The Devil at Saxon Wall

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘By no means,’ Mrs Bradley assured her. ‘It would be strange indeed if you did know anything about such a disorderly occurrence.’

  ‘Mind you,’ said Miss Phoebe, sinking her voice, ‘I don’t say I didn’t know anything. I don’t say that at all. But there’s such a thing as the Liberty of the Subject, and, in my opinion, it should be respected. As a matter of fact, I have my Own Ideas about that murder.’

  ‘Really?’ said Mrs Bradley.

  ‘Yes. On the Night in Question I was very late to bed. We have two bedrooms facing Neot House, you know, because of the Early Morning Sun, and, although I went upstairs at the Usual Time, I did not Immediately Retire.’

  ‘No?’ said Mrs Bradley.

  ‘No. I—in short—well, I should not like my dear sister to know, but I am reading the Plays of Ibsen, and I was finishing Hedda Gabler.’

  Mrs Bradley nodded comprehendingly.

  ‘And, of course, Ibsen being What he Is, and the light in my room being Quite Invisible from my sister’s room, and our having agreed From the First to consider candles a Separate Item so that neither of us need make the burning of them an Affair of Conscience as, of course, we should be obliged to do if they came out of the housekeeping, I read on until past ten o’clock.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘How much past ten o’clock, do you suppose?’

  ‘Well, it really is a little difficult to say. At ten o’clock——’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, at ten o’clock I lighted a Second Candle, and placed it on the mantelpiece. That’s how I knew it was ten o’clock, because I always keep my bedroom clock twelve minutes fast in memory of the twelve apostles, and it showed twelve minutes past ten. But how much longer it was before the Affairs at Neot House engaged my attention it is impossible for me to say.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Mrs Bradley.

  ‘Yes. I can see the house from my bedroom window, and I was about to draw down the blind while I Prepared for Bed when I became aware that a Disturbance was going on, and scarcely had this dawned on me when the vicar, going very fast—much too fast for safety, I should have thought—shot past my window on his bicycle. There was what I can only describe as a Hue and Cry behind him, and the Man Tebbutt, carrying a hayfork, the Woman Passion, carrying an instrument exactly like the poker with which Mr Middleton is supposed to have been Battered to Death, the Youth Tebbutt, waving the branch of a tree, and the fellow Part, of whom, personally, I should have thought Better Things, came bounding from the front door of the house as though they were all demented.

  ‘It was disgraceful. I blew out my two candles, the better to see what was going on, and pressed my face close against the glass. It seems, mercifully, that the vicar Escaped their Vengeance, but I don’t wonder the poor man is in the throes of a Nervous Breakdown. I do not suppose, for one Instant, that he will Occupy the Pulpit on Sunday.’

  ‘Why do you suppose they were chasing him like that?’ Mrs Bradley inquired.

  ‘Oh, because of the water.’

  ‘You don’t suppose what you saw had any connection, then, with the murder at Neot House?’

  ‘Oh, as to that,’ said Miss Phoebe nervously, ‘I could not possibly take it upon myself to say. Marks just like Gerald’s footprints were found all over the Neot House lawn on the following morning, and Gerald, I know, was shut right away for the night.’

  ‘What can you mean?’ asked Mrs Bradley, amused and intrigued. Miss Phoebe dropped her voice.

  ‘Where all those human feet had run, and pressed on top of the marks left by the vicar’s bicycle where he had turned across the lawn to cut off the big bend in the gravel drive, were hoofprints like those of a goat. What do you make of that, if not something Horribly Supernatural?’

  Mrs Bradley wagged her head.

  ‘You are not superstitious, surely, Miss Harper?’ she inquired.

  ‘Superstitious?’ Miss Phoebe considered the point. ‘Well, no, perhaps not. But I do believe in the Supernatural, Mrs Bradley, and if dear Gerald was Locked Away, well Locked Away he was, and Something had performed a Satanic Dance upon the lawn of Neot House.’

  ‘And you have not told the police about the chase after the vicar?’ Mrs Bradley inquired.

  ‘No, indeed. Whoever committed the murder on the Night under Discussion, it was not the dear vicar, and wild horses would not coax me into betraying to the police the fact that he was Anywhere on the Premises at the time.’

  ‘I see. But if the police find out, you may find yourself in court, you know,’ Mrs Bradley pointed out.

  ‘And not for the first time,’ said Miss Phoebe, proudly. ‘Not that I believe in being on Bad Terms with the Neighbours, but a back garden fence is a back garden fence, and nobody is going to nail trellis on to mine.’

  ‘You complained to the police?’ inquired Mrs Bradley, interested.

  ‘No, no. Mind you, it was Sophie who actually Threw the Water, but I was with her, Body and Soul, and that is just what I feel about the vicar. How could I feel otherwise, when my duty to the Girls’ Guildry compels me to admonish them to Fight the Good Fight and to Put on the Whole Armour? You don’t put on armour to go and make daisy chains, Mrs Bradley, you know, and I hope and trust that I shall always find a Little Unpleasantness as stimulating as I do now.’

  ‘But the murder?’ Mrs Bradley said, plaintively.

  ‘What is to be, will be,’ returned Miss Phoebe. ‘And what I have said to Sophie I will repeat to you: It would not surprise me in the very least to discover that the Woman Passion knows a great deal more about the murder than she has Yet Told.’

  ‘I think you may be right there,’ Mrs Bradley agreed, and they were about to discuss the point when Miss Harper came in.

  ‘And that wretched Tebbutt never anywhere to be had when he’s wanted,’ she grumbled. ‘Why did he say he would help me in the garden if he never intended to turn up? Taken ill with grief at the loss of his employer! I don’t believe a word of it!’

  ‘But the poor man couldn’t help being taken ill, sister,’ said Miss Phoebe. ‘The police questioning and all the suspicion seem to have upset him. So his wife thinks, anyhow.’

  ‘Well, he’d no reason to be upset. They haven’t arrested him yet. Besides, he was taken ill before the police questioning began!’

  ‘Callous, sister.’

  ‘Why so, sister?’

  ‘Wait until you are in Imminent Danger of Arrest, and see how you feel.’

  ‘I have experienced the feeling, sister.’

  ‘Yes, but Murder, sister, is a Very Different Matter.’

  Mrs Bradley, deciding that she had added little to her knowledge by hearing Miss Phoebe’s story, stayed another half hour but, finding nothing to be gained by remaining any longer with the sisters, she walked up to Neot House, and inquired of Mrs Tebbutt, who opened the front door, whether Tom would like to earn a little money by coming to Jones’ cottage to do some gardening.

  ‘Tom?’ said Mrs Tebbutt, eyeing Mrs Bradley with anything but favour. ‘Tom’s been left the village these three days and nights. Got a job over by Southampton, Tom have, and very pleased to get out of here, too and all.’

  ‘Whom can I ask, then?’ inquired Mrs Bradley, mildly.

  ‘The devil might be able to tell ee. I can’t. Tebbutt, he’s still a-bed, quite moidered with the police trouble and that, and how I’m to manage without him is what I’d have a rare fine job to tell anybody. What’s more, I be very busy.’

  She shut the door in Mrs Bradley’s face, and Mrs Bradley could hear her footsteps retreating down the passage.

  ‘Hm!’ she said to herself, as she turned away. ‘There goes a badly frightened woman. This is very different from her previous reception of me. I wonder what has happened?’

  Something sang through the air. Mrs Bradley jerked her body to the left. A large hammer swung past her, and cut a chunk of turf out of the lawn when it fell. Mrs Bradley retrieved it, swung it thrice round her head as the arm clothed in white samite o
nce had waved the sword Excalibur, and then darted in amongst the rhododendron bushes that bordered the drive. Keeping well under cover she reached the gate. She glanced swiftly up and down the empty road and then hurried to the Long Thin Man as fast as ever she could go.

  When she left the inn to return to Jones’ cottage she was escorted by young Jasper Corbett and two labourers from the farm of the ever-present, never visible Birdseye.

  Jones was back by ten, and the lads went home.

  ‘What cheer?’ he said. Mrs Bradley told him. Jones whistled.

  ‘That’s you and me,’ he said. ‘Who is it, do you suppose?’

  ‘I fear it must be one of the Tebbutts, child,’ replied Mrs Bradley.

  ‘You’ll report it to the police, of course?’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Well, no. But then, I was snooping round by night, you see, and they could always declare they thought I was someone up to no good.’

  ‘And I,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘was snooping around in broad daylight, child, and they could always deny that they threw the hammer at me. No one was there to see.’

  ‘I bet the Misses Harper saw, all right.’

  ‘Yes, I expect so, child.’ She told him Miss Phoebe’s story.

  ‘So Hallam was up at Neot House on the night of the murder,’ said Jones.

  ‘Yes. Too early, though. Besides, we knew he was.’

  ‘But you say Miss Phoebe Harper cannot fix the time.’

  ‘No, but I know it was too early for the murder, child.’

  ‘But how do you know that?’

  ‘Because Tebbutt was among the hunters.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Everything,’ declared Mrs Bradley roundly.

  ‘Come! come!’ protested Jones earnestly.

  Mrs Bradley cackled.

  ‘Well, what about Hallam?’ asked Jones, perceiving that he was not going to obtain a satisfactory reply. ‘Did you get into consultation with Mortmain?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Mrs Bradley smoothed the sleeve of her jumper.

  ‘What does Mortmain think about him?’

  ‘Doctor Mortmain is forced to the conclusion that the vicar ought to be kept under observation for a little while.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I suggested my London clinic.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Doctor Mortmain thought it a good place.’

  ‘Not interested in Hallam personally, then?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, child. But he is of opinion that the vicar would benefit by leaving Saxon Wall for a time. Mr Hallam is suffering from shock.’

  ‘I’d say he was, too,’ said Jones. ‘I suppose all arrangements are made, then?’

  ‘All arrangements are made, child.’

  ‘Hallam quite agreeable?’

  ‘To the arrangements?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, does he consent to leave Saxon Wall?’

  ‘He was not asked to consent, child. I suggested to Doctor Mortmain that it would be better to practise a little innocent deception, and not to acquaint the vicar with our proposal that he should leave the village. Ostensibly I was to take Mr Hallam for a drive in your car, and——’

  ‘That doesn’t sound too good to me,’ said Jones, knitting his brows. ‘After all, he could be told. He isn’t insane or anything. Not permanently, I mean.’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Bradley thoughtfully. ‘But one can’t really say that the Long Thin Man is in London.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ said Jones. Mrs Bradley laughed.

  ‘Doctor Mortmain doesn’t know it, but I have my own reasons for wanting Mr Hallam to remain in Saxon Wall a little longer.’

  ‘What for?’

  Mrs Bradley smiled.

  ‘Because there is a madman after him; and after you, and after me. But particularly after Mr Hallam.’

  ‘Middleton?’

  ‘Middleton.’

  ‘Then you’re certain the dead man wasn’t Middleton?’

  ‘Quite certain, child.’

  ‘You know,’ said Jones, ‘I can’t see any sense at all in this murder, if the body wasn’t that of Middleton.’

  ‘There is that disadvantage, child.’

  ‘I mean, what becomes of the case against Mrs Passion?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Or Mrs Fluke?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Or even Hallam?—Oh, no. There’s still a case against Hallam.’

  ‘Oh, no, there isn’t,’ said Mrs Bradley firmly. ‘Mr Hallam left the house too early to have been the murderer.’

  ‘That’s what you said before, but you admit that you don’t know the time at which he left the house.’

  ‘Tell me, child. As a matter of interest, is there anyone in the village who gives you the creeps, so to speak?’

  ‘Only Passion and Mrs Pike. That’s because they are sub-normal. How do they affect you?’ asked Jones.

  ‘They don’t give me the creeps, child.’

  ‘Another thing,’ said Jones. ‘If the dead man is not Middleton, once again, who is he?’

  Mrs Bradley made no attempt to answer the question.

  ‘By the way, I must get hold of Tom Tebbutt,’ she said. ‘His mother has Made Away with him, as Miss Phoebe would say.’

  ‘Made away with him?’

  ‘As far as Southampton, child. Tom has been removed from our vicinity so that we cannot get at him and question him.’

  ‘Bit suspicious, that, surely?’

  ‘Quite. Never mind. It won’t affect our findings. Oh, another point! What do you think of Nao?’

  ‘I never know what to think about the Japanese. East is east, and all that, you know.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Mrs Bradley, ruminatively, ‘I think the murderer did not under-rate your intelligence, child.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘The “learning curves” showed a gradual though irregular improvement, with no indications of sudden transition from not knowing the answer to knowing it.’

  ROBERT S. WOODWORTH

  Contemporary Schools of Psychology.

  ‘NOW WHAT?’ SAID Jones, passing his teacup for the second time. With the return into his life of sugarless, Passion-less tea he felt that a new era had dawned, and regularly drank three cupfuls at every tea-time.

  Mrs Bradley sighed and leaned back in her chair.

  ‘I don’t believe you’ve been so well and so happy for years,’ she said.

  ‘Why hasn’t he?’ asked Richard. Mrs Bradley diverted his attention by cutting him a large slice of cake. This effective reply silenced him for the next five minutes, and she continued, addressing Jones:

  ‘I wish we could find some irrefutable proof of the parentage. To know the mothers would be interesting; to know the fathers would be stimulating. Don’t you think so?’

  Jones laughed.

  ‘What would you call irrefutable proof?’ he inquired. Mrs Bradley’s black eyes twinkled.

  ‘I can think of various tests which would be satisfactory,’ she said.

  ‘Blood tests, you mean?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘You must get the consent of the parties concerned, though, mustn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. And a blood test is not more than a negative proof, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean. You could prove who wasn’t the father or mother, so to speak, but not necessarily who was. Isn’t that the catch?’

  ‘I know a man who lets the hospitals have his blood for people who are dying,’ Richard observed, eyeing the crumbs which were all that was left of the slice of cake which Mrs Bradley had given him.

  ‘Noble, noble,’ she said absently. ‘Some more cake?’

  ‘No, thank you. May I have some gooseberries?’

  ‘Certainly. Take a cupful outside if you want to go and talk to Mrs Passion.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. I’m teaching Henry Pike to box.’

  ‘Don’t kill one another,’ said Jones.

&nbs
p; ‘Of course not,’ said Richard, wounded. ‘Not sparring. You never go all out when you’re teaching anybody.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jones. Richard’s smile forgave him.

  ‘What were we saying?’ asked Jones, when the child had left them.

  ‘That Hanley Middleton must have been a surgeon,’ replied Mrs Bradley.

  ‘That would account for his being able to perform the operation, of course. Look here, what do you think was the meaning of all that business?’

  ‘Just what we said before, dear child. Pike was the victim, of course. Middleton operated on and killed him, and Doctor Crevister, supposing Middleton, whom he barely knew by sight, to be the surgeon from Stowhall hospital, signed the death certificate.’

  ‘It was Middleton, then, who telephoned Doctor Little not to come?’ suggested Jones. ‘Look here, I propose that we interview Mrs Pike and Mrs Passion. One, if not both of them, must know something of what occurred, I should say. Let’s tackle Mrs Pike first, shall we? I want to find out how ill she thinks her husband was at the time of his disappearance.’

  ‘I think that would be a good plan,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Let us go now. I wonder at what time Henry goes to bed?’

  ‘No need to bother about Henry. He can come over here for an hour and raise hell in company with Richard. You know, it’s very odd about Richard. I can’t help feeling that he can’t be Passion’s son.’

  ‘Defective mentality is a Mendelian recessive, child, you know.’

  ‘You think he might be Passion’s son?’

  ‘Well, no, I do not.’

  ‘Hurrah!’

  ‘Get your hat, child. Leave Richard sixpence to spend. Let us be going.’

  ‘Richard has his pocket-money. I don’t think we ought to spoil him.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But, morally speaking, ought we to compel him to entertain Henry out of his own pocket-money when Henry is coming here for our convenience?’ asked Mrs Bradley.

  ‘Quite,’ said Jones, going off and giving Richard one-and-sixpence.