Saltmarsh Murders

CHAPTER XV

black man’s maggot

« ^ »

For a moment I thought the negro had not understood the purport, so to speak, of Mrs. Bradley’s words. Then I saw his gritted teeth as his mouth widened into a grin of surprise and terror.

“Miss Cora nebber died in dis hyer house,” he said, almost in a whisper. His eyes rolled horribly in his head with fear. Mrs. Bradley said rapidly in French:

“Oh, heavens! I forgot these people are afraid of ghosts!” Foster’s anguished gaze rested on me. His big mouth was trembling. He looked a sorry spectacle.

“Mister Wells, pray to de Lawd! Oh, mercy, pray to de good Lawd fo’ me!” he said. Sweat glistened on his brow. He was in anguish. I put out my hand and touched him. His hand was quite cold.

“My dear fellow,” I said, “it’s quite all right. Quite all right. Don’t be alarmed.”

His teeth were chattering with fright. Mrs. Bradley said in French:

“Give him the Swastika from your watch-chain to hold. Be quick.”

I complied. The poor man held it as though it were a talisman. It was, I think, to him. Gradually his shiverings ceased. He shook himself as though ridding himself of some clinging, clammy presence. Then he said:

“I done tell all I know.”

“Good,” said Mrs. Bradley.

“You don’t tell Mr. Burt. De debbil’s in dat man.”

We promised. He sat on the edge of the mangle and told us his story. Briefly it was that, having seen Cora off to the station and, after tea, Burt to the patrolling stunt that we all turned out for that night, it struck the negro that, as his employer was pretty certain to be late home, he might as well go into Wyemouth Harbour by bus and have a couple of hours at the pictures. He had left the Bungalow at a quarter to seven, he said, and he arrived back at just after eleven. He had seen the big picture, but had not stayed longer for fear Burt should return from the sea-shore before he himself arrived home from Wyemouth Harbour.

“Now,” said Mrs. Bradley at this point of the story, “what did you see when you came home?”

“Nothing,” replied the negro.

“Think again,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Did you come in by way of the front door or the back door?”

“Sho’, Ah entered by de back door, same as Ah does always,” replied Yorke.

“Was it exactly as you left it?”

A light seemed to dawn on the negro.

“Now yo’ done say dat,” he replied, “Ah remembers having to use de front-door key after all, because de back door am locked and bolted. I done say to myself, ‘You fergit, and leabe de house by de front door, yo’ fool nigger.’ ”

“And did you leave the house by the front door?” asked Mrs. Bradley, keenly.

“Ef Ah done dat, Ah gone done it in my sleep,” said the negro emphatically. “Ah didn’t nebber in my life use the front door, ’cept Ah come in with Mr. Burt or Miss Cora.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Well, now, Mr. Yorke, who usually locked the back door at nights? Was it you, or Miss Cora, or Mr. Burt?”

“Ah lock dat back door soon as we’m all fixed in fer de evening,” replied Foster. “Ah takes no chances wid folks”—he shivered, and rolled his eyes—“walking in at dat back door and coming peeking ober my shoulder after de sun goes down. Mr. Burt lock de front door when dey go up to bed. Ah don’t nebber hab no sorter truck wid dat front door. Dat’s why Ah surprised myself walking in and out dere dat Tuesday.”

“What did you do when you returned?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

“I done get de supper fo’ Mr. Burt, but he ain’t wanting no supper.”

“Too tired?” said I, remembering what I myself had felt like after six hours’ patrolling of that wretched beach.

“He took a coupla three whiskies, hot, into him,” said Foster, “then he done go up to bed.”

“At what time was this?” Mrs. Bradley asked.

“Dat was half past one o’clock in de mawning to a tick,” replied Yorke. “Ah looked at dat clock up dere special. Mr. Burt done took off his boots and threw ’em at dis po’ nigger, and he cuss good and plenty, and den he go ’long to bed. Den Ah done go to bed again, too. Ah bin in bed once. Den Ah go to bed again.”

Mrs. Bradley nodded, and rose to go.

“Thank you, Foster,” she said. She paused at the back door. “Do you often go to the pictures in Wyemouth Harbour?” she asked. The negro grinned.

“Seem like Miss Cora she mean me to go dat ebening, anyway,” he said. “She gib me a ten shillun note and tip me de wink. ‘He done go to de pub to-night, ’cause he can’t sleep good widout Ah’m in de bed wid him or else he’s full ob sperrits,’ she say. ‘You done go make a night ob it, too, down Wyemouth Harbour, yo’ black ole image.’ ”

“Well?” said Mrs. Bradley, as we walked down the hill together. “What about that?”

“Something in what you said about Cora returning to the Bungalow that night,” I said. “She was the person who locked the back door, I suppose?”

“Yes. A curious trick for her mind to play her,” said Mrs. Bradley. “The desire for concealment and secrecy, you see. I don’t suppose she realised for an instant that she had done it.”

“The negro might have done it,” I hazarded.

“Most unlikely,” said Mrs. Bradley. “It was a settled habit with him to use the back door, you see, when he went in and out. He would have locked it, but not bolted and barred it, against his return.”

“You don’t think Burt did it in the early evening?” I asked.

“You are determined to hug your delusions to the last, dear child,” she said. “Where do you suppose he hid the body? Even the secret passage was not safe enough for that, you see. No, no. I am pleased with our last little bit of work, though. We clear the way to the truth, dear child.”

“Are you going to get the police to check up Yorke at the pictures?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” she replied.

“But suppose he didn’t go!” I exclaimed. “He was very anxious to tell us that Cora had given him leave to go. Suppose he were in the house when she returned to it, and thought she was an apparition, and fell upon her, and strangled her—”

“And hid her dead body in the underground passage and bundled it down to the churchyard without Burt’s knowledge, and dug up poor Meg Tosstick, and substituted Cora, and took Meg’s dead body to the seashore and cast it into the water, and—”

“You’re pulling my leg,” I said.

“Surely not!” said Mrs. Bradley, in mock amazement.

“You mean,” I said, “that Foster Washington Yorke wouldn’t handle dead bodies?”

Mrs. Bradley cackled, and patted me ironically on the back.

I talked things over with Daphne again that night when the others had gone to bed. Suddenly she got jumpy and said she could hear something outside the window. I laughed and said it was only a rose tapping against the glass. She said it was not. I went to the window and drew aside the curtain. A face was pressed against the glass. I suppose I gave an exclamation. I know I was rather startled. Daphne screamed. Old Coutts came tearing downstairs to see what was up. Together we went to the front door, and called out to know who was there. Daphne was just behind us. She would not stay in the room alone.

It was Foster Washington Yorke. The thought that a murder had taken place in the Bungalow had proved too much for the poor chap. He had come to the vicarage for shelter. We hardly knew what to do. In the end, I had to have young William in my room and we gave the negro a camp bed in William’s room. A bit thick on me, of course, and the whole incident had not exactly strengthened Daphne’s nervous system, but the poor black was in such a state of frenzy that we thought it best to humour him and send him back in the morning.

I woke up once in the night, and, the partition wall being thin, I could hear him softly moaning and praying. The poor fellow must have been in the dickens of a state. It was rather dreadful to think what he must be going through. One conclusion which I came to was that it was useless and ridiculous to suspect him of the murder. He would never have had the nerve for it. It was a comfort to think that there was some other male in Saltmarsh besides myself who would not have had the nerve to commit the murder of Cora McCanley.