Death at the Opera (19 page)

Vindictively or not, Miss Cliffordson had certainly tried to incriminate Hurstwood, and that, on the face of it, looked bad from one who had at least as strong a motive as the boy for wishing to shut Miss Ferris's mouth. Some of Mrs. Bradley's patients had been schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, and she knew that one of the most dangerous effects of the most unnatural life in the world was the importance which trivialities were apt to assume in the minds of those who spent their lives among undeveloped intelligences and small events. It might easily be that Miss Cliffordson, for all her seeming pertness and independence, dreaded her uncle's anger and contempt above all things, and thought that by allowing matters between herself and Hurstwood to get to the point at which Miss Ferris had discovered them was to court disaster indeed if word ever came to Mr. Cliffordson's ears of what had occurred. On the other hand, there was Miss Cliffordson's entirely voluntary confession to Mrs. Bradley that Hurstwood was “being rather difficult.”

The point at issue here, Mrs. Bradley decided, was this: Did Miss Cliffordson believe that Hurstwood was the murderer? If she did, it was a heavy indictment of the boy, for Miss Cliffordson might reasonably be expected to know a great deal about him and about the impulses which might have prompted him to such a terrible deed.

Mrs. Bradley, loath to believe evil of the boy, to whom she had taken a liking, tapped her notebook with the end of her silver pencil, and looked unhappy. On considering the rest of Miss Cliffordson's evidence, however, her face cleared, and her black eyes lit up with fresh interest. Miss Cliffordson's realistic description of the murder returned to her memory as she re-read her notes.

“It was such an easy way to kill anybody,” Miss Cliffordson had said—she could hear the carefully modulated, over-refined tones all over again—”especially anybody who was sitting down. You offer to help—you lend a handkerchief—you stuff the waste-pipe up with clay. . . .” (Ah, but there, thought Mrs. Bradley, is the rub.) At what point in the proceedings, precisely, do you stuff the waste-pipe up with clay? Have you, so to speak, a lump of clay in your left hand whilst you proffer a handkerchief with your right, or
vice versa
? Or have you prepared a bowl beforehand so that the water won't run away, and do you then guide the predestined victim to that particular bowl when she wants to bathe the cut on her face?

Mrs. Bradley shelved the point for the moment and went on reading.

“. . . and press the tap,” Miss Cliffordson had said— school taps are never of the type that have to be turned on and off, for obvious reasons, Mrs. Bradley reflected—“and talk—any kind of nervous, silly talk, so that no suspicion is excited. . . .”

Yes, but it was just that flow of talk, so essential for the quietening of the victim's mind, so impossible to the male adolescent under such circumstances, that Mrs. Bradley found it impossible to associate with Hurstwood. Obviously, if the element of surprise which was so necessary in this particular kind of crime was to be maintained, conversation of an interesting, or, at any rate, a noninterruptable kind, had to be provided by the murderer. No boy, surely, could have watched that basin filling and filling—school taps are usually of small bore and do their work slowly and splashily—and riveted his victim's attention upon something so interesting that at the crucial moment he could have thrust her head under water without her having experienced the slightest premonition of danger?

On the other hand, though, what if Miss Ferris had herself provided the conversation? By all accounts she was the kind of woman whose conscience might have troubled her sorely over the Hurstwood–Cliffordson—or even the Boyle–Hampstead—affair, and she might have regarded the advent of Hurstwood as a God-given opportunity for easing her conscience by speaking her mind. That this argument would apply equally if Alceste Boyle had committed the crime Mrs. Bradley pigeon-holed in her mind (and at the back of her notebook) for future reference.

“Then,” concluded the portion of Miss Cliffordson's evidence in which Mrs. Bradley was most interested, “as the basin fills, you begin to press the woman's head down.”

“But you don't, of course,” Mrs. Bradley decided. “You don't dare to risk touching the woman's head until the basin is full. You daren't risk a scuffle and a struggle and a half-drowned victim who will proceed immediately to the nearest police station.”

She shook her head. Miss Cliffordson, she decided, had visualized the murder, but had visualized it imperfectly. It was almost certain that she was not the criminal.

As the similarity, in one sense, of the motives which might have governed the conduct of Alceste Boyle and Frederick Hampstead struck Mrs. Bradley, she considered their case next. Frederick Hampstead she immediately dismissed from her mind. On religious, moral and temperamental grounds she considered him an unlikely person to commit any murder, let alone a murder whose motive, in his case, would have been sordid in the extreme. Besides, it seemed impossible that he could have had any opportunity for the crime. It had most certainly occurred during the First Act of the opera, and during the whole of that time he had been in position as conductor of the orchestra. Guarded inquiries among the players, who were all schoolboys and schoolgirls, had revealed the fact that not for a single instant after the first note of the overture had Frederick Hampstead left his place until the interval. And it was inconceivable, Mrs. Bradley decided, that he should have found Calma Ferris in the water-lobby during the interval, murdered her, disconnected the electric switch, gone away, and left Moira Malley immediately to discover the body. Besides, in that case, Calma Ferris would have been alive to take her cue in the First Act.

Mrs. Bradley felt that nothing was to be gained by thinking that Frederick Hampstead could have had any connection with the affair, but the recurring idea of the switch brought her again to the question of Miss Cliffordson's guilt. But if Hurstwood had
not
thought Miss Cliffordson was guilty, would he not still have tampered with the switch? The desire to hide dreadful deeds from the light is characteristic of the young.

She sighed, and then turned over a couple of pages in order to consider the case of Alceste Boyle. Mrs. Bradley was not one of those psychologists who divide humanity into two groups—those capable of committing murder and those incapable of it. Her view was that, given time, place, opportunity and circumstances, it was impossible to say that any human being was incapable of such an act. Nevertheless, on temperament, she was forced to admit that Alceste Boyle was not the person she would have picked out as the murderer of an inoffensive person like Calma Ferris.

The only reason which could be found to explain why Alceste Boyle should murder anybody would be that great danger threatened someone whom she loved. Could this reason be found to operate in the particular case Mrs. Bradley was studying? Frederick Hampstead, it appeared, was the person Alceste loved. The only danger which could have threatened him was the danger of being dismissed from his post at the school. Surely a level-headed, sane, well-balanced, admirably sensible woman like Alceste Boyle would not have committed a horrid crime to prevent the dismissal of Hampstead?

Besides, thought Mrs. Bradley, it was most unlikely that Calma Ferris would have betrayed the lovers to Mr. Cliffordson, and it was almost impossible to believe that Mr. Cliffordson would have taken a very grave view of the matter if she had. Even supposing he had gone so far as to dismiss them, surely the dismissal of one or both from the staff of the school would have been private, not public; friendly, regretful, apologetic on the one side; ruefully but comprehendingly accepted on the other. The Senior English Mistress, familiar with the classic situations in Greek and Shakespearian tragedy, would never have been sufficiently misguided to confuse the greater with the less to the extent of preferring Calma Ferris murdered to Frederick Hampstead dismissed. It was unthinkable.

There was, of course, the question of opportunity. Alceste, free to rove about behind the scenes during the whole of the First Act, her comings and goings, appearances and disappearances unquestioned, had had as much opportunity as anyone of drowning poor Miss Ferris if she had made up her mind to drown her. On the other hand, her general behaviour, described by herself and corroborated wherever corroboration was possible by members of the company, was not that of a murderer coming fresh from the scene of the crime. She had searched, and had set others to search for Miss Ferris. She had appealed to Miss Camden to play the part, had been refused, and had gone on herself to play it. Would she have risked sending out a search party if she thought there was any chance of their discovering the body of the victim? It seemed unlikely. On the other hand, again, a very clear, far-seeing and courageous person might have risked it, and Alceste could certainly be described by those three adjectives, Mrs. Bradley reflected.

But the electric light! Could Alceste have tampered with the switch? If she had, it would go to prove that she had taken the minimum of risk when sending out the search party, for nobody would be likely to explore a place that was in pitch darkness. But very few women would have thought of disconnecting the switch. Most would have turned off the light and trusted to luck. Then, again, Alceste had immediately disposed of her own supposed motive for the murder by confessing to the Headmaster the love she had for Hampstead. True, she had refused to give the name of the man, but it was easy enough for Mr. Cliffordson to put two and two together. It had to be Hampstead or Smith, and with Smith there would have been no obstacle to the marriage, since he was a bachelor. Under the heading of Opportunity, Alceste remained on Mrs. Bradley's list of suspected persons, but on every other count she was ruthlessly and finally crossed off.

The next suspect on Mrs. Bradley's list was Mr. Smith. Her feelings about this man were mixed. That he was capable of murder she felt certain. That he had committed this particular murder she was slow to believe. Any motive which she could assign to him was weak. Admitted that he might have nursed a desire to retaliate on Miss Ferris for the loss of his Psyche, it was difficult to believe that he would have killed her as an act of revenge. The only other motive which he may have had, Mrs. Bradley decided, was that of saving Alceste Boyle, whom he loved in the way that some small boys love their mothers, from the consequences of Calma Ferris having discovered her relationship with Frederick Hampstead.

The point at issue here, Mrs. Bradley told herself, was whether Smith knew of Miss Ferris's discovery of Alceste's secret. Alceste, she felt certain, would not have discussed the point with Smith, and Hampstead would scarcely have deemed it delicate to do so. Apart from the question of motive, Smith would have to remain fairly high on the list of suspects, she thought, since he was one of the people who had had the whole of the First Act in which to commit the crime.

The other person with almost unlimited opportunity was the ex-actress, Mrs. Berotti. Here, although temperamentally she would make an ideal murderer, possessing the artistic instinct, courage, a sort of divine exasperation with fools, resourcefulness and an actress's self-command, it was difficult to assign to her any motive for the crime. A murder without motive is the act of a maniac, and Mrs. Berotti, whatever her shortcomings of temper and impatience, was certainly not mad.

The bogus electrician, Helm—if Helm it had been: a theory that needed proving—must have had opportunity, but where, again, was his motive? Calma Ferris had left a will bequeathing her property—two or three hundred pounds—to the school. She would have inherited something from her aunt, it was true, but only if she had survived her. Helm had offered her marriage, by which ultimately he might have gained something, but, as matters stood at the time of Miss Ferris's death, he could gain nothing whatever by that death.

Miss Camden was the most likely person to have committed murder, it seemed. She was extravagant enough, perhaps, to waste life as well as money; she was perverse, ill-dispositioned and thwarted; she had hated the dead woman and had intended to be revenged on her. . . .

At this point Mrs. Bradley discovered that she had to change at the next station, so she stowed away notebook and pencil and sat staring out of the window on to the flying landscape. Greys and browns predominated in the colouring of vegetation and sky. It ought to have been a dispiriting reflection that winter was only just beginning, but Mrs. Bradley, who was insensible to changes in the weather, and was equally undisturbed by the climates of Greenland and Southern India—she had experienced both—did not find it so.

Instead, when the train drew up at the next station, she hopped blithely on to the platform and was greatly surprised to find a young friend of hers, the Reverend Noel Wells, seated upon the nearest bench, his long black-trousered legs uncanonically sprawling, his soft black hat tilted over his eyes, his mouth wide open and an expression of imbecile contentment on his vacuous, sleeping face. Mrs. Bradley set down her small suit-case and prodded him gently with the ferrule of her neat umbrella.

“Well, child,” she said. Wells sat up and stared:

“Well, I'm blowed,” he said. “What are
you
doing here?”

“I am chasing a murderer,” said Mrs. Bradley, concisely. “And you?”

“Doing a locum job at Bognor. At least, it's a little village outside. I've got to go to Bognor and then walk or bus or something. Wouldn't be bad if it were August, of course.”

“And Daphne?” inquired Mrs. Bradley.

“South of France. You knew we were married? I say, you know, this is a bit of luck! I suppose you're not going to Bognor by any chance?”

“But I am, dear child,” said Mrs. Bradley. “This is splendid. Listen, child. If the circumstances warranted it, would you be prepared to practise a little innocent deception?”