“But I don’t imagine it’s a safe,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I imagine it’s something which can only be transported bit by bit.”
“Sounds like Norwich Castle to me,” said Inspector Os, with a guffaw. Mrs. Bradley glanced at him sharply. Then a grin like that of an alligator spread itself across her countenance. The inspector returned her glance, and then looked at Pirberry.
“Got it, have you, mam?” said Pirberry.
“Well, I’ve got something,” said Mrs. Bradley, favouring him (to his mingled amazement and amusement) with the kind of wink which a Notre Dame gargoyle might be expected to employ, “but whether I’ve got it right is another matter. You know, Inspector,” she added, turning to Os again, “there is many a true word spoken in jest, we are told; but this word of yours is better than a true word; it is an illuminating word. I am not at all sure that it is not the very last word on the subject.”
The inspector’s expression had changed. He now looked thoroughly bewildered.
“But, really, ma’am, I was only joking,” he said. “Norwich Castle? Why—”
“Not Norwich Castle,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I want a reliable guidebook.”
“There’s this,” said Os, taking a book from the mantelpiece. Mrs. Bradley turned up the reference to Worstead. Both men came round to her side to look. “What’s Worstead got to do with it?”
“Our murderer has been at some pains to indicate that Worstead has much to do with it,” Mrs. Bradley replied. “What about the material of which the vipers are made?”
She took out of her pocket the viper with which she had been presented that morning, and dangled it by the neck.
“Worsted, called after Worstead, where the fabric used to be made by the Flemish weavers,” she observed. “And when I return from Worstead, I shall proceed to Horsey Mere, to plant this viper on the body I am promised will be there. No doubt you would like to be present. Let us meet at Stalham at seven this evening for dinner.”
Pirberry, who had put up at a small pub in Thorpe-next-Norwich, escorted her as far as her hotel. Their conversation, naturally, centred itself in the murders. Mrs. Bradley again mentioned the deck-chair she had impounded.
“I wish you’d have a look at it,” she said. “Privately, if possible. I don’t want to hurt the inspector’s feelings. I think the superintendent would aid and abet you.”
“You want to know about the fingerprints,” said Pirberry, nodding. “I’ll get Black to come along. He’s our expert.”
• CHAPTER 18 •
“For instance, there’s the arch I’ve got to go through next, walking about at the other end of the ground.…”
—From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
The main road out of Stalham to the west curved in a quarter-circle past the Roman camp and across the river. About three-quarters of a mile below the bridge it forked, one way going on south-westward towards Wroxham, the other cutting directly to the west before it shot suddenly north-west at the village of Smallburgh to the old market town of North Walsham. Long before North Walsham was reached, however, Mrs. Bradley and her nephew left the main road and took the turning to Worstead.
“We are going to look at the church,” she answered, when Jonathan enquired the object of their expedition.
Worstead itself proved to be a pleasant agricultural village with a handsome church, which gave the impression of being far too large for the place.
It was in the Decorated style of the Early Perpendicular architecture and proved to be well worth a visit. The rich tracery of the west door and window having been admired, and the “sound-holes”—some traceried openings in the belfry chamber of the tower—having been commented on by Jonathan, they went inside.
Jonathan wondered, during the next twenty minutes, what it was his aunt had come to see. Backed up by his wife, who had returned to the hotel in Norwich, he had insisted upon being allowed to accompany his aunt on the expedition, and he knew her well enough to realise that her arguments against his coming had sprung from the fact that she anticipated danger. She had also made Deborah promise to remain indoors at the hotel.
He had been surprised, too, when it turned out that she proposed to walk from Stalham into Worstead, and had left George and the car at the inn. However, he asked no more questions, once he had been told that the object of the expedition was the church, but patiently accompanied her up the aisle of the great building and admired, with her, the interior furnishings.
When they were outside again, she said, “There ought to be something here to guide us, but I haven’t seen anything yet. If, on our walk back, you should see anything even remotely resembling a serpent, please draw my attention to it.”
She spoke solemnly, and Jonathan grinned. When they came to the post-office she went inside, and he remained without, idly watching the street. The only thing even remotely resembling a serpent was a coil of gardener’s hose-piping, which was being carried out of a nearby house by a boy.
Upon Mrs. Bradley’s reappearance, he mentioned this fact.
“Hose-piping?” said Mrs. Bradley. “That ought to start a train of thought, but it doesn’t. The weavers,” she added inconsequently, “settled here in the reign of King Henry the First, and later moved south to Norwich.”
“Is that what you’re going to do?” asked Jonathan, looking at her suspiciously. “Why don’t you tell me exactly why we’ve come here? What did you hope to find?”
“A Worstead viper,” Mrs. Bradley replied. He could not decide whether she was laughing or serious, and her beaky little mouth and sharp black eyes gave him no clue. He stopped to light his pipe, and she went walking on, but suddenly she halted and turned round, apparently to speak to him. At the same instant there was the slight sound of a window being opened, and, following it, the faintest disturbance of the dust at the side of the road.
“The viper,” said Mrs. Bradley to Jonathan. “It might be important. I think I had better pick it up.”
Just as she stepped into the street, a car, her own car, drove up, with George at the wheel. She bent and scuffled her fingers in the light dust.
“Did you get what you wanted?” Jonathan enquired, as they entered the car and George drove off.
“Yes, I think so.” She displayed a tiny dart. “Poison from the viper’s fangs, I fancy. Didn’t you hear the window being opened?”
“Yes, now that you mention it. But I didn’t connect it…”
“Oh, I did, but possibly a fraction of a second too late if you had not stopped.”
“Wanted to light my pipe.”
“Thank you very much. I have been keeping careful watch ever since we have been in the village, and have been wondering exactly what form the attack would take. I did not think of poison, the only logical idea.”
“Did you get the number of the house?”
“I know which it was. The man will have made his escape by now, I should think. I can tell the inspector the story of our narrow escape, but I doubt whether that will do much good. It was a house up for sale, as I suppose you noticed. The man made his escape from the back, I have no doubt, as soon as he had blown the dart at me.”
“We could get the inspector to find out whether a stranger has been seen in the village.”
“With all these holiday-makers about?” She laughed, and suddenly added, “I shall give the dart to Detective Inspector Pirberry for his collection.”
“Just as well George turned up,” said Jonathan, not perceiving that the last sentence warranted explanation.
“I shall reprove him. His orders were clear.”
“He’s a good old knight-errant, isn’t he?”
“That is not the reason for his being in my service.” She spoke tartly, as though, for once, her faithful chauffeur had annoyed her.
“I suppose he could hardly argue the point verbally. Don’t forget that I, too, had orders to stay in Norwich with my wife.”
“Yes, well, it’s hardly fair on Deborah fo
r you to rush off to places where people blow poisoned darts. Curare is deadly, child.”
“That’s as may be. What’s our next move, anyway? By the way, did you telephone Deb from that post-office?”
“Yes, and also Inspector Os, but he was at Stalham, the sergeant said, putting Martha Huzy through a catechism. ‘And nobody by, including Mr. Pirberry, to see fair play,’ the sergeant added,” she concluded, with a hoot of laughter.
“They do all hate him in Norwich, don’t they?” Jonathan observed.
“Yes. I suppose it is natural. Mr. Pirberry is touring the places where the women’s bodies were found. I don’t know what he hopes or expects to find. At seven tonight we are dining, and then I am taking the viper to Horsey Mere.”
“But you won’t still do that, will you?”
“Unless anything better offers.”
“But, according to the reactions of the blow-pipe expert this afternoon, they’ve tumbled to it that they’d be better off if their stooge hadn’t passed you the viper. If you go to Horsey Mere tonight with the thing, you’ll find they’ve altered the rendezvous.”
“I say I shall go unless anything better offers.”
Jonathan wondered, a little later, what was her definition, under the circumstances, of the word “better,” for the first news they received when, upon getting out of the car, Mrs. Bradley began to chide George gently for having disobeyed orders, was that a fifth body had been found, and that a worsted viper had been thrust into the wound.
“The inspector telephoned the hotel at Stalham, madam, at two,” concluded George, respectfully, “and asked whether you had visited Worstead and were back. I said that you were not, but that, as the news was urgent, I would expedite your return with the car.”
When the inspector heard Mrs. Bradley’s story, he withheld his own until after he had been to Worstead, accompanied by her, her nephew, and three constables, to search the house from which the dart had been blown.
This expedition, needless to say, was fruitless, so they all returned to Stalham, as “the dinner was still on,” as Jonathan put it, and Mrs. Bradley gave the police officer a meticulously exact description of the boy with the hose-piping.
Then she said, “Perhaps, directly after dinner, Inspector Os will tell his story of the discovery of the fifth body. But whatever it turns out to be, I go to the trysting-place. I have accepted responsibility for this viper,” she added, taking it out of her skirt pocket and scrutinising it closely, “and I must plant it where it will blossom.”
The inspector told the story after dinner, for which Pirberry had joined them, and it lasted until Mrs. Bradley was ready to go on her journey. Indeed, she began to be afraid that it was going to last too long, and that it would be dawn by the time she got to Horsey Mere, for the dinner was good, the wine passable, and the old brandy beyond praise. The men sat on, talking, until after half-past nine, so that it was not until a quarter to ten that the inspector, to a fascinated audience, was able to commence his narrative.
It concerned some people called Copley, and was, in some respects, the oddest tale of the series.
“Where exactly was this fifth corpse found?” asked Mrs. Bradley, bringing out her map.
• CHAPTER 19 •
“You promised to tell me your history, you know,” said Alice, “and why it is you hate —— C and D.”
—From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
Edgar Copley and his sister Romance had decided upon a holiday on the Broads because it formed a sort of halfway house between two opinions. Edgar, who was fond of yachting, would have liked to take an auxiliary yacht round the coast from Southampton to Yarmouth. Romance, however, needed, the doctor said, a quiet country holiday, not necessarily at the seaside. A holiday on the Broads, so that Edgar could sail a boat and Romance find peace and quiet, seemed the best solution.
It may seem odd that, as the brother and sister could not agree upon holidays, they did not go their own ways and meet at the end of the fortnight to exchange experiences; but the difficulty was that Romance was what the neighbours called “not quite normal,” and it was Edgar’s custom to have her with him to see that she did not get herself into trouble. It was a poor life for a man of thirty-five, but he had shouldered the burden of it and of his sister’s maintenance for the past eleven years.
He would have liked to marry; had, in fact, at the age of twenty-three, become engaged; but he would not inflict his sister upon the girl, and so had broken off the engagement. For the first five years after the death of his father, who had survived his mother by some years, Edgar had hoped that Romance might die; but she did not. She lived on, pallid, large-faced, fleshy, resentful, and childish, until sometimes he wished that he himself could die, if only to be rid of her.
He brought her to Potter Heigham by train, and they boarded the yacht there and sailed her, day after day, Romance in a kind of safety-harness which Edgar had invented and made for her, seated in the well quite close to him, and Edgar sailing the boat and experiencing comparative pleasure in doing so.
At nights they moored well away from other craft, so that the serious nightmares from which Romance suffered should not disturb other people, and a fortnight and more passed comparatively peacefully for the harassed and hagridden brother, and even the puffy-faced defective began to look the better for the change.
The yacht was roomy for two people, for she was designed to sleep four. Her name was Medea, and she was a sloop-rigged carvel-built witch, twenty-eight feet long, eight and a half in beam, and drew just under three feet of water. She was easy to handle, had a fair turn of speed, and as the headroom in her saloon was five feet ten inches there was no need to worry about the five-foot three Romance knocking her ungainly head, although Edgar (said Inspector Os, speaking almost with relish) sometimes wished that she would knock it off.
Edgar had given her the saloon for sleeping. He himself had a berth in the fore-cabin. Custom had made it possible for him to disregard her unearthly moans and shouts when she was having nightmares, and although he half-woke, always, when she had these attacks, he had learnt that there was nothing he could do for them or for her, and so was in the habit of turning over and going to sleep again when the paroxysms (always, fortunately, of very short duration) were exhausted, and his sister was again in her heavy sleep.
When they came to a suitable place for bathing, Edgar, making certain that his sister was securely fastened by her harness to the locker in the well, would have a swim. Fortunately, she quite enjoyed to watch him whilst he swam, and, to amuse her, he was good-natured enough to gambol in the water, duck-diving, canoeing, threshing, and splashing until the defective screamed with amusement, invariably demanded more of the entertainment, and was inclined to turn sulky when he came out. Her moods, however, lasted no longer (so far as he could tell) than those of a three-year-old child.
Sometimes, when the margin was firm and sandy, he would allow her to paddle, but he dreaded giving her this pleasure, for the business of getting her feet dry and her shoes and stockings on again was an exhausting one, and one which he did not always feel equal to tackling.
Edgar and Romance had begun their cruise almost a fortnight before the Bank Holiday. On the Wednesday following Bank Holiday Monday they had sailed from their night moorings not far from Thurne Mouth, and had gone upstream under the Potter Heigham road and railway bridges into Heigham Sound, a fairly large Broad leading into the much larger Hickling Broad. On Hickling Broad they had spent the rest of the day, and also the following morning until after lunch.
Then Edgar thought he would try Horsey Mere, which was new to both of them, and accordingly took the yacht along Meadow Dyke. This was a stream about a mile long, which connected the northern end of Heigham Sound with the south-western corner of Horsey Mere. A short distance away, across the sand dunes, was the coast, and it occurred to Edgar that it would be a pleasant change, especially for his sister, to spend a couple of hours beside the sea.
They left the yacht near the woods on the eastward side of Horsey Mere, and found a road, which led to the dead village of Horsey. They turned north through the village, following the map, to Horsey Corner, and there found a road and then a track, both leading seawards.
It was when they were on the sand dunes that Edgar discovered he had left both pipe and tobacco behind. He glanced at his sister, who was singing to herself, happily engaged in pouring sand over her head, and decided that it would be reasonable to leave her where she was and return to the yacht. It was about a mile and a half by the way they had come, and he thought he could be there and back, if he hurried, in less than three-quarters of an hour.
Bidding Romance to stay where she was, and promising to bring her the sweets which had also been left behind, Edgar gave her some picture-papers to look at and helped her to make a very large hole in the sand before he hastened away.
He was an active man, and made short work of the distance. He found pipe, tobacco, and the sweets quite easily, and, coming ashore again, returned to the drowned village and the road which led to the coast.
Of his sister there was no sign. He accosted a couple of holiday-makers who were walking on the dunes, to ask for news of her, but they said that they had seen no one walking alone, and that the only people who had passed them had been a family with a baby in a canvas sling seat, which the parents were carrying.
Edgar continued to search, and, failing to find his sister, went back to the place where he had left her. The hole which they had commenced to dig was no deeper, he thought, than when he had departed. The soft sand took no traceable impressions, and although there were tracks on the firmer sand near the water, they were confused, and none led direct to the water’s edge.
His chief difficulty was to decide in which direction to search, for the defective might have taken either way along the coast. Since, however, he had been told by the hikers that they had seen no one answering to the description he gave of his sister, he decided to walk in the direction for which they had been heading.
The Worsted Viper (Mrs. Bradley) Page 17
