The Longer Bodies

by Gladys Mitchell

  She stumbled as she spoke, and swiftly bent to pick up the object which her foot had touched. It was one of the sports javelins. Amaris held it at full length and shook it in a playfully warlike manner.

  ‘I say,’ exclaimed Anthony in admiration, ‘you remind me of that goddess—what’s-her-name?—you know who I mean!’

  ‘Artemis,’ said Richard Cowes’s Amazonian sister. ‘You are mistaken, though. My hips are too big. And I don’t look a scrap “chaste and fair.” Don’t trouble to deny it! I’m more like a picture by Augustus John than anything you ever saw in the Artemis line.’

  She balanced the javelin carefully, the corded grip resting in the centre of her slim, well-shaped, grubby, paint-stained palm. Her fingers closed round the shaft. The metal point of the mock spear glittered in the April sunshine.

  ‘Oh!’ cried Amaris. She drew back her arm and sent the long, straight, slender, finely balanced missile hurtling high and sure. At the termination of its swift and graceful flight, it came to earth true as a bird, its metal point embedded in the ground.

  ‘I say, I wonder whether there is blood on it?’ said Anthony, running forward. He seized the long white shaft and jerked the point out of the ground. Feverishly he scraped the damp earth from the metal.

  ‘Hum! Difficult to say,’ he said. ‘I’d better take it back to the gym., I suppose. There’s been enough strafe over the beastly things already.’

  ‘Yes, so I heard.’ Amaris regarded him queerly. ‘I won’t wait for you. See you at lunch. I’ll take my things now, if you’re going to take the javelin.’

  She stalked away towards the sunk garden, her painting materials hung about her until they looked like the paraphernalia of the White Knight.

  ‘And see whether you can find the gymnasium rope that the murderers took!’ she shouted over her shoulder.

  Timon Anthony, a singularly perturbed Alice, walked on without finding sufficient spirit to make any reply. When he did pluck up courage and glance back, Amaris had disappeared.

  Chapter Eight

  Irritating Attitude of a Lady Old Enough to Know Better

  ‘WELL,’ SAID INSPECTOR Bloxham, seating himself on the large roller at the western side of the sports field, ‘I don’t say we progress, exactly. But at least we don’t go backwards. And one thing I’m certain about, and that is, my lad, somebody in this place killed Jacob Hobson. I reckon that we are now exactly half-way through the investigation. I’ve heard seven yarns about what people were doing and why on the night of the murder, and, as I see it, I’ve got to hear seven more. I’ve now interrogated young Brown-Jenkins, Miss Yeomond, Mrs Hobson, all the Mr Yeomonds, Mr Anthony—a very suspicious bird, that one, I might say—Kost the trainer, and Miss Cowes. I must have another go at her later, I think. Clever as a cartload of monkeys that one, I reckon.’ He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. Neither man was in uniform.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Mr Bloxham,’ objected the sergeant. ‘Them sort of large, blowsy females are seldom strong in the brain-line, sir. Sort of passionate and excitable underneath an otherwise placid exterior, if you get me, inspector, but real bright, no.’

  ‘Boy,’ said the inspector, eyeing his henchman and supporter with grave concern, ‘those talkies are doing you no good. Take my tip, and spend your evenings at home. Help the missus wind the wool. It’ll do your nerves good.’

  A dark flush suffused the sergeant’s bovine and ingenuous countenance; he changed the subject.

  ‘’Ave you ever thought any more of the bathchair business that Friday night or Saturday morning, Mr Bloxham?’ he asked.

  ‘Bathchair business?’

  ‘Ah! As swore to by two independent witnesses, Miss Yeomond and Mr Jenkins, sir?’

  ‘The point is, were they independent witnesses? I’ve my suspicions of Mr Brown-Jenkins. I can’t make up my mind how much of a liar that young man is.’

  ‘Liar, sir?’

  ‘Champion cyclist, sergeant. There are several advanced classes in the university of liars. Golfers and fishermen rank very high in the sporting grades, and champion cyclists run them close. Then come those Irish country lads who tell you the size of the fox that’s just gone to ground, and the fellow who was Not Out l.b.w. After these comes the man from Maida Vale whose dog always outruns the electric hare; and, of course, right at the end of the list come the simple-minded souls such as water polo players who indulge in foul deeds with artless joy and complete lack of finesse, and then immediately and clamorously claim a free pass against the man they’ve just fouled. Luckily a competent referee can usually deal with humorists of that sort.’

  ‘You seem to have studied your subjick, sir,’ said the sergeant with heavy irony. The inspector nodded.

  ‘I was not always a policeman, sergeant,’ he replied sadly. ‘Time was when they destined me for Sandhurst and a career of death or glory. The war stepped in, however, and made another kind of soldier out of me. Then the family heirlooms went the way such trifles will, and I came out of the Army quite whole and extraordinarily tired, and with no money and no training to speak of, and joined the noble force of which we two are shining ornaments. And now, do you think you can defend me from an umbrella attack if I interview old Mrs Puddequet?’

  ‘Seems to me, sir,’ said the sergeant as they walked along the cinder track towards old Mrs Puddequet’s bathchair, which had just emerged from the opposite gateway and was being propelled at a dignified pace towards them, ‘as you ain’t so serious over this ’ere murder as you was over the Merridale case fifteen months back.’

  ‘Sergeant,’ said the inspector, ‘you’re a good chap, and so I’ll tell you something I wouldn’t repeat, nor care for you to repeat, to anyone else. I’m doing my duty, in a sense, over this case, but my heart isn’t in it. I know the police aren’t paid to be sentimental, but it upsets me badly to know that through me some perfectly decent and humane person is going to be convicted for bouncing a brick on that filthy animal Hobson. If I had any guts in me, I’d throw up the case—at least, if it weren’t for my insatiable curiosity I would. But I want to know who did it—and yet I don’t! As soon as I know, duty compels me to pass on the information and make an arrest, you see, and that—’

  The bathchair, accelerating its speed, now drew near enough for its occupant to overhear any further conversation, and so the inspector stopped short.

  Great-aunt Puddequet, craning her head forward from the bathchair like a peculiarly malignant-looking tortoise, greeted the police with mild derision.

  ‘Well! Well! Here we come, with our notebooks and pencils! And what have we found out today?’ she enquired, blinking her yellowish eyes at them. The inspector smiled politely.

  ‘We are depending upon you to assist us in our enquiries today, Mrs Puddequet,’ said he. ‘To begin with—’

  ‘To begin with, attendant,’ shrieked old Mrs Puddequet, glaring round at Joe the rabbit-fancier, who was her escort and propeller that afternoon, ‘leave the equipage and retire to a distance not exceeding ten yards. Deploy.’

  Joe shrugged his shoulders and removed himself to the motor lawnmower, on the box of which he sat to smoke a cigarette.

  ‘To begin with,’ said the inspector, ‘I wonder whether you have come to any conclusion about the use of the bathchair on the night of the murder?’

  ‘I do not understand you, inspector. Are you sure you mean on the night of the murder?’

  ‘Well, to be exact—’ began Bloxham.

  Old Mrs Puddequet laughed shortly, sharply, and offensively.

  ‘To be exact,’ the inspector repeated loudly, for he was annoyed, ‘I mean the very—the extremely early hours of the following morning. At one o’clock, in fact—or thereabouts.’

  ‘What about the bathchair?’ enquired the old lady testily. ‘Come to the point, man!’

  ‘Were you in your bathchair at one o’clock in the morning on Saturday, April the nineteenth?’ snapped the inspector.

  Great-aunt Puddequet produced from th
e recesses of the bathchair a tortoiseshell lorgnette, and, with its aid, studied first the inspector and then the sergeant, and then the inspector again. Apparently satisfied that, although curious variants of an existing type, they could still be classed among the known mammals, she lowered the absurd lens and spoke with dignity.

  ‘May I ask whether the police have any objection to make concerning the conduct of a householder, voter, citizen, and ratepayer who chooses to take early morning exercise in her own grounds, in her own bathchair, in her own sufficient clothing, and in her own time?’ she enquired. ‘If so, say so, officers, and we will go into the matter at greater length and at a more convenient hour.’

  She looked round the side of the bathchair and squealed shrilly for Joseph Herring. The Scrounger put a reluctant boot on the stump of his cigarette and stood up.

  ‘Attendant,’ said Great-aunt Puddequet, ‘take me in.’

  The inspector gazed after the bathchair with mixed feelings. The sergeant broke the silence.

  ‘Well, I’m damned!’ he said. ‘She was in it all the time.’

  ‘Was she?’ said the inspector, his blue eyes narrowing. ‘That’s what we’ve got to find out, my lad. Hullo! She’s hove to! Coming back to us, by gum! Now what?’

  The bathchair drew up smartly, and Joseph Herring skilfully inserted a cigarette between his lips and lit it before his employer bade him once more retire to the box of the mowing-machine.

  ‘I ought to say, officers,’ said old Mrs Puddequet, investigating the turn-ups of the sergeant’s trousers with the ferrule of her umbrella and muttering ‘Permanent!’ to herself in a disgruntled tone as she did so, ‘that a special service of motor-coaches is being run from Market Longer to the gate of these grounds to bring here persons who have a desire to see the spot whence the body was recovered. Pieces of stone and handfuls of gravel are being stolen from the sunk garden as souvenirs from the actual scene of the crime, and one enthusiastic collector has gone so far as to poison the small coarse fish which inhabit the mere in a determined effort to secure one of them as a unique reminder of an exciting occasion. I say no more.’

  She peered round for Herring. Joseph removed his cigarette, extinguished it carefully, and placed the half of it which remained behind his right ear.

  ‘Attendant,’ said Great-aunt Puddequet, who had witnessed this proceeding, ‘are you there?’

  ‘Yes, mam!’ replied Joe, establishing himself in her line of vision.

  ‘Remove that disgusting appendage.’

  ‘You don’t mean me fag, mam?’

  Great-aunt Puddequet closed her lips and stared unwinkingly at him out of her baleful eyes.

  ‘Oh, ’ave it your own way,’ muttered Joe. He took the cigarette from behind his ear, and, by a dexterous sleight of hand, shot it up the sleeve of his jacket, whence it slid confidingly back into the palm of his hand when the old lady turned her head.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mrs Puddequet to the police officers, ‘it is not for a mere defenceless member of the general public to complain that there are two police officers spending all their time, both morning and afternoon, about the house and grounds, and that still her property is stolen under their very noses! Stone from the sunk garden, gravel from the paths, chub from the mere—disgraceful!’

  At the end of this remarkable outburst she suddenly switched round in the bathchair and screamed to Joseph Herring to take her indoors.

  ‘Well,’ said the inspector, gazing after her with a mixture of amusement and exasperation in his eyes, ‘so that’s that.’

  ‘And she was out in that bathchair—’ began the sergeant.

  ‘Haring along at twenty m.p.h.,’ grinned the inspector.

  ‘At one o’clock in the morning,’ chuckled the sergeant.

  ‘Yes. It only remains to find out whether it was the devil himself or merely one of his angels pushing behind, and then we can forget all about it,’ concluded the inspector. Then his tone changed.

  ‘I don’t like her attitude a bit,’ he said, frowning. ‘And the worst of it is that I really don’t feel equal to browbeating an old woman of ninety. What’s her idea, I wonder, in telling us a lie like that? Oh, well. Never mind that now. Let’s follow her up to the house, and then I’ll get on to Miss Brown-Jenkins again. She’s the one who spotted her brother bending over the empty bed in Miss Yeomond’s room.’

  ‘You don’t suspect young Jenkins, sir?’

  ‘As I said before, I’m not certain how much of his yarn I can believe. After I’ve tackled his sister again I may be a little more certain on the point.’

  Celia Brown-Jenkins could add little to the inspector’s knowledge. She had talked with Priscilla until nearly one o’clock, and a few moments later Priscilla had appeared at the bedroom door and demanded to be allowed to share her room for the night as she had been frightened out of her own. Celia then went on to repeat her story of finding her brother in Priscilla’s room at about half-past one, and of his subsequent tumble downstairs.

  The inspector tapped his front teeth with his pencil and asked to see Miss Caddick. She, fluttering and alarmed, could say nothing beyond the fact that she had sat as usual, in the morning room, doing her crochet work, and had retired to bed at ten-thirty, her usual time. She had heard no more until she was awakened by the noise occasioned by the fall of Clive Brown-Jenkins.

  ‘Well,’ said the inspector to the sergeant when Miss Caddick, chafing her wrists to make certain that the handcuffs were not even then upon them, had been sent in search of Richard Cowes, ‘we don’t get much forrader, do we? You see, if the old lady sticks to that yarn of hers about being out in the bathchair at that time of night, my pet theory about the case falls to the ground.’

  ‘And what might your theory be, sir?’ enquired the sergeant respectfully.

  ‘Well, in the murderer’s place, I should certainly have obtained possession of that bathchair as a convenient means of transporting the body to the lake. But, of course, if old Mrs Puddequet’s story did happen to be true, that would knock that idea on the head immediately.’

  ‘But her story isn’t the truth!’ said the sergeant indignantly.

  ‘Well, we believe it isn’t. Still, there’s just the bare chance that it might be. These old ladies get some cranky ideas into their heads at times.’

  ‘Yes. But, if it isn’t true,’ persisted the sergeant, ‘it means she knows who the murderer is, and is trying to shield him, as we said before.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Richard Cowes at the door, ‘you know, sergeant, I hardly think that. She doesn’t know who the murderer is, but she doesn’t want you official people to know either. She thinks that, as long as the murderer goes undetected, so long will she enjoy the company of reporters, policemen, and morbid sightseers. She’s basking in the limelight of twentieth-century publicity, and she just revels in it. So do go slow with the brain-waves, I beg of you! Don’t curtail the pleasures of the aged!’

  He advanced into the room, holding a large pheasant-eye narcissus in one hand and a stick of rhubarb in the other. Alternately and very delicately he sniffed at the one and bit a portion off the end of the other.

  ‘Mr Cowes,’ said the inspector abruptly, when Richard had seated himself, ‘I want you to tell me, as exactly as you can, your movements on Friday, April the eighteenth, from half-past nine in the evening onwards.’

  Richard meditated.

  ‘At half-past nine,’ he said, ‘I was in the library. I remained there until nearly half-past ten. Then I returned to my hut with the book I had begun to read, and sat there until nearly half-past eleven, when my companion in distress, Mr Malpas Yeomond, came in and retired to bed. At just after twelve I also retired to bed. I awoke at just after six o’clock on the Saturday morning, except for a short interval of wakefulness between one and two a.m., and another between four and five.’

  ‘Did you see or hear anything of the man Hobson while you were in the library? The windows overlook the sunk garden.’

  ‘I heard
an uneducated man’s voice below, but I was absorbed in my reading and scarcely gave the matter any consideration.’

  ‘You did not go out on to the terrace to find out the cause of the disturbance?’

  ‘There was no disturbance, so far as I know. After about two minutes the voice obtruded itself no more. Whether the man went away then, or whether my conscious mind was so fully occupied with my reading that I did not notice exactly when the voice ceased, I cannot say. There was gramophone music going on in the next room, I remember, but whether that eventually drowned the sound of the man’s voice I cannot say.’

  ‘What were you reading, Mr Cowes?’

  ‘I was rereading Mommsen’s work on the Romans. A fascinating set of volumes, inspector.’

  The inspector cordially agreed, and, politely dismissing him, sent again for Malpas Yeomond, and asked him to name the hour at which Richard Cowes had returned to the hut on the night of the murder.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Malpas shortly. ‘He was already in the hut when I myself returned at just after eleven-twenty.’

  ‘Did he leave the hut again that night?’

  ‘I shouldn’t say so. Why should he?’

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ replied the inspector, leading him to the door.

  They walked out at the front door of the house and on to the terrace. Side by side they descended the steps and walked back to the unfinished goldfish pond, which had been left untouched since the murder. The inspector and sergeant drew aside the tarpaulin and disclosed the bloodstains on the concrete bottom of the empty pond.

  ‘Here’s where the body lay for a time,’ said Bloxham, ‘and from here it had to be transported to the lake. Now, my idea is that the transporting was done with the help of old Mrs Puddequet’s bathchair, and that bathchair was actually seen in action at about one o’clock on the Saturday morning.’

  ‘Oh, if you’re asking me whether Cowes was in the hut at one o’clock in the morning, I can tell you at once that he was! It was just before one that he woke me and said that he thought he heard someone knocking at the door, so he opened it and looked out, but there was no one about, so he shut it again and went back to his bunk. Then I must have fallen asleep in the middle of something he was saying, for I remember no more until daylight, when I woke up and found him just in the act of getting up.’