The Secret Search: A Bobby Owen Mystery Read online

  “Any evidence we can use?” asked the Flying-Squad man eagerly.

  “We heard,” Bobby said, “at least I did—I don’t know how much Mr Wyllie heard.”

  “I didn’t understand,” Ted answered. “I couldn’t catch it all. It sounded as if some one had been there all the time and told about it afterwards.”

  “It sounded,” Bobby agreed, “like the statement of an eye-witness. About the first time, I imagine, any eye-witness not one of the murderers has been able to describe exactly how it was done. Only how could there be an eye-witness when there was no one there?”

  “Sir?” said the Flying-Squad man, more puzzled even than before.

  “Some one fainted,” Ted said. Then he said to Bobby: “It does show she’s still alive, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Bobby agreed. “Almost certainly. She is being given drugs, but that is all, so there is still time—but how little!”

  “If there was an eye-witness,” protested the Flying-Squad man, “there must have been some one there, mustn’t there?”

  “You would think so,” Bobby agreed. “It’s all only what we heard, and what it means I’ve no more idea than you.”

  “What are you going to do?” Ted interrupted. “It’s no good talking. You must do something.”

  “Yes,” agreed Bobby, and his voice was slow and heavy. “So we must. Only what? At present all we can do is to go home and get a hot bath. Mr Wyllie, you had better do the same.”

  Ted at once sneezed violently, though whether this was a result of the thought of a hot bath or was only coincidental, is not certain.

  “We shall probably both have pneumonia to-morrow,” Bobby commented, and to the Flying-Squad man he said: “Give Mr Wyllie a lift to his hotel. Oh, and tell them to get him some hot gruel.”

  CHAPTER XXVII

  “THE SMALLER RISK”

  WHETHER THANKS to the gruel, the hot bath, the hard training in which Bobby kept himself, or merely to his sound constitution may be doubtful, but at any rate he woke up next morning without the least trace of a cold, with no tendency whatever to indulging in any such series of shattering sneezes as had drawn down upon Cy’s Gladys the wrath of her protector.

  Sitting down to breakfast he was inclined to be a trifle complacent about this. But Olive showed herself a trifle pessimistic.

  “It hasn’t had time to come out yet,” she said. “Besides, you’ve been in bed. Wait a few hours before you are so sure. Colds take a little time to develop.”

  Slightly subdued Bobby said anyhow he felt all right, and then quite suddenly the full force and implication of Olive’s remark flashed upon him. He gave a kind of muffled yell and sprang to his feet.

  “Now what’s the matter?” asked Olive severely.

  “I ought to have thought of that before,” he lamented, “if I hadn’t been the complete idiot.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Olive. “Only what?”

  Bobby, however, was already at the ’phone, agitatedly ringing up the Meteorological Office. He explained what he wanted to know and how urgent it was. He received a promise that the information required would be obtained at once and passed on to him without delay. Olive had been listening, and as he had given her a full account of all that had been said and done in the back yard of Cy’s shop, she realized at once what had caused this sudden interest in the weather. When he came back to a loathsomely cold plate of porridge—though he was too excited to pay that detail any attention, as Olive had been too excited to think of putting it to keep warm—she asked at once:

  “Is there really any hope that that will help?”

  “Well, it’s the first time we have got even a hint of any line to follow,” he answered. “I suppose we mustn’t build on it too much, but it does give some chance of finding her before it’s too late.”

  “Suppose,” Olive said, “suppose Tiny Garden has noticed it, too?”

  “I shouldn’t think there’s any fear of that,” Bobby said. “The danger there is his finding out in some other way. Not much the underworld doesn’t know about it’s own activities. He might get a hint any moment. Still, that doesn’t seem to have happened yet.”

  He became silent then, lost in deep, uneasy thought. Olive watched him. She knew him well enough to be able to guess what heavy decision he was struggling to arrive at. She said softly:

  “I think you must risk it now. I think it is the smaller risk.”

  He was looking at her with the same, heavy doubt, apparently not realizing that it was his own unspoken thought to which she was responding.

  “It may mean her murder right away,” he said. He was silent again. Olive waited. Then he spoke, briskly and firmly, doubt put aside. “Yes,” he said, “it’s the smaller risk. They must realize by now that we know a lot and they must have a good idea of what we are doing. We shall have to come out more into the open. All we can do is to try to put up a show of working chiefly on the Seemouth case and of thinking the genuine niece may be still in Canada. But it must be wearing thin by now. Forced our hand, what’s happened recently. I hoped we might have more time—till the estate was wound up.”

  He had finished his breakfast by now, and he hurried off to the Yard, where he found waiting for him the weather reports he had asked for. They seemed to him hopeful. He became busy setting in motion these new activities from which he hoped so much. Then he borrowed Sergeant Kitty Yates from the women’s section, and set out with her for Southam, where he left his car and asked for the help of a uniform man. This obtained he went on, accompanied by Sergeant Yates, who was of course in plain clothes—a natty little three-piece utility suit—for Acres Lane and The Haven. At a discreet distance behind, so as to avoid attracting unnecessary attention, followed the uniform man. When Bobby knocked at The Haven door, it was opened by Mrs Day, who greeted him with a smile that was only too plainly a very forced effort, gave Miss Yates a glance of obvious and deep suspicion, and said if it was business, Mr Moon was attending to everything.

  “Do you know,” said Bobby contritely, “I had almost forgotten Mr Moon. I shall have to get in touch with him as soon as I can. But just at present it’s Miss Smith I would like a chat with.”

  “She’s in bed, poor soul,” Mrs Day said, shaking her head. “That broke up you wouldn’t believe. It’s all been a sad blow to her, losing her uncle she was devoted to. Keeps saying if only she had been there it wouldn’t ever have happened. Sort of reproaching herself. Nervous shock, Dr. Green says.”

  “I can quite understand that,” Bobby answered. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to see her all the same.”

  “Doctor said particular she wasn’t to be disturbed,” Mrs Day told him, looking very grave. “He said he wouldn’t answer for it if she was disturbed and I was responsible. It’s brain-fever he’s afraid may come on.”

  “Dear, dear, that does sound bad,” Bobby said. “You’re on the ’phone, I think? I’ll just ring him, if I may, and ask how long it’s likely to be before it’ll be all right. I’ll have to get his opinion confirmed by Dr. Atkins, too—the police surgeon, you know.”

  It was very clear that Mrs Day didn’t at all like this suggestion. She tried to raise other objections. Bobby said, interrupting her:

  “By the way, where were you in all that rain last night? Didn’t get wet, I hope?”

  Mrs Day gave a kind of jump, and made no attempt to answer. Nor did she make any attempt to interfere when Bobby walked past her and, accompanied by Sergeant Yates, proceeded upstairs. She watched them for a moment, and then went back into the kitchen at a sort of run, as if her one thought now was to get out of Bobby’s sight. On the landing above Bobby stood and listened intently. He nodded when Miss Yates pointed to one of the doors. Both she and Bobby had heard faint sounds coming from behind it to suggest the room had an occupant. Miss Yates went to it and knocked. A voice from within called:

  “Who’s there?”

  Without answering, Miss Yates opened the door. The pseudo Miss Betty Smi
th was in bed. Bobby followed Miss Yates. He said:

  “It’s only us. We just want to ask you a question or two, if you don’t mind.”

  “Go away, go away,” screamed the occupant of the bed. “How dare you? Go away at once.”

  But instead of obeying this injunction both Bobby and his companion came farther in. The pseudo Miss Smith, staring at them over the bed clothes she held tightly up to her chin, shouted to them again to go away and how dare they? Both Bobby and the sergeant were smiling. The sergeant said:

  “You may as well get up, my dear. Any one can see you’re fully dressed.” The girl made no answer to this beyond looking extremely sulky. Miss Yates went on: “The commander wants to ask you a few questions.”

  “I don’t know anything,” came this time a mumbled response. “I wasn’t there.”

  “Oh, of course, we know that,” Bobby said; “but there are a few things you may be able to tell us, Miss Smith. Or shall I say Miss Day? The lady downstairs is your mother, isn’t she?”

  “If she is, you know more than I do,” the girl answered; but now she had thrown off the bed-clothes and was standing up and groping for her shoes—all she had removed before seeking refuge in bed. She found them and put them on. “I don’t know anything,” she mumbled again. “I can’t tell you anything.”

  “Oh, I think you can,” Bobby retorted. “Quite a lot, probably,” and suddenly she began to cry.

  “I never had anything to do with it,” she sobbed. “I never knew what they meant. I liked him. He was good to me. I liked it here. It was so safe and quiet and you weren’t ever afraid and everything so—so respectable.” She paused to wipe away the tears running down her cheeks and she made an effort to control her sobs. “Respectable,” she repeated, and managed to make the word sound like a lost Paradise. “It was lovely,” she said—“shopping and helping in the house, just like any one else, and never waking up with awful headaches or being pushed around or anything, and no beastly men messing you about, and having him to look after, and now he’s dead—I never, never knew that was what they meant.”

  “What did you think they meant?” Bobby asked.

  “What they said when they told me about it,” she replied. “Get him to give me money to start a business or something like that. But then afterwards they said we must try to keep it up till he died, and it wouldn’t be long, because he was so old, and why couldn’t I get him to make a will leaving me his money? I didn’t see any harm. Why shouldn’t he leave me his money if he wanted to?”

  “You knew you were no niece of his?”

  “It was just the same as if I was,” she defended herself. “If there was a real niece she wouldn’t know and wouldn’t miss what she never had, and I was doing just the same for him. I liked him,” she repeated. Her tears began to flow again. “I never would have stood for it if I had known what they meant.” Then she said: “They’ll kill me when they know what I’ve told you. I don’t care now if they do. I hope they do,” she cried desperately, and with that broke down completely.

  “Look after her,” Bobby said to Miss Yates. “Bring her downstairs as soon as she’s pulled herself together a bit. Tell her she’ll have to answer our questions, though, and I think she had better come away with us. I think she may be in real danger if she stays here.”

  Bobby left them together and went downstairs again. Mrs Day was still there. If she had had any idea of departure she may have noticed the uniformed policeman pacing patiently up and down outside. When she appeared from the kitchen in answer to his call, Bobby said to her:

  “Well, would you like to say anything?”

  “I don’t know anything,” she protested sullenly. “I don’t know what it’s all about. I’m only the housekeeper here. If there’s anything wrong, it’s nothing to do with me. I wasn’t near Seemouth. Never been there in my life.”

  “Is the girl upstairs your daughter?”

  “She came here as poor Mr Smith’s niece, that’s all I know.”

  “Do you know a man named Tiny Garden?”

  “Never heard of him that I know of.”

  “Is a man known as ‘Sunday’ your son?”

  Her face had become ghastly now, and her closely twisted hands, her restless feet betrayed her agitation. It was only with difficulty that in answer to this last question she managed to stammer out:

  “No. Who is he? Never heard of him, either.”

  “A mother denying her son,” Bobby said. “I wonder if you thought of that the day you bore him?”

  “Shut up,” she mumbled. “Let me alone. I told you, didn’t I?”

  “Why do you think he fainted last night?” Bobby asked, and now Mrs Day nearly fainted herself.

  They had been standing in the entrance passage but she went back into the kitchen and sat down there, as if she feared her legs would no longer support her. Bobby followed her. She looked up at him. She said:

  “Who told you?”

  “Who told Cy’s Gladys everything that happened at Seemouth?” Bobby asked in return.

  “Some one must have been watching,” she answered after a pause, a little calmer now. “I don’t know. I’m not saying another word. You’ve no right. You did ought to have told me I had no call to say a word if I didn’t want. It’s not right.”

  “Sounds as if you had some experience in these things,” Bobby remarked. “Do you know where the real Betty Smith is or what has become of her?”

  “No, I don’t, and that’s God’s truth,” she answered. “I don’t know anything about it. I’m the housekeeper here. That’s all. If there’s been anything crooked, I didn’t know.”

  “You had better think over your position,” Bobby warned her. “You may find yourself charged with being an accessory to Mr Smith’s murder. Or, supposing there is a real niece, with conspiracy to defraud. Or even with conspiracy to murder, if there is such a person and anything has happened to her. We shall have to send to Canada and try to find out. Meanwhile any time you care to make a statement, let us know. Up to you to decide, but it might be the best thing you can do for yourself.”

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  “THEY WILL KILL ME”

  THE ONLY response to this suggestion was an even angrier, more sullen scowl. Bobby went back into the entrance hall. He had heard the sound of descending footsteps. Sergeant Yates was coming down the stairs, followed by the pseudo Miss Smith, who had on her outdoor things and had just given her real name as Ada Day.

  “Ada says she will come with us,” the sergeant said to Bobby.

  “Good,” said Bobby. “Best thing all round.”

  Mrs Day had followed Bobby into the hall. She said:

  “What are you taking her for? She’s done nothing.”

  “We may be coming back to take you,” Bobby said cheerfully. “You haven’t told us yet where you were in the rain last night.”

  Mrs Day returned with some haste to the kitchen. It was a question that very clearly frightened her badly. Bobby used the ’phone to ring up the police station to ask for his car to be sent to the top of Acres Lane—with a plain-clothes man for driver, if possible. He followed the sergeant and her companion down the garden path to the road. The uniformed man saw them, turned his back, and strolled carelessly away in the opposite direction. Onlookers would have seen no more than two women out together and a tallish, youngish man walking along behind with his hands in his pockets and apparently not a care in the world or a thought in his mind. At the corner of the road the car was waiting. The driver got out. The sergeant opened the door, but now Ada drew back.

  “I’m not going,” she said. “I won’t. You can’t make me.”

  Sergeant Yates said nothing, but still held open the door. It was an invitation that was a little like a command. Bobby was getting into the driver’s seat. He did not speak either. Ada said:

  “I won’t go.” Then she said: “They will kill me if they ever know.”

  “Yes,” said the sergeant. “If you give them the chance.�
�

  “I don’t want to be killed,” Ada said, and got into the car, and as Bobby started off he could hear her crying again.

  At the Yard when they reached it, Sergeant Yates alighted first. She said to Bobby:

  “Ada is ready to make a statement.”

  “Well, she had better have a rest first,” Bobby said, “and something to eat, and a chance to powder her nose or whatever it is you ladies do to yourselves. Besides, I want my lunch. What about four o’clock, Ada? That all right with you?”

  Ada gulped and gave a miserable little nod of assent. Bobby felt that at any moment she might try to run away or else turn obstinate and refuse to say a word. The more friendly, the more everyday sort of atmosphere he could create, the more likely, he thought, she would be to talk freely. Also he was very anxious to hear if any results had been obtained by the new activities he had set in motion. He hurried off to find out. The C.I.D. man, Mark Miller by name, whom he had left in charge had however nothing of interest to report.

  “I’ve checked what the Met. people told us with Bradshaw,” he said. “There are seven districts where according to the Met. people sudden showers would have been liable to catch any one making for a London train.”

  “A lot of ground to cover,” Bobby remarked. “More than I like. Two-mile radius from each railway station. Work that out in square yards and it comes to quite an area.”

  “We want to get a line somehow,” Miller said. “If we could hear of Cy or Tiny or one of their pals being seen anywhere, it would help. I’m trying to arrange for a look-out to be kept on any newcomer—car, rail, bike or ’bus. Difficult.”