Suspects—Nine (35 page)

“Serve him right,” interposed Vicky. “Do him good—do most men good,” she added thoughtfully.

“It was through Martin's questionings and hints that Tamar, who had suspicions already, got to know about the Weeton Hill tryst,” Bobby added.

“Is that why he wrote himself that anonymous letter?” Vicky asked.

“Yes. He knew his movements would be looked into and he wanted to suggest a reason why some one else should have been there—he hoped the hundred pounds would be taken as the murder motive. I expect, too, there was the old idea of escaping notice by becoming conspicuous, and that again was, probably, behind the idea of pretending he believed he was the next threatened and applying for police protection—perhaps, too, in the hope of getting to know what was going on. Not very bright, but he was successful in business and so he thought he could be just as successful in everything else. But he forgot in business he had the force of his capital behind him and there are still a few things left where capital— money—doesn't count for such an awful lot as it does in the city.” 

“It's so hard to believe,” Olive said after a brief pause, “that any man could do such things.”

“There's a primitive savage brute in every man, if you ask me,” pronounced Vicky. “It's rather disgusting and frightening, somehow, but I'm not sure it isn't rather nice, too.”

“Vicky,” said Olive, scandalized, “how can you say such things?”

“Well, it's true,” Vicky defended herself. “You wouldn't care for Mr. Owen half as much if you didn't know that for all his looking and acting and talking as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth he's just the primeval brute underneath and hard as—as the nether millstone,” said Vicky, rather proud of this simile. Then she added, meditatively, “We like our cats to purr by the fire but we want them to be good mousers, too.”

“Oh,” gasped Olive, completely overcome. “Oh. Oh.” Bobby thought it was time to interpose. He didn't like being called a primeval brute, he hated being spoken of as purring by the fire, he deeply resented being described as a good mouser, but, also he felt that on the whole, it was better not to discuss the subject further. He did permit himself to say, bitterly,

“Talking of cats, you've got claws, anyhow, Mademoiselle Valclos.”

“Now I've made him cross,” said Vicky complacently.

Bobby ignored the senseless interruption. He went on, “It wasn't that with Michael Tamar at all, he wasn't a what-d'ye-call-it savage. What he had was the successful business man's highly developed sense of property. It's very strong in some people, you can see people in trams and 'buses who hate it if they think any one is reading the headlines over their shoulder. It's their news, their property, something they've paid for and no one else is going to share it. Tamar had that feeling in a very high degree. He showed it the very first time I saw him, though I didn't realize it then.”

“Will Mr. Patterson have to give evidence?” asked Olive, slightly recovered by now, but still throwing dark glances at Vicky, who was too obviously feeling pleased with herself.

“I don't know, I hardly think so,” Bobby answered. “I imagine the case is complete without him and they are sure to say as little about all that business as they can. The courts don't bring out any more dirt than is absolutely necessary.”

“Ernie Maddox was here this afternoon,” Olive said, “She's in a dreadful state.”

“Nervous breakdown on the way,” said Vicky. “You can see it coming and I do think it's a shame. He oughtn't to be let.”

“Who?” asked Bobby, not understanding this last sentence.

But Vicky only sniffed, expressed her opinion that the brute in the male sex was equally compounded of the mule, the donkey, and the ass, the mixture somehow culminating in general pig-headedness, and then delivered it as her considered opinion that the world would get on much better without them, or, at any rate, if selected specimens were just kept in cages and only let out at intervals for necessary purposes; and so, having made this clear, departed in a general whirl of indignation and protest.

“She's being horrid because she's so upset,” Olive explained, trying to make excuses. “About poor little Ernie Maddox.”

“I don't expect she will be called—” began Bobby, but Olive waved that aside.

“It's not that, at all,” she said impatiently. “Judy's going to Kenya, he's bought his steamer ticket.” 

“Has he, though?” asked Bobby, a gleam of hope in his eye.

“I think he would have gone already,” Olive added, “only he has an appointment to-morrow.”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Bobby, that gleam of hope dying swiftly away, “Yes, I heard about that.”

“Only what makes it worse,” Olive continued, “is that he has written to Ernie to say good-bye.”

“Written?”

“Yes. I do think that's mean. So does Vicky. So—so cowardly.”

“Why?”

“Shows he daren't face her, doesn't it?” demanded Olive. “He daren't say it outright to her himself, so he is mean enough to do it in a letter.”

“I see,” said Bobby.

“What makes it even still worse,” continued Olive, “is that he says he is sure she'll be happy with some one else. Ernie's awfully hurt about that. Any one would be.”

“I expect,” said Bobby, “with his record he feels—”

“What Ernie feels doesn't matter a scrap, I suppose?” interrupted Olive with extreme indignation, “Just like a man. They never care a scrap about any one else's feelings, just their own, that's all they think matters. I can't imagine,” said Olive, meditatively, “why I ever got engaged to a man.”

“Well, you are,” Bobby pointed out, comfortably, “and I'm sure Judy thinks he is being very unselfish.”

“There is nothing more absolutely beastly selfish,” pronounced Olive, “than being unselfish all to yourself.” Bobby meditated on this aphorism. Olive continued: “He knows perfectly well he'll be miserable and so will she, and he'll take to drink, most likely, and she'll go into a convent or something, and it'll serve them both jolly well right, and I don't care a scrap,” and with that Olive fairly flounced out of the room, and Bobby had an uncomfortable feeling that she had gone upstairs to cry, which made him feel very queer inside, and decide, also, that girls are a queer lot, only so is everything else, and the more you know, the queerer it all seems.

However, there was something else he had to say and when Olive came down again, all ravages, if any, carefully repaired, he remarked, hesitatingly,

“Oh, by the way, I'm afraid I shan't be round to-morrow night. We shall have to put that off.”

“Duty?” asked Olive.

“Well—er—in a way,” said Bobby, “not exactly, perhaps, arising, out of, as they say.”

Much to Bobby's relief, Olive did not seem at all curious; though there was a far-away look in her eyes that he remembered afterwards and knew should have made him cautious. But, at the time, he was too relieved to get away without further questioning to do more than add on the doorstep,

“You know, I don't think I feel quite up to the mark. It's just possible, I'm not sure, but I may have to put in for a few days' sick leave.”

“After to-morrow evening?” asked Olive, casually. Bobby gave her a suspicious glance but decided that the question was as innocent as Olive looked.

“All depends,” he said, “how I feel.”

“You do look rather peaked,” Olive admitted.

“Been kept at it,” said Bobby. “Not much time off for any one when there's a case like this and all sorts of loose ends to be tidied up.”

“You want a holiday,” agreed Olive. “After to-morrow, perhaps. Ernie,” she added, “says Judy's looking awfully fit. He's been getting ready—for Kenya, she says—by going to some keep-fit place—the First Metro B. C. Gym, she called it.”

“Trying,” observed Bobby gloomily, “to get back into form.”

“For Kenya?” Olive persisted.

“Oh, for anything that comes along,” explained Bobby, and departed, very pleased to think Olive was so free from that curiosity supposed to be characteristic of all the daughters of Eve, and had seemed so satisfied with the simple explanations offered her.

It was just about half-past seven next evening when he presented himself at the First Metro Boxing Club Gym, and if he did feel much as the sacrificial lamb may be supposed to feel as it is conducted to the altar, none the less he was fully determined to do his best so long as he could stand. Not too good, though, that he should be so distinctly below par. Extra work, prolonged often to all hours, is not exactly the best form of training and Judy, apparently, had been, very naturally, making careful preparations. Anyhow, before being knocked out, if that was to be his fate, he would do his best to hand Judy something to remember and, after all, this was a world in which you had to take your luck as it came—and it came at that moment in an unconcerned:

“Oh, there you are at last.”

“Olive,” he gasped.

“Judy,” she told him, “has been here hours—well, twenty minutes at least. To get warmed up, he said. It's happening. The warming up, I mean. He's with some one who'll do that for him all right, at least, I hope so.”

Bobby was too dazed to pay much attention to these cryptic remarks. He said feebly,

“But look here—”

Olive paid no attention. She held him by the arm and led him into the vestibule of the Club. She seemed to be expected there. She said, “Where's Mr. Patterson?”

This question appeared to amuse every one. They all grinned but no one offered any other answer. They seemed to think grins were enough.

“But—” began Bobby.

“Be quiet,” said Olive severely.

A door opened. Judy appeared. He looked exceedingly sheepish. Ernie Maddox was by his side. She looked slightly dishevelled, especially about the hair. With one hand she was trying to put it straight, but not very successfully. With the other hand she had Judy by the arm, exactly as Bobby, in his uniform days, had been accustomed on occasion to conduct certain citizens to a not-too-welcoming police station. Olive took hold of his own arm in a somewhat similar manner. He found himself being gently but irresistibly impelled forward.

“Hullo,” said Judy.

“Hullo,” said Bobby.

Ernie said to Olive,

“Aren't they two idiots?”

“Impossible to say,” admitted Olive, “which is the bigger.”

“I've got his steamer ticket,” Ernie said. “I'm getting the money back to-morrow.”

“Pay for our dinner to-night,” said Olive.

“Yes, I thought that,” agreed Ernie.

“Look here—” began Judy.

“Hush,” said Ernie.

“What dinner?” asked Bobby.

“The dinner,” explained Olive, “to celebrate Mr. Judy Patterson's engagement to Miss Ernie Maddox.”

“Took me,” explained Judy, apologetically, “all unawares. I came along,” he assured Bobby, earnestly, “thinking of nothing but pounding you into a jelly; and there she was waiting, and before I knew it—”

“I know,” said Bobby.

“Hadn't a chance,” Judy assured him, earnestly. “I hope you don't mind—I mean, about our not having our do.”

“Not the least little bit in the world,” Bobby declared, still more earnestly.

“I expect,” said Judy, “it's what people call being managed?”

“I expect it is,” agreed Bobby, and they both looked very grave and thoughtful.

THE END

E.R. Punshon was born in London in 1872.

At the age of fourteen he started life in an office. His employers soon informed him that he would never make a really satisfactory clerk, and he, agreeing, spent the next few years wandering about Canada and the United States, endeavouring without great success to earn a living in any occupation that offered. Returning home by way of working a passage on a cattle boat, he began to write. He contributed to many magazines and periodicals, wrote plays, and published nearly fifty novels, among which his detective stories proved the most popular and enduring.

He died in 1956.

Information Received

Death Among the Sunbathers

Crossword Mystery

Mystery Villa

Death of a Beauty Queen

Death Comes to Cambers

The Bath Mysteries

Mystery of Mr. Jessop

The Dusky Hour

Dictator's Way

Comes a Stranger

Murder Abroad

Four Strange Women

Ten Star Clues

Dark Garden

Diabolic Candelabra

The Conqueror Inn

Night's Cloak

Secrets Can't Be Kept

Perhaps the victim had not been unconscious but had known her fate, had sent upwards from the black pit a cry that none but murderers had heard.

Bobby takes the rare opportunity for a holiday – albeit a working one. Accompanied by his fiancée Olive, he sets off to France, charged with finding out what happened to Miss Polthwaite's diamonds – and why her dead body was discovered at the bottom of a well. The local police have a ready-made suspect, it appears, but Bobby soon forms theories of his own regarding what happened to the unfortunate spinster.

Murder Abroad
, originally published in 1939, is the thirteenth novel in the Bobby Owen mystery series. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“What is distinction? The few who achieve it step – plot or no plot – unquestioned into the first rank… in the works of Mr. E.R. Punshon we salute it every time.”
Dorothy L. Sayers

“Bobby,” said Olive Farrar, a trifle nervously, “do you think you could ask for a month's holiday?”