Laurels are Poison (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Did you manage it?” she asked. The two stopped short.

  “No, I didn’t,” confessed Jonathan. “I marked her position in the hall very carefully when the dance began, then, as the lights were lowered, I pushed along to where I supposed she would be, but by that time the hall was almost in darkness and I don’t believe I could have found even Deborah to pull her hair, much less a lady whom I met for the first time on Wednesday.”

  “Splendid,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  “I mean,” pursued her nephew, “one can scarcely make the round of a dance floor pulling people’s hair at random.”

  “Quite,” said his aunt, who seemed subtly pleased about something. “Well, carry on.”

  Jonathan offered Miss Crossley his arm, and they proceeded to the outer door.

  “Now,” he said, “we’ve got to get to Athelstan without being spotted. I say, it’s plaguey dark. And—er—hadn’t you better have a coat?”

  “I have my silk scarf. Poor Miss Murchan wouldn’t have had more on a summer night, I imagine,” replied Miss Crossley.

  “This way, I think.”

  They followed, stumbling, the gravel path which led past the grass tennis court to the steps beside the rockery which fronted Bede Hall.

  “Left now,” said Miss Crossley. She led the way at this point, and mounted to the front door of Athelstan, where she inserted Mrs. Bradley’s latch-key in the door. The door swung open. They closed it as quietly as they could and waited outside.

  “We have to count forty,” said Miss Crossley. Long before forty was up, however, a quick step in the hall, and the gleam of a light informed them that one of the maids was at home.

  “Who dar?” asked Lulu’s voice, as she came to meet them.

  “Mrs. Bradley wants a clean handkerchief, please,” said Miss Crossley. “Aren’t you at the dance?”

  “Oh, no, mam,” replied the maid, “Ephraim don’t like it.”

  “Well, that’s that,” said Jonathan. “I don’t see how we could have shut the door more quietly, but, you see, she heard us all right. Aunt Adela said her hearing was abnormal.”

  “Well, if we couldn’t sneak in by the front door, we certainly couldn’t at the back,” said Miss Crossley, who seemed to have shed her nervousness, and was enjoying herself. Jonathan agreed.

  “Now I’m to escort you back to the dance floor,” he said, “and I do hope you’re not booked for the next one, whatever it turns out to be, because I think we ought to dance it together.”

  “I’m not booked up really after the Twilight Waltz at all,” Miss Crossley confessed, “because I didn’t know when I should be able to return, and I didn’t want to disappoint anybody of their dance, or, of course, to excite suspicion by being noticeably absent. Your aunt pointed out that it was essential to arouse no suspicion.”

  “Quite,” Jonathan agreed; and they went back to the revels. He watched the clock, however, and at twenty-five minutes to eleven he went into the corridor, rather obviously displaying his cigarette-case and lighter. Scarcely had he reached the door of the room where the pottery oven was housed, when there was the sound of flying footsteps and Deborah came running up to him.

  “You’re to come back with me,” she said. “I don’t want you to do any more snooping about in the dark! It’s dangerous!”

  Jonathan held both her hands and looked at her gravely.

  “Listen, Deb. There’s no danger. And you can’t come out in that frock. But I’ve got a little job to do. It’s nothing much. You go back, and in about ten minutes I’ll be there. You have saved me the last dance, haven’t you?”

  “If you’re going across the grounds again, I’m coming with you,” said Deborah.

  “All right. But run and get a wrap, there’s a good girl. It’s cold. Bring my silk scarf if you can see it, as well, will you?”

  He waited until she had reached the opposite end of the corridor, then he went into the adjoining room and changed his coat for a lounge jacket which he buttoned closely, turning up the collar. Then he went noiselessly down the steps and walked briskly along the path towards Athelstan. But, instead of going up to the front door this time, he walked along until he came to the covered way connecting the Hall with the bakehouse next door to it on the west.

  He crouched down and strained his ears. After a short time he heard an owl hoot twice. He gave a low whistle. The owl hooted again, but only once this time.

  CHAPTER 18

  IDDY UMPTY IDDY UMPTY IDDY

  DEBORAH came back with a wrap and with Jonathan’s scarf and looked out into the blackness of the grounds. She did not dare to call out, for she knew that the reason he had come was to assist his aunt in her machinations against murderers, and she supposed that he was in process of carrying out instructions.

  She had no intention, however, of allowing him to get rid of her at what was, presumably, a moment of danger, and was about to step out into the inky pall which clothed the college demesne when Miss Topas, followed by Laura and Alice, came up.

  “What’s up, Deborah? Come out for a breath of air?” inquired Miss Topas.

  “No. I’m looking for Jonathan. The wretch sent me back for some wraps and now he’s taken the chance to disappear.”

  “Out there?”

  “Yes, I think so. You didn’t see him just now inside the hall, I suppose?”

  “No. Well, come on in. It’s cold out here, and the senior student is about to propose a vote of thanks to Mrs. Bradley before the proceedings terminate. Where is Mrs. Bradley, by the way?”

  “I don’t know. With Jonathan, I should think. At any rate, I’m going over to Athelstan. That’s where he was going, I’m fairly certain,” said Deborah. Miss Topas laid a restraining hand on her arm.

  “You can’t go chasing about in the grounds while a vote of thanks is being passed,” she pointed out. “Besides, you may queer the pitch. There’s a peculiar do on tonight.”

  “Well, when I do find him I’m going to tell him what I think of his manners,” said Deborah crossly.

  “Plenty of time for that after you’re wed,” observed Miss Topas reasonably. “Come on in. You can’t remain in this doorway, silhouetted against the light. It isn’t healthy.”

  Deborah observed that Laura, grinning, and Alice, looking faithful and determined, were closing in on her. She laughed, and went in with them.

  Neither Jonathan nor Mrs. Bradley came back, although, all the time she was dancing, she watched the door, and at five minutes to eleven came the announcement of the last waltz.

  “Take young Alice, and make her happy for life,” muttered Laura in Deborah’s ear. It seemed as well to make somebody happy, even though she was far from happy herself, so Deborah took Alice’s hand, smiled at her, said, “Shall we?” and swung her into the dance.

  The general opinion that it had been “jolly decent of the Prin.” to consent to the inclusion of Wattsdown College in the festivities, together with the necessity for the young gentlemen themselves of returning to their own territory some time before dawn, precluded any attempt to get Miss du Mugne to extend the time for the dancing, and by half-past eleven the good-byes had been said, a last kiss or two snatched by the more enterprising, and lights had begun to appear in the uncurtained windows of the various Halls to guide the Cartaret students to their beds. The Athelstan contingent remained behind, having received word that they were to wait for Mrs. Bradley. They stood about the hall in little groups, surprised and, at first, amused by the order. Deborah was talking to Miss du Mugne and Miss Crossley, and the three of them were glancing continuously at the door.

  In a minute or two Jonathan came in. He nodded, and Miss du Mugne, raising her voice a little, invited Athelstan to “go home” and wished them good night. Mrs. Bradley still had not appeared, and just as she was leaving the hall, Miss Mathers, the senior student of Athelstan, was called back.

  “Not very pleasant for you, my dear,” said Miss du Mugne, “but we want you to help us. Miss Cloud, you ha
d better return to Athelstan, I think, with the students. Somebody ought to be over there. Perhaps, Mr. Bradley, you would accompany Miss Cloud, and I will see that Miss Mathers returns as soon as possible.”

  Miss Mathers, her sensible, homely countenance not even having an expression of surprise, went with the Principal and Miss Crossley to the Board Room, next door to the Secretary’s office. Miss Rosewell was in the Board Room, looking thoroughly ill-at-ease, and there also were Mrs. Bradley and a faded-looking woman with fair hair going grey and an expression of intense malice lighting her grey-green eyes. It was the senior student who spoke first.

  “Miss Murchan!” she exclaimed. Then she looked suddenly horrified, for Miss Murchan’s wrists were tied together and her thin ankles were similarly confined.

  “Yes, Miss Murchan,” said Mrs. Bradley. “At least”—she looked at Miss du Mugne—“so I supposed. Do you, too, identify her?”

  “Without a doubt,” the Principal replied, “but I cannot believe my eyes.”

  “That I can imagine,” said Mrs. Bradley. “My nephew and I had some difficulty in bringing her over here, but that is nothing compared with the difficulty I have had in accounting for her disappearance, locating her hiding-place, and bringing her back to the world. Miss Mathers, my dear, go back to Hall, and not a word of this to anyone. You understand?”

  “But—but what made you do it, Miss Murchan? What were you afraid of?” inquired the Principal, gazing perplexedly at the one-time member of her Staff, as soon as Miss Mathers had gone. “Surely it was not like you to give us all so much anxiety!”

  The greyish woman in the chair began to laugh. It was not the laughter of hysteria, but it had such an odd, unnatural sound that the Principal recoiled from it as she might have recoiled had someone spat at her. She recovered herself in an instant, and went up to Miss Murchan and laid a hand on her shoulder.

  “Please tell me all about it,” she said steadily, with her air of authority.

  “Tell you all about it?” said the prisoner. “Yes, I’ll tell you. I lectured in English, didn’t I? Didn’t I?”

  “Yes, certainly, but…”

  “Then I can tell you all about it.”

  “Is she mad?” whispered the Principal. Mrs. Bradley shrugged.

  “In your view and in mine, certainly,” she replied. “According to the law, poor soul, I strongly doubt it.”

  “According to the law? But, surely, there’s no question of that?”

  It was impossible to proceed, for Miss Murchan, fixing her eyes on a cupboard in the corner of the room, an unused cupboard which had one door swinging open as though to display the emptiness within, was already declaiming, in a horrid monotone, some stanzas from Swinburne.

  “Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,

  How can thine heart be full of the spring?

  A thousand summers are over and dead.

  What hast thou found in the spring to follow?

  What hast thou found in thine heart to sing?

  What wilt thou do when the summer is fled?

  “Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow,

  I know not how thou hast heart to sing.

  Hast thou the heart? Is it all past over?

  Thy lord the summer is good to follow,

  And fair the feet of thy lover the spring:

  But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover?

  “O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow,

  I pray thee sing not a little space.

  Are not the roofs and the lintels wet?

  The woven web that was plain to follow,

  The small slain body, the flower-like face,

  Can I remember if thou forget?

  “O sister, sister, thy first-begotten!

  The hands that cling and the feet that follow,

  The voice of the child’s blood crying yet,

  Who hath remember’d me? Who hath forgotten?

  Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,

  But the world shall end when I forget.”

  The monotone moaned itself away, and the speaker appeared to have lulled herself asleep. Suddenly she straightened up, tried to make a gesture with her bound hands, managed to get them to her lips, swallowed, smiled, dropped her hands, gazed at them, it seemed perplexedly, and then dropped her head back against the padded head of the chair. Mrs. Bradley went across to her and released her hands and ankles.

  There was a sound of heavy footsteps outside.

  “That will be the police,” she said. “They will have to take charge of her now. She has given us the last clue, but it will, I think, mean nothing at all to them.”

  “Oh, dear, I do hate this! I do hope they won’t hurt her, poor thing,” said the Principal, becoming suddenly and demonstrably human. Mrs. Bradley again walked over to the still figure. She straightened herself and shook her head.

  “They won’t hurt her,” she answered, “for she has disappeared again.” Then, to the Principal’s surprise, she crossed herself, muttering what sounded like a spell but which must have been a prayer.

  CHAPTER 19

  ITYLUS

  “WELL, it seems,” said Laura, “that although the skeleton not turning up trumps settled the thing more or less, Mrs. Croc. had had her suspicions for some time previous to that that Miss Murchan wasn’t dead. She thought Cook being murdered proved it. The only reason for murdering Cook seemed to be that she had recognized somebody she wasn’t supposed to recognize, and that couldn’t have been Cornflake because Cornflake could always pull that gag that old Cartwright produced among the Edgar Allans—say she was somebody else. That, being as how she was a student of the college, would more or less let her out. And, anyway, Cook couldn’t have had anything on her about former doings, because she didn’t know her.

  “Then, the disposal of Cook’s body, as discovered by the police, followed by us finding the corsets. The difficulty about bringing that home to Cornflake simply was—when could she have done it? I mean, I know, theoretically, we each have our own room, and all that, but it actually takes some doing to slide out at night from one of these Halls, even if you used the communal passage and hopped it on to the wide open spaces from a Hall not actually your own. And then you’d have the dickens of a job to slide back. Of course, it wasn’t impossible, but it had all the earmarks of wild improbability, says Mrs. Croc.

  “In fact, if you go all through the rags and other things, you can pretty well deduce that only somebody very close at hand could have carried out most of the stunts. The snakes were one thing that didn’t seem to fit, but Cartwright has come clean about those, so they can be disregarded in the final summing-up. I mean, you can say what you like, but actually, as I once pointed out, it isn’t really feasible to suppose that Cornflake could have run the gauntlet of Hall after Hall like that, right along that passage. Much more likely to be somebody who had direct access to the bakehouse and could operate from there. And who so likely to have access as Miss Murchan herself? After all, she’d had all the keys in her possession when she was Warden.

  “Of course, she ‘disappeared’ after she’d spotted Cornflake, in the previous summer term, coming up for interview with the Prin. She knew her number was up once Cornflake got on her track. She’d killed that kid at that school, you see, and Cornflake, it appears, had seen her do it, and…”

  The subsequent explanations, inadequate and, on the whole, ill-informed though they turned out to be, lasted the fascinated group for some time.

  “You’re perfectly right, Deb,” said Jonathan. “My manners are awful. But, you see, I do want to keep in with you until we’re married—after which, I ought to point out, I intend to put it across you in no uncertain spirit, you carping cat!—and, in the circumstances, it didn’t seem to me that you would view amiably a bloke of my size and weight scrapping practically all out with Miss Murchan, murderess though she may be. That’s all. We’ve got her, and she took some getting. Not a pretty do, and I’m glad it’s over.”

  “Yes,�
� said Deborah, slipping her arm in his. “All right. I withdraw what I said. Shall we go into my sitting-room or into Mrs. Bradley’s?”

  “Hers. I bet your fire’s gone out. Hers won’t have done, if I know her.”

  “I’ll bet you…” said Deborah. Her fire was burning with a deep, red, comfortable glow. She put out her tongue at him.

  “Whisky?” she said, going to the cupboard.

  “You having some?”

  “I loathe it. But you look as though you need something…Here you are. You can splash the soda in for yourself. You know, I’m all at sea about Miss Murchan. When did Mrs. Bradley decide that she hadn’t disappeared after all?”

  “Why don’t you call her Aunt Adela?”

  “Well, she isn’t.”

  “Not yet, but it’s only a question of time.”

  “A good long time. I must stay on here until the end of the summer term. I’ve got to get these girls through their examinations.”

  “Oh, no, you haven’t. We’re being married some time within the next six weeks. It’s simply up to you to say when.”

  “But…”

  “None of it. I know you’re sorry you ever consented to the match, but as a woman of honour I don’t see how you’re going to get out of it now.”

  “There’s Mrs.—there’s Aunt Adela,” said Deborah. “I’ll let her know where we are.”

  “No need, child. I saw the light,” said Mrs. Bradley. “In fact, I saw lots of lights, not only from this room, but from almost all the rooms.”

  “Aren’t the students in bed?” asked Deborah. “I’d better go the rounds, I suppose.”

  “Oh, the students, bless them, will sit up until all hours,” replied the head of the house comfortably. “Leave them alone, and relax, child, or, better still, go to bed. I want to talk to Jonathan.”