Come Away, Death

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘The company that makes the French wines.’

  ‘I must ask him about the vipers,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Who cut their heads off at Ephesus?’

  ‘I haven’t the least idea, unless it was Dick. He always thought they were dangerous, that I do know.’

  ‘Why did Gelert quarrel with Armstrong?’

  ‘All about a girl. Gelert always says it was Armstrong’s half-sister, and that caused the trouble, but I don’t know whether that’s true. I think it was just a case of a girl they both wanted. Or perhaps Gelert found out about Armstrong and Cathleen, and the way he behaved here that night. Gelert was rather keen on Cathleen until Ian turned up, you know.’

  Mrs Bradley sighed. Without another word she got up and walked down to the car. Dmitri politely saluted her. She asked him about the vipers.

  ‘Now that Mr Armstrong fortunately is dead, I tell what I know,’ Dmitri replied obligingly. He got out of the car, came round, and stood beside her, checking off the points on his fingers.

  ‘The snakes, they are six. Sir Rudri he has your snakes. The six, they are English, very slow and rather not pretty. The four, they are to belong to the snakeman of Morocco. I am to believe that Mr Currie has brought the six snakes. He has the mind. Exchange of snakes, he says, are as good as to cultivate.’

  ‘But I know that Mr Currie couldn’t have brought the vipers!’ said Mrs Bradley firmly. ‘Why do you tell me lies?’

  ‘Then it is the man of this car, yes,’ said Dmitri, politely changing his statement to please her. ‘Which you like. The snakes come from England, yes, no?’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ said Mrs Bradley. Megan, who had followed the conversation, giggled again.

  ‘What is the mystery about the vipers?’ Mrs Bradley inquired. ‘Why are you and Dmitri determined to invent an explanation of their presence in Sir Rudri’s box at Epidaurus?’

  Megan grinned.

  ‘Better take it we really don’t know, but won’t confess that we don’t,’ she responded flippantly. ‘If you really want to know,’ she added, meeting Mrs Bradley’s basilisk eye, ‘Gelert and I saw them for sale in the market, and I bought them, thinking I saw my way to a rag. I pinched the key of the snake-box – it’s easy to pick father’s pocket – he keeps his keys in his coat, and takes his coat off and leaves it about, you know – and we put the snake-charmer’s snakes in that round thing – the Tholos – and I went to feed them in the evening. Now, honestly, that is the truth. I had to tell Dmitri and swear him to secrecy, that’s all.’

  ‘So you were the white figure, were you?’

  ‘I wore a white frock, I believe – yes, now I remember, I did, and because of the beastly midges just at sunset, I muffled my head in a shantung jacket I’ve got. I expect you’ve seen it on me.’

  ‘Did you see the little boys peep over the top at you, Megan?’

  ‘No, I certainly didn’t. I shouldn’t have minded if I had. These kids are sports. They wouldn’t have let on. Later on I told father, and we put the snakes in a case in the museum. It was his idea to strew them about among the pilgrims.’

  ‘So you didn’t go there at night, but only at sunset?’

  ‘Yes, just at sunset. Does it matter?’

  ‘Only that you slept in the car beside me on the first night at Epidaurus. Do you remember?’

  ‘Ah, yes, until we had to go to the sanctuary with father.’

  ‘Yes, but, child, you could have fed the serpents then, if you’d been very quick —’

  ‘I could have done, but the fact remains that I didn’t.’

  ‘I knew you didn’t. You couldn’t have been the white figure that the children said they saw.’

  ‘Pulling our legs, or else the moonlight, or something,’ said Megan, who seemed anxious to change the subject. Mrs Bradley let her have her way. They got into the car, and drove back to Athens to arrive in time for a second breakfast at nine.

  2

  At ten Mrs Bradley popped Stewart and Cathleen into the car, and, with Ian driving again, set out for Mycenae by way of Megara and Corinth.

  Ian, knowing, this time, a little about the road, made what speed he could – good time to Corinth, where they lunched, and slower progress to Mycenae by way of the pass through the mountains.

  The wild glen, grandly forlorn, impressed the travellers no less than it had done the first time they had seen it. The car drew up not far from the Lion Gate, and Mrs Bradley got out, requesting the others not to accompany her, and not to go too far away from the car.

  She walked through the gate to the grave-circle, and studied again the scene of Ronald Dick’s accident. She examined it closely, and then climbed up on the wall and looked out over the plain. She could see the hill of Larissa, where Argos stands to the southward, and the cup of the mountains round about lonely Mycenae. She descended from her vantage-point on the Cyclopean masonry of the wall, and went to the spot where the entrails of Io the cow had been spread out to form the letter A.

  She looked round about her at the great walls. The huge blocks of stone had been laid cunningly to withstand all enemies, time among the rest. The place was so wild and desolate that it seemed to her a more fitting place than either Athens or Ephesus for the slaying of the young man Armstrong.

  ‘Slaying.’ She repeated the word once or twice. ‘Slaying.’ She noticed with amusement, her tongue’s apparent aversion to calling the man’s death murder. She seated herself in the car, but did not give Ian the signal to drive on. He was going to start up the engine, but she shook her head, still brooding. Whatever the secret of Armstrong’s slaying, she felt that the key to it lay in this lonely glen.

  ‘Justice,’ she said to Ian. ‘What is justice, dear child?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I have no experience of justice. I’m thinking nobody has.’

  He smiled. His dark blue eyes were merry, friendly, and sincere. He looked into her brilliant black ones as if he would read her thoughts. His smile faded. He knit his black brows.

  ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Are you not satisfied? Why are you not content to let the whole matter rest?’ He stopped. Then he added gently:

  ‘I would have killed him myself, if I’d thought he was worth it, do you see.’

  ‘I know you would. It is just that I want to know. Psychologically I know, but I want material proof. Put it down to inordinate curiosity, child.’

  ‘I think the thing is better left alone,’ said Ian doggedly.

  ‘Why didn’t you and Cathleen stay in Athens instead of coming to Ephesus with the rest of us?’ asked Mrs Bradley suddenly.

  ‘I was wanting very badly to see Ephesus.’

  ‘But at one point you said that you would not go to Ephesus because you wouldn’t go anywhere else with Armstrong. That means you knew he was dead when you changed your mind.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ He gazed serenely ahead of him, down the road. ‘Are you wishful I should be driving you on to Nauplia?’

  ‘No. We had better go back by the way we came. It was Armstrong, of course, who pushed Ronald Dick down that slope? Dick told me so, and I am inclined to believe him. Do you know anything about it?’

  ‘They were fighting,’ said Ian simply. ‘So Dick was telling me later.’

  ‘Was Armstrong trying to get the gold Dick found?’

  ‘Gold is always leading to trouble,’ said Ian gently.

  ‘Mrs Bradley, please,’ said Stewart, ‘why have we come here to-day?’

  ‘I don’t know, child. It doesn’t seem to help. And yet —’ She looked back at the mighty, massive walls.

  ‘Is Armstrong really dead?’ asked Stewart presently.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid he is.’

  ‘Hu – bally well – ray!’ said Stewart, with considerable emphasis. Mrs Bradley gazed at him benignly before she told Ian to drive on.

  3

  Dish was counting the silver. He looked up, then got up, as Mrs Bradley entered. He seemed a little co
nfused.

  ‘Making sure that no souvenirs have been removed by the visitors, Dish?’ she asked, with a cackle, glancing keenly and appreciatively at him.

  ‘Mam,’ said Dish, with dignity, ‘you never know, in these days, what is what, nor even who is who, so, after a big dinner, like the one we had yesterday to all the archaeologists and such, I generally makes my tally. Not as we can ask for anything back, but just to add a few more words to a chapter.’

  ‘Really?’ said Mrs Bradley. She seated herself. ‘Do you speak metaphorically, Dish?’

  ‘Not altogether taking your meaning, mam, I couldn’t say, I’m sure. But I’m writing a book, and it helps to get a few sidelights. I’m calling it Red Light to Port, mam, that being a title as all can understand, and yet, if you take me, it’s wheels within wheels, like everything up to date, too.’

  ‘I think it an excellent title. I hope you haven’t laid yourself open to being misunderstood, Dish, in the book.’

  ‘Mr Gelert’s going to edit it when it’s done, and guarantee the camouflage, mam, you see.’

  ‘I see. Dish, did you kill Mr Armstrong?’

  ‘Funny you should ask me that,’ said Dish. ‘If I’d had an Army training, instead of the Navy, mam, I dare say I should have done – often.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘But I didn’t, except as a kind of what-do-you-call-it, mam.’

  ‘As an accessory before the fact? You mean, you made the bow? You wouldn’t know at that time, I take it, that the bow was a lethal weapon?’

  Dish blushed.

  ‘A little job after my own heart, mam. Course, I didn’t know what was the little idea. But bless your heart, mam! Lethal weapon? That bow, by the time I’d done with it, would have killed an elephant, easy. It wanted a good pull, mind you! Even doing it the way Mr Dick showed me when I’d finished making it. Not as he could do much with it – a little whipper-snapper like him.’

  ‘Dish,’ said Mrs Bradley suddenly, ‘were you the white figure in the Tholos at Epidaurus?’

  ‘The how-much, mam?’

  ‘The maze-thing. Those circular foundations.’

  ‘Oh no, mam, that wouldn’t be me. Sir Rudri’s first orders, mam, it was me as had to e – merge from them ruins when he said, and be flashlight photographed by that there Armstrong, mam, but it never come off, though, because Miss Megan kept them snakes in there. It was me, though, as handed round them snakes. Ah well, it’s no good going on against Mr Armstrong. He’s dead now, come what may.’

  ‘What about his poor old mother, Dish?’

  ‘Collecting up the insurance money as fast as the company’ll pay it out to her, mam, and off to Philadelphia in the morning.’

  ‘Yes, I believe that’s true.’ She pondered awhile, and then asked:

  ‘Dish, you didn’t come to Ephesus because you didn’t want to make one of a party which included Mr Armstrong. Is that so?’

  ‘Just about, mam.’

  ‘How did Armstrong’s body get to Ephesus?’

  ‘Not knowing, mam, I can’t say.’

  ‘Can’t?’

  ‘Can’t, mam. And I don’t mean won’t. I didn’t know it went to Ephesus. Pardon me, mam – it’s only curiosity, like – but was it took, or did it, so to speak, walk, mam?’

  ‘It was taken, Dish.’

  ‘Then Mr Armstrong was done in here, in Athens?’

  ‘I’m trying to establish the spot. There was very little difficulty in establishing the approximate date.’

  ‘You being a doctor, like? Begging your pardon, mam, but why not leave well alone?’

  ‘Because – this for your private ear, Dish – it wouldn’t be well if the police here got hold of the facts. The more I know, the more I can hide. You see before you, Dish, your fellow-conspirator – the accessory after the fact.’

  ‘Right, mam. How do we go?’

  ‘Honest fellow!’ thought Mrs Bradley. ‘He has been about his unlawful occasions before now, I’ll be bound.’ Aloud she said:

  ‘Dish, I want that bow.’

  ‘My belief. he’s broke it up.’

  ‘Put it together again. I’ll get you the bits. I want an exact reconstruction.’

  ‘With guarantee it’ll never be used in evidence, mam?’

  ‘Exactly, Dish. See to it, will you?’

  ‘Very good, mam.’ He saluted as he let her out into the passage.

  4

  The bow was a marvel of craftsmanship. Holding it in her hands, Mrs Bradley was amazed at the cleverness shown in its making. The ibex horns were joined, Homeric fashion, with a binding of wood, horn, and sinew. The weight required to bend it was greater than she herself possessed, but Dish, who was heavy and muscular, could manage it, shown the right way to set about the business. He gave it back, shaking his head.

  ‘Said he wanted it for the museum, I thought,’ he said.

  ‘I dare say he did, at first,’ said Mrs Bradley. Taking the bow in her hand, she went to Dick again. He was up, and was working at a writing table. He turned his head over his shoulder, and then got up and came over to her.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said. He took the bow in his hands.

  ‘The back-bent bow of Odysseus,’ Mrs Bradley replied. ‘Why did you take it to pieces instead of presenting it to the museum, my child? It’s a fine bit of work. Dish did it for you, I know, but I suppose you gave him the instructions.’

  ‘Dish doesn’t read Homer,’ said Dick, blinking with great rapidity behind his thick-lensed glasses.

  ‘How far will it carry? Do you know?’

  ‘I haven’t tried. It’s beyond – I just mean, I haven’t tried. Quite a good way, I should think. I wouldn’t risk – well, anyhow, quite a good way. Dish made a good job, didn’t he?’

  ‘A very good job. He has managed to repeat it for me. How far away was Armstrong when you shot him?’

  ‘How far —’ He swallowed, and then squared his shoulders. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. He took a small comb from his pocket and solemnly combed his hair. ‘About twenty yards, I should think. The arrow entered his throat. That’s why I cut off his head.’

  ‘Did you mean to kill him, or was it an accident, child?’

  ‘It wasn’t an accident, no. You see, he was annoying Sir Rudri, and that upset Gelert and Megan, and, later on, I knew it would upset Lady Hopkinson, too, and she has been very kind to me. Then there was the question of Megan’s attachment to him. That I found I couldn’t bear. Then there was the man himself – so vile, so vicious, so cruel – it seemed, as I had the bow – the suitors, you know – there was classic justification —’

  ‘Quite, quite,’ said Mrs Bradley, fascinated by this recital of the facts. ‘Where was he when you killed him?’

  ‘In the stadion.’

  ‘In the stadion, child?’

  ‘Yes. It is rather a good place, really, for anything of the kind. The bow made very little noise, and, unless you get tourists and people, the place is often deserted. You’ve only to pick your time.’

  ‘But the custodian in costume at the gate?’

  ‘He didn’t seem to notice. I think some American girls were taking his photograph. Armstrong was showing off. He climbed into the arena and I was up on one of the marble seats – you know how hideous the whole place is, although built with the best of intentions and very patriotically and all that – and I just took a pull, and down he went, gulping a bit, and the arrow sticking out of his throat. Of course, on that dry, parched ground, the blood hardly showed at all. I went to some men outside (when I’d pulled out the arrow and put it on one of the seats), and said that my friend had had an accident. They were awfully good, and came up and lifted him up – I was wearing a dark-coloured scarf – dark-blue, I think it was – a silk thing – to keep the sun from the back of my neck – and I’d taken it off and wound it round his throat – and we got him into a taxi and down to Piraeus. After that it was easy. We rowed him out to the ship on which we were going to Ephesus, tumbled him on to my
bunk – the others went back with the boat – I tipped the man on watch and told him Armstrong was drunk – these Greeks will believe anything so long as they’re not asked to take any trouble, or plan ahead or do anything really constructive – and then I bundled him into one of the sleeping-sacks, and kept him in the hold.

  ‘After that I dropped the body overboard half-way between here and Chios, having previously cut off the head. Some blood was on the sleeping-sack, and the head was beginning to – I thought I ought to bury the head when I could. Then —’

  ‘I know all about the snake-box,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Did you also decapitate the vipers?’

  Dick began to look rather sick.

  ‘I didn’t like doing that, but I wanted the box for the head, and it seemed rather mean to let loose those poisonous things where kids were going about without socks on, and so forth,’ he said.

  ‘I see,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Are you prepared to give me your statement in writing?’

  ‘I thought you’d been taking it down.’

  She showed him her note-book. Her system of shorthand was indecipherable by anybody but herself. He adjusted his glasses, took the book in his hand, and studied the tiny signs. He handed the note-book back, and shook his head.

  ‘I should not understand that unless I worked on it for a year.’

  Mrs Bradley cackled.

  ‘If I wrote out your statement in longhand, would you sign it?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought it was only the police who had the right to require one to sign a statement of that nature.’

  ‘Are you prepared to tell your story to the police?’

  ‘No, I don’t think I am.’

  ‘Perhaps that is just as well,’ said Mrs Bradley.

  ‘You don’t intend to use my statement, then? – Unless somebody else is involved, of course. I should quite understand about that.’

  ‘How much do you weigh?’ asked Mrs Bradley. Before he could answer, she had gone.

  ‘I hope you haven’t been worrying that poor boy,’ said Marie Hopkinson, when Mrs Bradley rejoined her. ‘He’s feeling very lonely without Megan. She’s gone to stay with Olwen and her husband for a week, to see the baby, and make herself useful and generally to oblige. Beatrice, I’m grateful about Rudri. He really seems better already. You’re quite sure, aren’t you – oh well, I’m sure myself now. I know he didn’t do it.’