Information Received

by E. R. Punshon

  ‘All lies, you mean,’ Bobby answered.

  ‘As you like,’ Mark answered indifferently, and then his voice changed and all the indifference faded from it as he exclaimed: ‘Look, look where we are, where we’ve come to.’

  Bobby saw then that they were passing the Regency Theatre.

  ‘The Regency,’ he said, ‘why, what about it?’

  ‘Nothing, I didn’t know we had come this way,’ Mark mumbled. ‘We’ve come miles out of our way.’

  He increased speed again.

  ‘I meant to go straight back,’ he said, ‘and we’ve come round here instead.’

  They shot through a press of traffic, and the Regency Theatre with its great flaring sign ‘Shakespeare’ was left behind.

  CHAPTER 16

  A WARNING

  It was in silence that they drove on, and Bobby was still deep in troubled thought when presently the car stopped, this time just outside ‘The Cedars’.

  ‘I’m going in here,’ Mark said to him. ‘You can do what you like. I shall be some time.’

  ‘I’m coming in with you,’ Bobby said.

  ‘No, you aren’t,’ Mark retorted violently; ‘not you, you aren’t.’

  He got out of the car, and, leaving it standing there, walked up the drive to the house. Bobby did not attempt to follow. He had no authority to insist on accompanying Mark, and in Mark’s present mood he was not likely in any case to learn anything from him. It would be better to wait, he thought, till Mark reappeared, when he might be more communicative. At any rate it was necessary to wait to make sure that no developments took place as a result of Mark’s visit.

  Inside the little car it was hot and stuffy, nor was there much room for Bobby’s long legs, twist and curl them as he might. He got out accordingly, and began to walk up and down, occasionally pacing the length of the drive. But in the house nothing seemed to be happening, all was quiet, and only the glimmer of a light here and there showed that the inmates had not retired for the night.

  As he walked up and down, Bobby racked his brains in vain to imagine some explanation of these bizarre happenings. What could it be, he asked himself again and again, that Mark had learned at ‘The Green Man’ which seemed to have filled him with such horror, and why had he come on to ‘The Cedars’ at this late hour? Was it to communicate to those in the house what he had learned at ‘The Green Man’? Was it something he felt he must tell them of at once? But, if so, why had he so obstinately refused to breathe a word of it to Bobby?

  One hypothesis did indeed come into Bobby’s mind, but it seemed to him so improbable that he put it aside at once.

  But still the problem teased and worried him till at last, when it was not far from midnight, the front door opened, and there appeared, plainly visible in the light from the hall behind, first Mark himself, and then the tall form of Peter Carsley.

  They came a little way down the drive together towards where Bobby was waiting, and Peter said in a troubled and uneasy voice:

  ‘You know... well, it’s... well, we had never thought of such a thing.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Mark. ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you think... well, wouldn’t it be better I mean, it does seem like rushing things, doesn’t it?’

  Mark answered, pausing to light a cigarette:

  ‘That’s my affair and Brenda’s... if Brenda agrees, it’s no one else’s business.’

  ‘No, in a way, no,’ agreed Peter, ‘only things are a bit exceptional just now, aren’t they?’

  ‘It’s because they are that I think it would be better to get married at once,’ Mark said, and in the darkness, at a little distance, Bobby fairly jumped as he asked himself, with increased bewilderment, if it was to hurry on the date of his marriage that Mark had driven here with such speed, and if this necessity to hasten the ceremony was a result of what he had been told at ‘The Green Man’.

  ‘All this is getting madder and madder,’ Bobby said to himself resignedly.

  Peter was talking again now. He said:

  ‘You’ll need a special licence.’

  ‘There won’t be any difficulty about that, will there?’ Mark asked. ‘I can say we have to go abroad or something like that.’

  ‘No, I expect that will be all right,’ Peter agreed. ‘Well, I hope you’ll be happy.’

  ‘Happy?’ Mark repeated with a startled accent, as if that were the first time such an idea had occurred to him. ‘Oh, happy,’ he said again, with an accent stranger still. He went on slowly: ‘When I saw Brenda first, the very first time, I knew I had to marry her ... or no one. I knew she was meant for me. It’s funny to feel like that, why do you? Is there something makes you? I didn’t know till then that people did, but then it somehow came over me ... did you feel like that?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ answered Peter awkwardly. ‘I suppose I just thought Jennie was a jolly fine girl and I went on thinking so till I thought it would be a jolly fine thing if we got married. That’s all.’

  ‘Would you have let anything come between you?’

  ‘We jolly well didn’t,’ Peter answered. ‘We knew her father would never consent... we knew he might never forgive us... we knew it might mean he would try to smash my firm and I should have to get out... and we didn’t care... if it had been all that ten times over, we should have done just the same.’

  ‘I don’t mean like that,’ Mark said in a low voice. ‘I mean all that’s nothing at all... lots of people get married against their people’s wishes... I mean if...’

  He paused and Bobby leaned forward in sudden, swift excitement, for the idea had come to him very vividly that in what Mark was about to say would be exposed his secret. But Mark was silent still, and Peter said:

  ‘What do you mean? If... if what?...’

  ‘Nothing,’ Mark answered in changed tones, and Bobby understood that now the secret, whatever it was, would not be told. ‘Only nothing would keep me away from Brenda... neither heaven nor hell,’ he said with a kind of restrained vehemence.

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose they’ll try, will they?’ Peter asked. ‘So long as Brenda’s willing and neither of you mind making people talk a bit... that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘That’s all there’s to it,’ Mark repeated, but again with an odd accent in his voice.

  Peter was silent for a moment or two. There seemed to be something he wanted to say that he didn’t quite know how to express. He said at last, rather hurriedly:

  ‘Look here, old man there’s just one thing... I don’t want to meddle... but now you’re going to get married...’

  ‘Go on,’ Mark said.

  ‘It’s about trying to find out who shot Sir Christopher,’ Peter explained. ‘You said you meant to have a try... I should give that up now if I were you... I think you ought to...’

  ‘Do you? Why?’

  ‘I think you ought,’ Peter repeated. ‘Lester, I wish you would promise me you would... give that up, I mean... for God’s sake, man,’ he broke out passionately, as though he could no longer quite control himself, ‘for God’s sake, stop that.’

  ‘I will,’ Mark said quietly. ‘I promise you that.’

  ‘Good,’ said Peter very heartily. ‘Good,’ he repeated, in tones of an immense incomprehensible relief. ‘Besides, you may have a chance to investigate another murder soon.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mark asked sharply, and Peter laughed a little.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you had seen the way my dear partner looked at me to-day...’

  ‘Oh, Marsden?’

  ‘Nothing he would like better than to cut my throat ... rather slowly, by preference. I’m not sure he won’t have a try.’

  They had begun to walk on again now, and had come to where Bobby was standing waiting in the shadow of the trees lining the drive. Mark was the first to see him and apparently remembered him then for the first time.

  ‘Oh, you,’ he said, ‘you’re there still.’

  ‘I though
t I would wait for you,’ Bobby answered quietly.

  ‘It’s that policeman,’ Mark explained to Peter. ‘You know.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Peter, recognizing him. To Bobby he said: ‘Did you hear what I was saying?’

  ‘I heard what you were saying just now,’ Bobby answered, without thinking it necessary to emphasize that he had heard the rest of the conversation as well. ‘I don’t know if you meant it or if you were joking, but it’s rather serious to say someone wants to murder you.’

  ‘Well, he does all right,’ Peter retorted, ‘and what’s more, I told him I would tell you people so, so that you would know where to start looking if I were found some day with a knife in my back or my head bashed in.’

  ‘Do you mean that there has been a quarrel and he has used threats?’ Bobby asked cautiously.

  ‘Quarrel?’ repeated Peter. ‘Depends what you call a quarrel – when you were at the office this morning, when you went away, didn’t you see how you left us? Glaring at each other across the table and only not going for each other because we knew the clerks would call in the police. If we had been alone somewhere... not but that I could tackle Marsden with one hand tied behind me, and he knows it, too.’

  ‘But you don’t suggest...’ began Bobby and paused.

  ‘I very much suggest,’ Peter retorted. ‘Marsden wanted to buy me out. Under the deeds of partnership he has the right to do that. But there’s a little clause that if we can’t agree as to the figure it is to be settled by arbitration, after an independent examination of the books of the firm.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right, isn’t it?’ asked Bobby.

  ‘Depends on what you call all right,’ Peter answered again, ‘but I’m inclined to think Marsden has very good reason for objecting to an independent examination. He has offered me better terms than there’s any need to. I’ve refused them. If there’s anything wrong, it’s going to come out. I think that’s only fair to clients for one thing. And if anything comes out, I’m not going to have people saying that I knew all the time, but cleared off while I could, with my share of the swag.’

  ‘Have you any reason to think there’s anything wrong?’ Bobby asked.

  ‘Well, again, that depends on what you call reason,’ replied Peter. ‘One night Marsden told me there was a big deficiency and clients had been swindled wholesale, the next morning he said I had misunderstood him, there was nothing wrong at all, all accounts were perfectly straight. But he won’t let the books be seen, he’s trying to keep them even from me, though of course I’ve a right to see everything when I’m supposed to be a partner. And between that afternoon and the next morning he had been to Paris for some unknown reason and come straight back, and meanwhile there had been the big robbery here.’

  ‘Are you suggesting he may have murdered Sir Christopher?’ Bobby asked.

  ‘No,’ Peter answered slowly and heavily, ‘no, I am quite certain he didn’t do that... quite certain, more certain than I am that Sir Christopher was murdered at all. Besides, I thought you people said he had an alibi, that he had been seen in Piccadilly or somewhere.’

  ‘You can’t always be sure of an alibi,’ Bobby remarked. ‘When you are sure of it, it’s conclusive. But alibis are often faked and always have been, from Dick Turpin on.’

  ‘Well, anyhow,’ said Peter, still in the same heavy and sombre tone, ‘it wasn’t Marsden shot Sir Christopher, you may be sure of that. But I’m not sure Marsden didn’t do the job with the safe. Of course, I know I oughtn’t to say that, it’s libellous, I suppose... anyhow I mean to make sure about our clients’ money. I’m more or less responsible there. My father made the firm, it was nothing when he joined it and he made it, and I’m not going to quit till I’ve made sure everything’s all right – or isn’t. I told Marsden so quite plainly when I turned down what he offered me to quit then and there, and if anyone ever looked murder, he did. So I told him I would give you people a hint where to begin to look, if anything happened to me.’

  ‘I see,’ said Bobby, though not quite certain yet whether Peter were in earnest. ‘Only I hope he won’t, because we’ve got one murder on our hands already, and it’s quite enough. I take it, Mr Carsley, you’ve no actual information you can give us to connect Mr Marsden with the robbery here.’

  ‘I know no more than you do,’ Peter told him.

  ‘Which isn’t much,’ Bobby remarked. ‘You said just now you weren’t quite certain Sir Christopher was murdered? What did you mean?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ Peter answered.

  ‘Mr Carsley,’ said Bobby, ‘both you and Mr Lester are a little too fond, in such a serious affair as murder, of saying things that then you say mean nothing.’

  ‘Well, it’s all such a fog,’ protested Peter, rather more meekly than Bobby had quite anticipated. ‘What actually happened isn’t known for certain yet, and till it is, I’m lawyer enough to want to take nothing for granted. That’s all.’

  ‘Not even a dead man with two bullets in him?’

  ‘Above all, not a dead man with two bullets in him,’ replied Peter, very gravely.

  ‘I’m going. Good night,’ Mark interrupted abruptly. He walked away quickly, and a moment or two later they heard his car departing. Peter said:

  ‘Good example. I’ll follow it, it’s late.’

  ‘One moment,’ Bobby said. ‘What you’ve told me about Mr Marsden is serious. I shall have to report it.’

  ‘I suppose I meant you to,’ Peter agreed. ‘It looks to me as if he’s got to stop me or or it’s got to come out if he has been playing tricks with clients’ money. And there’s no way of stopping me – except one.’

  Bobby made no comment, but he was inclined to be of the same opinion, as he remembered Peter’s square chin and jaw and the hard lines his mouth could set into.

  ‘That’s all,’ said Peter. ‘Good night.’

  He went back into the house and after a pause for reflection Bobby went round to the back. Seeing there was still a light, he knocked gently. He had made a half promise that morning to the favourably disposed cook that he would do his best to watch over them and the house, so as to protect them against any more robberies or murders. His fulfilment of this promise as evinced by his appearance even at this hour was therefore warmly welcomed. Lewis was more than cordial, and produced an excellent whisky, after recommending an old port that during his master’s life he would never have dared to dream of laying a finger upon. Bobby, however, preferred the whisky. The cook, the parlourmaid, the housemaid, and the ‘tweenie’, all assured him in turn that now they would be able to sleep in peace, after this proof of watchful guardianship, which had, as the cook said, relieved them all from the fear of waking up in the morning with their throats cut. Also Bobby learnt that already the domestic staff knew that the marriage between Brenda and Mark was now to take place as soon as possible.

  On the whole, it seemed the domestic staff approved, though admitting that it did not seem quite respectful to the memory of ‘poor Sir Christopher, and him not in his grave yet, and them talking of marrying already’.

  ‘But it’s not as if it was her own father,’ the cook pointed out; and they all agreed that Miss Brenda, who had almost frightened them before by the stillness and so to say ‘intensity’ of her manner, had seemed much better and more normal recently.

  ‘I heard her laugh, almost natural like,’ said the parlourmaid.

  ‘Uplift somehow, if you know what I mean,’ said the housemaid. ‘I didn’t use to think she cared for Mr Lester much, but the way she looked at him to-night...’

  ‘Beautiful,’ said the ‘tweenie’ rapturously, and though ‘tweenies’ are only there to be seen and not heard, her remark touched such responsive chords in the bosoms of the others that she escaped all rebuke.

  CHAPTER 17

  DIFFICULT POINTS

  It was with no very welcoming expression that Superintendent Mitchell looked up when Bobby was shown next morning into his room at Scotland Yard. His desk was p
iled high with papers, before him were different sets of reports on three different cases, all requiring immediate attention and all needing to be read through and digested before the daily routine interview with the Assistant Commissioner. His air was formidable as he said:

  ‘What do you want? Do you think I’ve nothing better to do than waste my time with every three-year man who thinks he would like a chat?’

  ‘Orders were to report personally, sir,’ answered Bobby, facing the storm bravely, without betraying any sign that his heart was in his boots.

  ‘If you had anything new and important to say,’ growled Mitchell. ‘How the dickens did you manage to get them to send your name in?’

  ‘I told them I wanted to see the Assistant Commissioner,’ explained Bobby.

  ‘You did... what?’ gasped Mitchell. ‘The Assistant Commissioner,’ he repeated on a rising scale. ‘Oh, you did... and what did they say to that?’

  ‘Oh, a lot of things,’ answered Bobby. ‘All different,’ he added.

  ‘Suppose they had taken you to him?’

  ‘Well, sir, I risked that, one has to risk something,’ Bobby answered. ‘So when they wouldn’t, I told them a superintendent would do.’

  Mitchell fairly bounded in his chair.

  ‘You told them a superintendent would do?’ he repeated faintly. ‘Young man, is that what they taught you at Oxford?’

  ‘Oh, no, sir,’ answered Bobby, shocked.

  ‘What do they teach you at Oxford?’ demanded Mitchell.

  ‘I’m told it’s where,’ Bobby explained, ‘they teach an English gentleman to be an English gentleman.’

  ‘Well, now, is that it?’ said Mitchell, much interested. ‘Well, I’ve often wondered and now I know.’ With a sudden change of manner he added: ‘Now, Owen, out with it, and unless it’s something to justify your infernal cheek, you’re for it.’

  ‘Mr Lester informed me yesterday,’ said Bobby, ‘that Dr Gregory owed Sir Christopher money and was being pressed for payment.’