Laurels are Poison (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “No. One and one make two,” replied Mrs. Bradley, “not to speak of two and one making three.”

  “Once aboard the lugger, and the girl is mine,” said her nephew, whose quotations were apt to follow the line dictated by his immediate preoccupations.

  “The trouble will be to find some reasonable excuse for obtaining eye-witness’s information about the girl in question,” said Mrs. Bradley. “There is no doubt now where she is.”

  “Where, then?” asked Deborah, startled.

  “Cast your mind back to our first-night rag,” Mrs. Bradley replied. “I suppose they have a new lecturer in Science, or perhaps in Physical Training, at Wattsdown College. At any rate, I think that rag is now seen in its true perspective.”

  “But—” said Jonathan. His aunt silenced him by cackling and shaking her head. Then she locked away the college skeleton, picked up the Athelstan bones, and led the way out. Her nephew relieved her of her burden, and the three of them went back to Athelstan.

  “Please tell me what you’re going to do during the holidays,” said Deborah, before they parted.

  “I shall carry out my original plan of visiting Miss Murchan’s former school,” said Mrs. Bradley. She watched the car as far as the first bend, and then put through a long-distance call to the school at Cuddy Bay. It was the dress rehearsal of the Christmas play, she was informed. She arranged to go on the Monday, and ordered the car for one-fifteen.

  CHAPTER 12

  IN AND OUT THE WINDOWS

  THE Cuddy Bay Secondary School for Girls was a second-grade establishment compared with the High School of the same resort. The latter had a splendid position on the cliff-top, with views of sea and moorland; the former was back in the town.

  Mrs. Bradley was directed wrongly at first, but one glance at the notice-board beside the front entrance decided her that this was not the place she sought, and she then found the Secondary School without difficulty.

  It was half-past two, and a practice game of hockey was being carried on in the school field, and was being coached by a short, broad young woman in a gymnasium tunic and heavy sweater, the latter bearing an impressive badge. Mrs. Bradley watched the game for a few seconds, and then rang the front-door bell of the school.

  “I have an appointment with Miss Paldred at half-past two,” she said to the prefect who answered the door. “My name is Bradley.”

  “Oh, good afternoon, Mrs. Bradley. Will you come this way, please? Miss Paldred is expecting you. I’ll tell her you are here.”

  The headmistress’s room was simply but very beautifully furnished. The headmistress herself was of medium height, freckle-faced, grey-eyed, and very charming.

  “This nasty business,” she said, when they had shaken hands. “Have you found out any more about poor Miss Murchan?”

  This propitious beginning to the conversation made Mrs. Bradley’s carefully-prepared opening gambits unnecessary. She agreed that it was a nasty business, and said that she had come to ask a good many nasty questions…“even more than last time,” she concluded.

  “Yes, I expect you have,” Miss Paldred agreed. “What do you want to see first again—the gym?”

  “Thank you. Not that it will make any difference, I’m afraid. I think we explored its possibilities fully last time I was here.”

  They saw the gym, which was like all other gyms, except that it had a long gallery running lengthwise instead of being, as at the college, at one end. Mrs. Bradley evinced little interest, except in this gallery, which led from one set of classrooms and a corridor to another similar set and another corridor.

  “Is it possible,” Mrs. Bradley asked, “that a person passing along this gallery would be unobserved by the people below?”

  “It is probable,” Miss Paldred replied with a slight smile. “I myself have been a frequent passenger when the girls have been quite unaware of my presence. If one keeps alongside the wall there is no reason whatever why one should be observed.”

  “I see. Yes. There seems reason to suppose, then, that Miss Murchan could have seen what happened here in the gymnasium if she had happened to walk along the gallery at some time after seven o’clock on the evening the child was killed?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “What did you think of Miss Murchan?”

  “Personally, do you mean?”

  “Yes, and as a member of your Staff.”

  “Personally, I found her rather colourless. She was inclined to be timid and deprecating.”

  “A ‘burglars under the bed’ sort of woman?”

  “An apt description. Also—we must be perfectly frank, I take it—I regretted having felt obliged to make her Senior Mistress, as she detested and feared responsibility. But she was so much the oldest member of the Staff that I felt I had no option, particularly as I enjoy very good health, and there was little reason to suppose that I should have to be away from school for any length of time, and leave her to cope, as it were.”

  “Thank you very much. So that, if Miss Murchan had been in possession of a very horrid secret, you think she would have become very nervous about it?”

  “Good gracious, yes. But what are you telling me, Mrs. Bradley? The verdict at the inquest…”

  “Suppose she knew—having walked along your gymnasium gallery after school that evening—that one of the Staff was responsible—directly responsible—for that poor child’s death, what do you suppose would have been her reactions?”

  “I see you are determined to ask questions, but not to answer them, but you will forgive me if I disagree completely with your premises. However…” She hesitated and then added: “One cannot, of course, be certain, but I should think she would go to that member of the Staff—she was a very loyal comrade, I am sure—and tell what she had seen, and suggest, I feel, that they should both come to me about it.”

  “But that did not happen? I know you will be frank. I am to take it that you know nothing except what actually came out at the inquest?”

  “That is true. But you have no evidence that Miss Murchan did see the accident, have you?”

  “Except that I cannot otherwise account for her disappearance. Didn’t you lose your Physical Training mistress at about the same time that Miss Murchan gave in her resignation?”

  “Yes, she decided to go. She said that although the coroner’s court attached no blame to her in the matter, she felt she could not stay. I was sorry, as I am sure she was not to blame in the slightest for what had happened. The child was very naughty and disobedient to have been at school at all at such an hour. It is true we were having a gymnastic competition during the following week, as I think I told you before, but that hardly excuses her, does it?”

  “I don’t know. I remember the point about the competition, though. Where do the grandparents live? Or have they moved?”

  “I have the address in my Admissions. I’ll give it to you as soon as we get back to my room. I don’t think they’ve moved. The poor wretched grandfather went into a mental hospital immediately after his outburst at the inquest, you remember.”

  “Yes. Now the Physical Training mistress—her name was Paynter-Tree, I believe?”

  The headmistress smiled.

  “Yes; Paynter-Tree. Although I happen to know that she was nicknamed Flak—Royal Air Force slang, I believe.”

  “Could you describe her to me?”

  “She was of medium height, wide-shouldered, slim, dark.”

  “She was not the only Physical Training mistress, I believe? I think you told me last time I was here…”

  “Well, she was the only one specially trained for the work. Three of the other mistresses used to help with the games; one helped with the hockey; she had captained her college for two years; one helped with the swimming (she was reserve for one of the Olympic Games’ teams) and Miss Murchan helped with the tennis; although what her qualifications were, beyond a keen interest in the game, I do not know. I believe she had learned fencing, but that is hardly the same
thing.”

  “The accident itself,” said Mrs. Bradley, when they were seated in the headmistress’s room and she had been supplied with the address she had asked for, “was rather remarkable. I did not think sufficient was made of that point at the inquest. What are the rules about the apparatus?”

  “Well, the girls are forbidden to touch the booms unless the mistress is there. But I don’t agree with what you say. The school was sadly called over the coals at the inquest. It was pointed out—rightly, too, and I think that is what decided Miss Tree to send in her resignation—that the ropes and pulleys of the gymnasium apparatus should be tested and inspected frequently. The rope must somewhere have worn through, although I cannot think how or why, and neither could Miss Tree. Still, I think she acted hastily in resigning over a thing like that, particularly as, in the end, we were completely exonerated.”

  “I never met the child’s grandparents. Was the grandfather a widower?” Mrs. Bradley inquired.

  “A widower? Oh, dear, no! There is a very puritanical, tight-lipped grandmother. We had lots of trouble with her, as a matter of fact, whilst the child was here. She did not approve of the physical training being taken in shorts and blouses; she wanted the girl to wear stockings; she did not want her to be included in games teams, in case she became hoydenish, and a lot of old-fashioned nonsense of that sort.”

  “And the grandfather? Was he equally prudish?”

  “I don’t know much about the grandfather, poor man. He went mad, as you know, after the inquest.”

  “He is recovered, I believe?”

  “Happily, yes. He’s been at home now for about six months.”

  “Which hospital did he go to?”

  “I’ve really no idea. I know his wife refused to visit him, wherever it was. That was an open scandal all over the town, where, of course, everybody knows everybody else’s business.”

  “That seems to have been unkind in the wife, does it not? Well, Miss Paldred, I must thank you again for your help, and for answering my questions. I’d like to ask just one more. Have you any idea where Miss Paynter-Tree went when she left here?”

  “Yes; to Northern Ireland. She wrote to me once from Belfast—a letter-card from the post office to say that she had arrived, and promising to send me an address as soon as she was fixed up permanently.”

  “Did you know which school she was going to?”

  “No; and I did not hear from her again. After all, we had not known one another for very long, you know. She was in her fifth term here when the accident happened. I suppose she really saw no reason…”

  “No,” said Mrs. Bradley thoughtfully. “There was not, I suppose, any scandal connected with her in any way here? Before the child’s death, of course, I mean.”

  “None that I ever heard. What makes you ask such a thing?”

  “I am still trying to account for the child’s death. It wasn’t accident. Gymnasium ropes don’t ‘wear through’ in the manner suggested at the inquest. Besides, some odd things have happened since I went to Cartaret College, and if they are not connected, through Miss Murchan, with what happened here, I do not know how to account for them.”

  She proceeded to give Miss Paldred details.

  “And you are sure the cook was murdered?” asked Miss Paldred. “It doesn’t seem to me there was much to go on.”

  “Enough,” said Mrs. Bradley. “She really would not have thrown her own corsets into the river and then thrown herself after them over the bridge, you know. She wouldn’t like to think of people finding her uncorseted body.”

  “Do people really consider such things at such a time, I wonder?”

  “Emphatically they do. Besides, to drown her in the Athelstan basement bathroom would have been so easy, under cover of the sound of the bath-water running out. If people thought anything of it, they would only think it was Miss Cartwright.”

  “What do you make of the ghost-noises, then?”

  “Two things. First, I think someone wanted to stampede the Athelstan students into panic, and secondly, I think they were made to bring to our notice the fact that some unauthorized person was on the premises. They were altogether interesting.”

  “But what could the cook have known, which made her dangerous, do you suppose?”

  “Beyond the feeling that it must have been something about Miss Murchan’s disappearance, one cannot tell at present. Ah, well, we shall live and learn, I hope. Oh, one more question. You said that Miss Paynter-Tree had been with you only five terms. How long had Miss Murchan been with you?”

  “Three years. Another reason I was sorry I felt obliged to make her Senior Assistant, of course.”

  The child’s name had been Muriel Princep, and the maid who opened the door to Mrs. Bradley said that Mrs. Princep was at home.

  Mrs. Bradley, left in the hall whilst the girl went to speak to her mistress, gazed about her with polite curiosity. The house gave evidence that there was no lack of money on the part of the owners. It was handsomely furnished, warm, clean, polished, and smelt unobtrusively of roast meat and furniture cream nicely intermingled.

  Mrs. Princep was a bony woman with haggard eyes. She looked sixty, but might have been younger. She greeted Mrs. Bradley with a nervous smile.

  “I don’t think…?” she said.

  “Quite so,” Mrs. Bradley replied. “It was thought that you would prefer me to call rather than a policeman.”

  “Norah!” called Mrs. Princep.

  “It’s of no use to order me out of your house,” said Mrs. Bradley, who had formed her plan of campaign. “I am sorry if I was abrupt, but I have very little time. It’s like this, Mrs. Princep. You may or may not have heard of the strange and, so far, unaccountable disappearance of Miss Murchan, who used to teach at the school here. In association with the police, I am investigating the causes of that disappearance. Will you hear what I have to say?”

  “You’d better come into the drawing-room,” said Mrs. Princep. “Miss Murchan,” she added, when they were seated and she had switched on an electric heater, “was suffering from a guilty conscience, I suppose. Some of those people didn’t tell the truth at the inquest.”

  “Not a guilty conscience; an overburdened one.”

  “You know about our trouble?”

  “Yes. I know your granddaughter died as the result of an accident in the school gymnasium. That is why I have come to you.”

  “I can tell you nothing about Miss Murchan. I had no idea she had disappeared, and I don’t care, anyway.”

  “No, but you can tell me something about your husband, if you will,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Is he better now?”

  “I won’t have my husband reminded of the affair.”

  “I don’t want to have him reminded of it, any more than you do, but I would like to know the address of the hospital to which he was sent.”

  “It was at a place in Berkshire called Millstones. I don’t know the exact address. I never went there.”

  “You didn’t go to visit him?”

  “No.” She looked so uncompromisingly fierce, with her thin, pursed lips and large eyes lidded like those of an eagle or even (thought Mrs. Bradley) a giant vulture, that it was not easy to know exactly how to continue the conversation.

  “I am glad to obtain that address,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I want to confirm the impression of the police that your husband could have had nothing to do with Miss Murchan’s disappearance.”

  “I don’t see why the police should have any impression about it one way or the other, but, as a matter of fact, and to save you trouble, I can tell you that my husband came out of the mental hospital last June, on the tenth of the month. I don’t know when Miss Murchan disappeared, so I don’t know whether, if he’d wanted to have a hand in her disappearance, he could have done so.”

  “I see,” said Mrs. Bradley. “You blame the school, Mrs. Princep, I know, for what happened. Do you happen to know whether your husband particularly blamed Miss Murchan?”

 
“I don’t think he did, but I do know Miss Murchan promised to tell us a piece of news about it. She said she knew, and she supposed we knew, who was responsible.”

  “But she didn’t give any name?”

  “We asked her—pressed her—but she declared it wasn’t necessary. She said we must know whom she meant, and that, if we agreed, she’d take her story to the police. She said they’d know what to do.”

  “Does that mean you refused to allow her to go to the police?”

  “Oh, no. And I think she did go. What we couldn’t understand was why she suddenly left the school.”

  “And Miss Paynter-Tree, too. Still, I suppose there was felt to be some responsibility there.”

  “Responsibility!” said the woman, with extreme bitterness. “Well, you can use that word by all means. Anyhow, I know what I think.”

  “We are coming to something,” thought Mrs. Bradley. “What do you think, Mrs. Princep?” she inquired.

  “Why, that those responsible for bringing the poor child into the world took the liberty of putting her out of it.”

  “Oh?” said Mrs. Bradley. “And that means…?”

  But Mrs. Princep was not prepared to amplify her opinion. She closed her thin lips, and then suddenly opened them again to add, apparently irrelevantly, “I’ve been married three times, you know.”

  “What I don’t understand at all,” said Mrs. Bradley, perceiving that Mrs. Princep was not prepared to volunteer any explanation of this last remark, “is how the child came to be in school so late. It was surely very unusual.”

  “Thinking as I do,” said the grandmother, “I’m sure the poor mite was decoyed.”

  “By the murderer, you mean, if one accepts your opinion. An opinion, I may add, which I share and which the police are beginning to investigate.”

  “Are they? Are they really?”

  “So, you see, you can speak freely to me on the subject.”

  “Yes,” said the woman, “I see that. My husband was very fond of the child,” she added. “Of course, he never realized who she was.”

  “Are you sure of that? You mean she was the child of one of your sons or daughters, don’t you?”