“What’s collusion?” asked Daphne, suddenly. I didn’t explain, of course. I don’t care to discuss with Daphne the vocabulary of the divorce courts; but the question gave my own idea more weight, so I hastened to the Manor House immediately after tea, to lay my argument before Mrs. Bradley. She scoffed, of course. I had thought she might. What motive would Burt and Yorke have had, she wanted to know, for making up a tale? When did I think the books had been landed, if not before they set upon the vicar and impounded him?
“Burt might be the father of the child,” I said, “and want it kept a secret from Cora.”
“You mean that Burt is the murderer?” said Mrs. Bradley, “and that Yorke knows it?”
“There’s no reason against it, except the ridiculous alibi supplied by Yorke,” I exclaimed. “And you must realise as well as I do that Burt’s morals would allow of anything—adultery, seduction, murder —anything. A man who translates that kind of filth into the English language—”
I found myself almost hysterical upon the subject of Burt’s morals.
“I am glad that you enjoyed the book,” said Mrs. Bradley, calmly. “Of course,” she added, before I could say anything, “as you say, Yorke could have been the murderer, except for this ridiculous alibi supplied by Burt. And Yorke’s morals, for the reason that he is not even a white man—!”
She began to cackle, softly at first and then louder, until she was screeching with hideous merriment. I felt very uncomfortable, Sometimes I could not rid myself of the terrible suspicion that the woman was as mad as a hatter, madder than a March hare, and almost as mad as Mrs. Gatty; and of a second terrible suspicion that sometimes she might be laughing at me.
“However,” she said at last, reassuringly, “I dare say we shall manage to get Candy off. I’m sure I hope so. I hate these hangings. They are barbarous anachronisms, are they not?”
“It isn’t a case of getting Candy off,” I declared with a certain amount of vehemence. “It is a case of proving his innocence to the hilt.”
“Ah, that’s another matter,” said Mrs. Bradley, calmly. “Do you understand the Einstein theory of relativity, dear child?”
I hastened to assure that I did not. I also attempted to convey the impression that I didn’t want to.
“Ah, well,” she said, “if your mind were capable of grasping that theory, there might be some possibility of proving Candy’s innocence.”
A frightful thought struck me. Not, of course, for the first time.
“I say,” I said. “In spite of all you’ve said, you do believe that Candy is innocent, don’t you?”
Mrs. Bradley sighed.
“If only I could prove who fathered the baby!” she said. “If only I could prove it.”
“I suppose you believe poor Bob Candy was guilty of that, too!” I said, hotly. The old woman gazed gravely at me.
“Why, no. I thought we were agreed that in that case there would have been no murder,” she said.
“You mean they would have married, and that would have been that,” I replied, grasping the salient point in the social ethics of the village.
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Bradley. But her answer, for some reason, did not satisfy me. Somewhere in our conversation, I felt sure, some vital point had been left untouched on. I racked my brains, but I could think of nothing. At last, more to continue the conversation than for any other reason, I said lamely:
“Funny where the baby can have gone. Do you think the father, whoever he is, can have it in his keeping?”
“Yes and no,” said Mrs. Bradley. She grinned. “The villagers thought it was at the vicarage, didn’t they?” she said. She nodded, slowly, rhythmically and continuously, like those absurd mechanical dolls they use for advertising purposes.
“The prosecution will probably accuse Candy of murdering both mother and child,” she said. “I hope they will, anyway.”
I spent the night in trying to work things out, but couldn’t manage it, of course. Also, I could not get my mind off Burt. He was just the sort of loose-living, foul-tongued man to have illegitimate children, and commit murders, and get drunk, and fake alibis, and engage in criminal conspiracies with his serving-man, I thought. My mind passed on to Lowry and Mrs. Lowry. Unfortunate that they should have been out just when the murder was committed at their place. Well, fortunate in a way, for them, of course. Suddenly I stiffened. My feet curled with excitement. What of Lowry? What of that gross and hairless man? What of the pig, as Mrs. Gatty had called him? Why had he given Meg Tosstick shelter, food and care? Why had he promised her a job as soon as she was well enough to take it? The thing was crystal-clear. He was the father of Meg Tosstick’s child! Then why, I asked myself, rising on my elbow in the bed to ask the question, why had he killed the girl? Pat came the answer. He was afraid she would betray him to her lover. He feared Bob Candy’s vengeance. And Bob, the dupe, the wronged, the innocent—Bob was being held on the capital charge, while this arch-egg, hairless, gross, bestial and poisonous, got away with two murders, those of the poor deluded girl and her innocent new-born child!
I remember grinding my teeth. I suppose I lay down and slept after that. In the morning, as I ate my breakfast, and allowed the usual early-morning, eight forty-five-edition of Coutts v. Coutts to go in at one ear and out at the other, I made up my mind to go myself to Lowry and confront him with the truth. One thing only prevented my carrying out this resolve. One person, rather. Mrs. Bradley. I was afraid of the old lady. I admit it, frankly. The idea of doing anything in the case without her full approbation and consent became repugnant to me. After breakfast, on pretence (a subterfuge which I had been obliged to shelter behind some half-dozen times before to cloak my frequent visits to the Manor House) of visiting the sick, who were, of course, much better off without me, I went to lay my new suspicions before Mrs. Bradley. She immediately damped my ardour.
“I’m sorry for your sake, dear child,” she said, “but I took the liberty immediately I heard that the murder had been committed, of checking Lowry’s alibi by making discreet but very searching enquiries round the village, and it seems that not one minute of the day was he alone, or even in the sole company of Mrs. Lowry. I learn that he collected a large party of friends and treated them to all the fun of the fair. Part of the time he was seen minding the cocoanut shy, or watching your fortune-telling tent, Noel, my dear child, wittily inviting all and sundry to enter. He danced with sixteen maids and matrons, including Cora McCanley, and it was nearly twelve o’clock when he returned to the Mornington Arms. His alibi is hole-proof, fool-proof, and destruction-proof. And, of course,” said Mrs. Bradley, at the end of this unusually energetic outburst, “there is no reason to suspect that so perfect an alibi conceals more than it reveals, dear child. I believe the landlord of the Mornington Arms is a very popular man. He certainly is a very good-humoured one.”
I grinned. “Yes, I can’t see that we can do much with Lowry, after all,” I said. “He couldn’t have committed the murder by proxy, could he?”
I smiled weakly at my own joke, and then suddenly stiffened. The word proxy always leads me to think about Queen Mary Tudor, and from Queen Mary Tudor it is an easy transition to Mrs. Coutts.
“What about Mrs. Coutts?” I said, excitedly. “Motive enough there, and heaps of opportunity! Look here! After dusk she began her usual snooping about the park in search of courting couples, so you can jolly well bet that nobody spotted her or can swear definitely to her having been at any particular place at any particular moment. She can take cover like a Red Indian! What was to prevent her slinking off to the inn, murdering the poor girl while the barmen and Mabel Thingummy were busy serving in the pub, and going home to the vicarage and raising that hue and cry! Why, hang it all!” I exclaimed, getting all hectic, “That hue and cry might only have been a blind! She may have waited and waited for the evening of the fête to afford her the opportunity for the murder! How’s that?”