“A woman is found drowned at a school,” said Mrs. Bradley, “and there seems a possibility that a certain man of her acquaintance was in the neighbourhood. This man was once tried for drowning his wife, but was acquitted. Later, a woman escapes from his clutches by the intervention of two perfect strangers, who ought to have made it their business to interfere. There is no actual proof that he intended the woman any harm, but the facts were sufficiently peculiar to be significant. They were as follows: The woman had accepted an invitation to the house, and while she was there, he prepared a bath, ostensibly for himself, for he even went to the length of undressing and donning a dressing-gown and slippers, and, thus clad, he opened the door to the interfering couple aforesaid. The woman, presumably, was in the bedroom. The bath was in the middle of the living-room floor. These seemingly extraordinary preparations are to be explained by the fact that the dwelling-place was a converted railway carriage, and therefore not subject to the ordinary customs which govern life in a civilized English home.
“Later, viz., to wit, last Sunday as ever was, a young woman is found drowned in an inn not more than three miles from the railway carriage, and the dead girl’s mother, who appears to be a liar, by the way, swears that this same man called at the house for the girl on the afternoon of the day of her death. What do you make of that?”
“Q.E.D., of course,” said the boy. “Is it true?”
“So far as it goes, yes,” Mrs. Bradley replied. “At any rate, I think it wants looking at. I have a shrewd suspicion—at least, I hope it’s shrewd!—that the young woman of the bungalow and the dead young woman are the same young woman.”
“Good,” said Aubrey. “May I come with you?”
“No, child. But I will write and ask your opinion on any knotty points which require elucidation.”
“Oh, no, I say! Why can’t I come?”
“First,” said Mrs. Bradley, “your mother wouldn’t hear of it. Secondly, you would be in my way.”
“Oh, well, if you say so,” said Aubrey resignedly. He turned to his book again and was immediately absorbed in it. Mrs. Bradley grinned like an affectionately maternal alligator at the back of his fair head, and began to make notes, with several references to the newspaper, at the back of a little black book. Her first action, when she arrived in Bognor, was to seek out the cottage where the dead girl’s mother lived, and interview her. The old woman stuck to her story. Helm had come to the Manor House and he had inquired for Susie. Susie, however, had gone by that time, but her mother was still convinced that the real murderer was Helm (or Cutler, as she called him). On all the evidence, the woman’s story appeared unlikely. Helm would have been mad to show his hand so openly if he had really intended to murder the girl. Besides, it was idle to imagine that he could have known Susie was to be at the Manor House that afternoon, since she herself had not known it until it was time to start out in the car with Roy.
On the other hand, it might well be that Helm had murdered the girl at the inn, since it would not have been difficult for him to ascertain that she was in the habit of visiting there every Sunday afternoon. In that case, Mrs. Cozens’s story might prove to have been a flight of fancy, and might not, but it would not alter the facts. The fog was certainly an important item. It had been so dense, apparently, that it was possible that under cover of it Helm could have introduced himself into the inn unperceived.
If he had taken the trouble to discover the lie of the land, he would know the whereabouts of the various members of the household; this would be especially easy on a Sunday afternoon, when no business was being transacted, for there was no reason to break the peaceful habits of the Sabbath, and thus he could have minimized any risks of running into Malachi, Dora or John. It remained to be seen whether there would have been any way for him to gain admission to the interior of the house without having to announce himself by knocking on the door or ringing the bell, and this Mrs. Bradley decided to investigate next.
Dora and Malachi Spratt were both at home. Mrs. Bradley decided to tackle Dora first. The woman was half-crazed with the shock of John’s arrest, and at first Mrs. Bradley could get little out of her. As soon as Dora understood, however, that the visitor was convinced of John’s innocence, was the mother of a famous lawyer, and was looking for facts to help to clear John’s name, she rallied, took herself in hand, and answered Mrs. Bradley’s questions with the greatest economy and carefulness.
“She used to come in and out as she liked,” was the gist of her testimony, “and I suppose anyone else could have done the same. The door was shut—that door on to the yard is the one we always use for our private in-comings and out-goings—but it’s only a case of turning the handle. Malachi never locks it until bedtime. Indeed, it must have been somebody that came into the house who killed her. John didn’t drown her, and Malachi and I were together all afternoon and evening, and neither of us had a hand in it, that I do know. My boy is innocent. She was a bad girl, I am sure, and I guess she had bad friends. She was from London, and had been in some trouble there. She left a lady at Bognor through being too busy about other people’s affairs. It’s like enough she met this man somewhere or other, and that he murdered her for some reason we shall never know.”
Mrs. Bradley began to see daylight. She had thought at the time that Helm had been preparing that rockery for herself, but it was equally likely that he had decided to make away with the girl at his bungalow, and had been foiled. In this case, the rockery would have been designed as a grave for the girl, and not for Mrs. Bradley. It might well be true that the girl in the knitted suit and waterproof whom Mrs. Bradley had seen leaving Helm’s bungalow, was the girl who had been murdered at the “Swinging Sign.” If she had had any proof whatever that Helm had intended to murder the girl that day when he was interrupted by herself and Noel Wells, she would have gone with her suspicions to the police. But it was Helm himself, apparently, who had been prepared to take a bath that day. The girl had been fully dressed.
She tracked bits of village gossip to their source and learned that John Spratt and Ham Roy had been rivals for Susie’s favour. In an interview with the Chief Constable, whom she knew fairly well, she stressed the lack of motive. It would have been more reasonable to apprehend Roy rather than Spratt, she suggested. Roy, however, was fairly well covered by the fact that he had twice covered the distance between Susie’s home and the Manor House in his employer’s car, and that, while he would have had time to get out of the car at the “Swinging Sign” and murder Susie, the household could scarcely fail to have heard a car draw up at the door; and this Dora, Malachi and John all denied having heard. No car, they were certain, had drawn up within twenty yards of the inn on the Sunday afternoon of the murder.
chapter xiv: hero
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i
The Reverend Noel Wells was accustomed to think of himself as, if not exactly a coward, at least lacking in that species of virility and insensitiveness which compels human beings to run foolish, unnecessary risks merely for the sake of fame or fortune. He was, however, the troubled possessor of an extremely delicate conscience which compelled him to feats of chivalry against his will and often against his better judgment. His conscience troubled him sorely over the question of Mrs. Bradley and the strange man, Helm.
The most curious thing about Helm was the fact that immediately people learned that he was in reality the renowned Cutler, acquitted of drowning his wife, one and all immediately and irrevocably decided that he was indeed a murderer, and that he had only escaped hanging by some subtle twist of the laws of evidence. Against every instinct for fair play and in direct contravention of everything he had practised for years with respect to refraining from kicking a man when he is down, Noel Wells was similarly affected by the fellow. He felt as certain that Cutler had murdered his wife for the sake of collecting the insurance money as though he had seen him in the act. The man’s behaviour with regard to Mrs. Bradley had done nothing to alter his opinion, and the young curate felt that his friend was running ridiculously heavy risks in visiting the nian and in arousing his cupidity as she had done.