Death and the Maiden (15 page)

Mrs Bradley cackled. It was not a mirthful sound, and Laura, who had learnt to regard it as a war-cry, looked at
her rather in the manner of stout Cortez regarding the Pacific.

‘It begins to add up?' she asked. ‘One thing, I thought, stuck out a mile. This Connie's been scared since we've been here. I should say that something must have happened almost as soon as we came, or just before. We wondered whether perhaps she suspects Mr Tidson of base designs, or whether she thinks somebody has the goods on her, somehow. Or does she think that the mermaid Crete might stick her with an embroidery stiletto or something? And I still think there's always the aunt. Suppose Miss Carmody stood to gain something by getting rid of this Connie – Oh, no, that wouldn't work out. Talking of getting rid, I suppose it's the Tidsons Miss Carmody wants to get rid of. Oh, Lord, it's like groping in the dark. What do you think we ought to do? I mean, why should Connie disappear?'

‘Well, there's just one thing which might be useful,' said Mrs Bradley, ignoring the question of Connie's disappearance, and confining herself to what they ought to do.

‘I know! Keep tabs on the Tidsons and Miss Carmody to make sure they don't put in some dirty work. We ought to dog their footsteps! We ought to pop out from unexpected corners and get in their hair and on their nerves. They're bound to give themselves away if we get them thoroughly rattled. What do you say?'

‘You could try it,' said Mrs Bradley, ‘but I think a less picturesque but equally useful task would be to find Connie before she gets into any more mischief.'

‘Bother this Connie! Bags I watch the Tidsons!' said Laura.

‘You could try it,' said Mrs Bradley again. ‘But don't be annoying, will you? There is no more reason to connect them with Connie's disappearance than with the death of the boy.'

Laura grinned and promised, and went off to break the news to Kitty. That heroine was still in conference with Crete Tidson, but she came out at last, looking pleased, and was promptly waylaid by Laura, who took her off to her bedroom and spoke in a whisper.

‘Oh, Lord, Dog, speak up!' said Kitty. ‘I can't hear a word you're saying.'

Laura, cursing her briefly, outlined the plan of campaign.

‘Yes, but it's gaga,' said Kitty. ‘It isn't the Tidsons or Miss Carmody. It's some awful man at the lower end of the town. He's been arrested.'

‘What?'

‘Fact. Name of Potter. Thomas told me when I sent him out for some setting combs.'

‘You – what?'

‘He said he knew a shop where they had some. His daughter bought some yesterday,' said Kitty serenely. ‘Don't look so moon-struck. You've heard of setting combs before.'

‘Yes, but not of Thomas being sent out to buy some,' said Laura. She wasted no time in discussing this phenomenon, however, but sought the earliest opportunity of acquainting Mrs Bradley with what had happened.

‘Potter?' said Mrs Bradley, deeply interested. ‘Hm! The man who found the body, of course. I wonder what else they have against him?'

The arrest was reported in the evening papers, but there was nothing else to be learned. The papers gave a résumé of the circumstances of the boy's death, so far as they were known, but gave no hint of the ground the police had covered before they arrested Potter.

That evening Mrs Bradley left Laura and Kitty to their self-imposed, and, she thought, unproductive task of keeping an eye on the Tidsons and Miss Carmody, and went to the lower end of the town and along the narrow street to Potter's house.

The small front parlour was as neat, dead and frowsty as before. Mrs Potter was in. Mrs Bradley had ascertained this before she knocked at the door. The village women were gossiping at their front doors, for none of the houses along the village street had front gardens.

‘Is Mrs Potter at home?' she had asked the next-door neighbour, interrupting her in what seemed to be the already twice-told tale of Potter's villainy and of how
the neighbours had always expected that he would be found out some fine day.

‘Ah, she's home,' the woman had replied, giving her a stare out of a curiosity more bovine than offensive.

‘What is she doing? Is she busy?'

‘No. Just sitting.'

It was upon receipt of this information that Mrs Bradley had knocked at the door. The woman who stood there looked twenty years older than the wife and mother whom Mrs Bradley and Miss Carmody had met such a short time before.

‘I got nothing to say,' said the woman.

‘Don't put me off,' said Mrs Bradley, promptly walking past her into the house. ‘You know he didn't do it, so why do you worry?' Mrs Potter dusted a chair, automatically it seemed. Mrs Bradley sat down.

‘Don't you reckon so?' asked Mrs Potter. She seemed to have no interest in the subject.

‘I feel fairly certain about it. He isn't that kind of man.'

‘That's what I would have said,' said poor Mrs Potter, looking at her now in puzzled misery. ‘But neither wouldn't he have been the kind to go along of that trollopsing Gert Grier. If he could do that, and me all in the dark, and thinking I'd got a good husband and my little Dorrie a good father, he could do any dreadful thing, I reckon.'

‘So you think he killed Bobby Grier?'

‘I do, too and all.'

‘But—'

‘He went with Gert Grier. That's the reason for all this trouble – all of it,' said the woman. She still intoned her words as though for her they had no meaning. ‘Bobby Grier knowed, and Potter, he knowed Bobby knowed. Gert Grier let it all out as soon as the police took her up.'

‘So you believe Mrs Grier? What does your husband say?'

‘I don't know, and I don't much trouble.'

‘Does he know you think like that?'

‘I don't care what he thinks. And I don't know for why you've come 'ere.'

‘No,' said Mrs Bradley, getting up. ‘I ought to be with Mrs Grier, I suppose. Where is your little girl?'

‘Gone to stay with her auntie in Andover.'

‘She doesn't know that her father has been arrested?'

‘No, she doesn't know. I wouldn't 'ave her know for anything.'

‘Good. Well, goodbye, Mrs Potter. Don't believe all that Mrs Grier says. I think she's lying.'

The woman's face did not change.

‘Her wouldn't tell lies without there was something in 'em,' she said obstinately. ‘And the police wouldn't have come 'ere if there 'adn't been nothing to come for. Good-day to you. Mean well, you do, but I don't take no truck in sociable ladies no more. I don't take no truck in nothing never no more.'

With these heavy and lack-lustre negatives she opened the door and Mrs Bradley walked out. She went straight to the Griers' house. Here her reception was cordial, suspiciously so, she felt, considering the way she had last been received. She came to the point without going into the house.

‘What put the police on to Potter?' she demanded.

‘Ah,' said Mrs Grier, with an arch smile, ‘his own doing that was, but it ain't no business of anybody's 'cepting me. Still, of course, I'm ready to answer questions. Nothing to 'ide, I 'aven't.'

‘I see. The police, no doubt, have asked you a good many questions?'

‘As may be,' responded Mrs Grier. ‘I said what I'm going to hold to, and Potter, 'e 'asn't got an alibi, that's what I say.'

‘That's what you think,' said Mrs Bradley. ‘Tell me, have you seen anything more of the little man in the panama hat? It isn't safe to have too much to do with
him
, you know.'

She bestowed on Mrs Grier a grin which caused the woman to retreat a step, but the door remained open.

‘I don't know what you mean,' said Mrs Grier, indicating clearly that she did not want the conversation to terminate.

‘Don't you? Well,
he
knows
you
, even if
you
don't know
him
. How did Bobby come to be out so late that night?'

‘You better come in,' said the woman. Mrs Bradley went inside the dark little parlour.

‘Why do you keep the blinds drawn?' she enquired. It was the room in which Bobby had been laid out, and it retained a funereal air.

‘Getting dark, ain't it?' said the woman. ‘And people stare in as soon as you've got the light on.'

‘Do you use this room much, then?'

‘On and off we do.'

‘You know,' said Mrs Bradley, ‘I think you would do much better to tell me the truth. You
must
know that Potter didn't do it.'

At this Mrs Grier became shrill. Mrs Bradley listened patiently to the spate of blasphemy, protest, vituperation and self-vindication which ensued, and then walked composedly to the door. The woman watched her go, but, before the door was pulled open, she had started forward.

‘What you going to do?' she demanded, trying to insert her bulk between Mrs Bradley and the opening.

‘I am going to wait and see what happens,' said Mrs Bradley in her calm and beautiful voice. ‘The question is, what are
you
going to do, I should have thought. You are a very vindictive woman. Have you heard of Potiphar's wife?'

The woman gave way before Mrs Bradley's black eyes and triumphantly beaky little mouth. Mrs Bradley went back to Mrs Potter.

‘Why did you believe her?' she asked.

‘That Grier?'

‘Yes, of course. She was lying. You ought to have known.'

‘Then where
was
Ted that night the boy was drownded?'

‘So you don't believe your husband murdered the boy? You only believe Mrs Grier's foul slanders, do you?'

‘What
can
I believe? He were out – and it weren't for the first time, neither.'

‘Didn't you ask him to explain?'

‘He said he was kept late at work. Work, at after eleven o'clock at night!'

‘Not very convincing, I agree.' She took her leave. The woman accompanied her to the door.

‘You don't think he was with that Grier?' she asked, showing the first sign of softening that Mrs Bradley had detected.

‘I don't think he's a murderer,' Mrs Bradley replied. ‘Sleep on it, Mrs Potter, and, if I were you, I shouldn't worry.'

It was easy enough to talk, she reflected, as she walked up the mean village street towards Winchester and King Alfred's imposing statue. Infidelity was uncommon enough to be unforgivable among the respectable Mrs Potter and her associates. She wondered, all the same, what Potter had been doing on the night of the boy's death, although she thought she had found out why Mrs Grier hated him sufficiently to wish to see him hanged. ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,' and Mrs Grier was personable enough in her way.

‘I wonder who the woman is that he
does
go to?' thought Mrs Bradley, turning north-east towards the
Domus
. ‘She'll have to be found.'

Chapter Ten

‘Our little Spark runs better and better and is full of his gibberish.'

R
ALPH
P
ALMER
to R
ALPH
V
ERNEY
(
The Verney Letters
)

 

B
Y THE
morning post a letter arrived from Connie. She had put no address at the top, but the postmark was London, W.4.

‘Chiswick,' said Mrs Bradley, to whom the letter was addressed. Laura looked interested but said nothing. Mrs Bradley cocked a bird-bright eye at her.

‘Great West Road,' said Laura, in response to this glance. Mrs Bradley nodded.

‘Interesting; whether significant or not we shall know, perhaps, when we have tracked Connie down.'

‘Do you propose to do that?'

‘Yes, child. Or, rather, I propose to allow you to do it.'

‘And Kitty?'

‘Well, if you wouldn't mind, I would sooner keep Kitty here. I only wish Alice were at liberty, too. I think we might be glad of her help.'