Six Were Present: A Bobby Owen Mystery by E.R. Punshon

Author:E.R. Punshon [Punshon, E.R.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2017-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DARK ONES

BOBBY SLEPT LATE next morning. There was no alarm clock to waken him for a morning run round the park, and, for that matter, no park for him to run round. The first thing that struck him as he began to dress was that everything in the room had been redusted, repolished till it all shone and shone again, like the boots of a guardsman on inspection day.

In the bathroom it was the same. Everything shone, and so it was with the stairs and passages. It pleased him not at all. Rosamund must have spent the whole of the preceeding day cleaning the already clean, polishing the already polished, sweeping and dusting where there was nothing left either to sweep or to dust. He felt there had been on her part a frenzy of determination to allow herself no time to think. And what thoughts were they her urge was so great to keep at bay? He remembered then that deep-seated fear, that near-panic he had seen in her when he returned the previous night.

His mood was gloomy as he descended the stairs, for he dreaded the denouement almost more than he dreaded failure to resolve it; and now, as he reached the foot of the stairs, Rosamund appeared from the kitchen, carrying a tray with a dish of sizzling bacon and eggs on it.

“I heard you getting up,” she said. “Would you like coffee or tea? The coffee’s ready, but the kettle’s on the boil if you would rather have tea?”

He did not answer for the moment. He was looking at her, shocked by her drawn and tense expression. At the corners of her usually firm mouth a nervous trembling came and went, and he could see that this proud and lonely girl was not far from a breakdown.

“Well?” she was saying impatiently. “Well?”

“Oh, coffee, if it’s ready,” he answered then, but stopped her with a gesture as she turned to go. “Rosamund,” he said, “I could be more help to Myra and to you if you would be more frank with me. For I think something has made you more afraid then you were before.”

“I’ll fetch the coffee. Those eggs are our own,” she said, and then suddenly, abruptly: “Mother saw a light in Freres last night.”

“Is she sure?” he asked.

She hurried away without answering and returned with the coffee.

“Why aren’t you eating your breakfast?” she said. “I got the eggs from the nests this morning.”

“If you don’t stop talking about those damned eggs, I’ll throw them at your head,” Bobby exploded in wrath; and Rosamund looked very startled and backed away, as if fully expecting him to put his threat into instant execution.

When he did not, she said indignantly:

“You needn’t talk like that. It’s very rude.”

“I daresay it is,” Bobby grumbled. “But when a fool of a girl works herself into near hysterics she needs talking to. If we’re ever to get to know the truth, you’ve got to help for the sake of all concerned.

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