‘Oh, I have not lied to you, indeed,’ he said very quickly. ‘It’s the truth I’ve been telling you, now.’
‘Yes, I believe you have,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘And, even if you haven’t, I’m grateful to you. Remember me to Mr. Grandall.’ She looked compassionately upon the sleeping man.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dorcas
*
‘Torch-bearer, if thou canst not fire two hearts with equal flame, either quench or shift the fire that burns in one.’
Rufinus—translated by Shane Leslie
*
‘YOU LOOK RATHER pleased,’ said Tom Donagh, meeting Mrs. Bradley for lunch at her expense.
‘I am pleased,’ Mrs. Bradley replied. ‘A great light has been shed upon this case.’
‘Which case?—We have two, you know.’
‘I have not overlooked that point, child. I refer to the case at Wetwode.’
‘Well, if you’ve got any further, the police haven’t. I’ve scanned the papers until I’m pie-eyed.’
‘They may not enjoy the full confidence of the police, child.’
‘Who gave you the new dope, anyway?’
‘Mr. Gareth Tavis, the coarse fisherman.’
‘Is he? I thought Welsh public opinion was dead against all crudeness! Sorry! No, what did he say?’
Mrs. Bradley told him. Tom whistled.
‘I don’t know why we didn’t think of girls,’ he said.
‘I did,’ Mrs. Bradley placidly responded, ‘but I wanted someone else to mention them.’
‘I’ve never questioned Derek, either, about girls.’
‘One can’t. It is a subject that crops up if it is going to be mentioned at all.’
‘And yet,’ said Tom, pursuing his own line of thought, ‘one had girls oneself. Why should one not assume that one’s pupils, so to speak, have them?’
‘These suppositions so often complicate life. No schoolmaster worthy the name associates such matters with his charges.’
‘No, I suppose you’re right. It would make things rather awkward. Mens sana in corpore sano doesn’t include the obvious. What did friend Tavis have to say?’
‘Merely that Miss Higgs told him two years ago that Francis was becoming too much for her and that he supposed she was referring to the village girls.’
‘Aha! Francis would be much more likely than Derek to toddle along that way. Sir Adrian keeps a wary eye on his grandson. Derek doesn’t get much freedom when one comes to think of it.’
‘One so seldom comes to think of anything.’
‘One thinks,’ said Tom shrewdly, ‘that this entrancing conversation has now come to a full stop. Am I right? Road closed until preliminary survey has been made?’
‘Quite right. I must tackle the village gossips as I cannot yet come at poor Miss Higgs.’
‘How do you propose to begin?’
‘By engaging a housekeeper, child.’
‘One of the village girls’ mums?’
‘You show an intelligence far beyond your years.’ Tom grinned. She leered affectionately at him. ‘And to obtain the services to which I refer, I shall go first to my old school-friend Cissie Cra … Mabel Parkinson.’
‘I didn’t know you’d got an old school-friend living in those parts. I thought you said you hung out in Hampshire, same like Sir Adrian at Mede.’
‘To achieve even the most modest degree of success, child, it is essential to have old school-friends everywhere.’
‘Yours must be different from mine, then. All mine seem good for is to touch me for a drink, or even, in extreme cases, for cash.’
They parted amicably, and Mrs. Bradley drove to her friend’s house. Mabel Parkinson was at home. She was engaged in the pastime of studying palmistry. A couple of books were open on the table, and she was concentrating upon pressing her right hand (covered with some powdery black substance) upon a virgin sheet of paper. Mrs. Bradley, fearful of interrupting a rite, waited patiently at the open French windows until, with a sigh of satisfaction, the practitioner surveyed the result of her handiwork.
‘Good-day, dear Mabel,’ said Mrs. Bradley in a voice which would scarcely have startled a fawn. Mabel Parkinson looked up.
‘Oh, it’s you, Beatrice. Do come in. Don’t most people call you Adela these days?’
‘Yes. Helen Simpson began it, since when I have decidedly preferred it. Now, Mabel, I want some domestic help in my bungalow, and I thought you might know of somebody suitable.’
‘Oh, dear! It isn’t very easy in these days, you know. Besides, they all want such an enormous amount of money, besides cups of tea at all hours, in which they put at least half one’s sugar ration as well.’
‘These are difficulties which must be faced. I am no longer at leisure to do my own tidying-up. I am sure you know of somebody who would come.’
‘The only person I know of wouldn’t suit you.’
‘Indeed? Why not?’
‘She and her daughter were caught red-handed.’
‘Shop-lifting?’
‘Yes. In Norwich. It was not their first offence. They let the girl off, as she was only fourteen and was judged to be under the mother’s influence, but the woman was given a prison sentence.’
‘What did the girl do while the mother was away?’
Mabel Parkinson (not at all a bad sort, Mrs. Bradley had long ago decided) looked down at the black fingerprints and palm-print which had come out with remarkable detail upon the specially-prepared paper. When she looked up her eyes were troubled.
‘The girl looked after the younger children. There isn’t a father. She got into mischief, I’m afraid. The usual trouble … boys. No supervision, you see, except what the vicar could manage, and, being a man and a bachelor, he was at a sad disadvantage. I tried my hand once, but met with nothing but abuse and impudence. You know what these people are like nowadays.’
‘I do indeed. Well, Mabel, your Mrs….’
‘Sludger.’
‘Sludger appears to be just the person I want. What is her temperament? Shop-lifters are seldom taciturn. Can she be trusted to gossip freely while she sits down to her elevenses and so forth? Is she the type to muck-rake the village whilst she drops the household china at the sink? Will she pause during the shaking of rugs to vilify her neighbours and friends?’
Mabel Parkinson’s face had cleared.
‘You’re looking for some information to help you in this dreadful murder case,’ she said with relief. ‘You don’t really want a charwoman. Well, Norfolk people don’t gossip much, as a rule, but the Sludgers don’t come from Norfolk. I don’t know where they do come from, but Mrs. Sludger isn’t popular in the village, so, if it’s scandal you’re asking for, you won’t go very far wrong if you engage her. But for goodness sake don’t say I didn’t warn you of what she is like. And now, do let me read your hand. I’m just learning how to do it, and I want to see as many different hands as I can. You don’t mind if I black it all over? The black comes off quite well afterwards.’
Mrs. Sludger lived in a small, dirty cottage, in the bare-earth garden of which she kept hens. She opened a door which might have led into a sewer, judging by the odour which assaulted Mrs. Bradley’s aristocratic nose, and looked at her visitor suspiciously.
‘I don’t want no tracks and I don’t want no districk visitors,’ she said.
‘I possess no tracts except one which puts forward some powerful arguments in favour of the sterilization of the mentally unsound and which I do not happen to have with me, and I am not a district visitor but a prospective employer.’
‘Employer?’
‘Yes. I want somebody to keep my bungalow clean and tidy.’
‘Clean?’
‘Yes.’
‘And tidy?’
‘Yes.’
‘ ’Ow much you offering?’
‘What are the local rates?’
‘Rates?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean, what do ladies pay around
’ere?’
‘Exactly. What do ladies pay around here?’
‘Well …’ She broke off and put her head back inside the malodourous door. ‘ ’Ere, Efful! Come ’ere! I warnt yer!’
A clean, well-dressed, pretty girl of about sixteen appeared.
‘Well, mum?’
‘ ’Ere’s a lady wants me to go out and oblige. What did you say Mrs. Up the Road pays that Mrs. Reepham?’
‘Two and threepence, mum.’
‘ ’Ow many hours?’ the woman demanded, turning again to Mrs. Bradley.
‘Two hours every morning from ten o’clock until twelve, no Saturdays.’
‘What you fink, Efful?’
‘Please yourself, mum.’
‘All right,’ said the woman, smiling genially. ‘If it don’t suit me I can always turn it in. When shall I start? Termorrer?’
‘Certainly. I shall expect you at ten, then.’
‘Righty-oh. Ta-ta, and ta for the orfer. Oh, you won’t warnt no cookin’ done, I don’t suppose?’
‘No cooking.’
‘O.K. then. See you termorrer. Efful, you better put my overall froo the wash.’
To Mrs. Bradley’s surprise she turned up to time the next morning. This fact was not destined for repetition, but Mrs. Bradley found that the experiment of engaging her was successful. True, she complained, at half-hourly intervals, of her palpitations, which, apparently, only a nice cup of tea and a snack could reduce to law and order, but she was a well-informed and unmalicious gossip, and Mrs. Bradley soon learned all that there was to know about the village.
Curiously enough, Mrs. Sludger was sufficiently detached and fair-minded not to resent the attitude of the village towards herself.
‘Mind you, I don’t reely fink they need ’ave put me inside for nickin’ a couple o’ blouses,’ she observed, ‘but the magistrate, ’e said as ’ow an example got to be made because too much of it seemed to be goin’ on. Mind you, there’s Mrs. I-Could-Tell-You-Oo but no names no pack-drill, goes to every jumble sale for ten mile or more around ’ere, and what she don’t know about knockin’ the stuff orf the tables accidental-like and ’elping to pick it up, ain’t nobody’s business. Still, I’m not complainin’! It made a bit of a change, like, and I got shut of the kids, although what Efful got up to, I shouldn’t wonder if she did.’
Mrs. Bradley pricked up her ears, but continued her task of sorting out and throwing away correspondence with undiminished zeal.
‘A very nice girl, Ethel,’ she observed. ‘She appears to be both pretty and intelligent, a combination of qualities sufficiently rare to be remarkable.’
‘You know,’ said Mrs. Sludger, peering under the bookcase to find out whether, perhaps, that part of the floor could be left untouched that day, ‘I must say, if you’ll excuse me, I does like the way you talks. All them long words, and I suppose you knows what you means. I orfen says to Efful, when I goes ’ome of a morning, that it’s as good as learnin’ a forring langwidge to ’ear what you got to say when you got the Micky in yer.’
Mrs. Bradley, unaware until this moment of harbouring the Micky, steered the conversation deftly back upon the rails.
‘Ethel, I suppose, learnt French at school.’
‘French? Efful learn French? I should soon ’ave gorn up and give them teachers a bit of my mind if she ’ad. Waste enough time at school as it was, so she did. Fair ’ated it. Keepin’ ’em on till fifteen! Did you ever ’ear of anythink so daft? When they might be out earnin’ good money!’
‘And is she earning good money now?’
‘Well, it’s me palpitations, you see. I ’ave to ’ave ’elp; I can’t ’elp it.’
‘But I suppose she gets plenty of fun. Young girls need fun, I always think.’
‘Fun? Well, I dunno about that. She’s kind of broody, Efful is. “If you was an ’en, I’d know what to do wiv yer,” I says, “but being as ’ow you ain’t an ’en, Gawd ’elp yer, ’e probally won’t,” I says. It’s all on account of young Mr. Caux, you know, dear.’
She abandoned her devices and sat back on her heels.
‘Young Mr. Caux? Oh, really?’ said Mrs. Bradley, feeling sure that the desired information was now about to emerge. ‘Rather a handsome young man. A pity he has such an affliction.’
‘Oh, well, if ’e ’adn’t, I doubt if ’e’d ever ’ave looked at Efful,’ said Mrs. Sludger with her usual staggering matter-of-factness. ‘But it’s after ’im Efful goes broody, though I’ve told ’er of it orfen enough. “It isn’t no good you a-frettin’ yourself about ’im, Efful,” I says. “After all, ’e’s a gent, ’owever peculiar ’e may be, pore boy. And ’e is deaf and dumb!” But she ain’t ’avin’ nothink o’ that. “Sometimes ’e is, and sometimes ’e ain’t,” she says. I didn’t like the sound o’ that, and so I can tell you, dear. “You just be’ave yourself,” I says. “I know that sort o’ talk. Goin’s-on never did no gal no good yet, and I’m the livin’ example.” You see, dear, Efful might ’ave ’ad a farver but for me, so I ’aves to keep me eye on ’er, and ’ave done, ever since twelve. But when I was in for that there free munce, well, you never can tell, but I don’t think no ’arm, as nothing ’appened.’
More than ever did Mrs. Bradley look forward to the time when Miss Higgs could be asked some leading questions. There was one thing in particular that she badly wanted to know. It was the result of a wild surmise on her part. Her mind had pounced on it during Mrs. Sludger’s oration. It seemed in the last degree unlikely that it would be answered in the affirmative, and yet it was such an attractive question that she sincerely hoped for an encouraging reply.
‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘whether you would have any objection to my asking Ethel one question about young Mr. Caux?’
‘She won’t answer yer, I daresay, and I don’t know ’ow to make ’er. I never ’ave lifted my ’and to any of ’em except it might be to give young Bert a clip be’ind the ear’ole, and …’
‘I don’t think Ethel will object to this particular question, Mrs. Sludger. I have no intention of hurting her feelings or of raising any moral or sociological issues.’
‘I could listen to yer all day, dear,’ said Mrs. Sludger admiringly. ‘Only,’ she added virtuously, ‘I got me work to do.’
She peered inside the teapot, picked up the kettle and shook it, received no encouragement from either receptacle, so, sighing, picked up a pail and stood it, with a resigned little clanking, in the sink.
Mrs. Bradley managed a word with Ethel in her own home while her mother was semi-occupied at the bungalow. She liked Ethel, and came to the point at once.
‘Ethel,’ she said, ‘take me out to look at your chickens. There is something I want to talk to you about.’
‘If mum’s half-inched anything I’m sorry, but you did know about her before you took her on,’ said Ethel defensively.
‘It’s nothing to do with your mother at all. It’s just something I want to know. I’m going to ask three people the same question. You are the first. If you answer me truthfully it will help me very much. If you tell me a lie it will hinder me, but, of course, only for a comparatively short time. If you refuse to answer, well, it is your business and I shan’t press you. Fair enough?’
‘Fair enough,’ said Ethel. She rinsed her hands under the scullery tap, dried them on her handkerchief—the roller towel hanging behind the back door had seen better days in more respects than one—and led the way into the yard.
‘You used to be friendly with Mr. Francis Caux.’
‘Mum told you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nobody else?’
‘Nobody else, so far.’
‘No harm in it. We never done anything wrong.’
‘Of course not. Why should you? But, Ethel, while you were friendly with him, did you ever suspect that he might be two people?’
‘Frankie Caux? Two people?’
‘Yes. Was he always …. Frankie Caux?’
Ethel’s lovely eyes widened.
She looked distressed.
‘Oh, but … Oh, but …’
‘Never mind,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘I won’t worry you about it.’ To her intense interest and gratification, the girl’s answer could scarcely be construed as a negative one. She left Ethel to think things over. She did not underrate the girl’s intelligence. She expected a voluntary statement from Ethel, and that at a very early date.
She tried the question next on Sir Adrian, whom she encountered exercising his charges on the road to Salhouse. The boys, who were dressed more or less alike in tweed jackets and flannel trousers, strolled on ahead. Mrs. Bradley walked very slowly indeed to make certain that Derek was out of earshot, and then said:
‘How are the twins getting on?’
‘Famously. Francis doesn’t utter a lot, of course, but he makes do, and his lip-reading seems very much improved,’ said Sir Adrian impressively.
‘Extraordinary, isn’t it?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, here is this unfortunate youth rendered pathologically deaf and dumb as the result of a shock received in early childhood. He receives another shock when he discovers a dead body pinned to the bottom of a dinghy, but this, apparently, affects him comparatively slightly. I mean, I know he endangered Miss Higgs’ life by calling her attention to the fact that the river held horrors, but he himself seemed physically unchanged. Then comes this third shock, the shock of meeting the twin brother from whom he has been parted for ten years. He recovers to some extent the lost powers of speech. Lip-reading, which, for some reason, he has never mastered, comes to him just as easily.’
‘Yes? Could be like that, couldn’t it?’
‘I am not saying that it could not. We know very little indeed, even now, about the workings of the subconscious mind. I will, however, go as far as to say that I have never known it to happen quite like that.’
‘He only talks little-kid talk, if you know what I mean. It’s as though he’s picked up again where he left off at seven,’ said Sir Adrian, defensively.
‘Yes?’
‘What’s on your mind?’ asked the baronet, glancing at her beaky little mouth. ‘You’re doubtful about something. “Bubbled and troubled” as the poet Gay has it. Unburden yourself. What bites you?’
The Echoing Strangers (Mrs Bradley) Page 12
