The Worsted Viper (Mrs. Bradley) Read online

  “What was the metre of your Ode?” Mrs. Bradley enquired, interrupting what seemed to be an eternal flow. The poet gazed at her vacantly. She repeated the question, and his gaze changed to an expression of cautious respect.

  “Iambic pentameters, of course,” he answered bitterly. “I am absolutely haunted by the things.”

  “How do you account for that, I wonder?”

  “It is all the same trouble. It is what one of my friends, a man named X…, you must forgive these abbreviations. It is not that I don’t trust you with the truth, but I never know who might be listening—it is what X calls being fossilised in a stratum of my own subconscious mind.”

  “I congratulate him,” Mrs. Bradley said, with a grin, which caused the patient to bite his tongue. “But I don’t see how I can help you. I have never heard of the rejuvenation or the resurrection of a fossil.”

  “No?” said the patient, performing ape-like antics on his left ribs underneath his arm. He seemed completely at a loss for a moment; so much so that Mrs. Bradley added pleasantly,

  “I can give you the usual tests, if you like, but what you really want is to apprentice yourself to a butcher; a country butcher, if possible. One who does his own slaughtering.”

  “I fail to see how that would help me, although, of course, I could try it. It does not sound very practical.”

  “It would sublimate your preoccupation with blood, and the rhythm of chopping the meat would exorcise this bogey of iambics. I have listened to many butchers chopping meat; not one chopped it to the metre of a Shakespeare sonnet. That will be fifteen guineas, please.”

  “Without the tests you mentioned?” enquired the patient, who did not appear to be unduly elated or impressed by the prescription.

  “Oh, no. You may have the tests, by all means. In fact, it would interest me to give them. I make a point, however, of warning patients of your type, Mr. Bleriot, that, while these tests may be useful to me and to society, they may end by causing discomfort or even danger to their subject.”

  “How could they harm me?” demanded the patient loudly, looking extremely and rationally alarmed.

  “If I could tell you that before I make them, I should have no need to make them at all,” the sharp-eyed old woman pointed out. “The risk is yours. For instance”—she glanced at him meaningfully—“I might have to recommend your removal to a mental hospital. What do you think about that?”

  “Oh, I’ll risk that,” said Bleriot, his alarm giving place to a smirk or, apparently, self-congratulation.

  “Or to prison,” continued the psychoanalyst. “Cross your legs, please.…Now seat yourself in this revolving chair.…And now a few questions and answers. Please write down the first word which comes into your head.…”

  Further tests included some juggling with jigsaw puzzles and the recitation of half-a-dozen tongue-twisters. Then the poet was supplied with a set of six shiny-surfaced blank cards and was asked to turn them, with the assistance of red and black ink, into playing cards. Ignoring the red ink completely, he made, very painstakingly, a King, and a Knave of Clubs, an Ace of Spades, an Ace of Clubs, and then, to Mrs. Bradley’s growing interest, commenced to draw a Heart, but still used the black ink. He placed this shape in the top left-hand corner of the fifth, partly shaded it in with strokes of the pen, then paused, looked at it doubtfully, glanced up at her, bit his lip, and said, with the manner of a child, “Oh, no. That’s wrong.”

  He put the spoilt card aside and took the remaining blank one.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Mrs. Bradley, taking it gently from him. “That will do very nicely.”

  “But this is important,” said he, like a child who has been bidden to put away his toys and go to bed. “Just let me—”

  He took the card from her yellow fingers but, instead of drawing a Heart again, he made the sinister and ridiculous magic symbol of:

  “Do you know what that is?” he enquired, gazing at his handiwork with considerable pleasure.

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Bradley replied.

  “Ah. Watch your step, then,” observed Amos Bleriot. “It isn’t everyone who knows the sign of Master Therion.”

  “Rubbish,” said Mrs. Bradley; although whether she referred to the sign of Master Therion or to the theory that not everyone knew it, her listener did not enquire. She went on briskly, without giving him the opportunity to make an observation. “For one thing, you haven’t finished it. Never mind. Don’t forget the prescription, and do let me know how you get on. Sign the book, please.”

  “Sign? What for?” enquired the patient, getting up. He sat down again rather heavily, however, as Mrs. Bradley pushed him back into his chair.

  “Police regulations,” said she; and put the pen into his hand. “Do you drink?” she enquired bluntly, when he had signed. The poet shook his head, and wrinkled his nose.

  “I am a total abstainer both from alcohol and nicotine,” he answered. “I should add that I have no sex life.”

  He seemed surprised when Mrs. Bradley recoiled from this offensive description of an only partially functioning ego, and took his leave with some abruptness, glancing at his wristwatch and muttering, “Protein! Protein!” as he shambled out through the doorway.

  Mrs. Bradley went to the drawing-room window, from which she could see the street, for it was in her Kensington house that she had interviewed the patient. She was interested to notice that he stepped out with long, easy strides, which took twenty years off his age, hailed a taxi at the corner, and entered it with none of the abnormal moppings and mowings to which he had treated her during the consultation.

  “Hm!” she said aloud, as she descended the stairs; and added, within herself, “Now what is your game, my friend?”

  She looked up his name in the telephone directory, for he had given a London address, but not only was there not the name of Bleriot opposite any such address, but when, after two hours of careful searching of the directory, she located the telephone number of the address he had given, and had rung up the inhabitants of the house, it was only to discover (not at all to her surprise) that no one named Bleriot lived there or was known to the people.

  She studied his signature in her book, but the writing was quite unknown to her.

  She recounted the story at dinner that night to her nephew, Jonathan Bradley, and his wife Deborah.

  “What’s the idea, I wonder?” Jonathan observed.

  “Something fishy is usually something criminal,” said Mrs. Bradley, speaking from wide experience. “But I confess I can’t determine what our friend expected to gain from having visited me this morning.” It was not until later that she began to connect Amos Bleriot with the criminal lunatic Bone.

  “Whatever it was, the question is, did he gain it?” Jonathan enquired.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Bradley, fixing her brilliant eyes on the questioner, “that is the most intriguing point of all. From his jaunty way of walking to the corner of the street, I rather fancy that he did. I wish I knew what it was. I’ve thought about it during all the time that has elapsed since his departure, but I can’t come to any conclusion.”

  “I don’t think I understand what you’re talking about,” said Deborah. “Surely, if the man is really afflicted, his—his illness might cause him to give a wrong address and that sort of thing?”

  “Unlikely,” said Jonathan, before his aunt could speak. “You will find that the worst mental defective (and this man is far from that!) usually knows where he lives.”

  “The point is,” said Mrs. Bradley, “that Amos Bleriot is as sound, mentally, as any of the three of us here—although that may not be saying much! He was acting a part—and overdoing it, too. And he gave me a solemn warning, which on the face of it seems friendly. What do you make of this?”

  She produced, but would not let them handle, Mr. Bleriot’s last and strangest card.

  “But Master Therion,” said Jonathan, “only worked white magic, didn’t he? Wasn’t there a case about him in t
he paper years ago?”

  “Yes, there was. And he did claim only to work white magic. But the sign, you see, is unfinished, and so little do I trust my sinister patient, that I feel there is a warning, even in that, beyond the warning I received to watch my step.”

  • CHAPTER 3 •

  “If everybody minded their own business,” said the Duchess, in a hoarse growl, “the world would go round a great deal faster than it does.”

  “Which would not be an advantage,” said Alice.

  —From Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

  Ten weeks and two hours passed, and one brilliant Tuesday morning near the end of July Mrs. Bradley was finishing lunch when a telegram was brought in.

  “No reply, Célestine,” she said. She glanced up at the maid. “Do you know what one of his landladies said about the late George Joseph Smith?” she demanded.

  “Non, madame.”

  “Being respectable, why should you? She said—in fact she went so far as to write it down in a postcard which bore his address—‘Wife died in bath. We shall see him again.’ What do you think of that?”

  “Did they see him again, madame?”

  “Yes. In the dock at the Old Bailey.”

  When the maid had gone, Mrs. Bradley reread the telegram.

  “Hold horses Broads stop see morning paper also Bleriot,” it commanded. At that moment the telephone rang.

  “Scotland Yard, madame,” announced Célestine.

  “All right. I’ll take it in here.”

  “Detective Inspector Pirberry,” said the telephone. “That loony you put us on to, mam, has given the locals the slip, and, following his disappearance, there’s been a very unpleasant murder.”

  “What locals would those be, Inspector?”

  “The City of Norwich police, mam. This Amos Bleriot has been living in one of the old hotels in Norwich, and he’s hopped it. It’s true he’s paid his bill, but he hasn’t left any address. Of course, there’s nothing much they can do, as they’ve never had any official reason for keeping an eye on him, but in view of what you told us they’re going to have a look for him, especially considering what’s happened. I suppose you’ve seen the morning papers?”

  Mrs. Bradley had seen the morning papers. She called for a telegraph form, having changed her mind, after all, about sending a reply.

  “Wire received objection sustained,” she wrote, and addressed it to her nephew Jonathan. She sent George, the chauffeur, out with it, and he had just disappeared down the street on his way to the telegraph office when the postman left the second delivery of letters. There were four letters, all interesting, especially the last that she opened. She had left it until the last because, although she felt there was something familiar about the handwriting, she could not call to mind whose writing it was.

  The postmark had its own interest, in view of the telephone message from Detective Inspector Pirberry, for it was Norwich.

  Mrs. Bradley opened it and glanced first at the signature. She clicked her tongue at it, and then read the letter, which was short and to the point.

  “Dear Mrs. Bradley,

  “We have got ourselves mixed up in what seems to be a murder. Could you possibly advise us what to do? We are on holiday here, on the Broads, in a motorboat, just the three of us, and we were the people to discover a dead body, in a rather lonely part, on Sunday morning. I expect the papers will have all about it by the time you get this. We don’t quite know what our position is, as we have been told we must keep in touch with the police and also attend the inquest. It is all rather upsetting, and Laura Menzies and Kitty Trevelyan didn’t want me to write, but I felt you would advise us. Please forgive me for troubling you, but there is no one else who could possibly help us in this.

  “Yours sincerely,

  “Alice Boorman.”

  Mrs. Bradley put the letter back into its envelope and sent Célestine to pack a suitcase. The three girls were not related to her, but she had had them in her charge whilst she had acted as Warden of a Hall of Residence at Cartaret Training College, and had bade them goodbye, with considerable regret, at the end of the summer term. Besides, it gave her an excellent excuse to go to the Broads, after all.

  She rang up Scotland Yard and asked to be connected with Detective Inspector Pirberry.

  “I’ve heard from the girls who discovered the body,” she said. “Now, Inspector, I want an introduction to the Norwich police.”

  “I’ll tell the superintendent you’ll be along, mam. It’s rather an interesting case, and I shouldn’t be surprised if it’s in our hands before long. They can’t identify the body.”

  “Not a local person?”

  “That seems pretty certain.”

  “And you feel that an unidentifiable corpse is likely to be from London?”

  “Well, stranger things have been known, mam, and there are a rare number of London people on holiday just now. You get down to Norwich when you like, mam. We’ll see that they’re ready to receive you.”

  George took the car, with Mrs. Bradley in it, by way of Romford, Brentwood, Chelmsford, Braintree, and Thetford. From Thetford it seemed no distance to Wymondham and on to Norwich.

  Mrs. Bradley had booked a room at a hotel at the north end of Tombland, a beautiful old fifteenth-century house, which she had selected because, it appeared, Amos Bleriot had been staying there up to the time of his disappearance.

  She made no enquiries about him, however, having resolved to hear first what the Norwich police had to say. She rang them up from the hotel, and was invited by the superintendent to come round at her convenience for a talk.

  She enquired about the students, and produced the letter she had received from Alice Boorman. The superintendent read the letter carefully, and handed it back. He had the typical, deliberate, rather sing-song speech of the county, and his promotions had not had the effect of altering his verbs, which he rendered, in the country-fashion of the locality, almost all in the present tense and in the singular.

  “That do seem a very proper letter,” he observed. “The case, that do be in the hands of Mr. Os. Proper angry that get, when the men do be calling him the wizard. Almost think there might be something in it, that get so mad.”

  He laughed pleasantly.

  “Inspector Os?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

  “Aye. That isn’t Norfolk, though.”

  “His name doesn’t sound like it, anyhow.”

  “Oh, aye, but that’s English enough. Put in on the case as a favour to the Chief Constable. Fancy that as a detective, the Chief Constable do. Os is from further over by the Wash. That don’t belong here in Norwich. But when the body get found, then that seem to be our man, according to the Chief Constable. Not quite fair on my men, that isn’t, but they work in loyal enough.”

  “The inspector has seen the body, I presume, then?”

  “Aye, that have. According to Mr. Pirberry, you’re a doctor, ma’am. I shall be proud to have your opinion. It seem that might have been murdered, and it seem that might have killed herself. Mr. Os, that’s all for murder. That do see fame ahead of him.”

  He laughed again, still pleasantly, but it was clear that he was not altogether in favour of Inspector Os. Possibly the Chief Constable’s favourite was scarcely likely to be a favourite of his, Mrs. Bradley thought, particularly if Os had been put before some of the superintendent’s own men. She felt a certain amount of curiosity concerning Inspector Os, who was intelligent enough, it seemed, to have been brought in over the heads of the strictly local men. As it happened, he came in at that moment, and the introductions were made.

  Mrs. Bradley saw a heavy-faced, humourless man, of stolid aspect, with large hands and straight features, solidly built and rather pale. What Inspector Os saw he did not disclose, but no doubt Mrs. Bradley’s yellow skin, black eyes and claw-like hands did not escape his notice, nor the quality of her alligator grin as she said, when they had shaken hands:

  “I hear you’re known as the Wizar
d, Mr. Os.”

  Os grunted at, rather than replied to, this attack.

  “It seems to me rather a compliment for a police officer,” Mrs. Bradley continued; but it was clear that Os did not think so. “And now, what’s this about my students?”

  “Those being the young ladies that hit on the body, I suppose, ma’am?” Mr. Os enquired. “Well, they’re still having their holiday. We’re bound to have them within reach in case we want them for questioning if anything else should come up, so they thought they might as well finish their cruise. Not that we’ve got anything on them at all. I’m certain they are what they seem. What we don’t care much about is this disappearing trick that seems to have been worked by your Mr. Amos Bleriot, ma’am, in view of the warning you gave, and Inspector Pirberry thought, as you were coming this way, you might give us a pointer or two, as it seems you were wise to this gentleman’s tendencies, having reported upon him to Scotland Yard long before anything happened.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Of course, Inspector, you do realise that they were only tendencies, don’t you? He may never have had the urge to put them into practice. But when I get a patient, not, in the accepted sense, insane, but who reacts to psychoanalysis in the way Mr. Bleriot did, I always let Scotland Yard know.”

  “So Inspector Pirberry said, ma’am. He said that quite a score of murders have been prevented, and more than thirty actual murderers have been tracked down, as a result. Very impressive, ma’am, if I may say so.”

  The superintendent politely concurred in this view.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Bradley, with a slight sigh. “But who am I to interfere with the natural instincts of my fellow human beings?”

  “Unnatural instincts, I should have thought, ma’am,” the inspector quietly observed.

  “No such things, Mr. Os,” Mrs. Bradley replied with a cackle. “Where was the body found?”

  “The superintendent produced a large-scale map of the district, and the inspector took up a pencil.