‘Proved?’ howled her incensed spouse. ‘Proved, did you say? Well, prove to me black isn’t white! Go on! Let’s hear you prove that!’
‘Don’t be silly, dearie,’ said his wife fondly from the foot of the staircase.
Detective-Inspector Boring writhed in anguished bitterness.
‘Of course, I am very much relieved at the verdict,’ said Carstairs to Bertie Philipson, as the two sat in the grandstand at Twickenham one fine Saturday afternoon in November.
‘Rather,’ agreed Bertie absently. ‘Wonder why they always start the second half a minute or two late on this ground? Or is it my imagination?’
‘It wants another three minutes yet,’ said Carstairs. ‘She was lucky to get off, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Bertie. ‘Wonder who did kill old Eleanor, though, after all. Or do you think it was suicide?’
‘Suicide my hat!’ replied Carstairs, laughing. ‘No, it was murder, right enough, and Mrs Bradley did it!’
‘Oh, come now!’ said Bertie, all his apathy turning to interest. ‘What about the verdict?’
‘Would have been “Not proven” from a Scottish jury, I fancy,’ said Carstairs dryly.
‘Spin us the yarn,’ said Bertie. ‘What do you think happened that night?’
‘After Eleanor and the carving-knife had parted company,’ said Carstairs, ‘and Mrs Bradley had managed to get Eleanor into bed, I think Mrs Bradley went back to her own room and felt horribly worried.’
‘Wind up in case Eleanor should have a go at somebody else?’ suggested Bertie.
‘Exactly. In this state of mind I think she went to her secret store of hyoscin and poured the fatal dose of poison into the thermos flask, from which, as she confessed at the trial, she had already drunk half a cupful of coffee. With the poisoned draught at hand, she felt prepared for emergency. The sleeping-draught she had offered to Eleanor was refused by the poor young woman, or so I think. Possibly she scarcely relished the taste of the bromide solution administered to her by Mrs Bradley on the night of Dorothy’s lucky escape. She always hated any form of medicine. I think it was this refusal on the part of Eleanor which caused Mrs Bradley to poison the coffee. Had Eleanor taken the sleeping-draught, the chances were that she would not have shown her murderous tendencies again that night, but, as things were, with Eleanor wide awake and filled with jealous hatred of young Pamela Storbin, and probably with serious resentment towards yourself——’
Bertie nodded gloomily.
‘Mrs Bradley thought anything might happen. Yes, I can see how she would have felt,’ he said.
‘Yes. Here come the teams,’ said Carstairs.
‘Oh, go on,’ said Bertie. ‘Let’s have the yarn.’
‘Well, when we saw Mrs Bradley give Eleanor the cup of coffee, we were watching a murder take place,’ said Carstairs simply.
‘Then you think, if the police had found the coffee cup, as they found the wineglass which had contained the sleeping-draught——’ suggested Bertie, leaving the other to complete the sentence.
‘I think there would have been a rope for Mrs Bradley,’ said Carstairs. ‘As a matter of fact, that is the one bit of the crime which is a real puzzle to me. I cannot understand how Mrs Bradley could have been so frightfully careless as to leave that cup about. It isn’t like her to have run such a clumsy risk as that. An artistic risk—like getting the body to the bathroom—yes, she would enjoy taking a chance like that—but the cup no. The cup won’t fit into place.’
‘Yes, why did she take the body to the bathroom?’ asked Bertie. ‘And, by the way, I should think she had her work cut out to manage it. Eleanor was every bit of nine stone, and Mrs Bradley is a small, thin woman.’
‘With immense nursing experience, remember. Nurses get used to handling big helpless men, don’t they? And, besides, she had muscles of iron. As to why she put the body there, I think it was just her freakish sense of humour. Eleanor’s victim, Mountjoy, was found dead in the bathroom, and Mrs Bradley decided that Eleanor should be found dead there also. She may have had some idea of confusing the investigators, too, or of misleading people as to the time of death. She ought to have pushed the head under water, though. It was a mistake to leave the hair dry and yet arrange the body face-uppermost.’
‘And did you think all this out before the trial?’ asked Bertie. ‘Oh, look! He’s scored! Good man! Just let’s see if he’ll convert it! Oh, well taken, sir! Very pretty!’
He turned to Carstairs with a smile.
‘Sorry, sir. Will you please go on?’
‘With pleasure. No, I did not think along these lines before the trial. It is true that I saw the facts looked bad for Mrs Bradley. For one thing, you see, there is no doubt that she could have obtained the hyoscin. She is a distinguished psycho-analyst, as we know, and she has been in America visiting mental institutions. I happen to know—although the defence took care to keep this fact very dark—that while in America she acted as assistant to a distinguished alienist in order to have an opportunity of treating some of his cases psycho-analytically. Now, under these circumstances, what was there to prevent her from obtaining what we will term a murderous quantity of this drug? It is a calmative drug, used fairly freely in our mental asylums and quite extensively in America. The alienist she worked with possessed a store—probably of several grains—and a quarter to half a grain of the stuff, remember, is a fatal dose.
‘Very well, then. She could have obtained the poison. Mind, I don’t mean to imply for an instant that she obtained it for a criminal purpose. That is not my conception at all. She was supplied with a small quantity for professional purposes, I imagine, and simply saw no occasion for returning it. Then, when she realized how dangerous Eleanor was, the remembrance of this poison came to her. It was a quick and merciful form of death, as unerring and as free from cruelty as a properly constructed lethal chamber. What had she to do? Why, dissolve a microscopic amount of the crystals in alcohol—probably they were so dissolved already—and either dilute the liquid so formed with water, or drop a little of it into coffee or tea. It is tasteless in either.’
‘You said Eleanor didn’t drink the bromide sleeping-draught,’ remarked Bertie, ‘yet the glass was empty. What did Mrs Bradley do with the draught?’
‘Drank it herself, I expect,’ answered Carstairs, with his eyes on the players. ‘It was quite harmless, you see, and the empty glass played quite a part in helping to make the issue of the trial doubtful.’
‘I wonder whether she reckoned on Mabel leaving it for the police to find,’ grinned Bertie.
‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised,’ chuckled Carstairs. ‘But that makes it all the more extraordinary that she ran such a foolish risk in leaving the coffee cup lying about.’
‘Knew the maid would be certain to collect up a common kitchen cup,’ said Bertie.
‘Maybe. But it was a risk,’ argued Carstairs. ‘And a risk I should have thought she would have avoided,’ he added, wrinkling his brow. ‘Of course, it was a piece of rare good luck, my finding that medicine-glass.’
‘Yes, but surely that was strong evidence in favour of supposing that Eleanor committed suicide,’ said Bertie. ‘What did poor old Boring think about it?’
‘He thought what I thought, and said as much,’ replied Carstairs, smiling.
‘And what was that?’
‘The medicine-glass was a red-herring,’ replied Carstairs. ‘Directly I had found it, so carefully placed where the police had already looked and were not likely to look again for some little time, and yet so easy to detect and so beautifully simple and convincing once anybody did look, I smelt a rat. Still, I was keen to save Mrs Bradley, and it was for the police, not me, to detect the odour of the rodent. To their credit, be it said, they did! But circumstances—and the complete absence of Mrs Bradley’s finger-prints—were too much for them. From that time onwards, especially during the progress of the trial, I put two and two together——’
‘
And made five,’ giggled Bertie. ‘I’m sorry to butt in, but, you see, jolly interesting as your reconstruction is, it leaves out the one big point on which the prosecution really tripped themselves up. Where is the hyoscin? I mean, dash it, the bottle, or whatever contained the stuff, has just vanished into thin air. It hasn’t been traced to anybody. Because of that fact alone they couldn’t prove Mrs Bradley did it. Good thing too! I think that if that old woman did do Eleanor in, then she deserves to be regarded as a benefactor of the human race!’
‘I am afraid the law would not take the same charitable view of her conduct,’ said Carstairs dryly. ‘However, as I am going round to her hotel this evening to felicitate her on the happy result of the trial, I will tell her what you say.’
The whistle blew for time, and the two men parted at the gate of the football ground.
True to his word, Carstairs called at the hotel where Mrs Bradley was staying for a few days before she started on her American tour, and solemnly congratulated her on her escape from the clutches of the law.
They sat silent for several minutes after he had concluded his rather formal felicitations, and then Mrs Bradley suddenly and startlingly hooted with laughter.
‘Poor Inspector Boring!’ she said, in answer to Carstairs’ surprised smile. ‘That man worked really hard, and very intelligently. He deserved to win his case if ever a policeman did. I admired that man’s quality. He had a solid, unimaginative, exhaustive way of going about things which I can never sufficiently commend.’
‘You mean?’ said Carstairs, biting back the remark that was on the tip of his tongue.
Mrs Bradley smiled her reptilian smile. Carstairs had seen boa-constrictors at the Zoological Gardens with the same expression on their wide, thin mouths, and he shuddered involuntarily at the recollection of it.
‘You may ask your question, my friend,’ she said, with her uncanny knack of reading his thoughts.
Carstairs, who, through familiarity with it, had become inured to this phenomenon, shrugged his shoulders very slightly, and then laughed.
‘On your own head be it, then!’ he said.
‘How very unchivalrous of you!’ mocked Mrs Bradley. ‘But never mind. Fire away!’
‘Well,’ said Carstairs, with pardonable hesitation, ‘I was rather curious to know how you managed to hide the hyoscin bottle. I mean, that was the crux of the matter at the trial, wasn’t it? Although the prosecution tried to gloss over the fact that the poison could not be traced to anybody, I noticed that the defence made rather a point of it.’
‘Yes, that, and the apparent absence of motive on my part,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘formed very formidable obstacles to the prosecution; not to mention the clever way in which you found the dirty medicine-glass.’
‘But if they could have traced the hyoscin to you?’ Carstairs gently insisted.
‘Ah, but that, my friend, was what they could never do,’ said Mrs Bradley, with her eldritch screech of laughter. ‘You see, I hadn’t it in my possession after I was arrested, and neither had I hidden it anywhere.’
‘Then I don’t see——’ began Carstairs, beginning to wonder whether all his theories were wrong, and whether the shrivelled little human macaw in front of him was entirely innocent of the crime after all.
‘I’ll tell you who has the hyoscin,’ said Mrs Bradley, lowering her vibrant voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘It will surprise you. Yes, you will receive a shock, my dear friend. It is yourself, and yourself only, who have hidden the hyoscin bottle so well! But you must return it to me now. I shall commit no more murders with it, I promise you, but I must have it, for it is useful to me in my work as an alienist.’
‘But I don’t understand! Surely you are amusing yourself at my expense!’ cried Carstairs. ‘Do you, or do you not, admit that you poisoned Eleanor Bing?’
‘Since I cannot be tried twice for the same offence,’ said Mrs Bradley equably, ‘I will confess to you that I did poison Eleanor Bing deliberately, and as the law quaintly expresses it, by my wilful act. The poison, as, no doubt, you have determined for yourself, I administered in the coffee which I gave to Eleanor instead of the sleeping-draught. I waited until I knew she was dead, then I hid her body in the wardrobe, got into her bed, and answered the girl Cobb (who is verging on mental deficiency) when she called Eleanor next morning. The dangerous part of the business lay in getting the body to the bathroom, and in returning to Eleanor’s room without being seen. However, luckily for me, Eleanor was a remarkably early riser, and there was little chance of meeting any of you at that hour of the morning. As for the hyoscin, you know better than I where it is. What did you do with the little dark-green bottle of lavender water I asked you to return to Dorothy Bing?’
‘The—the lavender water?’ cried Carstairs, his eyes nearly starting out of his head. ‘Why—why—oh, so that’s what it was! Dorothy had her own bottle, of course, and returned me yours. I expect it is still in the pocket of that same suit, which, by the way, I haven’t worn since.’
‘Well,’ remarked Mrs Bradley calmly, ‘I think you had better find out whether Dorothy returned you the right bottle. Hyoscin-hydrobromide isn’t very safe stuff to leave in the hands of the general public. My bottle had a tiny label on the bottom, so it can be distinguished easily enough.’
‘Then it is yours I have,’ said Carstairs. ‘I imagined it was the maker’s label, and did not trouble to decipher it.’
‘Just as well,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘That little formula means the same thing all over Europe, I presume.’
‘But,’ said Carstairs, chuckling in spite of himself, ‘why was I chosen for the honourable role of accessory after the fact?’
‘Well, you see, the inspector loved you so!’ said Mrs Bradley, cackling with glee. ‘Don’t you remember telling me how much both he and the Chief Constable doted on you? I recollect your exact words. You said if every one of us was murdered and you were the only one left alive to tell the tale, the police wouldn’t have the heart to arrest you. So I thought they would hardly imagine that you were hiding the cat in the bag so nicely for me. But I had one very hard piece of luck, Mr Carstairs. I am sure I shall have your sympathy when I tell you what it was. I took a great deal of trouble to wash out that coffee cup and flask in the bathroom after I laid out poor dear Eleanor in the bath, and I ran a dreadful risk by stealing downstairs to obtain the dregs of the coffee which Bing’s servants always seem to leave in the coffee-pot. If only the good Boring could have come to the house a little sooner, he would have had the joy of sending the dirty coffee cup to be analysed, and he would have discovered that it contained—coffee! When I found that my intelligent anticipation of his movements had been ruined by the zealous Mabel (thank heaven she had the sense to leave the wineglass alone), I was obliged to lay another trail. I put a weak solution of the hyoscin into Eleanor’s medicine-glass, then, with the aid of my penknife, I slid a fish-slice underneath the bottom. Thus I managed to carry the glass without touching it with my fingers, and so imposing my own prints upon those made by Eleanor, when she drank the sal-volatile after having been nearly drowned by darling Bertie that morning. I locked up the medicine-glass in Eleanor’s own medicine cupboard, and hoped for the best.’
‘What the devil is a fish-slice?’ asked Carstairs.
Mrs Bradley rang the bell for her maid.
‘Bring me a fish-slice, Celestine,’ she said. Then she turned again to Carstairs.
‘What would you have used, then?’ she asked, cackling harshly.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he replied, half-humorously falling in with her mood. ‘A bricklayer’s trowel, I suppose.’
‘Yes, quite good. But, whereas bricklayers’ trowels are hard to come by, the humble fish-slice resides in every well-conducted home,’ said Mrs Bradley, hooting with mirth.
MORE VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERIES
MARGERY ALLINGHAM
Mystery Mile
Police at the Funeral
Sweet Danger
Fl
owers for the Judge
The Case of the Late Pig
The Fashion in Shrouds
Traitor’s Purse
Coroner’s Pidgin
More Work for the Undertaker
The Tiger in the Smoke
The Beckoning Lady
Hide My Eyes
The China Governess
The Mind Readers
Cargo of Eagles
E. F. BENSON
The Blotting Book
The Luck of the Vails
NICHOLAS BLAKE
A Question of Proof
Thou Shell of Death
There’s Trouble Brewing
The Beast Must Die
The Smiler With the Knife
Malice in Wonderland
The Case of the Abominable Snowman
Minute for Murder
Head of a Traveller
The Dreadful Hollow
The Whisper in the Gloom
End of Chapter
The Widow’s Cruise
The Worm of Death
The Sad Variety
The Morning After Death
EDMUND CRISPIN
Buried for Pleasure
The Case of the Gilded Fly
Holy Disorders
Love Lies Bleeding
The Moving Toyshop
Swan Song
A. A. MILNE
The Red House Mystery
GLADYS MITCHELL
Speedy Death
The Mystery of a Butcher’s Shop
The Longer Bodies
The Saltmarsh Murders
Death and the Opera
The Devil at Saxon Wall
Dead Men’s Morris
Come Away, Death
St Peter’s Finger
Brazen Tongue
Hangman’s Curfew
When Last I Died
Laurels Are Poison
Here Comes a Chopper
Death and the Maiden
Tom Brown’s Body
Groaning Spinney
The Devil’s Elbow
The Echoing Strangers
Watson’s Choice
The Twenty-Third Man
Spotted Hemlock
Speedy Death Page 24