The Worsted Viper (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  Just above Six Mile House Laura put in to the side. A lane, going northwards, seemed to promise as well as anything else they could find, and, leaving Laura on board, as she said she could not be bothered to accompany them, Kitty and Alice set off across the marshes. Laura got out some biscuits and a bottle of lemonade, and settled down philosophically to await their return.

  At the end of two and a half hours, however, she felt a good deal less philosophical. The sun was declining, and an evening breeze whipped the river into little eddies and caused Laura to go into the cabin and change her clothes for something warmer. Dressed in slacks, sweater, and a blazer, she resumed her vigil. Another half-hour went by, and still the others did not come. It was not Laura’s nature to be anxious, but she did become somewhat irritable.

  “Selfish blighters,” she grumbled to herself.

  Mist began to rise from the river. They could moor where they pleased now, she reflected, grateful again to Mrs. Bradley for having relieved them of police surveillance. That was one good thing. There was no need to worry about getting to any particular spot by nightfall. They were, for the first night in a week, free agents as far as a choice of moorings was concerned. But the darkening landscape began to depress her. Boats of all kinds passed the Dithyramb during the time that Laura had been alone, all of them homeward bound at the end of the long, hot day. She thought she might as well have an evening dip, and was about to descend to the cabin when she saw a figure running towards her across the marshes—or, rather, along the causeway.

  Even at a considerable distance she recognised the runner to be Kitty. She leapt ashore and went to meet her. Kitty was breathless and excited.

  “Can you come, Dog?” she demanded, as soon as she could speak. “Alice is trailing the man. We want to know what to do.”

  “What man, duck? Not the murderer?”

  “That’s what we don’t know,” said Kitty, dropping into a walk. “I’ve come to bring you and the coshes.”

  “Good idea,” said Laura, brightening. “Get your breath, while I run back for them.”

  Kitty was still breathing fast when she returned. She observed that they would have to walk for a bit, as Alice was in no danger, and she herself could not “raise a run” to save her life.

  “Shoot, K.,” said Laura. “What’s been happening? I thought you’d lost yourselves, or something.”

  “Well, we found a farm,” said Kitty. “In fact, we found two, because they said they’d got scarlet fever at the first one, and, although they were ever so hospitable, we thought we’d better not go in. Well, we went on and came to a second farm. It was about two miles off, across the marshes, and we had to keep jumping little ditches, because Alice saw a short cut, and, when we got there, there was a beastly dog neither of us liked the look of. It was roaming loose, and barked and growled like anything, and I think it might have gone for us, only we kept one side of the last ditch and the dog didn’t seem to want to jump across.

  “Well, of course, the farm got further and further away, and there seemed no chance of tea, and the beastly dog still barked, and still kept up sides with us along the beastly ditch, and then Alice said she thought perhaps the people might all have gone out for the day, as it happened to be Bank Holiday, and she wondered whether it wouldn’t be just as well to get back to the boat and hope for the best from a pub.”

  “Far more sensible,” said Laura.

  “Yes, well, we were just going to call it a day and get back when we saw a man, and it turned out to be the farmer, and he called the dog to heel and I suppose he asked us what we wanted, but his local accent was so thick I couldn’t make out a word, and neither could Alice. Anyway, we said we wanted tea, and he took us back to the farm, and I must say they did us jolly well, and, what’s more, wouldn’t take any money.

  “Well, after three cups of strongish brew and a lot of grub, and stuff, we said goodbye and thanked them and started back, and that was when we saw this man.”

  “Go on,” said Laura, as the narrator paused.

  “Yes, well, it was Alice who spotted the snake.”

  “Spotted the what?”

  “You know, like the one on the dead woman at the bungalow that you thought must be the weapon when you first felt to see if her heart was beating.”

  “What, another of those vipers made of worsted? The things Mrs. Bradley asked us not to breathe a word about?”

  “Well, look: what do you think?”

  She glanced round the flat and empty landscape, but there was not so much as a solitary bush for miles. Satisfied, she reached to the top of her stocking and untied the worsted viper, which she had been wearing, apparently, as a garter.

  “Golly, K.,” said Laura, enormously impressed. “Tell me more. How come young Alice spotted it?”

  “Well, this man was some sort of hawker or peddler or something, and we met him along the causeway the farmer showed us (so that we didn’t have to keep jumping ditches getting back to the river) and he had this little tray thing slung round his neck, and also a suitcase, like when they go from house to house in towns.

  “Well, he put the wind up us, rather, because some of them aren’t very nice, and although we hadn’t a lot of money, we did have some, and Alice said, ‘If he starts anything I’m going to bowl him out. If I flatten him, jump on his stomach.’

  “Well, I wasn’t too keen. Dog, but you know what young Alice is—all India-rubber and muscle, although she’s so thin and sort of small—so I said I’d do what I could, although goodness knows it isn’t in my line, jumping on people’s stomachs and all that sort of thing, I’d be too afraid I might hurt them.

  “Anyway, this man did stop us, and a ferrety-looking customer, too, and we said we didn’t want to buy anything when young Alice suddenly said, picking out the viper from a lot of beads and lace collars and woollen tennis socks and combs and things on the tray, ‘What’s the price of this?’

  “‘Oh, that’s not for sale,’ said the bloke. ‘That’s only my trademark, lady, as I call it.’

  “Well, you’ve got to give Alice credit for quick action. She had snitched the viper from the man and off like a shot before I had time to say a word. The man sort of gawped after her, and I felt more than a bit of a fool, and said, ‘What do you value it at?’—thinking that might soothe him or something.

  “Well, instead of answering, he put down the suitcase and tray, and went haring after old Alice like mad. Of course, I could have told him it wasn’t any good, and I did when he came back for his suitcase and tray.”

  “You don’t mean to say you stood guard over them all the time he chased Alice?” said Laura, tickled.

  “Well,” said Kitty apologetically, “I can quite see it must seem batsy, looked at the way one would look at it if one hadn’t actually been there, but at the time I didn’t really like to go off and leave the things, as Alice had snitched the viper, but as soon as he came back towards me, I ran away, only shouting to him that I’d put a shilling on the tray for the ornament—that’s what I called it, Dog, not to give any games away—and told him that I knew it wouldn’t be any good him chasing Alice because, as you know, Dog, she can make rings round anything except, possibly, a Derby winner, and I wouldn’t even take much of a bet upon that.”

  “So what happened then?” enquired Laura, following this extraordinary narrative with such close attention that she nearly fell into a brook.

  “Well, the man went on towards the farm and young Alice made a sort of semi-circle and came up with me from the back, having covered, she reckoned, about four miles across country.”

  “But that must have taken her an hour.”

  “Forty minutes, Dog. She’d run a good bit of it, you see, and done a lot of it at Scout’s Pace, whatever that is. Anyway, she didn’t seem puffed or particularly fagged or anything, and all she said was, ‘Where’s he gone?’

  “Well, of course, I told her he was making tracks for the farm, and she said we must follow him up to see what he’d go
t to say about the viper, and I said all he’d have to say about the viper was that she’d pinched it off his tray, and she said yes, she’d thought of that, but it couldn’t be helped. So I told her I’d left a shilling, and she said, ‘Well, there you are, then.’ But we’re not, you know, Dog,” concluded Kitty earnestly, “because, you can say what you like, but the chap wanted his viper back; he didn’t want the money.”

  “So what?” demanded Laura. “Go on. There must be more to it than that.”

  “Well, I’m telling you as fast as I can. We got back to the farm at about seven, and this time the dog was shut up. At least, we didn’t see it. But other dogs started to bark, and we had to go to ground behind a couple of rainwater butts, upwind so the dogs couldn’t smell us. That was young Alice’s idea.”

  “I bet it was. There’s something in this Girl Guiding, after all, besides tying knots in pieces of string, and lighting a fire by rubbing a stick against your eyebrows, or whatever it is they do,” said Laura, nodding her head.

  “Well, we waited about an hour. It was sort of boggy and the smell wasn’t all that good, but at least we had our reward, because out came the chap with suitcase and tray complete, and set off in the opposite direction.”

  “So he passed the farm coming along, but called there after he met you two and had the viper stolen,” said Laura thoughtfully. “So you left Alice trailing the bloke, and came to fetch me and the coshes.”

  “That’s right, Dog. Of course, we lost a lot of time. Then we had to let him get on a good bit before we began to follow him. And when we’d gone about a mile, and it was beginning to get most frightfully misty over the marshes, Alice said she’d follow him better alone, and that she’d leave signs for us to follow, and I was to come here as quickly as ever I could, and get you. The coshes were my own idea.”

  “And a ripe one,” agreed Laura. “Well, we can make all speed to the farm and a mile or so beyond, I take it, and then we must keep a look-out for Alice’s signs. And I hope they’re readable at dusk, which is just about upon us, I fancy.”

  She was right. The mist over the marshes had thickened, but was only about breast-height. Above, the sky was darkly blue and one star had already made an uncalled-for, presumptuous appearance.

  The dogs, it appeared, did not hear them—a fact which filled Laura with a suspicion, which she did not voice to Kitty. All she said was, when the farm buildings were half a mile behind them:

  “Did you happen to tell the farm-people the name of the boat?”

  “We didn’t say we were off a boat,” replied Kitty. “We agreed that, as we’d left you alone on it, and allowing for the murders, you know, we wouldn’t say anything at all about boats, but just say we were out walking and had been looking for somewhere for tea, and that the marshes seemed lonelier than we’d thought.”

  “Good for you. I see the brain of young Alice in all this kindness and discretion.”

  “Well, I don’t know so much about that, Dog,” said Kitty, wounded. “If you really want to know, I was the one who said you shouldn’t be murdered if I could do anything to prevent it.”

  “Many thanks. And now, how much farther to where the two of you parted?”

  “Not far now. There’s a kind of little bridge that carries this causeway over a biggish brook.”

  Laura held her wristwatch close to her eyes.

  “If the chap moved fast, young Alice may be five miles ahead,” she observed. “No idea what time you left her, I suppose?”

  “Yes. It was ten to eight by her watch.”

  “And that was slow, I think. We argued about it this morning. It’s now, so far as I know, about five to nine. The chap can’t get much farther tonight, even knowing the marshes, and, unless he’s discovered that Alice is on his trail, he won’t bother anyway. I hope she hasn’t given her presence away. It might be awkward.”

  “I oughtn’t to have left her,” said Kitty, “but she seemed positive she’d be all right, and we had to let you know, somehow, what was happening, unless we’d just given up and both come back to the boat, and having got hold of a jolly good clue like the viper, we didn’t feel inclined to do that.”

  “And what’s the plan of action when we do catch up with young Alice?” demanded Laura.

  “We rather left that to you, Dog. We’re game to take on anything you suggest.”

  “The right spirit,” said Laura cordially. “Peer through the gloom, love, and, while not definitely pointing me to the skies, tell me what you make of yonder mass which appears to me to loom some fifty yards ahead.”

  “Looks like a house,” said Kitty. “In fact, I remember now. It is a house. Funny to be stuck right out here on its own.”

  “Well said. And here’s another brook and the causeway crossing it. Wonder whether young Alice has by any possibility left a clue underneath the little bridge thus formed?”

  “I’m here myself,” said Alice, crawling out and almost startling her friends “into hydrophobia,” as Laura expressed it later. “I didn’t bother to leave any signs, because you couldn’t possibly have taken any road but this one from the other bridge where I left Kitty. The man went into that house. I’ve been up a lot closer to reconnoitre, but there’s nothing doing yet, not even a light to be seen. I went all round. There aren’t any dogs.”

  “What do we do, then?” asked Laura. “The blighter is probably spending the night in the house.”

  “Yes I know. It’s very awkward. I think we ought to keep together, even if we have to spend the night underneath this bridge. It’s drier than you would think.”

  “It would need to be,” said Laura, “but I agree. And what then? Suppose he’s here for a week?”

  “That’s hardly likely if he’s really a peddler. Trouble is, I don’t suppose he’s anything of the kind, and what I’m afraid of is that he may not be alone when we see him or hear him come out.”

  “And suppose he is alone?” demanded Kitty.

  “Bag him, and haul him back to the cruiser, and tie him up, and telephone the inspector at Norwich in the morning.”

  “Glory halleulujah, young Alice! Fancy an Infant Samuel like you turning Thug in your old age!”

  “It’s in a good cause,” said Alice seriously.

  “And supposing he’s not alone?”

  “I suppose we trail them, but it isn’t easy on absolutely flat and open marshland like this. I shouldn’t have been able to manage it this evening but for the mist, and the dark coming on when it did.”

  “And, of course,” said Laura, serious in her turn, “he may have thought pinching his viper was all done in girlish fun, but if he suspects we know anything—”

  “Oh, don’t, Dog! You give me the horrors! I don’t want my throat cut,” protested Kitty.

  “Don’t worry, duck. You wouldn’t know much about it,” retorted Laura. “I vote we take turns on watch, and the other two take cover under the bridge.”

  There was an hour and a half to wait. The mist cleared, night fell, and the loneliness of the marshes, in spite of the proximity of the farm, was almost overpoweringly unpleasant. The new moon rose and cast a bluish light over the landscape and picked out the waters on the marshes and reflected in them the reeds that grew on the edge. The whitewashed house stood out like a building in a nightmare.

  “Next year I’m going to Brighton with my mother,” said Kitty firmly. As she spoke the door of the farmhouse opened and an orange glow appeared, against which were silhouetted two men. One made a gesture of hitching something up onto his shoulder, and then picked up what might have been a suitcase. He came towards the hiding-place of the students. Alice was on watch. She hissed the news to the others, and wriggled into cover. The man called back a goodnight to the man who still stood in the doorway. Kitty was clasping Laura’s left hand in a nervous grip. The peddler crossed the little bridge. Alice wriggled out after him, but not until the man at the house closed the door.

  The peddler seemed uneasy. He made good going towards the river
, but continually stopped and seemed to listen. Alice, in the lead, gave the signal each time for the halt. The moon allowed the girls to walk safely almost on the edge of the causeway, so that it was possible to drop face downwards into the ditches which drained the causeway on either side if the man looked round. But he seemed to fear no attack from the rear, and the tactics adopted by the girls of walking on the rough grass instead of the causeway itself, and of stopping dead whenever the man stopped, were completely successful.

  Alice retained the lead, her cosh held lightly in her hand. Kitty clutched hers in a vice-like grip and Laura twiddled hers occasionally and seemed anxious for action. Gradually they began to close up on the man. Suddenly Alice, without turning her head, beckoned Laura onward. They had passed the farm at which the two girls had been entertained, and had left it three-quarters of a mile behind. Suddenly the man left the causeway and began to make his way across the marshes.

  “Now,” said Alice. The sound of her voice, which came loud upon the night, caused the man to stop dead.

  “Don’t take any chances,” said Laura. “I’m going to land him one for luck.”

  Leaping forward, she swung her cosh with the true aim and unthinking blood-thirstiness of her position as centre-half in the College hockey eleven. The man fell flat.

  “Oh, dear!” said Kitty, dropping her cosh and falling on her knees beside him. “Oh, Dog, you needn’t have hit so hard. You may have killed him!”

  “Rot,” said Laura. “And now to get him to the boat. Lucky he’s not a heavyweight. And that tray and suitcase will have to be brought along, too. See if you can lug them, K., while Alice and I convey the corpse.”

  The man, although no taller than Laura and apparently slimly built, posed a difficult problem in transport, but by the time they had staggered a couple of hundred yards he began to recover consciousness. They were made aware of this by hearing him give a loud groan.

  “Put him down,” said the sweating Laura, who had taken his shoulders, “and let’s hobble him a bit. He’ll have to walk the rest. Got anything we can tie him up with?”