Pageant of Murder (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “But supposing that you had not been in the Staff-room during the time you claim to have been there, could you still produce an alibi?”

  “No, of course not. But I was there. Any of the cleaners will tell you so.”

  “For a Friday, yes, but do you think they would be prepared to swear to that particular Friday?”

  “Oh, I see. Well, no, I wouldn’t think their memories were all that reliable. And, of course, some of them would say anything if you put it into their heads. So you mean I had only to make some verbal arrangement with Spey, when we met for our usual Friday lunchtime drinks and eats, to get him to come up to school somewhere between four-thirty and five-thirty, we’ll say, and there I am, but not (as I claim I was) in the Staff-room. Where do you suggest I was when I did for him?”

  “Games shed,” said Laura, in response to a glance from Dame Beatrice. “Cricket bats, you know. All you’d need to do would be to give him something to inspect—preferably at the very back of the shed—come behind him, bash him over the head, leave him there, lock the shed—you seem to have a good deal to do with the games, so, naturally, you would have a key—and there’s the body all nicely stashed away until you can behead it and carry it along to the private road which leads to the ducal park. Any flaws in the reconstruction?”

  “It’s beautiful. It might have come out of a book. The only weak point is that Belton, my captain of cricket, always took the key of the games shed from its hook in the secretary’s office as soon as he turned up for the match on a Saturday morning. He got out a couple of balls and the stumps and bails, and a bat or two for the chaps who hadn’t got their own, so I can’t help thinking that he would have noticed the body, you know, even though it was the morning of the Goodman’s School match.”

  “Not if you had come back at night on the same Friday and taken the body away in your car. What do you say about that?” demanded Laura.

  “The school gates are locked as soon as everybody’s gone home. The schoolkeeper sees to that. I couldn’t possibly have taken my car into the grounds—that, at least, can be proved—and even you, darling Laura, highly though you seem to regard my iron determination and scheming brain, can hardly venture to think that I would carry the body to the school gate and climb over, holding it in my arms. Apart from that, how on earth could I have persuaded Spey to tog up as Henry VIII, if I’d merely invited him to come and have a look at the games shed?”

  “You know, I almost think we’ll have to put him in the clear,” said Laura to Dame Beatrice. “All the same,” she added to Julian, “everybody wishes you hadn’t thought up that beastly second pageant. It played right into the murderer’s hands. You and your Hangman’s Oak!”

  “I was thinking more of the Druids than of the hangman, please, when I suggested the dancing round the oak, and, do you know, some of my revered colleagues on the Council now want to chop the tree down. I can see their point of view, but I think it would be rather a pity.”

  “Yes, it is not as though poor Mr. Gordon was killed by being hanged on the tree,” said Dame Beatrice, “or that he committed suicide by hanging himself from its branches.”

  “I’m glad you don’t agree with the suicide verdict,” said Julian. “I don’t, either. I’m sure he wasn’t the type. I read about the inquest in the local paper. It was very fully reported, and I noted particularly that there were two distinct lines of markings on Gordon’s neck.”

  “Yes, I noted the same point. It was suggested that the deceased had made two attempts to hang himself. I wish I had been able to see the body,” said Dame Beatrice. “However, through the good offices of Laura’s husband, I hope to obtain permission to study the photographs.”

  “What do you think happened, Dame Beatrice?”

  “I feel certain that Mr. Gordon was garrotted, although not with an iron collar, which seems to have been the Spanish custom, and afterwards hanged from the Druid’s Oak by the murderer.”

  “Wouldn’t the marks made by the garrotting look different from those made by the hanging? I thought doctors could detect that sort of thing.”

  “Quite so, but that point was covered by the suggestion that the deceased had made two attempts at suicide. And now I shall be grateful if you will introduce me, next Sunday morning, to the gentleman who impersonates sunbeams.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Sunday School Point of View

  “The records of nonconformity in Brentford are extremely meagre, and devoid of historic interest. There is, indeed, a long-standing tradition which associates the name of John Bunyan with the religious activities of the town…but there seems to be no reliable evidence to support this tradition.”

  The hall in which the Sunday School was held was considerably larger than the chapel in whose grounds it stood. This (explained Julian, who was escorting Dame Beatrice) was so that it could be let for lectures, bingo sessions, whist drives, and dances, to the financial advantage of the trustees, who thus were not obliged to put their hands into their own pockets as often or as deeply as in the years before the hall was erected. (One of the brethren who had been wrong-headed and sinful enough to send up what proved to be a winning Treble Chance had salved what remained of his conscience by donating five thousand pounds of his prize money towards building the hall, so that bingo and so forth could be played there. That bingo is also a game of chance most fortunately occurred to nobody.)

  The Sunday School was run on sober Edwardian lines. Each child was provided with a stout card ruled out in fifty-two small squares. A table near the door supported a large register and the elbows of two young men. The young men were armed with pencil-sized rubber stamps, one of which bore a star, the other a zero. If a child arrived early or just on time, its card received a star; if late, it was still credited, but only with a zero. In order to be eligible to attend the annual Sunday School treat, it was requisite and necessary that a total of thirty stars or the equivalent in stars and zeros (a zero counted as half a star) should be stamped on the card and entered in the register.

  “The mathematics of the thing are elementary, of course,” said young Mr. Perse, explaining the system, “but I suppose the general idea is to favour punctuality, and not a bad idea, either, when you come to think of it. More frustration, bad language, and ill-temper are caused by people keeping other people waiting than by almost anything else on earth. My own love-life is frequently springing a leak because I will not be kept hanging about for girls with whom I’ve made a firm date. Mind you, Dame Beatrice, I am a reasonable man, and I’m prepared to concede ten minutes. Nevertheless, ten minutes is my limit. If the party of the second part hasn’t turned up by then, she’s had it, and can jolly well buy her own fish and chips.”

  “Excellent,” said Dame Beatrice. “I think the proceedings are about to begin. Are we to be favoured with sunbeams, do you suppose?”

  It turned out that they were not to be so indulged. A hymn, a too-lengthy extempore prayer, a reminder that the Missionary Society was (as usual) short of funds, a scraping of chairs as each Sunday School class grouped itself round its teacher, an outbreak of Bedlam as the lessons commenced, and the Sunday School settled down to what appeared to be normal routine.

  The secretary, who was still acting also as superintendent, came to the bench at the end of the hall where Julian and Dame Beatrice were seated. Julian performed the introductions and added that Dame Beatrice would like to ask a few questions about “poor Luton’s work for the Sunday School.”

  “Yes, well—would it be too chilly for you if we went out into the porch? It’s difficult to talk in here with so much noise.” In the porch the secretary added, “What aspect of Luton’s work were you thinking of? He was very active in all branches, and, of course, a worker in our wider field.”

  “You mean he worked for the chapel as well as for the Sunday School?”

  “Oh, yes, and for the Youth Club, too. He was a very active worker, very active indeed. He used to do a good deal of social work, in addi
tion.”

  “Ah, yes, social work,” said Dame Beatrice. “What did that entail?”

  “Well, mostly it was fallen women. He was extremely earnest and very sympathetic. On one occasion we had trouble in persuading him that it wasn’t in her best interests for him to marry one of them. One of our Girls’ Friendly girls, unfortunately. When Luton found out about it, he went to the man and put it to him, but the man refused to have anything more to do with the girl. He said there was no proof that he was the father and that he denied he was. Luton got very upset, especially when the man told him to marry the girl himself if he felt so strongly about it.”

  “And Mr. Luton was prepared to do so? How long ago was this?”

  “Oh, when he was a very much younger man. At one of the Wednesday meetings for men, he asked for guidance, and, of course, it is our custom to ask aloud for guidance, so that matters can be discussed, if necessary, by everyone present.”

  “And the meeting persuaded Mr. Luton that…”

  “Well, it was throwing himself to the dogs, as it were. I took it on myself to point out that people not knowing him as well as some of us did, might regard it as a sign of his own guilt if he married the girl. Moreover, as the husband of a fallen woman, we could hardly allow him to continue as Sunday School superintendent. It wouldn’t have been seemly.”

  “Oh, would it not?” asked Dame Beatrice.

  “Oh, no. You see, there’s the saying about no smoke without fire. They gossip, you know—even the best and most upright—and where there’s gossip, well, I hardly need to tell you that scandal is never far behind.”

  “Only too true, I am afraid, but could gossip in the town really harm the chapel or the Sunday School?”

  “If it was to be confined to the town, as such, perhaps not, but, you see, there was a little coterie—if that’s the word—who attended our Mothers’ Pleasant Afternoon, who would have been likely to, well, draw their skirts aside, if you know what I mean, and that certainly wouldn’t have helped matters.”

  “So some of you talked Mr. Luton out of his self-sacrificing dream?”

  “Yes, in the end, we did. It’s all very well to see yourself as a Good Samaritan, but, in this case, what seemed at first to him to be the right thing to do was going to be so damaging to the good name of our chapel and Sunday School that—well, we just couldn’t let him do it, and, anyway, the girl was dead against it, too, as you can understand. Mr. Hughes, our pastor, had the last word. He told him, straight out, that he would no longer be permitted to be Sunday School superintendent if he persisted in carrying out his idea.”

  “What you tell me is extremely interesting,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “Yes. The latest trouble has been one of our Sunday School teachers. A very sad business that is.”

  “But Mr. Luton did not renew his attempt to…”

  “Well, of course, he’s older and wiser now—he was, I mean. We only knew about it shortly before his death. Of course, he went along to see her—being, as I said, a very keen social worker—and our pastor, Mr. Hughes, has been to see her too, but she said she only wanted to be left alone, and her mother was standing by her, so we didn’t see what else we could do.”

  “And you feel sure that, this time, Mr. Luton did not propose marriage to her?”

  “Oh, I’m certain he didn’t. This time he didn’t even ask for guidance, you see. He would ask for guidance before taking any such action, of course.”

  “And the guidance he obtained on the former occasion convinced him that his well-intentioned plan, if he had carried it out, would have been against the interests of the chapel and the Sunday School. Yes, I see that he would not have attempted to carry out a similar plan the second time. By the way, did Mr. Luton know the name of the baby’s father on this second occasion?”

  “I don’t know for certain, but I think he must have done, because what he said to me this last time was to the effect that it wasn’t as though the fellow couldn’t afford to support a wife, and so I think he must have known or guessed who the father was. Still, he named no names, and, in these days, there’s many a young man employed in this town at a rate of pay quite sufficient to marry on if they have honourable intentions.”

  “Would you mind giving me the girl’s address?”

  “Well, it can’t do any harm, I suppose. Are you from the Unmarried Mothers’ Society?”

  “No. I am investigating, with the approval of the police, the death of Mr. Luton and the others.”

  “I thought the police were satisfied Luton’s death was an accident.”

  “The coroner’s jury thought so; the police are still looking into the matter. They want to find the man or woman who caused the death, whether or not it was accidental.”

  “Oh, I see. And you’re helping them?”

  “In my capacity as psychiatric adviser to the Home Office, yes, I am.”

  “Well, I wish you luck, I’m sure. Of course, Luton was a rare one for a practical joke in a mild way, but this went rather beyond a joke, didn’t it? Come inside, and I’ll look up that address and write it down for you.”

  The home of the unmarried mother was in a cul-de-sac off the high street known as Paddock Place. It had been agreed, in accordance with his own suggestion, that Perse should escort Dame Beatrice to the house and then leave her to conduct the negotiations as she thought most fitting.

  The front door opened directly on to the alleyway, for there was no front garden, and it was opened by a respectable-looking woman in a flowered overall. From the rear of the premises came the smell of cooking.

  “Yes?” said the woman.

  “Mrs. Darbey?” asked Dame Beatrice. She handed the woman a visiting card. “I have just come from the Sunday School, where I was given your address. May I have a word with your daughter?”

  “Mabel’s out. What did you want? We’re not interested in the Welfare, or nothing of that.”

  “I am not connected with the Welfare, but with the police.”

  “You better come in, then. That Mrs. Coggins next door got her ears on elastic.” She stood aside and Dame Beatrice entered the parlour. It was clean, and the floor and furniture had been polished. The wallpaper-pattern was somewhat unrestrained, but the armchairs and settee looked comfortable and Mrs. Darbey immediately lighted the gas fire. “Now,” she said, “I don’t see what the police have got to do with it. There’s no law against a girl making Mabel’s mistake, is there?”

  “I am not aware of such a law. What I have come to find out is only obliquely concerned with your daughter, Mrs. Darbey. Do you know the name of the baby’s father?”

  “No, Mabel wouldn’t say. Said she wouldn’t marry him, even if he asked her, which he wasn’t likely to do. So it’s no good you or the police thinking it’s any use buggering along them lines. She’ll get over it, and, although I’ve spoke my mind, I reckon she’s only in the same boat as half-a-dozen others I could name. She means to have the baby adopted, and then she’s going to live with her auntie and uncle at Wolverhampton for a bit. Time she gets back it will all have blown over, I daresay. It ain’t the disgrace it used to be, you know. Nobody don’t think all that much of it nowadays. After all, it’s natural-like. The baby’s the unlucky one, not the mother.”

  “I asked whether you knew the name of the baby’s father for a reason which does not really affect your daughter at all.”

  “Oh? How’s that, then?”

  “He may be wanted on a charge of murder.”

  “Oh, my goodness! Murdering who?”

  “I am not prepared to tell you that at present.”

  “Well, what’s it got to do with Mabel, then?”

  “I assure you, very little. If the father is not the man I think he is, then, probably, nothing at all. Come, Mrs. Darbey, you know who the father is, don’t you?”

  “Mabel’s never said.”

  “That isn’t an answer. You suspect someone. I’d like to know who it is. After all, as I have told you, murder is suspec
ted and…”

  “Suspected? I thought it was proved.”

  “You are thinking of the schoolmaster, Mr. Spey, but I am referring to the death of the Sunday School superintendent, Mr. Luton.”

  “But the paper said…”

  “Yes, I know what the paper said. What the papers say is not necessarily the whole truth, is it?”

  “If I was to tell you what I think and believe, I might find myself in trouble. It don’t do to say all you think. I don’t want to find myself in a police court, so I ain’t naming no names. I’ve got no proof, and Mabel won’t say. I expect she’s frightened, like I am, of being had up for putting the blame where I reckon it will never be proved. Them that’s in high society can do as they like with the law, same as they always could. So now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to see to the dinner. Mabel’s dad is up the allotment, as usual of a Sunday, and he’ll be hungry when he comes in.”

  “Very well, Mrs. Darbey,” said Dame Beatrice, getting up. “It has been very good of you to let me talk to you. If I give you the name of the man, will you tell me whether you agree with my opinion?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Darbey, flatly. “I’ve had quite enough trouble, as it is, over all this business. Mabel’s acted real silly, and I’m not the one to deny it, but perhaps she couldn’t help herself, being in service and all that. Anyway, soon as the baby comes it’ll all be over, and with any luck we’ll have a quiet life once more. Thank you for calling, and I’m sorry I can’t oblige, but the less said the better, and I haven’t got no proof.”

  “Giles Faudrey will run into trouble one of these days,” said Dame Beatrice, in an offhand tone, “but you are probably wise to say nothing, even to me.”

  “Who told you I meant Giles Faudrey? You don’t mean…here, you’re putting words in my mouth! I never said a word about Giles Faudrey!”