Laurels Are Poison mb-14

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘I suppose the police have sent you?’ said the boy.

  ‘The lady’s just been on phone to ’em, any road,’ said the woman. ‘I told thee, and so did Father, there’d be more to say about they bricks. Now perhaps thee’ll believe us as is older than thyself.’

  ‘Leave me alone with him,’ said Mrs Bradley. The woman hesitated, and then added, still speaking to the boy, but this time in a tone between apology and anger:

  ‘Thee’s brought this on thyself, and mun face it out best thee can.’

  ‘I can take it,’ muttered the boy, shifting his feet, lowering his eyes and giving all the other signs of obstinacy in wrong-doing common to boys in trouble.

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked Mrs Bradley, taking out her notebook. The boy was silent. ‘Afraid to give his name,’ she added as though saying the words she was writing. The boy looked up.

  ‘I’m not afraid to give my name. My name’s William Turley, if you want to know. And I did steal the rotten bricks, but it was to oblige a lady. Yes, and I did build a fireplace for her, and I fetched water for her from the beck, and I helped her down with it so that it shouldn’t all get spilt. Let the police get a load of that, if it means anything to them!’

  ‘Dear me!’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Can you describe the lady?’

  ‘No. And I wouldn’t, anyway. I don’t get other people into trouble.’

  ‘Good. So if I told you she was fairly young, dark, active as a cat, sharp-voiced and had a car, you would contradict me, I suppose?’

  The boy did not answer, but put his hands in his pockets.

  ‘And now,’ went on Mrs Bradley, after she had scribbled a few more hieroglyphics, ‘what did Mr Tegg have to say about the bricks?’

  ‘Nothing, except that they’d been stolen.’

  ‘How did he trace them to you?’

  ‘Dad saw them in the quarry. I got mud on my Sunday clothes, and they wanted to know how. I didn’t say, because I ought to have been in church, and I hadn’t been, and Dad recognized the kind of mud, I suppose, and he told Mr Tegg he needn’t look for his missing bricks, and asked him to let the police know I’d had them. That’s all.’

  ‘Very interesting, too,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘What did Mr Tegg say to that?’

  ‘I went to him privately and asked for time to pay, but he said he’d promised my father to let the police lay me by the heels.’

  ‘And now you think they have, do you? My view is that your father paid Mr Tegg long ago. What makes your parents want to frighten you?’

  ‘No business of yours.’

  ‘You don’t speak like the boys about here.’

  ‘I’ve been to a decent school, that’s why. I got sacked.’

  ‘For thieving?’

  ‘Yes, if you want to know.’

  ‘Well, William, thank you very much for your information. I suppose you can’t remember the date when you built the fireplace for the lady?’

  ‘I might, but not for you.’

  ‘Oh, that means last summer, then.’ She wrote again. ‘Where were you at school?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘Really? That seems a good way to go.’

  ‘Lived with my aunt and uncle.’

  ‘And liked it, I know. Pity you messed up your chances, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t want that from you.’

  ‘No, I can tell that. How did it happen, William?’

  ‘Foreign stamps.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Wouldn’t they have kept you if you’d made restitution? Or did you sell the stamps?’

  ‘No, I didn’t sell them.’

  ‘I see. There were others in it.’

  ‘I didn’t say so, any more than I said you were right about the lady.’

  ‘You have said so now. Well, good-bye William. I’m afraid the police will come, but not about the bricks as such. I should answer their questions, if I were you. Where is your stamp collection now?’

  ‘Burnt it.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Dad did. I don’t blame him for that.’

  A curious and interesting household, thought Mrs Bradley, returning to the College, not by the footpaths and fields, but by the motor roads which a murderer burdened with a corpse would have had to take in order to arrive at the quarry. She reached the lane which ran past the wall of the College grounds at a quarter past five, stopped to speak to the Chief Engineer as she passed his house and met him coming out of it, and then encountered Kitty and Laura.

  ‘Did you get any tea?’ she inquired.

  ‘We only scraped in at the death, but managed to grab a couple of cups and some rolls. Oh, and Kitty spotted an old zinc bath in another quarry, but we didn’t stop,’ responded Laura. ‘Did you have any luck at the farm, Warden?’

  ‘Yes. More than I expected. The son, a boy of fifteen, helped build the brick fireplace. Of course, it is most likely that the person he assisted is not the person we are after, but some investigation is called for, and I have asked the police to undertake it.’

  ‘And the receptacle thing you wanted to find?’

  ‘No sign of anything of the sort, but it may have been your bath. If it can be found, the police will find it, but not yet, because I haven’t mentioned it.’

  ‘What is this receptacle thing you both talk about? Not really that bath?’ inquired Kitty, as the two students walked over to College for a late lecture in English.

  ‘No; the pot thing, whatever it was, that the murderer used to boil the flesh off the bones, I think,’ answered Laura. Fortunately for her own peace of mind, Kitty, who had never heard of the unsavoury details of the behaviour of certain murderers confronted by the bodies of their victims, did not believe what she said, and merely murmured reproachfully: ‘Oh, Dog, don’t say such beastly things.’

  It was just as they reached the steps that Laura, lingering a moment to tie up her shoe-lace, spotted an unfamiliar car coming slowly along the back drive. But for their recent activities in the quarries, she would have thought nothing of it.

  Alice, who was in their group for English, was already in her place in the lecture room, and had kept two front row seats.

  ‘Why front row, chump?’ grumbled Kitty, seating herself, and looking round for Laura.

  ‘Because it’s the Deb.,’ replied Alice.

  ‘And Alice can’t bear anybody else’s fat head to come between them,’ jeered Laura, joining them. There was a fair amount of noise in the room, into which, looking, as usual, thoroughly frightened (in Mrs Bradley’s view) or ‘damned superior’ (in the words and view of Miss Cartwright, who, however, approved of this attitude), came Deborah, carrying her lecture notes, a large Shakespeare with dozens of little bits of paper marking her references, the Group Roll (which she called, on principle, at late lectures because people, she thought, were disposed to cut them), and an ‘acting copy’ of Richard of Bordeaux, a play which she was going to suggest to the First-Years that they should produce in the summer.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Deborah, laying her books on the desk and dropping the copy of the play. ‘Oh, thank you, Miss Boorman.’ For Alice, from the middle of the front row and with a nippiness which was the product of the gymnasium and the net-ball court, had leapt upon the small, paper-backed volume and returned it.

  ‘What was it?’ whispered Laura. Alice wrote on the top of her English notebook the title.

  ‘Glory!’ commented Laura, rudely, and rose with languid grace. ‘Am I in order in asking a question which probably does not have a direct bearing on the lecture, Miss Cloud?’ she inquired.

  ‘Yes… yes, certainly, Miss Menzies,’ replied Deborah, who dreaded Laura’s end-of-the-day flights of fancy when she herself was tired and the indefatigable student apparently as fresh as paint.

  ‘Thank you. Then what, please, is your opinion of Gordon Daviot as a dramatist?’

  ‘Oh, well, rather good, I thought,’ said Deborah. That is…’

  ‘And do you base that opinion on Richard of Bordeaux, or on any
other of the dramatist’s works?’ pursued Laura with relentless courtesy.

  ‘I was thinking only of Richard of Bordeaux,’ said Deborah, eyeing her interlocutor with a good deal of dislike. ‘And now sit down. I’m going to begin my lecture.’

  Laura, with an audible remark about ‘the ship full fraught’, seated herself with easy grace. Deborah flushed, bit her lip, and then said sharply, in a ‘classroom’ voice:

  ‘Don’t make remarks, please, Miss Menzies. It is, to say the least, ill-mannered.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Cloud. I was making a quotation from Michael Drayton. I withdraw it,’ said Laura sweetly.

  ‘Keep your quotations for your essays,’ said Deborah, unwisely. ‘Oh, God!’ she thought, discerning an expression of rapturous amazement on Laura’s countenance. ‘Now what have I let myself in for?’

  She shrugged, smiled at the rest of the group, and began to read her lecture. Laura sat, chin on hand, gazing at her for about five minutes. This steady, unwinking regard made Deborah nervous. She stumbled over a sentence, became involved in a — she discovered too late — slightly under-punctuated paragraph, and was roused to excessive irritation at hearing Laura’s voice murmuring delicately: ‘How men would love if they might, and how they would have women be.’

  She stopped short, flushed angrily, scowled at the interruption and then said:

  ‘Miss Menzies?’

  ‘Eh? Oh, pardon, Miss Cloud. Am I in order if I ask a question at this point of your lecture?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Deborah hopelessly.

  ‘What is your opinion of Arthur Symon’s introduction to his collection of Elizabethan poetry?’

  ‘That question, unfortunately, has nothing to do with my lecture,’ replied Deborah, ‘and therefore I must decline to answer it.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Cloud,’ replied Laura.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Menzies,’ said Deborah belligerently. Laura waved a languid hand for the lecture to proceed, but before Deborah had completed another paragraph she was on her feet again.

  ‘Miss Cloud!’

  ‘Oh, dear, Miss Menzies!’

  ‘Miss Cloud, do I understand you to say that Sidney was the greatest love-poet of the Elizabethan age?’

  ‘No, Miss Menzies, you do not. What I said was…’

  ‘I was afraid you’d forgotten Drayton, not to speak of Donne,’ said Laura. ‘I see I was mistaken.’

  She sat down again. Deborah went on, slightly shaken, to her next paragraph. There was no interruption. The lecture went placidly on, the clock moved its hands towards the hour. There was no sound except Deborah’s quiet voice and the methodical noise of students scratching down notes. Suddenly this blessed peace was shattered once again.

  ‘Or, of course, Campion,’ said Laura.

  ‘Go out, Miss Menzies!’ said Deborah. ‘I shall report you to the Principal.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Laura cheerfully. She edged out, and at the same instant the highly indignant Alice hooked her skilfully round the ankle so that she measured her length on the floor. There was some slight confusion whilst Laura picked herself up and dusted herself down, then, with a bow to Deborah and an apologetic smile, she withdrew and ran lightly down the stone staircase.

  The English room was on the second floor. Laura ran on, descending from one landing to the next, and left the College building by darting past the large lecture theatre and the senior student’s room.

  On the main drive opposite the front entrance stood the small dark-green saloon car she had noticed before the beginning of Deborah’s lecture. She stepped back so that the angle of the building screened her from view, and watched, automatically registering in her brain the number of the car.

  A woman, neatly dressed in green mixture tweeds, got out and approached the front entrance.

  ‘Gotcher!’ observed Laura, sotto voce, and began very cautiously to stalk her. In spite of a greatly changed appearance, there was no doubt in her mind that the woman was Miss Cornflake.

  Up the staircase she went, followed by Laura. On the first floor she halted, and, to Laura’s intense interest, took out of her handbag a small revolver. She then glanced furtively about her, through a heavy, old-fashioned veil.

  The College was silent. Through the well-fitting doors came no sound of the quiet voices of lecturers intoning their information. Students in the building were either in attendance at lectures or working in the library, the laboratory or the small handwork room at that hour of the day. There seemed to be no casual going or coming. Miss Cornflake, if she was bent on mischief, had selected an excellent time.

  Laura had no doubt about what to do. The only difficulty was to decide exactly when to do it. Temperamentally she was almost without physical fear, but common sense informed her that if Miss Cornflake were a murderess it would be madness to tackle her at an ineffectual moment, especially when she was armed.

  She had little time in which to make a plan. If Miss Cornflake’s attitude and weapon meant anything, they meant that she was in search of somebody with intent to put that person out of action. Laura’s first conception was that Mrs Bradley could not be the intended victim, since they had left her over at Athelstan. A second horrified thought informed her that there was no reason whatever why the head of the house should not have left it and come over to College.

  It soon became apparent that Mrs Bradley was the quarry, for Miss Cornflake turned to the right at the top of the first flight of stairs and went towards the First-Year’s Education Room.

  Laura crept nearer. Miss Cornflake listened at the door, then turned the handle with her left hand, keeping the revolver in her right. The corridor was almost pitch-dark, and by the time Miss Cornflake had proved that the room was empty, Laura had slipped into the Students’ Common Room opposite to seek assistance, but nobody was there.

  The other Education Room was on the ground floor. If Mrs Bradley were lecturing, that was the only other place in which she was likely to be found. It was next-door to a passage which opened on to the grounds, and had large windows slightly open at the top.

  Miss Cornflake halted at the door and listened. Laura, drawing as close as ever she dared, listened, too. Her hearing was remarkably acute, more so, it seemed, than Miss Cornflake’s, for she detected Mrs Bradley’s dulcet tones almost on the instant.

  ‘Probably know the voice better,’ thought Laura, referring to herself. A plan presented itself. She withdrew, or, rather, passed on, as Miss Cornflake laid a hand on the door, until she was at the entrance to the Staff Cloakroom. Then she suddenly gave vent to a loud, successful imitation of Mrs Bradley’s already famous cackle, and switched on the cloakroom lights. Like a flash, Miss Cornflake leapt away from the door and began to stalk Laura down the corridor.

  Laura, now on unfamiliar ground, seized a towel from one of the hooks, and then put it down and picked up a good-sized cake of soap. Then she got behind the door and listened.

  Miss Cornflake made not a sound, but the end, when it came, came quickly. Laura had switched on the light to obtain warning of the approaching shadow. As soon as she saw it, out she leapt, knocked up the revolver, which went off with a noise like a bomb, dashed the soap as hard as she could in Miss Cornflake’s face, and then dived at her legs to bring her down.

  Unfortunately, as she did this, and Miss Cornflake fell heavily forward, Laura hit her own head against the edge of the door. Half-stunned, she scrambled up again, however, and, with a last effort, leapt upon Miss Cornflake and proceeded to choke her with the towel.

  ‘Warden wants to know if you feel equal to speaking to the Principal, Dog,’ said Kitty in sepulchral tones. ‘Says don’t say yes if you mean no. What shall I tell her?’

  ‘Oh, Lord! I suppose that means the Deb. did report me. I wouldn’t have believed she was such a tick,’ groaned Laura, whose head ached almost unendurably, in spite of Mrs Bradley’s ministrations. To the amazement of both lecturers and students, Mrs Bradley, leaving Miss Cornflake, who was comple
tely hors de combat, to be apprehended by others, had picked up the hefty Laura in her arms and had carried her over to Athelstan (a feat, observed Laura, to make strong men quail), and had put her to bed as though she had been a small child.

  ‘No, the Deb. didn’t report you. She just grinned at us when you’d gone and said she was sorry for the interruptions, but she thought you liked to show off what you knew. What shall I say about the Prin.?’

  ‘What does the Lord High Everything Else want, anyway? Dope about Cornflake?’

  ‘Yes, I expect so.’

  ‘Righto. Bung her in. We will give her five minutes,’ said Laura, contriving to return to her usual manner. The Principal came in ‘as one approaching a deathbed’, said Laura, recounting the incident later, and seated herself on the hat-box.

  ‘Now don’t disturb yourself, Miss Menzies,’ she said. ‘I shall stay not more than one minute. Miss Cornflake is in the College Infirmary, well guarded, and the police are going to question her as soon as possible. Now, that’s a weight off our minds, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Miss du Mugne,’ replied the patient.

  ‘That’s all I’ve come to say, then, except…’ She looked almost wistfully at the girl… ‘except that I feel we owe you a very great debt, Miss Menzies, which we shall do our best to repay. It would never have done to have a — revolver accident actually on the College premises, would it?’

  ‘No, Miss du Mugne,’ replied Laura. The Principal gave her a smile of acid sweetness, told her to ‘hurry up and get well’, and left, much to Laura’s relief.

  ‘And now, Kitty,’ she said, when her friend came in again, ‘what am I having for dinner?’

  ‘Good Lord! Are you hungry, Dog?’ said Kitty, amazed. ‘We never thought to save you anything.’

  ‘Quite right, too,’ said Mrs Bradley’s voice outside the door. ‘The heroine and I are going to have dinner together. Now, patient, what shall we have?’

  ‘I suppose you can’t manage a cocktail, to start with, Warden?’ said the sufferer. ‘It would just about save my life.’

  Chapter 15

  RAG

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