Night's Cloak: A Bobby Owen Mystery Read online

  Bobby wondered whether the gift to Mr Weston of the little book “What It Will Be Like”, which from the brief glance he had given it seemed to put forward some novel and even revolutionary ideas, was a sign of this change and a cause of the accusation of insanity. Anyhow, Mr Weston did not seem to have shared in his fellow-director’s interest, to judge from the violent scribblings on the margin of “What It Will Be Like”.

  He told Hargreaves that during the time he and his assistants might be forced to remain in the house, he would like to make use of the small garden room in which he had seen Bessie Bell the day before. Hargreaves promised to see that that was arranged, and Bobby asked him also to request Miss Rowe to meet him there. Then a constable arrived to say that a Mr Martin Weston Wynne had just arrived and said he was Mr Weston’s nearest relative in England. Bobby said he would like to see him at once and asked Hargreaves to explain to Miss Rowe. Then there appeared Payne, looking hot and excited. Closer examination of the study had revealed traces suggesting that some one had been hiding under the great walnut desk. Bobby asked what traces, and was told “Dabs”.

  It appeared that the finger-print expert, continuing his explorations and anxious to add to his bag, had tested the knee-hole of the desk. There he had found, with both pleasure and surprise, very clear and distinct “dabs” on the under-surface. Their position seemed to make it clear that some one had been crouching there, supporting him or herself in that cramped and awkward position—probably herself, though, since the space provided for the knees of a sitting person was only small—by pressing one hand against the panelling. Also the dabs, though not yet developed, were certainly small, and probably a woman’s.

  Bobby rubbed his nose and thought things were getting complicated. No simple case this. Apparently three lines of approach. First, some kind of family feud or quarrel, as indicated by the odd endorsement on the envelope that had presumably held the ten fifty-pound notes and possibly other papers as well, though the presence of bank-notes of such high value with “family papers” seemed hard to understand. Did it mean, Bobby wondered, some kind of blackmail that had taken an unexpected turn? Again, the terms on which Mr Weston and his young cousin, Martin Wynne, had parted might be another result of some family dispute.

  Secondly, a second line of approach, might it be not a family but a business feud or quarrel, as suggested by Mr Edwardes’s choice of so odd a gift to his chairman as the book “What It Will Be Like”, that little handbook of revolution by consent, and possibly, too, by the quarrel with Martin, if Martin, now holder by Mrs Weston’s legacy of a fairly large block of shares in the business, was inclined to back Mr Edwardes’s new and disturbing ideas.

  Finally, the third line of approach, Hargreaves’s hints of discreditable intrigues, hints apparently confirmed to some extent by the unexplained presence of Bessie Bell the previous night and now by this odd tale of a possible hidden witness, who might be a woman, crouching beneath the great walnut desk. Possibly confirmed, too, by Miss Thomasine Rowe’s early departure on pretext of a visit to the cinema that had apparently not taken place, since Bobby had his own ears to tell him she had still been in the vicinity of Weston Lodge Cottage at a much later hour. Could it be, Bobby wondered, that these were her finger-prints so curiously discovered in so odd a place? A very good bit of work, anyhow, Bobby decided, to the credit of the finger-print expert. Not every one would have thought of searching in so unlikely a spot.

  All very puzzling, though; and now the next thing indicated was a talk with Mr Martin Weston Wynne, at present waiting in the garden room and simmering with only partially suppressed indignation because hitherto he had been refused all information, and even access to the room where the murder had been committed.

  CHAPTER VII

  BALANCE OF POWER

  TO THE garden room, accordingly, Bobby made his way, and found waiting there the same young man he had seen depart so much like thunder the previous night. Again he received an impression of a family likeness that resided more in a general resemblance than in any marked similarity of feature, and again he noted eyes that seemed in their softer, almost dreamy expression as though in some way withdrawn from those immediate surroundings on which the older man had seemed always so fiercely intent. A clever face, Bobby thought, with that broad forehead, and he asked himself what lay behind the dream eyes that flashed now as it were into sudden awareness and quick combat as their owner began to demand explanations and to be told what had happened and what right Bobby or any one else had to refuse him information.

  A formidable young man in some ways, Bobby decided, as he parried these demands by explaining that as yet no one knew much to tell any one, and how had Mr Martin Weston Wynne heard so soon of what had happened? Martin retorted sharply that every one had heard of it. Why not? Was it to be kept secret? The news was all over the place. Twice he had been rung up to know if it was true. At his boardinghouse the milkman had told the servants, who had told all the guests, who had again all in succession told Martin.

  Bobby sighed. Only to be expected, of course. Talk about the mysterious way in which news spreads through savage lands. Nothing, nothing at all, to the way news spreads through the English countryside. Fortunately he had taken his precautions, and the flood of newspaper men—already he could hear the trampling of the feet of the coming multitude—would be at least held up for the time.

  “I understand,” Bobby went on to Martin, “you are a near relative?”

  “Not near exactly, though I believe I’m the nearest in England,” Martin answered. “There are other cousins in Australia. I don’t know much about them. I don’t think Mr Weston kept in touch at all.”

  Martin went on to explain that he himself had never seen much of the dead man. Mr Weston was very much the rich man of the family, and riches divide. There had never been any disagreements to speak of, merely a drifting apart natural between incomes in five figures and incomes in three—and not very high in the three-figure column either.

  Martin himself had managed to pay for much of his own education by winning various scholarships. Mr Weston, hearing of this, had given not ungenerous help.

  “I know it sounds ungrateful,” Martin went on, “but I think he looked on me as an investment, a promising investment. His idea was to train me to carry on the business. Only I didn’t see much fun in running the Weston West Mills. I upset him pretty badly once by talking about Blake’s satanic mills. Besides, I got interested in aero-dynamics.” Martin’s spare, lean face lighted up, so that for the moment it was almost as though he became a different man—“now, that is something for a chap to work at. I’ve ideas. Need time and money, though—lots of both.” His expression changed again. “Uncle Weston didn’t like it. I used to call him uncle though we are only cousins. He called me an ungrateful cub. I suppose perhaps it did look a bit like that. Anyhow, he got another chap in to train for the Weston West stakes—Jack Wilkie. I’m afraid that didn’t work either. I heard the other day that he had quit, too. So I haven’t seen much of Mr Weston for some years. I wrote once or twice, but he didn’t answer, so I dropped it. Then I got my present job—I’m with the Wych General Aircraft people, in their research department. The stratosphere. I wrote to uncle again to tell him, and he wasn’t too pleased. I heard he had made inquiries about my salary, and when he found it was only £400 a year he was rather disgusted and thought it a bit of a slur on the family. Some of the family would be jolly glad to have as much. Then aunt—Mrs Weston, you know: that’s what I always called her—died and left me a big block of shares in the Weston West Mills Company. That rather brought uncle and me together again. Uncle was upset about it, though. He didn’t at all like it. I mean, about the shares being left to me. I rather think he asked his solicitors if the will could be upset or the legacy cancelled somehow. No go, of course. Her property, and she could leave it where she liked. Besides, he got everything else.”

  “Was that what the quarrel was about last night?” Bobby asked. “You re
member? I heard you say something about knowing what you would do, wasn’t it?”

  “I thought you were coming to that,” Martin said gloomily. “I suppose it doesn’t look too good if you have a flaming row with a man who is found murdered next day. Uncle wanted to buy those shares, and I wasn’t parting. No reason why I should stick a knife into him because of that, though.”

  “Was that all?” Bobby asked, not quite seeing why a refusal to sell a block of shares—especially shares on which a dividend seemed a somewhat remote prospect—should engender so much heat. “Why did you say you would know what to do?”

  “Well, he was making all sorts of threats,” Martin answered slowly. “I don’t know how far he meant them, but I got rather mad. Of course, he has a good deal of influence. I daresay he is in with some of our bosses, though I don’t know. These big financial johnnies do rather hang together, you know, for fear of hanging separately, I suppose. Not that all that bothers us much on the science side. But I daresay he had thought up some scheme. He was always great on schemes.”

  “Are you sure there was nothing else?” Bobby asked, for he thought Martin was trying to evade giving a direct answer, that he was talking just a little too much, as if he had something he wished to hide beneath many words.

  And now he saw Martin give him that swift, fierce look that brought out so strongly his otherwise not very noticeable resemblance to his dead cousin.

  A young man of hidden strength of feeling, Bobby told himself again, of restrained passions of the force of which he himself might not be fully aware. Only what were they? Bobby wondered, and so far felt he had no answer. Martin was speaking again, slowly and carefully.

  “What do you mean? What else?” he asked. “What else should there be?”

  “Well, you see, that’s what I was wondering,” Bobby answered amiably, but did not press the point. Instead he asked: “Do you know a Mr Dan Edwardes?”

  “Mr Edwardes is one of the directors of the Weston West Company,” Martin answered, a little relieved, Bobby thought, at the change of subject. “I suppose he’s the man you mean. What about him?”

  “Did he and Mr Weston get on well together, do you know?”

  “Well, just recently,” Martin answered slowly, “Mr Edwardes has been taking more interest in the business. Before, he never bothered much. Only attended board meetings occasionally, and let uncle run the show his own way. Mr Edwardes has only two interests in life—cooking and Greek grammar. Bit of a mixture. If he shows in a London restaurant the whole place goes into a huddle to see he’s satisfied. Generally he isn’t. He is chairman of the kitchen committee of the Classic Club, and I believe their food makes the best French stuff look like coffee-stall provender. And he has written a pamphlet on the use of the past preterite—if I’ve got that right—in Greek drama, without which no scholar’s library is complete. I did hear uncle Weston didn’t half like it when he began to take an interest in the business, and I know he was a good deal upset over some of Mr Edwardes’s new ideas. I think you should ask him himself for details if you want them.”

  “I’m told Mr Weston described Mr Edwardes as having gone out of his mind—being crazy, in fact,” Bobby said. “Do you know anything about that?”

  Martin smiled.

  “Oh, that was only uncle’s little way,” he explained. “He always thought you were crazy if you disagreed with him. He called me crazy when I went in for aero-dynamics instead of business. I expect he called Wilkie crazy when he quit.”

  “You mentioned him before,” Bobby asked. “Who is he?”

  “Wilkie? Oh, he’s a cousin, too. Only on the other side. Aunt’s side. I knew him at Oxford. Clever chap. I don’t think he was very keen on the Weston West Mills either, but he took it on when I quit. I suppose he couldn’t stick it. I know he is out now, anyhow.”

  “Can you give me his address?”

  Martin shook his head.

  “We don’t keep in touch,” he said. “I expect he’ll turn up when he hears about this. Sure to.”

  “You don’t seem a very united family,” Bobby remarked.

  “As much as most, I suppose,” Martin answered, frowning a little, as if he did not much like this remark. “It’s not a very close connection anyhow. Rather distant cousins. That’s all. I told you. Wilkie’s on Aunt’s side. I don’t know what sort of relations that makes us. He and I never hit it off very well. We’re not interested in the same things, and we never saw very much of each other, even at Oxford. He called me a prig and I called him—other things. I don’t see why you want to know all this,” he concluded resentfully.

  “I have to know as much as possible about Mr Weston,” Bobby explained. “I work in the dark till I have some knowledge of his life, his background, his habits. For example, have you any knowledge of personal enemies?”

  “None likely to murder him,” Martin answered. “Why should they? He wasn’t popular, exactly, but you don’t murder people because you don’t happen to like them.”

  “Sometimes you do,” Bobby observed thoughtfully.

  “Oh, well,” Martin muttered. He said uneasily: “I can’t somehow realize it even now. Murder—well, it’s incredible.”

  “Yes. I know. So it is,” Bobby agreed. “Till it happens. Then it isn’t any longer. Has Mr Weston ever said anything to you about a will?”

  “Lord, no,” Martin answered. “He wouldn’t. If you are wondering if my name’s in it you may be pretty sure it isn’t. I should say very likely he never made one. He hated the idea of dying. Some people do. Wouldn’t think of it. Some people won’t. Odd, when we all know it’s the one thing that’s bound to happen. Now it has.”

  “If he died intestate,” Bobby remarked, “you would be one of the heirs?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose so,” Martin agreed. “Doesn’t take you long to think things up, does it?”

  “It’s what I’m here for,” Bobby said mildly.

  “Well, his solicitors will know,” Martin said. “I don’t. May have left it all to charity for all I can tell.”

  “Can you tell me anything about his personal habits?” Bobby asked next.

  “Nothing,” came the prompt answer. “I’ve been entirely out of touch with him for long enough. It’s only because of getting a job near here that I’ve seen anything of him lately.”

  “You came to dinner last night?”

  “He asked me. He wanted to talk about those shares I told you of. He wanted to buy, and I meant to hang on.”

  “Was there any special reason why you wouldn’t sell?” Bobby asked. “I believe they don’t pay any dividend—are they quoted on the Stock Exchange?”

  “Oh, yes, about a penny each, I believe—no, it’s more than that really, but not much more,” Martin answered. He hesitated, and then went on: “Aunt asked me not to part. She left me a letter saying so. She thought it would be a check on uncle’s doing quite what he wanted to. You see, they are ordinary shares, and carry voting power. That’s all. Not much check, I’m afraid. But that was her idea.”

  “Couldn’t you explain further?” Bobby asked. “I don’t quite follow. Why did Mrs Weston wish a check on her husband? That number of shares wouldn’t give control, would they?”

  Martin gave Bobby another of those glances of deep, smouldering wrath that seemed to tell so plainly of strong passions held strongly in reserve.

  “I don’t see why you want to dig all this up,” he said. “I don’t see what it has to do with you. I suppose you could find out anyhow. It’s a long story. Aunt got bitten one time with the Hitler bug. Thought it was wonderful how he cured unemployment, and why couldn’t some one do the same here? So she tacked on to the Blackshirt crew, but of course, no decent-minded person could stand that lot for long. But she still worried a lot about unemployment. There was plenty of it round about here. Uncle told her it was part of the order of things. Good times, bad times, and one had to be balanced against the other. Sometimes a man made money and sometimes he lost it. Sometimes
a man had a job and sometimes he hadn’t. We all had to take it as it came, rich and poor alike. Aunt still thought it was worse for a man to go hungry than for a man to have to give up a Rolls-Royce for an Austin Seven. Then she got bitten with one of these new political fads. Some one she knew there told her about some new political movement—Common Good or Common Wealth or something. I don’t know anything about it myself. Politics are mostly bunk. Anyhow, just before her death she sent a book about it to old Dan Edwardes, and he fell for it rather heavily.”

  “Was it a book called ‘What It Will Be Like’?” Bobby asked.

  “Oh, you’re on that, too, are you?” Martin asked, frowning. “Know it all, don’t you?”

  “No,” said Bobby. “There’s a copy, though, in the study. Apparently Mr Edwardes sent it to Mr Weston.”

  “Oh, did he, though?” exclaimed Martin, surprised. “I expect that’s what uncle meant when he called Edwardes crazy. I daresay the book is crazy, for that matter. I don’t know. But I doubt if uncle would be impressed.”

  “He wasn’t,” Bobby agreed. “Not if the marginal comments in it are his. Do you think Mr Edwardes wanted to put the ideas in the book, whatever they are, into practice?”

  “That’s about it.”

  “But surely he couldn’t without Mr Weston’s full consent?”

  “Well, you see,” Martin explained, though with some hesitation, “that’s where my block of shares comes in. The total ordinary share capital is £50,000 in one-pound shares. And it is only the ordinary shares that have voting powers. Uncle held twenty thousand. Old Dan Edwardes holds the same. Now I have five thousand. The odd five thousand are held in small lots by various people. That means, you see, that Mr Edwardes and I hold exactly half the votes. To balance us, if we came in together—I don’t know that that’ll happen: I shall have to know more about it—but if we did uncle would have had to get control of every single other share outstanding to stop us. Impossible, of course.”