‘’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.