Death and the Maiden

reasons to ’ave our differences.’

She spoke breathlessly, Mrs Bradley noticed. This was explained a moment later.

‘Ted – that’s my ’usband – the police haven’t been very nice to ’im about poor Bobby Grier. Don’t leave you a chance to tell the honest truth. I feel frightened every knock at the door, and so I tell you. It’s ’ard not to be believed. Ted couldn’t ’elp it if’e found ’im. You’d think the poor child ’ad been murdered and Ted ’ad done it, the way they’ve kept all on. It’s been really cruel. And, of course—’ The pause was awkward. Mrs Bradley filled it.

‘And, of course, the police want such full explanations,’ she said, ‘that our lives become scarcely our own.’

The woman agreed, and seemed about to enlarge on the point, but at this moment Mr Potter, the husband, was heard. He scraped his feet beside the front door of the house, and then walked into the parlour, which opened directly off the street.

He looked a little shy, and not particularly gratified, when he saw that there was company in the house. He said, ‘Servant, ladies,’ in what Miss Carmody referred to afterwards as a delightfully old-fashioned way, went through to the kitchen, and dumped his bag of tools on the floor. He looked a good deal younger than the woman, and was well-set-up and good-looking.

‘You got to go back, Ted,’ said his wife, who had followed him out. There was a lengthy and muttered colloquy, and then the wife added loudly, ‘It’s some sociable ladies come to see you about the Griers. There ain’t nothing for you to be afraid of. Not as you deserve I should say it, but there it is.’

Mr Potter observed that he had better clean himself, then, and proceeded, from the sounds, to sluice himself vigorously under the kitchen tap. He reappeared at the end of ten minutes with damp front hair and wearing, to Miss Carmody’s gratification, a rather tight collar.

‘A mark of real respect,’ she muttered to Mrs Bradley.

‘Not newspapers, I suppose?’ he said nervously as he sat down and put his large hands on his knees. ‘You wouldn’t come from the newspapers, I suppose?’

‘I don’t know but what it will come to that,’ said Mrs Bradley, before Miss Carmody could speak. ‘I’m worried about the death of that boy, Mr Potter. Why was it such a long time before he was found?’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Potter, lifting one hand and bringing it back into place with a fearful whack. ‘What did I tell you, Lizzie? “Funny I’d have looked,” I said, “if that boy ’ad ’appened to be murdered,” I said. Didn’t I say that, Lizzie? You’re my witness to that, my gal. I said it the minute I come in when I’d fetched the police. Now didn’t I?’ He looked at his wife with a kind of hang-dog defiance not very pretty to see.

‘Yes, you did say it, Ted, but I dunno as you ought to repeat it in front of strangers,’ said Mrs Potter, glancing at the strangers to see the effect of his words. Relations between the Potters were not too good, Mrs Bradley noticed. She wondered what the woman suspected, or, possibly, knew.

‘What made you think of murder, Mr Potter?’ asked Miss Carmody keenly, leaning forward, her hands on her knees.

‘Why, nothing,’ he replied, a trifle confused, ‘except – well, you know ’ow it is, mum. It struck me comical, like, as a biggish lad like Bob should a-got hisself drownded in about six inches of water, as you might say, for ’e laid very near the edge, half into some plants. And another thing—’ He lowered his voice and gave a furtive glance at his wife. The two of them were certainly on the defensive with one another, almost as though they had quarrelled but did not want strangers to know it.

‘You be careful, Ted!’ said the woman. He shrugged his wide shoulders, but seemed disposed to obey her.

‘Yes, Mr Potter?’ said Mrs Bradley, with hypnotic effect. Miss Carmody sat straighter in her chair.

‘Oh nothing, excepting a soft straw hat laid underneath him. I didn’t tell the police. They’d ’a thought I was making it up. You see, mum, it wasn’t there when I went to work after taking of ’im home and making Ma Grier call the doctor.’

‘Ma Grier!’ said Mrs Potter scornfully. ‘That’s a new name for ’er, ain’t it? And you shouldn’t of mentioned that ’at! Very likely your fancy, I reckon. And as for ’im not being drownded, you know very well that ’is poor little head was right under! You said so yourself to the coroner! Don’t you remember? Bob was drownded. His head was right under. That’s what you said, and you can’t go back on it now.’

‘Well, right enough, so it was right under,’ Mr Potter admitted hastily. ‘But if these ’ere ladies ’ave seen the place, I’ll back they know what I’m a-gettin’ at. Not deep enough to drown in, not for a lad of his sense.’

‘The same thought struck me,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘But the boy might have fallen and stunned himself, as the doctor suggested at the inquest, and have tumbled into the water. He had a bad bruise on his head.’

‘But the bump was on top of ’is head, and he was laying face downward in the water,’ said Mr Potter. ‘That’s why the coroner would give an open verdict. Quite right, too, in my opinion. There’s been too many murders since the war.’

After a slight pause, Mrs Bradley again asked whether the parents had not missed the boy on the Wednesday evening, and repeated her observation that a very long time had passed before he was found. Had not the parents looked for him, she enquired.

‘Foster-parents. He wasn’t theirs,’ said Mrs Potter. ‘But miss the boy? Not them! Down at the Bull and Bushell, same as usual. Wednesdays and Saturdays was their nights, and that’s where they was, chance what! What do you say, Ted? You ought to know where old man Grier spends his time!’

Mr Potter confirmed this view, and said he had seen them in there. He had popped in for half a pint, he added (with an appealing glance at his wife), and there they both were.

‘Was that generally known?’ asked Mrs Bradley. ‘That they frequented this public house on Wednesdays and Saturdays?’

‘Known all along ’ere, at any rate.’

‘And in the city?’

‘Us takes no truck in the city. Nought but ecclesiastical that don’t be.’

‘I see.’

‘Till late years, been a separate village, us ’ave. Worked in the city, maybe, some of us ’ave, but nothing to do with their affairs. Don’t know nothing about ’em, anyhow. The Dean, he see to Winchester. Us keep ourselves to ourselves.’

‘Yes, I see. Then – don’t the children go and play along the river past Winchester? Do they never go into the water-meadows towards St Cross?’ demanded Miss Carmody, the nymph and Mr Tidson foremost in her thoughts.

‘Why should ’em?’ asked Mr Potter in surprise. ‘Got our own river, ’aven’t us, ’ere in the village? Why should ’em go? If they think to go further, they goes over to the reck, like, or to that there bit of a brook by King Alfred’s gate.’

‘Yes, I see,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘What kind of boy was Bobby Grier? Did the other boys like him?’

‘That I couldn’t tell you, mum. Little enough I knowed of him. My little un, now, her could tell you. But he wasn’t Mrs Grier’s own, as I daresay you ’eard us say a minute ago.’

Mrs Bradley nodded. The little girl Potter was not visible when the two elderly ladies left the house, and Mrs Bradley was about to suggest that they should return to the Domus when Miss Carmody said surprisingly and suddenly:

‘I think we ought to tax that Grier woman with Edris.’

‘Tax her?’ Mrs Bradley enquired.

‘Certainly. Edris must be the man the police will want for the murder. There! It is out! I’ve said it!’

‘But why should you say it?’ Mrs Bradley enquired. ‘What makes you connect your Mr Tidson with the death of this boy?’

‘Little enough, in one sense, but a very great deal in another,’ Miss Carmody mysteriously replied; and they walked back to Mrs Grier’s house. The house was quiet now. The curiosity of the villagers was sated, the front door was shut and the family had settled down to tea.

After Mrs Bradley had knocked twice, the door opened to about one-seventh of its possible semi- circumference, and a suspicious eye peered forth.

‘When did you first miss Bobby?’ enquired Mrs Bradley, deeming that surprise tactics would be the best