The inspector in charge of the Simith case returned to his tall narrow house at the foot of Headington Hill and sat there with pencil and notebook working out details of the deaths of Fossder and Simith. The first problem to be solved, he decided, was the identity of the person whom Fossder had set out to meet after midnight on Christmas Eve—really on Christmas morning. Mrs. Bradley, he remembered, had said she thought that the probabilities were in favour of its having been Simith, but he considered her evidence, which rested on the fact that the mysterious horseman in Garsington might have been Simith, rather unreliable and slender. Still, if Simith had really been absent from Roman Ending that night, it was possible that he had had an appointment with Fossder. If this was the truth, he wondered what Simith had done when he found that Fossder did not turn up. He supposed that the old man had cursed Fossder, and then had returned to Roman Ending. Another point the inspector wanted to solve was the problem of the meeting place. Where had they agreed to meet, he wondered. It could not have been arranged that they should meet at Sandford, he thought, for, if so, there would have been the chance of running into Tombley, unless the uncle and nephew were in league together against Fossder. It was possible that they had been fellow conspirators. He knew that, frequently though the uncle and nephew had quarrelled between themselves, it was more than likely that they had made common cause against Fossder—Simith because of an ancient enmity, and Tombley because Fossder had prevented his marriage with Fay.
“So, if Simith and Tombley were in league on Christmas Eve,” thought the inspector, staring at the coal fire, “the death of Fossder was prearranged.” Furthermore, he decided the uncle and nephew had given each other a very clever alibi. Simith could have declared, with truth, that he had not so much as set eyes on Fossder that night (and probably had witnesses to prove it), whereas Tombley—if he had been detected as the ghost of Napier—would have been able to declare that Fossder’s death was an accident, the result of a stupid joke. This was still an assertion which it was very difficult to contradict. There still was not anything to prove that Tombley had intended to murder Fossder. In fact, had Tombley decided to declare that his had not been the white figure that had frightened Fossder to death, the inspector could not have proved satisfactorily (to a coroner’s jury, for example) the contrary. Then, again, if Tombley and Simith had conspired to murder Fossder, who could have murdered Simith? Incidentally, had there been a ghost?
If a combination of Simith and Tombley would account for the luring of Fossder from his house, it still did not explain how Fossder could have made separate appointments with them for approximately the same hour. A second theory, more startling in its implication than the one which made Simith and Tombley joint murderers of Fossder, shaped itself in his mind. What, he wondered, if the boot were on the other foot? What if Fossder had intended to murder Simith, and had been prevented fortuitously by Tombley, who had told the truth when he declared that the ghost had been intended for a joke?
Neither theory, however, successfully accounted for the subsequent murder of Simith. Fossder might have had a second try—if he had not been dead already! Tombley might have intended to murder Fossder first, and then his uncle, but this idea did not square with Mrs. Bradley’s theory that Fossder might have gone out on Christmas Eve to meet somebody other than Tombley. He wondered whether to discard this inconvenient idea. A third argument would be that a fourth person was involved, and that this mythical character—“Maurice Pratt?” he wrote in his notebook—had been prepared to assist Fossder in the murder of Simith, and, when the plan miscarried through Fossder’s own sudden death on the way to the trysting place, had carried out the murder of Simith single handed on Boxing Night. The difficulty presented by this theory was that the fourth person could not be called “Pratt” without some motive being shown for Pratt’s having desired the removal of Simith.
Pratt had expectations of taking Fossder’s place, and of marrying his niece Fay. That would account for the murder of Fossder, perhaps, but Simith, so far as the inspector could determine, simply did not come into it. “Unless,” he thought, striking his knee, “old Simith was killed in mistake for Tombley, or summat!”
He went to bed, but lay for some time pondering on theories two and three. Both were attractive. Both had a certain amount both of psychological and circumstantial evidence to recommend them.
“I must get into touch with that there Maurice Pratt,” he thought. Curiously enough, Mrs. Bradley, in her own bed at Horsepath, to which she had returned, was thinking the very same thing. “Young men are apt and intelligent in sizing up other young men,” she said to herself. “The only difficulty lies in wresting their conclusions from them. Still, Carey will tell me what I want to know.”
She chuckled, turned over, and was soon enviably asleep. Next day Carey arrived in the early afternoon, kissed his aunt, and announced that he was going to stay to tea.
“All the pigs quite safe?” enquired Mrs. Bradley.
“Oh, yes. I have left them with Ditch.”
“I’ve told the inspector that Fossder may have had an appointment with someone at Sandford on Christmas Eve, child. I thought at first it was merely the money which attracted him, but later I wondered whether he went to meet someone else—not Tombley at all.”
“A country solicitor like Fossder would see most of his clients at his own home, wouldn’t he? Or at their own homes,” suggested Carey.
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Bradley. “What does your trained mind make of that, dear child?”
“Well,” said Carey, pushing the rug with his shoe, “it sounds to me like two old enemies getting together like two old buddies. What do you make of it yourself? Unless it was somebody Mrs. Fossder disliked, and so Fossder had to do business with him elsewhere.”
Mrs. Bradley extended a yellow claw.
“Child,” she said solemnly, “you show intelligence. I think we both know that— Never mind! Pray proceed, naming the names where necessary.”
“Well,” said Carey, “so far as I have ever been able to make out, Fossder and Simith have had rows for years. Mind you, there’s nothing shady about Fossder’s affairs. I’m pretty sure of that. Pratt is a fathead over some things, but he’s got a pretty good head for business, and is perfectly honest. I think that Simith decided to make Fossder his executor, and didn’t want Tombley to know; and I think Fossder wanted to get Simith on to the books without letting Mrs. Fossder know.”
“Why shouldn’t she know, child?” asked Mrs. Bradley, who was making rapid hieroglyphics in her notebook.
“You know why not.”
“Never mind. Say on.”
“Well, Mrs. Fossder would have used it as a handle to get Fossder to consent to an engagement between Fay and Tombley, I imagine. Mrs. Fossder has always been on Tombley’s side, and against Pratt, in the matter, and old Fossder, who was always a bit afraid of her, you know, might have found it hard to stick it out. Naturally he wanted Pratt to marry young Fay, and to carry on the business. As a matter of fact, Jenny told me once that old Fossder had inserted a clause in his will saying that the firm was to be called Fossder, Pratt, and Pratt, if Pratt and Fay ever had a son. He was fearfully keen on the marriage. Jenny always used to say that he didn’t care two hoots about her marriage, and would probably end by cutting her out of his will.”
“Apart from the fact that Tombley is heir to Simith’s property, had Mrs. Fossder any special reason for preferring Tombley as a husband for Fay?” asked Mrs. Bradley. Carey stared out of the window, which was opposite him as he sat.
“I couldn’t say,” he answered. “She thought him more of a man, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I had better see Jenny,” said Mrs. Bradley. “There are a number of small points I’d like to have clear. Could you ask her over to Old Farm to meet me, child? I don’t care to ask her here.”
Carey nodded.
“This evening? Yes, very well. I’ll run over there at once.”
“Fi
rst, tell me more about Pratt,” said Mrs. Bradley.
“Pratt?” said Carey. “I don’t know any more about him. Keen on folklore and comparative religion. You know the sort of bird. Must exist by the hundred in the suburbs and Bloomsbury—well, no, not quite Bloomsbury. No, upon reflection, not a bit Bloomsbury. Oh, well, I don’t know. Just not my sort at all, if you know what I mean. Besides, I’ve come to the conclusion that he may be a bit deceptive.”
“Not such a fool as he looks?” said Mrs. Bradley. “I think you may be right. We shall wait and see.”
Chapter Ten
CORNERS TO PLACES AT STANTON ST. JOHN
“Of course you may talk to me while I have my bath,” said Jenny, looking across at Carey, and laughing. So, escorted by Mrs. Bradley, she undressed in one of the bedrooms, answering Mrs. Bradley’s questions as she slid out of her garments at the maximum possible speed, thrust her bare arms into the sleeves of a gaily coloured bathrobe and her bare feet into slippers, picked up sponge bag and towel, and pattered along to the bathroom with Mrs. Bradley still in attendance and both their tongues wagging hard.
“As a matter of fact,” said Jenny, in response to a request for a description of Maurice Pratt, “he’s really rather deceptive. You get the impression that he’s spineless and brainless, but actually he can be rather determined, and, of course, he’s awfully clever. Uncle relied on him for everything, and was always saying to auntie that he must think about taking Maurice as his partner. Auntie wasn’t very sympathetic. She doesn’t like Maurice a bit. She wanted Fay to marry Geraint Tombley, and Fay will do it now, I suppose.”
“Fay will marry Tombley?” Mrs. Bradley demanded. “But isn’t she engaged to be married to Maurice Pratt?”
“Oh, Fay will break that off, if I know anything,” said Jenny. “She never really cared for Maurice, you know. It was uncle she was afraid of, and, now he’s dead, she’s rather afraid of auntie. Fay is ineffective, rather, I think. Wants other people to make up her mind for her, and then wants to quarrel with them over their decisions. You’ve met the type, I expect.”
Mrs. Bradley said she had.
“Yes, well, she encouraged Tombley at first, until she found that he was Simith’s nephew, and that Simith was Uncle Fossder’s bitterest enemy. Then she gave him up, or pretended to, and got engaged to Maurice.”
“One point,” said Mrs. Bradley. “What caused the enmity between your uncle and Simith?”
“It happened when I was a little girl of four, so I don’t know anything about it except by hearsay—chiefly hints that auntie has let fall from time to time. Uncle and Mr. Simith both came from the other side of Oxford—from Bampton, just south of Witney—and as boys they were very friendly. Then uncle went to a small public school on a scholarship, or something, and Simith went to Canada, and came back fairly rich and knowing all about the marketing of pork. Well, he soon made uncle his lawyer over here, and almost immediately got into trouble with the University authorities for building a causeway across a brook from his land on to theirs. He tried to prove that the land for thirty feet on the other side of the brook was a public right of way—I don’t understand all about it—but the University proved it wasn’t, and Simith had to take down his causeway and pay the most fearful costs and fees and things. He always declared that uncle had let him down over it, and had told him he was safe in building the causeway, but uncle swore that he had done his level best to point out to him that the law was not on his side.
“Anyway, Simith took his business out of uncle’s hands, and bought Roman Ending, and uncle sustained a considerable loss, I should think, and was always very bitter about Mr. Simith, and called him a fool and all kinds of names. But when the nephew, Tombley, came from Cowley to live with his uncle at Roman Ending, which happened about eight years ago, he, Tombley, put his personal affairs into uncle’s hands, and became uncle’s client. Of course, Tombley wasn’t really worth very much, but he let uncle know that he was Simith’s heir, and once or twice, I know, uncle advanced him money on the strength of that.”
“Was it repaid, do you know?” asked Mrs. Bradley.
“Oh, no. I know it wasn’t. Uncle didn’t mind, although he didn’t like Tombley. He used to say there was plenty of time for repayment when Simith was dead. He said he knew Tombley was honest, although he refused to have him hanging round Fay. He was very fond of Fay. I think he was fond of me, too, but, well—! He was always saying that if Fay got engaged to Maurice he should take Maurice into partnership and leave him everything, except for auntie’s share. That was so that Fay could have it. He didn’t promise me anything—I couldn’t expect him to—I’m not really his brother’s daughter—but in the end he left the money to all three of us. I say, I hope I’m not boring you with all this.”
She was ready to get into the bath by this time. Mrs. Bradley hung the bathrobe behind the door, and seated herself on the cork-topped bathroom chair.
“Of course not, child,” she said. “It is most enlightening, most. So, at one time, you did not expect to inherit anything under your uncle’s will?”
“Well,” said Jenny, with a little shiver of rapture, as the warm water closed over her rosy body, “I wouldn’t say that, altogether. He changed his mind a good bit. At one point, a few months ago, I think he did have some idea of leaving it all to Fay and Maurice, with a bit of money and the furniture, but not the house, to auntie, but I don’t know a terrible lot about it. He used to talk things over with Maurice, but hardly ever with Fay and me. He always thought girls were silly. I think that’s all I know, except something which I found out quite by accident, and ought to keep to myself.”
“If I told you what it was, I wonder whether you would feel able to let me know whether I had guessed correctly?” said Mrs. Bradley musingly.
“Glad of getting it off my chest so easily,” said Jenny eagerly. “Go on. What do you think it is? I shouldn’t have thought anyone could guess. Of course, I realise you’re not quite exactly ‘anyone,’ ” she added, with naive sweetness, retrieving the soap from the bottom of the bath and taking her sponge from the rack.
“Your sister meets Mr. Tombley, and spends the night with him when opportunity offers,” said Mrs. Bradley concisely.
“Good Lord!” said Jenny, awed. “How on earth did you find that out?”
“I didn’t, child. I deduced it. Thank you. That helps. In fact, it makes all my conclusions come right first time!”
Jenny looked rather alarmed. “You won’t give her away, Mrs. Bradley, will you? Auntie would probably die, and I don’t know what Maurice would do. I’ve often told her what a fool she is, but she’s completely crazy at present over Tombley. I believe that Maurice suspects she doesn’t care about her engagement very much, but he can’t do anything about it. In any case, I should think the engagement will soon be broken, anyway, now that uncle is dead. I’m sorry for Maurice. He isn’t a bad sort really.”
There was silence for a while, except for pleasant splashing sounds from the bath. Then Mrs. Bradley said, “Carey’s friend, Hugh, your fiancé, was telling me that Mr. Pratt is interested in folklore.”
“Is he?” said Jenny indifferently. “He’s a jolly rotten Morris dancer, but that’s all I know about it.”
Jenny, a youthful, shrimp-coloured Venus, rose from the waves and commenced to dry herself. When she was dressed, and when the two of them were seated before the fire in the parlour, which was empty except for themselves, Mrs. Bradley said suddenly, “Some time I think I must get Carey, Tombley, and the Ditch family to dance for me again.”
“By the way,” said Jenny, a trifle diffidently, “did you know that Geraint Tombley had left Roman Ending?”
“I did, child. In fact, I suggested that he should.”
“But it isn’t true that he’s in a mental hospital, Mrs. Bradley, is it?”
“A private one. Yes.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry about it, child. A precautionary measure.”
“No, child. He is merely being kept from arrest.”
“Arrest! But you don’t believe he murdered his uncle, surely!”
“Don’t you believe it, child?”
“No, of course I don’t. Oh, I know he’s a fool about Fay, and, of course, I believe he has it in him to be a very selfish, violent kind of person. And I know he would go to a lot of trouble, and even get into danger, and so on, to get his own way. But I don’t believe he’d have murdered Mr. Simith. Besides, why should he?”
“He happens to be Mr. Simith’s heir.”
“But— Oh, I see! He wants to marry Fay, and he has to have something worth while to offer her—for them to live on— Yes. That does sound feasible.”
“But you reserve the right of disbelief in Tombley’s guilt,” said Mrs. Bradley, cackling. Jenny held out her fingers to the blaze.
“Well, I don’t want to think he’s a murderer. I’d sooner Fay married him than Maurice, and she can’t if he’s convicted of murder.”
“Or proved to be insane,” said Mrs. Bradley. Jenny looked reproachful.
“You said just now—”
“I know, child, I know.” She cackled.
“And why would you rather Fay married Tombley than Pratt?” she asked, as Jenny looked up.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Jenny. “You see— Oh, I don’t know,” she concluded.
“You think she’d make Pratt unhappy,” said Mrs. Bradley, and took no notice of Jenny’s half-hearted denial.
“Now then, be off with you,” said Mrs. Bradley, when dinner was over. She looked at Carey, who was taking Jenny to Iffley in his sidecar. Jenny bent and kissed her. “Don’t make too much noise coming in. I happen to know that Ditch takes a pistol to bed with him, and that Mrs. Ditch sleeps with the poker at her side. Be good children.” She smiled at them kindly, the smile of a satiated snake.
She herself went to bed soon after tea, and did not hear Carey come in at half-past four. He appeared fresh and rested at breakfast, which was at nine, and came in for lunch at twelve.
Dead Men's Morris (Mrs. Bradley) Page 16