The Secret Search: A Bobby Owen Mystery Read online

  “Miss Poore thinks Betty’s dead and it was her ghost mother saw.”

  “Ghosts,” Ally repeated, and looked very uncomfortable. “I don’t hold with ghosts,” he said.

  “I shouldn’t pay any attention to that,” Bobby said to Ted. “The shock to Mrs Wyllie is quite enough to account for her being a little delirious.”

  “Miss Poore says she wasn’t—delirious, I mean,” Ted said. Then he added, with a slight return to his earlier hostile manner, “What are you doing except talk? That’s what I want to know.”

  “We are collecting every scrap of information we can,” Bobby answered. “You are making our job more difficult because you are making it necessary for us to watch you as well.” He changed his own manner abruptly, and with a sudden heat of anger he said: “Are you too big a fool to understand that your blundering in like this may cost the girl her life? That’s what we are afraid of all the time. That whoever is keeping her out of the way may take alarm at any moment and decide to end it.”

  “What I want them to know,” Ted said quietly, “is what I told you—that if anything happens to her, I’ll see the same happens to them—and I shan’t worry about legal proof, either. But if she returns safe and sound, nothing more will be said—and any money asked for will be paid without any trouble.”

  “Have you two hundred thousand pounds?” Bobby asked. “For that is what these people plan to get hold of—the Smith fortune. And it doesn’t depend on you to decide whether anything more will be said.”

  “Which I told him,” Ally interposed. “Nothing stops a bogey—puts it all down on paper and it’s there for keeps. Tells all about,” he said feelingly, “what you did when you was a kid. Rake it all up because it’s always there. On paper. Police ain’t nothing without paper.”

  “Out of the mouths of—” Bobby said, and left the quotation uncompleted, since the last words hardly seemed appropriate. Then he said, as Ally was obviously waiting for him to continue: “Who told you that one?”

  “What do you mean, told me?” Ally asked suspiciously. “Look at that there ‘Police Gazette’.” He mused bitterly for a moment on those issues of the past in which he had figured with some prominence. “Keep ’em all on tap,” he said as a culmination of injustice.

  Ted got suddenly to his feet.

  “I’ve had enough of this,” he said angrily. To Ally he said: “Come along.”

  “Stay where you are,” Bobby said. “I want to talk to you.”

  Ted glared. Ally wriggled. He wanted very much to ‘come along’, but Bobby’s eye was stern and watchful. Ted walked away. Then he came back and said to Ally:

  “Ring me when he’s gone.”

  With that he walked away again, and this time did not return. Ally, watching him go, said:

  “He’s dangerous.”

  “So he is,” said Bobby.

  “All worked up,” Ally said. “He thinks she’s dead. Or else he knows.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He sort of . . .” Ally began, and paused. “I don’t know,” he said. “He don’t seem to care about nothing no more, and the way he sits and stares or talks to himself only so quiet like you can’t hear. It ain’t natural, like, and sometimes I get to thinking as it might be him done her in and now it’s on his mind so he can’t do nothing but remember.”

  “Well,” Bobby said slowly, a good deal startled that this idea should have occurred independently both to Sergeant James and to Ally, “I don’t know. Why should he?”

  “Any bloke always liable to do in any skirt he’s fallen for but not her for him,” Ally said simply. “You see it happen.”

  “Got to take it into account, I suppose,” Bobby said.

  “What’s a bit of news worth?” asked Ally.

  “What it is worth,” Bobby answered. “No more, no less.”

  “I’m getting out,” Ally said. “Dublin. Not too far, not too near. Too hot for me here, and getting hotter, what with him half off his chump, and Cy King doing nothing same as a cat watching a mouse-hole, and Tiny Garden with one killing done and all set for more, and you on the pounce and all.”

  “Aren’t you going to help find the girl?” Bobby asked. “I thought you didn’t hold with that sort of thing.”

  “Same as I don’t,” Ally answered. “But I got to think of myself, ain’t I? If I don’t, no one else will.”

  “Oh, I think of you quite a lot,” Bobby told him sweetly.

  Ally scowled. He didn’t like the remark. He liked even less the tone in which it had been uttered. He said:

  “Anyway, not a chance in a million she’s still alive. I’ll give you one tip, though. Cy’s Gladys ain’t around any more. Nor the old fatty who was helping in his sweet-shop and loved the dear little kiddies so much none of ’em wanted to go near her. Find ’em, and it’s on the cards you’ll find the girl, too, if she’s still there to be found.”

  “We thought that one out for ourselves,” Bobby said. “The other tip is worth more.”

  “Now you’re kidding,” Ally told him. “There wasn’t any other.”

  “Well, so long,” Bobby said. “See you later very likely, even if we have to go to Dublin to find you.”

  With that he nodded and departed, leaving Ally looking sulkily and uneasily at the empty coffee-cups before him.

  CHAPTER XXI

  “AT THE SAME PLACE”

  AS IT happened, there was a call-box only a few yards away. Bobby went across to it and rang up the Yard.

  “Seemouth Beach bungalow case,” he said. “Ted Wyllie, tailed in connection. I want him picked up and detained for an hour at least. Oh, on any pretext you can think up. Complaint received that he has been heard uttering threats involving a breach of the peace. What’s that? Who is complaining? Why, I am, aren’t I? But don’t say so, say ‘Information received’. Well, if you can’t find him, you can’t, but I expect you to, and he is almost certainly on his way back to his boarding-house. I heard him say ‘Ring up’. Useful tip. He’ll want to be there to take the call. As soon as you’ve got hold of him, send a plain-clothes man to the boarding house—young Ford if he is handy. Ford can explain he has to take a ’phone message. I don’t suppose the hotel people will object, but if they do, Ford must flash his warrant card. Tell them it may be a matter of life and death—that goes for Wyllie, too. It’s important to know who is speaking and what is said. My good man, of course it’s most irregular and improper. No, it is not like opening a letter. Lord, no! I wouldn’t dare do that—probably a breach of Magna Carta or something. But I don’t think there’s anything in it against taking a ’phone message intended for some one else. Yes, I take the responsibility. I always do. Get the sack for it some day, most likely.”

  He hung up then and walked on to where he had left his car in a side street near by. He found the driver busily investigating the engine, the bonnet up and tools spread out.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing, sir,” the driver answered, without looking up. “Wanted an excuse to report. Man on beat saw me, and says Cy King is hanging about. He saw him talking to two toughs in a car cruising round here. One of them got out and had a look in the tea-shop. Then he gave an O.K. sign to his pal, and he’s still there, waiting near the door.”

  “Did he seem to know me when I left?” Bobby asked.

  “No, sir. Took no notice.”

  “Bit of luck,” Bobby said. “Looks as if it were Ally Hidd is wanted. Been asking too many questions for their liking. Your wireless working? Good! Send a call for a flying-squad car to come along and collect Ally. Tell them to put him down, where he likes, only near a ’phone-box. I suppose we have to see he doesn’t get his throat cut, which is very likely what is intended. He wouldn’t be the first found in the river and nothing to show how he got there, only that Cy had stopped liking him. Where is Cy? Seen him yourself?”

  “No, sir,” the driver answered. “He was in the street first on right when seen. The cruising car
comes down it. They don’t take any notice of each other, him and the driver.”

  “Oh, they wouldn’t,” Bobby said. “I’ll go along and have a bit of a chat.”

  “Think it’s safe, sir?” the driver asked, a little uneasily. “He’s still awful sore about your getting him sent up, after all his boasting no one ever would. Bears a grudge somehow, as if it wasn’t our job,” and now he was speaking with some indignation, for this was an unusual breach of the generally accepted convention that police and crook each do their own job and no hard feelings.

  “He’s a vicious brute,” Bobby said. “But he’ll think twice before trying anything like that with me. He knows he would be picked up at once. If he does, it won’t be on an impulse—it’ll be some very careful, clever plan. At least, that’s what he’ll think it. He would give an awful lot to get a chance, though. I won’t be long.”

  With that he strolled away, took the turning indicated, saw first a cruising car go by, a very tough-looking customer in the driver’s seat, and then, a few yards farther on, he overtook Cy, lounging along with his characteristic slinking gait and his quick and restless sidelong glances, as of a beast of prey going warily on its search for a victim.

  “Well, well,” Bobby said in his heartiest, cheeriest voice. “So we meet again.”

  Cy swung round in a split second, and his hand was at his breast pocket, where Bobby knew he always carried a knife—the swift and silent knife he used to boast was worth more than any noisy, clumsy gun that bawled an instant alarm and was as likely to miss as not. Probably he carried another strapped to his ankle. He did not speak, but his eyes were bright and small and fierce as they rested on Bobby and then up and down the street, as if calculating his chances if he struck and fled.

  “What a life,” Bobby said, watching him carefully, for he knew his man. “Can’t hear himself spoken to suddenly, but he’s all ready to run or be run in. Don’t you get tired of it?”

  Cy made no answer. He, too, was watchful and alert, and he could see that Bobby also was ready, every nerve and muscle taut, prepared, so that no sudden blow but would meet with even more sudden response. Cy’s expression relaxed. He thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets. He said:

  “Well, what about it? Can’t a bloke take a walk without you snooping round?”

  “Funny,” Bobby said. “Hadn’t seen you for quite a while, and now here’s the second time within a day or two. Making a habit of it, aren’t we? Why, I don’t think I had seen you since that day you got sent up for—how long, was it? Anyway, not half as long as it ought to have been. Looking for another spell?”

  “Not while I’m alive—or you,” Cy snarled, and showed his teeth, and spat, and again his hand wandered to his breast pocket, and again moved reluctantly away, as if it realized itself how closely it was watched.

  “Well, that’s a tribute to our prisons,” Bobby remarked. “Shows you think they are best kept out of—as is intended.”

  “What’s the back-chat for?” Cy asked.

  “Oh, that Seemouth business—ugly affair,” Bobby told him.

  “You can’t pin that on me,” Cy retorted. “I’ve an alibi.”

  “Yes, I know,” Bobby agreed. “And a very present help in time of trouble is an alibi. But I wonder why? Looks as if you knew something. That might be what we call ‘accessory before the fact’, and if we pull you in on that—well, we might get something more somehow. I suppose you wouldn’t care to tell me how you knew?”

  “By using my nut, same as you’re paid to, only you don’t, not knowing how,” Cy retorted.

  “We do our best with the nuts Nature gives us,” Bobby answered meekly. “My own guess is that a certain young lady”—he was watching Cy keenly as he said this, but Cy’s expression did not change—“told a friend of hers, and it got passed on to you. Cy, when a girl’s life may be in danger—” Again he paused, again waiting to see if any sign of a response appeared on those dark and scowling features. None did. He continued: “Cy, you’re a bad lot, and you’re headed for a messy end. Like to make a fresh start?”

  “If it was on your grave, I wouldn’t mind,” Cy answered, and his voice was as it were consumed by a slow hatred.

  “Have it your own way,” Bobby said, sorry now that on a quick impulse he had spoken as he had.

  For always his chief thought and constant care had been to avoid giving even the least suggestion of a hint that he or any one else had any thought or knowledge of any young woman being involved. Now he had said outright that a girl’s life might be in danger, and though he hoped that the reference would be taken as applying to the false Betty Smith at Southam, yet Cy, quicker in thought and more intelligent than most of his kind, might put another interpretation on it, if the second and genuine Betty were really in his hands. Once he came to suspect that her existence was known, and that to find her was the real object of the unusual C.I.D. activity going on, even the faint hope remaining would vanish for ever. Fortunately what Cy now said did not suggest that he had—as yet—read any such meaning into Bobby’s words.

  “Got a down on me, haven’t you?” he complained, and he had now the air of expressing a real and deeply felt grievance. “Tried to pin the Seemouth business on me; only you can’t. And if the girl goes the same way as her uncle, you’ll be on me again. Well, nothing doing. I’ll take care. I’ll watch out. Find out who did in the uncle, and then you’ll know who may do the niece the same way.”

  “Tiny Garden, you mean?” Bobby asked, a little relieved at the turn the talk was taking. “Why should he want to get rid of her? She’s safe enough till she gets the money.”

  “If you know it’s Tiny, why don’t you take him in?” Cy demanded.

  “Got to get our case complete,” Bobby answered. “We often know more than we can prove.”

  The cruising car came back and stopped. The driver leaned out. He hardly noticed Bobby. He called:

  “Cy. Ally’s been picked up.”

  “Oh, has he?” Cy answered. “Doug, meet Commander Bobby Owen. He’ll remember you,” and on the instant there followed a burst of expletives, rich and rare in both quantity and quality, but also largely wasted, for ‘Doug’ gave one gasp of dismay at learning who was Cy’s companion, went very pale, jammed his foot on the accelerator, and vanished in a burst of speed that recked but little of the Highway Code.

  “Didn’t seem to appreciate meeting me,” Bobby observed, with mild surprise.

  “Blowing last night he was as not a bogey in London knew him from Adam,” Cy said moodily. With the touch of self-pity he sometimes showed, he added: “That’s the kind of fool I have to work with. Giving himself away like that.”

  “Your own choice,” Bobby told him. “Doug was the name, wasn’t it? Let him know I’ll make a sketch of him as an addition to our picture-gallery. Sometimes a sketch is even better than a snap for recognition. Quite a break for me. Always glad to meet any friend of yours, Cy.”

  Cy scowled. Bobby nodded and walked away; nor did he even once look round, though he knew well how Cy’s twitching fingers were hovering near that hidden knife of his and how slowly and reluctantly they were being withdrawn.

  “I was almost coming to have a look,” his driver said as Bobby came up to where he was waiting. “With blokes like Cy you never know . . . got no control of themselves, liable to break loose any moment. What the doctors mean when they talk about ‘uncontrollable impulses.’”

  “I don’t take Cy to be quite like that,” Bobby said. “I did think there was one chance in a million he might say something to give us a lead. He didn’t, and I hope I didn’t give him one. I took a chance, and I’m sorry now. But there’s so little time and so little hope. It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack that you aren’t allowed to touch, only look at.”

  Indeed, Bobby had never felt his responsibilities weigh upon him more heavily than now, as he was returning to his office. Old Mr Smith’s murderers to be brought to justice. The missing girl to be found, or
at least her fate determined. Ted Wyllie to be watched, and both he and Ally Hidd to be given protection. Guilty or innocent, they still had that right. The false Betty Smith to be exposed so that not she, but those entitled to it, should inherit the dead man’s money.

  “And at any moment” he said to himself as he went to his room, “Tiny and Cy and their friends may be starting in on each other—and that’ll make headlines all right.”

  He didn’t like the prospect from any point of view, and then on his table he noticed a brief message waiting for him. It came from Fred Ford. With meticulous details of time and place added, it ran: “Begins. Ally speaking. That you, Mr Wyllie? I’m quitting. Too hot for me. She’ll be at the same place late to-night. Not me, though. Cy King’s on my tracks. And yours. Take my tip and stop out for keeps like me. So long. Ends.”

  Bobby laid the paper down.

  “Same place late to-night,” he repeated to himself. “Bit vague? And who is ‘she’?”

  CHAPTER XXII

  “HE HAS NOT COME BACK”

  SITTING AT his desk, Bobby grew busy, urging to even greater activity the whole of the great organisation which was at his service. First of all he saw to it that every effort would be made to follow Ted Wyllie to where or what the ‘same place’ might be. Seldom can more careful, more elaborate plans have been laid to make sure of a successful ‘tailing’. And yet the utmost care had to be taken to make sure they were not too conspicuous, and so, by letting themselves be seen, defeat themselves.

  Secondly, Southam had to be communicated with. There it was declared emphatically that the presumably false Betty Smith was still in bed, still under doctor’s care. She was suffering, he said, from “shock”, from a “nervous breakdown”, whatever those expressions mean. What it came to was that she needed rest and quiet and must not be disturbed. She had been seen officially in connection with the adjourned inquest at which it had now been decided her presence would be necessary. She had also been visited by her lawyer, Mr Moon. The last interview had, however, been cut short by a violent attack of sickness. The doctor had had to be sent for, and the interrupted interview had not yet been renewed.