The Dusky Hour (34 page)

O'Brien he saw his opportunity. He calculated that anything that was discovered would lead to Hayes or Mrs. O'Brien, and that his connection with Bennett would remain unknown and unsuspected.

“On his way to meet Mrs. O'Brien, from whom he hoped to get some more information, Bennett stopped to have a look at the Sevens party through his field-glasses, so as to have an idea of what Mr. Moffatt was like.

“Not only Larson, but Hayes also, knew of the meeting arranged with Mrs. O'Brien. Hayes had been doing some watching on his own account. Bennett himself had asked Larson to meet him at the same place and almost the same time. Hayes was there with his camera, took his snap, and slipped away, with the evidence he required to give him an excuse for getting rid of Mrs. O'Brien. Larson was there, too, with Mr. Moffatt's automatic. He waited till Mrs. O'Brien had gone, and then dealt with Bennett in the approved gangster way for dealing with other gangsters who try to ‘muscle in' on a good thing and are rash enough to use threats of raking up old stories. He pushed the car and the dead man over the edge of the chalk-pit and had the bad luck as he was leaving to notice a labourer working in a field near by in full sight.

“That was a bit of a shock, but he had the dead man's hat and the labourer wasn't very near. He held the hat before him to hide his face, dodged away, found the bicycle he had hidden in readiness, and got away on it by sheltered paths through the woods.”

Bobby ceased, his long story concluded.

Colonel Warden was consulting a map and his notes. He said:

“Would Larson have had time to get to the spot where his gold cigarette-case was found, then to the spot where Miss Moffatt and Mrs. Markham saw him, and then back to Sevens for tea? Defending counsel will put that. Also he claims to have witnessed the accident that afternoon at Winders Green and to be able to give details.”

“There is no proof the cigarette-case was left at the time he claims,” Bobby answered. “I suggest he went back that night to put it where it was found. He could climb out of his bedroom window, cover the distance, put the cigarette-case in position, and get back to his room unseen. He had to risk it being found by a dishonest person and kept without anything being said. Or he may have thought, if that happened, it would strengthen his alibi finally if it became a police case – as he would have taken care it should. And I think there is good proof that his story of the Winders Green accident is merely a repetition of a story told by a man named Hooper, and told freely by him in the local pub. I think that's proved by the fact that Larson repeats Hooper's story exactly, though in fact Hooper is either lying or mistaken. Larson would have to explain why he made exactly the same mistake and why he, too, thought a dog was a cat.”

“That means,” commented Colonel Warden, “that his alibi is broken, a motive established, a photo shows him on the spot with in his hand the weapon actually used. Seems watertight, with identity of time and place established. What made you suspect him first? It was long enough before I began to think him a bit fishy.”

“Well, sir,” said Bobby slowly, “Miss Moffatt said when he passed her and Mrs. Markham he raised his hat. That was how – it was growing dark then – she realised it wasn't one of the farm labourers going home. But apparently he never wore a hat. If that was so, how did he happen to have one when he bowed to Miss Moffatt? It was that first made me think of him. But for that I don't think I should have suspected him. He seemed so confident; his presence seemed so well accounted for; there seemed no connection. Probably he raised his hat on purpose to attract Miss Moffatt's attention and help to establish his alibi.”

“Well,” the chief constable observed, “this is the first time I've ever heard of taking off his hat to a lady proving a man guilty of murder.”

“It was a long time before I saw what it meant,” Bobby admitted. “I left it out of the statement I drew up of the for and against the different suspects, and yet that was when I first thought of it seriously. I was going to mention it later on, too, only then Mrs. O'Brien turned up with her accusation of Hayes and rather pushed the hat incident into the background.”

“I suppose Larson was hard pressed for money, and all that talk about his City interests mere bluff,” the colonel went on. “He always made one think he was a rich man – part of his technique, I suppose.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby. “I think the failure of his Moffatt plans brought him down pretty nearly to his last penny. That was another pointer. At first he used a Rolls-Royce. Then once, when I met him, I gathered from what he said he had come down here travelling third on the railway. That time, too, I noticed he was wearing no hat, though it was raining, and he told me he never wore a hat in the country. So I started wondering still more why he had had one that day to take off when he met Miss Moffatt and Mrs. Markham. I expect, too, when he was looking so murderous in the way Miss Moffatt told us about, it was because he had just found out about the trust fund that put the lid on all his elaborate schemes. Probably he was feeling like murder that day. Bit of a knock-out, probably, to find he had been scheming and planning all those years and all for nothing, since the trust fund was well secured.”

“The case seems complete,” the colonel agreed. “I don't think even Treasury counsel will be able to talk about weak points. I see from your report the Moffatt butler, Reeves, was at Way Side, too?”

“Yes, sir. He admits he went there to help Thoms. Incidentally, he got his job at Sevens through Thoms. It was Thoms who supplied him with the references he showed. The Oultons knew him when he was butler to a friend of theirs. When he left there he went to the place where the trouble happened about the lost ring. When he was accused of the theft, he appealed to them to say his character had always been good. Didn't help him much, but he was grateful. They believed in his innocence all the time, and of course still more so when the ring was found afterwards. After his last release from gaol he made up his mind to run straight, and tried to find the Oultons again to see if they would help. But they had lost all their money and young Ted Oulton – Thoms – who was planning to get the bonds back, by force or fraud if he had to, asked his help instead. Reeves had done time for burglary, and Thoms was contemplating burglary. He knew Mr. Moffatt was looking for a manservant, and he helped Reeves to get the job in the hope that Reeves would be able to help him presently.”

“Larson was after the bonds, too, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, he knew from Mrs. O'Brien, who was wanting to get her revenge on Hayes, that Hayes had them. She told him, too, about the photograph Hayes had taken of her and Bennett, though, as she had only had a glimpse of it, she had no idea Larson appeared on it, too. She wanted to implicate Hayes, if possible. She may have had some idea of offering later on to prove his innocence on condition of his marrying her, now she was actually free with Bennett's death. Larson was quite willing to pack us off on any convenient wild-goose chase, but his real interest was the bonds. He had to get money somehow. He paid a visit to Hayes to have a look round, sold him the ring – that gave him an excuse to come again to redeem it – and no doubt took the opportunity to plant the automatic stolen from Mr. Moffatt where I found it. Hayes was getting more and more nervous though, and it was his determination to clear out of the country that brought things to a general climax. Larson and Pegley came along to get the bonds. They calculated that if they could once lay hold of them – and they knew from Mrs. O'Brien where they were kept – Hayes wouldn't dare to take any action to recover them.

Ted Oulton – Thoms – knew, too, that Hayes was going. Hayes told him so himself when he sacked him. So Thoms knew it was a case of now or never if he was to recover his mother's property. He had arranged to meet Reeves at Way Side for a talk that night, so he came back from the poultry farm where he had gone and was seen by Noll Moffatt, who was prowling round, and by Hayes himself, who was very much on the look-out. It was the Larson-Pegley outfit who got rid of the cook by a faked wire, but I'm not sure who cut the phone wire or who it was kept the Mrs. White woman away by sending a message she wasn't wanted. Thoms and Reeves were at a disadvantage compared with Larson because they didn't know where the bonds were kept. They got into the house unseen – while he was there as chauffeur, Thoms had fixed the drawing-room windows so that they could be opened from outside – and Reeves, who was in a bad state of nerves and saw another long-term sentence ahead, gave their presence away, and Hayes a bad scare, by drinking the contents of a glass of whisky Hayes had just before poured out for himself. I was there, thanks to Hayes having applied for police protection, and I searched the house, but they had slipped out again. Then Noll Moffatt turned up. Miss Henrietta had never approved of her half-brother's plans, and she asked Noll Moffatt to try to find him and get him to give it up and come back to the farm.

“Thoms and Reeves returned to the house to have another look for the bonds. They went upstairs, and while they were there Larson and Pegley turned up, found the drawing-room window open, went in, and went straight to the study I had just left by the window after Noll Moffatt. Hayes, as soon as he saw them, bolted after me through the window – I heard him running for dear life, though I didn't know who it was – and the amiable Larson saw a chance to collar the bonds for himself, knocked Pegley out, and ran into Thoms and Reeves in the hall. That was not till Reeves had spotted me in the study and locked the door on me. Larson got away through the front door he shut after him and wedged somehow to prevent pursuit. Thoms made a bolt through the study to cut him off. Reeves got the front door open again and the general mix-up continued outside, Hayes, who was still in the garden, getting knocked out in the course of it. Larson wasted his cartridges trying to scare Thoms off. Thoms didn't scare, and managed to catch up with Larson just as Larson got to his car. In the rough and tumble that followed, Thoms managed to get hold of the bonds and vanished with them. Hayes turned up, shouting he had been robbed. Larson accused him of murder and produced the photo he had found in the house – again on Mrs. O'Brien's information – and I thought it good enough for an arrest.”

“Larson will hang,” Colonel Warden repeated. “What about Pegley?”

“I don't see there is any charge we can bring against him, Bobby observed. “Found on enclosed premises for unlawful purposes perhaps. He would deny knowing anything. He will be no good as a witness; he'll just deny everything.”

“We can do without him,” said the colonel. “What about Hayes? Is there anything we can charge him with?”

I don't think so, sir,” Bobby answered. “He stole Mrs. Oulton's bonds, undoubtedly, but it would be awkward to prove, and, anyhow, he has lost them now. He is threatening legal action against the Oultons, but of course he won't dare. He can't prove lawful possession, and they can prove the bonds are those they lost – Mr. Oulton's signature is on some, with a note of when bought and where. I suppose Thoms could be prosecuted for unlawful entry or something, but it wouldn't help Hayes any. He'll lie low all right.”

“He'll have no alternative; nothing he can do,” decided the colonel. “What was Miss Molly Oulton doing, though? Your report mentions her.”

“Yes, sir," Bobby answered. “I think she came up after Noll Moffatt as soon as she knew her sister had sent him to Way Side. She wanted to make sure nothing happened to him. It was Miss Molly he was with on the afternoon of the murder, when he didn't take any of the photos he went out for – except one that turned out to give him a good alibi.”

“Oh, well,” said the colonel, “ends in wedding bells. Odd case all through, and odd for a murder case to end in a wedding.”

THE END

E.R. Punshon was born in London in 1872.

At the age of fourteen he started life in an office. His employers soon informed him that he would never make a really satisfactory clerk, and he, agreeing, spent the next few years wandering about Canada and the United States, endeavouring without great success to earn a living in any occupation that offered. Returning home by way of working a passage on a cattle boat, he began to write. He contributed to many magazines and periodicals, wrote plays, and published nearly fifty novels, among which his detective stories proved the most popular and enduring.

He died in 1956.

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Dictator's Way

When an old acquaintance of Bobby Owen's from Oxford days turns up out of the blue, he needs help. Bobby little suspects that investigating the sinister enclave of ‘Dictator's Way' will quickly set in train a series of momentous events, involving Bobby in a fistfight with an ex-professional boxer, kidnap, peril at sea and international intrigue – not to mention encounters with the mysterious and attractive Olive Farrar in whom Bobby might just have met his match.

Dictator's Way
is the tenth of E.R. Punshon's acclaimed Bobby Owen mysteries, first published in 1938 and part of a series which eventually spanned thirty-five novels.

Detective-Sergeant Bobby Owen looked with some surprise at the card his landlady had just brought him. It was one of his rare afternoons off, and he was on the point of starting for Lord's in the hope that Mr. Hammond (90 not out at lunch) would still be batting when he got there. And now this interruption. Yet somehow it seemed to him that the name the card showed – The Hon. Chas. Waveny – was vaguely familiar.