Speedy Death (7 page)

‘Mark of what nature?’ enquired Mrs Bradley.

‘According to the girl it might have been paint or tar or even a kind of varnish stain. She couldn’t say, and I didn’t press the point.’

‘Seems to me that Eleanor couldn’t shield the criminal better if she knew who he was,’ observed Mrs Bradley, as though to herself.

Carstairs seized upon her remark.

‘You think she knows something?’ he demanded.

‘I know she does. So does Dorothy Clark. So does Bertie Philipson. So do we all, in fact. The difficulty will be to get our knowledge from us.’

‘You seriously suggest that people in this house would deliberately shield a murderer?’ asked Carstairs, horrified and incredulous.

‘No, not deliberately, perhaps. Have you ever taught children, Mr Carstairs?’ she broke off, with apparent irrelevance.

‘No,’ answered Carstairs, looking a little surprised at the question, for it seemed to have no possible bearing on the matter in hand.

‘Well, I have,’ Mrs Bradley slowly nodded.
‘Children know quite a number of little facts, Mr Carstairs. More than almost any grown-up person would give them credit for.’

‘Indeed?’ said Carstairs, polite, but bored.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Mrs Bradley; ‘but probably you can have no idea of the skill that is needed to extract that knowledge from the children in any sort of coherent and comprehensible form.’

Carstairs began to see the drift of these remarks.

‘You mean,’ he said, ‘that these people may have real information to give, but they don’t—if I may so express it—they don’t know that they possess information of the kind that is required.’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Mrs Bradley. ‘You must question them, slowly and patiently, until you get what we educationists call a point of contact. Then, probably, you will be so overwhelmed with information, that your difficulty will be to know what on earth to start doing with it, and how on earth it all fits in.’

‘In the present state of the inquiry, I cannot even remotely imagine such a possibility,’ laughed Carstairs, ‘but I will certainly take your advice. But supposing these people object to being questioned? After all, I am not a police officer.’

‘They will love it,’ pronounced Mrs Bradley, with finality. ‘People love to tell all they know, especially when it is about themselves. That accounts for the popularity of the confessional. As for the criminal, he or she—or, of course, it—you have read your
Murders in the Rue Morgue
and Bram Stoker’s
The Squaw?
—must pretend to be as enthusiastic as the others, otherwise——’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Carstairs.

He looked at his watch.

‘It still wants an hour to lunch-time,’ he said. ‘Shall we begin?’

Mrs Bradley laughed, wrinkling up her yellow face into a series of lines and creases which gave her the reverse of a benevolent expression.

‘Must be very careful, of course,’ Carstairs went on. ‘Don’t want to put ideas into people’s heads.’

‘You are, as always, very right,’ observed Mrs Bradley, allowing her features to relax and her unprepossessing countenance to resume its normal expression of slightly cynical amusement. ‘Come along, then. The morning-room again, I think. Alastair Bing is there, I know, and I am fairly certain that the others are with him. I will begin, and then you can go on. The playful manner will become us best, I think.’

She herself assumed the expression of a playful alligator, and walked into the morning-room by way of the French windows. Carstairs followed her closely.

‘Now, children,’ she began, smiling mirthlessly round at everybody present including her own reflection in an oval mirror, ‘who would like to play a new game? Quite a parlour game. Nothing strenuous, or’—she glanced wickedly at Bertie Philipson, who blushed and protested—‘or, I say, unsuitable and enjoyable—like tennis! Oh, I know I was not among those present, but I heard your
fine rhetorical effort this morning, Mr Philipson, on the subject of observing the decencies’—and she wagged a yellow claw at him playfully. ‘No, this is a very, very suitable game for the occasion. Now, who would like to play?’

‘Not if it includes making idiotic noises,’ said Carstairs, in order to suggest to the others that he was not in league with Mrs Bradley, for he decided that it would never do to begin with a conspiratorial atmosphere.

‘Or kissing people,’ said Eleanor firmly.

‘Or hide-and-seek in the attics,’ said Dorothy, shuddering.

‘You are a mouldy lot, you know,’ said Garde, with his moody smile. ‘I’m on, Mrs Bradley. It’s not a man-hunt, I suppose?’

‘Well, in a sense, yes,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘And I want one helper. Come here, Mr Carstairs. I think 1 will have you. Go over there, all of you, a moment, while I tell him his part in the proceedings.’

She took Carstairs aside, and affected to whisper in his ear.

Carstairs, playing up to her, chuckled and nodded.

‘Ready, all of you?’ asked Mrs Bradley, after a few seconds of this by-play.

‘Fire away,’ said Garde, settling himself more comfortably and leaning against the back of Dorothy’s chair.

‘Before you begin, you know, Carstairs,’ said Alastair Bing, ‘you should let me look again at the bumps on their heads. I did look a day or two ago, but I’ve lost my notes.’

‘I won’t have my head looked at,’ said Dorothy firmly. ‘I think it’s horrid. You told me last time that I couldn’t tell the truth and had no reasoning power.’

‘Quite right, too, Father,’ said Garde, with approval. ‘Right on both counts. But can’t we take the bumps for granted this time, and let Mr Carstairs get on with his questions? Anything for a change of subject. We’ve all been indulging our taste for the morbidly sensational in here. Carry on, Mr Carstairs.’

‘Just as you like. Just as you like,’ said Alastair, nettled.

‘Well, I’d like to start with you, Bing, if you don’t mind.’

So saying, Carstairs glanced at Mrs Bradley, and then looked round at the others. ‘I’m afraid an absolutely necessary part of the game is that you all go outside a minute while Mrs Bradley and I arrange the room. Yes, you also, please, Bing. And come in when you are called. Better have the French windows shut, I think.’

Bertie closed and fastened them, while the others, with many groans and complaints, meandered out into the hall. ‘Chair here for me. One here for you. One here for the witness,’ said Carstairs, swiftly arranging them.

He then went across to the door and opened it.

‘Come in, Bing,’ he said.

‘Just a moment,’ interrupted Mrs Bradley. ‘What are you going to ask them? We haven’t settled on
any questions.’ She hissed the last sentence in a conspiratorial manner which was almost too much for Carstairs’ gravity.

‘The Lord will provide,’ said he, with his whimsical smile.

‘Come along, then, Mr Bing,’ cried Mrs Lestrange Bradley. ‘Sit on that chair, please. Mr Carstairs will ask questions and I will write down the answers.’

‘Now, are you two serious about this, or not?’ demanded Alastair, seating himself as directed. ‘I mean, you are going to talk about Mountjoy, I suppose?’

‘Yes,’ said Carstairs. ‘At least,’ he added, ‘Mrs Bradley is, but I am to start the ball rolling.’

‘Fire away,’ said Alastair resignedly. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘First,’ said Carstairs, eyeing his host very deliberately, ‘tell me why all the people in this house (I except the servants and myself) are so light-heartedly unaffected by what is, after all, an exceedingly tragic affair. They give up their tennis, and they think it indecent to be noisy, but all the same——’

‘I—I don’t follow you,’ stammered Alastair Bing, going rather pale. ‘How do you mean, Carstairs?’

Carstairs spoke with even greater seriousness.

‘The death of Mountjoy was sudden, and, in a sense, mysterious,’ he said. ‘But equally mysterious, I think, is the almost incredible effect it has had on nearly everybody here. You almost all seem, somehow, relieved rather than horrified that this
unfortunate woman should have met her death. And it is an attitude which requires explanation.’

Alastair Bing had stiffened angrily during Carstairs’ speech, and he now eyed his friend with a certain amount of coldness.

‘And so do your remarks require explanation, my dear Carstairs,’ he said. ‘What, exactly, are you attempting to insinuate?’

‘Come now, Bing,’ said Carstairs, as tactfully as he could. ‘You mustn’t take it like that. I say it is strange that nobody seems to mourn poor Mountjoy.’

‘Do you yourself?’ sneered Alastair.

Carstairs said quietly, ‘I mean to avenge her death. Aren’t you going to help me?’

‘If helping you includes answering a number of idiotic and impertinent questions, I most certainly am not!’ snapped Alastair. ‘I didn’t like Mountjoy, and I don’t mind who knows it. In fact, I think the knowledge is common property. Of course, his—I should say,
her
death came as a shock to me, a great shock. But we never got on together. That last little piffling dispute we had about the ancient earthwork on the old golf course was nothing, and I bear no malice, of course. But Mountjoy has said things to me—things about archaeology, you know—in a way which has made me long to strike him—her, I mean—to the ground. I have felt—I won’t deny it—I have felt passions rise within me which nothing but bloodletting would soothe. And I do not intend to mourn her. I am
not
sorry that she is dead, but the whole thing is a confounded
nuisance, especially if it does turn but to be—well, not an accident.’

He paused. The flush died from his face. He smiled in a half-shamed manner at Carstairs and Mrs Bradley.

‘Well, how do you like that for a confession?’ he said. ‘I feel better-tempered already. Poor Mountjoy,’ he added.

Carstairs stroked his chin and reflected. At last he said: ‘Thanks very much, Bing. Do you mind going out now, and sending in Dorothy Clark?’

‘Dorothy?’ Alastair began to bristle again. ‘Look here, Carstairs, I won’t have that child upset. She was in a bad motor smash before she came down here, and her nerves are in a terrible state. She really must not be harassed.’

Carstairs shrugged his shoulders. ‘She knows something about Mountjoy’s death,’ he said significantly.

‘What makes you say that?’ demanded Alastair fiercely.

Mrs Bradley interposed.

‘Let me talk to Dorothy. I won’t upset her nerves,’ she said in dulcet tones.

‘Well, if you think it necessary,’ Alastair began.

‘I do think so,’ interrupted Mrs Bradley.

‘Very well. You are a psycho-analyst and ought to understand what you are about,’ said Alastair grudgingly. ‘Do you want her at once?’

‘Yes, please,’ Carstairs and Mrs Bradley answered,
both speaking at the same moment. ‘Oh, half a minute,’ Carstairs went on immediately. ‘Bing, what do you know about Mountjoy’s people?’

Alastair frowned thoughtfully.

‘Carstairs,’ he said, ‘what is at the bottom of all this? What is the conclusion you have come to about Mountjoy’s death? Do you still think it was murder?’

‘I don’t know what to say, Bing,’ Carstairs answered truthfully. ‘I am certain it was no accident which caused her death. That is all. I wondered whether we could find anything in her past life which might throw light on the mystery.’

‘What evidence have you in support of your conclusions, apart from what we discussed yesterday morning?’ asked Alastair.

‘Plenty of evidence,’ answered Carstairs. ‘Enough, at any rate, to satisfy myself that matters cannot be left as they are.’

‘Then,’ said Alastair Bing determinedly, ‘the best thing you can do is to lay your suspicions before the police. It is your duty as a citizen to invoke the aid of the law if you think that suspicious circumstances surround the death of my guest.’

‘I am not at all anxious to call in the police,’ Carstairs replied mildly. ‘And I’ll tell you why.’

He held up a protesting hand to stay the flood of words which the choleric Bing seemed about to pour upon his ears, and continued gravely:

‘I believe that Mountjoy was murdered. I believe
someone in this house killed her. And, what is more, I believe I know now who the murderer is!’

While Alastair Bing, bereft of speech for once, gazed helplessly at him, Mrs Lestrange Bradley slipped quietly from the room.

‘INFORM THE POLICE,
of course, if you think it well to do so,’ Carstairs went on. ‘I must say that to shift the responsibility of my knowledge on to the shoulders best trained to bear it would relieve me not a little. But be warned by me, and do not call in the police hastily.’

‘What do you know?’ cried Alastair Bing hoarsely. Carstairs shook his head.

‘I prefer not to say. You know as much about this affair as I do, and all that I have deduced, you also may deduce, if you care to do so.’

‘Oh, you mean that you don’t really know anything,’ observed Alastair Bing, looking relieved.

‘Bing,’ said Carstairs, ‘I don’t know anything more about this case than you knew about the Roman villa where you found that piece of broken tessellated pavement last summer. Do you remember? And yet, I recollect that you reconstructed that villa very
creditably, and wrote a learned and lengthy treatise on the subject, with, I repeat, no more data than those few tiles you found. Am I right?’