The Man Who Grew Tomatoes (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “To the Beresford farm, then.”

  “Very good, madam. In case of a fracas …”

  “You suspect that there may be a fracas, George?”

  “Nothing would surprise me less, madam. Farmer Beresford has the reputation of being a little bit short with gentlemen who ask him awkward questions.”

  “Such as?”

  “I was thinking about Master Peter Camber being kidnapped.”

  “And what else, George?”

  “That it appears, from what I heard at the inn, Mr. Paul Camber accused Beresford of killing his son.”

  “Did he, indeed! And Mr. Beresford refuted this?”

  “He said he’d see Mr. Paul and his bastard in hell, madam.”

  “That scarcely sounds like the remark of a man who had drowned Stephen Camber.”

  George took a deep breath. Then he said:

  “I don’t know who did that, madam, but I’d take my oath it wasn’t Beresford.”

  “I am beginning to understand what did happen, George, but we shall see.”

  “Awkward, both of them being brought in as accidental deaths, madam. Tied our hands, a verdict like that.”

  “Indeed, yes. Without definite proof, an accusation of murder could hardly be sustained.”

  “Should you desire me to drive right up to Mr. Beresford’s house, madam?”

  “Oh, I think so. We must arrive authoritatively. The clandestine approach would be out of place, I feel, on this occasion.”

  “Very good, madam. The midden can be avoided. There is a way through. He has a car of his own.”

  “That furnishes no valid reason why he should not hire Titmuss to spirit away young Peter, I suppose.”

  “I comprehend, madam. Yet I should put Beresford as a man of rather more than average intelligence. Perhaps I overrate him.”

  “No suggestion of in vino veritas, George?”

  “Him in his cups gives little away, madam. But, if you thought to put that to the test, I should guess that at this hour of the day he would be at the village inn.”

  “Oh, yes, there is that, of course. Nevertheless, ‘on, Stanley, on.’”

  “Very good, madam.”

  They arrived at Beresford’s farm to find that George’s prophecy was correct. Beresford was not at home and his wife’s sour prognostication was that he was “drinking his head off down the village”—and, in answer to Dame Beatrice’s second question, that Mr. Hugh Camber had indeed called at the farm that afternoon. In answer to another question, Mrs. Beresford, who seemed ill-at-ease and inclined to be shrill and belligerent, said that the reason that young Mrs. Camber and her baby were not to be seen was that they were visiting friends in the village and would soon be returning.

  “For why, if I may ask, did you want to see my husband?” asked Mrs. Beresford, when she had disposed of her daughter and the last-born of the Camber family. Dame Beatrice looked at her fixedly.

  “I do not want to see your husband,” she replied, with great deliberation. “I want to find out what has happened to Peter Camber, the son of Mrs. Hal Camber. He has been spirited away from the Abbey, by whose agency we do not know.”

  “Oh, that!” said Mrs. Beresford. “That’s here.”

  She produced Peter from her parlour as though it was the most natural thing in the world for him to be at the farm. “That come to see our pigs. I’m only waiting for Bob Titmuss to call for him and take him back to Camber Abbey. I thought Bob would be here before this, but there, I reckon he’s at the pub, same as my husband. Can’t trust men to take any account of time when they get together down there.”

  “So Mr. Hugh Camber knows that Peter is here?”

  “Yes, of course he does,” said Peter, “and I don’t want to see the pigs you promised me. I like Mr. Beresford’s pigs. I helped to feed them, and I scratched the old sow’s back with the end of a walking-stick and all her flakes fell off and it was fun. I would like to spend all my life at Mr. Beresford’s farm.”

  “He’s been a very good boy,” said Mrs. Beresford, regarding him with a maternal, possessive eye. “He’s helped with the pigs and he helped with the baby before my daughter took her down to the village. A very good boy, he’s been.”

  “She’s my aunt,” said Peter. “I like her. She let me go into the hen-house and gather the eggs. A hen pecked me, but I didn’t cry a bit.”

  “Oo, a little peck, that’s nothing,” said Mrs. Beresford, “and big boys don’t cry, they wholly don’t.”

  “No, I suppose not,” said Peter, “if they live on a farm.” He turned to Dame Beatrice. “Can I go home with you now?” He left without saying good-bye and was pursued down the passage by Mrs. Beresford’s repeated asseverations that he had been a good boy, a very good boy indeed.

  “She makes me sick,” said Peter, unnecessarily, as they got into the car. “Being in cars makes me sick, too, I warn you.”

  “Were you sick in Mr. Titmuss’s car?”

  “No. I didn’t think he would like it.”

  “George won’t like it if you’re sick in this one,” said Dame Beatrice, “so hold your horses, I would advise you, until we get home. Tell me how Mr. Titmuss came to pick you up in his car and take you to Farmer Beresford’s.”

  “I telephoned. I fixed the time. I said I would run to the lodge. I found out long ago that Mr. Titmuss had a car. Uncle Paul used to hire it sometimes to take us out when he wanted to get rid of Darling and me and have Crick to drive him and Stephen to where they wanted to go. They never took us with them. I hated Stephen!”

  “You telephoned! As simple as that!” said Dame Beatrice. “You appear to be a man of parts. I think Laura will enjoy looking after you.”

  “I don’t think I want to be looked after. Has she got pigs and a baby?”

  “Ah, pigs!” said Dame Beatrice ecstatically. She installed him beside George and went back to the farm-house.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Cruel Brother

  “‘My Lord,’ said I now, and looked him in the face, ‘a state of suspense and hanging on is a most disagreeable thing.’”

  James Boswell

  “As we are taking Peter with us,” said Dame Beatrice, “you may tell Titmuss, when he calls, that the boy is safe, but it is best for him to go home.” She glanced at the clock. “Peter goes to bed early. He seems to be a nervous, unpredictable child.”

  “The last I don’t know,” said Mrs. Beresford, “but I wouldn’t wholly call him nervous. That hev nerve enough for ten, I should say. Been a proper old nuisance, ever since that come.”

  Dame Beatrice accepted this change of front.

  “Yes, he’s been brought up in a town. It does make a difference,” she said. “Well, thank you very much, Mrs. Beresford. It was good of you to have him.” She took her leave for the second time. Peter, seated beside George, was having the dashboard explained to him. Mostly he put George right.

  “I want my mother,” he said firmly, as soon as he saw Dame Beatrice. “You had better take me to her at once. I am not going to stay here any longer.”

  “A splendid supper, a comfortable bed, and then for the wide-open spaces, dear boy,” said Dame Beatrice, with equal but sweeter firmness. “Drive on, George. We will decant the wine and then make for the inn.”

  This programme was followed. Peter was left in charge of the cook and was soon in the middle of an argument about toasted cheese as a desirable element in a young man’s supper. The last Dame Beatrice heard was the sound of a sharp slap and an admonition to “let them that knows, know best.”

  “I think I shall advise Mr. Hugh Camber to raise Cook’s wages,” she said. George grinned, but, as he felt that it was hardly his place to reply, said nothing in response to a statement with which he wholeheartedly concurred. “Although, really,” Dame Beatrice continued, “why the children should suffer for the sins of their insufferable mothers is beyond my comprehension.”

  “Boys need a father’s hand, don’t you think, madam?�
� asked George, who now felt himself to be on his own ground.

  “Fathers are often worse than mothers, in my experience,” retorted his employer. “Either they shirk their responsibilities or they take them too seriously. In any case, very few parents can be trusted to bring up sons. Daughters, of course, bring themselves up, in spite of everything their parents can do. All the same,” she added, more kindly, “a boy ought to have a father with him. The human male is a gregarious animal and prefers the company of his own kind. Speaking of the gregarious instinct, I wonder what high jinks Beresford, Titmuss, and Hugh Camber are up to this evening?”

  She was soon able to reassure herself on this point. The inn, at so early an hour, was not functioning at full pressure, and George, at Dame Beatrice’s instigation, went in and spoke to Titmuss. Titmuss came out to her at once, wiping his mouth politely with the back of his hand before touching his cap.

  “Ah,” said Dame Beatrice, “I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Titmuss, but can you tell me where Mr. Camber’s nephew is? We had word that you had called for him in your car.”

  “That’s safe enough,” said Titmuss. “I have word to fetch him back to Camber about eight.”

  “Yes, but where did you take him?”

  “To Beresford’s place. That’s where I was told to go.”

  “By whom? Nobody at Camber ordered your car. How dare you take the boy away?”

  “Beresford wouldn’t harm the little child.”

  “Look here, Titmuss, from whom did you get the commission to pick up Peter Camber? In other words, who is paying for the use of your car?”

  “Why, Mr. Hugh Camber, I do suppose. That know the little boy will be safe over at Beresford’s.”

  “Did he think the boy might not be safe at Camber Abbey?”

  “No, not that I know of, mam.”

  “What did you think he meant, then?”

  “When my car is hired I think people mean to pay me for it, and that’s as far as I think. I hev my living to earn.”

  “Well, think a little further. What did you understand by Mr. Hugh’s saying that the little boy would be safe at that farm?”

  “That didn’t say so. That’s what I say.”

  “And have you been paid for the use of the car?”

  “I shall be. Mr. Hugh hev his own car, I know, but that won’t welsh on me.”

  “Anyhow, Titmuss, don’t trouble to go back to Beresford’s farm to pick up the little boy. Come up to Camber Abbey and see me in the morning. Meanwhile, take this and drink the little boy’s health. Who telephoned you, by the way, for the use of your car? I gather that it was not Mr. Hugh who actually did the telephoning, yet you assumed it was done at his request.”

  “I wholly suppose it might have been the boy himself,” said Titmuss. “Did you speak to Crick at the garage, mam?”

  “Why should I speak to Crick?”

  “That know I call there for my car and that know where I was taking the little boy.” He nodded and went back to the bar. Dame Beatrice followed him in, went to the counter, and asked for a glass of Norfolk cider. This she carried to the table at which Hugh and Beresford were seated. Hugh rose; Beresford nodded. George took a seat on a bench as far away from the party as possible, to be out of earshot.

  “Got the little youngster over at my place,” said Beresford. “Mr. Camber seemingly didn’t know that.”

  “No longer, Mr. Beresford. I have just taken him back to Camber Abbey. But why did Titmuss take him there without our knowledge or consent?”

  Titmuss emptied his glass, said a hasty good night, and left. Beresford, at that time in the evening still sober, looked at Dame Beatrice out of his shrewd and calculating eyes.

  “All I know is that want to see my pigs. He’s a caution, that one.”

  “Quite. Would it surprise you to know that for some long time I suspected you of the murder of Stephen Camber?”

  Beresford’s shrewd glance turned into a stare of surprise.

  “Me? And for why?”

  “I thought you had an eye on the Camber estate for your daughter’s baby.”

  “But that don’t go by inheritance.”

  “No, it doesn’t. So you knew that?”

  “None better. Didn’t I witness Mr. Paul Camber’s will?—That was before he got my daughter into trouble—and didn’t he make me and Crick read that will before us signed it? That he did.”

  “So you and Crick were the witnesses?”

  “Unless he made another will later, that we were.”

  “And do you remember to whom he left the property?”

  “That’s easy enough to remember. He left it to Master Stephen. Then, when Master Stephen got drownded, Mister Hugh come in for everything, so I take it there was a second will.”

  “Was nothing said about anybody else?”

  “If I take your meaning, mam, nothing was said about nobody else.”

  Dame Beatrice understood by this that nothing had been said about the Beresford baby. Then another possibility, which had been lurking at the back of her mind, emerged like a large, rather clumsy bat coming out of a cave into moonlight. “So you knew neither you nor yours could have gained by the death of Stephen Camber?” she asked. “What was your reaction to that?”

  “Paul Camber was always a bastard, but as I knew nothing then about him and my daughter, I thought nothing of it at all.”

  “How about Crick?”

  “That glower and ask what about bequests to the servants.”

  “Indeed? Did such a suggestion surprise you?”

  “Crick was always on the cadge from Mr. Paul. Seems sometimes as there was something up between ’em—something nobody else knew except their two selves.”

  Dame Beatrice’s bat turned into a hovering bird. She had heard from Hugh that there was a suspicion that Crick was in a position to blackmail his employer into allowing him scope beyond the measure of his employment as chauffeur.

  “You mean to imply that Mr. Paul Camber favoured Crick above the other servants?”

  “And took a tone from him would have got anybody else the sack and a bag to put it in.”

  “Of course, the chauffeur would be considered superior, perhaps, to the indoor staff and the gardeners.”

  “Maybe, mam, but there wouldn’t be any need for the master to take insolence from the man. And now, mam, perhaps you’ll oblige me by…”

  “Explaining what I meant by saying that for some time I suspected you of the murder of Stephen Camber? Certainly.”

  “But that was brought in as accidental death.”

  “I know. But if it really was accidental death, what can account for the death of Paul Camber?”

  “I understand that was accident, too.”

  “Then what happened to the jacket that was never found?”

  “I don’t know that there was anything in the papers about a jacket. Anyway, it was summer when he was drowned. What would he want with a jacket?”

  “Leaving the point for a moment, can you imagine that Paul Camber committed suicide?”

  Beresford was emphatic in his reply.

  “He wasn’t the man for that! Too fond of himself for to put an end to Mr. Paul Camber, was Mr. Paul Camber.”

  “What did you think when you heard about the death of the boy?”

  “One more branch lopped off a rotten tree.”

  “Do you consider your grandson another such branch?”

  At this question Hugh got up and took Beresford’s empty glass to the counter. He was back in time to hear the end of a lengthy and angry reply:

  “…and kindly to remember, mam, as my daughter come of good stock, even if she is afflicted sometimes.”

  “I had not the pleasure of knowing the first Mrs. Paul Camber,” said Dame Beatrice, “but my question was put purely in a scientific spirit. Look, Mr. Beresford, supposing somebody, out of revenge or in the hope of gain, did kill Stephen Camber, who was it likely to be?…the question, again, is to be regarded as academic. I
am not asking you to accuse anybody.”

  Beresford nodded his thanks to Hugh, took a long draught, and said reflectively, all his anger wiped out, it seemed:

  “Let’s see now: the most likely would be Mr. Hugh here.”

  “I assure you,” said Hugh, with a smile, “that I was not aware at that time that, failing young Stephen, I should be the beneficiary under my cousin’s will.”

  “That’s as may be, sir, but what leads me to dismiss you, so to speak, is that you couldn’t hardly come to a village as small as Camber without it being remarked on; and as nobody claim to have seen you here, why, then, I take it you didn’t come.”

  “I have an alibi for that day, anyway.”

  “You’re your own alibi for the reason I say. Now, then: what about Mrs. Hal? That’s an unreasonable kind of woman and must have been sorely put out when her boy was passed over in favour of Mr. Hugh here. Then I’d ask you to look at the foreign young gentleman, Mr. Salaman. I don’t trust foreigners nohow, and if Mr. Paul had tried to make up to his sister as he did to my gal…well, I don’t reckon my gal was the first one to be deceived by him, not by a long chalk…nor maybe the second, neither.”

  Dame Beatrice thought sufficiently well of Hildegarde’s intelligence to doubt very much whether she would have encouraged a seducer unless he had considerably more to offer her than the nebulous promises which she connected (at the best) with Paul Camber. She nodded in a rhythmic, agreeable sort of way, however, and then enquired:

  “What about the tomatoes?”

  “Tomatoes, mam?”

  “Yes. Somebody poisoned the boy with doped tomatoes.”

  “That was drownded, not pi’soned.”

  “The tomatoes were a predisposing factor. If he hadn’t eaten the tomatoes, he wouldn’t have been drowned.”

  “’Tis possible, I suppose.”

  “Have you anything more to tell me? What about Tom Adams and the tomatoes?”

  “Tom Adams? What have he said to you?” For the first time Beresford looked more alarmed than angry.

  “That he experimented with tomatoes and produced a poisonous type not capable of dealing death but most certainly capable of producing the more obvious symptoms of alcoholic excess.”