Saltmarsh Murders

chasing her all over Saltmarsh. She’s got hold of an ox-goad and she’s prodded old Brown in the seat with it!”

“What old dame?” said I, thinking wildly of Mrs. Bradley.

“Mrs. Gatty,” said William. He was flushed, dirty, of course, and grinning. “She thinks she’s a sanitary inspector now, and she’s going round condemning all the ash-pits.”

“A sanitary inspector?” I said.

“Rather,” said William. “And she told old Lowry at the pub that he kept his coals in the bath. She wouldn’t go away until he’d taken her along and proved that he didn’t.” William chuckled. “I suppose just because the bathroom the Lowrys use for themselves is on the ground floor—well, of course they have to let the visitors use the upstairs ones!—she thinks the Lowrys don’t wash. So old Lowry informed her that he lies and soaks for about two hours at a time and Mrs. Lowry bore him out. So Mrs. Gatty’s given him a certificate of purity signed William Ewart Gladstone, and old Lowry says he’s going to frame it. She’s going round now demanding to look at everybody’s ears to see whether they wash them!” He whooped with extreme joy. “I hope she asks to see Aunt Caroline’s ears!”

Daphne was not smiling.

“I say, Noel,” she said, in a troubled voice, “it’s rather awful, isn’t it? I mean, she was a bit funny before, but that awful Mrs. Bradley seems to have made her worse!”

Well, honestly, it did seem like it. Even the murders paled into insignificance before Mrs. Gatty’s latest exploits. Her old mania of comparing people with animals returned with renewed force. She waited until Burt was stuck, trying to get Daphne’s kitten out of our apple tree, and then she planted a bun on the ferrule of her umbrella and offered it to him and called him a brown bear. She informed Margaret Kingston-Fox that she was a shy-eyed delicate deer, and insisted upon referring to old Burns the financier as Lady Clare. She offered him a chrysanthemum to put in his hair because the season for roses was past. If it had been anybody but Mrs. Gatty, one would have said that our legs were being pulled. But, of course, we knew Mrs. Gatty of old. She dogged me, for instance, all over the village one morning, bleating like a sheep, and informed me, at the top of her voice, and to the great entertainment of a crowd of schoolchildren—it was Saturday, of course—that I had changed for the better. As, before this, she had always compared me with a goat, not a sheep, I presume that some kind of scriptural allusion was intended. I escaped by taking to my heels, pursued by the shouts of the children and Mrs. Gatty’s insane bleating.

I met Mrs. Bradley later—on the following Monday—and commiserated with her on the failure of the cure. She cackled, as usual, and informed me that there was no doubt Candy would be released. He would probably have to undergo a medical examination, she told me.

“And now,” she continued, blandly, “I am ready to lecture for you, Noel, my dear.”

I looked rather surprised, I expect. I remembered having once given her the gist of one of my lectures—the one on Sir Robert Walpole, if I remember rightly—but, try as I would, I could not recollect having asked her to lecture to us. Still, I supposed that, in a moment of mental aberration, I must have done so; therefore I coughed to break the rather dead silence which had followed her announcement, and expressed my pleasure, thanks and gratification as heartily as I could.

“When?” I said, trembling inwardly, of course.

“When do you hold your meetings?” she demanded. It was Monday, as I say, when she asked. Oh, yes, of course it was Monday. Bob Candy was returned to Saltmarsh, the hero of the hour, on the following Friday, and was sent off to Kent, with the barmaid Mabel and Mabel’s brother Sidney, to recuperate at Mrs. Bradley’s expense. The idea was for a friend of Mrs. Bradley—a Kentish landowner—to find him a job later on. This was done, by the way, and Bob’s story ended happily, so far as I know.

“The lectures are on Wednesdays,” I replied. She beamed.

“Wednesday week, then, dear child.”

“And the—er—the subject?” I stuttered, hoping, of course, for the best.

“Ah, the subject,” said Mrs. Bradley, looking a bit dashed. “Of course. Yes. The subject.” She brightened. “How do you think they would like to hear me on ‘Ego and Libido’?”

I choked a bit, swallowing it, and passed a humid forefinger round the inside of the dog-collar.

“Ah, well, perhaps not. It’s really rather elementary,” she said. “What about ‘Pride and Prejudice in their Relationship to Racial Health’?”

“Well, er—” I said desperately.

“Well, look here,” said Mrs. Bradley. “We’ll leave it until to-morrow. I’ll get up something, never fear.”

“They aren’t awfully easily interested, you know,” I said, feebly. “I mean, we generally have lantern slides, and even then they hoot and raise catcalls sometimes, and I have known them to chuck things at the screen.”

“Ah, I couldn’t have that,” said Mrs. Bradley. She paused. “Does the vicar turn up?” she asked. (Well, he doesn’t, of course.)

“He will for your lecture, I have no doubt,” I said, hoping, again, for the best.

“And Mrs. Coutts?” said Mrs. Bradley.

“I’ll rake her in,” I said, hurriedly.

“And I myself will get Edwy David Burt to come along, and I think we ought to have Sir William and Mr. Bransome Burns—”

“He’s staying rather a long time at the Manor House, isn’t he?” I asked; rather rudely, of course, for it was none of my business how long Sir William kept his guests. Mrs. Bradley laughed like a hyena.

“So am I staying rather a long time, dear child,” she pointed out. She poked me in the ribs.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, sheering off a pace or two. I blushed. Rather a brick, of course. But, really, I had become so much accustomed to her presence in and about the village that I had forgotten that she was, in that sense, Sir William’s guest.

“Never mind, dear child,” she said gaily. “We meet at Philippi.”