Adders on the Heath (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “In the end, though,” said Mrs. Maidston, “the letters got so hysterical that we were forced to believe him.”

  “So we took him away. It’s been a great nuisance, of course. Had to pay a tutor. Turned out to be a real young rogue. Don’t wonder he was dismissed his post at the school. Didn’t know what he was like when we took him on, but found out soon enough and he had to go,” said Maidston.

  “Ah, yes, you refer to Mr. Richardson. I understood that Clive liked him, though.”

  “He would!” said Mrs. Maidston. Dame Beatrice wondered what Clive had been up to since her last visit.

  “I suppose you will eventually find another school for him,” she said, “as the tutoring was so unsatisfactory.”

  “Oh, he’s no longer with us,” said Maidston. “Did you not notice how peaceful everything is?”

  “Not with you?”

  “No. His mother, a former servant of ours, came along a few days ago and demanded the boy back. Said she was now married and that her husband was prepared to have Clive live with them. We tried to persuade her that we could do a great deal more for the boy than she could, but she wouldn’t be convinced. In fact, she became extremely abusive to my wife—I was not at home at the time, unfortunately—so my wife asked her to wait while she telephoned me and as soon as I heard the story I agreed that the woman should take the boy away. There seemed nothing else for it, and really, as my wife will tell you, Clive had been such a little pest and nuisance, since the tutor went, that I was not altogether sorry to see the back of him.”

  “I asked the girl for her address and said we should like to keep in touch—write to Clive, you know, and send to him for Christmas and his birthday, take him out sometimes, all that sort of thing—but she refused to give me her address and told me, very rudely, to mind my own business,” said Mrs. Maidston.

  “I see. Have you no idea where he has gone?”

  “I have not. It could be Southampton or even London, or, of course, it might be one of the villages round here. I couldn’t do more than ask for the address, could I?”

  “How long had you had Clive? Since babyhood?” asked Dame Beatrice.

  “Oh, no! I couldn’t possibly look after a baby! I told the girl before she left us to go into hospital to have the child, that if she put it into an orphanage until it was old enough to wash itself and so on, I would consider adopting it, whether boy or girl. I heard from her again when Clive was six. Well, I went to see him and it was arranged that we should have him on trial with a view to adoption later.”

  “We have had him for nearly four years,” said Maidston. “It was only my wife’s kind heart and my own rooted objection to giving in without a struggle, which caused us to keep him so long. Actually, as I have indicated, it was a great relief to me to come home the other evening and find that the boy had gone. Of course,” he added with some suddenness, “Richardson could have known about those test-tubes you mentioned. He had complete charge of the boy for several hours a day.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Dame Beatrice. Maidston narrowed his eyes and asked,

  “What is all this about the test-tubes, anyway? It couldn’t by any chance, have anything to do with the inquest on those two chaps found dead in the Forest, could it? I read about that in the local paper.”

  “A most curious affair,” said Dame Beatrice. “Yes, you have made a correct deduction.” Maidston raised his eyebrows questioningly, but she did not say anything more. She thanked the couple for having accorded her what she described as a fruitful interview and took leave of them. Maidston, however, insisted upon seeing her to her car and said, on the way out to the drive, “Is young Richardson involved more deeply than we know?”

  “There is no reason to think that he was responsible for murder, especially as you took care to destroy the poisons Clive brought back from school,” Dame Beatrice tartly replied.

  “I’m still very doubtful whether the test-tubes contained poisons, Dame Beatrice,” returned Maidston, “All the same, if Clive could get hold of poisons at school, what was to prevent Richardson doing the same?” he added. “After all, he was a master there and so in a position, I suppose, to help himself to the stock.”

  “How right you are. Well, good-bye, Mr. Maidston. I hope we shall meet again.”

  “Good-bye, Dame Beatrice.” He stood on the steps to wave as the car moved off. Dame Beatrice drove straight to the hotel for lunch. She had decided slightly to alter her previous plan of campaign and to tackle Richardson next. Laura had remained in the car, as she had suggested, during both the visits and had been given an account of each. When they got back, Laura, under instructions, did some telephoning and then took Denis for a short walk while Dame Beatrice had a private session with Richardson.

  Richardson seemed nervous, she thought, when told of her plan. He also seemed surprised when she said she had visited the school again, and when she added that she had followed up her encounter with the Headmaster by going straightway to interview the Maidstons, he was moved to protest.

  “They wouldn’t do much to help me. On the contrary,” he said. “We parted brass-rags, you know, although they sent me a full month’s pay.”

  Dame Beatrice agreed that she did know, but that the Maidstons had been very helpful indeed, although not, perhaps, in the way that they had intended.

  “But I can’t go into that at the moment,” she added. “My comments must be reserved for the Superintendent.”

  “That bloke is still out to get me,” said Richardson lugubriously. “He really believes I’m guilty, and there’s no way I can think of to prove to him that he’s wrong.”

  “My interviews gave me a pointer or two, if it is of any comfort to you to know it.”

  Richardson was cheered up miraculously by this remark and lost his embarrassed and nervous manner.

  “I say,” he exclaimed with some eagerness, “that means you’re still on my side!”

  “I am on the side of truth. I do not claim to be on the side of justice, because there is no such thing, as every schoolboy knows. Even the Almighty, we are told, has a slight bias in favour of mercy, and the mystical poet Blake goes even further and suggests that we pray also for pity, peace, and love. You recollect the passage, perhaps?”

  “Yes,” replied Richardson, “but what’s that got to do with it?”

  “Almost nothing. I pity the child Clive and I would be prepared to extend mercy to him. To connect him with peace and love is beyond my scope. One thing I can, and will, tell you about him. The Maidstons have given him up.”

  “Given him up? I thought the little perisher was the apple of Mrs. Maidston’s eye. It certainly seemed like that when I was there.”

  “She seems to have altered her opinion. What I want you to do is to give me as clear an account as you can of the time you spent there, and then I want you to answer one question. I do not wish to sound dramatic, but I want you to answer it as though you were on oath.”

  “Heavens!” said Richardson, with a return of his former nervousness. “That sounds most fearfully sinister.”

  “Never mind. Just you fire away. Oh, one point before you begin. Have you any reason to think that Mr. Maidston is, or was, connected in any way with the Scylla and District Athletic and Social Club?”

  “Not that I know of, but the only real contact I had with that club was in competing against them, and, of course, my two rows with Colnbrook. Both were individual events, so to speak, if you remember, so the club, as such, didn’t come into it except at the feed they gave us, and Maidston certainly wasn’t present at that.”

  “How did you obtain the tutoring post?”

  “Mrs. Maidston wrote to me. Of course, I didn’t realise that Clive was the kid in question. He was always called Topley at school.”

  “So I was told by the Headmaster. It seems an extraordinary coincidence that Mrs. Maidston should have answered your advertisement out of the many others there must have been to choose from.”

  “Well, it w
asn’t so much of a coincidence, really. Young Clive had heard from a pal of his at school that I’d left, so he asked the Maidstons if he could have me to tutor him.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “Mrs. Maidston, in her letter.”

  “Did Clive confirm this?”

  “I didn’t ask him and he didn’t mention it.”

  “I see. Now, tell me all you can about the time you spent there, not omitting the reason for your leaving.”

  Richardson told his story. There was nothing sensational about it. He glossed over the incident which had led to his dismissal by stating that Mrs. Maidston had “made a bit of a pass” at him and then had represented him to her husband as “a sort of seducer and so forth,” and that Mr. Maidston “naturally took her word for it, and I wasn’t prepared to give her away.” There had been some anonymous letters, too, Richardson had learned from the boy, but these had not been mentioned to him by the Maidstons.

  “Now,” said Dame Beatrice, “for my question. Don’t look apprehensive. I think I know the answer, but I should like confirmation from you. Did you know that Clive took home with him from school two test-tubes containing chemicals?”

  “Yes, of course I did. He showed them to me. He was terribly pleased with them. Told me the stuff was deadly poisonous. I jollied him along by pretending to believe him, but, of course, I didn’t. I mean, apart from everything else, how could he get at stuff like that?”

  “From the poisons cupboard in the chemistry laboratory, perhaps.”

  “Oh, no, that’s fantastic. That’s where that idiot of a Superintendent thinks I got it from. It’s laughable. You couldn’t get into that cupboard with a pick-axe, and the Stinks man was never the sort to leave his keys about, or take any risks of the kind.”

  “I see,” said Dame Beatrice. “What happened to the test-tubes?”

  “I imagine the Maidstons confiscated them. The kid was in the devil of a bate when he found they were gone. I suppose he told the Maidstons what he’d told me, and Mrs. Maidston got wind up and thought it might be true.”

  “Did Clive name the poisons?”

  “Yes. It is a bit odd, now one comes to think of it, that they should be the very same poisons…”

  “Yes, it does,” said Dame Beatrice, with a fearful and wonderful leer. “In fact, I would go much further than that. I would say that coincidences, in this particular case, are in danger of making themselves appear absolutely ridiculous. In other words, the child’s claim that he had brought home hydrocyanic acid and potassium cyanide cannot be disallowed.”

  “But how on earth could he have got hold of the stuff?”

  “From Borgia Robinson, of course. So much is perfectly clear. It is yet to be discovered why Robinson let him have it. According to the evidence I obtained through the Headmaster, Clive knew that the poisons were there. He had even seen them. I think he bribed Robinson, obtained a small quantity of each and then was blackmailed by him. I think that is why the boy was so anxious to get away from school. Now let us talk of shoes and ships and sealing wax and whether pigs have wings.”

  “And if by pigs you refer to that repellent kid, poor, miserable, unlucky little blighter,” said Richardson, suddenly cheering up. “You have my entire sympathy. He’s a little heel, if ever there was one. Let’s go and see whether the bar’s still open. I could do with a good stiff drink.”

  “Yes, of course. The child was fond of you, in his way, you know. Well, when we have had lunch, I shall tackle the Scylla club again. Would you care to come with me?”

  “Yes, if you’d like me to. One thing, there’s no chance of running into Colnbrook again. Why do you think somebody moved his body from my tent and put Bunt there?”

  Dame Beatrice did not answer. She led the way to the bar, bought Richardson a cocktail and herself a glass of sherry and, as soon as lunch was on, they went into the dining-room, where Laura and Denis joined them at table.

  “How did the telephoning go?” Dame Beatrice asked. “You rang up the secretary?”

  “Not helpful. All they did was a good bit of cross-country running,” Laura replied, “and we knew that, didn’t we?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Peaceful Encounters

  “What now?” he said, addressing his horse, which hearing the ripple of water, and feeling thirsty, turned to a wayside trough, where the moonbeam was playing in a crystal eddy.

  Shirley

  Charlotte Bronte

  “Cross-country running?” said Dame Beatrice. “That fits in very nicely, as you say, with what we already know. Did you manage to obtain details?”

  “Not so that you’d notice. I rang up the secretary of the Scylla and District. He had just got home for his lunch, so he wasn’t too pleased at being kept from it. I put it to him as you’d told me to, and that’s as much as I gleaned. Oh, and I made an appointment for you with Miss Calne. How can she help?”

  “I cannot tell at present, but I hope that my visit to her will open up a wide field.”

  “I wish it would open up a clear field,” said Richardson. “I’m sick of being the Superintendent’s stool-pigeon.”

  “Be of good cheer,” said Denis. “If I do not misinterpret the smug leer on my great-aunt’s countenance, you are in the clear already. What about it, great-aunt?”

  Dame Beatrice wagged her head, but would not commit herself.

  “Do I come with you to see Miss Calne? I fixed four o’clock for your interview,” said Laura.

  “No, you won’t want another session of waiting in the car. If I judge Miss Calne aright, I shall most certainly be invited to take tea with her.”

  “Then I’ll go to the riding-stables and hire a hack, when I’ve seen you off.”

  “No, no, please do not wait. Away you go! It is no distance, as you know, to Miss Calne’s house from here, so there will be a long time to wait before I go, and if you stay here with me you will miss the best of the afternoon.”

  So off went Laura to hire a horse and, the two young men having been bidden to go away and play golf, Dame Beatrice was left alone. She wondered whether her visit to Miss Calne would prove abortive. If so, there remained the club secretary, who would be certain to have the information she required. She preferred, however, to deal with the trustworthy ex-schoolmistress rather than with a young man who could hardly be expected to keep to himself that which she would have to disclose to him (by inference, even if not in so many words). There was another reason, too, for choosing Miss Calne. Her house faced an open common.

  She decided to walk, as the distance to be covered was short and the late September afternoon was clement. She arrived punctually at four o’clock. Roses were still blooming in Miss Calne’s small garden, and as Dame Beatrice reached the door, which was at the side of the house, her hostess appeared, holding a bouquet of the aromatic blooms.

  “I thought that, as you are staying in the hotel, you might like a few flowers for your room. I’ve vases I can lend you,” she said, when the greetings were over. “I’ll just put these into water to keep them quite fresh, and then we’ll have our tea and (I do hope) a nice long gossip.”

  They went into the house and Dame Beatrice was given an armchair and a new magazine while Miss Calne busied herself in the kitchen putting the roses into water and making the tea.

  “Now,” said Miss Calne, when two kinds of bread and butter, a plate of scones, some home-made jam, meat paste, some chocolate biscuits, and two kinds cake were on the table, “what can I do for you, Dame Beatrice?”

  “I am not at all certain that you can do anything,” said Dame Beatrice, accepting a dice of brown bread and butter, “but you may be able to help me. Do you happen to know the name of your predecessor?”

  “As president of the Scylla and District Club? Yes, of course I do. He was a Mr. Sebastian Campden-Towne and he lives in that big house on the borders of the heath. You can’t see the house from here because the trees along that road leading up to the common hide i
t, but it is over there.” She gestured.

  “I have seen the house,” said Dame Beatrice, “and I was hoping that you would give me Mr. Towne’s full name.”

  “Yes, the club members always called him plain Mr. Towne. It reminded me of the Headmaster at my last school. A new member of staff turned up with the double-barrelled name of Finlay-Hopkinson, but the Headmaster ruled, ‘Either Finlay or Hopkinson, young fellow, but not both, in my school!’ I don’t really blame him.”

  Dame Beatrice cackled.

  “He probably saved the young man from a certain amount of impudence from the boys,” she remarked.

  “But why, if I may ask, does Mr. Towne come into the picture?” asked Miss Calne.

  “Is he a friend of yours? Do you entertain kindly thoughts concerning him?”

  “I don’t really know a great deal about him. He is an arrogant, self-made man and thinks school-teachers very small beer.”

  “Then I will tell you all.” This she proceeded to do. Miss Calne was enthralled and delighted. Without being asked, she promised to keep secret the disclosures.

  “I feel most honoured,” she said, “to be the recipient of these confidences, Dame Beatrice, and, for what it’s worth, (probably very little), I can tell you something else. From my front windows, as you can see, I get a very good view of our Lawn.”

  “This part of the common, you mean?”

  “Oh, no, Dame Beatrice! This kind of open country is known as a Lawn. This one is Gurkha Lawn, so known because Gurkhas were encamped on it during the war. There was an attempt, some time back, to re-name it, but the local people fought for the name and won. I was canvassed and I voted to retain it. The Gurkhas are such gallant little men.”

  “And is Gurkha Lawn germane to the issue?”

  “I don’t really know, but the men you mentioned—Colnbrook and Bunt, you know—trained on it and were always spying out the lie of the land through field-glasses.”