Adders on the Heath (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Well, I don’t see what it has to do with us.”

  “Yes, you do,” said Clive. “You sacked Mr. Richardson. That’s what she’s here about. She just wants to know why. It wasn’t the letters, whatever you may say. You didn’t have to believe the letters. They were phoney, and you jolly well know they were. You said yourself, a minute ago…”

  “Be quiet, Clive! You weren’t in the room…”

  “No, but I listened outside the door,” observed the repellent but pathetic child. “You ought to know me by now.”

  “Indeed?” said his mother, very coldly, but with a terrified glance at Dame Beatrice. “You are an untruthful, nasty-minded little boy and had better go to your room.”

  The boy put out his tongue at her and accepted this advice. Left by themselves, the two women faced one another squarely.

  Clive’s mother fidgeted with a bracelet.

  “He’s such a little snooper,” she said.

  “Well, now, why was Mr. Richardson dismissed?” demanded Dame Beatrice. “You are not going to tell me that you or your husband would jeopardise a young man’s future because of some anonymous comments on his character?…comments which you yourself describe as filthy.”

  “Well, of course, it wasn’t only the letters. He was unsatisfactory,” said Mrs. Maidston, hedging.

  “As a tutor?”

  “Oh, in other ways, too. He was quite disinclined to exert himself in any way which did not take his fancy.”

  “Such as…?”

  “Well, there seemed no reason why he should not have done a little secretarial work for my husband in the evenings, but would he help him?”

  “I presume that he would not. Was it agreed beforehand that he should do so?”

  “It couldn’t have been, could it? Otherwise my husband would have insisted. One would have thought, though, that Mr. Richardson might have stretched a point in order to help out. My husband is a very busy man.”

  “How did Mr. Richardson spend his evenings?”

  “In his own room, mostly, using the electric light and the electric fire. Sometimes he switched on his wireless set.”

  “His own property?”

  “Oh, yes, but our electricity. It wasn’t a battery set, you see. That young man had plenty of perks here.”

  “How did he and your son get on together?”

  “When you speak of Clive as my son, well, of course, he isn’t. He is the child of a maid we used to have. It’s not a formal adoption. She agreed to let us have him, but since then she has completely disappeared. We’ve tried to trace her, but without success.”

  “You wish to adopt the boy?”

  “I want to get rid of him. He’s uncouth and unmannerly, as you saw for yourself. He’s nothing but a tie, and he’s so ungrateful for everything that’s done for him that he doesn’t deserve a good home.”

  “But he and Mr. Richardson seemed to hit it off, I gather. Why do you think that was?” The woman clasped her hands together.

  “I have no idea,” she replied. “Clive did not seem to be learning anything and his manners did not improve. In any case, I…there were things about Mr. Richardson of which nobody could possibly approve. When he was not wasting our electricity in his own room, he was disporting himself at the local public house.”

  “Disporting himself?”

  “Beer, darts and, no doubt, flashy girls.”

  “Ah, yes, no doubt. And the anonymous letters enlarged upon the importance in his life of the flashy girls, I suppose.”

  “I suppose so, if you care to put it in that way. Anyhow, what with Clive’s lack of progress and the anonymous letters and these public house visits (all too frequent, I’m afraid), and his disobligingness towards my husband, and the waste of electricity with the consequent expense…well, I ask you!”

  “Expense? I suppose, though, that, even allowing for the electricity plus Mr. Richardson’s salary, it was a good deal cheaper to keep Clive in tutors than to pay the fees at a preparatory school.”

  “I have never considered the matter, and I am certain my husband has not.”

  “I am sorry I could not meet him.” Dame Beatrice rose to take her leave. “Thank you so much for receiving me. I have found our talk most informative and have enjoyed it very much.”

  Clive’s foster-mother rang the bell and directed a tousle-haired maid to show Dame Beatrice out. On the drive was the child. He sidled up to Dame Beatrice and cast conspiratorial glances round about.

  “Hist!” he said. “Do you read the Bible at all?”

  “A most interesting library,” she replied.

  “Yes, well, what about Potiphar’s wife?” He leapt away, but, with a yellow claw of surprising strength, Dame Beatrice collared him.

  “Before you return to your room, to which I believe you were sent by your mother,” she said, “there is something I should be interested to know. There are two things, in fact.”

  “I shall please myself whether I tell you.”

  “Of course, Clive. That is understood.”

  “You see,” said Clive, “I’m a bastard.”

  “So was the Duke of Orleans at the time of Joan of Arc. He was also a most able general. Then, of course, there is Shakespeare’s King Lear, in which a bastard is one of the most important characters. But you were saying…?

  “Oh, nothing. What do you want to know?”

  “Where you went to school and how you got on with Mr. Richardson while he was your tutor.”

  “My form-master, too. He saved me from a licking once, for something I hadn’t done. He got the push later on, but I don’t know why. My people took me away before he went. I was ever so surprised when he turned up here as my tutor.”

  “Oh, dear! These coincidences!” said Dame Beatrice, disguising her delight at obtaining this valuable information. “Well, good-bye, Clive. I hope we shall meet again at some future time. I suppose you weren’t expelled from the school, were you?”

  “Me? Don’t give it a thought. Of course I wasn’t. Mind you, I ought to have been, but nobody knew about that…no one at school, I mean, except…well, he took the money all right. I told them at home because I didn’t want any mistakes.”

  “What kind of mistakes?”

  “Can’t tell you that. I might get into serious trouble. Anyhow, they took them away and I’ve never set eyes on them since.”

  “Although you have a key to Mr. Maidston’s desk?”

  “He didn’t put them in there. Oh, well, be seeing you!”

  Dame Beatrice let him go and walked briskly back to her car. As she went she gave Potiphar’s wife a moment’s thought. Nothing could be more likely, she decided. She returned to the hotel, saw Laura, and enquired for Richardson. Laura informed her that the two young men were playing golf and that they expected to be back at the hotel in time for dinner but were unlikely to be earlier than that.

  “How did you get on?” Laura enquired. “Any luck?”

  “That remains to be seen, child. I think I have established a connection between the people at that house on the heath and those to whose son—foster-son, as it turns out—Mr. Richardson was tutor.”

  “I suppose Richardson isn’t going back there when his holiday is over?—that is, if the police don’t pinch him for the murders.”

  “There seems no doubt that, whether he wishes it or not, his post in that particular household may be filled later on, but not by him.”

  “They don’t want him there any more? He was a menace?”

  “He was, indeed.” She gave Laura an account of her interview with Clive’s foster-mother, and added the various hints provided by the boy.

  “Precocious little horror!” commented Laura. Dame Beatrice said that she felt very sorry for Clive, but that there seemed nothing which an outsider, however sympathetic, could do for him, at any rate not for a time.

  “Still,” she added, “he is an observant child, and I shall be interested to hear how Mr. Richardson reacts to my description of my
visit.”

  This reaction was provided almost immediately. The two young men returned from their golf and soon joined the two women. They were quietly boastful about their prowess on the links, but not insufferably so.

  “Well,” said Laura, when the flow of reminiscence had died down, “while you’ve been playing about, Mrs. Croc. has been doing her best for Tom. She’s been to see Mrs. X.”

  “Been to see…?” asked Richardson, looking anguished.

  “You heard,” said Laura sternly. “She’s been to see your last employers, and I’m bound to say, young Richardson, that you don’t come out of it very well. What’s all this about Potiphar’s wife?”

  “Oh, that,” said Richardson, blushing warmly. “Yes, well, of course, that’s exactly what it was. I mustn’t bandy a woman’s name, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Eh? How do you mean?”

  “Come, now,” said Dame Beatrice, intervening in what promised to be a useless and sterile discussion. “We gather that you were faced with a choice.”

  “I was.”

  “And that you chose to impersonate Joseph.”

  “I did.”

  “And the harvest was anonymous letter-writing by the woman to her husband. I see all that.”

  “But why did you get the sack from the school?” asked Laura.

  “I’d better tell you about that,” said Richardson. “It does sound a bit odd to be sacked twice running.” He addressed himself to Dame Beatrice. “You see, it all began when I had a difference of opinion with the Headmaster. He wanted me to cane a boy who wasn’t the culprit. We had a bit of a toss-up and I came out on my ear. I couldn’t give in, because I knew perfectly well that the kid he’d fixed on hadn’t done it. Unfortunately, one of the junior masters had, so, you see, my lips were sealed. One can’t rat on one’s fellow-slaves.”

  “So you left the school under a cloud and were dismissed your post as a tutor under another but a dissimilar cloud,” said Dame Beatrice. She cackled harshly, and Laura, who liked Richardson, felt vastly relieved. “Further explanation is unnecessary,” Dame Beatrice continued. “You seem to make a hobby of saving small boys from being caned. However, the little that I have learned from my visits may have had some bearing on the deaths of Mr. Colnbrook and Mr. Bunt. How much longer are you and Denis going to stay at this hotel?”

  “On and off, for days and days,” Denis quoted facetiously. “Actually, we haven’t the least idea in the world. I’ve no more concerts until November.”

  “It depends on the police, I suppose,” said Richardson. “Anyway, I like it here and I don’t want another job (even if anybody would have me) while this business is going on.”

  “Why did you not tell us that the child Clive had been in your form at school?” Dame Beatrice enquired.

  “I didn’t think it important. Is it?”

  “Of course it is! It may prove to be the missing link in my chain of evidence.”

  “Oh, Lord! I’m sorry I didn’t mention it, if it helps.”

  Dame Beatrice leered at him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Faint Gleams of Unexpected Light

  …and on each side were two rows of burning lights, of all sizes, the greatest as large as the highest and biggest tower in the world, and the least no larger than a small rush-light.

  The Brothers Grimm

  “So the school may not be such a dead end, you think,” said Laura, with her usual shrewdness, “and we’re sure the kid was right about Mrs. Potiphar. Well, where do we go from here?”

  “I have suggested two moves to the Superintendent. I don’t want him to arrest Mr. Richardson just yet, although, unless I can divert him from his present line of enquiry, I am afraid he will do it before long. If merely Mr. Colnbrook, and not also Mr. Bunt, had been murdered, he would have arrested the young man by now. It is only because, so far, he cannot find the slightest connection between Mr. Richardson and Mr. Bunt, that he has held his hand, I feel sure.”

  “I’m still bothered about that change-over of the bodies. Have you any theories about that?”

  “Well, the most obvious, although not necessarily the correct one, is that somebody who knew that Mr. Richardson and Mr. Colnbrook had taken a dislike to one another and had quarrelled, must have attempted to prove a connection, which did not, in fact, exist, between Mr. Richardson and Mr. Bunt.”

  “That means that somebody was hiding up on the heath near Richardson’s tent and nipped in and changed the bodies while Richardson was trying to phone.”

  “Yes, it does mean that, but it does not mean that my theory is the right one. Another thought might be that Mr. Richardson himself moved the first body and was astounded when he saw the second one.”

  “But the objection to that is obvious, apart from the fact that it would have been difficult for one person, on his own, to have taken Colnbrook’s body to that enclosure. I mean to say, if Richardson moved Colnbrook’s body and hid it, why should he phone the police? You’d have thought he’d play Tar Baby for all he was worth.”

  “That is another hurdle which, so far, the Superintendent has not surmounted. All the same, you know, that woodland walk which the two young men took with the dog…”

  “Still sticks in his gizzard? Yes, well, one can see that, I suppose. But you haven’t told me what you’ve suggested he should do.”

  “I told him that I think the Campden-Townes could well be required to answer a few more questions. I have also told him that I think a description of the couple who stayed at that London hotel might prove very interesting, and I have given him a description of Mrs. Maidston.”

  “So you don’t believe it was the Campden-Townes who went to London?”

  “They went out of the house, of course, and led the servants to believe they had gone to London.”

  “Where do you think they went, then?”

  “It is not possible at present to be precise, but I have an impression that it was not far from here.”

  “It ought to be easy enough for him to check up on them then. They’d have had to sign the register if they slept at an hotel.”

  “There was nothing to prevent them from putting down a false name, child. It would seem the obvious course.”

  “But, if it was a local place, wouldn’t they be known by sight there? They might run into acquaintances or friends, or be recognised by the waiter or the chambermaid.”

  “Time will show. I deduce that, if they went to an hotel, they must have used a false name because their own name had to be in that hotel register in Kensington and under the required date. Of course, I may be entirely wrong about them, but the Superintendent is most co-operative and certainly does not dismiss my ideas as so much moonshine, so he has consented to see them again. He is also going to talk to Mrs. Maidston.”

  “About Potiphar’s wife?”

  “No, no. His approach is to be more subtle, from my point of view, and much more satisfactory from his own, since he will be stating what he believes to be the truth.

  “He will tell Mrs. Maidston that some of Mr. Richardson’s answers to his questions appear to be incomplete, and he will ask for her assistance in elucidating one or two points which the police believe to be important.”

  “Such as?”

  “He will begin by asking why Mr. Richardson left her service. She will then (I expect) blacken Mr. Richardson’s character in some way or another, and then the Superintendent, at my instigation, will refer to Mr. Richardson’s dismissal from the school. This should lead to a query about Clive’s removal from it. After that the Superintendent will continue the conversation as he thinks best.”

  “And after that?”

  “It all depends, but I have suggested that he might do a great deal worse, now that the school is again very slightly in the picture, than to interview Robinson Borgia.”

  “What for? Did the poisons come from the school, after all?”

  “I don’t know, but the Superintenden
t will be in a better position than I was when it comes to the delicate matter of discussing with the laboratory boy whether anything in the poisons cupboard was ever thought to be missing. Clive, you remember, had done something which the headmaster did not know about; something for which he could have been expelled. It may be a long shot and, in any case, is pure guesswork, to suggest that Clive may have contrived to get hold of the poisons, but less likely things have happened.”

  “But—Clive couldn’t be the murderer!”

  “No, no. Of course he couldn’t. But, remember, he told them at home because he didn’t want any mistakes. I find that suggestive, don’t you?”

  They saw nothing of the Superintendent for the next few days. The young men and Laura played golf or rode over common and heath on hired horses. Dame Beatrice went for long walks and she refused any well-meant offers from the others to accompany her. Sometimes she ordered the car and drove from the hotel to well beyond the Forest boundaries to Wimborne or Winchester, or to Lymington for a trip to the Isle of Wight by pleasure steamer, giving George most of that last day off. (He drove back to Dame Beatrice’s own Stone House at Wandles Parva, at the edge of the Forest, cleaned the car, and stripped down the engine.)

  One morning, Dame Beatrice walked along the lovely road from the hotel, cut across the common, and followed the causeway to the tiny wood with its stream and its rustic bridge. She paused a while, to stand on the middle of the bridge and watch the brown and gold of the water in its stumbling run past a tree-trunk which almost dammed its flow.

  Then she passed on beside it until she came to an awkward, slightly muddy corner which she had to negotiate to reach the heath on which Richardson’s tent had been pitched. To her right was the stream, which here had turned almost due north. To her left, as she crossed the gravelled road, was the large and lonely house where lived the Campden-Townes.

  She strolled over to the stream, no definite purpose in her mind, and followed it along the bank until she came to Richardson’s bath-hole. She also came upon an acquaintance who, in company with two small children, was crouching down for the purpose of holding these by the slack of their overcoats while they put little fishing-nets into the water for tiddlers which, if there at all, were not apparent to the naked eye.