Night's Cloak: A Bobby Owen Mystery

by E. R. Punshon

  Again she paused. It seemed she was finding it difficult to control her emotions. Bobby uttered a few commonplaces. She said abruptly:—

  “I think perhaps I ought to tell you. Mr Weston and I saw much of each other. Only two days ago, he suggested marriage. I asked him to let me have a little time before I answered.”

  “That must have made the shock of what has happened still greater,” Bobby said with grave formality.

  She sat down. She did not ask him to be seated. She seemed for the moment to have forgotten his presence as he stood watching her with grave attention. She put up one hand before her eyes as if to shut out some vision or some memory. Her lips moved, but what she said was inaudible. Bobby remained standing and waiting. He noticed her hand; a little large, well-shaped and strong, with strong, firm wrists. A hand that could, he felt, wield well a golf-club or a tennis-racquet—or even a knife, he thought. She looked up and said:—

  “Please excuse me. Please sit down. This awful thing—I hardly know what I am doing—or saying. Have you found out anything? It’s so difficult to understand. Or oughtn’t I to ask?”

  “It is early yet to be sure of anything,” Bobby answered. “I really came about a vanity case.”

  “Oh, yes. Olga’s; she’s my niece. She had lost it. I thought perhaps she might have left it—there.” She shuddered slightly, as if even this faint reference to the scene of the tragedy brought its memory back more vividly. “I thought I would ask. I think it wasn’t only that. It was partly because I wanted ... I don’t know what. I wanted to be near, I didn’t want to stay away as if it all meant nothing to me.” She seemed more composed now. She clasped those strong, shapely hands of hers across her knees and leaned forward. “I wonder if you can understand. He was so near to me, so very near, so dear. Yet I have no rights, no standing. None. For all any one knows we were just ordinary friends and neighbours. I wanted to ask if I might see him again, just once, the last time. I didn’t dare. I asked about Olga’s vanity case instead.” Till now she had not used gesture and the profound emotion she so evidently felt she had been bringing more and more under control. But now her nervous agitation seemed to overcome her; and she began making quick, vague movements with her hands, shaking them oddly, so that a ring she was wearing, and that must have fitted loosely on her finger, fell to the floor and rolled away. Bobby recovered it for her. Valuable, he thought. Diamond and rubies. She thanked him and put it back on her finger. “I must have it altered,” she said. “To fit. It’s always doing that. I shall be losing it. He saw it and admired it, that’s why I’ve begun to wear it lately. You know, I can’t believe it’s really true. I feel as if I shall never sleep again.” She repeated: “I think I shall never sleep again. Have you found Olga’s vanity case? They’re hard to get now, and dreadfully dear. Like everything else.”

  “There is a lady’s vanity case we’ve found,” Bobby said. “Possibly Miss Olga Severn could identify it as her property. I hope she won’t mind if we ask permission to keep it for a time.”

  “Keep it? Why?” Miss Severn looked puzzled. “It’s nothing to do with what’s happened, surely?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Bobby assured her. “Most unlikely. Red tape, I suppose. Police have to work so much by official regulation. Do you know a Miss Bessie Bell?”

  The question evidently surprised and startled her, puzzled her as well. She flung at him almost the first direct look he had received from those swollen, heavy-lidded eyes of hers; and he saw those strong hands of hers close tightly on each other in a grip that showed the knuckles white. She answered by another question.

  “Who is she?” she said, and her voice was hoarse and thick.

  “Well, you see,” Bobby explained, “it appears she was present last night. I wondered if you could give me any information about her. If you had ever heard Mr Weston mention her. There’s a suggestion that he had sent for her. If he did, I should like to know why.”

  “I have never heard the name,” Miss Severn said then. “I don’t think Mr Weston ever mentioned it. Business, I suppose. Why do you ask me?” Her voice was still hoarse and indistinct. She moistened dry lips. “I don’t know,” she repeated. “Who is she?”

  To this question, shot out abruptly—fiercely, indeed—Bobby did not reply. He thought to himself that though Miss Severn might not know, she clearly suspected. Jealousy, he decided—a hot and angry jealousy. He wondered if in jealousy lay the cause and motive of the crime. But jealousy is a direct and simple motive, and in all this there seemed much else. It seemed to him too tangled a mixture of motive, doubt, and suspicion, for so simple and primitive an emotion as jealousy to be the explanation. Yet it might be.

  “Bell? You said Bell? Bessie Bell?” Miss Severn was repeating, and once more she asked: “Who is she?”

  “You see, what I want to know,” Bobby explained, “is why she was there. Apparently she left early in the evening. Do you think there is anything else you can tell me that might help?”

  He went on to ask some more questions. From her answers he learnt nothing that he had not known before. She had certainly been on close and familiar terms with the dead man, but there were things she was ignorant of. She knew little, for instance, of the threat that had apparently developed to his control of the Weston West Company. Bobby asked when Miss Olga Severn would be back from her office, and was told she had already returned.

  “She is packing,” Miss Severn explained. “She finds it too far here from the Mill. She is welfare officer at the Weston West Mills. I asked Mr Weston to let her have the post for a trial, and he did. Now she says she must be nearer, and she is going to lodge with one of the workpeople quite close. I think her idea is that then any of the girls who like can come and talk to her after hours, and of course it will save a lot of running to and fro.”

  Bobby asked if he could see her. Miss Severn rang for the maid and told her to tell Miss Olga the police inspector would like to see her. The girl looked very wide-eyed and excited and alarmed, and withdrew. A few moments later Olga Severn came into the room, and it needed but the first glance aunt and niece exchanged to tell Bobby that between them enmity ran like fire.

  CHAPTER XVII

  OYSTER

  LIKE HER aunt, Olga Severn was small in stature, graceful and easy in all her movements, but rounder and less square in build. Like her aunt again, she had small claim to beauty; for her features were irregular in shape and too large for her small face, but she had the advantage of a clear, fresh complexion unspoiled by any excessive use of make-up, and there was about her a certain bright eagerness of expression, as of one who held out always open hands to life. She was dressed very quietly, and gave at first the impression of a demure, retiring, even insignificant personality, though closer acquaintance showed a firmness latent in the strong lines of the mouth and chin, in the direct and steady eyes, in the clear and even tones of the voice. Even-tempered and sensible, Bobby thought, and he wondered what deep cause made her seem now towards her aunt as one prepared both to parry and to strike.

  Miss Florence explained who Bobby was. Bobby explained he had called about a vanity case understood to be Miss Olga’s property. She agreed she had lost one, but looked both puzzled and suspicious when she was told where it had been found.

  “I don’t know how it could possibly have got there,” she said.

  “You must have forgotten it yesterday when you went to talk to Mr Weston about the works concert,” her aunt told her shortly. “One of the servants saw it and put it out of the way till it was claimed.”

  “It wasn’t yesterday, it was the day before when I called about the works concert,” Olga said, still looking puzzled. “I know I’ve had it since.”

  “Well, that’s where it was found,” the elder Miss Severn insisted. “Some one picked it up. You know you are always leaving it about.”

  Olga did not answer this, but the look she gave her aunt was hard and challenging, and the look she received in return was like it. Bobby,
who had risen when Olga entered, felt he was standing between two enemies, prevented perhaps only by his presence from displaying a more open hostility. He tried to relieve the tension by asking a few vague questions of small importance and then went on:—

  “I’m wondering if I might venture to ask you two ladies to help us?”

  “Yes, of course, if there’s anything we can do,” Miss Florence answered at once, but Olga was silent, looking distrustfully at Bobby.

  “Well, it’s like this,” Bobby said. “I expect you know about fingerprints. Every one does. It’s important for us to be able to sort them out and make sure which belongs to who. I wonder if you would very much mind if we asked to be allowed to take your impressions, so as to be able to classify and identify any we come across.”

  He looked amiably from one to the other, nor was it difficult to see that neither welcomed the suggestion. Not surprising, perhaps. A good many people seem to have an idea that the recording of finger-prints is much the same as conviction and sentence. Was it only fancy made him feel that this time for such objection there was a deeper cause? Olga was the first to answer.

  “No,” she said simply. “I would rather not.”

  A simple plain denial. No explanation or excuse offered. In harmony, Bobby thought, with a stronger will, a more clear-cut decisiveness of character, than was apparent at first in her quiet, reserved demeanour. A bit of a psychological problem, Miss Olga Severn, he told himself. Miss Florence broke in on his thoughts with a sharp refusal couched in the form of an attack.

  “I think that’s a most improper proposal,” she declared; and now it was a little odd to see how these two, aunt and niece, so plainly hostile, ranged themselves on the same side, on the defensive. “I don’t think you have any right whatever to ask such a thing.”

  “I asked a favour,” Bobby protested, “I didn’t claim a right.”

  “Well, I think it gross impertinence,” Miss Severn told him. “I shall most certainly consent to nothing of the kind.”

  “Oh, in that case—” said Bobby and left the sentence unfinished. “Please let me say how sorry I am you take it like that.” He looked at Olga as if inviting her to change her mind. She shook her head without speaking. Bobby made no attempt to press the point. He knew it was wiser not to insist too strongly at first. Better, having made a suggestion, to leave it to grow and fructify if it would. If it failed to do so, then, if necessary, pressure could be applied. He went on, still speaking directly to Olga: “Well, at any rate, I hope you won’t mind coming with me now to see if you can identify the vanity case as yours.”

  “Is that necessary?” Olga asked.

  “Well, you see, if it turned out not to be yours at all, that might be important, mightn’t it?”

  “Very well,” she said then. “I will come if you wish it.”

  “Better put on your gloves,” her aunt interposed. “They can get your prints from anything you touch.”

  “Oh, well, hardly anything,” Bobby said smilingly. “In fact, not anything by any means.”

  “I shan’t be a moment,” Olga said.

  She left the room and came back almost at once. She had provided herself with a wrap and was wearing one of those gay scarfs which seem of late in the feminine wardrobe to have replaced the hat. With some amusement Bobby noticed that she had taken her aunt’s advice and had put on gloves, though he fancied somehow these were articles she often dispensed with. They left the house together, and Bobby had the idea that the older woman’s gaze followed them with a kind of sombre triumph, as though in some way what was happening was happening as she desired, or even as she had planned. As they walked along, Bobby said:—

  “I wonder if there is any chance that you will change your mind about letting us have your finger-prints.” She shook her head. Bobby went on: “Well, I hope at any rate you won’t mind my asking you a few questions.”

  “I suppose that depends on what they are,” she answered stiffly. “Not if they are impertinent. I’m glad I’m not a policeman,” she flashed with sudden emphasis that revealed again how much of will and of decision was hidden behind that quiet, almost demure exterior.

  “You are a welfare officer, aren’t you?” Bobby asked. “Isn’t a policeman a kind of welfare officer, too?”

  “Welfare officers don’t go about prying and poking and questioning,” she snapped, evidently indignant at the comparison.

  “Don’t you?” he asked mildly. “Well, then, I wish you would tell me how you get to the bottom of things? If one of your mill-girls is unhappy at her work, if there is malicious gossip going on, if things aren’t running smoothly, how do you find out how to put them right, if you don’t pry and poke and ask questions?”

  “That’s quite different,” she told him still more indignantly.

  “I wonder why?” he mused. “Much the same idea, I should have said. Something wrong and how to put it right. Except that this is murder,” he said with a sudden sternness in his voice, “and murder is—well, murder. If murder goes undetected and unpunished, who is safe?”

  “Oh, well,” she said.

  “Don’t you think, then, I have a right to ask for your help?”

  “But I can’t help you; I don’t know anything.”

  “People sometimes say that quite honestly when really they know a great deal,” Bobby told her. “It was you who stopped my car last night?”

  “Well?”

  “You thought I was Mr Martin Wynne, didn’t you? Did you want to know what had been arranged with Mr Weston about the shares in the Weston West Company? Or was it something else?”

  “You must ask Mr Wynne. I’m not going to say anything about it.”

  “Saying nothing is sometimes saying a good deal,” he remarked smilingly.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she answered, and did not smile.

  “There’s another thing,” he continued. “I am wondering why you and your aunt have quarrelled so bitterly.”

  She stood still then, staring at him in great surprise.

  “What do you mean? How do you know?” she demanded.

  “Oh, my dear young lady,” he answered. “I’m not blind.”

  “No, I think you see a lot,” she said. “Well, suppose we have? People do quarrel, don’t they? About nothing sometimes. It has nothing to do with—with what’s happened. How could it? I’m going away. She’ll miss what I used to pay. She has lost a lot of money through the war. I expect she’ll be able to get some one else if she tries.”

  “You don’t tell me much, do you?” Bobby remarked. “I still don’t know why it happens that your quarrel with your aunt happens just at this moment. It seems, you see, as if there might be some connection.” She shook her head once more. “That’s what I should like to judge for myself,” he went on. “If I don’t know, then I have to guess. And when a policeman starts guessing, no telling where he’ll stop.” She remained silent. He continued: “Miss Severn tells me Mr Weston had proposed marriage.”

  “Told you—what? That he had proposed? Are you sure?”

  “I am quite sure that is what your aunt said,” Bobby replied. “She has not told you?”

  “No,” Olga said. “Did she say if she had accepted him?”

  “I understood she asked for time to think it over.”

  Olga walked on, looking puzzled and thoughtful, evidently turning over in her mind a piece of news that a good deal surprised her.

  “I knew they had been seeing a great deal of each other,” she said presently. “My aunt has said nothing to me.”

  “Do you think it’s true?”

  “I suppose it must be, if she says so. Why not? It doesn’t matter what I think, does it?”

  “Do you know Miss Bessie Bell?”

  “No. Why? Who is she?”

  “She was here last night.”

  At that she gave him a quick look.

  “I’m not a child,” she said. “A welfare officer gets to know plenty. Is she one of Mr Weston’s
mistresses?”

  “I don’t think so. I have no reason to. Rather the contrary. Mr Weston’s reputation seems well known.”

  “There’s one girl at the Mill who is said to be his daughter. I don’t know if it’s true. The story is that her mother thought she was married because they went to Scotland together and then found it didn’t count, somehow. Perhaps it’s all a story. If it’s true, it’s beastly of him to pretend she isn’t. I never saw anything like that myself. I expect I’m not pretty enough.”

  “He seems to have chosen a pretty secretary,” Bobby remarked.

  “Miss Rowe? Yes, she’s lovely, isn’t she? Have you been hearing gossip about her? You needn’t believe it if you have. Thomasine’s lovely, of course, and—well, Mr Weston is dead and I don’t want to say anything about him, but that may be why he engaged her. But Thomasine is most awfully in love with the man she’s engaged to, and I am absolutely perfectly sure she would soon settle any man who tried to be a nuisance. If Mr Weston did try, he soon found it was no good and gave it up. Even aunt was never jealous of her.”

  They had reached the house now. She identified the vanity case as her property at once, and insisted afresh that she could in no way account for its getting into the drawer where it had been found.

  “I am sure I had it yesterday, and I wasn’t near here yesterday,” she said.

  “Can’t you make any suggestion where you might have left it?” Bobby asked once more.

  She shook her head, but Bobby had a strong suspicion that if she had wished she could have made a good guess.

  “I never did like oysters,” he told her as she was going, “and from now on I shall like them less than ever.”

  “If you mean me,” she retorted, “they used to call me a chatterbox at school, but no one has ever called me an oyster before to-day.”

  “Sometimes a chatterbox can be turned into an oyster,” Bobby told her. “By fear, for instance—fear for itself or even by fear for another.”