The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Not my house,’ replied Aubrey’s mother grandly. ‘My son and I are pensioners on the bounty of my nephew James. Happily, James has seen matters in a Reasonable Light. After a certain amount of discussion, in which, I regret to say, he showed little or no disposition to meet me half-way, I have prevailed upon him to purchase a Controlling Interest in this ranch or whatever it is, and go out there to live. I shall remain in charge here with Aubrey.’

  ‘But look here, mater, dash it all,’ began her son, with unwonted heat. ‘I mean, it’s a bit thick! He doesn’t want to go out to Mexico now he’s got this house and the money. I mean, you can’t expect it. And there’s Felicity to be considered.’

  ‘Felicity?’ said Mrs Bryce Harringay blankly. ‘What do you mean – Felicity?’

  ‘Well, I suppose they’ll marry or something sooner or later. She’s only waiting for old Jim to shout the odds, you know!’

  Mrs Bryce Harringay looked pained.

  ‘I do wish, Aubrey, that you would learn to express yourself in a Reasonable Manner. Are you suggesting that it is James’s intention to propose marriage to this young person?’

  Aubrey grinned.

  ‘Just about,’ he said. ‘When he can get somebody to hold his coat and boots he’s going to make the dive, I understand. Be practically a case of breach of promise if he doesn’t, considering how the poor kid howled when she thought he might be arrested.’

  ‘You are indelicate, child,’ observed Mrs Bradley. ‘What does she want for a wedding-present?’

  II

  Jim Redsey returned to the library when his aunt was gone.

  ‘Savile,’ he said slowly, ‘was a curious kind of devil, but in spite of everything I shouldn’t have thought a murder was much in his line, somehow.’

  He glanced at Mrs Bradley, who appeared to have fallen asleep in the large comfortable armchair, and then began to tiptoe out of the room.

  ‘Stop, James!’ came in deep rich tones from the depths of the chair. ‘You are wearing grey flannel trousers!’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Jim, glancing down at them.

  ‘If I had my way,’ said Mrs Bradley firmly, ‘grey flannel trousers should be taxed, together with dogs, automobiles, wireless receiving-sets, incomes, and the colour curiously termed beige.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Jim, interested. ‘Certainly bring in a lot of money. Everybody wears grey flannel bags.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what is so annoying to a mere seeker after truth,’ said Mrs Bradley sorrowfully. ‘You see. I am in a quandary. Either Savile or Wright could have stolen the murdered man’s trousers – and his shirt and vest and drawers too, for that matter! – and either could have worn them!’

  ‘You mean – yes, I see. Still it doesn’t matter now the poor blighter’s dead, does it? I mean, the police are certain to call it a day, aren’t they?’

  ‘That, being interpreted, equals – ?’

  ‘Well, I mean to say, the hunt is over, so to speak. They’ll conclude Savile did the murder, now it is certain that the doctor could not have taken the body to the butcher’s shop on Monday.’

  ‘I hope so, sincerely, for your sake,’ said Mrs Bradley, getting up from her chair and walking over to an oval mirror. She studied her unpleasing reflection for some seconds long, earnestly and in complete silence.

  Jim began to feel the pulse in his right temple hammering uncomfortably. His mouth felt dry and his hands clammy.

  ‘How do you mean?’ he asked thickly.

  ‘Well,’ replied Mrs Bradley, turning to face him, ‘although Savile had planned the murder, I suppose it was so little in his line that, truth to tell, he never committed it – a fact which, out of aunt-like affection for yourself, I have endeavoured to relegate to the background during this tiresome business. I have not actually told a verbal lie about it, but still there it is! Savile cut up the body – yes. He stole the murdered man’s clothes – yes. Sometimes he wore them and sometimes, when their wardrobes got somewhat mixed – a frequent occurrence, I fancy, in that curious household! – Cleaver Wright wore them –’

  ‘But what about Wright’s own trousers you told us about? The ones he knelt on the ground in to look at Sethleigh’s body? The ones that got stained about the knees with blood?’

  ‘Eye-wash,’ said Mrs Bradley succinctly.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘He’s been wearing them on and off ever since, alternately with those belonging to Sethleigh.’

  ‘Then, didn’t he disturb the murderer and kneel by the body?’

  ‘He kneel by the body? Oh no! What? Kneel by a headless corpse?’

  She chuckled. In spite of the heat, Jim shivered. Cold sweat trickled down his spine.

  ‘Afraid I don’t follow,’ he said feebly.

  ‘No, James?’ Mrs Bradley stood up, put her bird-like black head on one side and pursed her beaky little mouth. She was enjoying herself. ‘Savile decapitated a dead man, that’s all.’

  ‘Savile – Look here, are you calling me a murderer?’ shouted Jim, hoarse with anxiety and crimson with anger. ‘You’d better not! I’ll – I’ll –’

  Aubrey Harringay would have realized the significance of that chokingly thick utterance and the young man’s ugly scowl, and would have made his getaway with celerity. Mrs Bradley was not blind to the symptoms, but she merely grinned in her own unpleasantly ghoulish fashion, and poked him in the ribs with inconsequent hardihood.

  ‘Do not threaten me, James,’ she observed calmly. ‘Threats are so wearing to the threatener. As my dear good friend and neighbour, Mrs Bryce Harringay, would say, “Conserve your energies for some Worthy Purpose.” There goes Felicity Broome. Bestow upon her my love. Be off with you!’

  ‘But what about Rupert and so forth?’ gulped Jim, cowed by the old lady’s intrepid refusal to take his anger seriously. ‘What are you going to do?’

  Mrs Bradley waved a yellow claw.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘If I had been going to give you away, child, I should have done it long ago. However, that punch of yours which knocked Sethleigh down most certainly caused his death. The shock alone would have done for that heart of his. I’ve never had the least doubt about that. Besides, there was never enough blood for a death by wounding. Even the inspector saw that, bless his heart! And morally, of course, Savile was guilty.’

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