The Saltmarsh Murders (11 page)

Sir William undertook to pay for the man's defence, and he took some trouble to broadcast his belief in Candy's innocence. Curiously enough, our own Constable Brown also refused to credit Candy with the murder. It was the inspector from Wyemouth who ordered the arrest after the adjourned inquest. Poor old Brown was quite upset about it.

“It's like this, Mr. Wells,” he said to me. “These town chaps is all right in their way, but it isn't like
knowing
a chap. Now, I've knowed Bob Candy since he were seven or eight years of age, and I
know
he never done this ‘ere murder. I tells the inspector so. ‘Proof,' he says, ‘proof! ‘I scratches my head, at that, Mr. Wells, because, things being how they are, it looks black again him. No doubt of that. So they arrests him. Well, I look at it this way. Somebody done it, didn't un?
And that somebody weren't Bob. So what we got to do is to find out who that somebody were before this ‘ere old trial of Bob's come along, and make an end of poor young chap.”

Right on the meat, of course. But there was the beastly motive. After all, who on earth, except Bob Candy, had any motive for killing the girl? I put this to old Brown. He took off his helmet and wiped the inside of it with his handkerchief.

“Don't you think, Mr. Wells,” he said, “that the father of the baby might have done it?”

“Yes, perhaps,” I said. “On the other hand, the baby was born about a fortnight before the murder, and the cat was well and truly out of the bag, so to speak. I mean, in the classic cases, the murder is to prevent the birth of the child, isn't it?”

“Is it?” said old Brown. “Anyway,” he added, stoutly, “I'm going to keep my ears and eyes open, Mr. Wells. There's been some very funny things happening, and poor old Bob can't be held responsible for all of them. He hasn't got the head on him, for one thing, and he hasn't got no accomplices, for another. What about the parson being put in that there old pound?”

Well, of course, as soon as you got on to the subject of poor Bob's brains, where were you? It was another point against him that there was that unfortunate affair of the escaped lunatic in the middle of his family tree. I mean, it seems as though this game of strangling young females is a proper lunatic's trick, and Bob Candy's ancestry told against him somewhat heavily.

I was returning from visiting rounds in the parish one
afternoon during the second week in August when I encountered Mrs. Bradley. She was walking along with her eyes fixed on the ground and did not see me until I said, “Good afternoon.”

“Ah, here you are,” she said. Quite brisk and businesslike. I gazed round for assistance but there was none available. “I want you,” she said, fixing me with the most frightfully basilisk eye, “to introduce me into the bosoms of certain families in this village. Dear little Edwy David Burt for example. Are you really friendly with him?”

Well, I was at the time, of course. Burt had upheld the cocoanut shy nobly during my enforced absences on August Bank Holiday, and I had indicated as much to him. A stout fellow, Burt.

“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 Toss-tick'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.