murderer needed was a favourable opportunity. He prowled about, and had the wit to take advantage of one of those freaks of fortune which do occasionally occur. He saw that James Redsey imagined he had killed his cousin. I can’t see why a man who had the presence of mind to take advantage of a fact like that should have made the tremendous mistake of transporting the corpse to Bossbury and attempting to get rid of all evidence of its identity. Only the fact that it was impossible for your cousin James Redsey to have dismembered the body has saved him from arrest all this long time. I dare say that if the butcher person had contented himself with stabbing the prostrate Sethleigh as he lay unconscious on the ground, and had gone away leaving the corpse undisturbed, James Redsey would have been hanged.’
‘Motive,’ said Aubrey, under his breath.
‘Exactly. James had the best motive of anybody, and, in my opinion, your mother had the next best. Then come Dr Barnes and Savile, with about equal motive, I should say, and then Wright. Perhaps Wright’s motive was stronger than Savile’s, though. He is in love with Lulu in his crude animal fashion, whereas Savile is merely married to her. And – Aubrey!’ She leaned forward and slapped his knee excitedly. ‘Quick! Run! Get the inspector to find out which of Lulu’s admirers scorched the collar and handkerchiefs and Felicity Broome’s curtains! Run, child, run! Yes, he went that way! Find out whether it was Savile or Wright, or somebody else! Particularly whether it was somebody else. It’s important!’
Aubrey returned, breathless, in ten minutes.
‘He’s going to find out. Wants to know why you want to know.’
‘To-morrow he shall hear,’ promised Mrs Bradley.
‘What was I saying? Oh, yes. About Wright shielding Lulu.’
‘You think he doesn’t know the real murderer? You think he thinks it is somebody else?’
‘Yes. Queer state of affairs, isn’t it?’
‘I should say so. By Jove, yes! First of all old Jim certain he’d laid Rupert out. Then everybody having such a frightful bother to prove that the – that Rupert was really dead. . . . Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you! Who
‘Cleaver Wright, perhaps.’
‘Still on this false tack of thinking the murderer was – well, you know! – somebody it wasn’t?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Then,’ said Aubrey, disappointed, ‘he was the one who put it in the Culminster Collection?’
‘Of course, child. I’ve known that all along. His peculiar sense of humour again, you see.’
‘The – I mean – you can’t prove anything from the skull being moved back to the butcher’s shop.’
‘Well’ – Mrs Bradley smiled at him thoughtfully – ‘it just depends who moved it back, doesn’t it? Wright would be bound to share his little joke. No fun keeping it all to himself. See?’
‘Yes. Well, I thought you gave the names of all the people you suspected to the police, and told them –’
‘I did tell them quite a number of strange things, child. There is a surprise in store for Cleaver Wright, I think. Of course, he stole the key of the Museum from the vicar. A man like that is a menace to the whole parish! The vicar, I mean. Anybody could steal anything from him!’
‘You know,’ said Aubrey, wrinkling his brow, ‘I feel in an awful muddle about all this.
‘I am not quite prepared to answer those questions,’ said Mrs Bradley, smiling with quiet enjoyment. ‘Ask me again to-morrow. And now, dear me! Whoever is this? Mary Kate Maloney, as I live! She seems perturbed.’
Mary Kate flew up the garden path in an ecstasy of importance, terror, and blazing excitement. She had not even troubled to remove her apron.
‘Glory be to God, Mrs Bradley, ma’am!’ she declared, fervent but out of breath. ‘Do you be running over to the house with all your legs this day! Sure, and there’s poor Mr Savile from the Cottage on the Hill does be hanging by his braces from the wood-shed door entirely.’
‘I’m glad it’s entirely,’ said Mrs Bradley calmly, as she stood up and smoothed her skirt. ‘I am bored to death by mere limbs and joints. What’s come over him that he should do a silly thing like that?’
‘Sure, they do be saying it must be unrequited love, the poor young fellow, ma’am.’
‘Fiddlesticks!’ said Mrs Bradley briskly. ‘Undigested dinner is more likely in his case!’
CHAPTER XXII
INSPECTOR GRINDY saluted Mrs Bryce Harringay with punctilious ceremony, and halted.
‘Well, madam, you’ve seen the last of me,’ he observed with great geniality, ‘and I’m sorry you were ever troubled. Still, all’s well that ends well, as the saying is. Could I see Mr Redsey for a minute?’
‘I will cause him to be summoned,’ said Mrs Bryce Harringay majestically.
Jim met the inspector in the library.
‘Well, what is it now?’ he said ungraciously.
The inspector grinned.
‘Only to tell you you’re free to get off to America as soon as you like, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve nothing on you at all now. We’ve made our arrest.’
‘The devil you have!’ said Jim, staring. ‘That poor dago Savile, I suppose?’
‘Well, sir, no. As a matter of fact, after I’d heard that comic fairy-tale Mrs Bradley was handing out to you all in her garden, I got quite one or two new ideas on the subject of that murder. Of course, I knew it wasn’t the vicar. Hasn’t got it in him. Besides, one or two of Mrs Bradley’s ideas were entirely up the loop, and I knew it, and she knew it too, I reckon, and was just trying it on!’
‘But how the deuce did you hear her ideas at all?’ asked Jim, handing his cigarette-case to the police officer. Inspector Grindy laid his uniform cap on the table and stretched out a massive mahogany hand.
‘Thank you. I will. Just to show there’s no ill-feeling,’ he said.
They lit up. Then Jim said:
‘Where did you say you were?’
‘Oh, behind that clump of laurels. At Mrs Bradley’s invitation,’ replied the inspector jovially. ‘And I certainly got a knock-out over that silver tobacco-case. You see, sir, she pulled my leg about that case quite a long time ago. Told me the murderer had collected some of Sethleigh’s blood in it and poured it over the Stone of Sacrifice. Though, mind you, there was nothing like enough blood on that Stone for a murder! Of course I knew that was only her funny idea of a joke, so I took no notice; but, upon my soul, I was startled to see the vicar hike that case out of his pocket. Sifting it out, though, it seems as though he must have –’
‘Acquired it?’ suggested Jim, grinning.
‘Thank you, sir. Yes, and a long time before the murder. Mrs Bryce Harringay remembers hearing Mr Sethleigh enquiring after it, and the servants all remember being questioned about it upwards of six or perhaps eight weeks ago, so I expect the vicar pouched it in that at sent-minded manner of his, and that’s that. Then the clothes. We investigated the idea that Wright handled the body, and that bit is quite true. How the devil she tumbled to that, I don’t know. I hadn’t seen the significance of that scrap-up in the “Queen’s Head” all along, but that old woman got a strangle-hold on it right away. I’ll hand her that. Well, Wright broke down under our interrogation and confessed he’d seen a headless corpse. Mark that, sir! The skull again, you see! Then we made him produce the trousers which he’d been wearing on and off ever since the murder. They were Sethleigh’s, which was really a bit of a knock-out, because I’d put that bit of the old girl’s yarn down as sheer piffle. Funny thing is, he’s sticking to it that he didn’t take ’em off the corpse at all! He’ll go a long way if he isn’t hanged. Time and again he must have had ’em on and stood and talked to me. It’s a proper knock-out, that is! They’re Sethleigh’s flannels right enough. Tailor’s mark on ’em and everything. Well, of course, the rest of the clothing wasn’t dropped in the river at all, and Mrs Bradley never really thought it was. It seems as though it really must have been shoved into that suitcase with the head, and that’s where those bloodstains must have come from. Well, the suitcase affair altogether was a bit tricky. I’m not dead sure I’ve got it right now, and we certainly haven’t found the shirt and things. But it seems as though it was lent by Sethleigh to the vicar. Then the maid at the Vicarage packed some laundry in it and sent it to that daisy that hangs out with Savile and Wright in the Cottage on the Hill. From there the murderer pinched it. Had ample opportunity, it seems, because he was very sweet on Mrs Lulu, and used to visit her as often as he could
