Laurels are Poison (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  By the time she returned it was dusk, and a deep blue winter twilight lay upon fields and trees. From the large, warm, brightly lighted dining-room of Old Farm came the sound of carols and the thin music of Denis’s flute. Mingled with all this was the sound of an approaching car.

  “Ah, here you are, Mother,” said Ferdinand, getting out and helping Caroline down. Derek also appeared, struggling with some of the parcels with which the interior of the car appeared to be packed. Ferdinand’s sedate chauffeur began to open the boot and take out luggage.

  “The gathering of the clan appears to be complete,” said Mrs. Bradley, permitting Derek to load her with parcels. As they walked up to the front door of the old, stone-built house, she enumerated the guests.

  “And you’ve actually managed to take a rest, away from the college and the case?” said Ferdinand, shifting the heavy baggage he was carrying from one hand to the other. “By the way, I’m sending Bigger and the car into the village. We’ve managed to fix him up a room, so Jenny won’t have to be bothered. What have you done about George?”

  Mrs. Bradley explained. The next two or three days passed pleasantly; the boys escorted Mrs. Bradley into Oxford, selected their presents, and bought hers; Ferdinand and Caroline spent most of their time driving into adjacent counties and calling on their acquaintances; the pigs also came in for a good deal of visiting and admiration, and the engaged couple walked over the winter footpaths and came home to tea each day tired, muddy, trailing ivy and holly, clouds of glory and bestowing on all and sundry, said Carey, grinning, the usual nods and becks and wreathed smiles germane to their estate and disability. Jenny’s babies were everywhere—in among the pigs, under the feet of the adults, being perilously swung and tossed by the boys, or hanging on to Mrs. Bradley’s skirt and accompanying her wherever she might chance to go about the house.

  Added to the noise made by the company, was the bustle of Christmas preparation. Christmas Eve came at last, with its usual last-minute rush of present-buying, sampling the food, carol-singing, decorations, and anxieties. Then came Christmas Day and the ritual of early rising.

  Denis did play the organ, and Mrs. Bradley attended church. In fact, the Lestrange pew was the wonder and admiration of the village and so was its annexe, a second pew to contain those who could not be accommodated in the first one.

  Christmas dinner was over, Christmas crackers had been pulled, mottoes read, and, the boys having been coerced into taking a walk with two of the dogs, Jenny was saying that she thought the babies ought to have their afternoon sleep, when the telephone rang.

  “It’s for you, Mum,” said Mrs. Ditch. “Long distance.”

  Mrs. Bradley went into the hall.

  “Speaking from Cartaret College, madam,” said George. “We thought you might like to know we’ve been having a busy morning, putting out the fire in the basement.”

  “Oh, so she got in, George?”

  “Well, the Chief Engineer reckons she’s been there all the time, madam, waiting her opportunity.”

  “What damage?”

  “Very little, madam. Please don’t trouble to come along. Barring a bit of a mess in the bakehouse which took on from the petrol drips in the basement, there’s nothing can’t be set to rights, we think, before the young ladies come back. There’s nothing really amiss.”

  “Athelstan Hall?”

  “Not touched. Not so much as a scorch-mark, madam, any-where except in the boxroom and a bit in the passage.”

  “Oh, good. You didn’t catch her, I suppose?”

  “I think when she had dispersed the petrol about the place, she made her getaway, madam. There wasn’t the slightest trace. We didn’t see anybody, although we searched very careful.”

  “Are either of you burnt at all?”

  “No, madam.”

  “Is that the truth, George?”

  “Yes, madam, not a blister. Only I thought you’d be interested to know, or I wouldn’t have rung you.”

  “I see. Well, thank you very much, George.”

  “A merry Christmas, madam.”

  CHAPTER 14

  FIELD-WORK

  “I DON’T care what you say,” said Alice, “although I think it’s coarse to talk like that, but I shall get married myself, later on.”

  “Why not?” inquired Laura, flinging clothing out of a suitcase in the manner of a terrier flinging up earth from a hole where it thinks it has buried a bone. “Where the hell are my bedroom slippers? Oh, Kitty, you lout, you’ve got them on!”

  “Well, teachers generally don’t,” resumed Alice. “But I come from the lower classes where marriage is the rule, not the exception, and I’m not ashamed of it. What I mean…”

  “The glories of our blood and state, are shadows, not substantial things,” remonstrated Laura, assuming the slippers lately snatched from Kitty. “I do not recognize class-consciousness, young Alice, so pipe down. Don’t be a snob.”

  “Anyway, I hope the Deb stays until the end of our first year,” said the denuded one, sitting on Laura’s bed with her feet up. “I don’t suppose I shall be able to go down to tea, Dog,” she continued, surveying the ends of her stockinged feet. “I can’t find a thing of my own except the shoes I came in, and they’re all mud, from that foul path out of the station.”

  “Have mine. They were new for Christmas,” said Alice, putting both hands into her hat-box. “Here you are.”

  “And don’t scuffle about in ’em,” added Laura. “Incidentally, I suppose bedroom slippers at first tea are de rigueur?”

  “Mrs. Croc. won’t be there, and anyway, it’s a free country,” said Kitty, trying on Alice’s slippers and holding out one foot the better to admire it. These from the boy friend, young Alice?”

  “I haven’t a boy friend,” said Alice, blushing. “I was only stating my views in a general way about marriage. You needn’t laugh.”

  “You know, there’s something a bit Little Lord Fauntleroy about our Alice,” said Laura. “I used to notice it last term. A kind of je ne sais quoi.” She began to comb her hair.

  “Little Lord Fauntleroy?” said Alice.

  “Yes. You know…she means where they stick a placard on his back to say he bites,” said Kitty earnestly. Her friends gazed at her with fascinated admiration.

  “What she owes to her spiritual pastors and masters will never be known,” said Laura. “She goes from strength to strength. When we were at school she thought Dickens wrote Under Two Flags.”

  “Well, I don’t see why he shouldn’t have,” said Kitty sturdily. “Where’s my calendar? I want to mark off the days. I think I’ll mark today off straight away. It’s practically over. When’s half-term, Dog?”

  The date was January 23rd. The Lent term had its own interests, did not include School Practice, and part of it would be devoted (as soon as the weather improved) to the various rambles and excursions which formed part of the First-Year Course.

  The scope and nature of the rambles depended largely upon the Advanced Subjects chosen; thus Laura, ignoring her gift for English, had elected to take Advanced Geography, and Kitty, having no particular preferences, had put her name down for the same group. Alice was down for Advanced Biology, and spent most of her time cutting sections and putting them under the microscope when she was not engaged upon Field Work.

  For about the first five weeks of the term the weather was so bad that even some of the fixtures in hockey had to be abandoned. When March came, however, the wet and the heavy mists had cleared away, the sun shone, and the snappy, invigorating air seemed to invite the students out upon the moors.

  One bright, cold, gusty afternoon, the Advanced Geography group, having been advised previously of the arrangements by the senior lecturer in the subject, collected after lunch in the Senior Common Room of the college with notebooks, pencils, cameras, geological hammers, and Ordnance maps, “ready for fairies at the bottom of the garden or a full-scale invasion, or anything in between the two,” as Laura put it, and pre
pared to set out upon an excursion.

  “What have we here, Dog?” asked Kitty, as her friend consulted a business-like little notebook completely filled with writing, maps, and sketches.

  “A pearl of great price,” said Laura, lowering her voice. “My spies inform me that these bally outings or expeditions always follow the same course, year after year. Now this”—she tapped the notebook—“was compiled, doubtless with much sweat, by one Tweetman of Athelstan, some five years ago. She left it to her junior, one Plumstead. Plumstead bequeathed it to a crony in the first year, y-clept Mason. Mason left it in her will to friend Cartwright (who informs me upon oath that the only reason she wasn’t sent down last term was because her First Year Advanced Geography [Excursion Section] notebook was so impressive). Cartwright, having crossed the Rubicon and having no further use for the treasure, has passed it on to me. You shall share, on condition you’ll edit your stuff so that it isn’t word for word like mine.”

  “What a godsend!” said Kitty, eyeing the notebook reverently.

  “Not a word to young Alice, by the way,” said Laura, warningly. “Her morals are not as sound as one would wish. She might think we oughtn’t to use the beastly thing.”

  “Good Lord! Why not?” said Kitty. “A thing like that ought to go down to posterity.”

  “Well, it probably will,” said Laura.

  Kitty and Laura enjoyed their walk. Avoiding company, they strolled together, well in the rear of the party, conversing amiably and from time to time checking the geography of the landscape with the assistance of Miss Tweetman.

  “Points of interest,” read Laura, standing still. “Two morainic mounds, one to the right of the road between the canal and the railway, and one between the road and the river on the left-hand side. Got that, duckie? Swing bridges over the canal. Well, we know all about bridges over the river! At least, I do. I’ll tell you what! Has it ever struck you to wonder where the deed was done?”

  “What deed, Dog?” inquired Kitty, producing a paper bag and abstracting parkin, which she divided and the two of them shared.

  “Why, the murder of Miss Murchan. You heard about the Great Fire during the Christmas Vac, didn’t you?”

  “No. Where?”

  “Here in Athelstan, so far as I can make out. I searched for traces of it, but can’t find any. Mrs. Bradley’s man was almost burnt to death.”

  “Doesn’t exactly show signs of it,” said Kitty. “I saw him yesterday, turning Miss Hollis’s car for her. He looked all right to me.”

  “I am only repeating what I’ve heard. And another curious thing. You know that blighter Cornflake, who was at your school for School Prac.?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hasn’t turned up this term.”

  “Oh, I knew that. She’s got measles.”

  “Measles?”

  “Yes. Can be jolly dangerous when you’re grown-up, I believe. Somebody in Rule Britannia’s told me. I forget who it was. I say, keep your eyes skinned for a pub. They’ll still be open. We could get some beer.”

  “A scheme,” said Laura, embracing it with some eagerness. “Don’t suppose the late Tweetman had the forethought to bung down anything useful like that in her notes.”

  Kitty gazed at the landscape, and then sniffed the air.

  “I can give you the next bit without any notes,” she said. “Gas works and a sewage farm, both on the left.”

  “You’re telling me,” said Laura, wrinkling her nose. “I suppose if we get gaol fever or typhus or anything, we can claim on the college. I shall tell my people to, anyway.”

  “Change in the landscape. Shoot,” said Kitty, who had taken down in shorthand (to the never-failing amazement of her acquaintances she could put down a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty words a minute) the winged words dictated by her friend from Miss Tweetman’s invaluable script.

  “Eh? Oh, sorry. Yes. New housing estate. See it? Local building material used.”

  “What’s that? Red sandstone?”

  “No, mutt. Limestone blocks, I think, but don’t worry. Tweetman’s sure to have a footnote about it somewhere. Just bung down what I say. Criticism unwelcome and unnecessary. River crossed—Yes, and here’s the bridge…and here’s a pub. All clear? Bung in, then. This is today’s great thought.”

  Having drunk their beer they came on to the bridge and looked at the shallow swirling water.

  “…and wool mills seen,” continued Laura, balancing Miss Tweetman’s notes on the coping. “Now the moor. Flat-topped. Canal. Railway embankment. Railway embankment?…Oh, yes. Over there. See it? To the left was noticed an old quarry. Come on. We’d better get along and identify that. There’s pretty sure to be a discussion on the outing, so we’d better have something ready at first-hand.”

  “There’s somebody down there,” said Kitty, when they had discovered the old quarry. “I say, it’s Mrs. Croc. She’s on her own, too. Wonder what she’s doing?”

  “Snooping for—Here, come on,” said Laura. “I know what she’s doing, and we could help.”

  She began to scramble down the side of the quarry. After hesitating for a second, Kitty said:

  “Dog, do you know what?”

  “No. What?” inquired Laura, balancing on two tufts of the coarse rank grass with which the quarry was clothed.

  “I believe she’s looking for the body. I’d hate to help her find it.”

  Mrs. Bradley was surprised and not particularly pleased to see Laura, and gave her no encouragement to make herself useful.

  “Are you exploring all the quarries?” asked Laura, pointedly.

  “Yes,” replied the Warden. “And you, Miss Menzies, are attached to a party for which your lecturer in Advanced Geography is responsible.”

  “She won’t miss me. I seem to have left old Kitty in the swim,” Laura replied, glancing upwards to see the last of her friend, who, with an apologetic wave of the hand, was disappearing over the skyline. “Do let me help snoop. I know what you’re looking for, and I bet I can find it if you can.”

  “I doubt whether you do know what I’m looking for,” said Mrs. Bradley, amused.

  “Oh? Not Miss Murchan?”

  “Of course not, child. Go away.”

  “Well, if you’re serious,” said Laura, looking extremely disappointed. “Personally, I shouldn’t think you ought to be out on the moors alone, especially in these quarries. Anything might happen to you, especially if there is something funny about Miss Murchan. And, further to that, Warden, what price Miss Cornflake, and the measles? You’d be in a lot better position with me here to heave a couple of half-bricks at that baby, than laid out with all the college looking for you with lanterns and St. Bernard dogs and things.”

  At this picturesque image Mrs. Bradley laughed, and scribbling a message on a page of her notebook gave the leaf to the petitioner and bade her hurry up and give it to the lecturer.

  “And bring Miss Trevelyan back with you. I’m not looking for a corpse. I want to find a large receptacle of stone, earthenware or metal, and the remains of a large bonfire,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  She was up and out of the quarry by the time her henchman returned.

  “O.K. by Miss Catterick, Warden,” she said, breathing slightly faster than usual, “and Kitty is following me up as quickly as—Oh, here she is. Where next?”

  “To the next quarry wherever it is,” said Mrs. Bradley, unfolding an Ordnance map.

  “You don’t want to bother with that, Warden,” said Kitty, joining them. “Where’s the book of words, Dog?”

  “Please let me see your map, Warden,” said Laura, suddenly. Mrs. Bradley handed it over. It was the ordinary one-inch map of the district. Laura folded it, handed it back with a word of thanks, and then observed: “This is more the sort of thing you want, I should imagine. Six inches to the mile. Issued to Advanced Geography students on presentation of voucher supplied by Miss Catterick. Any good, Warden?”

  But Mrs. Bradley was already poring over the six
-inch map. She then smacked Laura on the back.

  “We’re off the track, child,” she said. “Those old quarries marked on the opposite side of the river are much more to our purpose.”

  “What about the limestone boulder pits?” asked Laura, pointing to the map.

  “Rather close to those large houses, don’t you think? How deep are the pits? Have you seen them?”

  “Yes. Pretty deep. Steep-sided, too. But that wouldn’t worry Cornflake. She’s quite the mountaineer, I should think, Warden, and she could tumble the corpse down. She wouldn’t need to carry it.”

  The limestone boulder pits were about a mile and a quarter from the college and about two from where the trio were standing. The footpaths were miry, but were so much the best and quickest way that, without hesitation, Mrs. Bradley led the way by one which ran in a straight line to the railway, across by a footbridge and beyond to woods and the canal.

  “Keep to the towing path here for a bit,” said Laura, “and cross by the swing bridge. Then we shall have to follow the main road, and cross the river just below the weir.”

  Once they had crossed the river, another footpath led by the flank of a wood, across parkland, and then through trees to a round, wooded hill. On the south side of the hill lay the pits they sought, but exploration of them proved to be vain. Except for the limestone from which they took their name, they were bare and empty, and a further consultation of the map caused Mrs. Bradley to decide upon some old quarries further west, beside a lane which crossed arable fields.

  “Only the one farm near,” said Laura, when her opinion of the objective was canvassed, “and a little stream to wash in if she got herself mucked up during the surgical operations. I shouldn’t be surprised if we’ve hit on the right place, Warden. What say you, Kitty, old thing?”

  “Nothing,” replied Kitty.

  “Right. Keep your eyes skinned for enemy snipers, then, whilst Mrs. Croc. and I do our bloodhound act,” said Laura under her breath. “If you see the whites of old Cornflake’s eyes, don’t let her shoot first. Got it?”