Laurels Are Poison

Chapter 19

ITYLUS

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‘Well, it seems,’ said Laura, ‘that although the skeleton not turning up trumps settled the thing more or less, Mrs Croc. had had her suspicions for some time previous to that that Miss Murchan wasn’t dead. She thought Cook being murdered proved it The only reason for murdering Cook seemed to be that she had recognized somebody she wasn’t supposed to recognize, and that couldn’t have been Cornflake because Cornflake could always pull that gag that old Cartwright produced among the Edgar Allans — say she was somebody else. That, being as how she was a student of the College, would more or less let her out. And, anyway, Cook couldn’t have had anything on her about former doings, because she didn’t know her.

‘Then, the disposal of Cook’s body, as discovered by the police, followed by us finding the corsets. The difficulty about bringing that home to Cornflake simply was — when could she have done it? I mean, I know, theoretically, we each have our own room, and all that, but it actually takes some doing to slide out at night from one of these Halls, even if you used the communal passage and hopped it on to the wide open spaces from a Hall not actually your own. And then you’d have the dickens of a job to slide back. Of course, it wasn’t impossible, but it had all the earmarks of wild improbability, says Mrs Croc.

‘In fact, if you go all through the rags and other things, you can pretty well deduce that only somebody very close at hand could have carried out most of the stunts. The snakes were one thing that didn’t seem to fit, but Cartwright has come clean about those, so they can be disregarded in the final summing-up. I mean, you can say what you like, but actually, as I once pointed out, it isn’t really feasible to suppose that Cornflake could have run the gauntlet of Hall after Hall like that, right along that passage. Much more likely to be somebody who had direct access to the bakehouse and could operate from there. And who so likely to have access as Miss Murchan herself? After all, she’d had all the keys in her possession when she was Warden.

‘Of course, she “disappeared” after she’d spotted Cornflake, in the previous summer term, coming up for interview with the Prin. She knew her number was up once Cornflake got on her track. She’d killed that kid at that school, you see, and Cornflake, it appears, had seen her do it, and…’

The subsequent explanations, inadequate and, on the whole, ill-informed though they turned out to be, lasted the fascinated group for some time.

‘You’re perfectly right, Deb.,’ said Jonathan. ‘My manners are awful. But, you see, I do want to keep in with you until we’re married — after which, I ought to point out, I intend to put it across you in no uncertain spirit, you carping cat! — and, in the circumstances, it didn’t seem to me that you would view amiably a bloke of my size and weight scrapping practically all out with Miss Murchan, murderess though she may be. That’s all. We’ve got her, and she took some getting. Not a pretty do, and I’m glad it’s over.’

‘Yes,’ said Deborah, slipping her arm in his. ‘All right. I withdraw what I said. Shall we go into my sitting-room or into Mrs Bradley’s?’

‘Hers. I bet your fire’s gone out. Hers won’t have done, if I know her.’

‘I’ll bet you…’ said Deborah. Her fire was burning with a deep, red, comfortable glow. She put out her tongue at him.

‘Whisky?’ she said, going to the cupboard.

‘You having some?’

‘I loathe it. But you look as though you need something… Here you are. You can splash the soda in for yourself. You know, I’m all at sea about Miss Murchan. When did Mrs Bradley decide that she hadn’t disappeared after all?’

‘Why don’t you call her Aunt Adela?’

‘Well, she isn’t.’

‘Not yet, but it’s only a question of time.’

‘A good long time. I must stay on here until the end of the summer term. I’ve got to get these girls through their examinations.’

‘Oh, no, you haven’t. We’re being married some time within the next six weeks. It’s simply up to you to say when.’

‘But…’

‘None of it. I know you’re sorry you ever consented to the match, but as a woman of honour I don’t see how you’re going to get out of it now.’

‘There’s Mrs — there’s Aunt Adela,’ said Deborah. ‘I’ll let her know where we are.’

‘No need, child. I saw the light,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘In fact, I saw lots of lights, not only from this room, but from almost all the rooms.’

‘Aren’t the students in bed?’ asked Deborah. ‘I’d better go the rounds, I suppose.’

‘Oh, the students, bless them, will sit up until all hours,’ replied the head of the house comfortably. ‘Leave them alone, and relax, child, or, better still, go to bed. I want to talk to Jonathan.’

‘Can’t I listen, then? I promise I won’t interrupt.’

Mrs Bradley said nothing for a moment, but leaned forward and put coal on the fire. Her nephew watched her. Then, as she leaned back in her chair, an unusual relaxation in her, he caught her eye, and framed a question with his lips. Mrs Bradley nodded.

‘Suicide,’ she said. ‘Cyanide of potassium. I thought perhaps she would, and it is much the best way out for the College.’

‘How did you know we should get her tonight, if you’d never set eyes on her before?’

‘I guessed she would take advantage of the fact that the house was empty to get into the kitchen to steal food. Most of the servants go over to the College entertainments, and the coast would be perfectly clear, once Lulu had gone to bed. I didn’t want a public fuss if it could be avoided. On the other hand, I didn’t want to lose her, by coming across here too late.’

‘Has she really been living in the bakehouse?’

‘Yes. It is used only twice a week for baking bread, cakes, and pastry for the whole College. Knowing the routine, she could always hide in the Hall when the bakehouse was in use. She then used the large cupboard on the top floor, the one built over Deborah’s bathroom, I expect. From a point of vantage like that, she could annoy and disturb us as much as ever she liked.’

‘But that’s what beats me. Why did she want to disturb you? Why all that childish ragging?’

‘Oh, that has been plain all along. She simply wanted to get rid of me. She did not want me following her trail. She was desperately afraid of being found. She did not care whether she frightened me away, or whether I was dismissed for mismanaging the discipline of the Hall. Having attempted to injure me by tying strings across doorways at the beginning of last term, she then got ideas from Miss Cartwright, who organized the bonfire rag. The most interesting thing about the other ragging has been the way her mind worked over it. I knew that couldn’t be students.’

‘No; malice all through. Wicked stuff, some of it, too; that girl’s hair, for example.’

‘Quite.’

‘How do you know, by the way, that it wasn’t Miss Cornflake who tied the string across our doors?’ asked Deborah.

‘Because I don’t think Miss Cornflake was in College that night. She travelled from London the next morning, and could not have made the double journey in the time. The trains don’t fit.’

‘What about a car?’

‘Yes, that would have been a possibility. But I don’t see how Miss Cornflake could have gained admittance to the building at that time. She couldn’t have had any keys. Besides, I don’t see how she could have known that I was to be in residence that day. There are all sorts of reasons against its having been her doing. And then, how can one account for the first exchange of skeletons unless Miss Murchan worked it? She knew Miss Cartwright from the previous year, remember; knew her home address; knew what would be the effect on her of a challenge.’

‘What about slashing the clothes and punching holes in the disinfectant?’ asked Jonathan.

‘That was Miss Murchan, I am sure, and it gave her state of mind away. As soon as those things happened, I knew that we had to look out for a person of a type familiar to all students of the morbid psychology of sex. I knew there was no one of the type among the students or servants, and as soon as I became acquainted with Miss Cornflake I knew that she was not the type either. From that point I deduced that Miss Murchan was not dead, but it was the murder of that poor, stupid, greedy cook that made my theories into certainty.’

‘Greedy?’

‘Certainly. She blackmailed Miss Murchan, having discovered her one evening in the storeroom. Food was Miss Murchan’s chief difficulty, because, although she had plenty of ready money, she did not dare to shop for fear of being recognized. Well, the cook became a constant danger, so, knowing the ways of the house, and Miss Cartwright’s ways, in particular, of having baths at ungodly hours, Miss Murchan sent Cook a message after I had dismissed her, brought her back by giving her the hope of obtaining more money, and drowned her in the servants’ bathroom.’

‘And the bones?’

‘Miss Murchan provided those. She did not realize how easy it would be, with the help of that craftsman, the dentist, to prove that the skeleton was not hers.’

‘And who did the ’orrid cookery down in the quarry?’

‘Miss Murchan. The police, no doubt, will tackle the boy again, and obtain a complete account of what happened and a full description of the woman. Besides, it is unlikely that Miss Cornflake would have enlisted his help so openly. Miss Murchan, made up to resemble her half-sister, worked out that, if the description were given, Miss Cornflake would be involved and not herself. The police have found the old zinc bath she used. Some students found it first.’

‘There’s one other thing. Why did Miss Cornflake stalk you in College with that revolver?’

‘Oh, but she didn’t. She really did carry it in self-defence. That seems quite certain now. I’ve visited her several times since she’s been in the Infirmary, and, as soon as I was sure of my ground, I told her that as Miss Murchan had undoubtedly killed Cook, that was sufficient to put her within reach of the law. I suggested that although there was no evidence beyond Miss Cornflake’s unsupported word that the child’s death had been anything other than accident, there was plenty of evidence to show that Cook had been murdered, and I said I was prepared to act on it. Of course, the one thing I did not foresee was that the plucky, idiotic Laura Menzies would lay her out.’

‘And you call yourself a psychologist!’ said Deborah.

‘But what is all this about the Cornflake and Miss Murchan?’ asked Jonathan. ‘I know they were half-sisters, and I know Miss Murchan killed the child, but why should the two of them lay for one another?’

‘Well, the thing began as a love story,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘You see, the child happened to be Miss Cornflake’s own… That much I deduced from a conversation I had with old Mrs Princep, the grandmother. The half-sisters, Miss Murchan and Miss Cornflake — oh, yes, that made the bad blood between them, the fact that they were related through their mother — both loved the same man. What happened to him I don’t know. I only know that although — whether by accident or design — he married neither of them, Miss Cornflake, or, as I suppose we ought to say, Miss Paynter-Tree, had the child and Miss Murchan envied her, and killed the child in spite, after years of, bitter brooding. Miss Paynter-Tree saw it done, from the gymnasium gallery at the School. The mother told me they watched one another like cats, and the headmistress agreed that a person passing quietly along the gallery could see what was happening below.

‘At first Miss Paynter-Tree thought that the verdict at the inquest was the truth. Her half-sister, by writing that anonymous letter to the police, showed her the truth, that the child had been killed deliberately. Half the beauty of the revenge would have been lost, you see, had Miss Paynter-Tree continued to believe that the death was accidental.

‘Miss Murchan was not safe from her half-sister’s vengeance once the truth was disclosed. She hid from her very successfully at Cartaret for a couple of years, but Miss Paynter-Tree found her at last, and she knew her number was up unless she could disappear.

‘Together with the idea of the disappearance came the thought of how much safer she would be if Miss Paynter-Tree were dead. Then she saw me as an enemy. She didn’t want to be found, and she was terribly afraid that I should find her, especially as we were living in the same house!

‘Of course, this Athelstan building lends itself admirably to hide-and-seek, what with its communal passage with other Halls and its back and front staircases. I could have caught her, I expect, at the end-of-term dance last term, but I wasn’t ready with my proofs. Hence our performance tonight

‘She quoted Hylus before she died.’

‘Sure proof she wasn’t really an English specialist,’ said Deborah sleepily, ‘or she’d have known that she’d got the story backwards.’

‘No she was really a scientist,’ Mrs Bradley agreed. ‘That’s how she was able to articulate the bones of poor Maggie Dalton. She was powerful, too. I suppose she and Miss Paynter-Tree inherited their physique from the mother.

‘That’s another interesting thing. A woman who marries three times is almost bound to be either super-normal, abnormal, or sub-normal…’

‘Same like you!’ said Jonathan. He picked up Deborah and carried her off to bed.

‘Don’t go over the threshold. It isn’t lucky,’ said his aunt.

‘Always the gentleman,’ he replied. He passed on, up the front staircase, on which the lights were still burning, to encounter, on the first-floor landing, the wide gaze of Laura Menzies. He had forgotten that the students were still about.

‘Oh, lor!’ said Miss Menzies, ‘young Lochinvar in person.’

‘No,’ said Jonathan. ‘Shove open that door for me, would you? And don’t bellow, there’s an angel. The baby appears to be asleep.’

‘Bit of luck for me. She’d hate me for ever if she thought I’d seen you carrying her like this. When are you going to be married?’ Laura inquired.

‘Don’t know exactly. Let you know in plenty of time. Meanwhile — I suppose she’ll wake the minute I put her down —

‘For whilst our brows ambitious be,

And youth at hand awaits us,

It is a pretty thing to see

How finely beauty cheats us;

And whilst with time we trifling stand

To practise antique graces,

Age with a pale and withered hand

Draws furrows in our faces.” ’

‘You shall write it in my album,’ said Laura, grinning.

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[A 3S Release— v1, html]

[September 05, 2006]