the book!”
The phrase “Criminal Optimist,” stuck in my mind. Burt was big enough, ruthless enough, lawless enough, amoral enough to commit even such a beastly crime as the strangling of that poor girl… I allowed my mind to dwell on the idea. I was rather attracted by it. The only flaw seemed to be that Burt had not once been separated from Yorke during that hour and a half during which the murder had taken place. They provided each other with a perfectly watertight alibi. Suddenly I switched my mind on to Yorke the negro. The more I thought of Yorke the more likely it appeared to me that he was the murderer, and that Burt was covering him. Burt would, of course. After all, strangling a girl like Meg Tosstick was so un-English a crime that it was much more probable that Yorke rather than Burt had committed it. I thought of Yorke’s pink-palmed sooty-backed hands with their beautiful, long, thin, fingers. I remembered the way they were curled round the handle of the axe, and I could imagine them curled round a girl’s thin throat. She had had a throat like a child. I could remember the swallowing motion she had made with it when Mrs. Coutts dismissed her. Very pathetic and trying, of course. But what a perfect nuisance that their stories coincided so completely! To me it had all the appearance of being a put-up job. And still one had to take one’s choice. Yorke or Burt? Burt or Yorke? Either? Neither? Both? Stymied, I thought, disgustedly. I was distressed, too, since everything still pointed to Coutts.
“No hope that it was either Burt or the negro,” I said to Daphne that same evening. I didn’t mention her uncle to her, of course.
“What’s collusion?” asked Daphne, suddenly. I didn’t explain, of course. I don’t care to discuss with Daphne the vocabulary of the divorce courts; but the question gave my own idea more weight, so I hastened to the Manor House immediately after tea, to lay my argument before Mrs. Bradley. She scoffed, of course. I had thought she might. What motive would Burt and Yorke have had, she wanted to know, for making up a tale? When did I think the books had been landed, if not before they set upon the vicar and impounded him?
“Burt might be the father of the child,” I said, “and want it kept a secret from Cora.”
“You mean that Burt is the murderer?” said Mrs. Bradley, “and that Yorke knows it?”
“There’s no reason against it, except the ridiculous alibi supplied by Yorke,” I exclaimed. “And you must realise as well as I do that Burt’s morals would allow of anything—adultery, seduction, murder —anything. A man who translates that kind of filth into the English language—”
I found myself almost hysterical upon the subject of Burt’s morals.
“I am glad that you enjoyed the book,” said Mrs. Bradley, calmly. “Of course,” she added, before I could say anything, “as you say, Yorke could have been the murderer, except for this ridiculous alibi supplied by Burt. And Yorke’s morals, for the reason that he is not even a white man—!”
She began to cackle, softly at first and then louder, until she was screeching with hideous merriment. I felt very uncomfortable, Sometimes I could not rid myself of the terrible suspicion that the woman was as mad as a hatter, madder than a March hare, and almost as mad as Mrs. Gatty; and of a second terrible suspicion that sometimes she might be laughing at me.
“However,” she said at last, reassuringly, “I dare say we shall manage to get Candy off. I’m sure I hope so. I hate these hangings. They are barbarous anachronisms, are they not?”
“It isn’t a case of getting Candy off,” I declared with a certain amount of vehemence. “It is a case of proving his innocence to the hilt.”
“Ah, that’s another matter,” said Mrs. Bradley, calmly. “Do you understand the Einstein theory of relativity, dear child?”
I hastened to assure that I did not. I also attempted to convey the impression that I didn’t want to.
“Ah, well,” she said, “if your mind were capable of grasping that theory, there might be some possibility of proving Candy’s innocence.”
A frightful thought struck me. Not, of course, for the first time.
“I say,” I said. “In spite of all you’ve said, you do believe that Candy
Mrs. Bradley sighed.
“If only I could prove who fathered the baby!” she said. “If only I could prove it.”
“I suppose you believe poor Bob Candy was guilty of that, too!” I said, hotly. The old woman gazed gravely at me.
“Why, no. I thought we were agreed that in that case there would have been no murder,” she said.
“You mean they would have married, and that would have been that,” I replied, grasping the salient point in the social ethics of the village.
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Bradley. But her answer, for some reason, did not satisfy me. Somewhere in our conversation, I felt sure, some vital point had been left untouched on. I racked my brains, but I could think of nothing. At last, more to continue the conversation than for any other reason, I said lamely:
“Funny where the baby can have gone. Do you think the father, whoever he is, can have it in his keeping?”
“Yes and no,” said Mrs. Bradley. She grinned. “The villagers thought it was at the vicarage, didn’t they?” she said. She nodded, slowly, rhythmically and continuously, like those absurd mechanical dolls they use for advertising purposes.
“The prosecution will probably accuse Candy of murdering both mother and child,” she said. “I hope they will, anyway.”
I spent the night in trying to work things out, but couldn’t manage it, of course. Also, I could not get my mind off Burt. He was just the sort of loose-living, foul-tongued man to have illegitimate children, and commit murders, and get drunk, and fake alibis, and engage in criminal conspiracies with his serving-man, I thought. My mind passed on to Lowry and Mrs. Lowry. Unfortunate that they should have been out just when the murder was committed at their place. Well, fortunate in a way, for them, of course. Suddenly I stiffened. My feet curled with excitement. What of Lowry? What of that gross and hairless man? What of the pig, as Mrs. Gatty had called him? Why had he given Meg Tosstick shelter, food and care? Why had he promised her a job as soon as she was well enough to take it? The thing was crystal-clear. He was the father of Meg Tosstick’s child! Then why, I asked myself, rising on my elbow in the bed to ask the question, why had he killed the girl? Pat came the answer. He was afraid she would betray him to her lover. He feared Bob Candy’s vengeance. And Bob, the dupe, the wronged, the innocent—Bob was
