Death at the Opera (22 page)

“‘I mean this,' I said. ‘That saucy Mr. Helm was on the promenade yesterday, and he stopped when he saw me, raised his hat, quite the gentleman, asked after you, Miss Lincallow—very correct he was—and then he turned the talk on to Miss Ferris, and really, before I realized what he was getting out of me, he was scribbling her school address on the back of an envelope he took out of his pocket, and was raising his hat and wishing me good day as cool as you please, and before I could find my breath sufficient to run after him and ask him what he wanted it for—because I could just
imagine
, Miss Lincallow, what you would say—he had stepped into the Chichester bus as it was starting, and off he had gone. Of course I didn't
give
it him. He happened to mention the school, and I said she was there.

“My word, she
was
cross with me. You would scarcely credit, Mrs. Bradley, what a temper she has got when she likes! Anyhow, it all ended up with her sending the telegram to warn poor Calma against him, and when I said ought we not to let her know we were coming, she said she could not afford two telegrams, and that what could not be said for a shilling had better go unsaid, and that
she
wasn't made of money, even if
I
was, but that she hoped she knew her duty to her niece, even if
I
didn't, and then, at last, out it came. It seems she had been talking to Mr. Willis about the car, and somehow, talking of poor Calma, the conversation had got round to Mr. Helm, and Mr. Willis said surely she knew about Mr. Helm? And she said, ‘No. What?' And he whispered it. That he was really that monster Cutler, who had drowned his wife in the bath for her insurance, and had been acquitted because there wasn't enough evidence to hang a dog. The thing that spoilt her temper the most, though, was when she found that no way at all could she get the warning to Calma into a shilling telegram. Not that she is really mean with money, but she has her little foibles, and twopence or threepence extra on a telegram is one of them. Of course, she was a bit cross about poor Calma coming to us for her summer holiday, really. She never let on to me about it, but I guessed.

‘“Come here to have a holiday on the cheap! Wants the best room for the least money just because she's my niece,' she said to me one day. I think she thought Miss Ferris might have helped with the visitors a bit, too, but poor Calma never offered to. Still, her auntie was very nice to her face, I will say that.”

“So the fact that you went by car accounts for your having been able to return to Bognor immediately after the entertainment,” said Mrs. Bradley, who was getting far more information from Miss Sooley's rambling discourse than she could possibly have expected.

“Well, thereby hangs a tale,” said Miss Sooley portentously. She was obviously enjoying herself to the full. “It was like this. Mr. Willis himself drove us, as Miss Lincallow wouldn't trust herself with young Tom, and, Calma not expecting us, we had tea in the town and got Mr. Willis to drive us on to the school in nice time for the opening of the doors at seven o'clock. But the disappointment was that he lost the way, although we had been directed, and what with it being dark, and the school set in the middle of rather good-class roads, very quiet, you know, and for more than a mile and a half nobody to ask the way of, and Mr. Willis surly and Miss Lincallow what you might call annoyed to think we were paying all that for the car and not seeing the show, after all, that when we did arrive at the school gates she said she wouldn't go in. She gave Mr. Willis her ticket, as I wouldn't go in alone, and him and I went in nearly at the end of the first part. We hadn't sat down hardly five minutes when down came the curtain and up went the lights, and everybody round us laughing and talking and eating sweets, and Miss Lincallow nursing her crossness out in the car, and no sign of Calma, either on the stage or off it. Well, I was ever so disappointed, but right in the very middle, just as I was having a really good laugh at that ‘Ko-Ko,' up comes a nice little chap with a message. ‘The doorkeeper says there's a lady outside wants you to go home now.'

“It was my lady Lincallow, of course, sick of waiting and having caught her death of cold out there at that time of the night, in December, too, and small wonder at it! Anyway, out we had to go, Mr. Willis and me, and off we drove, straight back here without seeing Calma or the opera or anything, except if it ever comes to Bognor I shall go and see it, Lincallow or no Lincallow, temper or no temper,” concluded Miss Sooley with unlooked-for spirit.

After being compelled to listen to some unimportant details relative to the drive home, Mrs. Bradley escaped to her room, and spent the time that remained before the ringing of the bell for tea in making notes. The most important points, she decided, were that Miss Lincallow had betrayed neither surprise nor agitation at the news of her niece's death and that she had arrived at the school and had contrived to separate herself from her two companions before the interval; that was to say, before the finding of the body.

The first thing to be done was to seek out Mr. Willis and compare his version of the affair with Miss Sooley's account. She did not want either of the boarding-house proprietors to know that she was going to question Willis, so she did not ask for his address, but went out after tea to find him. His house adjoined his garage, and his garage was, as she had suspected, at the end of the road in which Miss Lincallow resided.

Willis, a homely, pleasant man of about fifty, scratched his head with an oily hand, smiled at the recollection of Miss Lincallow's annoyance, informed Mrs. Bradley that she had refused to pay a penny for the hire of the car, and finally (without realizing in the slightest that Mrs. Bradley's manipulation of the conversation had brought out the information), that he should say that he and Miss Sooley had been seated in the auditorium for a quarter of an hour at least, and probably longer, before the curtain came down upon the First Act. Mrs. Bradley then led the conversation to channels which resulted in her hiring the car for a short drive on the following morning, and she and Mr. Willis parted on terms of mutual goodwill. It was extraordinary, she reflected, how people's ideas about the passing of time varied.

She sought out Miss Sooley again, and was able to elicit the fact that she and Willis had seated themselves in the auditorium some moments before the first entrance of ‘Katisha.' That settled it. Although Mrs. Bradley was perfectly certain in her own mind that Miss Lincallow had done nothing whatever that night except sit in the car outside the school door, nursing a grievance against Willis, it was obvious that she could have had the opportunity to murder her niece. On the face value of the evidence offered by Willis and Miss Sooley, she had no alibi for the time the murder might have taken place, and her determination to return that night to Bognor instead of staying at Calma Ferris's lodgings might turn out very awkwardly for her if it could be proved that she had had any motive for wishing her niece out of the way. Had she had such a motive?

Mrs. Bradley sighed. She felt convinced, in spite of herself, that Miss Lincallow
had
had such a motive. Everybody who was mixed up in this queer case seemed to have had a reason for disliking poor Miss Ferris. It was ridiculous!

It was also interesting. Mrs. Bradley went to bed early that night, and by the morning her brain had produced the motive, mocked itself for producing any suggestion so far-fetched, rebuked itself for its own mockery, and, finally, compromised with itself by deciding to wait and see.

There was another task awaiting her that day. She decided that it was time to go and interview Mr. Helm. She confidently expected that he would deny ever having been at the school, and she realized that, so far, there was nothing whatever to connect him in any way with the crime. She wondered how she could introduce herself to him, and decided that audacity and mendacity would have to be the weapons of attack. After breakfast, therefore, she went for her drive in Mr. Willis's blue saloon car and arranged with young Tom, who drove, that he should wait outside the railway carriage bungalow for half an hour.

“At the end of half an hour, child,” she observed to young Tom, “you will knock loudly upon the front door and demand admittance.”

“Seems to me, ma'am,” said young Tom, pushing his peaked cap farther back on his fair head, “you'd be better not calling on him. I haven't heard much about him to his credit.”

“Charity begins at home,” said Mrs. Bradley, obliquely. She walked up a path of pebbles and banged on the front door. Tom, who was a chivalrous lad, opened the bonnet of the car and, under pretence of looking at the engine, covertly watched proceedings. When the front door closed behind Mrs. Bradley, he sat on the step, looked at his wristwatch, and prepared to rush into the bungalow at the first suspicious noise that issued from it.

Mrs. Bradley's tactics in order to gain admission to the bungalow had been simple. The door was opened by Helm himself, whom she recognized, even from a newspaper photograph, as Cutler. This was promising. She remembered the trial in which he had figured, chiefly because it had been the particularly brilliant defence conducted by her son, Ferdinand Lestrange, which had led to Cutler's acquittal. Ferdinand had torn to shreds the case for the prosecution, and had exposed the fact that it was based on insufficient evidence. Mrs. Bradley herself had believed that the man was guilty, but the evidence against him was purely circumstantial and its strongest link was the fact that he drew his wife's insurance money, and had himself been the person responsible for insuring her life.

The man looked inquiringly at Mrs. Bradley. She grinned in what she imagined was an ingratiating manner, and he retreated a step.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Helm,” said she. “You
are
Mr. Helm of Hillmaston School?”

“Well, no, madam, I regret to say that I am not.”

“Oh, but
surely
,” said Mrs. Bradley, in fatuous tones. “I mean to say, they told me you were he. I want to know all about the school on behalf of my daughter-in-law, who is thinking . . .” She was comparing him with the description of the electrician.
Was
he . . .?

“Who told you to come to me about it?” asked Helm. “Look here; come in. We can't talk here.”

Mrs. Bradley had gained her point. She was admitted. The railway-carriage bungalow consisted of two rooms, all the partitions except one having been knocked down. The room into which the front door opened was simply furnished with a small, narrow table, two chairs, two of the original railway compartment seats, a strip of matting in dull shades of crimson and purple, and a large portable bath made of galvanized iron. A gleam of interest in Mrs. Bradley's bright black eyes when they discerned this last sinister object caused Helm to explain modestly that he was not fond of bathing in the open sea at that time of year, but that he considered sea-water so beneficial that it was his habit to walk down to the water's edge at high tide with a large pail, and, by taking several journeys, to transport sufficient water from the sea to fill his copper, which he pointed out with great pride. It was a small affair, placed in the “corridor” of the carriage. When the water was warm he emptied it into the bath by means of a large enamel jug, and so had a warm sea-water bath twice a day.

“And you wouldn't believe,” he said, smiling enthusiastically and waving his arms, “how much good it does me. But this school of yours, dear lady—I know nothing about it whatever.”

“Lie number one, if Miss Sooley is telling the truth,” thought Mrs. Bradley, delighted to find an untruthful suspect.

She drove back to Bognor thinking hard. He had denied ever having visited the school. His appearance did not altogether coincide with the description of the electrician which she had received from the caretaker. The ears were right, though. His manner did not coincide with the picture conjured up by Miss Ferris's aunt of a bold, bad commercial traveller. In short, the man seemed a mental and physical chameleon, and Mrs. Bradley was suitably intrigued. She ate sparingly, as usual, but was so slow over the meal that Miss Lincallow inquired whether she was tired. Mrs. Bradley replied that she was not tired, but that the sea air had made her sleepy, so she retired to bed at about half-past ten, and was asleep before the clock struck eleven.

She had managed to indicate to Helm during the course of conversation that she was a wealthy widow with no particular encumbrances—which was perfectly true as far as it went—and she had made up her mind that if he were the unscrupulous adventurer which history seemed to have painted, he would not be content to allow his acquaintance with her to drop.

She was not deceived. Helm allowed the next two days to pass, and then Mrs. Bradley received a letter saying that Helm had been in touch with the principal of the school, and had secured a copy of the prospectus, which he would be pleased to talk over with her if she would be kind enough to take tea with him any afternoon that suited her. Mrs. Bradley went that very afternoon, and found him, very spruce, awaiting her.

“I had a feeling that you might come to-day, dear lady,” he said. The sparse sandy hair was parted in the middle and carefully brushed. The grey suit was neat and smartly cut. Knife-edged creases down the trousers and a tie-pin of extraordinary brilliance completed his outward appearance, and the whole effect compelled Mrs. Bradley to smile like an alligator which sees its evening meal within measurable distance of its jaws.

CHAPTER XI

I

B
Y
some means or other, Helm had certainly contrived to obtain a vast amount of information about the school. He knew the names and qualifications of the whole staff, the acreage of the school playing fields; he was able to sketch for Mrs. Bradley an accurate plan of the ground floor; he described the science laboratory, the art and music-rooms, the garden, the swimming-bath, and was able to indicate the many other amenities of one of the most modern school buildings in existence. Mrs. Bradley supposed that he had obtained his information from the printed prospectus. He had certainly taken great pains to learn it off by heart if that were the case. On the other hand, if he had actually explored the school with the intention of finding out the best method of murdering Miss Ferris . . .