“It was my lady Lincallow, of course, sick of waiting and having caught her death of cold out there at that time of the night, in December, too, and small wonder at it! Anyway, out we had to go, Mr. Willis and me, and off we drove, straight back here without seeing Calma or the opera or anything, except if it ever comes to Bognor I shall go and see it, Lincallow or no Lincallow, temper or no temper,” concluded Miss Sooley with unlooked-for spirit.
After being compelled to listen to some unimportant details relative to the drive home, Mrs. Bradley escaped to her room, and spent the time that remained before the ringing of the bell for tea in making notes. The most important points, she decided, were that Miss Lincallow had betrayed neither surprise nor agitation at the news of her niece’s death and that she had arrived at the school and had contrived to separate herself from her two companions before the interval; that was to say, before the finding of the body.
The first thing to be done was to seek out Mr. Willis and compare his version of the affair with Miss Sooley’s account. She did not want either of the boarding-house proprietors to know that she was going to question Willis, so she did not ask for his address, but went out after tea to find him. His house adjoined his garage, and his garage was, as she had suspected, at the end of the road in which Miss Lincallow resided.
Willis, a homely, pleasant man of about lfifty, scratched his head with an oily hand, smiled at the recollection of Miss Lincallow’s annoyance, informed Mrs. Bradley that she had refused to pay a penny for the hire of the car, and finally (without realizing in the slightest that Mrs. Bradley’s manipulation of the conversation had brought out the information), that he should say that he and Miss Sooley had been seated in the auditorium for a quarter of an hour at least, and probably longer, before the curtain came down upon the First Act. Mrs. Bradley then led the conversation to channels which resulted in her hiring the car for a short drive on the following morning, and she and Mr. Willis parted on terms of mutual goodwill. It was extraordinary, she reflected, how people’s ideas about the passing of time varied.
She sought out Miss Sooley again, and was able to elicit the fact that she and Willis had seated themselves in the auditorium some moments before the first entrance of ‘Katisha.’ That settled it. Although Mrs. Bradley was perfectly certain in her own mind that Miss Lincallow had done nothing whatever that night except sit in the car outside the school door, nursing a grievance against Willis, it was obvious that she could have had the opportunity to murder her niece. On the face value of the evidence offered by Willis and Miss Sooley, she had no alibi for the time the murder might have taken place, and her determination to return that night to Bognor instead of staying at Calma Ferris’s lodgings might turn out very awkwardly for her if it could be proved that she had had any motive for wishing her niece out of the way. Had she had such a motive?
Mrs. Bradley sighed. She felt convinced, in spite of herself, that Miss Lincallow had had such a motive. Everybody who was mixed up in this queer case seemed to have had a reason for disliking poor Miss Ferris. It was ridiculous!
It was also interesting. Mrs. Bradley went to bed early that night, and by the morning her brain had produced the motive, mocked itself for producing any suggestion so far-fetched, rebuked itselt for its own mockery, and, finally, compromised with itself by deciding to wait and see.
There was another task awaiting her that day. She decided that it was time to go and interview Mr. Helm. She confidently expected that he would deny ever having been at the school, and she realized that, so far, there was nothing whatever to connect him in any way with the crime. She wondered how she could introduce herself to him, and decided that audacity and mendacity would have to be the weapons of attack. After breakfast, therefore, she went for her drive in Mr. Willis’s blue saloon car and arranged with young Tom, who drove, that he should wait outside the railway carriage bungalow for half an hour.
“At the end of half an hour, child,” she observed to young Tom, “you will knock loudly upon the front door and demand admittance.”
“Seems to me, ma’am,” said young Tom, pushing his peaked cap farther back on his fair head, “you’d be better not calling on him. I haven’t heard much about him to his credit.”
“Charity begins at home,” said Mrs. Bradley, obliquely. She walked up a path of pebbles and banged on the front door. Tom, who was a chivalrous lad, opened the bonnet of the car and, under pretence of looking at the engine, covertly watched proceedings. When the front door closed behind Mrs. Bradley, he sat on the step, looked at his wrist-watch, and prepared to rush into the bungalow at the first suspicious noise that issued from it.
Mrs. Bradley’s tactics in order to gain admission to the bungalow had been simple. The door was opened by Helm himself, whom she recognized, even from a newspaper photograph, as Cutler. This was promising. She remembered the trial in which he had figured, chiefly because it had been the particularly brilliant defence conducted by her son, Ferdinand Lestrange, which had led to Cutler’s acquittal. Ferdinand had torn to shreds the case for the prosecution, and had exposed the fact that it was based on insufficient evidence. Mrs. Bradley herself had believed that the man was guilty, but the evidence against him was purely circumstantial and its strongest link was the fact that he drew his wife’s insurance money, and had himself been the person responsible for insuring her life.
The man looked inquiringly at Mrs. Bradley. She grinned in what she imagined was an ingratiating manner, and he retreated a step.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Helm,” said she. “You are Mr. Helm, of Hillmaston School?”
“Well, no, madam, I regret to say that I am not.”
“Oh, but surely,” said Mrs. Bradley, in fatuous tones. “I mean to say, they told me you were he. I want to know all about the school on behalf of my daughter-in-law, who is thinking…” She was comparing him with the description of the electrician. Was he…?
“Who told you to come to me about it?” asked Helm. “Look here; come in. We can’t talk here.”
Mrs. Bradley had gained her point. She was admitted. The railway-carriage bungalow consisted of two rooms, all the partitions except one having been knocked down. The room into which the front door opened was simply furnished with a small, narrow table, two chairs, two of the original railway compartment seats, a strip of matting in dull shades of crimson and purple, and a large portable bath made of galvanized iron. A gleam of interest in Mrs. Bradley’s bright black eyes when they discerned this last sinister object caused Helm to explain modestly that he was not fond of bathing in the open sea at that time of year, but that he considered sea-water so beneficial that it was his habit to walk down to the water’s edge at high tide with a large pail, and, by taking several journeys, to transport sufficient water from the sea to fill his copper, which he pointed out with great pride. It was a small affair, placed in the “corridor” of the carriage. When the water was warm he emptied it into the bath by means of a large enamel jug, and so had a warm sea-water bath twice a day.
“And you wouldn’t believe,” he said, smiling enthusiastically and waving his arms, “how much good it does me. But this school of yours, dear lady—I know nothing about it whatever.”
“Lie number one, if Miss Sooley is telling the truth,” thought Mrs. Bradley, delighted to find an untruthful suspect.
She drove back to Bognor thinking hard. He had denied ever having visited the school. His appearance did not altogether coincide with the description of the electrician which she had received from the caretaker. The ears were right, though. His manner did not coincide with the picture conjured up by Miss Ferris’s aunt of a bold, bad commercial traveller. In short, the man seemed a mental and physical chameleon, and Mrs. Bradley was suitably intrigued. She ate sparingly, as usual, but was so slow over the meal that Miss Lincallow inquired whether she was tired. Mrs. Bradley replied that she was not tired, but that the sea air had made her sleepy, so she retired to bed at about half-past ten, and was asleep before the clock struck eleven.
She had managed to indicate to Helm during the course of conversation that she was a wealthy widow with no particular encumbrances—which was perfectly true as far as it went—and she had made up her mind that if he were the unscrupulous adventurer which history seemed to have painted, he would not be content to allow his acquaintance with her to drop.
She was not deceived. Helm allowed the next two days to pass, and then Mrs. Bradley received a letter saying that Helm had been in touch with the principal of the school, and had secured a copy of the prospectus, which he would be pleased to talk over with her if she would be kind enough to take tea with him any afternoon that suited her. Mrs. Bradley went that very afternoon, and found him, very spruce, awaiting her.
“I had a feeling that you might come to-day, dear lady,” he said. The sparse sandy hair was parted in the middle and carefully brushed. The grey suit was neat and smartly cut. Knife-edged creases down the trousers and a tie-pin of extraordinary brilliance completed his outward appearance, and the whole effect compelled Mrs. Bradley to smile like an alligator which sees its evening meal within measurable distance of its jaws.
chapter xi: admirer
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i
By some means or other, Helm had certainly contrived to obtain a vast amount of information about the school. He knew the names and qualifications of the whole staff, the acreage of the school playing fields; he was able to sketch for Mrs. Bradley an accurate plan of the ground floor; he described the science laboratory, the art and music-rooms, the garden, the swimming-bath, and was able to indicate the many other amenities of one of the most modern school buildings in existence. Mrs. Bradley supposed that he had obtained his information from the printed prospectus. He had certainly taken great pains to learn it off by heart if that were the case. On the other hand, if he had actually explored the school with the intention of finding out the best method of murdering Miss Ferris…
But why, Mrs. Bradley asked herself, should he have gone to the school rather than found out the address of her lodgings, if he really intended to seek her out and kill her? She fancied that the most likely explanation was that he had considered it improbable that even Miss Sooley would supply him with Miss Ferris’s private address, whereas the school address could not be so readily and plausibly withheld. But then, if Miss Sooley’s evidence could be trusted, he had known the address of the school without having asked her for it. That was a most puzzling point. She began to talk about the dead woman.
“Of course, I never knew her,” she said.
“I did,” responded Helm. It was a piece of information he could not very well refuse to give, owing to the fact that he knew Mrs. Bradley was living with Miss Ferris’s aunt, who would certainly have explained that he, too, had been a boarder there, and had met the niece.
“Oh, yes, of course! The burglars!” said Mrs. Bradley, shuddering realistically in her assumed character of silly old lady.
“Burglars my boot!” said Helm, succinctly. Mrs. Bradley conquered a genuine start of surprise, and said anxiously:
“Was it her imagination, then, poor girl?”
“It wasn’t burglars, anyhow,” said Helm. “Not a thing was taken.”
“Oh, but I understood from Miss Ferris’s aunt that the men became alarmed and fled before they actually entered the house,” Mrs. Bradley said. Mr. Helm made a noise expressive of deep contempt, and suggested that perhaps she would like some tea. Mrs. Bradley, rightly suspicious of the victuals offered by (in her opinion) an unconvicted murderer, refused charmingly and said that she would not take up any more of Mr. Helm’s valuable time. She thanked him for his kindness in procuring details of the school, apologized for having mistaken the meaning of the friend who (she thought) had told her he was the German Master there, and took her leave.
Mr. Helm watched her from the window as she walked down the pebbled path to the gate. There was an unpleasant smirk upon his face. The fact had emerged during conversation that Mrs. Bradley’s life was insured for ten thousand pounds. It was insured in her son’s interest. Mr. Helm’s smirk widened into a cheerful grin. He walked up to the galvanized iron bath and played the devil’s tattoo upon it with his knuckles.
Mrs. Bradley also wore a cheerful grin. Sheltering behind a breakwater, and with the collar of his dark grey waterproof turned up against the bitter December wind, was Noel Wells.
“Here I am, dear child,” said Mrs. Bradley. She cackled harshly and pinched his elbow. Wells looked gloomy. Tom, on the road, drove slowly away.
“I don’t like it, you know,” said Wells. “It’s playing with fire. And I’m not sure it’s honest. In any case, what good am I to you, stuck out here on the beach? He could murder you and bury the body on the other side of the bungalow, and I should be none the wiser.”
Mrs. Bradley took an orange out of her capacious skirt pocket.
“When you see an orange come hurtling through the bungalow window on this side, dear child,” she said, “come at once to my assistance.”
“But you may not always have an orange to throw,” objected Wells. “And what if it’s dark?”
“You’ll hear the crash of glass, dear child.”
“Oh, yes. Of course. But suppose you haven’t an orange?”
“I shall throw the soap out, dear child.”
“The soap?”
“The soap.”
“But what I mean is—”
Mrs. Bradley took his arm and they walked along the deserted beach towards the town. Wells waited a little while, and then concluded his sentence.
“—Won’t that blighter be looking at us now out of the window?”
“It doesn’t matter if he is,” Mrs. Bradley replied. “For one thing, you are my son, in whose favour my life is at the present moment insured for ten thousand pounds; and for another, he is at this moment in rapt contemplation of the bath I told you of. It hangs upon the wall and is to him the means of wish-fulfilment. Sand!” she suddenly exclaimed. “Sand!” She waved a skinny, black-gloved claw. “Sand, dear child. How easy to dig the grave. How impossible to locate the grave! Sand!” Wells quickened his stride.
“I heard in the town that he tried to rent one of the bungalows in that colony on the other side of Bognor,” he said, “but that they would not have him because of the trial. Rather a shame, really, as he was acquitted.” Mrs. Bradley’s only reply was to the effect that she was going home for Christmas.
“I shall write to Mr. Helm,” she added, “and when the Christmas vacation is over I shall return to the school for a bit. There are still one or two things that need clearing up from that end. As to Mr. Helm, I cannot foretell with any certainty what his reaction to my absence will be.” She chuckled ghoulishly and then demanded: “How long had you intended staying in the neighbourhood, dear child?”
Wells was not quite sure. He would let her know, he said, and they parted at the gate of Miss Lincallow’s neat front garden. Miss Lincallow, who avowed, possibly with truth, that, knowing Mrs. Bradley’s life was in danger from “that awful man,” whom, it was plain, she was now prepared to hold responsible for her niece’s death, had remained at the first-floor sitting-room window during the whole of Mrs. Bradley’s absence from the house, said that she was thankful, “oh, thankful indeed,” to see her safe home again.
Mrs. Bradley, who had not announced her intention of breaking her drive in order to call upon Helm, made no remark except to demand tea. After tea, the loquacious Miss Sooley sought her out.
“And did you really go inside?” she asked, with a shiver of delicious horror. “Do you know, when I think that we had that man here, in this house, all those weeks in the summer, and never knew, I could scream!”
“Never knew what?” asked Mrs. Bradley, wilfully dense.
“Never knew that he was a murderer,” said the obliging Miss Sooley in low tones. Her eyes grew round and hard and bright, and her mouth became a little pink rosette. Her nose twitched with excitement. “And you went inside his h
ouse with him! Just fancy you being so daring, little as you are, too!”
“And old. And frail,” said Mrs. Bradley. She gave vent to a deep chuckle, and smoothed the sleeve of a juniper which covered muscles of iron. Miss Sooley clicked her tongue and then said archly, and with the simpering smile of a sentimental old maid:
“But there! I suppose he must have his attractions, although I could never see them.”
“How do you mean?” asked Mrs. Bradley.
“Well,” said Miss Sooley, settling down with gusto to a scandalous story, “say Miss Lincallow whatever she chooses about poor Miss Ferris, but it wasn’t only Miss Ferris that couldn’t behave herself as a lady should in a house that contains gentlemen.”
“Really?” said Mrs. Bradley, afraid of saying anything which might cause the conversation to veer into a less promising channel. Miss Sooley, however, was fairly in mid-stream, and under full sail at that. She folded her hands—they ought to have been mittened, Mrs. Bradley decided—nodded her head, swallowed, drew in a deep breath and continued:
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