Death and the Maiden

Before long they came to some houses, not more than eight of them, an ugly, small, red-brick row with long and narrow front gardens and paved paths up to the front doors.

Mrs Bradley scanned the row for a moment. Then she seemed to make up her mind. Leaving Laura standing in the lane, she walked up to the third house and knocked.

Laura, trying to work out what had led her redoubtable employer to make up her mind to try this particular house, decided that it was because of a very fine geranium, almost a tree, which stood on a small wicker table just inside the parlour window.

Sure enough, as soon as the door was opened, Mrs Bradley pointed to the geranium and asked permission to buy it.

‘Buy it?’ said the woman who had answered the door.

‘I don’t know as we can sell it. What would you want it for, like?’

‘My sun-parlour,’ Mrs Bradley answered. ‘I have one or two plants, not nearly as good as yours, and I was told in the city that your daughter would be willing to sell it.’

‘My daughter?’ She turned, and called loudly, ‘Come here, Linda! Just a minute, dear!’

In response to the command, a young woman of about twenty-five appeared. She had a dab of flour on her chin. This drew attention to her beautiful complexion. She had short sleeves which showed well-turned, strong, attractive and shapely arms, and her hair was fair and abundant.

‘This is it,’ thought Laura, watching. The door closed behind Mrs Bradley. Laura strolled off down the lane, and waited for almost twenty minutes. At the end of that time Mrs Bradley rejoined her.

‘Geranium not for sale,’ said Laura, grinning, ‘but everything else according to plan. Did you bounce the girl into confessing?’

‘Oh, that wasn’t the girl,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘But I’ve got the girl’s name and address. And you’re right about the geranium. It isn’t for sale.’

‘What made you think it might be the right house? – especially if it wasn’t.’

‘I did not think it was the right house, child. I do know, however, that people with very large geraniums, or aspidistras, or whatever it may be, are often the village newsmongers.’

‘How come? – Oh, I see! They take cover. The potted plant acts as a screen.’

‘Exactly, child.’

‘And did you – er – get what you wanted?’

‘In very good measure. Both the mother and the daughter knew that Potter came to visit along here, although they did not know his name and do not connect him with the murder. They do know, however, that he has ceased to come. Most valuable of all, they gave me the name of the girl and the address of the house. There is a strict father, and Potter did come fairly late at night, and once or twice was not seen to take his departure. I did not press them for dates, and they do not realize how much they told me, still less that I was particularly interested. The geranium remained, so far as they were concerned, the main subject of conversation. I bought half a dozen eggs from the back-garden fowls, and here we are, on the way to get Potter released. The daughter was jealous, by the way. Potter is a desirable fellow, you know.’

‘Well, but aren’t we walking away from the house you want?’

‘I don’t want the house, child. I want to interview the girl on my ground, not on hers. I shall write her a threatening letter.’

‘That should winkle her out of her home and along to the Domus, I’ll bet!’

‘I hope so. If it doesn’t, I shall visit the place where she works. I shall threaten, at any rate, to do so. I think that perhaps she’ll see reason.’

These bullying tactics succeeded. Potter’s young woman turned out to be a weakly-looking creature of about thirty, fair-haired and with insipid pretensions to prettiness. Mrs Bradley made mincemeat of her in no time, and hauled her along from the Domus, where they met, to the police station, where they parted, and, having scared her almost to death, left her to the local Superintendent.

Against her evidence, abetted by that of the neighbours – that Potter visited her during licensing hours, whilst her father was at the public house – no case against Potter could stand.

‘That ought to frighten old Tidson,’ said Laura, who felt rather worried. She confided this emotion to Gavin, who replied:

‘That will be taken care of.’

‘Sez you!’ observed Laura, with more thoughtfulness than these words merit.

‘No, really,’ Gavin objected. ‘Not a word will come out in the papers about the release of Potter, and he’s been advised to say nowt. Of course, plenty of people will know he’s cleared, and that’s as it should be, after all; but officially no news will leak out, and we’re only needing time to get on to Tidson. It needs his hat to turn up. Potter swears he saw it when he picked up the boy—’

‘I suppose,’ said Laura, struck by a sudden idea, ‘he did find the boy where he said he did?’

‘Yes. We’ve found a woman who was on her way into Winchester to pick up a very early bus. She saw him lift the boy up (she didn’t know, of course, that the kid was dead), and she wondered whether she ought to stay and help. But she’d got the day off from work to go into Southampton to see whether she could get a pair of shoes, and was late already for the bus she intended to catch, so she didn’t wait. She didn’t mention the hat, and we didn’t feel we could put a leading question. If it was there, she hadn’t noticed it.’

‘Oh, well, then, that’s that,’ said Laura. ‘But you’ve got to keep an eye on Mrs Croc. I’m not having her scuppered by Tidsons. By the way, was it wise to let him get clean away from Winchester?’

‘We’re having him tailed all right. The local superintendent – an awfully good chap and a mine of information on dryfly fishing, by the way – isn’t sorry to have Tidson go. He pollutes the air of Winchester, according to the superintendent, and will probably cause Saint Swithun to turn in his grave.’

‘He’s a horror,’ said Laura stoutly. ‘You’ve got to get him, you know.’

‘Don’t worry. But we haven’t found the weapon yet, and when we do it won’t have his fingerprints on it. I wonder when he moved Grier’s body from the weir? On that early morning trip, I guess. He’s been intelligent, you know.’

‘Yes,’ said Laura. ‘No peculiar absences from the Domus except the telephone one – he must have been windy about something that night; I don’t believe he just wanted Connie’s address—’

‘He’s got frightful cheek,’ said Gavin, ‘and doesn’t mind taking a few risks. He worked out that nobody could connect his absence from the hotel with the murders – or, at any rate, nobody could prove it had anything to do with the murders – and he did want something out of Mrs Bradley’s room. Connie’s address was easily the most likely thing he would be looking for.’

‘All right. Granted,’ said Laura. ‘All the same, if she’d come back and found him—’

‘She wouldn’t have found him. She’d have found Crete, and Crete would have been ready with some plausible tale.’

‘Come to borrow an aspirin tablet. I know. Well, I hope you get him!’

‘We’ll get him,’ said Gavin. ‘Only, you see, it takes time.’

‘And, but for Mrs Croc., you’d have hanged Potter without a qualm.’

‘I shouldn’t think so, you know. But she certainly put us on to Tidson. That I’ll admit, although I can’t see yet where it gets us. We can’t prove a thing.’

‘I see now why Miss Carmody was so worried about Tidson in the first place.’

‘Was she worried about Tidson?’

‘Well, she called Mrs Croc. in at once to give his reflexes the once-over. And she told Mrs Croc. she was sure he had murdered little Grier.’

‘Did she? That’s rather interesting. What had she got to go on?’

‘Only the naiad. But there must have been something else, surely?’

‘Perhaps not, you know, if she knew – as she did know, of course – that Tidson was the next heir to the Preece-Harvard money and estates, and had made an idiotic excuse (the naiad is idiotic, isn’t it?) to get down to Winchester near the boy who was keeping him out of the inheritance.’

‘Yes . . . but considering we admit he’s been rather intelligent for a murderer, wasn’t it a suspiciously silly excuse? He wouldn’t want to attract attention, surely, to the fact that he meant to come to Winchester when the boy, when he isn’t at school, lives so frightfully near, at Alresford.’

‘That point has worried me a bit, but perhaps he’s forgotten, living abroad for so long, that English people