Dead Men's Morris (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Hullo? Oh—yes, Mrs. Bradley? Want me?”

  “Are you able to write me a cheque for two hundred pounds?”

  “Have to be a Post Office cheque, Mrs. Bradley, I’m afraid. Don’t have to owe it too long. It’s saved up against my wedding.” He laughed and looked at Jenny.

  “You don’t really suspect Hugh, I know,” said Carey, “but what makes you keep on talking about him in connection with the affair? Just a perverted sense of humour?”

  “By no means, child. One can’t exonerate him now that the business of the will has come to the fore, even though he is solvent, you know.”

  “But you think it was Tombley, don’t you?”

  “Well, I might do so, child, except for one trifling fact.”

  “Straws show which way the wind blows. Say on. Where’s the snag?”

  “Well, it was so very foolish to kill Mr. Fossder at Iffley, especially as Tombley had brought himself to our notice so particularly that night by coming here to ask about his uncle. And I don’t think Tombley is foolish.”

  “But who damaged your car to prevent Hugh going to Iffley to pick up the girls and Pratt? That was Tombley, surely?”

  “I hardly think so. Of course, it may have been Pratt. He was over here, too. And it may have been Linda Ditch.”

  “Linda? But why on earth should she?”

  “There are various reasons: to help Tombley, if she knew he was going to kill Fossder; to save Hugh if she thought that trouble would come of his going to Iffley that night; ill-will towards myself; to annoy my righteous chauffeur, who may have rejected her advances; devilment, of which she has plenty; to spite her father and brother, who might have to help put the car right—”

  “Pax!” said Carey, laughing. “It is possible, I agree, that Linda Ditch damaged the car.”

  “But I think it was a man,” Mrs. Bradley continued. “A girl would have slashed the tyres.”

  “Stuck a hatpin into ’em, you mean.”

  “There are no such things as hatpins nowadays. At any rate, you will agree that she would have done something much less subtle than to produce a leak in the tank.”

  “I thought women were the subtle sex,” said Carey.

  “They haven’t the brains to be subtle,” said Mrs. Bradley, grinning. “It was Eve who ate the apple, but all the subtlety, surely, was shown by the serpent.”

  “I’ve never thought Tombley was subtle,” said Carey, meeting her eye. Mrs. Bradley grimaced.

  “Good heavens, child!” she said.

  “Clever,” said Carey. “Not subtle. Like Henry the Eighth. You know. ‘This weed cumbers the ground. I will uproot it.’ Or ain’t that a reading of his character?”

  “Tombley’s, or Henry the Eighth’s?” asked Mrs. Bradley. “By the way,” she continued, before Carey had time to answer, “has it occurred to you that if Tombley did put the car out of action it might have been kindly meant?”

  “I don’t believe it. To save us from danger at Iffley, do you mean?”

  “It’s just an idea. I daresay there’s nothing in it,” said Mrs. Bradley pacifically. “But it is better to admit every possibility.” She beamed at him affectionately.

  “I wish I knew what you really think.”

  “You do, child. At least, I mean, I’ve told you. I cannot help it if you haven’t managed to take it all in!”

  “Tombley murdered Fossder, because Fossder had prevented him from marrying Fay.”

  “Does Tombley give the impression of a love-lorn swain, thirsting for vengeance on his lost love’s guardian, child?”

  “No. But with Fossder out of the way, it seems as though Tombley would marry her after all, and there’s always the point that the ghost, or whatever it was that made Fossder run, may not have intended to kill him. That’s been suggested, hasn’t it?”

  “I know.” She nodded. “Ditch is going to teach me the stick-tapping in ‘Rigs o’ Marlow.’ Come and watch my initiation into the mysteries of the Morris.”

  “I’d love to. He’s making me practise capers. We’re all enthusiasts here. But it’s Pratt you’ll have to meet. He has the true fervour, I believe. A hopeless performer, though.”

  “And does he come from Headington, too?”

  “Oh, no. He’s a Bampton man. Ditch won’t have him dance in his side at present. Says he throws all the others out. He’s a long, thin, weedy chap; stoops and peers; that type. Inferiority complex as big as Christian’s burden, I should imagine. Not at all the man for the Morris. Oh, of course, you saw him on Christmas Eve. I’d forgotten that for the moment.”

  “Ah, yes.” Mrs. Bradley looked at her nephew sideways. Carey grinned.

  “I want to borrow that two hundred pounds,” he said.

  “Did you send the letters to Mr. Fossder, child?”

  “No. But I rather want to lead Tombley up the garden.”

  “To what end, child?”

  “As a matter of fact, only to about the middle. I want to frighten him into confessing that he was the ghost, because I’m quite certain he was.”

  “Save your money and search the county, child.”

  “What for?”

  “To find the fancy dress the ghost wore on Christmas Eve. Have you never been to a fancy dress dance at which one of the gentlemen carried his head beneath his arm in a not particularly realistic, but, all the same, in an illogically terrifying manner?”

  “You think the ghost really did look headless then, when poor old Fossder saw him?”

  “I don’t know, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Something frightened Mr. Fossder, didn’t it? Never mind, child. Come and see me do the stick-tapping.”

  They left Hugh and Jenny in the parlour, and went along to the kitchen. Mrs. Ditch and Linda were still washing up. Young Walt had a bicycle to pieces on the hearthrug, which was very gay with red, blue, and grey strips of flannel. This rug was so dear to the heart of Mrs. Ditch, whose mother had made it, that none but Young Walt would have been permitted to take a bicycle to pieces on or near it. Ditch was reading the paper, his stockinged feet on the fender.

  “Arsenal’s doen well,” he said to Young Walt. Young Walt, his hands brown with grease, a smear of black across his cheek, and his mouth full of small ball-bearings, said nothing, and took a spanner up from the rug.

  “Hallo, Ditch. How’s Hereward?” asked Carey.

  “I took him back, like, and he seemed all right,” replied Ditch. “Nervous-like, I don’t say, but nothen wrong.” He nodded to Mrs. Bradley. “You stell got the same mind to learn the steck-tappen, mam? Tes easy. Look. I’ll soon show ee.”

  He picked up a concertina and a couple of Morris sticks from the top of the sewing machine, and handed one of the sticks to Mrs. Bradley.

  “I’ll just give ee a turn of the toon, and then you’ll hear when to tap. Er goes like this ’ere, now.” He laid his own stick aside and raised the instrument sideways. Then he pressed out the opening bars of the famous “Rigs o’ Marlow.” Like a bird of prey flapping its wings, or a witch preparing for evil, Mrs. Bradley, grinning with joy, accepted the stick, jigged up and down with a prancing motion which offended Ditch’s expert eye, and listened to the strains of the music.

  “Ah, yes,” she said, and Ditch raised his voice with his wife’s to hum the tune. Then he laid down the concertina, fell in opposite the grinning Mrs. Bradley, and admitted her to the secret of the stick-tapping.

  “Now, sir,” said Ditch to Carey. “Trunkles, wasn’t et? There ain’t too much room in this ketchen, but maybe us could manage the corners with capers ef us don’t cover too much ground.”

  “Our mam, Trunkles!” shouted Young Walt from the floor. “Seng up, my old duck!” He laughed and then laid the greasy chain of the bicycle on a piece of newspaper. He was a good boy to his mother, and knew how she valued her rug. Mrs. Ditch came in again from the outhouse.

  “Oh, ah, I knows en,” she said. “Go on, our dad, dance up and gev Mester Carey the idea. See our dad do the capers, ma
m,” she said to Mrs. Bradley. “A fair treat to see ’em done proper. There, mam, what ded I tell ee?”

  When the practice was over, the concertina laid aside on the dresser, and the sticks put away in a drawer, Mrs. Bradley drew Carey outside the kitchen again.

  “Tombley hasn’t confessed to the bet, but I’m going to ask him outright,” said Carey, before she had time to speak. “I expect he’ll deny it, and we shall have to take his word, but I want to see his face.”

  “To see his fortune would be more interesting, child.”

  “Yes. In a police case, they’d look at his bank-account, wouldn’t they? Old Fossder was mad on money. Speculated and so forth. Two hundred pounds would have tempted him into almost any nonsense. He wouldn’t think of personal risk, especially as I’m pretty sure he knew where the money came from, in spite of the anonymous letter.”

  “The second communication came in a separate envelope and by a later post, I believe, child, didn’t it?”

  “The drawings of the little shields? Why, yes. There’s no proof the same person sent them and wrote the anonymous letter.”

  “And no proof it was not the same person.”

  “Quite.” He looked thoughtful, and then he added: “If Tombley does confess, there’ll be no need to drag Hugh into it.”

  “I wonder whether Hugh gave that message, child?”

  “Of course! Lord, yes! Jenny, you mean! To get old Fossder out of the way while he waited in the garden to get Jenny!”

  Mrs. Bradley looked pained.

  “Hugh’s pleasures seem rather selfish, child,” she said. “No, I don’t think that was the reason. Still, we’ll go and tackle Tombley tomorrow.”

  “I think I’ll ask Hugh tonight, to make certain. Bless us, here he is! I say! Did you send old Fossder the two hundred pounds in notes?”

  Hugh laughed, and, feeling in his pocket, produced a Post Office Savings book.

  “I’ve got it handy to let Mrs. Bradley have that two hundred pounds.” He handed it over for inspection. Carey glanced rapidly through it. The withdrawals for the whole of the past two years did not amount to more than fifty pounds. The last total (which had been entered two months previously) was two hundred and seventeen pounds two and threepence. Carey handed the book to Mrs. Bradley.

  “Aunt Adela thinks you sent the two hundred pounds to Mr. Fossder,” he said. Hugh laughed again.

  “I assure you I didn’t,” he said. “But even if I had—”

  “Well, Tombley thinks that somebody who had a grudge against Fossder found out about the bet, and took advantage of it to go to Sandford and kill him.”

  “The thing is,” said Hugh, “—not that I want to throw cold water on your romantic theories—it’s yet to be proved that Fossder did not die naturally. There’s nothing, at present, so far as I can see, to prove that anyone killed him, although for a time I thought so.”

  He took his Savings Bank book again, and slipped it into his pocket.

  “I was joking about the two hundred pounds,” said Mrs. Bradley. “At least—” She paused. Hugh’s sombre face brightened. “At least, I never thought it came out of that little book of yours.”

  Hugh nodded, and left them, to put his book away.

  “You know, I believe old Hugh is more affected by Fossder’s death than anyone not knowing him well might think,” said Carey. “By the way, love, have you heard of the scandal of Horsepath church?”

  “Not more red paint, child, surely?”

  “What makes you think of red paint?”

  “Mr. Fossder’s gate with the Cross Patée painted on it.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. No. According to Mrs. Ditch, who’s got relations living there, someone has stuck a paper arrow on the wall near the pulpit underneath a small stained glass window which has on it the rather unusual device of a man holding a boar’s head on the point of a spear.”

  “Really?” said Mrs. Bradley. She felt uneasy. “Is that all, child?”

  “Except on the arrow there was a bit of Shakespeare—Henry IV, I think. ‘I have a gammon of bacon and two races of ginger to be delivered as far as Charing Cross.’ ”

  Second Figure

  SHOTOVER SIMITH

  The boar’s head in hand bear I,

  Bedecked with bays and rosemary,

  And I pray you, my masters, be merry,

  Quot estis in convivio.

  Caput apri defero

  Reddens laudes Domino.

  THE BOAR’S HEAD CAROL

  Chapter Seven

  DIB AND STRIKE ON SHOTOVER HILL

  George drove Hugh and Denis into Oxford to catch the London train, and Carey and Mrs. Bradley decided to go with them and see them off at the station.

  “And what would you like to do now?” enquired Carey, as they drove back to Stanton St. John.

  “Come with you to Simith’s pig-farm and have another go at Tombley,” said Mrs. Bradley. “You can make the excuse that you came to look after the pigs.”

  Tombley was not at home. Priest came out with a pig-bucket full of swill, announced that he was going to his wedding at noon, replied (to Mrs. Bradley) that Mr. Simith had not been at home all night; that the police had been informed; that Mr. Tombley seemed upset and worried, and that Nero was more savage even than usual.

  “Queer about these boars. Do hope there isn’t an epidemic or something,” Carey said pessimistically. “My boar Hereward isn’t any too well. Let’s have a look at Nero.”

  Priest led the way to Nero’s shelter. The boar was not housed in one of the movable shelters, but had a permanent sty of his own not far from the central feeding house. He was restless and uneasy. Carey stood looking at him a long time. Mrs. Bradley, too, appeared to be interested in the boar. Nero resented their presence, yet seemed to be afraid of them. He backed away, his little eyes angry and watchful. His ears were cocked like those of a suspicious, unfriendly dog, and even his tufted tail lacked that air of roguery inseparable from the appendages of pigs in general.

  “Sommat up with him,” said Priest. “He looks to me like a sow what have eat her litter. What’s more we dursent go nigh him. Never knew him so savage.”

  “He does have a guilty expression. He’s had a fright,” said Carey. Mrs. Bradley, no pig-breeder, gazed at the boar and said nothing.

  “Where’s Mr. Tombley this morning?” Carey enquired. Priest looked at him suspiciously.

  “Tryen to get news of Mr. Semeth.”

  “Priest,” said Mrs. Bradley suddenly, “where does the old passage lead? Have you any idea?”

  “What, her from Mr. Lestrange’s cellar, mam? I did hear as how her came out in that there barn near by, but I dunno as anyone have proved et.”

  “Interesting,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Oh, here he comes!”

  “Who? Mr. Semeth?” said Priest, turning round. But it was Mr. Tombley, accompanied by a plain clothes policeman—unmistakable even at a distance—who climbed the stile and advanced to meet them.

  “I’ve put the police on the job. This is Sergeant Marcey. Can’t think what has happened, unless the old boy’s gone out of his mind. But, if he had, he’d be in the Infirmary, or at Littlemore, I should think. I just can’t imagine what has happened.”

  “Awkward for you,” said Mrs. Bradley, with crocodile sympathy. Tombley stared at her resentfully.

  “You look like Nero,” said Carey. “Get it back, quick, while it’s hot!”

  Tombley smiled wryly.

  “I’m worried to death,” he said. “But what do you mean about Nero? I suppose you mean the boar?”

  “Well, yes. But you could sit for the emperor’s portrait just as easily! Cheer up, my good chap! The old man can’t be dead! You’d have heard of that soon enough! Besides, now you have given the case to the police, they’ll find him; you needn’t worry.”

  “Can’t have got fur,” said the sergeant. “You’re the owner of the next place to this, Old Farm, sir, I onderstand,” he said to Carey. He moved away
from the vicinity of Tombley, who had just been engaged in conversation by Mrs. Bradley, and lowered his voice. “Fact is, sir, I’d be glad of a word with ee, like. The Chief Constable is a friend of Sir Selby Villiers, who, seems like, is friends with your aunt, the old lady. Us know Mrs. Bradley’s work, sir, and Sir Selby as good as telled the Chief to get her opinion. Et seems Mrs. Bradley sent off to Sir Selby over that business at Effley on Christmas Eve—’course, we can’t touch that at present, the doctor geven the sirsteficate, too and all, and no complaints from anyone, ee might say, but, to tell ee the truth, us takes an enterest in this old gentleman’s disappearance. This Mr. Tombley’s the heir, and, ef he can persume his uncle’s death, like, he won’t be too sorry, do ee see. If ee can read between the lines of that, sir—. Well, you onderstand, I can’t say in words what I mean, not just as thengs are at present, but a hent from your aunt might come in handy, if ’er ded have ideas on the subject. As I tell ee, us knows her work, and if us didn’t, Sir Selby do, too and all, don’t him?”

  “I know what you mean,” said Carey. “I want you to let me tell you what we know of Fossder’s death.”

  From a hundred yards off, Tombley watched them anxiously, and all Mrs. Bradley’s questions about movable shelters failed to keep him from moving gradually towards them. But Carey managed to finish his report to the sergeant before Tombley came within earshot of what was being said, and when the party was reunited, the sergeant asked Tombley to take him over the house.

  “We might as well take our leave,” said Carey to Mrs. Bradley. They waved to Tombley and turned their backs on the house at Roman Ending.

  “Child,” said Mrs. Bradley suddenly, when they came within sight of Stanton St. John and its church tower, “I seem to be haunted by boars.”

  “Boars? Oh, Hereward and Nero, you mean? Yes, so am I. I feel thoroughly nervous. Nero may have worms. That makes them irritable, naturally.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Let’s walk to Shotover, child.”

  “Shotover? Right you are. It’ll be muddy across the park of Shotover House, but it’s much the prettiest way. Why Shotover, so particularly?”