When Last I Died (19 page)

Mrs. Bradley put the snapshot away and then glanced at her watch.

"I'm staying the night here," she said. "Are you expecting visitors to-morrow afternoon?"

"Ah. A lady and gentleman named Lee-Strange wants to look over the house," replied the caretaker, "so you're bound to clear out before then; Miss Foxley's orders."

"I shall be out by twelve noon," said Mrs. Bradley. The old man pattered away, and the inspector wished her good-bye.

"You know," said Mrs. Bradley, detaining him out of earshot of the sergeant, "I think you ought to finish that business in the cellar, or you may be too late to find what we think may be there."

The inspector looked sharply at her.

"It wouldn't do not to find them if they're there, ma'am," he agreed.

"Leave the sergeant to keep an eye on me, so that you're sure there will be no monkey-business," Mrs. Bradley tactfully observed, "and get back as soon as you can with something to mop up that water and a few more men to dig."

The inspector was back in less than an hour. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bradley and the sergeant had tea just outside the summer-house and discussed old-fashioned flowers, women's fashions (of which the sergeant proved to have far-reaching and extraordinary knowledge), and the breeding of pedigree Airedales.

The inspector brought back with him a posse of six men, about a hundredweight of sacking, two more crowbars, a waterproof sheet, some spades, rubber gloves, a coil of rope, three dark lanterns, and a doctor.

He left two men on guard over Mrs. Bradley, who sat with her escorts in the drawing-room, and regaled them with stories of
poltergeist
activity both real and faked, asked the doctor to remain in the kitchen (upon whose table he proposed to lay the results of his researches in the cellar), and took the rest of his party and their accoutrements with him into the crypt.

They emerged an hour and a quarter later. The inspector himself summoned Mrs. Bradley. He had a triumphant and congratulatory expression, but swallowed from time to time, as though it would have done him good to be sick.

"We've found 'em all right, ma'am," he said. "As you're a doctor, and put us on the track, as you might say, perhaps you'd like to be with Dr. Ellis, who is going to give them the once-over, what there is of 'em. Seems to be two boys, according to him, though I couldn't stick it long enough, myself, to be sure of anything. Buried before death, he reckons."

The gruesome and pitiful task concluded, Mrs. Bradley again found the inspector at her elbow. Half apologetically he laid his hand upon her arm.

"And, although there's, maybe, another explanation, ma'am," he said, "it is my duty to warn you that anything you say will be taken down, and may be used in evidence."

Ah! when will this long weary day have end, And lend me leave to come unto my love? How slowly do the hours their numbers spend; How slowly does sad Time his feathers move!

S
PENSER
.

MURIEL was hysterical in her denials. She knew nothing about
poltergeist
phenomena, she said, and nothing about the well in the courtyard. Her husband had earned an honest living, she declared; it was not his fault, poor man, that he had been duped and victimised by that wicked Cousin Bella.

Oh, yes, the photograph was a very clear one. She would have said it was Bella anywhere. No, she could think of no reason why Bella should pass herself as Tessa, unless it was because she had had such a bad scare over the trial for Tom's murder that she thought she ought to take advantage.

Take advantage of what, the police enquired. Why, of the fact of the death; the suicide, Muriel vaguely explained. They pressed the point, and this frightened her, as Mrs. Bradley could have told them it was bound to do. Muriel crawled back into her shell, and the utmost they could then achieve was an alarmed squeaking from her that she did not know a thing more, not a thing.

"The most valuable witness simply thrown away, Mother," said Ferdinand, after Mrs. Bradley's release and the inspector's apologies. "Couldn't
you
do something with the woman? They'll never prove their case without her. She must know all about it, really. She simply wants handling, and the witness-box won't be the best place to do it. She's full of venom against Bella Foxley, and these flat-footed idiots have gone and stamped it all out of her. She's out to save her own skin now; nothing more."

"I know," replied Mrs. Bradley.

"After all," pursued Ferdinand, "they can't continue to hold Bella merely for impersonating her sister. They will have to prove she killed her, and that won't be any easy matter. The evidence at the inquest on Tessa Foxley was pretty straightforward. Not a doubt in anyone's mind but that it was accidental death, except for that idiot boy, and no one is going to take any notice of him after all this time, even supposing he remembers a thing about it, which he probably doesn't. And it's tricky work, anyway, having the woman up for murder again. There's certain to be a bat-eyed, pudden-brained section of the community who'll paint the newspapers red swearing poor Bella is being victimised. You see if there isn't. The police want a cast-iron case, and they haven't any such thing, unless and until Mrs. Turney comes across with what she knows."

"The trouble is," said Mrs. Bradley mildly, "that the police have succeeded in convincing Muriel that once she owns up to having known about the cellar she might as well adjust the hangman's noose about her own neck. It is most unfortunate, but there it is."

"Well, something will have to be done," her son observed. His mother grimaced, but promised nothing. She, like Sherlock Holmes, had her methods, but they required, she felt, careful application.

She left Muriel alone for a fortnight, and concentrated all her energies upon finding out all she could about the history of the haunted house. The prosecution would have to establish that Bella could have known of the cellar. The tale of the hauntings, and the chronology of the buildings, she found in the County History. She perused the account twice, and then copied it out.

There were legends and ill-authenticated stories of the coach, a headless driver, a headless Cavalier, a hanging figure supposed to date from the time of the French Revolution, and, in short, all the usual nonsense. Of true
poltergeist
phenomena there was no mention in the County History nor in any other printed account of the house. That, however, scarcely mattered. Such phenomena rarely persisted long.
^*

^*
The longest recorded case of
poltergeist
activity seems to have lasted about twelve years. This was at Willington Mill, Northumberland. One of the shortest was the famous haunting of the family of Wesley, which lasted for two months.

The history of the house itself as a building next engaged her attention. The County History informed her that it had originally been built on the site of a former monastery, which had been suppressed by Henry the Eighth and reconstituted under Mary. The original dwelling-house had been built in 1541, after nearly all the monastic buildings had been destroyed, but upon the accession of Mary Tudor, the monks were brought back, the Abbey Church was returned to the community instead of being used as a Parish Church, and part of the 'new' house was used by the Abbot as his lodging.

In the next reign, however, the monks were again dispossessed. The house was enlarged by the addition of another wing, and the Church was neglected. The cloister garth became a bowling green, and it was said that the earliest hauntings of the house derived from this period in its history.

During the eighteenth century the house was purchased by members of the Hell-Fire Club, and the hauntings became more serious. One of the members, whilst engaged in his childish anti-godliness, was killed, and, later, the house was burnt down and the last ruins of the church destroyed.

In 1851 the present house had been erected on the site of the ruined building, except for the north rooms which helped to enclose the courtyard. These had been added about thirty years later. The names of previous tenants, with the varying degrees of ill-luck which had attended them, members of their families or any of their servants or friends resident in the house, were appended to the rest of the historical account, sometimes with considerable detail of the hauntings, sometimes baldly.

Of the well in the courtyard there was specific mention, and it was clear that Bella Foxley—or Cousin Tom, for that matter— could have deduced the opening of the passage from the well into the crypt.

"It is supposed," one writer had alleged, "that there must at one time have been a priest's hole in the house. This would have been constructed during the short and unlucky tenancy of the Catholic family of Merrill.... There is a strong hint in one of the family papers that access to the priest's hole could be gained by means of the ancient well in the courtyard. This, however, only seems to lead to a cellar under the house...."

That was all that Mrs. Bradley could glean of the history of the house. The tales of the hauntings were ill-authenticated, but at least there was no mention of anything which suggested the activities of a
poltergeist.
Not that this negative information was of much value, she reflected again, since
poltergeist
phenomena, besides being usually of fairly short duration, are apt to be episodic, spasmodic, and to attend upon the presence of certain living persons* rather than upon historic wrongs and infamies past and gone.

^*
"Its powers, then, seem to be fixed or loaded in the person of someone in the house, preferably a child in the most impressionable months of its life."— Sacheverell Sitwell.—"
Poltergeists.
"

On the other hand, this is not invariably true. Cf. the phenomena at Borley Rectory, during the investigations carried out there by Mr. Harry Price and his observers from 1929 to 1939.—G.M.

Mrs. Bradley gave up the records, and returned to Cousin Muriel, again without result. Cousin Muriel, in fact, expressed the opinion that she would go off her head if people did not stop worrying her about those poor little boys. As Mrs. Bradley, looking at her frightened eyes and a twitching muscle just above her mouth, considered this more than likely, she forbore to press her, remarked that it was a pity that there was no one to exact vengeance for the murdered children, and, leaving this grim phrase to do what work it would to Cousin Muriel's conscience and such superstitious fears as she knew her to possess, went off to the Institution to find out what help the Warden could give in tracing the boys to Bella Foxley's company.

There was one hope in her mind, and one only, so far as this was concerned. The diary had named a certain Larry, and from the entry in which his name appeared, Mrs. Bradley had deduced that this Larry, if he could be found, might prove to have some knowledge of the means of escape used by Piggy and Alec, and some knowledge of where they had proposed to go. The difficulty, as she saw it, would be to get in touch with Larry. He might prove to have cut his connection with the Institution so completely, once he had left it, that it would be impossible to track him down. He might be dead, in prison, in another continent—anywhere. He might be out of touch with English newspapers, so that an advertisement would never reach him. He might be unable to read, or, even more likely (and she knew how completely illiterate some members of the criminal classes could be), he might be unwilling to come forward and expose himself voluntarily to police questioning.

The sooner all this was put to the proof, the better. She telephoned the Warden as soon as she arrived in the town nearest to the Institution, which was situated about two miles away on the slope of a treeless hill, and received an invitation to come immediately to see him.

He looked less like a frog, and a good deal more animated, than usual. He seemed, in fact, pleased to see her.

"Larry? Larry who?" he enquired, when Mrs. Bradley had stated the object of her visit.

"I don't know. He was here six years ago, with Piggy and Alec."

"That's another thing," said the Warden. "Who were Piggy and Alec?"

"Alec we should be able to trace, I think, from your records. It sounds to me like a reasonable, if shortened, form of Alexander or even Alexis."

"And it may not be short for anything. He may have been christened Alec," argued the Warden. "And Larry might be traceable. Yes, indeed he might."

The records were conveniently to hand. An exploration of a stock-room, a mounting of library steps, and the records were identified and produced for inspection and research.

"Larry; Larry," said the Warden, tracing Christian names with a patient and experienced forefinger. "Harry?"

"Laurence? Lawrence?" suggested Mrs. Bradley.

"Got it in one, if that's it," replied the Warden. "And if it
is
it, you're in luck. Only one boy named Lawrence for the whole of that year, either Christian or surname. Here we are. Henry Nelson Lawrence. Now, I can give you the next stage in his career from this."

He opened another register. Mrs. Bradley leaned over, and followed the zealous forefinger as it passed swiftly down the page.

"Ah! We
are
in luck! Here it is, look," said the Warden. "Lad went into the Navy. Now, granted that he continued to be respectable, you'll have little difficulty in following him up, I imagine."

It was not quite as easy as the Warden had indicated, but, fortunately for Mrs. Bradley's plans, Henry Nelson Lawrence, A.B., proved to be one of the Institution's successes. Furthermore, he happened, by great good luck, to be on leave at Plymouth. He proved to be a large, docile young man, whose embarrassment at being brought up against the past was almost equalled by his desire to assist in tracking down the murderer of Piggy and Alec.

"Who
were
Piggy and Alec?" Mrs. Bradley enquired." Can you remember their names?"

"Pegwell and Kettleborough," the young seaman promptly responded.

"Thank you very much. And now, Mr. Lawrence, I wonder whether you have any idea of the means by which they escaped from the Institution? I ought to warn you that you may have to make this statement in court."

"In court?" He looked doubtful, but only for a moment. "They was good little chaps," he remarked. "I liked 'em. The cook-housekeeper—I forget her name—she got 'em the files, and she hid 'em in the kitchen while they was being looked for. But that's all 1 know, lady. I never cottoned on where they went, or aught else about it."

It was good enough, if not too good, thought Mrs. Bradley. She tested the statement carefully and with
finesse.
There seemed no doubt that Larry fully believed that Bella Foxley had assisted the escape and had hidden the fugitives until the first hue and cry had died down.

It was not easy to decide, after that, to what extent Larry ought to be taken into her confidence. She thought she would risk it. After all, Bella Foxley was under arrest. She was not in a position to attack the witnesses.

"I ought to tell you, Mr. Lawrence," she said, "that we suspect Miss Foxley of having used the two boys for her own ends, and that, when they were of no further use to her, she murdered them by shutting them up in a cellar and starving them to death."

The simple face of the young man hardened.

"I wouldn't put it past her, mam," he said.

"And you would be willing to give evidence?" Mrs. Bradley enquired.

"Yes, I reckon so. I've gone straight since I joined the Navy. I've got my record. There's nothing again' it. I don't see why I shouldn't speak up, and tell what I know. 'Twasn't nothing to do with me they made their getaway."

"All right," said Mrs. Bradley. "Tell me all you know."

"Well, I know she got 'em the files and I know she done some of the filing through the window bars, because Piggy told me. He said she could get in the dormitories without being questioned, being, like, the housekeeper, and able to go where she wanted."

"Why did they think she was willing to help them?"

"She never said. Only spilt 'em some dope about she knew they'd go straight if they got the chance, and she was going to see they got it."

"Where were they to go when they had escaped?"

"I dunno."

"Had they any money?"

"No, I don't reckon they had, but we didn't let on to one another about that. Next thing you knowed, somebody had swiped it off of you, and you couldn't complain because we wasn't supposed to have no dough. Them that had it swiped it off of the instructors."

"How long before they went did Piggy tell you they were going?"

"About a week, I reckon."

"Do you think they had any plans?"

"No, barring getting some work. The cook-lady, she put 'em on to that, because Piggy said so."

"He didn't say what sort of work?"