The Longer Bodies (31 page)

‘Thought he wasn't too satisfied with his job,' said Bloxham sagely. ‘Wonder he didn't do in the old girl herself while he was about it.'

‘“I set myself to listen,”' continued Mrs Bradley. ‘“The voice itself, however, was so irritating, and the sentiments to which it gave expression were so extremely coarse, that an impulse of annoyance moved me to discover my proximity to the debased creature below, and to invite him to remove himself from my vicinity. To this end I opened the long window and stepped out on to the terrace.

‘“With the laudable determination of making myself as perfect as I could in the ridiculous labours to which I had committed myself during my stay at Longer, I had been working out, with the aid of diagrams and mathematical premises, the angle of flight taken by the shot when it is correctly put. The shot itself I was still insensibly grasping in my hand when I stepped out through the window on to the stone terrace.

‘“The voice went on with its indescribably objectionable monologue. It reiterated its unlettered phrases, and continued to perpetrate grammatical error and pot-house idiom until the very night itself was polluted. The blood of a thousand members of our beloved society boiled in me. Without a word —without a sound—I leaned over the broad stone coping and put the shot, with a niceness of accuracy and a deliberation of aim for which no amount of skill or practice can account, on to the head of the disturber of my peace. I heard the body fall. Then I went inside the house again. Godlike Caesar could have done no more.”'

‘Queer he doesn't mention Caddick,' said the inspector. ‘Wants to shield her, I suppose. Is the part played by the accomplice mentioned later?'

‘Oh, yes. The accomplice is given her due share of praise and blame,' said Mrs Bradley. ‘He goes on next to describe how apprehensive he began to feel when the first thrills of self-congratulation and artistic pleasure had worn off.'

‘Oh, well, it seems rather a lengthy effort,' said Bloxham. ‘If that's all it says, perhaps we could leave that piece out and get on to the “corpse in the mere” bit. I'm keen to know whether you were right there.'

Mrs Bradley turned over a page, and went on:

‘“I realized that before I slept that night”—'

‘In old Mrs Puddequet's dressing room,' chuckled Bloxham appreciatively.

‘— “I must recover that shot from the sunk garden and hide the body if I could. Torch in hand, I crept down the stone steps to the unfinished goldfish pond. Judge of my joyful surprise when I discovered that a careless workman, having tested whether the newly cemented bottom of the pond had set hard, had left the heavy tarpaulin thrown back, and my victim's body had so fallen that he was stretched along the bottom of the pond! I drew the tarpaulin over him with tenderness, retrieved the shot, and went to my quarters.”'

‘His quarters!' said Bloxham, with another chuckle. ‘That's rather good. Well, what happened next?'

‘Next,' replied Mrs Bradley, scanning the closely written sheets, ‘he appears to have become unduly apprehensive. He describes how the unpleasing spectacle of the murdered man kept rising before him in the darkness, and of how he could not sleep for remembering what he had done. He reiterates, however, that he was glad to know that he had obeyed a strong, primitive impulse—'

‘Pah!' said Bloxham, in disgust.

‘Quite,' Mrs Bradley mildly agreed. ‘Well, just before one o'clock in the morning—'

‘Hah!' exclaimed Bloxham, with artless satisfaction. ‘It was just about midnight that Caddick unlocked the dressing-room door.'

‘—he was unable to resist a craving to visit the scene of his crime and assure himself that the body had not been discovered.'

‘They're all the same,' said Bloxham, with a sigh. ‘Can't leave well alone! That's how we catch 'em nine times out of ten.'

‘Just as he reached the sunk garden, however,' Mrs Bradley went on, ‘he heard the sound of wheels on the cinder track outside. Keeping under cover, he investigated. Shall I go on in his own words now?'

‘If you think it necessary,' said Bloxham, ‘but to me this paraphrase is all-sufficing. You're not leaving out anything of importance, I take it?'

‘Perhaps I'd better let you have the unexpurgated text,' remarked Mrs Bradley, glancing down the page. ‘He goes on to say:

‘“Astonished and extremely ill at ease, I hid behind the shadow of the gate—which, to my great surprise, was unlocked—and waited to discover what was going on. The moon came out for a moment and immediately disappeared again behind a cloud, but in that instant I had seen that the person wheeling the bathchair was Anthony. He left it outside when he reached the gate of the sunk garden, and entered, almost treading on my shoe. My heart beat till I thought he must have heard it, but unseeing and unhearing he passed on, and slipped behind the statue of the Roman gladiator. I dropped on to my hands and knees, and quick as thought slipped out of the gate lest I should be discovered for the murderer I was!

‘“Scarcely had I risen to my feet on the safe side of the wall when a great thought struck me—two great thoughts, indeed, in one! I would steal the bathchair and later return for the corpse and carry it away from the actual scene of the crime; and, when the crime was discovered and I stood in danger of detection, I would testify to having witnessed Anthony visiting the scene of the murder with the suspicious accessory of the bathchair. I could quote time and place; I could supply corroborative detail . . .

‘“I am a good runner. I seized the bathchair by its handle, but before I could get into my stride I distinctly heard a sharp crack as of a stone striking one of the windows of the house. Instinctively I let go of the bathchair and sank crouched against the wall. Suddenly one of the bedroom windows was flung up and Priscilla Yeomond's voice cried out, ‘Who's there?'

‘“The instantaneous thought that Anthony would fly by way of the open door of the sunk garden, followed immediately by the realization that he might discover me, braced me for flight. I seized the handle of the bathchair again and sprinted strongly round the track. At that unlucky instant out came the moon and discovered me to all the world.”'

‘Hum! I suppose Clive Brown-Jenkins was so much interested in watching the antics of Anthony that he missed seeing Kost's performance in and out of the gate of the sunk garden,' said Bloxham. ‘That lad must be pretty slippy, though, because Brown-Jenkins wasn't far inside the gate when he heard that bathchair go by.'

‘You're so determined to delude yourself,' said Mrs Bradley sweetly. ‘Do you really think this reads like Kost's confession?'

‘Like—
Kost's
—confession?' Bloxham repeated slowly. ‘Oh!' His facial expression very comically changed. ‘So—so that's it, is it? . . . Or are you pulling my leg? He “saw” Anthony throw the stone! He “heard” the bathchair go by!'

Stunned, he drew out his official notebook and reread the notes on his interviews with Clive Brown-Jenkins.

‘SHALL I CONTINUE?'
enquired Mrs Bradley, as Bloxham closed the notebook and slipped it back into his pocket.

Bloxham hesitated.

‘I've got his home address, of course,' he said at last. ‘We can get him any minute. Does he say anything about putting the body in the mere?'

Mrs Bradley flicked over the pages, glancing down each one with her keen black eyes.

‘Yes. He describes it fairly fully,' she said. ‘The method was pretty much as I told you.'

‘Does he give the name of his accomplice? For, if Kost is not the murderer, I suppose Caddick was not his assistant?'

Mrs Bradley turned back to the paragraph at which she had discontinued her reading aloud, and said briefly:

‘I'd like to read it to you.'

The inspector nodded and lay back in his chair.

‘“At last I reached that gate in the sports ground through which one passes in order to gain admission to the gymnasium,”' Mrs Bradley began. ‘“The gates into the ground are always left unlocked because they allow of short cuts from the huts to the house. I made up my mind, as I flew round the track, to leave the bathchair in the shadow of the gymnasium wall so that the moon should not discover it to my pursuers. Pursuers, however, there were none. I cast myself down near the stationary chair and listened. I felt like an animal that knows not which way to break from the hunters. Gone were my feelings of boastful self-congratulation. I would have given years of my life to have had that drunken villager, whose name I did not even know, alive, and offensively verbose, and howling beneath my window. The fact that his corpse should be remaining there beneath the Puddequet tarpaulin to embarrass my waking hours and terrify me in dreams gave me the most terrible nervous qualms imaginable. My immediate necessity, I felt, was to get the body away from the spot where I had—where it was lying. But for hours, or so it seemed to me, I dared not contemplate the thought of going back for it. Besides, the difficulty which confronted me was that I could not think where to
put
the body . . . There were some long lockers for apparatus in the gymnasium, I remembered . . .

‘“Rising cautiously to my hands and knees, I crept round the building until I came to the door. I rose to my feet and tried the handle. The door opened.

‘“It was pitch dark inside. I drew out my torch —we all carried them to assist us in finding our way back from the house to our huts after dinner—”'

‘So it couldn't have been Kost,' agreed the inspector. ‘He didn't have dinner up at the house, did he?'

‘No,' Mrs Bradley replied. ‘His supper was served up to him on a tray, which was carried across to his hut by two maids taking it turn about. The maids were escorted by Joseph Herring, who bore a large stable lantern to light them upon their errand of mercy.'

Bloxham sat up and looked at her in some astonishment.

‘You've gone into the thing in style,' he said, laughing.

‘Oh, yes. I am very well informed upon all matters which turned out later to have no possible bearing upon the case,' said Mrs Bradley with her ghoul's laugh. ‘However—' She returned to the manuscript.

‘“—and I switched it on. I explored every recess to make certain that the place was untenanted, and at last, satisfied, I returned to where I had left the bathchair; but it seemed to me that it would be easier to reconnoitre without it, so I left it where it was and ran noiselessly through the gate of the sports ground and over the grass. As I approached the wall of the sunk garden I slackened speed. The pit of my stomach felt cold. My throat was dry. My knees knocked together. Moistening my lips and ready to die with apprehension, I approached the gate. It was still unlocked. My nerve failed me. I turned and fled back to the gymnasium as though devils pursued me. I had seen the corpse once. I knew I should be sick if I saw it again.

‘“I reentered the gymnasium, dragged out the jumping-mats, and lay down on them. What I should do when morning came I did not know. I did not want to think about that. I hoped I should die during the hours of darkness. I did not die, and the harsh fibre of the mats worked through my suit and pricked my skin. I slid off them and lay down on the boarded floor. There was a shocking draught.

‘“Suddenly the hair rose on the back of my head. Someone was fumbling at the gymnasium door, which was still unlocked. The door opened and a woman came in, but hesitatingly because it was so dark, I suppose. I took heart, thinking it was probably one of the maids keeping an appointment with her young man. If I kept quiet neither of them would ever know I was there. I lay still in the darkness, trying not to breathe. To my amazement the woman shut the door behind her, grunted, and apparently, from the sounds, sat down on the floor with her back against the ribstalls. I heard a slight rustling sound now and again as she shifted her position for the sake of comfort, and perhaps five minutes went by. Then I heard another grunt, a more pronounced rustling, and the flame of a match spurted up in the blackness. It lit up the woman's face . . . It was my sister.”'

‘His sister?' exclaimed Bloxham.

‘And his accomplice, apparently,' said Mrs Bradley. ‘He goes on to say:

‘“I knew my sister was a plucky girl. I had had ample proof of it—”'

‘Yes, when she tackled him in Priscilla Yeomond's bedroom,' said Bloxham. ‘He was very much impressed then by her pluck, I remember.'

‘“—and I determined to trust her with my frightful secret and see what she could suggest. Needless to say, I was amazed to see her—”'

‘I bet he was. I wonder what she came to the gymnasium for?' chuckled Bloxham.

‘“—and I called her by her name and said my own, distinctly, but very quietly. Then, when she had overcome her first sense of fright at being suddenly addressed by name out of the darkness, I crept near to her, and told her everything, including my abominable cowardice in leaving the body where it was. She laughed, and said that we must certainly recover it, and without delay, for in little more than an hour it would be daylight.

‘“We wheeled the bathchair round the cinder track once more and left it beside the gate of the sunk garden. Then she and I went in and knelt beside the unfinished goldfish pond and rolled back the heavy tarpaulin. I could feel the hard shape of the murdered man beneath my hands. My sleeve caught on a button of his coat, and, in attempting, with a jerk of terror, to get free, I moved him and fell forward on his stiff, cold body. My face touched his . . .

‘“It was so beastly dark. We shuddered, fumbling, but at last we raised him up and carried him between us to the waiting chair. My sister took his head. She said, ‘I'm wearing the most frightful waterproof. Nobody has seen me in it. If the head bleeds against it I can chuck it away, and no one need ever connect it with me.' We did throw it away later. It is in the third pollard willow on the house side of the mere, pushed well down into the hollow trunk. At the time of writing no one has discovered it. We are not sure whether it is marked with blood.”'