“Well, if we accept that, it seems probable to me that whoever laid her out would have taken the contents of her bag. We’re arguing she was a blackmailer. If she carried that bag about with her habitually, it might well be argued that she’d got something valuable in it.”
“O.K. The argument following that seems to be that the murderer pocketed the contents of the bag and then tore the straps off it to indicate that it had been snatched, and threw it in the stream—the safest thing to do with it. It might then have been washed downstream and found by somebody else. The latter party put it somewhere to dry, so that it was ready to plant in an emergency, so to speak. And planted it was.”
“It’s a possible reconstruction,” said Macdonald, “but there could be plenty of variations on it. It was a neat enough idea putting it here, and I’m disposed to believe it could have been done last night, ‘after the demonstration,’ as you say. Anybody could have known that Greave was coming out here with Joe Grant to pick up the timber for the posts.”
“And some could have known better than others,” meditated Reeves.
“Well, when you’ve finished your job here, we’ll screw the door up. There don’t seem to be any more souvenirs about,” said Macdonald. “I’ll put the bag in my attache case and try to find out when deceased was last seen carrying it in the village. After that I’ll send it up to C.O. and see if the back-room boys can help. They ought to be able to tell us if it was ever in the stream at all, or merely held under a tap.”
“Oh, they’ll tell you a lot—age, place of origin, habits of owner, and force required to sever straps to three places of decimals,” said Reeves, “but the village won’t tell you anything. They’ll run true to form with ‘I can’t rightly say. Maybe that is and maybe that isn’t.’ ” He paused as he put his insufflator and camera away. “I’m a bit surprised that Peel didn’t get on to the fact that the bag was missing. He was very good at the routine stuff.”
“We can’t blame Peel any more than ourselves,” said Macdonald. “A leather handbag was found in deceased’s bedroom: it contained a purse, note case, handkerchief, and all the items you might have expected, including smelling salts and sal volatile.”
“That was her Sunday-go-to-meeting bag,” said Reeves promptly. “The smelling salts was to ginger up any toddler who tried to be sick in church. The Sunday bag was probably a gift from titled employers. You ask if it wasn’t, Chief.”
“I will. You’re probably right over that one.”
“They do crop up, don’t they?” said Reeves reflectively.
CHAPTER XIV
“Can you identify this bag, Mrs. Yeo?” asked Macdonald.
The Chief Inspector had put his attache case on the counter of the village post-office-cum-shop, and felt rather like a commercial traveller as he raised the lid to display his wares.
Stout Mrs. Yeo stared: took off her glasses and stared afresh. “Well, I never did,” she exclaimed, “if that be’n’t Sister Monica’s old bag. Years it was Sister had that bag. I do mind her telling me her had had that bag when her first come here, and that’s a tidy time ago, as you’d know, sir.”
“Can you tell me when you last saw her carrying it?” asked Macdonald.
“Now that be’n’t so easy,” countered Mrs. Yeo. “I mind she had it last Christmas, when her come collecting for a children’s party. In Bristol, ’twas. Coloured pickaninnies, her said. Christian, of course.”
“But haven’t you seen it since then?” asked Macdonald.
“Maybe I have and maybe I haven’t,” said Mrs. Yeo. “It’s like this, sir. Sister always wore that long cloak, and if so be she carried the bag under her cloak, you wouldn’t notice like.”
“But didn’t she take her purse out of the bag to pay for her shopping?” asked Macdonald.
“Why, sir, Sister didn’t do no cash shopping,” said Mrs. Yeo. “Gramarye was registered here for fats and sugar and that, but Sister never did no little bits of shopping. A weekly order ’twas, all very businesslike; Sister and Cook would make out the order every Saturday to be delivered Monday, and bill at the end of each month paid by cheque. And if anything was forgot ’twas Sister’s rule they must do without till the next week. Very exact was Sister.”
“Didn’t she ever buy any stamps or any sweets?” persisted Macdonald.
“She’d buy stamps ten shillings at a time,” said Mrs. Yeo, “about once a month ’twas, and always paid for by ten-shilling note. Nurse Barrow would come in with a list, neat as anything, twenty-four twopence halfpennies, forty-eight halfpennies, thirty-six pennies. Always the same. I do know Sister’s stamps by heart. And the little maids—the children—they’d send picture postcards home every other week, if so be as they’d got a home or an auntie to send to.”
“And about the sweets,” put in another voice from the back of the shop. “Sweets was ordered, too, every week, and the points pinned on the order all neat and correct. Boiled sweets mostly ’twas, and chocolate creams for saints’ days and festivals. As good as a ‘Churchman’s Calendar’ Sister’s order was, her never forgetting no holy days.”
“That’s right,” agreed Mrs. Yeo, “and the sweets went on the bill like the rest, Sister saying that sweets were part of the children’s rations. But ’twas all ordered, no chance buying, so to speak. If you’d care to step inside, sir, I could show you some
