Felicity shivered.
‘Yes, but it’s Jimsey they’re after. I know it is! I can see it in that inspector’s eye,’ she said with a gulp.’
‘Look here,’ said Aubrey, seating himself beside her, and grinning at two very young calves who came up to gaze at them, ‘let’s get this straight. Do you or do you not believe that Jim Redsey killed Rupert?’
‘Aubrey! You know I believe what Jim says! But, after all, what does he say? That he thought he’d killed his cousin! He himself thought so!’
Aubrey sighed.
‘Well, anyway, I’m going to find the man who did the – what’s that word the police always use? – yes, the dismembering of the corpse. You know, that stunt’s often done, and people always think it’s to cover up the crime by messing up the identity of the body. But I often think it must be because the murderer can’t stick the sight of the victim when the deed’s done.’
‘Be quiet,’ said Felicity sharply. ‘And look here, Aubrey, I know you’re a clever boy. And brave, too. So, if you want any help, you know I’ll do what I can.’
‘Good man,’ said Aubrey briskly. ‘Now the first job is one you can help me over right away. Will you come with me to see that old dame the mater hates so much?’
‘Mrs Bradley?’
‘Yes, she wants us to go there at six to-morrow.’
‘Yes, I’ll come with you, of course. Did you know she gave Father five hundred pounds?’
‘Five hundred? What for?’
‘The Restoration Fund. But she won’t come to church.’
‘Why not?’
Felicity giggled in spite of herself.
‘She thinks the Church Catechism is immoral.’
‘So do I,’ said Aubrey feelingly. ‘I can’t stick learning stuff by heart. But what’s her objection?’
‘The bit about your betters. She says the village children are led to believe it means the squire and the people who go fox-hunting and the factory owners who pay women about half what they would pay men for doing exactly the same work.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘And the bit about our station in life. She says it’s retrogressive to teach children ideas like that. They just think it means never try to get on and do anything with your life. She says the plutocrats made use of phrases like that to keep the workers down – what used to be called “in their place”, and made them put up with all sorts of bad conditions because it was the – the will of Heaven. She says she knows the Church doesn’t interpret these things like that, but that the Victorians always did. She thinks it’s a frightfully progressive sign that so few intelligent people go to church. She says, if people got up in a political meeting and made the sort of speech that the average clergyman “dignifies by the name of sermon”, most of the audience would walk out, and the vulgar ones would throw tomatoes and make rude noises.’
‘Has your pater heard all this?’
‘Oh, yes. She and Father sit in the garden and argue for hours. I’m glad. It’s a change for the poor darling and it keeps him out of my way. And she often has us over there to meals and things. Dinner chiefly. She’s got a French cook. Father loves going. So do I, really, although she scares me.’
‘Yes, you always feel as though she’s getting at you,’ agreed Aubrey. ‘Have you ever played billiards with her?’
‘No, I don’t play.’
‘She’s hot. Well, we’ll go and see her to-morrow, then. Call for you at a quarter to six. That do?’
Felicity nodded.
‘I shall be ready,’ she said. ‘And now I must go and wash my face. Do I look very horrible?’
She smiled up at him gloriously.
‘You look all right,’ said Aubrey, fired by her loveliness, agonizingly conscious of the inadequacy of his words, but bashfully incapable of adding so much as a syllable to them. He put out a lean brown hand and helped her to her feet.
CHAPTER XIII
Margery Barnes
I
AT six o’clock on the following day, Aubrey and Jim called at the Vicarage for Felicity Broome, and the three of them walked over to the Stone House.
Mrs Bradley received them in the stone-flagged, oak-panelled hall, and without any preliminaries, except for the removal of Felicity’s hat, she caused them to be seated at a large oak table, and presented each of them with a pencil and a pad of writing-paper.
‘Plenty of paper, you see,’ said Mrs Bradley, cackling hideously but with obvious pleasure.
‘Look here,’ said Jim Redsey, grinning. ‘Can’t I be let off? Honestly, I’m not a scrap of good at these parlour games. I always make the most frightful fool of myself. You three play, and I’ll be umpire and see you don’t cheat.’
‘Oh, but this is a new game,’ objected Mrs Bradley. ‘And it doesn’t need an umpire. Now, take up your pencils. Write your name and the date on top of the paper. Pencils down as soon as you have finished.’
Aubrey giggled.
‘It’s like the kindergarten I went to as a small kid,’ he observed, scrawling the date in his curiously grown-up handwriting, and then laying his pencil on the table.
‘Now listen to me,’ went on Mrs Bradley. ‘I want you all to make a long list of places where the skull which disappeared from Mr Wright’s house may be hidden. Are you ready?’ She smiled hideously around at the three hapless young people. ‘Then . . . go!’
At the end of twenty minutes she collected the papers and sent her visitors home. At seven o’clock another party of guests arrived. These were Lulu Hirst and Savile from the Cottage on the Hill. They had come to dinner. At a quarter past seven the vicar arrived with the major’s two daughters. The two large, plain girls explained that their father’s gout was troublesome, and so he would not come.
When dinner was over, Mrs Bradley went through the same performance with pencils and paper. The guests were uncertain whether to be amused or bored by the proceedings, but reflected that they had enjoyed an excellent dinner!
Next morning, Mrs Bradley walked over to the cottage where George Willows – in the act of commanding his wife to eat a second rasher of bacon – was having his breakfast, and asked him the same question.
Willows lowered a knife covered with yolk of egg into his mouth, while Mrs Bradley quickly averted her gaze, then he laid knife and fork down and turned in his chair.
‘Take a seat, mum, if you please,’ said Mrs Willows, hastily but unnecessarily dusting a chair. Mrs Bradley sat down.
‘Hide the skull?’ said George Willows meditatively. He ruminated. ‘Happen I should bury un,’ he said at length, while a slow smile spread over his sun-tanned features. ‘Ah, that’s what I should do meself, like. Bury un in the ground. And plant a big plant over un, like.’ he added, embroidering the idea richly.
‘A helpful suggestion,’ observed Mrs Bradley.
‘And if I knowed for certain sure it were the skull of that there Mr Sethleigh as turned me out with hard words and a blow too and all, I lay I’d stamp on un hard,’ concluded George Willows truculently.
Mrs Willows gazed at the bold fellow in terrified admiration. She had been a hero-worshipper for fifteen years.
‘I think we might cross you out of the list of suspects, my friend,’ thought Mrs Bradley as she walked up the lane towards the house of Dr Barnes and turned in at the double gates. ‘Still, I am very glad I have had a look at you. Conclusive, I think. Exit Willows.’