Groaning Spinney

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Yes, I am quite certain of that.’ This was the outline of the inquest which Jonathan gave to Deborah when he and Mrs. Bradley (who, after all, had not been called as a witness) returned to the manor house. The verdict of death by poison but without sufficient evidence to show how or by whom the poison was administered had been anticipated. What also occasioned no surprise was the Coroner’s Warrant which was issued to the police inspector who was present, and the intimation that the inquest would be adjourned to allow the police to make some further enquiries.

  ‘The interesting thing is,’ said Mrs. Bradley, later, ‘that if the two deaths are connected, and the persons were murdered, the murderer must either have had alternative plans, one of which depended on snowy weather, or else the murders were committed on the spur of the moment.’

  ‘One would think,’ said Jonathan, ‘that it would be easy to detect both the murderer and the method if the murders were suddenly thought of and were executed at short notice. I would plump for careful, long-term planning and then a patient hope that the weather would at some time fit in. These deaths were planned for deep snow, without a doubt. The snow must have been the deciding factor. Don’t you think so?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it was. It hid the body, it covered vital tracks, and it brought with it the right temperature … or, rather, the right temperature brought the snow. I shall be thankful for all the help the students will be able to give.’

  ‘Miss Hughes’ young schoolmarms, do you mean? What on earth can they do to help?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, but it may be that a series of regional surveys would help our enquiry. The students could carry these out more quickly than we could. I must see Miss Hughes about it. The students perhaps could undertake to show that the geography, particularly the topography, of even very small areas may help to account for the mentality, prejudices, speech and reactions of the people who live there. They could apply their findings to Gloucestershire.’

  ‘Old stuff,’ said Jonathan rudely.

  ‘I was hoping it might be new to the students,’ said his aunt. ‘They can begin with obvious analogies; the people of Scandinavia and the people of Spain, for example.’

  ‘Lovely!’ said Deborah derisively. Mrs. Bradley cackled.

  ‘Think of something else, then, between you,’ she said benignly. ‘You both know what we want to do. We’ve got to find out how Mrs. Whittier got to that field, and for that the ground must be quartered.’

  ‘We’ll try your idea first,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘But what is all this about the students?’ Deborah enquired. ‘I mean, if you really want to study the local geography, what’s the matter with the Ordnance Survey?’

  ‘Nothing, but it doesn’t give quite the kind of detail we’re looking for.’

  ‘What are we looking for? … I mean, what shall we be looking for? Clues of some sort, do you mean?’

  ‘I’m going to ask to be allowed to keep that to myself for the moment. I already have one important clue which, needless to say, I have shared with the police. Well, now! Beaters make a very loud noise to frighten the quarry, do they not? Very good. We will have such a noise. By the time I have enlisted the geography class and any other student volunteers, we shall see what the College can do for us in the way of obtaining not clues so much as reactions.’

  ‘What I can’t understand,’ said Deborah, ‘is why the body wasn’t discovered before. How could it have lain there unnoticed for so long?’

  ‘If you saw the place I think you would understand,’ Mrs. Bradley replied. ‘It was in that deep dip about three quarters of a mile beyond the field where they’ve cut down those elm trees. There are brambles at the bottom of the dip and nobody ever goes there in winter. I should imagine it is an old stone quarry.’

  ‘But hasn’t she been searched for by the police?’

  ‘Yes, but their enquiries have been at railway stations and along bus routes. Nobody thought of her not even reaching the station.’

  ‘No, of course not. Shall you go to the resumed inquest?’

  ‘Yes, I would not miss it for the world.’

  ‘To every principal of an Emergency Training College,’ stated Miss Hughes, ‘is granted a sum of money to be spent on outside lectures, therefore why should you come for nothing? If you come to us as an outside lecturer we shall be gratified. This would also account for your rambling with the students over the hills. Now what do you want to find out?’

  ‘Primarily, why Mrs. Dalby Whittier should have selected the most dangerous way to get to the main road from the Fullaloves’ bungalow. Could the students be told that this is an experiment in local geography, or something of that kind? And could they make sketch-maps, do you think?’

  ‘They’d love that. They are most earnest, and append sketch-maps automatically, likewise diagrams, explanatory drawings, underlinings in coloured inks, and all types of fancy paper-fasteners, to distinguish and to present everything they send us in.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Mrs. Bradley briskly. ‘Then I’ll come and lecture as soon as you like.’

  ‘And we’ll run a project, or a centre of interest, based on the lecture,’ said Miss Hughes, grinning. ‘Such things have been filmed before now for so-called educational purposes. So that’s that. It will do the poor things all the good in the world to chase about over the hills and imbibe the fresh air and plot out the lie of the land. And they won’t miss much, I can assure you. By the way, one of them, Miss Golightly, is an ex-policewoman. Would you consider telling her in confidence what you’re after? I take it that you suspect murder?’

  ‘I don’t think we had better tell her that. It might be embarrassing for her to be compelled to keep silence, and I don’t think it would help us much to have her know the real point of the project.’

  ‘Right. I’ll put everything in train. But you do think the poor woman was murdered?’

  ‘That is not an admissible question, but, in your private ear, yes, I am pretty sure of it.’

  ‘Bets have been made in the Common Room, I believe. We have remarked on your continued presence in the neighbourhood, and have come to the closely-reasoned conclusion that it is not for nothing. By the way, I take it that there is little likelihood of the students’ finding anything gruesome?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure they won’t.’

  ‘Good. Then I’ll put in a memo, and send you an official invitation to lecture.’

  The next day Mrs. Bradley received this formal invitation and she answered it by return of post, giving the written answer, in fact, to Sidney Blott in person when he delivered Miss Hughes’ official letter.

  The lecture itself was a great success. Mrs. Bradley had been pulling her nephew’s leg when she had announced her subject. What she did lecture on was the use of a theodolite in surveying, and what she demonstrated was the construction of a home-made one which could be guaranteed to function. The students (‘poor brutes’ as Deborah observed) were interested in anything which they thought they could pass to the children in their classes later on, and they fell for the home-made theodolite with a zest which warmed Mrs. Bradley’s heart although it burnt a hole in her conscience.

  A second lecture saw the amateur surveyors well on the way to the completion of their instrument, and, the weather turning suddenly spring-like, Miss Hughes altered her time-table sufficiently to give the students a chance to wander off in groups and couples into the hills to test their new toy and tabulate the results.

  Reports and observations, drawings and sketch-plans, maps and charts came in after that as fast as even the devoted Deborah could deal with them, and Mrs. Bradley, besides enjoying her own share of the field-work, spent long evenings looking for clues among the students’ handiwork—or so Deborah fondly and erroneously imagined. She had forgotten Mrs. Bradley’s abstruse references to beaters, noises and quarries.

  Jonathan, who had been to Gloucester, came back one afternoon to find his aunt and Deborah in full session. As soon as he had had his tea, Mrs.
Bradley invited him to crouch or squat beside the one-inch map and check her findings.

  ‘It begins to look as though Mrs. Dalby Whittier did not choose her own route or lose her way,’ she said. ‘To-morrow I wish you would come with me to the spot where we found the body, and then you can pick holes in my argument, and then if you can find a flaw in my reconstruction I shall be most relieved.’

  She took her nephew by the hair and gently directed his attention to the Ordnance map by pulling his face almost on to it.

  ‘Eh? Oh, yes, rather, of course! I say, Deb——’

  ‘Good,’ said Mrs. Bradley, cutting him short. ‘Well, now, look, Mrs. Dalby Whittier set out from the bungalow, according to the evidence we have, at about a quarter to four. She was to get the bus at ten to five. She should have had ample time to do this if she went by the sensible and obvious route which leads straight across the footpath over Mr. Daventry’s field and joins the road through the village. At the end of that road is the bus route. Now the interesting thing is this: the snow did not begin falling until Christmas night, by which time Mrs. Dalby Whittier should have been in London for more than twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Well, but …’

  ‘Quite so. She may have left the bungalow at the time that we suggest, but she may have had some reason to return to it later. On the evidence of her London relatives, she certainly never reached their house. Therefore——’

  ‘If she did come back the idea would be, of course, that she had something she particularly wished to do. Perhaps she had left behind her a Christmas present for one of the relatives she was to visit. At any rate, it would have been something for which the telephone, or even a letter, would not have been adequate, I suppose,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘It is impossible to say. But we shall know a good deal more when the inquest is resumed. The police are now in a strong position to assume that she was murdered. One of the symptoms of poisoning by belladonna, which, as you know, is the product of the deadly nightshade, is intense vomiting.’

  ‘No sign of that?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘So she was carried to where she was found!’

  ‘That is the logical inference, and that is the clue to which I referred the other day. Under cover of the students’ activities I have verified that Mrs. Whittier was not sick anywhere near that dip or on any direct or indirect line to it from the bungalow. Moreover, you will be interested to hear that even the Chief Constable seems impressed. There is something more to be discovered, or so he informs me, about these mysterious deaths. (Please note the plural). I am afraid he sometimes jumps to conclusions.’

  ‘Do you think he suspects murder this time?’

  ‘Yes, but, of course, he is far too obstinate to say so.’

  ‘Has he got anyone in mind, I wonder?’

  ‘At present, no, child. Whom could he have in mind?’

  ‘Well, Tiny,’ said Jonathan baldly. ‘It’s a bit too much of a coincidence for two people in one small place to die under such peculiar circumstances. I mean, why should they?’

  ‘A reasonable question, child. But, of course, the after-Christmas weather was very severe. However, there seems little doubt that we’ve had two murders and that both were planned. I think they were quite well planned. The anonymous letters, as it happens, may have been rather a mistake, but one can’t foresee everything, and murderers are curiously fallible. On the other hand, we cannot rule out the possibility that there may be no real connection between the deaths and the letters, and there may be no connection, either, between the deaths. We may be looking for two criminals, not one; and there may be no murderer at all. We must, above all things, be open-minded. The furthest that the Chief Constable will go is to suggest suicide in both cases.

  ‘I suppose Mrs. Whittier knew something which Tiny was afraid she’d give away,’ said Jonathan, adhering to his own point of view.

  ‘I am not certain that we ought to bring Tiny Fullalove’s name into this, you know. There is no proof of anything wrong, so far as he was concerned, except the curious affair of those notes to Anstey.’

  ‘What do you call proof? Isn’t it enough that those two people have died for no obvious reason, and that both of them were directly connected with him?’

  ‘Perhaps, circumstantially, it is. But the Law is always amoral, and circumstances are often misleading.’

  ‘I thought that justice and morality were supposed to be the same thing.’

  ‘Then why bring in mercy to temper justice?’

  ‘Do you feel merciful?’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs. Bradley decisively. ‘I do not. But neither do I feel myself to be the instrument of justice or the law. Revenge is my aim, in this instance.’

  Her nephew looked as much taken aback as he felt.

  ‘Revenge for what?’ he enquired. Mrs. Bradley eyed him solemnly.

  ‘I do not like thee, Doctor Fell;

  The reason why I cannot tell,’

  she answered briefly.

  ‘Meaning Tiny Fullalove, Aunt Adela?’

  ‘Meaning unnatural death. And there is no doubt in my mind that these deaths should not have occurred. Anyhow, the Chief Constable is now fully armed with his exhumation order, and intends to go ahead with the business.’

  ‘Will it help him?’

  ‘No. It will help nobody but the murderers, and perhaps not even those. By the way, I was in Groaning Spinney with two of the students and young Robert Emming this morning, and he made—Hullo! Here’s Sally!’

  ‘Jon, dear,’ said Sally, ‘can you mount me? I can’t display my prowess to the Cotswold. That’s flying much too high. But a boy I know told me that your local pack can do pretty well behind a local fox, and there’s a meet over at Tivingbridge next Wednesday. What about it?’

  ‘You can have Three Legs,’ said Jonathan decisively. ‘I’m not having you ruin my best hunters over stone walls.’

  ‘I promise not to put Truelove to a single wall.’

  ‘Your promise is void, dear girl. You don’t get Truelove for love, truth or money.’

  ‘Oh, but——’

  ‘Three Legs, or nothing. I’m going out on Truelove myself.’

  ‘Well, Deb won’t want to go, with Mary Crispin on the way. What about lending me Moonlighter?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Deborah, horrified into inhospitality. ‘And, Sally, don’t go hunting next week. The snowdrops are out, and——’

  ‘All right. I’ll take Three Legs, and if I’m brought home on a stretcher I suppose you won’t let it lie on your conscience,’ said Sally, ignoring the snowdrops. Her cousin grinned, and winked at his wife.

  ‘As Three Legs has never been known to risk even a two-foot furze-bush, there’s no danger that you’ll need a stretcher,’ he said. ‘You just give him his head. He’s old, but he’s useful because he knows all the gaps and gates. Talk to him nicely, and you’ll be in at the death all right. Will North was telling me that he’s made a very good false earth on Wyeman Hanger, and has had a vixen in it all winter. Besides, Three Legs won’t catch his feet in rabbit holes if they find over at Groaning Spinney, and that’s always something to be grateful for.’

  ‘There are five foxes at least in Coverdale Woods,’ said Mrs. Bradley.

  ‘Who said so?’

  ‘Will North, of course. Is there anything Will doesn’t know?’

  ‘Yes. He doesn’t know who committed the murders,’ said Sally. ‘And what were you all talking about so busily when I came in?’

  ‘Young Emming and two students,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘Good heavens! What on earth can they see in him?’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t like that,’ said Deborah. ‘It was something he made.’

  ‘Well, it couldn’t have been a daisy chain at this time of year. What was it?’

  ‘It was a great discovery,’ Mrs. Bradley replied. ‘He was poking into the badgers’ sett and he unearthed two leather leads and two chains. I want Jon to see them.’

  She
went up to her room and came down with the evidence. Jonathan said:

  ‘No fingerprints?’

  ‘Nothing at all. I have tested them very carefully, and Mr. Emming, the students and I were all wearing gloves.’

  ‘Those belong to Tiny Fullalove,’ said Jonathan. ‘He chains up those tykes of his at night, and those are their leads, too. Anstey says Tiny told him he was sending the dogs to boarding kennels and the cats to a home, but Anstey can’t believe it, and neither do I.’

  10. Peculiar Persons

  *

  ‘Did his foe slay him? He shall slay his foe.’

  Giles Fletcher, Junior

  * * *

  DEBORAH HAD BEEN right about the snowdrops. They were spread almost as thickly as the snow itself on a great slope where the lawn rolled downwards towards the beech trees.

  ‘What do you hope to gain from our little stroll to-day?’ Jonathan asked his aunt when he had gathered a bunch of the snowdrops for his wife to wear, and the three of them with Sally were out for a short walk in the woods.

  ‘I am going to trace history backwards,’ Mrs. Bradley replied. ‘We will walk to the Fullaloves’ bungalow from the spot where we found Mrs. Dalby Whittier’s body, and when we get there we will call on Mr. Tiny and put some leading questions.’

  ‘Trap him, do you mean?’ asked Deborah, with distaste.

  ‘Certainly not. He won’t allow us to do that if he is guilty, and if he is innocent he cannot harm himself, whatever answer he gives.’

  ‘I like your moral sense,’ said Jonathan. ‘Anyway, it will be nothing more than neighbourly to call on him and ask how the knee is getting on and whether he’s had any more anonymous letters. Shall you say anything about the dog-chains and leads?’

  ‘No. At any rate, not yet. And I beg that you will allow me to order the conversation.’

  ‘Only too glad. It’s got too hot for me to handle!’

  ‘I am silly!’ said Deborah suddenly. ‘I knew there was something nagging at me. Was Mrs. Dalby Whittier’s identity card in her handbag?’