Ten Star Clues (25 page)

The telephone bell rang. Bobby went to answer it. Presumably it was of importance or the outer office would not have put the call through. Bobby took the message and then turned to the colonel.

“Mr. Clinton Wells,” he said. “He wants to know if we have arrested Ralph. He says if we have, we should have warned him so that he could take immediate steps. He seems very indignant, and wants to lodge a protest.”

“About something we haven't done?” growled the colonel. “Tell him not to be an ass. Why should he think we have arrested Ralph—or any one else for that matter? I only wish we knew enough.”

Bobby was at the telephone again. He turned round presently, looking puzzled.

“He says that's the story going about. He says no one has seen Ralph this morning. He says Ralph slept at home, but got up early, went out without stopping for his breakfast and no one has seen him since.”

“Bolted?” said the colonel slowly. “Bolted? I suppose that's conclusive.”

None the less, though Colonel Glynne spoke with such emphasis, though Bobby expressed no disagreement, neither of them was quite convinced that this flight— if flight it were, this disappearance—to use a word that went at least no farther than the actual fact proved—carried with it the obvious significance of confession of guilt.

“Panic? Ralph's not the sort to panic, and where there's been one murder there may be another,” Bobby heard the colonel mutter, half to himself, and later on was called upon to confirm this utterance that, later on still, the colonel, who had been intensely interested by some of Mr. J.B. Priestley's ‘time' plays, was inclined to regard as a proof of how events to come impinge upon the conscious present.

Then as they were preparing to leave to investigate upon the spot the circumstances of this new and startling development, there came in a report of another disappearance.

“Man of the name of Brown, Bertram Brown,” explained the inspector on duty, to whom the report had come in the first place. “Booked a room at the Chambers Temperance Hotel, in Carlyle Street, two days ago. Went out and hasn't been seen since. His luggage is still in his room. Not a great deal apparently, one bag with contents the hotel people don't seem to think much of or likely to cover their bill if it runs on any longer. They say he had had a bit too much to drink—the Chambers is one of those temperance hotels which are run rather on bottle-party lines, you can have as much as you like if you send out for it—and they were afraid he might have met with an accident. It seems he landed in Glasgow from America, spent the night there at the Northern Lights Hotel—that's the label on his bag at least—and then came on to Midwych.”

Colonel Glynne gave the necessary routine instructions for looking into the matter, and Bobby noted, without thinking much of it, the trifling coincidence that here was another Bertram, though Bertram is not one of the more common Christian names. Then they started off and were soon at Ralph's home, the house he occupied, or had occupied, as Wych Estate Agent.

All their questioning produced no further information. Ralph seemed perfectly normal on retiring to bed the previous night. He had risen early this morning, gone out without waiting for his breakfast, and had not been seen or heard of since. The house was on a road that lay between the village and the castle. If he had turned east he must have passed through the village, where, even at that early hour, many would be astir and he would almost certainly have been seen. So presumably he had gone west, past the castle, where they were not such early risers, and so he might have escaped notice, and on possibly towards Midwych itself. Or he might have turned off across the fields and so made his way towards the thickets and groves and wide open spaces of Wychwood Forest. Traversing these he could emerge anywhere west or north of Midwych; or indeed in the safe concealment of that great expanse of solitary and deserted country, it would be possible for a young and healthy man, used to country life, to maintain a kind of Robinson Crusoe existence almost indefinitely.

There seemed to be a general impression that that was what he might intend doing, and that, if so, then those deep forest recesses afforded safe concealment. The colonel said gloomily:—

“Take an army to search Wychwood—and then they mightn't find.”

A fox-hunter's expression Bobby did not much like, for he did not care to think of Ralph as the hunted creature pursued thus with horn and dog through the indifferent forest trees. An ugly picture, he thought, and an offence to human dignity, and yet, if Ralph were indeed the murderer of the old earl, what better fate did he deserve?

Having learned nothing by their inquiries in the village and neighbourhood the colonel and Bobby went on to the castle in the hope of getting some information there. No one seemed to know anything though all were closely questioned. Countess Wych was in bed and Sophy thought her unfit to see any one. However, when asked she declared herself both fit and willing to receive the colonel.

“But not that young man of his,” she sent the message down. “I don't like him. He gets on my nerves.”

The colonel thought this a little hard on Bobby, but thought it would be better to see the countess on her own terms, rather than not at all. So, leaving Bobby downstairs, he went off; and to Sophy, who also had stayed downstairs, since Lady Wych had stipulated that she and the colonel were to talk alone, Bobby said:—

“You know, I'm awfully sorry to think I got on Lady Wych's nerves. Especially as she doesn't strike me as a nervy person. In fact, I shouldn't have said she went in for being nervy.”

Sophy made no answer to this, though it was plain that she was of much the same opinion. Abruptly she said:— “Mr. Ralph didn't do it.”

“If he is innocent he should have stayed here,” Bobby said. “Innocent people don't run away.”

He used the expression deliberately, in the hope that it might sting Sophy into a defence of the absent man. If once she could be induced to talk, any information she had and was keeping to herself might presently get itself uttered. He thought the attempt had failed, for she remained silent, though it was easy to see that there was deep fear and unease in the bright clear eyes fixed steadily on his. Since she did not speak, he said presently:—

“Is not running away as good as a confession?”

“Mr. Ralph didn't do it,” she repeated.

“ If you have any reason to think so,” Bobby said gravely, “or if there is anything you know, or think you know, or suspect, won't you tell us? If Ralph Hoyle is innocent, it can only help him.”

“I don't know anything,” she answered, and added unexpectedly:— “I suspect everything. It's all so vague, like a nightmare, when you feel you must and yet you can't. There's something... you don't know what... all around you... something horrible... it's like that... only you can't do anything.”

She had begun by speaking calmly enough, but at the end her words came in gasps, in broken sentences. Bobby, watching her closely and not without sympathy, felt that he understood well what she meant. He had often felt like that. Groping in the dark for he knew not what and knew not even if it were there, whatever it might be.

“If you think of anything, no matter how trivial, won't you let us know?” he asked, almost pleadingly, for he could not get away from the feeling that those small hands, however unwittingly, might hold the vital clue still needed. “No harm would be done by telling us, even if it turned out to be quite unimportant.”

She made no reply to that, and presently he went on:— “I expect you feel very sorry for Ralph, don't you?”

“I do think it's such a shame,” she burst out as though this question released depths of feeling hitherto held up. “I just know he would never do anything like that, and now Anne says she won't be engaged to him any more, and I think it's wicked, I do, and I don't know how any one can think of marrying Mr. Bertram, not if he's Lord Wych ten times over, and he isn't, I know he isn't.”

“Then why did the old earl recognize him?”

For once her eyes dropped before his. He wondered if she knew or suspected the true reason. But he knew also that she would say nothing unless and until she thought the time had come.

“Lady Wych is still willing to accept him, isn't she? to let him inherit the title?” Bobby asked after a time.

Perhaps... I don't know...” Sophy answered slowly. “It's all so difficult... I don't think she has made up her mind... knows what to do... everything is such a dreadful muddle... I think she's all confused and upset.”

“Miss Longden,” Bobby said slowly, “don't you think you ought to be willing now to answer us, to tell us everything. Police have no power or authority to insist on your speaking, but if you are called as a witness, the courts have authority. They can make it very unpleasant for any one, who won't answer reasonable questions.”

“Yes, I know,” she answered, as one who long ago had seen what was inevitable, and, since it was inevitable, knew there was nothing to be gained by trying to avoid it. “I looked in a book and it had all about what they can do to you. I think being shut up in prison must be worse than almost anything, don't you?”

“Miss Longden,” Bobby repeated, “if you refuse to answer questions, you must not wonder at what we think. There are two possibilities. Either you shot Lord Wych yourself...”

“Me?” said Sophy and looked very surprised. “Oh, I wouldn't ever do a thing like that,” she assured him. She shook her head gravely. “I don't think I could, not really. Do you?” Bobby expressed no opinion, and she continued: “Of course, I'm an awfully good shot.”

“Eh?” said Bobby, a good deal startled.

“Didn't you know?” she asked. “I thought detectives always found out everything. It was Uncle Jim. He's an officer in the Territorials. He showed me their shooting range, and it was awfully interesting, and I said could I try, and he looked ever so superior, and said all right, and promised me a pair of silk stockings if I hit the target once in five shots, and I hit it every time, right on that round black spot in the middle, only he wouldn't give me five pairs of stockings, and I think it was rather cheating not to, don't you? and then he got his revolver and told me to try with that, and I did, but he wouldn't promise me anything for hitting, though I wanted him to.”

“Were you as good with the revolver?” Bobby asked.

“Oh, yes, nearly, not quite. I hit the black round thing three times and uncle said two hits were inners and one missed altogether—I can't think why. It's quite simple really. All you've got to do is to point the thing straight. Uncle said lots of people couldn't. I think that's rather funny, don't you? because it's only pointing straight.”

“I suppose that is all,” agreed Bobby, feeling a little worried by this unexpected light thus thrown on Sophy's powers and capacities.

He remembered having once heard a firearms expert remark that sometimes people—almost invariably women —were extraordinarily successful the first time they shot. But almost equally invariably they failed just as badly at a second attempt. A kind of beginner's luck, probably. Bobby did not know in the least what to make of Sophy's apparently spontaneous and naive tale. Or had she known he was sure to hear sooner or later the story of her skill, and had she thought it wiser to tell it herself in this apparently simple and innocent way? Was, in short, the girl as simple as she seemed? He reflected grimly that all women are the most inexplicable mixture of child-like simplicity and Machiavellian subtlety. The devil of it was that you never knew which they were turning on—the child-like simplicity or the Machiavellian, more than Machiavellian, subtlety.

Sophy was saying thoughtfully:—

“I don't think I could ever possibly shoot any one. At least not an old man like Lord Wych. I was awfully frightened of him,” she added, “he always seemed so grand and imposing, and rather nice with it, only his being nice made you all the more frightened because somehow it made you feel how awful it would be if he stopped being nice. No,” she decided firmly, “I'm sure I could never possibly have shot him.” 

Then we are forced to the second conclusion,” Bobby said. “That you know something, and that you won't tell us because you are shielding someone.”

She made no answer, but she looked full at him, and he perceived with exasperation that now she was a third woman, neither simple nor subtle, but the very incarnation of an oxlike and immovable obstinacy.

“Oh, hell,” said Bobby, losing his temper.

“I don't think,” Sophy told him, “that that is a very nice way to talk. My father says it's very sad that young people”—she said this as one of immeasurable age rebuking callow youth—“have got into such a way of using so lightly what are really very dreadful words—like hell and damn—as if they didn't mean anything. They do,” Sophy told him sternly, “they have very dreadful meanings indeed.”

“Sorry,” muttered Bobby, and Sophy at once put on so smug an air of feeling that her rebuke had done him good that he longed passionately to box her little ears for her— the usual coarse masculine reaction when the feminine shaft has struck fairly home.

Another bull's-eye she probably thought, he told himself resentfully.

Partly to change the subject, he asked:—

“Does Lady Wych know Miss Anne has broken off her engagement with Ralph?”

“Oh, yes. Anne didn't want her to know, but I told her at once,” Sophy answered primly, and Bobby wanted to shout ‘sneak' at the top of his voice, only he didn't dare.

All at once he perceived that now she was neither simple nor subtle, nor prim, nor smug, but entirely different—a larky schoolgirl enjoying a rag on an unpopular mistress.