Twelve Horses and the Hangman's Noose (Mrs. Bradley) Read online

  “Well, he’d do for one. Then there’s Nottingham, who’s gone in for horses or something, and Mapsted, who’s done the same.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that—but, of course, I’m fairly new here. I didn’t know any of those boys.”

  “Well, living fairly near to them, I believe, is Grinsted. You wouldn’t remember Grinsted, either, sir. His father was a farmer and the boy used to bring eggs to sell to the staff. He was a surly, unmannerly boy, but I think he had a hard time at home. I could get in touch with them, sir, if you thought it a good plan. You see, we might be considered snobbish if we relied only on Turnbull, as he’s employed on the staff.”

  “He’s only the woodwork master,” Mr. Bond pointed out. “It is stretching a point, perhaps, to refer to him as a member of the staff—not that one wants to be undemocratic, of course. Very well, then,” he continued hastily, “get in touch with those you mentioned and we’ll squeeze them in somehow, although I must confess I don’t see how. One thing,” he added, as hope dawned, “they probably won’t accept. The school, as they knew it, has been swallowed up, since building on this site was resumed. I should think they would show very little interest.”

  On this optimistic note the conference ended. Mr. Gadd went aloft to deal with 3B, now reduced, through lack of ink and blotting-paper, to the coarser pleasures of physical combat, and Mr. Bond, with a sigh, picked up an insistent telephone receiver and grimly recited the school number.

  When he had answered the telephone Mr. Bond buzzed for Miss Cowley.

  “Please obtain from Mr. Gadd the addresses of some Old Boys he knows of and send each of them an invitation.”

  “Sure, Mr. Bond. Shall I include Mr. Turnbull?”

  “There is no occasion to do that. Mr. Turnbull,” said Mr. Bond, repenting of his previous verdict, “is on the staff and therefore needs no invitation.”

  “Very well, Mr. Bond. Seems funny to think of Old Boys when the school is being Opened, though, doesn’t it?”

  “Very. The war was responsible for much. That will be all, Miss Cowley, thank you.”

  “Good-oh,” said the secretary cheerily. “With the staff yelling their heads off for a nice cuppa, it’s just as well, really.”

  “Tea,” began Mr. Bond austerely—but Miss Cowley had gone. She was immediately replaced by Mr. Gadd.

  “There’s another thing about Turnbull,” he said. “I think we ought to bear in mind that he designed and executed the metal plaque commemorating Old Boys of the previous building who served in the war.”

  “Oh, yes, yes. I must get Dame Beatrice, or whoever the speaker is, to mention it.”

  “I feel, too,” Mr. Gadd continued, “that he should be in front, and not be given a job behind the scenes where no one will see him.”

  “He’s of no use behind the scenes, in any case,” said Mr. Bond. “At the school play, if you remember, middle boys raided his toolshed and purloined screwdrivers and removed the number plates from visitors’ cars. A most disgraceful business which brought discredit on us all.”

  “That was not Turnbull’s fault, sir. He was responsible, if you remember, for any stage carpentry which might need repairing or adjusting. He really was not in a position—”

  “He was in a position to put his keys in Miss Cowley’s office, where they would have been safely locked up, instead of leaving them on a bench in the woodwork room!” snapped Mr. Bond.

  “He explained that he thought he might need them to get tools quickly, should any of the scenery need attention.”

  “Then he should have trousered them. He is most unreliable.” Mr. Bond thus put an indisputable termination to the argument and Mr. Gadd retired to the staffroom for tea.

  Miss Cowley sent off the letters of invitation in due course, and the Old Boys whom Mr. Gadd had named were surprised and not unduly delighted to receive theirs. Grinsted, whose nature had not altered since his schooldays, grunted and threw the letter into the fire. Mapsted re-read his and put it into his jacket pocket. Nottingham gave a short laugh followed by a contemptuous expletive, tore his across, and threw the pieces over the hedge into the lane which bordered his paddock. Turnbull, grudgingly admitted by Mr. Bond to full membership of the staff, received his invitation by word of mouth from Mr. Gadd.

  “The Old Man says that as an Old Boy you can attend the Opening in that capacity, Turnbull.”

  The disgruntled Mr. Spencer, who was leaving at the end of term as much as by Mr. Bond’s wish as by his own, laughed loudly and said:

  “Don’t forget to wash behind the ears, my little man!” He added, in a different tone, “How I’d like to see this blasted Opening come a mucker and the Old Man look a fool!”

  “You’d better shut up,” said Turnbull in a low voice, nodding towards Mr. Gadd.

  “I’ve nothing to lose,” retorted Mr. Spencer.

  “The condemned man made a short speech,” said Mr. Milstrom.

  CHAPTER 2

  HORSES AT HOME TO VISITORS

  …their gentle nature and docility, their comely shape, their lofty pace, their clean trotting…

  BLUNDEVILLE

  Mr. Bond’s school was at Seahampton, in what was called the New Town. The old town was known as Seahampton Harbour but was usually referred to as Old Seahampton. It was built on one side of a wide creek much favoured by yachtsmen during the summer. In winter the creek presented a forest of deciduous masts.

  Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, Opener-Elect of the Grammar School, could scarcely be regarded as a local celebrity for, although she was certainly celebrated, she lived a good many miles from Seahampton, being domiciled, when she was not in London, at the Stone House in the village of Wandles Parva, on the fringe of the New Forest.

  As it happened, one of her near neighbours was John Mapsted, who was part-owner of the Elkstonehunt riding stables at the opposite end of the village. John owned twelve horses, four of which were never let out on hire. Three were known to take part in mysterious comings and goings and were racehorses. The fourth, a horse named Percheron, he kept as his own mount. In spite of its name it had none of the characteristics of that famous French breed but was a graceful and talented hunter of Irish descent, long-legged, long-bodied, chestnut in colour, and known in the neighbourhood as being of irresponsible behaviour. The only persons it would tolerate, in fact, were its owner and Mrs. Laura Gavin, née Menzies, Dame Beatrice’s efficient and lively secretary. Even to Laura, however, Percheron was never let out on hire. She rode a likeable and rather showy horse named Mustang. It was the idiosyncrasy of John Mapsted to have called each of his horses after a particular breed, but never after the breed to which it actually belonged.

  On the morning when Dame Beatrice was destined to receive Mr. Bond’s courteously-worded invitation to “open” his school, Laura, as was her custom in fine weather, went down through the village to the Elkstonehunt stables to have Mustang out for an hour before breakfast. It was seven o’clock on a beautiful, fine, clear morning, and in spite of breeches and boots she walked briskly.

  When she reached the double gates of Mapsted’s place, she saw the doctor’s car. It was coming from the stables, not from the house. Neither she nor Dame Beatrice was ever ill, but she had become acquainted with the doctor because they met at tennis parties, at as many of the village functions as he found leisure to attend, and at church, so that she was not at all surprised when he pulled up, opened his window, and put his head out to speak to her.

  “Shouldn’t go up there this morning,” he said. “Been a very nasty accident.”

  “John?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. It seems as though that brute he rides has turned on him at last.”

  “Oh, dear! Not Percheron? Is John badly hurt?”

  “Worse than that.”

  “Not…?”

  “Yes. The horse must have kicked him on the head.”

  “Good Lord! What a frightful thing to happen! I can’t believe it!”

  “You would i
f you’d seen what I’ve just seen. I’m off now to get an ambulance to take him to the Seahampton Infirmary. There will have to be a post-mortem and an inquest. I’ve had to break the news to his mother, poor old lady. She’s a plucky old thing. Took it squarely.”

  “Well, I should never have thought it of Percheron,” said Laura slowly. “Could there be another explanation?”

  “Only if somebody has clumped Mapsted over the head with a heavy mallet, and, considering that Jenkinson, the groom, found him lying in the stable and the horse squealing mad, and blood on the horse’s hoof, I’m afraid the circumstantial evidence is against the brute. I should think they’ll have him shot, the murdering beast.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” said Laura. “Percheron is temperamental, but he was as good as gold with John. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Whether it does or not, it’s happened, although, as a matter of fact, there are one or two things which don’t quite fit. In fact, I’d like another opinion.”

  “Where is John—where is the body now?”

  “Still in Percheron’s loose-box. Jenkinson managed to get the horse out and has put him in the paddock. We could have taken poor Mapsted up to the house but old Mrs. Mapsted did not think there was any point in it as I was going to send to Seahampton in any case. Look here, let me run you home. I’d like to talk to Dame Beatrice, and perhaps have her see the body before we move it.”

  “How long ago did it happen? I mean, how long do you think he’s been dead?”

  “That’s the bit that puzzles me. I won’t say any more, though, until Dame Beatrice has seen him. If her opinion coincides with mine we shall have quite a small mystery on our hands.”

  He would add nothing to this intriguing statement. Laura got into the car and they drove the short distance to the Stone House in silence. Laura had plenty to think about, and presumably Doctor Rollins was equally thoughtful. Laura, firm in her conviction that the last person Percheron would have savaged was his owner and rider, was trying to imagine any other circumstances, short of murder, which could have brought about Mapsted’s death. As to Rollins’s guarded reply to her question relating to the probable time of death, she could put two and two together there without difficulty. She felt she had no need to ask him what had puzzled him.

  Dame Beatrice was at breakfast when they reached the Stone House. They joined her, for Rollins had been summoned straight from bed to the Elkstonehunt stables. Over eggs, bacon, and coffee, he told her all that he knew about the accident to John Mapsted, and immediately the meal was finished he and Laura’s employer went to inspect the body.

  While they were gone, Laura dealt, as was her custom, with the correspondence and read the headmaster’s letter. There had been a previous communication by telephone, and she knew that Dame Beatrice had accepted the invitation provisionally.

  Laura made a face at the letter. She objected to what, in her opinion, were frivolous and unnecessary calls upon Dame Beatrice’s time. She knew from experience, however, that it was her employer’s invariable custom to obtain some amusement and satisfaction out of attending the most boring of functions, so she put the letter into Dame Beatrice’s tray and opened the next envelope in the pile.

  Her mind, however, was only partly on her work. It was also running on the surprising and untimely death of John Mapsted. She felt no overwhelming grief, but the news had been a shock, for she and the riding-school proprietor had been mildly but consistently friendly and had known each other for a couple of years or more. She had a ready reply, therefore, to Dame Beatrice’s questions at lunch.

  “Well, what do you think about it?”

  Laura shrugged.

  “I don’t believe the horse savaged John,” she said. “What was Doctor Rollins puzzled about? There was something in particular, wasn’t there?”

  “Yes, there was. I’ll give you three guesses.”

  “I believe I need only one. It was something to do with the time of death. In other words, Percheron started his squealing and all his fuss too late. Is that what’s worrying our medico?”

  “Well!” said Dame Beatrice, impressed. “You are quite right. Doctor Rollins and I think that Mr. Mapsted died an hour one side or the other of midnight, and most certainly not between six and seven in the morning.”

  “Golly!” exclaimed Laura. “If Percheron had kicked John to death, he’d have squealed out at the time he did it. Why didn’t anybody hear him? Cissie Gauberon’s room faces that way and she’s a light sleeper, and Jenkinson, the groom, has the attic above. One of them, if not both, would have been bound to hear the horse.”

  “Quite so. Yet Jenkinson asserts that the horse made no fuss until daylight. It certainly seems very strange.”

  “Strange is the word,” agreed Laura. “Besides, Percheron didn’t kick John. I’d take a pretty considerable bet on that. You saw the body, I suppose?”

  “Yes, of course. The injuries certainly support the theory that poor Mr. Mapsted died from being struck on the head, but the time-factor and, as you say, the known fact that the horse was fond of its master, seem to indicate that—”

  “That poor old John was murdered,” said Laura, who had immediately jumped to this conclusion when she heard that Doctor Rollins was not satisfied. Dame Beatrice pursed her beaky mouth and looked dubious.

  “I don’t think we can postulate such a theory at present,” she said.

  “Well, is there any objection to my going over and having a word with Cissie Gauberon—condolences and all that?” Laura demanded.

  “You could walk over and talk to Miss Gauberon, of course. She will probably talk freely to you, as you know her so well.”

  “To know isn’t a synonym for to like,” said Laura, “but I must say I’d like to get the dope, if there is any to be got.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” said Cissie when Laura arrived. “Yes, they’ve taken him to Seahampton. There’ll have to be an inquest, of course.”

  “But what do you think really happened?”

  “I haven’t a clue. All I know is that Jenkinson came yelling for me some time before seven, so I went along to the stables because, of course, I’d heard the horse myself. I was up and dressed, as a matter of fact.”

  “What about Percheron?”

  “Sweating all over. Stood guard over John’s body. Very difficult to get anywhere near.”

  “So then you sent for Doctor Rollins?”

  “No, Jenkinson had already done that.”

  “Look here,” said Laura earnestly, “it’s not quite good enough, is it?”

  Cissie looked at the top of a tree behind Laura’s left shoulder and shrugged hopelessly.

  “I don’t know what to think,” she said. “To begin with, I can’t see what John was doing in the stables at that time. We don’t feed the horses all that early at this season of the year, and, in any case, it was Jenkinson’s business, not his. There wasn’t a mare in foal, or anything of that sort, you know. I simply can’t conceive what he was doing in the stables at that hour. And, anyway, Percheron always let us know whenever John went to visit him. Whinnied with joy. Of course,” she added sourly, “if he did kick John to death, I suppose he’ll have to be destroyed.”

  Laura nodded.

  “I suppose you’ll still keep on the stables?” she said. “I mean this won’t make any difference in that sort of way?”

  Cissie raised her arms from her sides and let them drop back again. Her thin, rather monkey-like face expressed resignation.

  “Quién sabe?” she said. “Anyway, I need a partner. I suppose—you living near and all that—you wouldn’t care to buy a half-interest?”

  “I rather think not,” said Laura slowly. “I’d have to take time to work it out. I should be a sleeping partner, anyway. I couldn’t find the time to work here. I’m kept pretty busy.”

  “If I could find someone to put up a bit of cash, my sister would come and help on the actual job,” said Cissie. “Do think it over, Laura. It�
�s quite a sporting venture, and, of course, you’d always get a free mount. The inquest is tomorrow,” she went on. “I’ve got to give evidence, worse luck.”

  “What is going to happen to the stables? Will Mr. Mapsted’s partner keep them open?” asked Dame Beatrice Bradley when Laura got back to the Stone House.

  “She wants to. As a matter of fact, she’s asked me whether I’d like to come in with her. Take a share, you know. Money seems to be short.”

  “Shall you fall in with the suggestion?”

  “Nope,” said Laura decidedly, “I don’t much like her, and, anyway, I don’t believe in underwriting a tottering economy. Besides, I’ve a hunch that she knows something more about John’s death than she says. Personally, I’m going to give the matter some earnest thought. There’s a lot of undercurrent about, if you ask me, and stranger things will happen yet, I feel.”

  “Was the horse thought to be ill? There has been no mention of anything of the kind,” was all Dame Beatrice said in response to this vague prophecy.

  “Percheron? No, he wasn’t ill. The fact that John was killed at that time of night only lends colour to what I say. The horse couldn’t have killed him. I’m going to work on the presumption that somebody murdered him and made it look like animal savagery. I shall employ my full powers to shift the blame to where it belongs. I feel I should champion the horse.”

  Any suggestion from Laura that she proposed to employ what, entirely erroneously, she considered to be her detective faculties always caused in her employer some feeling of unease. Dame Beatrice did not betray this. She said simply, “I hear that when the body was discovered by the stableman he had no doubt that the horse was to blame.”

  “Jenkinson doesn’t like Percheron. He would put anything on him if he had the shadow of an excuse,” protested Laura. “Personally, I shall never even believe that John was killed in Percheron’s stable. There must be evidence to show that he wasn’t. I pin my faith to the old Holmes gag about the dog that did nothing in the night. If Percheron did nothing in the night he jolly well wasn’t kicking John’s head in; whereas, when he did set up that squealing, the body was put into his loose-box. That’s as plain as daylight to me. He’d only have to smell blood to go crazy, a nervous, temperamental horse like that. There are questions I am certainly going to ask Jenkinson. In fact, if there is nothing in particular that you want me for, I’ll go over tomorrow and see him.”