The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop (25 page)

Margery looked straight ahead at the figures of the vicar and his daughter. They were turning on to the main Bossbury road, and in less than a second she lost sight of them. She was alone in the world – or so it seemed – with this terrible little old woman. She stopped short and faced her.

‘I promised I wouldn't tell,' she said, ‘and I'm jolly well not going to tell! So there!'

‘You haven't told; I have guessed,' said Mrs Bradley briefly. ‘Margery, whereabouts in the clearing did the two of you sit? No, my dear! Don't repeat that lie you told us before. You and Cleaver Wright did
not
sit with your backs against the Stone – I know that! Oh, wait a minute, though. I beg your pardon. You may have done so. I wish you would be quite frank with me about the whole business.'

Margery stiffened, and set the large obstinate jaw she had inherited from her mother.

‘I won't tell you anything. And if you want to know, it
was
Cleaver Wright I met, and we
did
sit with our backs against the Stone. We sat on the side of it facing the path which leads to the wicket gate, because I told Clef that if anything in those woods scared me, I should bolt like a rabbit down that path.'

‘I don't know why,' said Mrs Bradley, beginning to walk on again, ‘but when you were telling the tale to Felicity Broome and me, you managed to give me a distinct impression that the two of you sat on the other side of the Stone – the side facing the Manor House. I learned this afternoon that you could not possibly have done so.'

‘Mrs Bradley' – the defiance had gone from Margery's tone, and only trouble was left in her young harsh voice – ‘there's something I don't understand behind all this. Clef told me to
think
of us as sitting on the side of the Stone which faces the Manor House, so that if I
did
let out where we had been it might not matter so much. Mrs Bradley, what is all this mystery? It isn't – oh, it isn't anything to do with that terrible murder, is it?'

Mrs Bradley shrugged her shoulders. ‘Only this much,' she said, ‘that your Cleaver Wright is a very foolish young man, to say the very least of it. He walked round the Stone after you ran away, and saw the dead body of Rupert Sethleigh. He bent down to examine it, and got blood on his hands. Dirty, careless, thoughtless, and lazy, like nearly all painters, he wiped his hands on his clothes. What can you expect of people who habitually wear overalls which other people have to wash? Then he felt rather bad. A young man of deplorable habits, as I say, he made immediate tracks for the nearest public house. Before he arrived there, however, some grain of common sense was vouchsafed him, and he realized that to walk into a public house on a Sunday evening with blood on one's clothing and a murdered man lying in the woods close at hand is asking for trouble. So, mother-wit coming to his aid, he picked a quarrel with the young farmer named Galloway and got himself so badly knocked about that it would be impossible for anyone later on to detect his own bloodstains among those he had acquired from contact with the murdered man. You see, it is a little too much to expect that even a foolish old woman like me will believe that a young man who has won beautiful cups and belts for boxing is going to allow a great clumsy ox like Galloway to punch him on the nose and knock him about as he chooses. No, no! Cleaver Wright knew that Sethleigh had been murdered! He had seen his dead body in the Manor Woods that night!'

‘But how
could
he have seen Rupert Sethleigh's dead body? Because when I came running back into the clearing I saw Rupert Sethleigh
alive!
He came crawling out of the bushes! I said so! I told you that!' Margery's harsh tones rose higher and higher in her excitement.

‘A great black slug,' said Mrs Bradley appreciatively. ‘A great black slug! Most apt, dear child! Most apt!'

And she chuckled ghoulishly all the way to the doctor's house.

The Skull

‘I
DO
wish,' said Mrs Bryce Harringay petulantly, ‘I do wish, James, that you would get rid of that policeman! Heaven knows what he thinks he is looking for! And he worries my poor darlings almost to death!'

She fondled the obese Marie and smiled tenderly upon the corpulent Antoinette. Jim glowered. The expression had become habitual upon his beforetime ingenuous features.

‘He wanted to know the address of Rupert's dentist,' he growled.

‘It is in Rupert's memorandum-book. Did you give it to him?'

‘Yes. Can't think why Rupert went to that fellow in Bossbury High Street. Always have my teeth seen to in Town.'

‘The Bossbury man is cheaper. And he is a very good dentist. There is far too much nonsense talked about dentists,' observed Mrs Bryce Harringay austerely. ‘If a man is qualified, he is qualified. If he is not qualified, no reasonable person would dream of attending him. There is not the slightest necessity for harping upon these somewhat depressing subjects.'

‘I am not harping on them,' her nephew responded morosely. ‘It's you.'

‘Really, James, you are most trying lately – most! Do please refrain from direct contradiction of my remarks! Direct contradiction,' continued Mrs Bryce Harringay, warming to her subject, ‘is, of all breaches of manners, the most embarrassing with which to deal, and I consider it most unkind of you, James – most! – to nonplus me in this way. I cannot argue with you without sacrificing my personal dignity. This,' she proclaimed vigorously (inadvertently upsetting the personal equilibrium of Antoinette, who had chosen an ill-advised perch on her mistress's ample but precipitous lap), ‘I refuse to do! I am dumb. I suffer your discourtesy in silence. In wounded silence, James; nevertheless, in silence.'

James groaned and turned to go out of the room. He was prevented from taking his leave by the appearance of the butler.

‘Mrs Lestrange Bradley is here, sir, and would be glad of a word with you in private.'

‘I am just going,' said Mrs Bryce Harringay frigidly. She rose and swept out of the room. A moment later Mrs Bradley came in.

She looked more like a bird of prey than ever, thought Jim. He waited for her to speak.

‘I thought the inspector was here,' she said. Jim glowered darkly.

‘He has gone into Bossbury to see Rupert Sethleigh's dentist,' he said.

‘At my suggestion. How long has he been gone?'

Jim glanced at the clock.

‘Two hours – just over,' he replied. ‘Looks like his car coming up the drive now.'

‘Good.' Mrs Bradley seated herself in an armchair, and drew out a small loose-leaf note-book.

‘Such a clever idea,' she observed, waving the tiny pad expressively. ‘A page is used. It will be needed again. Good. It can be preserved. But – it is dangerous to keep it? The wrong eyes may see it? The wrong interpretation may be placed upon it? Good. It shall be destroyed.'

The inspector tapped on the French windows, coughed, and walked in.

‘Well, Mrs Bradley,' he said, ‘you've won the first round, madam. The teeth are certainly Mr Sethleigh's. The dentist swears to them. Now what, madam?'

‘I should say – produce the skull, inspector, and find out whether the teeth ever fitted its jaws.'

‘The skull!' The inspector laughed harshly. ‘We've looked everywhere for that blessed head, but it's gone.'

‘Oh, yes.' Mrs Bradley grinned. ‘You policemen! You drag the ponds and search the hedges and beat down the nettles and walk in the ditches, and risk your necks climbing trees – and all to find a thing which a little thought and a little common sense would have produced for you in five minutes!'

‘You mean you've found it?' The inspector was almost excited. ‘Where?'

‘No, I haven't found it,' Mrs Bradley coolly replied. ‘But I know where it was, and I think I know where it is now.'

‘Where, madam? Come on, please! We've lost too much time already about that skull! I knew there was something fishy the minute I heard it had been stolen from young Wright's studio.'

‘Well,' Mrs Bradley languidly drawled, ‘it
was
in the Culminster Museum behind the model of a Roman shield. I saw it there, and sent Felicity Broome to look at it. She saw it too!'

‘When was this?'

‘During the last fortnight, inspector.'

‘But – dammit all,' roared Inspector Grindy. ‘During the last fortnight! Why ever didn't you let us know?'

‘Sit down, inspector,' said the little old woman quietly, ‘and I'll tell you. If I had shown you the skull, what would you have done?'

‘Had it outside that museum damn quick!' replied the inspector forcefully.

‘Exactly. And what good do you think that would have done, pray?'

‘I could have proved, with the help of this dental plate of Sethleigh's, whether the skull was his!'

‘Yes. And that is all.'

‘Well, what else?' The inspector's tone was blustering.

‘This.' Mrs Bradley leaned forward and tapped him upon the chest with a yellow talon.

‘By waiting for somebody –
not
the police – to move the skull out of the Culminster Museum, I have been able to do much more than prove the identity of the Bossbury corpse. As a matter of fact, you can't prove that the Bossbury corpse belongs to the skull merely by using this dental plate which the child Harringay discovered upon the Vicarage dust-heap.'

‘I shall assume it belongs to it,' grunted the inspector, ‘and I shan't expect to be contradicted.'

‘Yes, well said. Well said,' murmured Mrs Bradley. ‘When in doubt, the tactics of a bull at a gate do occasionally answer rather well. Now, as I said, the skull has been removed from the Culminster Collection –'

‘Eh?' The inspector leapt from his seat as though he had been stung. ‘Removed?'

‘I said so,' replied Mrs Bradley in a pained tone. ‘And I don't know where it is.'

‘The devil you don't!' The inspector had had a trying fortnight. ‘Then what in hell –'

‘Look here, you!'

Jim Redsey had got up from the small table on which he had seated himself and advanced in menacing fashion upon the police officer. ‘I've put up with a lot from you in what you have the damned impudence to call the execution of your beastly duty, but I'm hanged if I'll stand any more of it! I don't like Mrs Bradley, but if you can't speak to her civilly, out you go! I've been spoiling for a chance to push your face into the flower-beds for a damned long time now, so you'd better look out for your manly beauty! That's all!'

He sat down again.

‘Mild but fairly well-sustained applause then rippled over the vast hall,' said Mrs Bradley sweetly, waving the incensed inspector back into his chair, ‘and a cordial vote of thanks was returned to the speaker for his inspiring address. Never mind, Mr Grindy. You have my utmost sympathy. Believe me, I understand your point of view. But listen.'

She put her head on one side and grinned hideously up at him.

‘Suppose I can give you a list of eight persons, one of whom most probably moved the skull and so may know something about the death of Sethleigh – always supposing that the skull proves to be his skull and not the skull of somebody else! – wouldn't that narrow the enquiry down beautifully for you?'

The inspector looked dubious.

‘I reckon it would be more to the point, madam, if you told me where they've put it,' he said lugubriously. ‘But I expect that's more than you can do! I'm afraid you've hampered me proper not letting on about the skull being in Culminster.'

‘If you are anxious for the skull, I dare say we can make up our minds where it is to be found,' said Mrs Bradley calmly. ‘Where is the very best place to hide a thing, James Redsey?'

Redsey grinned.

‘Where it has been looked for already,' he responded.

Mrs Bradley beamed royally upon him.

‘Clever boy,' she said. ‘Now then, inspector.'

But Grindy merely looked resentful.

‘You're wasting my time, madam,' he growled.

Mrs Bradley sighed.

‘Such a pity to be peevish, old dear,' said Jim, beginning to enjoy himself at sight of the inspector's angry discomfiture. ‘Try the old butcher's shop again.'

‘Really, James!' said Mrs Bryce Harringay at the French doors, ‘considering that we all supposed the unfortunate remains in the butcher's shop to be those of your late cousin, I should imagine that you might find it possible to refer to the dreadful place a little less flippantly.'

‘He's right, anyway,' said Mrs Bradley briefly. ‘So come. Will the car carry three, inspector?'

‘Look here,' said the inspector, gloomily barring the way, ‘is this a joke, or what?'

‘Man and brother,' said Mrs Bradley, raising her skinny claw as though in benediction, ‘it is not a joke. You have a key to the butcher's shop? And you do not desire my company? Very well.'

‘Oh, come if you want to,' said the inspector ungraciously. ‘I've got to pick up the superintendent, though, at Bossbury police station.'

Mrs Bradley was seated in the back of the car before he had finished speaking, and with a very bad grace the inspector climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine.

The little shop was still locked and shuttered. The inspector produced a key and opened the door. He lit the gas.

‘Nothing doing,' he grunted in the tone of a man who had never expected to find anything doing.

‘Wait a moment. Where do butchers throw all the odd bits and bones?' asked Mrs Bradley, peering ghoulishly over the threshold of the little shop.