Dead Men's Morris (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  He played for the dancers for an hour that evening, and then went up to bed.

  “I hope he won’t be ill,” said Mrs. Bradley. Denis was not ill.

  “I say,” he said next morning, “that bet you had with old Hugh.”

  “What bet was that, child?” Mrs. Bradley enquired. Denis helped himself to fried potato, and Mrs. Ditch put another piece of blackpudding on his plate.

  “You know about the quotation you said you’d place. Got any ideas?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Bradley. She spoke dispiritedly. “Oh, yes, I’ve plenty of ideas. Too many for comfort and safety, more’s the pity. But it wasn’t a bet, child, was it? When do we go to Garsington to see this puppy of yours?”

  Denis hesitated.

  “Spent all his money yesterday,” said Carey. “Treated the Mothers’ Meeting. Poor old Scab! See what it is to behave like a perfect gent!”

  “Well, they all kept buying me things. It seemed so frightful,” said Denis, over the top of his cup of coffee.

  “It doesn’t matter much,” said his great-aunt cheerfully. “Surely your birthday comes very soon, child, doesn’t it? I think I might anticipate it, just for once in a way.”

  “Good egg!” said Denis. “Good frightfully egg! That would be frightfully decent! It’s frightfully decent of you, Aunt Bradley. I say, could we go straight away?”

  “Why not?” said Mrs. Bradley. “Come along.”

  They went by car through Forest Hill and Wheadey and then by Coombe Wood, and, passing the turning to Horsepath, were soon in Garsington.

  “It’s Mr. West’s house,” said Denis, “but I don’t know where it is. We shall have to ask.” They left the car by the old brick kiln, and walked round the straggling village. It lay at the foot of a hill, and was set among trees and market gardens—a quiet little backwater of a place, off all the main roads from Oxford. It had both thatched cottages and tiled, old houses and new, and sandy roads with banked green grass for a pavement. From one end it was approached by a forked road, so that, once at the village cross, it did not matter which way of the street they walked. They came out upon the same road in the end.

  They stopped at the ancient monument which stood on its pedestal of steps, made way for a horse and cart, and then crossed the road to the public house to enquire for Mr. West.

  “Ah, ee warnts Up Blenheim,” the innkeeper said, and sent his son to direct them. Mr. West proved to be a smallholder who grew vegetables and flowers for his stall in Oxford market. He had four of the puppies for sale. It took Denis twenty minutes to make up his mind, but at last the bargain was concluded, and the lively, handsome puppy was taken back to the car.

  “When are you going to settle your bet with Hugh? I suppose he’s back at work today,” said Denis. They got out at Roman Ending, so that Mrs. Bradley could have a word with Tombley.

  “It wasn’t exactly a bet,” said Mrs. Bradley, again. She sighed. Then she took out her notebook, wrote the date and a few lines with her fountain pen, waved the book in the air to dry the ink, and then tore out the leaf.

  “Take this, and keep it safely. It’s the answer to Hugh’s challenge,” she said.

  “May I read it, Aunt Bradley?”

  “Yes, if you can read my writing, child.” Denis deciphered the very small, neat caligraphy fairly easily.

  “The quotation comes from a ballad entitled ‘The Morris Fool,’ composed by William Wells, of Bampton-in-the-Bush, Oxfordshire. This ballad was first printed in the EFDS News for the month of April MsoNormal1936,” he read aloud. He looked at his great-aunt, puzzled.

  “But that must be this month’s issue! Where did you get it, Aunt Bradley? You haven’t got a copy with you, have you?”

  “No child. I found it in a library.”

  “Yes, but, Aunt Bradley, the libraries aren’t open! And he only told you yesterday.” Mrs. Bradley chuckled.

  “I have my methods,” she quoted, digging him in the ribs. “There’s Geraint Tombley, child. Run, before he gets off to those pig rearing houses of his, or we shan’t get any sense out of him at all’

  Denis ran after Tombley, who turned and waved. Then they waited for Mrs. Bradley to come up.

  “What is it now?” asked Tombley.

  “Child, I must enter your woodshed.”

  “Very well. I’m not stopping you. What do you want in there?”

  “Buried treasure,” said Mrs. Bradley solemnly.

  “It belongs to me if it’s on my land, you know.”

  “Be cheerful. You won’t want it if I find it. Indeed, you may be glad to have it buried again,” said Mrs. Bradley mysteriously. “Denis, go and feed pigs, or something, with Geraint.”

  Denis and Tombley sauntered off together.

  “That inspector from Headington was hanging round here again,” Tombley said to the boy. “Had the cheek to hint that, if it weren’t for Mrs. Bradley, I’d be in jug by now!”

  “Well, so you would, wouldn’t you?” said Denis. Tombley scowled, and then laughed.

  “Well, yes, I expect I would,” he admitted ruefully. “Oh, never mind! But it gets on my nerves! I wish they could find out who did it!”

  “I expect Aunt Bradley knows.”

  “Maurice Pratt,” said Tombley.

  “No. I believe it’s Hugh.”

  “Hugh? I’d grab at anybody who’d get between me and the gallows, but I think it’ll have to be someone who knows the neighbourhood,” said Tombley. “Besides, there’s the question of motive, old lad, you know.”

  “Oh, yes, of course there is. Well, who, then, hated your uncle?”

  “Well, I used to quarrel with him. And old Fossder at Iffley, of course. But Fossder was dead before uncle died, so it couldn’t be anything to do with him, you see, could it? It’s because we’re known to have had a good many rows that the inspector has got the goods on me—or thinks he has!—and, of course, I got all the money.”

  “I suppose you didn’t do it?” Denis suggested politely. “Not that you’d tell me, of course!”

  They arrived at the first of the brand new pig rearing houses. Tombley went in without replying, and Denis followed him.

  Mrs. Bradley went into the woodshed and looked at the floor. Dust was thick round the slab. It was evident that several weeks had passed since last it had been disturbed. She stood by it and addressed it in dulcet tones.

  “You must have been used for something, you know,” she said. “If you don’t lead back to Old Farm—and it’s plain you don’t—what are you for, I wonder?”

  “Smugglen, I reckon,” said a rough male voice at the door.

  “Ah, come in, Priest,” said Mrs. Bradley sweetly. “You’re just the man I want. You might get an iron staple, or something handy, and help me prise up that lid.”

  Priest slouched away, and returned with the long iron rod which Carey had used before, and in a few moments the slab was up and Priest and Mrs. Bradley were peering down the hole.

  “Old foundations, ben hollered out a bet more,” said Priest in explanation, placing a hand on either knee, and leaning further forward.

  “Priest,” said Mrs. Bradley, “is blackmail a paying game?”

  The countryman stared at her as she straightened up.

  “What’s that, mam, ded ee say?”

  “Does blackmail pay?”

  “Well, I dunno, I’m sure. Depends on the party, and ’ow much money they got.” Regarding her suspiciously, he departed. Mrs. Bradley stepped to the woodshed door, and watched him until he had reached the nearest pig-house, which was quite two hundred yards off, then she went back to the hole, took out her electric torch, and began to descend the steps. She made a careful search, completing the circular tour of the passage, as Carey had done, without finding what she wanted.

  Priest was standing beside the hole again, when, after about three-quarters of an hour, she emerged, and dusted her skirt.

  “Ah, you haven’t closed the trapdoor, I see,” she said, with a fiendish grin.
Priest stretched out a hand to help her up. Mrs. Bradley ignored it.

  “It’s dirty, Priest,” she said. He stared at his huge palm critically.

  “Ah, so et be. Tes clean muck, though,” he said.

  “Rubbish, man! It’s blood guilt if you’ve been blackmailing him,” said Mrs. Bradley, staring him in the face.

  “Yes, but, mam, I ain’t blackmailed no one. That’s a town game, that is! I don’t know no one to blackmail.”

  “I’m very glad to hear that,” said Mrs. Bradley calmly, and, leering up at the astonished pigman, she walked coolly out of the shed.

  She was just in time to encounter Tombley and Denis.

  “By the way, child, what have you done with it?” she asked.

  “Done with it?” said Tombley.

  “The fancy dress.”

  “The—gosh. You haven’t traced that here?”

  “Traced it? Well—” she paused, and her bright black eyes took in his perspiring face.

  “I mean, what made you think—? I mean, does the inspector know?”

  Mrs. Bradley laughed, and Denis said, “You silly ass, Tombley! You’re giving yourself away!”

  “Yes—well, no,” said Tombley.

  “Now, come along, Geraint. No nonsense,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  “But why do you want it?”

  “I don’t, child. It was in the hole beneath the woodshed floor.”

  “That’s where Uncle Simith put it.”

  “Why?”

  “He wanted to keep it, I think. Then, when he was found dead on Shotover, it looked pretty bad for me, so I thought I’d better hide it.”

  “Rather foolish, child.”

  “Well, I don’t know so much. It would have clinched that damned inspector.”

  “Where did your uncle find it?”

  “Well, I don’t really know.”

  “Nonsense!” said Mrs. Bradley. He looked at her, and she looked back at him. Then he shrugged his shoulders resignedly.

  “Very well, I’ll give it you, and I’ll tell you all I know.”

  “That’s a good boy, Geraint.” She walked beside him to the house.

  “I took it out of the passage under the woodshed as soon as I knew the police were on my track, and hid it under the bricks of the floor of Nero’s sty.”

  “So you can go into Nero’s sty?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose so. Yes. Risky, of course, but in a case of necessity—”

  “But I understood,” said Mrs. Bradley distinctly, “that nobody but Priest dared go into Nero’s sty.”

  “Well, one didn’t like the job— Oh, Lord! that sounds like Pratt!”

  “But one could, on occasion, nerve oneself to tackle it,” said Mrs. Bradley sternly.

  “Well, yes, I suppose so. Yes.”

  “Geraint,” said Mrs. Bradley sorrowfully, “you have been very foolish.”

  “But—”

  “Go and get that fancy dress at once! The sty is empty now. Oh, that’s another thing! Who helped you to move Nero to the pig-house?”

  “Eh?— Oh, Priest, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Bradley. She stopped and looked at him. “Don’t lie to me any more.”

  “No. Very well,” said Tombley. He cleared his throat. “The fact is, I’ve killed old Nero. The boar in the pig-house isn’t Nero at all. It’s a new Large White called Potiphar—Hamptonwick Potiphar the Seventh.”

  “Why did you kill old Nero?” Denis asked.

  “For an obvious reason. Think it out, Denis,” said Mrs. Bradley quietly. “Did Priest see you kill him, I wonder?”

  “No. I did it one night with a shotgun after he’d gone home to bed. That inspector had a good look at Potiphar when he came over last time, but he didn’t say anything about him.”

  He left Mrs. Bradley and Denis in the kitchen. A village woman came in each day to cook and clean, so that everything was tidy and the room looked far more homely than it had done in Simith’s time. They sat there, with the puppy. George had been minding it in the car, but Denis had gone to fetch it in order to show it to Tombley whilst Mrs. Bradley was busy under the woodshed. Presently Tombley returned with a crumpled, dirty garment, and a mildewed brown paper parcel.

  “Here are the doings,” he said. He seemed sheepish and half defiant. Denis undid the parcel.

  “Golly!” he said. “The ghost!”

  “Oh, yes! It’s the ghost, all right. Head under arm—that’s the bit in the parcel—and all.”

  Mrs. Bradley spread out a long garment rather like a woman’s nightgown.

  “Uncle saw where the ‘ghost’ stowed the bundle after Fossder fell dead,” said Tombley in explanation. “I don’t know what he was going to do with these things. I don’t know, really, why he brought them home. He may have been the ghost, for all I know! I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, he was away from home that night.”

  “Yes, we know that. You told us,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Another person who was abroad that night was Maurice Pratt,” she added, as though to herself.

  “And me,” said Tombley with a groan. “But, in spite of all that I’ve said, I wasn’t the ghost!”

  “You’re to come to Iffley with me,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I want you to show me the spot where your uncle declared that he had found these clothes.”

  So she, Denis, and the puppy, accompanied by Tombley, got into the car and drove to Old Farm, where Denis and the puppy were dropped.

  “Iffley, George,” said Mrs. Bradley, and in twenty minutes they were outside Iffley Church.

  “We shan’t be very long, George,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  “Very good, madam.”

  “Come along, Geraint.” Tombley found a penny for the toll, and they crossed the river by the lock.

  Chapter Sixteen

  WHOLE HEY AT ROMAN ENDING

  “Now, child,” said Mrs. Bradley. Behind Iffley Mill—or where the mill had stood before it was burnt—the tall poplars were in leaf and were golden green. The water flowed, broken surfaced, blue grey and silver, flashing in the sunshine, furtive under the bank. Lines of pollard willows meandering over the broad flat fields beside the towing path, showed the courses of little streams, and on the horizon were hills, low crowned and rounded, and oddly capped with mushroom shaped clumps of trees.

  “Well, along here a bit,” said Tombley, “was where he said he’d found it.” They walked beside the river towards Sandford, rounding its curve, and came upon a couple of pollard willows whose trunks were almost touching.

  “Shoved down between these trees, he said,” said Tombley. Instead of looking at the trees, Mrs. Bradley turned her back on them and looked back along the towing path. Then she looked at her watch.

  “Listen, child,” she said. “I want you to compare your wristwatch with mine. Then, when I give the word, I want you to run. Run your hardest; don’t stop at the toll house. Throw them your halfpenny and then run on until you are within about sixty yards of the turning to Mrs. Fossder’s house. Drop into a brisk but not a hurried walk, and as soon as you get to Mrs. Fossder’s hedge—not the gate—not quite as far as the gate—look at your watch and carefully note the time. Then walk back here towards me. We meet—”

  “At Philippi?” asked Tombley, half serious, half ironical. She shook her head.

  “Oh, no, child. Not at Philippi. I don’t believe that you killed Mr. Fossder, and I know you weren’t the ghost.”

  “How do you know that for certain?”

  “You’d have burnt the clothes, I imagine.”

  “Well, why didn’t the—well, weren’t they burnt?”

  “The murderer didn’t find them when he came for them. Your uncle had already taken them away.”

  “But Uncle Simith may have been the murderer.”

  Mrs. Bradley held her watch in her hand as though it might have been a stop watch, and synchronised it with Tombley’s. She did not reply to his remark.

  “Ready? Go!” she said; and ha
d the great satisfaction of seeing him pound along before her, the soft earth flying in little damp blackish clods from his boot heels, and his elbows sawing the air in businesslike, although unorthodox, manner. She sighed with gratification, and began to walk briskly after him. They met by the great old elm outside the public house. Tombley was sweating, but seemed to have plenty of breath.

  “Much puffed, child, when you arrived?”

  “No, not at all. The sixty yards steadied me nicely. Bit hot, of course, but that’s all.”

  “Ah, but that would hardly be noticed at midnight,” said Mrs. Bradley contentedly. “How long, child, did it take?”

  “Three minutes thirty-three seconds, as near as I can judge without a stop watch.”

  “Ah,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Then, child, we can go home. Now tell me: what was your uncle doing in Iffley on Christmas Eve at midnight?”

  “Trying to spy on me, I rather think. I let out that I had an appointment with Mr. Fossder, and he hated old Fossder, so that I suppose it intrigued him to try and find out what on earth we were up to together.”

  “What kind of a man was Fossder?”

  “Honest as the day. It was Uncle Simith who kept the breach open, you know. Fossder would have come round. In fact, he did, to the extent of getting Uncle to witness his will.”

  “Honest? That’s what I’d heard. Frank and honourable—for these two qualities, child, I believe he was murdered.”

  “So you know who the murderer is!” said Tombley, suddenly enlightened. He said nothing more until the car was passing Bayswater Brook.

  “But how did you hit on it, Mrs. Bradley?” he asked.

  “I didn’t, at first. Well, no, that isn’t true. I did hit on it straight away, but I couldn’t believe it. I turned my attention in various other directions, and, at one point, I almost convinced myself that my first surmise had been wrong. But always there were definite indications—notably that of the temperament of the murderer, and, later on, when the will was read, the motive—which I could not overlook. But, child, why didn’t you tell me that your uncle had discovered the ‘ghost’ stuffed in between those trees?”