Saltmarsh Murders

“Oh, averagely,” I said.

“Yes, well, you get at his alibi, young man. And, if he hasn’t an alibi, find out the truth. I don’t think he has told the police the truth, and, if my deductions are correct, that’s because the truth would be one more weapon in the hands of the prosecution. I have thought a good deal about Bob while I’ve been clearing up the little mysteries in connection with Mr. Burt, and I have come to the conclusion that Bob was with Meg Tosstick some time during the afternoon or evening of August Bank Holiday, and that, instead of having thrown the tie away, he was actually wearing it on that day. You must admit that he did not come out very strongly on the subject of that tie.”

I admitted it, of course. Anybody could have seen that the poor fellow had been lying about the wretched knitted silk tie with which Meg Tosstick had been strangled.

“Tell me about Bob,” said Mrs. Bradley.

“Oh, well,” I said, “he was a big, sturdy fellow. You saw that for yourself, of course. He never showed any signs of abnormality except a tendency to glower and brood over fancied wrongs. His gifts as chucker-out were seldom in requisition, because the village is orderly and we seldom have men drunk. It’s easy enough to get rid of the guests at closing time, I am sure. Bob was simply a barman, really. He fell in love with the poor unfortunate girl Tosstick, and they were both saving up to get married, I know, because they tried to get the vicar to mind their money. Of course, Coutts pointed out that the Post Office would pay two and a half per cent. interest, which he was not in a position to do, and persuaded them to start a Savings Bank account. It was all in the girl’s name, because Bob said it was to be. Coutts wanted them to have separate accounts, but Bob wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Well, you’ve put several points which are in the young man’s favour,” said Mrs. Bradley. She frowned. “Not at all the sort of young man who ought to be hanged,” she said.

“You see that Bob did not gain financially by Meg Tosstick’s death?” I said, eagerly. “Constable Brown put that to the Wyemouth inspector, but he chose to ignore it, I suppose.”

Mrs. Bradley nodded.

“And you have also shown that Bob had no particular enemies,” she said.

“Oh, the chucking-out business? No, I’m sure he hadn’t. He got handled a bit roughly on that Sunday evening, but he’s quite popular really.”

“Yes. You, as his advocate, must find every possible point in the lad’s favour. A number of quite small points might be sufficient just to tip the scale towards an acquittal, if you really want him to be acquitted.”

“You’ve no hope, then, of discovering the real murderer?” I asked. I was disappointed. The woman had managed to convey the distinct impression that she had something up her sleeve.

“Oh, I tell you that I can very well guess who the murderer is,” said Mrs. Bradley. “But the trouble will be to get some people to believe it. You surprise me, you know. You still seem certain that Bob Candy was not capable of committing murder. And that is absurd.”

She had put the point before; this time, without giving me a chance to say anything, she proceeded to enlarge upon it.

“A young man must be very much attached to a young girl to trust her with all his savings,” she said. “Don’t you think that it was an extraordinary thing that everybody in the village was so astonished at the news that the girl was going to have a child? Upon your own and Mrs. Coutts’ showing, I take it that conception before marriage is not an uncommon thing in the village.”

“It’s the custom,” I said, prepared to stick up for it of course. After all, our people are essentially moral. You can’t call that sort of thing immorality, although Mrs. Coutts does, of course. It’s simply local colour. One has to be broadminded. Mrs. Bradley was prepared to accept the facts without criticising them, it seemed, for she merely nodded and said:

“Assuming, as you are determined to assume, that Candy is innocent, here is a workable hypothesis to go on. Let us say that Meg Tosstick, begged by several interested persons, including the Lowrys, to disclose to them the name of her seducer, refused to comply with the request. We do not know her reason for withholding the father’s name, but apparently she did withhold it. Now—a remarkable point, this—nobody seems to have encountered the proverbial little bird. Meg’s secret is still a secret—even to me—so that I have no way of putting my convictions to the test, and they remain merely convictions for the present, and are not established facts. Now, I imagine that she kept the secret for one of two reasons. Either she was being terrorised by the baby’s father, or else she knew that her lover would commit murder if the secret came out. A girl of Meg Tosstick’s type might easily be terrorised by a stronger personality. This stronger personality, however, was not strong enough to dare Bob Candy’s vengeance if the secret leaked out. The girl, in a weakly hysterical state, poor thing, after all that she had suffered both mentally and physically, was in just the frame of mind to blurt out with tears and self-reproaches the whole pitiful, shameful story. The wretch whose lust had victimised her was terrified at the thought of the consequences to himself if she did that, and so he planned to murder her to close her mouth for good and all. Immediately the murder was accomplished, poor, innocent Candy was arrested, as the murderer foresaw that he would be. How’s that?” And she laughed heartily.

“Then we have only to find the father!” I exclaimed. “Oh, but you have a conviction, you say, that you know him. Can’t we frighten the truth out of him?”

Mrs. Bradley cackled.

“I think you would find that he was more afraid of the gallows than of your threats, child,” she said. “Besides, we can’t do very much without proof, and in any case, what I have just told you is not necessarily the truth, remember. It is merely a working hypothesis which covers all the facts that we know. Now when you’ve visited poor Bob, and have found out exactly what he did and where he went on August Bank Holiday, let me know. Persuade him that to tell the whole truth is his best plan. By the way, I have briefed Ferdinand Lestrange for the defence.”

“What, Sir Ferdinand?” I gasped, thinking, of course, of the fees.

“Yes. My son by my first husband,” said this remarkable woman. “A clever boy. Nearly as clever as his mother, and quite as unscrupulous as his father, who cornered wheat on Wall Street and then slipped up and all the wheat fell on him!”

She screamed with Satanic mirth and poked me in the ribs until I fled the room. Her laughter pursued me to the front door, where I grabbed my hat from the footman and bolted down the drive. I managed to get a short talk with Daphne as soon as I arrived at the vicarage. The other inmates of the vicarage were in bed. She had been to bed, also, but, upon hearing my latch-key in the door, she had sneaked downstairs to the dining room. She sat on my knee while I told her all that I had heard—well, most of it, of course. She squeezed my arm.