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

by Gladys Mitchell

  The consequence was that Doctor Tassall had asked her to release him. Amabel must have known of the engagement, since she and Merle moved in the same circles in London where, you will remember, the Conyers have a flat, and young Patterson says that it was to save herself the embarrassment of a meeting and perhaps an acrimonious confrontation that Amabel had not invited his sister to the party.

  What Merle wanted, it appears, was to talk face to face with Doctor Tassall, presumably either to plead with him or to point out the error of his ways. Well, it was a simple matter to get another young master to telephone that Patterson had been struck on the knee at cricket and to suggest that his sister should transport the three girls in his stead. His parents, of course, had no reason to disbelieve the story about his injured knee, so that his sister achieved her objective in the simplest possible way, by virtue of her brother's help.

  She knew that Doctor Tassall was to attend the gathering, as Mrs Kempson had included a list of guests with each invitation, a fact of which Patterson had apprised his sister. What neither of them realised was that when Doctor Tassall received his own guest-list he probably took fright when he saw the name of his jilted fiancee's brother on it and, deeming discretion the better part of valour in a possibly embarrassing situation, had invented (I think) a fictitious maternity case which would give him the opportunity to leave the party at an early hour and not to return until he expected it to be over and the guests dispersed to their homes.

  What he felt when not the brother but the ex-fiancee turned up, I do not suppose he would tell me, even if I asked him. His disappearance from the scene, however, does seem to explain why Merle Patterson haunted the grounds that night. Undoubtedly her intention was to waylay him on his return and discuss matters (whether amicably or otherwise) with him where they would neither be overlooked nor overheard.

  This, I know, puts some suspicion on Doctor Tassall of having caused Merle's death, but this only holds good if Doctor Tassall knew that it was Merle out there in the grounds. If the murderer (whoever he was) mistook Merle in her disguise for Lionel Kempson-Conyers, then, to my mind, that murderer would not have been Tassall, but somebody who wanted to get Lionel out of the way. As this 'somebody' is most unlikely to have been the child's grandmother or either of his parents, as I believe I indicated in one of my earlier letters, that now leaves us either with Nigel Kempson or with somebody the cricketing lists call A. N. Other, who is most unlikely to be Doctor Tassall.

  So these are the problems as I see them, and in an effort to solve them I have followed my visits to Merle's parents and her brother by attempting to discover whether Doctor Tassall had been called out on a genuine case that evening and whether Nigel Kempson had made any real attempt to pick up the photographer. Up to that point I had met neither of them and had been able to form no opinion of their characters or dispositions. Not that that, in itself, means much. It is said that every person has it in his power to write at least one book and that we all hold the life of at least one other person in our hands. Both are terrifying thoughts and I do not know which is the more alarming!

  I decided to tackle the young men on what I felt was my home ground as well as theirs; that is, I planned to hold both interviews in Hill village, but to give myself a slight advantage in the case of Doctor Tassall by conducting his at my newly acquired lodgings at Mrs Landgrave's and to yield a similar slight advantage to Nigel Kempson by seeing him at Hill House, where Mrs Kempson was expecting him for the weekend.

  To my pleasure, (for, having no pretensions to good looks of my own, I appreciate them the more in others) both turned out to be personable young men, Kempson bright-haired and with the kind of blue eyes I have learned to mistrust, Tassall with dark hair and grey eyes and a look of recklessness which I would not normally associate with the possessor of a medical degree, whether or not he plays Rugby football. Nigel Kempson, I understand, is thirty years of age; Tassall is twenty-six and has been assistant to Doctor Matters here for nearly a year.

  His association with Amabel Kempson-Conyers dates, he tells me, from a meeting he had with her in Paris early in her year at a finishing school, when he was instrumental in rescuing her from the amorous advances of two apaches in a quarter of the city into which she should not have strayed. What he himself was doing in such an unsavoury neighbourhood I did not ask.

  Having heard from the Clifton children of the (obviously) clandestine correspondence which had gone on between himself and Amabel, mostly before she arrived at Hill House, I mentioned this to him.

  'Oh, damn!' he said. 'Has that old Maltese woman been talking? Anyway, it wasn't by my wish that she was made a go-between. It was Amabel's idea. Young girls are always romantic in that sort of silly way.'

  My experience of modern young women did not incline me to agree with him, but I did not say so. I suggested that with one letter at least he had not acceded to Miss Kempson-Conyers' wishes.

  'You gave it to the Clifton children to post,' I said. He laughed.

  'Everybody seems to split on me,' he said, 'same as young Lionel splits on everybody, poor kid. Anyway, that particular letter was merely to tell Amabel that I intended to accept her grandmother's invitation to the birthday party, but not to count on me because, ten to one, I should be called out on a case.'

  'Ah, yes, to avoid meeting your ex-fiancee's brother,' I thought, 'and you were even more thankful that you had planned an escape route when it was the young woman herself who turned up!'

  I thought this, but did not say it, and my silence seemed to put him out of countenance. After a pause, during which we continued to sum each other up, he went on:

  'Well, quite early in the evening I was called out. Mrs Collins was having her first and, although I guessed it was a false alarm, I excused myself to Mrs Kempson and hopped off. When I got back, there was all this fuss about Miss Patterson having gone missing.'

  'Your ex-fiancee,' I said, deciding at this point to bring my knowledge of his affairs into the open.

  'Oh, well, yes,' he said. 'Yes, that's right. It was only a boy and girl affair, you know. Once I had found Amabel it blew itself out.'

  'Not, perhaps, from Miss Patterson's point of view.

  'Oh, well!'

  'But it wasn't well, was it? Miss Patterson took it badly. You had managed to elude her in London, but when her brother received his invitation to Miss Kempson-Conyers' birthday party it included a list of guests with your name on it. Miss Patterson then got her brother to yield up his place to her, knowing that, when she arrived as the chauffeuse of her brother's car, Mrs Kempson would feel bound to ask her to stay. I imagine that a very disgruntled young woman stood about in corners and watched you dancing with Amabel Kempson-Conyers until you thought it best to execute a strategic retreat.'

  'No, no! Honestly! I was called out.'

  'If that is your story,' I thought, 'we shall find out whether or not you are wise to stick to it.'

  He looked at his watch and exclaimed that he was due in the surgery in five minutes' time. From the front window (for my sitting-room faces the village street) I watched him unhitch his horse and canter away. I am reluctant to think of him as a murderer. Besides, even supposing he had killed Merle Patterson, there seems no reason why he should also have murdered Mr Ward unless the latter had been an eyewitness of the first killing, and this, as the medical evidence has now established, is quite impossible, otherwise we might be that much further on in our enquiries.

  Doctor Tassall had made one helpful remark during our conversation, although I doubted whether, in the end, it would prove to have very much significance. Even if his call to the pregnant Mrs Collins turned out to be as mythical as I was inclined to think it was, it did not necessarily mean that he had been determined to lie about it in order to give himself time and opportunity to commit murder. I still felt that the call was far more likely to have been for the reason I have already postulated; that is, in order to get out of an embarrassing situation at Hill House. I was prepared,
therefore, to keep an entirely open mind on his behalf.

  I did not know at the time whether Mrs Collins was a village woman or whether she lived in the town, but I did not think I should experience much difficulty in finding her. I did not want to ask Doctor Tassall for her address, this for obvious reasons, but to Doctor Matters I was unknown and the woman's name and address were certain to be among his files, even though theoretically she was now Doctor Tassall's patient.

  A telephone call seemed the best way of making contact with Doctor Matters. I mentioned Mrs Kempson's name, which was politely but cautiously received.

  Chapter 17

  No Alibis

  In the end Doctor Matters suggested that I should call and see him. He said that, owing to his advanced years, he rested for an hour and a half every afternoon while Doctor Tassall was out on the rounds and that he would expect me at a quarter to three.

  He lived in a detached, creeper-covered residence about halfway between the village and the town and he received me in a ground-floor room whose furniture had seen better days, but which had a pleasant outlook on to a colourful, untidy, extremely long garden.

  He took my hand and then waved me to a chair, took the one opposite, leaned forward and looked me over as though I were a patient he suspected of malingering in order to obtain a medical certificate to remain away from work.

  'Well,' he said, 'you look healthy enough to me.'

  'Quite,' I replied, 'but it is not about my health that I came to consult you.'

  'I don't support charitable enterprises.'

  'I am wary of them myself. Allow me to come to the point.'

  'Dear me!' he said, his less than benevolent gaze becoming hostile. Are you one of these troublesome women who think they ought to have equal pay with men?'

  'I have been adequately paid for some years. I am also, like yourself, a medical practitioner. Perhaps you would care to see my credentials,' I retorted.

  'No need,' he said shortly. 'You wouldn't offer them if you didn't have them. What do you want?'

  'I want to know whether your patient, Mrs Collins, has had a baby within the past three weeks.'

  'Paternity order?'

  'Not so far as I am aware. I want to know whether Doctor Tassall, your assistant, attended her confinement and on what date.'

  'Why? Does he say he did? Did the careless young fool lose the baby? Is he suspected of any kind of unprofessional conduct? What the devil is all this?'

  'It concerns a possible charge of murder.'

  'You can't convict a medical man of murder, even if he kills mother and child.'

  'If you would be kind enough to look up your files? I assure you that it is of the utmost importance. Doctor Tassall is not suspected of killing Mrs Collins, nor her baby. It must be established, however, for his sake, that he did visit Mrs Collins late in the evening of last Saturday fortnight when he was called out from a birthday party at Hill Manor House.'

  'What did you mean about a charge of murder? Young Tassall is a butterfly and a jackanapes, a trifler with young women's affections, a parasite and an arbutus, but he wouldn't murder anyone except in the course of duty and that, as I've already asserted, can't be held against him.'

  'The murder of a young woman with whose affections he had trifled could be held against him,' I pointed out, picking up my cue, 'so the sooner you provide him with an alibi the better.'

  'God bless my soul!' he said. 'I suppose you're serious?'

  'I am officially concerned with the case as the accredited representative of the Home Office, because I am its consultant psychiatrist.'

  'Oh? One of those...'

  'Quacks?'

  'No, no, of course not. I-let me see. Did the maid bring me your card? Yes, yes, here it is. Dear me! Oh, dear, dear me! Yes, of course, of course. And you want to consult our files. What was that date again?' I gave it to him. He had no filing cabinet, so he pulled out various drawers in a large desk and groped and fumbled among the miscellaneous contents, muttering to himself as he threw some of them on to the floor, 'List! List! There's a list of patients somewhere, I know there is! Ah!' he exclaimed at last.

  Apparently he had found what he was looking for. He produced out of the miscellany a set of handwritten papers pinned together at the top left-hand corner, handed it to me and said,

  'Look for yourself. I don't remember the name of Collins, now I come to think of it. Don't believe there's a family called Collins on our books.'

  To cut the story short, Sir Walter, there was not. I left Doctor Matters after thanking him and apologising for cutting into his rest-time and rang up the inspector from a public call-box in the town. I told him of my researches and suggested that a call on Doctor Tassall might yield some information.

  'Yes,' said the inspector, 'we're keeping him in mind. Looks as though his alibi has gone bust. We would have followed it up ourselves, the way you have done, if we could have shown he had any motive for killing Mr Ward, or any reason to have known there was a ready-dug grave in that cottage. You see, we are proceeding on the assumption that whoever killed the girl killed Ward.'

  This argument had considerable force, for we had agreed that the strong probability was that the same person or persons had committed both murders and that the connexion with Hill House was too obvious to be ignored.

  I then returned to Doctor Matters' house.

  'I think I should warn you,' I said, 'to expect a visit from the police.' This time the old gentleman was uneasy, not belligerent.

  'That boy!' he exclaimed. 'A young rascal! A scallywag! A flibbertigibbet! Yes, and more. But he's well qualified, madam, good at his job. Takes a lot of work off my shoulders. Popular with the patients. No murderer, madam, I assure you.'

  'Yours, judging from the list of patients you allowed me to examine, is not a large practice, I believe, Doctor.'

  'A country practice only, madam, but quite large enough for me, and, in any case, I admit it is picking up since young Tassall joined me.'

  'I am surprised that so restless and talented a young man, if one may so interpret your description of him, is not more inclined to work in the metropolis.'

  'He had quarrelled with his godfather, who had subsidised him for some years while he was studying for his qualifications. Something about jilting a girl whom Lord Kirkdale thought a suitable match for him. Took up with the Kempson granddaughter and had his allowance withdrawn. Couldn't afford his own practice. Glad to earn a pittance from me without having to buy himself in. No expectations, you know. Irresponsible young fellow.'

  'And glad to be near Amabel Kempson-Conyers at such times as she came to visit her grandmother,' I thought, 'but perhaps not where his patients are irresponsible concerned.'

  Well, since my last letter, in which you learned that young Doctor Tassall appears to have no alibi for the time and date of the murders, I have continued my borrowings and have come up with another gradu diverso, via una. In other words, our other chief suspects also cannot produce acceptable alibis. Neither the police nor I have seriously suspected Mrs Kempson or Mrs Conyers unless either of them had a male accomplice, since we hardly think that the interment of Mr Ward, even though he appears to have dug his own grave, was the work of a woman, nor is the murderer's method of dispatching his victims a likely one for a female to have employed. This I think I have already mentioned. In any case, I am not concerning myself at the moment with the death of Mr Ward.

  Mr Conyers, I suppose, must remain on our list, since his only alibi for the time of Miss Patterson's murder rests solely on his wife's assurance that he was with her the entire evening, first at the birthday revels and later in his own quarters. This, I know, is against my previous judgment, but that depended largely upon Lionel Kempson-Conyers' being the proposed victim.

  Well, Mr Conyers claimed, as we know, to have retired to his own part of the house. As he did not even ring for a drink, there is nothing to substantiate this claim and for the present we must ignore it, although my commonsense sti
ll tells me that it is almost certainly true.

  With Mr Nigel Kempson, however, we are on different and much safer ground and, not to weary you with overmuch repetition, his alibi no longer holds water, but is as full of holes as a domestic colander. In brief, this is what happened.

  It seemed to me, that in this interesting but baffling case, there might well be a nigger in the woodpile. I turned the thought over in my mind and fastened upon a very minor but maybe a significant mystery. I wondered why the photographer had not kept his appointment to visit Hill House on the night of Miss Kempson-Conyers' birthday party.

  The arrangement had been that Mr Nigel Kempson was to pick him up in the town at an appointed meeting-place at about eleven p.m. and convey him by car to the manor house. Apparently he did not turn up at the rendezvous and Mr Nigel, having waited for a considerable time, returned without him.

  It seemed strange to me that a professional photographer, having contracted to take a number of pictures in the house of so wealthy a woman as Mrs Kempson, had not kept what promised to be a very lucrative assignment, so I decided to make some enquiries.

  My problem, and that of the police, was that there was no apparent reason why the same person should have committed both the murders. Added to this was the mystery of there having been (it seemed) two Mr Wards, both false, and the strange fact that nobody could have known beforehand (again it seemed) that Miss Patterson would attend the party in place of her brother except the two Pattersons and their parents.

  Apart from this, the absence of the photographer made him as much or as little of a suspect as anybody else, but, at any rate, he appeared to be a person whose movements should be more fully investigated.