Mystery of Mr. Jessop (32 page)

“People don't move so much about here,” she explained, “but it's funny you should ask. There's been a lady and gentleman here only an hour or two ago asking the very same thing.”

It seemed that, like Bobby, they had left their car by the roadside and come to make the same inquiry as he had done. The good woman had not seen the car, but the description she gave of the two motorists convinced Bobby they were Denis Chenery and Hilda May.

“She was a queer one,” the woman said. “Touched, I thought – in the head, I mean. When I told them, same as I have you, there hadn't been a furniture van in these parts for months except for the one that brought my niece's bits of things from London this afternoon, she sort of began – well, kind of joggle with her feet, as if she wanted to do a dance like on her own.”

“But I thought you said,” protested Bobby, “you hadn't seen a van lately.”

The woman pointed out with some severity that he had asked if she had seen a van go by that way. She hadn't. The van that had brought her niece's “bits of things” hadn't gone by; it had stopped. Evidently it had never occurred to her that inquiries about a sought-for and missing van could apply to one that had actually been at her own house and about which and its errand there could be no mystery, since she herself was so well acquainted with both.

Further questioning revealed that Denis and Hilda had been gone only about half an hour. The van itself had left perhaps an hour earlier, though she wasn't sure. It was plain, in fact, that her calm and solitary existence had left her somewhat vague about times.

“Very obliging the gentlemen were that came with the van,” she explained, “and helped me to get the things in and the big carpet down too. So I got them their tea with my raspberry jam and home-made scones, and they stopped on a bit smoking their pipes and saying how nice it was here and quiet; like Hampstead Heath, they said, on a week-day.”

Bobby supposed all this explained why no report had been received concerning the van, and why no one had seen it. Snugly hidden behind the trees here, it could have remained unnoticed while whole troops of searchers passed by. Odd, Bobby told himself, to think of that peaceful scene, the “bits of things” amiably unloaded, the good woman serving tea, the quiet, unconcerned enjoyment of the country air, while on the hot and dusty roads their own car, and others, too, were rushing wildly to and fro, seeking and not finding, and in the van itself reposed, untouched and unnoticed, such a fortune in rare gems as few may ever even see.

“Can you tell me,” Bobby asked, “which way the van went when it left here?”

“Well, they asked me the quickest way to get to the main road,” the woman answered, “and I told them the lane on the left would save them going round by the village, but it's that steep and twisty it wouldn't hardly be safe, not for a big thing like theirs.”

“What did they say?”

“The gentleman driving said there wasn't nowhere the van could get he couldn't take it,” she replied, “so long as there was room for it to pass. Never had an accident yet, he said, and it had got so late with sitting over their tea they had better save time if they could. But there's been accidents down along that lane before to-day,” she added, again looking a little uneasily towards that faint and distant column of smoke. “Burning rubbish,” she repeated, “but I don't know who it can be.”

Bobby that afternoon had seen several times smoke coming from autumnal fires where dead leaves and so on were being got rid of, and he did not pay much attention to this.

“Do you know which way the lady and gentleman went you told me about?” he continued.

“They spoke of going the same way as the van,” she answered. “I told the gentleman to be careful if they did, along of all those twists and turns, and he said he supposed they could follow where a furniture van had been before. A year ago,” she added, “a car went over the bank near the foot of the lane and caught fire. We saw the smoke from here just like yon.”

“We'll push along and see,” Bobby promised her, and as he was going she called after him:

“Keep to the left; there's two turnings on the right that only lead to Middle Springs Farm, where there's no one living since Mr. Watson was sold up. That's why the lane is in worse state than it was, along of there being no one to look after it, and round the farm all boggy, too, with the springs overflowing along of so much rain as we've been having.”

“The left – I'll remember,” Bobby said, and, going back, made his report to Ulyett, who had been on the point of coming to see what had become of him.

“Looks as if we're going to be too late,” Ulyett commented. “Lady wasn't on the 'phone, I suppose? No. Ten to one Chenery and his girl will have got their claws on the necklace by now. We had better follow the way the van took and see if we can find out what's happened, and then ring up and get an alarm out as soon as we can find a call-box. Not one chance in a hundred, though, of picking up Chenery with the goods still on him. Ten to one he'll plant the thing somewhere and tell us he's just been taking his girl for a joy-ride.”

“There'll be the evidence of the driver of the van and his mate,” Bobby pointed out.

“Think so? Hope you're right,” Ulyett mumbled, and subsided into a silence that Bobby did not dare to interrupt, fearful as were the thoughts with which it filled him.

The lane, they found, when they turned into it, more than justified the warnings they had received. At times it almost doubled back upon itself; and, apart from numerous hairpin bends, it was steep and often muddy, with a surface that seemed chiefly composed of a slithering mire. Bobby was a good driver, but he was thankful he hadn't a furniture van to manage. As it was, it took all his skill and care to keep their car on an even keel. He began to think but poorly of their chance of getting safely through; and as for the furniture van, he could only suppose that Providence had kindly provided a succession of miracles to save it from a catastrophe otherwise inevitable at every other yard or two.

The tracks the van had made in the lane's soft surface were plainly visible as they cautiously progressed, though Bobby had small time to notice them. Ulyett said:

“There's been another car before us and after the van – Chenery's, I suppose.”

Bobby did not answer. He was perspiring gently, and had just managed to avoid sliding through a hedge and over a ten-foot bank into a field below. They came to a turning on the right, evidently the one leading to the derelict farm concerning which they had been warned. It had, in fact, entirely the air of being the proper continuation of the lane, and Bobby would certainly have followed it but for the warning received. Ulyett, who was standing on the footboard so as to have a clearer view of the tracks in the mud, said:

“The van went straight on all right, that's plain. But it looks as if Chenery, if it was him, turned off here, leads to an empty farm, you said?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Bobby, “considerable risk of getting bogged there, too, according to what that woman told me.”

“Hope Chenery does get bogged,” grunted Ulyett. “Give us a chance to catch up with the van first. Time we had a bit of luck, anyhow. Haven't had much in this show.”

They drove on slowly and carefully, though the going was better now. Here and there the surface had been improved by the dumping of a load of stones or clinkers – possibly the work of the unfortunately bankrupt Mr. Watson, to whose farm this lane had apparently provided the most direct access.

They were getting close now to the column of smoke, by this time a little thinner, as if the fire from which it came were exhausting itself. Bobby, negotiating another, and, as it turned out, final hairpin bend came into a narrow but fairly straight and firm stretch of road, bordered on one side by a small wood and on the other by a hedge that a few yards further on showed itself broken through where some vehicle had gone over the edge of the bank just where the smoke was coming from. 

 “Something been happening,” Ulyett muttered. “Get a move on her, Owen.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby, acquiescent as ever, but careful not to obey, since here even the deviation of an inch would be likely enough to send their own car somersaulting over the edge of the bank into the field below.

But the distance that separated them from that ominous gap in the hedge was not great, and Ulyett jumped down as Bobby slowed and ran to the spot.

“The van all right,” he said, looking down at where it burned – or smouldered rather, for the flames had died down now and all that was left was a pile of glowing ashes. “What's become of the driver and his mate?” he asked.

There was no sign of either of them, and, uneasily enough, Ulyett and Bobby looked at each other.

At this point the drop into the field beneath was about ten feet at an angle of some sixty degrees. The grass- and weed-grown surface of the bank showed clearly where the ponderous van had rolled down, to crash into flames at the bottom of the descent. Ulyett, looking down at the smouldering ashes, grumbled to Bobby:

“I suppose diamonds stand heat all right, don't they?”

“I don't know, sir. I should think so,” Bobby answered. He added: “You don't think they'll still be there, do you, sir, even if they were there to start with?”

“Someone got away with them, you mean?” Ulyett asked.

“I should think it's ten to one they're gone,” Bobby answered. “Do you notice the tracks ahead, sir? They're interesting.”

There were plainly marked tracks in the soft surface of the lane that were not too difficult to read. For a few moments Ulyett and Bobby turned their attention to them. It seemed quite plain that a car coming in the opposite direction – from the lower end of the lane – had here met the van where there was barely room for the two vehicles to pass, and no room at all for either of them to turn. The van had drawn to the outside to give space to the car to get by. In consequence, it had overbalanced, whereon the car, instead of proceeding on its way, had backed for some distance till a comparatively free space under the trees had allowed it to turn and go back by the way it had come.

“If the vanmen had been injured, possibly taking them to hospital,” observed Ulyett, “or going for help. All depends on who was in the car.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby. “It might be,” he added cautiously, “that when the car and van met there was some excitement; that while the car driver and the van– men were arguing what to do, somebody else from the car got down, walked round to the back of the van to see what things looked like there, took the opportunity to nip into the van and grab the necklace, and that then the accident happened – if it was an accident,” he added. “Looks to me very much as if the van had been deliberately tippled over.”

“All depends,” repeated Ulyett, “on who was in the car. Young Chenery and his girl, if you ask me. Easy does for Chenery to keep the vanmen talking while the girl nips round behind. Then they edge the van over to give the vanmen something else to think about – perhaps they had got suspicious – and clear off with the necklace.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby, “only, if it was Denis Chenery, I don't quite see how they could have got here so soon, coming the opposite way, too. It was pretty plain they took the wrong turning higher up – the one that led to the empty farm.”

“Might be a short cut through there somewhere,” Ulyett suggested. “All I hope is, nothing worse has happened. Shan't be sorry to see those vanmen still alive. The diamonds gone for keeps most likely – nice snug hiding-place arranged for them, and there they'll stop for a year or two till there's a good chance to get 'em away – out East somewhere; Japan perhaps, or it might be South America. Better have a closer look.”

He and Bobby accordingly scrambled down the steep 

bank, leaving Higson to look after the car. What was left of the van showed no sign of having been disturbed, though to disturb it, considering the heat it was still giving out, would not have been easy. There was nothing to show that any struggle had occurred, or, indeed, that anything had happened beyond the fall of the van and its bursting into flames. Ulyett, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking at it discontentedly from as near as the heat permitted him to approach.

“Wish we had something to rake the ashes over with,” he grumbled.

But Bobby had noticed, half hidden in long grass at a little distance, a crumpled ball of paper. He went across and picked it up. It consisted of the outer pages of the
Evening Announcer
containing the football results for the day of Mr. Jessop's murder. It had been used to wrap something in, something small and hard, for the paper was twisted and a little torn. Bobby showed it to Ulyett.

“Circumstantial evidence, sir,” he said, “but pretty conclusive, I think.”

“Means we were right,” Ulyett agreed. “T.T. stuffed the necklace away in the van, and fussed us too much by the way he was raking out our chaps for anyone to notice what he was up to. Mightn't have come off so easily, though, if it hadn't been for the murder giving us something else to think about. Question is, who has got the thing now?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby. “There's someone coming.”

A man was walking across the field to them. He was a cottager, working a small allotment of his own and doing odd jobs for neighbouring farmers as well. He had been on the scene before, attracted by the smoke, though he had not seen what actually happened. He took it for granted that Ulyett and Bobby were passing motorists attracted by the evidence of an accident. He agreed there was nothing to show that any injury to life or limb had occurred, and he added that the lane was dangerous and in his opinion ought to be closed for traffic, though it was little used since the farm up yonder had been vacant. To-day, though, an unusual number of cars had passed that way.