When Last I Died

by Gladys Mitchell

  She decided to take Muriel first. Her behaviour at the inquest and the trial scarcely accorded with the somewhat mouse-like character which Bella had given her in the diary, but that was not necessarily surprising. Bella, possibly, had never seen her roused. And yet—hadn't she?

  Before she tackled Muriel, however, Mrs. Bradley decided to take a look at another factor in the case, one with a personality, possibly, of its own; to wit, the haunted house.

  She drove first to the inn at which Bella and Muriel had lodged. It was an old place pleasingly reconditioned, and George drove in through an ancient gatehouse arch and drew up in a gravelled courtyard.

  Mrs. Bradley, bidding George put the car up and go and get himself a drink, went into the lounge and ordered a cocktail which she did not really want. While it was being brought, she looked about her.

  The lounge was an oak-beamed, low-ceilinged room with the huge open fireplace of the original house and the comfortable armchairs and handy little tables of modernity. The order for the cocktail had been taken by a young girl who had come out from behind the reception desk, and who proved to be the daughter of the house. As she did not look more than eighteen it was unlikely, Mrs. Bradley thought, that she retained any memory of guests who had been at the inn six years before. The drink was brought by a waitress, who said pleasantly :

  "Taking lunch here, madam?"

  "Yes," said Mrs. Bradley.

  "Straight through the door at the back, madam. Only I thought I'd ask, because we shall fill up in a few minutes, and I could see you get a good table."

  Lunch offered no opportunity for the kind of conversation Mrs. Bradley had in mind, so when she received her cocktail she scribbled a note which she gave to the waitress to deliver to George in the bar. It was to tell him to get his lunch, and take the car back to Wandles for a suitcase. She proposed to spend at least one night, possibly two, at the inn, to make certain of the local geography before she interviewed Muriel, whose address, so far, she did not know.

  After she had had lunch, a short walk, described by the girl who was now back at the reception desk, brought her to the haunted house. The owner of the house, with commendable commonsense, had decided to commercialise its reputation following the acquittal of Bella Foxley for the murder, and it was with little surprise and a certain amount of amusement that Mrs. Bradley found that she could enter the house upon payment of a shilling, and that in return for her entrance fee she was to be escorted round the building by an old man who pointed out the spot where the body had been found, the window from which it had fallen, the Haunted Walk (a picturesque addition, Mrs. Bradley surmised, to what had previously been known about the hauntings) and the Cold Room (further embellishment of an old tale?), where, sure enough, it was possible to feel a draught of air which came through some crack impossible to perceive in the dim light of the landing.

  "Is that all?" she asked, when this conducted tour was over, and she found herself back at the front door.

  "There's nothing else, without you can get a special permit, like they ghost-hunting gentlemen have that comes here sometimes in the summer," the old man answered.

  "And from whom do I get such a permit? You see, I used to know something of the people who lived here. I was abroad at the time the thing happened, but it was a great shock to me to hear of the gentleman's sudden death."

  "Ah, sudden it was, to be sure," the old man answered. "A kind, good gentleman, too. I remember him well. But murdered? Not unless the spirits did him in. Ah, that's what it must have been!" He chuckled, and then added, to Mrs. Bradley's gratification :

  "Not as we heard much of the hauntings before he came here, mind you, though there was plenty to swear to the moanin' and 'owling that set up just after he died, and before it, too."

  "Oh, but I understood that the house was haunted by a horned huntsman," said Mrs. Bradley. "Somebody with no head."

  "Rubbage," said the old man sturdily. "Village chatter. Though, mind, it be a very old 'ouse; older, a sight, than what you can see of it now."

  "But it had been empty for a long time, surely?"

  "Ah, but that was on account of the damp. Do what you would, that damp would come up, and where it rises from is more than I can tell you, for there ain't no water near, except for a well, but I never 'eard that was the trouble."

  "Does the water still come up?"

  "Ah, that it do, but not this time of the year. Come October, though, if we gets any rain, the water will be marking all those walls."

  "What a pity. Can nothing be done?"

  "I don't know, I'm sure. One house I was caretaker of, well, you could account for that being damp. Built over a river, that one was, on account the first owner was a little bit touched, it seems"—he tapped his forehead—"and said a witch was after him but that she wouldn't cross water—well, not running water. But there is nothing of that sort here. Nobbut this yere silly tale about a man with no head."

  "I wish I could find out when the stories of the hauntings first began," said Mrs. Bradley.

  "Oh, that would have been donkeys' years ago, before I come here to live, and that were fifty year, nigh on. But when it comes to crockery and furniture thrown about, and writing on the walls, like what that Mr. Turney, him that fell out of window, used to say, well, I dunno, I'm sure. And that reminds me. Would you like to see the writing on the walls? Cost you another threepence. I'd almost forgot. Funny, too, because most of 'em wants to see it."

  Mrs. Bradley produced the threepence and received a second printed ticket. The whole thing was run on very businesslike lines, she perceived. She wondered who the owner might be, and thought she might as well enquire. The reply she received surprised her.

  "Why, the lady that got all the money. The sister of the one that was tried for the murder and afterwards drownded herself. She bought the house, and left it to her sister in the will—or, anyway, left it."

  "Oh? Miss Tessa Foxley owns it?"

  "Foxley. That's the name."

  "And she pays you your wages?"

  "Ah."

  "Why doesn't she allow the whole of the house to be inspected? Why do you keep some of the rooms shut up?"

  "Nothing of interest in 'em, that's the reason. But you can see 'em, if you have a mind. I got no orders about 'em either way. I keep 'em locked because it makes less cleaning, and that's the truth. Folks don't often complain. They reckon they've had their money's worth with what we calls the Death Room and the Death Spot and the Cold Room and the Haunted Walk. All them bits I've showed you already, see? Then generally the visitors haven't got no time to look at any more. It's all this rushing about with motors does it. They've just got time to see the Abbey Church and the ruins and this house, you see, in the afternoon, because they have to start rushing their-selves back to London, and there it is. Americans is worse than the English. Never knew such people to hustle you off your feet. And always ask for a Brochure, and taking either no interest at all in what you tell them or else too much, and asking you all kinds of things you don't know."

  "Is there such a thing?" asked Mrs. Bradley, referring to the pamphlet. "I myself should like a copy if there is."

  "Another sixpence. 'Tain't worth it. Keep your money is my advice."

  "If it happens to have a plan of the house, it is what I want."

  "Oh, ah, yes, it has got that."

  "With the various places marked?"

  "Oh, ah. Here it is. You can have a look at it, and then, if you don't want to buy it, you can give it me back, so be you haven't made it dirty. I generally charges a penny a look, but you needn't pay it, seeing you takes an interest."

  "I'll buy it," said Mrs. Bradley firmly. "And I want Miss Foxley's address."

  At dinner that night she had the booklet open upon the table, and affected to study it while she was drinking her soup. The waitress, whose custom it was to converse with the patrons if they were staying in the house, bent over it too, and observed, as she took up Mrs. Bradley's plate :

  "
Been to take a look at the haunted house? Waste of money, isn't it, madam? I went once, with my young man, when it was first opened to the public, and I can't say it was much of a thrill. I went to see Boris Karloff that same evening, and, believe me, there wasn't no comparison."

  "No, I suppose not," said Mrs. Bradley. When the plates next were changed and she was being helped to fruit pie and custard, she said :

  "Are you a native of these parts?"

  "Well, yes, I am, really," the girl answered, "though I was in London for three or four years and lost the talk. They think you're kind of funny in London if you talk like you came from a village, so I picked up their way instead. Have to keep your end up, don't you, madam, if you want to get on in the world?"

  Mrs. Bradley said that she supposed so, and then asked whether the house had had its present reputation very long.

  "Well, I never heard much about it when I was little," said the girl. "It was always a coach and horses then, and it didn't do anything except go along the road that turns off just above the house to the right. I don't know whether you noticed? But I did hear that what is now part of the garden did used to be the road, till they brought it round a bit to make a less dangerous corner by them crossroads."

  "How long has the house been there?"

  "Oh, years and years, madam."

  Mrs. Bradley waited for the introduction of the cheese course before continuing the talk. Then she said :

  "The house was there, then, during your early childhood?"

  "Oh, yes, madam. My grandmother remembers the alterations being made. She says there's been a house there hundreds and hundreds of years, only now it's been so altered and rebuilt and that, you'd hardly see the old bits unless you were something in the building line yourself."

  Mrs. Bradley spread out her plan again and looked at it while she ate cheese and biscuit. She was still looking at it while she had her coffee. She took it upstairs with her when she went to bed, and placed it on the bedside table so that she could look at it again in the morning.

  She was up early next day, but she did not go in immediately to breakfast. She walked up the village street and out on the common, and returned to call in at the Post Office, which opened at nine o'clock. She bought some stamps and then a postal order for her grandson (who liked to have the pleasure of exchanging postal orders for money), and, finding the village postmistress inclined for conversation, remarked upon the tragedy of the haunted house, observed that she had visited the house, and then added that she had once known the people slightly and had often wanted to write to the widow, but had been in America at the time of the husband's death. After her return to England, she had lost track of 'poor Muriel,' she remarked.

  This slightly mendacious narrative had the desired effect. The widow, it appeared, had left at the Post Office an address to which letters could be forwarded, and although (as the postmistress painstakingly explained) it was some years now since any letters had had to be sent on, the address, no doubt, was still 'in the book.' The book was produced, and the address triumphantly dictated.

  "Although, of course, she may have moved again," said the postmistress.

  Mrs. Bradley returned to the inn with a hearty appetite for breakfast. When she had finished she walked over to the haunted house. This time it was not the old man but his daughter who showed her round.

  "I was wondering," said Mrs. Bradley, as she paid her threepence to see the writing on the wall, "whether any of the people who go in for that kind of thing ever hold séances here. I rather gathered from your father that they did."

  "Oh, yes, we've had half a dozen or more," replied the woman. "They have to get special permission, and they generally hold them in the Death Room, but I never heard that anything much ever came of it."

  "I thought some very strange things used to happen before the last owner's death? At any rate, I should like to make some experiments myself," said Mrs. Bradley. "Is it very expensive?"

  "I couldn't say, I'm sure. Folks from London do seem to have plenty of money to throw about, certainly, especially them that's got a hobby-horse, as you might call it. But you'll have to write to Miss Foxley. She does all the fixing herself. She don't leave it to we."

  "When did the last séance take place? Do you happen to know?"

  "Oh, less than three months ago, I think. Yes, it was well after Christmas. There's one gentleman has been twice. He's got some notion the ghosts might be more active, like, at some parts of the year than what they might be at others. Sounds cranky to me, but there! If you've got time on your hands and money to spend, I suppose it's an innocent kind of an amusement. Anyway, he was very unlucky both times, and said he couldn't understand it."

  "Have you yourself ever noticed anything queer about the house?"

  "What, me! I should think I was going off my onion if I did. Besides, you wouldn't find me caretaking here, not me, if anything turned up to frit me. Although they do say there was funny things seen and heard after the poor gentleman's death."

  "You don't believe in ghosts?"

  "I should think not, indeed! I wonder what parson would say! I'm his cook when I'm not here with Dad."

  "Were you living in the village at the time when the tenant was killed?"

  "No. I was in service in Warwickshire."

  "Was the house said to be haunted when you were a child?"

  "Oh, yes. Nobody much liked to come by at night on account of a coach or something. I never heard the rights of the tale, and I never met anybody who could say they had ever seen the coach. I don't hold with such truck. It's ungodly."

  "Did you never hear of the ghost of the huntsman, a headless man with horns?"

  "Oh, yes. But that's only what they frighten the little 'uns with round here."

  "And you don't mind taking people's money to show them over a haunted house which isn't haunted?" Mrs. Bradley enquired.

  The woman showed no ill-feeling over the question. She merely replied, with indifference :

  "It isn't my job; it's my Dad's. I only come along on my afternoon off to keep him company, or let him go off for his pint. I suppose people can please themselves whether they come here or not. If they like to be fools and throw away their money for nothing, it isn't my business to stop them, and most of 'em seem to be interested. Have you seen all you want in here? Because I'm bound to lock the door up again before we go."

  "I should like to see the Haunted Walk again," said Mrs. Bradley. "I noticed a summerhouse there. How long has that been built?"

  "Oh, before the new owner bought the house."

  "Yes. I wonder why she bought it?"

  "She never bought it. It was left her. Come to think of it, there was some tale she wanted to live in it in memory of her sister that was accused of the murder, but it turned out to be too damp, so she hit on this idea of getting her money back, but she don't see much return, with Dad's wages to be paid all the time."

  "Did she live in it at all, do you know?"

  "No, not that I know of. No, I'm sure she never did. She never even came to see it when she engaged Dad to look after it, nor have him go there to see her. Just got his character from the vicar."

  "Your father didn't know her at all, then, before that?"

  "No, he'd never seen this one. He'd seen the one that was had up for the murder, of course. She was about here quite a bit. But from this one he even gets his wages by post. He gets paid by the quarter, though I don't know that it's any odds to anybody."