Mystery Villa (6 page)

Then, opportunity serving, he found himself once again, very shortly afterwards, within a brief bus-ride of the Windsor Crescent district, and with an hour or two to spare before he was actually due back to report at the Yard before going off duty. For Bobby an unsolved problem had always an attraction – it would go on teasing his mind till he was able to satisfy it with an adequate explanation; it was for him much what some unusual play of light is to the artist, or some rush of image and emotion to the poet. A bus, going in the required direction, came up; he jumped on, and got down again at the Osborne Terrace end of Windsor Crescent.

Walking along it, he came soon to Tudor Lodge. No change was apparent. Deserted-looking and lonely, blinds down and shutters closed, rotting wood and crumbling brick, there it stood with its padlocked gate and its front garden where all the rubbish of the world seemed gathered.

With his own strong, vivid young life throbbing through his veins, Bobby tried to imagine what existence must be like, dragged out in that dreary place, solitary, unknown, forgotten. A hermit in a desert or a wilderness had some kind of natural background and tradition, and could, at least to some degree, be understood. But to live like this all alone, in the midst of the roar and bustle of a great town's throbbing life, seemed to Bobby the most unnatural thing conceivable.

He wondered again how it could have come about, how anyone at all could drift into such a condition, and he supposed that would never be known. But how had it happened there had been no friend or relation to rescue this lone, unhappy creature from her own perversity?

For some time he stood there, looking and wondering, and finding no answer to his questions. It was growing late – Scotland Yard, of course, knows nothing of regular hours – and the falling shades of the evening added to the gloom and depression of the scene. At last he turned away. There was nothing he could do, he supposed, certainly no ground on which any official action could be taken. He had not even an excuse for knocking and making any enquiry. He gave a final glance before departing, and noticed, suddenly, that the scullery window at the side of the house had not been mended. Entrance by it could be easily effected. One had only to lift the sash and step inside.

‘Not quite safe to leave it like that,' Bobby reflected, and then it struck him that here was an excuse to knock at the door.

He could even suggest nailing a bit of boarding over the broken pane for her for the time – if, that is, the old lady answered his knock. Anyhow he would try. The window really ought not to be left like that, for any passing tramp or vagabond who chose to enter by, and possibly, if she were really hard up and hadn't the money to pay for repairs, she would be glad of his suggestion, and he would, for his part, get a chance to see what she was like and exchange a word or two with her – always, that is, if she answered his knock, since that, he understood from Wild's story, was seldom her habit.

He passed through that gap between the padlocked gate and the crumbling rusting garden railings every visitor seemed to use, and walked up the drive. It was growing darker each moment, for heavy clouds were coming up with a threat of storm about to break, and the trees in the front garden cut off what light there was and threw their heavy shadows across the weed-covered drive right up to the walls of the house.

In this growing darkness of the declining day, something more even than usual of its air of gloom and depression and old, unforgotten griefs appeared to brood upon the place; and to Bobby it seemed that a kind of warning lay implicit in the totality of the scene, as though there were an evil lurking there it was best to beware of. He made an effort to throw this impression off; he told himself, crossly, that he was growing nervous and imaginative, and that too much imagination is as bad in a police officer as too little. It is only facts that he must pay heed to, not vain fancies, and what could there be wrong or harmful about a house where a poor old woman had dragged out her solitary, half-crazed existence for so many years, since before Bobby himself was born even, for that matter?

He was half-way along the drive to the front door now, and lie paused, almost inclined to walk away and trouble his head no more about what was neither business of his nor police business. Why, the old lady herself, Miss Barton, if that was her name, had been spoken to by one of the constables on the beat the very evening Bobby had seen Con Conway, and everything had apparently been all right. Besides, if he knocked, most likely he would get no reply, and his excuse for calling was pretty thin. Until recently, at any rate, few callers had got any reply at all – of that there was the evidence not only of Wild's story, but also of the spider's web Bobby himself had noticed spun across the front door to prove how long must have elapsed since it had been opened. Of course, that might be different now the girl was there he and Wild had seen. It was to be hoped she was looking after things, and had perhaps already been able to persuade the old lady to come away with her and live somewhere else in a more normal and natural manner. Apparently there was some money somewhere, though, for that matter, even a workhouse infirmary would be better than such an existence as had been led so long in Tudor Lodge.

Bobby was, in fact, turning away, having made up his mind there was nothing he could do, when round the corner of the house there came quickly, almost running indeed, the figure of a tall man in shirt-sleeves, carrying a basket on one arm. He did not see Bobby at first, for the young sergeant was hidden in the dark shadows the trees before the house cast now that night was falling, and when Bobby stepped forward to speak to him he gave a low, strangled cry of fear, and leaped wildly backward as though he meant to take to instant flight.

‘What's the matter?' Bobby demanded.

Flight was, in fact, not possible, for Bobby blocked the only way, save that back to the closed house and the impenetrable wilderness that once had been a garden. As though he recognised this, the stranger paused, and turned, facing Bobby.

'I didn't see you; you gave me a start,' he said, in a voice oddly high-pitched and none too steady. ‘I was leaving Miss Barton's groceries – this place always gives me the creeps, scares me somehow, and then, when you jumped out on me like that–'

He left the sentence unfinished, and taking out a very dirty handkerchief began to mop his forehead. What with the gathering darkness of the night, the heavy clouds that were coming up, the shadows cast by house and tree, Bobby could not see him very plainly, but could make out that he was tall – quite as tall as Bobby himself, or even taller for that matter – with strongly marked features, and a specially prominent nose, on which he now blew a resounding peal. Beneath it he wore a heavy, dark moustache, a noticeable feature in this clean-shaven age, and his height and his nose, and a trick he appeared to have of actually looking down it at the person he was speaking to, reminded Bobby of the indignant housewife's complaint about the ‘airs' Mr Humphreys' new assistant gave himself. Rather an unfortunate trick of manner in a small suburban grocer's assistant, Bobby thought, and one that possibly accounted for the difficulty he must have had in finding employment before accepting the terms, conditions, and wages Humphreys most likely offered. Bobby said aloud:

‘Are you from Mr Humphreys?'

‘Yes, Battenberg Prospect – where you turn into the road,' the other answered; and then, as if beginning to resent these questions, ‘You live here? We always thought the old girl was all alone.'

‘No, I don't live here,' Bobby answered. He put a hand on the other's basket and looked inside. It was empty, except for a pair of new leather gardening gloves, bright yellow in hue. ‘Have you been leaving her things for Miss Barton?' he asked.

‘Same as usual,' the other answered. ‘Them gloves is for another customer. Only, what's it got to do with you?'

‘What made you so startled when I spoke to you?' Bobby asked, ignoring this.

‘Why, the way you jumped out at me; what do you think? And this house, too, gets on your nerves; you never know what mayn't be going on. Like an old witch, she is.' He paused, and gave an uneasy unnatural laugh. ‘Nerves,' he repeated, ‘that's all – and then you jumping out of the shadows there... what were you doing, anyhow, if it comes to that?'

‘I'm a police officer,' Bobby explained, ‘and we aren't easy about the way Miss Barton lives – an accident might easily happen.'

‘Well, it's her affair, isn't it?' the other retorted. ‘She's all right, isn't she? Nothing for anyone to worry about; she's doing no one any harm – except giving you the creeps. Scares me, I know, every time I go near the blessed place.' He turned and looked up at the house. ‘There she is now, watching us,' he said. ‘You can talk to her about it, if you like – that is, if she'll come to the door. Mr Humphreys says she never answers anyone.'

‘Where is she?' Bobby asked. ‘I don't see her.'

‘She's gone now,' the other answered. ‘She was at that window, up there, that's half open, peeping out – at least, I thought I saw her there; perhaps it was only a shadow or something. I don't see it's any business of anyone else's how she chooses to live. She troubles nobody, and nobody is likely to trouble her – an old woman like her hardly able to keep body and soul together, and everything in the house gone to wrack and ruin through neglect.'

‘Have you ever seen her? ' Bobby asked.

‘Only a glimpse, once or twice, dodging behind the windows. I always knock when I leave her order, but she never answers. Perhaps she will now, if you try; but it isn't likely – not a bit likely.'

He nodded and walked on, swinging his nearly empty basket on his arm, and from a loud-speaker, posted at an open window near so that all the street might hear, burst suddenly the first strains of a new opera, by a well-known woman composer, that the B.B.G. was broadcasting, and that Bobby now remembered he had intended to listen to himself.

Sounded jolly good, he thought, as he walked on towards the house. He looked into the outbuilding by the side door, and found there the meagre provision of a loaf of bread, a little tea, and a tin of condensed milk that composed, apparently, Miss Barton's customary order. For a little time he waited, half hoping Miss Barton would appear to take in her supplies. It would be an opportunity to see. her, he thought, and perhaps to talk to her and gain her confidence. But she did not seem inclined to show herself, and after a time Bobby walked away to the strains of the new opera the loud-speaker at the open window was reproducing to all the neighbourhood.

When Bobby woke next morning he was much annoyed to find he had been dreaming of Tudor Lodge and of that strange miasma of terror that seemed to hang about it, so that therefrom the ex-convict, Con Conway, had fled in panic, therein the young, unknown girl had seemed on the verge of swooning in horror, where even the grocer's assistant pursuing his homely task of delivering bread and tea and tinned milk had not escaped the general fear.

That there must be some cause and reason for it Bobby was well persuaded, and yet what that cause could be he entirely failed even to imagine, or why none of those experiencing it seemed to wish to speak of it or to ask for help; or, indeed, why a house so seldom visited that spiders span webs across its door should seem now to have become the centre of so much animation.

Bobby had at the moment fully enough office work to keep him busy, for the present job was reading anonymous letters. A sensational child murder had been committed in the Notting Hill district, and, though Bobby had not been employed in the actual investigation, he had been detailed for the task of examining anonymous letters about the case, of which so many had been sent to Scotland Yard that an old sugar crate had been brought up from the canteen for their reception.

The task was one which was at the same time extraordinarily tedious, extraordinarily dull, and extraordinarily important, for while many of the letters were from obvious lunatics, and most of the rest from mere busybodies, still, each one had to be read over with extreme attention and care, since there was always the possibility that, amidst all these bushels of chaff, a really valuable grain of information might lie concealed, while, if any such piece of information were missed, the whole, not only of the success of the investigation, but also of the reputation of all Scotland Yard, might be compromised. Little mercy Press or public would show if it ever became known that some information had been sent to Scotland Yard and had been overlooked or neglected. Small allowance would be made for all the thousands of useless letters sent in, small thought for the difficulty of distinguishing the true in the midst of such a welter of rubbish. Bobby realised well enough how much hung upon his missing nothing, and to every fresh ill-spelt, ill-written, often almost illegible, communication he knew he had to come with fresh and keen attention. Even those letters chiefly concerned with expressing the writer's firm belief that the police were certainly incompetent, and probably corrupt, had to be read with the same concentrated care, since there was always the chance that in the midst of the spate of more or less ignorant and ill-informed criticism some useful hint might show itself.

Before Bobby were two trays in which he put any letters he thought worthy of further attention. The first tray, as yet empty, was for those he considered deserved the direct and immediate attention of Superintendent Mitchell himself. The second tray was for letters containing suggestions that seemed worth acting on, or facts worth following up. So far this tray held five letters.

Behind Bobby was another old capacious sugar crate, also requisitioned from the canteen. Into this he dropped in bundles, neatly tied and docketed, those letters that seemed to him purely incoherent, trivial, malicious, or frankly insane. This was nearly full now, and there were times when Bobby, strong man as he was, nearly broke down and wept aloud with sheer boredom of the job.