The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop

have pinched the skull from Wright, and he could have buried it on those cliffs! He could have gone over there on the Thursday afternoon while everybody at the Vicarage was playing tennis –’

‘But he was playing tennis, too.’

‘Yes, part of the time. Then he went into the house to look at one of the vicar’s books, but I wonder whether that was an excuse for slipping away and burying the skull without anybody knowing he had left the house? You see, from the Vicarage it is the easiest thing in the world to drop over into the churchyard and take a short cut on to the Bossbury road.’

‘Yes, but he couldn’t walk to Rams Cove and back in an afternoon, Mr Bidwell.’

‘Who said he could? He’d have a car waiting. He’s got one, you see. We must find out about that. If he didn’t go in a car – oh, or on a push-bike; that’s another idea! – or on his motor-bike – I believe it belongs to Wright, as a matter of fact, but Savile borrows it, I know –’

‘Or he could have buried the suitcase with that fish inside it,’ grinned the inspector. ‘Just a nice little game for a quiet summer afternoon!’

‘You still think the boy Harringay did that, and then lied about it?’ said Superintendent Bidwell.

‘Well, don’t you, sir?’ asked Grindy, laughing.

‘I don’t know. Either he or Wright. That’s the sort of silly-idiot joke Wright would think really funny. And don’t forget – talking of Wright – that he can’t account for that hour and a half between the time he left church and the time he went to the pub.’

‘I heard some rumour that he met a girl.’

‘What girl?’

‘The doctor’s daughter.’

‘Oh. Doesn’t want to give her away to papa, I suppose. Of course, he could have hidden the skull himself, and put that coconut in its place. But the motive is the whole blinking point. There was nothing between him and Sethleigh any time that we know of, was there? You see, that’s where I think we ought to freeze hard on to young Redsey, now that we’ve proved Sethleigh is dead. After all, he’s the chap with the really strong motive.’

‘What about the doctor?’

‘Eh?’

‘And Mrs Bryce Harringay?’

‘Eh?’

‘And Savile? Why, that Lulu girl up at the Cottage as good as told Mrs Bradley that Sethleigh was her lover. “There’s one man dead for me already,” she said. What else can you make of that? A husband that’s been fooled isn’t the sweetest-tempered creature on earth, you know, and you say yourself the chap’s got muscle enough for the job.’

‘What was that about the doctor?’

‘Blackmail.’

‘Oh, that illegitimacy business. What of it? Good Lord, if every man who has an illegitimate kid turned into a murderer, what the devil would the world come to?’

‘Oh, well, a doctor, you know. Got to be pretty careful. The patients and all that. Especially when they’re county families. Don’t like it, you know. Family doctor’s got to be a bally Joseph as far as they’re concerned, or else – nah poo!’

‘Was it ever proved, though?’

‘Cleaver Wright.’

‘How much?’

‘Fact. Don’t you spot the likeness?’

‘I – well, now you mention it – oh, I don’t know, though. One’s reddish and the other nearly black.’

‘Not an unusual result in father and son. Probably the mother was dark, too.’

‘But the eyes and mouth?’

‘Different, yes. The mother again, I should think. But the family likeness is unmistakable, once you’ve got on to it. And, of course, Cleaver’s been sponging on the doctor ever since he’s been here!’

‘Has he?’

‘Rumour says so. May not be true, of course. But we might look into it, I think. I’ve often wondered why those folks came to live here. Easy money was probably the reason. The doctor wouldn’t want –’

‘But Mrs Bryce Harringay?’

‘Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about young Redsey and that will, and I’m dead sure that boy’s telling the truth. Put it this way. As soon as the will was altered and Sethleigh died, young Harringay came in for the house and land.’

‘Yes. I know that. Go on.’

‘Redsey swears he didn’t know the will was going to be altered. Hadn’t heard a word about it.’

‘We’ve thrashed all that out before. I say he did know.’

‘Half a minute. Just take the other side for a moment. Suppose he didn’t know, but that Mrs Bryce Harringay did.’

‘We needn’t suppose at all. We know she’d heard the will was to be altered. She said as much.’

‘More than once.’ The inspector grinned ruefully. ‘And always with chapter and verse, not to mention whole book of words, complete with song and dance! What I’ve put up with from those two old women – her and the scraggy one –’

‘Bradley?’

‘Ah. Never mind! Well, as I say, supposing she not only knew that the proposed alteration was in the wind, but that she actually thought the will had already been altered?’

‘But she didn’t think so.’

‘We can’t prove it, either way. Neither can we prove that Redsey is telling the truth when he swears he didn’t know. It cuts both ways, you see, and if you say one of ’em’s a liar, you’ve got to keep your weather eye lifting because the other one may be lying too. See my point?’

‘Oh, yes. But the crime? You don’t tell me she did in Sethleigh and then carved him up?’

‘I think she might have killed him. Big, hefty, very heavy woman, you know, and determined – damned determined!’ said the inspector feelingly. ‘She could have followed the two of them into the woods, seen Redsey knock out Sethleigh, gone up and stabbed Sethleigh in the throat with her little fruit-knife –’

‘Fruit-knife?’

‘Ah. Poor woman’s one of these vegetarians, you know. They all cart their fruit-knives about with them. At least, the Miss Mindens always do; and this one is always got up in gold chains and things, so she could easily hang a fruit-knife on herself somewhere. Silver or stainless steel they’re made of, and are beautifully fashioned and finished. And nobody would think of such a thing as a weapon. You could clean it up after the murder, and go on carting it about with you, you see. Not like anything big and suspicious – like a dagger, for instance.’

‘That’s a point. We’ve never discovered quite how the murder was committed. We only know the chap wasn’t killed at the butcher’s, because there was not enough blood. A little neat nick in the neck would have done the trick very nicely, I should say.’

‘Yes,’ went on the inspector, ‘and she’s got no alibi at all from about a quarter to eight until ten o’clock that night.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Well, I’ve been nosing round that house a fair number of times now, and getting out a few ideas – you know the way – and it has sort of come out that she didn’t go to church that night, and she went up to her bedroom at about a quarter to eight because she had a touch of neuralgia or something. Well, nobody saw her from then until two farm hands brought Redsey home drunk from the “Queen’s Head” that night. What do you make of that?’

‘And you think she had an idea the will had already been altered?’

‘Ah.’

‘And by doing in Sethleigh she could grab the lot for the kid?’

‘Ah.’

‘There’s something in it, but not much.’

‘There’s as much in it as in your tin-pot idea that Redsey did it,’ retorted the inspector, grinning. ‘The fact is,