Death and the Maiden

is the flat?’

‘It belongs to Uncle Edris, I think,’ said Connie. ‘He wrote the letter about the naiad from there. I thought I could hide there for the time. I knew he’d be staying on here, and I begin my new job next month, and then I —’

‘Where did you spend last night?’ asked Mrs Bradley. ‘And what made you leave this place so late at night?’

Connie looked frightened and did not answer.

‘Ah,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Well, never mind. We shall find these things out in good time. How long did you propose to remain in Chiswick?’

‘Hardly any time,’ said Connie quickly. ‘I’ve been asked to live in at my job. I – if it weren’t for Uncle Edris I should have lived in the West End in a mews.’

‘Expensive, in these days, surely?’

‘I was going to share with three friends.’

‘A commodious sort of mews,’ said Laura, grinning. ‘How many rooms? – Oh, sorry! Not my cue.’

‘Well, that explains all that,’ said Mrs Bradley, speaking, her acute and intelligent secretary thought, in some haste. ‘Laura, go off and get ready for dinner. Now, child,’ she added kindly to Connie when Laura had gone, ‘suppose you sit down in that armchair whilst I finish my hair, and explain to me why you ran away.’

‘I was afraid of the Tidsons,’ said Connie with simplicity.

‘Both of them?’

‘Yes. They pumped me about my parents. I didn’t like it.’

‘What did they want to know?’

‘The usual things. Whether my father had been rich, and who my mother’s people were, and whether I was related to auntie’s nephew Arthur, and how long I had been living with auntie, and whether she had adopted me legally – that sort of thing. I thought it was beastly cheek. It certainly was no concern of theirs.’

‘I can see why it annoyed, but not why it frightened you, child.’

‘Perhaps I’ve been silly over that, but, ever since the ghost, I’ve felt them conspiring against me. Oh, I know you’re a psychiatrist, and that you’ve got all sort of weird names for people who think they’re being followed and persecuted and all that, but it isn’t my being crazy, honestly it isn’t! They’re dead against me, I know they are! And they’re sponging on poor Aunt Prissie all the time! They’re beasts! I hate and loathe them! I had Aunt Prissie first, and I mean to keep her, and I’m not going to stay any longer to play second fiddle to Crete Tidson, so nobody need expect it!’

‘I shouldn’t think anybody does expect it, though,’ said Mrs Bradley, her voice dropping like honey after this wild oration. Connie sat humped in the armchair, and stared miserably and resentfully out of the window.

‘That’s all you know!’ she rather rudely retorted.

‘No, it isn’t, quite,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Come and do up these fasteners for me, there’s a good child.’

Connie got up and slouched over to where Mrs Bradley was standing. She looked sulky, but, as Mrs Bradley realized with pity, she was almost at the end of her nerves.

‘And now,’ said Mrs Bradley, kindly, but with the utmost decision, ‘I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to stay at my house, in the village of Wandles Parva, until you begin your new job. No one can get at you there. Would you like to go there to-night? If so, I will order a car. It is not above twenty miles from here, and no one except Laura Menzies – and I think you’ll agree that she can be trusted – knows anything about it or where it is.’

‘Oh, if only I could get away! Would there be people there? I mean, I couldn’t bear to be alone,’ said Connie, whose mind was as much (or as little) confused as this speech suggested.

‘There are my servants, and my chauffeur will be there. You’ll like George. A most sturdy fellow. Come downstairs with me, and we’ll send for him. That will be very much better than hiring a car.’

‘But I don’t want to stay here another minute! I don’t want to meet the Tidsons ever again! You don’t understand – I could never tell you the things he’s said to me!’

‘You shall not meet them again,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘You can wait in here instead of coming downstairs. When the car arrives – we shall all be at dinner, I should think – all you have to do is to answer Laura’s knock – three quick raps on your door – and take yourself off as fast as ever you can go. And you’d better not come back without sending me word.’

‘And you’ll let Aunt Prissie know? You won’t let her worry, will you? You’ll let her know I’m safe, but not where I’ve gone!’

‘I’ll reassure her. Don’t worry. George will bring the car to the hotel entrance at about a quarter to eight. We never finish dinner before eight, so that should allow you to be well away from here before we come out of the dining-room.’

‘It’s decent of you,’ said Connie. She hesitated, flushed, and then added, ‘I only wish I could tell you everything, but you wouldn’t want to know it, and, anyway, it wouldn’t be fair. I’ve got to sweat it out by myself.’

‘No, you haven’t, child. And why wouldn’t it be fair?’

‘It’s too much responsibility,’ said Connie, looking completely miserable. ‘But don’t worry! I’ll get by all right. I mean to.’

‘You haven’t told me the truth about your behaviour, have you?’ said Mrs Bradley. Connie looked at her and then answered:

‘No, not quite. But you can always pump Uncle Edris.’

Mrs Bradley laughed, but Connie did not join in this response. After another silence, she said abruptly:

‘I suppose you’ve never thought of killing a person?’

‘Oh, yes, I have,’ Mrs Bradley equably replied. ‘A harmless person?’

‘No – not exactly harmless. Can anyone we have the urge to kill be considered harmless, do you think?’

‘Oh, you couldn’t understand how I feel!’

‘Oh, yes, I think I can,’ said Mrs Bradley gently. ‘But before I made any definite confessions, I’d think them over if I were you. You might be sorry you’d trusted me, you know. Did you think about finger-prints, I wonder?’

‘Oh, I haven’t done anything terrible! Well, not so very terrible,’ said Connie hastily. She gave a half-glance at Mrs Bradley’s face and then broke down. ‘I didn’t mean to! I didn’t mean to! Truly I didn’t mean to! I must have been mad! It was all Uncle Edris! I hate him! You say “Don’t confess,” but you want me to confess, and I will! I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him! I’m going to get rid of him somehow! I won’t let him live to kill Arthur!’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ said Mrs Bradley, looking at her sternly but with compassion. ‘Therefore you’ll do as I say.’

‘And suppose I wont’?’

‘“Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down!”’

‘Yes, I believe you would,’ said Connie, with a look half-beseeching, half-terrified. ‘All right, then, I’ll go.’

‘And now for our walk,’ said Alice. It was barely six o’clock and the morning was pale, fair and misty, with the promise of heat to come. The water-meadows, faintly shrouded, were as beautiful as the fields of the cloths of heaven, and the sound of waters was everywhere. The waters themselves, blue-grey, full-flood, deep-pooled, clear, swirling and haunted with deep weed, furtive fish and the legendary freshness of cresses, divided yet held the landscape.

Mrs Bradley and Alice walked for some time without speaking. Alice, young, slightly inhibited, impressionable, a pace ahead of the older woman, was far more in tune with the beauty and coldness of the morning than with the object of the walk itself, and showed this by her silence and the distance she remained ahead.

By the time they reached the wooden bridge, however, her grey eyes were searching the immediate landscape, and the morning, now rapidly widening to red and gold, showed her eager, alert and intense, still leading Mrs Bradley along the narrowing path towards St Cross, but now the person of action more than of contemplation.

There were no clues to Mr Tidson’s activities of the previous afternoon. Whatever he had done, or wherever he had gone, he seemed to have left no traces of his actions and no sort of signposts to indicate which direction he had taken.