‘Why?’ asked Jim, interested. ‘Certainly bring in a lot of money. Everybody wears grey flannel bags.’
‘Yes, that’s what is so annoying to a mere seeker after truth,’ said Mrs Bradley sorrowfully. ‘You see. I am in a quandary. Either Savile or Wright could have stolen the murdered man’s trousers – and his shirt and vest and drawers too, for that matter! – and either could have worn them!’
‘You mean – yes, I see. Still it doesn’t matter now the poor blighter’s dead, does it? I mean, the police are certain to call it a day, aren’t they?’
‘That, being interpreted, equals – ?’
‘Well, I mean to say, the hunt is over, so to speak. They’ll conclude Savile did the murder, now it is certain that the doctor could not have taken the body to the butcher’s shop on Monday.’
‘I hope so, sincerely, for your sake,’ said Mrs Bradley, getting up from her chair and walking over to an oval mirror. She studied her unpleasing reflection for some seconds long, earnestly and in complete silence.
Jim began to feel the pulse in his right temple hammering uncomfortably. His mouth felt dry and his hands clammy.
‘How do you mean?’ he asked thickly.
‘Well,’ replied Mrs Bradley, turning to face him, ‘although Savile had planned the murder, I suppose it was so little in his line that, truth to tell, he never committed it – a fact which, out of aunt-like affection for yourself, I have endeavoured to relegate to the background during this tiresome business. I have not actually told a verbal lie about it, but still there it is! Savile cut up the body – yes. He stole the murdered man’s clothes – yes. Sometimes he wore them and sometimes, when their wardrobes got somewhat mixed – a frequent occurrence, I fancy, in that curious household! – Cleaver Wright wore them –’
‘But what about Wright’s own trousers you told us about? The ones he knelt on the ground in to look at Sethleigh’s body? The ones that got stained about the knees with blood?’
‘Eye-wash,’ said Mrs Bradley succinctly.
‘How much?’
‘He’s been wearing them on and off ever since, alternately with those belonging to Sethleigh.’
‘Then, didn’t he disturb the murderer and kneel by the body?’
‘He kneel by the body? Oh no! What? Kneel by a headless corpse?’
She chuckled. In spite of the heat, Jim shivered. Cold sweat trickled down his spine.
‘Afraid I don’t follow,’ he said feebly.
‘No, James?’ Mrs Bradley stood up, put her bird-like black head on one side and pursed her beaky little mouth. She was enjoying herself. ‘Savile decapitated a dead man, that’s all.’
‘Savile – Look here, are you calling me a murderer?’ shouted Jim, hoarse with anxiety and crimson with anger. ‘You’d better not! I’ll – I’ll –’
Aubrey Harringay would have realized the significance of that chokingly thick utterance and the young man’s ugly scowl, and would have made his getaway with celerity. Mrs Bradley was not blind to the symptoms, but she merely grinned in her own unpleasantly ghoulish fashion, and poked him in the ribs with inconsequent hardihood.
‘Do not threaten me, James,’ she observed calmly. ‘Threats are so wearing to the threatener. As my dear good friend and neighbour, Mrs Bryce Harringay, would say, “Conserve your energies for some Worthy Purpose.” There goes Felicity Broome. Bestow upon her my love. Be off with you!’
‘But what about Rupert and so forth?’ gulped Jim, cowed by the old lady’s intrepid refusal to take his anger seriously. ‘What are you going to do?’
Mrs Bradley waved a yellow claw.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘If I had been going to give you away, child, I should have done it long ago. However, that punch of yours which knocked Sethleigh down most certainly caused his death. The shock alone would have done for that heart of his. I’ve never had the least doubt about that. Besides, there was never enough blood for a death by wounding. Even the inspector saw that, bless his heart! And morally, of course, Savile was guilty.’
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Document creation date: 10.5.2012
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Gladys Mitchell
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The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop mb-2 Page 25
