Dancing with Death

by Ruth Wade

  “Milligan could have used the same protective colouring even without forty years’ premeditation,” Mike pointed out. “In our experience, the murderer usually turns out to be the owner of the weapon.”

  They were disturbed by sounds of a scuffle and the clink of china outside the door. Then it was opened slowly and old Lewis stalked into the room carrying the coffee-tray high as if he bore upon it triumphantly the head of his foe. The fact that he was the merest trifle shaky on his feet only served to make him more majestic.

  “The Ignorance of some People,” said Lewis. “It makes me blood boil.”

  He kicked the door shut, with an emphatic backward jerk of his heel. Daly raised an eyebrow sympathetically.

  “That Jennings,” said Lewis with terrible scorn. “An upstart, sir. A beggar on horseback.”

  He put down the silver tray at such an angle that Mike had to reach out a long dexterous hand to save the coffee-pot from measuring its length on the table. Lewis turned with extreme care to look at him.

  “Never spilled a coffee-pot in me life,” he said severely. He swung back to Daly as slowly as a dock crane. “I may say, sir, that Jennings would not behave so badly if he were not encouraged. It’s a great mistake to encourage such people. Now, when he brought your luncheon you should have said: ‘Where is Lewis?’ No more. Just: ‘Where is Lewis?’”

  “I see that now, Lewis,” said Daly apologetically. “I’m afraid I was a trifle upset, on account of the President’s death.”

  “That is no excuse,” said Lewis. “As you should know, in the words of the greatest poet in the English language: ‘If you can keep your head when all around are losing theirs — ’”

  Daly screwed up his face as if he had bitten on a lemon. He stood up and laid a heavy hand on Lewis’s shoulder.

  “If you want to keep your job when all around you are losing theirs, Lewis old boy, you’ll go away to your bed, wherever it is, and sleep it off. Here, I’ll give you something to make sure that you won’t wake up with a headache.”

  He fished in his pocket, brought out a little tube of tablets and shook out two of them. He clapped them into Lewis’s hand and moved him firmly towards the door. Just before he was put outside, Lewis said reproachfully:

  “I’m surprised at you, Professor, for having such things so handy in your pockets. But I’ll take your advice, because I think you are my friend. Yes, I think you are my friend — ”

  He pattered off mumbling tearfully to himself. Daly shut the door and came back to drink the cup of coffee that Mike had poured for him.

  “Lewis seems to have been down in Biddy Macnamara’s celebrating the end of Bradley,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind paying a call on Biddy myself later on. Lewis couldn’t stand Bradley.”

  Mike raised an eyebrow.

  “No, he would not have poisoned him,” said Daly. “You see, Lewis can’t stand anybody. It’s his nature.”

  “He seems quite attached to you,” said Mike.

  “Only because I have retired. When I was on the staff it was another story.”

  “Still, we can’t count him out,” said Mike. “Who is Biddy Macnamara?”

  “She keeps a hostelry called ‘The Cow’ a few minutes’ walk away from the College, out of town. It’s quite an old pub. It was out in the open country once, and Biddy still keeps it as it was then, with a big fire and grandmother chairs. The students go there, though they are not supposed to, and all the porters.”

  “It sounds like a good place to pick up a bit of gossip.”

  “First rate. And Biddy has a wonderful memory. She knows the name of every bone in the human body, from listening to the chronics droning them out over the fire in the winter evenings.” He stopped suddenly. “Of course she could hardly tell you anything useful about this business of Bradley’s death.”

  “You never can tell,” said Mike. “We don’t like to leave any avenue unexplored.”

  When they came out into the quadrangle a few minutes later they were just in time to see an ambulance drive away from the President’s front door. No one was about except Burren, who was standing on the steps with his hands in his pockets, looking quite unconcerned except for the sardonic twist of his mouth.

  “That was Bradley going off,” he said, as soon as Mike and Daly were close enough. “They didn’t ask me to do the post-mortem. Perhaps you did not know that pathology is my job, Kenny?” He gave a little snorting laugh. “I should like to have seen for myself whether Bradley’s heart was black!”

  He laughed again, pleased at having shocked them both. Daly recovered himself first.

  “You have surpassed yourself, Burren,” he said. “You can always be relied upon to leave no stomach unturned.”

  Burren appeared to acknowledge this as a compliment, for he strolled off looking pleased with himself and obviously savouring his joke for his own amusement. Neither Mike nor Daly made any comment upon him as they waited for Nellie to let them into the house.

  “That Professor Burren!” she began at once, while she held the door wide. “I don’t care if he was Saint Thomas Aquinas, I’ll never let him cross that door again.”

  “What has he done?” Daly asked innocently.

  “Nothing would do him but to come in with the men that were taking the unfortunate President away. Standing behind them cracking jokes and wanting to know who was going to — going to — ” She could not bring herself to mention the post-mortem. “’Twould make a dog strike his father,” she finished, “and that’s what I told him.”

  “Good girl,” said Daly. “I told him something like the same myself.”

  She looked a little calmer at this. She moved close to them, confidentially, and said in a low voice:

  “Do you know, I often tell them at home — they’re all a bit touched in this place. ’Tisn’t natural to be all the time stuck in books. That Professor Delaney, now, if he was in any other job he’d have been put away long ago. And Professor Milligan would be inside in the body of the jail, so he would. But sure they’re too clever, they’re not like the rest of us at all.”

  By the time she had finished this speech, she had talked herself back into a more tolerant attitude. Mike was pleased that she was so articulate, and that she seemed to have an observant eye for the oddities of human behaviour. She would be an invaluable source of information about the events of the day before Bradley s death. He asked her if Mrs. Bradley had yet come downstairs, and learned that she was waiting for him in the drawing-room.

  Suddenly Daly found that he did not want to go in with Mike.

  “It’s not as if I could be of any use to you,’ he said. “In fact my presence there would make things more difficult, for her and for you. Just tell her that I’ll come later on. You don’t particularly want me there?”

  “Not at all.”

  Mike was relieved that Daly had volunteered to leave him alone with Mrs. Bradley. He reassured the old man that his presence was not necessary even at the beginning of the interview. Nellie opened the front door again and Daly slipped out with something of the air of a house dog getting away for an illegal, solitary ramble. Watching him thoughtfully Mike could not decide whether Daly was planning to steal a march on him somehow while he was engaged with Mrs. Bradley, or whether he was simply innocently pleased at the postponement of a painful interview with a newly bereaved widow. There was only a moment for such speculations, however, for already Nellie was opening the drawing-room door and announcing his presence in the half-whisper that is commonly used in a house of death.

  For all her short dumpiness, to Mike Mrs. Bradley was a figure of tragedy. It was not that she was in tears, for indeed she seemed to be fully in control of her emotions. He had seen many widows, in the course of his business, and he thought he could recognize the confused and distressed course of her thoughts. The same expression could be seen on the face of the owner of a very old dog who had died — a nagging sense of loyalty born of the habit of living with it, a true conviction that it h
as never really been loved, relief that it is dead, remorse for former impatience, and a sort of primitive wish to make amends by public mourning. If Mrs. Bradley had been mourning a dog, Mike would not have hesitated to point out to her the advantages of its death. Since it was her husband, it was not so easy to help her.

  He began with a few conventional words of sympathy in such a dry tone as not to start any emotional response in her. It was clear that though she was disconcerted for a moment, she accepted the notion that policemen are cool and businesslike in the face of murder. She began to answer his questions, hesitantly at first, but gradually becoming more detached and objective, in an effort to match Mike’s tone.

  She was quite certain that Bradley would not have committed suicide.

  “It would never have occurred to him,” she said. “No matter how desperate his situation, he would always have believed that there was a special way out for him. If he were on a ship going down in the middle of the Atlantic, he would expect an angel to come from heaven and save him, even if all the other passengers drowned. Do I sound very callous?” she asked suddenly.

  “No one can tell us these things but you,” said Mike gently. “Please go on.”

  “He believed in his luck,” she said slowly, “and you know, he had good reason. His appointment here, for instance, and the way he became consultant for various mines in Africa, and the way he was invited to give lectures. A great deal of that was luck, as he used to say himself. And he was a terribly live person. There seemed to be more of him than of other people. I can’t explain what I mean — ”

  “I know,” said Mike. “Don’t forget that I met him. Did he talk to you about his affairs, his work for the College, disagreements with the staff, anything like that?”

  “Hardly ever, “ she said. “It made things difficult for me sometimes. I used to meet people who expected me to know all about them, and it looked odd when I was quite blank. He didn’t know it, but I had learned to tell by his face whether he liked people or not. I used to watch him and plan my own behaviour accordingly, because he didn’t like it if I was too friendly with someone with whom he was quarrelling.”

  Now Mike remembered the anxious eye that she had kept on Bradley during last night’s party, as a man working a blast furnace keeps an eye on the thermometer. She told him that Bradley had seemed very content when the guests had gone home. He had poured himself a drink of whiskey — but none for her — and had discoursed to her for ten minutes on the good fortune of the College in having himself as President, since it was he who had ensnared Leahy and his money. He had said that he intended to spend the money on new clubrooms for the students, whether the academic council liked it or no, and that he would present a few pictures at his own expense, to adorn them. Mike gathered that she had been tired and had not listened very deeply. Unintentionally she gave an impression that it was not her habit to listen to Bradley’s words, but only to the tone of his voice, which told her whether he was in good humour or no. Mike knew that this was a trick of many women who have come to regard their husbands as if they were rather difficult employers. She bore out the truth of his surmise a moment later by saying:

  “I think my husband was disturbed about something for the last few weeks. At first I thought it was about the Leahy money, but later I came to the conclusion that there was something else, a more personal thing. He seemed to be in perfect health, but this morning when I — when we — found him, I thought he must have known for some time that he was not well. Then Nellie told me that you were here, and that there was talk of poisoning, and now I don’t know what to think.”

  “If you had known that his life was being threatened would you have understood his behaviour?” Mike asked quickly.

  “Was that the explanation?” Her surprise was certainly genuine. “Of course it must have been. It was stupid of me not to have seen it. That is why there was a feeling of resentment in his fear — ” She broke off and smiled uncertainly. “You see, I knew him very well.”

  He asked her about the dinner-party of the evening before, but she could tell him nothing except that Bradley had been anxious that Mr. Leahy should enjoy himself. They had these parties every week or so, Bradley himself making out a list of those who were to be invited. Mrs. Bradley’s only business was to provide suitable food and to discourage quarrels among the guests.

  “I noticed you do that part very well, last night,” said Mike.

  “Yes, Burren is rather awful,” she said. “But it was hard to blame any of them, really. My husband was a past master of the art of petty persecution, and if he drove someone too far, he had only himself to blame.”

  Mike was pleased enough at this bitter speech, for it showed that she was beginning to realize that there was no need to deceive him about her feelings. Of course she would have to appear suitably concerned at her husband’s death to satisfy the general public, but Mike’s work would be greatly lessened by not having to probe through layers of false sentiment and artificial mourning. He asked her if Bradley was at all concerned about money.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He paid all the household bills and wages. He never gave me any money at all.”

  “None at all?”

  “No.” Her tone was quite blank. “I have a little income of my own, less than three hundred pounds a year. I used that for pocket-money, and for clothes, and an occasional little holiday when I felt I needed it. Sometimes I bought clothes in shops where he had an account, just to show him that he could not entirely evade his responsibilities. But I didn’t do that very often.”

  “Did he ever give you presents?”

  She brightened a little, as if she were unexpectedly amused.

  “Not often?” Mike prompted her.

  “Sometimes, if there were any publicity to be gained he did give me presents,” she said after a pause. “My diamonds, when he was retiring from Africa, my minks when he was made President — but always as if he were making a presentation to an employee with long service. Oh, it’s hard to tell, really, what went on in his head. He was a most secretive man. For all I knew, he could have been a millionaire or a pauper.”

  “Did you never question him about money?”

  She gave him such a long look that he thought she was beginning to resent his questions. This time the pause dragged itself out until several minutes had passed. Mike leaned back in his chair, simply waiting for her answer. When it came it did not seem to be the answer to his question.

  “My husband had a very highly developed sense of property,” she said slowly, as if she were giving a careful resume of his character. “A thing that belonged to him, even if he did not want it for himself, was not to be handled nor thought about by anyone else. He even hated to see the maids polishing his furniture or cleaning his shoes, though the fact that they were his maids consoled him a little.”

  Suddenly, as in a picture, Mike got a short, terrifying view of the life of this woman living here in her own peculiar hell, the chattel of her grasping husband. Now, from her words, he began to understand Bradley’s attitude about the Leahy money. It was his, that was all.

  That he had to use a trick to get part of it into his private account he would regard as a tiresome formality. It was clear that he had intended to return some of that part in the form of presents of pictures, for which he would receive great credit and thanks.

  Mike felt sure that Leahy’s money was the cause of Bradley’s downfall. It had been mentioned in the anonymous letters and it had certainly caused a palpable rise in the temperature of last night’s dinner-party. Now it seemed that Bradley had already decided on what he intended to do with the money, though his colleagues thought nothing had yet been settled. Seeing the elementary simplicity of those same colleagues, Mike was quite prepared to find that one of them had poisoned him. A sufficient reason would be that the murderer had different ideas about the disposal of the money, and had discovered that Bradley was going to allow no discussion. He positively blushed at the vision
of himself trying to arrest one of the bland, scholarly professors who trotted so purposefully about the College.

  Mrs. Bradley looked a little more cheerful now, like a person who has successfully completed an unpleasant task. Though she was old enough to be his mother, she sat there like a child waiting for well-deserved praise, or like a woman to whom no one has spoken a kind word for a great many years. This thought struck him so painfully that he spent the next few minutes in thanking her for her help, assuring her of his consideration, asking after her future plans, advising her to take a holiday and in general showing such concern for her comfort and welfare that he was presently rewarded with floods of tears. Though this distressed him, when she recovered herself she had a determined light in her eye. It was as if she felt that those tears had paid the last of her very nebulous debt to Bradley.

  Still, Mike thought as he left her, she had hated her husband enough to have poisoned him. If she had not done so, his consoling words were an act of charity for which he would get a reward in heaven. If she had, then the same words would have the effect of convincing her that she had to deal with a soft-hearted fool, and of making her relax her efforts to cover her guilt.

  “Either way, I win,” he said to himself with satisfaction as he let himself out into the hall.

  Chapter 9

  Hearing faint hoots of laughter from the direction of the kitchen Mike guessed that his two adjutants were pursuing their enquiries there. He went through the old-fashioned baize door from the hall and found himself in a stone-floored corridor. At the far end of it he could see the open door of the kitchen with a red-tiled floor and shining anthracite cooker. On either side of the corridor he found empty wine cellars. A deep laugh rang out again, directing him to the door next to the kitchen. He opened it quickly and stood looking into the room.

  It was a pantry, with silver spread out on its wide shelves to be cleaned. Sergeant MacCarthy’s long legs seemed to stretch across most of the floor, while he sat back like a sultan in the single chair. Murphy, his aide, leaned against the door-post. The rest of the party consisted of Nellie, with a silver cloth in her hand, and a solid, bright-eyed young woman whom Mike took to be “that Annie” from the kitchen. She and MacCarthy and Murphy had cups of tea in their hands, while Nellie s stood beside her on the shelf.