Saltmarsh Murders mb-4 Page 9

  “What about him?” I said cautiously.

  “I’m on the track of the person who murdered that girl,” said Mrs. Bradley, “and I want to clear a few things out of the way.”

  “Including Burt?” I asked, with an attempt at facetiousness.

  “Including funny little Burt,” said Mrs. Bradley, gravely. She grasped my sleeve. “You and Constable Brown and I are going to bring a murderer to justice,” she said, with the most frightful leer.

  “You mean—” I burbled.

  “I want your help,” she said. “I require your invaluable assistance, child. Who so respectable as the earnest young curate? Who so universally adored as the handsome, untidy, almost illiterate young man who has not had occasion yet to quarrel with his bishop?”

  She yelled with laughter, let go of my sleeve and dug me in the ribs.

  “Do you believe Bob Candy did it?” she said.

  “No,” I replied truthfully, “I am sure he did not.” I moved out of the reach of her claw-like hand.

  “Then up with the bonnets of bonny Dundee,” said Mrs. Bradley, taking my arm. “To Burt’s bungalow—boot, saddle, to horse and away!”

  Burt was out, of course. This did nothing to deter my frightfully energetic companion.

  “Never mind,” she said, “let us go and see Mr. and Mrs. Gatty. There are one or two questions that I am simply bursting to put to that delicious pair!”

  Mr. and Mrs. Gatty were at home. He was snipping off the dead roses and she was mowing the lawn. Both stopped working when they saw us and came to greet us.

  “We’ve come about the murder,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I suppose you two dear people will sign a petition for poor Bob Candy?”

  “But he hasn’t been convicted yet,” objected little Gatty.

  “We want to be prepared,” said Mrs. Bradley solemnly. “Do come indoors and sign. It won’t take a minute. Come along, Mr. Wells. You will have to witness his signature. Mrs. Coutts is getting up the petition, of course,” she explained to old Gatty, who had put down his scissors and gardening gloves on the wheelbarrow and was meekly accompanying us into the house. He gazed with distaste at the entrance hall of his gloomy residence.

  “I do wish I could persuade Eliza to move,” he said. “I do hate and fear this beastly house, but she’s quite attached to it.”

  I must confess that this remark by Gatty nearly flabbergasted me. It was generally understood in the village that Mrs. Gatty was in a terribly nervous state owing to the influence of the ex-lunatic asylum upon her system. Now, to hear Gatty seriously asserting that he was the nervous one and that his wife was the one who was determined to stay on at the house, was rather a jolt. I was about to enter into an argument with him about it when Mrs. Bradley forestalled me by saying:

  “I thought your wife disliked the house?”

  “Far from it,” replied Gatty. “Where’s this petition you want me to sign?”

  He grinned. Well, he was rather like a wolf, of course. A sudden thought struck me.

  “I suppose it wasn’t you on the roof of Burt’s bungalow that night?” I said.

  He looked a bit flummoxed, but answered up like a shot.

  “It was, Mr. Wells.”

  “Well, but, well, I mean to say!” I said.

  “What do you mean to say?” asked Mrs. Bradley, turning a none too cordial glance on me. At least, it looked a bit frosty when I met it, which I did, squarely, of course. I believe the woman thought she was going to intimidate me!

  “Well, I mean to say, he might have murdered somebody,” I stuttered, anxious in a way to placate the old lady, who was now looking too fierce for my comfort. Besides, I was anxious too, very anxious, of course, to know what he meant by bunging slates at me that night. “What’s the idea?” I continued, severely to Gatty. Gatty wilted a bit. I stand five feet eleven in my socks.

  “It was Burt’s fault,” said Gatty, getting a bit red round the ears. “He shouldn’t have locked me in that horrible crypt. I had no idea that he would play me such a prank.”

  I was about to exclaim when Mrs. Bradley accidentally knocked Gatty’s fountain pen out of his hand, and we all bent and groped for it. It took us so long to find it—(my private belief is that Mrs. Bradley had had it in her hand for several minutes, for she was the one who eventually handed it back to him)—that my remark faded. Mrs. Bradley had a large sheet of paper on which were several signatures, and Gatty wrote his name under the rest, and we prepared to take our leave. We waved to Mrs. Gatty, who was at the further end of the garden, and regained the road.

  “Some time,” said Mrs. Bradley, thoughtfully. “I must go into the question of lying much more thoroughly. I wonder why Mrs. Gatty lies? Is it for fear, compensation or wantonness, I wonder?”

  “But does she lie?” I asked.

  “Certainly,” said Mrs. Bradley. “And, by the way, young man, if you are to be of any real assistance to me in this enquiry, you must not ask direct questions of the people I am interviewing. You’ll spoil everything if you do. Tell me some more about the roof of Burt’s bungalow,” she added.

  “About Gatty, do you mean?” I asked.

  “About Gatty. So nice to know it wasn’t a thug,” said Mrs. Bradley, nodding her head. “All the details, please.”

  So I told her the tale all over again.

  “I must go back to the Moat House,” she said, when I had finished. “There is just one thing I must get clear. You stay here, dear child.”

  “Not much,” I said. She seemed such a little old woman, and I didn’t like those wolf-teeth that Gatty showed when he smiled. Gatty and his wife had changed jobs. He was mowing the lawn now, and she was attending to the roses.

  “Here are Mrs. Crocodile and Mr. Goat,” she called to her husband. He let go the mowing machine and came toward us. I could not but admire Mrs. Bradley’s forthright methods. She said at once:

  “How did you say you got down into the crypt?”

  “I was thrust down there by Burt and his negro,” said Gatty. I gasped. He had distinctly told me that he went there as the result of a bet. Apparently he had forgotten that. So both the Gattys were liars, it seemed!

  “Why?” asked Mrs. Bradley. “Had you annoyed him in any way?”

  “I don’t think so. I believe he has some secret and that I was within an ace of finding it out. It was the night my car broke down outside Wyemouth and I had to walk home by way of the Cove and the stone quarries. I was just poking about when they seized me and carried me to the church. I can’t think why we didn’t meet anybody. When you had set me free, I decided to go to Burt’s bungalow and find out what I could, by way of revenge. Just fancy, I was in that dreadful place for about thirty-six hours! So I climbed on to the roof of Burt’s bungalow that night when I had had food and some rest, and tried to see down the skylight into his loft. I couldn’t see anything. It was much too dark. So I scrabbled about a bit and was unlucky enough to loosen two tiles. They slipped as Mr. Wells here and the lad Coutts came out on to the path. I was terribly alarmed. I thought at first the tiles had struck them. I was hiding behind the chimney stack out of reach of Burt’s horrible gun when they slipped from my hand. I still believe Burt’s got some game on, and I still mean to find out what it is!”

  “Good for you,” said Mrs. Bradley, cordially. “Good luck to your mowing.”

  He looked at her as though she was mad, sighed, and pushed the mowing machine forward. Mrs. Bradley turned to find Mrs. Gatty standing at her elbow.

  “Darling Croc,” said Mrs. Gatty, “why do you talk with the wolf?”

  “Dearest Cassowary,” retorted Mrs. Bradley, “who told you the wolf was in the crypt?”

  “Nobody told me,” said Mrs. Gatty, beaming at us both through her gold-rimmed glasses like any comfortable woman of fifty. “I saw him down there. Oh, that’s wrong. Mr. Burt told me. He thought I should go and let him out, I think!”

  She began to giggle at the recollection.

  “And didn’t you try
to get him out?” I asked. Mrs. Bradley suddenly prodded me in the ribs. I had forgotten her commands, of course. I muttered an apology, but the mischief, whatever it was, was done. Mrs. Gatty grew grave, and answered:

  “No, I didn’t try to get him out. It was so right, you see. It was so satisfying. I peeped at him—he didn’t see or hear me—and then I came home and thought about him, and then, when I knew he was asleep, I went and spoke to him.”

  I looked appealingly at Mrs. Bradley. In that instinctive way which women have, she seemed to understand me. Almost imperceptibly she nodded her head. Emboldened, I asked Mrs. Gatty what she had said to her husband while he was asleep in the crypt.

  “I said, ‘Bogey! Bogey!’ ” replied Mrs. Gatty solemnly. I shouted with laughter. Mrs. Bradley laughed. Mrs. Gatty laughed, and up came little Gatty to know what we were laughing at. I pointed a shaking finger at his wife and feebly stuttered:

  “She said, ‘Bogey! Bogey!’ ” Then I went off into fresh howls of mirth. I controlled myself at last and wiped my eyes. Old Gatty’s face was a study.

  “How interesting it all is,” said Mrs. Bradley, when we had taken leave of the Gattys once more. “Child, it’s going to rain again. How provoking! You will have to take me into the vicarage for shelter, won’t you?”

  Considering that we had to pass the gates of the Manor House to reach the vicarage, I thought this suggestion was a bit thick.

  “With pleasure,” I said my heart sinking. She and the vicar’s wife were good for three hours if once they started gossiping. I believe the Bradley is going to put the Coutts into a book or something. There’s a sinister licking of the lips about her facial expression after she’s managed to get Mrs. Coutts to spread herself on her favourite topic. It makes my blood run positively cold to witness it. She’s a ghoul, not a woman. Mrs. Coutts’ favourite topic, of course, is Immorality, under which heading, since the dreadful death of Meg Tosstick and the removal of Cora McCanley, whom she hates, she has taken to including Daphne and me. She found me outside Daphne’s door on the night after Meg Tosstick’s murder, and promptly blew her cork out. I explained that I was only asking Daphne if she were all right and not scared, of course, but the woman insisted upon believing the worst. The next night she found me in the room, of course. I’m not going to be dictated to by a person with her frightful mentality, even if she is Daphne’s aunt.

  Upon finding me seated upon Daphne’s bed she decided that the worst had happened. (It hadn’t, of course.)

  “You’re enough to make it happen, aunt,” said Daphne, in tears at the nasty things which were being said. “Here, Noel, darling!” And she handed me the ring. I received it dumbly and dropped it into my pocket. Then we kissed with histrionic effect, and I stood aside to let Mrs. Coutts pass out. She didn’t budge, so I didn’t. I wasn’t going to leave Daphne to be chewed up after I had gone. In the end she went, and I followed her out. I gave the ring back to Daphne next day, of course, and she explained that she had only returned it to save her bally aunt throwing a fit. Mrs. Coutts’ nerves and temper had been steadily deteriorating since the murder of Meg Tosstick. She chivvied her husband, who had been like a goaded bull since the village pound business, and also had practically said in so many words that he might think himself lucky he got off as well as he did. She muttered something about seducers and the cloth which sounded to me rather hotter even than her usual diatribes. The remark was equally divided between the Reverend and myself, of course. I believed the woman was mad. Really I did! I would have married Daphne on the morrow if it could have been managed, to get her out of it all, for it was beginning to tell upon the poor kid, but, apart from the fact that a curate can’t very well get married at a registrar’s office, I had passed my word to old Coutts to hold off until Daphne was older.

  Well, I had to usher the Bradley into the vicarage, for the rain began to come down pretty heavily, and we both got pretty wet, walking from the Moat House. Nothing would satisfy Mrs. Coutts, who had taken a violent fancy to Mrs. Bradley, than to rig her up in dry clothes, shoes and stockings and have a fire lighted. Daphne grabbed me in the hall when the two of them had gone upstairs, and said:

  “Oh, Noel! Uncle’s been talking to the inspector who’s in charge of the case, and he says there’s sure to be a local crime wave for a bit. He says these crimes get imitated—these sort of crimes. I think it’s horrible.”

  The talk at tea was about the murder, of course. Mrs. Coutts spread herself on Immorality, as usual, and Mrs. Bradley listened, and prompted her when she seemed like drying up. I was pretty well fed with the conversation, and so was Daphne.

  At six the Bradley tore herself away and beckoned me to follow her. I went, of course. I really don’t know why. She saps my will power, that woman. I had intended to stay with Daphne and discuss the Harvest Festival, but I followed Mrs. Bradley as meekly as a dog and we took the road which leads towards the stone quarries and then stops abruptly half way up the slope. She said, as we journeyed onward, shouting against the wind:

  “I know Mr. Burt’s little game. Are you afraid of him?”

  “Of course I am,” I yelled.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” she bellowed. “Why don’t you like me, Mr. Wells?”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just went pretty hot and stammered a bit, of course. She mouthed at me:

  “I want your help. It would be easier if you could overcome your prejudice.” She paused and, added, fortissimo, “I could overcome the vicar’s, if you liked, you know.”

  “What is his?” I shrieked.

  “You want to marry his niece,” she screamed. The wretched woman seemed to be wise to everything. “And I know a few bishops and things,” she added at the top of her voice. I halted and looked down at her. I hope my face was grim.

  “You are trying to bribe me, Mrs. Bradley,” I ejaculated.

  “Yes, yes, of course, dear child,” she hallooed into my left ear. Horribly moistly, of course.

  “It’s a bargain. Come shake hands.”

  She took my hand in her skinny, yellow claw. Heavens! What a grip she had! Harder even than Mrs. Coutts’, with her pianist’s wrists and fingers.

  “Stay here,” she shouted. “If I don’t emerge from Mr. Burt’s bungalow in half an hour from now, inform the police!”

  “Do you think Burt is the murderer?” I yelled. Horrible thing to have to shout at the top of one’s voice. So libellous, of course.

  “I believe he is a violent man when roused,” shrieked Mrs. Bradley. I settled the dog-collar with a hand that trembled.

  “I’m coming too,” I shouted in her ear.

  “Hero!” retorted Mrs. Bradley, letting out her unearthly screech of mirth. Incidentally, she was speaking the truth, of course. I was carrying a blackthorn walking stick. I surveyed it doubtfully and then quietly parked it at the side of the road. Unarmed, I might be less liable to attack, I thought. I quaked and was in anguish as we mounted the rough track. Heavy clouds raced across the sky, driven by the same strong wind as was almost blowing us backwards down the hill. The quarries were silent and deserted. The workings were no longer used, and the deep holes were supposed to be fenced in. It occurred to me with horrible clearness just how simple it would be for a man like Burt to throw us over the edge where the fences had rotted away. Cora’s presence might have saved us, but Cora, where was she? According to all accounts she was touring in the North-East of England with a show called Home Birds. Still, I took comfort from the indomitable-looking little old woman at my side. Her yellow face was set, and her thin lips were tightly closed as she concentrated all her energies upon forcing an uphill way against the buffetings of the wind. She turned and yelled at me:

  “You didn’t mind coming before!”

  “No!” I yelled in agreement, holding on to my hat with both hands. “It’s the Gattys. They’re both mad, I think!”

  “Both what?”

  “Mad!”

  “What?”

  “Mad!”
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  “Oh, yes.” She grinned, and waved her hand. Burt was standing at the gate of his bungalow. To my astonishment he waved back, ran to meet us, put his great hand at Mrs. Bradley’s back and literally ran her up the hill in the teeth of that dreadful wind. When, panting and nearly cooked, I arrived at the Bungalow, it was to find Mrs. Bradley seated comfortably in an arm-chair drinking beer, and Burt straddled across the hearthrug, his back to a blazing fire, roaring and slapping his leg at one of the lady’s queer jokes. Cannot understand them, myself. He also had a glass in his hand. Foster Washington Yorke had admitted me, of course, and, as soon as I had accepted Burt’s cordial invitation to be seated, he brought me a glass of beer, too.

  “Oh, yes,” said Burt, as one who was continuing a conversation which my entrance had interrupted. “We did push him into the crypt. I told his wife where he was, you know, and made sure she’d go along and let him out. The little snoop was rubbering round the cove (Burt’s words, of course, not mine), and we collected him and tied him up until we had finished our job. I forgot him after that.”

  “Mr. Burt,” said Mrs. Bradley, calmly. “I think you will have to promise me that your fortune-hunting is over. No more cargo must be landed at Wyemouth Cove and brought to this house. You understand, don’t you? And—er—about your quarrels with your wife—”

  She spoke gently, but her terrifying, black, witch’s eyes never left Burt’s angry face. I was horribly alarmed to see Burt’s furious expression. The odds were too frightfully unequal. Unostentatiously I bent and picked up the poker. It was a nicely balanced, fairly weighty weapon, and swung prettily between the fingers. I dangled it, getting the feel and the balance of it. Mrs. Bradley was grinning with a kind of fiendish blandness at Burt, whose neck was beginning to swell.

  “You wouldn’t commit a murder, Edwy, would you?” asked the terrible little old woman.

  “I—don’t—know!”said Burt, taking a stride towards her. “I might —if I were hard pressed!”

  “Tut! tut!” observed Mrs. Bradley. She pointed a yellow talon at him. “Naughty boy! Sit down!”