[Mrs Bradley 41] - Three Quick and Five Dead

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘With his intellectual background he could not have been pleased about that,’ commented Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Well, he received quite good treatment, I believe,’ said James, ‘and, when the air-raids began in earnest, I think anybody with a German name and speaking with a German accent, might have had a difficult time if he’d still been living in a place near Southampton, which suffered terrible damage and loss of life during the war. Karla, of course, retreated to the country and was not molested or annoyed in any way.’

  ‘But, until the war interrupted your friendship with them, you saw the Schumanns frequently and stayed many weekends at their flat?’

  ‘Yes, I knew them intimately from 1935 until 1939, but then came a change in our relationship.’

  ‘Oh, before the war began?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Two things happened. Just before the war, as you may or may not know, the staffs of schools were instructed to issue gas-masks to the children, but to take care to stress the fact that this was a precautionary measure only, and that it was in the highest degree unlikely that they would ever need to be used, as, indeed, they never were. Well, Heinrich, probably with the best of intentions, was rash and irresponsible enough to tell his form – he was form-master of a group of twelve-year-olds, boys and girls – that the masks would be quite useless if the new and deadly poison gases which the Germans had secretly invented and perfected since the 1914 war should ever be used by an invading German army.’

  ‘With the result that some of the youngsters went home and spread alarm and despondency, I suppose,’ said Maisry.

  ‘Exactly. Parents, especially the parents of some of the little girls, bombarded the headmaster with tales of broken nights, of children screaming in nightmare or refusing to go to bed, etc. etc. until Schumann was severely censured by the headmaster, and the long and short of it was that he lost his job, and really one can scarcely be surprised. Of course, he was, in many ways, a singularly obtuse man, like so many Germans.’

  ‘I wonder what possessed him?’ said Maisry. ‘It seems such an idiotic thing to have said to a pack of youngsters.’

  ‘An attack of conscience. He had to tell the truth, as he saw it,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I am quite sure he did not realise the harm he was doing. So that is why he gave up teaching! His son told us that he had done so, but did not give us the reason.’

  ‘I doubt whether Otto knew it. His father would not have told him, and his mother was so incensed when Heinrich lost his job that she would never have made the slightest excuse for him, I’m sure. To her, he had simply been given the sack for incompetence.’

  ‘You mentioned a second reason for a break in your friendship with the Schumanns,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Yes, well, that had nothing to do with the war.’ He paused. ‘It’s not a subject I care to discuss,’ he said. To give him time, Dame Beatrice asked,

  ‘And how did you get on during the war?’

  ‘I saw how things would go, so I changed my job. Our boys and girls were sent home as soon as school reassembled in the September of 1939. Most of them, in fact, had been sent to reputedly safer areas by their parents and did not return to the school at all. The headmaster had been going to retire at Christmas, in any case, and had sold the school buildings and our small playing field on advantageous terms to an hotel company, so we on the staff had been looking about us during the summer holiday and it seemed to me that my wisest plan would be to try for a post in a state school. Not only would this offer me better security in the form of a retirement pension, but I reasoned that teaching under the state scheme would have to become a reserved occupation, at least for a time, and would defer my being drafted into one of the armed services.’

  ‘And did it?’ asked Maisry, in order to keep James talking, since he had not, so far, received any useful information from him.

  ‘For a time, yes. I obtained the post of history and religious knowledge specialist at a school in West London and was there during the worst of the air-raids. It was a strange time. At first, when the alarm sounded, we used to get the children into shelter and have community singing and all that sort of thing, but as time went on we carried on with normal lessons. When at last I got my call-up papers I was rejected on medical grounds – nothing serious – flat feet and defective eyesight, as a matter of fact, but it meant that I had the good fortune to remain a civilian.’

  ‘And did you keep up a correspondence with the Schumanns during the war?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Oh, yes – well, I sent my London address to Mrs Schumann – but we did not write very often, just enough, I suppose, to keep in touch. Then, in 1943, Karen and Otto were born, and I suppose she was kept pretty busy looking after them and going to the clinic for their orange juice and cod liver oil or whatever, because for the next few years we scarcely corresponded at all. In fact, it got down to an exchange of cards at Christmas, and that was about the extent of it.’

  ‘But you picked up the threads later?’ suggested Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Oh, yes. Ten years ago, when the plan for comprehensive schools was getting under way, I applied for the post I now hold. I have never cared over-much for London and was glad to return to my old haunts.’

  ‘And this brings us to your second point,’ said Dame Beatrice. James dropped his eyes and fidgeted with his fingers. They were long, white and well-manicured.

  ‘I suppose it does,’ he said. ‘Oh, well, having said so much, I may as well give you the rest, although it shows nobody up in a particularly good light.’

  ‘It is connected, of course, with the virtual cessation of correspondence between yourself and the Schumanns.’

  ‘That is correct. Briefly – and you will understand that even the recollection of it is embarrassing to me – all I can tell you is that before the twins were born and while her husband was in the Pioneer Corps and away from home, Karla, in the plainest possible terms, made a certain suggestion to me. I was, of course, quite horrified, and she withdrew it immediately, pleading that she was lonely, that the war frightened her, that she needed support and comfort, and that she regretted making an advance which was unwelcome to me.

  ‘I pointed out that I had never given her the slightest reason for thinking that it could be otherwise, and she begged me, in the most abject and heartfelt way, not to allow her ill-judged suggestion to make any difference to our long friendship, but, as you will understand, things could never be the same again between us, and, as gradually as I could, not wishing either to be unkind to her or to arouse any suspicion in Heinrich’s mind that Karla was not as chaste as he would have wished, I almost ceased to correspond with them and I gave up going to see her unless I heard from Heinrich that he would be at home.

  ‘When he was demobilised, and when having the twin children, I felt, would have altered Karla’s feelings towards me, I picked up the acquaintanceship again. During the war there was little to do but read, so I had embarked upon a further course of study in theology, and it occurred to me that I might try for my doctorate in divinity. I will be frank about my motives in taking up with the Schumanns again. Not only had they been the closest friends I had, but I needed to pick Heinrich’s brains and borrow books from his library.’

  ‘Had you borrowed from his library before that?’

  ‘No, never. He had shown me his books, but there had never been any suggestion on the part of either of us that I should borrow them. When I did approach the matter, I found that he was a bibliophile of the type which cannot bear others to handle his collection, so I was obliged to rely upon public libraries and my own purchases for the books I needed. I could understand his attitude and sympathise with it, and I remained his friend up to the day of his death.’

  ‘Did that come as a shock to you?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Not a shock. I felt grief, of course, and a sense of loss, but he had been ailing with some sort of internal trouble for some time, and complained of pain and had attacks of vomiting. He had been under the
doctor for some months, in fact, before he died.’

  ‘By that time I suppose the twins were more or less grown up,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Yes, they would have been nineteen years old at least. Karen was at the University and intended to teach, and Otto, always an undisciplined, very unsatisfactory boy, had gone to sea at the age of sixteen. Karen had attached herself to me at an early age and I regarded her, until she came out of college, as a privileged younger sister, and, indeed, I have never regarded her in any other way.’

  ‘Yet you became engaged to her,’ said Maisry.

  ‘I knew she would accept me if I asked her, and I asked her to safeguard myself, as I thought, from Karla, who, after her husband’s death, importuned me again. However, when Karen obtained a post in the same school as myself, which, it seems, was what she had set her heart on, Karla’s attitude changed. It was she who suggested that I should not come to the cottage more often than about one week-end in four, urging me to work hard for my doctorate and not allow Karen, who was a gay, fun-loving girl, to cause me to dissipate my time, and she also said that Karen was too flighty and unsettled to make a good wife at that time, but that teaching, and living away from home except at week-ends and during school holidays, would quieten and develop her.

  ‘By this time I was so much engrossed in my studies as to feel that this was very sensible advice, so I settled down to what we both realised would be a long engagement and my life became peaceful and satisfying until this dreadful thing happened to Karen.’

  ‘Now,’ said Maisry, ‘you must have done a lot of thinking about that. Have you any idea in your mind as to the identity of the murderer?’

  ‘The only idea to come into my mind won’t bear thinking about, and that is all I am going to say, particularly as I haven’t a shred of proof. Besides, the other four murders make nonsense of my idea, anyway.’

  ‘Yes, the other four murders,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘You must have met one of those unfortunate girls.’

  ‘Yes,’ said James, eyeing her steadily, ‘I did. Twice, at Karla’s cottage, I met the Spanish young lady.’

  ‘Who was of a very lively and forthcoming disposition.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will you not go a little further?’

  ‘The second time I met her at Karla’s she turned very playful and sat on my knee. Oh, not by invitation, I assure you! She also kissed me and suggested returning with me to my flat. That, I fancy, was because she had been turned out of her own. At least, so Karla told me when I said good night and she saw me off in my hired car.’

  ‘I see. Was Mrs Schumann a witness of what one might term the goings-on?’ asked Maisry.

  ‘Oh, yes. The young woman was quite shameless. Karla took it extremely well. She merely said, “One day, Maria, you will go too far”, to which the hussy replied, “But already I go too far. I am to have a niño. Did you not know? One cannot go farther than that.” Upon this Karla said, quite good-naturedly, “Oh, go and get the supper. You will have to spend the night here, I suppose,” and added, when the girl had gone into the kitchen, “I have to put up with her. She got the baby by Otto.” Then the next thing I heard about Maria was that she was dead.’

  ‘In fact, that she had gone too far,’ said Maisry.

  (2)

  ‘Well, we can be pretty sure of ourselves, I think,’ he went on, when James had gone off in the car which seemed to be on perpetual hire to him. ‘Motive, means and opportunity seem to be established in the first two cases, and I think we should aim now at the fifth, for I am extremely doubtful whether we shall ever satisfy ourselves, except by inference, about numbers three and four. Five is a different matter, and may prove to be our strongest card. Once we can prove a connection between Mrs Schumann and this Irish girl who lived in Swansea, I think our case is complete, unless she’s got a very good explanation indeed. I wonder whether there’s any way of getting her fingerprints verified? The letter which I asked the Swansea newspaper to let me have must be finger-printed all right – it’s on that glossy note-paper which takes prints very well, although we haven’t tested it yet.’

  ‘And their duplicate ought to be on a note beneath this very Stone House roof, but I doubt whether it has been retained,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Mrs Schumann wrote this note to my French maid and it was delivered by hand by being pushed underneath the kitchen door.’

  ‘Why should she write—? Oh, to your French maid!’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope she did keep it, although I agree it’s rather unlikely. What was the note about?’

  ‘It was an invitation to take tea at the cottage.’

  ‘Good Lord! Of course your maid did not go, otherwise I don’t think you would still have her with you. But what a risk for Mrs Schumann to take! If your maid was known to have gone to the cottage and later turned out to have been strangled, we should have had an open and shut case!’

  ‘I am sorry to disappoint you, but I confess that I would rather have Celestine than any number of open and shut cases. But let us find out whether she has indeed kept the letter. Of course, it will be smothered in finger-prints by this time. Not only Celestine herself, but her husband Henri and my chauffeur George are certain to have handled it.’

  ‘The same holds good about the letter asking for the advertisement to be inserted in the Swansea newspaper, but that won’t fox the boys at the Yard. If Mrs Schumann’s prints are there, they’ll find them, and if they’re on both letters I should say we’ve got her, and when we’ve got her I’ll have the husband’s body exhumed and we’ll find out exactly what he died of. If he had these internal pains and vomited and so forth, it sounds quite a bit like arsenic, administered over a long period of time – several months, according to James, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Of course, even if you find the same prints on both letters, you will still have to prove that they were made by Mrs Schumann.’

  ‘We’ll find some way of getting round that one, Dame Beatrice, never you fear. May we have your maid in now?’

  Celestine, who usually received visits to Dame Beatrice by the police with a metaphorically arched back and claws at the ready, succumbed at once to Maisry’s gentleness and charm. No, she was desolated, but what did one do with old letters except throw them away? She had not dreamed that the note was important, although she deprecated the lack of taste in the writer to invite her, the servant of madame, to take tea with one of madame’s friends.

  ‘Acquaintances,’ amended Dame Beatrice. Celestine accepted the correction with a toss of the head and replied that perhaps ‘guest at the table’ would be an accurate description. Dame Beatrice accepted this, said it was a pity that the note had been thrown away, but that, of course, nobody had known it would have importance for the police, and dismissed her.

  ‘Pity,’ said Maisry, ‘but one couldn’t have expected anything else. Oh, well, we shall have to find another line of country if we want to proceed in the direction of Swansea.’ He had risen to go when there came a respectful tap on the door.

  ‘That sounds like George,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘The indoor servants do not knock.’

  It was indeed the chauffeur although, as it was his afternoon off, he was not in uniform but was wearing a grey suit of respectable cut and a rather natty light-blue shirt with an orange-coloured tie.

  ‘Excuse me, madam,’ he said, ‘but I’m told you would be requiring the note which Mrs Schumann sent to Madame Lemaître. I have it here.’ He produced it from behind his back and offered it to Dame Beatrice.

  ‘Celestine told us she had thrown it away,’ said Dame Beatrice, taking the envelope and handing it to Maisry.

  ‘There not being a fire in the kitchen owing to clement weather at the time, madam, Madame Lemaître tossed it into the small rubbish bin with the lid which can be manipulated by a pressure from the foot. Having my own ideas about the letter, I offered to empty the little receptacle into the dustbin instead of Zena going out in the dusk with it, her be
ing nervous about these murders, and, out of sight of the kitchen window, I abstracted the letter and have retained it.’

  ‘Wonderful, George, but why?’

  ‘It struck me as a rather peculiar letter, madam, for a lady who had sat at your table to write to one of your domestic staff.’

  ‘How right you are, George, as always. This letter is going to prove helpful to Detective-Inspector Maisry.’

  ‘Mighty helpful,’ said Maisry. ‘Now we really can get cracking,’ he added, when George had gone. ‘I’m sorry your Chief Constable has tied Phillips up with another case. He’d be interested in this fingerprint business. It may give us some concrete evidence at last, and we could certainly do with some. Of course, if it goes blue on us we may have to go back to my idea that we are looking for more than one murderer.’

  ‘But you no longer think there are three?’

  ‘Oh, no. I’ve washed young Schumann right out of it. James is the nigger in the woodpile. There’s no doubt left in my mind that Mrs Schumann killed her daughter in order to get him, and did for Maria Machrado before she could vamp him – not that I should have said there was any fear of that!’

  ‘Oh, I am sure there was not.’

  ‘The trouble about this fingerprint business,’ went on Maisry, more as though he were talking to himself than to Dame Beatrice, ‘is the fact that these are on paper. I’m not a fingerprint expert – that’s for the backroom boys in the forensic laboratory – but I do know enough to realise that whether we have any luck or not depends very largely on the absorbent properties of the paper she used. She was cagey enough not to use the same kind for both letters. This one is on a white unlined sheet. The one in our previous possession, the one she sent to the newspaper, is also on unlined paper, but the colour is light blue and the sheet is a different size. That, in itself, won’t matter a bit, so long as the prints correspond, but, at this lapse of time, we’ll be lucky to get any identifiable prints on either document, and, anyway, one is of no use without the other.’