Saltmarsh Murders

“Quite. That fact, however, did not prevent the police trying to find out whether a show called Home Birds was put on during the past few weeks.”

“And it wasn’t!” I exclaimed. “Good heavens!”

“Of course it was,” Mrs. Bradley retorted. “The person who murdered Cora McCanley and Meg Tosstick isn’t a fool, young man.”

“But Cora—” I began.

“Had changed her stage name, according to Edwy David Burt, but he doesn’t know what the new one was. Flossie Something, he thinks. Oh,”—she cackled wildly—“and the naughty boy told me that he had tunnelled a cross-passage from the foundations of the Bungalow to meet the old smugglers’ passage from the inn. He used to get the books along that way when for any reason the overland route was dangerous or the weather was very bad. So Lowry did not come into the smuggling business after all, you see. Never mind! It was a very good idea of yours, dear child.”

She poked me in the ribs and laughed again, very heartily. I shrugged my shoulders and returned to the real subject of our conversation.

“And the show possessed no Flossie?” I asked, keenly.

“On the contrary, it possessed two Flossies,” Mrs. Bradley replied. “Flossie P. Kennedy, and Flossie Moran. Take your choice.”

“You mean that neither of them is Cora?”

“Of course neither of them is Cora. Burt and the police both think that Cora went off with a lover, and never had any intention of joining the show. We shall hear next, I firmly believe, that Cora never received any telegram inviting her to join the show. What happened, I think, was that Cora and her lover, between them, worked that letter. In the reprehensible speech of the day, a stunt like that is old stuff. The lover got Cora McCanley to write it and send it to a friend in the company, with instructions that it was to be forwarded to Burt when the company arrived in Leeds. Probably the letter was written and sent off on the very day the poor girl was murdered. Are you getting hold of any salient point, child?”

“You mean that Cora did have a lover just as the police say, and that he murdered her just as they were planning to do a bunk together? The letter was to cover their tracks,” I suggested.

“Quite good. Go on.”

“Well, I mean, it’s the murder part that I don’t see—why shouldn’t the police and Burt be right in supposing that Cora has merely gone off with another man? That type always does, you know.”

“Yes, but why was Meg Tosstick murdered?” demanded Mrs. Bradley.

“But, good heavens, you don’t think that Bob murdered Cora, do you?” I asked. She shook her head.

“Of course I don’t,” she replied. Then she added, “I am giving the police about five days in which to discover that all of Cora’s old or new associates can be accounted for. And you will note, my friend, that nobody has left the village of Saltmarsh since Cora’s disappearance. Therefore, presuming that her lover is still in Saltmarsh, she cannot possibly have gone off with him. Therefore, where is she?”

I looked at my watch. “We’re eight minutes late in starting,” I said.

Mrs. Bradley nodded.

“You have solved the problem of the identity of this mysterious lover, of course?” she said, after a pause.

“Oh, yes,” I replied. “Lowry.”

“I think not,” she said. “In fact, I know not.”

“Oh?” I said, racking my brains. But nothing came except the thought of Sir William Kingston-Fox.

“Not—the Manor House?” I suggested. She looked surprised, but rather pleased, I thought.

“Clever child,” she said. “Yes. From the Manor House, as you so discreetly put it. How did you know?”

“It was a mere guess,” I replied modestly. “How did you get to know?”

“Well, obviously Cora McCanley would not be attracted by a poor man,” she said.

“No, of course not,” I agreed, thinking of Cora’s many quarrels with Burt over money matters.

“So I thought about everybody in the village and wrote down a list of all those men who would have sufficient money to attract the young woman. Then I used my powers of observation and deduction, such as they are, and fixed upon—our mutual friend.” She looked at me curiously. “But I can’t imagine how you got hold of the same idea,” she said.

“Well,” I modestly replied, “of course I have not the advantage of living under the same roof as the gentleman in question, but I hope I can use my common-sense.”

“Queer,” said Mrs. Bradley. “He used to be absolutely wrapped up in Margaret,” she continued, “but, I don’t know—since that quarrel about the dog last July matters have been different. Well, to cut the story short, dear child, I have received from his own lips an account of how he had arranged to go to London and meet Cora at the Whittier Hotel in the Strand. At the last minute he changed his mind—”

“Funked the publicity, I suppose,” I interpolated.

“—and telephoned Cora to say he wasn’t coming.”

“Telephoned?” I exclaimed.

“Yes. And Cora answered, and agreed that it was too risky. She then invited him to come on the Tuesday evening to the Bungalow, and he promised to go.”

“But he didn’t go!” I exclaimed. “He couldn’t have gone, because he was with us,