The Devil at Saxon Wall

by Gladys Mitchell

‘Yes, I suppose so. Christina Rossetti, and the heroine’s name was Lizzie.’

  ‘True. Is that all you remember about it?’

  ‘By no means. It is a poem, all about fruit.’

  ‘You read it again,’ said Mrs Bradley earnestly. ‘Never mind the fruit.’

  ‘But I do. It makes my mouth water.’

  At this juncture Mrs Passion came in with the tea. Richard followed her, carrying a plate of cake and a trifle.

  ‘There’s no sherry in this,’ he announced. ‘It’s soaked in pure fruit juice, and Mr Birdseye gave Mrs Passion the cream, and I whipped it. I’ve been whipping it most of the afternoon.’

  ‘And very nice it looks,’ said Jones. ‘What do you think, Mrs Passion?’

  Her expressionless face flushed slightly.

  ‘I couldn’t have done it better myself. Passion’s gathered you some water-creases. It’s a bit hot.’

  ‘Passion took me paddling to gather them,’ said Richard. ‘I cut my foot a bit. Mrs Passion bound it up. Passion’s been in bed. He’s better now.’

  ‘I let Passion know what for,’ said Mrs Passion. ‘He means well, Passion do, but he’s that simple!’

  Mrs Bradley had undertaken the task of pouring out the tea. As usual, Mrs Passion walked to the window and stared out. Turning, she picked up a lump of sugar, gazed wildly for Jones’ cup, perceived that it was still empty, and went out with the lump of sugar in her hand.

  ‘She’s got about five lumps now,’ said Richard, ‘and she takes them out and looks at them and mutters: “Seven children by the long thin man.” I know because I’ve heard her. And once she turned to me and said: “Not you for one, little king, not you for one.” I think she’s an amazingly interesting woman, you know, Uncle John.’

  Jones nodded. Mrs Bradley turned to him when tea was over and Richard was gone, and said:

  ‘Has nothing else occurred to you about the murder? Don’t you see the strongest reason the police have for suspecting one of the Tebbutts?’

  ‘You still mean to emphasise the point that none of them appear to have seen or heard anything? But then, the murderer was someone so well known to the dead man that the latter does not seem to have suspected anything. There were no signs of a struggle, apparently. Of course, there was that cat. And, by the way, do you think that Mrs Tebbutt could have been lying when she said that Middleton had gone to bed at half-past ten?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’m sure she was,’ said Mrs Bradley briskly. ‘As I indicated, she is certainly a most accomplished liar, and more than a bit of an actress.’ She looked at Jones and chuckled. Then she added carelessly: ‘And certainly Mrs Tebbutt locked the dining-room door on the murdered man.’

  ‘You bluffed Tom into admitting it, I know. But that may have been the murderer, not Mrs Tebbutt at all.’

  ‘But Mrs Tebbutt must have known that it was locked, because it was she who “discovered” the body at about six o’clock next morning. If it was not she who locked it, why didn’t she inform the police? It must have been an unusual circumstance.’

  ‘But it may have been locked quite innocently.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, I’ve known people to lock inside doors as an extra precaution against burglars.’

  ‘Well, but if she was in the habit of locking it, young Tom would have known that it was of no use to go to the dining-room for the biscuits.’

  ‘But the key would have been on the outside of the door.’

  ‘If the door was locked by an innocent person, yes. But in that case Tom would have turned the key, gone in for the biscuits, come out again, and locked the door behind him.’

  ‘Which we know, on his own confession, obtained by you, that he did not do.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Mrs Bradley, beaming.

  ‘What I’d like you to tell me,’ said Jones, ‘is how on earth you knew that Tom hadn’t been into the dining-room that night.’

  ‘It was about a quarter-past eleven,’ said Mrs Bradley. Jones nodded. ‘Therefore it was about as dark as it could be at this time of the year.’ Jones nodded again. ‘There was no moon. To get anything out of the sideboard where the biscuits were kept, Tom would have had to switch on the electric-light. If he had done so he could not have helped remarking the blood on the floor. He did not notice it, apparently, therefore he did not turn on the light, therefore he could not have entered the room.’

  ‘Simple when once explained,’ said Jones. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But,’ continued Mrs Bradley, stroking her purple sleeve, ‘Mrs Tebbutt could get into the dining-room next morning, therefore she must have had the key, therefore she must have been privy to the fact that some time between half-past ten and a quarter-past eleven the murder had been committed and the corpse was in the dining-room.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Jones. ‘She’s guilty, then!’

  ‘Well, the police will think so, I’m afraid,’ said Mrs Bradley cautiously. ‘If the police found someone in the village who had known this dead man well enough to murder him, they might not be so anxious to arrest one of the Tebbutts. If the man had been Hanley, now——’

  ‘Good Lord! They haven’t got to the point of arresting them?’ cried Jones.

  ‘One of them. I think so. The question is—which one?’

  ‘I see. You plump for Mrs’

  ‘Not necessarily. By the way, I have discovered that Carswell Middleton does not appear to have been mentioned in the village until after his brother’s funeral. Mrs Pike and Thomas Part the water-diviner, independently of one another, are my informants. Does that seem a little odd to you? It does to me. There was an eccentric uncle and a moody nephew—Hanley. Carswell, the elder twin, who would appear to be a possible heir, had never been heard of until after his brother’s funeral. Isn’t that rather interesting? Even then, no one had actually seen him, you know. The fact of his existence was bruited abroad and formed a perennial subject of pot-house argument.’

  ‘I don’t know what you are getting at,’ said Jones, ‘but, yes, it is odd.’

  He hesitated and then said suddenly: ‘In fact it’s more than odd. It’s absolutely incredible that there should be an elder brother.’

  Mrs Bradley grinned mirthlessly.

  ‘It’s more than incredible. It’s absolutely false,’ she said. ‘I don’t see how there could possibly be such a person as Carswell Middleton. He’s a Fluke-Passion myth, invented for some obscure but deeply fascinating reason, all those years ago, possibly in view of just such an eventuality as this murder.’

  ‘You mean this murdered man is an impostor?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘But he called himself Carswell Middleton.’

  ‘And he wasn’t Carswell Middleton, because there never was a Carswell Middleton.’

  ‘Well, then——’

  Mrs Bradley leaned forward.

  ‘Did it never strike you that Hanley Middleton might have thought Saxon Wall too hot to hold him?’

  ‘You mean the story Mrs Tebbutt told you?’

  ‘No. I mean the story you told me. The unwanted virtuous wife, Constance. The careless nursing. The sudden death from puerperal sepsis. From what I can gather of Hanley Middleton’s reputation by talking to the villagers I should say he was a melancholiac of pronouncedly licentious habits with a strong bias towards actual mania. I believe that he became alarmed when his young wife died. He knew what the village knew of him, you see.’

  ‘But why didn’t anybody make a fuss and ask for an inquiry into the circumstances of her death?’

  ‘Again, it was nobody’s business. If only Hanley had been content to let well alone, what a perfect murder it would have been! Really, I regret the death of Seaman Pike. It was an artistic blunder and should never have been perpetrated. Poor Pike! But still, Hanley provided him, and therefore——’

  ‘Provided him?’ Jones was horrified. Mrs Bradley’s cackle was fiendish. ‘But the man must have been a devil! Anyway, I knew arsenic came into it somewhere. I
felt it in my bones. But how on earth did Crevister come to overlook it? I mean arsenic’s obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Do you remember, child, Doctor Crevister’s admission to you that Doctor Little—in other words, our little friend Hanley Middleton, who had telegraphed the Stowhall surgeon not to come—diagnosed that the patient’s condition was due to “a nasty case of strangulated hernia?”’

  ‘Good heavens!’ said Jones. ‘And was it?’

  ‘Hanley Middleton certainly passed Pike’s corpse off as his own,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Then I think he fled, and came back a fortnight ago in the guise of his non-existent brother——’

  ‘And murdered this man who’s supposed to be Carswell Middleton,’ said Jones. ‘I know that’s what you think, but you can’t deduce it from the facts at our disposal. The dead man was identified at the inquest——’

  ‘By Mrs Tebbutt, who tells lies and suppresses truths.’

  ‘Oh!—you mean—I see.’ There was a pause. Then Mrs Bradley added:

  ‘There are obvious indications that the dead man cannot be a Middleton.’

  ‘What indications?’ Jones inquired. Mrs Bradley waved a skinny claw.

  ‘Ask Doctor Mortmain, child. He attends there every day. Besides, it is quite obvious to everyone but you, that Middleton is still resident in the village.’

  ‘But the dead man must be Middleton,’ said Jones. ‘Consider the question of motive once again. Mrs Passion certainly spent some part of her life as Hanley Middleton’s mistress, if we can believe what Mrs Tebbutt told you.’

  Mrs Bradley nodded. ‘And if we can believe what I have gathered from various other sources,’ she said.

  ‘And she is almost certainly little Richard’s mother, don’t you think?’ continued Jones.

  ‘I wish we could prove that,’ Mrs Bradley said. ‘I think it is very likely, but I should like to be quite sure.’

  If she is, that surely gives her the best motive of anyone for the murder. She would not want a Middleton taking little Richard’s place.’

  ‘True. But what about it, child? Remember, that only holds good if the dead man is Middleton.’

  ‘Well, she and that old mother of hers (and Hallam and his Japanese, of course) happen to have the most obvious alibis of anyone in the village. It’s extraordinary the way they seem to have timed the murder and arranged to be elsewhere. It couldn’t happen by accident once in a thousand times that Mrs Passion should happen to come here drunk just twenty minutes after a murder had been committed a mile away. She couldn’t possibly have done the thing and come from there to me in the time, as I said before. Yet the more I think of it, the more it puzzles me.’

  ‘What did you say she wore?’

  ‘A hat and a pair of boots and her husband’s raincoat. Nothing else.’

  ‘Hm! And you think she was intoxicated, don’t you? She sat on the floor, you say?’

  ‘Until by main force I bunged her out and locked the door on her.’

  ‘She sat with her chin on her breast?’

  ‘Looking up at me with a kind of ghastly coyness.’

  ‘You were embarrassed?’

  ‘Naturally. I hated to see a woman—any woman—making an exhibition of herself like that. It made me most uncomfortable.’

  ‘Undoubtedly. I take it that you looked at her as little as possible, and that, in any case, the light was bad.’

  ‘But what’s all this about?’ demanded Jones.

  ‘Time will show,’ was Mrs Bradley’s slightly exasperating reply.

  ‘Yes, but how do you explain the conduct of the vicar?’ Jones persisted.

  Mrs Bradley shrugged.

  ‘I don’t think he removed the quatrefoil glass that night, that’s all.’

  ‘But that is his alibi.’

  ‘No. That is someone else’s alibi, dear child.’

  Jones refused to become exasperated.

  ‘Whose alibi was it, then?’

  ‘Well, Mrs Fluke knew the glass had been removed, and she declared it was taken out on the night of the murder to give herself an alibi in case she needed one.’

  ‘I see,’ said Jones. ‘So her alibi is dependent on the vicar’s, and his on her.’

  Mrs Bradley cackled.

  ‘You and your vicar!’ she said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Well, I’ll let her alone, and go home, and get another pitcher, and, for all this, get me to the well for water.’

  GEORGE PEELE

  The Old Wives’ Tale.

  ‘THE NEXT THING to do,’ said Mrs Bradley cheerfully, ‘is to ask the Chief Constable to dinner. Will you do it, or shall I?’

  ‘Let’s see, who is he?’

  ‘Major Odysseus Featley.’

  ‘Don’t know him.’

  ‘Well, I do, therefore I will invite him. I used to go hand in hand with his mother to a small private school some—’ she calculated on her yellow, claw-like hands—’sixty odd years ago.’

  Jones laughed. Mrs Bradley looked at him reproachfully.

  ‘And what are you going to say to him?’ he asked.

  ‘I shall tell him he is to dig up the bodies of Middleton, Middleton and Passion, and re-name them,’ she said.

  ‘Middleton, Middleton and Passion?’

  ‘Yes, child. Carswell Middleton, Hanley Middleton, and Baby Passion.’

  ‘He won’t do it.’

  ‘We shall see. Perhaps he may be able to suggest some means whereby Mrs Passion’s memory may be stimulated. If she could remember whether they buried Baby Passion or Baby Pike, it might be very useful.’

  ‘But she confessed that Richard was her son.’

  ‘Not in writing, nicely signed and duly witnessed, child.’

  ‘You mean she’d go back on what she told us?’

  ‘Undoubtedly, to the police.’

  ‘Damn!’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Hanley Middleton will turn out to be Pike, of course.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘And Carswell is certainly Hanley, you think.’

  ‘Which leaves us with this mysterious corpse,’ said Mrs Bradley cheerfully. Jones, who had tackled Mortmain, but without any satisfactory result, said suddenly and loudly:

  ‘Yes, now look here. This unknown man. Who can he be? It seems we ought to be able to deduce him, somehow, although I don’t know how. He must have been some sort of acquaintance of Middleton, I take it? Or, of course, he might have been just a tramp. He must have been someone who wasn’t missed much when he died. I mean, no inquiries seem to have come to hand about him.’

  ‘True, child.’ There was a pause, and then, with seeming irrelevance, she asked: ‘Have you ever handled a dog which was accustomed to unkind treatment?’

  ‘Are you thinking about that cat?’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Are you taking Richard to London this afternoon?’

  ‘Yes. I heard from Frances. A telegram.’ He handed it to her. Mrs Bradley read:

  ‘Have returned bring boy Frances.’

  ‘I am surprised, rather,’ said Jones. ‘But I’m taking him. To hell with his heredity.’

  ‘Bless you, my child,’ said Mrs Bradley absently. While you are gone I shall go and see Miss Harper. Both Misses Harper, in fact.’

  ‘About the night of the murder?’

  ‘Yes, child. They ought to be getting over the excitement of it by now, ought they not?’

  ‘I should think so. Wonder whether Mortmain would like a run up to town?’

  ‘Unless you are anxious to have his company, I would rather you left him here. I have the vicar to dispose of, and the presence of another doctor is essential to the preliminaries, you know.’

  ‘Oh, Lord, yes. Hallam, of course. But hadn’t you better put it off a day, until I get back. If he’s violent, you know, it might be awkward.’

  ‘I shall manage beautifully with the assistance of Doctor Mortmain, child. Shall you be back tonight?’

  ‘Oh, rather, yes. At a
bout eleven o’clock, I should think. I shall have to dine with Frances and make a few arrangements about the boy, but——Oh, yes, I shall certainly be back.’

  ‘I am not in the least nervous,’ Mrs Bradley assured him. Jones laughed.

  ‘I know, but I don’t want to miss a moment in Saxon Wall until this business is all cleared up. What do you expect to get out of the Misses Harper?’

  ‘Goodness knows, child. What ought I to allow them to get out of me?’

  Jones laughed.

  It was Miss Phoebe who welcomed Mrs Bradley that afternoon. Miss Harper, she explained, was at the vicarage assisting with the last-minute arrangements for the treat.

  ‘And we do so hope dear Mr Jones is not leaving the village for good. We had so hoped to have his valuable assistance with the Boys,’ said Miss Phoebe, emphasising the last word until it sounded as though the boys had about the same reputation in the village as Alva’s soldiers in the Netherlands. ‘A Man is so exceedingly useful on these occasions. Just a Word from him is sufficient. The Boys are dear creatures, no doubt, to those who understand them, but, speaking for myself, I can’t Cope. I don’t really think any Unmarried Woman ought to be expected to Cope with Boys, do you?’

  ‘Well, Miss Banks seems to manage,’ said Mrs Bradley, mildly.

  ‘Oh, Miss Banks, yes. Well, they’re Trained at College, dear Mrs Bradley, and it Makes a Difference. Training is Everything, I always think.’

  Mrs Bradley, delighted to have the chance of interviewing Miss Phoebe separately from her sister, introduced the aim of her visit.

  ‘Training, yes. How true that is,’ she said. ‘Even in work like that of a housekeeper——’

  ‘You mean the Tebbutts,’ said Miss Phoebe eagerly. ‘Yes, now. Take the Tebbutts, for example. Most worthy people, and, of course, we see a good deal of them, one way and another. Not quite so much now, of course, since——’

  ‘I was wondering about that,’ said Mrs Bradley.

  ‘The police—most Annoying and Official. “I really can’t imagine,” I said to the inspector, “what You imagine We could know about it. We are Very Secluded here,” I informed him. “We are certainly not on the Lookout for Murderers,” I said, “and if a Murder should Occur in the Vicinity,” I said, “we should keep ourselves To ourselves,” I said, “Inspector,” I said, “and not Peek and Pry. I am not so much interested in Pools of Blood,” I said, “that I need to be looking out for them at Eleven o’clock at Night,” I said. Do you blame me, Mrs Bradley?’