Ten Star Clues (18 page)

Bobby tried to persuade him to be a little more explicit, but he only shook his head and grumbled again something about ‘bossiness' and ‘wanting to be It'. He complained, too, of having been led on to talk without Clinton Wells being present, and that it hadn't been fair, and therewith took himself off. Colonel Glynne hardly waited for the door to close behind him before exploding wrathfully.

“The fellow's a coward; a rank, shivering, shaking coward,” he thundered. “Got cold feet at the mere idea of active service. You brought that out very well, Owen, but I ought to have stopped you, because, of course, it has nothing to do with the case.”

“It might have, sir,” Bobby suggested.

“You mean he can't be the murderer because he hasn't the guts?” asked the colonel. “Well, I don't know. Doesn't take much courage to shoot an unsuspecting old man, and murder is a cowardly game.” He paused and looked puzzled. “Do you think he can be our man?” he asked. “What could be his motive? His grandfather accepted him, recognized him. So did the countess.”

“It might be to make sure recognition wasn't withdrawn,” Bobby suggested thoughtfully.

The colonel gave a little gasp, stared, rubbed his head. It was a new idea to him, for he had supposed the recognition given to Bertram to be necessarily final.

“Oh, well,” he said, and repeated, “Oh, well.” Then he said:— “That would be a first-class motive, of course, but there is nothing to show it was likely, is there?”

“No, sir,” Bobby agreed. “Except that all this has happened since Bertram's return, and it seems to me certain that there is something very queer about the whole business. Recognition by the old people seems conclusive, but Ralph Hoyle doesn't accept it.”

“Oh, well,” interrupted the colonel, “that's natural. Natural form his disappointment would take. Ralph's a fighter. He won't give up easily.”

“I don't understand,” Bobby went on, “the man's own attitude. He is very uneasy and disturbed. Is that because he is guilty? But a man who could carry out such a crime as the murder of Earl Wych you would expect to have better control of his nerves.”

“He is scared of Miss Anne, for one thing,” observed Colonel Glynne with a faint smile. “She's certainly a young woman who knows her own mind. I'm not surprised he thinks her bossy. But then she is engaged to Ralph. I suppose if this fellow is really an impostor he may be afraid she'll dig out the truth!”

“I didn't think it was that was worrying him,” Bobby answered. “He gave me the idea of not being too sure of himself, and not very happy at the idea of facing the responsibilities of being the new Earl Wych. It involves a good deal. One would almost think he doesn't like the idea of being so much in the limelight.”

“That would mean an impostor who is afraid of his own success,” the colonel pointed out.

“Yes, sir. I know it sounds rather absurd put like that,” agreed Bobby. “Why start a swindle if you are afraid of going through with it? It might be he didn't realise before what a prominent position an Earl Wych is expected to take in affairs. Possibly he thought it was just a question of getting hold of a big bank balance and drawing cheques. And now he finds there is more to being Earl Wych than that.”

“Good God, so I should think,” the colonel exploded. “But that's all speculation. We haven't got to decide anything of that sort. Our job is to see that the murderer is brought to justice. Don't you think our questioning was rather straying from the point?”

“Well, sir, I was trying to get the background,” Bobby answered meekly. “Backgrounds are important. Like the screen at cricket. You can't judge the ball unless you can see the bowler's arm.”

“Don't admit that,” grunted the colonel. “It's not the bowler's arm, it's the last lap home of the ball you want to watch. You brought out one thing of importance. Apparently both Miss Hoyle and this fellow—Earl Wych now, if he is Earl Wych—were out of their rooms at the relevant times. Where was Miss Hoyle? Why? Now you come to think of it, he came pretty near to accusing her, didn't he?”

“He could hardly have made it much plainer,” agreed Bobby drily.

“It seemed so absurd, I hardly took it in,” the colonel admitted. “A mass of contradictions,” he complained impatiently. “No one behaving sensibly or consistently. Why was he hanging round her room? There can't be anything between them, can there? I can't believe that possible. She's engaged to Ralph, has been since they were kiddies. It all seems such a muddle. What is Anne doing with a pistol? If it's true she had one. If she had, can it be the one that seems to be missing from the case in the table drawer here?”

“There are two pistols we've heard of, we must trace,” Bobby said. “Earl Wych's pistol, which is missing. And the Wych estate pistol, which, according to Ralph Hoyle, is locked up in the estate office safe. Even if it is there now, that doesn't prove it wasn't used last night. When we do know which weapon was used, we shall be a good deal further forward.”

“We had better have in Anne Hoyle next,” the colonel said, but not as if he looked forward to the interview with any very great pleasure. “A formidable young woman,” he said. “I'm a bit scared of her myself, but not like this Bertram fellow. I can't quite see why he should go all shivery when he mentions her.”

“He thinks,” said Bobby with a grim smile, “that she means to marry him.”

Before Colonel Glynne could make any comment on this remark, which had surprised him greatly and of which he strongly disapproved, the door opened and Anne came in. She gave them a quick glance, sat down, and said briskly:—

“I may as well tell you at once that if you think you are going to treat me like poor little Sophy, you're very much mistaken.”

“I am not aware—” began the colonel stiffly, but Anne cut him short.

“It won't be the very least bit of good trying to bully me,” she announced.

“We have not the least intention—” the colonel tried again, and still more stiffly, and again Anne cut him short.

“The poor kid's so scared,” she said, “she can't get a word out. Just sits and soaks into her handkerchief.”

“If you are suggesting—”

“I'm not like that,” Anne told him. “You won't reduce me to a state of speechless tears.”

“Madam—” began the colonel, and his voice was certainly both loud and stern.

“It's no good shouting at me,” declared Anne even more sternly if less loudly. “If you can't behave with ordinary decency, you can't. But you won't frighten me by shouting.”

“Miss Hoyle—”

“One thing,” Anne explained carefully, “to bully a poor little bit of a thing like Sophy who wouldn't dare say ‘Boo' to a goose. I think you'll find I'm different.”

“Will you be so good as to allow me to say one word?” asked the colonel pronouncing each separate syllable with an almost awful restraint.

“You may say as many as you like,” answered Anne. “That's what I'm here for, isn't it? just to listen to what you want to say.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” said the colonel with an emphasis Anne failed to notice.

“I'm only telling you it's no good trying to bully me,” she explained once more. “I'm not Sophy, poor little wretch. Grandmother's very annoyed. She may snap Sophy's head off herself, but she doesn't like other people doing it. Her privilege. She's talking about going to see the Home Secretary.”

Colonel Glynne snorted. Home Secretaries may be Home Secretaries but Chief Constables are Chief Constables, and fully prepared to talk with Home Secretaries in the gate or elsewhere at any moment required. Anne, who knew little of the powers and the status and the dignity of the chief constable, who indeed has no superior save God and the king, went on in a milder tone:—

“I only wanted to let you know I'm not Sophy. I expect she was easy. I'm not. I'm waiting,” she added, adopting a listening attitude with her hands clasped before her and her head inclined to one side, as though tendering an attentive ear. “And, oh, would you mind being as quick as you can, please. I've no doubt you have lots of time, but there are a great many things to be seen to. Grandmother is hardly fit to attend to them, and I have to do my best by myself. There's no one else. Even Sophy's too upset to be much good.”

“Please try to understand,” said the colonel, now very red in the face, for that hint of an appeal to the Home Secretary had touched him to the quick—Home Secretaries, indeed! “Please understand that we don't bully any one, and certainly not Miss Longden. She saw fit to refuse to answer my questions—”

“I know,” Anne interrupted again. “That's what I was saying. You've got the poor kid into such a state that she can't get a word out. She just sits there and uses up a week's supply of handkerchiefs every two minutes. I expect you think that a great triumph.”

“We don't,” roared the colonel.

“Well, then, why did you?” demanded Anne.

“We didn't,” protested the colonel, though by no means sure what it was he hadn't.

Anne raised her eyebrows delicately.

“Indeed,” she said, and oh, how insultingly she managed to utter that simple word. “Indeed. Well, both grandmother and I have seen her, you know. We are both inclined to believe our own eyes.”

“I am only trying to explain—”

“Exactly, and I am trying to explain that I do not find your explanations convincing. If that is all you have to say to me, perhaps I may as well go and get on with things. There is a great deal to attend to.”

So far Anne had conducted the conversation brilliantly. She had reduced the colonel to a state of incoherent rage, all the more incoherent for being also suppressed. But this last remark of Anne's was a mistake. As so many do in great things and in small, when they feel they are being successful, she overplayed her hand. True, the colonel was almost on the point of letting her go, but the attempt to evade further questioning was just a little too obvious, and now Bobby interposed.

“Possibly,” he said, “as Miss Hoyle seems to wish to make such a point of believing that you, sir, are responsible for Miss Longden's tears, which I expect have a different cause, you would allow me to ask a few questions. Miss Hoyle will, I am sure, not think it necessary to warn me so continuously that I need not try to bully her.”

Anne turned to look at Bobby, whom hitherto she had been inclined to regard as just another and quite uninteresting piece of furniture. Her expression became wary. 

She did not quite know what to make of the stolid, matter-of-fact way in which he was regarding her. A very ordinary young man to all appearance, she thought, and yet somehow with an odd suggestion that there was something extraordinary in his very ordinariness. Was it that he possessed ordinary qualities to an extraordinary degree?

“Never been so bullied in all my life if it comes to that,” Colonel Glynne was muttering under his breath, and then added aloud to Bobby: “All right. Carry on.”

“Suppose,” Bobby suggested to Anne, “that we forget about Miss Longden. Any complaint she may wish to make will of course receive careful attention. Any explanation she may require will be most readily furnished. But that is not the question for the moment.”

“I was only warning you that you couldn't bully me,” Anne repeated.

“I am sure of it,” Bobby answered.

They looked at each other for a moment in silence, two adversaries measuring each the other's strength. Bobby noted the closely-set mouth, the firm chin, the hard and resolute eyes, the general expression of a determined will that seemed to show so clearly in feature and expression. On Anne's side she noticed how steadily and how searchingly those clear eyes of his rested on hers. Penetrating eyes, that looked as though they could smile very readily, but now had in them no hint of a smile, showing only indeed a stern and settled resolution nothing would ever shake or change. Bobby went on slowly:—

“So we will consider ourselves warned, shall we? Now, we have been looking again at the statement you made earlier to-day and you mention that you went to your room about eleven o'clock last night and that you did not leave it again till this morning.”

“Well?”

“We have now received,” Bobby explained, “another statement according to which the door of your room was open about half-past eleven and the room itself was seen to be unoccupied.”

“Well, it wasn't.”

“Apparently a witness is prepared to swear it was. You realize, of course, that such a conflict of evidence bothers us a lot, and we have to consider it. Especially as the murder almost certainly took place about then.”

“I suppose it's Bertram told you that, isn't it?” Anne remarked.

“Why should you think so?”

“Because he was sneaking round. I saw him. I don't think any one else was.”

“If you saw him and he says you weren't in your room...?”

“Where was I? Well, if you want to know—behind the window curtains.”

“A little unusual,” murmured Bobby, while the colonel was beginning to look very worried, for murders were within his experience, but young ladies hiding behind bedroom curtains were altogether outside it. A murder, he felt, might happen anywhere, but young ladies behind curtains, and open bedroom doors were not to be expected in houses of the standing of Castle Wych.

He definitely disapproved.

He also disapproved of the fact that Bobby seemed quite unperturbed and Anne quite undisturbed. Anne had not answered Bobby's comment and so Bobby murmured again:—

“I wonder if you would mind explaining a little further.”

“I suppose you'll keep it to yourselves,” Anne said. “Not that I mind. Only once gossip gets started! Well, Bertram's been trying rather hard to make love to me. I'm not particularly flattered. I should imagine he tries to make love to every one he comes near. He's that sort. He doesn't mean marriage, though. He's definitely not that sort. Thinks marriage would cramp his style, I suppose. It would,” said Anne with a sudden involuntary tightening of her lips that somehow made her look twice as formidable. “The way he turned up so suddenly—the long lost heir and all that sort of thing—was rather intriguing. I expect I showed I was interested and he got wrong ideas. I found him hanging about near my room once or twice. Well, I didn't like it. That sort of thing soon sets the servants talking. I didn't say anything. He could always make some excuse. He had been using the backstairs as a short cut from the library or the billiard room or the garden. We all do sometimes. If you do, you come along the passage past my room. If I had said anything I should only have looked a fool. Last night he was quite pressing when we were in the small drawing-room after dinner. He had had a good deal to drink, had some more to soothe his feelings after the upset with Ralph you've heard about. So when I went up to bed, I left my door partly open and I hid behind the window curtains. I had a jug of cold water. I meant to throw it over him if he thought the open door was an invitation and came in. I thought a little cold water would cool his enthusiasm without making too much fuss. I don't think,” said Anne reflectively “that any man would be able to make love effectively when he was sopping wet. Do you?”