Mystery Villa (21 page)

‘I heard he had been doing well selling garden requisites,' Bobby remarked.

‘Garden my eye!' retorted Mr Smithers. ‘Of course,' he conceded, ‘that's what he may have told the sucker he sold out to. I must tell our chap on that round to look the new man up. Ought to be able to sell him all creation, and St Paul's Cathedral thrown in as soon as look at him – only, of course, it will have to be cash,' added Mr Smithers thoughtfully, ‘and quite likely Humphreys won't have left him any.'

‘Where was it your man met Humphreys?' Bobby asked.

Mr Smithers didn't know, but said he would try to find out, and, after ringing up various people unsuccessfully, suddenly remembered that Ryder across the corridor might know. The traveller who had met Humphreys had been so surprised at seeing him, and at hearing that he had sold out his Brush Hill business at a good price, that he had repeated the story to several of his colleagues, and might have to Ryder.

Anyhow, it would do no harm to ask Ryder, and luckily Ryder was able to supply the information. It was a small village in the Cotswolds, and thither Bobby supposed, correctly, his wandering footsteps would now have to be directed.

To the Cotswold village concerned, therefore, Bobby was permitted forthwith to depart by motor-cycle, with instructions that if he found Humphreys and his wife there, and Miss Barton with them, then he was to take no action, but report and wait for orders. If, however, Humphreys and his wife were there, but alone, then he was to question them, and try to assure himself whether their flight from Brush Hill was in any way connected with Miss Barton's disappearance. If they had been in the village and had left, then every possible step was to be taken at once to trace and follow them.

The weather was still fine, calm, and not too hot, and Bobby felt that for once he was in luck, and that after all there might just possibly be something to be said for police work when it gave you the chance of a long leisurely ride in the sweet country air through some of the loveliest scenery in the land.'

But Bobby was young, and no exception to the general rule that a motor-cycle, most modern of modernities, wakens instantly all that is most primitive, violent, and barbaric in a young man's nature, so that just as the first youth on the first horse probably thought of nothing but galloping, galloping, so the last boy on the last new motor-cycle certainly thinks of nothing but speeding, speeding, speeding. At any rate, that is what always happened to Bobby, and as soon as he had the motor-cycle between his legs there grew a feverish light in his eyes, his sole idea became to see how fast he could make the mile-posts skim by, and his long leisurely journey in the sweet country air through lovely scenery he accomplished in such a riot of dust and clamour, in such a haze of petrol and exhaust gas, in such a series of nerve-racking, neck-risking escapes, that when he reached his destination he was glad to quench his thirst in a stuffy bar-parlour, where it was at least cool and shadowed, and where the smell of stale beer and staler tobacco was, at any rate, a change from the smell of petrol and exhaust gas.

Refreshed, he went on to the local police-station, where they had been warned to expect him, and where, though he was still a full half-hour before his time, he found no less a personage than the Chief Constable of the county, Major Griggs, waiting to receive him. So much had the Tudor Lodge case stirred the imagination of the whole country, indeed, that even Chief Constables themselves were excited about it, and eager to know the latest details.

So there was a very full report ready for Bobby, who, for his part, would have preferred a less exalted personage to deal with, since a Sergeant is always at something of a disadvantage when talking to a Chief Constable. However, fortunately, the Major allowed the local Sergeant to tell his story himself, and to answer Bobby's questions. It appeared that a man who gave his name as Hutchings, but answered to the description of the missing Humphreys, was staying with his wife in the village – at a cottage where they had a bedroom and the use of a sitting-room. Their story was that they had been in business in London, and were here to enjoy a quiet change and holiday in the country. They seemed great readers of the papers, buying several every day, and Mr Hutchings, in a moment of expansion, had confided to Mr Bloomfield, the proprietor of the only grocer's shop in the village, that he, too, had been in the grocery line. He had even declared that he had made money in it – a statement which Mr Bloomfield frankly regarded as incredible, unless the grocery business was very different in London from what it was in the country. However, Mr Hutchings had explained that his had been a really tip-top establishment, doing a high-class trade and employing a number of assistants, and these further statements had confirmed Mr Bloomfield in his opinion that Mr Hutchings was extremely inexact in his remarks – only, Mr Bloomfield expressed that belief by means of a single adjective and a single noun. Consequently Mr Hutchings' further statement – that he was looking for a good, sound, well-established business to purchase, and might even be tempted to buy Mr Bloomfield's, if the price was right – had not been treated very seriously.

‘High class, indeed,' Mr Bloomfield had snorted indignantly to the Police-Sergeant. ‘Tip-top nothing... four or five smart assistants – all my eye... bah! General stores in a back street, if you ask me, him and his missus ran together, with one errand-boy to help – that's more their sort.'

‘Which is not so far out,' agreed Bobby, smiling, ‘except that they really had one assistant once, and so smart, I believe, they caught him at the till and had to clear him out in a hurry. I daresay the one errand-boy was more like it, as a rule.'

But one thing seemed quite clear. The Humphreys were quite alone. No one else was with them, or had been seen with them, and they had no visitors and, their landlady said, no letters. They seemed to be well supplied with money, but to be careful of it, even though inclined to boast of the large sum for which they said they had disposed of their London business.

‘The odd thing about that,' Bobby remarked, ‘is that, if it's been bought, it's been bought, apparently, merely to close it down. It's been shut ever since Humphreys left. One day he seems to have been there, working as usual. The next the shutters stayed up, Humphreys and his wife cleared out, and the shutters are still up.'

‘Queer,' agreed Major Griggs. ‘You mean there's no one in residence there at all?'

‘Apparently not. Our men have knocked several times without getting any reply, and the neighbours say they've never seen any sign of life there since Humphreys left.'

‘Perhaps there never was any sale, they just came away.'

‘The shop was Humphreys' living,' Bobby pointed out. ‘He can hardly have afforded to close down without some money from somewhere – besides, he paid two quarters' rent in advance.'

‘That sounds queerer than ever,' agreed the Major. ‘I mean, paying rent in advance – suggests to my mind there's something in the shop Humphreys doesn't want seen.'

‘Yes, sir,' agreed Bobby thoughtfully, ‘there's that.'

‘You are going to have a talk with Humphreys, I understand?'

‘Yes, sir,' repeated Bobby. ‘Instructions were I was to put some questions to him unless Miss Barton was with them.'

‘I'm afraid she's still missing, as far as that goes,' observed the Major. ‘Something about a pearl necklace, too, I understand?'

‘Supposed to be worth a lot of money,' confirmed Bobby, ‘but that's not certain. What is certain is, a valuable pearl that looked as if it had been part of a necklace was found at Tudor Lodge, that Miss Barton was in possession of a necklace she said was valuable, and that she has been living all these years by selling jewellery. If there is any left, she must have it with her, or–'

‘Or–' repeated the Major, and for a moment he, too, left the sentence unfinished. Then he said: ‘It looks very much to me as if the old lady had been done in and the necklace stolen.'

‘Yes, sir,' agreed Bobby.

‘I suppose you've considered the other alternative – that she may be wandering about with a pearl necklace and a persecution mania, and a packet of arsenic for defence. Once a poisoner, always a poisoner, is good criminology, I think.'

‘It's why Mr Mitchell is so anxious to find her,' Bobby explained. ‘There's always the doubt in one's mind – whether she's victim herself, or likely to make new victims of others. I know Mr Mitchell is very uneasy. Though, after fifty years, you wouldn't think she would be likely to start again.'

‘I was talking to a doctor – well-known man,' Major Griggs replied. ‘I put the case to him – he thought the danger very real. He said an impulse might easily lie dormant for as long as half a century, and then, on some stimulus being given, re-awaken stronger than ever. I think the sooner it's known where Miss Barton is, and what's she doing, the better.'

He spoke with emphasis, and Bobby was aware of a momentary vision of a frail old creature passing like a decrepit and feminine Azrael through a busy, unsuspecting world, and scattering her white powder of death around her as she went. It was an imaginative but not wholly impossible picture, and the apprehension of it lay heavy upon Bobby.

‘I think we shall all be glad, sir, when she's found,' he said presently. ‘Only, if it's like that, it would imply that there can't be any connection between her disappearance and Humphreys giving up his shop.'

‘Why should there be?' demanded the Major. ‘Very likely the fellow did sell, and the new purchaser isn't ready to start yet, that's all.'

They talked a little longer, and then the Major offered to drive Bobby round to the cottage, a little distance outside the village, where Humphreys was staying. They went out, accordingly, to the street where the Major's car was standing, and, as Bobby was taking his place, Humphreys himself came out of a small shop opposite, and, for the moment, stood still and staring.

Evidently he recognised Bobby; evidently, too, the recognition had filled him with alarm, almost with panic. For just that moment he stood quite still, and then, with a little squeal of terror, turned and ran.

‘No need to ask if that's your man,' remarked the Major, as they watched the little figure scurrying up the street like a frightened rabbit. ‘Bit of a bad conscience, eh? Why?'

‘Looks to me,' said Bobby slowly, ‘as if it would be a good idea to get inside that shop of his he was in such a hurry to close down.'

‘It's beginning to look more like that than the other way,' agreed the Major. ‘I thought, at first, probably the old woman had gone off on her own with her necklace and her arsenic, but, when anyone runs for it like that at the sight of one of us, it generally means a pretty bad conscience. Put it like this: old woman missing; pearl necklace missing; man known to have been in touch with old woman missing, too. Shuts up his shop and vanishes, and then reappears, in small country village, with a changed name and plenty of money. Sounds nearly good enough for an arrest. Better follow him, eh?'

‘If you please, sir,' Bobby said; and added: ‘Only, is it possible to imagine a quiet little humdrum grocer turning suddenly into a murderer? Isn't it rather a long step from, say, putting sand in the sugar to planning and carrying out murder?'

‘If you ask me,' said Major Griggs, with conviction, ‘any of us is capable of anything – given opportunity and temptation. I wouldn't put it past a single bishop on the bench to do murder if the chance came his way, and there was what he thought a good reason. There's only one thing that can save us.'

‘What's that?' Bobby asked.

‘The grace of God,' Major Griggs answered, and then suddenly looked frightfully embarrassed and went very red, and stepped so hard on the accelerator that he nearly did murder himself on a harmless pedestrian. Whereon the Major slowed down, and added: ‘In this case, if Humphreys has really done murder, quite possibly he didn't intend to at first. Just thought it was a pity a lot of money in the form of a pearl necklace should be lying useless when he could make good use of it. Perhaps he was being hard pressed. Bankruptcy quite close, perhaps. Think of the temptation. An old half-crazed woman to whom the necklace meant nothing, from whom it would be easy enough to get it away. Only it didn't turn out quite like that. And an old feeble woman is easily killed.'

‘Well, sir,' Bobby remarked, ‘I almost hope it's that way. I prefer it to the idea of her wandering about with a packet of deadly poison she may be making any sort of use of. But perhaps it's neither the one nor the other. There's a difficulty, too. Humphreys seems to have been in possession of money. Would he have been able to sell the necklace so quickly, supposing he had possession of it? I don't even know that it's likely he would have any idea of how to set to work to dispose of it.'

‘He may have it still, as far as that goes,' Griggs suggested. ‘Easy enough to get rid of it abroad, too – lots of people in Amsterdam alone who would give a good price and ask no questions. Better find out if he's been abroad recently.'

Bobby agreed, and the car drew up before a small cottage which was, the Major explained, the one where Humphreys and his wife were staying.

‘Well, good luck,' he said as Bobby alighted. ‘If you want any help, I shall be here an hour or two longer – I admit I shall be curious to know developments. Interesting case, so many possibilities.'

Rather too many possibilities, Bobby thought, as he reflected on that disturbing picture the Major had drawn of Miss Barton defending her necklace from dangers, either real or imaginary, by a liberal use of arsenic. Certainly it was not agreeable to think of an old woman, who must be very far from normal after such a life as she had lived, being in possession of a packet of arsenic of which already she had made use once.