The Dusky Hour (27 page)

All the same, Noll was not much inclined to worry about his “stills.” As easy to resist them, he thought, as to resist Mr. Jack Dempsey's straight left. Alas! how little did he foresee that day when, on finding those “stills” upon his desk, where, after incredible adventures, they duly arrived, the chairman was to sweep them impatiently into the waste-paper basket without so much as giving them a single glance. But that was of the future, and to-day, still radiant in hope, Noll Moffatt greeted Bobby cheerily enough.

“Look here, though,” he said, “what's all this about Ena? The kid's so cocky these days there's no holding her. What's up?”

Bobby said untruthfully that he didn't know.

“Haven't found the dad's automatic yet, have you?” inquired Noll.

“No. I wish we could,” Bobby answered. “You remember, when you saw the body, you told us it was a perfect stranger – someone you had never seen before?”

Noll looked less cheerful. He left his beloved “stills,” and his expression grew, Bobby thought, both sulky and uneasy.

“I said I didn't recognise him, and I didn't,” he answered. He shuddered slightly. It had been the first time he had seen death, and, to the young, death still seems a stranger and an enemy, as indeed to the young death is, since to them death bears the threat of unfulfilment. “I didn't look too close,” he mumbled.

“I have a photograph of the body here, if you would like to look at it again,” Bobby said.

But the boy didn't wish to. He gave it a glance and looked away.

“What for? Why should I?” he grumbled.

“In case you wish to correct your previous statement.”

“Look here,” demanded Noll violently, “what are you driving at?”

“From information received,” Bobby said gently, “we have reason to believe you were concerned in a quarrel that took place on the day of the murder at lunch-time at the Oakley Road House. It is also suggested that the other party to the quarrel was the murdered man, and that threats were uttered.”

“Oh, hell, you've dug that up,” young Moffatt muttered.

“Do you wish to say anything?” Bobby asked. “If you do, I should like it in writing. Probably you may want to see a lawyer first – or your father.”

“Oh, Lord, not dad,” Noll said. “He would go in off the deep end for keeps if he knew. Look here, I suppose you think I'm a blasted liar. I'm not. I didn't know him again at first. I hardly looked; made me feel queer somehow. Besides, he was all different. It was only afterwards I began to think who it was.” He paused. “It's gospel truth,” he said. “In bed that night, I saw his face much more plainly than I did in that beastly barn place.

Bobby was quite prepared to believe this. It is the fact that death often brings great changes. Even close relatives called to identify a body may fail to do so. It is as if, when life is left, life's troubles and complications are left, too, and what remains is a peace life has not often known.

“Do you mind telling me what your quarrel with Bennett was about?” Bobby asked.

“Yes, I do,” Noll answered defiantly. “Private. I did tell him he wanted his brains blown out, but of course I didn't mean it – at least, I mean I meant it all right, but not like that.”

The remark was hardly a model of clarity, but Bobby felt he understood well enough what the other wished to convey.

“Perhaps,” he observed, “the trouble was about the same thing that you and Mr. Hayes's chauffeur quarrelled over?”

Noll went very red, spluttered, hesitated, and finally burst out:

“Well, anyhow, look here, if you think it was me, I can jolly well prove I was nowhere near Battling Copse at four that afternoon.”

“You told us you saw no one all the time you were out, and you agreed you were in the neighbourhood? You said you meant to take photos, but didn't, and you wouldn't say what you were doing.”

“Yes, I know, but I did take one or two. Look at that,” Noll said, and, snatching up an unmounted photograph from a number lying about, he slammed it down before Bobby. “There,” he said triumphantly; “that's one.”

It showed a bull standing under a fine beech – a good photo and a clever composition. Bobby looked at it with interest.

“Jolly good,” he said doubtfully, “but I don't see where it comes in. It doesn't show you and it doesn't show when it was taken.”

Yes, it does,” retorted Noll. “I didn't know myself, but it does. Lucky for me, too. You ask old Dawson – it's his bull and his field. And the brute was only there that particular day and hour. You see, it's always the lower field they let it run in when it's not in its stall. But that afternoon they found a gap in the lower field hedge and the bull trying to get through. Well, you can't risk having a pedigree bull running loose, especially one that's a bit queer tempered, so they turned it into the beech-tree field while the gap was mended. And it hadn't been there ten minutes, and I had just happened to get that “still,” when some chap turned up with a cow he wanted served immediately. So old Dawson had the bull brought up to the home paddock. You'll find time and names and everything entered in his service book. Means a photo of that bull under that tree in that field could only have been taken on that one day, somewhere within a few minutes, one way or the other, of four o'clock in the afternoon.”

“Seems good enough,” Bobby agreed.

There was, of course, the detail that the photograph provided no proof in itself that it had actually been taken by Oliver Moffatt in person. But it should be easy to show that he had left home carrying his camera, that the photo came from a camera of the same type, and that no one else possessing either a similar camera or the ability to take such a picture was in the vicinity at the time. Bobby said:

“Do you mind if I take the photo? What you say will have to be checked up on, of course, but it sounds all right. I'm very glad,” he added with a friendly smile, “both for your sake and for our own. The more people we can rule out, the better. In these cases our motto has to be: ‘Every man's a suspect till he's proved innocent.' What we have to do is to rule out name after name till only one is left – if we can.”

“Yes, I see that,” Noll said, and hesitated, and looked uncomfortable. “Look here,” he said, as Bobby gravely waited. “I know it's rather a beastly thing to say, but have you ever thought of Reeves?”

“Your butler?” Bobby asked, surprised and startled. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, the fact is,” Noll said, “I hate sneaking, but I happened to find out. I didn't mean to say anything to anyone so long as the chap seemed running straight, but if it's murder – well, there you are. It makes things a bit different.”

“You mean,” Bobby asked, “you know that Reeves is an ex-convict?”

“Oh, Lord,” exclaimed Noll. “You knew all the time?”

“He gave himself away almost the first time I saw him,” Bobby answered. “Have you known long? Does Mr. Moffatt?”

“Oh, he doesn't know,” Noll answered. “Rather not. He'd have a fit. I've known about six months. I didn't mean to split unless I had to. After all, we're insured. I thought – well, you know, turning over a new leaf and all that. Of course, if you knew all the time, then I haven't split on him now, have I?”

“Certainly not,” agreed Bobby. “You know something else? Remember,” he added, as Noll still hesitated, “it is – murder.”

“Yes, it is, isn't it?” agreed Noll. “Well, look here. I do a bit of prowling round at night. I've an idea of my own for taking night snaps. If I can work it out, it may be a big thing. Well, last night I was experimenting a bit. And I saw Reeves. He was at Way Side by their side gate. He was talking to Hayes – I mean, not just talking. Pretty excited they both were. You could see that.”

“Did you hear what they were saying?”

“No. Didn't try. None of my business. But I thought it jolly queer. And I saw Reeves hand something over. Something bright and hard-looking. Well, we've all had that missing automatic pretty well rubbed in. Dad keeps thinking of new places every day where it might be. Well, I thought at once what Reeves passed over looked jolly like it. Mind you, I can't swear to it, but that's what I thought.”

“I see,” said Bobby, wondering if now at last they had been given a pointer to the truth. Odd that hitherto the ex-convict had seemed outside suspicion and now was brought abruptly into the centre of doubt. “Are you sure it was Reeves?” Bobby asked.

“Oh, rather.”

“And that it was Hayes?”

“Well, who else could it be? I couldn't see him plainly – at least, not his face. Most of him was in the shadow. But when they had finished he walked off back to the house, and it was someone in plus fours so it can't have been the chauffeur bloke. The light went on in Hayes's study, too, as soon as he got in.”

“I see,” said Bobby slowly. “I'm very glad you've told me. It may turn out important.”

Encouraged by this, Noll went on:

“Well, the moment I saw them I felt sure they were up to something together. Look here, you know Hayes takes photos?”

“Many people do,” Bobby observed.

“Yes, but Hayes is keen on it. Well, look here, there was a bit of film or wrapper or something found, wasn't there? You can't identify a thing like that, I suppose. But that means it was either Hayes or me was there. Because no one else would be likely to be taking snaps in Battling Copse at that time of day. Well, look here, I know it wasn't me, so it must have been him, mustn't it?”

“At any rate,” Bobby agreed, “it seems a sound piece of deductive reasoning.”

Bobby left Sevens feeling that Noll Moffatt's story of the nocturnal interview at Way Side raised new difficulties, new questions not easy to understand.

That the young man was telling the truth both when he said he had in fact failed to recognise Bennett's body, and when he protested that the quarrel at the Oakley Road House had no connection with the subsequent tragedy, Bobby was inclined to believe. But the story of an apparently secret and agitated nocturnal interview between Reeves and Hayes he did not see how to fit in with the provisional theory he had formed from the facts as he at present knew them. He still believed his theory was correct, but he knew well, of course, that the discovery of new facts at present unknown might prove it entirely mistaken.

His motor-cycle soon covered the distance to the Towers Poultry Farm he had decided was to be his next destination. As he dismounted by the entrance-gate he saw Henrietta come to the door of the cottage and stand there, tall and firm-footed, on the threshold, as though she would guard it against all comers.

“There is something she knows,” he told himself with one of those flashes of insight that occasionally visited him, “and what it is she will never tell.”

She stood there, motionless and gravely watching, as he leaned his cycle against the gate-post, and removed his gloves and goggles. He thought to himself:

“She was expecting someone – but not me.”

He walked up the garden path and greeted her. She acknowledged his presence and salute with a slight movement of her head, but she did not speak and made no movement to invite him within. Her eyes were watchful and alert, her attitude tense; she gave the impression of being prepared to do battle to the last, and Bobby's rare smile touched the corners of his mouth as he said:

“I wish you weren't so ready to regard me as an enemy, Miss Towers.”

A little disconcerted, she said:

“Why do you say that? I have only seen you once or twice. I suppose you have to do your duty.”

“Yes,” he agreed, more gravely, “and I think you feel that anything that threatens yours threatens you.”

“I don't know what you mean,” she said, but now she was plainly troubled.

“I suppose it's a woman's attitude,” Bobby mused. “Your hens will fight for their chickens, won't they?”

“Have you come to tell me that?” she asked.

“No, no,” he said; “musings by the way, so to speak. Trying to get on terms. There's one thing I wanted to ask, though. What have you done with the photographs that used to be in the frame next to the one of Mrs. Oulton?”

Calmly, steadily, she met his questioning gaze. For a full moment their eyes challenged each other. She said slowly:

“I don't know why you ask what seems an impertinent question. I do not propose to answer it.”

“Will you answer this, then?” he said, a little crossly now, for he was tired of this fencing. “Is the real name of Mr. Hayes's chauffeur, not Thoms, but Oulton, and is he your half-brother? And are the two photographs I asked about of him and of your stepfather?”

Henrietta was a little pale now – as pale, at least, as the tan of wind and weather on her cheeks permitted. But her voice was steady still, her eyes still calm, as she replied:

“I don't see why you should think so, and I have told you I do not propose to answer your questions.”

“Well, of course, that's for you to decide,” Bobby agreed. “But it won't stop us going on putting two and two together. Our job, you know. We add two and two together and see what it makes – generally comes out three or five and then we know there's a mistake somewhere. But now and again we get four for an answer, and then it looks correct. I think it does this time. The important thing is, does that four spell – murder?”

She made no answer, but stood, erect, unmoved, and still, so that he wondered a little at the force of her self-control. Yet he knew well how that last word had struck home. Upright she stood and waited, magnificently quiet. Bobby went on:

“I thought you might help me, but I can see you won't. Perhaps I can help you, though I can see you won't believe that. I don't think myself that two and two in this case makes – what I said. But I have to make sure. I would make sure though it meant my own life and that of everyone I know.”