Death Among the Sunbathers (15 page)

But from the humble beerhouse, which neither dreamed of nor aspired to anything beyond good ale and bread and cheese, a clear view of the village police station could be obtained; and of the arrival there of Mitchell and Ferris, Bobs-the-Boy was an interested spectator.

‘Something on,' he decided; ‘got to find out what.'

So finishing his beer he strolled down into the village, where, since naturally the one topic of conversation was the sensational murder that had brought their quiet neighbourhood such notoriety, he had no difficulty in learning, among other things, of the visit of the A.A. scout to the police just a little before.

The gossip Bobs-the-Boy had no need even to provoke, so spontaneously did it flow, varied from pointing to the A.A. man as the actual murderer to declaring that he had been an eye-witness of the deed. Having his own reasons for being interested, Bobs-the-Boy decided that as the cross roads where the A.A. man was posted were not far, it would be worth while to pay him a visit and see what could be found out from him. He slipped off quietly in that direction, therefore, though not so quietly but that his going failed to escape the watchful eye of Inspector Ferris. However, the A. A. man had been told not to talk, understood discipline, did not seem favourably impressed by his questioner's appearance, and in fact promptly extended to him a brief invitation to ‘hop it'. Bobs-the-Boy countered with a truculent offer to bash in the A.A. man's face, but on that individual showing some willingness to afford him the opportunity to try, apparently thought better of it and went off with his long prowling stride that seemed so slow and unhurried and yet took him over the ground with such unexpected rapidity.

From suspicious eyes the A.A. man watched his retreat, and then going into his box rang up the police station and reported the incident.

‘Up to no good if you ask me,' he said, ‘sort of fellow you wouldn't like to meet on a dark night when you had had a drop too much and your week's money in your pocket. Walks like a cat, and when he grins at you, shows a black gap in his teeth, at the back, top jaw.'

‘Sounds like that fellow who's been doing odd jobs at the Grange this last week or two,' observed the sergeant from the other side of the wire. ‘I'll keep an eye on him.'

‘I would if I were you,' said the A.A. man and went back to his job, while, unaware of the interest he had thus roused in himself, Bobs-the-Boy made his way back to the car park, where once again he met with but a cold reception, since the attendant, the one-legged Wilson, suspected him of being after the job and promptly packed him off with an assurance that no one wanted to see his ugly mug round there.

With a meekness a little surprising in a gentleman who could show such truculence on occasion, Bobs-the-Boy accepted his dismissal, merely remarking that he would go up to the house and see if there was any chance of his being wanted next day. Instead of doing so at once, however, he produced a packet of cheap cigarettes and hung about, though out of sight of the car park, till presently he saw the huge, lumbering form of Zachary Dodd, Mr Bryan's partner, coming up from the male
in puris naturalibus
section that he had specially in charge. Dodd dressed in more normal fashion than did Mr Bryan, his chief concession to progress being flannel trousers held up by a belt, and rather badly in need of a visit to the laundry, and a brilliantly striped shirt open at the neck to show a chest so hairy it certainly seemed to have need of little other covering. Increasing flesh, that did not seem as if it could possibly all be due to the kind of provender the Grange canteen offered to its clients, had deprived him of that quickness and agility whereof at one time he had possessed enough to enable him to make a very creditable figure in the ring, but he still possessed great, if clumsy, strength. Today, however, though his grip remained formidable and his blows heavy enough, these last came so slowly, with such deliberation, they were easy to avoid, and as a fighting man his career was over. At present he did not look in the best either of tempers or condition, for his face had a pale, pasty look and his eyes were heavy and bloodshot, while he muttered to himself as he walked; and when Bobs-the-Boy moved forward so as to cross his path with the evident intention of speaking, the ex-heavyweight boxer told him with the addition of an oath or two to clear out and quick about it, unless he wanted his face pushed down his throat.

‘Yes, sir, certainly, sir,' Bobs-the-Boy answered obsequiously, keeping a wary eye on the great clenched fist that might presently come travelling in his direction. ‘It's about them two “busies”, sir, Mr Mitchell and the other bloke what's been here to-day.'

‘What about them?' growled Dodd suspiciously, ‘what do you know about them anyway?'

‘Only as they've been asking questions and rooting round like as they suspicioned something,' Bobs-the-Boy answered coolly, ‘and now an A.A. scout's been calling at the police station down in the village, giving them information.'

‘Telling them Miss Frankland stopped and spoke to him after she left here, I suppose,' Dodd growled. ‘Well, what about it? Why shouldn't she?'

‘I hadn't no idea,' answered Bobs-the-Boy, looking quite downcast, ‘as you knew it already, that that was what he was come about. They don't know it in the village.'

‘About the only thing they don't know then,' Dodd said in the same growling, almost threatening tone. ‘They know it all down there and a lot more as well.'

‘Well, some of them do say,' admitted Bobs-the-Boy, ‘that the A.A. scout saw the actual shooting and knows just who did it,' and Dodd grunted scornfully but made no other comment. Bobs-the-Boy went on, ‘It isn't only the two big bugs that have been rooting round here to-day. There's one of their lot, a bloke named Owen–'

‘I've heard of him,' Dodd exclaimed with a sudden animation in his voice. ‘Yes, I've heard of him.'

‘So have I,' said Bobs-the-Boy slowly and darkly. He added still more slowly, his face, his half-hidden eyes, as if a veil of darkness had spread across them, ‘Some day he'll hear of me.'

They were both silent for a moment or two. Dodd's manner had changed now; it was less sullen, smoother, yet doubtful, too. It appeared as if Bobs-the-Boy had acquired a new interest in his eyes and his rumbling voice had a lower note as he asked presently,

‘It was Mr Bryan told me about him, he had heard something; there's not much he doesn't hear, old Bryan. One of the newspaper men was talking... Well, what about it, what about this Owen ?'

‘Been snooping round,' Bobs-the-Boy answered, ‘that's what, snooping round, trying to find out things, the swine.'

‘Well, what for? Why should he?' Dodd asked; and Bobs-the-Boy said nothing to that, only his half-closed eyes were intent upon the other's face. Dodd said again, ‘How do you know?'

‘Heard him asking questions... talking... he's been talking to the car park man, Wilson's his name, isn't it? Asked Wilson a whole lot of questions he did, began about the three-thirty to-morrow and what'll win, and then all kinds of things. Wilson didn't know who he was, but I did. I knew all right.'

‘What sort of other things?'

‘It just about came to this,' Bobs-the-Boy answered slowly, ‘he wanted to know if Wilson was there when Miss Jo Frankland left in her Bayard Seven. Wilson said he wasn't, said he was up at the house, said he was sent for on some job wanted doing up there, he didn't say what it was.'

‘Well, what about it?' Dodd demanded. ‘Why should he be there? She could start her own car, couldn't she?'

‘Seems,' said Bobs-the-Boy, ‘seems there was a lady sun bathing here that day had been pals with Miss Frankland along of working somewhere together and knew her well, seems this here lady spoke to her as she was going to the car park along of Mr Bryan.'

‘What about it?' Dodd repeated. ‘Why shouldn't she?'

 ‘Seems she says, this lady says, as there was someone in the car park when Miss Frankland went to get her car out after Mr Bryan left her.'

‘How does she know that?' Dodd growled. ‘How can she know unless she followed her? Did she?'

‘No, but she heard an engine start running. And so she says if an engine started running, there must have been someone there to start it, at least, that's what she's told this snooping Owen fellow.'

Dodd said nothing. His heavy features showed little interest, only his small bloodshot eyes had grown alert and lively and one enormous hand he held out as if he wished to take hold of something in it, something that he could grip and crush. Bobs-the-Boy went on,

‘Seems from what this Owen said, though that wasn't much, but there's times when the less what's said, the more you know what's meant, and what it seems like is as they're sure her light was put out in the car park, just after Mr Bryan left her, and that there engine what was running, was running so as nothing shouldn't be heard, for their idea is she was shot just as she was getting into her car, and that there engine running – well, then the shots couldn't be heard by no one.'

‘You seem to know a lot,' Dodd growled suspiciously; ‘you picked up all this did you? Just from hearing them talking – or was this Owen telling it all to Wilson?'

‘No,' Bobs-the-Boy answered, ‘not from what Owen said to Wilson, but part from what he said, and more from what he didn't say, and most from me putting it together by way of guessing like; and what if you ask me, it all boils down to is just this – the “busies” believe there was someone in the car park when Miss Frankland went to get her car, and they believe it was someone waiting for her, and they believe whoever that was is who it was who corpsed her. So what they want to know is, who was that someone?'

‘Anyone in particular they think it was?' Dodd asked.

‘If you ask me,' Bobs-the-Boy replied, though with some hesitation, ‘I don't think they've an idea barring guesses, and what's the good of guessing, but if they got a hint... why, then it would be bad for anyone they fixed on, and I'm glad it won't be me.'

‘Maybe it will be,' Dodd retorted grimly.

‘I've got an alibi,' Bobs-the-Boy retorted in his turn, with that sudden grin of his that showed so disconcertingly the black gap appearing in his upper row of teeth.

Dodd was thinking deeply.

‘Going to be bad for us,' he said after a pause, ‘if they really think someone was hiding in the car park and shot Miss Frankland as soon as she went to get her car after she left Bryan. It'll make a scandal, and a place like this don't want scandals, can't stand 'em. But there's one thing knocks that theory sky high – after Miss Frankland left here she stopped and spoke to an A.A. scout and gave him her card.'

‘If that's so, that's that,' Bobs-the-Boy agreed. Again he showed that disconcerting grin of his; and for once his heavy-lidded eyes opened wide as they flashed a full look at the other. ‘But then seems like they don't believe that was her,' he added, ‘but someone else that handed out her card.'

‘Oh, that's rubbish,' exclaimed Dodd hotly; ‘rubbish, plain rubbish. It's this Owen fellow been rooting all this out, is it? I should like to meet him and hear what he has to say himself.'

‘He keeps out of the way,' Bobs-the-Boy answered. ‘Snoops around and no one knows and gets his report ready, and till it is, not even his bosses know what he's doing or what he's thinking.'

‘Hasn't he reported all these cracked ideas of his yet?' Dodd asked carelessly.

‘Judging from what he said to Wilson, I should say he hadn't,' answered Bobs-the-Boy. ‘Fact, I'm pretty sure he hasn't. He likes to have everything complete and written out nice and tidy before he sends it in, all with lovely red ink ruling, ready to go up to the big bugs for them to see what a smart Aleck they've got working for them.'

‘I see,' said Dodd; ‘I know that sort. Afraid if they speak too soon, someone else will butt in and get the credit. I know 'em.'

‘If you ask me,' Bobs-the-Boy said softly, ‘he wants his own light putting out, wants corpsing, too, he does, snooping round...' his voice trailed off into muttered threats but half audible.

Dodd said,

‘I'll talk to Mr Bryan. If there's a scandal about this, it'll do us a lot of harm, a lot of harm; finish us, perhaps. Anyhow, you can come out to-morrow and maybe there'll be a job for you, and if not to-morrow, then perhaps some other day, that is, if you're not particular so long as you're well paid.'

‘Oh, I'm not particular,' Bobs-the-Boy answered, ‘no ways I ain't – but there's some jobs what I do with a better heart than others.'

Dodd looked at him for a moment, but made no other answer; and then lumbered heavily away towards the house. For a time Bobs-the-Boy watched him, and then himself slid away back through the car park towards the village.

Whatever errand it was Sybil Frankland had been about so secretly in the neighbourhood of Leadeane Grange, it did not occupy her for long, since she was back again in her Ealing home early that same evening. And the next day she did not go out at all, but concerned herself with household occupations and with the care of her mother, for old Mrs Frankland was still confined to her room, still suffering from the effects of the shock of the news of her daughter's tragic fate.

But though Sybil occupied herself thus, in these calm, ordinary, everyday pursuits, signs of the sense of stress and strain under which she laboured were apparent enough. Every knock or ring at the door, though but another in that long procession of sellers of flowers, demonstrators of vacuum cleaners, collectors for charitable institutions, that every suburban household knows so well, sent her into a fresh terror, so that in either one form of panic or another she would rush to the door and tear it open as if to face the worst at once, or else seek refuge in her own room in the hope that the rather deaf daily woman who formed their sole domestic staff would neither hear nor answer the summons.