The Echoing Strangers (Mrs Bradley)

by Mitchell, Gladys

  ‘A question I want to put to you. How well would you say you know Derek?’

  ‘Oh, not well, of course. He’s a strange boy. Why?’

  ‘Have you ever thought he was Francis?’

  ‘Francis?’ Sir Adrian looked astounded. ‘Oh, no, I never confuse them. Besides, Francis has a much healthier appetite than Derek! He’s quite a good trencherman, whereas Derek is finicky and, as often as not, eats almost nothing.’

  ‘No, a healthy appetite is a difficult thing to disguise,’ Mrs. Bradley agreed. ‘Even more difficult, though, is the task of eating food which one does not want. To force children to eat when they are not in the mood for eating, or to make them eat things for which they have no taste, has always seemed to me very cruel.’

  She walked on and caught up with the boys. Sir Adrian lingered behind.

  ‘And how is Sir Adrian?’ Mrs. Bradley enquired. Derek turned, his beautiful face filled with pleasure.

  ‘Oh, how very kind of you to ask after Grand!’ he said. ‘Isn’t it kind of Mrs. Bradley, Francis?’ Francis, who was looking over a gate, made no response until Derek took him gently by the arm and caused him to turn round. Then he repeated the question. His brother smiled. His luminous eyes widened.

  ‘Very kind,’ he said throatily. ‘Very kind to ask about Grand.’ Then he turned and looked over the gate again.

  ‘And you won’t get much more,’ said Sir Adrian, joining them. Derek laughed.

  ‘He makes wonderful progress,’ he said, ‘but there’s a long way to go yet, a very long way, isn’t there, Grand, dear? You ought to know, if anyone does.’

  And Derek, with his talent for an irritating by-play of public demonstrations of affection, put his arm round his brother’s waist and rested his head on his brother’s shoulder. Sir Adrian gazed sentimentally at them. Mrs. Bradley did not know the word Punk. If she had, she would probably have used it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Castor and Pollux

  *

  ‘Of all the delusions with which he deceives mortality, there is not any that puzzleth me more than the Legerdemain of Changelings

  Sir Thomas Browne: Religio Medici

  *

  SIR ADRIAN, WHO, after their last meeting seemed inclined to ignore the fact that Mrs. Bradley was his nearest neighbour, suddenly confided to her one morning that Scotland Yard had been called in on both the Mede and the Wetwode murders.

  He was seated in a deck-chair on his riverside lawn. She was correcting the proofs of an article for the journal Psychopathology, and had a small table placed almost in line with his chair but on the opposite side of the little staithe which ran between the two small properties.

  ‘Really?’ she said. ‘I wondered how long it would be.’

  ‘Wrote to the Assistant Commissioner myself,’ said Sir Adrian proudly. ‘Told him it was time to do away with all the damned nonsense and get down to brass tacks.’

  ‘I don’t blame you. Are Scotland Yard sending a detective-inspector down here, then? I haven’t seen one yet.’

  ‘Ah, that’s where the Yard excel, you know. He’ll make his way down here and put up at the pub and pretend to be a fisherman. Then, when he’s got us all weighed up, he’ll take off his sheep’s clothing and begin putting us all through our paces, but not before he’s pretty sure of himself. You’ll see.’

  Mrs. Bradley, who had worked with several detective-inspectors from Scotland Yard, and who was consulting psychiatrist to the Home Office, grinned like an alligator and said that she supposed so. She then asked after Miss Higgs.

  ‘Oh, Francis wants to go and see her in hospital. Morbid. Boy always was morbid. Can’t be helped, of course, although Derry’s company does him a world of good. I’ve been rather remiss there, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Do you find any difficulty in distinguishing him from his brother, now that they are together again and are so much alike to look at?’

  ‘Of course not! I couldn’t mistake Derry for poor Frankie. Mind you, I shall be very glad when Higgs can take her job on again. Want to have Derry to myself. Want to get back to Mede. Want to get back to cricket and a quiet life. Still, shall arrange for them to meet, and all that. Been rather remiss. Yes, yes. Been rather remiss. Still, done what I can to make amends. Can’t have Frankie tagging on until Doomsday. Too much to expect, what?’

  ‘And Derek? Will he agree to having Francis go back to Miss Higgs?’

  Sir Adrian moodily ground a daisy root into the lawn with the heel of a heavy shoe.

  ‘I can’t make the lad out,’ he said, in something between a groan and a growl. ‘Dashed if I can. All he seems to want is to be arm-round-neck with his brother, and they’re out together all day long.’

  ‘Natural, at their age, surely?’

  ‘Yes, if they’d been brought up together, perhaps, but they haven’t set eyes on one another for ten years, and now it’s “Derry” and “Frankie” and cheek by jowl and David and Jonathan all the blessed day. I don’t get a look in anywhere, and Derry and I were such pals. Besides, I don’t like it. It isn’t good for Derry. It isn’t healthy. What’s that thing Shakespeare wrote? You know the one I mean. Well, it’s more like that than anything else I can think of.’

  Mrs. Bradley could think of quite a number of things written by Shakespeare which might conceivably be appropriate to the situation described by Sir Adrian, but she fancied that he would be unlikely to know any of them. She murmured, in her beautiful voice, ‘Ah, well … “youth’s a stuff will not endure,” you know.’

  ‘That’s it. Had it on the tip of my tongue but can never spit these things out until somebody gives me the cue. That’s it, exactly. “Journeys end in lovers’ meeting.” That’s the line I wanted. It’s like that, you know … or like two silly girls together. Giggling and laughing and plotting in corners … it’s giving me the fidgets.’

  He humped himself round in his chair, picked up the book he had been reading, and ignored Mrs. Bradley for the rest of the time she was there. She studied him covertly and thoughtfully. There was an incongruity here, she decided. Even when allowance had been made for an old man’s jealousy, his remarks about Francis did not ring true, particularly those in which he affected to feel sorry for the boy. He was not sorry for him; he hated him; and behind the sycophantic expressions of remorse, there was fear.

  She finished correcting her proofs and then untied the canoe and paddled upstream and under the bridge to the hotel. Here she tied up, walked ashore up the boathouse steps and went into the hotel for a mid-morning glass of sherry. Her immediate interest was not so much her elevenses … although the hotel sherry was good … as that, having paid for a drink, she felt at liberty to use the hotel telephone which was situated in the small alcove at the foot of the stairs and had the great advantage of being absolutely private so long as nobody else was in the hall. She rang up the Assistant Commissioner at New Scotland Yard, and after the minimum of delay was connected. She asked whom he was sending to Norfolk to investigate the murders at Mede and Wetwode.

  ‘I suppose you’d like Gavin,’ said the Assistant Commissioner, ‘and you can have him. He’s been looking into that Goodwood affair, but it’s about to break very nicely, so you can have him, because it’s all over bar the shouting down there. You might get Mede and Wetwode settled as soon as ever you can, Beatrice, because of the State Visit next month. Gavin is our handsomest young man at present, and so I think we shall put him in charge of the security arrangements, as the visitor is a lady. I know your beaux yeux can do most things, but they’re not to keep Gavin tied up.’

  Well pleased with the result of her call, Mrs. Bradley returned to her canoe and paddled upstream again past the moored houseboats, the riverside lawns and the tea-gardens. Once she was beyond the ugly railway bridge which carried the branch line to the sea, she was in another world. From the thick black ooze on the right bank writhed the greyish roots of the trees in wet woods that stretched in haunted fantasy as far inland as she could see. On the lef
t bank it was sunny and green, and even the slight disturbance of the water from her flashing and dripping paddle sent tiny waves to suck in and out among the hollow-stalked valerian and the arrow-heads, among tussock-sedge, fen-sedge, and reeds, among sweet-grass, saw-sedge, and the thin-stemmed ragged robin.

  She kept out in mid-stream to pass over the eel-fishers’ nets, and round the next bend she saw a boat ahead of her. Unwilling for company, she paddled in to the side and lay up in a sluggish spot between two beds of great sedge, whose broad-bladed leaves hid her and her slender craft from view. The canoe stuck its nose amid the stiff and sword-like plants and Mrs. Bradley sat still and watched a Montagu’s harrier as it floated, buoyant and watchful, in the clear, rapt, Norfolk sky.

  Suddenly she heard a voice which she recognized.

  ‘Carex Paniculata.’

  ‘Tussock sedge,’ replied a voice which sounded almost exactly like the first one.

  ‘Right. Now you.’

  ‘Glyceria Maxima.’

  ‘Reed sweet-grass.’

  ‘Yes. Carex …’

  ‘It’s my turn. All right, then, although I see you know it. Carex Acutiformis.’

  ‘Fen sedge. We won’t count that one, then. What about Phragmites Communis?’

  ‘Despite its Soviet-type nomenclature, dear, I think it is merely the common reed. Let us see what you can do with Calamagrostis Canescens.’

  ‘Reminiscent of magic dogs, darling. But I think I will say it is the purple small-reed.’

  ‘Well, that ought to be enough to settle Grand’s hash. He suspicions us, as the saying goes. How’s the dim Miss Higgs?’

  ‘Pretty well, I think. Look, let’s get back to the boat. I want to swim, and the best place is half-a-mile further on. It will be shallow enough for you and deep enough for me. And there’s a bit of grass there where we can practise that new quick-step variation, or, contrariwise, lie and ponder on the beauty of fair women and brave men.’

  The voices faded. Mrs. Bradley’s keen ear could detect the sound of them for some little time, but she could not distinguish any words. Soberly pleased that one of her most fantastic theories was now proved, she pushed off from the bank and paddled rapidly and efficiently upstream, passing the Caux twins whose dinghy was in process of running up a mainsail.

  She waved to the boys, and one of them called back a cheerful greeting. Soon she had lost sight of them round the bend. When she reached the huge white mill which spanned the river she paddled in to the side, pulled the canoe on to the shelving bank, and sat on the short grass to rest.

  While she rested she meditated, but her thoughts returned always to one focal point. The case was closed until she or Gavin … preferably she and Gavin … could interview Miss Higgs. There was no reasonable doubt now that the twin boys were in the habit of changing places. There was no doubt at all but that Francis was no more deaf and dumb than Derek … but, then, there never, to her, had been very much doubt about that.

  She wondered how long the game of changing places and so hoodwinking their grandfather had been going on, and what had led the boys to begin it. Miss Higgs, of course, might have been in collusion with them, but, if so, the drastic action of Francis in pushing her into the river seemed unaccountable. Besides, she had begun to give the game away during her first long conversation with Mrs. Bradley.

  Mrs. Bradley went over that conversation in her mind. One point had been clear, two others had still to be cleared up. Only one of the boys could play cricket, or, at any rate, only one had any real aptitude for the game. It was possible that only one could swim. It was possible that only one was seriously attracted by girls.

  She had another idea, too, and she thought that an interview with Miss Higgs might help to prove it true or false. A tactful approach would be needed, as it was a matter which concerned Miss Higgs herself. It was probable, Mrs. Bradley thought, that one of the twins liked Miss Higgs and the other resented her guardianship. Carrying this thought a stage further, she also had an idea that the twin who liked girls might very well resent the guardianship of a middle-aged woman. From this, the true Derek and not the true Francis had pushed Miss Higgs into the river on the day of Mrs. Bradley’s arrival in Wetwode. On the other hand, a badly-frightened Francis might still have done such a thing. The incident, which should have shed light, enveloped the situation in blacker darkness, unless.… And the more she thought over a new and startling theory the better she liked it.

  There remained an enigma. She could not, at that stage, decide with certainty whether the brothers had exchanged roles during the cricket match against Bruke. It seemed more than likely that Derek had not taken the risk of allowing Francis to impersonate him in an important match, but, on the other hand, the bad weather could have been held accountable for faults and mistakes which a perfect wicket would render inexcusable.

  If Derek had had some overwhelming motive for wanting Witt out of the way, he could have got his brother to take his place in the team and (granted that Francis could contrive to free himself from Miss Higgs for the day without exciting her suspicions) he could have had a perfect alibi for the murder of the Bruke captain.

  But something had gone wrong with the time scheme. Witt had been killed when neither twin was on the field. Mrs. Bradley had heard about the match from Tom Donagh, and she felt that the weather had been the deus ex machina in the affair. The point was not at the time capable of proof, but it seemed to her more than likely that the Bruke innings had ended too soon. The match had been scheduled to last two days, Thursday and Saturday, but the treacherous wicket had determined Witt’s policy. Witt’s policy had been to get his men out as soon as he could, so as to extricate them from a defensive position in which few runs could be scored, put Mede in while the wicket was at its worst, skittle them out, and trust that the weather would so much improve on the Saturday that his side would have a second innings and keep Mede in the field until the end of play. Owing to the peculiar and unethical nature of the contest … that is to say, that a draw was an impossibility … Bruke could thus count upon a resounding victory, for the match could be won outright whether Mede played a second innings or not.

  Obviously Francis, not much of a cricketer, might still, in the emergency which faced the brothers, have been trusted to field, but, on such a sticky wicket … or, probably, on any wicket at all … he could not be permitted to bat. A great risk had been taken … that seemed a reasonable supposition … and it might easily have come off but for the uncertainties of the game (although even these might have been allowed for to some extent). Undoubtedly it was the extraordinary conduct of the twin in leaving the field of play, and so destroying both his own and his brother’s alibi, which had played into the hands of the investigators.

  However much she turned the matter over in her mind, Mrs. Bradley could find only one explanation of this suicidal and fratricidal omission. Otherwise it had neither rhyme nor reason; it had blown a careful and daring plan sky-high. It was something which, whatever their opinion of Derek-Francis or Francis-Derek as a potential murderer might be, the police could not possibly overlook.

  When she discussed her ideas with Gavin, however, that mild-mannered and handsome young police officer looked gloomy, profound and wise.

  ‘Motive,’ he said. ‘It sticks out a mile that one of the young devils was involved, but until we find a motive we can’t pin either of ’em down. You see, whoever Witt was blackmailing, we don’t know it was either of them.’

  ‘You mean you don’t think them capable of murder?’

  ‘I’m dashed if I know. I keep thinking of that Loeb and Leopold business in the States. These two young decadents might easily be the same type. Of course, I’ve only talked to the one who claims to be Derek. The other one was foxy enough to hand me baby-talk, or something not far removed from it. My instinct … you know your J. A. Ferguson’s Campbell of Kilmhor … was to put my sword to the carcase of a muckle ass and see would it louse his tongue, but unfortunately I’m not even p
ermitted to box his ears.’

  Gavin had had just the one interview with the boys, and had come to Mrs. Bradley to obtain her latest views and to report his own lack of progress.

  ‘There’s another thing,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking that perhaps we shall not need Miss Higgs’ evidence after all. Something happened, the significance of which at first escaped me.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I am speaking now of this game or plot of the two boys.’

  ‘The murder or murders?’

  ‘Not altogether. I was thinking only of this change-over of identity.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When I brought Francis (as I thought) to visit his grandfather, one of the twins most spectacularly fainted. It was genuine loss of consciousness. I am too experienced a doctor to have been deceived about that. I thought at first that it was shock through fear of his grandfather, but …’

  ‘You mean, so it was,’ said Gavin, ‘but not for the reason you thought.’

  ‘Right, child. He was afraid of his grandfather, who exclaimed, (to my surprise, I admit, for I had heard from Miss Higgs how much he disliked her embarrassing charge), “Well, well, well, well, well,” and that in a comparatively genial tone.’

  ‘I see your point. In other words … although I should never have been able to work this out for myself … the real Derek was again masquerading as Francis, and one of the twins, probably Derek, thought that, confronted by the pair of them, his grandfather had recognized the favourite grandson.’

  ‘Exactly. And that being so, all reason for believing that the real Francis was deaf and dumb would be amply and demonstrably disproved.’

  ‘We still need to hear Miss Higgs on the point, though, I feel.’

  ‘She must be approached with considerable tact, then.’

  ‘Yes, I quite realize that. Shall I have first bash at it, or will you?’

  ‘You, I think. Your beauty and charm will overwhelm a middle-aged virgin.’