“He thought, after all, he would risk it. He left word with Jenny to keep his bedroom light burning, to give any passers-by the impression that he was in the house at the time of the murder, and off he went. He knew that to make Fossder run was the simplest way of finishing him off—both the murders are simple in essence, you see. The warning heraldic signs and other devices—yes, they’d fit in pretty well with what we know about Pratt.”
“His vanity?” said Carey.
“Well, yes, I think so, child. The murderer is proud of his knowledge of local legends and customs. He considers himself erudite and clever. He likes it to be known that he takes an interest in heraldry, and—”
“A thought strikes me,” said Carey. “The third set of shields—the Batôn Sinister and the Chief Dancetté. Where did you get those from? There hasn’t been a third set of warnings issued?”
“Not yet,” said Mrs. Bradley, ghoulishly. “But if the murderer’s mind works as I think it does, he will not be able to resist the implication of those messages. For this purpose they are perfect—better than the first two, and even more complete than the second. Scotland Yard are even now checking up the Public Libraries in London and the suburbs. When they have found the library reference room which can recognise a description of Pratt, and when that description checks up with his signature in the book—all readers in such reference rooms fortunately have to sign their names and give an address before they can use the books—we shall know better where we are.”
“So Scotland Yard has come into it,” said Carey.
“To check up the London end, child.”
“But how did you know there was a London end?”
“I guessed. First, from the letters with the Reading postmark. One doesn’t need to change trains to get from Oxford to London, but most of the trains stop at Reading, and one could post a letter there without any trouble. Secondly, there was the reference to the Boar’s Head tavern. Now, the only Boar’s Head tavern which would be likely to interest our dilettante littérateur and murderer, would be the original Boar’s Head tavern which used to stand in Eastcheap, and is famous because of Shakespeare. Dame Quickly kept the inn, and Falstaff drank sherry there.”
“Sherry? Boar’s Head tavern?”
“Sack, child. And the initials B. H. T.”
Carey grinned.
“Bit of a dilettante littérateuse yourself, love, ain’t you?”
“The connecting link with the case, of course, is the name ‘Boar’s Head,’ ” said Mrs. Bradley, ignoring the graceless gibe.
“Odd that you should have brought us one for Christmas,” said Carey, remembering the heavy package they had shifted into the kitchen. Mrs. Bradley nodded. “So you think Pratt’s number is up?” he went on, reverting to the main subject.
“I wouldn’t say that. He may not have obtained his information from a library reference room. But we can safely leave all that side to the police, I’m thankful to say.”
“But I thought you said that if you could square off the business of the murder of Fossder—you remember you said that he wouldn’t have planned it for Christmas Eve because of coming over here?—you could have him arrested.”
“Well, I could, although the inspector still suspects poor Geraint Tombley.”
“Suppose Scotland Yard don’t discover the murderer’s signature in a public library? What will happen then?”
“The handwriting experts would have to be called in. I expect he’s written it on these”—she indicated the messages—“but by now it would be indecipherable, I think, because the pencil has rubbed so.”
“You don’t think he’d sign a false name in the library, do you?”
“I don’t think he would. The thing is,” said Mrs. Bradley, “that I am loth to arrest him. It seems such a pity. He hasn’t done much harm.”
“You don’t hold human life sacred?”
“Well, not more so than other life,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Why should I? Besides, at present his guilt would not be too easy to prove. Juries like something tangible. They don’t want mere theorising about the Oedipus complex.”
“That doesn’t come into this case, surely?” said Carey.
“I expect so, if we delved deeply enough,” said Mrs. Bradley, with her mocking, saurian grin.
“Be reasonable! When do you expect to have the inspector arrest him?”
“When? After he has made a murderous attack on his third victim, child, I think.”
“But suppose— I mean, it’s a terrible responsibility to take upon yourself.”
“No. Forewarned is forearmed. The only thing I’m afraid of is that the victim, being forewarned, might turn the tables.”
“And murder the murderer?”
“There’s such a thing as self-defence, you know.”
“That would be rather awkward!”
“No. A very neat solution, I should call it.”
“You’ve got a ghoulish mind.”
“No, child, I haven’t.”
“I suppose you’re right about Pratt?” said Carey gloomily. “He doesn’t strike me as a bird who is capable of pulling off two murders, and attempting a third.”
“The inspector sees him like that,” said Mrs. Bradley. “As for you, child, your intelligence does you credit!”
Carey looked suspicious.
“Whose leg are you pulling?” he said.
Chapter Fifteen
CORNERS—RECONCILIATION—AT GARSINGTON
“Well,” said Carey, on Easter Sunday morning, “we’ve got our Morris side fixed up at last, and we begin serious rehearsals tomorrow. Ditch, Young Walt, Our Bob, Pratt (if he improves sufficiently in the time), Priest, and me. Every Monday evening with extra practices for Pratt. Oh, Fay has broken off the engagement.”
“Has she, indeed?” said Hugh. “So I’m to have Tombley as a brother-in-law instead of Pratt, I suppose.”
“Unless he’s hanged before the wedding day,” said Mrs. Bradley with unwonted pessimism.
Hugh looked perturbed.
“Good Lord! The police aren’t still on that old trail? Why on earth don’t they let it drop? They’ll never find anything now.”
“It doesn’t seem as though they will,” said Carey, “but they’ve horrid suspicions of poor old Tombley still. You see, he’s blossomed out into quite a wealthy man. Old Simith’s fortune proved to be bigger than anyone had supposed, and Tombley, although by no means a millionaire, is very comfortably off. He’s just bought a pedigree sow—a Middle White—that I’d give my eyes for. My word, she is a beauty. Face like a pug dog, sweetest temper in the world, and averages eleven point seven nine pigs per litter with an average total weight at three weeks old of a hundred and thirty-five point four pounds.”
“Marvellous!” said Mrs. Bradley, to whom, from careful perusal of the government publication on pigkeeping which she had filched from Roman Ending, these figures meant a good deal.
“One of a litter of thirteen, twelve of whom were reared. Her sire’s sire was the famous Kesteven Hamilcar the Third, and her dam’s sire was Kerriston Blueboar the Seventeenth; her sire’s dam was Compton Old Rose the Fourth, and her dam’s dam was Bericastle Bathsheba the Tenth. As nice a bit of pedigree stock as you’d see in twelve counties, bless her heart! She took a first at Tring last year, and a second at Peterborough, and got a place at the RASE show.”
Hugh looked at Mrs. Bradley and lifted his eyebrows. Denis said, “I’d sooner have a decent Alsatian puppy. Young Walt knows a man at Garsington who’s got one for sale, he thinks, but I don’t know how much he wants for it. He said he’d take me over, one day next week.”
“I’ll come too,” said Mrs. Bradley, “to see fair play, as they say. But, Denis, will your mother let you keep a dog?”
“We can have them at school now. I should take him back with me. You can get out of joining the Bug Society if you’ve got a dog. It counts as Natural History, and you have to pass an examination in him. We’ve got a vet on the staff, and an
RSPCA permit, and we’re going to run a show, on the day after the sports. Nothing’s barred, except monkeys. Old Spewdie’s got a leopard cub, but it’s got to go to the Zoo when it’s six months old. It bites you pretty hard as it is, he says. Old Spewd is always sticking iodine and things all over himself because of tetanus.”
“Good gracious!” said Mrs. Bradley, immensely impressed.
“Don’t know what schools are coming to, nowadays,” said Hugh.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Carey. “All these compulsory games are rather unfair, I think. All right when you’re older, but I can remember getting most fearfully mauled, and then being hauled up afterwards and whacked for slacking.”
“Serve you right,” said Hugh. “You did slack, I remember.”
“I never shammed sick to get out of playing against the masters, anyway,” said Carey.
“Good Lord! Did Hugh do that?” asked Denis disapprovingly. Hugh slung a book at him, and another at Carey, and continued his occupation of taking a fishing rod to pieces.
The other three went to church, and sat at the back, Denis choosing to sit next to the carving of a grotesque head on the end of the pew. About four hundred people lived in Stanton St. John, and the church could seat two hundred and fifty of them. On that Easter Sunday morning it was full. Village girls in their Easter Sunday finery sat in rows by themselves, and a number of fresh faced lads, uncomfortable in collars, sat on the opposite side. Mrs. Bradley, between Carey and Denis, contemplated the pointed arches of the nave, and knelt and stood and sat automatically as the service proceeded. Sometimes she looked at the East window, and sometimes traced with her eye the span of the chancel arch or the carved wooden dark brown heads on the ends of the pew in front of her. Her thoughts were not on the service. She had to make a decision, and she made it, finally, just before the conclusion of the sermon. She had nothing to say as they walked down the steps to the road, crossed over, and took their way to Old Farm. Hawthorn was green, bright and tender, and its new leaves aspired like young green flames on blackish branches and little thorny twigs. The hazel catkins were heavy with yellow pollen, late because the winter had been so long and spring was so late that year. The oaks were not even green; their tiny unfurling leaves were reddish, and the great boughs kept their winter outline still. The elms stood up like giants in the fields. A group of young people passed by, chaffing each other in the broad Oxfordshire speech so pleasant and homely to hear; a man went by with a horse—the man in his Sunday clothes, the horse all glossy like a chestnut newly out of the husk, and its mane plaited up with fresh straw and little bows of red ribbon.
“Good mornen,” he said. “Nice mornen.”
“It looks well for the Bank Holiday tomorrow,” said Mrs. Bradley, courteously.
“I like the way they all speak to us on the road,” said Denis suddenly.
“Yes,” she answered. “When would you like to go to Garsington?”
“Tuesday, please. I’m going to play for the Morris men tomorrow, and I want to go with Mrs. Ditch on a steamer from Oxford to Henley. The Village Woman are going, and Linda booked a seat, but she doesn’t want to go, so she said she’d like to take me. The carrier’s going to take us to Folly Bridge in his car. There are eleven of us, and the car won’t hold more than five, so I don’t know how we shall all squash in. I say”—he paused and blushed—“you don’t think I’ll have to sit on Mrs. Ditch’s lap, or any rot of that sort?”
“George shall take the overflow in my car,” said Mrs. Bradley.
Easter Sunday lunch was roast fowl, hot ham and greens, and creamed potatoes. Tombley came over by invitation, and stayed until after tea. Since his uncle’s death he had become far more cheerful and sociable. He practised airgun shooting with Denis between lunch and three o’clock, and then practised Morris capers with Carey and Ditch until tea-time.
“We ought to have a very good side,” he said. “Of course we shall have to find another Fool, because when Ditch takes over the playing, Priest will have to dance. It does seem a pity. Priest makes quite a good Fool although he’s such a deadhead, and Ditch is our very best dancer. Still, there’s no help, I’m afraid.”
“Couldn’t you do without a Fool?” asked Hugh.
“Well, the Headington men always have one—or did,” responded Carey, “and at Bampton, of course—”
“With rare head-dress and painted face he looks
Just like the Bogey man you read about in books.”
said Hugh, with considerable aptness. He looked at Mrs. Bradley.
“You read modern poetry, but I bet you won’t place that one,” he observed.
“I accept the challenge. How long do you allow me?” she enquired.
“How long do you want?”
“Until Tuesday midnight, I expect.”
Hugh laughed and agreed, and Tombley went home to feed pigs.
“Funny if Fay and Mrs. Fossder had inherited the money between them, and Jenny had been left out,” said Carey, later, “especially as the speculations turned out so jolly well.”
Denis had gone to confer with George about the car for the morrow, and Hugh had taken his leave and had gone over to see Jenny in a pony cart driven by Priest. Priest had returned on Easter Sunday morning to Roman Ending.
“He could have had my bike and sidecar,” Carey had remarked, when he heard what Hugh was going to do.
“I think he wants to spend the weekend at the Isis hotel for fishing,” said Mrs. Bradley. “But, child, the girls have not received a penny under Mr. Fossder’s will. It is their husbands, you remember, who are to benefit.”
“Anyway, I’m very glad that Jenny is to be able to provide her own dowry. Put it like that, if you like.”
“Yes, of course, so am I.” She picked up her knitting and walked across to the casement. A cherry tree and a pear were in blossom outside, and wallflowers, dark and heavily scented, filled the narrow flower bed underneath the window. Carey came up and stood beside his aunt.
“Love, you’re brooding,” he said.
“Yes, child, I think I am. What do you make of Priest?”
“Make of him? Well, he’s ugly, and, I should say, ignorant, but, of course, he’s a good pigman.”
“Do you think one would be justified in allowing him to be killed?”
Carey whistled.
“So that’s how the land lies, is it? Well, he hated old Simith pretty badly, I should think. Still, I’d hardly have thought he’d have killed him. But I thought you were fixed on Pratt?”
“And the inspector is fixed on Tombley. It’s very depressing,” said Mrs. Bradley suddenly. “ ‘That I were out of prison and kept sheep,’ ” she added with gloom.
“Cheer up, love! Bank Holiday tomorrow.”
At nine o’clock the next morning, George took Mrs. Bradley’s car to three of the cottages in turn and presented himself and his cargo of village women outside the gate of Old Farm. Mrs. Bradley and Denis added themselves to the passengers, and, proceeding slowly, George took the car round to the White Horse public house from which the start was to be made.
At Carfax Mrs. Bradley left the party, and, waving a skinny claw as the traffic signals allowed the drivers to turn down St. Aldates for Folly Bridge, she walked swiftly towards the station and by noon was in a taxi on her way to her Kensington house. Her servants, Henri and Celestine, were out, so she rummaged in the kitchen and assembled the materials for a passable lunch, finished up with a cup of tea, and then rang up Sir Selby Villers.
“Difficult,” said Sir Selby, over the telephone. “Don’t suppose we could locate him, you know, today.”
“But surely somebody else has got a key?”
“Oh, yes, the cleaner, but you’ll have to get permission.”
“I’m getting it, child, from you. It’s very important to me to have the place to myself, and today offers an opportunity that won’t occur again until next Sunday, and then it may be too late.”
“Very well. I’ll send you a m
an in uniform. It’ll be all over the suburb by tomorrow, you know. There’s that.”
“Yes, I know. That won’t matter. Thank you very much.”
“Confide in me when you see me.”
“Of course I will. Goodbye.”
Denis enjoyed his day. It was his first experience of being the only male in a party, and his sedulous care of the village women, his anxiety for their comfort and happiness, and his pleasure at being permitted to navigate the launch for nearly fifty yards of her course, would have made his great-aunt cackle with sympathy and delight. The village women enjoyed themselves, and the weather remained fine, although there was no brilliant sunshine. George and the other driver had spent the day at Reading, where they had picked up two girls at a fête, and had finished up at the pictures. They were back in time to meet the steamer party, and, oddly enough, Mrs. Bradley, who walked out of the Mitre as George pulled in to the kerb.
“Well done, George,” she said.
“Thank you, madam,” George replied, as he opened the door for her.
“Where’ve you been, Aunt Bradley?” Denis enquired.
“To London, child, and then to Tanners Walk.”
What did you do there?”
“Caught a mouse,” said Mrs. Bradley. She grimaced, not very pleasantly, and quoted, half to herself,
“Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, where have you been?
l’ve been to London to look at the Queen.
Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, what did you there?
Captured a little mouse under a chair.”
Denis giggled.
“And have you had a good time, child?” she enquired.
“Lovely. Fell in once, steered the launch once, we ran aground once, got two coconuts (they stood me at the half-way line, rather a swindle, but I told them my age, and they didn’t seem to mind). Mrs. Barton rolled down a bank, and we all yelled, and Mrs. Peel paddled and her feet slipped and she sat in the water, and we all yelled again, and I’ve had seven bottles of ginger beer and thirteen ices. Do you think it matters, being an unlucky number?”
“Ices this weather, child?”
“Good for you, Aunt Bradley. Ice-cream’s a food, and they were all so jolly decent, and kept buying them for me, I didn’t like to refuse. Oh, and we all had our photos taken in a sort of amusement place.”
Dead Men's Morris (Mrs. Bradley) Page 24