Brazen Tongue (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “One thing I don’t understand,” said Ferdinand. “When Burt discovered that he had killed the wrong girl, why didn’t he have another go at Pat?”

  “Perhaps he was afraid, but I am inclined to think that Burt, who really does not lack intelligence and has led me quite a dance, all things considered, came to the conclusion when he read those articles in the paper, that Pat’s interests were identical with his own—that it was paying her, in fact, to keep her knowledge secret.”

  “And Pat, of course, had no such knowledge, really. Rather ironical, when one comes to think that poor Lillie Fletcher was murdered because of this supposed but nonexistent knowledge. But how did you know that the murder took place at the gate and not on the rockery, Mother?”

  “By the position of the body. It had been laid there. Nobody could have fallen in the attitude in which Lillie Fletcher was found. I put the point to your friend Mr. Arthur, who saw the body in position, and he agreed with me. Burt thought that the rain that night would wash away all traces of the deed from the place where it was committed, and, of course, it did.

  “The most significant point, however, and the one which made me certain that Lillie was not the intended victim, was the fact that she did not expect to be on duty that night. When I heard that it clinched matters.”

  “So that any girl might have been murdered who stepped across the courtyard that night?”

  “If she was about Pat’s height. But why should anybody leave the Report Centre by those gates? It was a most unlikely thing. It could only have been Pat or Lillie.”

  “Yet he must have had some sort of light.”

  “He may have flashed a torch on her, but, remember, there is no reason to suppose that he knew Lillie Fletcher by sight. He was expecting Pat, and on that expectation he struck the tall girl who appeared.”

  “Yes, I see. Well, never mind Burt for the moment. He’s safely jugged. But what are you doing about Pat?”

  “Nothing, child. I have given the inspector the facts. He can arrest her if he likes, but I don’t see how anything can be proved against her, unless you can trace the arsenic to her. Besides. She didn’t mean to kill him.”

  “No, I suppose not. No. Melchior or Elvira Blackburn would be the only safe bet for a conviction.”

  “Or Mrs. Commy-Platt,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  “Mrs. Commy-Platt?”

  “She had proposed to Councillor Smith that they should marry, and he had refused to entertain the notion. Although, she now declares he had changed his mind she couldn’t prove it. Any capable prosecutor ought to be able to make the jury remember that there is no fury like a woman scorned!”

  “But, Mother, don’t you think it’s much more likely it was Mrs. Commy-Platt? And she had exactly the same opportunity as Pat. They were there together at the ‘Rat and Cow-catcher.’”

  “Then who stood the body in the doorway? Who followed me to the meeting of the Sons of God Macedonian? Why was Pat late at the Report Centre?”

  “But, Mother, surely, if Pat had wanted to poison somebody just for publicity purposes, she wouldn’t have chosen Smith? What about Mrs. Platt herself?”

  “Pat wanted to use the arsenic she had taken from Mr. Fletcher’s shed. She had to find a vehicle for it. Stout was better than port. I think perhaps Mrs. Platt’s glass of port may have saved her. But, child, there’s proof against Pat of the most extraordinary kind.”

  “Do I know it?”

  “Well, you should do. Do you remember, when Sally gave us her detailed account of all that had happened at the Report Centre she mentioned that Pat had suggested they should cover up the traces of Lillie Fletcher’s vomit with sand?”

  “Yes. Oh, of course, yes, I see. I suppose Lillie Fletcher hadn’t been sick at all. It was all a fabrication on Pat’s part. But why should she try to draw attention to arsenic which wasn’t there? I can’t see any point in it.”

  “Neither could I, at first. But do you also remember that Sally told us she missed Pat for a minute or two, and that Pat blamed the black-out for their having lost track of one another?”

  “Yes, I remember that, too. But, Mother, I thought that vomit was analysed, and that it did return arsenic, although not in a fatal dose. Oh, but, of course! The autopsy!”

  “Yes, that’s my proof against Pat. It was Councillor Smith who was sick in the Town Hall yard, not Lillie Fletcher. Lillie had taken no arsenic.”

  “By Jove, you’ve hit it, Mother! And she wanted to cover her track! Why on earth didn’t she do it without help, though? Why broadcast what she was doing?”

  “Safer. Very much safer. She knew that nothing could be traced to her from Lillie Fletcher. Besides, she had not read Burt’s anonymous note (he seems good at notes, by the way; he trapped Tom Talby; remember?) and so her feeling of guilt so far as the Report Centre was concerned, was connected with Smith, whom she had led there earlier. She was terrified, however, when Councillor Smith died in the yard there. She wanted to cover up the fact that he had been present there lest suspicion be aroused and an enquiry started whose course she could not foretell.”

  “Do you think that Stallard will arrest her?”

  “I don’t know, child. She’s not likely, now her ambitions are realised, to play such a dangerous trick again, and there’s poetic justice in Smith’s death, since he was chairman of the Committee which refused her a grant for her college course, you know.”

  “You are saying that Smith arranged his own murder by that bit of cheeseparing, Mother, and that the girl had a motive for killing him? It seems to me, you’re building a pretty case against her.”

  “A house of cards,” said Mrs. Bradley, “and it would collapse at one good deep breath blown at it by a defending counsel. You yourself, if you were appearing for the girl, would demolish it in an instant. You know, you would.”

  “Ah, yes, but I shouldn’t be called. I wouldn’t defend in a case where I believed the prisoner to be guilty.”

  “There’s a good boy,” said his mother, grinning.

  “Well, I wouldn’t have your moral sense,” retorted Ferdinand, taking her arm to lead her into the house as Lady Selina, tin-hatted, appeared on the terrace.

  “Well, well, all war-time morals are probably very strange things,” said Mrs. Bradley. “And the morals of people like Mrs. Platt and Councillor Smith are probably stranger than mine.”

  “But, Mother, you can’t behave like God and decide that Burt shall be arrested and Pat get off scot-free.”

  “How do you know how God behaves?” asked his mother.

  About the Author

  Gladys Mitchell was born in the village of Cowley, Oxford, in April 1901. She was educated at the Rothschild School in Brentford, the Green School in Isleworth, and at Goldsmiths and University Colleges in London. For many years Miss Mitchell taught history and English, swimming, and games. She retired from this work in 1950 but became so bored without the constant stimulus and irritation of teaching that she accepted a post at the Matthew Arnold School in Staines, where she taught English and history, wrote the annual school play, and coached hurdling. She was a member of the Detection Club, the PEN, the Middlesex Education Society, and the British Olympic Association. Her father’s family are Scots, and a Scottish influence has appeared in some of her books.