Twelve Horses and the Hangman's Noose (Mrs. Bradley) Page 9

  “Decimals are the answer to that one,” said Laura, drawing a chair up to the table. “Shove down the decimal point—”

  “What for?” asked Ursula.

  “I’m afraid they’re not nearly up to decimals,” said Miss Temme.

  “You shut your face,” said Dick. Laura smacked a hard and stinging palm down on to his bare thigh.

  “You shut yours,” she said crisply. Sarah, aged six, looked up from her drawing.

  “Shut yours,” she said approvingly; and bent again to the task of depicting a giant bird pecking a man’s eyes out. Laura picked up the pencil which Ursula had flung down.

  “Add a nought,” she said, “and carry the figure…let’s see, what was it?”

  “Five!” yelled both the older children.

  “Goes seven and one over!” screamed Ursula before her brother could get the words out. “What’s the dot for, anyway?”

  “Tenths,” said Laura curtly. “Next figure, which will be a one, hundredths, then thousands, tens of thousandths, hundreds of thousandths, millionths, and so forth, but most people accept five decimal places and then standardise.”

  “I’m afraid that is all much above their heads,” said Miss Temme.

  “It’s probably above yours, but then, you’re a moron,” said Dick, rubbing his thigh and glancing sideways at Laura’s shapely but powerful hands. Laura laughed, tossed down the pencil, and said cheerfully:

  “I have a message from my D.B.E. for Ursula.”

  “Very well,” said Miss Temme, defeated. “Ursula, you may go.”

  “Me too,” said Dick.

  “You afterwards,” said Laura. “I don’t want any prompting of the witness.”

  “It’s about the spiv who killed Mr. Mapsted, isn’t it, Laura?” said Ursula, when they were in the dining-room together.

  “It is. Describe him again.”

  “He was tall, quite a bit taller than you and a lot taller than Miss Temme—and he needed a shave but he didn’t talk like the village people. My guess, for what it’s worth, is that he came from the airfield over at Canbury Chase.”

  “Why?” asked Laura.

  “Well, I’m sure I’ve seen him before, and, by sort of working it out, I can’t think of anywhere else it could have been. Daddy took us there last September to meet Auntie Marion from Malta, and I expect he was one of the stewards or something.”

  “Look here, are you on the level about this?”

  “Oh, yes, Laura, of course I am!”

  “Right. We’ll push over to the airfield this afternoon, then. I’ll subscribe to a mount for you if you keep mum about our real objective. But if you start blabbing—!”

  “Can I ride Shan?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Dick will create,” said Ursula, obviously enjoying this prospect.

  “No, he won’t. He’ll come with us, and no conspiracies, mind, or maybe you’ll land yourself in jug.”

  “You shouldn’t frighten children with unrealizable threats,” said Ursula.

  “An Approved School, then.”

  “Oh, those are for dirty children,” said Ursula, unimpressed. Laura grinned.

  “You win,” she said, “but for goodness’ sake behave prettily for once.”

  “You said I’d be working in with Scotland Yard.”

  “So you will, image, if you don’t play me up.”

  While Laura was engaged in, to her mind, the thankless task of getting Ursula May to identify the unknown man who had threatened John Mapsted, Dame Beatrice was in pursuit of further evidence at the Seahampton Grammar School.

  “I should like,” she said to Mr. Bond, “to speak to the boys who explored the cavern underneath the stage in the hall.”

  Wilbraham and Jones were produced and proved to be spotty but intelligent lads of about fifteen. The news that a dead body had been found among the ceremonial plants had not been made public, and they could not imagine why the elderly, yellow-skinned, reptilian lady who had declared the school open should display such interest in their explorations. However, they answered her questions readily enough, although it was embarrassing for them to find themselves confessing to having spent nearly two periods in a search which the headmaster thought should have taken less than a quarter of an hour.

  “So,” said Dame Beatrice, “Mr. Gadd sent for you immediately after Assembly and you began your search at, roughly, a quarter to ten. At a quarter to eleven you emerged from beneath the stage, having found nothing to report, and took a shower because you were grimy?”

  “I can’t think what on earth you were doing all that time,” said Mr. Bond.

  “We thought we had to go through all the property baskets and things, sir.”

  “And then, sir, we’d got so dirty, sir—”

  “At ten-forty-five and during the quarter of an hour allowed for break between lessons you took your showers,” went on Dame Beatrice, “and then you went to your Chemistry class, which lasted until twelve noon. At what time did the piano-tuner arrive?” she inquired, turning to Mr. Bond.

  “He was early, I believe, but I’m not quite sure of the time. He moves in the orbit of Redmond,” said Mr. Bond.

  “Please, sir, we heard him. He was tinkling about ten minutes before the bell went for break,” said Wilbraham.

  “Yes, yes, I remember,” said Mr. Bond. “My secretary buzzed me at about half-past ten to say that he had arrived, so I told her to find out whether the piano had been moved to be out of the way of the plants people, who turned up at a quarter-past eleven.”

  “It all seems very satisfactory,” said Dame Beatrice. She leered at the boys, who received this tribute with polite but nervous grins.

  “Very well. You two can cut along,” said their headmaster. “You find the times satisfactory? How do you mean, exactly?” he went on, when the boys had shut the door behind them.

  “The times exonerate the piano-tuner and the men who came with the plants. The only place, it seems to me, where the body could have been left before it was hidden among the plants is under the stage. It could not have been put there while the boys were there, so we may assume that the piano-tuner did not bring it with him, and if he was still in the hall when the men arrived with the plants presumably he would have mentioned it if they had brought the body with them.”

  The headmaster accepted this example of logic gravely.

  “He is a very conscientious man but takes what I always think is an unnecessarily long time over his tuning,” he said. “The men had finished the plants and the arrangement of the flowers by one o’clock, and at a quarter-past one the tuner asked for Mr. Redmond, my senior music master, to try both pianos—we have one in the music room, of course—and say whether he was satisfied.”

  “Ah, now we come to it. After the piano-tuner had gone—”

  “Redmond, who had had his lunch, remained in the hall for the rest of the dinner-hour. I could hear him playing. He tried over the School Song and then played a good deal of Bach. I went in to him about five minutes before afternoon school began and reminded him of the time. He is a most talented fellow, but is apt to forget that he has school duties to perform. We came out of the hall together and I handed my keys to Marsh, the senior prefect, and ordered him to lock the hall doors and to return the keys immediately. They were back in my possession within three minutes.”

  “And the hall was not unlocked again until half-past six?”

  “No. As I think I told you, people arrived and were shown into the hall from that time onwards, and as soon as the hall was unlocked there were stewards on duty. I really cannot see—”

  “No,” said Dame Beatrice; but her black eyes were alight with interest. “No, I cannot see it, either, and yet, of course, it must have been so, must it not?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

  “If all these times are correct—and I am perfectly certain that they are—the body must have been brought in after the ceremony was over, yet I find that scarcely feasi
ble, you know.”

  “Well, it is all extremely odd and makes me feel very uneasy. I think,” said Mr. Bond, “that we must get the Town Hall people to send their men back with the plants and flowers. It was a strange—a remarkably strange—occurrence, and I confess I should welcome an explanation, so that the whole matter may be cleared up. I shall be thankful to return to routine.”

  “I am sorry to take up so much of your time,” said Dame Beatrice, “but, in a case of murder, if that’s what it is—”

  “It will be interesting to hear the result of the post-mortem. Yet, if your surmise is correct—I am nothing of a chemist, but I recognise the formula—an unfortunate relative of mine—but, well, the point at issue seems to me that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to prove wilful murder by such a means.”

  “I agree fully. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to prove wilful murder, although what other kind of murder there can be I confess I don’t know.”

  Mr. Bond rang up the Town Hall and was put through to the chairman of the Parks Committee, who happened to be a retired Civil Servant and was available at an hour when the rest of the committee members were out at work.

  “About the flowers for my Official Opening,” said Mr. Bond.

  “I hope nothing wrong?” said the chairman.

  “By no means. In fact, I should like a plan of the arrangement of plants for the school archives. It was, after all, a unique occasion and undoubtedly people were impressed with the decorations.”

  “Well, yes, they were quite good,” said the chairman. “But as to a plan—oh, I know! Of course! Garbour. He’s your man.”

  “Garbour? Afraid I don’t—”

  “It’s all right. You wouldn’t know him. I’ll send him along when he’s had his dinner. Two o’clock suit you? Good-bye.”

  “I can’t offer you a canteen lunch. It’s against regulations, I am sorry to say. But if you would care…?” said Mr. Bond. “It is a most respectable hostelry.”

  “It is very kind of you,” said Dame Beatrice. They returned to the school, after a lunch provided by the local public house, to find a red-faced, inarticulate young man in the entrance vestibule of the school.

  “Ah, you’ll be Mr. Garbour,” said the headmaster. “Come this way, please.”

  Mr. Garbour suddenly found his voice.

  “You’ll want to know how the plants was distributed,” he said. “Well, got any chalk?”

  The headmaster went into his stock-room and produced a cardboard box.

  “Oh, white!” said Mr. Garbour disparagingly. “It was more the colours, if you get me.”

  Mr. Bond returned to the stock cupboard and brought back seven cardboard boxes.

  “Hm!” said Mr. Garbour. “Inartistic, these scholastic chalks. Look at that for a green! Monkey-sickness, I calls him. Well, now.” He preceded them into the hall and proceeded to make a colourful pattern on the floor just in front of the stage. “That was how us done her,” he concluded, stepping back and admiring his handiwork. Mr. Bond glanced at Dame Beatrice. She picked a stick of chalk out of each box and made rapid flourishes in the middle of the hall.

  “Looking down on the arrangement from the centre front of the platform, it was more like this,” she said.

  The expert studied her work in silence for a full minute.

  “Yes,” he said at the end of that time. “Yes, I’m bound to say there’s possibilities, there, but that certainly weren’t the way us left it for ee. Weren’t ee satisfied, like, with our job?”

  “Perfectly satisfied. Oh, yes, delighted,” said Mr. Bond hastily. “I must find out who interfered with it, that’s all.”

  “Boys!” said Mr. Garbour feelingly. “Although, mind you,” he added, “put a coffin in the midst of that there, with them two miniature cedars kind of spreading over it, and them grape-hyacinths on top—see what I mean?—I don’t say but what you haven’t got an idea. Ar. An idea. Very mathematical and nice. I like a bit of symmetry, I do.” He extracted a large pin from the lapel of his coat, picked his teeth thoughtfully with it, put it back, and nodded judiciously. “Almost perfessional,” he added. “Will that be all, sir?”

  “Why the coffin?” demanded Mr. Bond. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Well, arst yourself, sir,” returned the expert. “This here arrangement”—he jerked his head at Dame Beatrice’s artistry—“cries aloud for a funeral, don’t it? It’s what I’d call very tasteful, like, for that, but for a school Official Opening, sir—no. Though I’d like to meet the lad as did it, all the same. That lad’s got talent, that lad ’as.”

  Laura had obtained permission to take the two older children out, and their departure from the house was timed to coincide with the beginning of the six-year-old’s afternoon nap.

  “Although what she’ll do when she wakes up and finds the other two gone, I tremble to think,” said Miss Temme. Laura ignored this remark and strode off to the riding stables with her charges trotting beside her.

  “No arguments,” she commanded, when they reached the gates of Cissie Gauberon’s establishment. “Any fuss from either of you, and I leave you flat and do my own detecting. You’ll ride what you’re given to ride. All right?”

  “You can pick and choose, Laura,” said Cissie gloomily, when Laura canvassed her opinion. “I’ve got a full house this afternoon.”

  “I want Shan,” said Dick. Ursula glanced at Laura.

  “I don’t. I want Barb,” she said, going up to the beautiful little Arab and giving it a piece of sugar. “I’m going to ride a horse, not a children’s pony!”

  “O.K., then,” said Laura. “I’ll have Mustang, as usual. We’re going over to the airport, Cissie. I suppose the gees won’t mind?”

  “Oh, no. Look here, there won’t be anything doing here this afternoon. I’ll come with you on Viatka. She’s quite fit again and spoiling for an outing. Mrs. Cofts is riding Jennet now.”

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  “I’ve no idea. I’m not sorry, though. She can say what she likes, but she hasn’t told me the truth yet about that over-reach!”

  “Can you really spare the time to come along?” asked Laura. She did not know whether she was glad or sorry that Cissie had suggested accompanying the party.

  “Oh, yes. It’s a nuisance Jenkinson’s taken himself off, but old Mrs. Mapsted can look after anybody who comes to hire a ride. I’ll pop up to the house to tell her.”

  This excursion proved unnecessary, for at that moment old Mrs. Mapsted appeared in the kitchen garden and walked towards the paddock.

  “Thought I heard voices,” she said as she came up to the others. “Oh, you children, is it? Behaving yourselves?”

  “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Mapsted,” said Ursula primly. For some reason which nobody in the village had discovered, old Mrs. Mapsted possessed an uncanny power over the detestable little Mays, her mere presence being sufficient to render them as harmless as the toads with which (unfairly to the toads) Laura was apt to compare them. “We were just going for a ride.”

  “You keep your worriting little heels out of the horses’ ribs, then. I suppose Laura is treating you, is she? You’ve had your morning ride.”

  “Yes. It’s—it’s very kind of her,” stammered Dick, who, against his will, had not succeeded in avoiding the old lady’s intimidating eye.

  “Kindness that will be chalked up to her and down to you, especially if you don’t behave yourselves,” said old Mrs. Mapsted tartly. “God can read and write, you know.”

  The whole party received with respectful silence this non-proven verdict on the educational attainments of the Deity. Then Cissie Gauberon said:

  “Keep an eye on things, Mrs. M., will you? Going to push over to the airport to mind the nags while Laura and the kids look at aeroplanes.”

  “Oh, yes, he’s a co-pilot, or some such, on a charter plane or a ferry service or something,” announced the old lady surprisingly. “Swiss watches or South African diamonds or some such r
ubbish. Tried to get Jack interested in smuggling. Stables to be used as a cover, you know. Saddle-flap receptacles. Sounds more like diamonds. Brought in from Amsterdam, I expect. Jack had a row with him. I was inside the piggeries and heard ’em.”

  “I heard them, too,” said Ursula.

  “Aha!” said the old lady. “Little pigs have big ears! All right, Cissie, my girl. And if that Mrs. Cofts turns up she’s to have—?”

  “Jennet.”

  “Jennet. Not that I know one of the brutes from another, but I suppose she does. Well, enjoy yourselves.” She dived a hand into the basket she was carrying and drew out a paper bag from which she extracted two enormous boiled sweets. She presented one to each child with the remark, “Gobstoppers, and I hope they live up to their name.” Then she walked away.

  “I suppose she wouldn’t come with us if I got the car out?” said Laura. “Do you think she was serious about that man and John?”

  “You never know, with her,” Cissie replied. “But she wouldn’t come. She never goes anywhere except once a year to London for the Chelsea Flower Show.”

  “Flower show? Is she fond of flowers?” demanded Laura, leaping to an exciting but unwarrantable conclusion.

  “I suppose she must be,” said Cissie indifferently, “although all she grows here are vegetables.”

  “Please, can’t we start?” asked Ursula.

  “The gees are all ready except for saddling,” said Cissie. “It is a blasted nuisance about Jenkinson! I can’t think why he’s done it. I haven’t set eyes on him for days. He won a bit on the pools last week, so I suppose he went on the bend with it and is sleeping off the effects. He’s a fearful old soak, you know. Come on, you kids! Clap those saddles on, and let’s get weaving.”

  CHAPTER 9

  A STALE SMELL OF RED HERRING

  Walking down this avenue …we come to the Fish Wharf, where, during the “herring harvest,” scenes of great excitement and clamour may be witnessed as the laden vessels come in and discharge their finny cargoes…Upwards of 2000 lasts of herrings have been landed here in one day, and when we consider that a last contains 13,200 fish, thus giving a total of 26,000,000 herrings caught in a single day, we may well be amazed, and wonder wherever they all go to. Perhaps it is not generally known that, according to local legend, a herring, like Balaam’s ass, once spoke…