Tom Brown's Body

hearts of our Philistine House. Gilbert has produced three short plays. One is a play about murder.'

'Oh?' said Mrs Bradley. 'Won't that . . .?'

'Oh, Gilbert asked Mr Wyck, and Mr Wyck saw a couple of rehearsals. He doesn't object at all. He thinks it will help to rationalize the situation here. The boys show no signs of it, but they must be pretty well strung up, like the rest of us.'

'Are the rest of you strung up?' asked Mrs Bradley; but she did not say whether she agreed with Mr Wyck's application of psychiatric principles to the minds of his boys. 'Well, I shall look forward to it all very much,' she added, with sincerity and no mental reservations. 'Now, tell me – are you prepared to meet the young man from Scotland Yard?'

Mrs Poundbury looked surprised, and then she laughed and exclaimed, 'Who on earth am I, to take up the time of Scotland Yard?'

'You are a woman with a secret,' Mrs Bradley calmly replied, 'which secret may cost you very dear if you insist upon keeping it. Speak, Mrs Poundbury, speak; for, if you do not, I wash my hands of the consequences.'

'But I haven't any secret!' cried Mrs Poundbury. 'Not, at any rate, the kind of secret that could interest Scotland Yard.'

'Think again!' Mrs Bradley advised her. 'What did you do on the night of Mr Conway's death?'

'I?'

'You.'

'But I've told you – I've told the police – I've told everybody – I was asleep in my room, the room I share with Gilbert! And he was asleep there, too! At least, I don't know whether he was asleep, of course, but he was most certainly there. We've both got the same what-do-you-call it? – alibi. We can give it to one another. No one can contest that!'

'One might if a certain note of assignation were found,' said Mrs Bradley drily.

'Oh, but I – Oh, but!' said Mrs Poundbury, taken by a stratagem and struggling in the net of the fowler. 'Oh, damn and blast! How did you know?'

'I suppose you did have the common sense to burn it?' Mrs Bradley brutally enquired.

'No, I – no, I didn't,' said Mrs Poundbury, shedding all her artifices and insincerities, and looking, all at once, a terrified girl. 'I was so furious with poor Gerald for not turning up – of course, I realize now why he didn't – that I forgot all about the note until I heard – well, until I heard of his death. And then I couldn't find it! I've looked simply everywhere, but it's gone!'

'Your husband wasn't in the bedroom,' said Mrs Bradley, even more drily than before. 'Do you believe that he killed Mr Conway?'

'No, no! Of course I don't! Gilbert couldn't kill anybody. He wouldn't hurt a fly. I know he wouldn't! I – I –' She broke off, and gazed in agony at Mrs Bradley's sharp black eyes and alarmingly snake-like smile. 'Oh, do help me! Do help me! You must!' she cried suddenly and wildly. 'It must be somewhere! Where did I put it? Where could I have put it? Oh dear!'

'You tell Scotland Yard all about it. That's the only help I can give. And find the note. It must be somewhere,' said Mrs Bradley, declining to help her at all. 'And your husband can be violent. You yourself told me that.'

*

Mrs Kay received Mrs Bradley without any semblance of cordiality whatsoever.

'I don't know what you expect me to tell you,' she said. 'I don't know where my husband went or what he did on the night when Gerald was murdered, and as for boys – well, if you knew as much about them as I do you would realize that nine times out of ten their statements are all lies. I wouldn't hang a dog on evidence supplied by boys!'

'I wouldn't hang a dog at all,' remarked Mrs Bradley, turning thoughtfully towards the iron fence which separated the Kays' cottage from the School drive. It had been overlooked (probably for some good reason) by the Government collectors of scrap metal during the war.

'The point is,' said Mrs Kay, following her in some haste, 'whether you want to hang my husband. I've been fairly nasty to Benny, but he didn't do it, you know.'

'You were not at home at the time, Mrs Kay,' Mrs Bradley pointed out, gently enough.

'No, but I know Benny. He's a coward, and that means he isn't a murderer. If he were . . .'

'If he were?'

'Well, he'd have murdered me, and long enough ago, at that,' said Mrs Kay, with a snort of wifely amusement.

'It is interesting that you should say that,' Mrs Bradley remarked. 'You don't think perhaps – but no! Murders are sometimes committed for love, but far more often for money.'

'Money!' said Mrs Kay, with another sardonic snort. 'There isn't much money in this job! If Benny had taken my advice, he would have thrown it up and gone into business long ago. He has plenty of brains, and could have held down a decent job, if only he'd given his mind to it, instead of sitting down and waiting for poor old Loveday's pair of shoes!'

'This holding down of jobs is extraordinary. It sounds as though sometimes the job can be stronger than the man. Is that so?' Mrs Bradley enquired.

Mrs Kay looked at her suspiciously.

'It's just an expression,' she said.

'But how strange an expression! 'The labourer is worthy of his hire' is another expression, and, to my mind, a preferable one. What kind of job is it which must be held down? Why does it squirm to get away? And, in the name of vocations, if your husband prefers schoolmastering, why shouldn't he follow his bent?'

Mrs Kay did not answer. After a pause, in which distaste of and annoyance with her visitor were both plainly indicated, she said:

'All this chapel-going, too!'

'By the boys?'

'By the boys and the masters. That is what I meant. And by stupid old spinsters like Miss Loveday. I call it morbid. She attends all the services, and they are really only meant for the boys!'

'You call it morbid,' said Mrs Bradley, under her breath. 'I wonder why?' Mrs Kay regarded her with suspicion and deep dislike.

'Don't you call it morbid?' she demanded. 'These boys and men are brought up like monks. I don't believe in it. There's bound to be trouble, and trouble, you see, has come.'

'And you think that with no chapel-going there would have been no murder?' asked Mrs Bradley, deeply interested, but not altogether in the subject under discussion.

'Oh, I don't say that! I simply meant . . . oh, I don't really know what I'm talking about! Look here, I'll be frank. I don't usually whine to people about my affairs, but I wouldn't, mind having some advice. What would you do if...'

'If I'd received a note which took me out on a wild-goose chase ... or a fool's errand?' said Mrs Bradley, saying the last two words so deliberately that Mrs Kay flushed with annoyance.

'Well, yes,' she said, swallowing her anger. 'That's just it. It came – or was supposed to come, from –'

'Of all people, Gilbert Poundbury,' said Mrs Bradley gleefully. 'Beautiful! Beautiful! Do you like jig-saw puzzles, I wonder, Mrs Kay?'

'No, I've no patience with the things!' said Mrs Kay, betraying by her tone, no less than by her words, first, that this was the literal truth, and, secondly, that her lack of patience applied equally to her visitor. 'They're only fit for children! I wouldn't waste time on them myself.'

'Yes, children do have patience,' said Mrs Bradley thoughtfully. 'They must have, mustn't they? – or they could never suffer grown-up people. Why do we call ourselves grownup? We can only be so in the body, most of us. Has it ever struck you, Mrs Kay, that the majority of these so-called and self-styled grown- ups behave very, very much worse, more stupidly, more selfishly, than they would ever expect children to behave?'

'I've never thought about it,' said Mrs Kay, now very angry indeed, 'And if you're trying to be insulting . .