‘I wouldn’t have gone back there for anything,’ declared Margery vehemently.
‘So he walked round the Stone to examine it. The thing has its fascination. On the farther side of it he came upon Sethleigh’s body. He knelt to examine it. In doing so he got a good deal of blood on to the knees of his trousers. Now mark the sequel to that. The corpse had bled from the neck. There was no blood probably on Sethleigh’s trousers. They were grey flannels supported merely by –’ She glanced enquiringly at Mrs Bryce Harringay.
‘A coloured silk scarf, I believe,’ supplied that lady. ‘But I really must say, Mrs Bradley –’
‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘A coloured silk scarf. Cleaver Wright is quick-witted. He realized that Sethleigh had been murdered. He felt the blood of Sethleigh wet against his shins. At any second Margery Barnes might return.’
‘Ugh! Don’t!’ screamed Margery, covering her face.
‘So Wright hastily dragged off the trousers of the corpse, pulled off his own flannels –’ She glanced enquiringly at Margery. Aubrey tapped the girl on the arm to attract her attention. Margery lowered her hands and nodded.
‘Yes, he was wearing grey flannel trousers that evening,’ she admitted.
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Bradley, satisfied. ‘I knew it. He then left his own trousers lying on the ground and darted into the woods, where he assumed the nether garments of the murdered man. Then he emerged from the bushes, went with all speed to the “Queen’s Head”, and, fearful lest any undetected bloodstains might be visible upon his clothing, he promptly picked a quarrel with the biggest young fellow there, and got himself so badly knocked about that no one would suppose any blood on his person to be other than his own blood from his poor nose’ – she glanced with affected commiseration at Margery – ‘or his poor lip.’ She smiled with quiet enjoyment.
‘Brains,’ said Aubrey Harringay admiringly. ‘Bright man!’
‘I agree,’ said Mrs Bradley dryly.
Felicity Broome sat noticeably still and mute. The vicar knocked out his pipe against the wooden arm of Mrs Bryce Harringay’s deck-chair, lay back, and composed himself for slumber.
‘Well,’ continued Mrs Bradley, ‘the vicar was much intrigued by Wright’s performance with the trousers, for he was too far away to realize the implication or the significance of it. He did realize very clearly, however, that Wright had seen the dead body. That was exceedingly awkward. It meant that if possible the body had to be disposed of. He crawled towards it. It was then that Margery saw him. He realized that she had seen him, did not know whether she had recognized him, but trusted she had not. He then took a big risk. He lifted Sethleigh’s body in his arms – he is a very strong man, remember – and carried him the shortest way he could – except that he kept along the edge of the public woods instead of on the Bossbury road itself – to the wicket gate, up to the lych-gate of the church, through the churchyard, and over the wall into his own garden. He took exactly the same route, in fact, as that taken by his daughter Felicity’ – she grinned horribly at her – ‘when she transported the bloodstained suitcase from the pigsty to the Manor Woods. That suitcase, I may suggest to you, was stained with blood from the murdered man’s collar, tie, and white tennis shirt, and it was because Felicity knew that, and knew that her father was the guilty person, that she was so anxious to be rid of that incriminating clue.’
Felicity sat up.
‘How dare you say such a thing?’ she demanded passionately. ‘It was nothing of the sort!’
Mrs Bradley waved her hand pacifically.
‘You will remember that I am reconstructing on circumstantial and not upon psychological evidence,’ she remarked coolly. ‘Well, the vicar carried Sethleigh’s body over to the empty pig-sty and laid it down in the inner shed. It then occurred to him that he was still in possession of the knife with which he had killed a man, and the clothes of the corpse, and also that there was a considerable quantity of blood on the cuff of his own coat. So he sallied forth again, swiftly and by devious ways, until he got nearly to Culminster. There, trading on the fact of his known absent-mindedness, he deliberately walked into the River Cullen, dropped the incriminating knife, dropped the murdered man’s clothes, which he had weighted with stones –’
‘How?’ asked Jim Redsey.
‘A handful of flints placed in the middle of the shirt, the collar and tie thrown on top of the stones, the shirt gathered up like a bag and tied round with string,’ said the vicar, joyously entering into the game.
Mrs Bradley looked at him in surprise. He grinned at her genially. Margery giggled. Felicity glowered. Jim Redsey picked a daisy and dropped it accurately into Aubrey Harringay’s open mouth, as the boy, lying almost full length, opened his lips to speak.
‘Then he returned to Wandles Parva,’ continued Mrs Bradley, ‘went into the house, and informed his daughter and the servant that he had absent-mindedly walked into the river. All unsuspecting’ – she glanced at Felicity, who sat straight-lipped and pale in her chair – ‘the two of them dried his clothes, prepared a hot bath for him, and believed implicitly the tale he told them.’
She turned to Felicity.
‘Dear child,’ she said, ‘would you rather I stopped?’
‘Good gracious, no,’ replied Felicity angrily. ‘I know it’s only a joke on your part. Of course, it sounds rather horrid to me,’ she added, chin in air.
‘Of course it does,’ said Mrs Bradley decidedly. ‘I won’t go on. It isn’t really funny.’
‘But I want to hear the rest,’ the vicar remarked. ‘You had better go away, Felicity. Don’t spoil other people’s pleasure!’ And he chuckled lazily.
‘I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,’ said Felicity furiously, and almost in tears. She rose hastily and ran into the house.
‘Go on, Mrs Bradley,’ said Aubrey. ‘Corpse in pig-sty. Vicar in bath. Rupert missing. What next?’
‘The next is where the rest of the circumstantial evidence comes in,’ said Mrs Bradley, with a sidelong glance at the vicar.
‘How do you mean?’ asked Aubrey Harringay. ‘Haven’t we heard it all? Oh, no. The butcher’s shop business.’
‘That doesn’t interest me very much,’ confessed Mrs Bradley. ‘You see, the young man who acts as Binks’s assistant belongs to the Boys’ Club in Bossbury which the vicar holds on third Mondays. Note the significance of these facts. First the day. What day in the week could be so convenient for the transportation of the corpse into Bossbury? Especially as Cleaver Wright often lent the vicar his car for the journey. He could have propped up Sethleigh’s body in the car and driven him into the market with the utmost ease. He could have stolen the key of the lock-up shop from Binks’s boy’s pocket when the lads were changing for their running practice. He is strong enough to perform the somewhat arduous task of dismembering the corpse –’
‘Good heavens!’ said the vicar blankly.
‘Lastly,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘at this very instant he is in possession of a tobacco-case, beautifully wrought in silver, which was once the property of the murdered man!’
She turned implacably upon the astounded cleric.
‘I knew this passion of yours for secreting receptacles of all kinds about your person would get you into some ridiculous scrape one day,’ she said sternly. ‘Turn out your pockets!’
Mrs Bryce Harringay helped him. It did not take them long. Very sheepishly the vicar pulled out a small circular box with a hinged lid. It was about three inches in diameter, beautifully chased and engraved, and the engraving consisted of three letters intertwined in a maze of ornamental scroll-work, but perfectly distinguisable.