Dead Men's Morris (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Jenny cried on me last night,” he said. “What’s the matter with the girl? Haven’t accused her of murder or anything, have you? And by the way, I do wish Tombley would return the little pig book he borrowed a fortnight ago.”

  “No. But I’ve found out something rather interesting,” said Mrs. Bradley slowly. “I know why Tombley confessed to being the ghost.”

  “Oh? Why is that interesting? I mean, I thought you knew he was, whether he confessed it or not.”

  “You see,” said his aunt, “I always thought that the poor child’s confession was either a stupid mistake or an absolute, utter lie. Consider, Carey! Why should he confess that he was the ghost? Nobody could prove he was!”

  “Yes, but why shouldn’t he confess? Nobody could say that Fossder’s death was anything but an unfortunate accident.”

  “I know. But what about Fay, with whom he is in love? She wouldn’t care to think that Tombley had been the cause of her uncle’s death.”

  “We don’t know she wouldn’t,” said Carey, looking directly at his aunt. “She may have been jolly glad to see the end of old Fossder.”

  “I happen to be fairly sure that she was. But, if she was, it might be because he had opposed her engagement to Tombley, whom, apparently, she loves, and had forced her into becoming engaged to Maurice Pratt, who occupies, let us say, the second place in her affections.”

  “All very well,” said Carey. “But if Tombley was not the ghost, who was? And, in any case, how do you know he wasn’t?”

  “Because I think he was with Fay on Christmas Eve.”

  “But if Tombley wasn’t the ghost—”

  “Pratt may have been,” said Mrs. Bradley, nodding. “Quite right, child. Or Hugh, as I said before.”

  “But that doesn’t seem to make sense.”

  “I think it does. And, incidentally, which of the three was the most likely to know that Fossder had a weak heart?”

  “Pratt, of course. But you couldn’t prove anything from that. You might, with as much reason, say that Mrs. Fossder or one of the girls was the ghost. Mrs. Fossder certainly knew that her husband had a weak heart.”

  Mrs. Bradley nodded.

  “True, child. Very true.”

  “Another thing,” said Carey, swinging his feet to the ground and waiting until Mrs. Ditch, who was laying the cloth, had gone out again. “If you are right in what you say, and Fay really loves Tombley, surely for Pratt to kill off Fossder was playing into Fay’s and Tombley’s hands! Isn’t it well known that the old chap pressed for the Fay-Pratt engagement, and wouldn’t have Tombley at any price because of a years-old row with old Simith? Whereas Mrs. Fossder, still alive and in command, so to speak, is all in favour of Tombley and his suit.”

  “I know,” said Mrs. Bradley; but there was a gleam in her bright black eyes. “I’m going into Oxford after lunch to talk to the inspector again,” she added. “Don’t you see, child, that what Tombley is worried about is not so much an alibi for murder as an alibi for the nights he slept with Fay!”

  Carey laughed, and at that moment Mrs. Ditch, respectably staid and apparently placid as ever, came in with the first course and drew out their chairs from the table.

  “Our Lender been took as Superintendent’s parlour maid at the Little House, mam, you’ll be pleased to hear, see-en ee recommended her, like,” she said.

  “That’s good,” said Mrs. Bradley. “She’ll be company for Mr. Tombley, won’t she?”

  “Ah, ef such as him warnts company,” Mrs. Ditch responded.

  “That last remark was a bit two-edged or something, don’t you think?” asked Carey, pouring out the beer. Mrs. Bradley nodded.

  “I thought so, child. By the way, I want her again. It will do when she clears away.”

  “Mrs. Ditch,” she said, when lunch was over and, yodelled for by Carey, the woman came in again, “I wish your husband and sons would dance again some time.”

  “They couldn’t make a side, mam, not without Mr. Carey would stand up with ’em again.”

  “Of course I will, if Ditch will shout the directions,” Carey said.

  “Detch was sayen he hoped ee’d practise with ’em this Easter, to dance at Whetsun, but I told him it wasn’t in nature to expect a gentleman wouldn’t have somethen else to do. Every week from Easter tell Whetsun they’ll practise, and—”

  “Why don’t you get Mr. Pratt from Iffley, Mrs. Ditch?” asked Mrs. Bradley suddenly.

  “I don’t know of Mr. Pratt,” said Mrs. Ditch.

  “I don’t think he’s much of a dancer,” said Mrs. Bradley, “but I’ll give you his address, if you think your husband would care to get into touch with him.”

  “Tes kind of ee to trouble, but I reckon Ditch have his eye on two or three young fellows en the village,” Mrs. Ditch responded, shaking her head. “Don’t do to learn strangers everythen, do et, now?” Mrs. Bradley nodded. “There be young Billy Watts and John Greenaway,” Mrs. Ditch continued, as though in excuse for her churlishness. “Detch thenk well of both on ’em, so he says. And they be hereabouts a’ready, mam, don’t ee see.”

  “Yes, yes, I see,” said Mrs. Bradley, waving a skinny claw. “I shall be going to see Mr. Tombley tomorrow, I expect. Have you any message for Linda, if I see her?”

  “Not as I’d ask ee to gev by word of mouth,” said Mrs. Ditch, glowering darkly. “Thank ee again,” she added, with an effort.

  “I can’t help thinking that Mrs. Ditch doesn’t exactly dote on you,” said Carey. “I wonder why it is?”

  Mrs. Bradley cackled. She got up and went to the window. They had had their tea very early. It was not yet dusk. Faintly upon the air came the sounds of hungry pigs—of pigs, moreover, expecting to be fed. She listened to their squealing, an indignant reminder to Ditch that he was nearly ten minutes overdue.

  “The enspector was over at Roman Enden this mornen,” said Mrs. Ditch in a conspiratorial whisper just behind her.

  “Yes?” said Mrs. Bradley, without even turning her head.

  “He don’t be finden nothen. Scoured all over the kitchen floor, he ded, so Priest was sayen to Detch this afternoon. I thought ee’d be glad to know as he hadn’t found nothen.”

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I’m very glad to know.”

  “It looken suspicious for Mr. Carey, like,” said Mrs. Ditch with a sigh, as she picked up a plate and departed.

  “Good gracious!” said Mrs. Bradley. “She thinks you murdered Simith.”

  “Unlikelier things have happened,” said Carey, grinning. “What do you want to do now?”

  “I think I’ll leave the inspector until tomorrow, and go and talk to Priest,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Some time or other I must get into Roman Ending. Into the house, I mean.”

  “But Priest was telling me, when I was over there yesterday, that the inspector has turned the house upside down, and hasn’t found a thing.”

  “He didn’t know what to look for,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  “Do you, then?”

  “Yes. And the beauty of it is, that it doesn’t matter whether I find it or not. I now know enough to be able to get a part of the truth out of Tombley. And I think I ought to see Fay. I wonder whether she knows anything about Maurice Pratt’s movements on Christmas Eve? Probably she doesn’t, except that he came over here, but I might be able to get at something, I think. Goodbye, child. Do you think Priest will let Nero loose on me?”

  “You’ll be telling me next that Priest is the murderer, and that I should never believe, you know,” said Carey. “Do you really want Ditch and his sons to dance for you?”

  “Some time soon, yes, I do.”

  Priest was mixing feed. He touched his cap to Mrs. Bradley, and went on stirring toppings and cut up potatoes as though she no longer existed. She recalled him to the realisation of her presence.

  “How is Nero, after his bath?” she asked. Priest left the copperstick, with which he was doing the mixing, standing upright in the wooden tub, and stared at
her as though he were taking her measure. Mrs. Bradley, small, thin, black-eyed, clad in a dark purple coat trimmed with silver fox, and a mustard-yellow felt hat, was a not unimpressive sight. She fixed her eyes on his face, and clasped her brown gloved hands on the top of a tall and beautifully rolled umbrella. Priest dropped his eyes and muttered, and began to rub green mildew off the top of a dilapidated, unused, brick floored, broken fenced sty.

  “I don’t know what ee be at, mam, asken me that,” he observed with dignified simplicity.

  “Look here, Priest, my man,” said Mrs. Bradley briskly, “did, or did not, Mr. Tombley wash down the boar Nero on the morning after Boxing Day? You must know, and I want you to tell me.”

  “I don’t know anythen about et,” said Priest sullenly. Like most countrymen, he hated being bullied because he mistrusted the sharpness of his wits compared with those of town bred people. He scorned townspeople, but did not want to be made to look a fool by them. “All I know is the boar was not so well. The poor fellow had cotched a cold.”

  “Where were you on Boxing Night, when Mr. Simith was murdered?” asked Mrs. Bradley. The pigman looked at her and suddenly grinned, and replied, “Mam, I’ll tell ee, so long as ee don’t tell that there old woman Detch, Lender’s mam. I thought to myself to be a married man on Boxen Night, only that never come orf, parson not be-en willen, so I conduct myself like a married man, all the same. Small blame to me! What says you?”

  “You slept with Linda Ditch, who is now Mrs. Priest? I see. Where, child, did you sleep? Not in this house, I suppose?”

  “Well, mam, as to that—” He hesitated.

  “You did sleep here. Tell me more.”

  “I can’t, mam. Never slept alongside a maid before, and gev my wholly attention to et, like.”

  The mixture of devilment and solemnity in his atrociously ugly face made Mrs. Bradley laugh again, and she said, “But Linda was not a maid.”

  “Well, no.”

  “Now look here, Priest,” said Mrs. Bradley seriously, “I want to know who borrowed Mr. Lestrange’s boar on Boxing Night and put him back next morning.”

  She watched, with great satisfaction, Priest’s face assume an expression of cunning and fear.

  “Mr. Lestrange’s boar, mam?”

  “Mr. Lestrange’s boar. To make the tracks on Shotover Common, you know.”

  “Well, mam, it was me.”

  “You, was it? Have you told the police it was you?”

  “No, I MsoNormal’aven’t, mam. What be more, I ain’t a goen to tell ’em, neither, too and all. Have me up for the murder an’ all they ud, and ’twudden be fair, that wouldn’t.”

  “I see,” said Mrs. Bradley. They eyed one another.

  “Ow did ee tumble to et, anyway?” asked the pigman. He had picked the copperstick out of the pig food and was handling it in a highly suggestive manner. Mrs. Bradley grinned.

  “The boar caught a cold,” she said.

  “Ah. So did Nero, though, and he never went out that night.”

  “No. Poor Nero!” Mrs. Bradley sighed. “It was the cold water, poor beast, with him.”

  Priest took a step nearer, and flourished the stick. Mrs. Bradley suddenly gave a flick. A dart, of the kind that is used in the public house game, flew like a bird from her hand, and, striking Priest’s cap, picked it swiftly from off his head and carried it just behind him. He picked it up, and looked at the dart in perplexity.

  “What be playen at, then?” he demanded indignantly, taking the dart from the cap and staring from one to the other.

  “Jael and Sisera,” said Mrs. Bradley, giving a hoot of laughter. “Thank you, child.” Dexterously she regained possession of the dart. “Put the stick down,” she said. “You have nothing to gain by hitting me over the head. Be reasonable, and tell me what you know. You need not worry. I assure you that I don’t suspect Linda Ditch of having killed Mr. Simith.”

  “Lender?” He pondered. “Don’t ee, now? That’s good.” He thought again, while Mrs. Bradley watched him. “I dunno what to tell ee. Guessed et, I ded, that be all. Lender can ’andle pigs as well as ’er father or me. I knowed she was ripe to do Mr. Semeth a mischief. ’Twas ’er took the boar to Shotover, I reckon.”

  “She couldn’t have done,” said Mrs. Bradley. “It wouldn’t make sense, Priest, would it?”

  “I dunno as to that. Seem as ef the gal thenks I done et myself, and she was for coveren the tracks. I reckon as Nero done the killen of Semeth, and somebody doused him down to wash off the blood. Look bad, that would, again anybody who had done et. Ah, very bad that ud look.” He shook his head, eyeing her solemnly.

  “But don’t you know who did it? Come, now, Priest!”

  “I couldn’t tell ee, not ef ee asked tell Doomsday. Sleepen t’other side of the ’ouse, we was, Lender Detch and me. Never seed nor heared nothen as I remember. Have to take my word for et, ee well. Tell ee as soon as spet, I would, ef I could, now I knows ee don’t thenk it was Lender.”

  “Linda wasn’t with you all night long, then?” Mrs. Bradley said.

  “How do ee make that out?” His eyes were suspicious again. Mrs. Bradley shrugged.

  “Didn’t you tell me you thought it must be Linda who had taken Mr. Lestrange’s boar to Shotover? Look here, Priest, be truthful! Did you sleep with Linda Ditch at all?”

  “Ah, that I ded, tell mednight, or thereabouts, her haven dodged away from Old Farm to do et. Then the light went up en the ketchen, and us thought I’d better clear off.”

  “What light?”

  “Ah, that I dunno. Candles, or something of that. Flickeren, a shadder behind the winder moven about and two men quarrellen.”

  “What time was this, do you say?”

  “Et would a-ben just about mednight, I should reckon. Ah. Twould a-ben about then. Us heard the ketchen clock strike twalve a bet before, I remember.”

  “Go on. What happened next?”

  “Ah, that’s what I dunno. It were all quiet, do ee see, when I slethered my way past the winder over the snow. The light was still flickeren, but I kept well away, so as I shudden be seen.”

  “Where did you go, after that?”

  “I went to the new shed on wheels, and bedded meself on the straw. Us hadn’t put no pegs in ’er up to then.”

  “And after that?”

  “I reckon I went to sleep.”

  “And Linda?”

  “Ah, I dunno. I somehow reckon she run orf home to Old Farm. I couldn’t account for she, without she kelled old Semeth and heaved him in with old Nero, but don’t seem likely, now I comes to thenk.”

  “But how could you think that she got him away again, and then went over to Shotover with the body, and with Mr. Lestrange’s boar?”

  “Ah, I dunno. Her had said to me time and again her thought her should kell old Semeth one of these here days, he was always a-pesteren and worryen, wicked old stag that he were!”

  “You know, you’re a fool,” said Mrs. Bradley dispassionately. Priest looked sheepish, and gave the pig food a couple of half-hearted stirs.

  “Pray ee be right, mam. Foolish I may be, but truly wicked I ent.”

  “I am certainly right. Now think again, and tell me about the quarrel. Did you recognise either of the voices?”

  “Ah, that I ded! But neither of ’em wasn’t old Semeth, that I’ll back!”

  “I see, Priest, and whose was the other?”

  “I dunno as I oughter say. Ee won’t like et, I’ll back ee won’t, then!”

  “Come along, now. What’s the matter?”

  “I thought et sounded like Mr. Lestrange hisself. Couldn’t-a ben, I suppose.”

  “Why not?” asked Mrs. Bradley. Priest stood gaping at her, as she began to nod her head slowly and rhythmically, whilst her saurian smile grew wider. “Why not?” she repeated. She cackled in the astonished pigman’s face, then turned and walked rapidly away. Priest stood gazing after her. Then he tilted his cap forward, the better to scratch the back of his head, suck
ed at his bottom teeth audibly, and, giving up the struggle of attempting to understand what she meant, walked back to the feed and stirred it, whistling irritably.

  “For a mixture of cunning and obstinacy, give me a countryman,” said Mrs. Bradley, later, to Carey.

  Chapter Eleven

  CORNERS—GOOD FELLOWSHIP—FROM IFFLEY TO WATERPERRY

  “Priest?” said the inspector in disgust. “I can’t get any sense out of Priest, mam. One thing I ded get out of him, though not too easy, and that was to the effect he had suggested putten off his wedden tell the spring, but Miss Detch was all for bringen of et about. Wanted to be wed on Boxen Day, and Priest tried to fex up with the parson, but had to wait tell the followen mornen, it seems.”

  “Ah,” said Mrs. Bradley thoughtfully. “Well, now, inspector, it is easy to see where that leads, don’t you think?”

  “Ah, I reckon you’re right, mam. Priest thought Miss Detch would get into trouble, and, appears to me, she thought the same about him.” He chuckled, a hearty sound. Mrs. Bradley shook her head reproachfully.

  “You’re getting your dates mixed up, Inspector,” she said. “If they wanted to be married on Boxing Day, they wanted to be married before the murder was committed.”

  “That was my meanen, mam. Looks black, I says, for both. One o’ them two might be the murderer, I says, or else they might, either one or both, be accessories, seems to me. They might. Don’t say they are.”

  “Quite,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I agree with you that there must have been a helper in Simith’s murder.”

  “That don’t get us any nearer the murderer, though,” said the inspector, “except et was one of them two.”

  “There is one other point,” said Mrs. Bradley. “The most important clue we’ve had, I think, if it is the truth! Priest says he slept with Linda Ditch at Roman Ending on Boxing Night, and that he left her just after midnight, because he heard quarrelling going on in the kitchen, and saw a light in the window.”

  “Where were they, then?”