Mrs Bradley shrugged.
‘There is a school of thought which is determined to get me out of Athelstan,’ she said. ‘This is not surprising, considering the reason for my presence. I seem to be endangering somebody’s peace of mind. So far, the incidents have been slight, silly and spiteful. The death of Mrs Castle marks a more ambitious stage.’
To what extent the inspector accepted this interpretation of the facts she could not tell. He asked for details, and she gave them. If he thought them negligible he did not say so, and he and Mrs Bradley parted with great cordiality, Mrs Bradley asking only one question.
‘Have you finished down by the river? Is the road open now?’ she inquired.
‘Oh, yes. The young ladies can get along that way this afternoon, if they want to,’ said he.
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Bradley.
‘Are you prepared to come along and identify the body, madam? The only letters on her were addressed to the College. It would be easier than trying to find her relations.’
‘Oh, I can give you the address she left with me for holidays, but I’ll come along, by all means.’
She was, in fact, particularly anxious to see the body, although not for the sole purpose of identifying it.
Cook had certainly met her death by drowning. It needed less than Mrs Bradley’s expert knowledge to determine that. She was permitted, upon production of her credentials, to examine the body. It showed no marks of a struggle.
‘One can deduce accident or suicide; scarcely murder,’ she said. The inspector nodded.
‘All the same, murder it was, madam,’ he said. ‘We’re pretty sure of it. But what did she know, that somebody had to do her in? And another thing, madam. Where was it done? Because it wasn’t done on the river bank. That seems clear. I didn’t tell you before, but the body, although clothed to some extent, wasn’t fully clothed. No corsets on it, madam.’
‘Miss Cartwright’s baths may have a clear significance, I presume,’ said Mrs Bradley.
‘That young lady could do with an eye kept on her, you think?’ said the Inspector.
‘Miss Cartwright? Good gracious, no! But her habit of taking these nocturnal baths in the servants’ quarters may have put an idea into somebody’s head, that’s all. Now, I want you to come back to College with me, inspector. The place will be fairly quiet, and quite denuded of students, since all are out on School Practice.’
George drove them back in Mrs Bradley’s car. The inspector was as interested as Mrs Bradley had thought he would be in the passage that ran from end to end of the hostel buildings, and spent an hour and a half examining it
‘I’d advocate a burglar alarm on this door and a mortice lock, madam,’ he said, ‘although it’s a case of shutting the door when the horse is stolen, I suppose. And now, if you’ve no objection, I’m going to have another talk with some of your maids. One of ’em surely must know what Mrs Castle was up to, to get herself into such a mess as this.’
The maids, however, were either guiltless of knowledge or obstinate in retaining it. Bella was again questioned closely by Mrs Bradley after the inspector had interrogated her, along with the other servants. When he had gone Mrs Bradley said: ‘Bella, I want you to tell me exactly what happened on the night we heard the ghost.’
Bella, eyeing Mrs Bradley frankly, answered: ‘Well, madam, I don’t think I can say any more than I have said. Cook had a visitor, but I didn’t see who it was. They whispered, in Cook’s room, so I couldn’t recognize the voice.’
‘And this was at half past eleven?’
‘About then, madam. We’d all been in bed half an hour, just about, I should think.’
‘And you know it couldn’t have been one of the other maids whispering with Cook?’
‘Well, madam, May was in with me, and Flossie was in with the other maid that came in Lulu’s place for the day or two, that’s all I know.’
‘You didn’t think it could be a man with Cook?’
‘Gracious, no, madam! Cook wasn’t that sort at all.’
‘No, I don’t think she was. But could you swear that it wasn’t a man?’
‘You mean at the inquest, madam? Well, I don’t know that I could. But, all the same, I’m just as sure it wasn’t.’
‘And then you remember nothing more until the ghost woke us all up?’
‘Nothing at all, madam. When that happened, it was just like I told the inspector. May put on the light by the bedhead switch, and said: “Oh, Lord, what’s that?” And I jumped out of bed because I thought perhaps the new maid might be having a nightmare.’
‘You recognized the sounds as human, then?’
‘Well, I didn’t stop to think, madam. I just went into next-door, with May keeping close behind me and holding on to my dressing-gown, and I saw the other two with their light on, sitting up in bed with their eyes sticking out of their heads and Flossie with her fingers in her ears. Then Cook came along and took us all into her room, like you found us, madam.’
‘Did she mention her visitor?’
‘No, madam.’
‘And nobody asked?’
‘Nobody liked to say much to Cook at any time, madam.’
‘Tell me, Bella, did you ever suspect that somebody broke into Hall at nights?’
‘No, I certainly never did, madam. I should have been the first to report it to you.’
‘Yes, I’m certain you would. Ah, well,’ said Mrs Bradley, terminating the interview.
No matches were arranged for the two Saturdays of the Christmas Term School Practice, so, Laura and Alice being officially unoccupied, they, with Kitty, decided upon a walk.
It was a wonderful day, crisp, sunny and cold, and the three students, wearing short skirts, blazers and scarves, stepped out from Athelstan, paused a moment to watch a goal-shooting practice on the hockey field, and then walked on to where, on the east side of the College grounds, a wicket-gate opened on to a small public park.
They passed several groups and couples of students as they went through the park, but encouraged no one to join them.
‘Business is our pleasure this afternoon,’ said Laura to tentative hangers-on; and she spoke so determinedly that she shook off all potential companionship.
‘What’s the big idea, Dog?’ asked Kitty plaintively. ‘Why do we act as though we’ve got the plague or something?’
‘We’re going down to have a look at the old bridge,’ Laura replied. ‘And then I’m going to have the inside out of that mermaid Cartwright’
As she vouchsafed no more, but seemed intent upon reaching Caddy Old Bridge in the shortest possible time, the others asked no more questions, and were soon warmed through by the pace she set.
Caddy Old Bridge was thus named to distinguish it from Caddy Swing Bridge, which had been built some centuries later, and spanned not the river but the canal.
A few yards upstream from the Old Bridge was a weir, and the three students stood on the bridge for some moments, absorbed in watching the foaming water.
‘I suppose,’ said Laura, ‘the murderer’s idea was that the force from the weir would carry Cook’s body further downstream than where the police actually found it.’
‘But we don’t know where they found it. It didn’t tell that in the papers,’ objected Alice.
‘Bobby Breen told me,’ replied the leader of the expedition. (Constable Breen received inevitably this soubriquet.)
‘He ought not to have said. He might get into trouble,’ said Alice.
‘Well, I asked him, casually, and he did say. Anyway, all the errand-boys know, because I checked the information with Miggin’s Albert, and he said exactly the same thing. We’re going along there in a minute to have a look, and then I’m going in, à la the corpus, to see what really does happen. Mrs Croc. isn’t the only pebble on the beach when it comes to a spot of detection.’