[Mrs Bradley 50] - Late, Late in the Evening

by Gladys Mitchell

  'It's this murder,' he said. 'There are policemen up at the house this very minute. They've been here all day questioning people. I don't suppose you know about it yet, but there's been a murder on The Marsh.'

  'Of course we know. Everybody knows. But why should police come here?' asked Kenneth. 'Has one of you done the murder?' (Of course he was thinking of Mr Ward.)

  'I shouldn't imagine so, but we don't really know. You remember my sister had a birthday party yesterday? Well, one of the guests went out and got herself killed. That's why the police are here,' explained Lionel.

  'The body was found down by the sheepwash,' said Kenneth.

  'So you do know about it! I'll tell you something you don't know, though. Well, anyway, I bet you don't. You don't know what she was wearing when she was killed. Want to see?'

  'Don't be silly,' I said. 'You're just being cocky. The police wouldn't let you have whatever she was wearing. They would keep it for clues and things.'

  'You don't know everything,' said Lionel. 'Come on. I'll show you. I ought to charge you something, but I don't suppose you have any money, have you?'

  'Spent it all at the fair.'

  'Oh, what was the fair like? Was it any good?'

  'Fabulous. Uncle Arthur won a cigar and a coconut and we saw some wrestling and there was a fight and we didn't get home till after midnight. What are you going to show us?'

  'Come and see. We'll sneak in by the side door and use the back staircase. Don't speak a word or make any kind of a row until we're in my playroom with the door shut.'

  We crept in past the pantry, mounted the servants' staircase and tip-toed along to the attics which were Lionel's domain. He took us into the playroom, shut the door and disappeared into his bedroom. In a few minutes one of the hideous and frightful creatures which had collected for charity in the village on Saturday came prancing into the room.

  I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle an involuntary cry as the creature pirouetted towards us and I recoiled from it, putting out my other hand to fend it off. Kenneth dodged over to the bedroom door and gently closed it. Then he said,

  'How did you manage to get those things?'

  Lionel danced about a bit more and then shrugged himself out of the lendings which he laid carefully on the only armchair in the room.

  'I managed to get them because I sneaked them and wouldn't give them back,' he said.

  'Off the body? I don't believe a word of it,' said Kenneth.

  'Of course not off the body. These are duplicates. There were two of each costume and I picked the one I thought might fit. Doctor Tassall brought them from the hospital in a wagonette. Amabel got Grandmamma to hire it and buy the costumes for the party. When they came they were laid out in the dining-room, so I took one for myself and in the end I was allowed to keep it because I wasn't going to the party and had to go to bed early. So they all tried on their costumes for size, you know, and this girl who got murdered had the one like this. I wore mine, on and off, most of the evening until my bedtime. I went round with my money-box cadging sixpences from the guests when Grandmamma wasn't about. Then, when they were dressing for the charades, this girl came up here with her costume and asked me if I would mind swopping over with her, as she thought my costume might be a bit roomier than hers. She was a fairly fat person, you see, and actually rather plain. As a matter of fact, she hadn't been invited to the party, but she brought three others in her brother's car, so, of course, she had to be asked to stay. My sister was a bit annoyed about it, because the person who should have brought the other three girls was the brother, but he had to cry off at the last minute because he'd crocked his knee or something. My sister didn't want another girl, especially such a plain girl as that, so she made a scene to Grandmamma and Grandmamma was a good bit sick with her.'

  'So did you swop costumes with this girl?'

  'Oh, yes. It suited me all right. The only difference in the costumes was the size, so far as I could see, except one was more brown and the other was more green, and the masks were a bit different, that's all. Nothing, really. Anyway, she offered me half-a-crown to swop, so it was worth it.'

  'But that means,' said Kenneth, 'that the wrong person got murdered.'

  'What wrong person?'

  'Well, you, I suppose the murder was meant for.'

  'Oh, shucks. I was in bed at that time.'

  'Well, have the police questioned you as well as the others?'

  'Oh, yes, but I couldn't tell them anything except that we'd swopped the costumes.'

  Kenneth and I held a deep discussion as we walked homewards down the hill.

  'She was mistaken for Lionel,' said Kenneth. 'I'm certain of it. She wasn't even supposed to be at the party.'

  'But who would want to murder Lionel? He's only a boy,' I argued.

  'The princes in the Tower were only boys, but they were in somebody's way and perhaps Lionel is, too.'

  'Whose way could he be in?'

  'Mr Ward's, of course. Don't you remember Lionel telling us that the big house, and all that, would be his when he was twenty-one?'

  'So what?'

  'Well, if Mr Ward is a relation, perhaps it would all be his if Lionel was out of the way.'

  I was immensely impressed by this.

  'No wonder Lionel's parents won't let him come down to the village any more,' I said. 'It's sickening for him, but I don't blame them. They must think he's still in danger.'

  'Well, I expect he is. Murderers don't stick at much, and if Mr Ward is a murderer and can get that house and everything by killing Lionel, I expect he will.'

  'Lionel ought to be guarded night and day,' I said.

  'Are you volunteering?' Kenneth enquired.

  'We couldn't do much against a murderer.'

  'We could yell the place down, I suppose, if we saw him collaring Lionel.'

  'A fat lot of use that would be. The murderer would simply murder us, too, to shut our mouths. That's what murderers always do. It's in the Sunday papers,' I said.

  We decided to leave Lionel to his fate. Aunt Lally found us deep in Moments of Meditation and Little Thoughts of Great Men when she came downstairs at five and sent us off to Aunt Kirstie to be given our Sunday tea.

  Chapter 8

  Mrs Kempson Again

  It is so kind of you, dear Mrs Bradley, to agree to come down here, but as you will see from what follows, at present it would be nothing but a waste of your very valuable time. Ward is no longer here. He seems to have walked out of his lodgings last Friday and has completely disappeared. The Landgraves, with whom he was domiciled, informed me of what had happened, and, of course, they do not know how to trace him and are upset at losing what I suppose has been a welcome source of income. Neither is that by any means the worst of it.

  Ward's disappearance, provided it could be permanent, would be a relief to me, but, in view of what has happened, I can obtain no satisfaction from it. In fact, the reverse is the case. I am filled with misgivings and am only too conscious that very soon my misgivings may give place to something not far removed from actual trepidation. Let me relate the circumstances so far as they are known to me at present.

  They appear to stem from a party which I gave for Amabel, my grand-daughter, little Lionel's sister, on her nineteenth birthday which she celebrated on Saturday. The arrangements were made before she left her finishing school in Paris and it seemed reasonable to me that the list of guests should be compiled by Amabel herself. She sent me the names and addresses of her friends and I issued the invitations personally.

  Quite a number of the guests lived in London, where Amabel's parents have a flat at which the family stay when they are in England, so the names on Amabel's list were almost all of them unknown to me, but this occasioned me no uneasiness, since I knew (or thought I did) that Amabel was a good, sensible girl who would be unlikely to make undesirable acquaintances and still more unlikely to invite any such to my house. I ought to add that nobody living in my vicinity appeared to have been
invited, or I should have instituted enquiries. That I was deceived you will learn as you read on. I am bitterly disappointed in Amabel, and have told her so, but she claims that the address in question was valid when she sent it to me. I refer, of course, to the London address of Doctor Tassall.

  Against Amabel's wishes, I insisted upon receiving her guests in formal fashion. I stood at the head of the staircase with her beside me and I had Barker announce each arrival. Among them was this young man, Doctor Noel Tassall. When I read his name on Amabel's list I had no idea that he was Doctor Matters' new assistant-not that I employ Doctor Matters, of course; I go to a London man whom I have known for years-but I had taken it for granted that Doctor Tassall's was an academic title and that he was one of Amabel's former teachers, since, against my better judgment, she had been taught, up to her eighteenth year, at a co-educational boarding school where half the staff were men.

  I recognised Doctor Tassall, of course, as soon as he mounted the stairs, for I had seen him riding his horse in the village, but it had never occurred to me to find out his name and I cannot remember who it was who first pointed him out to me and told me that he had come to assist Doctor Matters, an elderly man and not, I would think, really up to his work, although probably he still retains enough knowledge and energy to deal with the village ailments and deliver the village babies.

  This, however, is beside the point. The fact of the matter is that, all the time I was at the party-I left it and retired to my room at ten-I noticed that Amabel danced almost entirely with this eminently unsuitable young man and that their attitude towards one another was warm, informal and, not to mince words, far more intimate and exclusive than could possibly meet with my approval. At the first opportunity I spoke to her.

  'You are neglecting your other guests,' I said. She was flushed and smiling. She gave me a swift peck on the cheek.

  'Oh, don't be stuffy, darling,' she said. 'Anyway, he expects to be called out to a confinement at any minute, so not to worry.'

  'How do you come to know Doctor Tassall?' I asked.

  'Can't remember. Met him in London somewhere. Ah, here he comes with some provender. I must say, Grandmamma, you've done me proud with the fodder and horse-trough.' (Such language from a girl!)

  It was soon after this that I retired to my room and had my maid put me to bed. I knew that my room was sufficiently far from the revels to be free of their raucous sounds and the last I remember of the party was when I heard one of the young women suggest that they play charades. Amabel said,

  'All right. The girls can have my room to dress up in, and the men-may they use yours, Nigel?'

  My dear adopted boy, of course, was present at the beginning of the party and I am bound to say that his conduct was in marked contrast to that of Amabel. He mixed with the others, danced in turn with the young women and in every way comported himself with dignity and discretion. He consented to allow his den to be used as a dressing-room for the male guests and before sides could be picked for the charades Doctor Tassall was called away. My daughter and her husband had left the hall earlier, explaining to me that the young people would be happier on their own. If this was meant as a hint to me to follow their example, it failed of its object. I thought that a certain amount of supervision was desirable, but at mention of charades I decided that, as I was feeling tired and as this new activity was innocent and innocuous enough but would probably be extremely noisy, I was justified in seeking a little well-earned peace and quiet. I left word with Barker to lock up when everybody had gone and I went to bed. I took my tablet and fell asleep almost at once.

  My sleep, however, did not last very long. What woke me I do not know, unless it was a premonition that all was not well.

  I leaned up on my elbow and listened. I could bear nothing except a soft sound of scuffling just outside my door. Then a girl's voice said: 'Stop it, you fool! There might be somebody asleep in there!'

  I switched on the light and rang my night-bell. After what I considered to be an unnecessary delay, my maid came in,

  'Bridges,' I said, 'who is that on the landing?'

  'Landing, madam?'

  'Two persons have been scuffling about on the landing outside my room. Ask them to go downstairs at once!'

  'There's nobody outside your door, madam. I would have seen them as I come along the corridor.'

  'Well, anyway, it is time the party began to break up,' I said. 'Go downstairs and take my instructions to Mr Nigel. He will know how to cope. I don't want people here after midnight. After all, tomorrow is Sunday. Besides, most of these young people have to get back to London.' She returned after about ten minutes.

  'Mr Nigel isn't there, madam. Miss Amabel tells me as he had arranged to pick up the photographer at eleven, there being no other way of getting him here so late excepting by car.'

  'Oh, yes, I remember,' I said. 'Well, he should not be long. Tell Barker to have a word with him directly he gets back. As soon as the photographer has taken the groups, the party is to close down.'

  'Very good, madam.'

  I settled myself once more, secure in the knowledge that Nigel was to be relied on to respect my wishes and also the sanctity of the Sabbath. I was sorry, all the same, that he had had to absent himself from the party, for I thought it would take him more than an hour to drive into the town, pick up the photographer and return here, and I was not anxious to give Amabel and her friends carte blanche while they were unsupervised. I thought of sending Bridges to find Harlow Conyers and my daughter and request them to take charge, but I feared it would be useless, as, from the beginning, they had not been in favour of superintending the party. It was only because of my insistence upon their presence that they had been persuaded to attend it.

  I fell asleep again at last and exactly how long I slept I do not know. I was awakened by a tapping at my door, followed by the entrance of Bridges in her dressing-gown.

  'Madam,' she said, 'there's a bit of a schemozzle downstairs, and the gentlemen told Barker to tell me to let you know.'

  'A what?' I said sharply. 'What on earth do you mean?'

  'One of the young ladies went out to get a breath of air more than three hours ago, madam, and hasn't never come back,' she explained, looking excited and important, as servants do when they suspect that they are the bearers of ill-tidings or a breath of scandal.

  'What of it?' I asked crossly. 'I suppose she has tired of the party and gone home.'

  'It is not hardly thought so, madam. Seems some of them got too warm after the bits of play-acting, madam, and went out, but nobody don't think as she has gone home, seeing as how it seems she was still in her fancy dress, one of them costumes as the gentlemen students wore for the charity parade this morning in the village.'

  'Still in her fancy dress? But why? What makes you think so?'

  'Miss Amabel says as the clothes she come here in, madam, is still in the bedroom.'

  'But whatever can have possessed her to go out in that hideous masquerade?'

  'Something to do with the photographs, madam, it's thought. Miss Amabel said as they was to keep them on.'

  'Oh, of course! They were to be taken wearing these monstrosities.'

  'It seems they was hot to wear, madam, so this young lady says as she would just take a turn up the drive, but she hasn't never come back in again. Doctor Tassall, what was called out on a case before you retired, madam, come back about one o'clock, but says he never saw her on the drive, nor did Mr Nigel, who come in just a while ago, which he reckons he would have picked her out if she'd of been there, so Mr Nigel and them are talking about a search-party, madam, and mention was made of them gypsies up the hill, madam.'

  'Oh, nonsense!' I exclaimed. 'What would gypsies be doing in my grounds? Anyhow, which of the girls is it?'

  'It's the young lady which, as you know, madam, come in a car with three other young ladies and was not in her party dress, madam, and the car is still here, madam. Besides, Mr Nigel says you couldn't get one of them horribl
e costumes into a car because you couldn't sit down in it, and she couldn't hardly have took it off, madam, because Miss Amabel says as her clothes is still here, like I said, and I knows for a fact as the young ladies was all stripped down to their undies, madam. She wouldn't have took the fancy costume off without coming back to the house, madam, and that's what her friends say she certainly has not done, madam.'

  'Oh, dear! How very tiresome people are! I suppose I had better go down,' I said.

  She helped me to dress and down I went, not in the best of tempers at this disturbance of my night's rest. Except for one young man who was sitting on the floor with his head against the wall, obviously in a drunken slumber, the guests who were left looked sober and anxious enough.

  Nigel came up to me. Doctor Tassall was with him.

  'Sorry about this, darling,' he said. 'You go back to bed. Tassall and I will cope. I'm organising a search-party. Ten to one the silly wench has gone and twisted her ankle or something of that sort. Not to worry. Maybe somebody ought to have gone looking for her sooner, but some of them were a trifle under the influence and I suppose they were all enjoying themselves, so I don't think anybody noticed she was missing until about half-an-hour ago. I've had the house pretty well combed, but she isn't here.'

  'I shall wait up until your search-party returns,' I said. 'I cannot imagine what the foolish girl was thinking of, to go wandering away at this hour of the morning.'

  'I'm afraid people have been very remiss, darling,' he said. 'It wasn't "this hour of the morning" when she stepped out. She's been missing since about eleven o'clock. If only that damned photographer had turned up, we should have realised she wasn't with us, but, of course, he didn't show up, although I waited for an hour in Broad Street, where I'd arranged to meet him.'

  'Photographer?' I said. 'Oh, yes, of course. Amabel wanted photographs, didn't she? Did he not appear?'

  'Not even his astral body. I suppose they kept him so long at that County Councillors' dinner, or whatever his other assignment was, that he thought it was too late to meet me and come on here. It wasn't until the other three girls decided it was time to pile into their car and go home, that they realised their driver was missing.'