Faintley Speaking

« ^ »

‘But how could you possibly know?’ demanded Laura, when, after Trench had been arrested for intent to cause bodily harm, Mrs Bradley was back at the Stone House.

‘I did not know, child, but I interpreted a remark made by Mrs Trench.’

‘You’ve told me what she said. I don’t see anything to suggest that Trench was the person who caused Miss Faintley to “lose” Mark in Torbury, let alone that he murdered her at Cromlech.’

‘Mrs Trench said that she had never had a holiday since the war, but she indicated that her husband had had a good many. She mentioned his excuse of attending the conferences organized by his professional association. I made a shot in the dark on the strength of this, and jockeyed Mr Trench into confirming that I had hit the target. Then, of course, he nearly hit me.’

‘You know,’ said Laura, shaking her head, ‘you’re the most immoral person I’ve met.’

‘Murder is an immoral action, child.’

‘All right. Where do we go from here?’

‘Back to Cromlech to-morrow. Now that we know Miss Faintley’s reason for taking Mark out and for being obliged to abandon him, we shall be able to check Mr Trench’s account of his actions in Torbury, I hope. We have taken a big step forward, and I am happy to compliment you upon your efforts and to thank you for your co- operation.’

‘Bow-wow-wow!’ said Laura crudely. Mrs Bradley cackled, but added seriously:

‘As a matter of fact, I mean it. We should not have arrived at this stage in the investigation unless you had taken a post at the school and given us the benefit of your knowledge of the staff.’

‘Did Trench come across with anything valuable, then, when you went with him to the police?’

‘Valuable, and interesting too, although some of it was lies, I fancy. He declared that he had had no outside- school dealings with Miss Faintley until she asked him to answer that telephone call. That I cannot believe because of what follows. He went on to say that he left the telephone-box not because he got tired of waiting, as the call was overdue (which was what he told me in Miss Golightly’s room at school), but because a man had already rung him up in Miss Faintley’s name and had told him not to wait any longer, as Miss Faintley was able, after all, to attend to the business herself. Asked what the business was to be, he said he had no idea. He was to be told over the telephone. Then he went on to the subject of his visit to Torbury. He admitted that he had met Miss Faintley there, but declared that the meeting was accidental. He explained that Miss Faintley thought it well to “lose” Mark because she was not anxious to be the subject of a boy’s gossip at school, for she supposed that Mark would inevitably detail to his fellows that a man and a woman teacher had met during the holidays, at a town a considerable distance from their homes, and that the boys would perceive something disingenuous in the encounter.’

‘Yes, they’re all nasty-minded little brutes,’ volunteered Laura, with no note of criticism in her voice. ‘Can’t quite see why you don’t accept the innocent beginnings of his evidence, though. I should have thought it would have been safe enough to stick to it that he’d got tired of waiting in the telephone-box, but highly dangerous to admit that he’d met Faintley in Torbury, so near the scene of the murder, and only the day before it happened. Damn silly, too, to have chucked that chisel at you.’

‘Yes, but don’t you see, he doesn’t realize that we possess no evidence (beyond his own confession) that he was ever in Torbury at that time.’

‘It’s a good thing you’re not bound by Judges’ Rules,’ said Laura, grinning. ‘But why don’t you believe someone rang him up in Miss Faintley’s name and put him off?’

‘I neither believe nor disbelieve that. I am keeping an open mind. I am slightly inclined to disbelieve it because I am prejudiced by the fact that he changed his story, and I am slightly inclined to believe it because it does seem more likely that he was told not to wait any longer rather than that he—’

‘Pushed off of his own accord, having got fed-up with hanging about on such a dirty night? Yes, with five pounds in the wind, I should think that is more likely,’ agreed Laura. ‘Oh, and I say!’

‘Yes, I thought you’d remark upon that,’ said Mrs Bradley, nodding like a bright-eyed mandarin but conveying no other impression of a Chinese, since she was wearing a dinner dress of mustard-coloured velvet, turquoise ear- rings, bracelets of Peruvian silver and a fob-watch. ‘I should have been disappointed and disillusioned had that interesting and significant coincidence not occurred to you.’

‘You mean the five pounds the shopkeeper gave Mandsell.’

‘Exactly, child. It was always a fascinating thought that five whole pounds came so readily out of the till in a miserable little back-street draper’s shop in a place like Kindleford, and on the afternoon after early-closing day.’

‘I take it that Tomson thought Mandsell was really Trench. If he did, though, why did he behave high-hat with Mandsell?’

‘Merely because he did not intend to give the receipt which Mandsell went back to demand.’

‘But if he thought Mandsell was Trench, and knew that Trench had been promised five pounds, why didn’t he hand out the five pounds at once, in exchange for the parcel?’

‘We asked him that when we confronted him with Trench this afternoon at the police station. He said he had forgotten the five pounds for the moment, and that the gentleman had seemed in a hurry. Then when the gentleman came back and began making a fuss, he remembered the five pounds which his “niece” had left with him, and handed them over, thinking to placate the gentleman, which, incidentally, they did.’

‘What did he say when he saw Trench instead of Mandsell?’

‘He behaved creditably. The man has the makings of a very pretty villain. He must have been considerably shaken when it dawned on him that he had reimbursed the wrong man, but, after staring at Trench in a way that made our schoolmaster look very uncomfortable, Tomson said that it looked like the same man, but he couldn’t be sure. As you know, there’s not the slightest resemblance except for a certain parity in