‘Oh, the New Art mob? The mater had a spasm to join them, but thought better of it, thank goodness,’ said Aubrey.
‘Their anti-marriage point of view decided her, I imagine?’ grinned the unregenerate James.
‘No. Their tendency to sponge on anybody with a bit of money. The mater’s an arch-sponger herself, you see, and it was a case of two of a trade, I suppose.’
‘But what about the murderer?’ asked the inspector, grinning broadly.
‘Inspector,’ said Mrs Bradley solemnly, ‘will anything short of a miracle convince you that the doctor is innocent and that Mr Savile dismembered the body of Rupert Sethleigh?’
‘Savile?’
‘Savile.’
The inspector scratched his head. At that moment the telephone-bell rang.
‘It’s for you, inspector,’ said Jim, who had stepped to the instrument.
‘Oh, Lord, Mrs Bradley! I must hand it to you this time, after all!’ said the inspector, at the end of a minute’s hectic performance at the mouthpiece. ‘Savile’s done it on us!’
‘Not dead?’ said two voices.
Mrs Bradley assumed an expression of patient resignation.
‘Tiresome for you, inspector,’ she said. ‘Never mind. I suppose it settles the matter once and for all. Besides, when you come to sift all the evidence, I think the doctor will probably prove an alibi.’
‘Not for Sunday night he won’t!’
‘No, inspector. I was thinking of Monday.’ She smiled sweetly.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Jim.
‘Savile escaped from bed in the Cottage Hospital, hustled aside two nurses, and jumped from a top-floor window. I must get along there, I suppose, and find out exactly what the poor loony darnfool did do! Mucking up my case like that!’
Much incensed, he took his leave.
CHAPTER XXIII
Mrs Bradley’s Notebook
(SEE CHAPTER VI.)
Question: Why should Dr Barnes so deliberately run down Lulu Hirst? Does he want to create the impression that he dislikes her, in order to cloak the fact that he likes her in a way which might harm his professional reputation if it became known?
Question: Why have those three curious persons, Cleaver Wright (whose acquaintance I must be sure to make), George Savile, and Lulu Hirst, come to live in an out-of-the-way spot like Wandles Parva?
Possible Answers:
(a) Flight from London creditors.
(b) Trouble with the police.
(c) Desire for change of air and scenery.
(d) Ditto, peace and quietness.
(e) Wright and Savile want to paint the local beauty spots.
N.B.: Savile the monomaniac – still, so are we all, I suppose. His fetish seems to be exactitude and laborious attention to correctness of detail. Interesting. Expound this to F.B., I think.
Question: Why was not Ferdinand a daughter?
N.B.: The false teeth found on the Vicarage dust-heap by the boy A. H. The vicar does not possess false teeth. Neither does F. Nor the maid. Curious.
Question: Why is A. so much excited at finding them? Interesting.
(SEE CHAPTER VII.)
Quite a joke. The bishop has been presented with a skull. Reginald Crowdesley is the kind of bishop to whom things happen.
N.B.: There is more in Cleaver Wright than meets the eye.
(SEE CHAPTER X.)
N.B.: Public opinion is strongly against the youth J. R., who is suspected of having murdered his cousin R. S. J. R. – A likeable person. Cannot imagine anyone less likely to commit murder. Might be fierce when roused, though.
(SEE CHAPTER XI.)
Redsey dug a hole that night. Interesting.
N.B.: F. B. buried alive down here. A charming and beautiful child.
Question: Why do wicked old women like me have more money than they can possibly spend on themselves?
Answer: Wait and see.
N.B.: Am determined to keep my fingers out of the local pie – i.e., this absurd murder-case. But, really, the child looks so tired and worried – I suppose she is in love with that ridiculous youth J. R.
J. R.’s Confession: Knocked cousin down about 8.5 p.m. on Sunday, June 22nd. Arrived ‘Queen’s Head’ – say 8.25 p.m. Helped home at closing time. Arrived home – say 10.35 p.m. Locked in bedroom by Mrs B. H.’s orders. Went to Manor Woods late Monday night to locate body and inter it. Disturbed by the lad A. H. Chased lad out of woods, but no evidence to show when J. R. himself arrived indoors that night. . . . Oho! Indeed? Interesting, but, from F.’s point of view, unprofitable. Had better keep clear of this.
N.B.: Mrs B. H. the mother. New light on her character. Passionately desirous of seeing her son set up for life. The family fortune would be attraction enough for anything, perhaps!
N.B.: Everybody seems to know all about poor Dr Barnes’s little failings.
(SEE CHAPTER XIII.)
Question: What about that skull? Stolen from Cleaver Wright’s studio and now in the Culminster Collection, well hidden behind a Roman shield. Who put it there? Can it possibly be Sethleigh’s skull?
N.B.: Must frighten the person who put it there into moving it to a place where I can get hold of it and try the dental plate, which seems to be Sethleigh’s – at least, I am certain that the lad A. H. believes so.
N.B.: That dental plate could have fallen out of the suitcase. What about that suitcase? The police are not inclined to treat it as significant. They regard the message on that fish as a joke. I don’t.
N.B.: The girl M. B. reminds me of somebody. Who? – Cleaver Wright! He may be the doctor’s son, then. Brother and sister mutually attracted – kinship is a queer thing – and go off to woods together? Seems far-fetched. But M. went to the woods with somebody that night. The murderer? Hardly, I suppose.
N.B.: Strength of Savile.
That chart!
C. W. went to the ‘Queen’s Head’ that night and fought and was beaten. Aha! Mr Wright. Not very clever of you, that!
(SEE CHAPTER XV.)
N.B.: Trousers, pair of, flannel, grey, intact.
Savile’s kink for correctness again. Must dress for the part. Curious.
Dr Barnes has never played bears with children.
‘A great black slug.’ Indeed? Interesting. The vicar walked into the River Cullen on the evening of Sunday, June 22nd. Is he really as much afflicted as all that? Oh, those grey flannel trousers!! I dreamt they were round my neck, strangling me, last night.
F. B. has seen the skull in Culminster Museum. Now what?
