Death Comes to Cambers (18 page)

‘If I had, I should have said so at once,' the vicar answered severely. Then he added: ‘I had a glimpse of a motor-cyclist on the road going towards the village. It was dark, of course. I could not see who it was.'

But to Bobby this seemed important, since here was apparently some confirmation of the old labourer's story. ‘About what time was that?' he asked.

‘Soon after the rain stopped. I only had a glimpse,' the vicar repeated. ‘I could not say who it was.'

That was the second time he had said this. Bobby asked: ‘At the moment, did you think it might be anyone you knew?'

‘It did just strike me,' the vicar answered, with evident reluctance, ‘that it was young Sterling. He frequently came to see Lady Cambers, and generally on a motor-cycle. I just thought it might be... it was far too dark to be sure.'

‘Yes, quite so,' Bobby said, looking at the other thoughtfully; and perhaps there was something in his voice or manner of which he was himself unaware, but that Mr. Andrews thought he noticed.

‘I presume,' he said, very stiffly, ‘you do not intend to suggest... to hint... in any case be good enough to inform your superiors I will be with them shortly.'

He walked on quickly – indeed he always walked quickly, as if those long legs of his made speed a necessity – and Bobby, looking after him doubtfully, was again conscious of that quaint impression he gave of an enormous bird flapping its way along the ground.

The door of Cambers House stood open, as it had done all the day, since the constant traffic had never yet allowed it time to close. A constable was on duty, for by now the help summoned by Colonel Lawson had arrived and he had his men at his disposal. Bobby, at first taken for a newspaper-man – for already reporters had made their appearance on the scene – had to explain his identity before he was allowed to enter, and in the hall, as he went through, he met Farman, grumbling at all the extra work involved but secretly finding so much bustle and excitement quite amusing.

‘Might be an hotel,' he complained, and then, noticing Bobby, and with an odd mixture of official respect for one who had been a guest in the house and of dignified condescension as from a butler to a common policeman, he said to him: ‘Oh, it's you, sir. The Colonel has been inquiring for you. Better pull up your socks before you go in; he was getting a bit hot under the collar about you not being back.' 

‘Is he in the same room?' Bobby asked.

‘No; that's locked, and no one's to go in on any account. They're in the library now. But you'll have to wait. Sir Albert's in there now.'

‘Oh, he's arrived, then?'

‘Yes. The garage kept him waiting for a car or he would have been here before. And then he was in bed when he heard – influenza – and looks a wreck all right.'

‘It must have been a terrible shock to him,' Bobby observed.

‘Yes,' agreed Farman. ‘So it must. All the same, I wouldn't mind betting it won't be a month of Sundays before we have a new missus here. At least, unless he's been cut out of her will.'

‘Is that likely?'

‘Well, perhaps she said more than she meant. But she had the lawyer here, and some seemed to think as young Mr. Sterling would come in for it all. But that was just gossip, which of course I put my foot on soon as I heard it.'

‘Quite right, too,' approved Bobby.

‘But you couldn't go for to expect her ladyship to leave everything to the guv'nor, just for him to go and enjoy himself with someone else.'

‘Miss Bowman?' Bobby asked.

‘Oh, you've heard about that,' exclaimed Farman, slightly surprised. ‘Had any lunch?' he added. ‘I've no orders, and no one to give them, but I thought as it was up to the house to do as much as possible in the way of refreshments, and Lady Hirlpool thought so, too.'

‘I'm sure it's very good of you,' said Bobby. ‘I got something to eat in the village, thanks all the same. I expect all this means a lot of work and upset for you.'

‘It does that,' agreed Farman gloomily; ‘but I will say for the staff they're doing their best – all except cook, and with her it's hysterics along of expecting it may be her next. Only, as I said to her, even if Sir Albert spoke free about her sauces – free and frequent he spoke – who'll strangle when they can sack?'

‘Very true,' murmured Bobby, impressed by the wisdom of this aphorism.

‘And I must say,' admitted Farman, ‘Amy Emmers is taking on the cooking very smart like. Of course, nothing high-class, but turning out eggs and bacon very competent; very competent indeed.'

‘Oh, yes, there was something I wanted to ask,' Bobby put in, quick to seize the opening offered. ‘You told us there had been some sort of scene between Miss Emmers and Lady Cambers. You can't tell us anything more definite? You've not been able to think of any reason for it?'

Farman shook his head regretfully.

‘None of us could,' he said, with more than a suggestion in his manner that the question was one that had already been very thoroughly debated. ‘Amy Emmers is a close one,' he added resentfully. ‘She'll listen; she'll stand and look as if you wasn't there; but open her mouth – not she. An oyster,' said Farman, rising in his emotion to an unusual height of poetic imagery, ‘is a babbling brook along of her.'

‘She and Eddy Dene are engaged, I believe,' Bobby observed.

‘Brought up to it. That's why she went to service, Mrs. Dene not thinking it proper the two of 'em should go on living together in the same house and them as good as wed; and there was some as thought,' added Farman, in his capacity of treader upon gossip, ‘as Mrs. Dene had her reasons for acting so.'

Bobby disregarded the insinuation, but wondered if this reason Mrs. Dene had apparently put forward had been her real one, or if it had been – to use the current highbrow slang – a ‘rationalization' of a decision of Amy's that had in fact disappointed her good aunt. It was the second alternative Bobby was inclined to accept, from his memory of his talk with Mrs. Dene.

‘We all heard 'em,' Farman went on reminiscently, ‘though not the words spoke, but both of 'em talking loud and frequent. And, when I went in afterwards, there was the morning paper lying on the floor, tore nearly in half as if they had been having a tug-of-war, and her ladyship sitting and looking so you knew you only had to open your mouth to get your notice before you had time to close it again.'

‘What paper was that?'

‘The
Announcer
.'

‘Could there have been anything in it to upset Lady Cambers – something about Miss Emmers, for instance?'

‘About Amy Emmers? In the paper? What could there be?'

Farman evidently thought the suggestion very absurd, but under pressure agreed to see if he could find that issue of the
Announcer
, though of opinion that almost certainly it had been destroyed. However, he succeeded in discovering it – torn across, as he had said, as if snatched between the two women. Carefully and swiftly Bobby ran his finger up and down the columns, searching for some item that might account for the quarrel but finding none. In the ‘agony' column, however, were two advertisements, one a ‘figure' cipher and the other so odd and confused a jumble of words, thrown together in so confused a fashion and apparently so utterly without meaning or coherence, that Bobby was inclined to think it, too, must be some kind of concealed cipher. A curious thing about it was that in some odd way it seemed to suggest to him some kind of literary association, though of what kind or nature he could not for the life of him imagine. He proceeded to cut it out. It ran:

‘Don't seem to make much sense,' observed Farman, who had been reading it over Bobby's shoulder, as the young man carefully cut the thing out.

‘No,' agreed Bobby. ‘Only it does seem somehow to hint at something I've read somewhere.'

‘No one, in a manner of speaking,' commented Farman thoughtfully, ‘could read it.'

Bobby did not answer, but proceeded to cut out the second cipher, the one in figures. It ran:

‘But that's all figures, not letters,' Farman pointed out indignantly. ‘Figures don't make words.'

‘Figures can be used instead of letters,' Bobby explained. ‘As a rule, figure ciphers are simple enough, given a little time and patience. The other looks more difficult. Most likely every fourth or fifth word makes up the message, or something like that. Anyhow, I haven't time to bother about them just now; they may have nothing to do with what's happened. Miss Emmers never said anything in explanation afterwards?'

‘Not so much as a grunt or a groan, and, when asked,  

only looked as if you was a thousand miles away and sorry it wasn't further. Cook did up and ask her straight out about her eyes, and why they was so red and swollen, and she said it was a cold and she must remember not to let any of us kiss her for fear of infection. Sarcastic, that was,' explained the butler darkly.

‘Evidently a young woman you have to be careful with,' agreed Bobby, who in fact had already arrived at that conclusion.

Farman contrived, without uttering a word, to express complete agreement.

‘Robins did think it might be about Ray Hardy and his spring-traps,' he added after a moment's pause. ‘Lady Cambers was very hot about spring-traps, very hot indeed.'

‘But where's the connection?' Bobby asked. ‘Was Miss Emmers interested in spring-traps too?'

‘Well, it was more Ray Hardy being interested in her,' Farman answered, ‘or so Robins thought. Gone on her, he was, like half the rest of the village lads – all except Eddy Dene himself, and very likely he was only slack because he was sure of her.'

‘But was he?'

‘Well, it was an understood thing,' Farman answered; ‘but Robins has a sort of kind of natural gift for twigging love-affairs. Tells you who's going to fall for who long before they know themselves. It's a gift,' said Farman thoughtfully, ‘but it's study and thought and practice as well. Trained herself to it, as you might say, and it was her said at once that Eddy Dene and Amy Emmers never thought a thing of each other. As Robins said herself, that wasn't to say they wouldn't marry, and get on the better for is, too, maybe, but you could say “Eddy” to Amy and she wouldn't even hear, and you could say “Amy” to Eddy and he would answer “Yes” and go on talking about his bones and stones and suchlike. So you can see we all thought Robins was right again when she came back from Hirlpool one night and said as how, walking up from the station, first she saw Ray Hardy dodging in among the trees by Middle Copse and then Emmers coming out from the same copse. So of course she teased her about it, if you call it teasing what might be the Marble Arch for all the notice took.'

To Bobby all this seemed interesting, though what bearing it might have upon the investigation, if indeed it had any at all, he could not make up his mind. But he felt it would be necessary to try to get to know more of this enigmatical Amy Emmers whose quarrel with her mistress had so impressed the rest of the household staff and had been by her so simply explained.

Bobby had an impression that behind that gentle and controlled appearance volcanic fires might lurk. But one could not be sure. There were, too, these hints of indifference on Eddy Dene's side, but was that indifference genuine, and, if it were, was it reciprocated or resented? Was there anything in this talk about Ray Hardy? Or was there some other hidden love-affair? The thought flashed into Bobby's mind that the suspicions Lady Cambers had entertained of her husband had perhaps taken a wrong direction. Was it possible that not Miss Bowman, but Amy Emmers, had been the object of Sir Albert's wandering affections? Or was there some other explanation altogether? And, in any case, what bearing had all this upon the murder he was investigating? None that he could see, and yet from so confused a situation of conflicting interests and desires he felt that at any moment the compelling motive might emerge.
Cherchez la femme
, the old French tag warns us, but ‘Seek the motive' Bobby's teaching and experience told him was a better motto for the detective.

Because simple sexual jealousy nearly always leaves traces too plain for misconception or mistake. It is Iago who is subtle and hidden, not Othello. He was trying to think as quickly as he could, but there was no connecting thread he could see to lay hold upon. He said presently: ‘Miss Emmers seems to have plenty of admirers. Any more on the list?'

‘Oh, well,' answered Farman, pursing his lips and looking as if he knew them all, ‘half the village lads, as I said before, and others too, though I could never see any more in her than in another.'

The idea had been lurking in Bobby's mind that perhaps Farman might hint or say something to show he thought his master was of the number. But no suspicion of that kind seemed to have been entertained by the butler, who added: ‘Well, there's one thing I must say for the girl, and cook says so, too. She never takes notice; never seems to know even, as you might say. Only she's a deep one, and what she's thinking to herself she gives you no notion ever. And there it is that Robins saw both her and Ray Hardy hanging about Middle Copse – and Ray's swore it's him she'll marry in the end. But, then, Ray Hardy shoots off his tongue a deal too much, especially when the beer is in.' Farman hesitated. ‘I don't know if I did ought to tell you, but if I don't you'll hear from others, for there's them in this village would talk from now to Doomsday if you let them. Only there it is; and it's what he told me once himself, being one over the nine at the time – meaning him and not me, for such as that my worst enemy could never say of me.'