The Echoing Strangers (Mrs Bradley)

by Mitchell, Gladys

  ‘The rowers did not hear the public launch either, and as they took the broad bend from the end of the second dyke to get back on to the river, round came the pleasure boat. The man in charge saw the rowers and put his helm right over towards the opposite bank. Sir Adrian let fall his megaphone, gave a hoarse scream, clutched the wheel of his launch, thrusting his grandson aside, and deliberately (it seemed to me, and I was in an excellent position for seeing the whole incident) deliberately ran down the rowing boat.

  ‘The big launch was round the bend by this time. I doubt very much whether any of her passengers saw what happened. The yacht was also hidden, for she lay at the further end of the dyke and, as I told you, well into the bank, and that dyke is on an almost semi-circular curve. The four men fell into the water and my diver went into the depths. The river (I find upon enquiry) is ten feet deep at that point. The small launch, Sir Adrian’s, has no great draught, most fortunately.’

  Gavin looked at her. Her beaky little mouth was pursed up in a tight, triumphant smile.

  ‘Now please don’t be aggravating,’ he said. ‘I gather that Sir Adrian’s little plan failed, and that no one was hurt. How was that?’

  Mrs. Bradley nearly lifted him out of his chair with a screech which rent the room.

  ‘I saw what was going to happen,’ she said, ‘and so, of course, did stroke, who happened to be my diver. In any case, he was fore-warned. I warned him myself whilst Sir Adrian was fussing and wasting time. I felt that if the warning was unnecessary, so much the better. It proved to be very necessary. However, to make sure, I called out, just like that …’

  ‘Don’t do it again, as you love me!’

  … ‘and it gave them all time to jump for it. The diver went down like a stone. Then the yacht people, quanting by the bank, came up to the rescue. We all searched diligently for the diver, but he was not to be found.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Until late that evening, when I ran him to earth in the eel-catcher’s hut that belongs to his uncle Dan.’

  ‘Good heavens! But how on earth did he escape? Underwater swimming?’

  ‘Yes, back into the dyke and so to the Broad, where he surfaced beyond Sir Adrian’s ken. Sir Adrian has confessed to the other three men that he lost his head and did the wrong thing. He has compensated them.’

  ‘And what about you? Do you think he knows you’ve tumbled to what he was up to?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether he knows or not. He also knows that nothing can be proved except that ostensibly he didn’t keep his head in an emergency.’

  ‘Does he think this diving fellow is drowned?’

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve been away, for the local police,’ said Mrs. Bradley with a diabolical leer, ‘have been dragging the river for two days, although the inspector knows perfectly well that the body isn’t there. You have a most co-operative colleague.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to tell you what you’ve got!’ said Gavin, laughing. ‘Where’s the diving chap now?’

  ‘At Wandles Parva. Henri has orders to guard him with his own life if necessary, and the Chief Constable has an eye on things too. And now tell me all about Mede.’

  ‘You had better come along down there, I think, and get out of the way here.’

  ‘You fear that Sir Adrian may attempt to get me out of the way in a different sense if I stay upon the order of my going? Perhaps you are right. But we’ll go to Wandles first. I want to be present when you question my diving boy. I think we are getting very near to the edge of the wood.’

  ‘Well, I wish we could see through the trees, then. Motive, motive, motive! That’s what’s holding everything up. I believe Sir Adrian and his precious grandsons to be the biggest villains unhung, but until we know what reason they had for murdering these two men …’

  ‘I am hoping great things from my diver. Aren’t you ever going to tell me anything about Mede?’

  ‘That’s the devil of it. I’ve been down there for almost a week. There isn’t a clue to be had.’

  ‘You’ve questioned the servants?’

  ‘Ad non compos mentis. And the only thing I got was that some tinned food was missing from the pavilion kitchen after the cricket match played by Sir Adrian’s team against the inmates of a mental hospital. The inference is that one of the loonies took it. The kitchen is on the visitors’ side, as you probably know.’

  ‘And my friend Mr. Cornish?’

  ‘You had better tackle him yourself. He’s a cross-grained devil, but I don’t believe he knows a thing about Witt’s murder.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Echo Over the Wall

  *

  ‘For I would not spend another winter in this place, if I thought I should live, which I verily believe I should not, for ten times the value of the estate …’

  The Verney Letters, edited by

  Margaret Maria, Lady Verney, LL.D.

  *

  IT SEEMED BETTER to tackle Miss Higgs first. Upon her evidence hung the reply to one question which had to be answered.

  Miss Higgs, her leg still in the sling which hung from the ceiling, seemed glad to see them.

  ‘I thought you’d come,’ she said to Mrs. Bradley. ‘I wondered whether perhaps you had come before.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You knew I’d had a shock. Yes, I can see why you didn’t disturb me. But, bless you, one gets over these things at my age. Of course, ever since Francis pushed me into the river I’ve had my doubts of him, but I didn’t really think he’d push me down the post-office steps, any more than I thought he’d ever stay out all night. It’s funny how you never think of these things. You think you get to know people. Of course, nobody ever does get to know anybody else.’

  Mrs. Bradley, whose experience did not bear out any of these statements, deliberately avoided the point which they premised.

  ‘What we really wondered,’ she said, ‘was whether you felt perfectly certain that it was Francis who pushed you into the river and threw you down the post-office steps.’

  That this was the first she had heard of the latter operation she gave no sign. Miss Higgs tried to hoist herself up, was brought to mind of her leg in its cradle, and fell back into her former position.

  ‘Funny you should say that,’ she said. Gavin unostentatiously took out his notebook. ‘You know, it didn’t seem like Francis, either time.’

  ‘Whom did it seem like, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just wasn’t like Francis, that’s all. He couldn’t hear or speak, but somehow I would call him a loving boy. At any rate, I am perfectly certain he was very fond of me.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Gavin, breaking in. ‘But, look, Miss Higgs, are you certain that it was always Francis you had with you? I know that’s a leading question, and, therefore, to some extent, inadmissible. But I’m going to press it because your answer may be important … very important indeed.’

  Miss Higgs looked thoroughly unhappy.

  ‘Of course, I know what you mean,’ she said, ‘and I suppose I did wrong under the circumstances. You mean when I sneaked little Derek over to see his brother, don’t you … and kept him with us whilst Sir Adrian was away?’

  ‘But I don’t quite know when that was,’ said Gavin, earning Mrs. Bradley’s later stricture that his attitude was not Calvinistic but Jesuitical. ‘If we could get dates, even approximate dates, don’t you see …’

  He pointed out to Mrs. Bradley afterwards that perhaps the Jesuits were wise in their generation.

  ‘Dates? Well, let me see,’ said Miss Higgs. ‘The boys were turned seven when I first had Francis. Then Sir Adrian wanted to go over to Switzerland … Vevey, I think it was, just like Little Women … but he couldn’t, because of the war … Derek’s education, you know, and that’s why I have a feeling I remember the name. Instead, he travelled about to look at various tutorial establishments in safety areas. So I sneaked Derek over to stay with us … there was only one servant at Mede that I had to square. I kept Derek a for
tnight. But the two boys didn’t get on. Little Derek was so bright and intelligent, and poor Francis, with being deaf and dumb …’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course,’ said Gavin. ‘They would hardly have had time to become acquainted.’

  ‘Well, you never know, with twins,’ said Miss Higgs, with considerable vigour. ‘There are things between twins which the rest of us will never understand.’

  ‘All the same, you formed the opinion that the boys had no points of contact?’

  ‘I wanted to form that opinion, perhaps. I dreaded losing Francis. I don’t want you to misunderstand me. And if you think that my poor Francis had anything to do with that awful business of pinning that poor man’s body under the boat, I can only assure you you’re wrong, and that’s all I can say.’

  ‘It’s no good asking her again whether she ever thought the twins changed places,’ said Gavin, when the interview was over. ‘Even if she did, she wouldn’t say so.’

  ‘We’ve gained our point, though,’ Mrs. Bradley observed. ‘We know now that the twins did meet, and how they met, and for how long. And, as she says, nobody knows, even now, how twins react to one another.’

  ‘I still don’t see how it helps us.’

  ‘Everything helps us which clears up even one point. We shall now go and see my diver.’

  The youth Malachi, graceful and comely, greeted them with reserve. His stay at the Stone House had been enjoyable. There was no doubt about that. He seemed loth, however, to commit himself to giving any definite answers to Gavin’s questions.

  ‘Don’t worry about your poaching escapades,’ said Mrs. Bradley suddenly. ‘They do not appear to be germane to the present enquiry.’

  ‘It was only a few brown trout,’ said the sinuous youth. Gavin became reassuring.

  ‘That’s nothing to do with us. It’s a magistrate’s job. Now, look here, Malachi, what we want is your story of what happened at the regatta, and, of course, why it happened. Begin at the beginning, and don’t forget to fill in the gaps. The brown trout are a matter of a fine or a fortnight in quod. What we enquire about now is a hanging matter, so jolly well be careful what you say. Now, then, say on. Let’s have it.’

  ‘Mister,’ said Malachi, gravely, ‘that begin when I dive in and find that poor chap that was pinned on under that boat.’

  ‘Who knew of it besides yourself, myself, my man George and my friend Miss Parkinson, Malachi?’ Mrs. Bradley demanded.

  Malachi looked doubtful.

  ‘Can’t speak to that,’ he replied. ‘My father, I told him. Didn’t think any harm to tell him anything I do.’

  ‘Quite right. It’s not your father I am talking about.’

  Malachi hesitated, wavered, and then came out with it.

  ‘They know me in these parts. There isn’t one doesn’t know I can dive to bring up the mermaids if I know they oold dears are there. So Mr. Tavis, that come to me and make to enquire whether I know anything about the man they hold the inquest on. Of course I say no to that, but he persist.’

  ‘Mr. Tavis? That’s very interesting,’ said Gavin. He made a note. ‘Go on, my lad. And don’t worry. I don’t think there’s anything in this to get you into any trouble. What did you say to Mr. Tavis?’

  ‘I don’t know what to tell him, five pound note or not. So I say what I think.’

  ‘And that was?’

  ‘I say I think it was Mr. Campbell.’

  ‘Well, we know it was. But when did you get that idea?’

  At this the boy came across with it.

  ‘When I dive down to search out the bottom of that boat, I know it was Mr. Campbell. No one else about here know it would have to be him, but I know because I know Mr. Campbell wasn’t leaving Wetwode, like he say.’

  Gavin exchanged a glance … or hoped to … with Mrs. Bradley. Her eyes were on Malachi’s boots. Not that the boots held any interest for her, but she did not propose to meet the boy’s eye. She was on the verge of finding out something which might conclude the case, she imagined.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Gavin carelessly. ‘And how did you come to know that?’

  ‘That told me. “And you hold your tongue,” he say. “That isn’t for you to know nawthen. But somebody I won’t name, he’s after me,” he say, “because of something I know it doesn’t suit him to have somebody know. So I make to go away, but I’ll be round and about,” he say, “to watch his game and put a few spokes in his wheel.” ’

  ‘Did you gather who the somebody was?’

  ‘No, I don’t know that.’ He looked puzzled. ‘Except it might be Mr. Grandall that came down here with Mr. Tavis for the fishing.’

  ‘Confusion worse confounded,’ said Gavin when this interview was over. ‘What did you make of all that?’

  ‘Lies, prevarication and fear,’ Mrs. Bradley replied. ‘It was nothing to do with Mr. Tavis and nothing to do with Mr. Grandall. I think that, quite by accident, Malachi saw Campbell return when he had pretended to go away. And I think Campbell knew that Francis Caux could speak and hear and understand.’

  There Gavin left it. There was no proof, unless something more could be got out of Tavis and Grandall, but this seemed very unlikely, although he persuaded Mrs. Bradley to try the two fishermen again. She paddled down-river to a spot where, on one side, the wet woods, among whose corpse-like roots the river eddied and gurgled, came down to give cover to coots and water-voles, and on the other the water-meadows with their frequent, bordering willows, gave fishermen a stance and some cover.

  There she found Tavis and Grandall, as she had hoped. They had moored their punt under the bank, and, with hats tilted over their eyes and a tin of coarse-fishing bait between them, were somnolently holding their rods over eight feet of water.

  She knew very much better than to hail them. Dry-fly fishermen are observers of holy rites, but heaven knows no fury like the coarse-fish adept who thinks you have scared his roach or perch.

  She paddled, therefore, dreamily downstream, keeping to the opposite bank and scarcely dipping her paddle until she had passed them. There was a sweet little dyke further on, a stream choked with meadowsweet and the umbels of water-dropwort. Keeping a careful look-out for passing yachts, she swept across-stream and nosed the canoe expertly into a bosom of flowers.

  She landed and pulled her convenient craft into safety. Then she strolled along the grassy bank and noiselessly approached the two fishermen. She arrived at the time that Grandall had hooked a fish. She waited politely whilst he gaffed it, and then stepped forward with sycophantic adulation.

  Grandall was pleased.

  ‘Betted Tavis that I’d get one before he did,’ he observed with self-satisfaction. Tavis smiled … a secret, Welsh indication that the bet had gone a little further than that which of them should catch the first fish.

  ‘Will you wish me luck, now?’ he said. Mrs. Bradley sat down on the bank at a point where her shadow should not need to cause fish to rely upon their intelligence, and silently waited. Sure enough, within twenty minutes Tavis had pulled up a fish of fully a pound and a quarter.

  ‘Good going it is,’ said Tavis, ‘and very good to see you, Mrs. Bradley, isn’t it? Look you, some luck I was needing.’

  Mrs. Bradley discounted these Celtic circumlocutions.

  ‘I wanted to talk to both of you,’ she said. Grandall sullenly, Tavis triumphantly, put their rods away.

  ‘No more fishing to-day; the light’s all wrong,’ said Grandall, huffed at his friend’s success.

  ‘I know,’ Mrs. Bradley replied. ‘Quite unlike the light that dawned on you when Mr. Campbell was killed.’

  Both men looked smug; then Grandall was openly amused.

  ‘I say, that’s a good one,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe,’ Mrs. Bradley replied. ‘Mr. Tavis, at what point did Mr. Campbell realize that Francis Caux could see and hear and understand?’

  ‘Well, look you,’ said Tavis earnestly, ‘that isn’t for me to answer. It is not my way to make trouble.’

&nb
sp; ‘Making all allowance for your point of view, Mr. Tavis, I feel I must press the question. When did he know? And when did he tell you?’

  ‘Oh, last year it would have been, but it did not trouble me. All boys are foxy, indeed, and this one no different from the others. But make me wild, he did, when the young blackguard fouled the fishing. He put down bread … ground bait, you see … and brought the fish into that little staithe they had. I spoke to him.’

  ‘We threatened to tear his hair off,’ put in Grandall conversationally. ‘Young Malachi Thetford gave us the tip. He’s pretty spry, that lad. So we tackled Francis Caux and frightened him, for all that he pretended not to understand a word we were saying. I know he did, though. I’d have put my boot behind him except for upsetting Miss Higgs. Neighbours, you know, and all that. It doesn’t do to fall out with neighbours.’

  Mrs. Bradley returned to Hampshire, whither Gavin had preceded her, and had to report no progress.

  ‘If anything turned on the fact that people had begun to realize that Francis Caux was neither deaf nor dumb,’ she said, ‘then Mr. Grandall and Mr. Tavis should have been the first victims. The fact that neither has suffered so much as a threatening letter leads me to suppose that we can eliminate one item from our calculations.’

  ‘That the deaf and dumb business has had no immediate connection with the murders.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But, all the same, its remote connection is still possible.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look here, what are you getting at?’

  ‘We have Miss Higgs’ express pronouncement that she was responsible for bringing the boys together again after Sir Adrian had separated them.’

  ‘Granted.’

  ‘Does Miss Higgs, from what we previously knew of her, strike you as the kind of woman who would have done that sort of thing?’

  ‘Well, no. And, of course, she talked of squaring the one servant who was left in charge of Derek whilst Sir Adrian was pottering about to arrange about Derek’s education.’