Hangman's Curfew (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “I do,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Bring out the rest of your information, then, Inspector, and let’s see what we’ve got.”

  “It’s just another death,” said the inspector. “Did you warn the police they might expect a murder at Cawby-on-the-­Sperrey, down to the south?”

  “I did. Do you tell me that old Mr. Lancaster has been poisoned?”

  “I do that. By strychnine, without a doubt, and that, I’m told, was your prophecy.”

  “Yes, it certainly was.”

  “And, what’s more—and it’s the strange thing, this!—not a soul nor a body, except the dead man, in the house, from roof to cellar. It was a wee boy found him, a laddie who lived at the inn.”

  “It would be. I told him to keep his eyes open,” Mrs. Bradley murmured. “All right, Inspector. I suppose the papers haven’t got it?”

  “My certy, no! Those laddies will climb up glass to get their news, but they’ve not been let in on this. Mind you, we canna keep them from it for long. Could you get along, right away now?”

  “Yes, if I can use your telephone, and if you can find my chauffeur.”

  She called up Gillian at the hotel in Edinburgh. This was the call, which Gillian received after lunch.

  “I am sending George for you,” said Mrs. Bradley. “If you lose the notebook, and so on, it won’t matter now.”

  “You need not send George,” replied Gillian, “I can send the porter out to hire a car. I’ve got my little gun. I shall be with you all the quicker. I’ve had a lovely time with your puzzle, Aunt Adela. I believe I’ve solved it right. All the rest when I see you.”

  “Bother your murders!” said Gillian. “I thought we were going to hunt for buried treasure.”

  “We are, child; later on. Meanwhile, you are going home to your mother.”

  “Oh, no, Aunt Adela! Why?”

  “Because, although I’ve been called in by the police, I have no official standing, child, and so I can’t take you with me into this house in the marshes, or give you any of the fun. It isn’t a place you’d care for; there wouldn’t be much for you to do—”

  “And I’d only be a drag and a nuisance. I see. OK, then. But you’ve got to promise to let me treasure-hunt afterwards.”

  “Willingly.”

  So at York Mrs. Bradley put Gillian into a train, telephoned her mother to be sure to meet her at the other end, and, relieved to be rid of a responsibility, returned to the car.

  “So thee be back? I thought us should see thee again, but never dreamed so soon,” said the landlady of the “Rising Sun” hospitably. “Have thy same bedroom, will thee? Soon turn that out for thee, I can.”

  “No, our mam,” said Tom, between whom and Mrs. Bradley a conspiratorial wink had passed as soon as their glances had crossed. “Thee give she a room on top of the house. That don’t require to be on the ground floor this time.”

  “Nervous?” said the landlady anxiously. “Time enough, poor old man, to be left a-laying, and not a soul to stay beside him. Heartless, don’t thee think? How come they all to cut and run?”

  Mrs. Bradley said that she supposed it was human nature, and that, by all accounts, the old man had been a queer creature.

  “Queer? Ah, that was daft,” said the woman. It was clear that the secret of the poisoning had been well kept, since she, living so close at hand, did not know of it. Mrs. Bradley felt an increased respect for young Tom.

  She got him away from his mother as soon as she could, and went out with him to see the pigs. She could talk pig fairly fluently, and with correct appraisal of points, for her nephew bred pedigree stock and had educated her carefully. There was, too, something appealing, she thought, in the psychology of the pig. She had studied it, not without benefit to some of her wealthier patients.

  “Tell me all about it, Tom,” she said.

  “Well, I went up there every day, like how thee telled I,” Tom began, “and met doctor sometimes, and passed time of day, like thee said, and asked sometimes about poor old chap, and one day I got me a job there, like, cleaning trap and grooming horse, rightful chap being took bad, doctor says, and nobody suspicioned I, I don’t think so, anyway, and come yesterday morning I went up along there with a two-three eggs, our mam sending sometimes when we was glutted, and the gates all open, and nobody when I rang bell, and nobody round to back, and gamekeeper and groom gone, horse and trap likewise, so, thinking it was come like thee said, I breaks window and gets in, and there be poor old chap on bed, blue-like, and died ugly, thee could see by that’s face, and out I come, quickern I go in, and get Billy Blandy, and Billy put on uniform, like, and take up helmet, and that do come along of I up to house, and that do tell inspector over telephone at house to come quick and bring sergeant with notebook.”

  “Well, you’ve done remarkably well, Tom,” said Mrs. Bradley, scratching a pig with the corner of a stiff-covered notebook. “What did the doctor say?”

  “Nought to I, like. Happen that’ll talk to thee, though.”

  “Happen that will,” said Mrs. Bradley grimly. “Have they traced the housekeeper yet?”

  “That, again, I can’t tell thee. They police do know how to hold their tongue.”

  “And you know how to hold yours, too,” said Mrs. Bradley, with approval.

  “Had a rare old time with our mam,” said Tom appreciatively. “Come in, I did, in a rare old bat and a sweat, after I found him dead. That wasn’t pretty, I can tell thee. Our mam, that demand to know where I been, and what up to, so I tell that to ask Charlie Kepple.”

  He chuckled.

  “Who’s Charlie Kepple?” Mrs. Bradley dutifully enquired.

  “Oh, that do be our old way of saying mind thy business. That did make our mam so wild. Clouted my head for me, that did, but no astonishment.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Bradley to the young doctor, “and what have you got to say for yourself?”

  “It’s the very devil, isn’t it?” he said. “I was there the day before, you know. They sent for me because he had one of his fits. There wasn’t a trace of strychnine in him, though; of that I’ll take my oath. This is the finish of my work here. I’m only staying on for the inquest.”

  “And the trial,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I wish I could see the whole plot, and what it’s intended to lead to; but I can’t.”

  “You worked out this bit, anyhow. What are you going to do next?”

  “I am going to see the body, child. Are you coming with me? I am in with the police over this.”

  “I might as well come with you. I’ve nothing to do except visit a couple of invalids on whom I live.”

  They drove in his car to the house. The body had been left where it was, and the inquest was to be held in the dining-room. Mrs. Bradley led the way to the bedroom. The police were still busy there, and the inspector rose from his seat at the dressing-table, where he had been going through drawers, to give her a nod and a slight, official smile.

  “Pleased to see you, ma’am,” he said gravely. “This is a very queer business. Nothing’s been stolen from the house. There’s plenty of ready money about the place, the safe hasn’t been touched, there are a few odd bits and pieces of old-fashioned, rather valuable stuff (belonged to his wife, we suppose) lying about in jewel boxes shoved into drawers—not a thing missing, so far as we can tell. And yet, if nothing’s wrong, where be the servants and the housekeeper?”

  “Had he a watch?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

  “Watch? Oh, yes, he had a watch. Want to see it?”

  “Yes, if it was on a chain.”

  “It’s on a chain, of course, with the usual seals, and coins, and miniature compass, and things that these old fellows like to have.”

  “Interesting. Where is the watch, Inspector?”

  The inspector put his hand in his pocket and drew out a key. With this he unlocked the top drawer of a cabinet, took out a piece of cotton-wool, unwrapped it, and displayed the watch and chain.

  “No need to tell you not to touch it, m
a’am.”

  “Fingerprints on that won’t help much,” said Mrs. Bradley, grinning.

  “None, except the old man’s. It’s just routine. We’ve not had a murder here for seventy years, so we’re all a bit new to it, like,” the inspector said, grinning in his turn.

  “Aha!” said Mrs. Bradley. She indicated, with the end of her pencil, one of the coins on the watch-chain. “That’s surely unusual in this part of the world, Inspector. Do you know what coin that is?”

  “Gold, ma’am, anyway.”

  “Yes. It’s a gold bonnet-piece, of the time of James V of Scotland. It is only the second time I have seen one, except in collections.”

  “Are they rare, ma’am?”

  “Rare in England, anyway. But that isn’t the point, Inspector. Thank you. You can lock it up again.”

  The inspector put away the watch and chain, and Mrs. Bradley went over to look at the body.

  “The inquest is in half and hour, ma’am,” the inspector told her. “I daresay you’ll like to attend.”

  “Yes, of course, child. But this man isn’t everything he seems.” She bent over the body, pulled back the eyelids, and then took out her powerful magnifying glass and inspected the skin of the face. “His skin has been bleached. He ought to be brown,” she said.

  The inspector caught the eye of the young doctor.

  “You identified him as your patient, Doctor?” he said.

  “I identify him, too,” said Mrs. Bradley. “He is certainly the man I saw when I came here to visit the housekeeper. Inspector, you must get on without me here. This is not where I ought to be. Who is making the coffin?” she asked suddenly.

  “Sam Wiveller,” said the doctor.

  “Drive me to him, child.”

  Leaving the inspector to his researches, which, with a slight shake of the head, he resumed as soon as he had covered the face of the corpse, she went out on to the drive.

  Sam Wiveller was a craftsman. He was an old fellow, certainly over seventy, with shrewd eyes, large, powerful hands, and a little thin voice, which came oddly from such an old oak tree of a man.

  “No, I don’t want to order my own,” said Mrs. Bradley, when the introductions had been made. “I want to see old Mr. Lancaster’s.”

  “Ah, had the order for that these two years and a half come Saturday midday,” said old Wiveller. “Screws. It must be screws. No nails for him. Screws with great big yeads you could almost take out with your fingers. ‘I don’t want they angels to have any trouble,’ he says.”

  “Who said so?”

  “Why, the nevvy. It was the nevvy ordered the coffin for uncle.”

  “Mr. Joshua?”

  “Ah, Mr. Joshua Devizes. Didn’t know him, I didn’t, till he told me his own self who he was.”

  “Ah?” said Mrs. Bradley. “Where is the coffin? Is it finished?”

  “Ah, that be finished all right. Don’t do to be behind time in this yer job. Here her do be, and better work I never have done in my life. Thee take a good look at that.”

  “Lead, oak or elm?” asked Mrs. Bradley absently.

  “Oak, that be. I had to get her special. Don’t get no oak about year. Ellum, aye. Oak, no. Had to send special, I did.”

  ‘“Oak’s honest wood,’ says Mr. Joshua Devizes, the nevvy. Took a real interest, that did, same as you do now.”

  “Red-haired man?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

  “Foxy-like. That’s right. Thin-haired and whitey. Should never have took that for old man’s nevvy myself. But, then it must be three year, near enough, since old chap took to his fits.”

  “Do many people go mad in these parts, Sam? And how long is it since people set eyes on the dark Mr. Frere, I wonder?”

  The craftsman looked at her with his bright old eyes and smiled.

  “Thee be a good workman thyself, missus, I’ll be bound, whatever it be thee might do,” he said appreciatively. “What thee be working at now I don’t altogether follow, but thee got something back of that head of thine, I’ll be bound. We be all a bit touched, these parts, missus. Thee’ll be touched thyself, stay long enough. And folks as take queer fancies hereabouts, well, nobody take much notice, holding it be folk’s business what they do see and believe.”

  Mrs. Bradley gazed at him for a minute. It seemed as though some chord of communication hummed between them. The doctor, in his sensitive, nervous state, could feel the vibrations but could not interpret their message. Mrs. Bradley turned and dug him in the ribs.

  “We now want the vicar,” she said. “Which, from here, is the quickest route to this haunted church where ghosts tap housekeepers on the back at the end of Evensong?”

  “I want to know,” said Mrs. Bradley to the inspector, “Something about our Dark Gentleman, Mr. Frere.”

  The vicar had been unable to give any explanation of the haunting of his church by an invisible ghost, which tapped people on the back. Mrs. Bradley neither affected nor felt the slightest surprise at this. It was part of Mr. Geoffrey’s embroidery of his tale, undoubtedly. She dismissed it in favour of realities.

  “Mr. Frere?” said the inspector. “Ah, we could do with a bit more information about him ourselves, ma’am, I might tell you.”

  “I see. How long has he been resident here?”

  “Thirty years, more or less, so they tell me.”

  “Then he can’t be the person I’m thinking of, Inspector.”

  “That’s a real pity, ma’am, because my money was on him as well.”

  “Do you know him by sight, Inspector?”

  “Did, ma’am, three years ago, I reckon. I haven’t seen him since then. Became a kind of a recluse, after his son died, they say.”

  “Oh, he had a son?”

  “Yes. The old doctor attended him. Died in a fit, so I heard. After that, Mr. Frere he shut himself up and carried on with his experiments, and nobody’s seen very much of him since then.”

  “Where was the son buried?”

  “Oh, in the churchyard, like everyone else around here.”

  “Oh, I see. The Dark Gentleman hadn’t a dark religion of some kind, then?”

  “Now you mention it, ma’am, I believe he was a Parsee. But the wife was English.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “Oh, yes. She died soon after they came to live here.”

  “Frere is not his real name, I take it?”

  “It’s the name he always went by.”

  “Frere is a French name, Inspector. It’s a French Creole name. Your dark gentleman can’t be a Parsee. What gave you that idea?”

  “I forget, ma’am. The vicar would know.”

  “All right. You send one of your young men to him this time, then. He didn’t like me very much.”

  “He don’t like trouble in the parish. Very quiet they’ve been, this seventy years.”

  “Yes. That must have been pleasant. Now, Inspector, I want to know where this idea came from that Mr. Frere was a Parsee, together with any relevant details, apposite observations, or colourful hints. I also want to get in touch with anybody who knew Mr. Frere by sight, say, five years ago.”

  “I’ll go down there myself. I guess what you’re after, ma’am. Don’t these Parsees burn their corpses, like?”

  The inspector, having obtained permission to do this, took down the vicar’s replies in writing, to submit them verbatim to Mrs. Bradley. It appeared that Mr. Frere had asked to have his son’s ashes buried in the churchyard. There was no question of anything except cremation. The vicar had never heard that Mr. Frere was a Parsee; he thought it must be village gossip. He would not dream of allowing a Parsee to be buried in consecrated ground. The body, however, had not been cremated, after all. The vicar did not know the reason for this.

  “Very starchy he was about the whole thing,” said the inspector. “Said he supposed it was none of his business, and that he supposed I knew what I was doing, but that he couldn’t think what was inducing me to connect Mr. Lancaster’s death with Mr. Frere.”r />
  “So it was a child he buried,” said Mrs. Bradley. “And although the father favoured cremation, the body never was cremated, but was buried in the ordinary way.” She looked at the inspector. “The grave will have to be dug up. But that can wait. I can’t stay here any longer, Inspector, but I’ll give you a hint. Keep your eye on the body—Mr. Lancaster’s body, I mean. Have you heard of cataleptic seizures?”

  “Yes—”

  “Well, catalepsy can be self-induced. I’ve seen it with my patients. You mind that corpse doesn’t come alive on you.”

  With this piece of advice she included a hideous cackle.

  “Edinburgh, madam?” said George. He handed her into the car.

  “Well, Edinburgh will do to begin with,” said his employer, “but I may give you another direction later. And hurry. Don’t stop for police traps, gunmen, or even the demon king.”

  “Very good, madam,” said George.

  • CHAPTER 8 •

  “Upon a morning fair and dear,

  She cried upon her sister dear,

  ‘O sister, sister, take my hand,

  And we’ll see our father’s ships to land.’ ”

  Gillian sat in the train and stared sombrely out of the window. Then, in defiance of good manners and the regulations, she put her feet up on the seat. She had the compartment to herself, for the other occupants had got out at Huntingdon.

  She opened the book of ballads and took out a pencil. There seemed little point in it, she thought, since she was ordered out of the hunt, but it might pass the time to work out the bearings of the house of which they were supposed to be in search.

  She did not get far in her research work, for the train reached London almost before she had begun. Having been warmly greeted by her mother and one of her sisters, she said she would like to rest, as she was tired. Her mother, who was greatly relieved at seeing her looking so much better than when she had gone off, broken-hearted, to stay with Mrs. Bradley, assented readily to this reasonable suggestion. Gillian touched her sister’s hand as she was following her mother out of the room.