patrolling the seashore, until one o’clock in the morning.”
“Exactly. He had no chance of letting Cora know that he had been roped in for that, because he could never get to the telephone at the Manor House without one of the servants or one of us being at hand and able to overhear what he said. So he trusted to luck that he would be able to give you all the slip in the dusk and go to the Bungalow after all.”
I chuckled.
“Not very easy to manage,” I said, “considering that for safety’s sake we all hunted in couples.”
“It was impossible to manage it,” said Mrs. Bradley, firmly, “and yet Cora has disappeared.”
“Yes, but hang it all—” I began doubtfully.
“You still don’t believe, then, that the poor girl is dead?” she asked. I shook my head. After all, I had thought of it, on and off, for a whole week, so I considered that my opinion was at least as valuable as her own. I had even discussed the thing with Daphne and we agreed in every particular.
“I think she’s left Burt, and our lover-friend too, for some other man. After all, that is the police theory and it is Burt’s own theory, and if she couldn’t get the Manor House one, she must have made up her mind to another.”
They put the lights out then, and the concert began with a part-song by the choir. Daphne played, and I conducted. I had not intended to conduct, but in the middle of the verse I could detect the tenors trying to force the pace, so I rose from my seat and kept the time for them. That is the sort of thing which makes one unpopular, of course, but what else can one do on these awkward occasions? The choir sang a second song, a madrigal this time, and received a round of undeserved applause. The usual recitations, solos, concertina, and cornet solo items followed, and the local morris team gave a good show. I like those bells we wear, and I rather fancy myself in the braces. Very hot. So were we, by the time the dances were over.
The interval lasted for ten minutes, while Mrs. Coutts came from behind the scenes and talked to Sir William Kingston-Fox and, generally speaking, collared all the credit that was due elsewhere. Having shed my flannels and resumed mufti, I slid into my seat beside Mrs. Bradley, and waited, with a considerable amount of interest, for the play to commence. The play had been Mrs. Bradley’s idea, and she had coached the players. I was amazed at the result. Margaret Kingston-Fox had the part of a young wife and William Coutts was her kid brother. They were to the life. The young husband was played by a professional actor, a friend of Mrs. Bradley. It was a stiffish part, of course, and you could spot the professional style. But it was Mrs. Gatty who was the eye-opener. As a mischief- making spinster aunt, she was supreme. She was screamingly funny, absolutely unselfconscious and she never once over-played the part. I’ve never known the village enthusiastic over one of our concerts before, but they wouldn’t go home until they had had the sketch done right through for the second time.
“How on earth—?” I asked. Mrs. Bradley laughed.
“The poor woman only wanted to assert herself a little,” she said. “She wanted the limelight, child. Now she has got it. She won’t qualify for admission to an asylum just yet.”
“By Jove,” I said, in the intervals of clapping Mrs. Gatty, who was taking her fifth curtain, “you are a wonderful woman, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” she replied. I dropped the subject, of course. You can’t do yourself justice when you try to compliment people who have that kind of impression about themselves. I said, rather nastily:
“And you don’t know where the body is?”
“Bodies are,” corrected Mrs. Bradley, as we rose to the National Anthem. I walked beside her as far as the gates of the Manor House.
“We shall have to search the stone quarries. It’s the only thing.”
“How are we going to get it done thoroughly?”
“Say you’ve lost a wad of Treasury notes there,” I suggested, grinning, “and you’ll get the quarries positively combed.”
She took up the idea with enthusiasm, and next day the news spread like lightning.
“Of course, if you are right, it won’t do for a child to find the body,” I said doubtfully. I hadn’t thought of that until the moment of mentioning it.
“Don’t worry,” replied Mrs. Bradley. “The bodies—plural, dear child!—are not in the stone quarries. My aim was to distract the attention of the village from the place where the real search will have to be made.”
“And where is that?” I asked. “Oh, of course, the sea-shore.”
“No,” replied Mrs. Bradley. “Use your bean—if any!”
I gasped. The woman read Wodehouse. There was hope for her salvation, I felt. Well, perhaps that thought is a little risque for a wearer of the cloth. Anyway, I regarded her with a new respect. No woman could be completely bats who could not only read but appositely quote our greatest living author. (Opinion expressed without prejudice, and merely in the interests of constructive criticism, of course.)
“Forward the Light Brigade!” said I.
“To the churchyard,” said Mrs. Bradley, with a grim chuckle.
“To the churchyard?” I exclaimed, rather dashed at the woman’s frightful blasphemy.
“Yes, yes,” said Mrs. Bradley, impatiently. “I’m giving this elusive murderer of girls credit for possessing brains. A churchyard is such an obvious place in which to bury a dead body that very few people would think of looking there for evidences of murder.”
“But—but where?” I babbled wildly, torn between the most frightful curiosity I’ve ever known, and a conscience-stricken conviction that old Coutts ought to be on the spot to cope with the rather frightful situation which was beginning to take the chair.
“Of course, I’m not going to do anything illegal,” said Mrs. Bradley, impatiently. “But before I lose my wad of Treasury notes in the stone quarries, we must get an exhumation order. And we ought to have it at once. The body has been buried too long already. I don’t want squabbling over the identification of the corpse.”
