When Last I Died

thirteen stone to the seat of the chair without comment and looked across at her. His expression had altered considerably.

'Are you pulling my leg, Mother?'

'No, child. I've found Bella Foxley.'

'Then who was it committed suicide?'

'Well, not Bella.'

'The sister ...?'

'Murdered, possibly. If so, she was held head-downward in the rain-water butt outside the woodshed of their cottage in the village of Pond, transported to the pond at Pond, left there to be found by any who would, and the rest abandoned to Fate and the crass stupidity of a coroner who wouldn't believe that what the village idiot said was evidence.'

'What did the village idiot say?'

'He said that it was the rain-water washed her cheeks so white.'

'I seem to have heard that before.'

'Yes, I have transposed his rude rustic remark into the key of the poetic.'

'You couldn't take that statement as evidence, coming from such a source.'

'You could investigate it, though,' said Mrs. Bradley. 'Instead of that, the boy was told not to waste the time of the court.'

'When is all this supposed to have happened?'

'Well, the doctor put the time of death at between noon and three o'clock. She wasn't found until almost dusk. It was winter, too, which gives the idiot boy's evidence all the more importance. Whenever you would choose to wash yourself in the rain-water butt, you would hardly do so in November, I imagine. Bella must have drowned Tessa, gone straight to the Mothers' Meeting, and then had tea at the vicarage.'

'But why should she kill her sister?'

'That remains to be seen. Why should she kill Cousin Tom? We know why she may have killed the old aunt.'

'You'll never prove a word of it, Mother.'

'Probably not,' said Mrs. Bradley, in such tones of self-satisfaction that her son lifted his black brows and grinned.

'Something up your sleeve,' he announced.

Mrs. Bradley by this time had the enlargements of the snapshots.

'Ask your friend Pratt to dinner,' she observed. 'You see this woman?'

'Who is she?'

'That,' said Mrs. Bradley, 'is for Mr. Pratt to say.'

Mr. Pratt, confronted with both snapshot and enlargement, did not hesitate.

'If it was ten years younger—well, say, five ...'

'Say six, and you'll be about right,' interposed Mrs. Bradley. Pratt looked at her out of heavily lidded eyes.

'I should say it was Bella Foxley,' he concluded. Mrs. Bradley produced the snapshot which the vicar had signed and dated.

'And this?' she said, presenting it so that the ex-journalist saw the photograph.

'The same, isn't it? Looks like the same snap to me.'

'It is,' said Mrs. Bradley. 'And the man who developed the negative can swear to the date. That is arranged. Now read what is here.' She turned the snapshot over.

'But the fellow can't be right, unless the two of them were identical twins,' said Mr. Pratt.

'They were not in the least alike,' said Mrs. Bradley gently, 'and neither were they twins.'

She then explained the circumstances under which the photographs had been taken, and then produced George's profile view of Miss Foxley.

'Oh, well, that one I'd swear to. It's the view I mostly saw of her in court,' declared Mr. Pratt.

'You've got something there, Mother,' said Ferdinand.

'Of course she has,' said Caroline, now Mrs. Bradley's firm adherent. A diversion was caused at this point by Derek, who appeared to say good night, this little formality being observed on all family and what may be referred to as 'semi-guest' occasions.

'My mascot,' said Mrs. Bradley, presenting him, to his great delight, with ten shillings. 'This is the person who found the diary and put us all on the track, Mr. Pratt.'

'Oh, Gran!' said Derek, wriggling in a pleased manner. His face became even more radiant. 'What's more, I got the prize. Did you know?' he said.

There was another source of confirmatory evidence of identity in Eliza Hodge, Mrs. Bradley reflected. Then, the real work would begin.

On the Thursday following her departure from Bournemouth and Pond for Wandles Parva she received a letter, signed Tessa Foxley, refusing her offer for the house. She could not bear, Miss Foxley said, the thought of having so interesting a place pulled down. She agreed that it might be dangerous, but added that 'the psychic people would know what to do about that.'

There was nothing for it but to find her another purchaser, thought Mrs. Bradley. Nothing could be done in that house unless she had complete possession of it. She wrote back, undertaking not to pull down the house, but demanding permission to have it exorcised if it became her property. She added, and underlined the words, that she did not see that there could be any objection to that.'

Miss Foxley wrote back, refusing to sell. The interesting thing was that neither of her letters bore the very slightest resemblance, either in style or handwriting, to the diary.

'Very pretty,' said Mrs. Bradley, and sought another interview with Eliza Hodge. The good old woman was pleased to see her.

'I wondered what you were at, madam, spending your money renting my house like this, and never coming back to live in it,' she said.

'I've had a good deal of business to attend to,' Mrs. Bradley replied, 'and doubt very much whether I shall be able to settle down here for any length of time, after all. Did any of the boys turn up?'

'Ah, they did, with one of the masters, a very pleasant young fellow. Got them well in hand, too. I told him they could have the run of the garden, if they liked, but he only has 'em gather the flowers and the raspberries like under his eye. Tried their hand at jam-making, I declare, they did, with me to tell 'em what to do. Made a fair hand at it, too, and pleased as Punch with it, time they got it into pots. Laugh! I thought I should have died, to see boys so solemn-like over picking the fruit and then picking it over, and stirring the pans and all that. Oh, dear! It lasted me for days!'

'I suppose it reminded you of the days when Miss Foxley was housekeeper at the Institution,' said Mrs. Bradley.

'No, it didn't, as a matter of fact, madam. And, of course, they did wring the neck of one of Mr. Smart's fowls and had a picnic with it over on the common. Still, they paid up, because the master stopped it out of their pocket-money he said you said they was to have, and Smart charged ten shillings although that old hen she certainly wasn't worth a penny more than three and sixpence. The boys told Smart so, too, when they went to pay him, but he only winked at the master and said honesty was the best policy, and they could have bought the chicken for three and six if they'd a-wanted, but being they thought fit to steal it, why then, they must pay for their fun. There was some talk of them waylaying him and setting on him, I believe, but he goes about now with a dog-whip, and I don't think even the boldest fancies the look of him much. 'Young 'ounds,' he says, looking 'em in the eye the first time he met 'em, 'has to be learned their manners.' I think he's got the measure of them, madam, but I don't think he ought to have took all of ten shillings for the fowl.'

Mrs. Bradley listened to this artless tale with deep attention, and then resumed her own theme along the lines laid down by Miss Hodge.

'In Miss Bella's time I doubt whether they would have had a chance to help with the cooking,' she observed. 'After all, you are a good enough cook, I suppose, to be able to give the right sort of help to amateurs, but a poor cook like Miss Bella ...'

'Miss Bella? She could cook something lovely, madam!'

'I thought that was Miss Tessa,' said Mrs. Bradley.

'Oh, no, madam. Miss Bella had got all her diplomas and certificates. There wasn't anything she couldn't cook. Miss Tessa stopped short at toffee, and, it might be, boiling a potato, although even then you might get either potato soup or potato marbles, just according to how they happened to turn out. You'd have thought she was the cook, she was that nice, fair, clear colouring and complexion, but Miss Bella, for all her spotty face, was the one. She used to say she'd have got on better in service as a private cook than at anything, only it seemed a waste of her other education.'

'But, surely,' said Mrs. Bradley, 'the vicar in the village where she was living after her trial couldn't have been mistaken? This is the one he declared was the cook, and this he also declared was Miss Tessa.'

She produced the snapshot and also the enlargement of it. Eliza Hodge wiped her fingers upon her apron and took the photographs. Then she turned them over, but Mrs. Bradley had not given her the one which carried the vicar's signature.

'He must have got it quite wrong, madam,' she said. 'This is Miss Bella to the life, except she looks that much older. Did she age all that much at the trial, madam?'

'No, not at the trial,' said Mrs. Bradley. 'Would you be prepared to declare on oath that that is a photograph of Miss Bella?'

'On oath, madam? In court, do you mean? I should think we've had enough of courts, what with two of those dreadful inquests, and then Miss Bella's trial.'

'Well, I mean, are you perfectly certain it is a photograph of Miss Bella? Are you so certain that you could not be persuaded otherwise, even by someone really very clever at persuading people? A lawyer, let us say.'

'Why, of course I am,' said the old servant stoutly.

'And no one could get you to declare that it was Miss Tessa?'

'It's nothing in the world like Miss Tessa. Have you forgot them photos in the album up at the house?'

'No. That's why I thought the vicar must be mistaken,' said Mrs. Bradley. 'Did