So Many Doors, page 16
“Another little coincidence,” Bobby said to himself, and considered them thoughtfully, wondering how they distinguished themselves from each other.
One, he supposed, could be Polly and one keep to Mary, and perhaps the third could use a second name—if she had one. He thought it would be amusing to know, but this suggestion, when he made it to the station sergeant, was evidently regarded as most unbecomingly frivolous. Besides, the three young ladies had gone home. Their names and addresses were on record, of course, but they quite plainly knew nothing of any interest. When you have to jump into a hedge to save your life, remarked the sergeant, you have no time to note details. Oh, yes, they had been asked for their identity cards, but two of the young ladies had not got theirs with them. Few people, in fact, troubled to carry them on their persons in these days. The other young lady had mislaid hers. She had thought it was in her handbag, but it wasn’t there, and she supposed she must have left it at her home. In any case, there was surely no reason for troubling the young ladies any further in the matter?
Bobby accepted meekly enough the implied rebuke, and returned to the hotel for lunch, testing his borrowed motor-cycle on the way and assuring himself that it was a powerful machine and in good running order. One never knew. On such details life might depend—had sometimes depended in the past. It was still too early for lunch, so he selected a comfortable chair in the smoking-room and devoted himself to hard thought—with his eyes closed. Presently, feeling much refreshed, and lunch-time being still distant, he devoted himself to the study of a large-scale ordnance map of Cornwall till he began to feel as if he would be able to find his way in the dark all over the county.
A friendly ‘commercial’—he was a Mr Saggers—gave him some information about the state of the roads and about the trade conditions in the county. Concerning these, Mr Saggers was professionally pessimistic—the worse you can show conditions to be, the greater your credit if you can also show a well-filled order book. Mr Saggers modestly admitted that he himself hadn’t done so badly. China clay was booming, of course, but that was not a line in which Mr Saggers was much interested. No orders for him there. Tin? Mr Saggers was mildly amused by an innocence that imagined tin was still a living issue in the county. Cornish tin, said Mr Saggers, had been killed in Bolivia, buried in the Malay peninsula, and both killed and buried in Rhodesia. There was, of course, tin still in Cornwall, and probably plenty of it. More mines had been worked during the war; but sometimes at a heavy loss. But, then, war itself was a heavy loss—a total loss, indeed. Bobby agreed with this truism, and Mr Saggers said most of the reopened mines had been closed again. Now no one went near them from year’s end to year’s end. Just stood there with machinery rusting and buildings falling down. All marked on the big ordnance map, of course. As Mr Owen—was that the name?—could see for himself if he wanted to.
Bobby said, well, that might be one way of passing a day, and they both laughed a good deal at this, and Mr Saggers said he wasn’t nosey, but he did wonder, in an entirely disinterested way, if Bobby were on the look-out for scrap iron? Bobby looked impressed, and said Mr Saggers ought to have been a detective. Mr Saggers beamed, and said he had often felt he could give Scotland Yard a tip or two. Bobby said he thought that more than likely and, still beaming, and even more so, Mr Saggers said he didn’t think there was much in the scrap-iron idea. Rusting, and not enough to pay for collection and transport. But Bobby could see for himself. Bobby said perhaps he would, and so they parted on excellent terms, Bobby returning to the study of his ordnance map with even renewed interest.
CHAPTER XX
“THAT OLD DEVIL?”
Later on, after lunch, Bobby again went round to the local police, where he spent a good deal of time acquiring local knowledge, finding out all he could about tin-mines in the neighbourhood—Redruth is, of course, the centre, or rather former centre, of the nearly dead Cornish mining industry—and conducting various telephone conversations. Getting through to London, he asked that the names and addresses given by the three girl hikers—the three Marys, as he called them to himself—might be checked. Also he asked for renewed requests to be made to the heads of the various Cornish county and borough police for observation to be kept as far as practicable on the various persons concerned in what had been called the ‘Cornish Exodus’. In this, however, the difficulty had to be faced that there was no certain knowledge that any crime had in fact been committed. All that could be considered clearly established was that a girl and a man had run away together and that neither of them had since been heard of. Vague suspicions certainly that somewhere or another in the story a killing had occurred. And now a tale of a load of stolen cigarettes over which it seemed a gang feud might be developing—developing, perhaps, as gang feuds do at times, into another killing. And had that earlier killing—if killing there had really been—had that also been a gangster feud, in no way connected with, or resulting from, the elopement?
Bobby did not think so. The gang-feud theory left too much unaccounted for. But the Cornish police, like all other police forces all over the country, were over-worked, under-manned, and not too anxious to go hunting what, it seemed to them, was very likely to turn out a mare’s nest. Too much guess-work—‘deduction’ was the polite word—about it all, or so it seemed to them.
“Precious little to get our teeth into,” said one police chief, and that was what most of them thought.
Bobby would not admit for a moment that there was much guess-work about it. But, then, he had seen what he had seen at Bexley House, and always there is the widest of gaps between what you see yourself and what you are told by others. What the soldier saw is no more evidence than what he said. Bobby was, however, assured that of course everything possible would be done. That—equally of course—meant, he knew, that everything would be done according to routine, and that he had entirely failed to impress on others the driving sense of urgency, as of fresh, impending tragedy, that drove him onwards, though with so little knowledge either of the destination to aim at or of the road to follow.
He returned to his hotel, and there he noticed that he was becoming an object of interest not only to others of the guests, but also to the management. Clearly he was not a tourist, for Redruth is hardly a tourist centre; he was equally clearly not a ‘commercial’. So what was he? An opinion on the point had, however, evidently now been arrived at, for presently the hotel manager made an excuse to talk to him, and then asked him outright if he were not connected with the police?
“Mr Saggers,” explained the manager, “saw a policeman saluting you, and it made him think.”
Bobby remembered the incident, though he had had no idea that it had been witnessed by his new friend, Mr Saggers. He had been slightly annoyed at the time, though he supposed the policeman could hardly be blamed. Probably he had seen Bobby at the police station, had heard of the borrowed motorcycle, and had realized that only to some one of importance would such a favour be granted.
Not that it mattered much, and Bobby agreed that he was on official business, but he didn’t want it talked about. The manager said he wouldn’t dream of mentioning it to any one. He hoped it wasn’t connected with any of his staff. One had to take any one one could get. Only the day before they had engaged a girl who said she was a private secretary waiting to take up a new job with a Redruth firm and obliged to take temporary work to carry her over the interval. She had been given work in the kitchen, as she disliked the idea of the dining-room or the bar.
“Didn’t want to be recognized by any of the people she may be working with when she gets going,” the manager explained. “And already smashed as much crockery as she’s worth. That’s staff these days,” he added gloomily.
Bobby sympathized. His business wasn’t concerned with hotel staff, he said, and the manager said he hoped anyhow it wasn’t anything to do with the black market either. His guests were regulars, responsible people employed by well-known firms. All the same, things being what they were, you couldn’t be sure of anything or any one.
Bobby was inclined to think all this was a sign of an uneasy conscience. Not all hotel-keepers can resist an offer of extra butter or cooking-fat on the quiet, a load of chickens at a little above controlled price, or a few cigarettes to be disposed of in the bar—a magnet, that, to attract new customers from far and wide. However, he thought it as well to try to put the manager’s mind at ease by saying that, so far as he knew, black market came into what he was dealing with no more than it came into at least three-quarters of present-day police work. Of course, one never knew. Black-market activities might at any moment prove to be at the root of almost anything. What he was more especially concerned with at present was the Mr Mark Monk who had paid for a room he had never occupied. His suit-case was still there, wasn’t it? What about letting Bobby have a look at it. He would, he said reassuringly, take all responsibility if Mr Monk appeared and made any complaint. Bobby added that he didn’t think that was very likely to happen. Of course, one never knew. But the matter might prove to be serious, though there, again, one never knew.
After some protestations and doubts and hesitations—for if you are going to give consent, you might as well make it as big a favour as you can—the manager agreed. He produced the suit-case. It bore the initials ‘M. M.’ Bobby’s police training—entirely unofficial and ‘off the record’ in this respect—had included a course on how to open locks ‘without trace’. Though for this very ordinary suit-case lock no special skill was required. One of Bobby’s own keys opened it without any trouble. The result was disappointing—or enlightening, whichever way you chose to look at it. The contents consisted solely of such articles of toilet and attire as any man would be likely to take with him on a brief holiday. There was a wallet with some money in it and one or two letters and bills, but that was all.
“Enough to show it really is Mr Monk’s,” Bobby remarked, and the manager looked surprised, and asked had Bobby thought it belonged to some one else.
Bobby repeated the platitude that ‘one never knew’. He replaced everything as he had found it, and told the manager that the local police must be informed immediately if the suitcase were claimed. Nothing else, Bobby decided, he could do for the time, so he went out for a sharp walk to get up an appetite for dinner. He got as far as St. Day, turned and came back, deciding that an industrial town in the extreme south of the country was very like an industrial town in the extreme north, and returned to the hotel, where he was informed that a lady was waiting to see him.
He expected Maggie Kerr, he thought it might be Vea Burden, but found instead Grace Williams, looking pale and agitated. Bobby greeted her pleasantly and suggested a drink—a suggestion she did not even seem to notice.
“Vea’s here,” she said. “Did you know?”
“Every one seems to be here,” Bobby answered cheerfully. “Including you and me. I wonder why. Any idea? You, for example.”
“It’s Vea,” Grace repeated, her large, pale face strained with anxiety—or fear. “She thinks she’s going to die. She says she won’t. She puts all her will to living, but she knows, all the same. It makes her so she doesn’t care.”
“Doesn’t care what?”
“What happens. She scares me stiff. It’s like talking to some one already gone, so what does it matter? Why should she care?”
“I should have thought it would have made her care a lot more,” Bobby remarked.
“All she wants is to have Mark back while there is still time. I don’t think she used to feel the same way, but now she knows: she wants him with all she has, before—”
“Before what?” Bobby asked. But Grace did not reply, nor was it necessary, for both she and Bobby knew well the answer.
Abruptly and surprisingly, she said:
“Was it him?”
“Why do you ask?” Bobby said, watching her closely.
“I’m not a fool,” she retorted angrily. “Everyone knows you think something happened that night at Bexley House. That’s why you’re here. Was it Mark?”
“I’m trying to find out,” Bobby told her. “As yet we are sure of nothing. His suit-case is here. No one has been to claim the room booked at the same time—or the suit-case either.”
“Well, he wouldn’t, would he?” Grace said. “Not if it was him and he spotted you were here. Was it him, though? If he got his at Bexley House that night, if that’s what you think . . .”
“I haven’t said so,” Bobby answered. “What can you tell me? I think we shall have to ask you to make a statement, if you will.”
But at that she looked both sullen and alarmed.
“I don’t know anything, nothing for me to make a statement about,” she declared. “I didn’t know anything about anything—till I heard you shouting and all. Why should I?”
“If you don’t, why are you here?” Bobby asked. “Plain you expected you might find some one you knew. Was it Monk? Or was it Mr Harper?”
“If you think it was him,” she said angrily—“if you think Mark got his that night, it wasn’t Alf. How could it be? He had nothing to do with any of it.”
“Oh, yes, he had; he’s told us so,” Bobby answered. “Then he took himself off. I rather think perhaps Jerry George is looking for him.”
“Him?” Grace exclaimed, dismayed. “That old devil? What’s that for?”
“Something about a lorry load of cigarettes apparently,” Bobby said. “What do you know about it?”
“I never knew anything about anything,” she protested, once more sullen again. “They never said and I never asked.” She paused and then broke out: “I don’t like it, not him being here and Vea and all.”
“I don’t like any of you being here,” retorted Bobby, stronger than ever within him his feeling that there was approaching a climax that he could not foresee, that he could take no steps to anticipate or prevent. “You say Vea Burden wanted more than anything to get Mark back, even if only for the short time that may be left her. Do you think she wanted it so badly that if she found she couldn’t have it, she might want to make sure that no one else should?”
“You mean it might be her knifed him?” Grace asked, and seemed surprised by what was apparently an entirely fresh idea. “I never thought of that,” she said, and then inconsequently: “She frightens me. I dream of her sometimes—her and those earrings of hers, swinging all the time.”
“If Monk was killed that night,” Bobby went on, “and Vea thinks Alf Harper had anything to do with it, I agree with you Harper may be in danger. If, again, Harper is mixed up with this lost load of cigarettes, then I think he may be in danger from Mr Jerry George. I think you had better be on our side, Miss Williams, if you take any interest in Mr Harper.”
“Yes, but I don’t know on whose side Alf is,” she retorted with unexpected shrewdness—and candour.
“You knew,” asked Bobby, “that Monk had a young girl with him. Miss Isobel Winlock. Did you see her?”
“Not that night,” Grace answered. “I didn’t see any one. If it’s the girl I think, she’s nothing to do with it. Just one of the fool kids he could pick up whenever he liked.”
“She has not been heard of since that night, and her parents are anxious.”
“Keeping out of the way,” Grace answered indifferently. “If she saw anything, told she had better, unless she wanted trouble. She may have been parked somewhere safe and told to hold her tongue. She’ll run away back to mamma as soon as she can, but you’ll never get anything out of her.”
“Perhaps not,” agreed Bobby.
“Unless Vea gets after her,” Grace said, and then dismissed the idea. “Vea won’t. Why should she? Any one could see the girl was just one of the kids he was always picking up and forgetting next day. She don’t matter one way or the other.”
“Unless,” Bobby suggested, “there happens to be some one who doesn’t feel that way—who thinks she does matter, or did.”
“You mean young David Pope?” Grace asked. “Oh, him! He’s too respectable to make trouble. Office every morning nine sharp, that’s him. You don’t mean he’s here, too?”
“If he is, and you hear of him, let me know,” Bobby said. “I want to have a chat. And if you meet Harper, tell him his best plan is to come to us. Safest, too.”
“If Alf isn’t here,” she repeated, “I don’t know where he can be.”
Bobby asked her where she was staying. She gave an address in the town, and promised to let him know if she made a move. But he had no great expectation that she would keep her word, nor was he much surprised to learn that she only returned to the address she had mentioned to pay her bill and depart, explaining that she had met a friend who wanted her to join her and that they had to catch a train.
CHAPTER XXI
“IF IT’S THAT POOR GIRL . . .”
It was a talk that left Bobby with much to think over. Not that it seemed to give him much guidance, but rather to have increased his sense of doubt and of confusion. He was not even sure that Grace might not have been sent to him for the very purpose of misleading him. In any case, he did not see that for the moment there was very much he could do, beyond carrying out that tour of Cornish tin-mines which he contemplated, but of which, he feared, Centre might not wholly approve. Such a tour, if complete, would occupy much time, and the result was doubtful. There was plenty of work needing his attention at Scotland Yard. Nor did he wish to give further opportunity for the criticism he knew was sometimes made that he was far too apt to neglect the daily, hum-drum work of administration—the bread and butter, so to say, of all police work—for the heady wine of crime investigation.
