Dictator's Way (20 page)

She was walking up and down the room now. His eyes followed her, but he still said nothing. She said, still walking up and down so far as the narrow limit of the tiny room permitted:

“I suppose you think you know who it was.”

“I think you think you know,” he answered then.

“I don't. Who?” she cried, facing him with a kind of controlled fury.

“Peter Albert.”

“Oh, oh,” she gasped. “I don't. I don't. I don't,” she cried, her voice rising hysterically. “How dare you say I do?”

“I suppose because it's the truth and nothing matters but the truth,” he answered.

The sound of cars drawing near became audible. They both listened.

“They'll be here in a minute or two,” Bobby said.

“Peter's not a murderer,” she muttered.

“What I said,” Bobby answered gravely, “is that you thought you knew he killed Macklin.” He went to the door and opened it. “It's the superintendent,” he said. “Superintendent Ulyett.”

At the door of the cottage, in the light of the lamp shining behind him, Bobby stood waiting the arrival of the help he had summoned. The big police car drew up outside, a little past the entrance gate where stood Olive's car turned ready to be backed into the garage as she had left it on her arrival. She had followed Bobby to the doorway and was standing close behind him. She said to him in a low, unsteady voice:

“Are you going to tell them what I said?”

He had no answer to make. He felt a little dizzy and he was glad of the cool night air blowing in on them now he had opened the door. He watched the tree tops across the lane bowing right and left as the soft breeze blew. He said bitterly:

“You don't trust him much, do you? If he is innocent, what is there to be afraid of? If he isn't – is he still your – friend?”

“Yes,” she answered, though so softly he could hardly hear the word.

“Ah,” he said, and then they were both silent.

The police car had now been manoeuvred past the obstruction caused by Olive's car that so nearly blocked the narrow lane wherein her cottage stood. Ulyett came striding up the garden path, followed by two or three others. An Inspector Simmonds was among them, a man Bobby was not glad to see, for Simmonds was one of those who liked to describe Bobby as a favourite, a ‘pet', and to declare that such success as Bobby had achieved was due merely to his having been given special opportunities.

“If you want to be in the Cabinet,” Simmonds was fond of saying “you've got to start by going to Eton. Then you get the chances. Same here. Mr. Blooming Favourite Bobby Owen gets it handed to him on a plate. All his bleeding lordship has to do is to mind not to let it drop.”

There was a chair in the hall. Olive was sitting on it now, or rather, she had collapsed upon it. Her head drooped, her hands hung helplessly, she looked pitifully broken, only half conscious. She did not even raise her eyes, she seemed unaware of it, when Ulyett came striding in. He looked round quickly and uttered the traditional police inquiry.

“Now then, what's all this about?”

Bobby did not answer. He made a step or two towards Olive, his attention concentrated on her. Ulyett said angrily:

“Well, what's the matter with you, Owen? Gone deaf?”

“Pretty girl,” commented Simmonds from behind.

Bobby swung round quickly, recalled abruptly to discipline and duty.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I thought Miss Farrar was going to faint.”

“Where's the doctor?” Ulyett asked, and then as a middle, aged man came up, he said to him: “Oh, doctor, have a look at that girl, will you? Is she drunk or what?”

The doctor went forward. Bobby repressed a wild desire to hit Ulyett, a still stronger desire to kick Simmonds who had giggled audibly. The doctor smelt Olive's breath, looked at her eyes, felt her pulse, spoke to her, shook her slightly. She took no notice, she seemed hardly aware of him. He said:

“Dazed condition. Shock probably. Not drunk, no sign of drugs. What's it all about? Hasn't had a blow or a fall, has she?”

“Well?” Ulyett snapped at Bobby.

“I had your instructions to take a statement from Miss Farrar,” answered Bobby. “She was not at her town address. This address was given me. I came on here. I found Clarence apparently watching the cottage. While I was talking to him we heard pistol shots. I saw a man running away.”

“Didn't you stop him?” demanded Ulyett.

“I hadn't the chance, sir,” Bobby defended himself. “I only had the merest glimpse of him.”

Simmonds coughed. It was a cough eloquent, expressing surprise, doubt, dissatisfaction, ironic amusement. It said as plainly as possible that any police officer of intelligence or energy would have pursued and captured the fugitive. It was perhaps the influence of that cough that made Ulyett demand next:

“Didn't you follow him?”

“No, sir, it seemed useless in the dark with the start he had.”

“I suppose he would be armed, too,” murmured Simmonds in an audible aside.

Bobby flushed at the insinuation but took no other notice of it and continued:

“Also I thought I ought to find out what had happened. The door was locked but I broke a window and got in. In the room there” – he nodded to the door of the lounge – “I found an unconscious man on the floor. Clarence identified him as Yates, one of Mr. Judson's clerks, living in the same block of flats as Macklin. There was no one else in the cottage. I found Miss Farrar locked in the garage. I released her. She was in a very distressed condition. She said as soon as she arrived she had been attacked, put in the garage, and locked in. She did not see her assailant and had no idea who it was.”

“Where's Clarence?” demanded Ulyett.

“He's not here now, sir,” Bobby answered. “He cleared off.”

Ulyett greeted this information with a formidable scowl.

“Didn't you stop him either?” asked Simmonds in a very surprised tone.

“He took an opportunity when my back was turned and I was occupied with Miss Farrar,” Bobby explained, flushing again.

Ulyett continued to scowl.

Bobby perceived that the official report was going to be that he had handled the situation badly. Simmonds said:

“Oh, well, of course, if you were busy with the young lady – pretty girl, too.”

Sergeants do not answer inspectors, so Bobby said nothing, though not all the discipline and duty in the world could prevent him from going first very red and then very white. The worst of it was that he did not feel quite sure that Simmonds' sneers were altogether groundless. If it had been some other girl or woman – or a man – would not his attention have been more generally alert, less exclusively occupied than it had been?

“Then the young lady wasn't quite so done in all the time as she seems now?” growled Ulyett. “What about Yates? Doctor, will you come in here?”

The doctor, who had prepared a restorative he had been trying, without success, to get Olive to swallow, said crossly:

“It's shock, she's quite dazed, coma.”

“You keep an eye on her, Simmonds,” Ulyett ordered.

He and the doctor went into the lounge. Bobby stood in the doorway, waiting to be questioned. Inspector Simmonds looked curiously over his shoulder. The doctor knelt down by the still unconscious Yates. Ulyett occupied himself with examining the signs of conflict. He looked at the bullet hole in the ceiling and said:

‘‘Good sized revolver bullet, I should think.”

Then he looked into the kitchen and saw the tray with the coffee and two cups on it. He said:

“Who had this?”

“Miss Farrar made it for herself, sir,” Bobby answered. “She said she felt she needed it. She poured out the second cup for me.”

“I suppose it was while you were having your coffee with her that Clarence slipped off,” Simmonds observed from behind.

“The lady was all right then, was she?” asked Ulyett. “Dazed condition came on later, I suppose? Did she say anything before it came on, Owen?”

“She made no actual statement, sir,” Bobby answered, thankful he had time to think what to say and to choose his words. “She told me she would refuse to answer any questions. What she did say, though, gave me an idea of what was in her mind. But it is only a guess, not anything she actually said. What I thought was that she was afraid Mr. Peter Albert might be the man who killed Macklin. But there again I didn't gather that she had any real reason or knew any direct evidence. It seemed rather that she was just afraid it might be him.”

“Well, that doesn't amount to much,” grumbled Ulyett. “We knew before it might be Albert all right – or anyone else almost. Anyhow, we had better see what she has to say for herself now and if she isn't fit to answer questions yet, she'll have to go to hospital with some one to see she stops there. If we have to, we can charge her – suspected assault. She may have knocked Yates out and then been shoved in the garage by pals of his. I suppose this Yates bird had better go to hospital, too, doctor, hadn't he? We can charge him with being a suspected person found on enclosed premises. How long will it be before he can talk?” ‘

“Oh, he should be all right before long,” answered the doctor. “He's concussion. The girl's a shock case – hysteria condition.”

“Hysteria – that's kicking and screaming, isn't it?” Ulyett asked doubtfully.

“Sometimes. Sometimes it's passive,” the doctor explained. “It might pass off quickly. You called me away before I was quite satisfied. I'll have another look, shall I?”

“Right,” said Ulyett, but when they returned to the small entrance hall, there was no sign of Olive.

“Hullo, what's this?” Ulyett demanded, glaring round.

“I had a suspicion the coma wasn't so deep as it appeared,” said the doctor with satisfaction. “Up and off,” he added to Ulyett.

“Simmonds,” roared Ulyett, “didn't I tell you to keep an eye on her?”

“I thought I thought stammered Simmonds, “I thought...”

Discipline and duty are discipline and duty, but Bobby had his full share of normal human nature and though he said nothing he made little effort to conceal a certain complacence that stole into his expression as he watched the unhappy, floundering Simmonds.

Nobody had seen her go. They had all assumed her incapable of movement. Ulyett was a dreadful sight as he stood there, almost literally swelling with indignation. As for Inspector Simmonds, he was almost literally shrinking where he stood. Fortunately for him, Ulyett could not say all he wished, since he felt he himself had shared the general impression and should have issued more explicit instructions. With an unconscious man, badly knocked out, and a girl in a state of apparently complete collapse, further precautions had certainly seemed unnecessary. But Ulyett knew well he would have accepted no such excuse from any subordinate.

‘‘She may be anywhere by now,” he muttered, half aloud.

“Funny thing,” observed the doctor, “women often seem to know instinctively how to put it on. When a man wants to do a bit of malingering he works it all out beforehand – difference between the reasoning and the intuitive qualities.”

But the interesting and instructive discourse thus begun, for the doctor was evidently warming to his theme, was interrupted by a fresh roar from Ulyett and the sound from without of a departing car.

“She's got that car of hers, she's off in it,” he cried.

They all rushed in a body out of the cottage and along the garden path to where the cars had been left. Respect for his superiors satisfied Bobby's conscience that his place was in the rear. As he ran he wondered what Olive hoped to effect. An hour or two's respite perhaps, but what good would that be? Or did she not understand how widespread and effective would be the search for her that now of necessity would be begun. He experienced a horror of the prospect, he knew too well what it meant for those who become the object of a nation-wide hunt. He tried to think what he could do, as they all rushed down the path, Ulyett's bulky form leading, for he had been nearest the door and first through it when the sound of the departing car had given the alarm. In the distance they saw Olive's tail-light disappear and heard her sound her horn, as if in a final message of farewell and defiance.

“Get after her, get started, get the car going,” shouted Ulyett. “Hurry. Marks, jump to it.”

Marks was the police chauffeur. He said:

“Yes, sir. It'll take time, her nose is the other way. Have to turn her, sir, and it's very narrow here.”

Olive's car had been left headed towards town in the direction whence both she and the police had come. She had turned it on her arrival with the intention of backing it into the garage. But the police car was still headed as it had been left when they reached the cottage. Evidently by the time the car had been turned round and pursuit was practical, Olive would be far away.

Ulyett expressed himself in fluent but unofficial language. It relieved his feelings but not the situation. Bobby said:

“Beg pardon, sir. I came on my motor-bike. I left it just behind the cottage. I could try to catch up with Miss Farrar.”

“Right. Get on with it,” said Ulyett promptly.

Bobby raced away. Ulyett wiped his forehead and said to Simmonds:

“He may be a pet and a favourite and all that, but somehow he's always there when he's wanted.”

The head-light of his cycle was still on, so Bobby had no trouble in finding it, and a motor-cycle has the advantage over a big car that to swing it round in no matter how narrow a path is perfectly easy. In a moment Bobby had mounted and was flying along a road – a narrow lane, rather – that was however quite straight, so that he could still see a rear-light in the distance.

He supposed it must be hers. He felt he must overtake her at all costs. She must be persuaded it was useless to try to evade the police, much better in every way for her to go to them voluntarily than to await inevitable discovery and arrest.