‘I don’t know so much,’ said Laura. ‘According to old Tidson, that’s the bridge he fell off trying to see his nymph on the night little Grier got drowned. Well, it couldn’t have been! And now Crete—’
‘What’s she got to do with it, Dog?’
‘Well, she doesn’t want me trying the same stunt on her. Not that she’d make a bad nymph. I will say that for her. She’s got classical lines all right. Wonder why she married old Tidson?’
‘Oh, nymphs and satyrs,’ said Kitty. ‘But it isn’t the nymph who drowns the boys, or is it? Could be, you mean, if Crete can swim.’
‘It could be. And we don’t always know what Crete does while we’ve all been out.’
‘Still—’
‘Oh, I admit it’s unlikely. I can’t see her bothering herself, and that’s a fact. Still, she is a bit unaccountable. Why did she marry old Tidson, I still demand. I should think she could have had her pick, shouldn’t you?’
‘Perhaps he was rich when she married him,’ Alice deferentially suggested. ‘Rich husbands can always get wives, whatever you may say to the contrary.’
‘But I don’t say anything to the contrary, duck,’ said Laura. ‘I’m with you every time, especially in statements of fact, of which that undoubtedly was one. Only, you see, from what K. and I could learn on our visit to Liverpool, it didn’t sound as though Tidson had ever been fabulously wealthy. Certainly not wealthy enough to tempt a female who could have married the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo, or anyone else she pleased. She’s a woman who’d make a painter scream with joy.’
‘Perhaps she wanted British nationality. Some foreigners will do anything to get it. She’d have got it by marrying Tidson,’ suggested Alice.
‘The fate worse than death, I should have thought, to marry Tidson. Still, something, perhaps, in what you say. It doesn’t account for the murders of two perfectly ordinary boys.’
‘You don’t know whether it does or not,’ said Alice. ‘And were they such ordinary boys? The second one was a delinquent. I don’t call that frightfully ordinary.’
Laura picked up the soap from the washstand and threw it.
‘Good Lord!’ she said, starting up. ‘I’m awfully sorry, young Alice! Did it hurt?’
‘Nothing to signify,’ said Alice, tidily retrieving the soap and replacing it in the soap-dish before putting a hand to her head.
‘Where did it catch you? In the eyeball?’
‘Not quite. Don’t fuss. I’ve had far worse knocks from people’s elbows in netball.’
‘You’ll have a black eye to-morrow, I shouldn’t wonder. The others did, according to Mrs Croc.’
‘What others?’
Laura explained.
‘Wish I’d been here to see,’ she regretfully added. ‘It appears the bruises soon wore off, but they must have been fun while they lasted. Do you bruise easily, young Alice?’
‘Fairly easily. Don’t keep on. I’ve no beauty to spoil, thank goodness.’
‘A Christian attitude,’ said Laura. ‘Nevertheless, accept our sincere apologies.’
‘Rather funny if she didn’t bruise,’ said Kitty, thoughtfully. Laura looked at her in surprise, but Kitty’s bland expression betrayed no detective faculties, and Laura, who had been in close association with her friend from their early school days, knew better than to suspect her of having any. It was a chance and frothy remark, made merely on the spur of the moment, but it put such a wild idea into Laura’s head that she felt she could scarcely wait until Mrs Bradley’s return to confide it, nor for the next morning to prove whether Kitty could possibly be right. If she were right, such vistas of crime and counter-crime rose before Laura’s inward eye that she felt staggered at the implications which they evoked.
‘Let’s go out and chase naiads,’ she suggested. ‘Crete will be out of that bathroom in two or three minutes. Let’s not be here when she comes back.’
‘Let’s go to the place where the body was found,’ said Kitty. ‘I might get an idea. Who knows?’
‘I do,’ said Laura rudely. ‘Sherlock Holmes might, but I’m pretty sure you won’t, duck. It’s a mistake to go out of your age-group.’
The thought of a walk was welcome, and an objective seemed desirable. Laura put her head in at the doorways of all three lounges and into the smoking-room, too, and Alice went into the garden. Miss Carmody was in the garden with some crochet and the hotel bore who had engaged her as audience, and so was safe, thought Alice, for at least another hour. Of Mr Tidson there was no sign anywhere. Alice joined the others without having been seen by Miss Carmody, and Laura waylaid Thomas in the vestibule and asked for Mr Tidson.
‘He was awa’ wi’ his fishin’ rod,’ said Thomas. ‘Mabel was speirin’ wad he be in tae his dinner, and he said he thought he wad, and for his tea, too. He was verra, very pleased wi’ himsel’, was yon wee mannie, although whit way he would be so, I dinna ken.’
‘I thought Mr and Mrs Tidson and Miss Carmody had left the hotel,’ said Laura.
‘We didna think tae see them syne,’ said Thomas, ‘although they didna tak’ their luggage. Bad bawbees aye turn up again, I’ll be thinking!’ He went off to the kitchen, and the girls went up the marble steps to the hotel entrance, and were soon in the street.
‘I wish I knew where to ’phone Mrs Croc.,’ said Laura. ‘I feel she ought to know about the Tidsons and Miss Carmody coming straight back. I wonder how long she’ll be away? They could never have intended to leave. It was some sort of blind. I wonder what the scheme is, anyway? Well, never mind! Come on.’
* Mr Anthony Buxton’s fox-terrier. Chapter 4 of Fisherman Naturalist.
Chapter Fifteen
‘He will have had much experience: and this is necessary if you are to describe so varied a pursuit as angling, where the possibilities are so many that some incidents only repeat themselves once or twice in a life-time.’
J. W. HILLS (A Summer on the Test)
Along the edges of the carriers the water-mint and the loosestrife were in flower. Meadow-sweet, with its large, dense cymes; the meadow-rue, with its spreading stamens and smooth, tripartite leaves; the lance-leaved Ragged Robin; the watercress; the hollow-stemmed angelica; the fertile water dropwort, and, in a tiny pond, the yellow water-lily, clothed the fields and the river banks and tinged the streams with red, white, purple, green and gold.
The sun was hot, but thunder hung in the air. Laura glanced at the sky and then at the hills.
‘We’ll probably get wet,’ she observed. ‘It’s going to rain.’
‘Oh, rot!’ said the urban Kitty. ‘There isn’t a cloud!’
‘It will rain,’ said Laura, with conviction, ‘and you haven’t a hat. Will that coiffure of yours come unstuck if we get a downpour?’
‘Lord, no, Dog. It’s a perm. Besides, it won’t rain. You’ll see. And, talking of hats, we could have a look for old Tidson’s.’
Alice made no remark. The three, sauntering and loitering, took nearly an hour to reach the brickwork banking on the weir. Laura, astride on the verge, surveyed the concrete platform.
161
‘Nasty sort of place,’ she said. ‘Why have we come?’
‘To watch Mr Tidson fishing,’ Alice replied. She indicated a lone fisherman occupied with what seemed a heavy line.
‘In this water? Has he gone crazy?’ Laura demanded. ‘I don’t know. That’s a boot on his line,’ said Alice simply.
They watched, from the cover of some bushes. Suddenly Alice touched Laura’s arm. Crete Tidson was coming along the railway path. She walked with a long, free stride and was softly whistling the Soldier’s Chorus from Faust.
‘Now what?’ muttered Laura, drawing her companions deeper into the bushes. ‘Look out, Kitty! Don’t fall backwards down the bank. The water’s filthy down there.’
The unsuspecting Crete soon joined her husband, and then they walked towards the girls and stood on the brick-work. Their antics were instructive and peculiar. First one and then
the other would toss the boot into the water. It was retrieved every time with the fishing line, on the end of which was a meat-hook. As soon as this hook took hold of a piece of bent wire which had been fastened between the eyelet-holes of the boot to form an arch, the line was reeled in and the catch removed from the hook. Each partner did this in turn.
A group of little boys came along and inspected the strange proceedings. At one time there must have been a dozen of them or more. They were difficult to count because they were hardly ever still, for they followed the adventures of the boot, and occasionally waded into the stream to retrieve it for the Tidsons when it fell over the edge of the concrete slab and into the rapids below.
On the approach of some grown-up people, Mr Tidson, whose turn it was to fish, and who had just hooked the boot for the fourth time since the girls and the audience of children had been watching, took the trophy and flung it into a clump of bushes on the other side of the stream. Then he put up the rod, and, accompanied by his wife (after he had distributed some coppers among the children), walked under the railway arch, so that the girls lost sight of both of them.
The children followed him. Very soon some of them returned. They seemed half-inclined to paddle across the stream in search of the boot. This scheme was abandoned, however, and after about ten minutes the children went away again.
‘So that’s how it could have been done,’ said Alice thoughtfully.
‘What could?’ Kitty enquired.
‘Enticement, duck,’ said Laura. ‘You could collect fifty kids as easy as winking, and look them over and decide upon the victim. You could bet kids would fall for a silly stunt like that boot business. They’re like sheep when there’s something daft or dangerous to look at.’
‘Doesn’t sound to me like sheep,’ objected Kitty.
‘Well, you know what I mean. I’m going to nab the Inspector if Mrs Croc. isn’t back, and put him wise to this. Otherwise there may be another murder before we know where we are. I can’t understand why Tidson shows his hand like this, though, and, unless he’a a homicidal maniac, I can’t see the point in what he’s doing.’
‘What a wicked old man!’ cried Kitty. ‘How dare he murder little boys!’
‘Of course, we don’t know that he does, duck. Alice only said that’s how the victim could have been chosen, and I agreed with her. I do think he might be the murderer, but we’ve still to prove it.’
‘Yes,’ said Alice. ‘If he’s the murderer he’s a fool to show his hand so openly, but, all the same, as I say, it just proves how easy it is to get hold of children, and I think Mrs Bradley ought to know about it.’
‘And the Inspector,’ reiterated Laura. ‘Goodness knows when Mrs Croc. will be back, and now we have these suspicions I don’t think we ought to hold our horses. Even one more day might may make a difference.’
‘Before we leave the place,’ said Kitty, ‘what about retrieving the boot?’
‘Not a bad idea. What about fingerprints, though? We don’t want to superimpose ours on Mr Tidson’s,’ said Alice. To her astonishment and discomfort, Laura suddenly slapped her on the back.
‘That’s it! Of course!’ she cried. ‘Oh, no, though, it isn’t, at that, unless they knew we were watching, and I don’t think they did.’
‘What on earth are you babbling about, Dog?’ asked Kitty resentfully.
‘Be prepared for a great thought, duck,’ Laura responded. ‘Supposing there were some reason – some subtle and horrible reason – why Tidson’s or Crete’s fingerprints were on that boot before this afternoon – that second boy was barefoot, you know, when he was found – it would be to their advantage to have witnesses to this afternoon’s little game. Well, they’ve got their witnesses, although the audience was mostly a gang of kids. All the same, our first idea may be right – you know, a way of deciding which kid to pick out for the next little bump on the head.’
‘With a half-brick,’ said Kitty, without foreseeing the result of these words. Laura gazed at her spellbound, then spoke in reverent tones:
‘Not your own unaided thought? Attababy! We’ll go after that boot! The half-brick may be over there, too. By the way, we think this boy was wearing sandals, but never mind that. Go on, young Alice! Watch your step. There are old tin cans below the weir, or my eyes deceive me.’
‘We’ll all go,’ said Alice firmly. ‘I’m not going alone to a bank where bodies slide out of the bushes!’
‘I shan’t go,’ said Kitty, with a shudder. ‘You’ll need someone on this side to look after your shoes and stockings. Go with her, Dog. Don’t be so lazy. And both of you mind how you go. There might be something horrid again in those bushes. I’m sure there’s a nasty smell.’
Laura sniffed the air. ‘You’re about right at that,’ she agreed. ‘I thought at first it was merely the “unforgettable, unforgotten” mentioned by R. Brooke, but I don’t believe it’s the river, after all. It’s a much worse stink than any river could manage. I thought something put those kids off. Kids are apt to have delicate noses. Of course, the local council’s rubbish dump isn’t so far away, but, all the same—’
‘I’m not going to be made responsible for finding another body,’ said Alice, with a shudder. ‘One is enough. I’m not going over there, Dog. You had better go and fetch the police.’
‘Fie, fie upon thee!’ replied Laura, sitting down upon the brickwork and removing her shoes and stockings. ‘Here goes. It’s probably a dead rabbit the stoats have had, that’s all.’
Without another word Alice sat down beside her, and, stony-eyed but loyal, immediately followed her example, and removed her stockings and shoes.
‘Now don’t go to sleep, K.,’ said the leader of the expedition, lowering herself to the concrete with its inch or two of swiftly-running water. ‘We may want help, and we may want a message taken. Come on, young Alice, and look out, because it’s hellishly slippery on this stone stuff, and if you fall you may easily crack a bone.’
‘Don’t worry. I feel like a dog on a tight-rope,’ said Alice. This striking simile caused Laura to choke with surprise and she missed her footing. Slipping wildly on the slimy concrete, she flung herself at the opposite bank, determined not to fall down.
‘Oh, gosh!’ she cried, as a cloud of flies, of a green-winged nauseating kind, rose up in a cloud like bees from an overturned hive. ‘It’s a – I think it’s a dead animal of some sort. No, definitely nothing human, but I should go back, if I were you. It isn’t terribly nice, and there’s not more than half of it left!’
‘Phew!’ said Alice. ‘I hope we shan’t be poisoned! How long do you think it’s been dead?’
‘Days, Days and days, I should say. Come on. Let’s go.’ They retreated, and, at Alice’s suggestion, took the long way home.
‘I feel I need a breath of fresh air,’ she explained. The consequence was that they reached the hotel at five, and dead-heated with Mrs Bradley, who had returned to the Domus from Lewes.
‘A dead animal?’ she said very thoughtfully. ‘And the Tidsons and Miss Carmody are back? Very interesting, all of it. What have you done with Inspector Gavin, by the way?’
‘I expect he’s fishing,’ said Laura. ‘Have you had tea?’
‘No. Let us have it together.’
‘I don’t know that I feel like tea,’ said Laura mournfully. ‘My stomach’s been turned, that’s what.’
‘You said it would rain,’ said Alice, to change the subject. She looked up at the sky above the square white Georgian house on the opposite side of the street. ‘See? Here it comes.’
Great drops, proving her assertion, fell on the pavement and splashed on the roof of the car. The party went into the hotel and through to the lounge, and in a very few minutes the episcopal Thomas appeared with a laden tray, followed by one of his myrmidons, a small, black-trousered individual called Pollen, with another, larger tray.
‘It’s guid tae see ye,’ Thomas announced as he set the tray down. ‘Pit the tray dune, mon,’ he added to
Pollen, ‘and bring over the wee table. The night’s settin’ in real weet. I’ll just pit a light tae the fire.’
Brushing aside such guests as were in his way, he did this, and the fire, recognizing the master-touch, crackled cheerily.
‘And very nice, too,’ observed Laura. ‘I feel hungry now, after all, and a fire’s always jolly when it’s wet. How’s Connie?’
‘Still in the land of the living,’ Mrs Bradley cautiously replied. She greeted the Tidsons and Miss Carmody with a very nice blend of surprise and pleasure when she saw them come in from the garden. Miss Carmody explained that London was dusty and hot, and that Edris feared for his asthma.
‘So here we are, back again,’ she concluded, ‘and now, of course, it’s going to set in wet. If the rain continues over to-morrow, we shall go back to London after all. Strange, was it not, that we all forgot to have the luggage put into the car when we left!’
‘Not so very strange,’ replied Mrs Bradley. ‘It is a Freudian symbol.’
‘It is?’ said Mr Tidson, joining in the discussion with frankness, benevolence, and curiosity. ‘Pray explain, my dear Mrs Bradley. I am afraid it only seems to me like carelessness, both on our own part and on the part of the hotel. But, of course, I thought Prissie had looked to it, and she thought I had. But Freud—?’
‘It is very simple,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Freud thinks—’
‘Thought,’ said Miss Carmody, ‘surely?’
‘Thinks,’ Mrs Bradley firmly but courteously reiterated. ‘There is no past tense in the conjugation of genius, especially when it has left us whatever of itself can be conveyed by the printed page; and there is no past tense in heaven, which Freud undoubtedly inherits.’ She eyed her cowed audience benignly, and then continued, ‘Freud thinks that we leave objects necessary or dear to us in the place where we leave our hearts. You desired to be in Winchester, not in London (and I admire and applaud your choice), and so you left your luggage here. That is all.’
This speech left all her female hearers with nothing to say. Mr Tidson, however, was not so handicapped.
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