The proceedings soon came to an end. There was little to be learned from them except the age of the boy which, given in the newspaper as thirteen, turned out to be only twelve. This discrepancy was explained, amid tears of contrition, by the boy’s mother – or, rather, foster-mother – who confessed that the family had moved to Winchester just before the war, and that the boy was the child of some friends who had sent him away from Southampton. They themselves had been killed, six months later, during a raid. She confessed that she had given the boy’s age as a year more than it was, so that he could go to work a year sooner than the law allowed. Her tears, Mrs Bradley thought, were from the mainspring of greed rather than grief, for the family, although humble, were comfortably circumstanced enough, and the woman’s only regret was for the money now never to be earned. Apart from that, it seemed more than likely that she was glad to be rid of the boy, for the billeting money, she declared, was insufficient for his keep.
‘Not much love lost in that household!’ said Miss Carmody, as she and Mrs Bradley walked back towards the Domus for lunch.
‘And not much explanation as to how the boy came to be drowned,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I wonder whether I could get permission to see the body? Not, I imagine, that that would tell me much. But it seems rather odd—’
‘I will find out when the funeral is to be,’ said Miss Carmody readily. ‘One thing, I shall scarcely feel, after what that unpleasant woman said, that I am intruding on the sanctity of grief! By the way, I ought to tell you about the sandal.’
‘Did the dead boy wear sandals?’ Mrs Bradley immediately enquired. ‘I thought we were told it was boots.’
‘Yes, yes. He had boots. This was just something very peculiar that Edris did. You remember I warned you he was given to odd ideas . . .’ She recounted how Mr Tidson had shown them the sandal, told of the way he had disposed of it, and mentioned Connie’s reactions.
‘And, of course, he was out that night, and got very, very wet, and he was out very early next morning,’ she said in conclusion, and explained how she knew all this. ‘His arm and hand had abrasions,’ she added, ‘which seems strange in a six-foot pool.’
The family on whom the dead child had been billeted occupied a small house, one of a compact, uninteresting row, in a street alongside a stream on the north side of the city. Far from experiencing any difficulty in getting in to see the dead child, Miss Carmody and Mrs Bradley discovered that his home was open from front to back so that the whole neighbourhood, if it wished, could file past to look at the body.
Mrs Bradley and Miss Carmody, stared at with un-resentful curiosity by the neighbourhood, had only to join the small single-file queue of morbid sightseers in the street outside, to find themselves at the end of an hour at the bedside of the dead boy. He had been laid out in the sitting-room, and a collecting-box for money to be spent on wreaths and (if the appearance of the foster-father gave any guide) upon alcoholic comfort for the relatives, was displayed at the foot of the bed.
Death had given to the child the strange and awful beauty of the departed. His eyes were closed, his fair hair, now carefully dried and combed, was long and curled slightly on his brow, and his arms had been crossed upon his narrow and bony chest. Mrs Bradley drew back the covers to see this. The people in front of her had done the same thing, and had muttered, ‘Don’t he look peaceful,’ before they drew the covers back again, so she knew that she would be violating none of the customs if she followed their example. She even passed a claw gently over the top of his head, on which was an unexplained lump – referred to by the doctor at the inquest – which indicated that the lad had been struck before he was drowned, or had fallen on something hard before he tumbled into the extremely shallow water where he was found.
Mrs Bradley’s bright eyes and beaky mouth did not betray her thoughts. She put money in the collecting-box, gave a last look round, and, followed by Miss Carmody, went out at the back door of the house. They found themselves in a narrow alley, beyond the fencing of which they could see a bend of the river. Mrs Bradley collared a little girl who was playing with a skipping-rope nearby.
‘I want to see where Bobby was drowned,’ she said. The child, who was only too willing to display to strangers what had become the site of a nine days’ wonder, nodded intelligently and said with emphasis:
‘I’m going to the pictures after the funeral, if I can get the money.’
‘But do you think that is right?’ demanded Miss Carmody, shocked by this juxtaposition of entertainment.
‘It’s a sad picture,’ said the child defensively. She turned from the unsympathetic Miss Carmody, and said importantly to Mrs Bradley:
‘It’s over the bridge and down along ’ere it was. My father found ’im.’
Mrs Bradley had already heard the evidence of the man who had found the body. He had come upon it at just after five in the morning, on the way to his work. The medical evidence – the doctor had seen the body at six o’clock – showed that the lad had been dead for less than twelve hours. Mrs Bradley looked at the shallow water. It was wide and sedgy, but one would scarcely have thought it could be fatal, especially to a twelve-year-old boy. (Still, the bump on the head explained all.)
‘When will your father be home from work?’ Mrs Bradley asked the little girl. It appeared that he was expected within half an hour, and, the gift of sufficient money for the pictures having established their right to her services, the child led the way to a house in the same row as that in which the dead child lay. The village, an offshoot of Winchester proper, consisted of a single long main street in which the houses were almost all alike. The child turned the handle of the front door, invited the two ladies into the parlour, left them just inside the room, and went through to the kitchen for her mother.
‘Mum, they’ve come about Bobby Grier,’ she called out.
The mother, an anxious soul, came in looking thoroughly frightened.
‘Are you sociable ladies?’ she enquired.
‘Yes,’ said Miss Carmody, who felt that she could claim this description for herself. ‘We came to find out whether there was anything we could do. The poor little laddie, you know . . .’
‘For the Griers?’ enquired their hostess, with a sniff. ‘I daresay they’ll let you, but, although I wouldn’t talk against any of the neighbours, because that don’t do, and things gets around so quick, I don’t say it ’ud be necessary. Not what sociable ladies wouldn’t call necessary, any’ow. Very grabbing she is, although I’d take it a favour you didn’t tell ’er I said so. We’ve got reasons to ’ave our differences.’
She spoke breathlessly, Mrs Bradley noticed. This was explained a moment later.
‘Ted – that’s my ’usband – the police haven’t been very nice to ’im about poor Bobby Grier. Don’t leave you a chance to tell the honest truth. I feel frightened every knock at the door, and so I tell you. It’s ’ard not to be believed. Ted couldn’t ’elp it if’e found ’im. You’d think the poor child ’ad been murdered and Ted ’ad done it, the way they’ve kept all on. It’s been really cruel. And, of course—’ The pause was awkward. Mrs Bradley filled it.
‘And, of course, the police want such full explanations,’ she said, ‘that our lives become scarcely our own.’
The woman agreed, and seemed about to enlarge on the point, but at this moment Mr Potter, the husband, was heard. He scraped his feet beside the front door of the house, and then walked into the parlour, which opened directly off the street.
He looked a little shy, and not particularly gratified, when he saw that there was company in the house. He said, ‘Servant, ladies,’ in what Miss Carmody referred to afterwards as a delightfully old-fashioned way, went through to the kitchen, and dumped his bag of tools on the floor. He looked a good deal younger than the woman, and was well-set-up and good-looking.
‘You got to go back, Ted,’ said his wife, who had followed him out. There was a lengthy and muttered colloquy, and then the wife added loudly, ‘It’s some
sociable ladies come to see you about the Griers. There ain’t nothing for you to be afraid of. Not as you deserve I should say it, but there it is.’
Mr Potter observed that he had better clean himself, then, and proceeded, from the sounds, to sluice himself vigorously under the kitchen tap. He reappeared at the end of ten minutes with damp front hair and wearing, to Miss Carmody’s gratification, a rather tight collar.
‘A mark of real respect,’ she muttered to Mrs Bradley.
‘Not newspapers, I suppose?’ he said nervously as he sat down and put his large hands on his knees. ‘You wouldn’t come from the newspapers, I suppose?’
‘I don’t know but what it will come to that,’ said Mrs Bradley, before Miss Carmody could speak. ‘I’m worried about the death of that boy, Mr Potter. Why was it such a long time before he was found?’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Potter, lifting one hand and bringing it back into place with a fearful whack. ‘What did I tell you, Lizzie? “Funny I’d have looked,” I said, “if that boy ’ad ’appened to be murdered,” I said. Didn’t I say that, Lizzie? You’re my witness to that, my gal. I said it the minute I come in when I’d fetched the police. Now didn’t I?’ He looked at his wife with a kind of hang-dog defiance not very pretty to see.
‘Yes, you did say it, Ted, but I dunno as you ought to repeat it in front of strangers,’ said Mrs Potter, glancing at the strangers to see the effect of his words. Relations between the Potters were not too good, Mrs Bradley noticed. She wondered what the woman suspected, or, possibly, knew.
‘What made you think of murder, Mr Potter?’ asked Miss Carmody keenly, leaning forward, her hands on her knees.
‘Why, nothing,’ he replied, a trifle confused, ‘except – well, you know ’ow it is, mum. It struck me comical, like, as a biggish lad like Bob should a-got hisself drownded in about six inches of water, as you might say, for ’e laid very near the edge, half into some plants. And another thing—’ He lowered his voice and gave a furtive glance at his wife. The two of them were certainly on the defensive with one another, almost as though they had quarrelled but did not want strangers to know it.
‘You be careful, Ted!’ said the woman. He shrugged his wide shoulders, but seemed disposed to obey her.
‘Yes, Mr Potter?’ said Mrs Bradley, with hypnotic effect. Miss Carmody sat straighter in her chair.
‘Oh nothing, excepting a soft straw hat laid underneath him. I didn’t tell the police. They’d ’a thought I was making it up. You see, mum, it wasn’t there when I went to work after taking of ’im home and making Ma Grier call the doctor.’
‘Ma Grier!’ said Mrs Potter scornfully. ‘That’s a new name for ’er, ain’t it? And you shouldn’t of mentioned that ’at! Very likely your fancy, I reckon. And as for ’im not being drownded, you know very well that ’is poor little head was right under! You said so yourself to the coroner! Don’t you remember? Bob was drownded. His head was right under. That’s what you said, and you can’t go back on it now.’
‘Well, right enough, so it was right under,’ Mr Potter admitted hastily. ‘But if these ’ere ladies ’ave seen the place, I’ll back they know what I’m a-gettin’ at. Not deep enough to drown in, not for a lad of his sense.’
‘The same thought struck me,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘But the boy might have fallen and stunned himself, as the doctor suggested at the inquest, and have tumbled into the water. He had a bad bruise on his head.’
‘But the bump was on top of ’is head, and he was laying face downward in the water,’ said Mr Potter. ‘That’s why the coroner would give an open verdict. Quite right, too, in my opinion. There’s been too many murders since the war.’
After a slight pause, Mrs Bradley again asked whether the parents had not missed the boy on the Wednesday evening, and repeated her observation that a very long time had passed before he was found. Had not the parents looked for him, she enquired.
‘Foster-parents. He wasn’t theirs,’ said Mrs Potter. ‘But miss the boy? Not them! Down at the Bull and Bushell, same as usual. Wednesdays and Saturdays was their nights, and that’s where they was, chance what! What do you say, Ted? You ought to know where old man Grier spends his time!’
Mr Potter confirmed this view, and said he had seen them in there. He had popped in for half a pint, he added (with an appealing glance at his wife), and there they both were.
‘Was that generally known?’ asked Mrs Bradley. ‘That they frequented this public house on Wednesdays and Saturdays?’
‘Known all along ’ere, at any rate.’
‘And in the city?’
‘Us takes no truck in the city. Nought but ecclesiastical that don’t be.’
‘I see.’
‘Till late years, been a separate village, us ’ave. Worked in the city, maybe, some of us ’ave, but nothing to do with their affairs. Don’t know nothing about ’em, anyhow. The Dean, he see to Winchester. Us keep ourselves to ourselves.’
‘Yes, I see. Then – don’t the children go and play along the river past Winchester? Do they never go into the water-meadows towards St Cross?’ demanded Miss Carmody, the nymph and Mr Tidson foremost in her thoughts.
‘Why should ’em?’ asked Mr Potter in surprise. ‘Got our own river, ’aven’t us, ’ere in the village? Why should ’em go? If they think to go further, they goes over to the reck, like, or to that there bit of a brook by King Alfred’s gate.’
‘Yes, I see,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘What kind of boy was Bobby Grier? Did the other boys like him?’
‘That I couldn’t tell you, mum. Little enough I knowed of him. My little un, now, her could tell you. But he wasn’t Mrs Grier’s own, as I daresay you ’eard us say a minute ago.’
Mrs Bradley nodded. The little girl Potter was not visible when the two elderly ladies left the house, and Mrs Bradley was about to suggest that they should return to the Domus when Miss Carmody said surprisingly and suddenly:
‘I think we ought to tax that Grier woman with Edris.’
‘Tax her?’ Mrs Bradley enquired.
‘Certainly. Edris must be the man the police will want for the murder. There! It is out! I’ve said it!’
‘But why should you say it?’ Mrs Bradley enquired. ‘What makes you connect your Mr Tidson with the death of this boy?’
‘Little enough, in one sense, but a very great deal in another,’ Miss Carmody mysteriously replied; and they walked back to Mrs Grier’s house. The house was quiet now. The curiosity of the villagers was sated, the front door was shut and the family had settled down to tea.
After Mrs Bradley had knocked twice, the door opened to about one-seventh of its possible semi-circumference, and a suspicious eye peered forth.
‘When did you first miss Bobby?’ enquired Mrs Bradley, deeming that surprise tactics would be the best method of approach.
‘We never,’ said the owner of the eye. ‘And we don’t want no more bothering. We got the funeral to see to.’ The door slammed. Mrs Bradley took Miss Carmody by the hand and hurried her up the street, and they came back to Winchester by way of Water Lane into Bridge Street. All the way Miss Carmody asked only one question, but it was one which Mrs Bradley found herself unable to answer satisfactorily.
‘Don’t you think the little boy was murdered?’
‘Only by the pricking of my thumbs, and that will hardly impress the police,’ Mrs Bradley replied. ‘It is the bump on top of his head that interests me most. I felt for it, as, no doubt, you noticed. It was a bad enough blow to have stunned him, and I have no doubt it did, but it certainly did not kill him. The question, of course, is how he came by it.’
‘Well,’ said Miss Carmody, with a certain amount of hesitation, ‘he might have knocked his head accidentally and then felt faint or confused and fallen forward into the water. But there was that sandal which Edris put on the dust-cart. Crete mentioned it to me last night, and then, I think, wished she had not, and, certainly, I would never have dreamed of reminding her about it. Of course, she might be very glad to
get rid of Edris, and if he were proved to be a murderer . . . You know, I’m afraid of Edris. He is really a very strange man . . .’
Mrs Bradley said nothing. She was too much astonished to speak. There were various ways in which a wife could have reminded Miss Carmody about the sandal, and Mrs Bradley could not help wondering whether Miss Carmody’s remark was not uncomfortably disingenuous. After all, it was rather more likely, considering all the circumstances, that Miss Carmody, rather than Crete, should be anxious to be rid of Mr Tidson.
Another picture rose unbidden before Mrs Bradley’s inward eye – the picture of a tall, mild-mannered spinster visiting the Cathedral by moonlight. By moonlight, Mrs Bradley reflected, glancing sidelong at her companion, almost everyone takes on a personality not entirely righteous or his own. ‘Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,’ . . . She suddenly cackled, startling a baby and a dog.
‘Why do you laugh?’ Miss Carmody nervously enquired.
‘I laugh at my thoughts,’ Mrs Bradley replied,’ although they are not really much of a laughing matter. How steeply the High Street mounts to the West Gate, does it not?’
‘Well, and what do you think of my naiad now?’ enquired Mr Tidson, when the party met for cocktails before dinner. ‘I have a theory that the boy was drowned in pursuit of her, you know. She may even have beckoned him in.’
‘Yes, you said so before,’ said Crete. ‘But we do not see what you have to go on.’
‘He was a fine little boy. I’ve seen him,’ said Miss Carmody. She described the afternoon visits which she and Mrs Bradley had paid, but did not reconstruct their conversation.
‘These parents who go off in the evening and leave their children to fend for themselves are incurring a very serious responsibility,’ said Mr Tidson, beaming upon Thomas as he beckoned him to come to where they sat. ‘Champagne cocktails, I think, this evening, Thomas.’
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