Secrets Can't be Kept: A Bobby Owen Mystery Read online

  “It’s what a business man would call my speciality,” Mr Wright explained genially. “Wychshire scenery, I mean. Especially the forest. Out there you’ll find me at all hours—morning, noon, and night when all you other lucky people are snug in bed. I suppose you don’t know my ‘Winter Dawn—a forest scene’?”

  Bobby had to confess ignorance. Mr Roman Wright looked sad.

  “I never knew who bought it,” he said. “Dealer, I suppose. Resale in the U.S. most likely. Anyhow, it stopped all sale of engravings. Some dodge under copyright law. Engravings doing quite well at the time, too.”

  Bobby expressed sympathy. He remarked that copyright law was a jungle through which only experts could find their way—and often even they got lost therein. He asked if Mr Wright ever did portraits, and Mr Wright shook his head.

  “John told me once I ought to,” he said thoughtfully. “Sometimes I wish I had taken his tip. Portraits pay. But I’ve stuck to my landscapes, and I suppose I’ve not done too badly. Even John admits that.”

  “John?” repeated Bobby questioningly.

  “Augustus John,” explained Mr Wright. “Quite well-known man. I don’t see much of him nowadays. Drifted apart somehow.”

  “I know the name,” Bobby said, knitting his brows in an evident effort at recollection. “Once when I was having a holiday in London I went to the Tate Gallery. Very interesting. I remember a John painting there—my friend said it was one of his best things. Sort of resurrection-day scene. Lot of corpses getting up out of their graves, all very stiff. Very clever, I suppose.”

  Mr Roman Wright nodded.

  “I know,” he said. “I remember seeing it in his studio when he was working at it years ago. ‘You’ve got something there, John,’ I said. Other people had been running it down, so it bucked him up no end to hear me say that.”

  “I am sure it would,” agreed Bobby politely. “All the same, I like his ‘Shrimp Girl’ in the National Gallery much better. Well, I must be getting on.”

  “So must I,” smiled Mr Roman Wright. “I’ve to get this lot delivered by the end of the month—£50 each for the six.” He shook his head sadly. “And probably the dealer will ask twice as much. That’s what we poor devils of artists have to put up with. You can’t find your own customers, so there you are. In the hands of the dealers.”

  Bobby said sympathetically that it was hard lines, hinted he himself would have liked a specimen of Mr Wright’s work. But £50—he, too, shook his head sadly. Altogether beyond him, a figure like that. So Mr Roman Wright laughed genially and explained he was under contract to his dealer not to sell privately.

  “Thinks I should let ’em go too cheap,” he said. “Says he means to hold for the coming boom—maybe years, maybe never, I tell him. Anyhow, there it is.”

  CHAPTER IV

  TEAS

  IN THOUGHTFUL MOOD Bobby rode on, and came presently to that small group of cottages where Sergeant Young had seen the vicar, Mr Martin Pyne, making his call. Farther on, at the entrance to the village proper, in the High Street, where already some of the big multiple shop concerns were beginning to establish themselves, Bobby saw coming towards him a small man in clerical dress. An odd-looking little man, Bobby thought, with an enormous, nearly perfectly bald head, a thin almost shrunken body, and disproportionately long arms and legs. The Threepence vicar, Bobby supposed, the Mr Pyne of whom Sergeant Young had spoken. He turned into one of the shops as Bobby drew nearer.

  Not much farther on was the Pleezeu Tea Garden. There Bobby alighted. The day was fine, and the tea-rooms seemed to be doing a good trade. The falling off in hikers and cyclists that had marked the opening phase of the war, in the black Dunkirk days, had now been more than atoned for by soldiers from a nearby camp, glad of any change from the barrack room; by residents in the neighbourhood ready to pay for an outside meal that would help them to eke out their tea and sugar rations; by others who did their shopping in Threepence rather than make the longer journey to Midwych, and who, that task accomplished, felt they had both earned and deserved rest and refreshment.

  Bobby had to wait some time before his modest wants could be attended to. The Pleezeu Gardens seemed to be suffering, like every other establishment of its kind, from shortage of staff. The only waitresses in evidence were a willing but apparently inexperienced and certainly extremely clumsy child of fifteen or sixteen; and an unusually tall and handsome girl, who, with her stately carriage and a certain native dignity of bearing, seemed as much out of place, taking orders and carrying trays, as did, though in another sense, the child who had just dropped a tray of scones and tea.

  “Oh, Liza,” said the tall girl resignedly, “there’s another cup broken, and you know how hard it is to get replacements.”

  “Please, Miss Kitty, it just went out of my hand,” protested Liza.

  “So I see,” the tall girl agreed. “Gracious,” she added presently as Liza, having picked up the scattered scones and given them a perfunctory wipe, showed signs of continuing on her way with them to the waiting customer, “you mustn’t serve those. Take them back to the kitchen and get fresh.”

  Liza, looking slightly surprised, as if she found it difficult to grasp the reason for this command, obeyed, however; and the tall girl came to Bobby and took his order, though a little with an unconscious air of not so much taking an order as of receiving homage. He said to her:

  “I noticed a clergyman in the High Street—a smallish man, rather thin, with an enormous, quite bald head. Would that be the vicar here?”

  The tall girl looked at Bobby disapprovingly. He had a feeling that she considered his description lacking in courtesy.

  “I couldn’t say,” she answered coldly. “If you wish to see Mr Pyne you can call at the vicarage. It is near the church. But Mr Pyne is nearly always out visiting in the parish at this time.”

  She went away then, leaving Bobby feeling that he had been well and truly put in his place. When his tea arrived he noticed it was brought him by the child, Liza, not by the tall girl she had called Miss Kitty. Miss Kitty herself seemed very busy at the other end of the garden; and Bobby, noting her swift efficiency, told himself that the young woman, however superior in manner, did not at any rate hold herself superior to her job. He took an opportunity when she, not Liza, was near, to ask for his bill and to say something complimentary about the scones.

  “Like pre-war,” he declared, and Miss Kitty smiled—her clear-cut, perhaps too prominent, distinctly aristocratic features took on a very pleasant expression when she smiled—and said it was really wonderful what Mrs Bloom could do with the materials available.

  Bobby said it was rather jolly there, and might he sit on for a while and smoke a cigarette; and Miss Kitty said, of course, as long as he liked. Then she departed to attend to a fresh customer, and on the way met yet another, a young man in the uniform of an army captain, who seemed to have suffered some recent injury, as he had one arm in a sling.

  “Oh, good afternoon,” he said cheerfully.

  “You’ve had one tea already, Captain Dunstan,” said Miss Kitty, not without severity.

  “Oh, that was yesterday,” he declared.

  “Yesterday and today,” she retorted.

  Captain Dunstan looked depressed.

  “You’ve such a good memory,” he sighed. “Nearly as good as a quartermaster’s for the stuff he’s issued and you’ve never had.” He sat down at the nearest table, close to Bobby’s. He said firmly: “Tea, please, and one scone. No sugar and lots of hot water.”

  Miss Kitty turned her back on him, and Bobby observed that he, too, when his tea arrived, had it brought to him by the Liza child.

  “Please, sir,” she said, “Miss Kitty says it’s all the scones there is to spare and it’s been on the ground because of the tray going sudden like out of my hand, but I’ve wiped it careful.”

  “I’m sure you have,” said Captain Dunstan, “and tell Miss Kitty that if she thinks to scare a soldier of the king by a little thing l
ike that, she little knows army rations.”

  Therewith he took an enormous bite, grinned at Liza, filled his cup from the teapot, and looked with some surprise at the result. Then he called to the retreating Liza.

  “Tell Miss Kitty, too,” he said enthusiastically, “the finest cup of aqua pura, heated, I’ve seen for months, even years.”

  Liza, looking puzzled, returned, stared at the teapot and cup, gasped and explained:

  “If she ain’t gone and been and forgot to put in the tea.”

  Therewith she snatched up the teapot, and scuttled away, and Captain Dunstan shook his head sadly and remarked aloud:

  “Not forgotten, I fear, but served before.”

  He lighted a cigarette. Liza did not reappear. Miss Kitty was nowhere visible. One of the few remaining customers began to show signs of wishing to pay, and Miss Kitty emerged. Probably calculating the amount due was a task slightly beyond Liza. But she made a reappearance now, blundering energetically from one to another of such customers as still required attention. Captain Dunstan called ‘waitress’, and Kitty came at once towards him.

  “Your bill, sir?” she asked formally.

  “You needn’t be so beastly stuck up,” he grumbled. “I may be dirt, but why wipe your feet on me quite so hard?”

  “Well, I like that,” she gasped.

  “Of course,” he admitted, “I’d rather you wiped your feet on me than nothing at all—like that teapot.”

  “Tea is rationed,” she said. “I’m not going to waste it on people who don’t want it. Oh, and there’s no bill.”

  She turned and was going away, looking statelier than ever. He got to his feet and stopped her. He said:

  “Why are you being like this?”

  “Have you been quarrelling with Ned?” she asked.

  He looked very sulky.

  “I would have knocked the young fool’s head off,” he admitted, “only you can’t, a chap like that.”

  “Mrs Bloom is very worried,” Kitty said. “He’s all she has. What did happen?”

  “Nothing much. He wanted to fight. I told him not to be a fool. I told him to shut up, to go home and play. He said he might be a cripple but I was one-armed, so we were quits. That’s all.”

  “What happened?” she repeated, as if somehow she were not fully satisfied.

  “Oh, well, he came at me, squaring up. I had to give him a push to keep him away. He was trying to hit out. Well, he went down. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t my fault. You have to do something if a bloke comes squaring up at you. I told him I was sorry, and then I just cleared off fast as I could. If I hadn’t I believe he would have gone for me again as soon as he was on his feet. He wasn’t hurt, not really. Only rather surprised, and so was I. He went over so easily.”

  “Well, I think it was a great shame and very disgraceful,” she told him with severity. “A boy like that.”

  “You seem very concerned about—Ned,” he retorted, growing angry now, and giving a very vicious snarl to his pronunciation of ‘Ned’.

  “Yes, I am,” she snapped, “very concerned, and so is Mrs Bloom—poor boy.”

  These last two words were, and were plainly meant to be, a turning of the knife in the wound. Captain Dunstan went very red. Miss Kitty marched away, making her back look as haughty, offended, and aloof as ever back could look. Captain Dunstan marched away in the opposite direction. Bobby got up and went to the cash desk, where sat a severe and competent-looking middle-aged woman—the Miss Bates, he guessed, to whom he had spoken on the ’phone. He asked if Mr Ned Bloom had returned, and Miss Bates gave him a suspicious glance and said, no, he had not. Bobby asked if he could see Mrs Bloom, and Miss Bates said Mrs Bloom was resting—that is, if she had finished clearing up the kitchen, which was a long and tiring job. Perhaps the gentleman could call some other time? Was it anything special?

  So Bobby produced his official card and explained that Mr Ned Bloom had been to see him in Midwych, and now, he, Bobby, had come to see Mrs Bloom in Threepence. Also there was a report of a light having been seen on the premises.

  Miss Bates looked more worried and suspicious than ever.

  “Ned’s not been home,” she said, “not since that day he went to town. We haven’t any idea what’s become of him.”

  “No suggestion at all?” Bobby asked.

  Miss Bates shook her head.

  “You’re the police,” she said abruptly.

  Bobby waited silently. She was staring hard at his official card she still held in her hand, so it seemed unnecessary to reply. He had an idea that she was coming to a decision, making up her mind. She said:—

  “I can tell you what she thinks, though she won’t say. She thinks he has been murdered.”

  CHAPTER V

  MURDER?

  WHEN MISS BATES had said this she looked rather frightened, and turned first red and then white. Bobby, aware that unless he was careful she would probably take refuge in obstinate silence, took out his cigarette case, examined it thoughtfully, offered it to Miss Bates, and observed in a meditative manner:

  “I’m pretty badly worried myself. I don’t know why. Not much to go on. Still, you never know. What makes you think it may be that?”

  She made no effort to accept the cigarette he was still offering. Abruptly she said:

  “Don’t tell Mrs Bloom I said so.”

  “Oh, no,” he assured her. “Police never tell any one anything unless they have to in the way of duty. Had the boy any enemies?”

  “Nobody liked him,” she answered. “Bone lazy. Poking. Prying. Showing off how clever he was finding out things about you. Read your letters as soon as not if he got the chance. I caught him at it once. I boxed his ears for him I was that angry.”

  “Served him right,” said Bobby heartily.

  “Thought he knew it all,” said Miss Bates. “He didn’t. Not by a long way, not even about his mother. Wanted to set up as a private detective, as he called it. Rubbish.”

  “Yes, he told me that,” agreed Bobby. “Silly idea. A man’s got to be physically fit, for one thing. What did Mrs Bloom think about it?”

  “Oh, she didn’t know; she had no idea how he went about nosey parkering. That’s what I call it. He just liked to show off. He liked to say: ‘I met a Miss Polly Young today. Your friend at school was a Polly Young, too, wasn’t she? But it can’t be the same, because she’s Mrs Jacks now, and this one isn’t married.’ Then if you looked startled and said, ‘How do you know all that?’ he was just as pleased as punch and would go away grinning silly like.”

  “Stupid trick,” said Bobby. He picked up his card Miss Bates had laid down and held it casually so that she could still see it. “I don’t want to ‘nosey parker’,” he said, “but police have got to be told if there’s anything wrong. I’m sure you want to help, if anything has happened to him. What makes you think perhaps it has?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said uneasily. “I expect he’s all right really.”

  “Murder’s not a word to be forgotten,” he said, looking at her.

  “I don’t see why you want to catch a body up so quick,” she complained. “I didn’t say that’s what I thought. I said that was why Mrs Bloom was worrying so. Perhaps she isn’t really.”

  “If she is, why is she?” Bobby said.

  “Ned’s never stayed away like this before,” Miss Bates answered, “and I know he’s got no money, because he never has and he’s not working, and he asked me for some, and I wouldn’t, not unless his mother said so special, because of the bills coming in and have to be met, and all his things in his room still—everything.”

  Bobby waited. He felt there was more to come. Experience had taught him that in getting hesitant and reluctant witnesses to talk, an attitude of patient and expectant waiting was often more effective than close questioning. So he remained silent, making it plain he was waiting for her to continue, and Miss Bates said:

  “She said something once—Mrs Bloom, I mean. I don’t
remember exactly. It was when a motor car knocked him down. He wasn’t hurt much, but he might have been killed, and she said some day he would be, and I said accidents weren’t so common as all that, and she said there weren’t only accidents, and I said, well, she didn’t suppose any one would murder him, did she? And she looked at me so queer like I went cold all down my back, and she said once there was a dead man said that that would be. I didn’t dare ask her what she meant and she never said another word, but last night I said I would stay with her if she was going to sit up for him. She wouldn’t let me. She looked at me the way she did that other time I’ve never forgotten, and she said, just as if she were talking to herself and I wasn’t there, she said that now it might be that there had come about what had been said before, and I didn’t dare ask her what she meant.” Miss Bates took a handkerchief from her bag and dabbed nervously at her face and lips. She said: “It was the way she looked so like that other time I’ve never forgot and never shall.”

  “Is that all?” Bobby asked.

  She nodded.

  “Sounds silly, doesn’t it?” she said.

  “No,” answered Bobby.

  After a time he said:

  “I think I must have a talk with Mrs Bloom. I won’t say anything about what you’ve told me unless it is really necessary, and that’s not likely. We always say ‘from information received’, you know.”