The Dusky Hour (10 page)

“Different moods, perhaps,” suggested the colonel, and then he chuckled. “I must say,” he went on, “Hayes can put away the drink all right, and I do like a man with a good head. He had had some before we got there, he had three or four stiff glasses while we were talking, and it hadn't the least effect. Sometimes the way, though, with these dried-up little men; they lap it up like so many sponges. The New York police didn't give you any description of the man they are inquiring about, did they? Hayes was quite open about that, too. Knew all about the share-pushing game, evidently. Possibly he may be able to identify the body.”

“Great help if he does,” said Bobby, though he thought few things less likely. “It wasn't the New York police we heard from though. It was the F.B.I.”

“F.B.I.?” repeated the colonel, puzzled, thinking of the Federation of British Industries, for which he had a great respect as the bulwark of the world's prosperity, peace, and general well-being. “How do you mean? How do they come into it?”

“I don't quite know,” answered Bobby, for whom the initials stood for the United States Federal Board of Investigation. “Some question of a Federal Bank having been let in, I think. The U.S. police system is a bit complicated. There are ten or twenty different bodies apparently, besides the State police and the local men as well, not to mention the recognised private detective forces. If a burglar sends a post-card arranging for a pal to meet him, then the post-office inspectors come in – unlawful use of mails. If he crosses a State border going to or from a job, then that makes it a Federal offence, and the F.B.I., the Federal Board of Investigation, comes in – the “G-men,” as they call them on the films. If he doesn't make a correct income-tax return of his profits from burgling, then the Treasury agents follow it up. Any suspicion that he uses cocaine to buck him up before going burgling, and the Narcotic Board is on his trail. And so on. If he is very, very careful, he may have only the State police to deal with, but that seems exceptional. I suppose it works out all right, but it sounds more like a crossword puzzle than a police system. Anyhow, the F.B.I. people seem to be the ones interested this time. And they seemed to think we should know at once whom they meant without any details from them – seemed to have an idea England was such a small country, we would know all our crooks the way a village policeman knows all the bad characters on his round.”

“But surely they gave some indication?”

“Well, what it came to wasn't much more than that they thought he was an Englishman by birth, and probably a Londoner, very quiet and self-possessed and unassuming, cool as hell ”

“Cool as – what?” asked the colonel, slightly startled by this metaphor.

“Cool as hell,” Bobby answered gravely, “but I think over there they use ‘hell' merely as a general adverb of emphasis. Liable to shoot to kill when in a fix – a ‘killer,' they called him – and probably middle-aged. And that's about all.”

“What about the M.O.?” asked the colonel, M.O. being the usual abbreviation for that method of procedure – the
modus operandi
– which it is the general police experience all over the world very few criminals ever vary, those who do being those who are really dangerous, at the very head of their profession.

“The general idea, from what they say, but it seems largely guesswork,” Bobby answered, “is that this unknown Britisher – Mr. X – picks up rich Americans over here, gets friendly with them, gets to know a lot about them, goes out of his way to put them under some obligation if he can, is very careful to do nothing in any way suspicious. If cards are played, for instance, he never wins. On this side that's all there's to it. All as innocent and above-board as you please. A year or two later – it's all carefully worked out; months between each move sometimes; they can afford to wait, with cash winnings in the thousands in prospect – Mr. X turns up on the other side and meets his former American friend once again, apparently by accident. At first even he will hardly remember him, then, of course, he does remember and is delighted. But he is a stranger in a strange country, and he grows confidential presently. He wants advice. He wants a helping hand. The American is interested, and good-naturedly willing to do what he can. Mr. X explains he is over on a big deal – too big for him, he is afraid. Big profits in view, certainly, but a big risk, especially for a stranger who doesn't know his way about too well. Sometimes it's a big arms deal, and he daren't touch it because, if his Government got to know, he would lose big contracts. Or he hasn't enough capital. Or he is called back to England over a still bigger deal – telegram from the Rothschilds, perhaps, anyone can send a cable and sign Rothschild. Anyhow, on one excuse or another he fades out. His American friend takes his place, goes on with the deal, and, when finally he is a good fat sum out of pocket, he may be inclined to regard it as an ordinary business loss. Even if he has suspicions, he may prefer to say nothing for fear of being shown up to his business friends as a ‘mug.' And he never associates his nice, frank, straightforward, pleasant English friend Mr. X with the gaping hole in his bank account. Why, the F.B.I. say they have heard of one case in which the victim finally settled up a loss of a hundred thousand dollars and on the same day wrote a letter of introduction to Mr. X, recommending a friend of his, visiting England and also a rich man, to Mr. X's kind attentions. Probably he received them, but names are not known, so we can't tell what happened. But the F.B.I. say they have reason to believe something like a hundred thousand sterling has been extracted from American business men by our Mr. X, and they also seemed to think that on that information we could do him up in a brown paper parcel and pack him off to them by return of post. Another thing they say is Mr. X is careful never to operate on two men from the same town. If he gets hold of a St. Louis man one year, then St. Louis men are safe from him for ever after. America's a big place; the big business man from Pittsburgh and his opposite numbers from St. Paul or New Orleans may never meet. But people from the same town might meet and might compare notes.”

“Nothing much in all that to go on,” commented the colonel.

“No, sir, except the fact that we suspect Bennett had something to do with some such swindle. And it's more than a little curious that one of Mr. Moffatt's friends should have given him a warning against the other gentleman dining there – Pegley, I think his name was. It did strike me that the description Hayes gave of the man he said called on him to try to push off some rotten shares was a bit like Mr. Pegley.”

“I noticed that,” agreed the colonel. “Seems more promising trail to follow. I happen to know – he grumbles about having so much tied up on such low interest – that Moffatt has a very large sum in old consols. He hinted once that it was in six figures.”

“Sort of thing the share-pusher goes for,” Bobby re-marked. “‘What's the good of leaving all that money at two and a half when with a little enterprise you can get five or ten, double or quadruple your income?' That's their line of country. It succeeds, too, very often. Of course, that means Mr. Moffatt is more likely to be a share-pusher's victim than in the game himself, as Hayes's story of secret visits to America seemed to hint. I suppose you know, sir, if the six figures in consols is a fact? There's no chance it's imaginary?”

“How should I know?” snapped the colonel irritably. “We were talking about investments one day, and Moffatt happened to say that. That's all.”

It was early, then, the next morning when Bobby presented himself at the Towers Poultry Farm. At least, he thought it was early, but on the farm it was merely the pause in the daily routine when the necessary morning work was over, the afternoon toil not yet begun, and so there was opportunity for attention to odd jobs always clamouring to be seen to.

Bobby was not much of an agriculturist, but even to his inexpert eyes sundry signs suggested a certain lack of ready cash; nor was he sufficiently accustomed to poultry farms to know that such signs are their almost necessary and inevitable characteristic. A girl appeared from behind one of the outhouses and, seeing him, came towards him. She was of tall and vigorous build, dressed in rough country attire, with heavy boots and gaiters and with her hair closely cropped. No one could have called her even moderately good-looking, for her features were large and irregular, there was a small birthmark on one cheek, the Eton crop she affected as little suited her as any style of hairdressing she could possibly have chosen. One had the idea, indeed, that she wished to emphasise her lack of any claim to prettiness or charm. None the less, the direct look in her wide, straight-gazing eyes, the whole healthy vigour of her appearance, gave her an attractiveness of her own.

“A real Amazon,” Bobby thought, as she strode towards him, her heavy boots crunching the gravel of the path, in her hands a long-handled hoe and a basket she managed somehow to hold as though they were spear and shield.

“Oh, good morning,” he said, lifting his hat as she came striding up. “Miss Towers, I think? I'm so sorry to trouble you.” He produced his card. “I am inquiring into the accident at Battling Copse near here,” he explained.

“Oh, yes,” she said, looking at him steadily. “Was it an accident?” she asked. “There's a lot of talk.”

“Yes?” he said. “You have heard something?”

“I've heard nothing else,” she answered. She added: “There was a policeman here yesterday. He wanted to know if we had seen any strangers and if we had had anyone for tea. We provide teas. We couldn't tell him anything.”

“You had seen no one?”

“Only neighbours. No strangers.”

“No one for tea?”

“No. Mr. Hayes came over from Way Side, but no one else. We don't often, at this time of year.”

“Oh, yes,” said Bobby, thinking to himself that this tall, direct, well-built girl might easily exercise a strong attraction on the little, dried-up Hayes, even if only by force of contrast. “Mr. Hayes is a friend of yours?”

She did not answer that at once. Her frank and direct gaze was full upon him. Quite plainly she was thinking: “What does ‘friend' mean?” Bobby told himself that she was one of those people who are inclined to take words in their exact and literal meaning, whose very simplicity of thought and outlook can at times be more baffling than any subtlety.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked abruptly. “Does it matter?”

“All depends,” Bobby answered. “You said just now there was a lot of talk going on. Well, it will be no secret soon; it will have to be said publicly at the inquest. The dead man was not killed by any fall; he had been shot. So naturally we have to make all kinds of inquiries, most of them entirely useless and pointless, no doubt, but we can't tell that till we've made them. We have nothing to go on but what people can tell us. Even the smallest detail, quite unconnected you would think, might prove the very pointer we need.”

She considered this with the grave straightforwardness that seemed a characteristic of hers.

“You mean it may be murder?” she said, and paused. “I don't see what I can tell you,” she went on, “beyond what I told the other policeman. But if you want to ask any questions you had better come into the house. It's cold here.”

Bobby thanked her, for in fact the wind was blowing chillingly by the corner where he was standing. He followed her towards the house – a small country cottage, low-roofed, creeper-clad, picturesque, damp, inconvenient. Its utter destruction and replacement by the most repulsive of modern bungalows would have drawn passionate protests from any lover of the old English countryside, but none from its inhabitants.

Bobby's introduction to it was by way of bumping his head hard against the lintel through failing to heed his guide's curt warning: “Duck – low doorway.” He was still rubbing his head and feeling slightly dazed when there appeared coming down the path to the cottage another, younger girl – one in every way an entire, almost comically complete contrast to Miss Towers, and yet bearing so strong a resemblance to her it was evident at once they must be sisters.

But where one was tall, large-limbed, vigorous, the other was small, slender, slightly built; where the one was straightforward and direct in her bearing, carrying basket and hoe like spear and shield, the other had a lost and wondering look, as though caught up into a strange land, carrying a sketch-book she held in her hand as though it were a scroll of magic spells. Where the one strode along the gravel path with purpose in every movement, the other seemed to wander in a dream; where the one had made him think of an Amazon armed for battle, the other reminded him of a little child far distant from her home. And where the elder girl's attire and whole appearance had been severely workmanlike and practical, this other younger one was all one dainty loveliness that seemed to have but small relation to the common tasks of everyday life. Her features, too, in spite of the strong family resemblance the two girls bore to each other, were somehow in her case transmuted to a grace and a perfection that gave her some claim to be called even beautiful. Her hair, for instance, was not Eton cropped, but a mass of soft and lovely curls that seemed to hold the sunlight imprisoned and yet to radiate it, too. She gave Bobby a glance as she came up that was not exactly uninterested, but seemed more to pass him over as though he were not there at all, as you might pass over a broom standing in a scullery corner, and she said very earnestly to his companion:

“Henrietta, this time I've got those beeches almost as they are.”

“Then,” said Miss Towers promptly, “you had better give it me before you burn it.”

The girl shook her head.

“No, Henrietta,” she said sternly. “You are so weak. If I let you, you would keep things of mine that are really – bad.” She shot out this last word with an unexpected, tremulous vigour that made Bobby think of some criminal confessing such guilt as human ears had never heard before. “I must look at it again later on to see if it is worth keeping.” She paused, and then, now like a child whispering its love to its mother, she said: “But I do think perhaps this time it's – good.”