The Longer Bodies (32 page)

‘Might go and look for that. Obliging of him to give us a clue for nothing,' said Bloxham, ‘although it's only corroborative evidence now.'

‘“We had brought one of the thick gymnasium ropes with us,”' continued Mrs Bradley, ‘“and when we had propped the body in the bathchair as well as we were able—for he had gone rather stiff—we passed the rope as many times round him as it would go. We sawed it in two later with my sister's pocketknife and hid the pieces. Two days later I threw them into the rainwater butt outside the woodshed door. They have been found since, of course. The knife my sister also threw away, where I do not know, but we both judged it safer to be rid of it.”'

‘That's funny,' said Bloxham thoughtfully.

‘Is it?' asked Mrs Bradley, but not as though the remark had held any significance for her.

‘Go on, please,' said Bloxham, after a pause.

‘“We wheeled the bathchair to the lake, and laid the body on the ground. My sister said, ‘Will he float?' I did not know. I had an idea that dead bodies did float. I had an unpleasant recollection of the corpse of a dog I had seen in a canal . . .

‘“She said, ‘How shall we get him out into the middle?'

‘“By the time she had worked out the answer and we had got the two clotheslines from their hooks in the woodshed, the door of which we forced open with her pocketknife—that was before she threw it away, of course—”'

‘Damn that rascal Herring!' said Bloxham explosively. ‘He didn't say a word to me about the door having been forced!'

‘It doesn't make much difference,' Mrs Bradley answered soothingly, ‘because the description which follows here of how they tied the wrists of the corpse together and strung it up on the clotheslines which the flight of the javelin had carried across the lake from one willow tree to the other, and then of how they cut the line, when the corpse stopped at the knot in the middle—all this is so much like the idea which I sketched out for you some weeks ago that I can go on, if you like, to another part of the manuscript.'

‘I want to hear about the little mermaid,' said Bloxham.

Mrs Bradley obligingly turned over two pages of writing and ran her eye down a third.

‘Here we are,' she said.

‘“The body sank to the bottom, to our great joy. It was getting light enough to see things by this time. My sister said, ‘Can you get into your hut without waking the other occupant? Because, if so, you had better do so. I shall go back to the sunk garden, and pretend I'm out for a very early morning stroll if anyone sees me. Good-bye. See you at breakfast.'”'

‘I'd never have thought it of Celia Brown-Jenkins,' said Bloxham, laughing in spite of himself. ‘Still, I know she has plenty of nerve.'

‘Oh, plenty,' Mrs Bradley agreed enthusiastically.

‘Well, what about the little mermaid?' said the inspector. He knocked out and refilled his pipe.

‘Oh, that?' Mrs Bradley returned to the manuscript.

‘“It was further suggested by my sister that she should take the bathchair back to the shed, go next to the house to reconnoitre, and, if necessary, draw the fire of whoever discovered her. As she argued, the murdered man might not be missed until much later in the morning, and it was less suspicious in any case for her to be found wandering about at an unseemly hour than that I should be discovered doing so. ‘After all,' said she in her logical way, ‘you are the murderer. I'm not.'

‘“Thus we parted. I was to count a thousand slowly, and if by that time nothing had happened I was to stroll gently, and as though in rapt contemplation of the beauties of the morning, to my hut, and, if possible, to enter it undetected. If Yeomond awoke, however—”'

‘Hah! Yeomond!' said Bloxham interestedly.

‘“—I was to have been for a walk at dawn,”' Mrs Bradley continued, without noticing the interruption. ‘“My sister said, ‘After all, you murdered the man at about ten o'clock last night. Nobody ought to connect that with anything that happens at nearly five o'clock in the morning. Put a bold face on it and think about Caesar Borgia.'

‘“I had just begun counting the ninth hundred when I saw her returning. In her arms she was holding one of the statues from the sunk garden. I could not decide which one it was until she came much nearer.

‘“‘You know,' she said, ‘we're very careless. We left that tarpaulin rolled back, and there are some very obvious bloodstains. Luckily the new cement had set quite hard and the body seems to have left no other impression. I thought I'd drown this, though. It is a terrible thing. Look at it!'

‘“It was the statue of the little mermaid. It had never appealed to me very much, but my sister seemed to regard it with such extreme aversion that to oblige her I helped her to put it in the middle of the lake just over the place where we had dumped the body. My sister then stripped off her clothes, leapt in, and fastened statue and corpse together. She dried herself on one of the towels that are kept in a laundry basket in the bathing-shed and resumed her garments. She then returned to the sunk garden and I to my hut. Very fortunately Yeomond is a sound sleeper. I removed my clothes and put on my pyjamas. Then I looked over every inch of my garments for bloodstains, or other evidence of the night's work. There were none. I began to put on my trousers again with a good deal of unostentatious noise. It is not easy to make a good deal of unostentatious noise merely by getting into one's trousers, so I deliberately overbalanced and cannoned heavily against Yeomond's bed. This had the desired effect of waking him, and his immediate and indelible impression was of his roommate just getting up in the morning. I learned afterwards that my sister's ruse was also entirely successful. Nobody seemed to question a word she said.”'

‘I say, they cut it rather fine,' said Bloxham, as Mrs Bradley put down the papers. ‘Why, I should think that just about the time they first left the gymnasium Amaris Cowes must have entered the grounds. They were lucky she didn't spot them, weren't they? Is that the end? I suppose he's signed it?'

‘He confesses to the second murder, too,' said Mrs Bradley. Bloxham, impatient of listening, held out his hand for the papers.

‘Does he, by Jove!' he exclaimed.

Mrs Bradley relinquished her hold on the manuscript, and smiled like an alligator that has enjoyed a satisfying meal.

‘Perhaps you had better read the next part for yourself,' she said. ‘He becomes rather scathing on the subject of the police. I fancy that he did not admire your methods.'

Bloxham laughed.

‘Can't say I was excited by 'em myself,' he said. ‘But we seem to have got the goods now.'

He read on, with his mouth puckered into a rueful smile and his brows knit.

‘Oh, here's the second murder,' he said. ‘Seems to have had a pretty hefty motive this time!'

‘Yes,' said Mrs Bradley. ‘The whole thing was premeditated. He knew that Anthony had accompanied Kost to the lecture, and he knew enough of Kost's habits to be pretty certain that Anthony would come home alone.'

‘Interesting about the Roman swords,' said Bloxham. ‘It seems that Anthony was the person who exchanged them and took the statue's sword to Colonel Digot's place in return for borrowing the real Roman
gladius
—'

‘No. The model of a Roman
gladius,
' Mrs Bradley interpolated. ‘Made of best steel, that dreadful weapon, and had edges like those of razors.'

Bloxham read on with growing interest. ‘By Jove!' he exclaimed. ‘Do listen to this!'

Mrs Bradley nodded, although she almost knew the entire confession by heart.

‘“From nine o'clock onwards I waited with growing impatience for the return of Anthony,' read the inspector. ‘“I had excused myself from table, for dinner that evening was unendurably protracted, and I stood on the terrace in the darkness waiting for the sound of his steps. He had to die. He had spoken his own doom three days before by accusing me of the murder of Jacob Hobson and citing my sister as my accomplice. He could not have known the truth of what he said. He had invented it. It was probably part of his ridiculous policy in attempting to scare us away from Longer. One with the bloodstained javelin and that rubbish. For all I knew, he was going to call the others in the house and accuse them and their sisters of participation in the crime also. My alarm came from the fact that in our own case the accusation happened to be true! Besides, I feared that sinister little old woman at the Digots. Long before she wrote to me I knew she knew. I would have killed her had I dared. She has been playing cat and mouse with me for weeks! I have seen it in those terrible black eyes—the eyes of a soulless bird of prey. I have seen it in her dreadful, mocking smile. I believe she is the devil.”'

‘Your charms don't seem to have appealed to the champion cyclist,' said Bloxham, laughing.

‘Oh, very few young men really appreciate me,' said Mrs Bradley, grinning. ‘Their sisters usually prove to be far better judges of character than they are. Do go on. The whole literary style of the passage gains so much from your masculine interpretation of its beauties.'

Bloxham looked at her suspiciously, but Mrs Bradley's face was grave. He snorted, and continued:

‘“It was an awful mistake only to score the exact two hundred at the fair.”'

‘What was that?' he demanded, looking up.

‘Oh, darts,' said Mrs Bradley, waving her unsavoury-looking hands. ‘Such a neat murder. Such a neat score. Just enough done to obtain the desired result in both cases. What the police would call'—she rolled her birdlike black eyes as though searching for the words—'er—corroborative evidence. But
do
go on. I am enjoying this so much!'

Bloxham cleared his throat.

‘“At last I heard him coming. I went out to the gate of the sunk garden to meet him. It was Anthony all right. And alone.

‘“‘Hi, you!' I said, affecting to be overcome by wine.

‘“He stopped and shone his torch into my face.

‘“‘Oh, it's you, Crippen, old duck,' he said, giving me a slight push. I staggered as a drunken man might do, and clutched at him as though to save myself from falling.

‘“‘Dear old fella,' I said, clinging affectionately to his arm. ‘Dear old fella.' And, still clinging to him, I led him towards the statue of the gladiator.

‘“‘Betcha can't push that chap and make him hold your arm, dear old fella,' I said, with a realistic hiccup.

‘“‘You're nicely canned, boy,' Anthony said, ‘And
because
you're nicely canned I'll show you something really interesting because you won't remember it in the morning.'

‘“It was then that he reached up and unhitched the gladiator's sword.

‘“‘Don't try and shave with it,' he said, and he put in into my hands. It was heavy and keen. I stuck it into the heap of gravel the builders had left and held on to him more firmly. He himself had chosen the weapon for his death. Good. I would use it. I said to him:

‘“‘Betcher can't pot his helmet with a stone from the other side of this heap of gravel.' I lurched against him as I spoke.

‘“We both shone our torches on to the gravel and picked out two smooth large pebbles of good weight.

‘“‘What do you bet, you mutt?' said Anthony. He was always hard up.

‘“‘Five to one in fivers,' I said. He insisted on writing it down and having me sign it.

‘“‘Now, not a row,' he said. ‘You first.' I raised my stone as a man gets the weight into position before he puts it from him. Then I lowered it.

‘“‘It's understood no chucking,' I said, with another drunken hiccup. ‘Gentlemen don't throw. They put. Put and take.'

‘“‘Yes, not half,' said Anthony. ‘You put and I'll take—twenty-five pounds, boy! Go on.'

‘“‘I put the stone in my best manner, but of course in the darkness I missed my footing and stumbled in the middle of my movement. The shot went wide. Anthony used his torch freely to find out the limitations of our imaginary putting circle, and then took up his position.

‘“I took up mine. The
gladius
was now in my grasp. I had the torch in my other hand.

‘“There is a point in the action required for putting the shot when the athlete turns completely round, so that his feet are pointing in the opposite direction from that in which they started. It was this turn, and the moment of releasing the shot, that I was waiting for.

‘“At the first sound of movement, I switched on my torch. I must make no mistake . . . Have you ever seen a man put the shot? Anthony hurled his body on to the point of the keen-bladed
gladius
as I held it true. Nothing could save him. He did not even cry out. The stone flew wide. He would have lost the wager, anyway. I lost my own balance with the force of the impact, and for a minute or two we both lay still there—he the dead and I the living man.”'

Bloxham looked up, puzzled.

‘But this puts the murder of Anthony too early,' he said. ‘He wasn't killed until eleven forty-three.'

Mrs Bradley cackled.

‘You remind me of the staff officer during the war who said the position of the front-line trenches was wrong because it did not agree with his map,' she observed.

Bloxham grinned.

‘I suppose I must read on to find the answer,' he said, with his usual admirable good humour. He scanned the page, and then turned over.'

‘Ah, he goes straight on to make the point clear,' he said, and continued to read aloud.

‘“My next problem was to hide the body. The courtesy of the landscape gardener's men in having dumped the gravel there a day or two before made the point easy of solution. There was even a spade to hand. Anthony, of course, had fallen across the heap, as I had planned he should. I made a shallow grave beside him very hastily, for time was precious, and to prove an alibi important. Then I placed my foot on his body, and after a tug or two drew out the sword and replaced it on the arm of the statue when I had cleaned it by wiping it on Anthony's clothing. Some blood probably flowed from the death-wound, but it must have soaked into the heap and been covered up by the fresh, unstained gravel which I shovelled in on top of the grave.