Watson's Choice Page 12

  ‘Now what do you think, Beatrice?’ he exclaimed. ‘I had that young Grimston in to tell him I was dispensing with his services and here was fifty pounds in lieu of notice, don’t you know –?’

  ‘In lieu of notice? Why, what had he done that you wanted to get rid of him like that?’

  ‘Nothing, except to keep on bleating about poor Linda and repeating his stupid dream. The police have been here, and he’s been fool enough to tell it to them as well. They’ll run him in if he persists. I’m sure they’ll run him in, and I’m positively sure he didn’t do it. He’s a silly fellow, it’s true, but he’s not as silly as that!’

  Mrs Bradley admired the choice of adjective very much.

  ‘Silly?’ she repeated thoughtfully. ‘Is he a silly fellow, then?’

  ‘Damn’ silly, I should say. But, apart from that, who’d want to kill Linda, anyway? She wasn’t worth it.’

  ‘But she was worth marrying?’

  ‘Hardly the same thing, Beatrice. Anyway, if they do run him in he’ll go to bits. Probably confess to it as soon as not, just to shut them up and keep them quiet. The devil of it is that I don’t know how to help him. I wish you’d have a word with the chap. He’s nearly off his head. Keeps saying that Manoel must have done it! What would Manoel do a thing like that for, I should like to know?’

  Mrs Bradley, remembering her conversations with that brier on Sir Bohun’s rose-bush, could have told him very easily, but she held her peace, except to say:

  ‘So the police suspect murder, do they? Did they tell you that, as well as the fact of the death?’

  ‘They haven’t much option, Beatrice. Apart from the fact that the poor girl has been spiked right through the heart and out the other side, the breast-bone is crushed. It’s a most terrible business. My own view is that one of those gangster thugs attacked her. Her handbag and her watch (cost me a hundred and twenty pounds, that watch – engagement present – so I knew it was worth stealing) have both disappeared. The police are only on to Grimston because he will keep babbling about that ridiculous dream. They’ve decided he isn’t right in the head. Mind you, I could have told them that myself. Never has been right in the head, so far as I’m aware, and took it hard when Linda turned him down.’

  Mrs Bradley clicked her tongue sympathetically.

  ‘I should be interested to talk with him,’ she said. Then she added with unusual abruptness, ‘I have never been able to see why you kept him here once Philip had gone away.’

  ‘Oh, that? Well, the terms of his engagement weren’t up, and one likes to be fair.’

  ‘There was no need to keep Mr Grimston under the same roof as Miss Campbell, though, was there, when once the engagement was announced? It seemed rather unkind.’

  ‘I never thought of that. Grimston knew what had happened and didn’t give his notice, and I’ve had Mrs Dance here all the time to keep things head to wind.’

  ‘Your niece, Miss Godley, too, I understand. Laura Menzies met her here the day she called.’

  ‘Celia? Yes. I don’t pretend to understand young women. She was supposed to be off to Switzerland for the winter sports, but, instead, she decided to stay on here. I’d be flattered if I weren’t perfectly certain there was an ulterior motive. You don’t think she’s fallen for Grimston or Bell, I suppose?’

  ‘Nothing but a love affair – preferably a clandestine one – should keep a girl of her age from toboggans and skis, I feel.’

  ‘My idea, exactly. It’s wonderful how great minds think alike.’

  Mrs Bradley, who did not claim a great mind for herself, and who was quite certain that Sir Bohun did not possess one, assented gravely.

  ‘I have often noticed it,’ she said. ‘When can I see Mr Grimston?’

  Grimston, when interviewed, was gloomy.

  ‘I haven’t a dog’s chance,’ he said. ‘They’ve got chapter and verse, all right. Somebody’s told them the tale, and I’ll wager it wasn’t Sir Bohun. He’s an old fool, take him for better or worse, but he isn’t a two-timer.’

  ‘Your slang is out of date, Sir Bohun is not old, and your choice of words from the marriage service is enlightening, Mr Grimston. What makes you think the police suspect you of murder?’

  ‘Well, about myself and Linda … my feelings for her were well-known in this house.’

  ‘But in that case you would have killed Sir Bohun, not Miss Campbell, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Difficult to say.’ He frowned, trying to work it out. ‘And, of course, I did find the body, didn’t I?’

  This statement impressed Mrs Bradley.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry,’ she said, and in such dulcet accents that Grimston looked at her gratefully.

  ‘I know that’s just bromide,’ he said, ‘and yet I believe you really mean it.’

  ‘Did you,’ asked Mrs Bradley earnestly, ‘recently go to see a man about a dog?’

  ‘I?’ He looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing, if you do not know what I mean, child. Now tell me all about the body.’

  ‘Finding it?’

  ‘And all the rest. Once you have told it to a sympathetic listener, you can forget it. Come, now! All the details, including the way in which they struck you at the time.’

  ‘The details?’ He appeared to lapse into deep thought.

  ‘He is wondering what to leave out,’ said Mrs Bradley to herself. ‘I hope I shall not be given exactly the same story as the one he has given to the police.’

  Grimston soon made up his mind.

  ‘I had better begin with my dream. You remember my dream?’ he said.

  ‘Very clearly. Astonishing that it should in some measure have anticipated the facts.’

  ‘Not only astonishing, but awkward,’ Grimston retorted. ‘The police don’t like it a bit. I knew something would happen to Linda,’ he went on in a different tone. ‘She was playing the fool all round.’

  ‘So your so-called dream was nothing of the sort, but was intended as a warning to her. I think that must be what you mean.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it. She’d told me I’d got no chance with her, and I knew she was angling for Sir Bohun. At the same time she was trying to run Lupez, who’s dangerous – I’ve tried to drop a word to young Celia Godley, but she won’t listen – Bell, who didn’t want her; she embarrassed him; and Dance, who’s ready for anything because he’s rather in despair, poor chap; doesn’t want his divorce to go through; still in love with that box in which sweets compacted lie, that fascinating little devil Brenda. Why, Linda even tried to fasten on to that C.I.D. chap who came to the Sherlock Holmes thing. Didn’t you notice? She got the brush-off there all right! I suppose handsome, manly policemen have to learn to protect themselves from designing women, don’t they?’

  ‘Undoubtedly. But tell me about the body.’

  ‘The body!’ He laughed. ‘That’s about all Linda ever was, I suppose – a body!… It was this way: I’ve been at a loose end, as you can understand, since young Philip has been at the farm. Sir Bohun has continued my usual salary, and has given me the library to catalogue, but I can’t spend all day doing that. I’ve got into the habit of taking a morning walk, whatever the weather. I intend to do some pot-holing in the summer, so I thought I’d toughen myself up.

  ‘Well, around here, of course, the heath is the obvious place for rough walking, so that’s where I began to do most of my training, with some road-work thrown in for good measure. Sir Bohun left me to my own devices, so I’d leave the house at half-past seven or even earlier – before it was really daylight, you know – and do my trot around for perhaps a couple of hours.

  ‘Most mornings it’s been misty. I’ve always been fascinated by mist and fog. This side of the heath it’s swampy, and the miasma over that, these winter mornings, has been like something out of a ghost story or the more horrifying sort of fairy tale. It’s generally pretty misty over the gravel pits, too – I suppose because of all that water – so I usually made for that b
ig pit on the path to the village of – ’

  ‘Common Row?’

  ‘That’s it – Common Row. I don’t know what’s come over my memory for names since this rotten business blew up.’

  Mrs Bradley could have given him two explanations. She wondered which was the correct one in his case. Either he had some sufficient reason for subconsciously deleting the name of the village from his mind, or else he was trying to substitute Common Row for a name with guilty associations, the very fact that these were guilty being sufficient reason for his not being able to produce the substituted name as quickly as he might have wished.

  She made no comment upon his last remark, and waited for him to continue.

  ‘Well, I was jog-trotting along on the grass at the side of the track – the path itself was slippery – and I remember thinking, as I’ve often thought before, how much like the superstructure of a battleship some of that excavating machinery is. I was following the track where it turned off towards the workings. At that time in the morning – it was only just beginning to be really light – the chaps who worked there hadn’t come on the job, so it was all very nice and private. Well, the first shock I had was seeing on the ground a very nice silk scarf, a yard square at least. I picked it up. It was damp from having been out all night, and while I was wondering where I’d seen it before, I found Linda. I literally fell over her, and went sprawling. I couldn’t believe she was dead, but there was no doubt about it. I left the body where it was. Of course, the silk scarf was hers. I must have seen her with it dozens of times. I don’t think there’s any more to tell. I rang up the police, of course, and told Sir Bohun, and – well, that’s about all, except that Sir Bohun has dismissed me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Bradley. She gave him a keen glance. ‘She couldn’t have been the victim of a suicide pact, by any chance?’

  ‘Suicide? Oh – oh, surely not! Do you mean Bell funked it, and made off? What makes you think that?’

  ‘I do not know that I do think it. It was just a passing idea. I don’t think she wanted to marry Sir Bohun, you know. The money and position attracted her. I think that was all.’

  ‘I know it was! The damned little fool!’ He turned away. He was in tears.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Mrs Bradley to Sir Bohun, as soon as they met. ‘So your Mr Grimston found the body, did he?’

  Sir Bohun looked startled.

  ‘You know, I was told he’d said that. The shock of hearing about poor Linda’s death on top of my giving him notice has sent the poor chap off his rocker. You’ll have to look after him, Beatrice. Get him away from here quick. What a blessing it’s been discovered before he got at young Philip again! Homicidal, probably. Poor Linda! She played with fire there! Bless my soul! Poor fellow! Mind you, I’ve suspected it before. By the way, you’ll stay the night, Beatrice?’

  ‘No, thank you. I am staying at the farm. Laura will be there with my correspondence. To-morrow we shall go for a walk, I expect, and talk about poor Mr Grimston.’

  ‘Why do you think the poor fellow thinks he found the body?’

  ‘I think the heath has certain associations for him.’

  ‘With Linda?’

  ‘Yes. It is associated in his mind with guilt. I think he seduced her by those gravel pits. There is plenty of cover among those bushes.’

  ‘She seduced him, you mean, the poor young fool, and drove him off his rocker afterwards!’ said Sir Bohun. ‘Well, I hope she left Bell alone, that’s all. I feel I’ve had a lucky escape, but that’s not a respectful thought, I’m afraid, now that the poor girl is dead.’

  CHAPTER 10

  CONTACT

  ‘Oh, who be ye would cross Lochgyle,

  That dark and stormy water?

  Oh, I’m the Chief of Ulva’s Isle,

  And this Lord Ullin’s daughter.’

  CAMPBELL – Lord Ullin’s Daughter

  *

  THE MORNING’S WALK was long and, to Laura, at first incomprehensible. It was pleasant enough, however. There was a cold snap in the air conducive to exercise, and the ice on various puddles crunched purposefully beneath the feet of the walkers as they tramped in amicable accord along the road which led to the heath and the Queen of the Circus.

  About a mile and a half from Alice’s farm they came to the meandering little river which here bordered a marsh. ‘I don’t think we can explore the swamp with any advantage either to ourselves or to the enquiry,’ Mrs Bradley remarked. ‘Let us try the banks of the river.’

  A narrow path ran beside the stream. At the foot of the bridge there was access to this path down a shelving bank. They gained it and followed it for about a mile and a quarter. Mrs Bradley then looked at her watch.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ asked Laura.

  ‘Possible ways to the abandoned railway station, child.’

  ‘Well, there hasn’t been a bridge, and we’re on the wrong side of the stream.’

  ‘Very true. Let us return to the highway. Keep your eyes open, won’t you?’

  ‘If only I knew what I was supposed to be looking for!’ Laura exclaimed.

  ‘It is better that you do not know. Report to me anything which strikes you as being out of the ordinary,’ her implacable employer replied. They tramped along the highway for another quarter of a mile. The peculiar mixture of urban and rural scenery was both interesting and repellent. On the one side, once they had passed the swamp, was the outline of a factory building. Almost opposite this was a small market garden. At the entrance to this garden Mrs Bradley halted.

  ‘It says we’re to beware of the dog,’ Laura pointed out.

  ‘And since when have you and I been afraid of dogs, child? Remember the heroic front we displayed when confronted by the Hound of the Baskervilles!’

  ‘You think the Hound of the Baskervilles might live here? I should hardly think so, you know, right on a main road like this.’

  Mrs Bradley made no reply, and Laura went with her up to a very small bungalow. A woman with a deeply suspicious expression opened the door.

  ‘We’re not selling,’ she said flatly, ‘so get out.’

  ‘I am extremely perplexed,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Is not this the Curlew Kennels? I want to buy a dog.’

  ‘We’ve only one dog here,’ said the woman roughly, ‘and he don’t take to strangers. Didn’t you see the notice? Can’t you read?’

  ‘Is your dog homicidal, then?’

  ‘He might be – given the chance!’

  ‘Perhaps we ought not to provide the chance,’ said Mrs Bradley hastily to Laura. The woman snorted sardonically. Laura laughed aloud, and the woman’s face changed suddenly.

  ‘If you want to buy a dog,’ she said, ‘you better try Jim Reynolds’ place. I never heard of those kennels you mentioned.’

  ‘And I have never heard of Jim Reynolds,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘How do we find him?’

  The woman gave directions.

  ‘Bit of luck it’s on our way,’ said Laura as they departed. ‘I should have been most put out if we’d had to turn in our tracks. Why did we annoy her? And what caused us to knock at her door in the first place?’

  ‘Instinct,’ Mrs Bradley replied, ‘and it has played us false, as it so often does. Man is a reasoning animal. So much for civilization.’

  ‘In other words,’ said Laura, with her usual shrewdness, ‘you know the answer, and you’re looking for proof. I suppose it’s of no use to ask you who did kill Linda Campbell?’

  ‘I know who, and I think I know why. I know – or can guess – how, and, of course, from the medical evidence, we all know when.’

  ‘Then what don’t you know?’

  ‘As you yourself suggested, how to bring it home to the guilty person.’

  ‘Are we going to visit Jim Reynolds?’

  ‘Oh, no. If you feel adventurous at any time, you might come back to this woman’s place, and take a look at her dog. I should like to be perfectly sure.’

  ‘Then you think – ?’
/>
  ‘I think it was interesting that she would not allow us to see him, but I attach no particular importance to the fact. Now for the Queen of the Circus.’

  But before they reached the road-house it was evident that Mrs Bradley had another port of call. She passed by the gipsy encampment (one of the caravans, Laura noted, possessed a television aerial), and also by a rubbish dump where a man and two youths were sorting cardboard boxes, old iron, and newspapers; but she stopped outside a tall, double-fronted house whose broad door was approached by a flight of stone steps.

  ‘Every window,’ she pointed out to Laura, ‘has a different kind of curtaining. What do we deduce from that?’

  ‘A sort of respectable lodging-house, I suppose.’

  ‘Exactly, and for women only, I have discovered. I propose to knock on the door and enquire whether there is a room to let.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘I have no ideas beyond dogs, child.’

  She gave her secretary a nod, and walked up the steps. Laura strolled a few yards further along the road. From a side view the house seemed to go a long way back, and still in no two rooms was the curtaining quite the same.

  ‘What a rabbit-warren of old tabbies it must be,’ thought Laura, in confused metaphor. She heard the front door slam, and strolled back. There was no sign of Mrs Bradley. ‘Copped behind the Iron Curtain! Wonder how long she’ll be?’ Laura always thought in words, the fruits, she was fond of explaining, of having been exceptionally gifted in essay writing at school. She wandered away.

  Mrs Bradley had been admitted by a nervous-looking middle-aged woman who was wearing a uniform which appeared to be a cross between that of a hospital nurse and of a nun of the Anglican Church.

  ‘Come in, by all means,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t promise you anything, as I told the Reverend Stopley. We’re quite full up, I’m afraid. I’m afraid we shall have to ask you to wait for a little while. I don’t think it will be very long, if you could manage until then. Old Mrs Finch is failing, Doctor says, but, of course, he can’t set a time limit. Perhaps you would like to have a look round while you’re here.’