Crossword Mystery (15 page)

Jennings himself was out on patrol, but in the doorway of their residence, that served also as the local police station, Mrs. Jennings was nursing a baby. Bobby's excuse for calling was that he had recovered his lost watch, and wanted any, story the police might hear that it had been stolen to be disregarded. Though evidently a little puzzled by this emphatic contradiction of a suggestion no one seemed to have made, Mrs. Jennings promised to give the message to her husband on his return. By good luck, the famous wireless set was in full action, and Bobby, after making a prudent approach by way of admiring the baby and saying how different it looked from London babies (but he drew the line at kissing it; there are some sacrifices, he felt, not even stern duty may demand), he remarked on the excellence and clearness of the tone of the set. Mrs. Jennings, he soon found, was torn between pride in its possession, for it was something of a social asset to be the owner of the best wireless set in the neighbourhood, and resentment at money having been spent on it she could have put to other household uses. Bobby declared it was so good it had evidently been bought in London, and Mrs. Jennings said, with some slight, secret scorn of London, that, on the contrary, it came from a certain Norwich establishment. So Bobby confessed meekly that Norwich shops must evidently be fully equal to London establishments, and thanked her and went back to the post office, where the repeat message had just been received.

Short as it was, Bobby read it over twice, told the post-mistress there had been no mistake, and undertook to deliver it himself to Mr. Winterton, chatted with her a little longer, and then resumed his walk. Reading the telegram before the post-mistress, he had tried to appear totally indifferent, but now he looked grave and troubled, for the message seemed to him to be capable of dark meanings, even though its receipt had apparently brought considerable relief to Mr. Winterton – another apparent contradiction it was not easy to understand.

“Anyhow,” he thought, “it'll be dead easy to follow up and find out what it means and, once that's done, most likely we shall have the clue to the whole thing in our hands.”

A motor-coach came along, and he hailed it and went on to Deneham, where he alighted at the station, which, as is the way of English country stations, was a good two miles outside the place itself. As he did so, he caught sight of Mrs. Cooper. She did not seem to have noticed him, and he went across behind one of the station buildings out of sight. In a moment or two she was joined by Adams, the Fairview chauffeur and gardener. Apparently they had come for some parcels waiting for them which they brought out and put into the car in which they had arrived. Then they drove off, and when they were out of sight Bobby strolled into the station to make some quite unnecessary inquiries about the trains. The station-master he found to be an intelligent, well-spoken man, who seemed much superior to the position he held in charge of this small and remote place. At one time, indeed, he had, Bobby learnt later, been in charge of a big junction in the north, but apparently he had found the responsibility of the work rather too much for him, and he had experienced something in the nature of a nervous breakdown, and had at his own request been transferred to this little backwater of a place, where he seemed quite happy and content in the quiet and tranquillity that lay between the country and the sea.

“Though if Mrs. Cooper has her way,” he remarked after he and Bobby had been chatting a few moments, “it won't be quiet much longer.”

Odd, Bobby thought, how almost any conversation turned sooner or later on something Mrs. Cooper had said or thought or done. It was a striking tribute to the force of her dominating personality. The station-master and Mrs. Cooper and her husband had grown quite friendly, it seemed, often exchanging visits, and lately she had been somewhat disturbing the poor man by holding forth on the undeserved neglect in which this lovely corner of the coast had so long lain. That had been understandable, she thought, while the only access to it had been by a branch line on which few trains ran, but now, with the coming of the motor-coach, all that was altered. A district offering such facilities for all sea sports, as well as for golf and for field sports, was, according to her, a perfect gold-mine waiting for anyone with sufficient intelligence, character, and energy to develop it. “Winter sports” was a slogan, she argued, that drew thousands to Switzerland every year. “Sea sports” was, she declared, another slogan that could draw even more to this spot, once it was scientifically organised and developed.

“She says,” remarked the station-master, half smiling, half worried, “that a good thing's no good without a good slogan, and a good slogan is only wasted without a good thing behind it, but with the two together you can sweep the world, she says; and she would too, if she had the chance.” A touch of enthusiasm had come into his voice, as if he had been affected by the vision she had shown him. Then he stopped, and laughed in a shame-faced sort of way. “I told her,” he said, “if that ever began to happen here, I should have to apply for another transfer. Only, as she says herself, it never will; not yet, anyhow.”

“I suppose the idea is to make a new Blackpool or Margate,” Bobby remarked.

“Well, I think her idea was more to attract better-class people,” the station-master explained; “not the real tip-toppers, because there aren't enough of them, but the people who are just smart enough to want to be a bit more smart than their neighbours.”

Bobby reflected that Mrs. Cooper seemed to know a good deal about human nature, and then, to explain his visit, went on to inquire about the times of the trains and the connections with the London expresses, and also as to the cost of sending back his motor-cycle by goods train.

“I rode down yesterday,” he explained. “I managed to miss the train I meant to take, and I thought the next would get me here too late, though if I had known Miss Raby was coming by it I would have waited.”

“Miss Raby came by the afternoon train,” the other answered. “I remember telling her she must hurry to catch the 'bus for Suffby Cove, and she said she would walk along the cliffs. I sent her suit-case on by the next 'bus.”

“Rather jolly walk by the cliffs. I must go back that way,” Bobby observed, and, after a little more talk, went off to the call-box which stood at the entrance to the station, just outside it.

But, then as he was approaching it, he heard his name called softly, and, looking round, saw a hand waving to him from a car that had just drawn up. He went towards it, and saw in the driving-seat his chief, Superintendent Mitchell, who told him briefly to jump in.

“Bit of luck meeting you like this,” Mitchell remarked as he drove on. “Major Markham's been worrying; got the wind up; I don't know why. He was afraid of compromising you if he tried to get in touch direct, so he asked me to have a try as being less known about here. Well, got anything to report?”

“Heaps, sir,” Bobby answered. “I was going to ring you up.”

He began to tell the whole story of his experiences since his arrival at Fairview. He told it in detail, omitting nothing; no incident, however trivial; no theory, however quickly discarded; he told all, and Mitchell listened intently, his face growing very grave. When Bobby at last finished, he was silent for a time, and then said slowly:

“Do you know what I am wondering? Whether it was George Winterton himself put his brother through it. There seems to have been some sort of big money deal between them.”

“Yes, sir, but,” Bobby pointed out, “the evidence of the Coopers seems to provide an alibi for him. Unless they are lying – and I don't see why they should lie simply to protect him – he was in bed at the time his brother was drowning.”

“I had forgotten that for the moment,” Mitchell admitted. He had been taking notes while he listened to Bobby, and now he referred to them. “There's this Mr. Shorton, the City man,” he remarked. “So far as I can see, he is about the only person with any motive for wanting Archibald out of the way. Apparently he had sunk a good bit of money in this scheme of his for a seaside hotel Archibald Winterton was holding up, and apparently he had some reason for thinking he hadn't been treated very fairly. Archibald seems to have got in ahead of him with buying the land lying across Suffby Point, and he may have suspected the real object was to squeeze him out and carry on afterwards. Perhaps it was, too. But you don't often get murder in the City, though you do get sharp practice all right. There seems to have been a good deal of money at stake, though, that Shorton is threatened with losing.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby; “and, now that Archibald is dead, George is the obstacle in the way. If anything happened to him, I suppose the scheme would go through at once.”

Mitchell stroked a reflective chin and looked more worried than ever.

“Did you say,” he observed presently, “that Shorton was a champion swimmer?”

“At any rate, exceptionally good,” Bobby answered.

They had halted the car, for their talk, at a spot whence a good view out to sea was to be had. Gazing at it reflectively, Mitchell murmured, half to himself:

“It keeps many secrets; perhaps it means to keep this one, too. Drowning or murder, I wonder which?” He roused himself from his thoughts and said: “We shall have to check up on him. About this nephew, Colin Ross. You say you think Mr. Winterton seems afraid of him?”

“Once or twice I've thought I saw him looking at him in a funny sort of way. I thought perhaps it meant he was afraid or nervous of him in some way. That's all.”

Mitchell made a fresh note.

“Betting man,” he said. “We'll have to try to find out if he is pressed for money. But it doesn't appear that his uncle's death – the death of either of them for that matter – was going to be any benefit to him. Then there's this secretary girl, Miss Raby. You say the other nephew was cleared out for flirting with her?”

“Yes, sir; but she seems a very quiet, gentle sort of girl.”

“Sometimes they're the worst when they once get going,” observed Mitchell. “God help the man who comes between a woman and the thing she wants when she wants it bad. An elemental lot, the women. If she was really keen on this nephew – what was his name, Miles Winterton? – and the uncle came between them, that might account for a lot.”

“But Archibald had nothing to do with all that,” Bobby pointed out.

“She may have thought he had,” answered Mitchell; “anyhow, we shall have to try to check up on her and on Mr. Miles, too. You say she came back from Town by the afternoon train but pretended it was the late one she had arrived by.”

“Yes, sir. The station-master told me that when I was talking to him just now.”

“May mean something or may not,” Mitchell reflected. “Probably not; but you can never tell. But somehow or another we must find out what this Laura Shipman was doing talking to Winterton in the middle of the night. That must mean something. You can't suggest what?”

“I can't even imagine any explanation, sir,” Bobby answered. “There's no suggestion he ever takes any notice of the village girls, as it seems Archibald used to do, and there would be plenty of opportunities of meeting in the daytime if they wanted to.”

“Seems to be all cross purposes, this case,” sighed Mitchell. “Some of it must mean something, but a lot of it can't, but how on earth to pick out what matters, I can't see. Though I don't say the Assist. Commish., when I tell him how you identified the Laura Shipman girl by that trick of yours with the watch, won't put a good mark against your name – unless he forgets. Wonderful poor memory a man develops, somehow, when he becomes Assist. Commish. Owen,” he added, with a sudden change of manner, “I'm worried about the killing of that dog.”

“I don't like that part one little bit myself,” agreed Bobby, “only I don't understand it either... If the poor brute gave no alarm when there happened whatever did or didn't happen to Archibald, why should it be necessary to knock it on the head now? It seems going out of the way to put us on our guard.” Mitchell nodded.

“The dog's silence the one time and its being killed now are both hard to understand, hard to fit together,” he repeated, still worried. “The worst is, if Archibald was drowned by accident, there may be no fitting together needed and we may be merely beating the air. Anyhow, I think we shall have to have a talk with Miss Laura. To come back to Jennings's wireless you were talking about, you say it was bought in Norwich somewhere.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby, and gave the name of the shop he had been careful to note.

“It's a long shot,” observed Mitchell, “but well see what they have to say. The attack on him was made before Archibald was drowned, wasn't it?”

“Yes, sir. He bought the wireless set a fortnight after the attack on him, and nearly a month before Archibald's death.”

“I think those are the chief points,” Mitchell remarked, again consulting his notes. “There's the swilling down of the summerhouse, too, but I don't see that that concerns us – unless you have a theory that the dog was killed there and the swilling down was to remove any signs of blood.”

“There's that,” agreed Bobby, “but why should anyone use an old tumbledown summer-house, with a dangerous roof to it, for killing a dog in ? Besides, I saw no tracks of any dog, and those I did see had been made after the rain, while the dog was almost certainly killed before.”

“Difficult to see where swilling the floor of an old summerhouse comes into the picture,” repeated Mitchell, “and yet I've a sort of feeling that it does. About the telegram Winterton received at lunch. You say you got them to repeat it?”

“Yes, sir. The good lady didn't much want to, I think, but I suppose she decided it was all right. I think she wasn't quite sure whether it was regular.”