Dead Men's Morris (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Tombley told me that no none but Priest could handle Nero, child.”

  “If true, disgraceful—and frightfully awkward for Priest. If false”—he looked up and laughed—“it might bring us back to Tombley, mightn’t it? And all the Fossder business might be part of the very same plot. I’ve got a feeling, like you, that the two deaths hang together.”

  “I know,” said Mrs. Bradley. She seemed dejected. “But, about the fact that Simith should have been able to handle Nero. Simith was in a semi-conscious state, I think, when Nero got at him.”

  “The strangulation business? Oh, I see!”

  The next day they breakfasted at seven, by the light of a yellow lamp that flung shadows under Mrs. Bradley’s bright black eyes, and painted her yellow skin the colour of old gold; she looked like an ancient, benevolent goddess, wrinkled but immortal. She ate a modest breakfast with appetite, and propped a book of very modern verse against the sugar bowl. Carey, distrait but handsome, the elf-lock well in evidence, his long mouth sentimentalised by the deceptive shadows, and his eyes dark pools, champed bacon, blackpudding, eggs, fried bread, and pigs’ liver with a serene, entirely masculine, disregard of his Byronic appearance and the well-being of his digestive organs.

  “More coffee, Aunt Adela?”

  Mrs. Bradley passed her cup.

  “Listen, child,” she said “This is about pigs.” She peered at the book, and then read, in her deep and beautiful voice,

  “Flattered,

  As by significant form and Nature’s bold

  Subtraction,

  Trompe l’œil to the stranded demi-gods,

  Fat carcases et habeo B.B.C.!—

  The fat-stock prices, Oxford-on-Cam pronounced.

  (Stratford-atte-Bow, quoth Chaucer)

  Fie, for shame!

  Hoodoo, or Voodoo—same?

  Shame, same; same shame as

  Eve’s.

  Significant form? What else?

  Squirms matter? All her dugs?”

  Carey put his head on one side, and grinned.

  “You know, it’s rather good. The fellow’s seen a sow. It reminds me of Browning, rather! If you’ve finished your breakfast, let’s go. I’ve been thinking things over a bit. If we go to the village first they’ll think I’m mad. I think we should try a slightly wider cast. What do you say to going to Wheatley first, and working straight across country? I think I ought to tell you that this county boasts three hundred and fifty-nine boars.”

  “The first thing I want to do is to go to Garsington,” said Mrs. Bradley, producing an Ordnance map, and flipping it with her finger.

  “Garsington?”

  “Garsington, child.”

  “To see boars?”

  “Well, not exactly. I, too, have been thinking things over, and I fancy that, if Tombley was the ghost, he went on horseback by way of Wheatley, Garsington, Toot Baldon, and Nuneham Courtenay.”

  “Oh, bother Tombley and the ghost! You told me before that he jolly well wasn’t the ghost! And you said we were going to look at boars!”

  “So we are,” said Mrs. Bradley, putting on a tweed coat and a hat. “Come, child. The sun will be up very soon.”

  Into the eerie half-darkness they sallied forth, and Carey was very soon kicking the motor-cycle into a roar of life. Mrs. Bradley, with a veil tied under her chin to keep her hat on, and fur-lined gloves on her hands, sat patiently in the sidecar. The sky lightened. The motor-cycle combination moved slowly towards the gate, which Young Walt obligingly held open.

  “Garsington!” screamed Mrs. Bradley, above the noise of the engine.

  “Garsington ho!” bellowed Carey, as he turned the corner and slightly opened the throttle. Soon they were climbing past the post office, past the church; soon they were in top gear, rushing towards Forest Hill; soon they had opened up again on the other side of the village, slowing for the turning on to the main road, edging discreetly through a sleeping Wheatley, past the ancient lock-up and the silent public house, and at last they were rushing past Coombe Wood, which edged the road for about a quarter of a mile, and slowing to ten miles an hour past Garsington Kennels.

  “Of course,” said Carey, pulling up at the cross-roads, “if I’d been doing the journey, I believe I’d have cut out the main part of Garsington altogether and taken the lane that runs past Great Leys Farm and on past Sandford Brake. It isn’t far, and you could lead the horse. See what I mean?”

  He had dismounted and was standing beside Mrs. Bradley, who had the map on her knee.

  “He could have joined the main road by cutting through past the brick works, but the mystery is, if he did come round this way, what on earth possessed him to go back to Folly Bridge, and then come towards Sandford from Iffley?”

  Mrs. Bradley nodded.

  “But you are assuming that the horseman came by night. I am assuming that he made the journey by daylight, and led the horse along the main road into Oxford. That wouldn’t have attracted very much attention.”

  “I see your point,” said Carey. “Well, what’s the next move, angel?” He assisted her out of the sidecar.

  “I want to see Garsington Cross,” said Mrs. Bradley, “and I want to go by myself. You stay here, and, if I’m not back in twenty minutes or so, you can come along with the contraption and look for me.”

  She walked briskly away, map in hand. A passing labourer, a stubble-faced man with broken, brown teeth, bade Carey good-morning cheerily, and asked him whether he had run out of petrol.

  “Well, no,” said Carey, “I’m trying to find some relations of mine who live about here, and whom I’ve never seen. Name of Season.”

  “Season?” said the man. He shook his head. “I don’t know anythen about anybody named Season. Not in my time they wouldn’t be. Why don’t ee ask Mrs. Tempson? Er’d know, ef anybody did, I should fancy. First turnen and second ’ouse. Ee can’t miss er. Fuchsias in the front window. Bloomen, too an’ all. Wonderful ooman with flowers. Good-day to ee. Season? I’ll try and recollect, but I don’t some’ow thenk there’s ben anybody o’ that name in Garsenton. Not in my time, any’ow, and I’ve lived ’ere fifty-five year.”

  He passed on, his workman’s straw basket on his back, his blue can of tea in his hand. Carey followed his directions, and came upon old Mrs. Tempson in the act of feeding the canary.

  “Season?” She shook her head. “Not en Garsenton. That I knows for sure.”

  “It’s odd,” said Carey. “I could have sworn they said Garsington, and Tom, who came through here on Christmas Eve with his horse, would have said the same, I know.”

  “Would that be the same white ’orse as cast a shoe?”

  “I didn’t know that, but a white horse, yes, that’s right.”

  “Very aggravated he was, I could tell, the way he was speaken,” said old Mrs. Tempson.

  “That wouldn’t aggravate Tom. He’s very mild-tempered,” said Carey.

  “This un wasn’t mild-tempered, but holden himself en, as ee might put it, like, tryen not to show all he felt.

  “ ‘Got to get the mare to Stadhampton, and late on the way as et is!’ he said, very ell-tempered to ’Arry Brown, the smeth. Lost the shoe comen along Up Blenheim, er ded. But there! Esn’t much us can’t do for ee ’ere in Garsenton, so be us give a mind to et, you know, and us soon ’ad the ’orse upon his road again.”

  Mrs. Bradley returned with the same tidings. A grey mare had cast a shoe and the rider had given evidence of bad temper held in check with difficulty. She had learnt one other thing—the approximate age of the rider. “Not short of sexty; older, maybe,” her informant had volunteered; “a lettle, testy chap, and I’ll back he were up to no good!”

  “We’ll have to go north through New Headington, and then past Headington Quarry,” Carey said. “And now, what about these boars?”

  “I want to see yours.”

  “Yes, I know you do, but where?”

  “I said yours, not boars! Your boars!”

  �
��My boars? Oh, very well!”

  “And now,” said Mrs. Bradley, when at length they were back at Old Farm, and the motor-cycle combination was safely housed in the cartshed, “be quiet, and let me think.”

  Carey was silent. He accompanied her to the pigs. Hereward was feeding. He glanced up interrogatively at the sound of voices, and then went on with his meal. He ate with the steady concentration of a young boar who was not greedy but who enjoyed his food, and who had forgotten that he had once been in active competition with eleven brothers and sisters for it.

  “That tusk,” said Mrs. Bradley. She looked at it as closely as Hereward would permit. Occasionally he lifted his head to chew the food, and displayed it generously to her intent and interested scrutiny. When the boar had finished eating, she took her nephew into the house and they played at table-tennis in the room that Carey used as a studio. It was the one indoor pastime at which he could beat her. They played until it was too dark to see, and then abandoned the game and went in search of tea.

  “Our Lender have to attend the enquest on Mr. Semeth,” said Mrs. Ditch, when she brought in the tray. “And I s’pose you’ll be goen, too an’ all, won’t ee? Dear, dear! What times we do live en, to be sure!”

  “Yes, we are going,” said Carey, “and I’ll tell you all about it, Mrs. Ditch.”

  “Ah, do ee, then. Couldn’t trust our Lender to tell the truth, less now she’m married than ever.”

  “Is that really so?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

  “Can’t gev evidence again her husband, can ’er?” Mrs. Ditch enquired.

  “So that’s what you think? That Priest killed Simith,” said Carey, looking at her as she flicked the crumbs off the table.

  “I don’t thenk at all,” said Mrs. Ditch, eyeing him calmly. “Tes a bad ’abit, and shouldn’t be encouraged en nobody. Ef us didn’t thenk, us wouldn’t make oursen miserable. That’s what I ben sayen to our dad.”

  “Where did Linda get to on Boxing Night? Have you found that out?” asked Carey. Mrs. Ditch looked grim.

  “Have I? You be asken somethen now! ’Er went over to Roman Enden, snow or no snow, shoes or no shoes, that I do know, say ’er what ’er well. Make what ee can of that, for I be sartain.”

  “Shoes or no shoes,” said Mrs. Bradley thoughtfully. “That settles that, then, doesn’t it?”

  “You mean she went barefoot, and that’s why her shoes weren’t marked?”

  “That’s what I mean, child, yes.”

  “But the ankle-length dress? Wouldn’t that get bedraggled, and frightfully dirty?”

  “I expect she changed it, child.”

  “But—say it in words of one syllable. Do you mind?”

  “Linda Ditch went up to bed as early as she could. She had an appointment with someone at Roman Ending. She slipped out at the front door, and neither we in here, nor her parents at the back, would have heard her go, because there was a fair amount of noise going on, and, in any case, the walls are almost sound-proof in this house. She had previously changed her frock for one which she had hidden in the hall. She risked very little in changing there. Her parents would not come that way unless one of us summoned them, or somebody rang the front-door bell and brought them out of the kitchen. During the few moments it took her to slip out of one frock into the other, she had reason to hope that we would not come into the hall to go up the stairs. She may then have gone barefoot across the snow. Her outdoor shoes were probably in the kitchen, for the Ditch family very rarely keep their outdoor shoes in their bedrooms. They are almost invariably left downstairs under the dresser or somewhere. Linda kept her appointment, came back, dared not return to the bedroom, or, possibly, was too much upset to do so, and got into the priest’s hole from another entrance—an entrance which Denis and I did not discover.”

  “But why did she need to go back to Roman Ending? Priest wasn’t there. He sleeps in the village, you know.”

  “She may have gone at Simith’s or Tombley’s bidding. Somebody may have wanted to get her away from here while Hereward was taken out of his sty.”

  “And why did she faint when we opened the panelling that morning?”

  “I don’t think she did faint. I think she was asleep, and fell out, and the shock made her feel faint. It might, quite easily.”

  “I see. And what do you think we ought to do about her?”

  “Nothing, child. I’ll talk to Linda again some time, and see what she has to say. Meanwhile I’m going to see Tombley, and frighten him if I can.”

  “You won’t manage that. He’s got guts.”

  “All the more reason for supposing he isn’t a murderer.”

  “I bet he is, though,” said Carey. “What’s more, I’m coming with you. You don’t visit Tombley alone. If he did murder Fossder and Simith, it wouldn’t be healthy for you to go and ask him questions.”

  “I don’t think he is a murderer. But he must know something about the deaths, I should think. You noticed that the mysterious horseman, whose grey mare cast a shoe in Garsington, was Simith, I suppose?”

  “That’s fearfully odd, to my mind. Where on earth was he going?”

  “To Folly Bridge, and along the towing path. He was the horseman the man in the little shop heard go by on Christmas Eve.”

  Chapter Eight

  HALF-ROUNDS ON A PIG-FARM

  Tombley was alone in the house. He explained this when he answered the door himself.

  “I thought you were the police again,” he said.

  “Dear me,” said Mrs. Bradley, walking past him into the house. Carey followed her in, and Tombley shut the door.

  “Come into the parlour,” he said. “I’ve got a fire in there. I’m in a muddle, rather. I’ve got several letters to write.”

  “Yes, I know you must be busy. We came to ask whether any of us at Old Farm could be useful,” Mrs. Bradley said.

  “That’s nice of you.” He paused. His little piggish eyes looked them over carefully. “You’ve heard the verdict at the inquest, I suppose? Murder by person or persons unknown. I’m going to be arrested, I may as well tell you. Very odd that you should be the two to find Uncle Simith’s body, don’t you think? He must have been drunk when he took out that animal, but no one will believe me when I say so.”

  “So he did take out the boar?” said Mrs. Bradley. She seated herself in the armchair which Tombley had drawn up to the fire.

  “Oh, yes, he must have done. It makes the whole thing look so fearfully silly. He was tight when he came home, and must have been more so, I should imagine, when he took the poor brute for a walk on Shotover Common. It was hearing that broadcast from Queen’s College on Christmas evening, that gave the old chap the idea, I’ll bet a tenner. Did you switch on and hear it? Very interesting. Oh, yes, no doubt but that the boar turned savage, and did him in in a particularly nasty, but entirely boar-like manner. I haven’t a doubt about it. It wasn’t murder at all, whatever they say. It’s a poor look-out for me. The police are hot on my track! As though I bore the poor old boy any malice!”

  “Well, I’m very sorry to hear that the police are being a nuisance. It’s their job, I suppose,” said Carey. Mrs. Bradley nodded. Her sharp black eyes were roaming round the room; not so much roaming, as flitting from object to object. She even glanced under the table.

  “Looking for bloodstains? There aren’t any here,” said Tombley. “I’ve had a lawyer down. He doesn’t like the look of things a bit, but I tell him that even supposing I am arrested, I can’t be convicted. To begin with, I didn’t do it. To go on with, there’s no evidence.”

  “Has Nero been found? Is he in his sty?” asked Mrs. Bradley, thus forestalling Carey, who was about to make a remark.

  “Of course he’s in his sty. I’ve lost nothing but a half-grown bacon pig—a mystery, but a mild one. But do you think that satisfies those busies? Oh, no! They make believe they think I’ve bought another boar. They seem to think I shot Nero after I’d let him kill Uncle Simith, or some such
rubbish. The inspector has taken a bitter dislike to me. And then they talk of justice! It’s all a lot of rot!”

  He went to the door and opened it.

  “Would you mind? I’m afraid I’m not in much of a mood for visitors. I’m being frightfully rude, but—would you go? If there’s anything later on, and you wouldn’t mind, I’ll send Priest or somebody over. I’m so fearfully sorry to seem to be so rude, but—you do understand me, don’t you?”

  “So it wasn’t Nero,” said Carey, as they walked across the fields towards the wood. Mrs. Bradley cackled.

  “And the half-grown pig, presumably, roves the wastes of Shotover Common still. And Tombley inherits the pigfarm, and all that therein is. That’s his trouble, child. It makes such an obvious motive. Fossder dead—he gets the girl. Simith dead—he gets the farm and the money—everything, in fact.”

  “Everything,” said Carey. “Money, farm, bacon interests, all the lot. The motive, as you say, sticks out a mile.”

  “But what a stupid murder! And Tombley is rather clever,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  “It’s the clever ones who do the silliest things,” said Carey, helping her over the stile. Seated on the top of it, Mrs. Bradley shook her head at him.

  “It isn’t safe to generalise. Tombley does odd things at times, but I really can’t suspect him of this murder. He is altogether too chivalrous,” she said. “Poor Tombley! It does look black, though.”

  She sat back and began to murmur to herself. “Boxing Day, and his own boar. With a motive that sticks out a mile, and a stone-flagged floor in the living-room of the house. With all that chasing over here on Christmas Eve to ask us whether we knew where his uncle was—”

  “Alibi for himself, the last,” said Carey, “to prove he wasn’t the ghost, if anything came out about it later.”

  “Possibly,” said Mrs. Bradley. She gazed at him benignly. “Very possibly, child. But, all the same, I think it was too foolish a thing for a man like Tombley to have done. I agree that he has something he wants to hide. There isn’t any doubt about that. But it isn’t murder, I’m sure.”