The Conqueror Inn: A Bobby Owen Mystery Read online

  “Who is he? What did he want?”

  Christopherson had recovered now—and recovered quickly—from the shock of that unexpected question. He began to move away, spade and pick over his shoulder, towards the front of the house where the road ran. He said as he went:

  “We don’t know.”

  “One moment,” Bobby said sharply. “What do you mean? You don’t know who he was or you don’t know what he wanted?”

  “I mean both,” Christopherson replied. “We don’t know who it was and we don’t know what he wanted.”

  “Isn’t that rather strange?” Bobby asked and got no reply. He asked: “When was this?”

  “We noticed it Sunday morning. Rachel saw it as soon as she came down and she called me.”

  “Forty-eight hours before Miss Rachel heard the shot and you found the bank notes,” Bobby reflected. “You didn’t report it. Why not?”

  “What was there to report? That perhaps someone had got into the house and then got out again? Nothing was taken.”

  “Nothing?”

  “We have missed nothing. Is an offence committed if nothing is taken?”

  “Breaking and entering,” Bobby said briefly.

  “Breaking perhaps. A broken window. That has happened before. Entering. We don’t know. Nothing to show.”

  “Was nothing heard during the night? By none of you? Was nothing displaced? Nothing moved or touched?”

  “We heard nothing,” Christopherson answered. “We noticed nothing. There was no sign anything had been touched. All we can say is that a small square of glass was cut out of the kitchen window. A neat job. The glass was lying on the window ledge outside. I put it back. It fitted perfectly. That is all. I saw no reason to say anything. Nothing to say anything about. How do you know?”

  “Oh, police know a lot,” Bobby answered.

  Christopherson looked at him thoughtfully.

  “I suppose you mean,” he said slowly, “you noticed the window and guessed the rest?”

  “Well, let’s go,” Bobby said, slightly disconcerted, and feeling he might as well have said as much at first.

  Christopherson was not a man easily impressed—or easily frightened for that matter. All the same a queer business, and Bobby felt very sure that both Christopherson himself and Rachel knew more than either of them had seen fit to say. But for the moment he had neither reason nor authority to press the matter further.

  They walked on together to Bobby’s car. As they went Bobby said:

  “I noticed you had your doors shut when I got here though it was some minutes before closing time. Are you always so prompt?”

  Christopherson did not answer at first. Bobby had the impression that he was considering how to reply. Perhaps wondering, too, whether this question also had a hidden significance. Then he said:

  “You notice a good deal, don’t you?”

  “It’s my job,” Bobby answered.

  “Even little things?”

  “Especially little things. It’s the little foxes that destroy the vineyards, you remember. Besides, little things are sometimes less little than they seem. And sometimes little things lead to big.”

  “I did not know policemen could be so philosophical,” Christopherson remarked.

  “I did not know that was philosophy,” retorted Bobby. “I should have called it observation and common sense.”

  “Other words for the same thing,” Christopherson answered.

  They had reached the car now. Bobby put the box he was carrying under the driver’s seat. Christopherson found a place for spade and pick. Anxious to keep his companion chatting, for he knew well that no man may speak a word but in it he shows forth his mind and character for those who have the skill to read aright, Bobby said:

  “Are you interested in philosophy?”

  “One has to read something in the winter,” the other answered apologetically.

  “You choose philosophy?”

  “It is as full of strange fancies as poetry and as full of imagination as fiction,” Christopherson explained. “Takes you out of yourself and out of the commonplace world of everyday fact and need. Escapist stuff, in fact. Amusing to be told that the spade you find so useful for digging potatoes has nothing to do with the spade-in-itself. Following an argument of Spinoza’s is as exciting as trying to track the vermin that’s raided your hen run.”

  Bobby reflected that some teachers and writers of and on philosophy might take a hint from this farmer-innkeeper and try a little harder to relate the questions that interested them to the common things of life. But then he wondered if all this had been an attempt to divert his attention. A drawback of the policeman’s life that he is so apt to grow suspicious. He said:

  “You didn’t say if you always closed before time. Wouldn’t it be awkward if a customer turned up? You would be bound to serve him, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, but not when it’s impossible. I’ve nothing to serve. There isn’t a drop in the house. Brewers give their own houses preference. This is a free house. It has been in my family a long time—‘the memory of man runneth not to the contrary’ as they used to say in the old days.”

  “The building doesn’t look so very old,” Bobby remarked, turning to look at it.

  “It dates from 1750. It was burnt down in the ’45, when Highlanders came this way. There was a skirmish with dragoons and the inn was burnt. It had been burnt down before. That’s one reason why we have nothing to show to prove our claim to be the oldest licensed house in England. It is called ‘The Conqueror Inn’ because of a story that William the Conqueror was served with wine here when he and his men were on their way to lay the north country waste.”

  “History, too, as well as philosophy,” Bobby said smilingly. “Well, a plain cop has enough to do without meddling with either. But this seems such a lonely sort of place, I wonder it pays you to keep open.”

  “Lonely the way you’ve come from Midwych,” Christopherson admitted. “But we are not far from the main road—only a little more than a mile, a mile and a half perhaps. Further on, there’s a fair sized village. Even if the moor looks lonely, there are farms on it and cottages. Before the war we depended a good deal on visitors. Hikers, cyclists, motorists. Fishermen, too. There are two good trout streams running down the valley.”

  “Is that where the ’phone box is, on the main road, I mean?” Bobby asked. “The one you rang up from?”

  Christopherson nodded an assent. Bobby went on:

  “You’ve no ’phone here?”

  This time Christopherson shook his head, and then, as if he felt some explanation were needed, he said:

  “Perhaps I agree with the French duchess, wasn’t it? who did not wish to be like her own footmen and have to answer the bell whenever it rang. And then, before the war, some who came here for a rest and the fishing seemed to like the idea of being out of reach of the ‘phone. They said they had enough of it in business. As a matter of fact, the road box is near enough if it is really needed, and I’ve an arrangement with the woman who keeps the post office in the village to send up any message she gets for us.”

  “I see,” Bobby said.

  They were both in their places now. Before Bobby started the car, he asked:

  “Most traffic takes the main road, I suppose? You don’t have much by here?”

  “No,” Christopherson answered. “Recently we’ve had more. One or two lorry drivers think they gain time coming this way. It’s a longer way round but they can go all out. There’s so much traffic on the main road, they have to drive carefully on it. Breakdowns, too, sometimes. That may mean a big traffic block. A man named Micky Burke started using it and others like Loo Leader followed him. We hear them at night sometimes going by much faster than they ought to—forty or fifty miles an hour sometimes.”

  “They don’t stop at your place?”

  “Very seldom. The two men I mentioned do sometimes. Not so much lately.”

  “I must get in touch with them,�
�� Bobby said, “and see if they can tell me anything. Anyone else you can think of likely to have been by here last night?”

  “I don’t think so,” Christopherson answered. “I haven’t seen Burke for some days. He may have gone by at night or without stopping. I saw Leader pass this morning, going north.”

  “Any private cars?” Bobby asked; and when Christopherson shook his head and said they were rare, Bobby added: “Had any visitors staying the night recently?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation before Christopherson answered. Bobby had the impression that this question was unwelcome and that the greater readiness the innkeeper had shown to talk during these last minutes had been in part at least because he had foreseen this question and had wished if possible to avoid it. But a reply could not be refused, since an inn’s register must be open to inspection, and he said:

  “There have been one or two. The only one for some time is Captain Peter Wintle. From the training camp south of Ingleside.”

  CHAPTER IV

  NAKED HORROR

  THE RUN ALONG the road to Spigot’s Slope took only a few minutes. A touch on Bobby’s arm told him where to stop. He and Christopherson alighted and took out the spade and pick. Bobby, as again he went through the proscribed motions to make his car immobile, was still wondering whether he had been right in thinking that the name of this Captain Wintle had been mentioned only with hesitation and reluctance, would probably not have been mentioned at all but for the fact that it was on record in the inn register.

  The slope of the land was fairly steep here, showing a drop of perhaps fifty feet from west to east. Down the slope ran a gully that still occasionally in the spring carried a running stream. A culvert took it beneath the road. Eastward, the gully, still fairly deep near the road, gradually flattened out till it lost itself on a stretch of level ground. It was in this gully, close to the road, that Christopherson had found the box the previous night, a stray gleam from his lantern chancing to catch it as he swung his light to and fro. He pointed out the exact spot. Further on and lower down he showed the freshly dug ground he had spoken of.

  There was no mound. Only the freshly disturbed appearance of the earth showed that here recent digging had been carried out. Such earth as had been displaced had been scattered loosely about in a thin, unnoticeable layer. Bobby stood looking at it thoughtfully. Someone had taken pains, taken precautions. A lonely spot, a lonely grave, if grave it were. That must be determined now. Yet the reason must have been urgent that had set unknown hands digging here. He said:

  “It might very easily never have been noticed.”

  Christopherson did not reply. He seemed lost in his own thoughts. Bobby went back to where they had left the car and spent a little time examining the road. There were faint marks of tyres. An oil stain, too. By the roadside were marks on the turf. Trampling, he thought. But all too confused and indistinct, especially after a night of wind and rain, for him to be able to read in them any tale of what there had taken place. Nor for that matter do the tufts of the short, coarse, moorland grass, or the surface of a road, take passing impressions easily or clearly. To Christopherson, still standing upright and quiet by the side of that sad patch of disturbed earth, he called down the slope:

  “Can you make anything of these marks?”

  “I think no one could,” Christopherson called back, but the wind blew away his words and Bobby had to go nearer and ask him to repeat them.

  Christopherson did so and added:

  “You can see a lorry stopped there. I think two lorries, but I am not sure. A light car, too, I think. There’s been a lot of rain. You noticed there are cigarette ends? As if someone had been waiting there and smoking to pass the time.”

  Bobby nodded. He had collected them, half a dozen or so. Nothing to distinguish them from any other cigarette ends so far as he could see. But as Christopherson had remarked, they did suggest an interval of waiting; though whether the light car for the lorry or lorries, or the lorries for each other or for the car, or whether there had been an interception or a rendezvous, there was nothing to show. Carrying spade and pick, he joined Christopherson and they began work. Two lorries, one coming from the south, from the Midwych direction, one from the north, from beyond the Conqueror Inn, went by; each having to swerve a little on the narrow road to pass in safety where Bobby had left his car. Not long or deep had Bobby and Christopherson to dig before they came to the horror the kindly earth had hidden.

  It was the body of a man, stripped of every shred of clothing. Directly over the heart was a bullet wound. But the horror lay in this, that coldly, deliberately, almost scientifically, the dead man’s face had been battered out of all resemblance to human features. As carefully, as gently as might be, Bobby cleared away the damp, surrounding earth. Christopherson, evidently deeply affected, moved a few steps away. He turned his back to where Bobby was still busy at the open grave, for Bobby at least had his duty to do, however shocking. Then he came back and looked long and hard at the thing lying there, that Bobby had now completely uncovered. He said:

  “Why have they done that? Smashed his face, I mean. Why should they?”

  “To prevent identification,” Bobby answered. “All his clothes taken, too. That means they couldn’t afford to let it be known who it was. All the same there must be someone missing, somewhere. That’s a starting point, for all the beastly care they’ve taken.”

  “Another lorry’s coming,” Christopherson said.

  “Don’t take any notice,” Bobby said.

  But evidently they had been seen; and the spectacle of a car standing by the roadside and of two men digging in that lonely spot, had aroused curiosity. The lorry stopped. The driver stood up in his place, and, focusing binoculars, looked at them. Bobby hoped they were good glasses and would show clearly the angry and, he trusted, forbidding scowl he had assumed. Possibly, however, his angry frown only intensified curiosity. Anyhow, the driver got down. His companion remained seated. The driver began to walk down the slope towards where Bobby and Christopherson were standing. Bobby went forward to meet him. He noticed the newcomer still had his binoculars in his hand and that they looked in fact as if they were a good make. Bobby was half inclined to suggest that they should be handed over as a gift to the army, as had been publicly suggested should be done. Possibly, however, this was not a propitious moment for such a suggestion. Instead he said authoritatively:

  “We don’t want any help. Nothing for you to do. You can get along.”

  “What’s up, guv’nor?” the other asked. He was a tall, thin man with long, sprawling limbs and a long, narrow head, his huge protruding beak of a nose and small bright eyes close on either side giving him somewhat the look of a bird of prey or rather of a spider on the watch for a heedless fly. “You’re police, aren’t you?” he went on as Bobby did not answer. “Anything wrong?”

  Bobby was annoyed. He was always annoyed when he was in plain clothes and yet immediately recognized as a policeman. He said sharply:

  “Nothing to do with you. You can clear out.”

  “Free country, ain’t it?” the other retorted. “How do I know what you’re up to? Perhaps you aren’t a policeman. Perhaps you’re a couple of blooming parachutists burying a secret wireless set?”

  “Don’t try to play the fool,” Bobby said angrily. He produced his warrant card. “There you are,” he said. “Now clear off.”

  “Not me,” the lorry driver answered with a defiant grin. “I’ve as good a right here as you. This isn’t Germany.”

  Deliberately he walked past Bobby. Christopherson, who had been watching, said:

  “I wouldn’t come any nearer if I were you. It’s not a thing to see unless you have to.”

  “Think I’ve never seen a stiff before?” asked the lorry driver. He came nearer and looked and when he saw he gave a cry and almost ran a few steps back. He had become very white, he looked as if he were going to be sick. “Who did that?” he gasped. “Did you do it digging?”r />
  Christopherson did not answer. He never did answer unnecessary questions, and it was very evident that that dreadful mutilation had been purposed and deliberate. The lorry driver went a few steps still further away and sat down. It was rather as if he did so because his legs had failed him. He took out his handkerchief and began to wipe his face which had grown damp with perspiration.

  “It turned me up,” he muttered. “Shooting’s one thing but that’s another.”

  His companion had apparently perceived now that something was amiss. He jumped down and began to run towards them. He was a short, thickset man who looked exactly what he was—a former pugilist. He had the bony brows that are so useful to protect the eyes, the ‘cauliflower’ ear, the generally battered countenance that proclaim one of the ‘fancy.’ Past his prime now, and showing signs of an over-indulgence in food and drink that strict training had formerly forbidden him. Formidable still, with his long arms and fine chest and shoulders, though loose living had begun the physical ruin another decade or less would certainly complete. To the lorry driver Bobby said:

  “It’s your own fault. I told you to keep out of it.”

  “I didn’t know,” the man muttered. “I didn’t know it was like that.”

  By now his mate had come up.

  “What’s up with you?” he demanded. “Never seen a deader before. What’s a deader anyway?”

  “He’s got no face,” the lorry driver said. “It’s all bashed in.”

  “What do you mean?” asked his mate and made a step towards the open grave.

  But the driver called him back.

  “Naked and his face isn’t there any more,” he said. “Gave me a turn. No clothes and his face done in. That’s so no one can tell who he is.”

  “Have you any idea?” Bobby asked. “Have you heard of anyone being missing?”

  They both shook their heads. The lorry driver got to his feet, though he still did not seem too steady on them. His mate was looking very blank and bewildered and was giving suspicious glances all round him, as if suspecting something fresh and unexpected and uncomfortable was about to happen. They were both plainly badly shaken. Nor was that, Bobby supposed, anything to be surprised at. Bobby, in the course of his experiences, had seen many strange and dreadful sights, but nothing, he felt, quite so shocking as this careful disfiguring of the dead, this refusal to allow to a dead man in his grave even a semblance of humanity. The lorry driver said again: