Suspects—Nine (22 page)

“What do you think?” he asked.

“It'll be touch and go,” she said.

“In what way?” Bobby asked.

“He may go on being stupid,” she said. “He may go and do something most awfully silly, just to settle everything.”

“If he loves her—” began Vicky. “I mean, if he really loves her.”

“Yes, I know,” said Olive. “That's the danger.”

“Perhaps he doesn't—” said Bobby.

“Yes, I know,” said Olive, “that's the danger.”

“Oh, well,” said Bobby, giving it up. “What about her?”

Olive and Vicky exchanged glances, gravely, silently, consulting each other. They spoke almost together,

“You can hardly tell yourself what you think about a boy—” began Vicky.

“—so how can you tell what another girl thinks?” said Olive.

“Of course, she's attracted,” said Vicky. “I should, if he had ever noticed I existed.”

“It's as if he had knocked her flat down,” said Olive, “and she doesn't know whether she likes it or not.”

“Oh, yes,” cried Vicky, clasping her hands ecstatically. “Oh, did you notice how she looked when he said that about having punched his wife on the nose?”

“Vicky!” said Olive, horrified.

“Well, it was—fascinating, wasn't it?” protested Vicky. She went towards the door. She said, “Well, anyhow, he wouldn't murder any one,” and with that she disappeared, to lend all the weight of her authority to Jennie's protestations that the hat in question was the very image of Norma Shearer's latest, and then to lay it gently aside and produce another, costing a guinea more and slightly more suited, as she pointed out, to a style of feature and to colouring precisely stronger in those very points where Miss Shearer was, possibly, to some tastes, a shade lacking in
chic
.

“A wonderful actress,” Vicky said, “but
chic
,—well, that's somehow different, isn't it?” and afterwards reproached herself bitterly for having quoted only a guinea more for the new hat from which now the customer could not have been prised with a crowbar.

In the little room behind the shop Bobby said slowly, after a long pause,

“I wonder who it was he says tried to blackmail him. I wonder if who ever it was, did try again. I wonder if by any chance it was Munday.”

“OK, Bobby,” Olive cried, “oh, you frighten me, oh, it couldn't be like that.”

“I think it could,” Bobby said. “I don't think Judy Patterson would be a safe man to push too far. No proof, though, that any one tried. No proof, as far as that goes, that there's any ‘too far' where he could be pushed. All the same, there it is. He's told us of a pistol in his possession, he's made open threats to a blackmailer, there's the fact that some one wearing a hat like his was seen in the neighbourhood.”

They were both silent for a moment or two. Olive said in a whisper,

“I think Ernie almost believes it, but I'm sure she doesn't care.”

“It's only the beginnings of a case,” Bobby said, “and very often beginnings lead to nothing more than a dead end.”

They talked a little longer and then Bobby departed, Vicky, in good spirits now because she had succeeded in selling her customer's friend a hat as well, bidding him farewell with a final expression of certainty that he would most undoubtedly knock 'em in Bond Street and Piccadilly too.

Bobby, however, had no intention of wasting his sartorial magnificence on resorts of that character. It was to Barnet that he now proceeded with all the speed tube and 'bus could provide and there when he arrived he was glad to remark, from uncounted glances of admiration and of envy, that Barnet was duly impressed. He had secured from Ernie a description of the spot where Martin had asked to be put down, and he was not surprised to notice that two public houses were near at hand, one magnificent and large, evidently provided, like a French hotel, with all modern comfort, and the other, round the corner, slightly depressed and dirty-looking but doing a good trade, all the same. It was this one Bobby chose, and entering a saloon bar empty by comparison with the public bar, he ordered a double Scotch and with it before him sat there so moodily, filling the whole saloon bar with such gloom, that other customers began to grow uneasy and to slip away. The barmaid, growing uneasy, too, tried to alleviate his distress by a remark about the weather. Bobby allowed it to be understood that he took no interest either in her or in the weather. The barmaid tossed her head and retired in disorder, Bobby seized the opportunity to dispose of his double Scotch behind the fireplace, the landlord received a message that there was a ruddy wet blanket in the saloon and unless got rid of, business would probably be bad.

Thus urged to action the landlord appeared in person and Bobby ordered a second double Scotch. The landlord, the weather having proved a failure, tried the other topic of conversation and referred to football pools. Bobby gave a hollow laugh and asked what football pools were to him or he to football pools? What did they matter? What did anything matter? Was the landlord a married man? If so, said Bobby dogmatically, he was a fool. Why? Because women always let you down and did you in and performed other queer grammatical feats. They put you through the hoop but the difficulty was to get proof. Could the landlord tell him how to get proof, money no object?

The landlord, suddenly attentive, agreed that women were—well, weren't they? Now, there was a friend of his, very experienced, name of Martin.

What good, demanded Bobby, was any one named Martin or anything else? He would give a thousand pounds—but no, he would keep his thousand pounds where it was.

The landlord, almost visibly licking his lips at the mention of such a sum, insisted that Martin was the man to turn to. A wonderful man, Mr. Martin. Tremendous experience. Often consulted by Scotland Yard. He himself had known Mr. Martin sent for by Scotland Yard in a tremendous hurry. Simply wouldn't take a refusal, the Yard wouldn't. Privately, Bobby thought that likely enough, but all the same succeeded in looking very impressed.

“Take that Weeton Hill murder the papers are all full of,” the landlord went on. “Inquest adjourned to allow the police to continue their inquiries, if you notice. That means they're puzzled, don't know where they are. See?”

Bobby saw. He nodded an agreement that was quite genuine this time, for he had only too good reason to know the police were, indeed, puzzled.

“Well,” said the landlord triumphantly, “what do they do? They call in Mr. Martin to help, and that's where he is to-day, down there in that neighbourhood, looking round.”

Bobby whistled softly. This was news. The landlord, pressing the point, was of opinion that it looked as if Scotland Yard thought more of Mr. Martin than it did of its own men, not too bright a lot in his, the landlord's, opinion, and, anyhow, you could always tell them a mile away. When a busy came into that establishment, no matter how got up, the word went round at once, and they all played up. Mr. Martin was different. Clever. Smart. Brainy. And, above all, trustworthy and honest as the day at noon. Full of grit, too. His job wasn't too easy, at times. Why, only the other day, he had come in there with his trousers torn and his face and hands scratched something shocking.

“Lady lost her temper?” suggested Bobby.

The landlord laughed dutifully and explained it was nothing like that at all. Bushes and twigs and that sort of thing. Happened during this Weeton Hill investigation. Earnestly the landlord assured Bobby that Mr. Martin was the very man to help any young gentleman as was a young gentleman, same as all could see at a glance was the young gentleman now being addressed, and who happened to want honest, straightforward, smart assistance, same as might any young gentleman. Especially, Bobby thought but did not say, when that young gentleman had dropped a reference to a thousand pounds and looked, in the eyes of men like the landlord, the very type of a rich pigeon ready for the plucking.

He pointed out now that Martin wasn't there, Martin was, apparently, at Weeton Hill, was it? where ever that might be, so what was the good of Martin?

The landlord admitted that Mr. Martin was very busy. Still, he had a good heart and would possibly be willing to put other things aside to help a gentleman as was a gentleman—the landlord's impressed eyes wandered over details that had so signally failed to impress others—and, no doubt, willing to pay as a gentleman should. If, said the landlord, the gentleman cared to leave his address...?

Bobby shook his head firmly. No. Not yet. Things were bad enough as it was. Why, if certain people got to know—He left the sentence unfinished but repeated firmly that he wasn't giving any name or address, either, just yet, not if he knew it.

The landlord applauded such prudence and one could almost read the words ‘blackmail, chance for a spot of', on his twitching lips. He suggested that, perhaps, the young gentleman might care to call in the following night?

Bobby said he would think about it and departed, shaking off without difficulty a clumsy attempt to follow him. It was long past the dinner hour now, so he rang up the Tamar residence to apologize for his absence and to explain that he was on his way back to take up his peculiar duties as watchdog—though not, he added to himself, till he had changed back to an attire in which he would feel less self-conscious than he did in that which had so successfully impressed the Barnet landlord.

First thing next morning, provided with an official motor cycle, since the one he had formerly possessed he had recently sold as engaged men must, Bobby proceeded to the Weeton Hill neighbourhood. In his pocket was a list of the public houses in the district and at various of them he called and produced a sketch he had made of Martin, from memory, since of that elusive gentleman no photograph was known to exist. Indeed, the story ran that so great was his objection to the camera that once or twice when in fear of it, he had provided himself with an ostentatiously false beard and moustache as a precaution against unexpected snapshots.

Bobby's sketch was presently recognized in one or two bars as that of a casual visitor, but, beyond proof that Martin had been, in fact, in the neighbourhood, the information was little help. No one had noticed him much, no one had heard him say where he came from or where he was going. At Beam End railway station, the nearest station to Sillington village, not far wherefrom stood Judy's week-end cottage, it was vaguely thought that a stranger more or less resembling the sketch shown, had recently been seen, though whether arriving or departing or both in due sequence, no one was sure. Sillington itself Martin had, apparently, not visited, or, if he had, he had not been noticed, but then the village had had more visitors than usual of late, as many people had passed through on their way to the scene of the murder at Weeton Hill.

Evidently, it was not going to be easy to get on the track of Mr. Martin, but then Bobby had never supposed it would be. Martin was far too wary a bird for that and was almost certainly playing some game of his own, unless, indeed, he had his own grim reasons for avoiding contact with the police. Leaving Sillington, Bobby rode out to visit Whatah Ope, as Judy had named his cottage, a mile or so away on the main Sillington-Beam End road, or rather, to be more exact, just off that road, on a turning that was little more than a rough track leading only to a farm and cottage or two farther on.

Now, however, Bobby's luck was unexpectedly in, for as he slowed down to turn into this side track and so secured a view of the cottage, he saw that a bicycle leaned against the garden gate and that at the cottage door Martin himself was knocking, loudly and insistently, but without securing any response. He was making, indeed, so much noise that he failed to hear Bobby's arrival, though so many cars passed so often up and down the road that it was no wonder the sound of another engine had made no impression.

Leaving his cycle by the roadside on a broad margin of grass that showed signs of having been used often for parking purposes, Bobby walked towards the cottage.

It was not far, some fifty yards or so, and now Martin, giving up his useless knocking, disappeared round the corner of the building, presumably to try if any one was visible at the back.

The whole place seemed to Bobby to bear a deserted, almost a furtive air. The garden gate, against which Martin's bicycle still leaned, was so rickety, Bobby half expected to see it collapse under the extra weight of the bicycle. The windows were provided with strong wooden shutters, evidently newly fitted, the front door had an additional mortice lock beside the Yale lock, the mortice being plainly also a new addition. The garden was utterly neglected, overgrown with grass and weed. Against one wall stood a big rain tank, much in need of painting and, apparently, the only source of water supply, since no well was visible. On the door had been freshly painted the name ‘Whatah Ope Cottage'.

“What a Hope,” Bobby translated this effort in Anglo-Saxon humour, “what a hole would have been a better name.”

The first thing he did was to pick up Martin's bicycle and place it behind a bush, so that that expert in the vanishing trick might not too easily disappear. Then he went round to the back of the cottage where was a small yard, paved in concrete, and one or two outbuildings. There was a dust-bin, too, and over it Martin was bending, apparently very busy examining its contents.

So busy and absorbed in his task was he that he did not hear Bobby's approach, and Bobby, taking from his pocket a small camera, focused it carefully.

“Hello, Martin,” he called then.

Martin sprang round instantly, startled and alert. Bobby secured a good snap. Martin shouted angrily,

“You've no right to do that, you didn't ought to.”

Bobby took another snap. Martin put his arm across his face and advanced truculently.