Adders on the Heath

'I don't realise nothing.' She knew that he did not. It would have been surprising if he had.

'Look, Mr.-er-Borgia-' she said.

'That ain't my name!'

'No, I did not suppose it was. On the other hand, you appear to have been proud enough of calling yourself by it until now.'

'I ain't give nobody no poison!'

'It might suit me to believe that, if I had no other sources of information.'

Borgia raised his voice.

'You're out to frame me! I don't know nothing about it! My name's Robinson and you're tryin' to take it away! Leave me be, I tell you, else I'll do you, you old...!'

'Very well,' said Dame Beatrice.

Robinson stood up and leaned menacingly over her.

'You ain't 'eard the last of this,' he said. 'No, nor you ain't 'eard the last of me, neither.'

'I look forward to the oral reunion,' said Dame Beatrice. 'Nevertheless, should anything come to your mind which might clear you of active participation in this affair, it might be as well to let me know. This address will find me.' She put a visiting-card on the table. The young man snatched it up.

'Oh?' he said, studying it. 'Oh, I getcher, Dame. Well, I better think things over. Ta for the tip. Be seein' yer.'

It was a strange kind of retreat, Dame Beatrice thought. She had scared him. So much was obvious. But whether he had guilty knowledge of the murders, or whether there was something else on his conscious, or whether, like so many persons, ignorant or otherwise, he had a horror of anything to do with the police, it was neither just nor possible, at this stage, to determine.

'He sounds a gosh-awful little oik,' commented Laura, when she was accorded an account of the interview. 'Do you really think he did it?'

'We should need to establish a connection between him and the two dead men before we could begin to speculate upon his guilt or innocence, child, and I do not think that any such connection exists.'

'Meaning,' said Laura shrewdly, 'that, although he's a filthy little basket, you don't believe he'd commit murder.'

'Well, not these particular murders. No, frankly, I do not think he would use poison. It would require an even lower type of mentality than that with which heaven appears to have blessed him, to call himself Borgia, if he really did intend to poison people, don't you think?'

'I've stopped thinking about this case,' said Laura. 'I always come back to the same old starting-point.'

'And that, in your opinion, is...?'

'Who on earth except Denis could have known that Richardson was camping up there on the heath and that he'd had two rows with that man? Again, who would have risked changing over the bodies like that, knowing (I somehow feel), that Richardson had seen the first one?'

'Ah,' said Dame Beatrice, wagging her head. 'Think it out for yourself. There is only one answer to each of those questions and I fancy I know what it is. But we must have proof.'

CHAPTER TWELVE

WOMAN AND CHILD

'What a situation am I in! If what you say appears, I shall then find a guilty son.'

Oliver Goldsmith-She Stoops to Conquer

The boy was called Clive Maidston and appeared to be a spoilt child. Mr Maidston was at work when Dame Beatrice called, and his wife received her with a certain amount of reserve.

'Mr Richardson?' she said. 'Well, there, of course, there were difficulties.'

'I liked Mr Richardson,' said Clive. 'You needn't have sent him away.'

'Oh, he was sent away, was he?' asked Dame Beatrice.

'It wasn't my fault,' said the boy. 'I didn't want him to leave.'

'Now, Clive,' said his mother, 'you must either go out of the room or else you must stop listening.'

'Sex means nothing to me,' said Clive, a small, pale boy with large eyes. 'When I'm eighteen I shall go into a monastery. I may get a bit of peace there.'

'They wouldn't have you, dear. You have to be a good boy for that,' retorted his mother.

'You think you have a vocation?' asked Dame Beatrice, fixing the child with her basilisk gaze.

'I'm pretty sure I have.'

'How old are you?'

'Never you mind. God made me what I am.'

'We must circumvent Him, then.'

'You're a nut case.'

'And you,' his mother broke in, 'are a rude, impertinent boy and a disgrace to your upbringing.'

'Impudent, not impertinent. Why don't you use the dictionary?' demanded the child. 'Well, what have you come for?' he asked Dame Beatrice. 'You're not one of these psychology sharks, are you?'

Dame Beatrice leered at him.

'Your perspicacity does you credit,' she replied. 'How did you guess, I wonder?'

'I didn't. I was being bloody rude.'

'Clive! Really!' protested his mother.

'Why was Mr Richardson dismissed?' Dame Beatrice enquired. She was beginning to wonder why Richardson had not resigned this particular post instead of waiting to be asked to leave.

'It was the letters,' said Clive.

'Clive, dear, don't be silly! You know nothing about it,' said his mother.

'I do, too. I read the letters. They were all lies. Mr Richardson didn't have a girl friend in this house.'

'Who said anything about girls?'

'Oh, mother, be your age!'

'I believe that particular expression to be outdated,' said Dame Beatrice.

'Well, how the hell should I know? I'm not allowed to go anywhere, or see anybody or anything!' He flung himself on the floor and began to drum his heels. 'Why can't I go back to school?'

'Oh, dear!' said his mother. 'Now he's gone into one of his moods! He really is terribly difficult!'

'I wouldn't be difficult if you weren't a-old-!' screamed Clive. Dame Beatrice picked him up, and stood him on his feet and gave him a slight and friendly shake.

'That's enough,' she said gently. 'Go out of the room and come back when you can behave like a boy and not like an hysterical puppy.'

'Well, really!' said his mother. Clive glowered darkly at Dame Beatrice and muttered, 'I'll get you,' but he went out of the room.

'Now,' said Dame Beatrice, 'what can you tell me about Mr Richardson?'

'Oh, but I must go and see to Clive. We never know what to do with him when he flies into one of his tempers. He might throw himself out of his bedroom window. He's often threatened it.'

'Always a splendid sign. The children who do it seldom threaten it beforehand.'

'But you shook him!'

'Yes, yes. And now about Mr Richardson. What were those letters your son mentioned?'

'Nothing. Some anonymous filth.'

'How did your son come to read them?'

'Oh, they were addressed to my husband, and Clive stole the keys of his desk.'

'But they referred to Mr Richardson?'

'In the most sensational terms, so much so that we felt we could not keep him on.'

'Perhaps I may be allowed to read them.'

'I don't suppose my husband has kept them, but I'll go and see, if you wish.' She went out of the room, but soon returned with the news, not unexpected by Dame Beatrice, that she could not find the letters. Dame Beatrice gave a non-committal nod and demanded briskly,

'Why does not Clive go back to school, if that's what he wants?'

'I thought I had mentioned that. He is very delicate and very highly strung.'

'A very old-fashioned boy,' said Dame Beatrice. At this moment Clive flung the door open and appeared as dramatically as an amateur actor making an over-played entrance.

'I burnt them! I burnt them!' he yelled. Dame Beatrice regarded him with benign interest. He stared at her for a moment and then cast himself into her arms.

'Well, really, Clive!' said his mother. Dame Beatrice pushed him, kindly but without emotion, on to the sofa.