The Echoing Strangers (Mrs Bradley)

by Mitchell, Gladys

  ‘You said something about a sort of witchcraft trial, didn’t you? Chuck them both into the river and see which one of them can swim,’ said Gavin grinning. Mrs. Bradley smiled mirthlessly.

  ‘Francis will have polished up his brother’s swimming by now,’ she said dryly. ‘In vulgar speech, one would have to get up very early in the morning to catch those boys out now.’

  Sonia, courteously approached once more by a sceptical Gavin, could help very little.

  ‘I used to watch him, yes. He was a lovely swimmer,’ she said, ‘and of course he’d only wear those little bathing trunks. But beyond he had a lovely skin, all creamy-brown and that, and no hairs on his chest, I mean, well, there was really nothing. I think he was keen on his hair, though, more than some boys, and I’m not surprised, being so pretty, all golden and that.’

  ‘Keen on his hair?’

  ‘Well, he always wore one of them little caps like water-polo boys.’

  ‘The Sister at the Cottage Hospital may be able to help us now,’ said Mrs. Bradley. She herself undertook the mission.

  ‘Yes, he had to have five stitches. Doctor didn’t think he would have a permanent scar, though, and, even if he did, he could have grown his hair to cover it,’ said the nurse. ‘It was just here.’ She touched her own head above the left temple. ‘I remember it well, because I thought how lucky such a lovely little boy wouldn’t be disfigured for anyone to notice.’

  In the meantime Inspector Cowley, charged by Gavin with the task, had set his men to work to trace the origin of the reinforced concrete with which the murder of Campbell had been committed. When Gavin informed Mrs. Bradley of this, she cackled and asked whether, now that he had returned to Mede with his grandsons, Sir Adrian proposed to stay there. Gavin, who knew her well, looked at her suspiciously. She nodded slowly. His face cleared.

  ‘If you mean what I think you do,’ he said, ‘it would be all over bar the shouting, so far as the murder of Campbell was concerned. I should arrest both boys and charge them jointly with causing Campbell’s death. But what makes you think …?’

  ‘That reinforced concrete lump being probably a piece from an air-raid shelter, child. Fingerprints it is too rough to take, and, anyway, it’s been in thick mud, apart from the fact that those children handled it. But if we could prove that a piece of reinforced concrete found in Wetwode had actually come from Mede House, we should be fully entitled to ask those connected with both places some very awkward questions.’

  ‘Mede wasn’t in a danger area, you know,’ said Gavin.

  ‘It is not so very far from Southampton. I don’t think Sir Adrian would have dreamed of running the least unnecessary risk where his favourite grandson was concerned, even if he was only at home for holidays.’

  A nod was as good as a wink, and the Hampshire police, already in a strategic position for this owing to the murder of Witt, visited Sir Adrian’s grounds again. The air-raid shelter had been demolished and the materials made into a rock garden. The constitution of the ‘rocks’ and that of the piece of masonry which had killed Campbell were identical.

  ‘So far, so good,’ said Gavin. ‘We’re on a straight road at last. Of course, we haven’t actually proved that the stuff came off the rock-garden, but it’s pretty good circumstantial evidence.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Echo of Gemini

  *

  ‘There she met Sleep, the brother of Death.’

  Lang, Leaf and Myers: The Iliad of Homer

  *

  WHILST EVIDENCE APPEARED to be mounting against the twin brothers, Mrs. Bradley received a letter from her old school-fellow, Mabel Parkinson.

  ‘Miss Higgs is in a state of great excitement. Sir Adrian Caux has formally notified her that he no longer requires her services, but, out of consideration of her loyalty and duty, he has bought the bungalow and put money in trust to bring her in an income of two hundred a year. She is quite overjoyed. She has seen the lawyers and there appears, in her own words, to be no catch in it. Miss Higgs is provided for.’

  Mrs. Bradley, greatly intrigued, went to Wetwode to visit Mabel Parkinson, and there learned full details, including the fact that Miss Higgs had gone, the day she received the glad news, to the bungalow to live.

  ‘She still gets about on two sticks, but she was quite determined,’ she said. ‘She has quite got over her prejudice about going back. And, really, Beatrice, your cheques for her maintenance have been much too generous. I want you to take some of the money back.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘I knew you’d refuse to take any money from her. Besides, my chief object was not altruistic at all. I just didn’t want her running away from the scene of the crime.’

  ‘You know,’ said Mabel Parkinson, gazing at Mrs. Bradley in fearful fascination, ‘I’m perfectly sure you used not to be like this at school. I chiefly remember you in the gym and at cricket, and being so jolly good at maths., and English, and music, and playing up Miss Poppleweather.’

  Mrs. Bradley regarded her with a sentimental leer, and remarked that both of them had watched a good many tides come in and a good many tides go out since schooldays.

  ‘But I should never have dreamed you’d be good at psychology,’ said Mabel, ‘and interested in crime.’

  Mrs. Bradley pointed out that she had been very good at Miss Poppleweather’s psychology and that this, more often than not, at school had led to crime.

  ‘But this murder of Mr. Campbell,’ pursued Mabel. ‘How is it all going to end?’

  ‘Well, let’s see what we’ve got,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘And then you’ll be able to tell me.’ And because she knew that, under the strangling influence of the Old School Tie (which, in their case, happened to be a blasphemous combination of gold, silver and purple) Mabel would never breathe a word of what she was told by an old school chum without having first obtained that chum’s permission, she went on, ‘Now, to begin with, we’ve twins and two murders, each murder being connected, so far as locality is concerned, with one or other of the twins.

  ‘The murders have two points of resemblance, but the other factors are all different. The murders were each committed in the same way. They were the result of a heavy blow on the head. However, the weapons used were not the same. In the one case a sensible and in the other case an ultimately foolish weapon was used.

  ‘The cricket bat, belonging, as it did, to the dead man, was a sensible choice. Its handle took no prints, there was no attempt to hide it, the murderer left no traces of his presence except the blood-stained bat and the corpse. It is true that he may have stolen tinned food from the cricket pavilion, but there is no proof that he did, and the tins, full or empty, have not been discovered. The murder of Witt at Mede was, in fact, almost a perfect crime. It had but one flaw. It produced a suspect, Derek Caux, who may well have had a motive for the crime, and who had no alibi for the time of Witt’s death.’

  ‘So far, so good,’ said Mabel Parkinson, ‘but it’s our murder which interests me.’

  ‘Let us look at it, then. Here we have a very different picture. It is true that the method was the same … a heavy blow on the head. But our second (in point of time, our first) murderer puts any number of unexpected touches to his crime. He moves the body from the scene of the crime and yet does not remove the traces of that crime. He hides the body underneath a boat. He even takes the extraordinary course of having staples especially made so that he can fasten the body as his disordered imagination suggests. The blacksmith who made the staples to his order can even, in some measure, describe him, and although the description would fit some thousands of men there are two persons it does not fit … but, of that, more anon.

  ‘Between the murder at Mede and the death of Campbell here at Wetwode there is one other point of resemblance. Both the murdered men were blackmailers. In addition to this, it turns out that at one time they were acquainted with one another. Therefore, there is reason to see a connection between the murders: we have the twin br
others and the motive for getting rid of two blackmailers. We also have a criminal history almost unique, I imagine, since it runs through two generations of the Caux family for certain, and very possibly into a third.

  ‘There are puzzling features, however, about the murders of Witt and Campbell. I spoke just now of the description given by the blacksmith of the customer who ordered the staples for fastening Campbell’s body to the bottom of the dinghy, and I said that, whomever the description fitted, there were two people whom it could not possibly fit.’

  ‘Yes, the twin brothers,’ agreed Mabel Parkinson, with a vigorous nod. ‘Of course, I did see that. But this is most interesting. Go on.’

  ‘Well, that description is an insuperable obstacle in the otherwise reasonable case which could be built up against the Caux twins, and the other doubtful point is the apparently idiotic behaviour of the twin, (which ever it was), who was playing in the cricket match against Bruke, in leaving the field of play at the time of Witt’s murder. But for his having done that, I don’t know that the connection between the murders of Witt and Campbell would have been so decidedly noticeable.

  ‘Then, you see, the fact that the staples were not ordered by either twin, but by someone whose general description could apply to Sir Adrian Caux, for example, seems to dispose of any share the boys may have had in putting Campbell out of the way.’

  ‘I’m very stupid, I expect, but I can’t quite see that point.’

  ‘Well, the natural assumption would be that Campbell was blackmailing the boys because he knew they changed places, and so were making a fool of their grandfather, who adored the one and detested the other. Sir Adrian is a conceited and bad-tempered man, and it is more than likely that he would disinherit even his beloved Derek if it were pointed out to him that all his affection and all his dislike had not availed to enable him to distinguish one twin from the other, and that while the real Francis was enjoying his favour at Mede House, the real Derek was playing havoc with village girls at Wetwode.’

  ‘Oh, dear me, yes, of course.’

  ‘Whereas, if Sir Adrian turned out to be the person responsible for pinning the body underneath that boat, then it must surely mean that he was aware of the boys’ game of exchanging identities and had used it for his own purposes.’

  ‘His own purposes?’

  ‘To get rid of Campbell, while contriving to give the impression that Francis had committed the murder.’

  ‘But that would mean.… Surely that might mean.… Oh, no one would be so wicked!’

  Mrs. Bradley nodded solemnly. ‘I mean what I say, and that is the conclusion to which I have come,’ she said, ‘and there is really nothing in Sir Adrian’s reputation to give the lie to it. Remember … oh, of course, you don’t know! When Francis Caux was in hospital as a boy of seven, he told the nurse that his grandfather was responsible for the death of his parents in that car crash ten years ago.’

  ‘Ten years is a long time, and there couldn’t be any proof now.’

  ‘Quite. But a guilty conscience is a terrible bedfellow. Besides, whilst he believed the boy to be deaf and dumb, Sir Adrian thought he had nothing to fear. Once he learned … and exactly how and when he learned it we still don’t know … that the boy could both hear and speak, his only defence, as he saw it, was to get the boy put out of the way; that is, to take his life. He has not yet dared to kill the boy himself, but there is no doubt (in my mind, at any rate) that he intended Francis to suffer for the death of Campbell. Unless to incriminate Francis, what other motive could he have had in transporting Campbell’s body (at such risk) to the bungalow and fastening it so that it had to remain where it was? No river current, even, could move it, and as soon as anybody attempted to use the dinghy, more particularly if he tried to lower the centre-board, the crime was bound to be discovered and the obvious suspect would be Francis Caux. Once Campbell’s blackmailing exploits came to light, as they were bound to do, sooner or later, when the circumstances of his death were investigated, a motive would be provided at which few police officers would look twice before accepting it.’

  ‘But would they hang a boy of seventeen?’

  ‘No. But they would detain him, probably indefinitely, and the beauty of the thing, from Sir Adrian’s point of view, was that, after that, nobody would believe a convicted murderer who tried to make the police or anyone else believe that his grandfather, too, was a murderer.’

  ‘But what an abominable plot! What shall you do about it now?’

  ‘Consult Mr. Gavin and lay all my findings before him and the local police. You see, a very strong point in my argument is that, if Francis Caux had been responsible for Campbell’s death and had hidden the body, he would not have been so anxious to have it discovered. What would be the object of finding so elaborate a hiding-place if one proposed, at the first opportunity, to disclose it? It isn’t as if (once Campbell, its owner, was dead) anybody but Francis himself was likely to use the dinghy. But that, of course, was one point overlooked by Sir Adrian.’

  ‘Well,’ said Gavin, impressed by Mrs. Bradley’s arguments, ‘there’s only one thing to do now. We’ll confront Sir Adrian with that blacksmith, and if the blacksmith swears to him I’ll arrest him and charge him with Campbell’s murder. As you say, the risk he took in going to the blacksmith at all is in character. But all this doesn’t help us over the murder of Witt.’

  ‘Oh, Francis killed Witt,’ said Mrs. Bradley with great composure. ‘I’ve never had much doubt about that. But I don’t think we’ll ever prove it, except by a trick which I’m very loth to play on brothers as devoted as those two.’

  ‘Arrest Derek, because he has no alibi, you mean, and so force Francis to confess? I don’t like the sound of that, either, especially as Witt seems to have been a thorough scoundrel. We’ve dug out most of his past, and he seems to have lived on blackmail since he caught his employer out. That man has been dead for five years … committed suicide because he couldn’t satisfy Witt’s demands any longer. So if the verdict has to stay at person or persons unknown, it won’t cause me to lose sleep. After all, as you say, we’ve no evidence. Of course, if any evidence came our way, I’d be in duty bound to make use of it. That must be understood.’

  ‘Of course, child, but I don’t believe the evidence exists. Derek has no alibi; but that, in the absence of motive, would certainly not be sufficient to convict him, any more than the loss of the pavilion tinned food would convict Francis.’

  ‘Blackmail, surely, was the motive.’

  ‘What evidence is there that Witt ever blackmailed the boy?’

  ‘None, among Witt’s papers. I’m bound to admit that. None of the Caux names appear in anything that we’ve found. Of course, Derek, at any rate, is extremely intelligent. He may have found means to destroy the part of Witt’s stuff which referred to himself or his family.’

  ‘Yes, that point must be considered, but you’ve no reason to suppose that he did anything of the kind.’

  ‘This sounds like special pleading.’

  ‘I don’t like murderers, but I like blackmailers even less. The majority of murders do at least take place quickly, but the blackmailer is a slow torturer.’

  ‘We can’t let that influence us, though, if any further evidence does turn up.’

  ‘Of course not. I was merely expressing a personal opinion. Murder, unfortunately, is a human crime and a dreadful one, but torture is the work of devils, and nothing I have seen, read or heard will ever cause me to change my mind about that.’

  ‘I’m going to see young Donagh once more, and see whether he can’t think up another pointer, all the same,’ said Gavin obstinately.

  ‘He has provided us with one which we haven’t used yet, but, once again, it isn’t evidence.’

  ‘I’ve been over and over everything Donagh has told us. I can’t see anything else. How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that I want a little god to worship when it is wet,’ said Mrs. Bradley solemnly. Gavin eyed her with his usua
l expression of mistrust, but he had so much confidence in her abilities that he scribbled her last remark down, resolved to collate it with the rest of the information at his disposal.

  Mrs. Bradley went to Miss Higgs, now back in the riverside bungalow.

  ‘Did Sir Adrian know the date when you took Francis to Great Yarmouth this year?’ she asked, when, over a cup of tea, she had listened sympathetically to Miss Higgs’ rapturous recountal of Sir Adrian’s generosity. Miss Higgs hesitated. She flushed. Then she replied in the negative.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mrs. Bradley, rising and taking her departure without more ado. Miss Higgs cried after her, but she refused to answer or look back. When she re-joined Gavin she observed, ‘And, of course, it was Sir Adrian who tried to murder Malachi Thetford at the regatta. We musn’t forget that. He might have murdered him for Derek’s sake but scarcely for the sake of Francis. He must have had reason to think that Malachi had evidence that it was not Francis who committed the crime. Of course, Malachi had no such evidence. It is surprising what a guilty conscience will do.’

  Gavin blinked at her.

  ‘I’ll take your word for all of it,’ he said, ‘but I don’t see the point of the little god. Oh, yes, I’m sorry! Of course I do! The model of the man and the model of the boat when you first came to stay in that bungalow. Then it was Derek who asked for Herodotus on the Tuesday, but on Wednesday, when it was wet, it was Francis who decided to model the little god. But we still don’t know that it was Francis who modelled the man and the boat. Otherwise, your contention that Francis, and not Derek, was at Mede on the day before the cricket match would be acceptable.’

  He grinned at her, happy again.