Winking at the Brim (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “That Angela was one kind of bitch and Marjorie was another,” said Sally.

  CHAPTER 19

  Leviathan Speaks

  “No more? A monster then, a dream…”

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

  In spite of Laura’s distrust of aeroplanes, the party of four flew to Glasgow where the three women went straight to the hotel at which Dame Beatrice and Laura had stayed on their previous visit. Assistant Commissioner Robert Gavin joined them for dinner after he had paid a friendly, strictly unofficial visit to the chief of police in the city.

  “Sympathy, but no dice,” he said later, when the four of them were seated in the lounge. “They found your arguments interesting, but indicated that there would have to be far firmer evidence of murder before they would be prepared to change the verdict of suicide.”

  “What more do they want?” demanded Laura. “We can present them with poisoned wine, a forged letter, evidence of means, motive, and opportunity…”

  “I know. Oh, they’ll take another look at it all, never fear, but naturally they’re cautious. Never mind. We’ll all go and take a look at Loch na Tannasg tomorrow morning. We might see the monster, even if we don’t catch up with the major, although I must say I should rather like a word with him, although I couldn’t act on it officially. Not my job any more to track down murderers and I should be poaching, anyway, if I did it up here without invitation,” said her husband.

  Early on the following morning he hired a car and the party drove to the inn at Tannasgan.

  “Major Tamworth is it?” said Mrs. McLauchlin. “Och, aye, he’ll be hereaboots. Booked in last night verra late. Couldna get a flight, he said, so he had tae come by the train. He was like something dementit the morn, and awa’ tae the loch. Tellt us he was for a day’s fushin’ and speired at whit way he micht be getting a boatie. I tellt him the boat Sir Humphrey had wis still there, so off he ganged. Na, na, he hadna a caur. The caur which brocht him frae Glesca wis tae come for him the morn’s morn.”

  “Thanks,” said Laura, who had been making the enquiries. “You look after Sally, Gavin, and I’ll take Mrs. Croc. If the major has a guilty conscience, he may turn nasty, so we’d better divvy up the muscle men if we’re going to cover both sides of the loch.”

  “You’d better take the car, then,” said Sally. “You know the way to the hunting-lodge, don’t you? We’ll walk along the south bank as far as the pine-wood. It’s about the only place where he can beach the boat.”

  “Then I think we’ll all take the car as far as it will go along the south bank, and wait for him,” said Gavin. “He’ll have to come back that way if he hasn’t a car.”

  They did not get a sight of the boat and its occupant until they had almost reached the pine-wood. Even then, the boat was not the first thing that they noticed. Far over on the north side of the loch the surface began to boil and churn. Then a broad wake, fish-tailing out in foam, turned the hitherto quiet water to a maelstrom on which they saw that a boat was tossing like a cork. Sally, who had binoculars, cried out, “Good gracious, there he is!”

  There was no question of an attempt at rescue. The boat was too far off. Laura, indeed, kicked off her shoes, but Gavin gripped her so tightly that even the Amazonian Laura could not break free.

  “No use, love,” he said in her ear. Neither was it of any use. The maelstrom did not cease nor the foaming water diminish its fury until there could be no hope for the occupant of the boat. At last there was nothing to see but the boat floating upside down, a distant scurry of foam and, a little ahead of that, a darkish, small object which might have been the head of an aquatic animal.

  “Well,” said Gavin, “I’m afraid there’s nothing to do but to get back and tell the police what’s happened. I suppose they’ll recover the body sooner or later.”

  Suddenly, from the seaward end of the loch where the fishtail of foam was now fast disappearing, there came a peculiar crying. It could have been a baying of hounds or possibly a lowing of cattle. It reverberated strangely among the impassive mountains like an angry, negative reply.

  The body was never recovered.

  About the Author

  Gladys Mitchell was born in the village of Cowley, Oxford, in April 1901. She was educated at the Rothschild School in Brentford, the Green School in Isleworth, and at Goldsmiths and University Colleges in London. For many years Miss Mitchell taught history and English, swimming, and games. She retired from this work in 1950 but became so bored without the constant stimulus and irritation of teaching that she accepted a post at the Matthew Arnold School in Staines, where she taught English and History, wrote the annual school play, and coached hurdling. She was a member of the Detection Club, the PEN, the Middlesex Education Society, and the British Olympic Association. Her father’s family are Scots, and a Scottish influence has appeared in some of her books.