[Mrs Bradley 41] - Three Quick and Five Dead

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘It’s just a hunch. I deeply distrust that godly guy.’

  ‘Have you any idea of what the notices on the bodies stand for? I believe the police have mentioned them to you.’

  ‘Sound like car numbers to me.’

  ‘In Memoriam?’

  ‘Blokes and girls do get killed on rallies and in motor-smashes, don’t they? – so in memoriam would be quite appropriate.’

  ‘Unfortunately, that is true. Car numbers would also include some letters of the alphabet, though, would they not?’

  ‘Might be part of this In Memoriam bit, don’t you think? Karen could drive a car and had had a smash or two, I believe.’

  ‘And Maria?’

  ‘Well, she couldn’t drive, so far as I know. I always took her out in Ma’s little bus.’

  ‘Did you ever receive the impression that she was afraid of anybody?’

  ‘No. She was quite a girl, in her way. Cap over the windmill type. You know.’

  ‘A professional, would you say?’

  ‘Not really. Just a type which was bound to run into trouble, that’s all.’

  ‘And you ran her into it – or so she seems to have thought.’

  ‘She didn’t commit suicide, you know.’

  ‘According to the medical evidence, that is indisputable.’

  ‘What do you want me to tell you?’

  ‘Nothing which might incriminate you, of course. If you would give me a plain, unvarnished tale of how you came to meet the girl, and of what followed from the meeting, it might help.’

  ‘Help who? Me?’

  ‘That is possible, although that was not the thought in my mind.’

  ‘I suppose you mean you want to help serve the ends of justice, then, but if the rozzers really suspect me I doubt whether I’d still be at large, you know. Whose side are you on, by the way?’

  ‘I rarely take sides. In this case I am on the side of two dead girls.’

  ‘Fair enough. Me too. Maria wasn’t a bad bit of homework in her way, and if I’d been Karen’s full brother instead of only half …’

  ‘I understood that you were twins.’

  ‘That’s Ma’s bit of cover-up. I’m illegit. I think. That’s why she hates me. Hadn’t you rumbled? I did, years ago.’

  ‘I have gathered that you are not her favourite child, yes. She has made no secret of that fact.’

  ‘What has she said about me?’

  ‘That you are wicked.’

  ‘And a murderer? Does she say I’m a murderer?’

  Dame Beatrice saw no reason to reply to this last query. She said, as she took out a small notebook,

  ‘You are going to tell me about your first meeting with Señorita Machrado, are you not?’

  ‘And of all that followed from it, I suppose you mean. I’ve no objection. I’ve nothing to hide. We carry a limited number of passengers on my ship. They eat at the captain’s table. We don’t carry a stewardess, so we don’t take unaccompanied ladies. Maria came on board as another passenger’s wife, which, of course, she wasn’t, but they asked for, and got, separate cabins because she complained her husband snored and kept her awake at nights. Our first officer, a bloke named Lilley, opined that they weren’t married, and, when I got to know Maria, she told me that the chap was her uncle and a widower, so he already had a passport made out for himself and wife. I don’t know how they got over the photograph difficulty, but I suppose it was easy enough to substitute hers for that of the dead wife. There was nothing fishy about their relationship. I imagine they had come with us because we charge only about half the fare you’d pay on a liner. Anyway, I found Maria a sporting sort of kid, but, of course, you don’t, on our ship, play any games with women except shuffleboard when our old man’s got his eye on you, so I didn’t have much fun until we docked, and then not a lot, because Maria had to report to the University.’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course.’

  ‘Her uncle had a headwaiter’s job ready for him in London, so he soon buzzed off, but before he left he found Maria some digs and saw her settled in. Well, I had a few days while the ship turned round, and I promised to look her up next time I was in the neighbourhood, and I did, and we had our bit of fun, and that was that.’

  ‘When was this next time?’

  ‘Mid-October, when we docked at Southampton. As usual, I didn’t go home. I whooped it up a bit with some of the boys after I’d seen Maria, and then I went to London for a day or two, and forgot all about her until I went back to the ship and found a letter from her. Well, we weren’t sailing until the second tide, so I sneaked a couple of hours off and went to see her, but, of course, I couldn’t stop, so we had a drink with her landlady and then I had to get back to the ship.’

  ‘How did your mother get to know her?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue. You could have knocked me down with the usual feather when I went home after I heard of Karen’s death and found Maria there.’

  Dame Beatrice looked sceptical.

  ‘You haven’t a clue?’ she asked. ‘But how could your mother have met Miss Machrado except through you?’

  Her sharp black eyes sought his blue ones and held them for a moment; then Otto laughed uneasily, dropped his eyes and stared at his large hands.

  ‘So, far from meeting Señorita Machrado for the first time at your mother’s cottage, and only a comparatively short while before she was murdered, you had actually known her for several months. Is that it?’

  Otto raised his eyes again for a moment.

  ‘You don’t have to believe everything I tell you,’ he said. ‘I like pulling people’s legs.’

  ‘Well, that being settled, how much of your story is true?’

  ‘Not much of it. Didn’t it ring true?’

  ‘It was a reasonable sort of tale. It could have been true.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t. The truth is that I met her at my mother’s cottage after I heard about Karen. Does that sound more likely?’

  ‘Just as likely as the other.’

  ‘Well, I can leave you to sort it out, then, can’t I? What right have you to come here asking me questions, anyway? You’re not the police?’

  ‘No, I am consultant psychiatrist to the Home Office.’

  This calm statement appeared to alarm Otto.

  ‘Here, I’m not a madman!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Then you may not be the person the police are looking for,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘That’s what I mean! It must be a madman, mustn’t it?’ His cocky, slightly insolent attitude had changed to one of seriousness and fear.

  ‘How often did you ask your mother and your sister and your sister’s fiancé for money?’

  ‘Ask them for money? I never did. Oh, I know what you mean, but half of what she got – only she swore she didn’t get it – was mine by rights, you know.’

  ‘Half of what who got?’

  ‘Karen. She had a big win on Ernie. I only heard about it by accident. My father bought us a few Ernie Bonds not very long before he died, and one of them came up last year. I was in a pub with some of the chaps from the Carmilla one night. One of them was the purser. He was looking at the paper and he said some people had all the luck, and pointed to the figures where they give the winning numbers. I took out my pocket-book where I’d jotted down our numbers, Karen’s and mine, and gave a bit of a laugh and said I didn’t suppose I’d clicked, but, by God, I had! I got home as soon as I could and asked for my share, but there wasn’t any share. Karen said she had claimed, but the paper had misprinted a figure or something, and ours was not a winning bond after all. I couldn’t do anything more about it then, because my ship sailed the next day and we were away for six months after that.’

  ‘And you did nothing more about the prize money?’

  ‘What was the use?’

  ‘But you really think your sister had it?’

  ‘Oh, I know she had it, but I think my mother persuaded her to include me out. Probably softened it up to Karen by saying I�
�d only drink it or spend it on girls.’

  ‘Did she leave you anything in her will?’

  ‘Karen? I shouldn’t think so. I haven’t bothered to find out. We never got on. Both of them always hated me. What do I care? It’s always been the same as long as I can remember. Everything for Karen, nothing for me. For her a decent education, college, clothes, spoiling – the lot. For me, grudging, kicks, hard words, until I got sick of it all and ran away to sea.’

  ‘And are now second officer.’

  ‘Yes. I worked up. I’ve got my father’s brains.’

  ‘And are alive, while your sister is dead.’

  ‘Yes. It’s an odd world.’

  ‘And you are Karen’s twin, in spite of what you said.’

  ‘Yes, and born in lawful wedlock, as they say.’

  ‘I advise you not to try to pull the wool over the Superintendent’s eyes when he questions you. You said that you quarrelled with Señorita Machrado. Keeping now to a bald and, I hope, a convincing narrative, will you tell me what the quarrel was about?’

  ‘Oh, just what you might expect,’ said Otto, raising his eyes again. ‘She was a proper little gold-digger, of course, and she dug a bit too deep. I spent as much of my pay on her as I could afford, but she wanted more. I couldn’t give it her, so she tried to blackmail me by threatening to tell my mother of our goings-on. I countered that by telling her that she was welcome to do it. I had nothing to lose. Then she went for me with a knife and I knocked it out of her hand and smacked her face, and so we parted, but I never expected things to end like this.’

  ‘When did you hear of her death?’

  ‘Read about it in the London papers. We had some refitting to do, so I snaffled a day’s leave and went up to Town.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Well, I was alone when I started.’

  Dame Beatrice left it at that.

  ‘So what did you make of the saucy sailor?’ asked Laura.

  ‘Rather a childish person in some respects, and, I would say, a psychopath. He spun me a rigmarole and then complained that his mother hates him …’

  ‘Well, that seems to be true enough.’

  ‘… and that he suspects his sister cheated him out of some money which was paid out on a premium bond which they held in common. He seems fond of female society, and I imagine that his alibi depends on the word of a prostitute he seems to have picked up in London after he parted from Señorita Machrado.’

  ‘But whose word, for or against, is not likely to be accepted by the police. Still, they haven’t arrested Otto, have they? That’s something in his favour. After all, there would be nothing to stop him jumping his ship in foreign parts and going to ground on the Continent.’

  ‘The police have little inclination to trouble themselves overmuch about him. They are convinced that the same man killed both girls. That man cannot have been Otto Schumann. His alibi for the murder of his sister is unbreakable.’

  ‘You and the Superintendent seem certain that the murders were committed by a man.’

  ‘One goes partly by the nature of the crimes and partly by the size of the hand which did the strangling. The marks on the victims’ necks …’

  Laura spread out a shapely palm.

  ‘My own hands are pretty large,’ she said, thoughtfully.

  ‘Not large enough for that to which we refer.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve noticed Mrs Schumann’s hands? And both girls were domiciled with her when things happened to them.’

  ‘I do not lose sight of that fact, but I ought to point out that neither of the girls was actually living in Mrs Schumann’s cottage when the murders were committed.’

  ‘It doesn’t look as though James had any reason for committing the second one, though, does it? We don’t even know that he knew the Spanish girl.’

  ‘Superintendent Phillips will establish whether he did or whether he did not, and the handwriting experts will give their opinion, no doubt, as to whether the notices found on the bodies were by the same hand.’

  ‘Handwriting experts are not infallible, and the notices were in Roman capitals. We may be doing James the most frightful injustice. After all, why do we suspect him? Just because he can’t prove his alibi?’

  ‘That cannot be our only reason, surely?’

  ‘Then it must be a case of “I do not like thee, Doctor Fell”, mustn’t it?’

  ‘There are worse reasons for suspecting people of murder, although, perhaps, not many,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘And, of course, Edward James could have been acquainted with the Spanish girl. We know that he visited Mrs Schumann at least once – and it may have been several times – after her daughter’s death.’

  (4)

  ‘A psychopath, you say?’ said Phillips. ‘Oh, dear! That makes you think a bit, doesn’t it? I’d say nothing was more likely than that he’d murdered this Spanish girl – a proper little tart she was, by all accounts – except that nothing will shake my opinion that the two crimes were committed by the same person, and that person definitely could not have been Schumann. I’ve taken too many corroborative statements to the effect that he was at sea when his sister was killed to believe that he could have had anything to do with her death. But – a psychopath! Sort of lad who might do anything, including imitating a murder he’d read about. Would you go along with that, Dame Beatrice?’

  ‘Not altogether, and for what seems to me a sufficient reason. The second murder seems to have been as carefully planned as the first, yet Otto Schumann knew nothing about his sister’s death until his ship docked and that was some time after it had occurred. How much is actually known, by the way, (apart from what may have been surmised), about this second death?’

  ‘Damn-all, if you’ll excuse the expression, Dame Beatrice. We know where the body was found, and we know that Mrs Schumann wrote to the girl’s other digs telling her she need not come back to the cottage. We found the letter among Miss Machrado’s things. That’s about the lot. She came from Bilbao, and we’ve been in touch with her family, but they can tell us nothing that helps us in any way.’

  ‘Otto Schumann claimed that she was a South American. What does her College landlady have to say about her now?’

  ‘Oh, that she was every kind of a little trollop and that she had kicked her out of the digs.’

  ‘She discovered, then, that the girl and Otto Schumann were not married?’

  ‘She turned her out on the strength of the row they had. Apparently Miss Machrado pursued Schumann to the front door and part-way down the street, screaming abuse at him in Spanish. After she was turned away from the digs we haven’t been able to trace her movements.’

  ‘Nor those of Edward James?’

  ‘Well, there, of course, we’ve had to be rather careful because, so far, there’s no actual evidence that he had any more than the most casual and passing acquaintance with the girl. He spent Christmas with friends in Kent – his parents are dead – but he left there the day after Boxing Day. He went to see Mrs Schumann – that’s how we know as much as we do – and then, so far as she can tell us, he spent the rest of the school vacation in London so that he could use the British Museum and the London libraries for his studies.’

  ‘But Mrs Schumann doesn’t know his London address?’

  ‘She says he talked about finding a cheap hotel, but she doesn’t know where he was going to look for one. She doesn’t know London at all well, it seems. Anyway, of one thing, so she told us, she is certain. He did not meet Miss Machrado on his last visit to the cottage, although Mrs Schumann admits she told him about the girl’s goings on and of how they parted brass-rags because of the girl’s association with Otto and the lies she’d told about the College end-of-term arrangements. She also admits that James had met the girl once or twice at her place before all the scandal blew up. There’s not much help to be got out of that, though, Dame Beatrice, and, if he was working hard in London, James wouldn’t have had the time to plan this second murder, let alone carry it
out.’

  ‘If he killed Miss Schumann, he had “learned the ropes”, so to speak, though, hadn’t he?’ said Laura.

  ‘But if he had only the slightest acquaintance with the girl Machrado – and it’s difficult to see that it could have been more than that, Mrs Gavin – why on earth should he murder her? He’s not a maniac.’

  ‘But young Otto is a psychopath!’ said Laura.

  ‘Makes you think a bit, that does,’ agreed the Superintendent. ‘Different from the way I found him at first. I’ll need to take a closer look at him.’

  ‘And when you do, you might also ponder on Mr Rucastle,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Sherlock Holmes’ methods? I doubt whether I’d find them very useful, ma’am,’ said Phillips.

  (5)

  ‘Well,’ said Laura, ‘now that Scotland Yard has been called in, the whole business is out of our hands, I suppose, and has ceased to be a purely local matter.’

  ‘Yes. It might be interesting, however, from a purely academic point of view, to note the differences, as well as the similarities, between the two cases.’

  ‘The differences? Well, let’s see now. First of all, we know that one body was found within easy walking distance of this house, the other a good many miles away on Bere Heath. The first was found by me – or by Fergus, if you like – the second by members of the Tank Corps. Karen Schumann was a virgin, Maria Machrado was pregnant. Edward James was engaged to Karen, but, so far as we’ve been told, he knew very little about Maria, and that mostly by hearsay, and the police can’t prove anything different. Karen was killed towards the end of November, when her school had a free day, Maria early in the New Year, during her College vacation.’

  ‘Which was during the school holidays, too.’

  ‘Yes, I hadn’t forgotten that, but we still can’t find any connection between James and this second murder, can we? My last point of difference is that Karen was of German descent, Maria was a Spaniard.’

  ‘I thought we had decided to treat that as a similarity, since neither was of English ancestry. Incidentally, you left one of the points of difference at the half-way mark. Edward James was engaged to Karen and knew of Maria chiefly by hearsay, but it seems that Otto Schumann must have known both girls very well indeed. On the other hand, there is no doubt that it would have been impossible for him to have killed his sister. There is no escaping the fact that he was on his ship, and not even in port, at the time of Karen Schumann’s death.’