The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop (14 page)

‘All the cheery souls here have indicated pretty clearly that they prefer my room to my company,' he said. ‘I believe there are rumours current that I murdered my cousin Sethleigh a short time ago.'

‘And did you?' enquired Mrs Bradley, in her devastatingly direct fashion.

‘Well,' said Jim slowly, ‘at one time I thought I had, but I'm glad to say that I was wrong.'

‘This,' remarked Mrs Bradley, settling herself as for a pleasant chat, ‘sounds remarkably interesting. May I hear more about it?'

‘Well,' said Jim, ‘I've made up my mind to spill the yarn to the inspector and get it off my chest, so –'

‘So I have come just in time for the dress rehearsal,' said Mrs Bradley, with hideous laughter.

Jim took up the putter again and began digging at the turf with it while he talked.

‘We had an argument on the Sunday night, Rupert and I,' he said, ‘It was rather a stale argument. I wanted him to lend me some money, and he refused. Well, we started in the billiard-room, and were interrupted by the entrance of my aunt, Mrs Harringay, so we cleared out. We walked into the woods, still arguing. Rupert remained cool, like the silky devil he was, but I got a bit heated, and, to cut it short, I knocked him down.'

‘Ah, yes,' murmured Mrs Bradley, nodding.

‘I was very unlucky,' pursued Jim. ‘The silly ass, instead of falling on the soft ground, as you or I would have done, had to go and smash his silly head against the trunk of a tree.'

‘Ah – ah!' said Mrs Bradley, interested.

‘Yes,' said Jim, in honest wrath, ‘it was exactly the sort of dashed annoying thing a silly fat-headed idiot like Sethleigh would do! No thought of other people's convenience! Never did have! Well, of course he lay so still and looked so white that I thought I'd killed him. I didn't know what to do! There he was, eyes shut, mouth wide open, looking like God-knows-what, and I was in the devil of a funk! I thought of rushing up to the house for some water. Then I decided I'd better not leave him, perhaps. Then I remembered he was supposed to have a weak heart. I knelt down and tried to feel it beating. Couldn't feel a thing! So with that I grabbed him by the armpits and lugged him into the middle of a thickish hazel copse and removed myself from the scene of operations as quickly as I could. Well, I pelted along to the “Queen's Head” and went in. Then I got beastly tight. Then two chaps carted me home. Then my aunt got scared to think of having a drunken man in the house, so she locked me in for the night. And that's all, except that I spent all next day in mooning about the house and keeping people out of the woods. Rupert had not returned, you see. I took jolly good care to find that out – strictly on the Q. T., of course. I
was
in a funk! That ass of a solicitor turned up and wanted to interview Sethleigh and everything! My hat! That was a day! Well, that night I went to bury Sethleigh's body in the middle of the woods. He wasn't there! So I know I didn't kill him. See what I mean?'

‘And that's the story you intend telling to the inspector?' mused Mrs Bradley.

‘Yes,' said Redsey. He flung down the putter and stood up.

‘Time to go home for lunch,' he said. ‘Don't tell me to let the inspector go on guessing. I hate keeping secrets. Hullo! Is that Felicity Broome at the gate? You'll let me give you both a lift back to Wandles, won't you?'

‘And when are you going to tell your little tale to Mr Grindy?' asked Mrs Bradley, as the Bentley spread her wings and glided along the Culminster road towards the village.

‘This afternoon, if I can get hold of him. I don't think it will be difficult. He lives in our house from about nine-thirty until six these days.'

‘What's all this about?' asked Felicity.

Jim told her.

Further Discoveries

A
NXIOUS
to search the Manor Woods now that he had heard Jim Redsey's story, the inspector, accompanied by Police-Sergeant Walls and Police-Constable Pearce, invited Aubrey Harringay to take them by the most direct path into the centre of the woodland. Pearce, who had come on his bicycle, left it propped against the trunk of a tree, on the outskirts of the wood, and in single file, silent, majestic, and heavy of tread, the police followed Aubrey along the leafy path which led directly to the circle of pines. In the middle of the circle stood the Stone of Sacrifice.

The inspector went up and scanned it closely.

‘Come here, Walls,' he said abruptly. Aubrey went up also, and the three heads bent over some dark stains on the greyish, glinting stone.

‘Blood,' said the inspector. ‘Bit of luck for us, I shouldn't wonder. Seen these marks before?' he added, turning to Aubrey.

‘No,' said Aubrey, excited. ‘Is it really blood?'

‘That remains to be seen,' said the inspector. ‘It looks like it, anyhow. Now, if Redsey spoke the truth – that's rather funny, because he distinctly said –' He broke off, cogitating. ‘Pearce,' he said at last, ‘search about and see whether you can find any bushes that look as though they've been broken or disturbed in any way, or –'

‘I say, inspector,' broke in Aubrey. ‘I've got something I ought to tell you! Please tell me first, though; did Jim Redsey – Oh, half a second!'

Before either of the police officers could say a word, he had gone racing off along the narrow woodland path and was lost to sight among the trees. At the edge of the woods, leaning against one of the tree-trunks, was Constable Pearce's bicycle. Aubrey propelled it hastily over the short grass on to the path and, leaping into the saddle, pedalled swiftly across the park and on to the gravel drive. Arrived at the lodge, he shot through the great gates into the road, turned sharp to the right, and in a few minutes arrived at the Vicarage.

‘I want Felicity! Quick!' he said to Mary Kate Maloney.

‘Faith, is it a fire?' enquired Mary Kate, interested.

‘No, no! It's urgent!' cried Aubrey, propping up the constable's bicycle and mopping his brow.

Mary Kate fled into the house, and Aubrey could hear her voice yodelling richly for her mistress.

‘What is it?' cried Felicity, running down the garden path.

‘I say, what did Jim tell the police when they interviewed him? Do you know?'

‘Yes.'

Felicity reported Jim's confession.

‘That's what he told them?'

‘Yes, Aubrey. Why, what's happened?'

‘Nothing yet. You're sure that's all?'

‘That's what Jimsey told Mrs Bradley and me he was going to say to them.'

‘Righto! Thanks. Tell you everything later!'

He leapt on to Constable Pearce's purloined and long-suffering bicycle once more, and raced back to the Manor Woods.

‘I say, inspector.'

‘Look here, sir –'

‘Yes, I know. The bike. Awfully sorry, but I had to hurry. Couldn't stop to ask permission. Police business, you know.'

The inspector grinned tolerantly.

‘Well, sir?'

‘Yes, well, look here. On Monday night – after the Sunday when Jim and Rupert had that row – I scouted after old Jim to this place – these woods – and saw him snooping about in the bushes for the – well, I suppose I'd better say the body. Old Jim thought old Rupert had chucked in the towel, you see, and ought to have a decent burial or something.'

‘We've heard all this before, sir.'

‘Yes. Well, I watched him –'

‘Where were you exactly?'

Aubrey considered.

‘About here. Yes, here. You can see where my feet and legs scraped the leaves and things on the ground. And old Jim was over there, just behind the sergeant and a bit to the left – my left, sergeant, and your right. That's it. He searched those bushes. He had a hurricane lamp. That's how I could see him.'

The sergeant, who had been conning the ground near the bushes in question, straightened himself.

‘Certainly seems feasible, sir,' he remarked to the inspector. ‘Come and see for yourself. Twigs broken near the ground, soil and leaves scraped as though something has been dragged along – these ridges and grooves might as well be heel-marks as anything else – and the whole place looks disturbed and trampled.'

‘That's right,' agreed the inspector. ‘Well, sir?'

‘Yes, well, he was looking for old Rupert and old Rupert wasn't there!'

‘Now, sir!' the inspector's voice rang out sharply.

‘Well, I didn't go and look, of course,' said Aubrey, ‘but it was pretty obvious. Old Jim looked properly flummoxed. Then he had another go.'

‘If there's anybody – no, of course there isn't –' began the inspector.

‘Anybody to corroborate my yarn?' said Aubrey, guessing the inspector's thought. ‘Well, as it happens, there
is
somebody else who – who knows that Jim was in the woods on Monday night.'

‘Oh?'

‘Yes. Miss Broome. You know, the vicar's daughter.'

‘The vicar's daughter?' repeated the inspector.

‘Yes. She comes here whenever she wants to, of course. Gets in through the wicket gate that opens on to the road. Well, she wanted some fresh air or something, and came for a stroll, and saw me pinch old Jim's spade, and old Jim thought I was a poacher or something, and hounded me out. He fell down and tore chunks out of his Oxfords on the brambles, you know,' added Aubrey, circumstantially, ‘and I got clear away while he was picking the thorns out of his eyebrows!'

‘I see, sir.'

At this moment Constable Pearce approached.

‘Oh, I say, Pearce, you know,' said the boy, ‘awfully sorry I pinched your bike. I don't think I damaged it.'

‘You're kindly welcome, sir,' said the constable handsomely.

‘Pearce,' said the inspector, ‘you can get back to the station now, and tell the superintendent I'd like a word with him this evening. And I'd be obliged, sir,' he went on, turning again to Aubrey, ‘if one of the gardeners would lend me a spade.'

‘I'll go and see about it,' said Aubrey with alacrity. He grinned wickedly as he walked away, thinking of the trout he had buried.

‘For of course they've spotted where the ground has been dug up,' he said to himself, ‘and are going to have a look-see.'

The inspector seated himself on a fallen log, invited the sergeant to sit beside him, and took out a packet of cigarettes.

‘There's the hole Redsey dug that night,' he said, pointing.

‘I suppose you can believe the boy?' suggested the sergeant laconically.

‘Don't know. Ought to be able to, at that age! And there's the young lady's evidence, you see, although we've still got to collect that.'

‘She's probably been got at,' said the sergeant dourly.

‘Oh, you can always frighten girls into telling the truth,' said the inspector easily.

The sergeant, father of three daughters, laughed with sardonic amusement.

‘
Frighten
them?' he said bitterly.

‘Besides, she's the vicar's daughter,' the inspector hastily interpolated.

‘Caesar's wife, in fact,' said a rich voice just behind them. Both men looked round in time to see Mrs Lestrange Bradley disappearing at a bend in the woodland path.

‘Who's that?' asked the inspector, startled.

‘Old party that's taken that place on the Bossbury road just the other side of Wandles,' said the sergeant. ‘Queer old girl, by all accounts. Writes books about lunatics, or something.'

‘Doesn't look like a writer of comic stuff,' said the inspector, frowning.

‘No, not comic stuff, sir. The real thing. Finds out why they've gone dotty and tries to put 'em right again. Does it, too, sometimes, or so I've heard.'

‘She'd better not come nosing round where she's not wanted, anyway,' said the inspector. ‘Looks suspicious.'

Before they had finished the second cigarette, Aubrey returned with a spade, and the sergeant set to work. The loose soil was soon thrown up, and a hole much the size and shape of that dug by Jim Redsey was made in the soft ground.

‘Nothing here,' grunted the inspector. ‘And, anyway, we know where the corpse is, although Mr Bidwell's got some idea there may be another body somewhere.'

‘Half a minute, sir.' The sergeant thrust in the spade once more. ‘She's struck on something.'

He dug away manfully. To Aubrey's amazement a darkish rectangular object was soon disclosed to view. The inspector and the sergeant finished off the job with their hands, and pulled up a suitcase.

Aubrey's eyes nearly started out of his head. He felt sick, and his heart thumped against his ribs. On the lid, plainly discernible, were Rupert Sethleigh's initials. It was the suitcase which someone had removed while he had gone for the fish that night.

‘Well, I'm damned!' said the inspector. ‘What's this?'

He opened the lid. Inside the case was Aubrey's stuffed trout. It still looked affronted and resentful, and well it might, for stuck on to its back by the agency of a large pin was a legend written on a sheet of note-paper in pencil, and formed entirely of block capitals. Tersely it ran:

‘A present from Grimsby.'

Mrs Bradley was half-way across the lawn by the time the inspector had discovered the suitcase. She had spent about an hour and a half with pencil and paper after Jim Redsey had driven away from the gates of the Stone House, and Felicity, who had entirely forgotten her first unsatisfactory impression of the clever little old woman, sat on the step and affected to read. From time to time, however, her eyes strayed to the outrageously clad figure seated at the table, and what she saw did not encourage her to ask questions. At last Mrs Bradley raised her head and spoke.