believe in pampering children by allowing them to see me make a fool of myself.’
‘Personally, I think that’s a pity,’ said Mrs Bradley brightly. ‘But still, no two people ever did agree on how to bring up children, and I don’t suppose they ever will. Thank you so much. Good-bye.’
She slipped the white packet into her capacious skirt pocket, and tramped briskly along to the Vicarage.
Mary Kate Maloney was preparing lunch.
‘To-day being Saturday,’ observed Mrs Bradley, ‘you would like to go into Bossbury with my new girl, who is rather homesick, and show her the sights of the town.’
‘Is it me to be going into Bossbury of a Saturday, Mrs Bradley, ma’am?’ cried the scandalized Mary Kate. ‘Sure, I won’t be allowed to do that same while the vicar has his health, which is more than I thought he would have when he come home to us that Sunday night all sopping wet and nearly drowned, through walking into the river near Culminster Bridge and himself deep in his thoughts and not heeding where he was walking at all.’
‘What?’ said Mrs Bradley, so sharply that Mary Kate started and almost cut her hand with the potato-knife. ‘When was this?’
‘’Tis the queer thing that I’m able to remember it,’ said Mary Kate, who was that mine of information, a keen gossip, ‘but it was the same Sunday night as that murder, so I wouldn’t forget the day in a hurry. Yes, right up to his neck he walked, and himself the sight for Mother Ruickeen herself to be gaping at, so he was! I declare to God entirely,’ pronounced Mary Kate, in an ecstasy of horrified recollection, ‘never have I seen such a sight as himself since they pulled poor Johnny Doran out of the river at Ballymocar, the same being smothered with the green water-weeds and his hair black with the wetness of it, poor boy.’
‘Very sad,’ agreed Mrs Bradley. ‘And you’d like to go to Bossbury with my girl Jane, wouldn’t you? All right. You shall. Go and tell the vicar I’m here, and I will see to the rest. . . .’
The vicar pushed back his chair and smiled at her.
‘So you’ve robbed me of my housekeeper for the day,’ he said, ‘and now you want Mary Kate also! Woe is me!’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bradley decisively. ‘What are you going to do when Felicity marries?’
‘Marries?’ The vicar looked blank. ‘But Felicity won’t marry for years! She’s only a child.’
‘She’s twenty. Nearly twenty-one. And she’s in love with James Redsey.’
The vicar blinked.
‘I like Felicity,’ Mrs Bradley went on. ‘And before I leave this neighbourhood, which I expect to do very shortly, I want to make certain that the young man will not be charged with this murder.’
The vicar blinked again.
‘And that you get married,’ said Mrs Bradley firmly. ‘It’s time all this pathological nonsense was ended. Here you are – a youngish, perfectly healthy man, just going to seed. Look about you, and see whether you can’t find a nice wife! Isn’t there anyone you fancy? Someone who is a bit of a bully would suit you best, I think. She would improve your memory for you.’
The vicar chuckled.
‘Do you really think it would be a good thing?’ he asked, half seriously.
‘Excellent. What about Mrs Bryce Harringay?’
The vicar shuddered. Mrs Bradley laughed.
‘Did you really walk into the Cullen on the evening of Sunday, June 22nd?’ she asked, changing the subject.
The vicar grinned shamefacedly.
‘And do you ever wear flannel trousers – grey ones?’ Mrs Bradley continued unexpectedly.
The vicar rang the bell.
‘Mary Kate, do I ever wear grey flannel trousers?’ he asked.
Mary Kate glared at him, suspecting a jest.
‘And I to be wearing myself to the bone trying to get the stains out of them where you went shopping for the meat and dripped the blood all down yourself!’ she retorted angrily. ‘Sure, some man, they say, is born to be the heart’s bane of every woman, and it’s yourself is the heart’s bane of me – God help you for a poor, forgetful, moithering, foolish thing!’
‘Blood?’ said Mrs Bradley.
‘Out of the best English beef,’ said the vicar, gently nodding his head. ‘I remember now.’
‘And when was this?’ asked Mrs Bradley.
Mary Kate, appealed to, was unable to say. Her attention had not been drawn to the ruined trousers until the vicar wanted to put them on again to go for a tramp with his Boys’ Club – ‘and that was only last Thursday, as ever was, ma’am. How long they had been like it I couldn’t say, for I’ll not be calling to mind when last he put them on.’
‘I want those trousers,’ said Mrs Bradley firmly. ‘Where are they? And do try to remember when it was that you brought the meat home. It may be important.’
Mary Kate produced the trousers. Between the original stains themselves and her original methods of cleaning the stains off, the garment seemed in a sad state. Mrs Bradley inspected the maker’s label, and then turned to the Reverend Stephen.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘Have you remembered?’
The vicar frowned thoughtfully, and then shook his head.
‘It must have been before I went for my holiday,’ he said, ‘because I took those trousers out of the case Sethleigh lent me. And yet Felicity wouldn’t have packed them if they had been in that condition, would she? I feel sure she would not. Of course’ – he brightened – ‘it may not have been the meat at all. There seems rather a lot of blood for a pound or so of topside of beef, doesn’t there? We always have topside, because Felicity likes it lean.’
Mrs Bradley felt irritated, but did not betray the fact. Instead she said:
‘I suppose I may take them with me? I will let you have them back.’
‘Is one permitted to enquire the reason of this curious whim?’ asked the vicar, smiling.
‘Yes,’ replied Mrs Bradley. She gazed at him much as a scientist might gaze at a museum specimen of interesting appearance but doubtful authenticity. ‘I fancy these stains are not the mark of the beast,’ she said at last. ‘They appear to be more like the brand of Cain. I shall be surprised, my dear friend, if these turn out to be your trousers. I rather fancy that they once belonged to Rupert Sethleigh. And as I propose to hand them straight over to Inspector Grindy, you had better try to remember a little more about them.’
The vicar stared helplessly after her as she walked out of the house with the trousers slung gracefully over her arm.
II
At eight o’clock in the evening, Felicity returned. She helped the last child off the bus, delivered each of the fifteen to a waiting parent, returned the courtesies of the whole band – parents and children too – and walked straight in at Mrs Bradley’s front door, which was standing wide open.
‘Well?’ said Mrs Bradley, appearing abruptly from the kitchen, where she had been superintending the dishing up of dinner.
Felicity seized her arm.
‘I’ve seen it!’ she said.
‘Seen what, my dear?’
‘Behind the model of a Roman shield. How did you know? Had you seen it, or did you guess? Oh, but you must have seen it! But how did it get there? Nobody has a key to those cases except Father and the curator – oh, and the bishop, of course! Mrs Bradley’ – she shook the old woman’s arm – ‘do explain! What is it?’
Mrs Bradley led her into the dining-room and pushed her into a chair.
‘To the best of my knowledge and belief,’ she said, ‘it is Rupert Sethleigh’s skull.’
‘But how did it get there?’ Felicity pulled off her hat and pushed a hand through her hair.
‘That is something which I would give a good deal to know for certain,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I suppose it would be too much to ask you to take another party of children to-morrow and look to see if it’s still there? I would go myself, but I am particularly anxious not to appear in this little comedy. My part shall be that of stage-manager. Oh, and tell your father the inspector refuses to be parted from those trousers! I am awfully sorry. I feared something of
