawdon’s visit. Mrs Crayfoot thought it had been something about those new local defence volunteers. There was talk about putting up some kind of obstruction in the road near Mr Crayfoot’s shop and naturally he objected. The road was narrow enough just there as it was, and what was the sense of making it even more difficult for customers and their cars? Not as if it was likely the Germans would ever get that far.

  Bobby made no attempt to argue the point, even though he reflected that though it was unlikely the Germans would ever get as far as Midwych, yet this was a war in which there happened only the unlikely—or even, one was tempted to think sometimes, the impossible. So he rose to go and then paused to comment on the portrait in oils that had already caught his attention. He remarked on what a charming study it made, a lovely figure in a lovely frame. Was it, he asked unblushingly, by any chance a portrait of Mrs Crayfoot herself when a girl?

  This was meant as cunning flattery but was a good deal less successful than it deserved—or didn’t deserve. Bobby had forgotten that the style of dress showed the picture was more than half a century old, and that therefore had it been of Mrs Crayfoot when a girl she must now have been at least seventy years of age. Very emphatically Mrs Crayfoot was not prepared to claim a girlhood beauty at the price of a present and premature old age. Besides, she had never thought much of the portrait anyhow. A washed-out sort of creature, that girl, in her opinion. A dying duck in a thunderstorm, was her own judgment. Of course, it was hand done, she admitted that, not merely given away with the supplement to a Christmas number of an illustrated paper. They were much nicer, too, in her opinion, but with the disadvantage that the picture on your walls you might find also adorning a neighbour’s as well. With ‘hand done’ work that fortunately didn’t happen. Still, she had often thought of replacing it by something with more colour and life, only it had been done by Mr Crayfoot’s grandfather and so he liked to keep it.

  Bobby was interested and asked one or two more questions. Mrs Crayfoot had no idea who the original of the portrait had been and evidently had no more information to give on a subject which had never interested her and about wh
ich she knew nothing. Nor had Bobby any reason to press the point, since presumably it had no connection with the puzzle of Mr Crayfoot’s disappearance he was there to solve, if possible.

  He took his leave therefore, since it seemed there was no more to learn. Everything possible would be done to relieve her anxiety, he assured Mrs Crayfoot. By way of encouragement, he assured her, too, that often what seemed the most inexplicable disappearance had the simplest explanation. A letter unposted, for instance, or a telegram wrongly addressed. Mrs Crayfoot seemed a good deal cheered by what he said and as he went away Bobby wondered whether he had been wise to say what he had done.

  For he himself was beginning more and more to be aware of dark and strange possibilities, ominous in the background.

  CHAPTER XIV

  WALTERS’S

  FROM ‘BELLAVISTA’, BOBBY went on to Walters’s, the baking, confectionery and tea shop business owned by Mr Crayfoot. It looked, he thought, a prosperous and well-managed affair. There was someone to come forward at once to speak for each department, but no one with any explanation to offer of their employer’s absence. Most unusual for him to be away without due warning. None of them had ever known such a thing to happen before. Nor had any one noticed anything to account for it, any unusual incident, anything strange in manner or behaviour. The senior assistant in charge of the confectionery counter knew all about Mary Floyd and her chocolates, all about the famous liniment, too. It was she, the assistant, who, on her own responsibility, had agreed to put Miss Floyd’s chocolates on sale. And it was she who had spoken about Mr Crayfoot’s sciatica to Miss Floyd on one of her rare personal visits to the shop—for nearly always she sent her chocolates by post or by carrier. The chocolates had been a great success, she added, and always sold well. They had a distinctive and unusual flavour. People who bought them once often asked for them again and were disappointed if they could not be supplied. But there it was. They were home made and naturally Miss Floyd could only provide limited supplies. Once or twice, she, the assistant, had suggested to Mr Crayfoot that it might be a good idea to offer Miss Floyd facilities for increasing her output and he had seemed interested. But there it was. Nothing had been done. You couldn’t have home-made quality and factory quantity. Two incompatibles. There was one customer who liked them so much that her husband had come to ask about them. He had even wanted Miss Floyd’s address. Like his impudence. Naturally, he had not been told. Not likely. Walters’s were fully prepared to take all Miss Floyd cared to make and to give her as good a price as any one. Bobby wondered a little what that price was and what relation it bore to the price charged over the Walters counter. That lay, however, he supposed, outside the scope of his inquiry. He asked for a description of the disappointed inquirer for Miss Floyd’s address. The assistant’s memory was not very clear nor her description very precise. But now Bobby mentioned it, yes, she thought he had red hair. His voice—was, well, it was like that of any one else. He might have had hairy hands as well but then so many gentlemen had, hadn’t they? Consultation with a junior, however, produced confirmation. The junior’s memory was better and she had felt quite sympathetic with the customer’s disappointment at not being able to buy his wife her chocolates.