The Rising of the Moon (Mrs. Bradley), page 19
“I’ll tell you what,” said Keith, when he was undressing for his Saturday bath and I was waiting for mine, “I shouldn’t think your spotting the rag and bone man was very much good, should you?”
“No good at all,” I answered. “It was somebody inside the marquee that we had to look out for. And, talking of the rag and bone man, you realize, don’t you, that we didn’t ask Mrs. Cockerton the things we ought to have asked her this morning.”
“How do you mean?” he enquired, turning off the hot tap and testing the water with his toe. “I think I’ll have some cold in this, and make it really deep.”
“Well, we ought to have found out more about that pruning knife she said belonged to her husband. You see, if the knife we pinched was not the pruning knife, her knife should still be about.”
“I’m not keen on reopening the subject of knives,” said he, getting into the bath and leaving the cold tap full on. “I’m afraid all the time it will come out in her presence that we stole one.”
“That couldn’t be helped, you know,” said I. “By the way, the tiger isn’t a boy. It’s a tiger. I thought so all along, but to-day there was not the slightest doubt.”
“Yes, so I noticed,” he answered. “I suppose Mrs. Bradley hoped we should see one or both of those men at the circus.”
“Which men?…Oh, the one who lifted you off the railings and the shifty one?”
“Yes. I looked for them before the show began, and when we came out. They weren’t there, or else the crowd swallowed them.”
“I wonder whether they were the ones she thought we might see? She might have thought we’d see someone connected with Danny Taylor. You know, I can’t see why Jack and Danny moved that woman’s body, can you?”
“I think Jack’s a fool.”
“I think Jack’s a fool. Do you think he will be arrested? I’m sure Christina thought he would be.”
“I should think it makes him accessory after the fact, and in that case Mr. Seabrook must carry out his duties.”
“How rotten for June!”
“And us. It won’t be nice at school. I shan’t say anything to anybody if he is arrested, shall you?”
“No, but everyone will know,”
“Perhaps Jack and Danny will have the sense to plead that they thought the woman might be injured, not dead, and they were trying to get her to the house.”
“Well, that might even be true.”
“Hardly likely. The first rule about injured people, I thought, was not to move them.”
“Jack may not know that, and Danny always acts first and thinks second. The Taylors are Irish.”
“He’s at work, and they even tell you that sort of thing at school about injured animals.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Even when people are told things, they don’t always think.”
“I shall ask Mrs. Bradley, when I see her, whether Jack will be arrested.”
“She may not like to tell you. Wait and see.”
“All right. Oh, curse! I’ve made this water too cold.”
“Well, you can’t have any more hot,” said I. “You’ve had more than your share already.”
“Your turn for first bath next time, then you can pinch it all, if you let me turn it on now.”
“All right. I’ll let you have some, and get you clean and sweet-smelling,” said I.
“Talking of sweet-smelling,” said Keith, without resentment, “and also of cleanliness, what made Jack go down to the river to wash? There’s a pump at the end of the stables, at that farm.”
“There’s also still the question of the horses,” said I.
“But the blood wasn’t fresh by the time they got the body to the house. I wonder what time she died?”
“All the inquests have been adjourned, so we shan’t know yet. Which horse was your favourite at the circus?”
“The little black one. An Arab, I should think, shouldn’t you?”
“Tell you what,” said Keith, when we were both bathed and in bed, and Jack had brought us our cocoa and put out the light, “do you think we ought to have let Mrs. Cockerton know that Mrs. Bradley has money?”
“Well, she knew it already. That thirty pounds for the lace.”
“Oh, yes, I suppose so. Still, I rather wish we hadn’t harped on it. Of course, Mrs. Cockerton’s all right, but these things get about.”
“Wonder who could have told the murderer about those pound notes in the trapeze girl’s bodice?”
“Yes, I wonder that, too. Must have been someone from the circus who was getting tight at a pub.”
“Must have been one of the women. A man wouldn’t know about it, would he?”
“He might. A man had to catch her when she did that swinging jump. He might feel them, or hear them crackle.”
“Yes, that’s true enough, he might. By the way, was it rather queer that the rag and bone man should have been in that crowd outside the circus? It seems very suspicious to me that he should be following them up.”
“Yes, I thought so, too. Mrs. Cockerton said she’d got rid of him, of course, but I must say I was surprised when he turned up there.”
Chapter Sixteen
The Death of a Nursemaid
Sunday was dull without Christina. I would almost as soon have been at school. We went to Sunday school to get out of June’s way. We had more than a suspicion that she was going to ask us to take Tom out for a walk, and that meant taking his push-chair, as she would not expect us back until one o’clock.
She could hardly, however, come between us and our spiritual exercises, so, sour-faced and cross, she gave us each a penny for the church collection, for our religious impulses rarely carried us as far as putting our own money into the offertory plate—at our church everybody could see, if they wanted to, what the other people in the pew had contributed: thus I remember being startled and impressed upon one occasion when Christina put in two shillings—and Tom howled to come along with us.
“Let’s take him,” said Keith, suddenly. “He can go in the Primary. Rose Lanning can look after him there. He’ll be all right with her.”
“We’ll be late if we do. He’ll have to be washed and dressed, you know,” said I.
“It won’t take a minute,” said June. She whisked away Tom, and in a quarter of an hour had him ready. He was delighted, and we went in during the hymn, and when Lefty Gillingham, who stamped the attendance cards, saw him, he gave us a sympathetic wink and stamped us with a red star instead of a blue one, as though we had been early.
Then I took Tom into the Primary whilst the notices were being read out, and Rose, a pleasant girl who was servant up at Mr. Hopkinson’s house, made much of him and won his confidence immediately.
“I wonder you weren’t the children’s nurse, Rose,” said I.
“Oh, but I am now, Simon,” she replied. “I’m in behopes of living to see myself pensioned, too.”
Mr. Hopkinson pensioned all his old servants. He had special quarters for them in a building at the end of the park. If they did not want to live there, but with their relations, he allowed them ten shillings a week. With that, and the Old Age Pension, June said they were well off, she thought.
It occurred to me that, as Rose liked Tom, it would be a good idea to turn the conversation when we took him back, on to the murder of the other nursemaid, Bessie, and see what Rose had to say. Most likely she would know nothing, but one could never be sure about that. Many chance or innocent remarks have put the police on the track, and I thought I could remember all Rose’s remarks, supposing that she were willing to make any, and pass them on to Mrs. Bradley and the inspector.
So when I went to fetch Tom, at the end of Sunday school, I said, as Rose put on his hat:
“I shouldn’t have thought they could spare you, Rose, from the big house, if you are now minding the children.”
“They’ve gone away for a week to the Isle of Wight,” said Rose. “So I asked if I could come to Sunday school and church, and was allowed.”
“Aren’t you afraid of taking on Bessie’s job?” I asked. Rose looked very wise. It was not easy for her to do this, for she was a simple girl with a good complexion and a heart of gold. She was managing it by squinting down her nose and then turning and looking at me sideways.
“There’s them that knows what they knows about Bessie, cross my heart and speak no ill of the dead,” she replied significantly, “and them that doesn’t.”
“She went to meet a policeman, didn’t she?” I asked. Tom pulled at my hand. He wanted to go to church. He was taken sometimes by June, and always embarrassed us by singing very loudly, with no tune whatsoever, out of the hymn book held upside down. Keith had once reversed the hymn book for him, but Tom had responded to this with a howl of protest which brought all the congregation’s eyes to our pew. Tom knew which was right way up, and preferred the other. Sometimes he would sing by himself in the middle of the minister’s prayers. People enjoyed that, I think. Extempore prayers are often long.
“Half a sec, Tommy,” said I. Keith came to find us, and I gave Tom over to him, and walked over to church with Rose when I had helped her collect up the pictures the Primary played with, and their bricks with the twelve Apostles on them. As we collected and stacked, and as we walked over to the vestry entrance—for Rose was in the choir—she told me more about Bessie.
Bessie, it seemed, was really no better than a thief, although no one had found it out until after her death.
“Have you told the police?” I asked.
“Oh, no, of course not!” said Rose, looking thoroughly shocked. “You don’t say things like that when people are dead!”
“Why, what did she take, then?” I asked.
“The housekeeper says she took clothes and trinkets and such.”
“But surely they would be missed?”
“Well, you see,” said Rose, “they belonged to the children’s grandmother, and she’s been dead some years. Bessie might have gone on, and never been found out at all, only it so happened that the housekeeper had orders to turn out some of the stuff for a jumble sale down at Saint Anthony’s. So, of course, in going through, and her having been at the house such a number of years, and having a pretty good memory, she found that half of the clothes and a lot of other things, too, had disappeared.”
“Jewellery and watches?” I ventured.
“No, nothing so valuable, I don’t believe,” replied Rose. “Oddments from foreign travel, and the like of that, I think. The Colonel, the old lady’s son, had been all over the place, I believe, and the old gentleman, Mr. Hopkinson himself, had been at foreign courts.”
“Yes, he had been in the Foreign Office,” I interpolated.
“Ah, that’s what I was told. Well, he’d given little things to his wife, and forgot all about ’em, like enough. He’s an absentminded gentleman, the master, and getting very old. Mrs. Green says he’s older than her, and she’s over seventy now. He offered to give her her pension, but she says she shall last out his time.”
Rose went into the vestry, and I went round to the west side of the church to catch up Keith and Tom. I did not catch them, but Keith had saved a place for me in our usual pew in the gallery. Tom approved of the gallery, and spat on a lady’s hat, so we had to threaten to take him home. The lady, fortunately, did not know what he had done. She had just come in, and was praying.
Tom behaved after that, and sang a good deal, but otherwise was no nuisance. We did not stay for the sermon, but went out after the collection. We would have liked to miss it, but knew that Tom would tell June, not intending to do any harm. He was too young to be trusted.
We went for a walk up Manor Road, my mind leading me unconsciously in the direction of Mr. Hopkinson’s park. As we went, I told Keith all that Rose had said. He was interested, but not particularly impressed.
“I don’t see how it helps us,” he said. “She may have been no end of a thief, but thieves are not usually murdered.”
“Thieves don’t usually have policemen for their sweethearts,” I pointed out, “and, so far as we know, she was in Saint George’s Court to meet a policeman.”
“I don’t see why she had to meet him there. It almost looks as though there was something fishy.”
“It was on his beat, and she took him something to eat, I expect. He’s quite above board. It’s Bill Kelsey.”
“I know it’s Bill Kelsey. All the same, he’s been transferred.”
“Not for anything except the shock of his girl being murdered, though. There was nothing against Bill at all. Bob Cammond told me, and Bob knows everything, because his mother cleans for Mrs. Seabrook.”
“Well, I can’t see what her thieving had to do with her murder,” said Keith. “Now, if she had murdered someone who might have given her away to Mr. Hopkinson or his housekeeper, there might have been something in it.”
“Anyway, I shall tell Mrs. Bradley,” said I.
“Oh, of course. I agree about that. But I can’t see she’ll make much out of it. I wonder what Bessie did with the things she stole?”
“Sold them to someone, I suppose. The rag and bone man, perhaps.”
“Oh, she wouldn’t get enough from him,” said Keith. “He’s mean. He only gave John Wilkins a paper windmill for a dozen perfectly good jam-jars and his mother’s old coat. And Arthur Bates only got one goldfish…and it died the next day…for his father’s old shoes and two wheels off a baby’s pram.”
“Yes, but his father’s shoes had gone right through the soles. He showed them to Jack, and Jack said he wouldn’t care to mend them. And the pram wheels came out of the canal. I saw Fred and Arthur fishing for them myself. And they thought the goldfish ate grass, although I told them ants’ eggs…the owls!”
“Still, it shouldn’t have died the next day,” persisted Keith.
I went to the police station directly afternoon Sunday school was over. June and Jack had gone to her mother’s with Tom, so we were left to get our own tea, and were under oath not to be out of the house after half-past eight in the evening if nobody had returned home.
Inspector Seabrook was in, but his mother was not. He was not very pleased to see me, but allowed me to use his telephone. I knew Mrs. Bradley’s number because we had stayed at the house. She answered the telephone herself, and greeted me kindly. She called my news about the dead girl, Bessie, contributory and corroborative evidence, and thanked me warmly for it.
“Is it really any good?” I enquired. She assured me that it was, and added that she had been fairly certain, for some time, of the murderer’s identity, but, so far, there was not enough evidence on which to risk making an arrest.
“And you mean this helps?” I almost shouted.
“Who is there with you?” she asked.
“Only Mr. Seabrook. And he’s in the kitchen,” I replied.
“Well,” she said, “don’t ask me whom I suspect. I can’t tell you yet. It would not be right. But this piece of information helps as much as anything else I know about the murders, and that is absolutely true.”
I expressed my gratification, and rang off. Next morning there was a letter for me. It came by the eight o’clock post, before I set out for school. It was from Mrs. Bradley, and said that if I wanted to continue my excellent detective work, all I had to do was to meet her at the entrance to Mr. Hopkinson’s park, at the wrought-iron gates, immediately after tea.
I worked well at school, in deadly fear of being kept behind if I did badly, and raced to the station immediately we were set free. I then had to wait for the train, and was in a fever for it to come in. When it did I thought we should never get away from the station, for fellows kept drifting along and the guard kept waiting for them. When I got home June was out, and Keith was laying the tea. This was a great advantage. We cut thick bread, put butter and jam on it, drank cold milk and water mixed, and by five o’clock I was in the bathroom washing my face and hands.
Keith came with me as far as the bend in the Manor Road where the line of elm trees with their enormous trunks and thick underbrush marked the outskirts of Mr. Hopkinson’s park, and then I went forward alone and he went home.
Mrs. Bradley arrived at five-thirty. I heard it strike at the farm. She was accompanied by Mr. Seabrook. He wore uniform, and looked very smart. Mrs. Bradley looked smart, too, in bright colours and a hat I had not seen before. I was glad I had washed and had put on a clean collar. I almost wished I had worn my Sunday suit.
There was a great bell which one had to pull. Mr. Seabrook pulled it, and an old man came out from behind the stables and opened the gate. There was a broad lawn flanked by rhododendrons and laurels, and as we rounded a bend in the drive, for Mr. Seabrook had left his car at the roadside in charge of a constable-driver, we came in sight of the house.
It was a truly magnificent mansion, built in the reign of King James the First, so Mr. Seabrook informed me. The old man, having relocked the wrought-iron gates, had gone back to wherever he had come from, so we were left to make our own way.
The front door had a square porch, and the windows of the house had been altered to fit in with modern conditions. As soon as the front door was opened, I could see that all round the ceiling of the hall were arranged small, brightly coloured shields.
A maid let us in. I knew her. She was Teddy Ransom’s sister Bella. I thought, however, that she would prefer us to meet as strangers, so I nodded distantly, as though I did not really know her. She would have none of this, however, but giggled, and gave me a kiss on the ear, before she showed us into a room to wait.
