[Mrs Bradley 50] - Late, Late in the Evening

by Gladys Mitchell

  Whether the two murders are connected in any way seems doubtful. The police are inclined to think that we have a homicidal maniac roaming the neighbourhood and Mrs Kempson, who has called me in again more, I think, to bear her company in that big old house than for any other reason, inclines to the same view and has despatched her young grandson, his sister and their parents to their London flat to be out of harm's way. Her adopted son is also in London, where, I understand, he has employment, so she really is very lonely and I suspect apprehensive too.

  The whole case bristles with difficulties. To begin with, there seems little doubt that Mr Ward was, to say the least, an eccentric. According to the respectable people with whom, at Mrs Kempson's expense, he lodged, he was a silent, ruminative man who gave no trouble but who was strangely uncommunicative. The first indication they had of his mental derangement was when he began by digging up one of their flower-beds, passed on to a large chicken-run and dug that up, then began operations on the boardless floor of the tumbledown cottage where somebody (most probably his murderer, but this has not been established) later buried his body.

  The people with whom he lodged are named Christina (Kirstie) and Arthur Landgrave, and they have staying with them the two intelligent young children I mentioned. These are aged ten and eight and from them I have derived some of my information. Having watched Mr Ward's operations on the flower-bed and in the chicken-run, they also saw him come out from the ruined cottage, where he had begun to dig a hole, and later they observed him standing in the sheepwash wielding a pickaxe. Later still, they discovered that he had considerably enlarged the hole in the cottage floor so that it resembled a grave. As we now know, this resemblance became apparent to somebody other than the children.

  To revert to Mr Ward, until his body was discovered, the police, guided by a statement from Mrs Kempson after the gypsy had been released from custody, thought that Mr Ward might have killed the girl, particularly as a spade believed to be his was found at the bottom of the sheepwash. According to Mrs Kempson, she had received complaints from the Landgraves concerning his strange behaviour and had no difficulty in believing that he could have become homicidal.

  The trouble about this supposition is that the medical evidence is not conclusive as to whether the girl or Ward died first. You probably know how impossible it can be to become dogmatic in such matters when the time limits can fall within a matter of hours and when one body has been in the open air for a comparatively short time, whereas the other has been buried for several days before being found.

  Besides, if Ward killed the girl and then committed suicide in a most unlikely manner, who buried him? Otherwise, who killed both of them, and why? Further to that, are the police looking for two murderers in a small village which is built on only two streets? It seems unlikely.

  I will tell you what else I have found out so far, although you will appreciate that, as the newspapers say of the police, I am still pursuing my enquiries. Before I go on I must add that the police have uncovered no motive for either death which seems capable of bearing closer examination. Mr Ward appears to have given up all claim to the Hill Manor estate, which is now entailed on Mrs Kempson's grandson, a boy of nine named Lionel Kempson-Conyers, and as for Merle Patterson, she appears to have known nobody in the village except the people who attended the birthday party.

  In any case, it seems that she was present without having received a card of invitation, but was acting as stand-in for her brother, so it hardly looks as though her death could have been premeditated, neither can anybody trace the slightest connexion between her death and that of Mr Ward except that the same murder weapon may have been used for both. The police have taken possession of a heavy garden spade which they believe was the implement employed.

  One point of interest which has emerged is that the dead girl, at her own request, had changed costumes at the party with young Lionel Kempson-Conyers, but whether the fact has any bearing on her death has yet to be discovered. I have the assurance from Doctor Tassall, who was present when Merle's body was found and who was the negotiating agency between the medical students who had fabricated the costumes and their subsequent purchase by the Kempson family, that, except for size and a very slight variation in colouring, the exchanged costumes were exactly alike, so this may have some significance, but only if somebody was anxious to get Lionel out of the way by killing him.

  This seems to eliminate Ward from our list of suspects even if he were not dead, since he had told Mrs Kempson that although he had inherited the estate, he could not afford to keep it up and pay the servants, and Mrs Kempson has confirmed this by telling me that it is only because of the fortune left her by her late husband that she herself can afford to go on living at Hill House. Incidentally, she tells me that she was leaving Ward a compensatory sum in her will.

  Well, we are left with a most unsatisfactory list of suspects for the murder of Miss Patterson and no suspects whatever for the death of Ward unless (so far as I can see at present) he was an eye-witness when the girl was killed. But who, except the children and, perhaps, their playmates, knew that the hole in the floor so conveniently existed? That, I think, is a most interesting and important point.

  I ought to add that Ward, on Mr and Mrs Landgraves' evidence, had not slept at his lodgings for two nights, so the hypothesis that he was a witness of Miss Patterson's murder is hardly tenable, for my own theory is that he was already dead when she was killed, although, of course, he may have murdered her and been slaughtered by somebody out of revenge. My contention at present is that Miss Patterson was mistaken for young Lionel, but then we are faced with a key question. Failing Mr Ward, who had already repudiated his inheritance, to whose advantage would it be to have Lionel out of the way?-and, in any case who would expect a child to be in the open so late at night?

  As for the opportunity to murder Merle Patterson, well, Doctor Tassall and the adopted son-I call him 'adopted' for convenience' sake-are known to have been out of the house at the time of the girl's murder. Mrs Kempson had gone to bed (her personal maid vouches for this) but, so far as I can tell, there was no reason why she should not have slipped out of her room between ten and eleven, left the house secretly and returned to it unnoticed while the party was in full swing. As for Lionel's parents, Mr and Mrs Conyers, they say they retired to their own quarters to escape the sounds of revelry. They certainly left the party, but there seems no confirmation of where they went. However, as they were hardly likely to desire the death of their only son, if either or both are murderers they must have intended to make Miss Patterson their victim. The question here is-why? They were acquainted with her, no doubt, since she and her brother belonged to their daughter's set in London and the girls had been at school together. However, I do not suspect Mrs Kempson or the Conyers of having any hand in the murders at all. Nigel Kempson and Doctor Tassall are the horses for my money.

  Chapter 13

  The Children's Crusade

  It was at Kenneth's suggestion that we mobilised our forces in order to track down the murderer.

  'Our Sarah,' he said, 'has always been decent, letting us join her gang and telling fibs for us and not splitting that time I uppercut Our Ern and landed him in the brook, so I reckon we ought to let her join in if she wants to. Besides, I expect she knows far more about the village than we do.'

  'There's another thing, too,' I said. 'Safety in numbers.'

  'How do you mean?'

  'Well, if the murderer gets to know we're on his track, he could kill two of us as easy as wink. He might think twice about killing the whole of Our Sarah's gang, though.'

  'It's a good point. Let's see what she says.'

  Of course there had been terrific excitement when Poachy found what was buried in the hermit's cottage. As soon as we realised what it was, we begged him to stop digging, but he had worked himself up into a frenzy and went on stabbing away with the heavy spade, so, as we did not want to see any more than we had to see, although we knew for ce
rtain that it was Mr Ward, we rushed off home to get away from the grisly scene and dissociate ourselves from Poachy's findings if we could.

  At least, that was my idea. We ran into the garden, but after we had squeezed through the gap in the iron railings and were on our way past Polly's stable, Kenneth stopped running and said,

  'We'll have to tell them, you know. Somebody's got to stop Poachy. Besides, he might be blamed if we don't tell.'

  Unfortunately Uncle Arthur was at work on a building site the other side of the town, and as we did not think the aunts would be much help in dealing with Poachy, that only left grandfather. We were afraid of him, but we felt that some man had to know, if only to stop Poachy from continuing his excavations.

  Grandfather, I remember, was furious with us. Looking back, I realise that his anger was really horror to think that we should have mixed ourselves up with what obviously was a second case of murder.

  When his diatribe (which was punctuated by threatening gestures with his walking-stick and with Aunt Lally's terrified exclamations and tearful reproaches) was over, he sent us to Aunt Kirstie with orders that she was to come immediately across to speak to him.

  We found her feeding the ferrets. They belonged to Uncle Arthur and we were never allowed to handle them, but sometimes there would be rabbit pie or stewed rabbit with carrots, onions, turnips and small, fluffy dumplings for Sunday dinner instead of the usual pork or chicken.

  Normally we enjoyed seeing the ferrets, but on this occasion there was no time for dallying. We did not want to tell Aunt Kirstie about our grim discovery in the derelict cottage, so we gave her grandfather's message and that was all.

  'Oh, dear!' she said. 'Has he had one of his turns? I'd better get over as soon as I've changed my apron, Lally is that helpless she'll be crying and wringing her hands instead of doing something sensible about it.'

  'I don't think he's ill,' I said, 'but he says to drop everything and come at once. I think he wants you to get on up to the big house. That's what he said.'

  'To Mrs Kempson's? Whatever for? They haven't found poor Mr Ward, have they? That would be the only reason for me to go to Mrs Kempson's.'

  'I think it is about Mr Ward,' I said.

  'Must be,' she said. 'I'll be glad to have him back.' She bustled about, changed her clothes for what she called her 'decent bodice and skirt' and ran with us to the next-door house. Aunt Lally was indeed crying and wringing her hands, her usual reaction in times of crisis. Grandfather was sitting very upright and rigid in his armchair. He looked like Moses, I thought, or perhaps the prophet Jeremiah. His right hand was clutching the knob of his ebony, silver-topped stick and with his left fist he was banging the table.

  Aunt Kirstie said, 'Well, father, is there something you want with me?'

  Grandfather glared at her.

  'Where's your lodger?' he demanded.

  'I wish we knew, father. Hasn't slept in his bed since that Thursday night,' she said.

  'Well, get you up to Mrs Kempson's, my girl, and tell her he's sound asleep now. Take this boy and girl with you. She'll want to know all the tale. And then keep them out of my sight for a bit. Bringing all this trouble on us!'

  Aunt Kirstie stared at him.

  'You mean as Mr Ward's dead?' she asked, dropping her voice at the last word.

  'That's my meaning, my girl, or so it seems, so get on up there quick as you can. It isn't any business of ours, except these children of Elspeth's have seemingly dragged us into it. Don't stand there gaping at me! Get along! Get along!'

  'I'll get my good coat and hat,' said Aunt Kirstie. 'Mr Ward dead! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Whatever will Mrs Kempson have to say?'

  'The children better have a clean-up, too, hadn't they, if you're going to the big house?' said Aunt Lally in an undertone, as she saw us out. Aunt Kirstie agreed. To get us washed and into our best clothes took a little time and when at last we started out, Aunt Kirstie said she could not hurry up the hill. However, we reached the manor house eventually and our aunt rang the bell.

  Apparently it was the butler's afternoon off, for the door was opened by a maidservant. Aunt Kirstie asked whether it would be convenient for her to speak to Mrs Kempson about something important, so, leaving us standing at the door, the maid said she would go and find out. She did not need to ask Aunt Kirstie's name. She came back in a very short time and took us to the ground-floor room in which Kenneth and I had been received the last time we had visited the manor house.

  The room was in the sole possession of Mrs Bradley. She told us that Mrs Kempson was out, so, without consulting Aunt Kirstie, who did not know the whole truth, anyway, Kenneth told her our story. She listened without interrupting him. When, with a few interpolations from me and a few exclamations from Aunt Kirstie, he had finished the tale, she asked where the cottage was situated and then said she would ring up the police and that we had better return home at once, as the police would want to question us.

  'Tell them the truth in a simple, orderly, straightforward fashion,' she said. 'Answer their questions briefly and to the point. I shall hope to see more of you later.' She told us to sit down while she telephoned. She had to go out of the room to do this, and while she was gone another maid brought Aunt Kirstie a cup of tea.

  We could not tell the police much and I doubt whether they got anything at all useful from Poachy. Uncle Arthur was not very pleased when he came home.

  'Police at my house?' he said. 'I've never been mixed up with the police, not the whole of my life. And where's it going to end? The law is cruel hard on poor people. It will be all right for that Kempson lot. They're rich. They'll get away with it. But he was our lodger, wasn't he? So they'll be on to us like the hand of God, and so I tell you, Kirstie.'

  Aunt Kirstie harped upon another string.

  'I don't know what come over you to want to go and play in that dirty old tumbledown shack,' she said sorrowfully. 'You got all our garden and all your grandfather's land, and the pigs and ducks and chickens and all, and your swing in the cartshed and all the fruit on the bushes, and The Marsh and the brook for your games. What call did you have to go and play in that there old dirty dump? Might have caught the fever or worse! And now we've lost our lodger, too, and not likely to get another when this comes out.'

  We were silent. Her last observation affected us painfully, all the more so as it had not occurred to us, until she made it, that the death of Mr Ward, especially under such circumstances, would affect her and Uncle Arthur financially. Like my father and mother, they were anything but well off. Uncle Arthur's jobs on building sites-he was a plasterer by trade-were intermittent and I know now that, apart from allowing them to live rent-free-not nearly as much of a concession then as it would be nowadays-our grandfather, who disapproved of their marriage, did nothing to help them when they struck upon hard times, especially during the winter when there was no building going on. The most he would do-since he said once in my hearing that he could not let his daughter Kirstie starve-was to make the couple an occasional gift of a chicken or a piece of pork.

  So we hung our heads and said nothing. The police came again next day, with more questions and with official notebooks in which they wrote down all Aunt Kirstie's answers about Mr Ward, and finished by saying that they would return in the evening when Uncle Arthur was home from work. We had taken refuge under the parlour table, which had a cover on it with a long fringe with bobbles on it. It formed an excellent hiding-place, and we heard the whole interview. Aunt Kirstie guessed we were there, I think, but perhaps she was glad of our company and moral support.

  It was after the police had gone, and Aunt Kirstie had returned to the kitchen, and we had crawled out and sneaked down the back staircase into the scullery and the garden, that Kenneth said we must track down the murderer.

  We had to wait until afternoon school came out before we could contact Our Sarah and her gang. By that time rumours of Poachy's horrid discovery were all over the village. The police had been seen going into Aunt Ki
rstie's house and it was known that two of them had dragged poor Poachy out of the hermit's cottage. Then his mother, who, alone of mankind, seemed able to interpret his gibberings, had gone into Miss Summers' shop to purchase a loaf of bread and spread the news. It was not known at that time who the dead man was, except to us and our family and Mrs Bradley. Even the police could not be dogmatic until the body had been formally identified, although their questioning of ourselves and Aunt Kirstie indicated their opinion clearly enough.

  We did not intend to wait at the school gate for Our Sarah because we did not want to be spotted and identified by the governess as not having been at school, so we loitered outside the drill hall, knowing that Sarah and Ern would have to pass it on their way home.

  We seemed to wait for a very long time, and Kenneth suggested that they must be playing on The Marsh. They hove in sight eventually and we went to meet them.

  'Can't stop now,' said Our Sarah, before we could speak. 'Oi warnts moi tea.'

  'After tea, then,' said Kenneth. 'It's fearfully important.'

  Even Our Sarah, who had lofty ideas as to what was important and what was not, was compelled to allow our claim when we mentioned the cottage, later, after tea.

  'Though Oi knows all about et,' she said, when we met at half-past five on The Marsh. 'Oi 'eard et en Mess Summers. That old nosey parker the Weddow Wenter was en there and her and Mess Summers was so busy yappen their selly 'eads orf as 'em never 'eard me come en. Tale dedn't lose nothen en the tellen, Oi'll be bound. Any road, take somethen special to breng the Weddow Wenter out from be'oind they aspedestriers of hern.'