Saltmarsh Murders mb-4

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Well?” I said, letting it pass.

  “I believe Burt would kill a man,” she said, calmly.

  “You mean the lover?”

  “I mean the lover. The lover was afraid of Burt. Cora wasn’t. Do you see a motive for Cora’s death?”

  “Not altogether,” said I, groping dimly.

  “You remember the quarrel between Burt and Cora?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the reason for it?”

  “Money again?” I suggested.

  “I don’t think so. I think they quarrelled because Burt had found out that Cora had a lover and wanted to know his name. But that is mere guesswork on my part. Go on,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  “She thought she might be able to tap the lover, found she couldn’t, and threatened to give him away to Burt. She would get off with a hiding from Burt, but the lover would be manhandled by Burt and perhaps chucked into the stone quarries. The lover may even have been hidden somewhere, listening to the quarrel.”

  “Full marks, this time,” said Mrs. Bradley, patting me on the shoulder. “I couldn’t have done it better myself. After all, one could hear the voices of Cora and Burt a mile off when both of them were angry. You remember that Margaret Kingston-Fox heard them, for instance, and she is the last person one imagines eavesdropping.”

  “But you gave me all the tips,” I said, blushing modestly, and referring to her praise of my efforts.

  “Yes, well, it may easily have happened, that way,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Is that the telephone I can hear?”

  It was. A maid came in to say so. Mrs. Bradley was wanted on the telephone. I waited. She came in looking rather worried.

  “Sir Malcolm has kindly rung up to inform me that the end of the passage which opens into the cellars of the Mornington Arms is blocked up. Bricked in, he says. He has questioned the whole staff and the two Lowrys, but nobody remembers the bricking-up being done. It is obviously old work, and has not been disturbed for years. If further proof were needed that the passage has not been used from the end which comes out at the inn cellar, the bricks are covered with the cobwebs of years!”

  “So nobody could possibly get from the inn to the Bungalow along the secret passage,” I said. “But then, we never thought anybody did. It was only Cora, and she came from the Cove end,” I continued, feeling my way through the maze.

  “We had better go and worry Burt again, I suppose,” said Mrs. Bradley briskly. “Will you accompany me?”

  “With pleasure,” I exclaimed. A thought struck me. “I wonder what Foster Washington Yorke was doing on the night that Cora was murdered?” I said. Mrs. Bradley looked at me with sheer admiration in her keen black eyes.

  “Child,” she said, “go right to the top of the class. By heaven, Holmes, this is wonderful!”

  She slapped me very heartily and painfully between the shoulder-blades.

  “In forty-five minutes, or less, I hope and trust that your intelligent question will be answered to your satisfaction,” she said. “And mine,” she added, on a grim note.

  Burt was out when we arrived at the Bungalow. This served our purpose pretty well, as we were able to interview Foster Washington Yorke undisturbed. He was not chopping wood this time. He was doing some washing—shirts, I think, but whether his own or Burt’s, I could not say. He smiled politely when he saw us, and removed his dark brown hands from the tub.

  “Finish the good work,” said Mrs. Bradley, seating herself on a scullery chair. “I suppose you can talk and work, can’t you?”

  “Ef youse come to ask me questions about po’ Miss Cora, madam,” said the negro, unexpectedly and emotionally, “no, Ah can’t work and talk about her.”

  He bent to his task and sloshed the shirts about in a heartfelt sort of way. He had been fond of Cora, of course.

  “Ah’ll done go and hang ’em on de line now,” he said. “Den we’ll talk, if you please.” His manner had changed for the worse, it seemed to me. However, he brought another chair so that I could sit down. He himself leaned against the door-post, folded his arms across his splendid chest and surveyed us with a fair amount of hostility.

  “And now, what, folks?” he said, insolently. Mrs. Bradley leaned forward.

  “You recollect which day it was that Miss Cora went away, Mr. Yorke, don’t you?”

  “Ah does that.” He recited, almost mechanically, like a child who has learned a lesson, “Miss Cora done go to catch the 3.30 train from Wyemouth Harbour on Tuesday, August 4th, de day after de Bank Holiday. Ah nebber seen Miss Cora no mo’.”

  Mrs. Bradley fixed him with her dreadful gaze. “What about Tuesday night?” she asked quietly. The negro shook his head.

  “Ah nebber seen Miss Cora no mo’ after she done leave this house to catch her train,” he repeated, stolidly.

  “Oh? Look here, Foster, what were you doing on that Tuesday night?”

  “Doing nothing,” said the negro, sullen as a child who is being found out.

  “It won’t do,” said Mrs. Bradley, patiently. “Listen, Foster. Miss Cora died in this house. I want to know where you were when she died.”

  CHAPTER XV

  black man’s maggot

  « ^ »

  For a moment I thought the negro had not understood the purport, so to speak, of Mrs. Bradley’s words. Then I saw his gritted teeth as his mouth widened into a grin of surprise and terror.

  “Miss Cora nebber died in dis hyer house,” he said, almost in a whisper. His eyes rolled horribly in his head with fear. Mrs. Bradley said rapidly in French:

  “Oh, heavens! I forgot these people are afraid of ghosts!” Foster’s anguished gaze rested on me. His big mouth was trembling. He looked a sorry spectacle.

  “Mister Wells, pray to de Lawd! Oh, mercy, pray to de good Lawd fo’ me!” he said. Sweat glistened on his brow. He was in anguish. I put out my hand and touched him. His hand was quite cold.

  “My dear fellow,” I said, “it’s quite all right. Quite all right. Don’t be alarmed.”

  His teeth were chattering with fright. Mrs. Bradley said in French:

  “Give him the Swastika from your watch-chain to hold. Be quick.”

  I complied. The poor man held it as though it were a talisman. It was, I think, to him. Gradually his shiverings ceased. He shook himself as though ridding himself of some clinging, clammy presence. Then he said:

  “I done tell all I know.”

  “Good,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  “You don’t tell Mr. Burt. De debbil’s in dat man.”

  We promised. He sat on the edge of the mangle and told us his story. Briefly it was that, having seen Cora off to the station and, after tea, Burt to the patrolling stunt that we all turned out for that night, it struck the negro that, as his employer was pretty certain to be late home, he might as well go into Wyemouth Harbour by bus and have a couple of hours at the pictures. He had left the Bungalow at a quarter to seven, he said, and he arrived back at just after eleven. He had seen the big picture, but had not stayed longer for fear Burt should return from the sea-shore before he himself arrived home from Wyemouth Harbour.

  “Now,” said Mrs. Bradley at this point of the story, “what did you see when you came home?”

  “Nothing,” replied the negro.

  “Think again,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Did you come in by way of the front door or the back door?”

  “Sho’, Ah entered by de back door, same as Ah does always,” replied Yorke.

  “Was it exactly as you left it?”

  A light seemed to dawn on the negro.

  “Now yo’ done say dat,” he replied, “Ah remembers having to use de front-door key after all, because de back door am locked and bolted. I done say to myself, ‘You fergit, and leabe de house by de front door, yo’ fool nigger.’ ”

  “And did you leave the house by the front door?” asked Mrs. Bradley, keenly.

  “Ef Ah done dat, Ah gone done it in my sleep,” said the negro emphatically. “Ah didn’t nebber in my life
use the front door, ’cept Ah come in with Mr. Burt or Miss Cora.”

  “Ah,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Well, now, Mr. Yorke, who usually locked the back door at nights? Was it you, or Miss Cora, or Mr. Burt?”

  “Ah lock dat back door soon as we’m all fixed in fer de evening,” replied Foster. “Ah takes no chances wid folks”—he shivered, and rolled his eyes—“walking in at dat back door and coming peeking ober my shoulder after de sun goes down. Mr. Burt lock de front door when dey go up to bed. Ah don’t nebber hab no sorter truck wid dat front door. Dat’s why Ah surprised myself walking in and out dere dat Tuesday.”

  “What did you do when you returned?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

  “I done get de supper fo’ Mr. Burt, but he ain’t wanting no supper.”

  “Too tired?” said I, remembering what I myself had felt like after six hours’ patrolling of that wretched beach.

  “He took a coupla three whiskies, hot, into him,” said Foster, “then he done go up to bed.”

  “At what time was this?” Mrs. Bradley asked.

  “Dat was half past one o’clock in de mawning to a tick,” replied Yorke. “Ah looked at dat clock up dere special. Mr. Burt done took off his boots and threw ’em at dis po’ nigger, and he cuss good and plenty, and den he go ’long to bed. Den Ah done go to bed again, too. Ah bin in bed once. Den Ah go to bed again.”

  Mrs. Bradley nodded, and rose to go.

  “Thank you, Foster,” she said. She paused at the back door. “Do you often go to the pictures in Wyemouth Harbour?” she asked. The negro grinned.

  “Seem like Miss Cora she mean me to go dat ebening, anyway,” he said. “She gib me a ten shillun note and tip me de wink. ‘He done go to de pub to-night, ’cause he can’t sleep good widout Ah’m in de bed wid him or else he’s full ob sperrits,’ she say. ‘You done go make a night ob it, too, down Wyemouth Harbour, yo’ black ole image.’ ”

  “Well?” said Mrs. Bradley, as we walked down the hill together. “What about that?”

  “Something in what you said about Cora returning to the Bungalow that night,” I said. “She was the person who locked the back door, I suppose?”

  “Yes. A curious trick for her mind to play her,” said Mrs. Bradley. “The desire for concealment and secrecy, you see. I don’t suppose she realised for an instant that she had done it.”

  “The negro might have done it,” I hazarded.

  “Most unlikely,” said Mrs. Bradley. “It was a settled habit with him to use the back door, you see, when he went in and out. He would have locked it, but not bolted and barred it, against his return.”

  “You don’t think Burt did it in the early evening?” I asked.

  “You are determined to hug your delusions to the last, dear child,” she said. “Where do you suppose he hid the body? Even the secret passage was not safe enough for that, you see. No, no. I am pleased with our last little bit of work, though. We clear the way to the truth, dear child.”

  “Are you going to get the police to check up Yorke at the pictures?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so,” she replied.

  “But suppose he didn’t go!” I exclaimed. “He was very anxious to tell us that Cora had given him leave to go. Suppose he were in the house when she returned to it, and thought she was an apparition, and fell upon her, and strangled her—”

  “And hid her dead body in the underground passage and bundled it down to the churchyard without Burt’s knowledge, and dug up poor Meg Tosstick, and substituted Cora, and took Meg’s dead body to the seashore and cast it into the water, and—”

  “You’re pulling my leg,” I said.

  “Surely not!” said Mrs. Bradley, in mock amazement.

  “You mean,” I said, “that Foster Washington Yorke wouldn’t handle dead bodies?”

  Mrs. Bradley cackled, and patted me ironically on the back.

  I talked things over with Daphne again that night when the others had gone to bed. Suddenly she got jumpy and said she could hear something outside the window. I laughed and said it was only a rose tapping against the glass. She said it was not. I went to the window and drew aside the curtain. A face was pressed against the glass. I suppose I gave an exclamation. I know I was rather startled. Daphne screamed. Old Coutts came tearing downstairs to see what was up. Together we went to the front door, and called out to know who was there. Daphne was just behind us. She would not stay in the room alone.

  It was Foster Washington Yorke. The thought that a murder had taken place in the Bungalow had proved too much for the poor chap. He had come to the vicarage for shelter. We hardly knew what to do. In the end, I had to have young William in my room and we gave the negro a camp bed in William’s room. A bit thick on me, of course, and the whole incident had not exactly strengthened Daphne’s nervous system, but the poor black was in such a state of frenzy that we thought it best to humour him and send him back in the morning.

  I woke up once in the night, and, the partition wall being thin, I could hear him softly moaning and praying. The poor fellow must have been in the dickens of a state. It was rather dreadful to think what he must be going through. One conclusion which I came to was that it was useless and ridiculous to suspect him of the murder. He would never have had the nerve for it. It was a comfort to think that there was some other male in Saltmarsh besides myself who would not have had the nerve to commit the murder of Cora McCanley.

  CHAPTER XVI

  mrs. gatty falls from grace, and mrs. bradley leads us up the garden

  « ^ »

  At this interesting juncture, Mrs. Gatty decided to start her games again. It must have been frightfully disheartening for Mrs. Bradley, of course. The first inkling we received at the Vicarage of Mrs. Gatty’s lapse was by word of mouth from William Coutts.

  “I say,” said William, bursting into the dining room where Daphne, and I, during the enforced absence—thank heaven!—of Mrs. Coutts at a Bazaar Committee Meeting, and of the old man at a local football match, were working out colour schemes and furnishings from a Maple’s catalogue—“the old dame’s broken loose again. We’ve been chasing her all over Saltmarsh. She’s got hold of an ox-goad and she’s prodded old Brown in the seat with it!”

  “What old dame?” said I, thinking wildly of Mrs. Bradley.

  “Mrs. Gatty,” said William. He was flushed, dirty, of course, and grinning. “She thinks she’s a sanitary inspector now, and she’s going round condemning all the ash-pits.”

  “A sanitary inspector?” I said.

  “Rather,” said William. “And she told old Lowry at the pub that he kept his coals in the bath. She wouldn’t go away until he’d taken her along and proved that he didn’t.” William chuckled. “I suppose just because the bathroom the Lowrys use for themselves is on the ground floor—well, of course they have to let the visitors use the upstairs ones!—she thinks the Lowrys don’t wash. So old Lowry informed her that he lies and soaks for about two hours at a time and Mrs. Lowry bore him out. So Mrs. Gatty’s given him a certificate of purity signed William Ewart Gladstone, and old Lowry says he’s going to frame it. She’s going round now demanding to look at everybody’s ears to see whether they wash them!” He whooped with extreme joy. “I hope she asks to see Aunt Caroline’s ears!”

  Daphne was not smiling.

  “I say, Noel,” she said, in a troubled voice, “it’s rather awful, isn’t it? I mean, she was a bit funny before, but that awful Mrs. Bradley seems to have made her worse!”

  Well, honestly, it did seem like it. Even the murders paled into insignificance before Mrs. Gatty’s latest exploits. Her old mania of comparing people with animals returned with renewed force. She waited until Burt was stuck, trying to get Daphne’s kitten out of our apple tree, and then she planted a bun on the ferrule of her umbrella and offered it to him and called him a brown bear. She informed Margaret Kingston-Fox that she was a shy-eyed delicate deer, and insisted upon referring to old Burns the financier as Lady Clare. She offered him a chrysanthemum to put
in his hair because the season for roses was past. If it had been anybody but Mrs. Gatty, one would have said that our legs were being pulled. But, of course, we knew Mrs. Gatty of old. She dogged me, for instance, all over the village one morning, bleating like a sheep, and informed me, at the top of her voice, and to the great entertainment of a crowd of schoolchildren—it was Saturday, of course—that I had changed for the better. As, before this, she had always compared me with a goat, not a sheep, I presume that some kind of scriptural allusion was intended. I escaped by taking to my heels, pursued by the shouts of the children and Mrs. Gatty’s insane bleating.

  I met Mrs. Bradley later—on the following Monday—and commiserated with her on the failure of the cure. She cackled, as usual, and informed me that there was no doubt Candy would be released. He would probably have to undergo a medical examination, she told me.

  “And now,” she continued, blandly, “I am ready to lecture for you, Noel, my dear.”

  I looked rather surprised, I expect. I remembered having once given her the gist of one of my lectures—the one on Sir Robert Walpole, if I remember rightly—but, try as I would, I could not recollect having asked her to lecture to us. Still, I supposed that, in a moment of mental aberration, I must have done so; therefore I coughed to break the rather dead silence which had followed her announcement, and expressed my pleasure, thanks and gratification as heartily as I could.

  “When?” I said, trembling inwardly, of course.

  “When do you hold your meetings?” she demanded. It was Monday, as I say, when she asked. Oh, yes, of course it was Monday. Bob Candy was returned to Saltmarsh, the hero of the hour, on the following Friday, and was sent off to Kent, with the barmaid Mabel and Mabel’s brother Sidney, to recuperate at Mrs. Bradley’s expense. The idea was for a friend of Mrs. Bradley—a Kentish landowner—to find him a job later on. This was done, by the way, and Bob’s story ended happily, so far as I know.