“It was Mickey Mouse,” she said, “and some cowboys. A very good programme for children.”
“Then the aunt of the poor little girl who was drowned was at the cinema that afternoon with the rest of you?” Mrs. Bradley exclaimed.
“Yes, certainly she was. She went in just in front of me, and, although, of course, it was dark whilst the films were being shown, I do not think that anybody went out.”
“Did she sit in front of you?”
“Why no. I do not know where she sat. We sat with children on either side of us, and attended to them and not to one another.”
“Did she come home with the rest of the party?”
“I do not remember noticing. But what a dreadful thing for her to come home to!”
“Do you remember how she was dressed?”
“I think so.” The girl looked at her curiously, but Mrs. Bradley offered no explanation of the abrupt and pointed question. “She had on a greenish tweed costume, and over it a big musquash coat, and had a little plume of deer’s hair—you know the ones they sell in Scotland to visitors?—at the side of her hat.”
“I hear she is coming back here after a bit?”
“I have not heard that. Poor woman, she was terribly distressed.”
“Naturally. I wonder whether she tried to get the coroner to bring it in as accidental death?”
The girl shook her head.
“I do not know. I did not attend the inquest. But here in the guest-house she said to me that she could not conceive that a child like little Ursula would dream of doing such a terrible thing.”
“The child was in trouble in school, though, wasn’t she? I heard a rumour that she was exceedingly unhappy.”
A curtain seemed to be drawn over the girl’s eyes. She replied very stiffly.
“I have no knowledge that she was unhappy or in trouble, but no happy child would commit mortal sin, I am certain.”
“I was sent for to prove that the child’s death was accidental,” Mrs. Bradley meekly explained.
“And can you prove it? How wonderful that would be!” Her face lit up as she said it. Mrs. Bradley slowly shook her head.
“Whether I can prove it remains to be seen,” she said. “I think the chances are exceedingly remote. There seems so little to go on.”
“But the evidence of character?”
“Yes, the evidence of character. The last kind of child to be involved in a fatal accident due to disobedience, wouldn’t you say? Quite the last child to break into the guest-house against the very strictest rule of the school. No, no.” She shook her head.
chapter 13
picador
“Fluttering, piercing as a needle’s point,
No armour may it stay, nor no high walls,”
william langland; The Vision of Holy Church.
« ^ »
Miss bonnet took a netball practice with the private-school girls from half-past one until two, and then went off to wash. Mrs. Bradley waited in the school hall and waylaid her as she came back. Miss Bonnet, in the trousers which she had worn to referee the game—for the March wind was fresh and blew cold from seawards—looked subtly different from the stocky young woman in tweeds who had spoken to Mrs. Bradley on the moors.
“Half a second; must climb into a skirt,” she observed, rather nervously. Mrs. Bradley vetoed the suggestion with some promptness, and led her firmly towards the staff room.
“Here we shall not be disturbed,” she said. “Sit down. I have a number of questions to ask you.”
“Oh, but look here,” said Miss Bonnet, “I can’t help you, you know. You see, I’ve got to be pretty careful what I say.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, rightly or wrongly, I was the person responsible for the blinking kid committing suicide, you know. I mean, it was no fault of mine. All in the day’s work, and that kind of thing, of course, but there’s no doubt whatever that the poor wretched kid had got me up her nose a bit.”
“Because you take the physical training lessons?”
“You’ve got it in one. What’s more, I had arranged particularly to give her extra coaching. I figure that she funked it, and bunked to that beastly bathroom and finished things off. I’ve been in the devil of a stew ever since, as you can imagine.”
“So that,” said Mrs. Bradley, regarding her shrewdly, “is why you, almost alone of all the people I have questioned, are convinced that the child committed suicide.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Miss Bonnet readily agreed. “You see, my methods aren’t all that gentle and tactful, I’m afraid. I admit it, but I can’t alter them. It goes down all right with the majority of kids, and then you get some poor little misfit like this one— and off she goes and shoots up the whole outfit. I feel pretty much like a murderer, I can tell you.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Bradley, “yes, you must do.” She made a few notes, and then rose. “I suppose,” she said suddenly, as Miss Bonnet also got up, “that you can account for all the children who were supposed to have that extra physical training practice with you during the Monday dinner hour?”
“Account for them? Yes, I think so.”
“And you yourself. What were you doing between the time that practice ended, and the time you went for your bath?”
“Doing? Oh—I remember. That wretched kid I knocked over at netball—I went to see how she was getting on, and stayed a bit, and then went over to Kelsorrow in the car—and then I came back, and— well, that’s when we found her.”
“Ah, yes. You saw nothing of Ulrica Doyle, I suppose?”
“Ulrica Doyle? I shouldn’t expect to see her.”
“Is she good or bad at her physical work?”
“Average. She could be very good indeed, but she isn’t keen. Pretty rotten family, the whole lot of them, really, I think.”
“Most likely. Well, thank you, Miss Bonnet.”
“Of course,” said Miss Bonnet, as she was going off, “you can’t prove or disprove a single thing I’ve said, but take my tip: suicide don’t suit the nuns’ book. Accident is what they’re after. But it wasn’t accident. Couldn’t have been! Look at the facts!”
“I have,” replied Mrs. Bradley. “Ad nauseam,” she added to herself, as Miss Bonnet cantered away to change her trousers. Mrs. Bradley walked back to the guest-house, but suddenly changed her mind about going in, and hurried off across the moors to meet George at the village inn.
George was finishing his lunch—roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, potatoes, cauliflower and beer, followed by boiled suet pudding with butter and sugar.
“Good heavens, George!” said Mrs. Bradley. She ordered the first course herself, regardless of the fact that she had already lunched at the guest-house, ordered half a pint of beer, and finished up with biscuits and cheese.
Fortified, she got into the car, and George drove her to Hiversand Bay.
It was easy enough to check Dom Pius’ alibi. The assistant curator at the small museum, who happened also to be assistant librarian—for the exhibits were housed in the vestibule of the library and on its first-floor landing—testified, without having to stop to think, that a gentleman in the dress of a monk had visited the collection and seemed interested
“Quite an Oxford man, by his speech,” said the assistant librarian and curator, “and interested in the local history. I put him on to some books, and he seemed very pleased. Stayed until nearly four o’clock. The nuns come occasionally, of course, to look up stuff for their school work, but we’ve never had a gentleman before. Very cultured, he seemed, and spoke very nicely of the collection and the way we’d got it set out.”