‘There is,’ said Mrs Bradley dryly. ‘Curious of me, perhaps, but on the whole I prefer the murderer. The population of this country is so excessive that, looked at from the purely common-sense point of view, a person who decreases it is considerably more public-spirited than one who adds to it, and he should be dealt with accordingly.’
‘But the doctor?’ said Jim, having digested these theses in silence. ‘It’s a knock-out to me.’
‘Well, what can you expect will happen to a man who has never played bears with the children?’ demanded Mrs Bradley abruptly.
‘Never what?’ asked the inspector, grinning.
‘But, of course, to arrest him for murder is ridiculous,’ went on Mrs Bradley calmly. ‘He was in the Manor Woods – yes. He has no alibi? Are you sure of that? Go and ask Lulu Hirst. His daughter saw him – yes. And he was crawling on hands and knees, and if he had ever played bears with her when she was a child she would have recognized him, and could have said so, and that part of the business could have been cleared up. Anyway, inspector, take the advice of a sincere well-wisher and let the poor man go. Besides, what about fingerprints in the butcher’s shop?’
‘Oh, we don’t think the actual work was done in the butcher’s shop. We suspect he dismembered the body in his own surgery in the garden. More expeditious, madam, you see. Then he wrapped up the bits in Miss Felicity Broome’s muslin curtains, like they wrap up meat when they deliver it to the butchers’ shops, and that’s how the curtains got scorched.’
‘Expound, O sage,’ said Mrs Bradley, settling down with huge enjoyment to listen.
‘Well, madam, you yourself put us on to that. Don’t you remember how you found out about that suitcase getting to Mrs Lulu Hirst?’
Mrs Bradley nodded her small black head.
‘And don’t you remember telling me her words?’
‘Whose words, inspector?’
‘Mrs Lulu’s. She didn’t name Savile or Wright as the man that scorched that ironing. All she said was “that swine I goes with”. Well, that’s the doctor, madam. Plain as a pikestaff. She washed the curtains for him and he went and scorched ’em!’
‘Inspector,’ said Mrs Bradley, with emotion, ‘you will convince me in a minute that you are right and I am wrong. This is too wonderful for words!’
The inspector grinned.
‘Just a little bit of deduction,’ he said spaciously. ‘Just part of our job, you know.’
‘Then you imply that Lulu Hirst is aware that Dr Barnes committed this murder?’
‘That’s right, Mrs Bradley. And that’s why it’s no good me going to her, as you suggest, to give the doctor an alibi, because I know she will, like a shot. Knows he did it, you see.’
Mrs Bradley sighed and turned to Jim Redsey.
‘This is very difficult, young man,’ she observed.
Jim put out his large hands helplessly.
‘You see, madam, there’s her own words to be thought about. She said to you, you remember, “There’s one man dead for me already, and another soon will be!” Or some expression like that. Meaning, I take it, that Sethleigh was murdered, and the doctor would be hanged for doing it.’
‘H’m! Doesn’t sound as though she would be prepared to fix him up with much of an alibi,’ said Mrs Bradley tersely. ‘You can’t have it both ways, inspector, you know!’
‘Oh, yes, you can, Mrs Bradley, with ladies of the type of Mrs Lulu,’ contradicted the inspector gravely. ‘Love their loves and hate ’em, that’s the way they go on. You’d be surprised!’
Mrs Bradley broke into an amused cackle.
‘Upon my word, inspector!’ she said. ‘I can’t think what has happened to you. This is so sudden!’
‘Well,’ remarked the inspector, winking solemnly at Jim, ‘I got your little book out of the Bossbury Library a couple of days back. There’s some frisky reading in that there book, Mrs Bradley, and I reckon it has kind of inspired me. Keep it away from the wife, though, I had to. Wouldn’t hardly do to let her know I read stuff like that! If it was fiction it would be seized by the police, and so I tell you!’ He guffawed loudly.
‘Frisky reading!’ said Mrs Bradley, clutching her black hair. ‘Seized by the police! James, get me some water! This man unnerves me!’
Jim grinned.
‘And as you value your professional reputation, inspector,’ she added, ‘fly, fly to the prison-house and set free that unfortunate, choleric, ridiculous man! Tidy, indeed! Is it tidy to have illegitimate children all over the place, so that blackmailers may arise from the earth and counfound you? Is it tidy to have affairs with the Lulu Hirsts of this world, so that all the village knows about them? Is it tidy to be compelled to forbid your own daughter, of whom you are very fond, to have aught to do with young men for fear that her innocent mind may be contaminated with stories of your own depravity? No, no, no! And the motive, inspector! The motive! Why, the poor man had no motive! Everybody in the village knew his secret. It wasn’t a secret at all!’
She smote the polished table vehemently, and continued:
‘No, I tell you, no! And the man who cut up that body is tidy! How many times must I say it? He is a maniac for tidiness! Oh, you are right enough about the curtains! They were used for the purpose you stated! And the corpse was not dismembered in the butcher’s shop! Neither was it dismembered in the doctor’s surgery, though! And what about the burial of that suitcase containing the fish? What about that ridiculous notice on the fish? Those were the clues you should have studied! Those were the two facts absolutely germane to your case! Man, rid your mind of this poison about the doctor’s guilt! He is a fool, but he is not a madman!’
She stopped short. The inspector and Jim gaped at her in stark amazement.
‘Beware of the fact that will not fit,’ proclaimed Mrs Bradley, more calmly. ‘Go home and pray, inspector. But set the doctor free first!’
She walked quickly out of the room through the French doors, leaving the two men staring after her.
‘Well, I’m damned!’ said the inspector solemnly.
Jim nodded. It seemed an adequate comment.
Suddenly Mrs Bradley poked her head tortoise-wise in at the French doors, and addressed herself again to the inspector.
‘I couldn’t bear the thought that our charming James should be suspected of murder,’ she said. ‘An unpalatable idea! Therefore I determined to look at the facts for myself. It very soon dawned upon me that we were dealing, not with a man possessing a perverted sense of humour, but with a man of such deadly seriousness of mind that the mere word “eccentricity” could not account for his peculiar traits. The man to whom dead flesh was meat, and must be disposed of as such; the man who split open the skull and boiled it because that’s what he’s seen done with the heads of deceased animals; the man who, dog-like, buried the skull (after all, there were other ways of getting rid of it, you see!); the man who found himself compelled to write “A Present from Grimsby” on a stuffed fish; a man whose queer mentality would never let him rest until he had seen an offering, a sacrifice – a human sacrifice – laid upon the Stone (by the way, he went back home and brought a small saw and a carving-knife as well as the suitcase back with him to the Stone, and performed that unpleasant job on the Sunday night when everybody had gone to bed. Very neat, considering the enormous handicap of having nothing but the front lamp of a car to light up the grisly work); and –’
‘I say!’ said Jim, open-eyed. ‘What a ghastly scene! But how do you know all this?’