Heads You Lose (18 page)

James’s attention at the Inquest had been concentrated solely upon his own part in it, but he did not trouble to explain this, for the old lady was rambling on: “He’s a good, kind brother to me, sir, indeed he is. Ever so worried he’s been over this illness of mine. He’s been over the last two nights, all through that snow on his bicycle…’”

“I suppose you didn’t
see
his bicycle?” asked James eagerly.

Miss Burner looked astonished, as well she might. “See it?—why, no indeed, sir. He left it in the shed, I suppose, like he always does.” Anyway, she’d been pretty far gone, that first night; one of her legs was very queer and she’d thought her time had come and she was going from the feet up. A friend of hers had lain four days, one day the right leg gone, next day both of them, and then two days dying all the way up till it came to the heart. The doctor had brought her, Miss Burner, the very same pills as he’d given poor Martha, small white round ones, and naturally it had alarmed her very much; especially as with Martha it was the stomach, while with herself it was the heart…

James cut short this flow of reminiscence by saying that he had come to ask Miss Bunsen—sorry, Miss Burner—a question which was very important to him. As he had disclosed at the inquest (Bunsen’s sister gave his arm a kind little sympathetic pat), Pippi le May, his wife, was not in fact a relation of Miss Morland’s at all. It had occurred to him that anyone who had been as long in the district as Miss—er—Burner (got it that time!) would be sure to know something about her history. Everyone was talking about it and making wild guesses…

Something changed in the old lady’s face, and she said sharply that people had better let well alone or they might hear something they wouldn’t like at all. “I would help you, Captain,” she said, “but I mustn’t say what I know and that’s all there is about it. If it’s any comfort to you, though, I will tell you this: Miss Pippi had for her father as good and kind a man as it would be possible to find. Her mother was not a good woman; she led him on, poor fellow, till he hardly knew right from wrong; he paid for it ever afterwards with sorrow and repentance and the fear of its being discovered—let alone with money… But Miss Pippi, your wife, sir, she had his blood in her as well as her mother’s; she was kind, she was, and generous in her way, and I always thought that that part she got from him. It may be a happiness to you to know, sir, now that she’s dead, poor child, that her father, at least, was one of the best of men.”

James crept out of the cottage feeling bitterly ashamed. If what he thought was true, then it would have been better for the poor old lady that her feet had, indeed, been dead on the night of Grace Morland’s murder, that mortality had immediately claimed her legs and finally reached her heart after the fashion of death in Tenfold. But still greater issues were at stake than the peaceful end of one old woman, already at the gates of heaven; rather subdued he went back to the station and caught the midday train.

It was a very lovely day. All across the downs the birds were wheeling and singing, the snow was gone, and the little train puffed its way between rounded grassy hills, dotted with grazing sheep; they passed through Pigeonsford village and started up the gradient that forms the eastern boundary of the grounds of Pigeonsford House. James opened the door of the carriage and hung out over the line; as the train slackened speed, toiling up the long ascent, he relaxed his hold and jumped—tumbling, bruised and muddy, into the ditch. He picked himself up and made his way along the banks of the stream and out of the Pigeonsford gate.

He had twisted his ankle a little, but he limped off energetically through the village and up to the shed on the downs. People stared at his rumpled clothing, and he stopped and brushed himself down and straightened his collar and tie. No hurry, after all. An old man, a man with corns, would walk very slowly up the long incline.

His ankle hurt but he struggled manfully on. Once in the shed he would have the bike and there would be a long run down, and then only the little hill up from the village to the house. He wondered whether Bunsen had first killed his victims and then gone to fetch the bicycle, or whether he had brought it back from the shed before he got down to his dreadful work, and finally wheeled it up innocently to the house. In the case of Miss Morland, of course, he had left it by the body while he ran to fetch Pendock and lead him, full of false horror and lamentation, down to the dreadful scene.

The bicycle leant innocently against the wall of the shed. He hopped painfully on to it and sped down the hill for home.

Cockie was waiting on the terrace for him as he pedalled wearily up the drive; he said mockingly still: “Did you enjoy your ride?”

“No, I did not,” said James, limping up the steps towards him.

“You seem to have had a tumble,” said Cockie, full of hypocritical sympathy. He took him by the arm and helped him up the steps and into the house. “Have you hurt your foot?”

“Yes, I have,” said James shortly, bewildered by his air of mischievous delight. “And if you knew what I’ve proved while doing so, you wouldn’t be so much amused.”

Cockrill led him into the ground-floor cloakroom and pushed him down unceremoniously on to the lavatory seat. “Let’s have a look at it; oh dear, that’s nasty—quite swollen.” He soaked a towel and wrapped it tenderly round the injured ankle. “Just a sprain, I expect.” He added delightedly:

“There was a young man with a sprain,

Who fell off a bike—or a train…

but it was the train, wasn’t it?”

James stared at him. “Did you see me?”

“No, I didn’t see you,” said Cockie airily, “but one of my lads put his shoulder out doing the same thing last night. It was a pity for you both that the line isn’t still banked up with snow—it would have been softer, and not so far for you to fall. But still—you aren’t an old man.”

James glared at him indignantly. “Do you mean to say you’d worked it all out before I even started?”

“I can’t say until I know just what you’ve discovered,” said Cockrill blandly. “Did you find the porter at Tenfold communicative? He’s a bit of a money-grubber, but I rang him up and told him to give you any information you might require.”

“Is
that
why he had it so pat?” said James disgustedly.

Cockrill laughed. “I hope you didn’t upset the old lady?” he said, more gravely. “We were going over to see her this afternoon, but I thought if I let you have your head, you might get more out of her than we should… being the bereaved husband, and all that.”

James nursed his ankle, folding the cold towel soothingly around it. “Well, honestly! Of all the ruddy limits! You let me sweat all that way over, risking my neck on that frightful old ramshackle, me that never takes a yard more exercise than I can possibly help; you let me chance Pendock’s cook’s bicycle being pinched from that mouldy little shack on the downs, you let me make a fool of myself all over Tenfold village searching for a Miss Bunsen, and finally you calmly allow me to endanger my life jumping off an express train at ninety miles an hour. Damn it, man, I might have fallen on the line and got myself cut in half, I might have lain stunned in the ditch for hours and even drowned if there’d been any water in it; I might have broken my ruddy leg…”

But Cockrill was standing before him with a wild light in his eyes, grasping his soft white hair in both fists and muttering over and over to himself: “The weapon! … The weapon! … The weapon!”

James struggled up off the lavatory seat, and with the wet towel still wrapped round his ankle, hopped out into the hall. Cockrill was standing at the telephone asking urgently for Dr. Newsome. After a few minutes he said in a low voice; “That you, Doc?”

There was a slight crackling of the ’phone. Cockrill said impatiently: “All right; all right, I’m not going to keep you long. What a place this is for babies! Now, listen; in all your experience have you ever seen anyone that’s been run over by a train?”

The telephone crackled again. “That’s what I knew you’d say. But I think you
have
,” said Cockie.

The telephone crackled for a long, long time. “I quite agree,” said Cockrill at last, and put down the receiver with a bonk. He turned to James, still standing like a stork in one corner of the hall. “What are you doing here?”

“Thinking,” said James, waking up with a start.

Cockie took his arm above the elbow and led him, hopping, into the library. “Oh, you were thinking. And what were you thinking, eh?”

“I was thinking that the 11:25 is the last train,” said James, and sank down on to the sofa.

Cockrill produced the inevitable paper and tobacco and rolled a cigarette while he digested this proposition. “So it is,” he said at last, turning to James with all the pleasurable excitement gone out of his bright brown eyes. “And a man can’t jump off a train and shove a body under the wheels of the same train, can he? Not even if he has the body all ready to hand, he can’t.

“Unless it was a very long train,” said James.

“Well, the 11:25 is a very short train.” He tittupped on his heels, warming the seat of his trousers at the fire. “Besides, the body wasn’t all ready to hand. I think you and I have been working too fast,” he said.

“You mean you don’t think that Bunsen—but look here, Inspector, he definitely left that bicycle in the shed. He biked up to the downs and parked it there; caught a bus over to Tenfold; stayed with his sister till twenty past eleven, and then caught the train back here; jumped off and into the garden at about twenty-five to twelve… in both cases it fits perfectly with the times of the murders; he’d save a good half-hour by taking the train; then he just fetched the bike… dash it, I saw the wheel-marks. I saw where the bike had leant up against the wall.”

“You saw where
a
bike had leant against the wall,” said Cockie, with a return of his impish grin. “Don’t forget that my boys had made this trip before you.”

James could not refrain from laughter at this simple explosion of all his fine conclusions. “You mean to say that the old boy rode solemnly into Tenfold, just as he said he did, and rode back again through the snow, and has nothing to do with it at all?”

“He must have. The girl was beheaded by the wheels of a train; they took her and held her there, after she was dead…”

“But, dash it all, he
must
have been involved. He was Pippi’s father—it’s too much coincidence to suppose that he’s out of the whole affair.”

“Miss le May’s father?” said Cockie, pricking up his ears and suddenly standing still. “Are you sure of that?”

“Of course I’m sure,” said James eagerly. “His sister told me so. Miss Morland had found out, I suppose, and that’s why he killed her. He was probably a little dotty after thirty years’ solid remorse.”

Cockrill turned and rang the bell by the mantelpiece. Bunsen came decorously in and stood by the door. “You rang, sir?”

“I want a word with you,” said Cockrill, beckoning him into the room. “Shut the door behind you. Now, just tell me this: you’ve been in Pigeonsford and the district a very long time? Your sister has just given us information as to the parentage of Miss Pippi le May and I want your confirmation. What do you say?”

Bunsen looked astounded. He held his trembling old hands stiffly at his sides and kept his eyes on the floor. “Well, if she’s told you, sir, I suppose she had good reason. She wouldn’t have done it without, for she swore, thirty years ago, that nothing should ever come out about it in the village, and to this day I don’t believe anything ever has. I hope, sir, you won’t think it necessary to publish this? Mrs. Morland knew, of course—Miss Grace’s mother, that was—but she was a saint, poor lady, and she made allowance for ’uman frailty. She got the child into a home, and later on, after the Vicar died, she had her in the house and gave out that she was a niece of his, or somethink of that. Miss Grace never knew the truth; she was a good woman, Miss Grace was, but not like her mother. Mrs. Morland was a saint, she was.”

“And the mother?”

“The mother was a woman called Port, sir. She was a bad lot, though she was buxom and pretty; she left the village at the time, and she died long ago, I believe. Anyway, she never troubled the child nor the Vicar again; he sent her money, of course, and he provided for the child…”

“The Vicar?” said James and Cockrill, staring at him.

“Why, yes, sir; poor gentleman, he was a good, sweet soul, but he’d been a high living lad, and the woman got hold of him… mind you, he was quite a young man at the time. My sister was midwife here, sir, that’s how she knew of it all, for Flossie Port she went to ask her about her condition. She and I were the only people outside the family that ever knew what had happened. We promised the poor Vicar, and we promised Mrs. Morland again when she died, that never would we breathe a word; and only that my sister’s seen fit to tell you now, sir, I shouldn’t have said anything about it. I hope you won’t let it come out… it would be a shock to the people in this village, sir…”

Cockie, recovered from his astonishment, gave such comfort as he might. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Bunsen; I’ll keep it all a secret if I possibly can. Your sister didn’t actually say in so many words what had happened, but from what she did say it was easy to conclude that it was—the Vicar. Wasn’t it, Nicholl?”

James shot up off the sofa. “Yes; yes, rather. We won’t breathe a word, Bunsen. Don’t you think, Inspector,” he added, looking imploringly at Cockrill, “that it would be better if Bunsen were to say nothing to his sister about this little talk? It’s only just clearing things up. I don’t see that it need be repeated at all.”

Cockie, smiling grimly, was in complete agreement. James put his hand on the old man’s sleeve. “There you are, now, Bunsen; don’t you worry any more. The whole thing’s over and done with. Don’t let it upset you; it’s finished.”

Bunsen beamed at him gratefully. “Thank you, sir. Thank you, Inspector. You’re very good, I’m sure. I wouldn’t like to think that after all these years the poor Vicar’s name should be dragged through the mud…” He shuffled off, wagging his head with relief, all unconscious, blameless old man that he was, that for some hours he had been, in the eyes of at least two people, three times a murderer, and once of his very own child.