Tom Brown's Body

by Gladys Mitchell

  'Still, we've got Pearson all right,' said Gavin with great satisfaction. 'Moreover, he's confessed to knocking Mrs Poundbury on the head. He wrote a note to her, but deliberately put Mr instead of Mrs, warning her that her assignation with Conway was no secret. There was no such assignation, of course, for the night of the murder, but Poundbury naturaily saw red and went chasing after the fellow. Mrs Poundbury thought for a long time that he was guilty of the murder. Bennett Kay, of course, was down at old Mother Harries's, learning more of her charms and spells, so that he was under suspicion too, and old Loveday's bicycle was actually borrowed by Poundbury to get to the town where, according to the note, his wife's meeting with Conway was to be. Kay heard the bicycle go by before he set out for Mrs Harries's cottage.

  'When Pearson heard from little Ingpen – his nephew, you remember – that the note had been found, he guessed which note it was and was afraid it might incriminate him in some way. He was determined to get it back if he could, although he expresses great contrition that he had to hurt Mrs Poundbury. What he refuses to tell us is exactly what his motive was in killing Conway.'

  'Oh, I can tell you that, I think,' said Mrs Bradley. 'The champagne party in the Common Room seems to have startled and upset Mr Conway. I think there is not much doubt that matters had gone so far at Mrs Harries's cottage between Marion Pearson and her lover that Mr Pearson, far from continuing his opposition to the match, was only too anxious that it should take place. When Conway told him after the champagne party that he was not going to marry Marion, the father's self-restraint failed, and he put into practice the detailed plans for Conway's murder which he had had in his head for some time. Miss Loveday's well-intentioned efforts in getting her boys to return to him the incriminating evidence of the stones which had weighted the body failed in its object, but that was hardly her fault.'

  'How did you get on to that?'

  'I thought it jumped to the eye. What more convenient way could Miss Loveday find to disguise the two pieces from the rockery? I think it was a brilliant idea. Had she or her brother been guilty, she would have returned them before.'

  'I think you have a criminal mind,' said Gavin. 'You had better use it to help me tidy up the loose ends of this beastly case. It's a funny thing, you know, but a bloke like your son, Sir Ferdinand, would have been able to get Pearson off if the fellow had left the body in the pond and sworn that he'd only knocked Conway out and the drowning was accidental. It was trying to incriminate the Lovedays that did for him. I suppose he didn't allow for Mr Loveday's panic and indignation at finding a body in his precious Roman Bath. Pearson, of course, had cut himself a key to the Bath. It was an easy thing for a woodwork and metalwork craftsman to do. He says he ran the body by car up that lane at the other side of the Bath beyond the boundary fence. Queer coincidence that the Lovedays should have visited the Bath a second time that night.'

  23. Aroint Thee, Witch

  *

  I was always very curious in my Liquors.

  IBID. (Act 3, Scene 6)

  'SO we part,' said old Mrs Harries, motioning Mrs Bradley to a seat by the fire. 'But before you go –'

  'Before I go, I would like to know why you told me that lie about the beautiful woman with the golden voice,' said Mrs Bradley.

  The crone chuckled.

  'That was no lie,' she averred. 'I was wrong to let you think she had come with him to this house, but I was not wrong in coupling them. They had enjoyed themselves together. I knew that when you brought her here.'

  Mrs Poundbury's connexion with Lecky Harries having been disposed of, the two old women sat still, each intent upon her thoughts.

  'You are putting ideas into my head,' complained Mrs Harries at last. 'You want your book. I see that you mean to have it before you go.'

  'No, no,' Mrs Bradley replied. 'I have spent time enough on the book. I would like to make you a present, that is all. You may perhaps remember me by it when I am gone.'

  She put into the earthy old palm which came, gipsy-fashion, towards her, a witch-ball. The witch studied it gravely, as though she could see. She then looked at it more closely. Her lips drew back from her gums and her mouth opened with a long dribble of saliva. This dropped on to the witch-ball. Mrs Bradley leaned forward, half-anticipating what was to follow.

  There in the witch-ball was Mr Pearson's garden with the pool and the rockery, and there was Mr Pearson himself crouching at the edge of the pool and holding under the water the head of an unconscious man.

  With an effort Mrs Bradley dragged her eyes from the ball. When she looked at it again, the horrid scene had vanished and the dribble of spittle was trickling on to the edge of the crone's brown hand.

  'And now,' said Mrs Bradley, 'it's my turn.' She leaned forward and spat accurately and neatly on to the crystal ball.

  The witch started up, and put her free hand before her sightless eyes.

  'No! No!' she cried, in the trembling tones of an old and frightened woman. 'Not that! Not that! Take it away! Take the water away! Oh, I drown! I drown!'

  Mrs Bradley took out a spotless handkerchief and wiped the crystal clean. She tossed the handkerchief into the fire.

  'There you are, then,' she said. 'But I want you to make a contract with me. I am a student of mental phenomena, and your mind interests me. I want to experiment with it. What do you say?'

  To her delight, the witch agreed. It was with regret that she rose to leave Mrs Harries, but their future, she thought, held possibilities and had considerable interest.

  'And now,' said Mrs Harries, when her guest reached the door, 'you will do as I told you before. In my front parlour you must put your hand well up the chimney, but beware lest you get burnt – I wish you no particular harm.'

  Mrs Bradley, half-sure of what was in store for her, did as she was requested. She stretched as far up the old chimney as she could, and her fingers touched sacking. At the same instant she felt as though she was touching red-hot iron. She was sufficiently prepared for this to grasp the sacking firmly without withdrawing her hand or flinching from the pain of the burn.

  She drew out the book of which she had been in search. She knew what it was the moment she saw it. Her hand, of course, was not burnt, and nor were the precious volume or its sacking cover. She went back into the kitchen. Mrs Harries's old face was wrinkled with the mirth of Satan.

  'It is yours. You have won it fairly,' she said. 'These eyes will never read another word of it. I always meant you to have it. It would bring me no luck to sell it to you, either. You shall inherit it from me, for, saving yourself, I have neither kith nor kin upon the earth.'

  'I will come again to-morrow,' said Mrs Bradley. She went out, bearing the magic book of her ancestress, Mary Toadflax. She stepped carefully aside to avoid Paddock, her hostess's familiar, as he squatted in the very centre of the narrow garden path. As she opened the garden gate, a small hedgehog remained motionless. Then it lifted its tiny snout and whined three times.

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