Eltonsbrody

by Edgar Mittelholzer

  ‘No, sir. She ain’ pass out. Oi woulda see her. Oi was round in de front garden since Oi come to work. It’s only because of Prayers Oi come round dis way.’

  ‘When did you come to work?’

  ‘Since six o’clock, sir.’

  ‘And from six until the time I spoke to you in the kitchen here before Prayers you say you were in the front garden?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Oi was moulding up de roses in de tubs. Nobody pass out and go to de road whoile Oi was in de garden.’

  I called Jackman. ‘Jackman, have you seen anything of Miss Linton for the morning?’

  ‘No, sir. Oi ain’ see de young lady. She not upstairs wid Malverne?’

  ‘No. She was supposed to be leaving for Bridgetown.’

  ‘Sir, perhaps she gone to Martin’s Bay to meet de bus.’

  ‘But doesn’t the bus pass the gate here? Why should she go all the way down to Martin’s Bay to meet it?’

  I noticed Tappin craning his head. Suddenly he exclaimed: ‘Sir, Listen! De bus coming up de road yonder now. Ef you run out to de gate you will be in good toime to see ef de young lady in it.’

  I dashed off at once.

  A stoutish black woman with a basket was waiting by the side of the road. ‘Waiting for the bus?’ I asked her. And she smiled and said yes.

  Almost at once we heard the laboured drone of the bus as it appeared up the steep incline. The woman stepped out into the middle of the road and held up her hand. The bus came to a stop and she got in.

  I had ample time to examine the few passengers in it. Miss Linton was not there. Unbelieving, I stared after the bus as it continued on its way up the road. I stood there for a moment, glancing round at the iron gate of Eltonsbrody and at the casuarinas and mahoganies, and a cold numbness began to spread through my stomach.

  20

  I went into the house and looked for Mrs. Scaife. She was at breakfast, and as I entered she looked up and smiled at me. ‘I was just wondering if you weren’t going to have breakfast this morning, my boy.’

  I gave her a cold stare and said: ‘I’ve just been out to the road to have a look at the passengers in the bus.’

  ‘Have you? Did you know of someone travelling to town?’

  ‘Yes. Miss Linton. But she wasn’t in the bus, Mrs. Scaife.’

  ‘No? Oh, of course, you did mention she was going back to town—but shouldn’t she have waited until her relief arrived?’

  ‘Look, tell me. I want to know if you’ve seen anything of her since last night. A plain yes or no, please!’

  She laughed with genuine amusement, giving me a teasing glance. ‘No truly civilised person ever gives a plain yes or no to any question, and I pride myself on thinking I’m a civilised person.’

  ‘Are you going to answer my question?’

  She wiped her mouth with her napkin, still shaking with mirth. ‘So much like Michael,’ she murmured to her bacon. Then she glanced up with her affectionate twinkle and said: ‘My boy, I really believe if you stayed in this house long enough I’d become so attached to you I’d have to hire Borkum to assist me in carving you up so that I could preserve your bones as a loving memento to a dear, dear young man.’

  Without another word, I took my place and began to eat, for what with my sea bathe and the walk to the cemetery I was ravenously hungry.

  She kept watching me quizzically throughout the meal, now and then uttering some flippant remark which I pretended not to hear.

  I looked past her at the sideboard where the sunlight, as usual, was playing on the glassware and on the cloth draped over the edge. The clump of brain coral gazed back at me with its customary sly smile, sinister and inscrutable. The shadow of a green glass mug lay across it, giving it a new air of fantasy. Idly I wondered why the mornings before I hadn’t noticed this green shadow, then it occurred to me that the mug had been moved. It used to stand far back on the sideboard. I noticed that within the green twilight that pervaded the interior there was a dark object—something long and slim, like a roll of paper, or a long envelope.

  Mrs. Scaife followed my gaze and remarked: ‘Is it the green mug you’re interested in? It’s a sealed envelope I’ve put into it. I put it in this morning when I came down. It’s my last will and testament, as the solicitors say. I made it out yesterday, and took it down to Martin’s Bay to get two of my old peasant acquaintances to sign as witnesses.’

  She sighed, and her manner grew a trifle musing, a trifle sad. ‘Of course, Mitchell will have to have this house, because it’s entailed and must pass on to him. But my money is my own to dispose of as I please—and this furniture and my personal effects. I’ve willed these things to people I love.’

  She glanced at me and smiled. ‘My boy, I can see you’re worried about your friend. I mean the nurse. Ah, well! I can’t help it if I didn’t like her, can I? It was just the same with Mitchell’s wife. She hadn’t the Mark, and I hated her just as much as I hated Mitchell himself. As a baby, he often came very near to death. I had to control myself not to strangle him. Ah, dear! But what a difference when Gregory came along! He had the Mark so strong on him that I found I could even tolerate Mitchell’s presence in this house, so long as it meant having the little fellow with me, too. Try to understand me, Mr. Woodsley. Don’t regard me as a lunatic. There are many strange people in this world, you know. Some are laughed at, and some are treated as mental cases—simply because the normal run of people don’t understand their strangeness. Don’t attempt to understand. I’m one of that kind. That’s why I’ve never had any friends. Even my own parents despised me because of what they considered to be a streak of wanton cruelty in me. They couldn’t see that I was born to revel in everything gruesome and deathly, that the sight of blood, instead of causing me abhorrence, gave me delight, sent me into breathless ecstasies. Why should I be condemned because I was born with a love of carnage? Why should I be considered mad because I can sense death on people? Why should I be denied the pleasure of indulging my deathly whims?’

  She glanced out of the window. ‘Ah! It’s clouding over. I believe there’s going to be rain. The sunset was very vivid yesterday. Mr. Woodsley, there are going to be tragic events to-day. I wish I could tell you what exact form they’ll take, but my powers don’t extend that far. I simply know that death hangs heavily over Eltonsbrody to-day. The shadow is dense—’

  She broke off. A knock had sounded on the front door. I rose. ‘I believe it’s the doctor. I heard a car.’

  I was right. It was Doctor Dayton, and with him was a tallish girl in nurse’s uniform. ‘Nurse Linton asked me to bring someone to relieve her,’ he told us. ‘This is Nurse Graham, Mrs. Scaife.’

  ‘A pleasure to have her here,’ smiled the old lady.

  ‘Has Nurse Linton left already? She said something about taking the bus, but I asked her to wait until I came.’

  Mrs. Scaife glanced at me. ‘Mr. Woodsley can tell you. She’s been confiding in him quite a lot. Has she left yet, my boy?’

  ‘I have no idea whether she’s left or not, doctor,’ I said stiffly. ‘She wasn’t in the bus—that I know for certain. I went out to look.’

  ‘Haven’t you seen her for the morning?’ he asked.

  ‘I haven’t. Her suit-case and things are not in the room upstairs, so she must have gone away.’

  He seemed to sense that something was wrong, because he kept glancing from me to Mrs. Scaife in a puzzled manner.

  Mrs. Scaife chuckled and said: ‘I have an idea Mr. Woodsley suspects she’s met with foul play, doctor.’

  ‘What do you mean by that? Foul play?’

  I flashed: ‘Perhaps Mrs. Scaife knows why I think so!’

  We had moved into the sitting-room now. The wind droned in at the open windows, bleak and with the promise of rain.

  ‘Mr. Woodsley has been doing some splendid detective work in here, doctor. That’s why I ventured to say he might know more than I do.’ The old lady gave my arm a playful squeeze as she spoke. ‘He’s a dear you
ng man, believe me. But he’s suspicious of me. He thinks it very likely I’ve murdered Nurse Linton and carved her up.’

  The doctor laughed—but in an embarrassed way. Nurse Graham smiled uncertainly. ‘Anyway, shall we go up at once?’ said the doctor.

  I didn’t accompany them upstairs. I lit a cigarette and stood at a window in the sitting-room looking at the sky which was one blanket of grey. A fine drizzle was falling. It came almost horizontal on the fresh wind. The hotels and cottages down at Bathsheba were hazed and indistinct, though towards Martin’s Bay it was much clearer.

  I heard footsteps. It was Mrs. Scaife. She had come downstairs. I saw her move towards the pantry.

  The drizzle thickened. I shut the windows. I went into the dining-room. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and the doctor came down.

  ‘Could I have a word with you, Mr. Woodsley?’

  ‘Certainly. Shall we go into the hallway?’

  When we got there, he said: ‘What’s been happening here? Nurse Linton phoned me last night and said she couldn’t remain on this case any longer. She gave me no details, and I’m a little puzzled.’

  I told him about Mrs. Scaife’s practical jokes.

  ‘Why should she have done that? That’s strange.’

  ‘Have you been in attendance on her a long time, doctor?’

  ‘Who? Mrs. Scaife? Yes. Since her husband died. I knew her husband very well. He was a personal friend.’

  ‘What did he die from, by the way?’

  ‘Cerebral haemorrhage.’

  ‘There was nothing irregular about his death?’

  ‘No. What makes you think there might have been?’

  ‘I only wondered,’ I said. Suddenly I told him briefly about what had been happening during the past few days. He was amazed, of course, and kept giving me frowning glances.

  ‘I just can’t—it seems fantastic,’ he said. ‘And this pail of blood—did you go back into that room this morning to see if—I mean, did you smell any blood in the corridor again?’

  ‘No, I haven’t been in there again—and I don’t want to.’

  ‘I’m worried about Miss Linton. What could have happened to her? I phoned both the hotels when I was upstairs and they’ve seen nothing of her.’

  ‘The only thing I can assume,’ I said, ‘is that she must have gone down the road to meet the bus and some car gave her a lift to town.’

  ‘When I get to town I’ll ring you and let you know if she’s got there safely. I must be off.’

  I went in and was making for the pantry when the sound of voices caught my attention. It came from the stairs. Glancing up, I saw Mrs. Scaife in conversation with Nurse Graham.

  Suddenly the old lady beckoned to me. ‘Could you come up here, my boy?’

  I joined them at the top of the stairs. Miss Graham was a plain-looking, rather timid creature. She had a hesitant smile.

  ‘Mr. Woodsley,’ said the old lady, ‘Miss Graham has just made an important find.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Tell him, Nurse.’

  Miss Graham said: ‘Well, I don’t know if it’s really important, but I thought I had to mention it. I was about to put my suit-case under the bed when I noticed that another one was there. It had the letters G.L. on it, so I thought it might be Miss Linton’s. I called Mrs. Scaife, and we opened it and found her things in it—and—and there was a handkerchief, too, that—well, it just reeked of chloroform.’

  21

  I looked at Mrs. Scaife and said: ‘There was no suit-case under the bed when I went into that room before breakfast.’

  ‘Wasn’t there, my boy? Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure. I looked not only in the corner near the washstand where Miss Linton kept her suit-case but I searched everywhere. I distinctly remember lifting the bed-sheet and looking under the bed.’

  ‘Tch, tch! Naturally. How silly of me not to have assumed that you would be thorough. Well, well. The mystery deepens.’

  ‘Does it? May I see the suit-case and the handkerchief, Nurse?’

  Mrs. Scaife followed us into the room. She stood behind me as I bent down and examined the contents of the suit-case. The handkerchief’s strong chloroform fumes immediately struck me, and I straightened up. I took it up and looked at it, and saw the initials M S worked in faded blue thread at one corner. It was a man’s handkerchief.

  ‘Mrs. Scaife, I’d like to have a chat with you alone. Shall we go downstairs?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Downstairs, I said: ‘What have you done with her, Mrs. Scaife?’

  She tittered. ‘Why the sudden melodrama, my boy?’

  ‘I want to know what you’ve done with her. Come on. Is she in that room upstairs? The doctor’s old room?’

  ‘And suppose she is, what of it? Do you want to rescue her?’

  I stared at her a moment, then said: ‘But why? Why did you have to do this? What have you put her in there for? Is that black brute in there with her, too?’

  She made no reply. Only stared back at me, her expression unreadable.

  The morning had darkened, and the wind and rain got more boisterous with the passage of every minute. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the epergne on the centre table, for we were in the sitting-room. It glimmered with a dirty, greenish unrealness. The air in the room felt laden with moisture, and the vagrant draughts were as active as always.

  ‘Mrs. Scaife, I want an answer. Is Miss Linton in the doctor’s old room upstairs?’

  Suddenly she stiffened, and her gaze moved past me into the dining-room. I followed her gaze. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  Something seemed to hold her attention in the diningroom. Her face looked very pale, and her eyes gleamed with an unnatural light. She said: ‘Mr. Woodsley, Malverne has just this instant died.’

  Behind us, the windows shook dismally under the furious slamming assaults of the wind and rain. A leaf swirled in from the hallway, hesitated an instant, then wheeled its way lispingly across the floor, coming to a stop near the edge of the aged carpet. Perhaps two, even three, minutes might have elapsed, then footsteps sounded on the stairs, muffled by the swish and whine of the wind and rain. It was Nurse Graham. She came towards us and said: ‘Mrs. Scaife, the girl—the patient is dead. She just died.’

  ‘Very well, Nurse.’

  The girl hesitated, glancing from the old lady to me.

  ‘I’ll have all arrangements made for the burial, Nurse.’

  I said: ‘Nurse, perhaps you’d better try and phone Doctor Dayton.’

  Mrs. Scaife glanced at the nurse and said: ‘It’s all right. I’ll speak to him later on.’ She began to move towards the stairs, then paused and told the nurse: ‘Just wait down here a moment, Nurse. I’ll call you up as soon as I’m ready.’

  ‘Very well, Mrs. Scaife.’

  But I was determined not to be balked by this diversion. I strode after her and accompanied her upstairs. In the corridor she halted and smiled at me. ‘Mr. Woodsley, you’d better go back downstairs and wait with the nurse.’

  ‘I refuse,’ I said. ‘You’re going to tell me where Miss Linton is. It’s no use pretending any longer. I know she’s fallen foul of you and your strangeness.’

  ‘Tch, tch! So impetuous. Oh, dear! Yes, since you must know, we did chloroform her. That old handkerchief of my husband’s should have clinched the matter in your mind, I’m sure.’

  ‘Where is she? In the doctor’s old room?’

  ‘No. She’s down at Martin’s Bay in a fisherman’s cottage. Strapped to a chair since half-past eleven last night and gagged to boot so that she can’t make any noise. When she woke this morning—if she slept—there was a lovely sight for her to see. A coffin filled with bones from the cemetery. A grinning skull and ribs and femurs. Ha, ha! The biggest practical joke of all. And a lovely pail of blood, too. Go down and find her and relieve her of her misery, my boy. How I hate that creature! She was setting her cap at you, I’m certain!’

 
; ‘Where is this cottage? What part of Martin’s Bay is it situated?’

  ‘Go and find it for yourself. Ask any of the fisher-people down there. No good my directing you from here. It won’t help. Run along, you smitten boy! You can pop the question the minute you find her.’

  I left her and hurried downstairs. At the kitchen door I nearly collided with Tappin.

  ‘Mr. Woodsley, sir! What happening? Where you going?’

  ‘Martin’s Bay. Look here, I wonder if you can help me, Tappin. Do you know of any unoccupied cottages down there?’

  ‘Unoccupied cottages? Yes, sir. They got one or two. But what wrong, sir? Anyt’ing happen?’

  ‘Yes. And I’ve got to hurry. I have reason to believe that Miss Linton is down there, tied up and gagged, in one of the vacant cottages.’

  ‘Tied up and gagged! Oi! How you mean, sir? How she can—?’

  ‘Look, I can’t stop to explain now.’

  ‘Sir, you got to careful going down dere now. Landslides is happen sometimes when it rain heavy loike dis. Lemme come wid you and show you de way.’

  ‘Can you? Good man. Come along.’

  ‘De mistress moight quarrel, but ef you can explain to her—’

  ‘Yes, that’s all right. I’ll deal with her, no fear.’

  Piloted by Tappin, I stumbled my way through the wind and rain along steep, tortuous tracks, inquiring at every cottage we passed, just as a matter of routine. Down in the bay it did not take us long to find the two vacant cottages. They were both dilapidated cabin-like structures. The roofs were rotted and the shingled walls gaped with large jagged holes. They were quite past the stage where anyone could live in them.

  In neither of them could we find any trace of Miss Linton.

  We persisted, asking at every cottage, but no one had seen any strange young lady, and there were no other unoccupied cottages for us to search in. By one o’clock Tappin and I were both weary from our tramping round. We were drenched.

  Then one shortish old fellow told us: ‘De only person who been down here was de ole lady from Eltonsbrody, sir. Ole Mrs. Scaife. She come down here yesterday and ask me cousin and his sister to soign a paper for her.’