Laurels are Poison (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “But, it’s so silly! I hardly know you. In fact, I don’t know you at all!”

  “Yes, you do. What about that Saturday afternoon at half-term? What about the Monday? Besides, you know my aunt, and what could be more respectable than that? You like Aunt Adela, don’t you?”

  “I love her. She’s been a darling, but…”

  “Well, you could love me, too. It’s perfectly easy. My parents have managed it for years, and they’re not terribly talented. And I’m more of a darling than Aunt Adela. And if you know her, you know me. We’re exactly alike. The same noble, generous natures; the same acute psychological insight, the same brains, the same brawn…”

  “Yes, you’ve got the same brawn,” admitted Deborah, beginning to laugh. ‘But she hasn’t your amount of classic impudence!”

  “Hasn’t she?” said the young man. “Look here, giving you due warning, I am about to repeat my effects, after which, I will tell you just how much classic impudence my aunt has got! Ready?”

  “No!” said Deborah, putting up an ineffective hand. The young man removed it.

  “What are you afraid of? Not of me,” he said gently. “Come on! Don’t be a chump. It only messes your hair up when we fight, and I like it best as it is.”

  Whilst these preparations were being made to enlarge her already wide circle of relatives, Mrs. Bradley was putting in some grim work, with the assistance of George and the policemen. Athelstan was empty of servants, for all were helping over at the college, with permission to watch or join in the dancing. Mrs. Bradley had decided to put this clear field to the test. Did it, or did it not, she inquired of the police, conceal the body of Miss Murchan?

  Having put in her brief appearance at the dance, she returned to the house to meet the inspector, and, having changed from the garment of Kitty’s choosing into workaday clothes, she and the inspector commenced the search.

  By a quarter-past ten nothing had been discovered by the inspector, although Mrs. Bradley had made one notable find, and Miss Topas, who had been taken into her confidence and who had already “popped over” once or twice “to see whether there was anything doing,” appeared again in time to take back a message to the Principal, and to give Mrs. Bradley the news that Deborah was engaged to be married. She made this announcement in characteristic fashion. “By the way,” she said, “you are by way of adding a niece to your collection. Do you mind?”

  “Deborah?” said Mrs. Bradley, grinning. “How did you manage it?”

  “I invited Jonathan over to Columba, as you suggested, and prevailed on her to come over with me for a drink. All unsuspecting, she came. I told him he would have to work fast.”

  “He must have taken you at your word. Is everything settled?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Well, heaven knows what her parents will think of him! But there! It’s no business of theirs,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I’m glad Kitty did Deborah’s hair,” she added, with apparent irrelevance.

  “From what I saw, I don’t really believe it made the slightest difference,” said Miss Topas. “They’ll make rather a lovely couple—he so overriding and Deborah so devilish obstinate.”

  They contemplated this picture of married loveliness in silence but appreciatively. Then Miss Topas said briskly: “Well, you’ll have to pack up the researches. The students will be coming over in about a quarter of an hour, unless you want me to ask the Principal for another extension, but, if I do, some of the intelligent young will smell a rat, and you don’t want that, I suppose?”

  “No, I don’t want that,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I showed the inspector the only result I obtained. He is greatly disgusted. Should you like to see what I found?”

  “Is it gruesome?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Then I’d like to see it. By the way, have Miss Menzies and Miss Cartwright their orders respecting Miss Cornflake, or shall I go along and let her out?”

  “No. They will do it. How is she? Very angry?”

  “No. She seems cheerful enough. Of course, I haven’t spoken to her myself. I’ve been over in company with the Chief Engineer. He’s been very good. He explained that he cannot let her out because the students responsible for the rag have the only key. I think she believes him all right. Did you have to tell him everything?”

  “Well, almost. He’s been in the Army, so it didn’t excite him too much.”

  “About poor Miss Murchan, do you mean?”

  “No, I didn’t need to tell him anything much about her. He decided long ago that she had been murdered, and he is firm that the grandfather did it.”

  “I think myself it’s quite a possible thing, you know, although I see the difficulties in the way of such a theory. Much depends now, I suppose, on your being able to trace a connexion between Miss Cornflake and the school where the child was killed.”

  “Everything, I suppose, depends on that. I am going there tomorrow. The school does not break up until Wednesday week. Their term is longer than ours. Now where’s this Sub-Warden of mine? Still over at Columba?”

  “Yes. I’ll send them both over. But what about your promise? Forward to the Chamber of Horrors, please.”

  “Well, not a bad show,” said Laura, “and the water’s hot, thank heaven.”

  “Well, come out, pig, and let somebody else have a go,” suggested Kitty. “There’s still Alice after me to have her turn.”

  “And two more,” said Alice’s voice from the landing. “Oh! Hi! Let me in! Here’s the Warden!”

  Kitty obligingly unlocked the door. Alice slipped in, and the “two more” scurried hastily into study-bedrooms.

  “Good night, students,” said Mrs. Bradley primly. This benediction was followed by a distinctly masculine laugh.

  “Golly!” said Laura coarsely. “She’s taking a man to bed!”

  “I bet it’s the Deb, not her,” said Kitty, antedating by a mere couple of months an interesting and, to Deborah, a dreaded ceremony. “Wonder what Mrs. Croc. has been doing with herself all the evening?”

  Laura, who knew, had too much loyalty and discretion even to look wise.

  “Come on, young Alice,” she said. “You’d better just take a shower. The bath water makes such a hell of a row running out.”

  This order was well received by Alice, and the three were soon in their adjacent cubicles and in bed.

  “What happened to Cornflake?” asked Kitty suddenly. “I didn’t seem to spot her at the revels.”

  “Didn’t you? Who cares, anyway?” said Laura, sleepily. Kitty took the hint, and turned over. Miss Cornflake was, as a matter of fact, in her own study-bedroom at Columba, having pushed under the Warden’s door an ultimatum to the effect that she wanted an interview in the morning on a question of serious ragging.

  The Warden granted the interview, and Miss Topas, brought into an affair with which the Warden of Columba felt incapable of dealing, observed that the matter was already under consideration by the Principal, the students concerned having confessed their crime.

  “They were Athelstan students,” she added, soothingly.

  “I am sorry for Mrs. Bradley. There seems to be a most undesirable element in Athelstan this year, from what one can gather,” said the Warden, when Miss Cornflake, protesting still, had been ushered out of the presence, and bidden to catch her train.

  Laura and Kitty watched her go. The students and their suitcases were all allotted to buses, and theirs was the fourth to go off, Miss Cornflake’s the second.

  “So that’s that,” said Laura, climbing into the bus. “What’s the date we come back on, again?”

  “Twenty-fourth of Jan.,” replied Kitty. Alice, whose train went a good deal later than theirs, was on bus fifteen. “Happy Christmas, and all that.”

  “Incidentally,” said Kitty, before they parted at the station, “does it strike you that there is a certain sort of fat satisfaction on Mrs. Croc’s face this morning?”

  “It hadn’t struck me,” said Laura, torn between tw
o loyalties, and therefore lying boldly. “Don’t forget the twenty-seventh at Charing Cross. District Station, mind, and the Embankment entrance. Bung-ho!”

  During college vacations the servants stayed up for two or three days to clear up and scrub through, as Kitty put it, and then were put on board wages until three days before the return of the students. The Chief Engineer and the Infirmary Matron, having their own quarters, often stayed up all the time. The Principal usually stayed up for an extra day or two after the students had gone, and Mrs. Bradley had decided to wait until the college was empty before communicating to Miss du Mugne her discovery. With this aim, she waited until the Saturday before producing her evidence. Then, with George’s assistance, she carried up to her sitting-room the damaged trunk of the younger twin, Miss Annet Carroway.

  “Let’s lock the contents up in here, George,” she said, indicating a large cupboard. “Then you can take the trunk down again.”

  The contents surprised George, although he had been in Mrs. Bradley’s employment for some years. They comprised human bones.

  “Pretty work, George, don’t you think?” she asked, taking them out one by one. “See how beautifully they were articulated before somebody took the skeleton to pieces.”

  She showed him the ingenious wiring.

  Then I take it this is not the remains of the missing lady, madam?” George inquired.

  “No. This is the skeleton of a man. Look at the length of leg, the magnificent jaws, the size and strength of the bones. Besides, this person has been dead for a good many years, by the look of him, and has been used, I should say, for demonstration lessons to students.”

  “A kind of doctor’s piece, madam?”

  “Well, something of that sort; or possibly for physiology lessons to students in training here. If so, we shall soon get some information about him, I’ve no doubt.”

  This information she sought immediately, by going to the Principal with her news. Miss du Mugne ordered coffee and talked about college affairs until it came. When the maid had gone she said:

  “What exactly has happened, then?”

  “I’ve found the wrong skeleton,” said Mrs. Bradley; and proceeded to explain.

  “It sounds like another of those silly practical jokes which have been perpetrated in Athelstan all this term,” said the Principal. Mrs. Bradley agreed, with disarming meekness, that it did sound exactly like that. “I suppose you’ve no suspicions of anyone?” the Principal continued. “I know you don’t like the suggestion, but I still think Miss Menzies, of your Hall, could be watched with advantage. She came up with a bad reputation.”

  “For ragging,” said Mrs. Bradley. “And Miss Cloud came with a bad reputation for not being able to keep order. I’ve seen no evidence yet to support either contention. Besides, the disturbances of one kind and another which we have suffered at Athelstan since September have been directed chiefly at me, and in such circumstances that Miss Menzies can scarcely come under suspicion.”

  “Well, you know your students better than I do, of course,” said the Principal, in a tone which indicated that she did not believe this, “but such a business as purloining and breaking up the college skeleton certainly seems to me like a stupid, would-be joke on the part of some of the students.”

  “Even so,” said Mrs. Bradley, “it would help considerably if we could prove that the bones I have found are those of the college skeleton. Would you be able to recognize them?”

  “Oh, good gracious, Mrs. Bradley!” said the Principal, losing her calmness entirely. “You—you’re not suggesting—? I thought you said just now…?”

  “Not suggesting that these are Miss Murchan’s bones? No, I am not. The skeleton is not only that of a man, but the bones have been wired to give articulation—so necessary in demonstrations to a physiology group, for example.”

  The Principal sat down again. Her face took on a look of regret struggling with its customary expression of benign conceit. The look of regret—to the credit of her intellectual conscience—won fairly easily.

  “I am sorry to say that I could not possibly undertake to recognize the college skeleton except as a skeleton,” she said. “I mean that if you offered me a collection of well-articulated skeletons to choose from, I could not possibly pick out the one used here in the physiology or physical training classes.”

  “Oh—you use the skeleton for the physical training classes, do you?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Let me congratulate you,” said Mrs. Bradley, poking her in the ribs with a remarkably bony forefinger, and thus obtaining unintentional but indubitable revenge for the slights proffered, earlier in the interview, towards her students. “But tell me,” she added, as the writhing Miss du Mugne eluded her torturing hand, “when can I see the college skeleton and how do I unlock the cupboard in which it is kept?”

  “I have a key.” The Principal, smiling wanly, produced it. Mrs. Bradley thanked her, and rose to go. As she came out of the Principal’s office she saw Deborah.

  “Why, what on earth are you doing here, child?” she asked. “I thought you went home two days ago, and took my nephew with you.”

  “Well, what are you doing here?” demanded Deborah. “I made him bring me back. What are you doing?”

  “Oh—just clearing up,” said Mrs. Bradley, vaguely, waving a skinny claw. “What have you done with the young man?”

  “He’s in the lane with the car.”

  “If Jonathan’s there, go and get him. I may be able to give him a job, and you, too. Fancy coming back, after all the trouble I had to smuggle him off the premises that Wednesday morning without the students’ knowing.”

  “Poor lambs! It would have given them the thrill of their lives!” said Deborah, with the wicked, unamused glint which Mrs. Bradley was interested to think of in connexion with her nephew Jonathan, whose conception of life from childhood, so far as she had ever been able to determine, was that he should have his own way in everything. She began to hum.

  “I don’t like you when you sing,” said Deborah, who recognized the tune as that of a light-hearted sea-shanty called “The Drummer and the Cook,” “and I shall be obliged if you won’t refer to Jonathan as the young man.”

  “Well, go and get him, anyway,” said her aunt-in-law to be, with a propitiatory smile which gave the unfortunate impression of being a lewd and evil grin. Deborah hesitated, then said:

  “Please tell me why you’re staying up. If you’re still hunting murderers—we’re going to stay and help you. I’ve absolutely made up my mind, and Jonathan agrees, so you needn’t argue about it.”

  “Now, don’t be naughty,” said Mrs. Bradley, placidly. “Go and fetch Jonathan, and tell him I want him to carry a bag of bones across to college.”

  “Not—not—?”

  “No, not Miss Murchan’s bones. Quite accountable bones, in fact.”

  “What’s the argument?” inquired Jonathan, who had left the car in the lane and had come up to the building to find out what was keeping Deborah so long. “I say, Aunt Adela, we’ve come to be your bodyguard. Deb’s going to stand outside the bathroom door listening to somebody lifting up your feet and submerging you, and I’m going to stand outside on the gravel with a hatchet, waiting to bean the murderer when she crawls out over the sill.”

  “So I understand,” replied his aunt graciously. “Meanwhile, I want you to come over to Athelstan and help me with a skeleton. Comparisons are odious, but two sets of bones have to be compared, and I want witnesses to prove that I don’t change over the skeletons when I’ve compared them.”

  She took the two over to Athelstan, and, to her observant nephew’s interest, stood for a second at the top of the basement steps before she descended. Deborah began to ascend to the first floor to get a book she wanted from her sitting-room.

  “Come back, Deborah,” said Mrs. Bradley. For a moment Jonathan thought that Deborah was going to disobey, and he leapt up to catch her, but she turned and they met face to face
on the stairs.

  “All right,” she said. “I’m well trained.” She followed him down, and Mrs. Bradley nodded.

  “I don’t want anybody to walk about alone in this house,” she said quietly, when the two had rejoined her. “It isn’t too safe.”

  “Miss Cornflake?” asked Deborah.

  “What do you know about Miss Cornflake?” retorted Mrs. Bradley. She led the way down the basement steps, listened again at the bottom, and then pushed open the door which led into the box-room. “There!” she said to Jonathan. “That badly-battered trunk, if you don’t mind. The bones are in my sitting-room cupboard.”

  “I see.” Another thought came to him. “By the way, you don’t expect to find poor old Miss Thingummy locked up in the Science Room, do you? Because, if so…” He gave an eloquent glance in the direction of Deborah, who was looking out of the window.

  “Don’t be oafish, dear child,” retorted his aunt. “Deborah is quite as capable of seeing a skeleton as you are.”

  “A skeleton, yes, granted. But…”

  Deborah turned round.

  “You don’t really suppose the College Science Room could have housed a corpse all this term without somebody complaining, do you?” she demanded coldly. “Our students are not all idiots.”

  “Oh, granted. I see. Then, in that case, may I ask…?”

  “No, you may not,” said his aunt.

  “I beg pardon. Lead on, Patrick Mahon.” Mrs. Bradley cackled, and no more was said until they had left Athelstan with “the luggage,” as Jonathan termed it, and had mounted to the second floor of the college building.

  “Now,” said Mrs. Bradley, producing the Principal’s key, and unlocking a cupboard.

  The skeleton was in a long box, coffin-like, and yet with the indefinable austerity of hospitals rather than that of morgues. The three of them gazed upon it in silence. Jonathan, characteristically, broke this silence.

  “Indubitably male,” he said. “Pass, skeleton. All’s well.”

  “Hm!” said Mrs. Bradley.

  “Are you disappointed?” asked Deborah.