The space was now empty. Jones turned to Mrs Bradley and raised his eyebrows.
‘The coffin was there this afternoon,’ Mrs Bradley explained.
‘The coffin?’
‘Tebbutt’s coffin, child.’
‘With Tebbutt in it?’
‘Certainly. But labelled Middleton.’
‘How do you know?’
‘By taking thought, child.’
‘Oh?’
‘And now,’ said Mrs Bradley, turning towards the door, ‘for a little walk up Guthrum Down to find where they have laid him.’ Her remark set Jones laughing.
‘“Good morrow to the Day so fair;
Good morning Sir to you:
Good morrow to mine own torn hair
Bedabbled with the dew,”’
he observed, as he followed her to the study.
‘And make certain that the revolver I gave you is loaded and in working order, child. Can you fire a revolver?’
‘I can.’
‘Good. Then you shall protect us both, and as we go——’ she leered horribly—’I will a tale unfold.’
‘A tale?’
‘Even so. There were once four suspects——’
‘Four?’
‘Yes, child. You, Tebbutt, Doctor Mortmain and the vicar.’
‘But Tebbutt’s dead, I thought?’
‘That fact may prove that he is not the murderer.’
‘“Nay,”’ said Jones, grinning, ‘“you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck; and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect——”’
‘There were once four suspects,’ repeated Mrs Bradley firmly, ‘and their names were Jones, Tebbutt, Mortmain and—well, let us say, the vicar.’
‘Only one of them was called Middleton,’ Jones interpolated.
‘Quite right, child. Which is the shortest way up Guthrum Down?’
‘I don’t suppose I can find my way in the dark.’
‘Tut, tut,’ said Mrs Bradley, pronouncing the words phonetically. She stepped delicately on to the vicarage lawn. ‘And walk quietly, child.’
‘Don’t advise me to be careful,’ Jones said, gripping the revolver. ‘My blood is up. I’ve had a cosh on the head and I’m thirsting for revenge.’
Mrs Bradley poked him in the ribs, and, by mutual consent, they abandoned conversation until they were clear of the sleeping village. The doctor’s red lamp was burning, but his house was otherwise in darkness.
‘He’s back again,’ thought Jones. A moment later they were crossing the village green.
Chapter Twenty-Four
‘That the question of insanity in a case of murder should be left for decision to the wisdom of a jury, seems to be outrageous.’
DR BERNARD HOLLANDER
The Psychology of Misconduct.
‘IT’S THIS WAY, child,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘We were looking for a murderer. If I mistake not, we were looking for a madman, too. It is arguable that all murderers are mad, but this particular murderer, Middleton, was the kind of madman for whom mental homes were designed and intended. He was of the genus Bedlamite. Observe: he had killed a woman and two men. Why?’
‘Are you asking me why, or is it a rhetorical question designed to create attention and a due regard for your own intelligence?’ asked Jones.
‘Child,’ said Mrs Bradley severely, ‘answer me directly.’
‘Well, if you are seriously bent upon obtaining a reply, I confess that I don’t know. Oh, wait a moment! It was to provide himself with his own dead body, wasn’t it?’
‘Well, we supposed so. All along, that has appeared a feasible idea, and the only one that seemed to fit the facts. But——’
‘Yes, that’s so,’ said Jones, as he stumbled over a mole-hill. They were leaving the rough grass of the village green, and soon were walking over the heather which grew on the lower slopes of Guthrum Down. A great moon, climbing the shoulder of the hill, began to light their path and to discover tracks through the bracken to which the heather gave place, and, at last, the remnant of a flinty sheep-walk which mounted to the dewpond on the crest. ‘We shall be spotted a mile off in this moonlight,’ he added, glancing about him.
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I concluded,’ she went on, as calmly as though she were not making a breath-taking statement which left Jones standing with astonishment and dismay, ‘that the murderer was the vicar.’
‘You don’t mean that Middleton is Hallam?’ he said, amazed beyond measure by this startling theory.
‘Middleton was mad. I deduced that from what I learnt of his habits from the late Mrs Middleton’s mother. Now, if our conclusions are correct, it follows that, if Middleton has been living in this village, a madman has been living here.’
‘So far, so comprehensible,’ said Jones, placing a hand in the small of her back to help her up the gradually steepening incline.
‘The vicar was the only lunatic in the village,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘therefore, logically, Middleton and the vicar were the same person.’
‘Yes, but——’
‘One moment, child. Apart from the fact that the vicar was mentally unstable, there are suspicious circumstances surrounding his conduct on the night of the murder which need considerably more explanation than they have received.’
‘Look you,’ said Jones, breaking in. ‘The man is a good man, therefore he is not a murderer.’
‘So was Saint Paul a good man,’ said Mrs Bradley tartly. ‘Do you remember the stoning of Saint Stephen? Besides, even judged by your incomplete and sentimental standards of conduct, he is not nearly as good a man as you are, and you——’
‘Are singularly imperfect,’ said Jones, finishing her sentence for her and then laughing. ‘Very well. Let that go. But I like the man. He is my friend. I know he is not a murderer. I shouldn’t like a murderer. Nobody could.’
‘The warders liked Belle.’
‘Oh, Belle. That’s different. Belle was a beastly woman, anyway.’
‘Don’t be ingenuous, child. There is nothing I dislike more in a man of the world than nauseating naïveté of that sort. No wonder you can write those disgusting novels!’
‘Never again,’ said Jones humbly. ‘My next——’
‘After the detective story?’
‘—after the detective story—is to be entitled Beatrix What-is-it, after the famous thingummy of Dante, with special reference to Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, who dashed from my lips the poison-cup of chloroformed best-selling, copper-bottomed, gilt-edged fiction, and led me forth to indulge in the pure, wholesome and exhilarating sport of murderer-hunting. Say on. After all:
“in such a night
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
Upon the wild sea banks….”’
‘Now, about Hallam,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘On the night of the murder Hallam certainly went to the vicarage.’
‘Yes, he was seen by Miss Phoebe Harper, wasn’t he?’ said Jones.
‘He was chased out of the grounds of Neot House, and later he was reported to have spent some time in removing the thirteenth-century glass from a small quatrefoil window in the church. As a matter of fact, I don’t think he did do this on the night in question.’
‘But——’ said Jones.
‘I think,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘that he removed the stained glass at least two days beforehand.’
‘But why on earth should you suppose that?’ asked Jones. ‘We know that he cut his head on a piece of the glass, don’t we?’
‘Of course, we ought to decide which vicar we are talking about,’ said Mrs Bradley.
‘Well, I’m talking about Hallam,’ said Jones, slightly mystified by what appeared to be a pointless remark. He was certain, however, that Mrs Bradley had deduced several facts which were still unknown to him.
‘So am I,’ said Mrs Bradley urbanely, ‘and I suggest that Mr Hallam would never have made the elementary mistake of
confusing a small quatrefoil with a rose-window. What do you say to that?’
‘Well, now you mention it, of course, the church doesn’t possess a rose-window.’
‘And has it ever struck you,’ Mrs Bradley continued, ‘that no village boys in the world would have bothered about smashing that small quatrefoil when a large, handsome, Early Perpendicular east window was there to excite the unmannerly to the work of destruction?’
‘Golly,’ said Jones, deeply impressed by this line of reasoning. ‘Then—no, hang it! I can’t see it now! I thought I could for a minute, but it’s no use.’
‘You remarked a little while ago that I had never met Mr Hallam before the date of the murder, didn’t you?’ said Mrs Bradley.
‘I did. You hadn’t, had you?’
‘No, child. But you had.’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘The man who lived at the vicarage from the night of the murder until the night the villagers set fire to the house was not Mr Hallam, child.’
‘Not Hallam?’
‘No.’
‘But—good Lord! You’re right! You must be right! But how on earth did I never spot it?’
‘First, Mr Hallam was not so very well known to you that someone who had studied him could not deceive you by impersonating him.’
‘Oh, but I say! I must be blind!’
‘Not at all. You remember the heavily bandaged head and eye? You remember the huge scarf that comforted the terrible bout of neuralgia? You remember the long time spent in bed, and the trick of ducking the head under the bedclothes and the fancy to have the curtains closely drawn? You remember that the doctor was not allowed to approach the bed, and, on a later occasion, was refused admission? You remember the husky tones of whispering agony? You remember the changed outlook?’
‘Yes,’ said Jones. ‘I remember all that. Of course, he did seem extraordinarily changed, but then, I thought he was going crazy, you know.’
‘Not going—gone. Didn’t you find the change rather sudden?’
‘I’ve had no experiences to compare with your work in mental institutions, you know. But, now I come to think of it, he did take the most acute pleasure in detailing all those nauseating stories about the morals of the village. And didn’t he tell the doctor he was Moses? Still, I suppose that really it’s not surprising I was deceived. Everybody else was, too.’
‘Indeed?’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I can tell you some who weren’t.’
‘Mrs Fluke, for one, I suppose?’
‘Why should you pick her out?’
‘Well, those sacks of frogs. I’m sure she smelt a rat.’
‘Who else, child?’
‘I don’t know. Mrs Passion?’
‘Why Mrs Passion?’
‘The summer house incident. I can see everything now. She knew what Middleton wanted, but he dared not give himself away.’
‘Yes. Oh, and that reminds me. Mr Hallam had been a missionary in Japan, I think.’
‘Of course he had. Brought Nao home with him.’
‘Yes. Well, why start in on Polynesian and West Indian magic? That struck me at once as being odd, and out of character. He made many slips. That was a bad one.’
‘Oh, heavens! I am a fool!’
Mrs Bradley’s voice was kindly, as she continued:
‘And his sudden change of front about the water. The real Hallam was more than willing, I understand, to give the village people water from his well. The impostor Hallam was not.’
‘But how on earth did he persuade Hallam to get out of the vicarage?’
‘He didn’t. Mr Hallam was attacked near the lodge of Neot House at just after ten on the night of the murder, and was conveyed to the castle ruins in Middleton’s car. Nao and I released him and took him to the Long Thin Man without the knowledge of Mrs Corbett, who has rather a long tongue, but with the connivance and assistance of Corbett and young Jasper.’ She chuckled. ‘This was done whilst you were nursing your headache after the blow you received at Neot House.’
‘Yes. Who struck that blow?’
‘Mrs Tebbutt, I think. She’s been in deadly terror, that woman, ever since her husband was murdered.’
‘Why? She didn’t kill him, did she?’
‘No. But she expected to be the next victim unless Middleton’s orders were carried out to the very letter.’
‘What were his orders?’
‘On no account to let anyone suspect that Tebbutt was dead. Tebbutt was ill in bed and could see nobody; those were her instructions.’
‘And she thought I’d come snooping——’
‘Which you had!’
‘And laid me out with a half brick or something. Not so bad! And Tebbutt was killed——’
‘Because he had blackmailed Middleton.’
‘But how do you know that?’
‘I don’t. But it must be true. You see, child, I think there is no possible doubt that Middleton must have spent at least part of the time since his wife’s death in a mental home. His madness is recurrent, and on a fairly long cycle, I should imagine.’
‘Have you discovered this asylum? Do you know where it is?’ inquired Jones. Mrs Bradley shook her head. Her face looked thinner and more peaked than ever in the brilliant moonlight.
‘I don’t intend to look for it,’ she said.
‘But it would be invaluable proof——’ began Jones.
‘I don’t want proof.’
‘Why not?’
‘I will tell you when we return to the vicarage. I hope Mr Hallam is enjoying himself at Doctor Mortmain’s house.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just exactly what I say, child. Nothing more.’
‘Then that’s a change!’ said Jones, laughing. By this time they had arrived at the top of the hill. Before they halted Jones asked one more question.
‘I suppose you’re certain about the Hallam business? I mean, could Nao be taken in? After all, he’d lived a good many years with Hallam, hadn’t he? And yet he never batted an eyelash, so far as I could see.’
‘Nao helped me find Mr Hallam.’
‘Oh, yes. But still——’
‘Thank goodness for Japanese impassivity,’ said Mrs Bradley, cackling. ‘A European servant would have given himself away to Middleton half a dozen times, however careful he was resolved to be. Nao, I am certain, never did. I told him what I wanted him to do, and he obeyed me.’
They had reached the top of the hill. The barrow of the long thin man looked unfamiliarly significant under the moon. Mrs Bradley sat down on an outcropping of limestone rock to rest. After a moment Jones sat down beside her.
‘The coffin is not up here, it seems,’ he said. He had not expected that it would be.
‘No,’ said Mrs Bradley. She peered at her watch. At the end of about ten minutes she rose and intimated that they would descend to the village.
‘Mortmain was my choice,’ said Jones, breaking a pause which had lasted, he thought, too long.
‘Mortmain? Oh, because he’s a doctor, you mean? Yes, but, child, he’s sane. We had to look for a madman; for someone obviously and entirely insane.’
‘Well,’ said Jones, grinning, ‘if that’s all you wanted, you wouldn’t need to look much farther than the Misses Harper, would you?’
Mrs Bradley cackled.
‘Let’s go and see Doctor Mortmain, and ask him where the body is,’ she said.
‘Of course, he hid it for you. But I thought you thought the body would be in the barrow of the long thin man.’
‘It will be, later on,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Come along. I never intended shouldering the responsibility of finding it up here.’
But when they arrived at Doctor Mortmain’s house she led Jones past it and on to old Mrs Fluke’s cottage, the one she inhabited by courtesy of the (so far as Jones was concerned) still unmaterialised Birdseye.
A candle was burning in the kitchen and old Mrs Fluke, a nightcap drawn decently over her hairless scalp, was seat
ed at the table with a pack of cards. As she shuffled them she mumbled, and as she mumbled it seemed to Jones that the candle flame burnt lower and higher rhythmically, uncannily and aptly, according to the changes in her tone.
They had lifted the latch and walked in, uninvited and apparently unnoticed, for the old woman did not look up nor give any other indication that she realised their presence. At last she pushed the cards together in an untidy heap and addressed Jones, chuckling.
‘I smell rain upon the wind, so I do.’
‘Good for you,’ said Jones cordially. Old Mrs Fluke looked at Mrs Bradley, and touched the dirty nightcap.
‘Not to have no more talk about witches and their hair, I shaved mine off,’ she said confidentially, as one of a sisterhood to another. Mrs Bradley nodded.
‘Eh?’ said Jones.
‘It is supposed in some districts,’ Mrs Bradley observed, ‘that a witch’s familiar spirit clings in her hair.’
‘And for why did Hanley Middleton go for to keep parson shut up in they old ruins like that?’ old Mrs Fluke continued. ‘’Twas cruel hard on poor young fellow. Us always liked parson, though us quarrelled with un. I done my best wi’ they frogs to show Hanley Middleton what a cruel old Pharaoh us did think him, and how he did ought to have let parson go, but it wasn’t no good, I reckon.’
She looked at Mrs Bradley, and chuckled hoarsely.
‘Come across, Mrs Fluke,’ said Jones. ‘When did you know that Mr Hallam had left the vicarage, and that Middleton had taken his place?’
‘When it happened. Just after when he killed that there Tebbutt our Eliza married. Sure, wasn’t that the brave one, then, to be trying to get the better of his old mother-in-law the way he did!’
‘Look here, who killed the cat?’ asked Jones.
‘Tom, he killed it. It was hurt, I reckon, and I know Hanley Middleton had been a-praying to it, and Tommy killed it.’
‘A debased fertility cult, founded partly on Isis worship, was introduced hereabouts by Roman legionaries in the second century, I believe,’ interpolated Mrs Bradley. ‘Middleton was experimenting with it, I expect. I have always supposed that the cat was one of the first signs that Hanley Middleton had come to the end of one of his lucid intervals. Tell us about the night of Tebbutt’s death, Mrs Fluke.’
The Devil at Saxon Wall Page 24