Hangman's Curfew (Mrs. Bradley) Page 3

  “By the next morning the whip had reappeared. It had been found lying on the further side of the wicket gate, which led from a small orchard into a very small paddock. It was an extraordinary place in which to find the whip, since the paddock was in no sort of proximity at all to the stables and coach-house, and there seemed no reason why old Mr. Lancaster, or anybody else, should have walked that way carrying the whip, let alone dropped it without realising the fact.

  “In view of later developments it seemed likely that the dropping of the whip there was deliberate, and had been done with the intention of hiding it, but, at the time, the circumstance was inexplicable.

  “It was the niece who found the whip. She was going into the paddock (she said) to do her early morning exercises. As she was given to extraordinary crazes in athletics and dietetics, this reason was accepted at the time, although later on it was treated with what politicians call ‘reserve.’ Her explanation was that she fell over the whip, hurting, she explained, her bare toes. This was on the second of July. Recognising the whip as the one which her uncle had missed on the previous day, she took it back with her when she returned to the house.

  “Unfortunately, the restoration of his favourite whip was not in itself sufficient to allow old Mr. Lancaster to go to business that morning. The mare had gone lame, and Mr. Joshua (explained the groom, warily eyeing his master’s boot) had gone out riding on the only other horse, which could be put between shafts—for Polly, as Mr. Lancaster knew well, would kick the trap to bits sooner than look at it, and Rollo had ‘no force in him for the hill and would die this minute’ if asked to attempt it. The groom was an Irishman. Mr. Lancaster, regarding him with Yorkshire dourness and a certain amount of Yorkshire humour, wriggled his toes inside his boot and grunted. His business did not see him that day. Strangely enough, the mare recovered sufficiently in the early afternoon to take the niece to the vicarage, a distance of nearly three miles, for toasted tea-cake and village gossip, but this surprising circumstance was ‘of itself, itself,’ said the groom, with the dark philosophy of his race and kind.

  “On the two following days, July third and fourth, matters became more serious. On Friday, the third, the nephew, Mr. Joshua, returned to his London flat. The niece stayed on. There had been some talk that she might make her home with her uncle, and although neither party to it was particularly enthusiastic about the arrangement, there were reasons, notably the indigence of the niece and the loneliness of the uncle, which made it desirable that they should pool their resources.

  “The nephew drove to the station very early. This was by the old gentleman’s wish, for the mare, he said, would be needed later in the morning. By half-past seven, therefore, Mr. Joshua had breakfasted, tipped the servants, given Mrs. Norris a pound of a particularly delicious tea—his customary parting gift to her—and was bowling along, in a wind that almost flayed his face, towards the little station.

  “At a quarter to eight the butler-valet called the old gentleman, and, in the words of the household generally, ‘got him up.’ At half-past eight Mrs. Norris was pouring out his coffee, and at eight-thirty-three he was complaining, with Shakespearian ‘strange oaths,’ that the coffee tasted salt. He ordered her to pour it away and to make some more.

  “It was the first time in three years that Mr. Lancaster had complained about the coffee, and Mrs. Norris, ‘what with his language,’ she said, and her own distress that the coffee should prove undrinkable, burst into tears. This delayed the making of fresh coffee a matter of ten or twelve minutes. However, after she had taken the offending beverage away the housekeeper tasted it, and was compelled to admit that it had a peculiar flavour. She said this to the cook, the kitchenmaid, the solicitous butler, and the groom. The last had no business in the kitchen at that time in the morning, but had come in, he explained, for the sake of his sins and his soul, to thaw the devil out of himself, for it was so cold, although it was July, that the mare herself was standing in the drive ‘dancing the cramps out of her.’ He also tasted the coffee. He spat it out again. At this the housekeeper remarked that, in her opinion, it could have been drunk and no harm done, but that that was neither here nor there, and she supposed Mr. Lancaster had the right to complain if he liked, and that time would show whether it was the grounds or the sugar that was wrong.

  “By the time the fresh coffee was made, the old gentleman, once again, had missed his train. Contrary to the anticipations of the household, he neither fumed nor fretted, but merely walked out to the stables and told the groom to take the trap in himself to a chemist’s shop, and buy some strychnine for the rats. He also ordered him to get plenty, for the magpies would be a trouble later on, and he was not going to be plagued with them the way it had happened last year. The groom called down heaven’s malediction on the magpies, and master and man parted.

  “Their conversation had been heard by the housekeeper, the butler, and the housemaid, for the old gentleman had a good carrying voice, and the groom a distinctive brogue.

  “The groom returned at about a quarter past eleven and went straight to the library with his purchases. Nobody heard what passed between him and his employer, but there was evidence from the kitchen staff that he came out looking extremely pleased, and said that Mr. Lancaster had paid him a couple of pounds which had been owing for nearly three years.

  “Nobody could make anything of this statement, for nothing could have been further from the old gentleman’s habits than to owe back wages to his servants. Mrs. Norris, when the news came to her ears, reported to Miss Phyllis. Miss Phyllis thought it rather strange, but added that Rafferty was a strange man, and that no notice need be taken of his remarks. It was not, she said, as though he had a cause of grievance. The opposite was the case; and, if he was pleased, that might be allowed, she thought, to be the end of the affair. She then added that it was probably his Irish sense of humour coming out.

  “The next day, Saturday, the coffee again tasted salt, or so the old gentleman said. Miss Phyllis was breakfasting with him—an unusual occurrence, for he liked to breakfast alone, except for Mrs. Norris, whose function it was to make and pour out the coffee. He had, Miss Phyllis said later, particularly requested her, the night before, to come down early to breakfast on the Saturday and to have it with him, and had mentioned, casually, and interrupting himself to throw a piece of the supper bread at the cat, that he wanted to talk to her about his will.

  “It appeared that she did not think it all strange that her uncle should choose such an inconvenient time for such a subject, although she admitted that she had communed with herself to the effect that it either meant it would all go to charity, or that she and Joshua would have most of it between them, because the breakfast-time the old gentleman allowed himself was too short to allow of the discussion of any complicated testamentary deposition, and she did not, she stated frankly, suppose ‘that poor old Geoff would get anything.’

  “The coffee was made by Mrs. Norris as usual, and when it was poured out the old gentleman tasted his, declared it salt, and then suggested that she should try hers and tell him what she thought of the flavour. She sipped, twisted her mouth, sipped again, and then took a brave gulp. She was obliged to admit that the coffee did taste very queer indeed. The old gentleman, remarking again that it was salt, shot his cupful into the bushes outside the French windows, spat and spluttered, and then commanded Mrs. Norris to explain what she meant by it.

  “Apart from weeping again and exclaiming that she ‘meant nothing and never had,’ the housekeeper made no valuable contribution except to supply some more coffee. The old gentleman and his niece resumed their breakfast, and then, the trap having been brought round, Mr. Lancaster, assisted by Rafferty, climbed up, and, for the first time in several days, looked as though he might be going to catch his train.

  “He was fated, it seemed. The drive to the station took about half an hour. As he climbed down and was glancing at the church clock, which could be seen from the station approach, the station-ma
ster, who had known him for thirty years, came out from the booking office entry and said, red-faced with importance:

  “ ‘Mr. Lancaster, sir, there be a message on telephone telling thee to get back home fast as the mare can shift, sir, Miss Lancaster, thy niece, be took very bad and they want thee to pick up doctor and take him back with thee.’

  “So the mare was turned round and off fled the trap, stopping only to pick up Doctor Moffat. By teatime the dreadful nausea and the agonising cramps and pains, from which Miss Phyllis had been suffering, died away, and by eight o’clock in the evening she was almost herself again.

  “One other incident needs recording, I think,” said Gillian. “In the afternoon the groom was sent to the chemist’s shop in the town to get more strychnine for the rats, but the chemist (he declared) would not serve him.”

  “The next day was Sunday, and therefore the question of old Mr. Lancaster’s setting out for the station did not arise. Nevertheless, the day did not pass without its upsetting incidents, and the most picturesque, odd, and generally interesting of these occurred, not to the old gentleman himself (although he too was subjected to some annoyances), or even to his niece, but to the housekeeper.

  “Briefly, the church ghost, which had been a parish legend for a couple of centuries, decided to manifest itself to the unfortunate Mrs. Norris whilst she was performing the voluntary service of restoring all the hassocks to their little brass hooks on the backs of the strong wooden chairs at the conclusion of Evensong.

  “Why Mrs. Norris had undertaken this task nobody had ever discovered. She had accomplished it for more years than most people in the parish could remember, and, by the time she was sixty-four, both they and she would have considered Sunday incomplete if she had not stayed behind when everyone else had gone, and, tiptoeing up and down the aisles, had not ‘tidied up’ as she expressed it, before she returned to the cold beef, pickles, and potatoes (boiled in their jackets, if new, or fried in chunky strips if old) of her Sunday evening supper.

  “She was walking down the north aisle, her task completed, and was expecting to hear the footsteps of the vicar, who always made it his duty to put out the lights and lock up, when she received a sharp blow on the back.

  “Startled, she turned round, but could not see anyone there. She was feeling decidedly shaken, but was trying to persuade herself that she had imagined the blow when she felt another, this time between her shoulders. She experienced a feeling of considerable alarm, but called out to her invisible assailant to ‘Go home, you stupid boy, and don’t play silly jokes.’ All the same, she could not believe that a village boy or youth would be impudent enough to tease her in this way, particularly inside the church. As she turned towards the door again, however, a third blow struck her, this time with sufficient force to send her staggering forward.

  “She cried out in terror, and was running towards the door when she heard the vicar’s footsteps. He wished her good night as she passed out of the church, but she did not respond, and reached the house in such a ‘sweat and a flurry,’ according to the housemaid (that mine of information upon all aspects of the matter), that she would not sit down to her supper but went straight upstairs to her room, and, she said afterwards, to bed, where she remained all the following day. Miss Phyllis, who had recovered sufficiently to do so, made old Mr. Lancaster’s coffee in the morning. It was pronounced to be ‘only medium’ by the old gentleman, but he drank it and seemed none the worse. After breakfast he remarked to his niece that he should have to tell Rafferty to get some more strychnine, as he did not think the supply was sufficient, and that if one chemist would not supply it, another must be visited. Miss Phyllis replied that she did not see why ‘that dreadful stuff’ was necessary, and that she thought a more humane method of killing the rats might be adopted. A sensible, penniless girl, however, she did not press this point, as it appeared to be received impatiently by her uncle.

  “Rafferty bought the extra strychnine and handed it to his employer when the latter returned from town. Next morning there was a repetition of the ‘salt coffee’ incidents, and Mrs. Norris, who, in obedience to a testy order from the old gentleman, tasted the coffee, was sick afterwards. The kitchenmaid, who also drank some, was in such pain that she had to be helped up to bed, and Rafferty, instructed by Mrs. Norris, went for the doctor. This happened a short time after the groom had returned from driving Mr. Lancaster to the station.

  “When Mr. Lancaster returned in the late afternoon, he was given a note, which the doctor had left for him. Nobody saw the note, but it put the old gentleman in such a passion that, after swearing at the doctor and stamping on the letter, he ordered that his nephew Joshua should be sent for immediately, and also required his solicitor to be summoned.

  “Mr. Joshua arrived two days later by the two o’clock train, but there appeared to have been some hitch or delay in sending for the solicitor, who did not appear. Two notable incidents occurred during Mr. Joshua’s first evening and morning at his uncle’s house upon this second visit. One was that when he was dressing for dinner he dropped his collar stud. Knowing that there was another one in the small drawer of the dressing-table in his room—for he himself had left it there upon his previous visit—he pulled at the handle of the drawer but found that it was stuck. He pulled harder, and then had to dislodge a piece of stiff paper, which had become wedged and was preventing him from opening the drawer. When at last the drawer did come out, he discovered his stud and also that the stiff paper was the wrapping on a packet labelled ‘Rat Poison.’

  “Mr. Joshua, holding it none of his business to remark upon what his uncle chose to keep in the drawers, said nothing about this small discovery, and left the packet where it was. Oddly enough, the package was not there when he looked in the drawer after dinner.

  “After breakfast on the following morning he asked his uncle when he would find it convenient to discuss with him the business on which he had been called down from London, and mentioned that he ought to return on the following afternoon at the latest. His uncle, however, disregarded both the request and the statement, tossed his table napkin on to the seat of his chair when he got up, and announced his intention of going to business as usual. He ordered Joshua not to return to London until he was told.

  “Knowing that it was of no use to argue with the old gentleman, Mr. Joshua accompanied him out on to the drive and watched him drive away with Rafferty. As it was a fine clear morning, he decided to take a walk across the park to the woods. Half-way across the field that lay beyond the park he was met by the gamekeeper Bewley. They greeted one another, and Bewley enquired whether Mr. Lancaster had gone in to town or not that morning. Upon being informed that he had gone as usual, Bewley remarked:

  “ ‘There be funny goings-on, by what I hear.’ He then requested Mr. Joshua to go back with him to his hut. Tucked away among the thatch was an empty bottle, coloured green. A lurcher, which was tied up near the hut, strained and barked as soon as Mr. Joshua appeared. The gamekeeper growled at the dog, and then said:

  “ ‘Ah, but he never barked at whoever pushed that poison bottle into my thatch.’

  “Perceiving that the man was telling him that he knew the name of this person, Mr. Joshua invited a fuller expression of confidence by asking:

  ‘And whom wouldn’t he bark at?’

  “ ‘He doesn’t never make no sign or sound for Rafferty, the groom,’ replied Bewley, ‘giving me,’ said Mr. Joshua later, ‘a peculiar look, which, in view of my uncle’s very serious illness, I could not help recollecting later on.’

  “For Mr. Lancaster, it appeared, had been taken desperately ill in the trap just as they sighted the station—in fact, while Joshua was still in conversation with the gamekeeper. This time the doctor left no private correspondence on the subject. He rang up the police, on his own responsibility, and ordered the servants not to wash cups, plates, and glasses.

  “Well that,” concluded Gillian, in her earlier, and, in Mrs. Bradley’s opini
on, preferable epistolary style, “is about what it all amounted to. I don’t think I’ve left out any bits, and I’ve tried to remember everything in its exact order as he told it me.

  “Do please write soon, and let me know what you think. I hate to say so, because it sounds frightfully pooh-bah, but he says that money’s no object. Please forgive me for mentioning it. I expect it’s in bad taste.

  “Well, good-bye for the present, dearest Aunt Adela. It’s funny, really, that he should have said it needed a psychologist who is also a private investigator, because it just sounded like you right from the very beginning. Do you think anybody really is trying to murder the poor old man for his money? Do let me know what you do think. I am sure that Geoffrey—I call him that to myself, although not, of course, to his face—believes the housekeeper is doing it. But why, after all these years?

  “Oh, well, you’ll know, I expect.

  “Love from

  “GILLIAN.”

  Mrs. Bradley, grinning, put the letter in its envelope, glanced at the postage stamps on the outside, went to the telephone, and rang up the assistant commissioner.

  His comments were terse and ribald. Mrs. Bradley, still grinning, this time with great satisfaction, picked up a book of modern American verse, and read it until the telephone rang.

  “No,” said the assistant commissioner (adding what seemed to him suitable and picturesque comment), “neither the Lincolnshire nor the Yorkshire police know anything of your Mr. Lancaster. But I am able to verify the address. Anyhow, keep your loonies. Haven’t you heard of the East Bierley mystery of 1910? Some funny person has wished it on you again. Perverted sense of humour, that’s all, I should suppose. Good hunting—but I fancy you’re losing your grip.”

  “I thought you’d say that,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Is there a rumour of strychnine in Yorkshire or Lincolnshire?” She chuckled into the receiver at the sound of the harsh words which came from Scotland Yard, and then rang for her maid to pack a bag.