The Dusky Hour (19 page)

F
INAL
D
EDUCTION
.

Complete mix-up of a case.

He had just written these last words when a welcome summons to dinner floated up the stairs. He put down his pen, called a willing response, when suddenly a small, indeed a tiny, detail, on record indeed but that for the moment he had entirely forgotten, flashed into his mind.

“Couldn't mean anything, though,” he told himself aloud.

“Dinner's ready, Mr. Owen” – his landlady's voice came up the stairs again.

Deciding to make a note later on of what he had just remembered, he descended to the kitchen, whence came a welcome smell of roast pork and apple sauce.

He found his host there, that moment returned from the police headquarters where he was engaged on clerical work.

“Bit of news just come in,” he told Bobby. “I was to pass it on to you. The bullets found in the Sevens grounds known to have been fired by young Mr. Moffatt out of the old gent's pistol are the same as what killed this Bennett bloke.”

“The same type, fired from the same pistol?” Bobby asked.

“That's right,” agreed the other, who was no logical positivist and expected what he meant to be understood rather than what he said. “Means the bloke was done in with Mr. Moffatt's pistol.”

“Have some more gravy, Mr. Owen?” suggested his hostess, for, if men must work, women must cook.

Bobby accepted the gravy with gratitude.

“Not much good,” he said, but certainly not meaning the gravy. “Mr. Moffatt kept the thing in an open drawer practically anyone could get at, and there's nothing to show when it was taken or when it was last seen.”

“That's right,” agreed the other again. “They was saying that at H.Q. Every one of the whole lot, even Thoms, Mr. Hayes's chauffeur. He's been at Sevens with messages from his boss and been kept waiting there. He could easily have pinched it.”

Bobby wondered vaguely if the second pistol reported at Way Side by one of the maids, and deftly explained away by Hayes as an electric torch made to resemble an automatic, might by any possibility be the lost Moffatt pistol. Nothing to prove it was, of course, or that Hayes's explanation, so oddly offered before it was asked, was not perfectly correct.

Bobby sighed. All conjecture. All speculation. All random guesswork. Hardly a proved fact of which you could say, Because that was, therefore this is. All of it together amounted to no more, he told himself gloomily, than confused noises in the head.

He applied himself to the roast pork; that at least was solid, firm, factual, admitting of no dual and contradictory explanation.

Later, as instructed, he took himself off to county headquarters and there presented his report to Colonel Warden, who read it, if not exactly with nods and becks and wreathed smiles, at any rate with a good many grunts.

“Very complete statement,” he said finally. “The truth's there all right, only where? The murderer's there for certain, only which?”

Bobby was just about to mention that one little detail which had flashed so suddenly into his mind, whereof he had quite forgotten to jot down the note he had intended, when a constable appeared.

“A lady to see you, sir,” he said. “She says her name is O'Brien and she can tell you all about the Bennett case.”

There was a moment's pause. The constable was excited. Bobby's face was blank. The colonel whistled softly.

“Glad to hear it,” he said, and then: “Well, fetch her along.”

Mrs. O'Brien appeared. She looked flushed, and spoke a little breathlessly. Plainly she was feeling the strain. The colonel very sensibly let her talk for a time, explaining herself and her errand. Both Bobby and he watched her intently. She was a big woman, loud in manner, in appearance, in dress, and Bobby remembered how Ena Moffatt had smiled at the idea of this huge woman with the spreading face and features adopting one of the new, flat, pancake-like hats that were at the moment fashion's latest vagary. He had a vision of her employer laughing at it and her, and of her snatching it off and throwing it down in her rage He wondered whether now it would pass into the possession at Way Side of the cook or of the maid. Though it was a chilly morning, Mrs. O'Brien's excitement was making her perspire a little, with disastrous results to the somewhat heavy make-up of powder and rouge she wore. The colonel took his opportunity when at last she paused for breath.

“We quite understand that, Mrs. O'Brien,” he said. So far Mrs O'Brien had been explaining why she had not come forward before and how her sense of duty was now forcing her to tell all she knew, and never in all her life had she dreamed she would ever have anything to do with the police, but all must do what was right, and, after the way she had been treated, no one could expect her not to. “We fully appreciate your motives,” the colonel continued, “and I am sure no blame will be attributed to you. I understand you knew the dead man?”

“Well, seeing we were married –”

“Married?” interrupted the colonel, surprised. “Your husband?”

“Divorced,” explained Mrs. O'Brien.

“Oh,” said the colonel.

“It was me was the wronged party,” emphasised Mrs. O'Brien. “Mental cruelty – the little squirt!”

“Dear me,” said the colonel, slightly at a loss.

“But wanted me back,” Mrs. O'Brien continued. “Made all sorts of promises, if only we could come together again. Said he had never known a happy hour since we parted.”

“Had you any intention of agreeing?” the colonel asked.

“Might have,” she answered cautiously. “I didn't say ‘yes' and I didn't say ‘no.' Johnny – that's Mr. Hayes – was scared it was going to be ‘yes.' Jealous, you know. That's why he did him in.”

The colonel sat upright.

“You mean Mr. Hayes shot Bennett?”

“That's right,” she answered calmly. “Plain enough, and not the first either, if all tales are true. Johnny's a thug, a killer; no heart; doesn't care for anything except his own precious skin. The things I've put up with from that man and then to treat me the way he did. Oh, it was him did Nick in all right.”

“We shall have to ask you to make a formal statement,” the colonel told her.

He gave her a brief lecture on the seriousness of what she said, and reminded her she would have to give evidence in court. She looked sulky and a little frightened, but stuck to her tale. A shorthand writer was called in. Her story was to the effect that she had first met Bennett in New York, where she had been proprietor of a large, flourishing, and important restaurant. On Broadway, she said somewhat hurriedly when asked for the address; but she had forgotten the exact number, even the exact position. It had closed down after she sold it, unable to survive the loss of her personality, and she had never got a penny of the purchase price. Mr. Bennett had been a customer. He was then a “drummer” – she used the old-fashioned word now generally replaced by “travelling representative” – in hardware. He made a lot of money speculating, but he hadn't treated her right – there was Another Woman, a hussy – and finally, though he had gone down on his bended knees to stop her, she had obtained a divorce. Afterwards she had obtained a position as housekeeper with Mr. Hayes and had returned to England with him. But she had held Mr. Hayes at arm's length in spite of his persistent advances, she having always kept herself respectable, as none could deny, and, when he heard that Mr. Bennett wanted her to come back, his frantic jealousy had overcome him, with the tragical result they knew.

Here her emotion overcame her and she shed a few tears. Then she produced documents which showed she had in fact been married in Denver, Colorado, to a Nicholas Bennett, and, less clearly, that she had been divorced from him on grounds of desertion and mental cruelty in Mexico a few years later. They might think it strange she had considered returning to Mr. Bennett after the way he had treated her, especially with Johnny Hayes going down on his bended knees like he was, but a woman, she explained, never quite forgot her feelings for her first love. There was something about a first love... 

The colonel said somewhat hastily that he quite understood that, and what had actually happened? What had Mrs. O'Brien seen to make her sure Hayes shot Bennett?

Mrs. O'Brien said it was impossible for any man to appreciate her position. There she was, torn between the two men, each of them on bended knees, so to say. Colonel Warden and the other gentleman would understand...

The colonel said they did indeed understand, and what actually happened. Jealousy was one thing, he reminded her. Murder was another.

“It was this way,” said Mrs. O'Brien. “Nick put it straight. He couldn't bear the suspense any longer. He had got to see me and I must decide. Very masterful and determined. I didn't dare ask him to the house for fear of what might be if he and Johnny Hayes met. So I told him to wait for me in Battling Copse. I told him how to get there, and I met him, and he pleaded so hard I promised to come back. Transported with joy he was, poor fellow. Only I said I must tell Mr. Hayes first, me being straight with all as always, and pack up and leave, and when Nick had it all arranged for us to marry over again then he could come and see me, but not before, it not being proper.”

“Not being?” said the colonel, a trifle puzzled, and then: “Oh, yes, of course,” he said, realising she meant him to understand how careful she was to observe all the proprieties.

“Somehow,” she went on, “Johnny Hayes got to know. Cunning he is, a weasel if ever there was one, a stoat, a fox,” said Mrs. O'Brien, and there apparently her zoological knowledge ran out, for she paused and continued inadequately: “Low minded, too, and when I was going back to the house I saw him and I knew something was up, for he glared something awful and never said a word. He was going towards the copse, and I hoped he wouldn't see Nick, as I wanted to tell him myself, and then I heard a bang. I didn't think much about it at the time, but now I know it was a pistol shot.”

“A pistol shot?” Bobby asked, looking up. “Are you sure? Was it clear and distinct?”

“It was,” she answered, “crack – just like a whip, only much louder. It did just cross my mind someone was shooting rabbits or something. I didn't think about it any more. I dare say I was a little upset, along of the momentous decision I had just made.”

“What time was this?” the colonel asked.

“At four o'clock, because I looked at my watch,” she answered, and Bobby, glancing at the wrist-watch she wore, saw that it was a small, expensive-looking thing – and saw also that at the moment it was not going. “And then I turned to look, and I saw as plain as I ever saw anything Johnny Hayes running out of the copse with his hat before his face and I thought Nick must have lammed him one and made his nose bleed. Never did it cross my mind that my poor Nick, who wanted me back so bad –”

She paused to wipe her eyes, but soon conquered her emotion and continued:

“When I told Johnny I was going to leave him you wouldn't believe how he carried on, the great bully. Couldn't bear to think of having done what he had all for nothing, and tried to scare me into stopping. I wasn't having any. I just packed and went, little dreaming my poor Nick –”

Again her emotion overcame her, but once again it was soon conquered. She was informed that her evidence would be required at the adjourned inquest, and Bobby asked casually:

“Have you lost a lipstick case recently?”

She turned and stared at him, and it was a moment or two before she answered. Then she said slowly:

“I have not. You can look if you like. I've only two. They're both in my bag.” She named the make. “It's what I always use,” she said, “some preferring one and some another.”

She signed the statement she had made, gave her address – she was staying with friends at Uxbridge, she explained – and then to Bobby was assigned the task of providing her with tea and of seeing her to the station to catch the next London train. By good luck there was one nearly due, a fact for which Bobby was profoundly thankful.

Returning from this duty, Bobby was told that the colonel wanted him again. He reported accordingly and found the colonel looking very worried.

“Whole thing in the melting-pot,” he sighed. “I felt sure Thoms was our man after hearing what happened at the Cut and Come Again, and now there's this.”

“There are points in Mrs. O'Brien's statement defending counsel would jump on at once,” Bobby remarked doubtfully.

“Anyhow, there is no doubt Bennett was really her divorced husband. Her story would explain what he was doing down here,” the colonel pointed out.

“Yes, sir, but not why he was taking enough interest in Sevens to watch it through field-glasses.”

“Her statement stands up where we can check it,” the colonel went on. “There's corroboration that a man was seen leaving the copse with a hat held before his face.”

“Yes, there's that,” agreed Bobby, “but she may have picked up her knowledge afterwards. It's common gossip round here, told over and over again at the Red Lion, I expect. I think, too, gossip she had heard might explain the way she took it when she was asked about having lost a lipstick. She seemed a little startled but not surprised, I thought. Also she said she heard one report; sharp, clear, and distinct, like the crack of a whip. The other evidence is that there were two or three reports in quick succession. I noticed her watch wasn't going this afternoon, though of course that doesn't prove it wasn't then, and I don't think anyone returning to Way Side from the copse could see the spot the other witness says the man he saw left it from.”

“If she's inventing the yarn, what for?” the colonel asked.

“It might be spite, to get even with Hayes after their quarrel. Or it's just possible she's heard that a wife can't be forced to give evidence against a husband and means to point that out to Hayes. Or it is even possible, if she's in with Hayes again, and Hayes is really the man we want, he may have put her up to telling this yarn in the hope you will act on unreliable evidence and he'll get an acquittal.”