‘I don’t. I deduce it. There were certainly some splinters of bone on the top of the Stone when I examined it through my reading-glass that day.’
‘But the police didn’t spot them!’
‘No, child. They were not looking for them. I was. That makes all the difference,’ said Mrs Bradley, looking more like some deadly reptile than ever, as she directed a serpent’s grin at the inspector.
‘But who on earth could be such a maniac?’ asked Jim. The inspector stood by, mute but amused.
Aubrey Harringay, coming up behind Mrs Bradley, gently pushed her into the room, and entered after her.
‘The person who puts on a clerical collar when he is going to inter a little dead bird,’ replied the terrible little old lady to Jim’s question. ‘The person who assumes a suit of Lincoln green and its appurtenances when he is practising archery (I cannot make up my mind whether the shot in the wood was directed at me or not, by the way).’
‘If not,’ said Aubrey, eager to display knowledge, ‘why did he tell a lie about where he was standing when he shot it?’
‘Did he tell a lie?’ asked Mrs Bradley.
‘Yes, of course. Said he was in the woods on the other side of the road. Couldn’t have been.’
‘Why not, child?’
‘Flight of the arrow. He’d have had to shoot over the tree-tops, wouldn’t he? But the arrow was less than six feet from the ground, and travelling in a straight flight. Hadn’t been fired from more than twenty yards off, I should say.’
‘By heavens, Holmes,’ said Mrs Bradley, hooting merrily and poking him in the ribs, ‘this is wonderful!’
‘No, it isn’t,’ said Aubrey, getting out of her reach. ‘It’s the result of patient observation. The mater belonged to an archery club a few years ago, when I was about eleven, and I used to put in a lot of time acting as sort of caddie to her. I don’t know what they call it in archery, but when I read that bit in the Bible about Jonathan shooting the arrows and telling his boy the arrow was beyond him, I jolly well know what that poor kid felt like. It reminds me of my own youth.’ He grinned.
‘Oh, well. That’s that,’ said Mrs Bradley.
‘And what about getting the parts of the body into Binks’s shop? When was that done?’ demanded Jim.
‘That’s where you got yourself into a muddle, my dear inspector! Somebody hung about Binks’s shop for weeks and wondered how the thing was to be managed; and at last, seeing no other way, he bribed Binks’s boy for the key. The boy did not recognize him – the man’s a vegetarian, you see! – and anyway, the boy hasn’t the brains to describe him for us – and there you are! He had only to load the dismembered parts into his car, each bit wrapped up in a fold of Felicity’s muslin curtains, and deliver them at Binks’s shop whenever the fancy took him, which was on the Monday afternoon, and that was that.’
‘Wouldn’t the other people in the market be surprised at a delivery of meat being made in a lock-up shop on a Monday? And what about the finger-prints on the butcher’s knife and cleaver?’
‘Those of Binks’s boy,’ grunted the inspector. ‘I tell you we made up our minds long ago the business was not done at the shop. And we knew the lad was bribed to give up the key.’
‘But how will they bring home the crime to the murderer?’ asked Jim, glancing at the inspector.
‘They probably won’t. You don’t suppose the inspector is taking any notice of my fantastic theories, do you?’
She chuckled with sardonic amusement.
‘But hang it all, I mean! What price the doctor?’ cried Aubrey. ‘Oh, and why did Savile try to commit suicide?’
‘The wronged husband. He considered it was the correct way of proving that his faith in human nature was gone for ever.’
‘Wronged husband?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, Lulu.’
‘Yes.’
‘And that blighter Rupert,’ interpolated Aubrey.
‘A dead man, child,’ said Mrs Bradley solemnly.
‘What about it?’ demanded Aubrey sternly. ‘Dead or not, he was a blighter! Why be soft?’
‘Quite, quite!’ Mrs Bradley nodded sympathetically. ‘But not Rupert. Dr Barnes.’
‘Oh!’
‘Yes. It was certainly Dr Barnes who scorched the ironing that day. The inspector was right there.’ She nodded brightly and encouragingly at him, and continued. ‘By the way, talking of Lulu – you realize the interesting implication now of Savile’s having married her to please one school of opinion and his having demanded that they should continue to use her maiden name to satisfy the ridiculous conventions of another?’
‘Oh, the New Art mob? The mater had a spasm to join them, but thought better of it, thank goodness,’ said Aubrey.
‘Their anti-marriage point of view decided her, I imagine?’ grinned the unregenerate James.
‘No. Their tendency to sponge on anybody with a bit of money. The mater’s an arch-sponger herself, you see, and it was a case of two of a trade, I suppose.’
‘But what about the murderer?’ asked the inspector, grinning broadly.
‘Inspector,’ said Mrs Bradley solemnly, ‘will anything short of a miracle convince you that the doctor is innocent and that Mr Savile dismembered the body of Rupert Sethleigh?’
‘Savile?’
‘Savile.’
The inspector scratched his head. At that moment the telephone-bell rang.
‘It’s for you, inspector,’ said Jim, who had stepped to the instrument.
‘Oh, Lord, Mrs Bradley! I must hand it to you this time, after all!’ said the inspector, at the end of a minute’s hectic performance at the mouthpiece. ‘Savile’s done it on us!’
‘Not dead?’ said two voices.
Mrs Bradley assumed an expression of patient resignation.
‘Tiresome for you, inspector,’ she said. ‘Never mind. I suppose it settles the matter once and for all. Besides, when you come to sift all the evidence, I think the doctor will probably prove an alibi.’
‘Not for Sunday night he won’t!’
‘No, inspector. I was thinking of Monday.’ She smiled sweetly.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Jim.
‘Savile escaped from bed in the Cottage Hospital, hustled aside two nurses, and jumped from a top-floor window. I must get along there, I suppose, and find out exactly what the poor loony darnfool did do! Mucking up my case like that!’
Much incensed, he took his leave.
CHAPTER XXIII
Mrs Bradley’s Notebook
(SEE CHAPTER VI.)
Question: Why should Dr Barnes so deliberately run down Lulu Hirst? Does he want to create the impression that he dislikes her, in order to cloak the fact that he likes her in a way which might harm his professional reputation if it became known?
Question: Why have those three curious persons, Cleaver Wright (whose acquaintance I must be sure to make), George Savile, and Lulu Hirst, come to live in an out-of-the-way spot like Wandles Parva?
Possible Answers:
(a) Flight from London creditors.
(b) Trouble with the police.
(c) Desire for change of air and scenery.
(d) Ditto, peace and quietness.
(e) Wright and Savile want to paint the local beauty spots.
N.B.: Savile the monomaniac – still, so are we all, I suppose. His fetish seems to be exactitude and laborious attention to correctness of detail. Interesting. Expound this to F.B., I think.
Question: Why was not Ferdinand a daughter?
N.B.: The false teeth found on the Vicarage dust-heap by the boy A. H. The vicar does not possess false teeth. Neither does F. Nor the maid. Curious.