The Dusky Hour (29 page)

“It looks,” said Bobby cautiously, “like one Mr. Larson was wearing.”

Hayes, plainly surprised by this observation, gave Bobby a quick and searching glance, and then determined apparently to admit the fact.

“That's right,” he said. “Larson didn't want it known, but, as you spotted it for yourself, no use saying it isn't. Big deal he has been planning for years gone west – a complete wash-out. Knock-out for him. Sore about it, too. Came to see me because he knew I made my money in the States and he thought I might like to make some more. So I would, but not on the proposition he wanted to interest me in. Said he was going across in a day or two and could handle things on the spot. I told him I was going across, too, right away, and could do all the handling on the spot myself. So when he saw it was no good he said he was a bit pressed for the ready and what would I give him for his ring. I offered him twenty, cash down, and he jumped at it. Wanted it to pay his fare back to town, perhaps.”

Bobby reflected again that Larson, the first time he saw him, had arrived at Sevens in a magnificent Rolls-Royce. Then, when Bobby had met him later on, he had spoken of a train journey in what from his description of his fellow-passengers had sounded like an overcrowded third-class compartment. And now he was apparently disposing of a valuable ring for considerably less than its real value. All significant, Bobby thought, of an increasing financial pressure, and perhaps significant of more besides.

“You told Mr. Larson you were leaving for America?” Bobby asked. “Isn't that rather sudden?”

“I'm fed up,” Hayes explained. “I thought I should like the country – quiet, a change, new life, all that. Didn't expect – well, murder and that sort of thing. I'm getting out.”

Bobby looked at him thoughtfully. A little like flight, he told himself.

“I think,” he said cautiously, “Colonel Warden was hoping you would be available till our investigation was complete.”

“What for?” demanded Hayes. “I don't know a thing about it; nothing to do with me.”

“If it is your chauffeur...?” Bobby suggested.

“Well, I can't help that. Not my fault.”

“No, but it's such a very complicated case; crosscurrents, one thing and another,” Bobby explained. “It's almost beginning to look as if Bennett's murder was incidental to something else that may be going on. You were saying you have had threatening messages over the phone?”

“Yes; that O'Brien woman. She tried to disguise her voice, but it was her all right. Trying to get even because I wouldn't put up with her tantrums and her airs any longer.”

“What was it she said actually?”

“Oh, I was going to get my own, and all that sort of talk. I didn't take much notice. Told her to shut up and hung up. Tried it again later on. I hung up at once. But I began to think I was alone here except for two women servants – that was after I had sacked Thoms – and then the housemaid said she wanted to leave at once. I had told them I was giving this place up and leaving for the States and they must look out for new jobs. The girl had heard of this one and was all set on going off at once – suited her specially well for some reason. So she went, and then this morning the wire I told you about came for the cook. No holding her; she wasn't going to miss her share of her aunt's goods. Somewhere in Ireland it is. So off she went, too, and that means I'm all alone in the house. I don't like it. You've taken my gun, too. Can you get it me back? I should feel safer. I suppose you can send a policeman along as well? I'll pay for his time, of course – anything you like. And stand him a drink as well.”

“I think I can promise that,” Bobby said. “I'll report what you say, and I think you can depend on an officer being here before dark. He will stay the night if you wish it. But don't stand him any drinks, please. Regulations are very strict, and he will be on duty.”

“Oh, that's all right,” Hayes said, and seemed a good deal relieved. “It'll only be for the one night, you know. I'm going to an hotel in town to-morrow. But there are a lot of papers and stuff here I've got to clear up first.”

Bobby took his departure then, a good deal more puzzled even than on his arrival. This story of Larson's visit to Way Side on pretext of discussing some financial enterprise in America seemed a curious development, especially when taken in conjunction with the Scotland Yard report of Mrs. O'Brien's visit to Larson in town and with her threatening messages over the phone.

It struck him that possibly these threats of Mrs. O'Brien's had really been intended as a reminder of what Hayes had lost in losing her and as an offer to resume relations. It might have been wise, he thought, from Hayes's point of view, if he had been more willing to listen to what she had to say. His cutting her off so quickly would not tend to improve her temper.

And it seemed to Bobby, too, that possibly it might be the news of Hayes's intention to leave for America that was the chief agent in this apparent coming to a culmination of all the tangled affair.

But, even if it were so, he could not get clear in his mind the various parts the different players were likely to take in the final act of the drama whereon, as it seemed to him, the curtain was about to rise.

Back at police headquarters, he spent some time on the phone, talking to Scotland Yard. A message came through presently in reply to his inquiry. It said that Mr. Larson was not at his address, which was in a block of service flats in Bloomsbury. He had not said where he was going. He had been carrying a small suit-case when he left, and the hour at which he had departed was one that would get him to Paddington in time to catch a train due in at the local station almost immediately. It seemed worth trying, and Bobby, hurrying to the station, was just in time to see the London train arrive and Mr. Larson alighting from a third-class smoker.

Bobby waited, and greeted him pleasantly as he came off the platform.

“Paying us another visit, Mr. Larson?” he asked.

“Came along to see if you want to run me in,” explained Mr. Larson, smiling a little. “It's getting on my nerves a bit. I've been followed these last few days. The porters at the flats where I live have been asked questions. They're beginning to look at me. I can't stand that sort of thing. Not in my position. Stories soon get about. My position in business depends on my reputation. I can't afford gossip. It's got to stop. I made up my mind to come and ask you if you have anything against me or have I got to see my solicitors? I don't want to, but if I'm forced –”

He left the sentence unfinished, and Bobby said protestingly:

“My dear sir, when we have anything against a man he doesn't have to ask. He knows. And are you sure you're correct in saying you have been followed, or that porters have been questioned about you? Was it perhaps Mrs. O'Brien?”

He left his sentence unfinished in his turn, and Mr. Larson looked relieved.

“Oh, it's her, is it? You can't suspect her, surely?”

“That's a question with only one possible answer,” Bobby replied. “Every man may be innocent before the courts till he's proved guilty; but, for police work, every man is suspect till he's proved innocent. And that generally means till someone else is proved guilty.”

“You can have proof of who's guilty, if you like,” Larson said quickly. “Search Hayes's house and you'll find your proof all right.”

“What makes you say that?” Bobby asked.

“Intuition, if you like. What Mrs. O'Brien has told me, if you prefer that. But search and you'll find all right enough.”

“Just what we can't – without proof,” Bobby explained. “Vicious circle sort of business. We can't go into a house to look for proof till we've proof the proof is there. We might know there was a signed, sealed confession of guilt in Mr. Hayes's writing-table drawer ”

“There may be, or something just as good,” Larson interrupted.

“No good to us,” Bobby said. “We can't touch it till we have proof to satisfy a magistrate he can give us authority to act on. Police have no right of search.”

“If someone gave you that proof?”

“Why, then,” said Bobby formally, “he would be serving the ends of justice and would be entitled to the thanks of all law-abiding citizens.”

“I don't know,” retorted Mr. Larson, “that all that interests me, but I'm a bit keen on ending this state of things. I tell you candidly, I'm not willing to let it go on as it is. There are stories going about the City. No one believes them yet, but that'll come if they're not cleared up soon. The merest whisper about a man in my position and no more confidential business comes his way. My reputation is my stock-in-trade.”

“If there is any information you can give us –”

Bobby suggested.

Larson shook his head.

“I have my own ideas,” he said, “but I'll keep them to myself for the present. Mrs. O'Brien has been telling me things, I admit, but – can one trust her? I don't intend to allow myself to be dragged into any libel action to gratify her spite against Hayes. And I don't mean to appear as a witness in a sensational murder case. Not the line for a City man handling big mergers and other confidential business. No. If I knew anything, I tell you candidly, I should pass it on to you confidentially. I shouldn't mind what you guessed yourselves, but I should see that there was nothing I could be brought in on. Can you imagine – well, say, the Governor of the Bank of England appearing in a sensational murder case and being cross-examined by defending counsel? It wouldn't do for him, and, though I'm not the Governor of the Bank of England, it wouldn't do for me, either. But I will give you one hint. Hayes is fond of photography.”

“Yes?” said Bobby, non-committally.

“Would a photograph showing Hayes was present in Battling Copse at the time of the murder – would that interest you?”

“Immensely,” Bobby said.

It was dusk, the dusky hour that lingers in the English countryside before the closing in of night, when Bobby came again to Way Side. He knocked, and when he heard sounds within, but the door remained closed, he called out his name, and went and stood in the light of the lamp of his cycle, so that he might be seen. The door opened then, though still cautiously, and the nervous voice of Hayes called:

“No one's come. Why hasn't someone come? They rang me up to say a policeman would be here before dark, but no one's come and the phone's gone dead.”

“Gone dead?” repeated Bobby. “You know, I half expected that. The wire goes across fields nearly a mile, doesn't it? Easy to cut it somewhere. Looks as if we might really expect visitors.”

“I'm all alone,” Hayes said. “Mrs. White hasn't come, and there's no message from her.”

“Probably she's been stopped,” Bobby suggested. “Had a note or a message to say you had changed your mind and didn't want her, but her money was enclosed. She wouldn't ask any questions after that. Looks like careful preparations being made. Any idea what's up?”

“Robbery, burglary, theft, housebreaking,” Hayes answered in a breath.

They were standing in the hall now, into which, too, Bobby had wheeled his cycle, fearing that, if it were left outside, it might take it into its head to disappear.

“Yes, but I meant who?” Bobby said. “That's what I want to know.”

“Robbery, burglary,” Hayes repeated. “That's what.” He had become very pale; he was plainly badly frightened. “Murder,” he muttered. “Why hasn't a policeman come? They promised.”

“Well, one has come, hasn't he?” Bobby asked.

“No. No one. Not a sign.”

“Oh, come, I say,” Bobby protested. “I am someone after all. I do exist.”

“But – why – oh,” Hayes said, and stared, as if only just understanding.

“I'm a policeman,” Bobby pointed out, “and I've come, haven't I? I'll stay the night, if you like. For you to say. The local people are very short-handed. All police are. Parliament doubles police duties every week almost and never thinks any more staff is needed. What makes it worse here is that Colonel Warden has gone sick. His deputy, the chief super, is carrying on, but it means an upset. He jumped at it when I offered to take on your job. He's coming round himself later on to see how we are getting on, but my impression is he thinks you're exaggerating. Can't believe in open threats, assault, deliberate violence, anything of that sort. Outside his experience. Outside most people's, for that matter.”

As he chatted on he had been watching Hayes closely, and he felt very sure that his appearance was not altogether welcome; that Hayes would very much have preferred an ordinary local constable, knowing little of the case and quite willing to show himself and his uniform as a general warning, to ask no questions, and to see no more than what was under his nose.

“I didn't think it would be you,” Hayes muttered, still with that slightly disconcerted air.

“Oh, well, if you don't want me you can always chuck me out,” explained Bobby cheerfully, and, when Hayes shook his head with a manner of suggesting that he would have preferred anyone to Bobby, but Bobby to no one, Bobby continued: “Why didn't you go down to the village for someone else when Mrs. White didn't turn up and you found the phone had gone dead? It's not far.”

“Far enough. Getting dark as well, and not another house or cottage the whole way,” Hayes answered. “I should have had to leave this place empty, too.”

“Why not? If you have something valuable here in the house you were afraid to leave, you could have taken it with you.”

“And got done in on the way?” Hayes retorted.

“Mr. Hayes,” Bobby said, “I put this to you. We don't understand your attitude. Who are you afraid of, and why? A householder, a law-abiding citizen, has no reason to be so alarmed. He knows he has the law behind him. If he suffers injury, he can appeal to the law for redress. Is that the case with you?”