The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop

CHAPTER XVIII

The Man in the Woods

I

‘CONSANGUINITY is a queer thing,’ remarked Mrs Bradley.

Dr Barnes filled up a medicine bottle with water, corked it carefully, dried it, labelled and directed it, laid it aside for his boy to deliver, screwed the top on his fountain-pen, and then turned round. Against his white dispenser’s overall his florid face looked even larger and more ruddy than usual. He grunted. He disliked and mistrusted Mrs Bradley to a singularly flattering extent (at least, she thought his attitude flattering, for she had a habit of taking anybody’s dislike of her person and character as a compliment of the highest order!), and made no attempt to conceal his aversion from the object of it. After all, the woman was never ill! Boasted of the fact!

Mrs Bradley, who had watched his professional manoeuvres with detached interest, smiled unpleasantly.

‘Don’t you think so?’ she went on conversationally.

The doctor washed and dried his hands, removed his overall, and hung it carefully upon its appointed hook.

‘Never thought about it,’ he replied briefly. He stretched out his large, shapely hands and turned them over. He was proud of them. ‘Of whom are you thinking? Somebody in particular, of course?’ he said, with perfunctory politeness but complete lack of interest.

‘Yes. My son, Ferdinand Lestrange. And – your son.’

The doctor shrugged his great shoulders.

‘Oh, is he your son? I didn’t know that. Brilliant man,’ he remarked casually. Mrs Bradley’s sharp black eyes, quick and bright and callous as those of a bird, watched him beadily, steadily, as he took his morning coat from a hanger and put it on.

‘Yes, Ferdinand is my son,’ she repeated. ‘A clever boy! Takes after his mother.’

She smirked self-consciously, and the doctor scowled. He hated to see any woman making a fool of herself, but when it came to old women! Of course, the unlovely creature was famous in her way, he remembered! He supposed it had gone to her head!

‘Defended you in a murder trial, didn’t he?’ he remarked, pleasantly conscious that he was saying, socially and humanely speaking, quite the wrong thing.

‘And got me off,’ said Mrs Bradley succinctly. ‘Excuse me! A slight crease across the shoulders. A well-fitting coat, but a little formal, surely, for the time of year?’

‘We have to suffer in order to maintain the dignity of the profession,’ said the doctor, a slightly sardonic smile lifting his dark neat moustache. ‘If it is Margery you came to see,’ he continued abruptly, ‘she went to shop in the village. After that she was going to take on the vicar at tennis! Wish I’d gone into the Church. Lazy lot, these parsons.’

‘But the vicar is not good at tennis,’ Mrs Bradley observed as she followed the doctor out into the garden, ‘whereas Margery is quite a star performer, according to Aubrey Harringay. I should think she would require a more expert opponent.’

‘She’s gone there to practise her service,’ the doctor said carelessly. ‘The vicar is the only person who doesn’t care when people knock the heads off his flowers and things, you see. I won’t have a court marked out on this lawn here. Spoils the grass.’

Mrs Bradley walked to the front gate, leaving the doctor to proceed towards the garage.

‘Hats off to the National Health Insurance!’ she said to herself, looking back at the wide-open doors of the shed where the doctor’s gleaming chariot was housed. ‘If the Medical Council don’t make all their members vote Liberal – well, they’re an ungrateful lot! That’s all I can say.’

She began walking briskly in the direction of the Vicarage, but half-way there she changed her mind and went up to the Cottage on the Hill instead.

II

Lulu was at home. Almost as much to the point, Savile and Wright were not.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Lulu, leading the way into the drawing-room, which was immediately underneath the room Wright and Savile used as a studio. ‘Did you want ’em particular?’

‘I called on behalf of the Restoration Fund,’ lied Mrs Bradley glibly.

‘Oh, that. Yes, it wants doing up bad, don’t it? Lovely I think them old churches is, but law! the draught. I give up going. I couldn’t stick it. Not as I ever was one for religion much.’ She giggled and slid a glance sideways at Mrs Bradley from under her eyelashes. She was a lovely creature – one of those women sometimes to be seen in East End Thames-side localities; women with something of the Orient in their ancestry, something of its mystery and allure beneath the crudeness of Cockney speech and the hearty freshness of English laughter.

Mrs Bradley nodded.

‘But you thought sufficiently kindly of the vicar and his daughter to do the church laundry-work and wash the vicar’s own clothes,’ she said quietly.

‘Oh, that!’

Lulu tossed back a permanently-waved lock of lustrous hair and laughed, displaying fine teeth.

‘Brought up to the wash-tub, I was. No ’ardship to put a few bits of things through a drop of water. And that gal of theirs – Shin Finer or somethink I should say by the look of the washing she ’angs out. I couldn’t stand seeing them bits of boys and the parson in them dirty-lookin’ yaller chimmies of theirn Sunday after Sunday. “Disgraceful, I calls it,” I said to Clef. That was before the draughts got too much of a good thing, and I used to go to ’ear Clef sing. Lovely ’e sings. ’Aven’t you never ’eard ’im? Bit of all right, I tell you. So I washes ’em now. It ain’t nothink, but I may get a good mark for it one of these days when my number goes up. Never know, do you?’

‘No, you never do,’ agreed Mrs Bradley gravely. ‘But all the same, child, how did you come to scorch the things so badly about a month ago?’

‘’Ow did I?’ said Lulu, flushing with anger. ‘I never did! It was that pop-eyed swine I goes with done that! “I’ll ’elp you for once, my gal,” ’e says and wi’ that ’e snatches the iron and dabs it on a couple of ’ankerchiefs of ’is own I’d just put there ready for ironin’. I swore at ’im, but it wasn’t no good, and grabbed at the iron, but there! ’E’d ’ave dabbed it on me face for two pins, the vicious ’ound, so I snatched up the parson’s things and ran off, all except the collars and the curtings. I couldn’t grab them up with all the chimmies.’

‘Surplices?’ enquired Mrs Bradley.

‘That’s right. I done them when ’e was gorn – next day it was. One collar what ’e done and all the curtings was good as spoilt, the collar ’specially. Nothink but a bit of black charcoal, it wasn’t, and I ’ad to chuck it away. There was a tie of his own ditto, and a pair of sort of little short drawers and a vest of ’is what ’e give me to wash that week. Like ’is sauce! Still, I done ’em! And then ’e went and scorched ’em so they ’ad to be throwed away, and who’d washed ’em that week, blowed if I know, for I never! Nor the curtings neither. Been ’aving a gime, some of ’em.’

‘What shape was the collar?’ asked Mrs Bradley keenly.

‘Oh, one of them sorft collars like they wears on tennis shirts. I suppose even parsons leaves orf their dog-collars sometimes.’

‘I don’t know. Are you sure it was not one of Mr Wright’s collars? – Or one belonging to Mr Savile?’

Lulu turned and stared at her. Surprise, suspicion, apprehension, chased each other across her face like clouds of storm across a lowering summer sky.

‘Look ’ere,’ she said thickly, ‘what’s all this? I said it was the parson’s collar, didn’t I?’

Mrs Bradley rose, walked to the fireplace, and stood with her back against the mantelpiece.

‘Won’t you answer the question?’ she asked, very gently.

‘I will.’ The blustering alarm of the frightened London urchin changed Lulu’s whole attitude and expression. ‘It wasn’t Clef’s collar, and it wasn’t George’s. See?’

‘So clearly,’ said Mrs Bradley, in the same gentle, almost melancholy voice she had used before, ‘that I think you had better tell me a little more.’

Lulu’s lips drew back in a sneer. Her eyes gleamed hard. Her bosom rose and fell – a certain sign of agitation. Her harsh breathing was disquietingly audible in the small room.

‘You better get out of this,’ she said between clenched teeth. ‘Go on. You’re only little, and I’m damn’ big. And if you come ’ere nosin’ about, I’ll do for you, see? See?’

She walked up to Mrs Bradley until her red mouth was on a level with Mrs Bradley’s shrewd, humorous black eyes. She was in a dangerous mood, and was obviously careless of consequences.

‘Onions,’ said Mrs Bradley, distinctly and with repugnance. ‘If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it one hundred times to you girls – do not come into my presence when you have been eating ONIONS. A repulsive, disgusting, sickening, malodorous, anti-social vegetable!’

Decidedly taken aback, Lulu retreated a step.

‘I – I –’ she began haltingly.

Mrs Bradley swiftly followed up the advantage.

‘Yes, you have,’ she said, grinning. ‘How do you expect your husband to kiss you when –’

‘’Im!’ The monosyllable was expressive. ‘’Im kiss me! Huh! I’d like to see ’im! Be a change, that would.’

She laughed, a short, hard, incredibly bitter sound, and swung herself up on to the table, where she sat kicking her legs and sulking – an out-generalled, pouting, rebellious child.

‘Well,’ went on Mrs Bradley smoothly, ‘never mind that. What I want –’

‘Oh, I don’t mind it!’ said Lulu, flinging back her hair and sniffing indomitably. ‘There’s others can do ’is share of kissing and their own too. And they don’t live far away, neither!’

She laughed recklessly. Mrs Bradley straightened her unbecoming hat before the mirror above the mantelpiece. Then she turned, looked at Lulu, and shook her head sadly.

‘My poor child,’ she said, with real sincerity.

‘Don’t you dare pity the likes of me!’ cried Lulu passionately. ‘You nasty dried-up old crow, you! You leave me alone, do you ’ear? There’s one man dead for me already, and –’

Mrs Bradley ruthlessly cut short this epic of a second Helen.

‘And another will be hanged for you if you don’t keep silent,’ she said emphatically.

Footsteps at the front of the house heralded the approach of Savile. His head was bare, his shirt grimy, and his shoes were covered in dust. He entered the room like a tornado.

‘So I’ve caught you out at last!’ he shouted. ‘You dirty little –’ Then he caught sight of Mrs Bradley.

‘Oh, I – er – oh, it’s you?’ he said helplessly. ‘I thought – I mean –’

Mrs Bradley smiled.

III

By the time the old woman reached the Vicarage it was eight o’clock, and Felicity had just arrived home. Margery Barnes was still there, and Felicity was entertaining her and the vicar with a description of the afternoon’s proceedings. She stopped when Mrs Bradley was announced, but, being pressed by Margery to continue what appeared to be an entertaining narrative, she installed Mrs Bradley in the most comfortable chair and concluded a lively account of the old ladies and their outing to Culminster.

‘And what do you think?’ she cried, turning to Mrs Bradley. ‘I –’

Mrs Bradley suddenly began to cough. She coughed and coughed; she gasped, wheezed, croaked, gurgled, panted, and clutched her breast. Paroxysm after paroxysm seized her, and held her in dreadful thraldom. She was speechless for several minutes, for after the spasm of coughing had passed she seemed breathless and exhausted.

‘Do have some water,’ cried Felicity, returning from the kitchen with a tumbler.

‘Thank you, my dear,’ the old lady wheezed, as Felicity held the glass to her lips. ‘Old age and the night air! Time to go home to bed! So sorry to be a disturbance!’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Felicity readily.

‘I must go, too,’ said Margery, getting up. ‘Father will think I’m lost.’

‘Shall I join the party?’ asked the vicar. ‘It is a perfect evening for a stroll.’

The four of them left the house together, and in the narrow lane which led to the Bossbury road they separated into couples, the vicar and Margery in advance, Mrs Bradley and Felicity behind.

‘I am sorry to have engaged your sympathy under false pretences,’ observed Mrs Bradley, gazing up at the tall elms.

‘What do you mean? You certainly had a terrible fit of coughing, you poor dear,’ said Felicity.

‘Yes. A useful gift. I have employed it more than once,’ said Mrs Bradley, with a sigh at the recollection of her own duplicity. ‘The great advantage of it is the awful noise it makes. You were within an ace of giving away a little piece of information which had better be reserved for my private ear, I think. What were you going to tell them about the skull?’

‘Oh – it has gone from behind the Roman shield,’ replied Felicity. ‘It was stupid of me to begin blurting it out like that, but I thought Father –’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Mrs Bradley hastily agreed. ‘Still, perhaps the fewer the better when it comes to sharing news about a murder. So the skull has gone? I thought it would. The question is – where?’

Felicity laughed.

‘You’d better look up all our answers to that question,’ she said. ‘Don’t you remember that game we played at your house? And you haven’t told us yet who won!’ she added.

‘No, I haven’t, have I?’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Wait a minute.’ She bent down and fidgeted with her shoe. The two in front stopped, looked round, and then strolled back.

‘Go on slowly with your father, I want to talk to Margery,’ Mrs Bradley said in a low tone. This small manoeuvre was accomplished, and Margery and Felicity changed partners.

‘Now, young woman,’ said Mrs Bradley sternly, ‘I want a plain answer to a plain question, and no ridiculous quibbling in the name of honesty or honour. Who was the man who met you in the Manor Woods that night?’

‘Which night?’ The girl’s voice was defiant. Mrs Bradley sighed.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘You met Cleaver Wright, didn’t you?’

Margery stalked on without a word.

Mrs Bradley clutched her arm, and caused her to moderate her pace.

‘Don’t be foolish, child,’ she said, cackling gently. ‘It doesn’t make a scrap of difference to me whether you answer the question or not. You see – I know.’

Margery looked straight ahead at the figures of the vicar and his daughter. They were turning on to the main Bossbury road, and in less than a second she lost sight of them. She was alone in the world – or so it seemed – with this terrible little old woman. She stopped short and faced her.

‘I promised I wouldn’t tell,’ she said, ‘and I’m jolly well not going to tell! So there!’

‘You haven’t told; I have guessed,’ said Mrs Bradley briefly. ‘Margery, whereabouts in the clearing did the two of you sit? No, my dear! Don’t repeat that lie you told us before. You and Cleaver Wright did not sit with your backs against the Stone – I know that! Oh, wait a minute, though. I beg your pardon. You may have done so. I wish you would be quite frank with me about the whole business.’

Margery stiffened, and set the large obstinate jaw she had inherited from her mother.

‘I won’t tell you anything. And if you want to know, it was Cleaver Wright I met, and we did sit with our backs against the Stone. We sat on the side of it facing the path which leads to the wicket gate, because I told Clef that if anything in those woods scared me, I should bolt like a rabbit down that path.’

‘I don’t know why,’ said Mrs Bradley, beginning to walk on again, ‘but when you were telling the tale to Felicity Broome and me, you managed to give me a distinct impression that the two of you sat on the other side of the Stone – the side facing the Manor House. I learned this afternoon that you could not possibly have done so.’

‘Mrs Bradley’ – the defiance had gone from Margery’s tone, and only trouble was left in her young harsh voice – ‘there’s something I don’t understand behind all this. Clef told me to think of us as sitting on the side of the Stone which faces the Manor House, so that if I did let out where we had been it might not matter so much. Mrs Bradley, what is all this mystery? It isn’t – oh, it isn’t anything to do with that terrible murder, is it?’

Mrs Bradley shrugged her shoulders. ‘Only this much,’ she said, ‘that your Cleaver Wright is a very foolish young man, to say the very least of it. He walked round the Stone after you ran away, and saw the dead body of Rupert Sethleigh. He bent down to examine it, and got blood on his hands. Dirty, careless, thoughtless, and lazy, like nearly all painters, he wiped his hands on his clothes. What can you expect of people who habitually wear overalls which other people have to wash? Then he felt rather bad. A young man of deplorable habits, as I say, he made immediate tracks for the nearest public house. Before he arrived there, however, some grain of common sense was vouchsafed him, and he realized that to walk into a public house on a Sunday evening with blood on one’s clothing and a murdered man lying in the woods close at hand is asking for trouble. So, mother-wit coming to his aid, he picked a quarrel with the young farmer named Galloway and got himself so badly knocked about that it would be impossible for anyone later on to detect his own bloodstains among those he had acquired from contact with the murdered man. You see, it is a little too much to expect that even a foolish old woman like me will believe that a young man who has won beautiful cups and belts for boxing is going to allow a great clumsy ox like Galloway to punch him on the nose and knock him about as he chooses. No, no! Cleaver Wright knew that Sethleigh had been murdered! He had seen his dead body in the Manor Woods that night!’

‘But how could he have seen Rupert Sethleigh’s dead body? Because when I came running back into the clearing I saw Rupert Sethleigh alive! He came crawling out of the bushes! I said so! I told you that!’ Margery’s harsh tones rose higher and higher in her excitement.

‘A great black slug,’ said Mrs Bradley appreciatively. ‘A great black slug! Most apt, dear child! Most apt!’

And she chuckled ghoulishly all the way to the doctor’s house.