The Dusky Hour (6 page)

The colonel listened gloomily. Bobby could see that he was a good deal disturbed but could not guess why, since the report was one they had both been prepared for. Norris continued. Inquiries had been made at garages and road-houses along the route from London, and had established that a car bearing the registered number of that found in the chalk-pit had stopped the day before at the Oakley Road House, where its driver had lunched. He had asked about the best and quickest way of reaching Way Side, the residence of Mr. Hayes, and had been shown the road on a map.

“Way Side, eh?” Bobby muttered. “Not Sevens. Bit curious, that. Looks as if Mr. Hayes may have something to tell us.”

He had made this remark to Colonel Warden, who, however, he saw, was not listening. The chief constable drew a step aside and nodded to Bobby to follow, as if he wished to say something the two policemen were not to hear. In gloomy and resigned tones he said:

“It's in my mind – I'm not sure, but I have an idea that a year or two back Mr. Moffatt took out a licence for a .32 Colt automatic – bad burglar scare at the time.”

Bobby looked a little startled. He had hardly anticipated that. But it seemed to fit in. The colonel glanced at his watch.

“It's not very late. There'll be time to run round and have a look at the Firearms Register and make sure. Then we'll go on to Way Side and see if Hayes has anything to tell us, and if he knows why Bennett should have been visiting him.”

“Very good, sir,” said Bobby, realising that the colonel was actually quite sure about the Colt automatic and yet would be restless and uneasy till he had confirmed the fact. “Of course, if they have found two bullets they ought to be able to identify them with the pistol, if we can get hold of it.”

“Yes, you had better go back to the house and do that. Say you want it for – for ”

“For purposes of comparison,” suggested Bobby.

“Quite so,” said the colonel. “Be – er – we know nothing yet, and we don't want to worry people for nothing. Er – be –”

“Tactful,” suggested Bobby.

“Quite so,” said the colonel, relieved. “Take Norris with you. Let's see now. It won't take a minute to look up the Firearms Register, and if we speed a bit – clear night, luckily – yes, I can be at Way Side by ten easy – ample margin. That won't be too late. Hayes isn't an early bird by all accounts. If you borrow Norris's cycle you'll have plenty of time to meet me there by then. Norris can tell you the way; it's quite simple.”

“I looked it up on the map,” Bobby explained. “I think I can find my way all right. Straight on as far as Battling Copse. Is anyone on duty there?”

“No. Withdrawn. Not necessary after the thorough combing we've given the place; and, Lord knows, I'm short enough of men as it is – can't afford to put one where it's not absolutely necessary. The Watch Committee,” complained the colonel, even at this moment unable to refrain from uttering his perennial and bitter grievance, “seem to think I can take on unlimited extra duties but never need any extra men.”

He was still grumbling as he drove away, and Bobby and Norris went on up the drive to the house again.

“The old man don't like it, not half he don't,” Norris confided to Bobby as they walked along, “him and Mr. Moffatt being friendly like. That's why he's shoved it on to us, him knowing well enough about the pistol; everyone does. Why, I've seen the young gentleman myself using it to pot at rats and vermin and such-like.”

“Have you, though?” Bobby asked. “You mean Mr. Moffatt's son? Oliver, didn't they call him?”

“That's right. And well the colonel knows it. That's why he's gone off; didn't like the job. Don't know that I blame him, either,” added Norris generously. “Duty's duty, and same must be done, but I take it hard myself when I'm playing darts with a man one day and have to run him in the next.”

“It's a thing we all have to face,” Bobby said absently, his mind busy with the coincidence of the pistol and the missing young man. “Only thing is to remember it's not us, but the law.”

“Ah,” said Norris, musing upon this. Presently he added: “You can't be tactful like, asking to look at a pistol when a bloke's just been done in with one round the corner, so to say.”

“Ah,” said Bobby in his turn.

They went on to the house, and not all the tact Bobby could muster sufficed to dispel, or even much to alleviate, the evident uneasiness with which his request was greeted – or the still greater uneasiness when the pistol could nowhere be found.

Mr. Moffatt, who had made no effort to deny possession of such a weapon, believed it had been in a drawer in the library but he was not sure. After the burglar scare died down, he never thought of it again. A packet of ammunition was discovered, unopened. But that was all, though Mr. Moffatt agreed at once that his son sometimes used the pistol, sometimes merely for target practice, sometimes, as Norris had said, on rats and other vermin.

“Most likely Noll will know where it is,” Mr. Moffatt said. “I'll ask him as soon as he comes in.” And the scowl he gave the clock as he glanced at it suggested that the whereabouts of the missing automatic would not be the only subject discussed when the young man did make his appearance.

It was growing late now, so, leaving Norris to await the return of Noll Moffatt, and the possible production of the missing weapon, Bobby started off on the constable's cycle. He knew, from his careful reading of the map, that he had to go straight on, avoiding all turnings, till he came to Battling Copse, whose dark and heavy shadows it would be impossible to miss. A little further on he would come to the Towers Poultry Farm – “Teas” as well – and then, leaving that on the left, to where the road forked by a small pond. Keeping to the right, and taking the first turning on the right again, he would reach the entrance of the lane that led to Way Side. Half an hour's brisk cycling in the clear moonlight, or perhaps a little more, sufficed to cover the whole distance, and then, as he drew near the copse, he became aware that not only the moonlight shining through the close-growing branches upon the dense and heavy undergrowth accounted for the light that seemed to lie in a pool at the foot of the trees. He slowed down. There came clearly to his ear a trampling of feet, a sound of blows, and for a moment he remembered the tale of how here victorious Briton and stubborn Roman fought out once again each year their ancient conflict.

The moment passed. He jumped down and leaned the cycle against the nearest tree. He heard a voice say loudly:

“Like to chuck me into the chalk-pit too, wouldn't you?”

Bobby ran forward quickly. In a kind of bay or inlet of open sward, surrounded on three sides by the dense growth of tree and bush that was Battling Copse, the clear moonshine, reinforced by the beam from the headlamp of a motor-cycle, showed two young men standing facing each other.

One, his back to Bobby, was tall, heavy, somewhat clumsily built; the other was of a smaller, more slender build, and, as he soon showed, very quick and active in his movements.

For, as Bobby came in sight of them, the taller of the two flung out at his opponent a heavy, somewhat ponderous right-hand punch. But the other adroitly side-stepped, and then retaliated with a quick left and right that brought from the onlooking Bobby a spontaneous and appreciative:

“Oh, pretty, very pretty.”

Indeed, had those punches had a little more weight behind them they might have brought the fight to an immediate end. Both got well home, but the big man merely grunted, shook himself rather with the air of a duck shaking off raindrops, and then rushed forward. At once they were hard at it, for the smaller man stood his ground. Blow after blow the bigger of the two sent crashing in, and all of them his antagonist either took on the retreat with diminishing force or else avoided altogether. Once or twice indeed, as Bobby noticed with enthusiasm, he succeeded in avoiding devastating punches by simply moving his head an inch or two to one side, so that the other's ponderous fist missed by inches only, but missed all the same. Almost as clever was the speed with which he flung back in answer his own quick blows that only needed just a little more weight behind to make them as quickly effective.

He seemed to realise this, however, and that at close quarters he was no match for his antagonist. He began to give ground, making the big man use his energy in pursuit and taking advantage of his own greater agility to leap in with swift flashing hits that in the end must tell and then back again before the other could retaliate with effect.

A very evenly matched couple, Bobby thought; skill and speed against strength and weight; and then he reminded himself dolefully that a breach of the peace was being committed and that he was an officer of police.

“Just my luck,” he thought sadly, and nearly cheered aloud as the big man made one of his bull rushes that would probably have been more effective in the ring, with ropes against which an opponent could be pinned. Had anything of the sort been possible in this open glade, or had the big man succeeded, or the other consented, in continuing in-fighting, the battle would probably not have lasted long. At close quarters greater height and weight have their full effect. But this time, when the big man made his charge, the other dodged with an astonishing speed and the agility of a tennis champion on the central court at Wimbledon. Then, as his opponent lumbered by, he hit him two or three times with a magnificence of speed and accuracy that not only fully justified Bobby's instinct to cheer, but sent the big man crashing to the ground.

He fell heavily enough, but almost instantly was on his feet again, showing a nimbleness his previous somewhat heavy movements had hardly promised. He turned, and was about to rush again at his antagonist, who had stood back to allow him to recover his feet, when Bobby resolutely roused himself from the trance of admiration and delight in which he had been lost. Paying to stern duty the tribute of a sigh, he stepped forward from the shadows in which hitherto he had been standing.

“Now then,” he said sternly, “what's all this about?”

Startled, they both turned and stared at him.

“Go to hell,” said the first man.

“Get to blazes and quick about it,” advised the second.

“Two minds with but a single thought,” observed Bobby. “No, no,” he added, getting between them as they were about to start again after their brief replies to him. “Apologies and all that, you know, but there it is. Got to stop, I'm afraid. Awful shame, of course.”

“Who in thunder do you think you are?” demanded the smaller man.

“Mind your own business if you don't want your head knocked off,” said his erstwhile enemy.

Side by side, sudden allies, they stood and glared at him. Bobby beamed on them with all the friendliness he felt. This seemed to annoy them both still more.

“Chuck him in the chalk-pit,” suggested the bigger and more truculent of the two, “and then I can get on with that hiding I'm going to give you.”

“Take a better man than you,” retorted the other, and instantly, forgetting their momentary alliance, forgetting, too, all about Bobby, they were at it again as fiercely as before.

But now Bobby took a hand – or, more accurately, a foot – by dexterously and unexpectedly tripping up the big man as he was making one of his bull rushes, and then the other as he dodged away, so that the two astonished combatants found themselves unexpectedly supine, gazing with some bewilderment at the calm moon above.

“Sorry,” said Bobby contritely. “Awfully sorry. Let me answer your questions. As to who I think I am, I have reason to believe I'm a policeman. And I don't want my head knocked off, and you mustn't try, because you simply can't imagine the fuss there is if you hit a policeman. We might all be made of glass and liable to break. So it's not done. Never. Unconstitutional. Oh, and I am minding my business, because it is my business to see the King's peace is not broken, as seemed to be happening just now – very prettily, of course, but that doesn't count. The law cares nothing for art.”

They were both on their feet again by now and were both gazing at Bobby in complete bewilderment as he delivered this long speech, which was, of course, intended to puzzle them and give them something else to think about than their apparent desire to annihilate each other.

“I don't see –” began one of them hesitatingly.

“I don't see either,” agreed Bobby, “but there you are. Why not a gym, six-ounce gloves each, and an invite for me to look on? What about it?”

They both made sulky noises. Apparently the suggested delay did not appeal to them.

“It's all rot,” said the bigger man. “Come on,” he invited his opponent.

“You mustn't,” said Bobby earnestly. “Really. Or I shall have to arrest you both. I should hate to do that.” He was one and they were two, and, as they had shown, both sufficiently vigorous and able-bodied. But he spoke with all the weight of authority, with all the majesty of the law, behind him. They were evidently impressed. The smaller of the two said:

“How do we know you are a policeman?”

Bobby produced his warrant card.

“Detective-Sergeant. Criminal Investigation Department. Scotland Yard,” he recited. “At present detailed for duty with the county police.”

They looked at each other. The police are always the police, but, all the same, the village constable is one thing and an emissary from Scotland Yard another. They began to put on their coats, though reluctantly and still looking sideways at each other.

“Sorry to be a spoil-sport,” said Bobby, still apologetic. “Think over that gym idea – jolly good, if you ask me, though I shall call it a dirty trick if you don't let me know the date. By the way, I've been sent down over that affair that happened near here – dead man found at the bottom of the chalk-pit. Know anything about it? I heard something about chucking someone down the chalk-pit too.” He put a slight emphasis on the last word, and the smaller of the two men started and turned a little away, so that his profile showed clearly, caught in the beam from the motor-cycle headlamp. It reminded Bobby of another he had seen that evening, and he remembered also that Oliver Moffatt had not been found at his home.