Cold, Lone and Still (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

“I can see that. You haven’t altered the trade name, but what is Elsa Moore’s name doing after Sandy’s full name and yours?”

  “You would hardly expect it to come in front of ours, would you?”

  “Oh, don’t hedge! You’ve made her a partner and I want an explanation.”

  “No explanation is due to you, my dear girl. If I had appeared at your flat with lipstick on my face, or if, in this quite unnecessary tidying-up which you know I hate, you had found a girl’s pants which you knew were not yours, you might be in order in asking certain questions, but what is on our official notepaper is our business, Sandy’s and mine, not yours.”

  “So that’s it! You have made her a partner!”

  “Yes, of course that’s it. Elsa has been with us and served the firm wonderfully well for more than five years. We decided to give some slight recognition to that fact, that is all. And now, for heaven’s sake, stop messing about with my shirts and ties and let’s have a drink.”

  I folded the piece of paper, put it in my pocket, and waited for the next outburst, but all she said was “You’ll be sorry for this.”

  “I am sorry—sorry that you found the laundry list, if you don’t like its printed heading. As a matter of fact, it was Sandy’s suggestion that we should let Elsa in and put her name on our notepaper, but, of course, I agreed. It is only to safeguard ourselves.”

  “Against what?”

  “Against losing her to another firm, of course. You know there was always the danger of that.”

  “Oh, yes? And you have never seen me as an efficient substitute? Oh, well!”

  She accepted a drink in her usual graceful way and the only further reference she made to the unfortunate laundry list was to tell me to include the loose covers on the two armchairs in the bedroom. She left earlier than usual and, although I saw her home, she did not suggest that I should go in, so I knew that we had not finished with the subject of Elsa and the partnership.

  Sally Lestrange turned up at the office two days later. She had made an appointment over the telephone and was received by Elsa and passed on to me. She was a pleasantly direct and business-like young woman and came to the point at once.

  “What are the chances of publication?” she asked. “I don’t want to spend a lot of time on something which is never going to see the light of day. I’ve made that clear to Bull.”

  “As I told the man himself, it depends upon the material and upon how it’s handled. You know as much about that sort of thing as I do,” I said.

  “Yes, but the material itself. I’ve talked to Bull and I can’t believe he’s got much to offer.”

  “Then turn him down.”

  “My grandmother would be disappointed if I did. No, I must carry on, I think. I just wondered what chance the thing might have.”

  “I’ll tell you what chance it could have,” I said, struck by a sudden inspiration. “Make it clinical.”

  “Make it what?”

  “Turn it into a case history. Let Bull tell his story in his own way. Don’t sub-edit. Take him down verbatim if your shorthand will stand the strain of his vowels and elisions and then get Dame Beatrice to write an introduction to the book as a study of the psychology of a hangman’s assistant. Bull will be tremendously flattered and if she will do it we shall achieve publication all right. Some of her views are refreshingly unorthodox and will provoke controversy not only among the cognoscenti, but in the popular press.”

  “A bestseller!” breathed Miss Lestrange.

  “Don’t count the chickens, of course, but at any rate, if you can get Dame Beatrice to agree, there will be no doubt about publication.”

  “She will agree. She wants to get in on this murder which seems to have happened where Bull lives and works. He tells me that it was this murder which sparked off the idea that he should write his memoirs. One thing does lead to another, doesn’t it?”

  She was right enough there. The thing which led to another in my case was the new partnership. My private correspondence, delivered at my flat a couple of days later, included a registered packet which contained the engagement ring I had put on Hera’s finger some months earlier. It was her answer to the appointment of Elsa to our board of directors, as Sandy now grandly termed it.

  I was not unduly disturbed. I was sorry that Hera was taking the matter so much to heart, but I had expected a vigorous reaction. It had come, so that was a relief. Besides, I felt that she would have second thoughts when she had had time to cool off. I felt sure that, when she had had a chance to think things over, she would have sense enough to realise that, if we were going to admit anybody to partnership, Elsa was the obvious choice. She had the knowledge and the experience. Besides, not only Sandy and myself, but the rest of the staff got on well with her. She was hardworking and conscientious and, better than that, she had flair, a wonderful way with difficult authors, and a grand sense of humour.

  I wrote in brief acknowledgement of the registered package and ended the letter “Love, C.” I posted it on my way to the office and told Sandy about it when I got there. He expressed concern, but I said I was sure she would come round when she had thought matters over.

  “She was dead nuts on coming in with us, of course,” I said. “Perhaps we ought to have waited a bit before we co-opted Elsa.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Sandy. “We might have lost Elsa if we’d waited much longer.”

  That morning Polly brought my coffee.

  “To what are we indebted?” I asked, as she set down my cup. Usually one of the juniors brought it.

  “That pullover-and-jeans is here again,” she replied, “and Miss Moore has got an author.” She made it sound as though Elsa was suffering from a sick headache and, knowing some of our authors, I thought it more than likely that this was so. “Anyway, it’s you he wants to see,” Polly went on, “so I told him I’d find out. You drink that coffee and let him wait.”

  “You might possibly give him a cup, too. It will help him pass the time,” I suggested.

  “Do you know what fresh-ground coffee costs these days?” she asked tartly. “Still, all right, if you say so.”

  “It will be a treat for the poor boy,” I said. “Surely your motherly heart goes out to him?”

  “I don’t like young men in horn-rims.”

  “That is mere prejudice.”

  “He dresses like a tramp that’s lost all self-respect, and yet if those horn-rims cost a penny under sixty pounds I should be surprised. It’s what they call inverted snobbery.”

  “He’s a student of geology.”

  “No wonder he looks so grubby.” She waited while I drank my coffee, then she took away the cup and added, “Shall I send him in?”

  “Yes, when he’s finished the coffee you are going to give him. You might add a couple of substantial biscuits. I expect he’s hungry. Boys always are.”

  When Trickett came in, he was obviously the bearer of tidings. His thin face was flushed and his spectacles glittered. He reminded me of Gussie Fink-Nottle contemplating a particularly fine collection of newts.

  “I say, you know,” he said, “we’ve had a Visitation, you know.”

  “Come, come!” I said. “The time of the final apocalypse is not yet. I suppose you mean Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley has shown up at the hall of residence.”

  This deflated him. He took a chair and said in disappointed tones, “Oh, you knew. Yes, she turned up with the woman who is going to write up Bull’s life story. The warden has given full permission to them both and is all over the old lady. He’s already arranged for her to give a talk to the students when term starts. It seems she is very well known in her own circles, but she’s not going to talk on her own subject. She’s going to talk about murder.”

  “Well, that is her subject—a subsidiary one, perhaps, but, nevertheless, her own. She is a noted criminologist and murderers are her speciality.”

  “I say, that’s fine! Everybody loves a good murder. The rest of the poly lot will
be as envious as Cassius when they know we’ve actually been mixed up in one.”

  “They probably know already. The story has been in all the papers.”

  “Still, the walkers and the orchestra were the only ones of our lot who were actually there when it happened. Dame Beatrice is fearfully interested. She wants to find out how we all reacted and will add what we tell her to round out her talk. We’re going to have another party before she gives her talk, but she’s giving it herself. She wants me to give out most of the invitations, though. It’s to be held at a restaurant where they will give us a private room—La Carpe Heureuse. Do you know it?”

  “Yes. I’ve taken Hera there several times. Marvellous food.”

  “Ah, Miss Camden, yes. Do you think she will come? Todd is invited, too, of course. He took Patsy Carlow to a nightclub the other evening, as term hasn’t started yet, and Miss Camden and Freddie Brown were invited as well. I suppose their job was to keep the party clean. Patsy is only too apt to step high, wide, and plentiful if anybody treats her to champagne. She told Coral she had bedded down with Todd, but Coral says that was only wishful thinking. Will you pass the invitation on to Miss Camden? Six thirty on Wednesday for seven. Black ties or a dark suit. The warden and his wife are coming.”

  “Is Detective-Inspector Bingley to be one of the company?” I asked facetiously.

  “I shouldn’t think so. He would rather cramp our style, don’t you think?” said Trickett seriously.

  “What about Bull, who is on the threshold of becoming a bestselling author?”

  “Poor old Bull! No, he won’t be there, but Dame Beatrice is bringing Miss Lestrange and Mrs. Gavin.”

  “Mrs. Gavin?—oh, of course, Laura!”

  “They wondered whether your partner would like to come—Mr. Alexander, isn’t it?”

  “Storey, actually. We combine our first names for business purposes. Yes, I think he would very much like to come. Are the members of the orchestra invited?”

  “Dame Beatrice has left it to me, so I think not. Ostensibly the thing is my party, so I’ve decided that the only poly people will be those who went on the walk. Dame Beatrice particularly wants Perth to come and has sent him a return ticket and will book him in for Wednesday night at an hotel. Well, with our people, including you and Todd and Miss Camden, the warden and his wife, Miss Lestrange, Mrs. Gavin, and Dame Beatrice herself, we shall be quite a large enough gathering, I think. I say, who is the stunning young woman who looks like the Queen of Sheba and makes me feel as though I’m six years old and have jam on my face?”

  “Our junior partner, Miss Elsa Moore.”

  “Is she Jewish?”

  “Irish, I would have thought.”

  “I bet she had a Jewish mother, then. You can’t mistake the arrogance of that type of Jewish-girl, you know, when they’re as good-looking as that and so damned brainy with it.”

  “Good gracious, Elsa isn’t arrogant! Far from it. She’s the quietest, most amenable person.”

  “All the same,” he said, “I bet she ties your authors up in knots if they come here looking for an argument. I say! You wouldn’t like to bring her to the party, would you? I can invite anybody I like, you know, and I do admire Miss Moore most awfully.”

  “I can’t bring Elsa if Hera is going to be there.”

  “Ah,” he said, taking off the horn-rims which Polly had criticised and gesturing with them at me. “Like that, is it?”

  “Just like that, but not for the reason you seem to think,” I said. He smiled pityingly and shook his head.

  14

  Not an Official Enquiry

  As though nothing had happened to separate us, I rang up Hera, told her about the invitation, and asked whether she was prepared to accept it. She replied in the same liberal spirit and said that she would look forward to the gathering.

  “Pick me up half an hour before you had intended to,” she said, “and I’ll give you a drink. What is the party in aid of, anyway?”

  “I think Dame Beatrice wants to size us all up.”

  “Good gracious! What an uncomfortable thought! Never mind. When do I expect you on Wednesday?”

  “Would a quarter to six be all right?”

  When we met, it was like old times. She was wearing a dinner dress of midnight blue and looked more beautiful than ever. I told her so. Neither of us referred to the return of the engagement ring. I had it with me, but, unless the right moment offered itself, there was no point in attempting to return it.

  At six fifteen I called a taxi and we arrived at the restaurant to find more than half the company already assembled and chattering over cocktails in an anteroom to that in which we were to dine. Cheerfulness was the keynote and, needless to say, Carbridge was never mentioned. The students (Patsy in a surprisingly simple and restrained dark green dress which she informed me she had borrowed for the occasion because the warden was going to be present) all had best-behaviour faces and sleekly groomed hair. Dame Beatrice was in dark red and the warden’s wife in black and gold, but to my mind the lovely Hera stole the picture; there was no doubt that Todd thought so, too, and, as a fair-minded man, I could not blame him for wanting to dance attendance on her.

  I had calculated that, if everybody whom Trickett had intended to invite had accepted, we should be seventeen at table, but there was an extra guest in the person of the warden’s son, Dominic Terrance, an engaging youth who was going up to Cambridge as soon as the term started.

  The dinner was table d’hôte, there was a choice of red or white wine, and there were place cards, so that everybody knew where to sit. The seating had been worked out carefully, I thought. Dame Beatrice took the head of the table, Laura the foot, so that both of them had the rest of us in their eye. My dinner partner was Jane Minch and on my other side was Rhoda Green.

  The warden and Mrs. Terrance were on either side of Dame Beatrice, and young Dominic partnered Tansy Parks. Sandy had refused the invitation without having given me any specific reason except to say that he was not acquainted with any of the company.

  “You know Hera, me, Trickett, Sally Lestrange, and Dame Beatrice,” I pointed out. He replied that he knew Dame Beatrice only by repute and that when Trickett had come to the office it was only to speak to me and not to him. He added that dinner parties which numbered more than four people were not much in his line unless all the guests were of the male sex, and that he could see Hera and myself any time he wished and in much less boring circumstances.

  Conversation at table was lively and of a general nature, even Rhoda and Tansy joining in. Most of the subject matter was centred on the West Highland Way and, needless to say, again nobody mentioned Carbridge. When we rose from table, Todd said to me, “I’ve been told that some of you are to go back with the warden, so I’ll see Hera home. There’ll be no hanky-panky. I know her too well for that.”

  I found this remark disquieting, but there was no opportunity to question it. The students, delighted with their evening, were leaving and taxis were being summoned for the rest of us. Hera and Todd went off in the first one and I found myself in the vestibule of the restaurant with Dame Beatrice, Laura, Sally, Perth, young Dominic, the warden, and his wife.

  The Minches had gone off together on foot, so had Rhoda and Tansy, and the four students also appeared to be hunting in couples, for I saw Trickett and Coral go off in one direction and Freddie and Patsy in another.

  I shared a taxi with Sally and Laura, while Dame Beatrice was accompanied by the warden and his wife and son, but, before the taxis came, Laura contrived to segregate me from the others.

  “I expect you wonder what all this is about,” she said.

  “Not at all. I think you and Dame Beatrice wanted to see all of our walking party together, so that you could sum up one against the other, so to speak. I don’t know, though, why Perth and I have been invited to finish the evening at the hall of residence as guests of Mr. and Mrs. Terrance.”

  “You may not know, but there is no har
m in hazarding a guess.”

  “In that case,” I said, “perhaps Dame Beatrice is going to question Perth about the various relationships between members of the tour party and wants to have me present as a check on what he tells her.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  When we reached the hall of residence, we were taken up to the warden’s quarters. Having seen us settled and indicated a small side table which held bottles and glasses, he and his wife and son took themselves off, having told us that they would be in the small sitting-room next door. They took Sally with them. I poured whisky for myself, Perth, and Laura, but Dame Beatrice refused a drink and, eyeing us benevolently, began her interrogation.

  It was directed, as I had anticipated, at Perth, and I guessed from his demeanour that he had expected to be the leading light and was quite happy to be in that position. In his quiet way, and like most Scotsmen, he had a pretty good conceit of himself. Laura had produced writing materials from somewhere and was poised to record in shorthand what he had to say.

  “You, my dear Mr. Melrose,” Dame Beatrice said to me, “will amend, confirm, or contradict Mr. Perth’s statements if and when you see occasion to do so.”

  “Aye,” said Perth approvingly, “ye should always monitor your experiments. What is your wish that I should tell ye, mistress?”

  “What different connotations the same word can have!” said Dame Beatrice. “‘Mistress’ is a case in point. In England it means either a female employer of domestic servants or an alternative to a wife. In Scotland it is a form of address to a married woman of reputedly acceptable behaviour. I believe that the Scots’ use of the word is in accordance with its original meaning, and is preferable, in my opinion, to the Frenchified and somewhat stilted ‘madam.’”

  “‘Mistress’ is used by Shakespeare in a pleasant way in The Merry Wives of Windsor,” said Laura. “Mistress Ford and Mistress Page are the liveliest of women.”

  “Ladies of unblemished virtue and of great wit and charm,” I said, and I was about to recount my grandfather’s reminiscences of his falling in love with Edith Evans in 1925 on seeing her as Mistress Page, when I realised that, as P.G.W. causes one of his characters to say, we are not put into this world for pleasure alone, so I left the little story untold and waited upon Dame Beatrice’s next words.