[Mrs Bradley 41] - Three Quick and Five Dead

by Gladys Mitchell

‘Suppose that Dame Beatrice is right, and that 325 refers to a date in the fourth century, what would it mean to you, as a scholar and a theologian?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Come, come, sir! It is a definite date in church history. You must have come across it in your studies.’

  ‘Come across it? Well, it’s the date, near enough – some of those dates are approximate only, you know – of the condemnation of the heretic Arius by the Synod of Antioch.’

  ‘And,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘you once called your fiancée a misguided little Aryan or Arian.’

  ‘So you told me before. I have no recollection of it.’

  ‘It was during a discussion you had with her one afternoon after school hours. You were in the school library. The discussion was interrupted by the school secretary, who came to ask for the key to the library so that she could lock up and go home.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I begin to remember. We had been debating the Divine Nature. Karen had access to her father’s very considerable library and had a moderately good brain. It helped my studies to talk things over with her – clarified my ideas, fixed facts in my head, and so forth.’

  ‘And did her mother ever discuss your work with you?’ Dame Beatrice asked.

  ‘Not often. Occasionally she would quote her late husband’s opinions when Karen and I were talking, but whether her recollection of them was as complete as she claimed I could hardly say. Some of them sounded very unorthodox to me.’

  ‘I wonder …’ Dame Beatrice paused, as though doubtful of the propriety of her thoughts.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wonder whether you were more attracted by her father’s library than by Karen herself?’

  To her surprise, James smiled.

  ‘I knew, of course, that her father had such a library, but it was closed to me until some months after we became engaged,’ he said. ‘The room was kept locked in respect for his memory, so Mrs Schumann told me.’

  ‘Indeed? What led her, then, to admit you to it, and to allow you the use of it, as I understand is now the case?’

  ‘Oh, as to that – well, does it really matter?’

  ‘If it did not, you would have no hesitation in answering my question. Let me put it in another way. It is true, is it not, that you have had the full use of that library only since your fiancée’s death?’

  ‘In a sense that is true. Before that, at Mrs Schumann’s invitation, I used to make out lists of books which I wished to consult, and Karen would bring them to school on Mondays when she returned from the week-end spent with her mother.’

  ‘While Miss Schumann was alive you spent only about one week-end in four with her at her mother’s cottage?’

  ‘About one in four, yes. I could not take any more time off from my studies. I needed my week-ends to visit public libraries in Southampton, London and elsewhere.’

  ‘Yet, since Miss Schumann’s death, you are far more frequently at the cottage.’

  ‘Only owing to my having been given free access to the library there. We seem to be moving in circles.’ His first sullenness and an air of apprehension were returning, Dame Beatrice noted. She decided upon shock tactics.

  ‘What was Mrs Schumann’s price,’ she demanded, ‘for allowing you the full use of her husband’s valuable library?’

  Caught off his guard, James blurted out the truth.

  ‘My promise to marry her when Karen had been dead for a year and a day,’ he said.

  (2)

  ‘You must have knocked him for six with that question,’ said Laura, when she had received from Dame Beatrice a full account of the interview.

  ‘It took him by surprise, as I had expected that it would. Then, like a great many reserved, self-contained and somewhat lonely people, once he had committed himself I heard a great deal more than I could have hoped for. It appears that, although Mrs Schumann did not openly pursue him during her daughter’s engagement, she was not above innuendo.’

  ‘As how? Disparity in age between James and Karen?’

  ‘Mostly, yes, added to which she was inclined to stress the point that a mature man must expect to be cuckolded if he insisted upon marrying an immature girl.’

  ‘She really went so far as to warn him that Karen was not likely to remain faithful to him after they were married?’

  ‘She stated that her husband had several times strayed from the righteous but unenterprising path of marital fidelity, and reminded him that the son, Otto, was a young man of unstable character and vicious habits and that Karen was Otto’s sister and her father’s daughter. She seems to have contrived to render poor Edward James both insecure and unhappy.’

  ‘I should jolly well think so, the wicked old puss!’

  ‘When Karen was killed, she suggested that the inference must be that Karen had had a secret lover who had killed her because she refused to sacrifice her virtue to him. She pointed out that for three week-ends out of four Karen was free to do as she pleased and also stated that she seldom spent a Saturday night inside the cottage.’

  ‘Good Lord!’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Then, after Karen’s funeral, she made James a definite offer – two, as a matter of fact, both very tempting to an ambitious man. In return for his promise of marriage she agreed to allow him unrestricted access to her late husband’s library, and to give him, as a wedding portion, the five thousand pounds which her daughter had gained on a premium bond. She pointed out that, with its help, he could resign his teaching post for a couple of years and devote his whole time to study and research for his doctorate.’

  ‘He didn’t accept, of course.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he did, but as the months passed, and these murders accumulated, he became more unhappy about the bargain he had made.’

  ‘So he believes Mrs Schumann is the murderer, the same as you do!’

  ‘I do not think he can quite bring himself to go so far as that, but I think his suspicions have been aroused strongly enough to make him averse to the projected marriage.’

  ‘I wonder whether Mrs Schumann knows that?’

  ‘He has gone to the length of telling her that he wants the murderer found before he is willing to enter into matrimony.’

  ‘How did Mrs Schumann take that?’

  ‘He did not say. He did give us another valuable bit of information, though. It confirmed what I had always suspected.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About Otto Schumann’s statement that, after her landlady had shown her the door, Maria Machrado announced her intention of returning to Mrs Schumann’s cottage. According to James, she did return there. Shortly afterwards her body was found in those bushes near Badbury Rings.’

  ‘Of course, we know we can’t really believe a word Otto says, but this confirmation from James means that, for once, Otto told the truth.’

  ‘It also means that Karla Schumann is a liar. She declared that Machrado had never returned to the cottage.’

  ‘Also, as we’ve already noted, she told us she didn’t care much about James. Well, well, well! Where do we go from here?’

  ‘I think we must leave the police to decide that. I see nothing else for them to do except to begin their investigation all over again, in a sense.’

  ‘With Mrs Schumann as the centre of it, you mean? Yes, but, if they’re still thinking in terms of three murderers, not one, they’re not going to make her the centre-piece, are they? It’s a nuisance, though, that she thinks of us as her friends. I feel we’ve shopped her, in a way.’

  ‘It is some time since she thought of us as her friends, if, indeed, that thought was ever in her mind. In any case, we may be fairly certain that she will learn from Edward James of his summons to the police station, and, even if he does not recount all the details of the interview, a guilty woman will reconstruct enough of it to realise that somebody has put the police on her track, and that the likeliest person to have done so is myself. In addition to that, a mind capable of planning and carrying out five deaths without, s
o far, leaving sufficient evidence to warrant her arrest, is also capable of working out the unenviable nature of the position in which she is now likely to find herself as a result of James’s admissions and disclosures. In view of that fact, and at risk of sounding melodramatic, I require two promises from you.’

  ‘Not to go about alone and unarmed, which is, as you will allow, quite ridiculous, because I am more than a match, physically, for Mrs Schumann.’

  ‘Nevertheless, if I am to sleep at night and to be saved from gnawing anxiety by day …’

  ‘Oh, all right, if you put it like that. What do you want me to do? – wear a dog-collar like Lord Peter Wimsey’s Harriet in Gaudy Night? Anyway, what’s the other promise?’

  ‘I do not want Hamish here until this woman is dead, or gone, or in prison.’

  ‘Dead? You think she might commit suicide?’

  ‘I think it not unlikely.’

  ‘Gavin could take Hamish straight from school to my people in Scotland, I suppose. They’re always crazy to have him; I can’t think why. Actually, feeling as we do about Mrs Schumann, I’d rather, myself, not have anything so vulnerable as a kid around the place until she’s well away from it.’

  ‘Good. My mind is made easy.’

  ‘I wonder what Maisry’s first move will be?’

  This question was answered by Maisry himself some three days later. He arrived, after a telephone call, at four o’clock in the afternoon and gratefully accepted tea.

  ‘Well,’ he said, in his gentle voice. ‘I have set the ball rolling by calling on Mrs Schumann and asking her to confirm or deny Mr James’s assertions.’

  ‘That he is contracted to marry her and is promised the sum of five thousand pounds for consenting to do so?’

  ‘Yes. She denied both statements, of course, as I was quite certain she would. My object in confronting her with them was to ensure that, if you are right and she is our mass-murderer, these indiscriminate killings will stop. They will, I have no doubt, if she is sane, and that is where you come in. As psychiatric adviser to the Home Office, you may be called upon to give an opinion as to her mental condition if she is convicted, but I should be very much obliged if you would give me your private views beforehand. You see, if there had been only the one death, that of Karen Schumann, I would say that, on the evidence of motive, we now have enough justification for her arrest. Unfortunately, there are four more deaths to be accounted for, and over those we are as much in the dark as ever we were. My theory that there is a mad person at work is still tenable, but whether Mrs Schumann is that person is open to doubt. Of course, I’m only a layman in these matters, but I must admit that she seems to me to be quite as sane as I am myself.’

  ‘How did she take your visit?’

  ‘Well, that’s just the point. I took my sergeant with me, and asked her whether she objected to his taking down the interview in shorthand. She replied that she had nothing to conceal, and would be agreeable to his doing so, provided that, at the end, he read to her what he had written down. To this, naturally, I consented. I have brought with me the full typescript of what was said at the interview, if you would care to read it. It will convey much more to you, I think, than if I gave you an extempore report.’

  ‘May I read it aloud, so that Laura can hear it? I shall wish to discuss it with her.’

  ‘By all means. Here it is. Better still, I’ll leave it with you. I have another copy, and so has Superintendent Phillips. They’ve put him on to another case for the time being – an armed robbery – so I’m working on my own at present, as it happens, but I wanted him to see the report, all the same.’

  ‘Do you care to take more tea?’

  ‘No, thank you. I’ve done splendidly. What wonderful cakes your cook makes!’

  ‘I will tell him you said so. Henri appreciates compliments.’

  ‘Ah, a French chef! That explains it. And the maid who carried in the tray and the cakestand?’

  ‘French also, and, incidentally, Henri’s wife. They have been with me for very many years. French!’ repeated Dame Beatrice, when Maisry had taken his leave. ‘I wonder!’

  ‘You wonder what?’ asked Laura, intrigued by something in her employer’s tone.

  ‘Ring the bell. You know, the last thing one sees, very often, is what is under one’s nose. I am so much accustomed to Henri and Celestine that I have ceased to think of them as anything but my friends and servants. When the warning went round to foreigners to take certain precautions, I doubt very much whether Henri and Celestine were included. I myself said nothing to them. I regret to admit that it did not occur to me that Celestine might be in danger.’

  ‘Neither did it to me. Perhaps Phillips said something to them, though.’

  Summoned to the drawing-room, Celestine made for the teatray to remove it, but Dame Beatrice said,

  ‘Not for a minute or two. Sit down.’

  ‘In the presence of madame? But no, I stand.’

  ‘Do as you’re told.’

  ‘Very well, madame.’

  ‘You’ve heard all about these dreadful murders, of course. You and Henri have probably discussed them with George.’

  ‘Only when we have sent Zena out of the kitchen, I assure you, madame. Such matters are not for the ears of young girls.’

  ‘I dare say she has been fully informed from other sources, but you have acted very properly. That, however, is not my point. You remember a Mrs Schumann who has visited here once or twice?’

  ‘But perfectly, madame.’

  ‘Has she ever made any sort of friendly approach to you?’

  ‘Ah, yes. Once she invited me to take tea with her at her house.’

  ‘But you did not go?’

  ‘Certainly not, madame. For me, I do not like Germans, and I was most grateful, madame, for your graciousness in arranging that Zena, not I, should wait on Madame Schumann at table.’

  ‘How did you get out of accepting her invitation?’ asked Laura.

  ‘Very simply, madame. The letter was pushed under the kitchen door after dark one night and was in very good French. I thought it was done that way to save payment for a stamp which, at fourpence, is very dear, but when I told Georges that the letter was an invitation from Mrs Schumann, he said that, if it had come through the post, you, Madame Gavin, would have seen the writing on the envelope, for it is my custom, as madame knows, to bring all the letters to madame, not looking to find out how they are addressed.’

  ‘I don’t suppose we should have known Mrs Schumann’s handwriting,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but we might have recognised it as a Teutonic script, which would have come to much the same thing, I suppose. What else did George say?’

  ‘That, if the letter could not be addressed openly, to come through the post, that the writer was what Georges, in an English idiom which I still cannot persuade him to interpret for me, says, is “Up to N.B.G.” From this I gather that the action of Mrs Schumann in writing the letter was clandestine, and of this I do not approve.’

  ‘So what did you do? – ignore the invitation?’ asked Laura.

  ‘But no, madame. Also, I had not the bêtise to write back – by post, with the stamp which costs fourpence – to say I do not eat with Germans. I wrote only that, as domestique, I do not find it suitable to visit on equal terms with those who have been the guests of Madame Lestrange Bradley, Dame of the British Empire, so called in the lists of honour.’

  ‘You make it sound like a tournament or joust,’ said Laura, ‘but let that go.’

  ‘Did you ever receive a warning from the police not to go about alone while this mass-murderer of women is still at large?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

  ‘But no, madame. It would not have been necessary. Never have I been without escort since the second of these assassinations. Seldom I need to shop, since, as is the careless English custom, goods are delivered to the house and are not marketed as in France, but, if I go out for any reason, it is never without the good Georges or with my husband. Also I for
bid Zena to walk out, except with what she call her boy-friend, and he to come for her to the back door always, and not to make an assignation to meet her elsewhere.’

  ‘Good,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘You may clear away the tea-things.’

  ‘So poor Mrs Castle may have been a third and not even a second choice of victim,’ said Laura. ‘Well, shall we get down to the book of words as supplied by Inspector Maisry? It should be full of interest.’

  (3)

  The ‘book of words’ was a straightforward catechism consisting simply of questions and answers.

  Q. I wonder, Mrs Schumann, whether you would be willing to help us?

  A. Always I help the police. Why not? What have I to fear?

  Q. Would you object if my sergeant, who writes in shorthand, took down this conversation?

  A. He will read it to me at the end, of course. If so, I do not object. I have nothing to fear.

  Q. We recently had an interview with a Mr Edward James. He was your daughter’s fiancé, was he not?

  A. That, yes. Very sad for him, my Karen’s death.

  Q. No doubt. Did you think it might be less sad for him if, when the period of mourning was over, he married you?

  A. He told you he had asked me to marry him?

  Q. Not quite. Isn’t it more accurate to say that you asked him to marry you?

  A. No woman does that, except she is, perhaps, of royal blood.

  Q. May I suggest to you that not only have we Mr James’s word for this, but he says that you offered him certain inducements.

  A. Inducements? I do not understand.

  Q. Did you lead him to believe that, if he would consent to marry you, you would settle five thousand pounds upon him so that he could give up teaching for two years?

  A. He would not wish to give up teaching. He and my Karen were teachers together, both at the same school.

  Q. That is not what I wanted to know. He is studying for a higher degree, is he not?

  A. Ja, ja. He is clever, intelligent, ambitious, hard-working.

  Q. And very anxious to obtain the degree of Doctor of Divinity?

  A. What has that to do with it? I have said he was ambitious.

  Q. Yes. Would it not seem very attractive to him to be able to give up teaching for a while so that he could give all his time and energy to study and research?