[Mrs Bradley 41] - Three Quick and Five Dead

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘And there is nothing in Mrs Castle’s past life which would indicate that she had an enemy or enemies capable of killing her?’

  ‘No. Her past is an open book. She came of an ordinary lower middle class family, went to be trained as a teacher, specialising in French, went to live in France and got caught up in the Resistance, came home, taught over here for three years, married, moved with her husband to Hampshire, continued to teach for another couple of years, then, his salary and prospects improving, she gave up her job for five years, but his death made it imperative that she should earn her living again. She has no children.’

  ‘Anything unsatisfactory known about her husband’s death?’ asked Laura.

  ‘Nothing at all, Mrs Gavin, in the way that I know you mean. He was foolish enough, in spite of warnings, to bathe on an outgoing tide at a noted danger-spot on the North Devon coast and got swept out to sea. We’ve checked on that. It was a sheer accident caused by his own obstinacy and his disregard of the danger signals which were being flown from the beach.’

  ‘And at the school? Was she popular?’

  ‘She had been there a very short time, as you know, but seems to have been quite an acceptable member of staff, and was kind to this young French girl you have staying with you.’

  ‘And what of Edward James?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Ah, yes, James. Here the story is not at all satisfactory and we are still trying to check on it. He tells us that on Saturday he went to Oxford to consult a friend on some points in connection with his theological studies. He does not seem to have warned this friend – a certain Mr Hailing – to expect him and, not surprisingly on a Saturday afternoon, found that he was out. He says that he then went to Iffley to look at the church, returned to Oxford and had tea at a crowded restaurant near Carfax and then returned to his lodgings where his landlady had left him some cold meat and salad, she herself having gone to Salisbury.

  ‘On Sunday he says that he wrote up some notes for a thesis, went to lunch with another member of the school staff, a certain Mr Such, who confirms this – says they had a snack and a beer in the local – and then that he went in a hired car, driven by himself, to visit Mrs Schumann.’

  ‘Aha!’ said Laura. ‘The plot thickens!’

  ‘Not so much as you might think, Mrs Gavin. She was out when he got there. We’ve got her story, and it seems that she’d gone to visit her husband’s grave and put some flowers on it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, we’ve found the place where she bought the flowers.’

  ‘On a Sunday?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Gavin. There’s a stall where they sell flowers to the people who are visiting relatives and friends in the cottage hospital. She went to this stall before she visited the grave.’

  ‘And do they remember Mrs Schumann at the cemetery?’

  ‘Who ever remembers anybody?’ demanded the Superintendent, with resignation but without bitterness. ‘There were certainly flowers on the grave.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem as though she was expecting a visitor if she was not at home when James called.’

  ‘When he says he called, Mrs Gavin.’

  ‘You suspect him of murdering this Mrs Castle, then?’

  ‘Oh, no, we don’t suspect anybody in particular, but Mrs Castle was a teacher at the school, so the school, once again, makes a starting-point, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s rather peculiar that both Karen Schumann and this Mrs Castle were sharing digs with Miss Tompkins and Miss O’Reilly when they were murdered,’ said Laura thoughtfully. ‘Added to which, those two girls would have known that Mrs Clancy had an Italian maid. She said she must have mentioned Lucia in the staff Common Room.’

  Phillips did not comment on this directly. He said,

  ‘We’re up a gum tree. Like the first and third murder, this seems motiveless.’

  ‘I don’t think the murder of Karen Schumann was motiveless,’ said Laura. ‘If only we could get at the reason for her death, I believe the others would fall into line. One thing, again Otto Schumann can’t be involved, can he?’

  ‘No, he can’t. He’s at sea again. There were quite valid reasons for connecting him with the death of Machrado, but with three others deaths under review, deaths in which he can’t possibly have had any part, we must consider him at present in the clear.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s something.’ The Superintendent took his leave, and Laura added, to Dame Beatrice, ‘I wish I could find some way of sticking my neck out in the direction of this madman. I don’t think he’d find me all that easy to throttle. Could I pretend to be Swedish, or Russian or something? What do you think about James now? Surely he wouldn’t have gone over there on the off-chance of finding Mrs Schumann at home?’

  ‘We could ask her whether he was in the habit of paying these informal visits, of course. If he went for the purpose of borrowing books from her husband’s theological library, it is possible that he would drop in from time to time without feeling that he must notify her beforehand of his coming.’

  ‘You mean he would suddenly find he could do with somebody’s commentary on something or other, and would buzz off to her on the chance that she was in and would lend it to him?’

  ‘It seems a reasonable supposition.’

  ‘What did you make of the last note left on the body?’

  ‘Nothing whatever.’

  ‘I wonder what James did on Whit Monday?’

  ‘If the body was placed in the bushes near Badbury Rings on Sunday night or early on Monday morning, it would scarcely matter what anybody did on Whit Monday, but, as a point of interest, we will find out.’ She rang up Phillips a little later in the day.

  ‘On Whit Monday?’ he said. ‘Well, if he’s our man, he’s got a first-class alibi for that day, and that’s rather interesting, because it would mean that to him the Monday was more important than the Saturday or Sunday. He was at his digs all the morning. This is confirmed by his landlady, who gave him his breakfast at half-past eight, his morning coffee at eleven and his lunch at one-thirty. After lunch he went to Wimborne Minster to look at the chained library there. This is confirmed by the custodian who recognised the description of the clothes he was wearing – we got this description from his landlady – and his height and colouring. There were only four other visitors to the chained library in the Minster that afternoon, and the custodian remembers them particularly clearly, as three of them were Australians, a father, mother and little girl. James had tea in Wimborne – there is no confirmation of this, but it hardly matters because, long before tea-time, those Boy Scouts had discovered the body – and then says he went to Shaftesbury and returned to his lodgings at just after eight in the evening.’

  ‘How did he get to Mrs Schumann’s cottage on the Sunday?’

  ‘In a hired car, an Austin 1000, whose number, of course, we got from the garage. We have examined it most carefully and there is nothing suspicious about it. He took it out at half-past two and returned it and paid for the hire of it at six. He always hired from the same people. Says it worked out cheaper than running a car of his own, as he lived so near the school that he could walk there.’

  ‘I see. Thank you very much.’

  ‘It doesn’t help us, you know.’

  ‘Unless we can show that his story of how he spent Saturday and Sunday is either totally untrue or is false in certain particulars.’

  ‘If it weren’t for the fact that he was engaged to Karen Schumann and that, in every case except that of Machrado, there is some sort of connection with the school – although I admit it is very slight indeed in the case of the Italian maidservant – I’d now be inclined to write him off completely. He seems a steady, conscientious, serious-minded fellow, not at all the type of mass-murderer who is indicated by the present circumstances, and, I would have said, above suspicion, except as aforesaid. I admit I suspected him at first, but that was over the death of Karen Schumann.’

  ‘I think I would like to speak to hi
m again. Can that be arranged? And would you mind?’

  ‘I’d be delighted. I only hope it will lead to something. The line Detective-Inspector Maisry is taking is to research into the background of these women’s lives. He’s certain there’s some connection with their past, but, so far, nothing adds up anywhere.’

  ‘Where will you meet James?’ asked Laura, when Phillips had rung off.

  ‘At his lodgings will be the best place. He may be more relaxed and informative there than he was when I saw him in the headmaster’s room at the school.’

  ‘He won’t be either relaxed or informative if he’s the murderer.’

  ‘That remains to be seen, does it not?’

  What was seen, in the first place, was that James was not prepared to be co-operative. He replied to Dame Beatrice’s letter with a curt note to the effect that he was not in need of a psychiatrist and that he was extremely busy. This she countered by ringing him up at the school and inviting him to Saturday lunch at the Stone House, adding that she was including Mrs Schumann in the invitation. James refused, point-blank, to go anywhere near the Stone House, and was abrupt to the point of rudeness.

  ‘A bit suspicious, don’t you think?’ suggested Laura. ‘Anyway, this is where I go to Southampton and do my homework.’

  ‘By which you mean?’

  ‘Didn’t you, some time ago, suggest that I try my luck in a public library?’

  ‘It may be a waste of your time, but, if you remember, we thought that the digits printed on the papers pinned to the bodies might be dates.’

  ‘I thought that we’d abandoned that idea, but I’ll have a go. If the numbers represent dates, none of them rings a bell in my mind, in spite of the fact that I did history at College. The nearest would be 1140, when the Council of Sens condemned Peter Abelard and a chap named Arnold of Brescia for heresy.’

  Dame Beatrice asked sharply,

  ‘What did you say?’

  Laura gazed at her in astonishment. Then she thumped the arm of her chair. The penny had dropped.

  ‘Arnold of Brescia,’ she repeated. ‘Matthew Arnold! The Scholar Gipsy! I say, do you really think we’ve got a clue at last?’

  ‘Go to the library and find out,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I cannot see, at the moment, where Arnold of Brescia will lead us, but I deduce, from his name, that he was an Italian, and The Scholar Gipsy was the caption found on the body of Lucia, the Italian maid. There must be a connection.’

  ‘I’ll turn up Arnold in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, then, and see whether I can get a lead.’

  ‘According to our information, James seems to have called Karen Schumann a misguided little Arian. Was not Arius also a heretic?’

  ‘Yes, of course he was – not that I know anything more than that about him. I’ll look him up as well. Have you any other ideas?’

  ‘I wondered whether the word Cathari, found on Mrs Castle’s body, might be worth looking up.’

  ‘It’s a stranger to me, but I’ll get on its trail.’

  She came back at tea-time on the following day, having set off at half-past nine in the morning.

  ‘I’m a mine of information,’ she announced, ‘but how it’s going to solve our problems I haven’t the faintest idea.’

  ‘Did you have any lunch?’

  ‘Yes, ate like a horse at the Dolphin and then returned to my studies. I got on swingingly with 325 and 1155, and Cathari turned out to be fool-proof. It means that lot we usually hear of as the Albigensians. 380 gave me a lot of trouble, but I tracked it down at last, and it ties up in a way.’

  ‘Excellent. Let us have some tea, and then, when you are refreshed, I must hear the full results of your researches.’

  These did not take long to describe.

  ‘Arius doesn’t quite fit,’ said Laura, ‘but the others do. He was a Christian priest in Alexandria and was condemned as a heretic by the Synod of Antioch in A.D. 325 because he believed Christ was not the equal of God, but was more or less an adopted Son and was capable of change and subject to pain, and so was not immortal. Arius was also considered equally unsound on the Third Person of the Trinity and seems to have made himself a pain in the neck to the authorities and, in the end, got himself excommunicated. All the dates are a bit sketchy, I thought, but 325 is as good as any other.’

  ‘Why do you say he does not quite fit?’

  ‘You’ll see what I mean when I tell you about the others. In his case it’s the nationality which doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘What about the Cathari or Albigensians?’

  ‘Not really open to the same objection – at least, not as seriously. They flourished especially in Provence, which ties up, vaguely, with Mrs Castle and the teaching of French. Saint Bernard didn’t like them, and the Dominicans and Franciscans were also anti-Cathari. The movement more or less collapsed in the thirteenth century, but lingered on, here and there, for another couple of hundred years.’

  ‘And the specific date of 1207?’

  ‘That was the beginning of the Crusade against the Cathari. Some put it at 1208, but it’s near enough.’

  ‘And Arnold of Brescia?’

  ‘Well, he seems to have had a very rough passage. Pope Innocent the Second condemned him in 1139 and he was banished from Italy – ties in with Lucia, as we noted – and went to France. He seems to have known Abelard, as I said. After the Council of Sens had chewed the fat with both of them, Abelard gave in, but Arnold fled. In 1148 the Pope excommunicated him, and in 1155, the date on Lucia’s body, he was hanged in Rome, his body was burned – ties up with the burnt doll – a very unpleasant feature, as I thought at the time – and his ashes were thrown into the Tiber.’

  ‘You say you had difficulty with the 380 date?’

  ‘I certainly did, but I tracked it down at last. Actually, 384 would have been nearer the mark. Anyway, I realised by this time that our murderer must have a bee in his bonnet about heresies in the early and the mediaeval church, so that gave me a pointer and brought me at last to a chap named Priscillian. He was a Spaniard – Maria Machrado, you know – and in 380 he was condemned by the Council of Saragossa, but was later elected bishop of Avila. However, he struck unlucky, and in 384 he was tried for sorcery and immorality and condemned to death. He was, as a matter of fact, the first person to be executed for heresy.’

  ‘I see what you mean about Arianism. You have no German heretics among your gleanings. This confirms me in a belief I have held for some time. The only death for which the murderer could have had a motive was the death of Karen Schumann. The others are either wanton killings or are intended to throw the police off the track.’

  ‘You must admit that all this heresy stuff points to the scholarly Edward.’

  ‘It could also point to Mrs Schumann, who, even more readily than Edward James, has the run of her late husband’s theological library.’

  ‘On the other hand, now that we’ve got as far as this, it looks so obviously like one or other of them that it must be somebody else.’

  ‘Now that we’ve got as far as this, yes. But the murderer probably had no idea that we should interest ourselves by looking into these dates, so he or she took a calculated risk. I do not imagine that, left to themselves, Superintendent Phillips or Detective-Inspector Maisry would have troubled themselves about ancient and exploded heresies.’

  ‘I still can’t see how it helps us, anyway, to have found out all this.’

  ‘I do not agree. We can use this knowledge, but must proceed with caution. Say nothing to anybody about it at present. It is not direct evidence of guilt, but it can be a formidable weapon if we can use it wisely. If I drop the right hints in the right direction, I may at least be able to prevent another death. The supply of heresies has not given out on you, I trust?’

  ‘I don’t know. I only looked up those in which we had an interest. I’ll go back tomorrow and dig into a book on the history of the early church, if you like.’

  Before she could do this, however, the fifth
body had been found. It was lying face-downwards in one of the New Forest ponds, and the cause of death was the same as before. The news came through on the telephone at breakfast-time, just before Laura was ready to set off for Southampton.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Full Fathom Five

  ‘And first I tried an English lass, but she was fat and lazy …

  Away, haul away, haul away, oh!

  And then I tried an Irish lass who well-nigh drove me crazy …

  Away, haul away, haul away, oh!’

  * * *

  (1)

  ‘Yes, it’s like the others,’ said Gavin, ‘except for one or two points which might indicate that it’s a copycat murder and not one in the sequence. For one thing, my chaps and Phillips have traced where she comes from. She’s an Irish girl who lived in Swansea, so the first difference is that she wasn’t, in the usual sense of the words, a foreigner. Then, second point, she has no connection whatever with that comprehensive or any other school. She wasn’t one of the campers, either, and as nobody on the site had ever seen her before, the police chaps didn’t at first know why she was in the neighbourhood. The inference was that she was on holiday, or else, of course, that she had taken a job around these parts, but they found out all about it later.’

  ‘Didn’t any of the campers hear anything suspicious?’ asked Laura.

  ‘Not a thing, so far as any of them can remember. The police have checked on all of them very carefully, as you may imagine, but I’m told there’s nothing even remotely suspicious about any of them. At this time of year the camping season hasn’t really got into its stride, so there are only five caravans on the pitch, and as there’s nothing much to do after dark the people all turn in pretty early. Whoever dumped the body – she’d been dead for some days when she was found – probably carried her some distance so as not to bring a car within hearing of the campers. She was a well-built girl, so the chances are that her murderer was a man, although, of course, some women would be quite strong enough to kill her, dump her in a car and then drag her over the short turf to the edge of the pond where she was found. Only her head and one arm were in the water.’