Brazen Tongue (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  The old couple talked Yiddish when they were together, and Mrs. Zacharias had never been able to “getta th’Englitha,” as she soon informed Mrs. Bradley, for she was voluble, friendly, humorous, and, Mrs. Bradley soon learned, bitingly shrewd and intelligent.

  “Counthillor Thmitha?” she said, her eyes wary for once. “Yetha, I remember goinka to that party. I had th-touta becauth I thaida I would. He watha funny fellow, Thmitha. Dadda didden lika him, did you, Dadda? They utheda argue at the Counthil meetinkth, and one-th he called Dadda a dirty Jew.”

  She laughed, and showed fine small teeth. Her amusement was genuine. It must have been that Dadda had had, in the end, the best of the encounter, Mrs. Bradley surmised. The rest of the story proved that this had been the case.

  “Yeth, and Dadda thaid, ‘Tho watha Tholomon, Mithter Thmitha.’ And Thmitha thaida, ‘Vot you are talkink abouta?’ And Dadda thaida, ‘Vell, I toughta ve voth both talkink about the newa Public Batha, but if you vanta talk about Jewtha I don’ minda, becauth it’th nearly ten o’clocka, and the pubth’ll be th-yut if you go on much longer, and that don’ matter to a Jewa becauth he muth be dirty, like vot you thay, Thmitha, becauth he ain’t got no utha for beathly thpongeth.’”

  She laughed again, happily, at the recollection of Dadda’s bon mot.

  “So Councillor Smith was fond of his drink, was he?” said Mrs. Bradley. “Tell me about that party, Mrs. Zacharias. When did you get there?”

  “Eighta clocka, lika vot Thmitha thaid. Dadda he didn’ vant I th-yould go, but it voth only like buth’neth, and Thmitha paid up very gooda, lika vot he thaid he vould. He voth a man of hith vorda; I’ll thay that.”

  “How many drinks did Smith have?”

  “Three vile I voth there. Th-tout, th-tout, and th-tout.”

  “Now, look here, Mrs. Zacharias, it’s highly likely that it was at that party that Councillor Smith took poison. What do you say about that?”

  “Ah, I thoughta you voth come abouta the murderth. Funny vot folka vill do to get them-thelveth in the limelighta, ain’t it? I vonth know a girl vot confethed to theven differenta murderth, and none of them th-yee committa thavink the lathta. Thith von the polith don’ believa, and th-yee get-th avay to Thouth America and doink vell in the dopa.”

  “In the…?”

  “You knowa…thnowa. Cocaina, heroina, opium, and thothe thinka…I donno much about them, but doink vell th-yee ith, the latht I hearda. Th-yye’th my Uncle Rueben’th thecond cothin by hith thirda vifa; that-th how I come to know about her. Th-yee voth not a Jewa,” she concluded, with sly triumph. “She voth—how theya thaya?—a pura bloodeda Nordica Aryana girla, and th-yee vould like to have donna all them murderth, only th-yee don’ happen to thinka of them till too lata.”

  “You think that a Jewess would have been less liberal-minded, Mrs. Zacharias?” Mrs. Bradley enquired with interest.

  “Vell, there-th th-tilla the law of Motheth,” Mrs. Zacharias reminded her. “Yeth, and it includth an eya for an eya, and a tootha for a tootha,” she added, with a gleam of stark hatred, before she again directed her smiling attention to her visitor. “I bega your pardon. You voth thayink abouta the murder of Thmitha. I don’ conthentrate like I th-youlda. It’th lika I tella Dadda—I’m gettink olda.”

  “At what time did you leave the ‘Rat and Cow-catcher,’ Mrs. Zacharias?”

  “Me? Oh, I don’ knowa. Tventy to ten, voth it? I can’ thay, to a ticka.”

  “You got home here, Momma, at ten minutes to ten by the grandfather,” remarked Councillor Zacharias mildly, “and Benny keeps the grandfather right by the B.B.C.”

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Bradley, making a note. “And whom did you leave with Councillor Smith, Mrs. Zacharias? Do you remember?”

  “Vy th-youldn’ I remember? Becauth—I tell you—it’th a good choke, thith ith—I…”

  “Momma!” said Councillor Zacharias, suddenly. “Momma! You are acting very silly, telling all your business to strangers this way! Now shut up, Momma, before you get into mischief.”

  “Oh, calma yourthelf, Dadda! I ain’t a foola!”

  “I take it, then, Mrs. Zacharias,” said Mrs. Bradley, studying the agitated Councillor Zacharias with close but kindly interest, “that you were the last person to leave Councillor Smith that evening? That, in short, as far as we can tell, you could have been the person who poisoned his drink?”

  “Vell, I thinka that’th tho,” Mrs. Zacharias agreed. “I never theen nobody elth go vith him ven I left him, although Vodtha, the Landlorda, thayth he’th took badda ven I’m gone.”

  “Why were you left until last?”

  “Becauth I’m the treath-yurer of courtha,” Mrs. Zacharias replied, as though she were surprised that anybody should want to ask such a question, “and I hada to geta him to cougha up the money, tho I voth kepta a bit. That’th all.”

  “Very satisfactory, too,” said Mrs. Bradley, making another note. “Had Councillor Smith ordered another drink when you left him, do you know?”

  Mrs. Zacharias chuckled.

  “He thaid he th-yould have the latht von on the houtha,” she replied. “They doa that von free at the ‘Rat and Cow-catcher,’ it theemtha.”

  “Did he seem quite well when you left him?”

  “He gava me the money all righta,” said Mrs. Zacharias, as though this explained a good deal, “and I wrota him a retheipta. I gotta the carbon, if you’d like to thee it. But, ath I thaya, Voodtha, whooth not a badda little manna, thayth he vent out very quicka after I lefta, and never came backa for hith drinka.”

  “Even though it was on the house?”

  “That’th righta. On the houtha, anda he never finithed it. He muthta felt badda, Voodth thaid.”

  • CHAPTER 16 •

  Dog, Apparition, or Bandog?

  Title to an illustration to John Jasper’s Secret, in the manner of Fildes.

  • 1 •

  “What was the row about the new Public Bath?” asked Mrs. Bradley of the inspector next day.

  “Glad you’ve come to see me at last!” He grinned. “I thought you’d forgotten I existed. I don’t know any particular row about the new Public Bath. There are always rows when it comes to anything new. Look at the fuss there was over Councillor Watson’s father. A mere question of lead, oak, or elm. But do you think it could be settled amicably? And that was a presentation coffin, mark you, and no time to spare in getting it made!”

  “No, but this might be rather important. There seems to have been words between Councillor Smith and Councillor Zacharias about the new Public Bath, and in the course of these words Councillor Smith called Councillor Zacharias a dirty Jew, and Councillor Zacharias called Councillor Smith a sponge. Does that sort of conversation go on as a rule in Council meetings? Is it regarded, so to speak, as the healthy give and take of the House? Or would it be an historic occasion, and entered as such on the minutes?”

  “Ordered to be expunged from the minutes, more probably. I don’t know, I’m sure. Why don’t you get hold of Councillor Commy? He’s never been absent from a Council meeting yet. He had an illuminated address presented to him in June to indicate that the fact had not escaped the notice of his unfortunate fellow-Councillors.”

  Mrs. Bradley cackled, and only by displaying sudden agility did he escape being prodded in the ribs.

  “No, but honestly,” he said, “you’re on the wrong tack there. Old Daddy Zacharias wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s a dear chap, and frightfully charitable and kind. And he makes jokes against himself for being a Jew. Takes off Issy Bonn, and tells people about the time he met Julian Rose, and all that sort of thing. And he’s fearfully orthodox. He’d no more think of killing anybody than of walking ten miles on the Sabbath Day, and I can’t say fairer than that.”

  “No, you certainly can’t. But what about Mrs. Zacharias?”

  “Ah, there you have me. I like the old girl immensely. I think she’s enormous fun. I had her for my partner once in a local charity bridge tournam
ent, and, boy, can she play bridge! We walked through that tournament like a couple of tanks crossing a series of little ditches. My only fear was lest I should let her down.”

  “But she’s a dark horse?”

  “So far as I’m concerned. She’s the brains of the establishment, of course. They’ve got pots of money, I believe! Abie wanted the kids to go to Oxford, but they wouldn’t. I bet that eldest boy of theirs knows some War Office secrets, though, that would surprise you. He’s one of our star turns. Oh, you can come off the Zacharias family for murder. They’re too big for it, and Momma is the biggest of the lot.”

  “Yes, but what about somebody making a little evidence to put the murder of Smith where it doesn’t belong?” suggested Mrs. Bradley.

  “Are you expecting that?”

  “Yes, and shortly. The murderer thinks that a trap has been baited with our Mr. Burt as the cheese.”

  “And was he?”

  “No, child. I would not risk Mr. Burt’s valuable life like that. No. What Mr. Burt has let himself in for is Mr. Burt’s own fault. But I’m glad he’s safe in hospital for the present.”

  “Tender-hearted about him, aren’t you?”

  “Yes and no, child. Our Mr. Burt has large feet, and sometimes isn’t sure where he’s going to put them. As I’m not sure either, I am glad to be free from the nervous strain of having to wait and see.”

  • 2 •

  “The thing is,” said Stallard, a day or two later, “that although Mrs. Zacharias—bless her heart!—left last, it is equally true that Mrs. Commy-Platt—blast her for a loser of prize Pekinese dogs and a platinum and gold bracelet, once, in a taxi!—left first.”

  “Meaning,” said Mrs. Bradley, “that you would sooner suspect Mrs. Platt than Mrs. Zacharias. And, of course,” she added, “there is still the suspicious business of the night-gown. Have you got any further with that?”

  “Not a step. What’s far worse, from our point of view, we’re not a step nearer finding out the identity of the dead woman who was wearing that night-gown. You know, Aunt Adela—sorry! Sally again!—I wish you’d get on to that end of it for us. If the woman had been some poor beggar tramping the roads and living gipsyish, we should have to leave it at that, I suppose, and concentrate on the murders of Smith and the girl Fletcher. But although we’re as far away from being able to say who she was as ever we were, she certainly had been cared for. The doctor thought she might have been a patient at a mental hospital at some time, but he went chiefly on her appearance…”

  “Her face?”

  “Yes, and her cranial development.”

  “Not very sound,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  “I know. Still, your own researches into the business of the night-gown led you to think she might have been in an asylum, didn’t they? And we worked that for all we were worth. But there isn’t a public mental hospital in the length and breadth of England that has a female patient unaccounted for. And she hadn’t walked far—the state of her feet showed that—and she was found drowned (according to Eddie Burt) in the river here, and…”

  “‘Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all,’” said Mrs. Bradley. “What about the private asylums? A far more likely field.”

  “Well, we turned our friend Lecky inside out after you’d been there and tipped us off about his reputation (which rumour had wised us up about previously, by the way), but couldn’t get at anything very much. I have a suspicion that place goes in for private gambling on a pretty big scale, but he’s downy, all right. I doubt whether we shall ever catch him out. The people go there all right, but presumably they go to visit their relations the patients. It sounds as though it ought to be easy enough to break up a story like that, but actually it isn’t. There’ve been no official complaints of any kind, and the patients are quite well cared for, so what can we do?”

  “I don’t know why you think I want you to do anything, child. By the way, why hasn’t Mrs. Commy-Platt been murdered?”

  “Well, I know it should be looked upon as a public duty to get rid of her, but…”

  “No, child! I’m perfectly serious. Why was Councillor Smith murdered?”

  “I’ve no idea. Fellow was a bit of a lout, it’s true, but perfectly O.K. and pretty generally popular. Had one of the cleanest records on the Council, I should say. No graft, no handing over of Council contracts for his own or his relations’ benefit, always stood up for the poor, and stuck to having bathrooms and parlours for the Council housing estate when some of the die-hards didn’t want ’em…”

  “Well, then, why was he murdered?”

  “Well, we’re still keeping a matey eye on his relatives, you know. They’ve inherited quite a bit through the old boy’s death, and their alibis ain’t too good.”

  “I suppose the poison was intended for him?”

  “What did you make of the relatives at the inquest?” Stallard enquired, as though this were an answer to her question. “You remember you read the report from the Record’s files?”

  “I haven’t quite decided. I don’t think they liked their uncle. I think perhaps he was not, at home, the kindly man you have indicated. A man’s conduct in public and in the bosom of his family are often so widely different as to be complementary of one another. They say it takes all sorts to make a world. It would be equally true to say that it takes all sorts to make a man. There certainly was no grief in that house, I should say, when it was learned there that Uncle Smith would not walk into it again.”

  “I wish I felt justified in arresting ’em—one or both. But, you see, I’ve a hunch—a real policeman’s whisper—that the three deaths are all connected. If they are, then I don’t see how Smith’s niece and nephew can possibly be involved. If they’re not…but, hang it all, it would be a bit too much of a coincidence if three murders all happened in one town and every one was done by a different person.”

  “Two might be connected and the other one a separate matter,” suggested Mrs. Bradley helpfully.

  “Don’t say you believe that!”

  “I think it is a possibility, child.”

  “Oh, my sainted aunt! You were sent to torment me. Anyhow, drop me a hint, and let me arrest someone quick!”

  “No, child. I think I know Smith’s murderer, but it is of no use for me to drop you a hint, because I haven’t any proof, otherwise you could make your arrest to-morrow. But it wouldn’t do. You’d never be allowed to hold the murderer on the evidence I could place before you at present.”

  “Tell me, anyway. I’ve got my own ideas, you know.”

  “No, child. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “To the murderer?”

  “No; to you.” And from this attitude all a handsome young man’s persuasive powers could not budge her.

  “Isn’t she hard-hearted?” said Pat, who had pushed in, regardless of the inspector’s scowls, during the latter part of the conversation. “Inspector, my editor wants to know whether we can print this letter complaining about the special constables.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Bad for discipline, young woman. If the Specials start getting into the local paper, Constable Commy will want to know why he can’t figure in the correspondence column.”

  “Constable Commy?” Mrs. Bradley enquired.

  “Yes,” said Pat, giggling. “Councillor Commy’s son. We don’t dare mention him to Mrs. Commy-Platt. She thinks the police are low.”

  She dodged the official notebook which the inspector threw, and departed, still giggling.

  “She’s keen, you know, that kid,” remarked the inspector, walking towards the door to pick up the notebook. “She’s working the Daily Hooter for a Fleet Street job, and she thinks she’s going to land it.”

  “Well, she scooped Fleet Street very nicely over these local murders, I suppose.”

  “You bet she did. Pat wouldn’t miss a chance like that. And, for the local paper, I think the editor might have done worse than he did do.”

  “Wh
at was that?”

  “Handed her his front page for a fortnight. The Record only comes out once a week, in the ordinary way, you know. But she kept the London dailies fed for five days. Pretty good for local talent, what?”

  “Yes, she’s a promising girl,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I suppose that Fleet Street has always been her goal?”

  “It is with most reporters, I suppose, but, as she’s a female, poor kid, she’ll probably end up in a sub-editor’s chair on a woman’s journal—if she’s lucky!”

  “I thought that, except for Madame Tabouis, women journalists usually married young and settled down to write novels.”

  “Isn’t Madame Tabouis married?”

  “I cannot say, child. All I know is that one could scarcely call anyone quite so dynamic, forceful, informed, and entirely sophisticated, settled down.”

  “No. Well, look here, dig up that drowned woman’s past and find out why she was murdered, and I’ll swear to be your slave for life.”

  “No, I’ll engage you as my trumpeter,” said Mrs. Bradley solemnly. “And now I want to know where to find Constable Commy.”

  Constable Commy was a serious, fresh-faced young policeman, the last-born of a very large family.

  “I’m going to ask what may seem an impertinent question, Constable,” Mrs. Bradley observed. “Do you mind telling me in exactly what blood-relationship you stand to Mrs. Commy-Platt?”

  The constable stared straight in front of him, and replied stolidly:

  “She would be my second cousin—that is, my cousin once removed.”

  “Indeed? Your father’s cousin, then?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Her maiden name would be Commy, like to ours, and her dad would be, like, my dad’s dad’s brother.”

  “Yes, I see. That’s clear, then. Now, Constable, has Mrs. Commy-Platt any other relatives besides your father and his family?”

  “Well,” said Constable Commy, meeting her eyes for the first time, “well, thereby, as it where, ma’am, hangs a tale.”