“I sympathise with your mother,” Mrs. Bradley observed, “but don’t talk about curtains now. There isn’t time. Sally, at what time did you get to the Baths?”
“At the beginning of the diving. Why?”
“Not earlier?”
“No.”
“Where were you, then?”
“I went to find Pat. I’d forgotten she’d be at the Baths. I say, do you think our lunatic is still active?”
“Our lunatic?”
“Well, the murderer. Don’t be tiresome, Aunt Adela.”
“Very well, child. Why should Mr. Burt be selected? Have you any idea?”
“No, none at all. Have you?”
“You think it was an attempt at murder that we witnessed?”
“When the top board gave way? It looked rather like it. It must have been sawn right through.”
“When could that have been done?”
“When? Oh, I see. You mean that whoever did it would have to get access to the Baths at a time when nobody else was there. Yes, you’re right there. But I ought to tell you that when Pat and I were there yesterday, when she was annotating her programme ready for to-night, the top board must have looked peculiar, I think.”
“How do you mean, child?”
“Well, Pat noticed it looked skew-whiff.”
“It looked…?”
“Out of alignment, you know. She pointed it out. That’s why Tom Talby went in off it. It seemed all right, but the Baths have been closed since the declaration of war and it needn’t have been completed at one go, need it? Little drops of water, little grains of sand…all that kind of thing.”
“I see your point, child, and I think it is a good one. But it narrows the field, doesn’t it?”
“That’s assuming that the same person made all the different attempts at harming people.”
“Yes, it is assuming that. We must assume that, says Inspector Stallard.”
“Oh, Ronald! Would you call Ronald brainy, Aunt Adela? Or not?”
“Well…not. But he’s a nice young man,” said her aunt reasonably, “and too many brains don’t become a young policeman. They come between him and his duty, and, in the end, are a snare and a delusion to a conscientious man. He will go much further without them.”
“Yes, I expect so. Have you met his fiancee?”
“His…?”
“Fiancee. A girl named Barbara Beaumont. An awfully nice girl. Pretty, too. She’s in the A.T.S. It annoys him, for some reason. She’s a driver. I should be if I could get Mother to increase my allowance, but she won’t, and I couldn’t possibly manage on A.T.S. pay unless she did.”
“But the pay would be in addition to your allowance, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, that’s what I mean.”
Mrs. Bradley missed the point, and said so. Her niece waved it aside.
“Go on with what you began to tell me,” she suggested. “You said, and I agree, that they’ve only got to check up on the people who could manage to get into the Baths, to find the guilty person. But don’t forget that their name is probably legion.”
“How so, child?”
Sally began to check off on her fingers.
“The superintendent, his wife, his assistant, the cleaners; the people who used the Slipper Baths—it was only the Swimming Bath part which was closed, you see, because they had some idea at first of making it a mortuary; the women who used the Public Wash-houses; the women who worked in the Baths laundry, which functioned a bit just at first because of the towels used in the Slipper Baths; the Radiant Heat and Electrical Massage attendants—both those—what do you call them?—facilities—were still operating; the two ticket-office women—I happen to know they weren’t sacked at the outbreak of war, because one of them is related to Councillor Slatt and the other to Councillor Emmey.”
“Your knowledge seems to be extensive and various,” said Mrs. Bradley approvingly.
“Well, there’s not much sense in having been about so much with Pat if I don’t manage to secure the low-down on all the local…”
“Nepotism?”
“Probably. Is there?”
“Not the slightest, child. Have you seen Pat since the accident at the Baths?”
“No. I hared for home when I heard the sirens. It’s a false alarm, by the way. A little bird sat on the doings and caused a short circuit, or laid an egg, or something.”
“And we haven’t yet got to the point,” said Mrs. Bradley, “and I am rather anxious to do so before your mother comes in.”
“What is the point? You mean about the accident to Burt?”
“Yes, child. After you left by what we may call the front exit, your mother and I went past the laundry, and there was Mr. Burt laid out upon a table. He said he had been severely knocked about.”
“Good gracious! Not another attempt to kill him?”
“He gave that impression, but remarked that he had nine lives, and, of course, one could say that in the rush for all the exits when the explosion occurred, followed by the air raid warning, anything might have happened to anybody. But why was Mr. Burt the unlucky person?”
“Does he know what happened to him?”
“No. He says that someone hit him on the head from behind, as people stampeded past, and that then he thinks he was trodden on in the rush. Anyhow, now he’s going to stay in bed for a bit. I want him kept out of the way.”
“But it might have been an accident, Aunt Adela. Why should anyone make a set at Burt?”
“I don’t know, and Burt says he doesn’t know.”
“Well, then, that’s what we’ve got to find out, isn’t it?”
“I am wondering whether I have found it out,” said Mrs. Bradley. “But as for Burt, there is something more. He knows something about that drowning death, you see.”
“What, the A.R.P. cistern woman? The lunatic? Does he know about that?”
“Burt dragged the body out of the canal—or, rather, out of the river where it makes a loop away from the canal and rejoins it on the south side of a little island.”
“And Burt told you this?”
“More or less, child. More or less. At least, he agreed with me when I told him about it.”
“And immediately afterwards there are two attempts on his life? I say, Aunt Adela! And what are you going to do now? Get Ronald to put him under police protection?”
“I have sent him to hospital. I am hoping for further developments.”
“Well, the first one is due about now. Here comes Mother, I think.”
She was right. Lady Selina, demanding her tea, came in with her steel helmet on her arm, and her gas mask, of the type supplied to air raid wardens, dangling in its bag from her shoulder. She shed her impedimenta, and Sally rang the bell.
“Well, Adela,” said Lady Selina. “How is your messy patient?”
“Coming along nicely,” Mrs. Bradley responded. “How is your messy little bird?”
“What little bird?”
“The one who caused the short circuit and set off the siren,” Mrs. Bradley explained.
“I’ll tell you what, Adela,” said Lady Selina, as though the facetious beginning of the conversation had brought something of importance to her mind, “Stitcher’s under the impression that somebody wantonly tampered with the high diving board at the Baths with the direct intention of injuring the youth who fell from it.”
“With it,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Indeed, Selina? That is interesting news. And who may Stitcher be?”
“The assistant superintendent, of course. I got Councillor Bordon, a member of the Baths Committee, to see Stitcher about it, and that was Stitcher’s report. He says that it could not have been done earlier than this morning, and that it must have been directed against this particular young man—what is his name?”
“Burt, Mother.”
“Yes, Burt—because no one else ever dives in competitions from that enormous height. My personal feeling is that Burt should not have been permitted to
dive from it, either. I’m quite certain the water isn’t deep enough.”
“Of course it is, Mother,” said Sally. “When the Danish international swimmers made their tour…”
“I am discussing the matter with your aunt, Sally.”
“Sorry, Mother. Anyway, Tom Talby dives from it sometimes. Oh, thank the lord, here’s tea!”
In spite of the black-out Mrs. Bradley went out again that evening. She caught the bus after dinner, and went to Councillor Grant’s gospel meeting of the Sons of God Macedonian.
At the Broadway, where she got off the bus, she took some trouble to find out whether she was being followed.
The first-floor mission was in one of the poorer but still respectable parts of the town, a district of small lock-up shops, many of which were to let, long avenues of terrace houses, and advertisement boards for the two local cinemas and those in neighbouring towns which were connected with Willington by train or bus.
It was easy to find the place of which she was in search. Cracks of light showed all round its three large windows, and her torch showed her the number on the door, which was closed, but which bore the notice, faintly illuminated by a very small green lantern: ‘Please Walk Straight Upstairs.’
Mrs. Bradley accepted the naïve invitation, and, the uncarpeted staircase re-echoing even to her light tread, achieved her objective by entering an open doorway and seating herself on the nearest plush-covered chair.
There were three rows of similar chairs, and almost all were unoccupied, for the meeting was not due to begin for another ten minutes or so. Behind them came seven rows of wooden, round-seated chairs of the kind used in drapers’ shops. These were fairly fully occupied by people eating pieces of cake and drinking from large, thick cups containing a dark beverage which turned out to be strong tea.
A steward, a pimply-faced youth in his best suit, came up and offered her a choice of tea or coffee and a piece of cake. Mrs. Bradley declined to partake of any refreshment, but thanked the youth heartily for his proffered hospitality.
“It’s the only way we get any collection here,” was his artless remark. “Mr. Grant is always out of pocket over the refreshments, but it makes ’em all willing to put something in the plate, later on.”
“And who is responsible for preparing the refreshments?” Mrs. Bradley enquired, somewhat surprised at Councillor Grant’s generosity, since he did not look like a man who gave much away.
“My mother. She’s the caretaker. We’ve got the shop down below.”
“Very convenient,” said Mrs. Bradley, absently.
A few more people drifted in, and were offered tea and cake. Most of them accepted both; some took only the tea. One little boy had his own and his mother’s cake, and she drank both cups of tea, giving him a last sip to “wash the cake down.”
Councillor Grant, Mrs. Bradley’s immediate objective, was nowhere to be seen, and Mrs. Bradley could only suppose that it was his custom to make an entrance when the apostolic feasting was over. In this she was wrong, however, for whilst the congregation was still attending to the needs of the body, he entered with a long, thin, mournful-looking man in a morning coat and dark-grey flannel trousers, offered this man a seat, and supplied him with cake and tea.
At last the remnants were all cleared up. The last cup was taken (almost by force) from the hand of a septuagenarian who drank sibilantly from it the last dregs whilst the pimply boy was attempting to drag it from her hand. Then there was a considerable rustling among the congregation, followed by comparative calm.
Councillor Grant, who had stepped to the front of the small platform at the eastern end of the room, gave out the title of a hymn. There was no instrumental accompaniment, and the resultant dirge was both pathetic and farcical. It was also, apparently, interminable. There were no hymn-books, but when about nine verses had been sung, the pimply boy appeared at Mrs. Bradley’s side with a printed leaflet entitled: “Hymns and Spiritual Ditties of the Sons of God Macedonian.”
Mrs. Bradley examined the printed matter with interest. Much of it was crudely socialistic in tone; the rest consisted of Hymns Ancient and Modern, those of Moody and Sankey, Salvation Army songs and, to her great surprise, two poems by George Herbert.
It was one of the socialistic ditties with which the congregation was engaged, and they themselves seemed glad, she thought, when at last it came to an end, and Brother Sim was requested by Councillor Grant to lead the meeting in prayer.
Brother Sim turned out to be the pimply boy. He spoke, with considerable eloquence but not much grammar, for nearly fifteen minutes, and, upon recovering himself (whilst the congregation, who, during the peroration, had bent forward in their seats, closed their eyes, and breathed stertorously, shuffled their feet and composed themselves afresh), he gazed about him in the slightly dazed manner of those who recover from self-induced hypnosis, and then walked out. He had gone to get the collection-plate from downstairs, but Mrs. Bradley could hear some words of what sounded like altercation from the ground floor.
The voices were soon lost, however, in the loud, firm tones of Councillor Grant, who was reading a portion of the Old Testament. The passage described the plague of locusts in Egypt, and Councillor Grant’s rolling voice not only suited the Authorised Version but gave it a significance beyond even that which had been intended, Mrs. Bradley surmised, by the writer.
“‘For they covered the face of the whole airrth,’” boomed Councillor Grant, “‘so that the land was darrkened, and they did eat every hairrb of the land, and all the frrit of the trrees which the hail had left; and there remained not any grreen thing in the trees, or in the hairrbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.’”
He closed the Bible, and addressed himself winningly to his audience.
“Before I add my jote and tittle to the glo-rries of God’s worrd, let me introduce to you all heere assembled—prraise ye the Loord!—oor brither Bannerman frae the Kensal Rise deestrict, who has come heere aince mair on pairil of his life through this awfu’ darrkness of the blay-coot, to speak to ye this night.
“Noo, as I was saying, when I took leave to postpone my remarrks in favour of introducing Brither Bannerman, ye’ll have noticed—or not, according to the level of your understanding”—here he withered two young women in the eighth row, who were checking the stitches on their knitting—“that the Good Book refairrs not only to the airrth, but to the whole airrth, and I would just draw your attention to the fact…”
Mrs. Bradley, rather to her sorrow, was never to have her attention drawn to this fact, whatever it might be, for there was a sudden spattering of quick, light footsteps on the stairs, and in burst the pimply youth. Pulling up short, he burst out:
“Mr. Grant, Mr. Grant, here’s the warden! I think we’re showing lights at all three winders!”
Councillor Grant, Mrs. Bradley noted with approval, was essentially a man of action. He swung round and clicked off the electric lights before the boy had finished his sentence.
“Bide you where you are!” he commanded his flock. The door opened. “I’ll reason with the Son of Darkness!”
There was a muffled giggle at this apt choice of epithet, and, hearing it, Mrs. Bradley dropped on hands and knees and crawled noiselessly out at the door behind the convener of the meeting. The staircase was in black darkness, but she recollected that she had noticed another door on the landing. She stood up as Councillor Grant went stumblingly down the stairs, found a handle, twisted it, and went in. It was, she was relieved to discover when she switched on her torch, a kind of lumber room; an ante-chamber, apparently, to the large room used for the meetings. She seated herself on a pile of hymn-books, switched off her torch, and awaited developments.
These, however, did not materialise. All that occurred, when the rumbling sounds of Mr. Grant’s below-stair remonstrances had ceased, was his grim tread again on the staircase. Then came a sound of light hammering from the meeting-room, and then sporadic applause, presumably for Brother Bannerm
an, for Mrs. Bradley could hear through the lath and plaster wall a colloquy in heavy whispers, consisting chiefly of the reiterated words:
“But I couldn’t think to deprive you, Brother Grant.”
And the rejoinder:
“Mon, dinna haver. We’ll never get to wee Georgie’s.”
Brother Bannerman’s whispered words were more audible than his spoken ones. Mrs. Bradley strained her acute ears to catch the substance of his remarks when he rose to address his audience, but it eluded her, and for about twenty-five minutes the low rumbling, punctuated by occasional trumpet-blasts—for Councillor Grant had a cold—continued unchanged.
The Sons of God Macedonian, Mrs. Bradley concluded must have very dull homes if this was their notion of inspiration and entertainment. Perhaps the tea and cake ensured the audience as well as the amount of the offertory, she reflected. Suddenly a scarping of feet and the legs of the chairs proclaimed that the speaker had concluded, and Councillor Grant gave out the number of a hymn, during which, he said, the collection would be taken.
The tuneless singing began. Mrs. Bradley took out her purse, and laid money on the pile of hymn-books beside her, trusting that whatever providence embraced the needs of the Sons of Macedonian, would see that it fell into those coffers most worthy to receive it. Having completed this touching act of faith, she crept to the door and opened it a crack, only to close it and withdraw herself the next instant, as the door of the meeting-hall opened. She did not wait to see who came out, but hid behind the door of the room she was in until the home-going member of the congregation was safely down the stairs.
She listened again, but this time there was no colloquy, acrimonious or otherwise, from the ground floor. She heard the street door shut.
When the offertory hymn was over there was another long prayer. Under cover of it, Mrs. Bradley slid unobtrusively into the room and occupied her former seat. Councillor Grant saw her come in, and so did the girls with the knitting. The one glared and the other two giggled. She did not know who else had noticed her entrance, but assumed that a number had done so, although the atmosphere was one of general, although possibly coerced, devotion, for Brother Bannerman was leading the meeting in prayer. This was followed by a marching hymn instead of a benediction.
Brazen Tongue (Mrs. Bradley) Page 13