When Last I Died

"Yes. Good enough for the coroner. I thought I told you. I had been let in for giving a talk to the Mothers' Meeting. Nice fellow, the vicar. Very good to both of us. Glad to oblige him."

"What made you so anxious to assume your sister's identity?" asked Mrs. Bradley. Bella gave her a curious look, and then replied off-handedly:

"Oh, I don't know, you know. I'suppose I wanted a chance to forget all about the trial and all the unpleasantness. Still, I don't seem to have got far with it, do I?"

"It couldn't do any harm to tell me the truth, you know." Mrs. Bradley suggested. "If you wanted to begin life afresh, as they say, after the trial, why couldn't you have adopted an entirely new name? After all, the names Tessa Foxley and Bella Foxley are not so extremely unlike that you would have been able to hide yourself much behind your sister's name—except to people who knew you! Come, Miss Foxley, be reasonable."

But Bella shook her head, and her heavy face set obstinately.

"It's neither here nor there," she answered. "I reckon I've had this coming to me all my life. I haven't had a happy life, you know."

"But I suggest to you that you had a better reason than the one you've given me for assuming your sister's name," Mrs. Bradley persisted. "You knew those boys were dead."

"Forget it," said Bella tersely; and as Mrs. Bradley had no more questions to put she took her leave.

"Come again," said the prisoner in tones more genuine and less sardonic than Mrs. Bradley had expected. "It's something to talk to somebody a bit intelligent."

"Thank you," said Mrs. Bradley. "I have two or three more questions I want to put to you, and I shall be glad of an opportunity."

"Pleasure!" responded the prisoner, but more in good-humour than contempt.

Mrs. Bradley returned to the Stone House at Wandles Parva full of cheerfulness, and remained there for five days. At the end of that time she had given up the idea of her proposed stay in the village where Tessa Foxley had been drowned, but had paid three visits there. There was no doubt, it seemed, that Bella Foxley's alibi for the time of the murder was, although slightly shaky theoretically, almost fool-proof from a practical standpoint. The tremendous risks attendant upon transporting her sister's dead body in daylight from the rain-water butt outside the back door of the cottage to the village pond were a deterrent to any but a maniac, Mrs. Bradley decided.

Bella Foxley, whatever her peculiarities, was no lunatic, and Mrs. Bradley abandoned, without regret, the theory that the idiot boy had been a witness of the murder of Tessa Foxley. The more likely explanation, it seemed, was that he had been a witness that Bella had indeed saved her sister from a suicidal drowning.

The next task, that of tracing the man who had bigamously married Tessa, proved less difficult and complicated than she had feared. The man, who had served a prison sentence, was working in a Salvation Army shelter. He responded readily to Mrs. Bradley's advertisement, established his identity by appeal to the Court missionary and admitted that Tessa had been 'kind of weak in the head.' He also stated that it was not for her 'or the likes of her' he had 'done his stretch,' that he believed she had had money, but that this proved 'the biggest washout of the lot,' and that he was 'going straight' and didn't 'need to be afraid of no-one.'

Painstakingly, Mrs. Bradley sifted fact from opinion, and opinion from lies, and convinced herself that she was left, at the end, with a residue of truth which, if not particularly valuable in itself, had its point as contributory evidence. Tessa had been weak. vacillating and of suicidal tendencies.

"In fact, I wouldn't help to hang Bella Foxley or anybody else...."

"Even the rice-pudding Muriel ..." interpolated Ferdinand, with a grin ...

"... upon such evidence as we have in connection with Tessa Foxley's death," said Mrs. Bradley.

"So what?" her son not unnaturally enquired.

"So—another interview with the prisoner so that I can explore fresh avenues," said Mrs. Bradley, with a cackle of pure pleasure.

"'So we sought and we found, and we bayed on his track,'" quoted Ferdinand unkindly. But his mother's only response was another cackle.

"Something up her sleeve," thought Ferdinand uneasily. "Now where have we all slipped up?"

This second interview was not, in some ways, either more or less satisfactory than the first one had been. The prisoner, puffy under the eyes and with skin as unsavoury as ever, raised sardonic eyebrows and greeted Mrs. Bradley ironically.

"What, you again?" she said. Mrs. Bradley agreed, cheerfully, that it was.

"And when do we go through the performance again?" enquired Bella Foxley.

"I don't know exactly. But, tell me, Miss Foxley—that diary of yours. Your own unaided work—as they say in competitions for children—or not?"

"Diary? Oh, diary. I suppose Eliza Hodge handed it over?"

"Well, yes and no. A small boy, my grandson, discovered it in your aunt's house. Eliza lets the house during the summer months, as I daresay you know."

"Very nice, too. Yes, I believe I did keep a diary. Why? I haven't kept one for—since—Oh, well, you probably know the date of it."

But she looked hopefully at Mrs. Bradley as she said this, as though anticipating that Mrs. Bradley might not know.

"Well, the date of the year was on it—printed on it—and although that, in itself, is not, perhaps, proof positive that the items were written in that same year, the chain of events with which the diary seems to be concerned dates it without doubt. Tell me, Miss Foxley—for I gather you do not propose to answer my former question ..."

"Which one?"

"Whether the diary was your own unaided work."

"Oh, lord! Of course it was! What a silly question!"

"You will take back that unkind remark later on, I think."

"Maybe. And—maybe! Well, go on."

"By all means. Time is short, of course."

"You're dern tooting it's short," Bella agreed. "They'll get me next time, I reckon. Well, I should worry! I've not had so much luck in my life that I expect to get away with this. Shoot!"

"These Americanisms—the cinema?" Mrs. Bradley enquired.

"Oh, possibly. I used to live there, nearly, in the evenings. Only thing to do, and the best way, anyhow, to get away from the atmosphere of that poisonous Institution for a bit."

"Ah, yes. You weren't happy there."

"When I say I'd sooner be here," said Bella vigorously, "I'm not saying one-half. Does that convince you?"

"I don't need convincing. The diary would have convinced me."

"The diary? But I didn't put anything in the diary about the Institution, did I? I used to be pretty careful about that."

"Really? You surprise me," said Mrs. Bradley, grinning like a fiend.

"I don't remember any of it," said the prisoner, scowling in the effort of recollection. "But I do want to ask you something. Exactly what is your object in pushing in here? You were against me at the trial, you and that precious Muriel, and that oaf Lawrence. What's the big idea of turning prisoner's friend all of a sudden? "

"Not prisoner's friend; seeker after truth," Mrs. Bradley corrected her. "And, of course, you are at liberty to refuse to answer my questions. You are at liberty to tell me not to come again."

"Oh, it makes for a good laugh once in a while," said Bella, "and, as you say, I needn't answer; and, not being quite so gone on the truth as you are, I can always tell a lie."

"So you can," replied Mrs. Bradley, unperturbed. "I think I know most of the truth, mind you," she continued. "Enough of it, anyway, to be able to pick out your lies. Did you tell the truth in court, by the way, about the boys?"

"Not exactly, but near enough to make no difference to the jury."

"You mean that you did send them to Mr. Turney?"

"No, I didn't send 'em, but when he offered to have them I let them go."

"Do you ever wish you hadn't?"

"No, I don't."

"It was a terrible death," said Mrs. Bradley, her eyes leaving those of the prisoner and wandering vaguely towards the door.

"It's over now," said Bella, "and they're better out of the world, two kids like that. What chance did they ever stand? Who'd give them a chance? Poor little wretches! Thieves and murderers before they'd hardly begun their lives at all."

"I saw in the diary that you held strong views on the subject," said Mrs. Bradley.

"You saw—Don't be daft! I never put any of my real opinions in that diary, that I'm positive I didn't!"

"Well, at any rate, it seems to have got round that you held strong views of that kind."

"Oh, maybe. I generally used to say what I thought, to one person and another."

"Especially to one person," said Mrs. Bradley, with peculiar emphasis. To her great interest, an ugly, purplish flush spread over Bella Foxley's face and down her thick neck.

"You're wrong!" she said, huskily. "I never told Tom all that much."

"No, I'm not wrong," replied Mrs. Bradley. "Now, this question of mine which seems so long in coming. Do you happen to know—I ask it in the most disinterested and scientific sense—but do you happen to know how your Cousin Tom met his death?"

"Considering I was tried for murdering him," said Bella, in strangled tones, "I suppose I ought to know!"

"Ah, but you were acquitted. Tell me what you really think."

Bella looked at her suspiciously.

"What is all this?" she said. Mrs. Bradley nodded mysteriously.

"We are coming to something, I do believe," she said. "Come along, Miss Foxley. Do your best. It won't seem as strange to me as it might to some people."

"I don't see it would sound strange, exactly, to anyone," said Bella, recovering herself a little. "After all, one of the little devils had committed murder already ..."

"Ah," said Mrs. Bradley. "So you think the boys killed Cousin Tom?"

"Well, I suppose it was a fact that they'd already pushed him out of the window once."

"That would account for his having made no particular complaint, 1 suppose," said Mrs. Bradley, as though she agreed with the supposition.

"Well, he couldn't very well inform against them, considering how he'd been hiding them from the police and using them, could he, poor fellow?"

"I suppose not," said Mrs. Bradley; but she seemed to have lost interest in the subject. "You do realise, though, don't you, that the boys were already in the cellar when your Cousin Tom fell out the second time?"

She looked expectantly at Bella. The prisoner's face was livid.

"I heard that in court, but it didn't—it wasn't true. I happen to know that for a fact, if it's facts you're after," she said. Her sombre eyes smouldered. She did not speak again for a minute or two. The heavy, rather turgid mentality behind that ugly fore- head and those angry, defeated eyes was accustoming itself to a new and terrible conviction, Mrs. Bradley surmised. She rose.

"Think it over," she said, almost kindly. "And when you go next into the witness box, I think I should tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, if I were you. Even if it does no good, you'll feel the better for it. And, you know, Miss Foxley, if I were you—and I mean this in the most ..."

"Disinterested way," said Bella, with a return to her former irony.

"If you like. Anyway, I should make up my mind to tell the court exactly what you were doing and where you were when the boys ... need I say the rest? ... when the boys were dying."

"And now," said Mrs. Bradley brightly, "for another go at our patient Griselda."

"That fatheaded widow, I suppose you mean?" said Mr. Pratt, who was again a weekend visitor at the Stone House. "That woman ought to be stood on hot bricks or something, to wake her up and bring her to, I should say. She simply threw away the case for the prosecution—simply threw it away."

"Mea culpa," said Mrs. Bradley inexcusably. Pratt, lighting a pipe, looked at her steadfastly.

"You're up to something," he said. "Don't tell me we've got to whitewash the unspeakable Bella?"

Mrs. Bradley grinned and asked him whether, in such case, she could count upon his assistance.

"Count on me in any way you like," responded Mr. Pratt gallantly. "But tell me all first. I am all ears and curiosity."

"Well, come with me to interview Muriel Turney, then," said Mrs. Bradley. "We can do it to-morrow. It isn't so far from here. I don't need to notify her that we are coming. She is pretty sure to be at home. And this evening, between now and the time you go to sleep, I wish you'd re-read Bella Foxley's diary. I am going to confront her with it when I visit her next time. I think I may get some interesting reactions."

"You know, you're a public menace," said Mr. Pratt.

"I am wondering," said Mrs. Bradley, "whether—but let me begin at the beginning."

Muriel looked at her in perplexity. Her weak face was pale, and she had given a cry of surprise and, it seemed, of relief, when she had opened the door to find Mrs. Bradley waiting on the step.

"Yes, certainly," she said vaguely. "Sit down, won't you?"

Mrs. Bradley sat down.

"To begin at the beginning, then," she said——" or, rather, at the end, if you do not object to a paradox—what are you going to do if, after all, Bella Foxley is acquitted? It is a fact we have to face, you know, that she may be. What further steps are you prepared to take?"

"Why—why, I don't know, I'm sure. Do you mean you think she will be acquitted?"

"I was surprised that they did not acquit her this time."

"Yes, I suppose—that is, it would have been dreadful, wouldn't it? Do you really think she'll get off?"

"We must be prepared for it," repeated Mrs. Bradley. "Now, then, what do you say?"

"Why, nothing. Poor Bella! I suppose she's been punished already. Perhaps it would be for the best."

"Did your husband possess a sense of humour?" asked Mrs. Bradley. Muriel, not unnaturally, looked completely bewildered by this question, which appeared to have no bearing whatsoever upon what had already been said. She begged Mrs. Bradley's pardon nervously.

"That's all right," said Mrs. Bradley benignly, waving a yellow claw. "Don't mention it."

"I—I don't think I heard what you said."

"Oh, yes, I expect you did. What did you think I said?"

"Had—had Tom a sense of humour?"

"That's it. Well, had he? In his writings, more particularly."

"Well, he—sometimes he would be a bit what he used to call jocular—about the spirits, you know, and what they said."

"He used to be a bit jocular," said Mrs. Bradley solemnly. Then she shuddered—or so it seemed to the unhappy Muriel.

"Of course, a lot of his writing had to be very serious. It was kind of technical," Muriel added. "The Society of Psychical Research ..."

"You don't tell me that he wrote for their journal?"

"I—Oh, well, perhaps he didn't, then. I really don't know what he wrote for. He never bothered me with it. He always said I needn't trouble my head."

"And—was all the love-making on one side?"

"Don't beg my pardon," said Mrs. Bradley gently. "Yes, that was what I said."

"But—I mean—isn't it rather—married people don't talk about such things."

"Why not?"

"Well ..."

"I thought most of the divorce cases were because of it."

"Because of ...?" Muriel's colour heightened. She half rose from her chair. "I don't think I understand what you're talking about."

"Well, this: the boys were starved to death—or nearly to death, we'll say. The bodies—alive or dead—that didn't seem to matter very much to a cruel and wicked woman—were buried. Well, it struck me afterwards—after the trial, I mean— that there was a discrepancy somewhere. Do you see what I mean?"

"No. No, I don't."

"Curious."

"I don't know what you're getting at," said Muriel wildly and shrilly. "But if you say any more about those wretched boys I shall scream."

"Are we alone in the house?"

"I don't know."

"And yet you came to the door. Do you answer the door all the time?"

"Yes. It is an arrangement with my landlady. She answers all the knocks some days, and I answer them the other days. It's just an arrangement."

"Very sensible indeed. What were we saying?"

"I don't remember."

"I do. I mentioned a discrepancy. I wondered whether you would help me to understand. Possibly it is perfectly plain and straightforward, but I can't quite follow it. You remember the first time your husband fell out of the bedroom window?"

"Yes, of course I do, but I thought we said ..."

"Well, on that occasion, your husband was in the house with the boys, and you and Bella were at the inn. Is that correct?"

"Of course it is. You know it is."

"Very well. Now, your husband was hurt by the fall, I presume. Did you nurse him?"

"No. He wouldn't have us put about. He made light of the fall."

"I see. I obtained so little information about this part of the story from Bella's diary that I thought perhaps you might be able to enlarge on it for me."

"But this won't help to get the wicked woman hanged!"

"I'm afraid not, no. You see, the diary mentions the fall, and then Bella announces that she went to the house to see whether she could discover any explanation of it, but, most tantalisingly, she leaves out any account of this visit and merely reports, the next day, that your husband had decided to give up the house as too dangerous. He wasn't in the house when he made that decision, was he?"

"I can't remember whether he was or not."

"I deduced he could not have been, because she goes on, after a mention of other matters, to state that three gentlemen and two ladies interested in psychical research came to the house and asked to be shown over it. She then states that, as she felt sure your husband 'would have wished it'—indicating that he was not able to be consulted on the matter—she herself showed them over the house. You, I suppose, Mrs. Turney, would have been with your husband at the inn?"

"I suppose so. Yes, of course. But I feel so dim and hazy. You see, poor Tom being killed so soon after ..."

"Quite so. Yes, I see. So Bella had the house to herself except for those strangers?"

"Well, yes, she would have had, except for the boys, wouldn't she?"

"Well that's the point. Were the boys there then?"

"Well, unless she'd murdered them by that time."

"But she hadn't. You see, if, as we think, the boys pushed Mr. Turney out of the window—as we have agreed they must have done, haven't we? ..."

"Yes, I suppose we have, but ..."

"And if, when these ladies and gentlemen came to see the haunted house, they had no manifestations of any kind ..."

"Didn't they?"

"Apparently they did not. Well, what does that tell us about the boys?"

"But ..."

"I know. They couldn't have starved to death in two days. In fact, they were alive when Bella was arrested."

"I don't know what you're trying to get me to say," said Muriel. "I can't explain it, if that's what you mean. Either these people didn't come, or else Bella was lying. I don't see why we should have to believe what she put down in that diary."

"Curiously enough, neither do I," said Mrs. Bradley. Muriel looked at her. There was fear, unmistakable, on the shallow little face. Mrs. Bradley nodded, slowly and rhythmically, still keeping her eyes fixed on those of her victim. Muriel was like someone in contact with electricity—-writhing, yet unable to drag herself away.

"You know what caused the jury to fail to agree?" said Mrs. Bradley at last.

"Oh, I know everybody on our side blamed me," said Muriel, recovering herself a little. "But, after all, I wasn't any worse than that half-baked sailor. How could you expect he would be believed! You must have known that his boyhood would tell against him. Nobody likes evidence from criminals."

"No, I agree about that. I had weighed that up very carefully, I assure you, before I suggested that he should be sought for to give evidence at all at the trial."

"There's one thing I ought to ask you," said Muriel, abandoning the subject of Larry. "Do I have to go into that awful witness box again? Because I don't believe I can do it."

" Needs must, when the devil drives, I should imagine," said Mrs. Bradley, with brisk, assured unkindness. Muriel looked at her, puzzled and slightly annoyed by these extraordinary tactics.

"What did you mean about love being all on one side?" she enquired in a voice of mingled curiosity and alarm.

"Oh, that!" said Mrs. Bradley. "That brings me back to my discrepancy, I believe. It's like trying to find a mistake in a column of figures. Ten to one you add it up again incorrectly, making the same mistake as you had made before. Have you ever done that?"

"Yes," said Muriel, looking pallid." But what's this all got to do with me?"

"What indeed?" said Mrs. Bradley with an unpleasant leer. "What, indeed? Well, good-bye, Mrs. Turney. I shall hope to see you again before the new trial."

"But you must tell me ... You must tell me what to expect," said Muriel wildly.

"Blessed is he that expecteth nothing," quoted Mrs. Bradley solemnly, "for he shall be gloriously surprised! And I shall be surprised," she added, as though to herself, "if I do not find the last clue I want in the haunted house."

"You are going there again?"

"To-night."

"Alone?"

"Well, I don't suppose there will be any point in taking Bella Foxley's lawyer with me, or the gentleman who led for the prosecution at the trial. Were you, by any chance, offering to come?"

"Me? Oh, I couldn't! As I told you before, my nerves simply wouldn't stand it."

"Yes, you did tell me, and I fully sympathise. You remember by the way, what you said about the poltergeist?"

"What—what do you mean?"

"Don't you remember telling me that you were always afraid that something inexplicable would happen in that house? I believe you used the expression 'playing with fire.' Do you believe that something outside human agency can function as a result of human interference with the province of the immaterial?"

"Something from beyond the veil, do you mean?" asked Muriel, with a shudder.

"I mean ..."

"Yes, I know what you mean. Well, I must say I'd rather you went there now than that I did. In fact, I couldn't do it. I really couldn't do it. I should die of fright if I so much as put my foot over the doorstep. After all, you never know what you might be invoking."

"True. Or provoking. That is what I mean. And, of course, three people were murdered there—one quickly, and two very slowly and horribly, weren't they?"

Muriel went so white that Mrs.. Bradley thought she was going to faint or be sick. She looked at her fixedly, until the widow showed signs of recovery.

"I expect I shall get to the house by about eleven to-night," she went on. "I suppose the electric switches are still functioning? Then I shall remain until people turn up to be shown over the house next day. If nobody comes, I shall leave as soon as I have made a thorough exploration of the place."

"Well, I wish you luck," said Muriel tremulously. "Be—be careful, won't you?"

"Very, very careful," said Mrs. Bradley, with her horrid cackle. "By the way," she added, "I have advised Bella to remind the court where she was, and what she was doing whilst those boys—whom I pledge myself to avenge!—were starving to death in that cellar."

The caretaker had no authority to admit Mrs. Bradley to the house, but made no objection to doing so.

"Come to see how them there old ghosties be getting on, like, I do suppose!" he said, with jocular intent.

"Exactly so," replied Mrs. Bradley solemnly. "And now, I want you to let me have this key until to-morrow. Will you?"

He scratched his head.

"I take it to be Miss Foxley, her's still the owner?" he said cautiously. "Although they do have her still in gaol?"

"Certainly she is. Who else?"

"Why, nobody. Think they'm going to hang her?"

"Who can say? The gentleman who defended her told me afterwards how well you gave your evidence."

He looked pleased, but observed anxiously :

"Ah, but, you see, I never told all I knowed."

"How was that?"

"Well, they didn't ask me, see? And they do take ee up so sharp if so be you answers out of your turn."

"Yes, that is perfectly true. I suppose you could have told them that Mrs. Turney visited the house alone, after the death of her husband and after Miss Foxley was arrested."

The old man gaped at her.

"That do be right, that do," he declared. "But how did ee know?"

"You told me so yourself."

"Oh, so that's it, is it? There isn't nothing in it, after all."

"I wouldn't say that. If you look out, a little later on, you may see her visit the house again. Take no notice. She has her key."

"Ah, yes, so she have. Her and Mr. Turney and Miss Foxley, all of 'em had keys. But I should have thought Miss Foxley might have collected of 'em up when she bought the house for herself."

"Well, I don't think she did. So don't worry Mrs. Turney when she comes, if you happen to see her. She has her reasons for visiting the house again, and as they are connected with the murder, I don't suppose she'll want to be disturbed."

"I know how to respect folks' miseries," replied the ancient man. He shuffled back to his cottage, and Mrs. Bradley went to call upon Miss Biddle.

"I've come with an extraordinary request," she said. "I want you to let me remain here, more or less in hiding, until about seven to-night. Will you?"

"Why, of course," replied her friend. "And I suppose I mustn't ask why, so I shan't put out even the littlest tiny feeler."

"You shall know all before morning, if you wish," said Mrs. Bradley. "Now, where can I hire a slow-witted, heavy, mild, obedient horse? And I want to borrow an iron well-cover, the heavier the better."

"Well, it had better be Mr. Carter for the horse. I expect he'd let you hire Pharaoh. As for the well-cover, you can have mine, but you'll have to let me help you lift it if you want to take it away. Oh, dear, how you excite my curiosity! But I ought not to speak of that now!"

"What kind of man is Mr. Carter?" asked Mrs. Bradley.

"Well, he's very lame, poor man, since his accident, but if you wanted someone to help you in any way, you couldn't do better than to have young Bob, his eldest son. Look here, let me do the arranging for you. I know the family quite well."

So Mrs. Bradley explained what had to be done, and, as it was obviously cruel not to take Miss Biddle completely into her confidence, she told her everything.

By five o'clock, the plan had been completed and partly tested. Young Bob proved to be an intelligent, grinning lad, dependable, however, and very much interested in the game that Mrs. Bradley proposed to play.

"Won't be the first time there's been ghost-faking round this house," he observed, when Mrs. Bradley had rehearsed him in his duties. "But I've never heard tell before of having the bobbies out to arrest a ghost!"

By seven o'clock Mrs. Bradley was in her chosen position in the attic which commanded the approach to the house from the road. She had had the forethought to borrow a cushion or two from Miss Biddle's house, and had brought her knitting, so that she could recline in comfort and occupy herself during her vigil. She had no idea how long this would be likely to last. She had returned from Muriel's lodgings by car, driven very fast by George, who thus obtained one of his rare treats, for Mrs. Bradley's preference was usually for a more leisurely progress.

Muriel would probably come by train, and, at the earliest, could scarcely arrive at the haunted house before eight, for the railway journey was across country, and involved three changes. The connections, too, at the exchange stations were poor. Mrs. Bradley did not expect her to approach the house before dusk, even if she got to the village earlier than that.

It was dark, however, before Muriel came, and Mrs. Bradley had to retire to her vantage point, the attic cupboard in which she believed Cousin Tom used to lock up the boys when they were not wanted in the cellar.

At about half-past ten she heard the slam of the front door. She had heard no footsteps on the path, and no sound of a latch-key in the door. She listened intently, but Muriel must have gone straight into one of the downstair rooms, or remained in the hall, for she could not hear her walking about or mounting the stairs.

She had put away her knitting and had taken out of the capacious pocket of her skirt a small harmonica. Quietly she pushed back the door of the attic cupboard, and played a few soft notes.

Like faery music, they seemed to float all over the empty house. She stopped, and listened again. Nothing was to be heard for a full minute, and then a sound of footsteps below caused her to put the instrument again to her beaky little mouth and play another series of disconnected notes.

This time Muriel's reaction was more definite. She began to run up the stairs, and as she ran she called out :

"Are you there, Mrs. Bradley? Are you there?"

For answer, Mrs. Bradley blew a long discordant confusion of notes from the harmonica, a pre-arranged signal for her friends, the inspector and the sergeant, who had been in hiding in the scullery. Taking their cue, the police officers began to hurl furniture and pots and pans out of the kitchen into the hall.

Muriel ceased to run upstairs. She gave a strange, loud yelp of terror, and then shouted :

"Mrs. Bradley! Please don't do it! I'm frightened. And, listen! I want to speak to you."

Mrs. Bradley waited until the din below had ceased, and then blew on the harmonica again. The noises broke out worse than before; upon this, and, under cover of the really appalling sounds, she raced down the back staircase and then slipped out through the scullery as soon as it was safe to negotiate the array of furniture which was now piled up outside the kitchen.

She made her way to the front of the house, walking briskly on the gravel path, and opened the front door of the now almost eerily silent building. At that, Muriel came flying down the stairs to meet her.

"Oh!" she cried. "I'm glad to see you! Oh, I'm thankful to see you! This house! It's come awake at last!"

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Mrs. Bradley. Muriel did not answer until she had groped for and discovered the main switch. Then she put on the lights and both of them looked at the wreckage.

" Not the poltergeist?" said Mrs. Bradley incredulously.

" Unless it's someone playing the fool," said Muriel with weak annoyance.

"Bound to be," said Mrs. Bradley reassuringly. "If we look about we're almost bound to find them, unless they've cleared off by now, which I rather suspect they would do if they've been here on mischief bent."

"But they couldn't have known I was coming. I didn't even tell you I was coming. It was just—just a sudden fancy to see the place again. Of course, I'd never have dared to come alone, but as you said you would be here...."

How well she did it, thought Mrs. Bradley, dispassionately interested in such a convincing display of protective colouring; how extraordinarily well, the nervous, over-strained, weak and clinging little ... murderess. Her voice hardened.

"Yes, but I'm here with work to do. I don't require, or particularly desire, company."

"Oh, you won't mind me. I shan't interfere," said Muriel. "I expect, as you say, it was someone thinking to scare us. Ah, well, it all seems quiet enough now. But, you know, when I first heard that mouth-organ thing which seemed to come from the top of the house, I really thought for a minute that it was—that it was the fairies, or something."

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Bradley, "you did not. You thought it was those poor ..." She watched the razor coming slowly round from behind the murderess's back, and suddenly cried, "What's that?"

She cried it out so loudly that her voice rang through the house. At the same instant a shrill whistle came from the direction of the scullery, and, as Muriel's face grew pale, a sound stranger and more eerie than any that had so far been heard that night seemed to come from the courtyard outside. Part of it was homely enough—the steady clop, clop of a heavy horse, the sound of the hoofs muffled by the courtyard weeds—but, mingled with this was another sound, unusual to most men's ears, but apparently familiar, in some horrid and personal sense, to the wretched, guilty woman who had now dropped the razor on the floor.

"The cover of the well! They're here! They're here! They've come to be revenged on me! Go away! Go away! Go away! Leave me alone, you little fiends!" she shrieked at the top of her voice.

The sounds ceased. Mrs. Bradley picked up the razor.

"I think you dropped this," she said.

"I?" faltered Muriel, recoiling. "I don't know what it is! I never saw it! Didn't you hear what I heard?"

"I only heard someone screwing down a coffin lid," said Mrs. Bradley, quietly as before. "Or could it have been the trapdoor down to the cellar? Listen! Do you hear it too?"

She half-turned, and at that instant Muriel opened the razor and made a sudden slashing attack. Mrs. Bradley, who had been waiting to do so, side-stepped, and banged her on the elbow with a cosh which she had drawn from the deep pocket of her skirt when she had half-turned away.

"Listen!" she said again.

Muriel was moaning with the agony of the blow on the elbow, but her moans of pain changed suddenly to a dreadful cry of terror. From beneath their feet came the sound of someone digging. She was in a state of hysterical panic when the inspector stepped out of the kitchen to make the arrest. She made a full and babbled confession on the way to the station.

Chapter Eleven

THE DIARY

"Hark, now everything is still, The screech-owl and the whistler shrill, Call upon our dame aloud, And bid her quickly don her shroud!"

WEBSTER.

"THE thing is," said Ferdinand," when did you first suspect her, mother?"

"I don't know," replied Mrs. Bradley.

"Genius," said Caroline, without (her mother-in-law thought) much justification for the compliment.

"I thought you were convinced of Bella's guilt."

"I was."

"Well, then, you must know when your ideas changed."

Mrs. Bradley was silent for a minute or two. One would have said that she was in contemplation of the hedge which divided part of her garden from the paddock. "I don't know," she repeated, "but if I am being asked to hazard an opinion, I would say that I was convinced of Bella's guilt until I went to see her down in Devon."

Ferdinand nodded, as his mother turned her basilisk eyes on him.

"Personally," he said, "I did not think anything could disprove Bella Foxley's guilt. The ancient, wealthy aunt, the blackmailing cousin, the dangerous and criminally minded boys, and the golden opportunity of making herself safe for life by assuming the identity of a murdered sister—the thing seemed self-evident, fool-proof, satisfactory and horrible."

"But it wasn't altogether satisfactory," said Mrs. Bradley, "as I realized the moment I began to examine it from Bella Foxley's point of view. If you assume for a moment that Bella was not guilty, you get a different impression entirely of the course events may have taken. You get the impression, for instance, that every ill deed we had attributed to Bella could just as well have been performed by Muriel."

"That means, though, that the aunt died accidentally," said Ferdinand. "Bella was the only person to have had a motive there for murder."

"Not necessarily," replied his mother. "Bella certainly had the motive, for she stood to gain by the death, but if she could be blackmailed successfully, Tom and Muriel stood to gain something too. It was a clever plot, but it was apparent, before I suspected Muriel at all, that Tom was somewhere involved. It was evident that Bella had not written that diary."

"The diary?"

"Yes. You've read it. You know what the mistakes and discrepancies were. Some of the mistakes could, but others could not, have been made by a single author, especially if that author were Bella. Collaboration was indicated—an unheard-of thing in a genuine diary."

"I see what you mean. But there was no way of telling which part was Bella's own work, was there? And, even if there were, the only other part-author of the diary, as you say, could have been Tom. At least, let's put it that the collaborator couldn't have been Muriel."

"There was no need for it to have been Muriel. I spoke just now of a plot. But, to revert to the diary itself, it seemed to me to indicate that the writer had a rather pleasing style, and a definite, although possibly rudimentary, sense of form. Of course, we must admit that Bella may have possessed both these literary qualities, but Tom, as a practising writer (he made some of his income out of articles for journals devoted to psychical research, you will remember), was the more likely author, on the whole, in my opinion. Still, one cannot generalise about such things, for it is a well-known fact that people whose powers of conversation are crude, boorish, unready, or even, for all social purposes, non-existent, can sometimes contrive to express themselves, when in receipt of pen and paper, in unexceptionable prose."

"I don't see, all the same, why you think two people wrote the diary between them," said Caroline.

"I don't know that they did. Bella was an unconscious collaborator. What interested me, and caused me to investigate the matter in the first place, were the ending of the diary, abrupt yet undramatic, and the mistakes in fact which were apparent almost at a glance and which became ludicrously obvious as soon as one began to examine the matter.

"Then came the very odd fact that, although the diary continued long past the time when everyone concerned had left Aunt Flora's house, the diary itself remained there. That seemed very curious."

"Last entries faked? Written beforehand ?" said Ferdinand.

"It added to my idea that there was a plot. The plot, of course, came into being when Bella helped Pegwell and Kettle-borough to escape from the Institution. Well, the arrangement between Bella and Tom was that the boys should remain hidden in the haunted house, where Tom could make good use of them in faking the poltergeist phenomena, and where, Bella hoped, they would be safe from the police.

"That, I fancy, was as far as Tom was prepared to go, and, apart from Muriel's confession, I could not prove much of what follows.

"One thìng which Tom never allowed for, of course, was the horrid jealousy which his necessary collusion with Bella over the boys evoked in Muriel. This jealousy led Muriel, later on, to kill him and to see that Bella was charged with the murder."

"Didn't Bella know who had killed Tom?" Caroline enquired.

"She thought it was the boys. She does not seem to have suspected Muriel of that until now."

"Then did Muriel kill the aunt?"

"It is most likely. But it doesn't matter now, in one sense, whether she did or not. The death of the aunt suggested to Tom this further plot to continue to blackmail Bella—not that he did anything so crude, I imagine, as to extort money by threats, or anything of that kind. Bella loved him, and he found it easy enough to get the money. It was, of course, very much more than those small amounts suggested at the trial. It was, very possibly, the half which was supposed to have gone to Tessa, although Bella did not admit it."

"Well, he wrote the diary, intending to type it out later and threaten Bella with it if ever it became necessary to apply a little pressure. He purposely sent it to the house to Eliza Hodge, being pretty sure that the old servant would take care of it without being unduly curious about it. Then he wrote the anonymous letters and drove Bella almost mad, I should imagine, by the accusations of murder contained in them. Then he fell out of the window that first time, and allowed her to believe that the boys had pushed him out."

"And that gave Muriel the idea of how to kill him without being suspected?" asked Caroline.

"Yes. She has now confessed it. I had an inkling of what had happened—I think we all had—when we heard about the button which was found in the dead man's hand."

"Well, it was rather silly of Bella to go and visit Tom so late at night," said Caroline. Mrs. Bradley looked benevolently at her daughter-in-law, and agreed.

"There is one thing I don't understand," said Ferdinand. "How did a comparatively frail woman such as Muriel contrive to get the two boys battened down under hatches in that cellar? I should have thought the lads would have popped up the well whilst she was screwing down the trap-door, or vice-versa."

"Oh, Bella helped her over that."

"So Bella is partly guilty?"

"No, but it flummoxed her at the trial. Tom must have told her that the boys had pushed him out and were dangerous. She suggested that they should shut the boys up until they had decided what was the best thing to do about them. She knew, of course, that, following the information which she was going to give at the inquest, it was almost certain that Bella would be arrested for murdering Tom. After that, Muriel dared not keep the boys alive in case they could witness against her. The probability was that they had been fast asleep at the time, but her guilty conscience would not allow her to run any risks.

"When Bella had been acquitted of the murder of Tom, she knew, from the way in which Muriel had given her evidence, that she had an implacable enemy, and she knew the reason for it. It was to escape from Muriel's hatred, I think, that she assumed Tessa's identity, although I am certain that she never suspected that Muriel had killed Tom. She did think, though, that Muriel had choked Aunt Flora.

"I myself had some glimmering of the truth, I think, when I realized that there was a curious little entry which seemed to leave a kind of time-gap in the diary. This gap was that the diary failed to explain what on earth made the whole four of them—Bella Foxley, Tom, Muriel and even Eliza—leave the old lady alone in the house on the day that she died. I could not believe that even the most irresponsible and heartless people would have done such a thing, and, when I questioned Eliza, I discovered that, as a matter of fact, they did not. Eliza herself was there, and either Bella or Muriel.

"Now there was, in connection with this entry, too, an interval unaccounted for by the author—whether Bella or Tom—between seven o'clock and that 'little later on in the evening ' during which Aunt Flora died."

"But it doesn't prove anything," protested Caroline.

"It proves that whoever wrote the diary was a liar, and a liar about the most important event mentioned," said Ferdinand. "Mother, presumably, became interested in Bella Foxley before she obtained Eliza's evidence, but the discrepancy between that evidence and the evidence of the diary was proof-presumptive, I should say, of foul play."

"Yes, but Tom wanted to indicate foul play," persisted Caroline.

"I know," said her husband soothingly, "but it was that— and I expect, the other curious mistake about the colour of the old lady's hair—which made mother think that there might be something worth investigating."

"I am glad you mention the hair," said Mrs. Bradley, "for that indicated that whoever wrote the diary could not have gone in to see the old lady. The fine imaginative passage about the dirt in the parting—you remember ?—proved positively that whoever the author was, it could scarcely have been either Bella or Muriel, both of whom, according to old Eliza, spent time in the sick-room, a thing which Tom did not do, being afraid, on the one hand, we are asked to believe, that the old aunt might think he had come for what he could get—a thought repugnant to his nature—and, on the other, that he detested illness—a more likely explanation, I feel."

"And were you positive, before Muriel confessed, that she was the murderer of the two boys?" asked Caroline.

"Yes. I don't want to go into details which you would not care to hear, but it was obvious that the boys' bodies had been buried before they had decomposed. Now they could not have been buried by Tom, for he was dead, and they could not have been buried by Bella, because before they were dead she would have been in prison. That left Muriel, and I have a statement from the old caretaker to show that Muriel visited the haunted house some days after the inquest to do some gardening, he thought."

"Silly mistake to bury them at all," said Ferdinand.

"I can't see how you knew she would confess if you could get her to the haunted house to try to kill you," said Caroline.

"I based the theory upon a discovery I made earlier in the investigation," explained Mrs. Bradley. "I discovered that Muriel was superstitious. She indicated to me once that she didn't really think it was wise to counterfeit psychical phenomena. Therefore, when she came to the haunted house that night to kill me because I had allowed her to know what I had against her, she concluded that the sounds she heard, striking home as they did to a mind over-burdened with guilt, were proof of something that she had half-believed all her life—that there really are such things as ghosts, and that occasionally they take a quite uncomfortable interest in human affairs."

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