Hangman's Curfew (Mrs. Bradley) Read online

  “Why, what on earth—”

  “Our friend Mr. Joshua. Unfortunately he knows I’ve pierced the disguise. I had to let him see my revolver. Lock the door, child. Are you nervous?”

  “Good heavens, no! My generation isn’t nervous. We just get beastly bored. This, I think, is grand. This sleuthing about, I mean, and barging people downstairs. Let me do the next one, Aunt Adela.”

  “Your part,” said Mrs. Bradley, “is to keep both eyes wide open for Mr. Geoffrey.”

  “What shall I do if I see him?”

  “Perhaps you’d better yell for the police, child.”

  “Oh, rot. Of course I shouldn’t. I should pounce on him and ask him what he meant by leaving me flat, and going off for good like that in Newcastle.”

  “He’ll plead loss of memory, child, and will probably ask you who you are.”

  “If he did, and if I knew him the slightest bit better, I’d sock him, and tell him that’s who.”

  “Dear, dear! Do you go to the cinema, too, then, child?”

  “You wait until you see me slinging pie,” replied Gillian tersely. “Attaboy!” she added, with unnecessary dramatic effect. “But—”

  “One thing at a time, child. From the plan we have learnt that a line of research in connection with Mary Hamilton awaits our examination.”

  “Mary Hamilton? Never heard of her. Mary Tudor, yes; Mary Queen of Scots, yes; various Bible Maries, ye; Mary, Mary, quite contrary, yes; Mary Beaton—in a play by John Drinkwater, yes; various authors called Mary Something or other, yes. Mary Hamilton, no.”

  Mrs. Bradley grinned, and quoted solemnly:

  “Yestreen the Queen had four Maries,

  The night she’ll hae but three;

  There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,

  And Mary Carmichael, and me.”

  “Mary Hamilton?”

  “Mary Hamilton; executed outside the Netherbow Port, not far from Holyrood Palace. Now, we really need a copy of the ballad, although I think I could recite it from memory.”

  “Recite away, then. This is most gripping. I wouldn’t give up your society, Aunt Adela, for any man on the face of the earth.”

  “Sour grapes,” said Mrs. Bradley, prodding to find out whether the wound was healed, and not in very much doubt about the result of this crude test.

  Gillian laughed, and picked up the house telephone.

  “Aren’t you really going to recite it?” she enquired.

  “I beg your pardon?” said the telephone.

  “Send the porter out for a copy of a book of Border ballads containing—” She put a hand over the receiver. “What’s it called, Aunt Adela?”

  “The Queen’s Marie, child.”

  “The Queen’s Marie, please. And could he be as quick as he possibly can? I want to read it before I visit Holyrood Palace or the Castle.”

  “You are speaking?”

  “From Number Six.”

  “It’s no part of the porter’s duties, but will the Oxford Book of Ballads be what you’re seeking?”

  “Is it, Aunt Adela? The Oxford Book?”

  “Yes, of course, child, that will do, at any rate, for a beginning.”

  “Yes, the Oxford Book.”

  “In just eleven minutes, if the library copy will not content you. I’ll just see whether it’s in. A peety to spend eight and sixpence for just one ballad.”

  “No wonder the Scots are the greatest people on earth,” said Gillian, awed.

  • CHAPTER 6 •

  “ ‘Get up, get up, Marie Hamilton:

  Get up and follow me;

  For I am going to Edinburgh town,

  A rich wedding for to see.’ ”

  “Now,” said Mrs. Bradley, “will you have the book or the map? And I’d better warn you at once that, if we’ve got hold of the wrong collection of these ballads, our efforts at the moment are doomed.”

  “I’d better read the ballad first, I think,” said Gillian, going to the door to answer it.

  The book, brought by the porter with a piece of paper to mark the place, was the copy from the hotel library. Gillian put the book down when she had finished reading, and said:

  “I can’t see that it gets us anywhere. Do you really think it will?”

  “Yes, child. Now, then.”

  “I’ll have the plan, please.”

  They exchanged, and Gillian sat, chin on hand, staring down at seventeenth-century Edinburgh. Mrs. Bradley handed over the magnifying glass, and then began to read. (It is not necessary to be conversant with any of the ballads mentioned in this book in order to follow the story. Apposite quotations are given by the author, who, nevertheless, heartily recommends the Oxford Book to any who do not know it.)

  “Do you think they started out from Holyrood Palace?” asked Gillian.

  “No, child; from Stirling Castle. Holyrood would be too near, I think. You see, it says:

  ‘And every town that they came to,

  They took Marie for the Queen.’

  “And again:

  ‘Why weep ye sae, ye burgess wives,

  Why look ye sae on me?

  O I am going to Edinburgh town,

  A rich wedding to see.’ ”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Besides, Mary Queen of Scots was often at Stirling before the death of Lord Darnley, wasn’t she? And look at the arrows on the plan! They come from the West Port. If the procession had started out from Holyrood, it would have come in by the Netherbolb Port, wouldn’t it?”

  “We have no proof yet that the arrows have any connection with the route taken by the two Maries, child.”

  “No, but we’re working on that hypothesis. Don’t queer the pitch, Aunt Adela.”

  Mrs. Bradley subsided meekly.

  “Go on reading,” said Gillian, “from the bit about the Tolbooth.”

  (Many of the quotations have been very slightly Anglicised in deference to the modern English prejudice against any form of dialect.)

  “ ‘When she gaed up the tolbooth stairs,

  The corks from her heels did flee;

  And long or e’er she came down again,

  She was condemn’d to die.

  ‘When she came to the Netherbow port—’ ”

  “Ah, that’s it!” cried Gillian. “That’s where the spelling is altered on the map. The printed spelling on the map is Netherbolb. In the ballad it’s Netherbow. Is that what you partly based your idea on?”

  “My idea, child?”

  “Yes…about Mary Hamilton. But of course it was. It must have been. Go on, please.”

  “ ‘She laugh’d loud laughters three;

  But when she came to the gallows foot

  The tears blinded her e’e.”’

  “That’s it. And then comes all that bit about rewards and things, and not letting her father and mother know what has happened to her. I don’t really see that it helps much, Aunt Adela. We’ve got nothing really to go on.”

  “We’ve as much to go on as the precious Mr. Joshua has,” said Mrs. Bradley sturdily. “And probably a great deal more. Let us be up and doing.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Going on pilgrimage, child.”

  George stared up at Stirling Castle, his cap tilted over his eyes. He fully approved of the expedition. It was his creed that if you had a car it was a sin not to use it. They had come by way of Linlithgow, Falkirk, and Bannockburn, and although he had been bidden to drive at an average speed of thirty miles and hour, and although there had been several, to his mind unnecessary, stops, George was content.

  The day was calm, clear, and warm. The castle, an untidy, impressive, strongly-walled building, isolated by reason of its height above the surrounding country, rose, in a dignity rendered somewhat ugly by successive individual-minded builders, proudly upon its sheer rock. Below the buildings and their walls were deep dark woods on one side, a scaur with bushes and trees upon another.

  George got a view of the darker woods, and, beyond
the lower slope of the scaur, of two lines of low-crowned hills. He lit a cigarette and smoked placidly, oblivious of everything except that the day was fine, the car was running in its usual faultless manner, and that some miles still remained to be covered, as they were due back in Edinburgh that night.

  Meanwhile, Gillian and Mrs. Bradley strolled and talked. At last, having viewed the castle from every possible angle, they fixed upon a return route from their maps and by half-past two were again getting into the car.

  “Back by the same route as far as Falkirk, George,” said Mrs. Bradley, “and then we had better take the road by way of Kilsyth, Kirkintilloch, and Coatbridge, to Hamilton. We shall stay in Hamilton for a bit—possibly for tea.”

  “Very good, madam,” said George.

  “I don’t see how we are going to get on the track like this,” said Gillian, hopelessly. “We’ve learned nothing whatever from this morning’s drive, or from seeing Stirling Castle.”

  “No news is good news,” said Mrs. Bradley. “But it is not going to remain no news much longer,” she added suddenly. She picked up the speaking tube. “George,” she said, “go north towards Callander instead of the route I gave you.”

  “Very good, madam,” said George.

  “Why, what’s happened, Aunt Adela?” Gillian demanded, looking out of the window.

  “Mr. Joshua and Mr. Geoffrey, on motor cycles,” Mrs. Bradley replied. “They probably know the country better than George does, too.” She picked up the speaking tube again. “Can you manage to lose a couple of motor cycles, George?”

  “A red Charleroy and a green-picked-out-dark-blue Wurton, madam?”

  “Those are the colours, yes.”

  “Very good, madam. I’ll step on it. I’d seen them coming up.”

  He stepped on it with some success, and, at the end of a lively little run, pulled adroitly across a small bridge, swung left into a lane, came out of it in front of a wider bridge across a wider stream, crossed the water, pulled up, got out, and, coming round to Mrs. Bradley, observed:

  “I fancy we’ve left them behind, madam. Do you still require to go to Callander?”

  “We’re headed south now, I take it? Is this the River Forth?”

  “Yes, madam. Just above Buchlyvie. I once drove a couple of American gentlemen round here. We can be en route for Hamilton safely now, if you say the word.”

  “I’d say the word at once, if I were certain we had lost those motor cycles, George.”

  “We lost them the second time we went through Aberfoyle, Madam. It was a manoeuvre they were not expecting. You remember we waited at the crossroads? We then returned via Aberfoyle, and so to Buchlyvie, madam.”

  “Very good, George. Hamilton, then; and if you know of any shortcuts you had better use them.”

  “But what can we do in Hamilton when we get there?” Gillian had asked at Stirling.

  “Start again, child. It is possible, and we should not overlook this fact, that the name Hamilton refers to the town, and not to the person. At any rate, the appearance of our young friends and would-be employers is a very good sign that we are being a nuisance in some way, or else that they still imagine that they can obtain our help.”

  “And which do you think it is, really?”

  “Time will show, child.” She closed her black eyes, and lay back against the corner of the car, but whether she wished to sleep or to meditate Gillian did not know. She remained silent, however, and the car, having crossed the Clyde, slid, like a great marauding cat, thought Gillian, into Hamilton.

  “I don’t really like manufacturing towns,” she said.

  “Neither do I,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Let us drive straight through it, and go back to Edinburgh.”

  “Which way, madam?” enquired George, when this decision was communicated to him.

  “Any way you like,” said Mrs. Bradley, “and you can go as fast as you please,” she added kindly. “I can think better,” she said to Gillian, as the car crossed the Clyde into Motherwell, “when I am travelling.”

  “I don’t see that there’s much to think about,” said Gillian rather crossly. Mrs. Bradley opened her black eyes wide and looked at her in acute distress and with sympathy.

  “My poor, poor child! You haven’t had your tea!” she said. “I suppose that was Mr. Geoffrey?”

  Gillian went to bed at midnight—her usual time—but Mrs. Bradley, seated at a small table with a shaded lamp to keep light from the sleeper’s eyes, worked and computed for another hour or two, and then slept, on sentry-duty, in her chair. At seven the maid knocked, and brought in the early tea.

  “Good heavens!” said Gillian, when the girl, having bade them good morning in her pleasant Scottish voice, had gone out. “You haven’t been up all night!”

  “I have enjoyed myself thoroughly,” said Mrs. Bradley; and, indeed, she looked fresh and alert. “I believe, child, that I have gone some way towards solving part of our problem.”

  At this moment the telephone rang. Gillian picked it up.

  “Here, it’s for you,” she said. It was the inspector at Newcastle. He requested Mrs. Bradley’s presence. There was a clue. He could not say more over the telephone. Mrs. Bradley promised to drive back to Newcastle straight away.

  “Oh, damn!” said Gillian. “Must you go? I thought you thought you were getting somewhere with this Marie Hamilton stuff.”

  “I am,” said Mrs. Bradley. “And even a day may make a difference, but I’ve said I will go to Newcastle, and I must go. Look here, I’ll leave you my notes, and you can see what you make of them. I shall be back this evening, I hope. I’ll try to get back in time for dinner. Don’t go about alone. I doubt whether we’ve shaken off our Mr. Joshua. You’ve got your revolver. Don’t use it, of course, unless it’s really necessary.”

  “I wonder whether Mr. Joshua is still holding down his job as waiter here?” Gillian enquired.

  “I discovered, by tactful enquiry, that he never had a job here as waiter, child. He had put on his evening clothes and flung a face-towel over his arm. They are on the look out for him as a possible thief. Now, child, do be reasonable whilst I’m away.”

  “Rather. I wouldn’t queer the pitch for words,” said Gillian, whose metaphors were trite and limited in number. She saw Mrs. Bradley off from the steps of the hotel, and then went upstairs again to their room. The notebook Mrs. Bradley had left in her care was gone from the table. A man was climbing out of the window.

  Gillian had had the education considered suitable, in the early twentieth century, for young gentlewomen, so she leapt for the window, and, despairing of catching the man and taking back the notebook, which she felt quite certain he had stolen, she gave him a hearty, weighty, forceful, two-fisted shove. With a shriek and a curse, he shot off the sill as though an elephant had charged him from behind.

  Gillian tore for the self-operating lift, and burst from it across an astonished reception hall and out into the garden. The man had been surrounded. The porter, a couple of page­boys, two gardeners, a man who had been delivering stores to the hotel kitchen, a policeman, two maids, three or four residents (one an octogenarian who had made up his mind that the whole thing was a cinema stunt, and, in this belief, had enjoyed it enormously) were formed two or three deep round the dazed and abrased young man, and were asking him whether he was hurt.

  Gillian joined the group, and shouted:

  “Geoffrey, you silly ass, you’ve got my notebook! He was snooping round my room,” she added naïvely.

  At this the policeman drew out his notebook, and began to ask for particular information.

  “Oh, I don’t want to charge him,” said Gillian, “but I do want the notebook back. Give it up, will you?” she demanded. “And what a sight you look!”

  The young man did indeed look more like one who has been pushed from a first-floor window than Gillian would have believed possible. He seemed dazed, too, and Gillian, deciding that possession was going to be all ten points of the law so far as she
was concerned, put her hand into his blazer pocket and picked out the book.

  The policeman told her she could not do that. Gillian pointed out that she had already done it. She also challenged the young man to prove that the book was his. The young man created a diversion at this point by shamming loss of consciousness. In the subsequent excitement Gillian quietly walked up the steps of the hotel, went to her room, and locked the door. There she picked up the house telephone and informed the receptionist that if she was wanted by the policeman she would be in her room (of which she gave the number).

  She then took out her revolver, laid it on the table, drew the curtains, switched on the light, and sat down to read Mrs. Bradley’s notes. They were as follows (and the further she read the more deeply she frowned in perplexity):

  Cypher may read ten,

  Then (but we must deduce here the best, or a combination of some or all), twelve or thirty-three or ninety-two or one hundred and fourteen or one hundred and fifteen or one hundred and forty.

  Then ninety-three followed by one hundred and four. (I see no alternatives, owing to the spelling.)

  Then again one of, or a combination of, or from, twenty-five, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, sixty-five and seventy-seven.

  This completes the first. If the old spelling is not to be used, we could substitute for our fourth line, and should not need a fifth.

  After this we get (if I am on the right track) something from one or more of thirty-five, thirty-six, seventy-nine, one hundred and thirty-nine, one hundred and forty-three and one hundred and fifty-two.

  Then we can have another look at our second line,

  And at our third line,

  And even at our fifth line, which may save both time and trouble.

  Then we get a good deal to do, for we should look carefully and judicially at fifty, fifty-one, fifty-four, fifty-six, sixty-six, seventy-three, seventy-eight, eighty-six and one hundred and fifty-one.

  Then perhaps a teaser. Let us, in addition to one and two, which are obvious, select, from a host of applicants, thirty-nine. You will be able to see why.

  Then fifty-three.