‘A good long time. I must stay on here until the end of the summer term. I’ve got to get these girls through their examinations.’
‘Oh, no, you haven’t. We’re being married some time within the next six weeks. It’s simply up to you to say when.’
‘But…’
‘None of it. I know you’re sorry you ever consented to the match, but as a woman of honour I don’t see how you’re going to get out of it now.’
‘There’s Mrs — there’s Aunt Adela,’ said Deborah. ‘I’ll let her know where we are.’
‘No need, child. I saw the light,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘In fact, I saw lots of lights, not only from this room, but from almost all the rooms.’
‘Aren’t the students in bed?’ asked Deborah. ‘I’d better go the rounds, I suppose.’
‘Oh, the students, bless them, will sit up until all hours,’ replied the head of the house comfortably. ‘Leave them alone, and relax, child, or, better still, go to bed. I want to talk to Jonathan.’
‘Can’t I listen, then? I promise I won’t interrupt.’
Mrs Bradley said nothing for a moment, but leaned forward and put coal on the fire. Her nephew watched her. Then, as she leaned back in her chair, an unusual relaxation in her, he caught her eye, and framed a question with his lips. Mrs Bradley nodded.
‘Suicide,’ she said. ‘Cyanide of potassium. I thought perhaps she would, and it is much the best way out for the College.’
‘How did you know we should get her tonight, if you’d never set eyes on her before?’
‘I guessed she would take advantage of the fact that the house was empty to get into the kitchen to steal food. Most of the servants go over to the College entertainments, and the coast would be perfectly clear, once Lulu had gone to bed. I didn’t want a public fuss if it could be avoided. On the other hand, I didn’t want to lose her, by coming across here too late.’
‘Has she really been living in the bakehouse?’
‘Yes. It is used only twice a week for baking bread, cakes, and pastry for the whole College. Knowing the routine, she could always hide in the Hall when the bakehouse was in use. She then used the large cupboard on the top floor, the one built over Deborah’s bathroom, I expect. From a point of vantage like that, she could annoy and disturb us as much as ever she liked.’
‘But that’s what beats me. Why did she want to disturb you? Why all that childish ragging?’
‘Oh, that has been plain all along. She simply wanted to get rid of me. She did not want me following her trail. She was desperately afraid of being found. She did not care whether she frightened me away, or whether I was dismissed for mismanaging the discipline of the Hall. Having attempted to injure me by tying strings across doorways at the beginning of last term, she then got ideas from Miss Cartwright, who organized the bonfire rag. The most interesting thing about the other ragging has been the way her mind worked over it. I knew that couldn’t be students.’
‘No; malice all through. Wicked stuff, some of it, too; that girl’s hair, for example.’
‘Quite.’
‘How do you know, by the way, that it wasn’t Miss Cornflake who tied the string across our doors?’ asked Deborah.
‘Because I don’t think Miss Cornflake was in College that night. She travelled from London the next morning, and could not have made the double journey in the time. The trains don’t fit.’
‘What about a car?’
‘Yes, that would have been a possibility. But I don’t see how Miss Cornflake could have gained admittance to the building at that time. She couldn’t have had any keys. Besides, I don’t see how she could have known that I was to be in residence that day. There are all sorts of reasons against its having been her doing. And then, how can one account for the first exchange of skeletons unless Miss Murchan worked it? She knew Miss Cartwright from the previous year, remember; knew her home address; knew what would be the effect on her of a challenge.’
‘What about slashing the clothes and punching holes in the disinfectant?’ asked Jonathan.
‘That was Miss Murchan, I am sure, and it gave her state of mind away. As soon as those things happened, I knew that we had to look out for a person of a type familiar to all students of the morbid psychology of sex. I knew there was no one of the type among the students or servants, and as soon as I became acquainted with Miss Cornflake I knew that she was not the type either. From that point I deduced that Miss Murchan was not dead, but it was the murder of that poor, stupid, greedy cook that made my theories into certainty.’
‘Greedy?’
‘Certainly. She blackmailed Miss Murchan, having discovered her one evening in the storeroom. Food was Miss Murchan’s chief difficulty, because, although she had plenty of ready money, she did not dare to shop for fear of being recognized. Well, the cook became a constant danger, so, knowing the ways of the house, and Miss Cartwright’s ways, in particular, of having baths at ungodly hours, Miss Murchan sent Cook a message after I had dismissed her, brought her back by giving her the hope of obtaining more money, and drowned her in the servants’ bathroom.’
‘And the bones?’
‘Miss Murchan provided those. She did not realize how easy it would be, with the help of that craftsman, the dentist, to prove that the skeleton was not hers.’
‘And who did the ’orrid cookery down in the quarry?’
‘Miss Murchan. The police, no doubt, will tackle the boy again, and obtain a complete account of what happened and a full description of the woman. Besides, it is unlikely that Miss Cornflake would have enlisted his help so openly. Miss Murchan, made up to resemble her half-sister, worked out that, if the description were given, Miss Cornflake would be involved and not herself. The police have found the old zinc bath she used. Some students
