Laurels Are Poison mb-14

by Gladys Mitchell

‘Oh, so she got in, George?’

  ‘Well, the Chief Engineer reckons she’s been there all the time, madam, waiting her opportunity.’

  ‘What damage?’

  ‘Very little, madam. Please don’t trouble to come along. Barring a bit of a mess in the bakehouse which took on from the petrol drips in the basement, there’s nothing can’t be set to rights, we think, before the young ladies come back. There’s nothing really amiss.’

  ‘Athelstan Hall?’

  ‘Not touched. Not so much as a scorch-mark, madam, anywhere except in the boxroom and a bit in the passage.’

  ‘Oh, good. You didn’t catch her, I suppose?’

  ‘I think when she had dispersed the petrol about the place, she made her getaway, madam. There wasn’t the slightest trace. We didn’t see anybody, although we searched very careful.’

  ‘Are either of you burnt at all?’

  ‘No, madam.’

  ‘Is that the truth, George?’

  ‘Yes, madam, not a blister. Only I thought you’d be interested to know, or I wouldn’t have rung you.’

  ‘I see. “Well, thank you very much, George.’

  ‘A merry Christmas, madam.’

  Chapter 14

  FIELD-WORK

  « ^ »

  ‘I don’t care what you say,’ said Alice, ‘although I think it’s coarse to talk like that, but I shall get married myself, later on.’

  ‘Why not?’ inquired Laura, flinging clothing out of a suitcase in the manner of a terrier flinging up earth from a hole where it thinks it has buried a bone. ‘Where the Hell are my bedroom slippers? Oh, Kitty, you lout, you’ve got them on!’

  ‘Well, teachers generally don’t,’ resumed Alice. ‘But I come from the lower classes where marriage is the rule, not the exception, and I’m not ashamed of it. What I mean…’

  ‘The glories of our blood and state, are shadows, not substantial things,’ remonstrated Laura, assuming the slippers lately snatched from Kitty. ‘I do not recognize class-consciousness, young Alice, so pipe down. Don’t be a snob.’

  ‘Anyway, I hope the Deb. stays until the end of our first year,’ said the denuded one, sitting on Laura’s bed with her feet up. ‘I don’t suppose I shall be able to go down to tea, Dog,’ she continued, surveying the ends of her stockinged feet. ‘I can’t find a thing of my own except the shoes I came in, and they’re all mud, from that foul path out of the station.’

  ‘Have mine. They were new for Christmas,’ said Alice, putting both hands into her hat-box. ‘Here you are.’

  ‘And don’t scuffle about in ’em,’ added Laura. ‘Incidentally, I suppose bedroom slippers at first tea are de rigueur?’

  ‘Mrs Croc. won’t be there, and anyway, it’s a free country,’ said Kitty, trying on Alice’s slippers and holding out one foot the better to admire it. ‘These from the boy friend, young Alice?’

  ‘I haven’t a boy friend,’ said Alice, blushing. ‘I was only stating my views in a general way about marriage. You needn’t laugh.’

  ‘You know, there’s something a bit Little Lord Fauntleroy about our Alice,’ said Laura. ‘I used to notice it last term. A kind of je ne sais quoi.’ She began to comb her hair.

  ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy?’ said Alice.

  ‘Yes. You know… she means where they stick a placard on his back to say he bites,’ said Kitty earnestly. Her friends gazed at her with fascinated admiration.

  ‘What she owes to her spiritual pastors and masters will never be known,’ said Laura. ‘She goes from strength to strength. When we were at school she thought Dickens wrote Under Two Flags.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see why he shouldn’t have,’ said Kitty sturdily. ‘Where’s my calendar? I want to mark off the days. I think I’ll mark today off straight away. It’s practically over. When’s half-term, Dog?’

  The date was January 23rd. The Lent term had its own interests, did not include School Practice, and part of it would be devoted (as soon as the weather improved) to the various rambles and excursions which formed part of the First Year Course.

  The scope and nature of the rambles depended largely upon the Advanced Subjects chosen; thus Laura, ignoring her gift for English, had elected to take Advanced Geography, and Kitty, having no particular preferences, had put her name down for the same group. Alice was down for Advanced Biology, and spent most of her time cutting sections and putting them under the microscope when she was not engaged upon Field Work.

  For about the first five weeks of the term the weather was so bad that even some of the fixtures in hockey had to be abandoned. When March came, however, the wet and the heavy mists had cleared away, the sun shone, and the snappy, invigorating air seemed to invite the students out upon the moors.

  One bright, cold, gusty afternoon, the Advanced Geography group, having been advised previously of the arrangements by the senior lecturer in the subject, collected after lunch in the Senior Common Room of the College with notebooks, pencils, cameras, geological hammers and Ordnance maps, ‘ready for fairies at the bottom of the garden or a full-scale invasion, or anything in between the two,’ as Laura put it, and prepared to set out upon an excursion.

  ‘What have we here, Dog?’ asked Kitty, as her friend consulted a business-like little notebook completely filled with writing, maps and sketches.

  ‘A pearl of great price,’ said Laura, lowering her voice. ‘My spies inform me that these bally outings or expeditions always follow the same course, year after year. Now this,’ she tapped the notebook, ‘was compiled, doubtless with much sweat, by one Tweetman of Athelstan, some five years ago. She left it to her junior, one Plumstead. Plumstead bequeathed it to a crony in the first year, y-clept Mason. Mason left it in her will to friend Cartwright (who informs me upon oath that the only reason she wasn’t sent down last term was because her First Year Advanced Geography (Excursion Section) notebook was so impressive). Cartwright, having crossed the Rubicon and having no further use for the treasure, has passed it on to me. You shall share, on condition you’ll edit your stuff so that it isn’t word for word like mine.’

  ‘What a godsend!’ said Kitty, eyeing the notebook reverently.

  ‘Not a word to young Alice, by the way,’ said Laura, warningly. ‘Her morals are not as sound as one would wish. She might think we oughtn’t to use the beastly thing.’

  ‘Good Lord! Why not?’ said Kitty. ‘A thing like that ought to go down to posterity.’

  ‘Well, it probably will,’ said Laura.

  Kitty and Laura enjoyed their walk. Avoiding company, they strolled together, well in the rear of the party, conversing amiably and from time to time checking the geography of the landscape with the assistance of Miss Tweetman.

  ‘Points of interest,’ read Laura, standing still. ‘Two morainic mounds, one to the right of the road between the canal and the railway, and one between the road and the river on the left-hand side. Got that, duckie? Swing bridges over the canal. Well, we know all about bridges over the river! At least, I do. I’ll tell you what! Has it ever struck you to wonder where the deed was done?’

  ‘What deed, Dog?’ inquired Kitty, producing a paper bag and abstracting parkin, which she divided and the two of them shared.

  ‘Why, the murder of Miss Murchan. You heard about the Great Fire during the Christmas Vac, didn’t you?’

  ‘No. Where?’

  ‘Here in Athelstan, so far as I can make out. I searched for traces of it, but can’t find any. Mrs Bradley’s man was almost burnt to death.’

  ‘Doesn’t exactly show signs of it,’ said Kitty. ‘I saw him yesterday, turning Miss Hollis’s car for her. He looked all right to me.’

  ‘I am only repeating what I’ve heard. And another curious thing. You know that blighter Cornflake, who was at your school for School Prac.?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hasn’t turned up this term.’

  ‘Oh, I knew that. She’s got measles.’

  ‘Measles?’

  ‘Yes. Can be jolly dang
erous when you’re grown-up, I believe. Somebody in Rule Britannia’s told me. I forget who it was. I say, keep your eyes skinned for a pub. They’ll still be open. We could get some beer.’

  ‘A scheme,’ said Laura, embracing it with some eagerness. ‘Don’t suppose the late Tweetman had the forethought to bung down anything useful like that in her notes.’

  Kitty gazed at the landscape, and then sniffed the air.

  ‘I can give you the next bit without any notes,’ she said. ‘Gas works and a sewage farm, both on the left’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ said Laura, wrinkling her nose. ‘I suppose if we get gaol fever or typhus or anything, we can claim on the College. I shall tell my people to, anyway.’

  ‘Change in the landscape. Shoot,’ said Kitty, who had taken down in shorthand (to the never-failing amazement of her acquaintances she could put down a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty words a minute) the winged words dictated by her friend from Miss Tweetman’s invaluable script.

  ‘Eh? Oh, sorry. Yes. New housing estate. See it? Local building material used.’

  ‘What’s that? Red sandstone?’

  ‘No, mutt. Limestone blocks, I think, but don’t worry. Tweetman’s sure to have a footnote about it somewhere. Just bung down what I say. Criticism unwelcome and unnecessary. River crossed — Yes, and here’s the bridge… and here’s a pub. All clear? Bung in, then. This is today’s great thought.’

  Having drunk their beer they came on to the bridge and looked at the shallow swirling water.

  ‘… and wool mills seen,’ continued Laura, balancing Miss Tweetman’s notes on the coping. ‘Now the moor. Flat-topped. Canal. Railway embankment. Railway embankment?… Oh, yes. Over there. See it? To the left was noticed an old quarry — Come on. We’d better get along and identify that. There’s pretty sure to be a discussion on the outing, so we’d better have something ready at first-hand.’

  ‘There’s somebody down there,’ said Kitty, when they had discovered the old quarry. ‘I say, it’s Mrs Croc. She’s on her own, too. Wonder what she’s doing?’

  ‘Snooping for — Here, come on,’ said Laura. ‘I know what she’s doing, and we could help.’

  She began to scramble down the side of the quarry. After hesitating for a second, Kitty said:

  ‘Dog, do you know what?’

  ‘No. What?’ inquired Laura, balancing on two tufts of the coarse rank grass with which the quarry was clothed.

  ‘I believe she’s looking for the body. I’d hate to help her find it.’

  Mrs Bradley was surprised and not particularly pleased to see Laura, and gave her no encouragement to make herself useful.

  ‘Are you exploring all the quarries?’ asked Laura, pointedly.

  ‘Yes,’ replied the Warden. ‘And you, Miss Menzies, are attached to a party for which your lecturer in Advanced Geography is responsible.’

  ‘She won’t miss me. I seem to have left old Kitty in the swim,’ Laura replied, glancing upwards to see the last of her friend, who, with an apologetic wave of the hand, was disappearing over the skyline. ‘Do let me help snoop. I know what you’re looking for, and I bet I can find it if you can.’

  ‘I doubt whether you do know what I’m looking for,’ said Mrs Bradley, amused.

  ‘Oh? Not Miss Murchan?’

  ‘Of course not, child. Go away.’

  ‘Well, if you’re serious,’ said Laura, looking extremely disappointed. ‘Personally, I shouldn’t think you ought to be out on the moors alone, especially in these quarries. Anything might happen to you, especially if there is something funny about Miss Murchan. And, further to that, Warden, what price Miss Cornflake, and the measles? You’d be in a lot better position with me here to heave a couple of half-bricks at that baby, than laid out with all the College looking for you with lanterns and St Bernard dogs and things.’

  At this picturesque image Mrs Bradley laughed, and scribbling a message on a page of her notebook gave the leaf to the petitioner and bade her hurry up and give it to the lecturer.

  ‘And bring Miss Trevelyan back with you. I’m not looking for a corpse. I want to find a large receptacle of stone, earthenware or metal, and the remains of a large bonfire,’ said Mrs Bradley.

  She was up and out of the quarry by the time her henchman returned.

  ‘O.K. by Miss Catterick, Warden,’ she said, breathing slightly faster than usual, ‘and Kitty is following me up as quickly as — Oh, here she is. Where next?’

  ‘To the next quarry wherever it is,’ said Mrs Bradley, unfolding an Ordnance map.

  ‘You don’t want to bother with that, Warden,’ said Kitty, joining them. ‘Where’s the book of words, Dog?’

  ‘Please let me see your map, Warden,’ said Laura, suddenly. Mrs Bradley handed it over. It was the ordinary one-inch map of the district. Laura folded it, handed it back with a word of thanks, and then observed: ‘This is more the sort of thing you want, I should imagine. Six inches to the mile. Issued to Advanced Geography students on presentation of voucher supplied by Miss Catterick. Any good, Warden?’

  But Mrs Bradley was already poring over the six-inch map. She then smacked Laura on the back.

  ‘We’re off the track, child,’ she said. ‘Those old quarries marked on the opposite side of the river are much more to our purpose.’

  ‘What about the limestone boulder pits?’ asked Laura, pointing to the map.

  ‘Rather close to those large houses, don’t you think? How deep are the pits? Have you seen them?’

  ‘Yes. Pretty deep. Steep-sided, too. But that wouldn’t worry Cornflake. She’s quite the mountaineer, I should think, Warden, and she could tumble the corpse down. She wouldn’t need to carry it.’

  The limestone boulder pits were about a mile and a quarter from the College and about two from where the trio were standing. The footpaths were miry, but were so much the best and quickest way that, without hesitation, Mrs Bradley led the way by one which ran in a straight line to the railway, across by a footbridge and beyond to woods and the canal.

  ‘Keep to the towing path here for a bit,’ said Laura, ‘and cross by the swing bridge. Then we shall have to follow the main road, and cross the river just below the weir.’

  Once they had crossed the river, another footpath led by the flank of a wood, across parkland and then through trees to a round, wooded hill. On the south side of the hill lay the pits they sought, but exploration of them proved to be vain. Except for the limestone from which they took their name, they were bare and empty, and a further consultation of the map caused Mrs Bradley to decide upon some old quarries further west, beside a lane which crossed arable fields.

  ‘Only the one farm near,’ said Laura, when her opinion of the objective was canvassed, ‘and a little stream to wash in if she got herself mucked up during the surgical operations. I shouldn’t be surprised if we’ve hit on the right place, Warden. What say you, Kitty, old thing?’

  ‘Nothing,’ replied Kitty.

  ‘Right. Keep your eyes skinned for enemy snipers, then, whilst Mrs Croc. and I do our bloodhound act,’ said Laura under her breath. ‘If you see the whites of old Cornflake’s eyes, don’t let her shoot first. Got it?’

  ‘All right, as long as I don’t have to look at corpses or anything,’ agreed Kitty. The walk this time was a very charming one and completely rural. A very narrow footpath from the pits crossed a lane by two stiles, and then joined a wider path which crossed two fields of pasture. It then entered a wood and became a broad woodland ride for about a quarter of a mile before branching in four or five different directions.

  Guided by the map, the party selected the most south-westerly of these divergent tracks, and came up upon a narrow road, which led to the solitary farm-house. They crossed the road, still kept within the confines of the wood, and so came upon the quarry.

  ‘Of course, there are these two quarries, as well,’ said Laura, pointing them out on the map, ‘but they are nearer the village and further away from the stream. I
should think she’d have to wash herself, shouldn’t you?’

  ‘If she did what I think she did, she’d need water for another purpose,’ responded Mrs Bradley. ‘Mind how you come. The bank seems a bit crumbly.’

  ‘You’d better stay, at the top and keep cave, Kitty,’ said Laura. ‘Unless we both do. What do you say, Warden?’

  ‘Please yourselves, child. This is the right place, anyhow, I think.’

  The remains of the bonfire were immense. Not only that, but the fact that the fire had been made up on a carefully-built hearth of bricks indicated no casual wayfaring but somebody with a set purpose who had imported into the quarry the means for resolving that purpose into action.

  Mrs Bradley sketched and scribbled, took out a lens and made a detailed inspection of the hearth, and then sent the students back to College, for it was ten minutes to four, and she was afraid they would miss their tea. Reluctant but obedient, off went Laura. Kitty showed more alacrity. Mrs Bradley, left alone, explored the quarry indefatigably for footprints, and for traces of ingress and egress. The crumbling banks assisting her, she discovered, besides the traces left by herself and the two girls, tracks in several places, but these might have been made at any time and by anybody, for the frequent winter rains had washed out all individuality, and no actual footprints could be detected. She did, however, mark on her sketches the new landslide which marked that part of the bank which she and the students had used. Then she scrambled up it again and went off to the farm to ask permission to use the telephone.

  She had other inquiries to make.

  ‘Where,’ she asked, ‘was it possible to purchase bricks like those she had found in the quarry?’

  The answer to this question was a broad stare from the woman who had answered the door, and a request to wait a minute.

  Standing in the stone-flagged hall beside the grandfather clock, Mrs Bradley waited. In less than two minutes the woman came back, accompanied by a boy of about fifteen.

  ‘Tell the lady about Mr Tegg’s bricks,’ said the woman. ‘Her wants to know where to buy some like those her’ve seen in the quarry.’