“Why on earth shouldn’t I arrest her?”
“Well, she has shown courage, a good deal of resource and initiative, and has demonstrated desperate ambition…”
“In fact, she only needs a swastika badge and a little black moustache,” said the inspector. “Get away with you, dear Aunt.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Bradley judicially, “why did she conclude that the murder of Miss Platt would not create any more than a passing interest?”
“For the reason you gave just now. Of course, I can see why she should pick on Miss Platt. She hoped to create a good old local stink round the person of Mrs. Platt, realised later that it might not come off, decided to take no risks, so murdered those other people to get some excitement going. Now, allowing that you are right about Councillor Smith, why was Lillie Fletcher selected? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“That has been the difficulty, child. I thought at first that the murderer did intend to kill Lillie Fletcher. My doubts were occasioned when I realised that the poisoning of, for instance, my niece Sally Lestrange, would have accomplished the murderer’s object very nicely, and that the murder of my son Ferdinand would have been a master stroke because of his public position. It is true that it was Sally’s first duty at the Centre, and the murderer could not have known whether she would go outside—it was essential, you see, that the victim should leave the premises in order that the murder could take place—but the murder of Ferdinand could have been planned most carefully beforehand, since he is almost the oldest inhabitant of that Centre. Poison, of course, should have been the means in his case, as it was with Councillor Smith. Has it struck you, by the way, that, of the three, only Smith was given poison? The others were murders of violence.”
“But why Lillie Fletcher?” persisted Stallard. “I suppose her visits to her boy friend in the Auxiliary Fire Service had something to do with the affair?”
“If the right victim was selected, certainly they had. The murderer could have been pretty sure of Lillie’s time for going to see that young man. Besides that, it appears to have been known that there was some connection—you remember?—between Lillie and Mrs. Platt, from whose service the girl had been dismissed. Pat was perfectly correct in thinking that the two murders, therefore, might ‘snowball’ up into something very important in local news items, if the connection could be revealed, but this revelation was a difficult thing to manage, unless she could reveal the identity of Miss Platt without attaching suspicion to herself. Of course, it could have been managed, but Pat had a guilty conscience—a paralysing thing in the young.”
“You don’t think,” said Stallard slowly, “that I may have got Pat wrong, and that, instead of having the secondary motive of helping Elvira Blackburn to a fortune she simply thought that Fate had played into her hands by providing her with a victim who had relatives immediately suspect because they inherited the money?”
“And got rid of an incubus,” Mrs. Bradley observed. “You may be right. We have had two frightened people (not counting Mrs. Platt) in our community since the police first called upon Elvira Blackburn and her brother Melchior.”
“Then they must have had guilty consciences over something!” Stallard declared.
“Well, of course they had, poor things! They had guilty consciences because they had so often wished their uncle dead. Then they hold a special reason for being nervous, disheartened and dismayed. Melchior is a kleptomaniac—one of the very few genuine cases, I may say, that I have met!”
“Hm! I’m glad they’ve got an alibi for the time of the murder, anyhow! In any case, there seems no doubt that it must have been at the party that Smith got the dose which killed him. But, look here, how am I going to make all this into evidence on which to arrest Patricia Mort?”
“I must leave that to you, child. Don’t forget that she’s going to Finland very soon.”
“She won’t be able to, of course. I must get my hooks on her at once, before she slips off like that.”
“Extradition, child.”
“Be hanged to it. I’m not going to lose her if she’s our man.”
“You doubt it?”
“No, not exactly. But I can’t get used to the idea. I mean…the motive. Is it sufficient, do you think?”
“For a temperament like that of Pat Mort, I’d say it was more than sufficient. Ambition is like water. It cuts its own channel, you know.”
“Finds its own level, too, it seems to me. But I don’t see yet how it was you felt so sure.”
“Well, Sally unwittingly helped me after she had hindered me considerably.”
“Sally? What did she know about it?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. But I thought at first she did. She was melancholy, frightened, reserved, uncommunicative, and distrait.”
“Doesn’t sound like my idea of Sally.”
“Exactly. Therefore, something was wrong. I realised that the moment I saw her with Pat at the Record office when first I came into the enquiry.”
“When first you took it over, you mean.”
“It seemed to me that Sally suspected Pat. What grounds she had for doing this, I did not, and I do not, know. But perhaps…”
“We can check that up with Sally,” said Stallard.
“Well, I did not ask Sally to give Pat away. I had received the hint—a strong one, as you indicate, since Sally was most unlike herself…”
“So that,” said Stallard shrewdly, “was why Sally gave up her A.R.P. work and went on the land.”
“Well, it seemed better to get her out of the way,” said Mrs. Bradley tactfully. “Sally, however, did not know why she was persuaded by her mother and me to leave Willington, although, I think, she was glad enough to go.”
“Good heavens! You didn’t confide in Lady Selina that you thought Pat had committed murder and was lying in wait for Sally?”
“Not exactly. But I made myself plain enough. Selina is a sensible woman. I had only to hint that Sally was forming an undesirable attachment.”
Stallard backed away from a hard and prodding forefinger, and, to change the subject, which appeared to embarrass him, asked:
“What about the other deaths? We’ve made very little headway there.”
“Well, somebody took the body of Miss Platt from the canal to the A.R.P. tank. You remember the doctor’s bit of weed? That person might (and might not) have been the murderer.”
“Yes, I see. And I see where Burt comes in. I also see now why it was that Pat did not care whether the verdict was murder or suicide, so long as the body could be identified. It was the scandal, the gossip, the ‘news value’ of the death that mattered,” Stallard observed. “Why on earth, though, not have left the body in the canal? Oh, Burt, I suppose, was an unwitting accomplice when he pulled it out, and…”
“And robbed it,” said Mrs. Bradley, “thus removing all the most obvious marks of identification.”
“Incidentally,” said Stallard, “I suppose it was chiefly Lecky’s gambling activities that made him anxious to keep himself and his Home right out of the enquiry?”
“Undoubtedly. That, and his record, on which, of course, he could be terrorised.”
“And you think Pat saw that rescue, don’t you? Even so, she must be a bit thick-headed to think she might have been suspected. I don’t mind telling you that she’s about the last person I should have thought of.”
“She’s young, and she has not lost her sense of right and wrong yet,” said Mrs. Bradley, in a tone which gave the trite words a new significance, although not the one assigned to them by the inspector.
“You mean…she’s going off her head? Going insane?” he said.
Mrs. Bradley did not reply in any direct fashion, but answered:
“The lawyer’s and the psychologist’s interpretation of what is meant by insanity are not always the same thing. It is difficult to say whether the law will hold Pat responsible for her actions, but there is no justification for believing her, in your sense of the wo
rd, insane. The only thing that you yourself want now is evidence on the strength of which you can arrest her. So far, you can show some sort of motive, and you will be able to prove, with the help of eye-witnesses, that she was at the ‘Rat and Cow-catcher’ that night. But it is probable that a jury, especially if it happens to be composed entirely of men, will not be very much impressed. Comparatively few men can conceive that a young woman might be really keen to get on in her chosen profession—unless, of course, she happens to be a film star.”
“I can’t say the motive strikes me pink, as a matter of fact. But I’ll accept it at your valuation. And, as you say, I ought to be able to show that Pat was present—suspiciously present—at the pub. Of course, she was also present, don’t forget, when Lillie Fletcher was killed.”
“Yes, but…”
“And,” continued Stallard, “she has no alibi for the third, or rather, the first murder—that of Miss Platt, you know. You were pretty smart to deduce her presence at that little bottle party at the ‘Rat and Cow-catcher,’ and, of course, those particular women, being in the municipal doo-dah, were used to seeing her about. But there’s one thing we’ll have to establish. Where did she get the arsenic? I know it only killed one out of the three, and that because his inside was in such a funny state, but it might have been a contributory cause of death in the other two cases, since few people could have reckoned on bumping off a tough young girl like Lillie Fletcher or even a middle-aged semi-loony like Miss Platt, without rendering them pretty helpless first.”
“You should have very little trouble in tracing the possession of arsenic to Pat,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I’ll tell you where she could have got it.”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember that she called at Lillie Fletcher’s home last year to interview Mr. Fletcher about his prize vegetables?”
“Weed-killer!” shouted Stallard. “Of course! That’s a classic by now!”
“Yes. It is interesting, by the way, how neurotics always contrive to give themselves away. It’s impossible for them to keep a secret.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, there was no reason, so far as I could determine at the time, for Pat to tell me all about Mr. Fletcher and his prize marrow, or whatever it was. There was no place for it in the conversation, yet she forced the information upon me. It was clear that, for some reason, it was uppermost in her mind, and I wondered why.”
“But you didn’t wonder for long! Well, I can get to work on that. I suppose Mr. Fletcher does keep arsenical weed-killer on the premises?”
“You can soon find out, but I don’t think there’s any doubt about it.”
“And she mucked up the diving board to get Burt injured—killed, perhaps—because she knew he’d been talking to you? I shouldn’t have thought she’d have known enough about diving boards to do it, but it seems that she had drawn the attention of Tom Talby to the fact that the board was insecure. Still,” he added thoughtfully, “it wasn’t insecure then. I suppose she was paving her way, but it does look rather suspicious.”
“I think Pat made a mistake.”
“Still, you know, when you come to think of it, that business of Tom’s being lured to the Town Hall and locked in that cupboard so that he could not risk his life on the board was very clumsy,” said Stallard.
“Strange that Eddie Burt escaped unharmed,” Mrs. Bradley added.
“And then you mean she had another go at him when the crowds surged out on the air raid signal?”
“Well, I don’t think we could prove that, child. Burt declares that he was deliberately attacked, and the circumstances so favoured the attacker that I doubt whether any enquiries would lead to anything, especially after all this time. Your first efforts, you remember, were fruitless.”
“And you didn’t make any, I noticed. You were, as usual, right about that. Too tricky. I shall leave it alone. I say, no wonder you sprinted for life in Lowestoft! Hope you haven’t passed your danger on to me.”
“Well, information shared is danger halved,” said Mrs. Bradley, grinning.
“Or doubled,” said Stallard, answering the grin. “By the way, reverting to the murder of Miss Platt: what was all that about the night-gown?”
“It was a very clumsy attempt to mislead the police, I fancy. Then, of course, Pat brought Mrs. Platt into the picture by observing that the corpse wore a night-gown which bore Mrs. Platt’s old laundry mark. She overreached herself, however, by throwing the other night-gown into Mr. Dewey’s garden.”
“So a detailed analysis of Pat’s movements on the evening and night of the murders could read something like this,” said Stallard.
“Sunset to dusk—pushed Miss Platt into the river and watched her drown. Then saw Burt rescue the body and rob it. Recognised him. Came out of hiding directly he had run off with the handbag, and dragged the body in among the bushes.
“About eight o’clock, having been to her lodgings and changed her clothes, which were probably soiled and damp, went to report on the party given by Councillor Smith at the ‘Rat and Cow-catcher.’ Poisoned Councillor Smith’s first glass of stout…”
“Possibly at the bar,” interpolated Mrs. Bradley, “and not at the table…”
“What? Of course, that would have been easier, especially if she volunteered to help carry some of the drinks to the table. In some saloon bars they bring you the drinks, but I doubt whether they’d bother at the ‘Rat and Cow-catcher.’ I suppose there you pay over the counter and then cart the drinks to where you want to sit and have them. But, if she did that (a) wouldn’t someone have remarked upon the fact? And (b) how could she be certain that Councillor Smith would get the poisoned glass?”
“The only person to remark upon the fact (a), I think,” Mrs. Bradley answered, “would have been Councillor Smith himself, who would have taken the glasses from her, and he died before suspicion could fall on anyone of having caused his death and before explanations or remarks were necessary. As to the poisoned glass, I thought it was clear that it did not much matter who got it. Any of the persons present would have been a good news-item in a local murder case.”
“Oh…yes, you did suggest that. Well, early in the proceedings, Pat left—or it appeared so. She was forgotten. Old Smith continued to make his little stag jokes and to pass his dubious compliments, and one by one his guests departed, leaving little Mrs. Zacharias to sign on the dotted line. Old Smith, then feeling much the worse for wear, wants the last drink on the house, but staggers (not drunk, but poisoned), towards his home. Pat sees him collapse, stands him up in a doorway, and then bunks for all she’s worth to the Town Hall, where she’s supposed to be on A.R.P. duty. There she poisons Lillie Fletcher’s coffee, and belts her over the head with a stone.
“Meanwhile, between her own departure and that of Smith from the ‘Rat and Cow-catcher,’ she has been back to the river, dragged out Miss Platt’s body from the bushes, hauled it up a steepish hill to the A.R.P. cistern, and bunged it in. Oh, and of course, she undressed it, taking the clothes to her digs, and then got it up in the night-gown. It sounds a pretty good night’s work for one young girl!”
“Take it or leave it,” said Mrs. Bradley, grinning. “I’ve told you I didn’t think the murders were connected to that extent.”
“Thank you, I’ll take it. I ought to be able to check the whole thing up. You did think the murders are interdependent but that Pat didn’t do all three. What are you going to do now?”
“Begin another Balaclava helmet, unless I take the plunge, and decide upon a pair of sea-boot stockings.”
She hooted with laughter at his reproachful expression.
• CHAPTER 23 •
Decorated in deep underglaze blue with five-clawed dragons among conventional clouds.
Catalogue description of a porcelain bowl and cover with the Hsuan Te mark, of the period 1426–35.
• 1 •
“And now,” said Mrs. Bradley, “we have to get Mrs. Commy-Platt to return to
Willington. How can we manage it, do you think?”
“Need we expect her to come back? I could get her to make a statement,” replied Stallard. He buttered a scone, and then looked up at his visitor, but Mrs. Bradley, smoothing the sleeve of a canary-coloured blouse, was gazing at her wristlet watch.
“What are you getting at, dear Aunt?” Stallard suddenly enquired.
“Nothing, child. We shall have to find out what Mrs. Platt was doing when Lillie Fletcher was murdered. There’s that hour to be accounted for. We’ve got to establish what connection, if any, there is between Pat and Mrs. Platt, Mrs. Platt and Burt, Burt and Tom Talby, Isabella and Councillor Grant’s Sons of God Macedonian, and…”
“Half a minute,” said Stallard.
• 2 •
“But I still don’t see why you ran like that at Lowestoft,” said Pat. “You gave me the fright of my life. In fact, not to put too fine a point upon it…”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Bradley, rapturously.
“Eh?”
“The cliché.”
“Oh…” The girl laughed. “Stop it, and give me your advice. How far up the arm would you have my woollen gloves? To the elbow? Or about half-way up? And shall I want ski-ing boots? And does it matter that I’ve never learnt how to ski?”
“Listen, Pat,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Do you want to be arrested for murder?”
“What?”
“Do you want to be arrested for murder?”
“No. But I couldn’t be.”
“No?”
“Well, what do you mean?” She was smiling, but her eyes had become anxious. “What do they think I’ve been doing?”
“Well, Inspector Stallard is under the firm impression that you murdered Coun…”
“What?”
“…cillor Smith, Lillie Fletcher…”
“But it’s a lot of rot! Of course I didn’t! How could I?”
“…and Mrs. Platt’s late husband’s sister.”
“Oh?” said Pat. “So that’s come to light at last.”
“It has been in the full glare for some little time, child. What on earth possessed you to throw that silly night-gown over the wall?”
Brazen Tongue (Mrs. Bradley) Page 24