“You mean you weren’t there when the Headmaster’s telegram arrived?”
“Oh, yes, I was,” returned Miss Sooley, somewhat comforted by Mrs. Bradley’s dulcet tones, which issued so unexpectedly from the beaky little mouth. “It was I who held the smelling bottle ready as she went to open the nasty thing.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Bradley, managing to introduce a sympathetic inflection into the monosyllable.
“Oh, yes,” went on Miss Sooley. “And all she said was to ask me to tell the boy there would be no reply.”
“And then?” prompted Mrs. Bradley, after a pause.
“That’s all,” said Miss Sooley. “As sure as I’m standing here, that’s all she said. And her having been to see the poor girl only the evening before.”
“She went to see her on the evening of her death, do you mean?” said Mrs. Bradley, who found it difficult to assimilate this amazing piece of information. Miss Sooley nodded impressively.
“Didn’t Miss Ferris write and ask her auntie and me to come and see her act in the school concert?” she demanded. “Here, I’ll get the letter. It was sent to me, as a matter of fact, because Miss Ferris thought I could persuade her auntie to come, me being quite a theatre-goer in my young days. Come upstairs a minute.”
In the pure human joy of having something to impart, she appeared to have forgotten her nervousness, and ran upstairs, followed closely by Mrs. Bradley. For Miss Lincallow actually to have gone to see Miss Ferris act in The Mikado on the night of the murder, and then to have betrayed so little emotion upon the receipt of the Headmaster’s telegram announcing her death, was sufficiently extraordinary, but even more startling was the question which Mrs. Bradley put to herself as she ran up three flights of stairs. Had they managed to stay to see the whole of the performance and then had they made that maddening cross-country journey back to Bognor by train on the same night? The Headmaster would have sent off his telegram at about half-past nine on the morning after the murder. They had been back in Bognor to receive it. There was a certain amount of mystery in those statements which Mrs. Bradley wanted to have cleared up as soon as possible. Had Miss Lincallow not asked to see her niece after the performance?
The letter, produced from some hidden store of correspondence by the now thoroughly excited Miss Sooley, was short, but there was no mistaking the genuine desire of the writer for her aunt’s company at the school entertainment.
“Dear Aunt Sooley,” it began (“she always called me her aunt, the same as Miss Lincallow, but of course I’m no relation really,”) interpolated the recipient of the communication, peering short-sightedly over Mrs. Bradley’s shoulder at the even, legible, schoolmistress-careful script.
“I hope you and auntie are well. I am still feeling the great benefit derived from my very delightful holiday with you. Next week, on Friday evening, we are doing Gilbert & Sullivan’s Mikado. I enclose two tickets. You will see the time of the performance on them. I know it is a very long and tiresome journey, but I do wish you and auntie would come. I have one of the chief parts, that of ‘Katisha,’ the daughter-in-law-elect of the Mikado of Japan. It is an extremely humorous part. Do please try and persuade auntie. I could arrange with my landlady for you to stay the night at my lodgings, as it will be too late for you to get back to Bognor when the performance is over, if you would not mind a double bed just for the one night.”
It ended, “With love, Calma Ferris,” and there was a postscript: “Do come.”
“And you went?” said Mrs. Bradley. Miss Sooley nodded, glanced at the two closed doors on the landing, put one finger to her lips and then whispered:
“Miss Lincallow is resting. She’ll be in her room an hour at least. Come down to the second sitting-room.”
The second sitting-room contained a settee and two easy-chairs, all of a period sufficiently far back in history for its furniture to be obsolete, but not sufficiently removed from the present day for it to be respectable from a collector’s point of view. There was also a book-case crammed with commentaries on the New Testament, the Victorian poets in faded bindings, some light reading, but of an improving character (Sunday School prizes won by Miss Ferris between the ages of seven and thirteen, said Mrs. Bradley to herself); and the Lives of several obscure divines. In addition there were a large deal sideboard stained mahogany-colour and bearing a large, ornate, empty épergne, two pictures of rough seas at Hastings, and a depressing oleograph of a whiskered gentleman grasping the back of a chair (“Miss Ferris’s father,” thought Mrs. Bradley). A large writing-desk, a small piano, three small chairs with knobby backs and shiny leather seats, an enormous dining-table and a footstool, completed the furnishing, and made a curiously depressing ensemble.
Mrs. Bradley selected the smaller easy-chair and seated herself. Miss Sooley occupied a small chair, folded her hands in her lap, and prepared to unfold the tale.
“I didn’t have half the job persuading her I thought I should,” she began. “She said, as soon as I showed her the letter, how much she’d like to go and how Calma was coming out since she’d met Mr. Helm in the summer here. Then I said why should we not go? But she said it was too far, and too many changes on the train; and then I had a real brain-wave. I said why should we not, just for once, hire Mr. Willis’s car? He would oblige us cheaply, I said, owing to our getting him a lot of custom with the visitors in the summer, what with private hire to the station and trips round and about for those visitors that are afraid to go in motor-coaches and too proud to take the bus to places of interest in the neighbourhood—and, of course, Mrs. Bradley, Bognor is very well situated for places of interest—so that if he could not oblige us, who can?”
As the question appeared to be directed at her, Mrs. Bradley said: “Quite, quite,” in conciliatory tones, and the narrative proceeded.
“Well, we knocked him down to two pounds seventeen and sixpence, no tips, and the driver to be responsible for garaging the car at Mr. Willis’s expense, and really, you could hardly grumble at that, especially as we understood from the letter that poor Calma quite expected to pay for our lodgings herself. So at half-past ten that Friday morning we set off.”
She paused.
“Very pleased at the idea of your outing?” Mrs. Bradley suggested. The question had the desired effect. Miss Sooley’s round red face clouded and her eyes looked troubled. She shook her head.
“We weren’t on speaking terms. Very unfortunate it was. Miss Lincallow thought it would be nice to send Miss Ferris a telegram to say we were coming, and, as luck would have it, that made me say, just careless-like:
“ ‘Then she’ll have all sorts of surprises.’ Well, though perhaps it isn’t for me to say so, Miss Lincallow is a little bit nosey and suspicious. Well, you have to be if you take in visitors at a seaside resort, even a high-class one, you know, Mrs. Bradley. So she pounced on me directly for saying that, and asked me what I meant.