The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop mb-2

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘The bloodstains, sir.’

  ‘Yes, well, we shall know more when we know whether it’s human blood or whether they carried home the week-end joint without enough paper wrapped round it. Case of wait and see. Still, there’s certainly a good deal of unexplained matter which could easily be worked into a case against the young fellow. He had the motive, you see. That’s the big thing.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Still, his prints don’t coincide with those on the butcher’s knife and cleaver. Those prints were made by that daft assistant who apparently parted with the key, and there’s nothing to connect him with the murder.’

  ‘No – but about James Redsey, now. You see, we can’t prove he dismembered the body even if we think he did the murder. What about the prints on the suitcase?’

  ‘Too confused to be trustworthy, sir. You see, at least four people have handled that case since somebody stowed it away on the Vicarage dust-heap.’

  ‘Four people?’

  ‘Yes. Young Harringay, Miss Broome, the sergeant, and me. And then, you see, it had been buried. That makes a difference.’

  ‘Yes, I see. Still, as I say, even without the suitcase, the whole thing looks pretty clear to me.’

  ‘Yes. It’s a darn sight too clear. That’s what I think,’ said Grindy. ‘It’s like picking apples off a tree. Too easy to be interesting. I don’t like that kind of evidence. Murders aren’t solved all that easy, sir, as you should know. That fellow Redsey is quite the sort of young chap as might do a murder – same as any of us – you don’t have to be a criminal to up and kill a man when all’s said and done. The feelings of that are in most of us, say what you please – but all the same, Mr Bidwell –’

  ‘You come along to my place, and have a bit of supper, Tom,’ said the superintendent kindly. ‘And don’t get highfalutin. You’ve got a bead on your man all right. I’ve thought so all along. You see, there have been nothing but family rows over that property since the grandfather’s time. The brother, this young Harringay’s father, was disinherited by the old man, and the two sisters had a lawsuit over the business – that’s Sethleigh’s mother and Redsey’s mother, you know – and a lawsuit over property in a family means bad blood all round – it doesn’t stop at a sisterly row between the two litigants. And now the trouble has worked downwards, and, in my opinion, young Redsey has just simply gone and cooked it. And, after all, dozens of men have been arrested on less than a quarter of the evidence you’ve got against him.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ The inspector stared at the broad toes of his boots. ‘But it could all be explained away pretty easily. I mean, suppose Sethleigh were only stunned after all by that fall? Then, it seems pretty certain Redsey did not dismember the corpse – at least, we can’t prove at present that he did cut it up, and we can’t find an accomplice. Besides, on Monday night, and pretty late at that, it seems that Redsey was seen looking for the body.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Well, we can’t prove that’s what he was looking for, but it seems feasible.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, don’t you see, that shows he didn’t know the body was dismembered and in Bossbury. He thought it was still in the bushes where he’d left it on the Sunday night.’

  ‘H’m! It’s a point. But in view of what you’ve got against him –’

  ‘Then the point about the will. He says he didn’t know his cousin was going to disinherit him, and we can’t prove that he did know.’

  ‘There’s that, certainly. But I expect he knew all right. I bet that is what the final row was all about, as a matter of fact. After all, he admits it was about money. You’ve only got to go a step further. After all, to be disinherited –’

  ‘Yes, I know, but did he know about the will? The alteration of the will, I mean. If he didn’t, you see –’

  ‘And if he did, Grindy – and I can’t see why he shouldn’t have known –’

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s a big point, of course. But proof, you see –’

  ‘Proof! Why, you’ve got your proof! The murder of Sethleigh is the proof! What more do you want?’

  ‘Somewhere,’ said Grindy slowly, shaking his head and laboriously working it out, ‘there’s a flaw in that argument.’

  ‘You come and have some grub,’ said the superintendent kindly. ‘That bit of gardening’s upset you!’

  II

  Aubrey himself, much mystified by the discovery of the suitcase containing his trout, wandered back to the Manor House, and went up to his own room. He picked up his bat and was practising a few late cuts – the kind of stroke, he reflected, that looks so pretty at the nets, but which never seems to come off in a match – when the bell rang for tea.

  Aubrey, always ready for his meals, hastily washed his hands and brushed his hair. Then he tore down the stairs, jumped the last eight, and nearly knocked Mrs Bradley flying. Before he could so much as apologize, she gripped his arm and hissed into his ear:

  ‘Go upstairs again, and bring me the false teeth!’

  Aubrey stared at her in stark amazement for a full minute. Then he bolted upstairs again, and shortly returned bearing a small cardboard box. This he handed to her.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘The trove of the dust-heap shall be paid for in – hard cash?’

  Aubrey stuck his hands in his pockets and put his head on one side.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Let me – let me have a bit of a look-in, will you, Mrs Bradley? There’s going to be a lark, isn’t there?’

  ‘At six o’clock to-morrow night, so early in the morning, then,’ said Mrs Bradley, nodding and cackling and wagging a yellow forefinger at him. ‘Bring Felicity Broome and James Redsey. I must have James Redsey. Understand?’

  ‘No,’ said Aubrey, laughing. ‘But it sounds the goods all right. I’ll go and tell Felicity directly after tea.’

  ‘And I myself will invite James Redsey,’ observed Mrs Bradley, ‘and then he won’t have the requisite amount of nerve to refuse the invitation. That young man is afraid of me! He darts behind potted palms at my approach! I’ve seen him do it! But this time he will not escape!’

  She proved a true prophet. The spineless James fell an easy victim to an invitation which he spent the rest of the evening cursing and reviling, but which he had not found the courage to refuse when Mrs Bradley delivered it.

  After tea, Aubrey went in search of Felicity Broome and found her lying on the grass in the orchard behind the Vicarage garden. She was weeping bitterly. He stood by her side for a moment and looked down upon her gravely, a tall, thin, brown-faced boy, sympathetic and diffident. At last he coughed.

  Felicity raised herself and looked round. Slowly she sat up, and, with woman’s instinct, began to tidy her rumpled hair. Her eyelashes were wet and her cheeks flushed with weeping. She was very lovely.

  ‘I say,’ began Aubrey, abashed at the sight of woman’s tears. He hesitated. ‘I suppose you know those police johnnies have been nosing round our place again?’ he added awkwardly.

  Felicity nodded. A sob escaped her, and she clenched her small teeth viciously. Absurd to let a kid like Aubrey see one cry, and all about a man whom one had only known about – about ten weeks!

  ‘I’m sure they think – they think that Jimsey –’ she managed to observe in a husky voice.

  Aubrey nodded gloomily.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so, too,’ he said. ‘And they found that bally suitcase, too, this afternoon.’

  ‘Found it?’ Felicity stared at him. ‘The inspector was over here asking about it, but I had no idea they’d found it! Where?’

  ‘Buried in old Jim’s hole, where we had decided to put it ourselves. Comic, isn’t it? But you don’t want to worry, Felicity,’ he added hastily. ‘I mean, they can’t prove anything, you know. Old Jim has been absolutely square with them. Confessed he knocked Rupert out and everything. That ought to count in his favour, you know. If only we could find out who bunked off with that bally suitcase that night, and then buried it like that!’ />
  ‘Why?’ Felicity gave her eyes a last dab and tossed back her hair.

  ‘Well, don’t you see! It must have been the – the real murderer. After all, if old Jim didn’t carve up the corpse – and he swears he didn’t, and the police don’t believe he did, because I asked the inspector and he said they could check up Jim’s alibi for Monday, when they are pretty sure it was done – unless it was done on the Sunday, when, again, Jim couldn’t have done it – well then, it seems to me that Jim couldn’t have killed Rupert, but only stunned him, as Jim himself said; and then Rupert got up, all woozy from the concussion or whatever it was, and somebody else stepped in and had a soft job finishing the poor blighter off.’

  Felicity shivered.

  ‘Yes, but it’s Jimsey they’re after. I know it is! I can see it in that inspector’s eye,’ she said with a gulp.’

  ‘Look here,’ said Aubrey, seating himself beside her, and grinning at two very young calves who came up to gaze at them, ‘let’s get this straight. Do you or do you not believe that Jim Redsey killed Rupert?’

  ‘Aubrey! You know I believe what Jim says! But, after all, what does he say? That he thought he’d killed his cousin! He himself thought so!’

  Aubrey sighed.

  ‘Well, anyway, I’m going to find the man who did the – what’s that word the police always use? – yes, the dismembering of the corpse. You know, that stunt’s often done, and people always think it’s to cover up the crime by messing up the identity of the body. But I often think it must be because the murderer can’t stick the sight of the victim when the deed’s done.’

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Felicity sharply. ‘And look here, Aubrey, I know you’re a clever boy. And brave, too. So, if you want any help, you know I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘Good man,’ said Aubrey briskly. ‘Now the first job is one you can help me over right away. Will you come with me to see that old dame the mater hates so much?’

  ‘Mrs Bradley?’

  ‘Yes, she wants us to go there at six to-morrow.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll come with you, of course. Did you know she gave Father five hundred pounds?’

  ‘Five hundred? What for?’

  ‘The Restoration Fund. But she won’t come to church.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Felicity giggled in spite of herself.

  ‘She thinks the Church Catechism is immoral.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Aubrey feelingly. ‘I can’t stick learning stuff by heart. But what’s her objection?’

  ‘The bit about your betters. She says the village children are led to believe it means the squire and the people who go fox-hunting and the factory owners who pay women about half what they would pay men for doing exactly the same work.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘And the bit about our station in life. She says it’s retrogressive to teach children ideas like that. They just think it means never try to get on and do anything with your life. She says the plutocrats made use of phrases like that to keep the workers down – what used to be called “in their place”, and made them put up with all sorts of bad conditions because it was the – the will of Heaven. She says she knows the Church doesn’t interpret these things like that, but that the Victorians always did. She thinks it’s a frightfully progressive sign that so few intelligent people go to church. She says, if people got up in a political meeting and made the sort of speech that the average clergyman “dignifies by the name of sermon”, most of the audience would walk out, and the vulgar ones would throw tomatoes and make rude noises.’

  ‘Has your pater heard all this?’

  ‘Oh, yes. She and Father sit in the garden and argue for hours. I’m glad. It’s a change for the poor darling and it keeps him out of my way. And she often has us over there to meals and things. Dinner chiefly. She’s got a French cook. Father loves going. So do I, really, although she scares me.’

  ‘Yes, you always feel as though she’s getting at you,’ agreed Aubrey. ‘Have you ever played billiards with her?’

  ‘No, I don’t play.’

  ‘She’s hot. Well, we’ll go and see her to-morrow, then. Call for you at a quarter to six. That do?’

  Felicity nodded.

  ‘I shall be ready,’ she said. ‘And now I must go and wash my face. Do I look very horrible?’

  She smiled up at him gloriously.

  ‘You look all right,’ said Aubrey, fired by her loveliness, agonizingly conscious of the inadequacy of his words, but bashfully incapable of adding so much as a syllable to them. He put out a lean brown hand and helped her to her feet.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Margery Barnes

  I

  AT six o’clock on the following day, Aubrey and Jim called at the Vicarage for Felicity Broome, and the three of them walked over to the Stone House.

  Mrs Bradley received them in the stone-flagged, oak-panelled hall, and without any preliminaries, except for the removal of Felicity’s hat, she caused them to be seated at a large oak table, and presented each of them with a pencil and a pad of writing-paper.

  ‘Plenty of paper, you see,’ said Mrs Bradley, cackling hideously but with obvious pleasure.

  ‘Look here,’ said Jim Redsey, grinning. ‘Can’t I be let off? Honestly, I’m not a scrap of good at these parlour games. I always make the most frightful fool of myself. You three play, and I’ll be umpire and see you don’t cheat.’

  ‘Oh, but this is a new game,’ objected Mrs Bradley. ‘And it doesn’t need an umpire. Now, take up your pencils. Write your name and the date on top of the paper. Pencils down as soon as you have finished.’

  Aubrey giggled.

  ‘It’s like the kindergarten I went to as a small kid,’ he observed, scrawling the date in his curiously grown-up handwriting, and then laying his pencil on the table.

  ‘Now listen to me,’ went on Mrs Bradley. ‘I want you all to make a long list of places where the skull which disappeared from Mr Wright’s house may be hidden. Are you ready?’ She smiled hideously around at the three hapless young people. ‘Then . . . go!’

  At the end of twenty minutes she collected the papers and sent her visitors home. At seven o’clock another party of guests arrived. These were Lulu Hirst and Savile from the Cottage on the Hill. They had come to dinner. At a quarter past seven the vicar arrived with the major’s two daughters. The two large, plain girls explained that their father’s gout was troublesome, and so he would not come.

  When dinner was over, Mrs Bradley went through the same performance with pencils and paper. The guests were uncertain whether to be amused or bored by the proceedings, but reflected that they had enjoyed an excellent dinner!

  Next morning, Mrs Bradley walked over to the cottage where George Willows – in the act of commanding his wife to eat a second rasher of bacon – was having his breakfast, and asked him the same question.

  Willows lowered a knife covered with yolk of egg into his mouth, while Mrs Bradley quickly averted her gaze, then he laid knife and fork down and turned in his chair.

  ‘Take a seat, mum, if you please,’ said Mrs Willows, hastily but unnecessarily dusting a chair. Mrs Bradley sat down.

  ‘Hide the skull?’ said George Willows meditatively. He ruminated. ‘Happen I should bury un,’ he said at length, while a slow smile spread over his sun-tanned features. ‘Ah, that’s what I should do meself, like. Bury un in the ground. And plant a big plant over un, like.’ he added, embroidering the idea richly.

  ‘A helpful suggestion,’ observed Mrs Bradley.

  ‘And if I knowed for certain sure it were the skull of that there Mr Sethleigh as turned me out with hard words and a blow too and all, I lay I’d stamp on un hard,’ concluded George Willows truculently.

  Mrs Willows gazed at the bold fellow in terrified admiration. She had been a hero-worshipper for fifteen years.

  ‘I think we might cross you out of the list of suspects, my friend,’ thought Mrs Bradley as she walked up the lane towards the house of Dr Barnes and tur
ned in at the double gates. ‘Still, I am very glad I have had a look at you. Conclusive, I think. Exit Willows.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Margery Barnes, straightening her back at Mrs Bradley’s approach, for she had spent the previous twenty minutes in weeding the gravel path. ‘Father is out on his round. I’m expecting him home soon, though. He usually comes in at about ten, and goes out again at about eleven.’ She glanced at Mrs Bradley’s face. ‘You don’t look very ill,’ she remarked.

  Mrs Bradley stretched out a claw-like hand and tweaked her short fair hair.

  ‘I am not in the least ill. I am thankful to say,’ she observed. ‘I have come to consult your father about a different matter. Rather a serious matter, I am afraid.’

  Margery blanched.

  ‘Not about that horrible murder? You’re not going to ask Father anything about that?’ she cried in consternation.

  ‘Hoots toots!’ cried Mrs Bradley, who professed an enormous admiration for the Scots people and occasionally expressed herself in what she fondly believed to be their native tongue. ‘And here is your father!’

  ‘Oh, Father!’ cried Margery. ‘Mrs Bradley has called to ask you –’

  ‘To prescribe for old Martha Higgs down in the village,’ interpolated Mrs Bradley neatly. Margery gasped with relief, and subsided. ‘She is not an insured person, Mrs Bradley continued, ‘and she can’t get a widow’s pension because unfortunately she is a spinster. She has the old age pension and two shillings a week from her nephew – good luck to him for a dutiful and generous boy, for he has a wife and children of his own – and her rheumatism is really very bad. I think a time at Bath might help the poor dear. I suppose a cure, or anything approaching a cure, is hopeless at her age, but I think perhaps –’

  Imagining that the discussion might probably last for some time, Margery slipped away to her own room, changed her shoes, put on a hat, and bicycled down to the Vicarage.

  As soon as Margery had gone, Mrs Bradley propounded to the doctor her question as to the probable hiding-place of the skull.