When Last I Died

have half the money, and—I suppose I might as well confess it and get it off my conscience—I was hoping something would happen, and it did. She was the suicide kind, I suppose. My aim was to assume her identity if anything happened to her. I suggested to her we should call each other by nicknames, and I always told people— not that we got to know many; I saw to that all right—that she was Bella and I was Tessa Foxley.

'People didn't seem to suspect anything; I suppose they thought she was what people were like when they'd been acquitted of murder.

'Anyway, one afternoon I got to her in time to pull her head out of the rainwater butt. Silly of me, because it would have done the trick all right, but, somehow, you can't watch people die. Anyway, next time she did it in the village pond, and it was all up with her by the time she was discovered.'

'And you had an alibi, I believe, for the time of her death?' said Mrs. Bradley in very friendly tones.

'Yes. Good enough for the coroner. I thought I told you. I had been let in for giving a talk to the Mothers' Meeting. Nice fellow, the vicar. Very good to both of us. Glad to oblige him.'

'What made you so anxious to assume your sister's identity?' asked Mrs. Bradley. Bella gave her a curious look, and then replied off-handedly:

'Oh, I don't know, you know. I'suppose I wanted a chance to forget all about the trial and all the unpleasantness. Still, I don't seem to have got far with it, do I?'

'It couldn't do any harm to tell me the truth, you know.' Mrs. Bradley suggested. 'If you wanted to begin life afresh, as they say, after the trial, why couldn't you have adopted an entirely new name? After all, the names Tessa Foxley and Bella Foxley are not so extremely unlike that you would have been able to hide yourself much behind your sister's name—except to people who knew you! Come, Miss Foxley, be reasonable.'

But Bella shook her head, and her heavy face set obstinately.

'It's neither here nor there,' she answered. 'I reckon I've had this coming to me all my life. I haven't had a happy life, you know.'

'But I suggest to you that you had a better reason than the one you've given me for assuming your sister's name,' Mrs. Bradley persisted. 'You knew those boys were dead.'

'Forget it,' said Bella tersely; and as Mrs. Bradley had no more questions to put she took her leave.

'Come again,' said the prisoner in tones more genuine and less sardonic than Mrs. Bradley had expected. 'It's something to talk to somebody a bit intelligent.'

'Thank you,' said Mrs. Bradley. 'I have two or three more questions I want to put to you, and I shall be glad of an opportunity.'

'Pleasure!' responded the prisoner, but more in good-humour than contempt.

Mrs. Bradley returned to the Stone House at Wandles Parva full of cheerfulness, and remained there for five days. At the end of that time she had given up the idea of her proposed stay in the village where Tessa Foxley had been drowned, but had paid three visits there. There was no doubt, it seemed, that Bella Foxley's alibi for the time of the murder was, although slightly shaky theoretically, almost fool-proof from a practical standpoint. The tremendous risks attendant upon transporting her sister's dead body in daylight from the rain-water butt outside the back door of the cottage to the village pond were a deterrent to any but a maniac, Mrs. Bradley decided.

Bella Foxley, whatever her peculiarities, was no lunatic, and Mrs. Bradley abandoned, without regret, the theory that the idiot boy had been a witness of the murder of Tessa Foxley. The more likely explanation, it seemed, was that he had been a witness that Bella had indeed saved her sister from a suicidal drowning.

The next task, that of tracing the man who had bigamously married Tessa, proved less difficult and complicated than she had feared. The man, who had served a prison sentence, was working in a Salvation Army shelter. He responded readily to Mrs. Bradley's advertisement, established his identity by appeal to the Court missionary and admitted that Tessa had been 'kind of weak in the head.' He also stated that it was not for her 'or the likes of her' he had 'done his stretch,' that he believed she had had money, but that this proved 'the biggest washout of the lot,' and that he was 'going straight' and didn't 'need to be afraid of no- one.'

Painstakingly, Mrs. Bradley sifted fact from opinion, and opinion from lies, and convinced herself that she was left, at the end, with a residue of truth which, if not particularly valuable in itself, had its point as contributory evidence. Tessa had been weak. vacillating and of suicidal tendencies.

'In fact, I wouldn't help to hang Bella Foxley or anybody else....'

'Even the rice-pudding Muriel ...' interpolated Ferdinand, with a grin ...

'... upon such evidence as we have in connection with Tessa Foxley's death,' said Mrs. Bradley.

'So what?' her son not unnaturally enquired.

'So—another interview with the prisoner so that I can explore fresh avenues,' said Mrs. Bradley, with a cackle of pure pleasure.

''So we sought and we found, and we bayed on his track,'' quoted Ferdinand unkindly. But his mother's only response was another cackle.

'Something up her sleeve,' thought Ferdinand uneasily. 'Now where have we all slipped up?'

This second interview was not, in some ways, either more or less satisfactory than the first one had been. The prisoner, puffy under the eyes and with skin as unsavoury as ever, raised sardonic eyebrows and greeted Mrs. Bradley ironically.

'What, you again?' she said. Mrs. Bradley agreed, cheerfully, that it was.

'And when do we go through the performance again?' enquired Bella Foxley.

'I don't know exactly. But, tell me, Miss Foxley—that diary of yours. Your own unaided work—as they say in competitions for children—or not?'

'Diary? Oh, diary. I suppose Eliza Hodge handed it over?'

'Well, yes and no. A small boy, my grandson, discovered it in your aunt's house. Eliza lets the house during the summer months, as I daresay you know.'

'Very nice, too. Yes, I believe I did keep a diary. Why? I haven't kept one for— since—Oh, well, you probably know the date of it.'

But she looked hopefully at Mrs. Bradley as she said this, as though anticipating that Mrs. Bradley might not know.

'Well, the date of the year was on it—printed on it—and although that, in itself, is not, perhaps, proof positive that the items were written in that same year, the chain of events with which the diary seems to be concerned dates it without doubt. Tell me, Miss Foxley—for I gather you do not propose to answer my former question ...'

'Which one?'

'Whether the diary was your own unaided work.'

'Oh, lord! Of course it was! What a silly question!'

'You will take back that unkind remark later on, I think.'

'Maybe. And—maybe! Well, go on.'

'By all means. Time is short, of course.'

'You're dern tooting it's short,' Bella agreed. 'They'll get me next time, I reckon. Well, I should worry! I've not had so much luck in my life that I expect to get away with this. Shoot!'

'These Americanisms—the cinema?' Mrs. Bradley enquired.

'Oh, possibly. I used to live there, nearly, in the evenings. Only thing to do, and the best way, anyhow, to get away from the atmosphere of that poisonous Institution for a bit.'

'Ah, yes. You weren't happy there.'

'When I say I'd sooner be here,' said Bella vigorously, 'I'm not saying one-half. Does that convince you?'

'I don't need convincing. The diary would have convinced me.'

'The diary? But I didn't put anything in the diary about the Institution, did I? I used to be pretty careful about that.'

'Really? You surprise me,' said Mrs. Bradley, grinning like a fiend.

'I don't remember any of it,' said the prisoner, scowling in the effort of recollection. 'But I do want to ask you something. Exactly what is your object in pushing in here? You were against me at the trial, you and that precious Muriel, and that oaf Lawrence. What's the big idea of turning prisoner's friend all of a sudden? '

'Not prisoner's friend; seeker after truth,' Mrs. Bradley corrected her. 'And, of course, you are at liberty to refuse to answer my questions. You are at liberty to tell me not to come again.'

'Oh, it makes for a good laugh once in a while,' said Bella, 'and, as you say, I needn't answer; and, not being quite so gone on the truth as you are, I can always tell a lie.'

'So you can,' replied Mrs. Bradley, unperturbed. 'I think I know most of the truth, mind you,' she continued. 'Enough of it, anyway, to be able to pick out your lies. Did you tell the truth in court, by the way, about the boys?'

'Not exactly, but near enough to make no difference to the jury.'

'You mean that you did send them to Mr. Turney?'

'No, I didn't send 'em, but when he offered to have them I let them go.'

'Do you ever wish you hadn't?'

'No, I don't.'

'It was a terrible death,' said Mrs. Bradley, her eyes leaving those of the prisoner and wandering vaguely towards the door.

'It's over now,' said Bella, 'and they're better out of the world, two kids like that. What chance did they ever stand? Who'd give them a chance? Poor little wretches! Thieves and murderers before they'd hardly begun their lives at all.'

'I saw in the diary that you held strong views on the subject,' said Mrs. Bradley.

'You saw—Don't be daft! I never put any of my real opinions in that diary, that I'm positive I didn't!'

'Well, at any rate, it seems to have got round that you held strong views of that kind.'

'Oh, maybe. I generally used to say what I thought, to one person and another.'

'Especially to one person,' said Mrs.