The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop

CHAPTER XVII

The Stone of Sacrifice

‘HEADS!’ shrieked Aubrey Harringay, lifting a full toss from George Willows high into the deep blue of the summer sky.

Mrs Bradley smiled serenely, and, timing it nicely, brought off a neat catch. She flicked the ball back to Willows and walked up to the nets.

‘Come out of that a moment,’ she said, addressing the batsman. ‘I want you to accompany me into the woods.’

It was early in the afternoon. Mrs Bradley, having ascertained, without trouble or waste of time, that the bloodstains on the floor of the hockey shed were not connected with the murder, had gone home to lunch in a contented frame of mind. Aubrey had returned to the Manor House. The police had gone back to Bossbury, for they were still exploring various avenues of research from that end of the case by assuming that the dismembered body was not that of Rupert Sethleigh. So far, they had had little fortune with either of their assumptions, and, to all intents and purposes, the body which they had discovered in the butcher’s shop remained unidentified. The fact that both Grindy and Superintendent Bidwell felt certain that the murdered man was Rupert Sethleigh availed little without actual proof, and some person or persons unknown had gone so cleverly to work that proof of such kind seemed as difficult as ever to obtain.

At two-thirty, Felicity Broome, groaning but obedient, had met ten old ladies of the parish and followed the two boldest on to the top of the Culminster bus. They were to go over the cathedral, have a short river excursion, tea in the riverside gardens of the Temperance Hotel, and then were to fill in the last quarter of an hour or so before the departure of the seven o’clock bus by looking at the exhibits in the Culminster Museum.

‘Do what you like. Pay what you like. Give the dears a good time,’ said Mrs Bradley generously, ‘but whatever happens you must take them to see the Culminster Collection.’

‘But why?’ asked the puzzled Felicity. ‘I could understand going there yesterday to see the skull, but what is the point of going there to-day?’

Mrs Bradley grimaced.

‘If you don’t go, I must,’ she said. ‘If you go in with all these old ladies, nobody will take any notice. If I go, I shall probably be murdered to-night. Don’t ask me why. I’ll tell you more about it later. That’s all. Will you take them?’

Felicity went white.

‘Then – what is it? The skull – what do you mean?’ she said.

‘Nothing,’ replied Mrs Bradley with brusque finality, and left her. This was at nine of the church clock that morning. It was now a quarter to three, and the bus with its cargo of pleased old ladies had bucketed round the corner and was well upon its way. Having watched it out of sight, Mrs Bradley now sought out Aubrey Harringay.

‘First of all, I want James Redsey,’ she said. ‘Do you think he will come with us?’

Aubrey went to enquire, and found Jim in the billiard-room, listlessly knocking the balls about. He looked tired and worn. It had been an anxious fortnight. At any moment, he felt, the inspector might have him arrested for the murder of his cousin, and he knew just enough about the law to realize that it is easier to get caught in its gigantic and terrifying machinery than to get clear again. He slept badly, ate little, brooded, and loafed. Even Felicity, who loved him, had scolded and poured scorn on him.

‘You look like a murderer!’ she said one day, in complete but helpless exasperation. ‘Why don’t you buck up and look as though you don’t care?’

‘Well, I don’t,’ grunted Jim. ‘It isn’t much use caring, old thing. But if you caught that inspector’s eye boring holes in the back of your neck as often as I do, and if you never opened a door but he was behind it, and if you couldn’t even have a bath without seeing his ugly face come goggling against the frosted glass of the window or hearing his silly voice asking you idiotic questions through the ventilator shaft, perhaps you’d feel much as I do – that the Third Degree and the Spanish Inquisition were bedroom farces compared to the hunted-cat life I lead while he’s conducting his damned investigations. Why, I even took my aunt’s pet bowwows to my bosom the other day because Marie bit a piece out of the lad Grindy’s trousers, and he fell over Antoinette into the water-lily tank! And you know my general opinion of those galvanized sugar-pigs of hers!’

His voice was surcharged with emotion. Felicity pressed his hand.

And now, to add to his trials, here was this frightful dame named Bradley coming and invading the place and sending him idiotic invitations to play silly party games with pencils and paper at her house, and wanting him to take her into the woods, and show her the exact spot where he’d punched the blighter Rupert’s fatheaded jaw for him! It was a bit thick. He was damned if he’d go! Damned, he went.

Mrs Bradley grinned evilly. He thought he had never seen such a wicked old woman. She reminded him of some dreadful bald-headed bird he had seen in a picture at some time. Not that she was bald-headed, of course – but you got the same sort of sick feeling when you looked at her. And yet, on second thoughts, wasn’t she more like one of those reptiles – no, not reptiles! What was that word? – saurians! When she was amusing herself at your expense, which was ninety per cent of the time – and the other ten per cent was when she didn’t even seem aware that you were on the map at all! – her little smile was like that he had seen on the face of a newt – no, a sand lizard! – no, one of those repulsive-looking giant frogs. But when the woman really got in a nasty one and grinned a bit wider, why, then you could see what she must have been in a former existence! Those reincarnation johnnies were right! The bally woman had been on the earth before – as an alligator! Ugh! Man-eating! Ugh! He was jolly glad he hadn’t cut up old Rupert and hung him on hooks! He felt certain that, if he had done so, Mrs Bradley would not only have been perfectly aware of the fact, but was quite capable of thinking out a better way of doing it, and of disclosing the same with her hideously sinister cackle. He shuddered.

The three of them walked silently across the park.

At the edge of the Manor Woods, Mrs Bradley halted.

‘You first,’ she said to Aubrey. ‘Mr Redsey next. I will come last. Forward, children. Straight to the Stone of Sacrifice.’

A comparatively short walk in single file, along the narrow winding path by which Aubrey led them, brought them to the circle of pines. Even on this brilliant summer afternoon the place was eerie, gloomy, and chill. A faint wind moaned in the tops of the trees, although Jim Redsey felt certain that when he crossed the park the air had been hot and still.

Mrs Bradley walked up to the Stone of Sacrifice and laid a claw-like yellow hand upon its surface. The stone was reptile-harsh and curiously cold to the touch. She drew her hand away and gazed benignly at the strange old rock.

‘It reeks of evil,’ she said solemnly. ‘What blood was shed; what wicked deeds were done; what screams, what torture, and what agony this ancient monument has heard and seen, by great good fortune we shall never know.’

She turned abruptly to Jim Redsey.

‘Take the child over to the spot where you knocked your cousin down,’ she said.

Jim touched Aubrey’s arm and they walked about twelve paces.

‘Here,’ he said laconically. (Easier to humour the old girl. What was the game, anyway?)

‘Very well. Lie down, boy.’ Aubrey extended his thin form on the ground. ‘Like that, Mr Redsey?’

‘No. Get your head round to the left a bit more. Stick. That’s right.’

‘Thank you, Mr Redsey. Now haul him into the bushes. Oh, by the arms, was it? I don’t think your clothes will hurt, child. You must pick out the pine needles afterwards. Now, Mr Redsey, come out again and go off in the direction of the “Queen’s Head” at the pace which you took on the night of June 22nd.’

Jim leapt away to the right, crashing through bushes and leaping over brambles, and was lost to sight in less than three seconds.

‘Thank you!’ called Mrs Bradley. But the opportunity for flight thus offered him was too good to be missed, thought Jim. He affected not to hear her, ran swiftly down the path, and vaulted the wicket gate. He then walked at a swinging pace down the Bossbury-London road towards Culminster and re-entered the Manor grounds through the lodge gates.

Mrs Bradley chuckled gently.

‘Never mind. He’s done all that I wanted him to do,’ she said. ‘Now I want you to crawl out of those bushes where you are and advance into the clearing. Come slowly. You’re not feeling very well or very happy after that crack on the head you received when you struck your head against a tree in falling. Hands and knees. That’s right. And you are wearing a white shirt and light-grey flannel trousers.’ She stared unseeingly at his navy-blue blazer and white flannels. ‘At eight o’clock on a fine summer evening. At a quarter to nine on a fine summer evening. Yes, quite so. Get up, child. A great black slug. Indeed?’

She shook her head and wrinkled her brow.

‘Well, well,’ she said, ‘all these things are sent to try us. I’ll buy you some new flannels, boy, if you’ve spoilt those. Come and have another look at the Stone. Where are those bloodstains? H’m!’

She produced a reading-glass and examined them closely.

‘They haven’t found the weapon yet,’ said Aubrey unexpectedly, ‘with which old Rupert was done in. Wonder what it was?’

‘The weapon,’ responded Mrs Bradley, lowering her voice and almost hissing the words into his ear, ‘is washed and inspected so often that, if we saw it, the inspector wouldn’t know and I wouldn’t know and you wouldn’t know whether it was verily used to murder Rupert Sethleigh or not.’

‘Oh, you mean one of those butcher’s tools! Of course,’ agreed Aubrey, edging away from her.

Mrs Bradley cackled softly.

‘Perhaps I do mean that. And perhaps I don’t,’ she observed helpfully. ‘Go back into the bushes and lie down as you did before. Do you mind removing your blazer first? Thank you so much. That’s right. Hang it over that little branch over there.’

Aubrey walked off and was soon lost to sight in the hazel-copse.

‘Now we will try again,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Redsey has run away. You are unconscious. I am the person for whom the police are looking. I have seen Redsey knock you down. I conceal myself behind a tree.’

She did this, and then went on, in her rich, slightly drawling voice:

‘I have seen him drag you into the bushes. It occurs to me that he thinks you are dead. I have seen him dash away. I wait. I listen. Yes, he has gone for good. I emerge. I search the bushes.’

She did so.

‘I discover you lying prone upon the ground.’

She drew aside the hazel boughs and grinned fiendishly down upon the prostrate Aubrey.

‘Keep still. You are unconscious, remember. I seize you by the heels. (Yes, I really must provide you with some new flannels, child.) I drag you out into the clearing. I examine you. It occurs to me that I hate and fear you; that James Redsey believes he has accidentally killed you; that it is a golden opportunity to be rid of you for ever. I gag you with your own shirt, in case you should commence to recover consciousness before I decapitate you. Yes, it does seem a little indelicate on my part, but I’m afraid it must be done!’

She jerked at the buckle of his suède belt, and with incredible swiftness pulled his shirt over his head – (‘Here, I say, though!’ protested Aubrey, through two thicknesses of cream flannel) – and with a deftness born of nursing-experience in mental hospitals she turned him over and pulled the shirt off.

‘You won’t be cold. You’ve your vest,’ she observed thoughtfully. Aubrey was unable to reply, for in Mrs Bradley’s steel fingers the shirt made a clumsy but effective gag. She secured it in place by a clever use of the sleeves. The tail hung like a beard over his breast until she flung it up over his face, almost suffocating him.

‘I secure your wrists with your own belt,’ she continued. ‘Kick out hard if that shirt hurts too much. Then I put my foot against the soles of your shoes, seize your bound wrists and jerk you into a sitting position. Then I slip your bound wrists over my head so that you are clinging to my neck. Then I straighten myself (Heavens! What a length you are, child!) and carry you over to the Stone of Sacrifice. I lay you out flat on the top of it, face uppermost. Then I hack off your head! . . . No, not really. Cheer up! Some blood runs down the Stone. Poor boy! You are rather uncomfortable.’

She released his mouth and his wrists, and Aubrey swung himself to the ground. Mrs Bradley carefully unrolled the shirt, and shook it out. Aubrey disappeared modestly behind the Stone and put it on. He reappeared grinning and chafing his wrists, obviously not at all impressed by her version of how Sethleigh had been treated.

‘You’re hefty,’ he said admiringly, ‘but really –’

Mrs Bradley shrugged her thin shoulders.

‘Are you willing to conclude the little drama?’ she asked. ‘Good. Well, I wonder what to do next. SuddenlyI hear voices. A man and a girl are approaching the Stone. I have little time to think or to act. I lay the body on the ground a little way from the Stone’ – her eyes, assisted by the reading-glass, searched the grass – ‘here, I think, but the exact spot is not important. I take up the gag – that is, your shirt . . . (Yes, I know I have, but the murderer had less consideration. Besides, Sethleigh was dead – you’re not!), and take the head away with me. Also I release the wrists and take away the belt also.’

‘Old Rupert generally wore a silk scarf on grey bags,’ observed Aubrey helpfully, but still refusing to take her seriously.

‘Indeed? Easier to tie him up, then. I now conceal myself near at hand. The next bit of the proceedings is still rather obscure. You see, undoubtedly Margery Barnes and the man – whoever it was – I think I know, but I haven’t proved it yet – came upon the scene very soon after the head was hacked off. Now, I do not fancy the man saw Rupert Sethleigh’s dead body immediately they entered the clearing, and Margery Barnes undoubtedly did not see it at all. I don’t think it is outside the bounds of probability to suppose that she saw the Stone from the opposite side as they emerged from the path into the clearing and so did not spot the body. Just go over to the path down which James Redsey disappeared a little while ago, and tell me whether you can see me from there.’

She lay full length on the spot where she supposed the dead body of Sethleigh had been placed.

‘You cannot see me? Very well,’ she called. ‘Walk towards the Stone and sit down. Now get up and bear away to your left. Now glance this way and stand still the minute you can see any part of me.’

Aubrey walked on, round the immense Stone. This was rather a rag. He espied one of Mrs Bradley’s shoes, and halted.

‘Your foot!’ he called out promptly.

‘Very well. Walk on, and stop the moment you can see the whole of me.’

Aubrey obeyed.

‘Very well. Now run over to Dr Barnes’s house and bring Margery here, when you have marked the spot where you are standing. Here’s my penknife.’ She sat up, delved in her pocket, and tossed the knife with unerring aim. ‘Open the big blade and stick it in the ground.’

Aubrey was about to ask what excuse he should make to Margery for hauling her up to the Manor Woods on a hot and tiring afternoon, when Mrs Bradley stood up.

‘And when Margery has shown us exactly where she sat while the young man told her those tales of his, and I have told her the name of the said young man, I think we shall begin to find matters moving towards the detection of the murderer,’ she said. ‘Did Rupert buy his grey flannels ready made?’ she continued abruptly. ‘Oh, and do you know whether he was wearing a vest that Sunday night?’

‘No. Had ’em tailored by the chaps who made all his other clothes – Roundway & Down. Yes, always wore cellular trunks and vest – you know the things?’

‘Oh, thank you! That simplifies matters,’ said Mrs Bradley. Aubrey turned to go for Margery Barnes, but his movement was suddenly arrested. With a sharp sound, a yard-long arrow stuck quivering in the trunk of a tree. It had missed Mrs Bradley’s head by less than three inches.

‘Good Lord!’ said Aubrey, rather pale.

Mrs Bradley cackled with genuine gratification.

Before she could make any remark, however, the sallow-visaged Savile came bounding into the clearing past the white-faced, startled boy, and ran swiftly up to her. In his right hand he carried a six-foot long-bow. He was clad in a drab-coloured waterproof, and had a quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder. On his head was a green cap decorated with a startlingly tall pheasant’s feather. He raised this extraordinary headgear as he approached.

‘Dear me!’ he exclaimed in tones of consternation. ‘How terribly careless of me! I almost killed you! My dear Mrs Bradley, I scarcely dare hope that you will accept my apologies! This is what comes of practising for amateur theatricals!’

He opened his waterproof with the hand which was not holding the bow, and displayed a suit of Lincoln green.

‘How very charming!’ exclaimed Mrs Bradley. ‘Do let me hold your long-bow whilst you remove this outer husk.’

She seized the bow, and Savile, smiling in his suave, deferential, deprecating way, delicately removed the sad-coloured garment and stood displayed in all the beauty of Robin Hood tunic and hose. The reason for the feathered cap was now made apparent. A bulge they had noticed beneath the waterpoof transformed itself into a handsome hunting-horn, and, round his waist, Savile was wearing a leather belt on which a deer-skin wallet was gallantly and nattily slung.

It was an attractive costume, and Savile’s perfect figure set it off to great advantage.

‘Jolly fine,’ said Aubrey politely, with a boy’s instinctive aversion to fancy dress. Savile glanced down at slender legs shapely as an actor’s, struck an attitude, and smirked unpleasantly.

‘And what part do you play?’ Mrs Bradley enquired with great interest. ‘And have you to shoot an arrow at somebody?’

‘I think I will collect the one in the tree,’ remarked Savile, without attempting to answer either question. ‘A pity to lose it, don’t you think?’

‘Let me get it whilst you resume your waterproof,’ said Mrs Bradley, and before Savile could protest she had stepped nimbly up to the great tree and was wrenching at the arrow with both hands.

‘I am quite pleased to think that you did miss me, young man,’ she observed, as, after the fourth successive pull, she jerked it out.

‘I was actually in the public woods on the other side of the Bossbury road,’ said Savile, taking the arrow from her and placing it carefully in his quiver. ‘But when I observed that the arrow had flown over here into the Manor Woods, I hurried across at once to make certain no damage had been done.’

‘Liar,’ said Aubrey under his breath. ‘That arrow never flew from the other side of the Bossbury road,’ he thought to himself.

‘Are you also acting a play?’ Savile went on.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bradley unblushingly. ‘A very modern play,’ she added circumstantially. ‘I am sorry the full cast is not here. Aubrey and I were carrying out our respective roles of villain’ – she pointed dramatically to the thin, brown-faced boy – ‘and innocent victim.’ She simpered idiotically and then leered with horrible effect. Savile stepped back a pace.

‘Oh, you must go? Good-bye, then,’ said Mrs Bradley, extending her repulsive-looking claw and giving Savile’s olive-hued hand a grasp which made all the bones grate together.

She waited until he had disappeared, and then hooted joyously.

‘It’s nothing to laugh at, you know,’ said Aubrey, the stern young male. ‘He nearly killed you.’

‘Ah, well! Boys will be boys,’ said Mrs Bradley philosophically. ‘And I don’t think I’ll bother about Margery Barnes, after all. I’ll walk over and see the doctor myself.’