The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop (15 page)

‘I don't see that they will have much choice in the matter, unless some fresh evidence turns up,' she said.

‘Who?' asked Felicity, laying down the book and turning round.

‘The police, my dear. I have worked it all out, and, you see, Mr Redsey could have killed his cousin, hidden the body, and managed the alibi for Sunday night. Then, after you and Aubrey returned to your beds on Monday night, he could have dismembered the body in the woods and then taken the limbs and so on into Bossbury on Tuesday morning. He couldn't have dismembered the body on Tuesday morning, because there was not enough time for that, but he could have taken the remains in a car, unlocked the shop with the key which Binks's assistant lost, disposed the flesh of the corpse on the hooks in that charming way, and left the shop locked up again. No one would have noticed him particularly.

‘Why wouldn't they?'

‘Because I have a shrewd idea, child, that the man who performed that gruesome task would have had the sense to dress himself up to look like a person delivering meat, if he –' She stopped short. ‘Good heavens!' she said suddenly, and paused. ‘Nobody in the market can remember having seen or heard anything untoward going on, you see,' she continued in a few moments. ‘There was only the usual quantity of sawdust on the floor, too,' she added irrelevantly.

‘Where do you get all this information?' asked Felicity, divided between amusement and disgust. ‘And you don't really think the dead man was Rupert Sethleigh, and that – and that Jimsey did all that to the body, do you?'

‘One question at a time, child. I obtain my information from two sources. My girl Phoebe, who, unhappily for me, is leaving in a day or two to get married, is own daughter to the sergeant at Bossbury police station. She tells me all that he tells the family. But do not divulge that fact to anyone. I should hate to get the man into trouble, and, besides, I do so love to know all there is to be known. My second source of information is the newspaper. It is quite informative to note the discrepancies between the two sources,' she added, chuckling.

‘But what about –?'

‘The youthful James Redsey? I don't know whether he killed his cousin, but I don't believe he carved him up,' said Mrs Bradley, with unqualified decision. ‘And I think we had better put our heads together to see if we can't prove it. Things appear dark for the young man. We may look forward confidently, I think, to his arrest within the next few days.'

‘It's that wretched will,' groaned Felicity. ‘And Jimsey swears he didn't even know Rupert was going to alter it.'

‘I believe him. From what I can understand of Mr Sethleigh's character, I should say that he would prefer to let a thing like that fall in the form of a bombshell, rather than tell the person concerned of his intentions. He would love to gloat over the thought of his cousin's surprise and fury. A nasty person, Mr Rupert Sethleigh.'

‘Yes, he was,' said Felicity, so briefly that Mrs Bradley stared at her keenly and interrogatively for several seconds. The girl flushed and shrugged her shoulders.

‘He was odious. I never went up to the Manor House alone, unless Mrs Harringay and Aubrey were there,' she said.

‘I see,' said Mrs Bradley. ‘And now,' she added, with a complete change of tone, ‘I want to see young Mr Harringay. A charming boy! Is your father coming to lunch? Oh, there he is at the gate! Go and let him in, child, and this afternoon I will go over to the Manor House. I have one or two questions to ask the youth, and I want to see his mother also.'

Thus it came about that Mrs Bradley took the path through the Manor Woods that afternoon and saw the police there.

Upon arriving at the house, she asked for Mrs Bryce Harringay.

‘I see that the police are busy here again,' said Mrs Bradley at the conclusion of ten minutes' desultory chitchat. Mrs Bryce Harringay stiffened.

‘Indeed?' she said icily.

‘I suppose they will arrest Mr Redsey as soon as they can prove the body in Bossbury was the body of Mr Sethleigh,' Mrs Bradley went on calmly, in an easy, conversational tone. ‘You are prepared for that to happen, of course?'

‘I suppose,' said Mrs Bryce Harringay, throwing dignity to the winds and discovering herself to the other woman in her true guise of an exceedingly worried mother and aunt, ‘I suppose it is inevitable. I wonder whom we had better get for the defence?'

‘If it comes to that,' interpolated Mrs Bradley quickly, ‘you might do a great deal worse than try for Ferdinand Lestrange. I'll recommend you to his notice if you like,' she added handsomely. ‘However, we shall hope that it will not be necessary. Your nephew is not arrested yet, you know. We must not lose heart.'

Her sympathetic words were discounted by the malicious chuckle with which she concluded them. Mrs Bryce Harringay blinked rapidly, and produced a minute handkerchief.

‘You are so clever,' she moaned. ‘Can't you think of anything that will save him? I don't like James, of course. He was a rude, untruthful boy, and he has grown up an uncontrolled and vicious man, but it would be so awkward for Aubrey later on if it became known that his cousin had been hanged for murder. I want Aubrey to go into Parliament, you see, and you know yourself how very Blameless a man's antecedents must be if he is to succeed in political circles! Think of election meetings, for example. The horrible questions the hecklers would ask him! Most embarrassing for the poor boy – most!'

And she burst into tears.

Mrs Bradley dived into the pocket of her violently striped washing-silk frock and drew out a small note-book and pencil. Then she pulled off her mushroom hat (of a fashion long discarded) and dropped it on the floor.

‘Now then,' she said peremptorily tapping Mrs Bryce Harringay's wrist with her pencil to attract the lady's attention. ‘Sit up and attend to me. Who else hated Rupert Sethleigh besides' – she thought for a moment – ‘James Redsey, Felicity Broome, Lulu Hirst, Margery Barnes, and darling Aubrey? I include the girls because I understand girls were not attracted by your older nephew.'

Mrs Bryce Harringay lowered the inadequate handkerchief and stared at her out of swimming, fishlike eyes.

‘Rupert knew that Dr Barnes had an illegitimate son,' she said with a gulp. ‘That's why I always have a Bossbury doctor when we are staying here. Most unpleasant, I think, to be attended by a man who has had Irregular Relationships – most!'

Mrs Bradley nodded solemnly.

‘Most,' she echoed in a sepulchral voice. ‘And the doctor knew that – er – that Rupert knew?'

‘Oh, yes. It saved Rupert paying insurance money for the servants, you see. Dr Barnes used to treat them free of charge because Rupert knew and did not tell.'

‘Is Dr Barnes a surgeon?' asked Mrs Bradley keenly.

‘He helped to amputate the major's brother's leg after a hunting accident, and he took out Margaret Somertoll's appendix,' replied Mrs Bryce Harringay. ‘At least,' she added darkly, ‘everybody
said
it was her appendix, but I drew my own conclusions. You see –' She lowered her unctuous voice to the note of the practised scandal-monger.

‘Yes, I see,' said Mrs Bradley at the end of a lengthy, complicated, and remarkably dull tale. ‘Most suspicious. I am so glad that you took up a Strong Moral Attitude about it.' And she suddenly screamed with laughter.

‘I fancy Rupert found out something about that too,' Mrs Bryce Harringay concluded rather hastily, for Mrs Bradley's quite unnecessary mirth unnerved her.

‘Yes? Well, all that you tell me is in James Redsey's favour,' observed Mrs Bradley, shutting off her laughter with the abrupt efficiency of a person turning off a tap. ‘The more enemies we can prove Rupert Sethleigh to have had,' she continued, ‘the more chance there is of showing that James Redsey's motive for accomplishing his cousin's death was less strong, perhaps, than the motive of some other person or persons.'

‘But the
doctor
did not kill Rupert!' exclaimed Mrs Bryce Harringay. ‘I'm sure I didn't intend
that
construction to be placed upon my remarks. I don't think extremely well of the man, it is true, but I should hesitate to accuse him of an Awful Deed!'

‘Quite so,' agreed Mrs Bradley. ‘But don't you see that our best line at present, if we wish to save James Redsey from arrest, is to discredit the present findings of the police and so turn their attention to fresh channels of enquiry?'

‘Yes, I see that, of course,' said Mrs Bryce Harringay. ‘And the doctor, being a surgeon –' She shuddered with exaggerated horror. ‘Dreadful man! How glad I am that I refused to call him in when Aubrey contracted the chicken-pox two summers ago! Really, men are such monsters one scarcely knows why one married!'

The Inspector Has His Doubts

T
HE
next thing to do, the inspector decided, was to discover the owner of the suitcase. This proved simple. Redsey, confronted by his cousin's initials, agreed that the case was Rupert Sethleigh's, but most emphatically denied all knowledge of how it came to be buried in the woods. Neither could he explain the bloodstained condition of its interior.

‘The last I remember about that suitcase,' he declared, ‘is getting Rupert to lend it to the vicar when he went for his holiday in May – that is – last month. It seems a long time ago, somehow.'

The inspector went straight away to the Vicarage, where the Reverend Stephen, looking very foolish, agreed that the suitcase had probably been lent to him, but that he had forgotten all about it. He usually did forget all about things, he was sorry to say. Oh, here was his daughter. She would know more about it.

Felicity, appealed to, remembered perfectly well that her father had borrowed the suitcase, but thought he had returned it. However, he was so very absent-minded that it was more than possible he had forgotten all about it.

Then she told the inspector where she herself had found it, and of how she and Aubrey Harringay had decided to bury it in the Manor Woods.

‘I wonder why you should think of doing that, miss,' said the inspector, without finding it necessary to add that the police had found it.

Felicity shook her head.

‘It just occurred to us,' she said, with delightful vagueness.

The inspector went in search-of Aubrey Harringay.

‘Now, young man,' he said sternly. ‘What made you decide to bury that suitcase?'

‘But I didn't bury it, inspector.'

‘What's that?'

‘I didn't bury it. I was going to, but while I had gone for the fish, you know, some blighter pinched the case and hopped off with it.'

‘The fish? Was that the fish we found inside the case?'

‘Yes, it was. But I didn't put it there, I swear I didn't. I just buried the fish in the hole – for a lark, you know – and that's all. I had nothing to do with putting it in the case or – or – writing those words.'

‘H'm!' said the inspector non-committally, and went to the superintendent.

‘I haven't tested Redsey's alibi for Sunday night,' he said. ‘But this is what I've got against him so far:

‘Of course,' the superintendent demurred, ‘the suitcase isn't important. There is nothing at all to connect it with the murder as far as we know at present. I think we might leave the suitcase out of it for a bit.'

‘The bloodstains, sir.'

‘Yes, well, we shall know more when we know whether it's human blood or whether they carried home the week-end joint without enough paper wrapped round it. Case of wait and see. Still, there's certainly a good deal of unexplained matter which could easily be worked into a case against the young fellow. He had the motive, you see. That's the big thing.'

‘Yes, sir. Still, his prints don't coincide with those on the butcher's knife and cleaver. Those prints were made by that daft assistant who apparently parted with the key, and there's nothing to connect
him
with the murder.'

‘No – but about James Redsey, now. You see, we can't prove he dismembered the body even if we think he did the murder. What about the prints on the suitcase?'

‘Too confused to be trustworthy, sir. You see, at least four people have handled that case since somebody stowed it away on the Vicarage dust-heap.'

‘Four people?'

‘Yes. Young Harringay, Miss Broome, the sergeant, and me. And then, you see, it had been buried. That makes a difference.'

‘Yes, I see. Still, as I say, even without the suitcase, the whole thing looks pretty clear to me.'

‘Yes. It's a darn sight too clear. That's what I think,' said Grindy. ‘It's like picking apples off a tree. Too easy to be interesting. I don't like that kind of evidence. Murders aren't solved all that easy, sir, as you should know. That fellow Redsey is quite the sort of young chap as might do a murder – same as any of us – you don't have to be a criminal to up and kill a man when all's said and done. The feelings of that are in most of us, say what you please – but all the same, Mr Bidwell –'