Bloxham followed her into the library.
‘Notebook,’ said Mrs Bradley, holding out her skinny claw. Bloxham found the page and showed it to her. Mrs Bradley perused it with little cluckings of approval.
‘But this is wonderful!’ she exclaimed, as she perused it. ‘Where are the handcuffs?’
‘But it wasn’t Kost,’ said Bloxham sadly. ‘And, if it wasn’t Kost, you see, it wasn’t Caddick either.’
‘Kost? Caddick?’ said Mrs Bradley, puzzled. She looked at the notebook again. ‘My dear, neither of these could commit murder.’
‘Well, look at it in black and white,’ said Bloxham. ‘What other conclusion could one come to?’
‘Why, plenty of other conclusions,’ said Mrs Bradley briskly. ‘Wait just a moment and I’ll come back and tell you what they are.’
She was gone from the library for less than ten minutes. When she returned, Bloxham was seated on a corner of the table with his notebook in his hands, scowling thoughtfully at the last few entries. Mrs Bradley took the notebook away from him and seated herself in a chair with the book laid open before her on the smooth, beautifully polished wood.
‘Herring, of course, you ruled out as lacking in the necessary brain power and as having no accomplice as far as can be traced,’ she announced in businesslike tones. ‘That leaves Priscilla Yeomond still in your last collection of names. What have you against her?’
‘Nothing personal,’ said Bloxham. ‘A very pretty and charming girl. Besides, as I’ve put in my notes, it is exceedingly doubtful whether she could have had anything to do with the death of Hobson. I ascertained that Celia and she left the drawing room together at somewhere round about ten o’clock while the gramophone was playing, to tidy their hair and so forth, but that’s all. Of course, there’s the second murder to be considered, the same as it has to be considered in regard to Kost—’
‘I suppose you have taken into consideration with regard to Priscilla Yeomond and Celia Brown-Jenkins the following facts?’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘First, as you say, either of them could have leaned over the balcony and dropped the weight on to Hobson’s head, for the essential point of the first murder is this: Everybody in the house had sufficient strength, and almost everybody had sufficient time and opportunity for it.’
‘Yes, but the other business of putting the body in the lake,’ said Bloxham. ‘You don’t mean to tell me—’
‘No, of course I don’t,’ said Mrs Bradley decidedly. ‘I am coming to that point next. Supposing that Priscilla accomplished Hobson’s death, why then Malpas and Hilary Yeomond could have performed that mad trick which gave the game away.’
‘But Malpas and Hilary—oh, Malpas and Hilary—’
‘Both big, daring, chivalrous lads,’ commented Mrs Bradley, grinning wickedly. ‘Both desperately anxious to cover up sister Priscilla’s unfortunate peccadillo. Both—Hilary especially—quite clever enough to think out the details—’
Bloxham kicked the leg of the table temperamentally and then glared at the toes of his boots.
‘And as for the second murder,’ said Mrs Bradley, thoroughly warming to the work and enjoying herself hugely, ‘you yourself know best how very suspicious Priscilla’s admissions appeared to us when you questioned everybody in the little sitting room. Of course, it is another question whether a young female of unremarkable physique could have used that keen and heavy gladius with such fell effect as it seems to have been used on Anthony, but, apart from that—’
‘The thing was beastly sharp,’ said Bloxham slowly.
‘And the body had been completely impaled on it,’ said Mrs Bradley briefly. ‘The inference, to my mind, is fairly obvious, in spite of the proved sharpness of the weapon. I fancy a clever defending counsel—Ferdinand Lestrange, for example—would make short work of a case against Priscilla Yeomond or Celia Brown-Jenkins.’
‘The thing that puzzles me,’ said Bloxham, ‘is why you are so certain that both the murders were committed by the same person. There’s no earthly connection between them, to my mind.’
‘Well, it would be too exciting to suppose that two murderers, each with a Jupiter-like propensity for picking off ill-disposed persons for no other reason, apparently, than that they were ill-disposed, should be dwelling together under the same roof through circumstances which neither of them could possibly have foreseen until just over a year ago,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘However, there is point in your objection, and I will not dismiss the notion lightly now that you have seen fit to put it forward. Let us take, then, the persons who could have killed Anthony, but who could not have killed Hobson. You notice again that we get Malpas Yeomond. The other two names that you have down under this heading have not been mentioned in this enquiry before, so we will deal with Malpas first.’
‘But I’ve nothing against Malpas Yeomond except that he has no alibi,’ protested Bloxham. ‘As for Francis Yeomond, I’ve nothing on him, either. Not for either of these affairs.’
‘And he didn’t even come to the May Fair at Hilly Longer with us,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘so I’ve nothing against him, either. Disappointing, isn’t it? What about Amaris Cowes?’
‘Very doubtful,’ said Bloxham. ‘She was even inside the house when the disturbance began and everything.’
Mrs Bradley looked surprised.
‘But was she?’ she asked.
‘Of course she was. Didn’t she speak to Miss Caddick?’
‘Not when the disturbances commenced,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘She did not speak to Miss Caddick until the disturbances had ceased and Miss Caddick had left Mrs Puddequet and was back in her own room.’
‘Well?’ said Bloxham.
‘Well,’ returned Mrs Bradley, ‘you go up to Miss Caddick’s room, and wait outside the door. When you hear a shot from Mr Kost’s starter’s pistol, please begin taking the time by your wristwatch. Has it a seconds dial? Yes. Very well.’
‘Look here, I’ve not time to waste—’ began Bloxham, but before he could conclude the sentence Mrs Bradley had gone. He grunted sardonically and took the chair she had vacated. He bent over his notebook, rereading the list of names. It was maddening to think that on those pages somewhere was the name of the murderer—for, despite his remark to Mrs Bradley, he, too, felt certain that the person who had killed the drunken Hobson had also murdered the spendthrift, worthless Anthony.
At the end of four and a half minutes it occurred to him that he might as well fall in with Mrs Bradley’s suggestion. He rose slowly and walked to the door. As he opened it there came the sound of a blank cartridge fired in the sunk garden. He tore up the stairs three at a time after a hasty glance at the seconds hand of his watch, and for forty seconds he waited outside Miss Caddick’s bedroom door, his eyes fixed on the seconds hand as it went racing round the tiny circle. Suddenly, a rich, mellifluous voice said in his ear:
‘How many, child?’
‘Good heavens!’ said Bloxham, startled. ‘Fifty seconds from the sound of the shot. Where the deuce did you come from?’
‘The sunk garden,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘We can go downstairs again now. I just wished to prove that, if it had been Amaris Cowes who made that dreadful noise outside the gate of the sunk garden, she could have run round the house and come in at the kitchen entrance; then she could have come up here by the way of the back stairs without making a noise, and could have spoken to Miss Caddick, as we know she did. Miss Caddick would not have seen her approach because the door was shut and Miss Caddick was on the farther side of it. Therefore, you see, the illusion that Amaris had merely come along the landing from her own room, because she had been disturbed by the javelin which broke the window, could have been created very easily and artistically.’
They reentered the library, and Mrs Bradley sat down in the chair once more.
‘Yes, but that means that she threw the javelin at her own bedroom window,’ protested Bloxham.
‘Well, why not? The moment we asked Kost for the names of persons who understood how to throw the javeli
n he mentioned Amaris Cowes first. Don’t you remember?’
‘But you’re not proving that Amaris Cowes murdered Anthony,’ said Bloxham. ‘You’re only proving that she could have played a silly trick—’
‘In order to create the impression—successfully, I think you will agree—that Anthony was alive and outside the sunk garden at eleven forty-three that night, instead of being dead and inside it at that hour,’ concluded Mrs Bradley. ‘Don’t you remember that Miss Caddick said that to throw the javelin at the window was just the kind of mad, stupid thing Anthony would think of?’
‘But why should she want to create such an impression? You don’t suppose she did murder Anthony?’ cried Bloxham.
‘Oh, I am quite sure she didn’t?’ said Mrs Bradley, suitably horrified at the very idea. ‘And your next question, of course,’ she added, in the indulgent tone of a paternally minded tutor, ‘is, who did murder him?’
‘But half a minute!’ cried Bloxham, considerably impressed by Mrs Bradley’s effective demonstration. ‘Amaris Cowes is an artist.’
Mrs Bradley eyed him with the delighted astonishment of the teacher whose dullest pupil suddenly seems to see a great light.
‘Marvellous, child!’ she ejaculated fondly.
‘And you once asked me’—Bloxham scowled in the effort to remember the incident—‘you once asked me—I say!’ he suddenly shouted. ‘It was Amaris Cowes who chucked the little mermaid into the mere!’
‘I should imagine so,’ replied Mrs Bradley, shaking her head sadly over the extraordinary workings of the artistic mind.
‘Because she didn’t like it?’
‘Undoubtedly she didn’t like it, child. Who could?’
‘Ah! Then you were wrong when you thought the murderer and his accomplice were the people who chucked it in? They knew it was in there, and they made use of it.’ He grinned triumphantly at her.
‘So simple,’ said Mrs Bradley, under her breath.
‘And of course it was Amaris who persuaded old Mrs Puddequet to dismount those frightful cupids, or whatever they were, and to substitute those two stone balls—’ went on Bloxham.
‘One of which was made of clay, and contained the shot which killed Hobson,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Strange, but true.’
‘Oh, but we decided that clay ball must have been substituted later by the murderer,’ said Bloxham.
‘Please don’t associate me with that particular finding,’ said Mrs Bradley, with finality. ‘That clay ball was made by Amaris Cowes.’
‘You don’t mean she was the murderer’s accomplice?’ cried Bloxham.
‘Well, everything seems to point to it. And now I must go back to the Digots’ and dress for dinner.’
‘Yes, but you’re all wrong, you know,’ said Bloxham, rising. ‘You have forgotten, I think, that Amaris Cowes didn’t even reach the house until four o’clock on the morning after the murder of Hobson. The man had been dead six hours when she arrived.’
‘There is that, of course,’ said Mrs Bradley, looking considerably less important. She walked to the door, and Bloxham followed her. Both were grinning at secret thoughts; the inspector like a little boy who has cheeked nurse and got away with it successfully; Mrs Bradley with the gentle grin of the alligator replete with food.
II
‘If you are going to stay up all night, darling, I wish you’d say so, and then I could go to bed,’ said the youthful Mrs Bloxham plaintively. She came over and sat on the edge of the writing table. ‘Is it still those silly old murders?’
Bloxham shut his notebook with a snap, tossed the sheets of paper on which he had been working into the basket, sighed heavily, and rose.
‘Have we had supper?’ he enquired.
‘Of course, silly, nearly two hours ago.’ Mrs Bloxham stood up and yawned. ‘I knew you weren’t caring whether I’d taken the trouble to cook it or not. Ungrateful old pig, aren’t you? Are you hungry again? There’s bread and cheese—’
Bloxham pulled her hair.
‘Scotland Yard on the ball tomorrow,’ he said, with affected lightness. ‘Then we shall learn how to do it.’
‘If you can’t work it out, I’m sure those London smart alecs won’t be any good,’ said Mrs Bloxham defiantly. ‘It’s your turn to use the bathroom first, so hurry up, old sleepy-head.’
III
At three o’clock in the morning Bloxham woke.
‘Of course,’ he said aloud. ‘Damn fool!’ He turned over and went to sleep again. At half-past eight he was knocking at the door of the superintendent’s quarters.
‘I’m going over to Longer to make an arrest in connection with the murders of Hobson and Anthony,’ he said. ‘I’m taking the sergeant and two men, as he’s such a very powerful and athletic chap.’
‘Who?’ asked the superintendent, looking over the top of the morning paper.
‘Comrade Kost.’
‘And what about the accomplice?’
‘Companion Caddick. It’s true she locked him in the dressing room until midnight, but he could have killed Hobson before they ever went upstairs at all, and he could have put the body in the lake after twelve. Shan’t be long.’
When he arrived at Longer, however, the two he sought had not appeared at breakfast, although it was more than half-past nine. Priscilla Yeomond, pale and anxious-eyed, said hesitatingly,
‘You don’t think—oh, but no! No! It is impossible!’
‘What is?’
‘That they’ve been murdered,’ said Celia Brown-Jenkins, grinning. ‘I’ll go up to Great-aunt’s bedroom and get Miss Caddick to hurry up.’
She put down her knife and fork and left the table. In a few moments, flushed and trembling, she returned.
‘She’s just coming,’ she said, with a curious catch in her voice. ‘Won’t you have some breakfast, inspector?’
Bloxham refused, and sat waiting in a fever of impatience like a terrier at the mouth of a rat-hole.
The family champed its extraordinarily English breakfast stolidly, save for Celia; she merely drank three cups of coffee in quick succession, and then hid herself behind the morning paper.
‘Is Kost in his hut?’ demanded Bloxham at last.
‘I’ll go round and see,’ said Clive Brown-Jenkins obligingly. ‘He’s often late for breakfast,’ he added carelessly, as he walked on to the terrace by stepping out through the open window.
‘Have breakfast so devilishly early here,’ said Malpas, kicking first Francis and then Hilary under the table, and treating Priscilla to a warning scowl.
After an absence of almost a quarter of an hour, Clive returned.
‘Sorry. Can’t find him. Probably out for a long run or walk or something devilish energetic,’ he said. He reseated himself indifferently at the breakfast-table and reached for a third boiled egg.
‘How did the Bedouins do?’ he enquired of his sister Celia.
‘The Bedouins?’ Celia turned over the pages. ‘Ch —er—they lost by three wickets.’
‘Good egg!’ said Hilary. ‘Lend me the page, Celia. Oh, never mind. Here’s Aunt. I’ll get her some brekker.’
He went to the sideboard and stood idiotically at attention as his great-aunt, in her bathchair, propelled by Amaris Cowes, entered the room.
‘Why, inspector?’ said Great-aunt Puddequet, in surprise. ‘This is indeed an honour.’
‘Scarcely an honour, I’m afraid, Mrs Puddequet,’ said Bloxham. ‘The fact is, I’m here very much on business, and it is absolutely essential that I speak to Miss Caddick and the trainer Kost immediately.’
‘Breakfast first,’ said Great-aunt Puddequet implacably, ‘and all unpleasantness afterwards. Kidneys and bacon, Grandnephew Hilary,’ she added, turning towards the sideboard. ‘And sit still, inspector. You’ll spoil my digestive powers if you scowl and fidget like that. If you must see Companion Caddick and Trainer Kost, you must wait until they see fit to grace the room with their presence. They will be late this morning. He is teaching her to drive a m
otorcycle. Very creditable of him.’
Another quarter of an hour passed. Bloxham rose, his patience quite exhausted.
‘Mrs Puddequet,’ he said, ‘I must ask you to allow one of the ladies to accompany me to Miss Caddick’s room at once.’
A strong feeling that the catch was going to slip through the meshes of the net was presenting itself with alarming insistence.
‘I’ll come,’ said Celia, in return for a nod from her great-aunt.
Outside Miss Caddick’s bedroom door she halted and tapped. There was no answer, so she called the occupant by name. At last she turned the handle and went in, only to reappear immediately.
‘She is still out with the trainer, apparently,’ she said lightly. Bloxham strode past her into the room. The bed had been slept in, but otherwise the room was in order. Bloxham walked to the window, which had been mended since the night of Anthony’s death, and leaned out.
‘Anybody been through into the sports ground?’ he called to the sergeant, whom he had left in the sunk garden whilst he himself was in the house.
‘No one, sir.’
‘No. She would have gone down the back stairs and out through the kitchen garden,’ said Celia, striving to keep her voice steady.
Bloxham pushed past her and tore down the stairs and out through the sunk garden, bellowing to the sergeant to allow no one to leave the house.
The trainer’s hut was empty. The sports field was deserted. The gymnasium was untenanted, and the mere a width of placid, shining water.
Bloxham ran back to the house.
‘I must see them,’ he said shortly. ‘You don’t know which direction they are most likely to have taken, Mrs Puddequet?’
‘No, young man,’ said old Mrs Puddequet tartly. ‘I do not.’
‘Towards Hilly Longer,’ said Clive shortly. ‘Look here, I’m going out for a spin that way now, this minute. I’ll send them back here to you at the double.’
The inspector scribbled on a leaf out of his notebook.
‘If you wouldn’t mind handing that in at the police station at Hilly Longer,’ he said, ‘the sergeant and constable will get a conveyance in the village and follow up Mr Brown-Jenkins, and I shall sheer off in the other direction. Those two must be found. I’ll send Constable Copple along here to keep my other man company.’
The Longer Bodies Page 22
