Laura glanced suspiciously at her employer, but Mrs. Bradley’s remarks appeared to be made sincerely.
‘Oh, well, I don’t know,’ she said modestly. ‘Only, it seems to be Toro all right. The remains in that iron box, I mean. Is it true that there isn’t enough left to identify?’
‘The body could be identified,’ said Mrs. Bradley judicially. ‘The question is to find someone able to recognize certain features, notably a fracture near the elbow of the right arm. Such a fracture may have caused permanent stiffness of the arm, and, in this case, I should say, had almost certainly done so, because adhesions had formed.’
‘But that means a motive for the murder!’ cried Laura. ‘Don’t you see? He wasn’t any good to them any more, and so they killed him.’
‘I know that, but I am hoping to find an even more convincing motive, child, and I think I am on the track of it.’
‘Such as?’ asked Laura, eagerly.
‘Such as blackmail,’ Mrs. Bradley replied. ‘The fracture is an old one—possibly several years old. This is only theory, I know, but it seems to me that once Allwright became unemployable as a painter (as you suggest) then the probability is that he blackmailed Cassius and Battle in order to make a living.’
‘Could he do that without the risk of giving himself away?’
‘It is possible. He seems to have been an enterprising man in a dishonest way, and I should say that there is nothing to prove that he realized that he was working with a gang of criminals. He would have argued, I imagine (if the police had been brought in), that he had worked on commission as a copyist, or something of that sort, and was in ignorance of the real nature of the trade in which he was employed. I think a good lawyer would be able to convince a jury about that, too.’
‘One thing,’ said Laura, ‘that has puzzled me a bit. Why did they want another artist when they already had the two Battles? It seems to me that every extra person they took into partnership was another nail in their coffins, if it ever came to the police being brought in. They couldn’t be sure that none of their assistants would confess, if it came to the point.’
‘I think it was a question of providing various styles of painting, child, that’s all.’
‘Ah, yes. Various styles. Of course! It wouldn’t do for all the fakes to look alike. I can quite see that. So they murdered Toro because he was blackmailing them, did they? A lovely lot, aren’t they, him included! I do hope we get them where we want them! I wonder how Mike and Gerry are going to get on with Firman?’
Mrs. Bradley wondered this, too, and her thoughts were not unduly optimistic. She doubted whether Firman had been more than a pawn on the maze-like board of play among Battle, Battle, Allwright and Cassius. Little, she believed, could be learned from him respecting the major operations of the criminals, simply because she did not think he knew enough to be dangerous. The likeliest thing was that Firman had found out from his relatives, the Battles, that there was an easy way of making money if one did occasional simple, slightly shady little jobs and kept one’s mouth shut, and the most that Gascoigne and O’Hara could hope for, in her opinion, was that a truthful account of Firman’s movements on the day of the murder of Allwright would lead the police in the direction of the murderers.
One thing perturbed her, however. As she had foreseen, the police, unable to charge Cassius with any crime for which he could not demand bail, had been compelled to release him. The work of cleaning and recognizing the pictures (if any) which had been stolen, and the even slower task of discovering to whom and when the faked pictures already exported had been sold, and under what conditions, made it impossible to charge the man with any indictable offence, or to hold him until the necessarily lengthy and tiresome enquiries had been concluded. Still, all questions concerning the pictures were now out of Mrs. Bradley’s hands.
Once there was any proof of murder against Cassius, however, a very different aspect presented itself. Cassius could be arrested, cautioned and charged. But there was many a slip, she decided. David Battle and Firman, between them or separately, might be prepared to furnish the evidence that was needed, but the chance that they would do so was a slender one; all the more slender because it was extremely doubtful whether Cassius had had any hand in actual murder at all. It was not even Cassius who had cut the head and hands from the body pinned under the stone. That, almost certainly—but for the conditions of moonless darkness and the feeble glow of the artificial lights used that night, she would have said quite certainly had been the work of the bloody-minded and cruel older Battle.
Meanwhile Cassius was at liberty and might or might not communicate with the older Battle, whose identity, incidentally, still had to be proved, for although O’Hara could swear to the man he had helped at the farm, it was not beyond dispute that this man was David Battle’s supposedly missing father.
Mrs. Bradley had often wondered, since the beginning of the adventure, how Battle had contrived to ‘disappear’ and yet go on living in a district where he must be well known. She had come to the conclusion that he no longer lived in the district, but only visited it secretly from time to time. So far there had been no sign of him except at night, so this might mean that he remained hidden during the day—at Cottam’s, possibly—and only ventured out when there was little chance of meeting anybody who might recognize him. The nine-year cycle thus found some explanation and ceased to be a phenomenon. Battle only came back to the neighbourhood to help dispose of the pictures.
Mrs. Bradley was afraid of Battle ; not on her own account, but on behalf of young Michael O’Hara. Of all their party, O’Hara was the only one who could swear to the man, and, what was more important, who could swear to the man who had advised him before he arrived at the farm. He could also swear to the woman, and, this being so, and as Mrs. Bradley herself could identify her as the woman who had been living in Battle’s old cottage at Newcombe Soulbury, it would not be difficult to make out a case against her as an accessory, particularly as she had also been seen at Cottam’s by Laura Menzies.
Once O’Hara had sworn that Battle was the man whom he had helped at the farm, and had sworn to him as having been concerned with the attempted removal of the iron box (or coffin, as it must now be called, Mrs. Bradley supposed), the police would have little difficulty in building a formidable case. Whether their accusations would include Cassius it was not possible to determine, because, although Cassius had also been concerned in the attempt to remove the iron coffin, he might be in a position to show that he knew nothing of its real contents but had assumed them to be some of the more valuable of the stolen pictures.
Battle’s life, it seemed to the elderly lady, depended upon young O’Hara’s shut mouth; and as there is only one way of permanently shutting a mouth, Mrs. Bradley was more anxious than she liked to confess to Laura, and none the happier in that O’Hara so far had not been threatened or attacked.
When Saturday came Gascoigne and O’Hara had their plans ready. They had been supplied with route-maps of the afternoon’s run, and had studied these diligently. They had also compared them with the Ordnance Map, and had even, on the Friday afternoon, walked over the course.
‘And now all we want is a fair field and no spectators,’ said O’Hara.
‘And to be certain that Firman means to turn up,’ said Gascoigne.
‘He’ll come,’ said O’Hara confidently. ‘He’ll probably be gunning for me, don’t you see, as ardently as I’ll be gunning for him!’
‘Yes, I’d thought of that,’ said Gascoigne, gloomily. ‘It’s the one thing I don’t like at all about this business. Supposing he’s got a revolver?’