Dead Men's Morris (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “One was—yes, one spent some years of one’s early life in Bampton. One fears”—he giggled shrilly—“that one forgets the church. One probably disliked the Litany.”

  “Then,” proceeded Mrs. Bradley, “I went to Forest Hill. The gabled bell cote, with its supporting buttresses, is, in my experience, unique. Of course, I suppose one could class a certain gabled building having a large blocked east window, the flanking buttresses, and the late Perpendicular doorway—”

  “You are not now referring to Forest Hill, but, of course, to Sandford. One believes there was a chapel belonging to the Knights Templars,” said Pratt. “It is part of a farmhouse now.” He rose and languidly smiled. “I wonder whether you would think one very discourteous? One did rather desire to learn to caper correctly.”

  “By all means, child, but don’t become overheated. Those Morris dances are strenuous,” Mrs. Bradley observed.

  “Thank God that’s gone,” said Carey, with a yawn. “There’s one thing. Now you’ve seen it in its entirety, what about it as a murderer?”

  Mrs. Bradley shrugged and suddenly cackled.

  “But consider,” persisted Carey, laying aside his book. “Do you really see that object snatching chairs from underneath old Simith, and dragging him out, half dead, to Nero’s sty? And can you, by any flight of fancy, imagine him having the guts to get the body out of the sty when Nero had done with it? Ask yourself, love! It’s impossible!”

  Mrs. Bradley sighed.

  “Put like that, child, in your own inimitable way—”

  “Put it how you like! You’ve seen the silly fathead, and talked to him. What’s the matter with you? I tell you, again and again, that Tombley’s your man!”

  “Tombley?” said Mrs. Bradley. “If Maurice Pratt couldn’t have tackled the boar, Tombley couldn’t have tackled the legends and their funny little trimmings. In these cases, child, you know, a physical disability may be no great handicap; but a psychological one is insurmountable. But supposing we allow your fairly reasonable objection. Pratt couldn’t: that’s what you say. Tombley wouldn’t: that’s what I say. What, then, is the explanation?”

  “Another murderer,” said Carey.

  “Good heavens, child!” said Mrs. Bradley, gazing in admiration. “But where on earth shall I find one?”

  “What’s the matter with Priest?” asked Carey, picking up his book and going on reading. “Oh, same like Tombley, of course. Oh, dash it, I don’t know!”

  Priest was washing down the back house, and accepted with alacrity Ditch’s suggestion that he should accompany him to the “Star,” for beer and a gossip.

  “Got some good reason to get me away from here, I reckon,” he said with a wink. Ditch laughed, and they walked away. From behind the little haystack, George, Young Walt, and Our Bob watched them cross the second stile, and then went into the woodshed. George and Young Walt, armed with electric torches, undertook the task of exploring the passage, and Bob remained on guard. He was to allow them an hour, and then return to Old Farm if they had not reappeared.

  Down they went, and pursued the path by which Carey had travelled before, but with exactly the same result. They moved a little more slowly than he had done, and scrutinised the walls as they went.

  “Happen we’re down in some old foundations,” said Young Walt, who was the leader. George thought it likely, too. Just before the hour was up, they rejoined Bob at the top of the wooden ladder.

  Mrs. Bradley frowned thoughtfully when they brought her their report. It seemed as though her first theory about Linda Ditch had been the correct one—she had changed her shoes and her frock, and had gone out of doors across the snow to Roman Ending. Except as a witness of suspicious occurrences on Boxing Night—and it seemed as though she had been some time in the woodshed at Roman Ending before Simith’s death—the girl was not important unless—Mrs. Bradley shook her head slightly, but the suspicion would not allow itself to be completely dismissed—unless Priest were the murderer, instead of the murderer’s accomplice.

  “I shall certainly have to tackle Linda again,” she told herself. The inspector had tackled Linda twice, but had not shaken her story—what there was of it. Nevertheless, the sudden marriage with Priest was most suspicious, and she might know a great deal more than she had told, Mrs. Bradley decided.

  Next day she thought again of the slab. It was not easy to know whether it had been put back deliberately or innocently, or to decide whether the person who had covered the hole had known that Mrs. Bradley was on the premises. She shook her head again. One might speculate with a certain amount of profit about Linda Ditch, but the identity and the object of the unknown prowler were insoluble mysteries for the moment. She wondered whether another interview with Mrs. Fossder would be of any assistance.

  “So you’re going to bounce something more out of Fay and Jenny?” Carey said, when he heard her order the car.

  “Possibly, child; and possibly not,” said Mrs. Bradley urbanely. She declined his offer to accompany her to Iffley, and arrived there to discover that Mrs. Fossder had gone to Oxford, and that Jenny, except for the servant, was alone in the house.

  “Fay went off to Denmark to see Geraint Tombley, with some money she borrowed from me. Maurice Pratt doesn’t know. He thinks she’s with friends in Devonshire, getting her nerves to rights. He isn’t to write to her. She is a little tike,” said Jenny, dispassionate but sincere in her criticism of Fay’s conduct.

  “Oh?” said Mrs. Bradley, wondering when Fay had gone.

  “And how goes the sleuthing?” Jenny enquired, when Mrs. Bradley was comfortably settled by the fire.

  “Jenny,” said Mrs. Bradley, “I’ve come to an impasse. What time is it? Nearly six? When do you expect your aunt?”

  “Not before eight o’clock.”

  “Then I want you to listen to me. I’m going to be frank with you. Where I think your family are implicated, I’m going to say so fearlessly. You don’t mind plain dealing, do you?”

  “This means that at least you don’t suspect me,” said Jenny.

  “Maurice Pratt suggests that you murdered your uncle, and that Hugh concocted the story of the ghost,” said Mrs. Bradley, cackling.

  “That’s not too bad,” said Jenny, considering it on its merits. “Hugh is chivalrous, and he’d never give me away. But the fact is that I simply did not go out of the house before uncle’s death that night.”

  “But still,” said Mrs. Bradley, “who am I, to declare that you did not bear your uncle some grudge?”

  “Well, of course, I did!” said Jenny. She laughed, a little self­-consciously. “There is all that old stuff about my purple past. I’m illegitimate, I think you know. Not Uncle Fossder’s real niece. It used to come all over him at times. More than once he has cut me out of his will. I believe I told you that. Lately—just before his death—there was another spasm of it, but apparently it didn’t come off! I’m rather glad, I must say, now that it appears that those shares he bought have done so particularly well.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Bradley, who seemed to have become depressed. She looked full at the girl. “Do you think that if your uncle had cut you out of his will once more, it might have been for good and all?”

  “I don’t know, I’m sure,” said Jenny. “You see, I don’t know much about those other times, because it happened when I was small. This present will—the one that’s just been proved—has stood for years, I believe. It was just a sudden idea to cut me out again.”

  “Then, don’t you see, child, that if you knew of the idea—?”

  “Heavens!” cried Jenny. “Quite right! So definitely I am suspected. Go on. This is terribly thrilling!”

  “Well, to take the death of your uncle, without reference, for the moment, to Simith’s death—”

  “Oh! Are you still investigating the murder of Mr. Simith? I say! You are going it!” said Jenny.

  “Listen, child. I want to know more about your aunt, Mrs. Fossder. She expected to gain by your
uncle’s death—”

  “Oh, no, she didn’t!” said Jenny. “By the time Maurice Pratt and Fay and I had been provided for under the terms of the will—or rather, when our husbands had been!—aunt must have known that she would have been rather worse off than in uncle’s lifetime.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Mrs. Bradley, noting it down in her book. “And now, child, can you help me to eliminate anybody else? I’ve taken out you and Mrs. Fossder for the moment. What about Maurice Pratt?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. I know he went up to bed, because he went before I did. I was waiting for Hugh, and, of course, Hugh didn’t come until ever so late, as you know, because of the car. I knew that Fay had gone off to meet Geraint. (Silly name for a man of the present day!) Maurice went up to bed at ten o’clock. He often does. He detests late hours. I’ve never known him stay up of his own free will.”

  “Is he abnormally sensitive to cold?”

  “No, I don’t think so. He wears all those pullovers and mufflers and things that men always put on, but he never complains of the cold. He doesn’t have chilblains, either.”

  “Does he drink?”

  “Oh, yes. He drinks beer. And he drinks the kind of thing that is mentioned in ballads and old songs. You know ‘the blood red wine,’ and ‘the good Rhine wine,’ and all that kind of business. He’s an awful ass! I don’t wonder Fay doesn’t like him! It was like her, little fathead, to allow herself to be frightened into getting engaged to him!”

  “Which is his bedroom?”

  “It’s in the front of the house.”

  “Hm!” said Mrs. Bradley. “When Maurice Pratt goes to bed, does he read, or keep a diary, or anything of that kind, do you know?”

  “I’m certain he doesn’t. He’s always boasting how that the minute he gets into bed he falls asleep, and then he burbles all that rot about ‘mens sana’—you know that fearful chestnut?”

  “I suppose,” said Mrs. Bradley, looking at her closely, “you haven’t any definite suspicions?”

  “Suspicions?” Jenny looked embarrassed. “Whatever makes you ask that?”

  “Curiosity,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I beg your pardon for it. I should have said, I suppose you know quite well who murdered your uncle? That is what I meant.”

  Jenny got up.

  “I—you mustn’t think that it has anything to do with the murder, but I do know Maurice didn’t go to bed. I know he went out of the house. He said he was going to find out whether Hugh was coming to fetch us in the car.”

  “Really!” said Mrs. Bradley, non-committally.

  “Don’t let anybody know I told you. I’m not trying to get Maurice into trouble. And—and it was I who promised to switch his bedroom light on, to make it look as though he was still in the house! Fay’s as well.”

  “Never mind that for the moment,” said Mrs. Bradley kindly. “Is there anybody we can exonerate?”

  Jenny shook her head, and said she did not know.

  “And now,” said Mrs. Bradley more briskly, “what about the murder of Simith on Boxing Night? Whom have we here?” She began to read from her notebook.

  “Linda Ditch. It seems that Simith seduced her.

  “Priest. His motive would be revenge for what was done to Linda, who is now his wife. These two can give one another an alibi until about one o’clock—roughly the time of the murder—but not after that, which doesn’t look too good.

  “Geraint Tombley. Thought he would inherit the property. He does, too. He and his uncle are known to have indulged in violent quarrels. His alibi is supplied by Fay, but only until about 1 a.m.—roughly the time of the murder. His reason for leaving Fay at that hour is, however, so absurdly true to the kind of person he is that I feel disposed to accept it. He went to see what was up with Carey’s pigs.

  “Fay. Thought Tombley would inherit the property if his uncle were dead. This would dispose of the second obstacle to her marriage—the first, Mr. Fossder, being already disposed of.”

  “It sounds horrid and logical, the way you put it,” said Jenny with a shudder.

  “Merely scientific,” said Mrs. Bradley. “To continue:

  “Mrs. Fossder. Revenge for her husband’s death. However, as I am strongly of opinion that the deaths—”

  “But that would connect them,” Jenny said. “Not,” she added hastily, “that I want to accuse poor auntie. In fact, I don’t see how she could have thought of such a way of killing anybody.”

  “That’s true,” said Mrs. Bradley. “One rather feels about both the crimes that the method is masculine, somehow.”

  Jenny looked relieved.

  “I’m glad you think that,” she said. “What about Maurice this time? Poor old Maurice!”

  “I’ve got him down,” said Mrs. Bradley doubtfully, “but the motive seems obscure. Why should he murder Simith?”

  “Of course, Linda Ditch is her father’s daughter,” said Carey a little later.

  “Meaning what, exactly, child? Oh, Jenny sent her love and did not commit the murders.”

  “Well, Ditch is my pigman, isn’t he? So Linda ought to know how to handle a boar.”

  “And Priest and Linda supply one another with an alibi up to the time of the murder,” said Mrs. Bradley. “We’ve had all that before.”

  Carey began to hum an air from the Mikado.

  “Speak up clearly, child. There’s something on your mind,” said Mrs. Bradley. Carey stopped humming and grinned. Then he sang softly, rolling his eyes at her,

  “The flowers that bloom in the Spring, tra la,

  Have nothing to do with the case.”

  “But they have, of course,” admitted Mrs. Bradley. She sighed. “That’s what makes me feel so depressed all the time. All that decorative rubbish—heraldry, defaced church walls, two-hun­dred-pound bets, and the dragging in of the local legends—the two that happen to get themselves into books moreover—could not possibly emanate from the minds of Priest and Linda Ditch.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  CORNERS WITH CAPERS AT STANTON ST. JOHN

  “It comes to this, mam,” said the inspector stolidly. He was in the smaller pig-house, gazing at Carey’s young Tamworths. Regardless of him, the reddish brown, long snouted pigs snuffled contentedly, lay down and slept, explored the empty feeding trough, or rubbed side against side with their brothers. “Myself, I fancy the Berkshire,” he added, leaning over and slapping the deep, flat ribs, “but these are good bacon pigs, mam. Well, I was sayen, about Mr. Semeth’s death, accorden to you yourself, there’s more than one could a done et, and would a ben glad to, most like. The death of Mr. Fossder I don’t entend to consider.” His quiet eyes met her sharp black ones. He raised his hand from the pig he was caressing, and waved aside Mr. Fossder’s death with a magnificent, Jove-like gesture. “Et don’t consarn me and was brought in onder Natural Causes. Not murder, any’ow. Now, as to the death of Mr. Semeth, we ’ave various comby-nations. There’s the nevvy and his young lady, notably loose thenking and amorous.”

  He looked questioningly at Mrs. Bradley, who nodded.

  “Now, there’s them as’ll tell ee that that’s a far cry from murder. But, mam, I was brought up en chapel, and one theng do lead to another, for that’s my experience, man and boy, and seventeen years in the Force.”

  Mrs. Bradley nodded again.

  “You think that Fay and Tombley killed Simith, so that Tombley could inherit the pigs?”

  The inspector leaned over again and scratched a pig on the top of the head.

  “Well, mam, you knows et’s likely enough um ded. Such thengs ’ave been done afore, and—and well be again, we fears. Besides—” he straightened up. There was a twinkle in his eyes this time—“this ’ere connection between the deaths of Mr. Fossder and Mr. Semeth that you be so ready to see, et bears ee out ef Tombley and the young lady are the colprets, don’t et, now? Mr. Fossder stands atween them and their wedden, preferren t’other feller, and Mr. Semeth stands atween them and their
liven, ee might as well say.”

  “I know,” said Mrs. Bradley gloomily. “But, you know, that’s all wrong, inspector.”

  “Well, mam, ee’ll agree I’ve waited on ee several weeks over this ’ere case. Now, I ought to tell ee, the time ’as come when I can’t ondertake for to do et no more. As soon as Mr. Tombley gets back from Denmark, I arrest him for the murder of his uncle, and the young lady as his accomplyce. I can’t ’old me ’and no longer. I be sorry ef et ’urts your feelens, like, but I thenk this time ee’re mestaken.”

  He cleared his throat apologetically.

  “Ah, well,” said Mrs. Bradley philosophically. “But, inspector, think of the others in the case!”

  “I ’ave. Ad enfy-ny-tum, mam, as the young gents says en the colleges. And I can’t see nothen to ’em. Pratt, ee says. Well, what of him? I’ve talked to un. Seems fair selly, what I can make out about him. Then them there signs and wonders in the churches. All them lettle shields. Everythen ee can tell me, I’ve drawn my attention to ’em, and stell I comes back to Tombley. Et wasn’t natural as a young lady brought up proper should want to sleep with young fellers onless there was somethen else en et. I know the world, mam. No desrespect entended. Young ladies may warnt to misbehave themselves. I don’t say nothen about that. But the plain fact is, um don’t do et.”

  He began to walk towards the door. Mrs. Bradley remained where she was, staring down at the Tamworths. She heard the door close. She smiled, and passed the tip of her tongue very gently over her lips. Suddenly her smile widened. She hastened after the inspector, and caught him up at Tom’s sty.

  “Don’t forget to ask who killed a pig on Christmas afternoon,” she said, “dear child.”

  The inspector gazed after her as she walked briskly on towards the house. Then he took off his cap and scratched his head and took out the warrant for Tombley’s arrest and read it.