‘I know,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘There isn’t any proof of whether Francis was at Mede to murder Witt or not. I’m glad. I felt bound to mention the modelling again, that is all.’
Gavin got the local inspector to take out a warrant for Sir Adrian’s arrest, but only with difficulty. There would be a lot of trouble, the local inspector pointed out, if any mistake had been made.
‘There’s no mistake,’ said Gavin.
But they arrived too late at Mede. Sir Adrian was dead in his library, shot through the head. The revolver he had used had dropped to the carpeted floor by the side of his chair. His own prints were on it, and he had left a farewell letter.
‘Turned the boys out so that I could do this. All my money left to Derry. Know them apart at last. Determined to keep them both with me until I did. Higgs is a good soul. Glad I leave her provided for. Campbell threatened Derry. Derry told me. I had to settle that. No regrets except Derry will share with Francis.’
‘Higgs is a good soul,’ repeated Mrs. Bradley slowly. ‘In other words, Miss Higgs, who seems to possess more brains than those for which I have given her credit …’
‘Tipped Sir Adrian off that she thought the game was up, I suppose,’ said Gavin bitterly, baulked of his prey. He had taken along the blacksmith who had made the staples. The man gave a horrified look at the dead Sir Adrian, but identified him at once. ‘And now to get hold of those confounded boys,’ Gavin concluded.
‘You’re going to charge Francis Caux, then, with the murder of Witt?’
‘You bet I am. And it’s no good being sentimental about it.’
‘I don’t think I am,’ Mrs. Bradley meekly replied. ‘I see that you realize why Derek Caux has no alibi for the time of Witt’s death.’
‘Meant to land his brother in the soup, ultimately, I suppose.’
‘The contrary, I imagine. Witt had become a menace …. or the boys thought he had. A pity Sir Adrian did not confide in Derek. I suppose he was too deeply hurt at the trick the two of them had played on him to want to share his knowledge with his favourite … particularly as, for a long time, he was never sure which of them was his favourite. No, Derek was afraid for Francis, who was determined for Derek’s sake to murder Witt, and so he did what he could to prove that if either of them appeared to be guilty, he was the one.’
The search for the boys was not a long one. They had returned to Wetwode. Among the long reeds of the Broad the two bodies were found. They were clasped together physically in death as mentally they had been clasped together in life. Their pockets were weighted with stone from Sir Adrian’s garden, a macabre, symbolic touch which Gavin did not appreciate.
‘Better like this,’ said Mrs. Bradley, as though in benediction; and she gazed with pity not unmixed with terror at the two youths, god-like in their beauty, as they lay with their wet hair making a green-gold nimbus on the grass.
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Copyright © The Executors of the Estate of Gladys Mitchell 1952
Gladys Mitchell has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
First published in Great Britain by
Michael Joseph Ltd in 1952
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ISBN 9780099583882
The Echoing Strangers (Mrs Bradley) Page 23
