[Mrs Bradley 41] - Three Quick and Five Dead

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘I see,’ said Laura. ‘Put like that, your argument does sound plausible. What else have you been working out?’

  ‘Well, so far, in connection with that first death, I wonder whether we have not taken for granted rather too readily that the only person who told us the truth was Mrs Schumann. She said that she had gone to Ringwood that day, and we know for certain that she did, but not until after the time that her daughter died. She also told us that Karen telephoned to find out whether she would be at home. At the time we thought that the telephone message was to make certain that the house would be empty so that Karen could bring James there, but, of course, it could equally well have been a genuine enquiry merely to make sure that her mother would be at home to welcome her and be able to spend the day with her. You see, we have no way of proving whether or not Karen Schumann knew that the stud dog was to be taken over to Ringwood on that particular day. As a bitch remains on heat for about three weeks, it is quite probable that she did not know.’

  ‘So Mrs Schumann could have replied over the phone that she would be at home, and so enticed Karen to her death, and then used the Ringwood outing as an alibi. I don’t believe a word of it, you know. It sounds plausible enough, but it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Yes, of course it does. So far, there are only three possible suspects – James, Mrs Schumann and Otto.’

  ‘And, of these, Otto is out of it so far as the deaths of Karen and of this Italian woman are concerned. Well, what’s the next point? I’m beginning to feel very nervous about all this.’

  ‘The next point concerns the dog-whistle which enticed Fergus from your side and led him to find the body.’

  ‘Anyone can blow a dog-whistle.’

  ‘But to how many people would it occur to do so, unless they were accustomed to the procedure? I look at it in this way. James, we are given to understand, spent only about one week-end in three or four with his fiancée. If he killed her, therefore, he had every reason to leave the body to be found by others and certainly no need to direct attention to it.’

  ‘She’d have been missed at school, and by her mother at the following week-end.’

  ‘Yes. The school would have given her three days of grace before a medical certificate was required, and her mother would hardly have notified the police immediately her daughter did not appear at the cottage. She would naturally conclude that some social occasion or school business had intervened.’

  ‘But if – for the sake of argument, mind! – if her mother had killed her?’

  ‘She would have preferred, of course, to have her found by the dog and by you (looking for the dog) than by going to the police to report her missing and perhaps inadvertently making some admission damaging to herself. All this is mere speculation, but there is a practical application which must have occurred to you even sooner than it occurred to me.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘That not only does Edward James not care for dogs, but, as human beings (for the most part) cannot detect any sound made by a dog-whistle, the inference is that nobody had ever heard Mrs Schumann’s particular call and so nobody could have imitated it in whistling up Fergus and leading him to the body. I have pointed this out to Superintendent Phillips.’

  ‘Wonder what made Fergus chase off like that, then? Still, Karen’s wasn’t the only death, and the dog wasn’t mixed up with any of the others. But, returning to Mrs Schumann, nobody could possibly think that these are a woman’s crimes, in spite of what I said about Mrs Schumann’s large hands. Besides, there’s still the question of motive. You haven’t given any reason why Mrs Schumann should have killed her only daughter. She was evidently very fond of her. It’s Otto, the son, she hates. Of course, family relationships can be very tricky things, and there’s no doubt Mrs Schumann thought James was far too old for Karen. You don’t think …’

  ‘Stranger things have happened, if I guess your thought correctly. Mrs Schumann is still in the prime of life and must be within a year or two of Edward James’s age. Then, of course, there is the five thousand pounds. Phillips has found that that was the handsome sum paid out on the premium bond.’

  ‘Well, yes, I know that some people would do anything for money. But, granted that Mrs Schumann could have had motives for killing Karen, there’s really nothing to connect her with the other two deaths. Look, supposing it had been physically possible for Otto to have murdered his sister, wouldn’t you suspect him of causing the other two deaths as well?’

  ‘In the case of Maria Machrado, I might suspect him. There seems no reason to suspect anybody in particular of the murder of the Italian maidservant, as you yourself have pointed out.’

  ‘Yet you’re convinced that we’re not chasing three murderers. You don’t think there can be more than two people responsible for these three deaths, and you’re pretty sure the number boils down to only one.’

  ‘What I think is not evidence. We are leaving out of account, of course, the mysterious notices left pinned to the bodies.’

  ‘By the way, what did you mean – it struck me that you had something special in mind – when you said that James answered what must have been an unexpected question without hesitation?’

  ‘It was to do with the numbers which followed the In Memoriam notices.’

  ‘Oh, yes, the fourth century anno Domini. Obviously it didn’t work out. He came across with a couple of dates which, as a theological student and a historian, he was bound to have met with before. You think that cleared him?’

  ‘If it did not, he is a cool customer or a quick thinker, and, of course, he may be both. We really know nothing about him.’

  ‘But you don’t really think Mrs Schumann is our murderer, do you?’

  ‘It was you who directed my attention to the size of her hands, but I repeat that what I think is not evidence.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what!’ exclaimed Laura suddenly. ‘What’s the objection to two murderers in collusion? I kill A, you kill B, and we both kill C just to confuse the issue? Wouldn’t that put an end to all our problems?’

  ‘One head is safer than two, when it comes to murder,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but I think you are right about the killing of C. It was done to confuse the police, and for no other reason.’

  (7)

  Dame Beatrice had meant what she said when she had spoken of not crossing the police line, but the murder of the Italian servant was so much more unreasonable than the first two deaths that she thought it would be well within her province in her official capacity to go along and talk to the Clancys.

  She mentioned this to Phillips over the telephone and, having obtained their new address from him, she went to their penthouse flat in Southampton at a time when she concluded that Mrs Clancy, at any rate, was likely to have arrived home from school. She presented her credentials and was asked in.

  The flat was a two-bedroom affair with a lounge-dining-room and a square kitchen, and was furnished with taste. The child and the dog were sent into the kitchen to play together.

  ‘He understands most things we say,’ said Mrs Clancy of her son, ‘and I don’t want him to hear about poor Lucia. He still misses her. We’ve told him she had to go home to look after her own little boy, but it doesn’t really satisfy him. The only thing about the whole dreadful business which makes me so thankful is that we took him with us. We had considered leaving him in her charge, you know, as we were only going away for such a short time. I daren’t think what would have happened if he’d been in the bungalow when it – when she—’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s not much doubt about what would have happened,’ said Dame Beatrice grimly. ‘I don’t want to bother you with all the questions the police have already asked you,’ she went on in a brisker tone, ‘but my point of view, owing to the nature of my work, may be different from theirs, so will you be good enough to tell me all you know about Lucia’s background before she entered your service?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but it amounts to very little. My husband had to c
hange his job, so we intended to sell our bungalow and live within easier distance of his work, but we couldn’t buy until we had got rid of the bungalow, so I stayed on there and he came home at week-ends. It was far from ideal, but better, I suppose, than being married to a sailor. I was pregnant at the time, and naturally didn’t want to be left alone, so we set about finding somebody to live in. Well, you know what it’s like, trying to get a maid these days when you live in the country and have only a small place and can’t afford to pay much. We advertised and we put our name down at employment agencies, but it wasn’t a bit of good, and then my husband had a brainwave and mentioned it to one or two of the people at the bank, and one of the customers knew of a charity which helps discharged prisoners, and they sent us Lucia. She’d been in prison for stealing, but they said they thought she meant to go straight if somebody would give her a job and be kind to her.

  ‘When I got to know her, I found out that she’d been made redundant at the factory where she worked, ran through her savings, couldn’t pay the rent and was too ignorant and friendless to find out how to get help. The magistrates gave her the lightest sentence they could. I suppose they realised that she wasn’t the sort to be a habitual criminal. Anyway, she turned out to be quite a satisfactory worker, and when Derry was born she became genuinely fond of him. I soon knew I could trust her, so, as I knew I would be going back to a job as soon as I felt he was old enough to be left, I kept her on. Who on earth would be wicked enough to want to kill her? She was utterly harmless.’

  ‘Did she get any letters while she was with you?’

  ‘No. She was almost illiterate, you know, and I suppose her friends were the same, although I must say I should be surprised to hear she had any. There was an elderly mother, of course.’

  ‘Acquaintances may be a better term. How many people, so far as you are aware, knew that she was in service at your bungalow?’

  ‘Our relatives, of course, and the people at my husband’s work – he’s a bank-clerk – and of course I’ve mentioned her from time to time at my new school since I’ve gone back to a job, and any friends who came to visit us would have known, but I’m positively certain none of them would have murdered her. It’s most likely somebody she knew in prison, don’t you think?’

  ‘I might well think so, but for the note left on the body.’

  ‘Then there’s a maniac at large in that district! Of course, I couldn’t stay on in the bungalow. My nerves wouldn’t stand it, so we moved at once and the bungalow is up for sale. I’m thankful for all sorts of reasons that we did move. For one thing, I can get along to school much more easily from here than from the bungalow; for another, John can come home every night, and there’s a nursery I can take Derry to, to get him looked after while I’m working, because, of course, I haven’t anybody helping me now.’

  ‘How much interest do you find you take in the lives of the teachers at your school?’

  ‘Well, I’m happily married, of course, so I don’t exactly pry into other people’s affairs,’ replied Mrs Clancy, looking slightly surprised by the question. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Would you, for example, know what religious sects they belong to?’

  ‘Precious few of them belong to any.’

  ‘But there are exceptions?’

  ‘Not that I would know of. The head is C. of E., I believe.’

  ‘No Catholics?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘You would not know, I suppose, anything about the late Miss Karen Schumann’s views?’

  ‘Oh, well, yes, as it happens, I do know about her. She called herself a Lutheran. Her father was apparently a minister before he left Germany. She was of German parentage, you know. But you don’t think there is any connection between her death and Lucia’s, do you?’

  ‘It is difficult to detect one, certainly, except for some cryptic notices left pinned to the bodies.’

  ‘Then there is a madman about! Oh, aren’t I thankful we moved! I didn’t care much about the idea of a flat in a town at one time, but now it seems so lovely to have other people below me and round about!’

  ‘Has your school library a theological section?’

  ‘There are the usual commentaries and things, but they only occupy a bit of a shelf in the history corner. I hardly ever go into the library unless I have to take a message to anybody who happens to be teaching in there – every class gets a library period a week – and I wouldn’t know about there being a theological section except that I had to catalogue the library when the teacher who looks after it was down with flu and we had the County librarian coming. Well, when I say “catalogue it”, that isn’t exactly true, because, of course, we had a catalogue. What I had to do was to insert the new additions, so that the County librarian could see what to recommend that he should lend us. Part of the library is by purchase, you see, and part is on a long loan from the County.’

  ‘So the number of theological works in the school library would not suffice Mr James for his studies?’

  ‘Oh, our budding Doctor of Divinity! I should think that, years ago, he combed through anything the school had got!’

  ‘Yet he worked in the school library at times, did he not?’

  ‘Oh, yes, but on books he’d borrowed elsewhere.’

  ‘Do you know that for a fact? – that he worked in the school library, but with books he had borrowed?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He and Miss Schumann often used to stay after school and work in there. It was all quite proper, too. My hours are from nine to five, you see, so when my time was up, and the library key hadn’t come back to my office, I had to go along and get it from them, so that all the school keys could be locked away. That was part of my job. The two of them were always working. She would mostly be doing her marking and he would be studying and making notes. When I had to interrupt them he never had to put any of his books back on the shelves, because they didn’t belong to the school.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know whether they came from the public library, I suppose?’

  ‘I expect most of them did, in the early days, but some he borrowed from Miss Schumann’s mother. I know that, because one day, when he was slinging them into his bag and arguing his head off about some pope or bishop or something, he dropped one, and she told him to be careful, otherwise her mother wouldn’t lend him any more of her father’s books. Quite annoyed with him, she was, and, of course, being a man, he didn’t like being ticked off in front of me, so he said, “My misguided little something or other …”’

  ‘Aryan?’

  ‘That’s right – “your father’s books are at least being put to some use again”. She was mad with him. “Not by being dropped on the floor,” she said, “and I’ll thank you for not referring to me as a Nazi!” He stared a bit at that, then he gave a nasty little snigger and said, “Oh, were they the fore-runners? I had no idea!” I thought it was time to break it up, so I asked for the key, saw them out, locked up and went home.’

  Dame Beatrice had only one more question to ask.

  ‘Does Mr James read German, then?’

  ‘Oh, yes, and speaks it, too. It annoyed some of the others, because he and Miss Schumann used to talk to each other in German in the Common Room. The others thought it was just a bit of show-off, because, of course, Miss Schumann, who was born and brought up over here, could speak perfect English. Anything else I can tell you? I only ask because I don’t like leaving Derry too long, although he loves the dog, of course.’

  Dame Beatrice said that there was nothing else she wanted to ask. She thanked Mrs Clancy and was invited to come again at any time. She took her leave and went back to the Kensington house, where she found Laura scowling at a piece of graph paper covered with scribbled figures, weird doodles and shorthand symbols. She looked up as Dame Beatrice came in, and pushed the paper away.

  ‘How did you get on?’ she asked.

  ‘A glimmer of light is discernable, but, of course, it may be no more than a will o’ the wisp. Y
our own train of thought appears to be of a complicated and unsatisfactory nature – or are you casting spells?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to work out a problem in progressions, but it won’t jell.’

  ‘In progressions?’

  ‘Yes. You see, we’ve now got three sets of figures to play with, and three nationalities, so I ought to be able to work out the next step, but I can’t. Three hundred and twenty-five and three hundred and eighty and eleven hundred and fifty-five don’t make any sense at all. Of course, mathematics was never my life’s work.’

  ‘There is a number common to all, in one sense.’

  ‘Yes, the fifty-five bit. Three hundred and twenty-five from three hundred and eighty leaves fifty-five, and that comes after the eleven hundred, but I can’t get any further.’

  ‘Divide the fifty-five by the eleven, ignoring zero. The result, if you are well versed in the multiplication table, is five.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So we may expect two more of these extraordinary murders, making five in all.’

  Laura made a face at her.

  ‘All flippancy aside, though,’ she said, ‘did you really find out something useful this afternoon?’

  ‘I do not know yet whether what I found out was useful, but it certainly was quite interesting. James was in the habit of working in the school library in his own time, so he may be speaking the truth about the way he spent that day. He borrowed theological treatises from Mrs Schumann’s late husband’s library, so he may have visited her cottage more often than we were led to suppose.’