Tom Brown's Body

.'

'I'm not only trying, I'm succeeding,' said Mrs Bradley smoothly. 'Never mind that, for the moment. What excuse did Gilbert Poundbury make for wanting to see you that night?'

'Since you're so well versed in my bad behaviour, you can probably guess!' said Mrs Kay, beginning to look thoroughly sulky as a protection against being asked any more questions.

'But there is just one thing I think you ought to make clear to Scotland Yard,' said Mrs Bradley, ignoring the facade and speaking to the terrified woman behind it. 'That is, if you want my advice.'

'Thank you! I don't think I do!' said Mrs Kay flatly. 'I suppose you mean I ought to explain that I wasn't away from this neighbourhood on the night of Gerald Conway's death? Thank you again! I'm not exactly going to stick my neck into a noose for Scotland Yard's benefit!'

'That is a serious decision to make. I advise you very strongly indeed to reconsider it,' said Mrs Bradley with finality.

Mrs Kay said suddenly, 'You can tell your monkey from Scotland Yard that I've been leading you up the garden.'

'You haven't, you know,' said Mrs Bradley, solemnly shaking her head. 'You think things over, and behave like a sensible woman. And just you give the police that note. It may be of first-rate importance.'

Mrs Kay turned and came back.

'Look here,' she said unwillingly. 'I don't want to get into trouble, but I haven't got any note. I learnt to burn the things long ago. Still, if you haven't done anything wrong, you can't be found guilty, can you?'

'Well, it is not a wise move to withhold evidence,' said Mrs Bradley.

'Well, look here, then,' said Mrs Kay, 'I trust you, although I don't like you. I'll tell you what happened, and you can tell your Scotland Yard nark what you like.'

'Nancy the Nark,' said Mrs Bradley amiably. Mrs Kay looked startled.

'You don't suspect her?' she demanded.

'Why? Do you?' Mrs Bradley retorted.

'Oh, I see. I said 'nark' and you – and you just repeated it.' Mrs Kay looked relieved, and laughed, and, the tension thus eased, as Mrs Bradley had intended that it should be, she continued, 'You see, Gerald and I – well, Benny isn't all that fun, and Gerald was an exciting sort of person in his way, and I hated being stuck down here with nothing but boys, boys, boys, and a few narky – I mean, bitter sort of women, all schoolmasters' wives and sisters and things – so, well – you can see how it was.'

'No, no,' said Mrs Bradley. 'You must explain clearly, if you are going to explain at all. This film dialogue is misleading.'

'Beast!' said Mrs Kay, bursting into tears. Mrs Bradley looked pleased. 'You're as bad as Gerald! That's the kind of beastly thing he would say! I hated him, and I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!'

'Very interesting,' said Mrs Bradley. 'In other words, you did not receive a note making an appointment that evening, but you think that Mrs Poundbury did. Further to that, you really were away from home. You were net in this neighbourhood at the time of Mr Conway's death.'

Mrs Kay pulled herself together.

'I'm sorry,' she said apologetically, 'if I was a bit rude, but I was never educated like you and all these schoolmasters, and, to tell you the truth, the whole set-up gets me down. All I want is money and a good time. That's not much to ask for, at my age, is it?'

'According to present-day standards it is the minimum that any self-respecting person could desire,' said Mrs Bradley deliberately. 'What makes you so certain that your husband committed the murder, Mrs Kay?'

'I don't think Benny did do it,' replied Mrs Kay lugubriously. 'He's a poor sort of fish, but he wouldn't dirty his hands with murder. The trouble is, I know he was up to something that night, and he won't tell me what it was, and I feel almost worried to death. He tells nothing but lies, and until he comes out with the truth, I don't see how I can help him. I'd stick to him all right if he'd trust me, but Benny doesn't trust anybody. Sometimes it makes me so mad I feel I could kill him; and that's a nice thing to be saying, with Gerald Conway lying dead and cold!'

This conversation left Mrs Bradley thoughtful. It would have been so fatally easy for Kay and Poundbury to have pooled their grievances that night, inflamed themselves and one another to the point of murder, and then to have set upon the unsuspecting Conway . . . supposing (and this was the snag) that they knew where to find him.

There was another flaw in the theory that they were the murderers, however. It was that these two would not have used the Roman Bath; they would most certainly have used the river; and the absence of any trace of river weed, or mud, or sand in the clothing of the corpse would dispose of the theory completely.

Mrs Bradley found herself longing for the resumed inquest, so that the point could be cleared up finally. Meanwhile there was not much doubt what the two wives thought about matters.

Mrs Bradley was almost certain that Mr Poundbury had been out of the House that night, or for part of it. She was almost certain, too, that the note of assignation had been sent to him and not to his wife. The absent-minded Poundbury must have left it lying about for Mrs Poundbury to find. She had read it, and drawn her own terrible conclusions.

But Mrs Bradley found herself modifying her own conclusions as she considered the information she had obtained from the two wives. She found herself wishing for some concrete evidence which would at least show which persons had had access to Mr Kay's garden on the night of the murder.

It was a bit of bad luck, she reflected, that so many people had trampled on Mr Kay's flower-beds before the police arrived. Mr Semple and Kay himself had both gone up to the body, so had Mr Wyck, and so had the doctor, and what might have been the most valuable of clues had been lost for ever.

12. The Case is Clearer

*

Come, Filch, you shall go with me into my own Room, and tell me the whole Story.

IBID. (Act 1, Scene 6)

If you can forgive me, Sir, I will make a fair Confession, for to be sure he hath been a most barbarous Villain to me.

IBID. (Act 3, Scene 1)

ISSACHER, whose parents were orthodox Jews, did not attend Chapel. Mrs Bradley arranged, therefore, with his Housemaster, to interview him whilst the rest of the School was out of the way.

Issacher had been apprised of this arrangement and approved of it. He shared a study with two other boys, and invited Mrs Bradley in as he would have invited her into his home. He removed a pair of football boots, a sawn- off shotgun, two books, and a box-file from the seat of the most comfortable chair in the room and asked her to sit down. Then he faced her, smiling hospitably.

'It is about your connexion with the two boys who broke out of the House during the week before Mr Conway's death,' she said.

'Ah, that,' said Issacher. 'We must talk fast. The others will soon be out of chapel. I had no connexion with those boys whatsoever, and therefore, as a matter of fact, my knowledge is second-hand; but it is reliable. All my information is reliable.'

Mrs Bradley pursed her beaky little mouth and nodded slowly. So reliable did she know Issacher's information to be ('Issy knows everything' was an article of faith in his House) that she was prepared to believe that what he said required the minimum of corroborative evidence.

'So?' she prompted him.

'So when Merrys and Skene broke out and then told Eaves and Meyrick (in their dorm, you know) that a murder might be committed, and then the next thing was that a mur – that Mr Conway was found like that, I investigated and found that their story was funny. Peculiar, I mean. It jumped to the eye that they could get Spiv –