Did it mean that the murderer, feeling, as Bobby told himself he must feel, the slow, inevitable drawing near and nearer still of the pursuit, was now striking out in blind and reckless fury, ready in despair to pile death upon death?
If it were that, what might be happening next? and with this fear in his mind Bobby drove faster still, dark as was the night, with the moon not yet risen and the skies overcast.
Fortunate that in these days most roads are bare of traffic, and so he was able to maintain his speed without accident or incident. Near his destination he had, however, to slow down, and even once or twice to stop and alight to make sure of his whereabouts. He knew that at one point, if he could find the opening, a footpath led from the road he was following past the back of the Weston Lodge Cottage grounds to join another road that served the district in which old Mr Edwardes lived. If he could find it he could leave the car by the roadside, follow the lane till he got to the fence bordering the Weston Lodge Cottage grounds, climb through, and reach the house more quickly than by the road and the front approach up the long and twisting avenue. It was more by good luck than anything else that he did presently see his dimmed headlights shine on the stile where the footpath entered the road. There on the grass border he left his car and, torch in hand, ran on up the path.
He knew he had first to pass a dense spinney and then he would come to a fence over which he intended to climb or jump into the grounds rather than waste time looking for the small gate that he believed was somewhere further on at the end of a path leading to the house.
The fence presented no great difficulty, but when he had clambered over and was hurrying forward he heard footsteps. He paused to listen. A voice called softly:—
“John. Is that you?”
“Who are you?” Bobby called back, and, taking a step forward, stepped into nothingness.
He very narrowly escaped a broken leg. Only by a violent effort did he save himself, and in so doing he let his torch fly out of his hand. The voice he had heard before said:—
“Hurt yourself? I heard some one coming. I turned back.”
Bobby, a little dazed by the suddenness and violence of his fall, got slowly to his feet.
“Where’s my torch?” he said. “Who is it?” he asked again. “Mr Edwardes?” he asked, for he thought he recognized the voice. “Why are you here?” He made a step or two forward, suspicion sudden in his mind. “Have you been to my house, too, to-night?” he asked
“Your house? No,” Edwardes answered. “You’re Owen, aren’t you? Inspector Owen. What’s brought you here so late?”
“I asked you that,” Bobby said. “I’m here on duty. Why are you? You called me John—what John? John Wilkie? Are you waiting for him? Are you expecting him?”
“I am looking for him,” Edwardes answered.
“A bit late?” Bobby suggested. “Why here?” Then he said: “Did you see where my torch fell?”
“You’ll never find it,” Edwardes told him. “I lost mine here in the same way the night Weston was murdered—fell into the ditch trying to find the way out of the grounds. That’s a slit trench you fell into. The Home Guard did some practising here, and that’s a relic. Regular death-trap in the dark. Are you hurt?”
“Shook me up a bit, that’s all,” Bobby answered; and felt he was lucky, for the trench was both deep and narrow, and he might very easily have hurt himself badly. “Scratched my nose a bit.” He was still looking for his torch. “The blessed thing can’t be far off,” he said irritably.
“Lucky it’s no worse,” Edwardes said. “I nearly put my eye out when I fell.” He went on: “I thought perhaps your people had my torch. A policeman went by, but he didn’t take any notice. I didn’t think he knew me. I wondered if that might be one reason why you suspected me.”
“What time was this?” Bobby asked.
“I don’t know—some time between eleven and twelve.”
“You didn’t hear the church clock strike?”
“No. If I did, it didn’t make any impression. I wasn’t listening. I was grubbing round trying to find the torch.”
“If we had found it, could we have told it was yours?” Bobby asked, still vainly searching for his own.
“You always can, can’t you?” the other retorted. “Finger-prints, that sort of thing.”
Bobby let this assumption go uncontradicted. He was thinking how odd it was that in this moment of haste and urgency Edwardes should be offering him unsuspected testimony of innocence. For this story of the fall, of the lost torch, of the so nearly injured eye, was corroborated by the earlier tale told by Constable Clerke, now discharged, who had spoken of fall and lost torch and damaged are all happening as the clock struck the hour which other testimony showed was about the time of the murder.
“Why did you think Wilkie might be here?” Bobby asked. “Why are you looking for him here?”
“I suppose I had better tell you,” Edwardes said. “I had made up my mind I had to. He came to see me this evening. I was out and he asked if he could wait. My housekeeper left him in the lounge. He said he would like to go upstairs for a moment and he did. Presently he said he couldn’t wait any longer and he went off. After he had gone she found one of the attic doors wide open. When I got back she told me. I went to have a look. One of the daggers is missing from my father’s collection of Japanese weapons.”
“Are you sure?” Bobby asked. “You told me once you didn’t know exactly what you had.”
“I’ve listed them since,” Edwardes answered. “The weapons, I mean. All of them—spears, swords, the whole lot. I scratched a tiny number on each one. It’s knife number three that’s gone.”
“We had better get on to the house,” Bobby said.
“Yes,” agreed Edwardes. He said: “Martin Wynne had lunch with me. He went upstairs, too. By himself.”
“We had better be quick, hurry,” Bobby said. “Martin Wynne,” he repeated. Then he said: “I never hear anything in this case but I’m told something else that makes it all different.” He said again: “We had best hurry,” for it seemed to him he was conscious of an inner voice, urging haste.
Yet it was not easy to hurry in that black and baffling night. If Mr Edwardes had not been with him and had not known better than he did the topography of the place, more than once he would have been completely at a loss, now that he had no torch to help him. Mr Edwardes, hurrying along at Bobby’s side, for he, too, seemed to feel the need for speed, said, panting a little:—
“I tried to get another torch after I lost mine, but I couldn’t. No batteries to be had.” Then he said: “Did you ever hear Weston was married twice? There’s gossip he was and that he had a child by the first marriage he never acknowledged.”
“If it’s true, it might help to explain some things,” Bobby answered. “We’ve been working on it, but we can’t get confirmation. Only gossip. I’ve noticed a possible family likeness. Not much, but it’s there.”
Mr Edwardes gave a sort of gasp of surprise and stopped dead. Bobby told him impatiently to come on. Edwardes said:—
“Not that way. The kitchen garden’s over there; you’ll be on top of the cucumber frames in a moment.” He took Bobby’s arm and turned him to the left. “This way,” he said and went on: “Anyhow, Weston was no more John Wilkie’s father than I am. I knew both his parents.”
“Oh, Wilkie,” Bobby exclaimed, surprised, for it was not Wilkie he had thought was meant. “Do you mean Wilkie believes that he is Weston’s son?”
“Apparently it’s been hinted to him that he may be. He won’t say who it was. I don’t know where you see any family likeness. I don’t I don’t think he much believes it himself. Only of course if it were true, he could claim the estate. So he hopes it is. I told him it was all nonsense. But if he believes it, it shows he isn’t the murderer. He would hardly kill the man he thought might be his father.”
“Why not?” Bobby asked. “Parricide is possible. Besides, if he didn’t know ... if he wasn�
��t sure. . . .”
“You do suspect him, then?”
“I didn’t say so,” Bobby replied. “Suspicions don’t matter. I need proof.”
“He thinks you suspect him,” Edwardes repeated. “He’s pretty badly frightened about it, too. He expects to be arrested any moment. He says he was with Hargreaves, in Hargreaves’s room, when it happened. The murder, I mean. He said it was no use telling you, you wouldn’t believe it; you would only say he and Hargreaves had made it up together. They were standing at the top of the stairs in the dark when they heard it—heard Weston’s last cry, I mean. But they didn’t know what it meant, and when it was all quiet again Hargreaves let Wilkie out by the back door. He had borrowed ten shillings from him—Wilkie from Hargreaves, I mean.”
“Why on earth” began Bobby furiously, but Edwardes cut him short.
“Why didn’t they tell you?” he completed Bobby’s sentence. “No one’s keen on telling detectives things certain to bring them under suspicion. I felt like that myself. When you know the police are searching-for clues, you aren’t in any great hurry to present them with one leading straight to yourself.”
“Which means,” Bobby explained, “that when the police get hold of it, as they always do, then it becomes ten times more suspicious. I had practically ruled Wilkie out. Now I suppose I must put him back again. Do you know anything to suggest there’s any truth in this story of an earlier marriage?”
“No. I don’t believe it for a moment,” Edwardes answered at once. “Weston was much too careful. I think it’s because it got about he was living with some woman in Scotland when he had business interests there. Probably somebody said that perhaps there was a Scots marriage and that you only had to say you were married up there and then you were. I should guess that’s what started the story. Possibly the woman put the tale about herself.”
“Who was she?” Bobby asked.
“I’ve no idea, I never heard,” Edwardes answered. “Quite likely she had a child. Wilkie thinks so, and tries to think the child might be himself. Wishful thinking, with an eye on the Weston estate. That’s all. Except that I believe her name was Agnes.”
“Oh yes, Aggie,” Bobby said.
While they talked they stumbled on their way as best they could, and now they were so near the house they could distinguish its vast outline as a dull, dark shadow against the greater darkness of the night. A gust of wind stirred the still air and moved, it seemed, the black-out curtain over a window at the ground floor, for a thin, bright beam of light shot out.
“That’s the study window,” Bobby said. “Isn’t it? It’s open.”
The wind blew again. Again the thin shaft of light shot out, reaching to their feet. They had passed by on their way round to the front of the house, but now they both turned. Mr Edwardes said:—
“I think it’s the study. I think the window must be open. The wind blew it open.”
Bobby did not answer, but he began to run, following the light that lay like a guide on the ground. Edwardes followed. They reached the spot and found the french windows were ajar. Bobby pushed them back, pushed back the black-out curtains, entered. Edwardes followed. There was light in the room. The door of the great safe swung open. Before it, almost on the exact spot where Weston’s dead body had lain, lay the prostrate form of another man.
“Martin Wynne,” Bobby said. Then he saw close beside a heavy walking-stick, one of the kind known as “penang lawyers”. Its solid silver head was stained with blood. He recognized it at a glance. “That’s yours, isn’t it?” he said to his companion, and once more suspicion rose in his mind.
CHAPTER XXXIII
NO ONE THERE
FOR THE moment, however, all suspicion had to be laid aside while attention was given to the injured Martin, whose heavy, laboured breathing suggested concussion.
“He’s not dead, is he—not another?” Edwardes asked, and when Bobby, kneeling by the injured man, shook his head, Edwardes added: “Hadn’t we better move him somewhere? There’s a couch in the next room.”
“Not yet,” Bobby said. “A doctor’s been sent for. Better leave him here till the doctor comes. It’s concussion, I think. I don’t think we can do anything for the present but make him a bit more comfortable and keep him warm. Things happening to-night,” he added slowly. “What was he doing here?”
“That’s my stick,” Edwardes said abruptly.
“Yes, I know,” Bobby said.
“He didn’t take it, I know that,” Edwardes said. “I saw it after he left, after lunch. How did it get here?”
“You might ring the bell, will you?” Bobby said, without attempting to answer this question. “Or open the door and shout. Very likely they’re all upstairs. We want blankets and a rug or something to keep Wynne warm.”
Mr Edwardes obeyed both injunctions. A startled Hargreaves appeared, uttering loud exclamations of surprise and dismay. Engaged with the sick man, neither he nor the maids had heard anything. He went off to get the rugs asked for, and a loud knocking at the front door announced the arrival of a sleepy and disgruntled doctor, somewhat pacified, however, by finding he had two patients to attend to. First he glanced at Martin and approved Bobby’s first-aid treatment of rest and warmth. Then Hargreaves was told to stay with Martin, and Bobby led the doctor upstairs, where both the cook—Mrs Parham—and the housemaid were hovering excitedly. Leaving the doctor with the sick man, and with the housemaid to get him anything required, Bobby asked Mrs Parham to show him the room occupied by Thomasine Rowe, who in spite of all the noise and excitement had not appeared. Mrs Parham led him down the corridor into another crossing it almost at right angles, and indicated a closed heavy looking door of solid mahogany. Bobby gathered that repeated knocking had failed to secure any response and that his injunction to break the door down had apparently been regarded as too drastic for a respectable, properly conducted household. Nor indeed had any of the three of them, Hargreaves and the two maids, much idea of how to set about such a job, or much time to consider it, with all their excitement and concern over the sick constable. Bobby, however, had had in his time traffic with some of the more expert and experienced practitioners in the burglary profession, and he had little difficulty with the lock though it was as solid, substantial, and well made as the door itself. In two or three minutes he had it open, and he was in no way surprised to find within the room no sign of Thomasine, no hint of what had become of her or where or why she had gone. Bobby’s face was grave. He found her absence ominous. Mrs Parham, who had begun to chatter expressions of wonder and surprise, grew silent under the dimly felt influence of his apprehensions. Bobby said to her:—
“Apart from my man’s illness, have you seen or heard anything out of the way to-night?”
It was with some hesitation that she acknowledged presently that Wilkie had been an earlier visitor.
“I heard his voice,” she said. “I didn’t see him clear, but I knew his voice. He was here just like that other time.”
“What other time?” Bobby demanded. “The night of your master’s murder? You never told me that before—suppressing evidence,” he added sternly. “That’s serious.”
“No, it isn’t, then,” retorted Mrs Parham with spirit, as befits a cook who knows her value in the social scale, “because it’s what I didn’t know till the other day along of doing out Mr Hargreaves’s room, and there was Mr Wilkie’s cigarette case he told us he had lost; and if I knew Mr Hargreaves had some one in his room that night, I knew it couldn’t have anything to do with the poor master being murdered, because they were both, the two of them, standing there at the top of the stairs when I heard the master cry out, and you said it was his death-cry, poor man. So why should I say a word? and I never did or would, when it was nothing to do with any murder, but against strict orders and as like as not cost Mr Hargreaves his place and no character, too, very like, if Miss Rowe got to know, and her a proper cat as ever was.”
“You should have told me,” Bobby repeate
d as severely as before, but Mrs Parham only looked defiant and said something about not being one to get others into trouble.
Bobby did not attempt to reply. It couldn’t be helped now, though Mrs Parham’s story seemed to provide Wilkie with a satisfactory alibi for the moment of the murder. It would have saved some trouble if he had known before, but that was about all. For the moment he was less interested in the past than in the present and the future, and more especially in what had been happening here in the last hour or so. What had Wilkie been doing here, if Mrs Parham’s story could be trusted? Was it Wilkie who was responsible for the injury to Martin Wynne? By what agency had Mr Edwardes’s walking-stick got to Weston Lodge Cottage, if Martin had not brought it himself? What had Martin been doing by the open safe? And Thomasine—where was she? He threw another doubtful, questioning glance around the room, as if to try to find there the answer to all he wished to know, and no answer was given him. Mrs Parham saw that quick and apprehensive look, saw what doubt and quick fear it expressed, said hurriedly:—
“Has harm come to the poor lamb, too? Can’t you do something to help?”
Bobby noticed that the “proper cat if ever there was one” had turned into a “poor lamb” now, and he noticed, too, that the help Mrs Parham wasn’t one to give to the police, she was ready enough to demand. But that was a not unusual attitude. He told her to see if the doctor wanted more help, and himself went downstairs to find the telephone. Ringing up headquarters, he asked for assistance to be sent at once. Mr Edwardes heard him telephoning and came to join him.
“The doctor says your man will be all right; he thinks he has got rid of most of the poison,” Mr Edwardes told him. “And he says Martin will be all right with rest and quiet. He’s bandaged his head. The injury is only superficial. What’s it all about? What’s it mean?”
Night's Cloak: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 22
