Death and the Maiden mb-20

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘So, probably, did the conception of good and evil,’ Mrs Bradley remarked. ‘Light your pipe, then, child, and let us be cosy. First, though, what about the dog?’

  Gavin took out his pipe.

  ‘Ah, yes, the dog,’ he said. ‘I’ve been asking the local people more about it. They are confident that the wretched carcase was not there at the time, or immediately after, the boy Biggin’s body was found, and the vet. says the dog had not been dead as long as that, and that agrees with the post-mortem.’

  Before this entrancing subject could develop, Mr Tidson came into the smoke-room.

  ‘I can’t find Thomas,’ he said.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Bradley, not at all taken aback by his sudden appearance, although Gavin wondered how much he had heard from outside the door, ‘You are just the person, Mr Tidson! You now have ample confirmation of the presence of your naiad in the Itchen. Mr Gavin has not only seen her, but he has heard her speak.’

  ‘That wasn’t the naiad. That was Crete,’ said Mr Tidson snappishly. ‘I told her the water was too cold, and that bathing wasn’t permitted. I am really rather cross with Crete. I wish you would speak to her for her good. As a doctor, I mean. She has a high temperature and a cold in the head to-day. I don’t care for a snuffling wife. It is most annoying when people sniff, and complain of a headache, and all through their own fault, too! If she must bathe, she ought to go to Bournemouth. I won’t have her frightening the fish!’

  Mrs Bradley said that she was sorry to hear that Mrs Tidson had taken cold, and that the bathing at Bournemouth was enjoyable, but that it seemed a long way to go for a swim, although Connie Carmody had done it.

  ‘At any rate, it will teach her not to make fun of my nymph,’ went on Mr Tidson. ‘I dislike practical joking, especially on subjects of academic interest.’

  ‘Talking of those,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘I am still most intrigued by those contusions you all sustained on the morning after the night when I threw the nail-brush. Do you remember? Not that I intended that as a practical joke, but it must have seemed rather like it.’

  Mr Tidson looked bewildered.

  ‘When you threw—?’ he said, blinking, as though he found her statement too difficult to follow.

  ‘Yes. An intruder or marauder, or even—’ She paused and eyed him beadily.

  ‘Or even?’ said Mr Tidson boldly.

  ‘Or even a murderer, entered the room I had exchanged for my own, and I threw the soap. It slipped, so I tried the nailbrush. It got home. Next morning Connie, you and your wife, and even poor Miss Carmody, all had bruises on the face. Do you remember?’

  ‘I remember Crete’s criminal carelessness,’ said Mr Tidson. ‘And I remember that we explained to you what had happened. But why did you throw anything at all at the intruder? Would it not have been better to arouse the household? – Perhaps not, though, as it wasn’t a private house. Were you much alarmed? I suppose you must have been. And how did you come to be near the nailbrush to throw it?’

  ‘Well, Connie complained of ghosts,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘and we exchanged rooms. It occurred to me that she might have been the victim of an intentional intrusion, so I thought I would wait up to find out what happened, or, rather, whether anything would happen.’

  ‘And somebody really came in?’

  ‘Yes, by way of the air-raid-precautions passage, which, later, upon my representations, the management kindly blocked up.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘And next day you all had those bruises.’

  ‘Even Connie!’ said Mr Tidson with meaning. ‘Yes, even Connie,’ Mrs Bradley agreed.

  ‘But only one person entered the room that night?’

  ‘Precisely. Only one person.’

  ‘Coincidence,’ said Mr Tidson, with a shrug.

  ‘She must have had a very long arm to black four people’s eyes on the same morning,’ said Gavin. Mr Tidson turned round on him at once.

  ‘In a city which harbours a naiad in a chalk stream, anything may happen,’ he said in a tone of reproof; but before he could continue he heard Thomas come into the vestibule, and, breaking off his remarks, he darted to the door to waylay him.

  ‘There is one more thing,’ said Mrs Bradley, when Mr Tidson, having demanded an ABC time-table from Thomas, had gone off to the lounge to peruse it. She described the early-morning walk on which she had followed Crete Tidson out of the town.

  ‘And somebody in a car brought her a letter?’ said Gavin. ‘What do you make of it? – an assignment? She’s a very beautiful woman, and Tidson isn’t very exciting, I imagine.’

  ‘Well, whatever I make of it,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘this peculiar case is mostly guess-work.’

  ‘Then you do make something of it? – Come on! You agreed to put your cards on the table.’

  ‘Right. I should not be at all surprised if the letter did not contain a message from Connie Carmody.’

  ‘But isn’t Miss Connie Carmody supposed to dislike and distrust the Tidsons? I understood that she was afraid of Mr Tidson, in fact.’

  ‘She gave that impression, but their interests in some matters are the same.’

  ‘You mean she is jealous of the boy, young Preece-Harvard, and the Tidsons want his money? I’d like to have a look at that letter.’

  ‘There is no need to trouble about that. I can guess what was in it. You might be able to trace the man who brought the letter, but I don’t really think that is necessary. If the letter was what I think, we shall prove it from the Tidsons’ reactions, particularly those of Crete. I should not be surprised if she is getting rather tired of the business.’

  ‘She wouldn’t give the whole thing away if we pressed her hard, I suppose?’

  ‘I doubt it. It would make her an accessory. Besides, whatever she might tell us, I doubt whether she could prove it. The murderer has made one bad although unavoidable mistake, but I don’t think Crete was there, and I don’t think she knows how significant it was.’

  ‘How do you mean – a bad mistake?’

  ‘In killing the second boy. I don’t think that was part of the original plan.’

  ‘I see. This lad Biggin might have seen the first murder committed, I suppose. He must have been sleeping out, from what we can gather. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘I should say there was little doubt of it. The boy was in hiding, as you say, from the authorities, and may easily have seen what was done. He may even have tried to threaten the murderer on the strength of it.’

  ‘It’s a plausible theory, anyway. But why kill the first boy? Why have murdered young Grier?’

  ‘To show how easy it was to kill and not be found out, perhaps!’

  ‘That’s not what you really think. There must be a stronger motive.’

  ‘Well, there may be an additional motive, but we’ve nothing to go on. No obvious motive arises, as far as the evidence goes.’

  ‘You’re right there! Nothing adds up. What do you make of the dog?’

  ‘I think Tidson was the first who found it. It was where the second body was found, or near enough—’

  ‘How do you know Tidson found it? That seems to me rather far-fetched.’

  ‘It wouldn’t if you had seen him fishing with that old boot to draw a crowd of children to the spot, as Kitty, Laura and Alice did. He wanted the dog to be found and a certain inference to be drawn—’

  ‘Of course! That the dog had been killed by a sadistic lunatic, and that the same person had killed the boy!’

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘Well, if you’re right, I should say the whole thing’s in the bag. Tidson himself is the murderer, wicked old man! Somehow, I always thought he was. Now, how are we going to get him? I can ask him how he came to get soaked through that night, but he’s sure to have some plausible excuse to give me.’

  ‘He will stick to the story about his nymph,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘By the way, I think Connie killed the dog.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes. A good t
hing for Mr Tidson, I should say. The dog may have saved his life.’

  ‘Oh, substitution of some sort?’

  ‘Yes, and rationalization. Her hatred of Mr Tidson is dangerously deep.’

  ‘But when did she do it?’

  ‘Since she has been staying in Lewes. You have only to ask at the hotel which night she did not sleep there. Of course, they may not know, but it would be well worth trying.’

  ‘Thanks for the tip. But still, the dog isn’t those boys.’

  ‘Nevertheless, cave canem,’ said Mrs Bradley.

  * Italicised words are peculiar, I believe, to Winchester College, and mean respectively holiday, work, evening preparation, idling.

  * Line. 115. Translated by D. W. Lucas and F. J. A. Cruso.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘They enquired after Nancy very civilly and sent Compts. . . . It was an awkward day for visiting . . .’

  Diary of a Country Parson: the REVEREND

  JAMES WOODFORDE, Vol. 3, 1788–1792.

  Edited by JOHN BERESFORD

  ‘SO THAT young Connie was telling lies about hating the Tidsons,’ said Laura, when the report from Lewes had come in, and Connie’s messenger had been named by the police of that ancient and interesting town, who, incidentally, had nothing whatever against him. ‘I should never have thought it!’

  ‘And you need not think it now,’ said Mrs Bradley. She and her secretary were again alone at the Domus, for the Tidsons and Miss Carmody had departed (with the full complement of luggage, this time) and with them, in the sense that they had caught the same train and were not due to return to Winchester that summer, had gone Kitty and Alice. ‘If we could find Connie’s letter it might throw some light upon her relationship with the Tidsons, although not very much, I imagine, but I still do not believe there is any love lost. And now I think that you and I, child, should return to Kensington, calling for Connie first and taking her with us. A short course of your bracing society will be the very thing for her, I imagine. We must re-orient her mind.’

  Laura looked disappointed.

  ‘Cheer up,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘We can do no more here for the present, so nothing is lost by our return. The rest lies with the police.’

  ‘But what about those stones? The weapons, you know,’ said Laura. Mrs Bradley shrugged.

  ‘The police will find them,’ she said. ‘But there is one more thing we have to do, now that the Tidsons and Miss Carmody have gone. It is something that will interest you, I think. I have arranged that nothing is to be touched in their rooms until to-morrow. Young Mr Gavin is coming this afternoon, whilst most of the guests are out, to blow chalk all over the furniture. You’ll like that, won’t you?’

  ‘Fingerprints!’ said Laura with enthusiasm. ‘And then we can compare them with those they’re going to find on the stones. By the way – a thing I didn’t know before – fingerprints don’t wash off, not even in running water. David Gavin was telling me about it. Oh, and talking of David, and to cut short a long and embarrassing story—’

  ‘Dear, dear!’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Don’t tell me I’m going to lose you! I might have guessed that I was playing a foolish, short-sighted game when I introduced a Scotsman into your life!’

  Laura grinned.

  ‘You’ve guessed it,’ she said contentedly. ‘Yes, the lad and I have come to a sort of understanding. I’m not to interfere with his career, and he’s not to take me away from my job, and we fight all the time in any case, but, apart from that, there seems little reason why the wedding bells, as such, should not peal out in the comparatively near future. Your congratulations are neither solicited nor desired. I think, myself, I’m being a bit of a fool, but you probably know how it is.’

  ‘Well, well!’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Dear me! And I never suspected a thing!’

  ‘Call yourself a detective!’ said Laura. ‘I thought it stuck out a mile! Still, we haven’t really seen much of one another yet, you know, and it’s a nuisance I shall have to be the one to have the children. It’s such a waste of time, and the sort of thing calculated, I should fancy, to drive intelligent females mad, but there it is. Three boys and a girl is my schedule, to be produced within nine years. What do you think? Is that reasonable? I thought I’d get it over, you know, and then take up motor-racing or something. I shall try to get some sort of foster-mother for the offspring – someone like old K., who’s good with children.’

  Mrs Bradley hooted with respectful amusement, and then said soberly:

  ‘Talking of foster-mothers—’

  ‘Ah, yes, that Grier woman,’ said Laura. ‘Look here, let’s order some of Thomas’ champagne cocktails. Do you remember him giving Mr Tidson more brandy in his? I wonder whether he’d do the same for us? Perhaps I had better not suggest it.’

  She summoned Thomas, and informed him that she was shortly getting married and required something to drown her sorrows.

  ‘Och, aye,’ replied Thomas. He looked at her oddly, shook his head, made a scraping noise in his throat, and then went out.

  ‘Something on his conscience,’ said Laura. ‘You’d better get him to spill it. There’s not very much gets past the Laird o’ Cockpen.’

  ‘You may be right in both surmises,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘but I don’t think we’ll trouble him at present. I fancy that he was merely expressing disapproval of lawful matrimony.’

  After lunch Gavin arrived, looking pleased with himself. With him came a fingerprint expert, and, assisted (or, as Gavin informed her, hindered and interrupted) by Laura, they tested every article of furniture in the bedrooms of Miss Carmody and the Tidsons for fingerprints. A splendid set of Connie’s prints had been taken at Mrs Bradley’s Stone House by Laura upon a tumbler. This she now proudly produced, to the amusement of Mrs Bradley and the staggered incredulity of her swain.

  ‘Thought they might come in useful at some time or another,’ she observed. ‘I’ve been preserving this exhibit under my tallest hat ever since I brought it back from Wandles Parva. Don’t look so moonstruck, David,’ she added to Gavin. ‘Stranger things will happen in the future, so you’d better prepare yourself now.’

  ‘You’re telling me!’ said Gavin. ‘What’s the matter with this room, Buckle?’ he suddenly demanded, turning off to address his expert. ‘Can’t we get cracking?’

  ‘Nothing’s the matter, sir, except that every single print has been wiped off everything,’ replied the fingerprint expert, straightening himself from a kneeling position beside the wardrobe drawer.

  ‘Have you tried the jerry?’ Laura indelicately demanded. Buckle unearthed the repository and carefully tested it, using a dark-tinted powder on its glaze.

  ‘Nothing doing,’ he said at last. ‘And there isn’t another thing, sir. I’ll say that whoever used this room last must have had prints on record, sir. Very wily birds, to have covered their tracks as well as this, I reckon.’

  ‘Guilty consciences, too,’ said Gavin. ‘Cheer up, Buckle! Better luck in the next room, I dare say.’ He led the way to the bedroom Miss Carmody had occupied. Here the conditions were vastly different. Miss Carmody’s room was practically knee-deep in fingerprints, as Laura chose to express it. The prints, announced Gavin with considerable confidence, belonged to three or four different people. Buckle agreed.

  ‘Miss Carmody, the housemaid, and the porter who brought down the luggage (those on the finger-plate of the door, sir), and a set belonging to some other person who came in.’

  ‘Crete Tidson,’ said Gavin, ‘very likely.’

  ‘So, if some of these are Crete Tidson’s fingerprints, she can’t have anything to hide,’ suggested Laura.

  ‘If she had anything to hide, her prints wouldn’t be in this room at all,’ agreed Gavin. ‘Even so, it doesn’t get us much further. We shan’t find Tidson’s prints on the stone if he’s the murderer. Still, there are other possibilities. Now we’d better do Mrs Tidson’s room – she didn’t share with her husband – and if she’s left prints we may take it she�
��s nothing to hide.’

  Crete’s room, however, was as bare of prints as the first room which had been tested.

  ‘Damn!’ said Gavin. ‘Ah, well, these we’ve got will have to be compared with the prints we’ve found on our collection. If anything tallies, we may be a step further on, and we may not. Plenty of people pick up stones and heave them into a river, goodness knows!’

  ‘The only thing is,’ said Laura, ‘that there aren’t all that number of biggish stones on the river banks for people to pick up and heave. Can’t you get something from that?’

  ‘True for you, we might be able to,’ said Gavin. ‘Anyway, we have to wait and see.’

  Waiting and seeing produced a definite result. One of the inspector’s collection of large, heavy stones bore undoubted traces of blood. It also bore Connie Carmody’s fingerprints. It was also very neatly labelled Weir.

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ said Gavin, as much dismayed by this discovery as even Laura could have wished. ‘Here’s a pretty how-de-do, I don’t think! What are we going to do now?’

  ‘We must see whether it’s human gore,’ said Laura, with vivid recollections of the smell of the very dead dog. Gavin brightened; then he resumed his former lugubrious expression. ‘Even if it is the dog, it’s a bit of a pointer,’ he said. ‘Mrs Bradley has said several times that practice makes perfect, you know. And someone who knew that Connie had killed the dog moved it to where we found young Biggin.’

  ‘That surely lets Connie out?’ said Laura. ‘And, anyway, you’ve still some of your big stones to test.’

  ‘Scores, if not hundreds,’ Gavin replied. ‘But, before I go any further, I suppose I shall have to interview this Connie – confound her for a red-herring and a nuisance!’

  ‘The sooner the better,’ Mrs Bradley agreed when she was asked. ‘Let us go to Lewes at once. This ought to be cleared up immediately. We must frighten the life out of Connie, although I hesitate to add “for her good.”‘