Laurels Are Poison

Can I remember if thou forget?

‘O sister, sister, thy first-begotten !

The hands that cling and the feet that follow,

The voice of the child’s blood crying yet,

Who hath remember’d me? Who hath forgotten?

Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,

But the world shall end when I forget.’

The monotone moaned itself away, and the speaker appeared to have lulled herself asleep. Suddenly she straightened up, tried to make a gesture with her bound hands, managed to get them to her lips, swallowed, smiled, dropped her hands, gazed at them, it seemed perplexedly, and then dropped her head back against the padded head of the chair. Mrs Bradley went across to her and released her hands and ankles.

There was a sound of heavy footsteps outside.

‘That will be the police,’ she said. ‘They will have to take charge of her now. She has given us the last clue, but it will, I think, mean nothing at all to them.’

‘Oh, dear, I do hate this! I do hope they won’t hurt her, poor thing,’ said the Principal, becoming suddenly and demonstrably human. Mrs Bradley again walked over to the still figure. She straightened herself and shook her head.

‘They won’t hurt her,’ she answered, ‘for she has disappeared again.’ Then, to the Principal’s surprise, she crossed herself, muttering what sounded like a spell but which must have been a prayer.

Chapter 19

ITYLUS

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‘Well, it seems,’ said Laura, ‘that although the skeleton not turning up trumps settled the thing more or less, Mrs Croc. had had her suspicions for some time previous to that that Miss Murchan wasn’t dead. She thought Cook being murdered proved it The only reason for murdering Cook seemed to be that she had recognized somebody she wasn’t supposed to recognize, and that couldn’t have been Cornflake because Cornflake could always pull that gag that old Cartwright produced among the Edgar Allans — say she was somebody else. That, being as how she was a student of the College, would more or less let her out. And, anyway, Cook couldn’t have had anything on her about former doings, because she didn’t know her.

‘Then, the disposal of Cook’s body, as discovered by the police, followed by us finding the corsets. The difficulty about bringing that home to Cornflake simply was — when could she have done it? I mean, I know, theoretically, we each have our own room, and all that, but it actually takes some doing to slide out at night from one of these Halls, even if you used the communal passage and hopped it on to the wide open spaces from a Hall not actually your own. And then you’d have the dickens of a job to slide back. Of course, it wasn’t impossible, but it had all the earmarks of wild improbability, says Mrs Croc.

‘In fact, if you go all through the rags and other things, you can pretty well deduce that only somebody very close at hand could have carried out most of the stunts. The snakes were one thing that didn’t seem to fit, but Cartwright has come clean about those, so they can be disregarded in the final summing-up. I mean, you can say what you like, but actually, as I once pointed out, it isn’t really feasible to suppose that Cornflake could have run the gauntlet of Hall after Hall like that, right along that passage. Much more likely to be somebody who had direct access to the bakehouse and could operate from there. And who so likely to have access as Miss Murchan herself? After all, she’d had all the keys in her possession when she was Warden.

‘Of course, she “disappeared” after she’d spotted Cornflake, in the previous summer term, coming up for interview with the Prin. She knew her number was up once Cornflake got on her track. She’d killed that kid at that school, you see, and Cornflake, it appears, had seen her do it, and…’

The subsequent explanations, inadequate and, on the whole, ill-informed though they turned out to be, lasted the fascinated group for some time.

‘You’re perfectly right, Deb.,’ said Jonathan. ‘My manners are awful. But, you see, I do want to keep in with you until we’re married — after which, I ought to point out, I intend to put it across you in no uncertain spirit, you carping cat! — and, in the circumstances, it didn’t seem to me that you would view amiably a bloke of my size and weight scrapping practically all out with Miss Murchan, murderess though she may be. That’s all. We’ve got her, and she took some getting. Not a pretty do, and I’m glad it’s over.’

‘Yes,’ said Deborah, slipping her arm in his. ‘All right. I withdraw what I said. Shall we go into my sitting-room or into Mrs Bradley’s?’

‘Hers. I bet your fire’s gone out. Hers won’t have done, if I know her.’

‘I’ll bet you…’ said Deborah. Her fire was burning with a deep, red, comfortable glow. She put out her tongue at him.

‘Whisky?’ she said, going to the cupboard.

‘You having some?’

‘I loathe it. But you look as though you need something… Here you are. You can splash the soda in for yourself. You know, I’m all at sea about Miss Murchan. When did Mrs Bradley decide that she hadn’t disappeared after all?’

‘Why don’t you call her Aunt Adela?’

‘Well, she isn’t.’

‘Not yet, but it’s only a question of time.’