“He was sick, though, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, I made him sick. I thought he deserved it for trying to deceive us.”
“But why did you send him to hospital, then, and have him kept there?”
“Chiefly because I wanted to be certain that he was kept out of mischief for a day or two whilst I continued my investigations.”
“Did you suspect Pat of murdering Miss Platt, and Burt of having been a witness of the deed?”
“I have had my moments of doubt. The murders meant a good deal to Pat, and she was the person who had commented upon the diving board, and had pointed out that it was a little out of the straight. But, of course, it was far more likely that a man had tampered with the board, rather than that a girl had done so. Burt could have climbed up on to those boards without risk of exciting suspicion, even if he were fully dressed. Everybody knew him as an expert. Pat would have been suspect at once, if anybody had caught her up there, particularly at a time when the bath was supposed to be closed to the general public. I decided, therefore, that she had not tampered with the boards, that she had no ill-will, therefore, towards Burt, and that my conducting of the enquiry into the death of Miss Platt could be causing her no special discomfort.”
“But what about Councillor Smith and Lillie Fletcher?”
“Before I answer that question, child, doesn’t anything strike you about the murder of Lillie Fletcher?”
“Well, only that it was messy…and…er…non-arsenical.”
“Exactly.” She looked at him with crocodile intelligence and a thin-lipped crocodile grin. “So, in a way, it resembled the death of Miss Platt, did it not?”
“Oh?” said Stallard.
“Yes, child. We have the death by violence of Miss Platt—followed, it is true, by the extraordinary behaviour of our Mr. Burt in disposing of the body—and that death was followed by the death by poison of Councillor Smith. Then we have the untidy, messy, bloody death of that poor girl at the Report Centre.”
“Er…” said the inspector, helplessly.
“The hand,” pursued Mrs. Bradley, “is the hand of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob. In other words, the only true connection is between the two deaths by violence.”
“Meaning?”
“Don’t be aggrieved, child. Meaning that somebody set upon Lillie with that great stone from the rockery and beat her brains out.”
“Doesn’t sound like Mrs. Platt to me. But, then, if you’re right…Oh, dash it! I don’t know!”
“I also find myself unable to believe that she was responsible for propping up his dead body in a shop doorway,” said Mrs. Bradley.
“I wonder what she did intend to do, then? Because it seems fairly clear that it was due to accident that the arsenic put in his glass of stout was enough to do for him. I mean it might not have killed a person with a normal inside. But, of course, you know, she may have attended public functions at which he was present, and so have learned…”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Well, anyway, where did he die? Certainly not where he was found. Yet she’d hardly have run the risk of bringing a dead body back to the shop doorway in the—even in the—black-out, and propping it there for anybody to find?”
“Patricia Mort put it there, I think.”
“So she is involved!”
“Certainly, child. Pat was greatly disappointed when she found that the body of Miss Platt had disappeared from the bushes where she had left it. Then she had to attend that meeting—to her a stupid affair—of Councillor Commy’s when she wanted to get to the ‘Rat and Cow-catcher.’”
“Oh, yes, I see. To get an exclusive story of the wager. I presume that Smith, feeling thoroughly ill, refused to talk to her, so she more or less dogged his footsteps until he collapsed and died. Mrs. Platt probably thought he was horribly drunk—he would have been very sick before he died—and I imagine that she soon abandoned him. Even so, she was later home than she had intended, and she cooked that record book of hers after she heard that he had died, to show that she had gone straight home from the ‘Rat and Cow-catcher.’ Pat, who had remained in the offing, now saw a chance (she thought) of getting some sensational news for the paper. But she wanted something more spectacular than a mere body found dead on the way home, and I suppose that she had no idea at all that he had been poisoned. She probably thought he had dropped dead of heart failure. She may even have heard—for really she seems to hear everything—about his funny inside, and thought it had gone back on him at last. So she dragged him back in the black-out—the moon wouldn’t have risen by that time—propped him up in the doorway, hoping that’s where the police would find him next morning, and cut across the road to the Town Hall to go on duty at the Report Centre. What, then, of Lillie Fletcher? And, anyhow, how can you prove that Mrs. Platt poisoned his stout? Far more likely to have been Pat.”
“You haven’t yet returned to a fundamental fact which we established, I thought, some time ago,” said Mrs. Bradley, who had listened with a saurian grin to the dissertation.
“What’s that?”
“That Pat certainly knew he was poisoned. If she had thought otherwise, she must have come forward and helped Mrs. Platt in her ministrations, surely, if your reconstruction of that hour is correct?”
“But…”
“Mrs. Platt had made no mention of Pat,” said Mrs. Bradley. “And Mrs. Platt, remember, could have had no reason for propping poor Smith in a doorway. Her only plan was to leave him where he was.”
“But…”
“Don’t you see,” said Mrs. Bradley earnestly, “that Councillor Smith had yielded to Mrs. Platt’s representations, and that they were going to be married?”
“Oh, I see!” said Stallard, for the first time giving her a glance of admiration. “I see! So she had to get rid of Miss Platt, who was claiming half the money, and that’s the true motive for the murder of Miss Platt, and it wasn’t Eddie Burt, after all!”
“But it was Pat who killed Councillor Smith, as we decided before, if you remember,” said Mrs. Bradley gently. “Poor Pat, who intended to make a local stir, but quite intended that the victim should recover.”
“But you said…”
“I know. And we’ve made a little progress, I feel.”
“But what put you on to the Platt business—Miss Platt being in Lecky’s Home—at all?”
“My red-haired patient first. Then, of course, I was looking all the time for someone who could fill up the gaps in the story. I was vouchsafed the valuable assistance of your own Constable Commy.”
“But the red-haired patient?”
“Yes, child. You wouldn’t remember, perhaps, but she was everlastingly plaiting things. Don’t you remember her sitting on that grave?”
“Plaiting…plaiting…Oh, platting! Well, I’m damned!”
“Obviously learned behaviour, because not characteristic of her malady,” Mrs. Bradley observed. “Miss Platt had taught her, don’t you see, in the faint hope that some day her occupation might excite the interest of…”
“A real mental specialist, like you! And it did,” said Stallard, grinning.
“I can see you don’t appreciate all this,” said Mrs. Bradley, poking him in the ribs. “Anyhow, you’d better apply for a warrant, and then we’ll make quite sure by reconstructing that night at the Report Centre. I think I know the routine there. We mustn’t make mistakes. I wonder whether Ferdinand will come and perform his part?”
• CHAPTER 24 •
Two studies of a horse.
Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci.
• 1 •
Mrs. Commy-Platt proved to be unexpectedly accommodating. She returned to Willington from Lowestoft without having to be asked to do so. Her reason (given to the inspector and Mrs. Bradley, who called on her together when they received the news that she had returned), was that Lowestoft was far too vulnerable a spot in which to spend the remainder of the war.
No comment was made upon this stat
ement by her hearers, who included Isabella, and Mrs. Bradley broke a slightly embarrassing silence by saying:
“We want you to tell us, Mrs. Platt, why you made a mistake of an hour in your little book for the night on which three people in this town were murdered.”
“I’ve already explained…” said Mrs. Platt. “And also, I would thank you to remember that I am the very last person with whom my poor husband’s sister would have consented to go for a walk by the canal or anywhere else.”
“Well,” said Stallard, conceding the point, “you must please account for that hour. We know that you had considerable interest in the death of your late husband’s sister, and that your relations with Councillor Smith had been somewhat strained. I suggest that you poisoned Councillor Smith, and that you persuaded Miss Platt to accompany you for a walk along the canal or, rather, the river, in which, a little later, she was drowned.”
Mrs. Platt looked at Isabella and pointed to the door. Isabella, however, stood her ground.
“No, Mrs. Commy-Platt,” she said decidedly, “I got you into this trouble, and I’m going to stay and see fair play. Please don’t forget that I’m a warden, and that you are in my district.”
“Ah, yes,” said Mrs. Bradley, before anyone else could speak. “And what is your connection, may I ask, with the Sons of God Macedonian?”
“I have never heard of them, Mrs. Lestrange Bradley.”
“You deny that you visited them on that evening of the last air raid warning?”
“Certainly I do. I was on duty that evening, and attended no meeting of any sort.”
“Can you prove that?”
“I can only refer you,” said Isabella, with the calmness of complete triumph, “to your own relative, dear Lady Selina Lestrange. I was with her from eight o’clock until midnight. And that is why I cannot be in a position to say when Mrs. Platt came in. I mistook the evening. And since dear Mrs. Platt is too modest to refer to the matter, I may tell you that the late Councillor Smith had proposed to Mrs. Platt, and that she had accepted him, so, you see, she would have been the very last person to wish to poison him.”
“That settles that, then,” said Stallard. “Did you have to knock anybody up about lights that night?”
“I did not patrol my district that night. I was gastrically inclined, and dear Lady Selina ministered to me at the Wardens’ Post in East Lane. I think the sound of the siren must have upset me.”
“Some warden!” muttered Stallard in Mrs. Bradley’s ear. “Now, Mrs. Platt,” he said aloud. “You were late, I think, for your appointment at the ‘Rat and Cow-catcher.’”
“Certainly, Inspector. I was late, as I have already explained to Mrs. Bradley, because I could hardly be expected to forgo my dinner in order to keep an appointment of such a nature.”
“So,” said the inspector, winking at Mrs. Bradley, “you didn’t go for a walk with Miss Platt beside the river and push her in before skedaddling off to keep your date with Councillor Smith?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Inspector! I am not in the habit of pushing people into rivers.” She raised her voice. “I have only one regret. I am sorry that I did not trouble to go down to the mortuary—horrid place!—and see this dead woman whom you assert was my late husband’s sister. Still, I doubt whether I can be held responsible before the law about that.”
“I doubt it, too,” said Stallard. “Very well, Mrs. Platt. I am sorry I have put you to so much trouble, but I must ask one more question. How did you spend that hour which we cannot account for?”
“I walked out of the tavern, into a taxi, and came straight home,” persisted Mrs. Platt.
“The next business is at the Report Centre,” said Mrs. Bradley. She wished Mrs. Platt good-bye.
“Surely we’d better check those statements of the old girl’s, hadn’t we?” said Stallard.
“I feel that her statements are correct, child. When one thinks it over, it does appear unlikely that Miss Platt would have left Doctor Lecky’s Home so trustfully in the company of the woman who had wronged her, and whose quite rational desire it was to keep her out of the way. Even the most simple-minded person…”
“Ah, well, but the poor old thing was soft in the head, don’t forget.”
“Even that would not account for her behaviour, if she allowed herself to walk out in company with Mrs. Platt. No, no! She went to meet Pat, I’ve no doubt. Come, leave that point for a bit, and let us get to the Report Centre. I have permission from the supervisor to conduct a little experiment.”
Unwillingly Stallard accompanied her, and followed her up the two stone steps to the gas-proof door of the Centre. Ferdinand came to welcome them. There was an air of excitement in the place. The A.R.P. workers apparently had been primed—by Ferdinand, Stallard supposed—in the parts they were to play.
“I suppose the staff here is not the same as it was on the night of the murder?” he murmured in Mrs. Bradley’s ear.
“Exactly the same,” she answered, “so far as the permanent staff is concerned. I waited especially for that. They work on a rota, as you know. Of course the teachers cannot be here, as they are at school this afternoon, and Sally is still in Scotland. Pat, I hope, will turn up. I want her rather particularly. And now,” she added, consulting her notebook, “I want somebody—anybody—no, it had better be you, Inspector—to take the part of the dead girl. Where did she sit? There? Oh, thank you. Sit down, Inspector.
“Now, then, everybody. Ah, hullo, here’s Pat. Good. Sit down. Are you all ready? I want the two people who first went out with the torch, to go out again. Don’t be afraid. There are police outside to protect you.”
Two of the girls took down the Emergency torch.
“Now, Mr. Budge,” said Mrs. Bradley.
The Control Room messenger, smirking nervously, put his head in at the open hatchway and enquired:
“’Ow many ladies wants coffee?”
The coffee was produced, and was passed from hand to hand. Nobody seemed to want to drink it.
“Well,” said Mrs. Bradley surveying the helpless-looking group with some amusement, “what is the matter with the coffee?”
They looked at her dumbly. She cackled.
“There’s no arsenic in it,” she said. “There wasn’t before, you know. And now, Inspector, we’ll take it for granted that you have drunk your coffee. You may take the official torch and go outside. I think I’d like to come with you. We’d better have some witnesses for this. Oh, and Pat, you come along as well.”
She put her head through the hatchway and called to her son. The faithful Simmonds followed Ferdinand and they were joined (surreptitiously, Mrs. Bradley noticed) by a big young man in plus fours who proved, on enquiry afterwards, to be Mr. Arthur, the surgeon who had been called out to look at the body.
“Now,” said Mrs. Bradley, “I want you, Pat, to pretend that you received that note immediately upon your arrival here, and are going to keep the appointment. Inspector, you are Lillie Fletcher. Give us three seconds, Ferdinand, and then carry on.”
The little procession, followed almost immediately by the witnesses, filed out by way of the Emergency Exit.
“What exactly are you after?” asked Stallard.
“All my life,” Mrs. Bradley replied, “I’ve been longing to assault the police. Now is my chance, it seems. Off you go. You are Lillie Fletcher, going to keep your appointment at the Auxiliary Fire Station. No torches, anybody, please. Now, Inspector, keep your ears open. Pat is going to follow you. The minute she comes along, grab her.”
She herself mounted the cairn of stones. There was silence except for the sound of the inspector’s feet moving across the open yard to the gate.
“Look out, Inspector!” cried Mrs. Bradley suddenly. The inspector who had reached the gate, stepped sideways and clutched a woman in his arms.
“Torches!” said Mrs. Bradley. Stallard looked at his prisoner, and gave a shout of surprise.
“It’s the right height, but it isn’t Pat!
” he said.
“No. It is the captain of the local Girl Guides, who kindly volunteered to come and help us. She has nothing to do with the case, except that you thought she was Pat. Or didn’t you?”
• 2 •
“But how did you hit on it, Mother?” demanded Ferdinand.
“The murder of Miss Platt was the keynote,” said Mrs. Bradley, “and was the most interesting of the deaths. There seemed no motive. That was what particularly fascinated me. That was why I went to so much trouble to find out who the dead woman was.”
“Oh, yes, the night-gown business.”
“As soon as identity was established the obvious suspect was Mrs. Platt, of course, but I could not believe it of her. Psychologically—the acid test!—it was wrong.
“Then I began to consider the other two deaths, for it was odd that three persons should be killed in the same town within the same twelve hours. It seemed to me that one or both might prove to be accidental. Then Pat began to give herself away—her ambitions, her fears, her lies—and looking closely at these indications of an unbalanced mind I saw the unwitting cause of the death of Councillor Smith.”
“It seems to me that you leapt to conclusions there,” said Ferdinand.
“I don’t know about that,” replied his mother. “The only likely person otherwise was Mrs. Platt, owing to that muddle about the time she got in that night. Now, supposing Pat to have been an eye-witness to the murder of Miss Platt—as Burt certainly thought she was—it seemed likely that Burt should have tried to make away with her. He sent the note to her lodgings, but, as it happened, Pat was engaged in conveying Councillor Smith’s body from the Report Centre yard into which he had turned when he felt so terribly ill, to the shelter of the nearest doorway, and did not return to her lodgings before she reported for duty. Councillor Smith’s desire for that free drink had kept him late.”
Brazen Tongue (Mrs. Bradley) Page 26