Adders on the Heath (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “I should have thought it was the obvious thing to do,” said Laura. The secretary shook his head, took off his glasses, wiped them, and then shook his head again.

  “As a matter of fact, if we alter the rules we forfeit the bit of money we still get from a kind of trust-fund. Nobody wants that. It comes in very handy for paying the grounds-man and renewing the equipment such as hurdles and high-jump stands and having the track properly looked after, you see.”

  “I see. So, as he was not elected president, Mr. Bunt left your club?”

  “Well, there was a bit of a row, but, in the end, we were jolly lucky, as it happened. We were able to put up another candidate.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, an old girl named Calne, a retired schoolteacher. Some of us who’d been in her class went and lobbied her, and she agreed to put up the hundred pounds and did so, there and then. She suited everybody, because we knew she wouldn’t interfere with a thing and wouldn’t attempt to go over the heads of the committee.”

  “Retired teachers can’t usually afford to hand over a hundred smackers for, you might say, nothing,” said Laura. “I wonder what made her agree to take on the job?”

  “Oh, well, as to that,” said the secretary, with a secretive smile, “she’ll be paid back, with a bit of interest, you see, although she doesn’t know that. We’re running dances and bingo in the winter in aid of club funds. There’s nothing in the rules to say how club funds are to be used, so we’re planning to hand over to her any profit we make. Anyway, it was very sporting of her to put up the money.”

  “But it left Mr. Bunt somewhat disgruntled,” observed Dame Beatrice.

  “He was so offensive that we bunged him out, in fact.”

  “Would you mind very much if I went to see Miss Calne?” asked Dame Beatrice. “You say that she is a retired schoolmistress and I have found such people to be storehouses of the kind of facts which will be of use to me.”

  “Go and see her, by all means. She attends all our meetings and can certainly give you the low-down on any of us who were in her class at any time! I’ll give you her address.”

  Miss Calne lived between Lyndhurst and Lymington in a small bungalow whose back garden met the grounds of a much larger establishment from which it was screened by trees. Her small garage and large front windows faced on to a broad stretch of common.

  “Well!” said Laura. “As the crow flies, or, in this part of the world, as the ponies wander, this can’t be all that far from the New Forest Hunt Hotel.”

  She was right. Miss Calne, a well-covered, pink-cheeked, cheerful woman in her late sixties, knew the hotel and occasionally took lunch or dinner there.

  “Lunch in the winter; dinner in the summer,” she told Dame Beatrice. “I have only a midday snack in the summer, you see, so I can do with a main meal at night, but in winter I don’t care to come back to an empty house after dark, so, if I do go to the hotel, it is for lunch.”

  About the members of the Scylla and District Club she was the mine of information for which Dame Beatrice had hoped.

  “Yes, I think I did come to the rescue,” she said complacently. “I wish it could have been a club for delinquents but, although there is a somewhat rowdy element among the younger members, we get very little really bad behaviour.”

  “Yet two of your former pupils have contrived to get themselves killed,” Dame Beatrice pointed out.

  “No. no,” said Miss Calne vigorously. “Not my pupils, I am thankful to say. Neither of them. Oh, no. I wouldn’t like you to run away with that idea. Club members, yes. Old Boys of my school, certainly not.” She waved her hand. “I sincerely hope my school turned out better specimens than Bunt and Colnbrook. Bunt was most offensive to me when he knew of my election. He came round here and was insolent.”

  “Was there—were the two men friends?”

  “I really have no idea. You must remember that I had no connection with the club until after Bunt’s resignation—so-called.”

  “We heard about that. He wanted the Scylla Club to affiliate to a larger body based on Southampton, it seems.”

  “So I was told when I was invited to become president. Oh, something occurs to me. Colnbrook and Bunt were rivals, so I heard. I had forgotten the gossip.”

  “In running, or did their rivalry stem from a different cause?” Dame Beatrice enquired.

  “The cause, I understand, was Mavis Wight.”

  “Rivalry in love, you mean?”

  “I doubt whether some members of the club would understand the meaning of the word love, but I am told that both wanted to—what is that disagreeable modern expression…?”

  “Wanted to date her?” suggested Laura. Miss Calne nodded.

  “That’s it.”

  “And to which did the young woman give preference?” asked Dame Beatrice.

  “I could not say. Deirdre Bath, who used to be one of my pupils, was my informant, but I was not particularly interested and the subject was soon changed.”

  “Is this Miss Bath a member of the club?”

  “Mrs. Bath. She married the treasurer, but, yes, she is still an active member. She jumps.”

  “Indeed?” Dame Beatrice looked puzzled.

  “Long or high?” demanded Laura, coming to the aid of her employer.

  “Oh, long, long. I am told she stands a chance of being selected for the County. She is one of the reasons why the club was not at all anxious to merge itself with the Southampton people. It was felt that the Scylla and District should bask alone in Deirdre’s reflected glory.”

  “Quite reasonable, at that,” said Laura. “But what about Bunt and Colnbrook?”

  “I am afraid I can tell you very little more about either of them.”

  “Have you Mrs. Bath’s address?” asked Dame Beatrice.

  Miss Calne supplied this, and Dame Beatrice and Laura drove to a large village along one of the most beautiful main roads in the Forest. On either side the way was thickly wooded behind a broad border of grass well cropped by numerous ponies. The road ran fairly straight, was mildly undulating and, at that time of year, was not particularly heavy with traffic. Numerous signs indicated the need for caution in respect of straying animals and the undesirability of feeding these in the interests of the ponies’ own safety on the roads, and further signs, sponsored by a display of birch brooms, warned against the risk of forest fires.

  At the entrance to the village the car took the Totton road between the golf course and Fox Hill and pulled up at a row of semi-detached bungalows.

  Mrs. Bath was doing her ironing in the parlour into which the front door opened. Two innocent-eyed and slightly dirty-faced children were playing on the floor, but suspended their game to stare at the visitors. Dame Beatrice apologised for having arrived at an inconvenient time and suggested that she and Laura should return later.

  “If it’s the H.P. for next-door’s telly,” said Mrs. Bath, “you’ll get it all right next week. Her husband’s getting a bonus, and, anyway, I can’t pay it for her.”

  Dame Beatrice explained that it was not the H.P. for the television set, but that Miss Calne had given her Mrs. Bath’s address. Miss Calne’s name appeared to have a magic significance, for Mrs. Bath, who had switched off the electric iron in order to answer the door, now stood the iron up on end, invited the visitors in, spat skillfully on to each youthful face and gave it a scrub on the tea-cloth she had just finished ironing, and then offered her callers chairs.

  “It’ll be about the club, I expect,” she said. “Arthur, leave Jenny’s dolly alone, else I’ll take away your bricks and lock ’em up.”

  “Well, it is in connection with two members—or, rather, with two ex-members—of the club,” Dame Beatrice admitted. “Two, in fact, who are no longer with us in the flesh.”

  “Oh? Bert Colnbrook and that there Bunt,” said Mrs. Bath. “Well, I don’t suppose you’re police, else my husband would have told me, being tipped off by his brother Alf.”

  Arthur k
icked his small sister’s rag doll and came over to Laura.

  “My Uncle Alf’s a policeman,” he said.

  “Jolly good,” said Laura. She hoisted him on to her knee. “So is my husband.”

  Mrs. Bath looked slightly apprehensive.

  “So you are police!” she said.

  “No, no, but we are working with the police for a special reason which, when I explain it, I am certain you will appreciate,” said Dame Beatrice. She told as much of the story as was necessary. “So, you see,” she said in conclusion, “anything which will remove suspicion from this young man and, possibly, from my own grand-nephew, who was with him when the body of Mr. Colnbrook was found in the place to which the foresters had removed it, will undoubtedly relieve their minds and ours.”

  “Yes, I see that,” said Mrs. Bath, “though I shouldn’t have thought, myself, that they had anything to be afraid of, being strangers to the club and all that.”

  “Ah, but that is the trouble. Mr. Richardson was by no means a stranger to the club. He had not only met Mr. Colnbrook on two previous occasions; he had quarrelled with him.”

  “I’m not surprised. That Bert Colnbrook was a nasty piece of work. I was always warning Mavis Wight against him. ‘If you must have one of them,’ I said to her, ‘you better pick that Bunt.’ Arthur, you sit still on the lady’s lap, else off you get.”

  Arthur wriggled to the floor, trotted over to his sister and gave her a hearty push. His mother landed a slap on the seat of his pants and the two children immediately settled down to the amusements with which they had been occupied when the visitors arrived.

  “What did the other men think of Mr. Colnbrook?” asked Dame Beatrice.

  “They didn’t particularly mind him, no more nor some of the girls. He was always ready to spend money, you see. The only thing about the girls—the sensible ones, I mean—was that when they’d been to the pictures once with him they didn’t usually go again, excepting for Mabel and Mavis. Mabel was—well, I don’t want to say anything against her, and, of course, she isn’t really a club member, but her and Mavis always declared that Bert behaved himself with them, but, being that she was my sister (and living near, what’s more), and us having to keep our name clean, my brother-in-law, Mabel’s husband, only married three months, being in the police, well—”

  “I see. Would Mavis be a well-built, blonde-haired girl about five feet eight inches tall, with a dimple in the right cheek and a slight stammer?”

  “That’s not Mavis. That’s Penny the Putt. But, pardon me, how come you know her?”

  “I have never met her, but that is the description Mr. Richardson gave of her. He met her on the occasion of his first passage-at-arms with Mr. Colnbrook. This took place in a railway waiting-room, I believe.”

  “Excuse me,” said Laura, “but I think Arthur is trying to force, one of his bricks into the baby’s mouth.”

  “Stop that, Arthur! Do you hear? Else Uncle Alf will take you to the lock-up.” Mrs. Bath rose and removed the brick from Arthur’s hand. “Penny,” she went on, as she put all the bricks on top of the ironing table, “told me all about that station waiting-room lark. She saw it as a joke, but I didn’t half tell her off for her part in it. Disgraceful! ‘The young fellow might have got into serious trouble for Attempted,’ I said, ‘and a nice thing that would be for him. You better steer clear of that Bert Colnbrook,’ I said, ‘else you’ll find yourself in contempt of court,’ I said. But she only laughed it off and told me I ought to have seen the young fellow’s face when Bert accused him of trying to have Relations.”

  Dame Beatrice clicked her tongue and preferred the opinion that Mr. Colnbrook had scarcely acted like a gentleman.

  “Gentleman? Him?” Mrs. Bath sniffed contemptuously. “Ask Geoff Borrowdale. He’ll tell you!”

  “I should like to meet him.”

  “Well, see, what’s today? He’ll most likely be at the club tomorrow. He generally trains from seven to eight. He’d be good if he trained more, but he runs a Youth Club in Southampton two nights a week, and has the Boy Scouts Tuesdays and Fridays.”

  “An admirable young man.”

  “He does it to get away from his widowed mother. She objects to most things, but she can’t hardly object to him doing good works. She runs the Unmarried Mothers at the chapel. They go there because she gives them tea and buns. No, you can’t have a bun, Arthur. It’s early closing.”

  “I wonder,” said Dame Beatrice, “whether your sister, the policeman’s wife, can give me any further information?”

  “What, Mabel? Well, you won’t get any police tales. Alf never lets on about his job. I can give you her address. Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea before you go?”

  Dame Beatrice and Laura politely declined the offer and, having been furnished with the married name and address of sister Mabel, they made their way to her redbrick house.

  Mabel was fashionably dressed and her living-room sported a cocktail cabinet. She greeted the visitors with suspicion.

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said, when Dame Beatrice produced her credentials in the form of an introduction from Mrs. Bath. “Anyway, you better come in. Now, what can I do for you?” Dame Beatrice glanced at Laura and raised her eyebrows.

  “You can tell us something about a man named Colnbrook, I believe,” said Laura.

  “Bert? Him that was done in? Well, he had plenty of dough and didn’t really mind spending it.”

  “What does the word “really” signify?” asked Dame Beatrice.

  “Oh, well, as to that,” said Mabel, “if you know what I mean, he expected to get value for money.”

  “And did he?”

  Mabel grinned and suddenly looked like her sister.

  “Sometimes yes and sometimes no,” she said. “Anyway, not so far as I was concerned. ‘I’m going to be a respectable married woman,’ I told him, ‘so I don’t want none of your larks.’ And that’s what I am now, of course, He didn’t half sheer off when he knew I’d married a policeman. My sister still don’t believe I behave, but I do.”

  “I understand that you do not belong to the Scylla and District Social and Athletic Club,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “More social than athletic, if you ask me said Mabel. “Yes, I do belong, in a kind of way. That’s to say, I do the teas and things.” Her air of suspicion had vanished. “Of course, I have to support my sister at the club parties. I believe in families, don’t you?”

  Dame Beatrice, whose family ramifications resembled (she sometimes thought) the luxuriance of a tropical forest, solemnly agreed.

  “Apart from the reluctance of some of his women acquaintances to further their friendships with him, would you know whether Mr. Colnbrook had enemies?” she asked.

  “Enemies?” Mabel shook her head. “Not to say enemies, no. In fact, he was quite popular in some quarters. A chap who doesn’t mind splashing his lolly is bound to be liked by some.”

  “You are referring to his men friends, as well as to young women, I take it?”

  “That’s right. Saloon-bar types. You know.”

  “And you never heard of any serious quarrels?”

  “Not me, no. One or two may have threatened to knock his block off if he made another pass at their girlfriends, but only in the ordinary way of give and take, if you understand me.”

  “Nothing, in short, that was likely to lead to murder?”

  “Oh, gracious me, no!” (It was obvious that she had not heard about the threat uttered by Richardson.)

  “And the other man, Mr. Bunt?”

  “Ah, now, him. That’s quite a bit different. He was under what you might call a cloud.”

  “Drummed out, in fact?” asked Laura.

  “Well, there was trouble with the committee, I believe. Somebody did tell me something about it, but I didn’t take much interest. Anyway, he left, and that’s about all I know.”

  “We didn’t get much there,” said Laura, as they drove back through the town.

  �
��Negative evidence, to employ a paradox, is sometimes useful,” said Dame Beatrice.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Dame Beatrice States the Case

  …though her coffin was fairly sound and unbroken, there was no trace whatever inside it of a body, bones or dust.

  The Ash-Tree

  M. R. James

  Laura, over the telephone, obtained Mr. Borrowdale’s address from the club secretary and asked to be directed also to the stadium. She and Dame Beatrice arrived there on the following evening, after an early dinner at the hotel, in time to see Borrowdale “doing his stuff,” as Laura termed it. Herself no mean athlete in her youth, she looked on at his performance with interest. He was a half-miler, he informed her later, but was catching up on his sprinting.

  “Tell you anything more than you already know about Bunt and Colnbrook?” he said. “No, of course I can’t. Enemies, as such, no, of course they were not. Reason why they got themselves murdered? No idea. Not a very choice couple, of course, but nobody in the club would have killed them.”

  As he refused to say (or did not know) any more, Dame Beatrice and Laura left him and returned to the hotel.

  “Our Mr. Borrowdale doesn’t seem to know much,” said Laura, “unless, of course, he knows too much. I should think we may have to tackle him again.”

  “Meanwhile we had better make contact with the Superintendent,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “Exactly why? We’ve nothing new to tell him.”

  “Have we not? Well, time, as always, will show.”

  The hotel was tenanted by a very lugubrious Richardson and a rather deflated Denis. They were in the smallest lounge, the old gentleman who usually commandeered it being on a visit to friends.

  “The Superintendent is chasing Tom,” said Denis. “Seems to think that, after all, it was a bit suspicious our finding Colnbrook’s body in that enclosure. The only thing that upsets the police theory is that Tom, on his own and without any form of transport, could never have carted the body so far from his tent. I’m pretty sure, too, that they’re checking on my movements on the night in question.”