When Last I Died

Bradley, with peculiar emphasis. To her great interest, an ugly, purplish flush spread over Bella Foxley's face and down her thick neck.

'You're wrong!' she said, huskily. 'I never told Tom all that much.'

'No, I'm not wrong,' replied Mrs. Bradley. 'Now, this question of mine which seems so long in coming. Do you happen to know—I ask it in the most disinterested and scientific sense—but do you happen to know how your Cousin Tom met his death?'

'Considering I was tried for murdering him,' said Bella, in strangled tones, 'I suppose I ought to know!'

'Ah, but you were acquitted. Tell me what you really think.'

Bella looked at her suspiciously.

'What is all this?' she said. Mrs. Bradley nodded mysteriously.

'We are coming to something, I do believe,' she said. 'Come along, Miss Foxley. Do your best. It won't seem as strange to me as it might to some people.'

'I don't see it would sound strange, exactly, to anyone,' said Bella, recovering herself a little. 'After all, one of the little devils had committed murder already ...'

'Ah,' said Mrs. Bradley. 'So you think the boys killed Cousin Tom?'

'Well, I suppose it was a fact that they'd already pushed him out of the window once.'

'That would account for his having made no particular complaint, 1 suppose,' said Mrs. Bradley, as though she agreed with the supposition.

'Well, he couldn't very well inform against them, considering how he'd been hiding them from the police and using them, could he, poor fellow?'

'I suppose not,' said Mrs. Bradley; but she seemed to have lost interest in the subject. 'You do realise, though, don't you, that the boys were already in the cellar when your Cousin Tom fell out the second time?'

She looked expectantly at Bella. The prisoner's face was livid.

'I heard that in court, but it didn't—it wasn't true. I happen to know that for a fact, if it's facts you're after,' she said. Her sombre eyes smouldered. She did not speak again for a minute or two. The heavy, rather turgid mentality behind that ugly fore- head and those angry, defeated eyes was accustoming itself to a new and terrible conviction, Mrs. Bradley surmised. She rose.

'Think it over,' she said, almost kindly. 'And when you go next into the witness box, I think I should tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, if I were you. Even if it does no good, you'll feel the better for it. And, you know, Miss Foxley, if I were you—and I mean this in the most ...'

'Disinterested way,' said Bella, with a return to her former irony.

'If you like. Anyway, I should make up my mind to tell the court exactly what you were doing and where you were when the boys ... need I say the rest? ... when the boys were dying.'

'And now,' said Mrs. Bradley brightly, 'for another go at our patient Griselda.'

'That fatheaded widow, I suppose you mean?' said Mr. Pratt, who was again a weekend visitor at the Stone House. 'That woman ought to be stood on hot bricks or something, to wake her up and bring her to, I should say. She simply threw away the case for the prosecution—simply threw it away.'

'Mea culpa,' said Mrs. Bradley inexcusably. Pratt, lighting a pipe, looked at her steadfastly.

'You're up to something,' he said. 'Don't tell me we've got to whitewash the unspeakable Bella?'

Mrs. Bradley grinned and asked him whether, in such case, she could count upon his assistance.

'Count on me in any way you like,' responded Mr. Pratt gallantly. 'But tell me all first. I am all ears and curiosity.'

'Well, come with me to interview Muriel Turney, then,' said Mrs. Bradley. 'We can do it to-morrow. It isn't so far from here. I don't need to notify her that we are coming. She is pretty sure to be at home. And this evening, between now and the time you go to sleep, I wish you'd re-read Bella Foxley's diary. I am going to confront her with it when I visit her next time. I think I may get some interesting reactions.'

'You know, you're a public menace,' said Mr. Pratt.

'I am wondering,' said Mrs. Bradley, 'whether—but let me begin at the beginning.'

Muriel looked at her in perplexity. Her weak face was pale, and she had given a cry of surprise and, it seemed, of relief, when she had opened the door to find Mrs. Bradley waiting on the step.

'Yes, certainly,' she said vaguely. 'Sit down, won't you?'

Mrs. Bradley sat down.

'To begin at the beginning, then,' she said——' or, rather, at the end, if you do not object to a paradox— what are you going to do if, after all, Bella Foxley is acquitted? It is a fact we have to face, you know, that she may be. What further steps are you prepared to take?'

'Why—why, I don't know, I'm sure. Do you mean you think she will be acquitted?'

'I was surprised that they did not acquit her this time.'

'Yes, I suppose—that is, it would have been dreadful, wouldn't it? Do you really think she'll get off?'

'We must be prepared for it,' repeated Mrs. Bradley. 'Now, then, what do you say?'

'Why, nothing. Poor Bella! I suppose she's been punished already. Perhaps it would be for the best.'

'Did your husband possess a sense of humour?' asked Mrs. Bradley. Muriel, not unnaturally, looked completely bewildered by this question, which appeared to have no bearing whatsoever upon what had already been said. She begged Mrs. Bradley's pardon nervously.

'That's all right,' said Mrs. Bradley benignly, waving a yellow claw. 'Don't mention it.'

'I—I don't think I heard what you said.'

'Oh, yes, I expect you did. What did you think I said?'

'Had—had Tom a sense of humour?'

'That's it. Well, had he? In his writings, more particularly.'

'Well, he—sometimes he would be a bit what he used to call jocular—about the spirits, you know, and what they said.'

'He used to be a bit jocular,' said Mrs. Bradley solemnly. Then she shuddered —or so it seemed to the unhappy Muriel.

'Of course, a lot of his writing had to be very serious. It was kind of technical,' Muriel added. 'The Society of Psychical Research ...'

'You don't tell me that he wrote for their journal?'

'I—Oh, well, perhaps he didn't, then. I really don't know what he wrote for. He never bothered me with it. He always said I needn't trouble my head.'

'And—was all the love-making on one side?'

'Don't beg my pardon,' said Mrs. Bradley gently. 'Yes, that was what I said.'

'But—I mean—isn't it rather—married people don't talk about such things.'

'Why not?'

'Well ...'

'I thought most of the divorce cases were because of it.'

'Because of ...?' Muriel's colour heightened. She half rose from her chair. 'I don't think I understand what you're talking about.'

'Well, this: the boys were starved to death—or nearly to death, we'll say. The bodies—alive or dead—that didn't seem to matter very much to a cruel and wicked woman—were buried. Well, it struck me afterwards—after the trial, I mean— that there was a discrepancy somewhere. Do you see what I mean?'

'No. No, I don't.'

'Curious.'

'I don't know what you're getting at,' said Muriel wildly and shrilly. 'But if you say any more about those wretched boys I shall scream.'

'Are we alone in the house?'

'I don't know.'

'And yet you came to the door. Do you answer the door all the time?'

'Yes. It is an arrangement with my landlady. She answers all the knocks some days, and I answer them the other days. It's just an arrangement.'

'Very sensible indeed. What were we saying?'

'I don't remember.'

'I do. I mentioned a discrepancy. I wondered whether you would help me to understand. Possibly it is perfectly plain and straightforward, but I can't quite follow it. You remember the first time your husband fell out of the bedroom window?'

'Yes, of course I do, but I thought we said ...'

'Well, on that occasion, your husband was in the house with the boys, and you and Bella were at the inn. Is that correct?'

'Of course it is. You know it is.'

'Very well. Now, your husband was hurt by the fall, I presume. Did you nurse him?'

'No. He wouldn't have us put about. He made light of the fall.'

'I see. I obtained so little information about this part of the story from Bella's diary that I thought perhaps you might be able to enlarge on it for me.'

'But this won't help to get the wicked woman hanged!'

'I'm afraid not, no. You see, the diary mentions the fall, and then Bella announces that she went to the house to see whether she could discover any explanation of it, but, most tantalisingly, she leaves out any account of this visit and merely reports, the next day, that your husband had decided to give up the house as too dangerous. He wasn't in the house when he made that decision, was he?'

'I can't remember whether he was or not.'

'I deduced he could not have been, because she goes on, after a mention of other matters, to state that three gentlemen and two ladies interested in psychical research came to the house and asked to be shown over it. She then states that, as she felt sure your husband 'would have wished it'—indicating that he was not able to be consulted on the matter—she herself showed them over the house. You, I suppose, Mrs. Turney, would have been with your husband at the inn?'

'I suppose so. Yes, of course. But I feel so dim and hazy.