The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop

CHAPTER XXIII

Mrs Bradley’s Notebook

(SEE CHAPTER VI.)

Question: Why should Dr Barnes so deliberately run down Lulu Hirst? Does he want to create the impression that he dislikes her, in order to cloak the fact that he likes her in a way which might harm his professional reputation if it became known?

Question: Why have those three curious persons, Cleaver Wright (whose acquaintance I must be sure to make), George Savile, and Lulu Hirst, come to live in an out-of-the-way spot like Wandles Parva?

Possible Answers:

(a) Flight from London creditors.

(b) Trouble with the police.

(c) Desire for change of air and scenery.

(d) Ditto, peace and quietness.

(e) Wright and Savile want to paint the local beauty spots.

N.B.: Savile the monomaniac – still, so are we all, I suppose. His fetish seems to be exactitude and laborious attention to correctness of detail. Interesting. Expound this to F.B., I think.

Question: Why was not Ferdinand a daughter?

N.B.: The false teeth found on the Vicarage dust-heap by the boy A. H. The vicar does not possess false teeth. Neither does F. Nor the maid. Curious.

Question: Why is A. so much excited at finding them? Interesting.

(SEE CHAPTER VII.)

Quite a joke. The bishop has been presented with a skull. Reginald Crowdesley is the kind of bishop to whom things happen.

N.B.: There is more in Cleaver Wright than meets the eye.

(SEE CHAPTER X.)

N.B.: Public opinion is strongly against the youth J. R., who is suspected of having murdered his cousin R. S. J. R. – A likeable person. Cannot imagine anyone less likely to commit murder. Might be fierce when roused, though.

(SEE CHAPTER XI.)

Redsey dug a hole that night. Interesting.

N.B.: F. B. buried alive down here. A charming and beautiful child.

Question: Why do wicked old women like me have more money than they can possibly spend on themselves?

Answer: Wait and see.

N.B.: Am determined to keep my fingers out of the local pie – i.e., this absurd murder-case. But, really, the child looks so tired and worried – I suppose she is in love with that ridiculous youth J. R.

J. R.’s Confession: Knocked cousin down about 8.5 p.m. on Sunday, June 22nd. Arrived ‘Queen’s Head’ – say 8.25 p.m. Helped home at closing time. Arrived home – say 10.35 p.m. Locked in bedroom by Mrs B. H.’s orders. Went to Manor Woods late Monday night to locate body and inter it. Disturbed by the lad A. H. Chased lad out of woods, but no evidence to show when J. R. himself arrived indoors that night. . . . Oho! Indeed? Interesting, but, from F.’s point of view, unprofitable. Had better keep clear of this.

N.B.: Mrs B. H. the mother. New light on her character. Passionately desirous of seeing her son set up for life. The family fortune would be attraction enough for anything, perhaps!

N.B.: Everybody seems to know all about poor Dr Barnes’s little failings.

(SEE CHAPTER XIII.)

Question: What about that skull? Stolen from Cleaver Wright’s studio and now in the Culminster Collection, well hidden behind a Roman shield. Who put it there? Can it possibly be Sethleigh’s skull?

N.B.: Must frighten the person who put it there into moving it to a place where I can get hold of it and try the dental plate, which seems to be Sethleigh’s – at least, I am certain that the lad A. H. believes so.

N.B.: That dental plate could have fallen out of the suitcase. What about that suitcase? The police are not inclined to treat it as significant. They regard the message on that fish as a joke. I don’t.

N.B.: The girl M. B. reminds me of somebody. Who? – Cleaver Wright! He may be the doctor’s son, then. Brother and sister mutually attracted – kinship is a queer thing – and go off to woods together? Seems far-fetched. But M. went to the woods with somebody that night. The murderer? Hardly, I suppose.

N.B.: Strength of Savile.

That chart!

C. W. went to the ‘Queen’s Head’ that night and fought and was beaten. Aha! Mr Wright. Not very clever of you, that!

(SEE CHAPTER XV.)

N.B.: Trousers, pair of, flannel, grey, intact.

Savile’s kink for correctness again. Must dress for the part. Curious.

Dr Barnes has never played bears with children.

‘A great black slug.’ Indeed? Interesting. The vicar walked into the River Cullen on the evening of Sunday, June 22nd. Is he really as much afflicted as all that? Oh, those grey flannel trousers!! I dreamt they were round my neck, strangling me, last night.

F. B. has seen the skull in Culminster Museum. Now what?

(SEE CHAPTER XVI.)

N.B.: That suitcase.

Lulu Hirst, washerwoman.

The scorched curtains. Muslin. H’m! I wonder!

Scorched. Indeed?

My hat! The suitcase went to the Cottage on the Hill then! J. R. – I see light!

N.B.: Rabbits’ blood? Quite so.

(SEE CHAPTER XVII.)

N.B.: F. must go into Culminster again to find out whether the skull is still there.

N.B.: The murdered man’s clothes consisted of:

Flannel trousers,

Silk scarf,

White tennis-shirt (with detachable collar?),

Cellular vest and trunk drawers.

Tie? . . .

Quite so.

N.B.: The blood on the Stone. Not enough. N.B.: The Stone – a sacrificial altar.

Blood. Sacrifice. The head, then –

Aha!

N.B.: It was M. B. and C. W.

N.B.: Savile again. Robin Hood this time.

It is getting too easy.

(SEE CHAPTER XVIII.)

N.B.: The doctor did not react to ‘consanguinity’ suggestion. Have concluded he is not the murderer.

N.B.: L. H. is terrified. I wonder what she knows?

Questions:

The doctor and Lulu lovers? If so:

Savile jealous?

Wright jealous?

Sethleigh and Lulu lovers? If so:

Motive for Wright –

Savile –

Dr Barnes –

to have murdered Sethleigh?

I wonder.

N.B.: The skull has gone. If Savile moved it, it is in the butcher’s shop, in the drawer beneath the chopping-block where they keep the bones and the bits.

N.B.: Oh, yes! M. B. did meet C. W., and he saw the corpse, I think. That means (see plan) somebody had moved R. S. from the bushes where J. R. had hidden him, and possibly had begun dismembering the body.

Question: Who?

N.B.: That ‘black slug’ again:

Savile?

The doctor?

Not the vicar, I suppose?

(SEE CHAPTER XIX.)

So Savile moved the skull.

Queer that J. R. should have suggested the butcher’s shop.

These notes want rearranging. Let us try a time-table.

TIME-TABLE OF THE MURDER OF RUPERT SETHLEIGH ON SUNDAY, JUNE 22ND.

7.45 p.m. (N.B. – All these times are approximate.): Savile in hiding in the Manor Woods to trap Sethleigh with Lulu Hirst. Did not know that it was the doctor she was going to meet. Armed with weapon – probably axe or billhook.

Near Stone of Sacrifice.

7.55 p.m.: Redsey and Sethleigh go into the Manor Woods, quarrelling.

8.5 p.m.: Redsey knocks Sethleigh down. Fall kills him. Drags body into bushes. Seen by Savile.

Redsey departs for ‘Queen’s Head’ public house.

8.15 p.m.: Savile drags body from bushes.

Lifts on to Stone of Sacrifice.

Decapitates with axe or billhook. Cannot decide whether Sethleigh dead or only stunned.

Disturbed by:

8.30 p.m.: (Supposition only.) Dr Barnes’s and Lulu Hirst’s entry into woods. Has just time to lower headless trunk of Sethleigh to the ground on house side of the Stone, and disappear into bushes with head. Dr Barnes and Lulu do not approach the Stone, however, and Savile does not actually see them.

8.45 p.m.: Savile still in hiding with the head. Cleaver Wright and Margery Barnes sit down on side of Stone facing the Bossbury road (see plan), i.e., opposite side to the corpse.

9.0 p.m.: Margery, alarmed by buffoonery of Cleaver, runs away in circle.

9.1 p.m.: Dr Barnes, disturbed by the sounds of his daughter’s flight, crawls out to reconnoitre, and is observed by Margery – ‘great black slug’. Disappears hastily. Margery runs home, and arrives long before her father.

9.2 p.m.: Cleaver Wright, having risen to his feet and strolled a few steps round the Stone, comes upon the headless trunk of Sethleigh. Flight to ‘Queen’s Head’ to establish alibi for himself.

9.3 p.m.: Savile decides had better cover his tracks a bit, now Wright has seen the corpse. Worms way out of woods, leaving skull and billhook hidden, and returns to Cottage on the Hill, which, of course, is empty. Gets ready large knife, sharpens saw, places both in suitcase, together with muslin curtains. Takes carlamp. Hides all these things where can easily get at them later. Sits down and awaits return of Lulu Hirst and Cleaver Wright.

9.5 p.m.: Doctor and Lulu, afraid of discovery as so many people seem to be about in the woods, seek Bossbury road, and separate. Savile probably ill-treats Lulu when she arrives home, and sees that she goes up to bed early to be out of the way.

9.45 p.m.: Return of Wright in bloodstained and exhausted condition from the fight in the ‘Queen’s Head’. Goes up to bed. Coast clear for Savile.

10.30 p.m.: Return of Dr Barnes as though he had really spent the evening at the major’s.

11.30 p.m.: Savile to woods. Finishes dismembering the corpse. Wraps up the pieces and hides them, ready to take into Bossbury next day. Returns to Cottage with head and clothing of the corpse. Boils the first to remove flesh. Washes the tie (?) and shirt which are slightly bloodstained. Adds the grey flannels to his own wardrobe. (Supposition only.) Places trunk drawers, vest, tie, and shirt in laundry-basket. Lulu washes other people’s clothes besides Savile’s and Wright’s, so her suspicions not aroused. Summer weather. Damp things will soon dry.

N.B.: Cannot see how the police will ever get on to Savile. The idiots have arrested the doctor! Poor, foolish, choleric man! I must rescue him, I suppose.

Later: What a comfort! Savile has committed suicide! I can now give him away to the police without a single qualm!

Later: I really must put the wind up James Redsey. Then, if he treats that delicious child with anything but the most exquisite kindness and consideration after they are married, he had better look out for himself!