Winking at the Brim (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “What’s all that noise about?”

  “Visiting rounds,” said Sally briskly. “Anything to report, Major?”

  “Of course there isn’t. What should there be to report?”

  “Well, there are rumours of a brief sighting. It happened yesterday afternoon. We wondered whether you had any confirmation of it, but, of course, I didn’t expect to find you up here. We thought you were still at Site Two.”

  “Oh, those youngsters wanted a change, and I wasn’t averse to it myself, so we swapped over yesterday afternoon. All using sleeping-bags, so no problem about changing the bedding, as my wife pointed out.”

  “I see. And you haven’t any news for me to take back to Sir Humphrey? You didn’t see anything yesterday?”

  “Certainly not. Far too busy swapping caravans yesterday to fool about looking for monsters.”

  “What about Godiva and Winfrith?”

  “Getting the breakfast. They’d have squealed soon enough if there was anything to squeal about.”

  “Who is going to handle the boat now that the three boys have gone?”

  “Handle it myself, with a bit of help in shoving off. Disgracefully muddy, these banks. Going to do a bit of fishing, as a matter of fact.”

  “So what about the camera up at the shooting lodge?”

  “So what about it? I shall ferry the Benson girls over, of course, whether they like it or not. They’ve had the use of the caravan so far. Now they can take on the lodge.”

  “And you’ll ferry me, too, I hope,” said Angela Barton.

  “Why you?” snorted the major. “Thought you’d given up the job. Been out on your tod these last few days, haven’t you? Spotted you through my binoculars. Run into trouble on some of these hills if you’re not careful. A woman of your age ain’t a giddy goat, you know.”

  “I leave it to you older men to behave like goats,” said Angela. There was such a degree of meaningful malice in her tone that even Sally, who knew Angela’s reputation, was astonished. She was equally surprised by the major’s reaction.

  “Only meant I’d spotted you when I was on watch at that damn’ tent, don’t you know,” he said humbly.

  “Oh, well,” said Sally hastily, “if there’s nothing to report, I’ll be moving on. What about it, Angela? Are you going to stay here until the major is ready to take you across?”

  “Oh, I’ll explore around,” said Angela. “Perhaps I won’t cross here, after all. I’ll probably go as far as the stream at the head of the loch. The weather has been so dry that there’s very little water coming down. I may be able to get across the stream by wading.”

  “You are intrepid,” said Sally. “All right, then, I’ll be off.”

  “Had your breakfast, I suppose?” said the major, indicating a half-hearted offer of hospitality. “Not that I know whether there’s enough for two more,” he added, as the fragrant smell of frying bacon was becoming increasingly insistent.

  “Had mine hours ago, thanks,” said Sally. “See you at supper, Angela.” Angela went on her chosen way. Sally walked to the van, reversed it to a turning-place, and drove back to what had been, originally, the major’s caravan. On the way to it she passed the tent, until recently the watching-point, supposedly, from which the major and his wife had operated, but Sally did not even trouble to stop the van and get out. It was clear that the tent was untenanted and its camera unmanned.

  At the caravan she saw Marjorie Parris. Marjorie had imported, it seemed, a miniature rotating clothes-drier. She had stuck into the soft soil the end of the stick from which its rails depended and, as Sally drove up, she descended the steps of the caravan carrying what proved to be a limp, wet collection of two see-through blouses, two pairs of tights, and a pale pink brassière. These she proceeded to arrange on the drier.

  “And wash their filthy shirts and socks I will not,” she said, as Sally came up. “They can go dip them in the loch if they want to, but I’m not touching the beastly things. Goodness! I’m nothing but a squaw as it is! Where would I be if I took in three men’s washing as well?”

  “There’s a woman in the village who’ll do it,” said Sally. “Sir Humphrey took ours to her cottage yesterday.”

  “How come you’re playing hooky?”

  “I’m on visiting rounds again. Did any of your lot see anything yesterday? I’m supposed to take back a report.”

  “My dear girl, we were moving house. We didn’t have a chance to see anything.”

  “Surely it didn’t take you all day? This was just after lunch. A lot of fish in the loch went mad, and then there was this glimpse of the monster.”

  “Oh, rot! Somebody was tight,” said Marjorie. “We were tight ourselves, as a matter of fact—well, call it a weeny bit sloshed. You see, to make the move, we really had to have transport, so we made Nigel slog it to the village and bring out our estate car. Then we loaded up and brought all our stuff here, and the major’s lot loaded up and took their stuff there, and Nigel had the forethought to stack up with some canned beer from the pub, and we all had a drink and a good rest after our labours.”

  “A good sleep, I suppose you mean,” said Sally.

  “We may have closed our eyes, yes. Don’t your lot drink anything but tea, then?”

  “We did knock back a couple of bottles of sparkling burgundy,” admitted Sally. “It sent Phyllis to sleep, too, as a matter of fact.”

  “Well, there you are, then. She dreamt the whole thing. I wouldn’t put anything past Phyllis, even a sighting of the monster, when she’s had a couple of stoups of wine.”

  “As a matter of fact, it wasn’t Phyllis…”

  “Don’t tell me it was Angela! Was she tight, too? Who’s this woman who takes in washing? Sounds just the thing to help me out.”

  “A Mrs. MacIntyre. Anyone will tell you which is her cottage.”

  So that was how everybody was going to take her story, if she told it, thought Sally. She decided not to tell it. She went back to the van, started it up, and drove back to the village. Mrs. McLauchlin was standing at the door of the inn. Sally, who was driving slowly, pulled up and got out. Mrs. McLauchlin beamed at her.

  “Nae doubt you’ll have come for your breakfast,” she said.

  “No, I had it ages ago,” said Sally. “You’re not open yet, I suppose? I could do with a drink.”

  “Wha’s tae fash aboot the licensing laws oot here? Come ben,” said the hospitable innkeeper’s wife. “Losh! Gin a body havered the like, whaur wud oor profits be?” She led the way into the bar and called for Jock. “Sairve the young leddy,” she said, “but no the shepherds’ whusky, mind ye!”

  A tousle-haired servitor appeared. He grinned at his employer and said to Sally,

  “Whit way wad ye be speirin’ for a dram at this ’oor, lassie?”

  “No business of yours, ye Gorbals…!” said Mrs. McLauchlin, with trenchant sternness. “Juist sairve the young leddy and hae din wi’ your gommeril craiks!”

  “Whit’ll it be, then?” asked the lad sullenly.

  “What’s wrong with the shepherds’ whisky?” asked Sally, not that she wanted it, but the question was inevitable under the circumstances. The youth glanced at his employer.

  “Och, that!” said Mrs. McLauchlin, laughing. “It’s juist that we’ll be a wee thing short the morn’s morn, and I’ll be finding it hard tae saitisfy the lads when they come in tae their dinner.”

  “Oh, well, I wasn’t going to ask for it, anyway,” said Sally. “I don’t like whisky. You wouldn’t have cider, by any chance?”

  “Cider? Och, no. There’s nae ca’ for it hereaboots. Ye can get a shandy-gaff or juist the ale or the lemonade. Wull ane o’ them dae for ye?”

  “A shandy, then, please.” Sally paid for her drink. Mrs. McLauchlin went behind the bar, sat down on a stool, and looked prepared for conversation.

  “And hoo is the auld yin getting on wi’ his monster?” she asked.

  “It’s early days y
et,” replied Sally, determined not to be drawn into admitting to such a convinced sceptic that she herself had had a sighting. “By the way, I’m rather intrigued by the situation of the empty hunting-lodge and that ruined cottage above the loch. Is there no access to them except by boat? Can’t they be reached by road?”

  “There’s a road, but I doubt it’s overgrown the noo. Gin ye tak’ the road oot o’ the clachan the far side the toun, ye’ll likely see a signpost, gin it’s still there, but ye’ll not get your wee van alang there, I’ll be thinking. Lang syne that way was in use. It’ll no be ony guid the day.”

  Sally finished her drink and went out to the van. She had to report back to Sir Humphrey, but, after that, the day, within limits, was her own. It amused her to hear Tannasgan referred to as a town. She could only suppose that the seaside holiday-makers, if there were any, were responsible for conferring this dignity upon it, or else the hamlet beyond it was so insignificant as to make Tannasgan seem large by comparison.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Body at the Crofter’s Cottage

  “Unhouseled. disappointed, unaneled.”

  William Shakespeare.

  (1)

  When Sally arrived back, there was nobody at, or in, Sir Humphrey’s caravan. Lady Calshott and Phyllis were already on duty at the tent, Sally supposed, but Sir Humphrey had left a note pinned on the caravan door.

  Sally. Please write report, if any, on bottom of this sheet. A pencil on a piece of string dangled from a second drawing-pin. Without detaching it, Sally, after a glance at her watch, wrote down the time and added, Major and Nigel have switched caravans. No sightings. Then she drove back to Tannasgan and along a narrow road which led to the hamlet mentioned by Mrs. McLauchlin.

  This was nothing more than a very small fishing village. Once past it, the road, not much more than single track, began to wind upwards among the hills. The lower slopes were covered with bracken and heather, the latter just beginning to show patches of pink cross-leaved heath on the boggy, roadside stretches, with the deep-coloured purple heather dyeing the upper slopes. The bracken, still young, was brilliantly green and, again near the road, there were tufts of white-headed cotton-grass. Here and there stood a solitary silver birch, but, in the distance and up on the hill-slopes, there were dark pine-woods below the bare and sharply-outlined high tops and their shadowed corries.

  Sally drove at a leisurely thirty-five miles an hour, met nothing on the road, and enjoyed the peace, the scenery, and the sense of personal freedom. The serpentine road wound on and mounted all the time, the van ran sweetly, and Sally began to sing. For the first fifteen miles there was no sign of a turning and she wondered whether she had missed the one mentioned by Mrs. McLauchlin, although she felt that it mattered little or nothing if such was the case. It was sufficient to be her own mistress, travelling in comfort and alone. Before her, but so far in the distance that their colour was the blackish-blue of slate, rose a mountain range, peak behind peak.

  The road skirted a small ravine and a stone-built, humped-backed bridge took the car across a little, tumbling stream. On the further side of the bridge there was a roadside patch of grass. Sally pulled up, got out, and tested the grass to make sure that it was firm enough to take the van. Satisfied, she drove on to it and decided to eat her lunch. The van was well-stocked, but a simple meal of wheaten crispbread and some cheese suited her fancy, with an orange to follow.

  A mile further on, she came to a signpost at narrow crossroads. She took the right-hand fork. The gradients grew steeper and the road wound and curved so abruptly that the mountain range seemed now to be on one side of her and now on the other. Soon she was passing through the pine forest and then, when the trees were left behind, she could see in the valley on her right the gleam of water and was sure that she was looking down on the Loch of the Ghost, Loch na Tannasg itself.

  Soon after this, the track-like road began to slope slightly downhill. It took a long curve to the right and straightened out again high above the banks of a small stream which here ran in a miniature gorge. Sally supposed it to be the same water which she had crossed previously before she turned off into the hills. The road ran fairly level for the next few miles and Sally had long since lost sight of the glinting loch when she saw what she had been hoping for, another turning which might possibly lead down to it. She was again facing the mountains, this time those which, beforetime, had seemed to her to foregather at the head of the loch behind its feeder river and the last solitary island on which stood the ruined priory.

  A quarter of a mile down this little turning the trackway narrowed until it would no longer take the width of the van. Moreover, it was partly overgrown with bracken, gorse, and heather. Sally backed the van with great caution until she had parked it safely, then she took up a walking stick, got out, locked the van, and set off on foot down what proved to be a steep and difficult slope. Soon she found herself among low-growing silver birches and great stretches of fox-gloves and rose-bay willow-herb. Still the path, such as it was (only barely discernible), wound downwards and she began to get more glimpses of the loch.

  The pale-blue sky by this time had disappeared. Great black clouds, heavy with rain, had moved up and there was an ominous roll of thunder in the distance. Sally was in two minds whether to turn back. Her walking-shoes were stout enough, but she had no mackintosh and was wearing crimplene trousers and a thin shirt. However, the loch now came in full sight and, stopping to make a reconnaissance, she judged that she must be getting near the tumbledown cottage, once inhabited by crofters, which stood above the deserted hunting-lodge.

  The wayside bones of a long-dead sheep confirmed this judgment, so she pressed on and, as the first few heavy drops of rain presaged the approaching storm, comforted herself with the assurance that, at any rate, she was on the way to some sort of shelter. At the next turn of the now almost obliterated path she saw her goal, and, at the same moment, there was a flash of lightning and a startling peal of thunder. Regardless of the hazards underfoot, Sally began to run. She stumbled often and once went down full length, but the tough, high-growing, springy heather broke her fall and she scrambled up and almost beat the rain which, as she flung herself into the doorless cottage, descended in vicious, slanting spears which cut at her thin shirt like cold knives.

  The cottage was nothing more than a but-and-ben. Fortunately the doorless opening gave on to what had been the living-quarters and here the roof was almost intact. The room, however, was no longer untenanted. On the earthen floor lay the body of Angela Barton. Beside her was a thermos flask, its metal cup a little distance away, where presumably, it had dropped from the woman’s hand as she fell.

  The horrified Sally did not know what to do. Gingerly she touched a dead hand and found it cold but not yet stiff. She straightened up and forced herself to memorise the scene and the position and appearance of the corpse. Angela had never had any pretensions to physical beauty. Hers was a sardonic little face and now its habitual expression was emphasised by a fixed and horrid smile, the risus sardonicus (although Sally did not know this at the time) symptomatic of poisoning by strychnine.

  Angela’s was the first dead body Sally had ever seen. She had been accustomed to think of death in terms of majesty and austere beauty, but Angela’s body was meagre, ugly, and repellent, and the horrible grin on her face was a commentary (Sally felt) and a clue. She was right enough in thinking so. It was a commentary, and not a flattering one, upon Angela’s nature when she had been alive. It was also a clue as to the manner of her death.

  Two other things, one horrifying, the other puzzling, struck Sally. There was a deep wound in the throat of the corpse, raw, dark red, and nauseating to the beholder. That was the horrifying matter. The puzzling one was that the body was wet through; not rain-wet, Sally shudderingly realised, but the clothing and hair were as sodden as though they had been immersed in the loch.

  Beside the body were an empty envelope and the letter which, presumably, had been
contained in it. These were perfectly dry. Sally remembered that Angela had called for a letter at the post-office, so, in view of the circumstances in which she found herself, she picked up the letter and read it.

  “Oh, Lord!” she said aloud. She replaced the letter on the floor as near as possible to the spot from which she had picked it up. It bore the signature of Esmond Chester and stated that the writer had made “other arrangements, probably of a permanent nature,” and no longer required the services of a housekeeper. “But as you are not in such a position as to require to earn your living,” the letter continued, “I trust that my plans will not affect our cordial relationship, but that you will feel free to visit the vicarage as before and continue your invaluable work for the parish.”

  Sally walked to the doorway. There was nothing to be done for Angela. That was clear. There remained the necessity of reporting the death and getting help in removing the body to a more suitable resting-place.

  The rain, however, was still pouring down and the heavens were black, although the thunder was now no more than a distant muttering and the lightning flashes were infrequent. Sally had not spotted the hunting-lodge on her precipitous dash for the shelter of the cottage, but that was her obvious port of call, since two of the watchers (Godiva and Winfrith presumably, if the major had had his way) must be posted on duty and would be taking shelter from the rain.

  On the other hand, little though she liked sharing the cottage with a corpse, Sally did not want to get soaked through, since she still had a considerable distance to drive before she could get back to the inn and, with any luck, beg a hot bath from the good-natured Mrs. McLauchlin. She had a change of clothes and towels in the van, it was true, but the prospect of dripping all over the floor and then of having the problem of drying her present outfit did not appeal to her in the slightest degree.