“Can’t I listen, then? I promise I won’t interrupt.”
Mrs. Bradley said nothing for a moment, but leaned forward and put coal on the fire. Her nephew watched her. Then, as she leaned back in her chair, an unusual relaxation in her, he caught her eye, and framed a question with his lips. Mrs. Bradley nodded.
“Suicide,” she said. “Cyanide of potassium. I thought perhaps she would, and it is much the best way out for the college.”
“How did you know we should get her tonight, if you’d never set eyes on her before?”
“I guessed she would take advantage of the fact that the house was empty to get into the kitchen to steal food. Most of the servants go over to the college entertainments, and the coast would be perfectly clear, once Lulu had gone to bed. I didn’t want a public fuss if it could be avoided. On the other hand, I didn’t want to lose her, by coming across here too late.”
“Has she really been living in the bakehouse?”
“Yes. It is used only twice a week for baking bread, cakes, and pastry for the whole college. Knowing the routine, she could always hide in the Hall when the bakehouse was in use. She then used the large cupboard on the top floor, the one built over Deborah’s bathroom, I expect. From a point of vantage like that, she could annoy and disturb us as much as ever she liked.”
“But that’s what beats me. Why did she want to disturb you? Why all that childish ragging?”
“Oh, that has been plain all along. She simply wanted to get rid of me. She did not want me following her trail. She was desperately afraid of being found. She did not care whether she frightened me away, or whether I was dismissed for mismanaging the discipline of the Hall. Having attempted to injure me by tying strings across doorways at the beginning of last term, she then got ideas from Miss Cartwright, who organized the bonfire rag. The most interesting thing about the other ragging has been the way her mind worked over it. I knew that couldn’t be students.”
“No; malice all through. Wicked stuff, some of it, too; that girl’s hair, for example.”
“Quite.”
“How do you know, by the way, that it wasn’t Miss Cornflake who tied the string across our doors?” asked Deborah.
“Because I don’t think Miss Cornflake was in college that night. She travelled from London the next morning, and could not have made the double journey in the time. The trains don’t fit.”
“What about a car?”
“Yes, that would have been a possibility. But I don’t see how Miss Cornflake could have gained admittance to the building at that time. She couldn’t have had any keys. Besides, I don’t see how she could have known that I was to be in residence that day. There are all sorts of reasons against its having been her doing. And then, how can one account for the first exchange of skeletons unless Miss Murchan worked it? She knew Miss Cartwright from the previous year, remember; knew her home address; knew what would be the effect on her of a challenge.”
“What about slashing the clothes and punching holes in the disinfectant?” asked Jonathan.
“That was Miss Murchan, I am sure, and it gave her state of mind away. As soon as those things happened, I knew that we had to look out for a person of a type familiar to all students of the morbid psychology of sex. I knew there was no one of the type among the students or servants, and as soon as I became acquainted with Miss Cornflake I knew that she was not the type either. From that point I deduced that Miss Murchan was not dead, but it was the murder of that poor, stupid, greedy cook that made my theories into certainty.”
“Greedy?”
“Certainly. She blackmailed Miss Murchan, having discovered her one evening in the storeroom. Food was Miss Murchan’s chief difficulty, because, although she had plenty of ready money, she did not dare to shop for fear of being recognized. Well, the cook became a constant danger, so, knowing the ways of the house, and Miss Cartwright’s ways, in particular, of having baths at ungodly hours, Miss Murchan sent Cook a message after I had dismissed her, brought her back by giving her the hope of obtaining more money, and drowned her in the servants’ bathroom.”
“And the bones?”
“Miss Murchan provided those. She did not realize how easy it would be, with the help of that craftsman, the dentist, to prove that the skeleton was not hers.”
“And who did the ’orrid cookery down in the quarry?”
“Miss Murchan. The police, no doubt, will tackle the boy again, and obtain a complete account of what happened and a full description of the woman. Besides, it is unlikely that Miss Cornflake would have enlisted his help so openly. Miss Murchan, made up to resemble her half-sister, worked out that, if the description were given, Miss Cornflake would be involved and not herself. The police have found the old zinc bath she used. Some students found it first.”
“There’s one other thing. Why did Miss Cornflake stalk you in college with that revolver?”
“Oh, but she didn’t. She really did carry it in self-defence. That seems quite certain now. I’ve visited her several times since she’s been in the Infirmary, and, as soon as I was sure of my ground, I told her that as Miss Murchan had undoubtedly killed Cook, that was sufficient to put her within reach of the law. I suggested that although there was no evidence beyond Miss Cornflake’s unsupported word that the child’s death had been anything other than accident, there was plenty of evidence to show that Cook had been murdered, and I said I was prepared to act on it. Of course, the one thing I did not foresee was that the plucky, idiotic Laura Menzies would lay her out.”
“And you call yourself a psychologist!” said Deborah.
“But what is all this about the Cornflake and Miss Murchan?” asked Jonathan. “I know they were half-sisters, and I know Miss Murchan killed the child, but why should the two of them lay for one another?”
“Well, the thing began as a love story,” said Mrs. Bradley. “You see, the child happened to be Miss Cornflake’s own…That much I deduced from a conversation I had with old Mrs. Princep, the grandmother. The half-sisters, Miss Murchan and Miss Cornflake—oh, yes, that made the bad blood between them, the fact that they were related through their mother—both loved the same man. What happened to him I don’t know. I only know that although—whether by accident or design—he married neither of them, Miss Cornflake, or, as I suppose we ought to say, Miss Paynter-Tree, had the child and Miss Murchan envied her, and killed the child in spite, after years of bitter brooding. Miss Paynter-Tree saw it done, from the gymnasium gallery at the school. The mother told me they watched one another like cats, and the headmistress agreed that a person passing quietly along the gallery could see what was happening below.
“At first Miss Paynter-Tree thought that the verdict at the inquest was the truth. Her half-sister, by writing that anonymous letter to the police, showed her the truth, that the child had been killed deliberately. Half the beauty of the revenge would have been lost, you see, had Miss Paynter-Tree continued to believe that the death was accidental.
“Miss Murchan was not safe from her half-sister’s vengeance once the truth was disclosed. She hid from her very successfully at Cartaret for a couple of years, but Miss Paynter-Tree found her at last, and she knew her number was up unless she could disappear.
“Together with the idea of the disappearance came the thought of how much safer she would be if Miss Paynter-Tree were dead. Then she saw me as an enemy. She didn’t want to be found, and she was terribly afraid that I should find her, especially as we were living in the same house!
“Of course, this Athelstan building lends itself admirably to hide-and-seek, what with its communal passage with other Halls and its back and front staircases. I could have caught her, I expect, at the end-of-term dance last term, but I wasn’t ready with my proofs. Hence our performance tonight.
“She quoted Itylus before she died.”
“Sure proof she wasn’t really an English specialist,” said Deborah sleepily, “or she’d have known that she’d got the story backwards.”
“That’s another interesting thing. A woman who marries three tunes is almost bound to be either super-normal, abnormal, or sub-normal…”
“Same like you!” said Jonathan. He picked up Deborah and carried her off to bed.
“Don’t go over the threshold. It isn’t lucky,” said his aunt.
“Always the gentleman,” he replied. He passed on, up the front staircase, on which the lights were still burning, to encounter, on the first-floor landing, the wide gaze of Laura Menzies. He had forgotten that the students were still about.
“Oh, lor!” said Miss Menzies, “young Lochinvar in person.”
“No,” said Jonathan. “Shove open that door for me, would you? And don’t bellow, there’s an angel. The baby appears to be asleep.”
“Bit of luck for me. She’d hate me for ever if she thought I’d seen you carrying her like this. When are you going to be married?” Laura inquired.
“Don’t know exactly. Let you know in plenty of time. Meanwhile—I suppose she’ll wake the minute I put her down—
“For whilst our brows ambitious be,
And youth at hand awaits us,
It is a pretty thing to see
How finely beauty cheats us;
And whilst with time we trifling stand
To practice antique graces,
Age with a pale and withered hand
Draws furrows in our faces.”
“You shall write it in my album,” said Laura, grinning.
About the Author
Gladys Mitchell was born in the village of Cowley, Oxford, in April 1901. She was educated at the Rothschild School in Brentford, the Green School in Isleworth, and at Goldsmiths and University Colleges in London. For many years Miss Mitchell taught history and English, swimming, and games. She retired from this work in 1950 but became so bored without the constant stimulus and irritation of teaching that she accepted a post at the Matthew Arnold School in Staines, where she taught English and history, wrote the annual school play, and coached hurdling. She was a member of the Detection Club, the PEN, the Middlesex Education Society, and the British Olympic Association. Her father’s family are Scots, and a Scottish influence has appeared in some of her books.
Laurels are Poison (Mrs. Bradley) Page 26
