The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop

Mrs Bradley walked to the front gate, leaving the doctor to proceed towards the garage.

‘Hats off to the National Health Insurance!’ she said to herself, looking back at the wide-open doors of the shed where the doctor’s gleaming chariot was housed. ‘If the Medical Council don’t make all their members vote Liberal – well, they’re an ungrateful lot! That’s all I can say.’

She began walking briskly in the direction of the Vicarage, but half-way there she changed her mind and went up to the Cottage on the Hill instead.

II

Lulu was at home. Almost as much to the point, Savile and Wright were not.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Lulu, leading the way into the drawing-room, which was immediately underneath the room Wright and Savile used as a studio. ‘Did you want ’em particular?’

‘I called on behalf of the Restoration Fund,’ lied Mrs Bradley glibly.

‘Oh, that. Yes, it wants doing up bad, don’t it? Lovely I think them old churches is, but law! the draught. I give up going. I couldn’t stick it. Not as I ever was one for religion much.’ She giggled and slid a glance sideways at Mrs Bradley from under her eyelashes. She was a lovely creature – one of those women sometimes to be seen in East End Thames-side localities; women with something of the Orient in their ancestry, something of its mystery and allure beneath the crudeness of Cockney speech and the hearty freshness of English laughter.

Mrs Bradley nodded.

‘But you thought sufficiently kindly of the vicar and his daughter to do the church laundry-work and wash the vicar’s own clothes,’ she said quietly.

‘Oh, that!’

Lulu tossed back a permanently-waved lock of lustrous hair and laughed, displaying fine teeth.

‘Brought up to the wash-tub, I was. No ’ardship to put a few bits of things through a drop of water. And that gal of theirs – Shin Finer or somethink I should say by the look of the washing she ’angs out. I couldn’t stand seeing them bits of boys and the parson in them dirty-lookin’ yaller chimmies of theirn Sunday after Sunday. “Disgraceful, I calls it,” I said to Clef. That was before the draughts got too much of a good thing, and I used to go to ’ear Clef sing. Lovely ’e sings. ’Aven’t you never ’eard ’im? Bit of all right, I tell you. So I washes ’em now. It ain’t nothink, but I may get a good mark for it one of these days when my number goes up. Never know, do you?’

‘No, you never do,’ agreed Mrs Bradley gravely. ‘But all the same, child, how did you come to scorch the things so badly about a month ago?’

‘’Ow did I?’ said Lulu, flushing with anger. ‘I never did! It was that pop-eyed swine I goes with done that! “I’ll ’elp you for once, my gal,” ’e says and wi’ that ’e snatches the iron and dabs it on a couple of ’ankerchiefs of ’is own I’d just put there ready for ironin’. I swore at ’im, but it wasn’t no good, and grabbed at the iron, but there! ’E’d ’ave dabbed it on me face for two pins, the vicious ’ound, so I snatched up the parson’s things and ran off, all except the collars and the curtings. I couldn’t grab them up with all the chimmies.’

‘Surplices?’ enquired Mrs Bradley.

‘That’s right. I done them when ’e was gorn – next day it was. One collar what ’e done and all the curtings was good as spoilt, the collar ’specially. Nothink but a bit of black charcoal, it wasn’t, and I ’ad to chuck it away. There was a tie of his own ditto, and a pair of sort of little short drawers and a vest of ’is what ’e give me to wash that week. Like ’is sauce! Still, I done ’em! And then ’e went and scorched ’em so they ’ad to be throwed away, and who’d washed ’em that week, blowed if I know, for I never! Nor the curtings neither. Been ’aving a gime, some of ’em.’

‘What shape was the collar?’ asked Mrs Bradley keenly.

‘Oh, one of them sorft collars like they wears on tennis shirts. I suppose even parsons leaves orf their dog- collars sometimes.’

‘I don’t know. Are you sure it was not one of Mr Wright’s collars? – Or one belonging to Mr Savile?’

Lulu turned and stared at her. Surprise, suspicion, apprehension, chased each other across her face like clouds of storm across a lowering summer sky.

‘Look ’ere,’ she said thickly, ‘what’s all this? I said it was the parson’s collar, didn’t I?’

Mrs Bradley rose, walked to the fireplace, and stood with her back against the mantelpiece.

‘Won’t you answer the question?’ she asked, very gently.

‘I will.’ The blustering alarm of the frightened London urchin changed Lulu’s whole attitude and expression. ‘It wasn’t Clef’s collar, and it wasn’t George’s. See?’

‘So clearly,’ said Mrs Bradley, in the same gentle, almost melancholy voice she had used before, ‘that I think you had better tell me a little more.’

Lulu’s lips drew back in a sneer. Her eyes gleamed hard. Her bosom rose and fell – a certain sign of agitation. Her harsh breathing was disquietingly audible in the small room.

‘You better get out of this,’ she said between clenched teeth. ‘Go on. You’re only little, and I’m damn’ big. And if you come ’ere nosin’ about, I’ll do for you, see? See?’

She walked up to Mrs Bradley until her red mouth was on a level with Mrs Bradley’s shrewd, humorous black eyes. She was in a dangerous mood, and was obviously careless of consequences.

‘Onions,’ said Mrs Bradley, distinctly and with repugnance. ‘If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it one hundred times to you girls – do not come into my presence when you have been eating ONIONS. A repulsive, disgusting, sickening, malodorous, anti-social vegetable!’

Decidedly taken aback, Lulu retreated a step.

‘I – I –’ she began haltingly.

Mrs Bradley swiftly followed up the advantage.

‘Yes, you have,’ she said, grinning. ‘How do you expect your husband to kiss you when –’

‘’Im!’ The monosyllable was expressive. ‘’Im kiss me! Huh! I’d like to see ’im! Be a change, that would.’

She laughed, a short, hard, incredibly bitter sound, and swung herself up on to the table, where she sat kicking her legs and sulking – an out-generalled, pouting, rebellious child.

‘Well,’ went on Mrs Bradley smoothly, ‘never mind that. What I want –’

‘Oh, I don’t mind it!’ said Lulu, flinging back her hair and sniffing indomitably. ‘There’s others can do ’is share of kissing and their own too. And they don’t live far away, neither!’

She laughed recklessly. Mrs Bradley straightened her unbecoming hat before the mirror above the mantelpiece. Then she turned, looked at Lulu, and shook her head sadly.

‘My poor child,’ she said, with real sincerity.

‘Don’t you dare pity the likes of me!’ cried Lulu passionately. ‘You nasty dried-up old crow, you! You leave me alone, do you ’ear? There’s one man dead for me already, and –’

Mrs Bradley ruthlessly cut short this epic of a second Helen.

‘And another will be hanged for you if you don’t keep silent,’ she said emphatically.

Footsteps at the front of the house heralded the approach of Savile. His head was bare, his shirt grimy, and his shoes were covered in dust. He entered the room like a tornado.

‘So I’ve caught you out at last!’ he shouted. ‘You dirty little –’ Then he caught sight of Mrs Bradley.

‘Oh, I – er – oh, it’s you?’ he said helplessly. ‘I thought – I mean –’

Mrs Bradley smiled.

III

By the time the old woman reached the Vicarage it was eight o’clock, and Felicity had just arrived home. Margery Barnes was still there, and Felicity was entertaining her and the vicar with a description of the afternoon’s proceedings. She stopped when Mrs Bradley was announced, but, being pressed by Margery to continue what appeared to be an entertaining narrative, she installed Mrs Bradley in the most comfortable chair and concluded a lively account of the old ladies and their outing to Culminster.

‘And what do you think?’ she cried, turning to Mrs Bradley. ‘I –’

Mrs Bradley suddenly began to cough. She coughed and coughed; she gasped, wheezed, croaked, gurgled, panted, and clutched her breast. Paroxysm after paroxysm seized her, and held her in dreadful thraldom. She was speechless for several minutes, for after the spasm of coughing had passed she seemed breathless and exhausted.