Watson's Choice (16 page)

‘I know it was! The damned little fool!’ He turned away. He was in tears.

‘Well, well,’ said Mrs Bradley to Sir Bohun, as soon as they met. ‘So your Mr Grimston found the body, did he?’

Sir Bohun looked startled.

‘You know, I was told he’d said that. The shock of hearing about poor Linda’s death on top of my giving him notice has sent the poor chap off his rocker. You’ll have to look after him, Beatrice. Get him away from here quick. What a blessing it’s been discovered before he got at young Philip again! Homicidal, probably. Poor Linda! She played with fire there! Bless my soul! Poor fellow! Mind you, I’ve suspected it before. By the way, you’ll stay the night, Beatrice?’

‘No, thank you. I am staying at the farm. Laura will be there with my correspondence. To-morrow we shall go for a walk, I expect, and talk about poor Mr Grimston.’

‘Why do you think the poor fellow thinks he found the body?’

‘I think the heath has certain associations for him.’

‘With Linda?’

‘Yes. It is associated in his mind with guilt. I think he seduced her by those gravel pits. There is plenty of cover among those bushes.’

‘She seduced
him
, you mean, the poor young fool, and drove him off his rocker afterwards!’ said Sir Bohun. ‘Well, I hope she left Bell alone, that’s all. I feel I’ve had a lucky escape, but that’s not a respectful thought, I’m afraid, now that the poor girl is dead.’

‘Oh, who be ye would cross Lochgyle,

That dark and stormy water?

Oh, I’m the Chief of Ulva’s Isle,

And this Lord Ullin’s daughter.’

CAMPBELL
–
Lord Ullin’s Daughter

THE MORNING’S WALK
was long and, to Laura, at first incomprehensible. It was pleasant enough, however. There was a cold snap in the air conducive to exercise, and the ice on various puddles crunched purposefully beneath the feet of the walkers as they tramped in amicable accord along the road which led to the heath and the
Queen of the Circus
.

About a mile and a half from Alice’s farm they came to the meandering little river which here bordered a marsh. ‘I don’t think we can explore the swamp with any advantage either to ourselves or to the enquiry,’ Mrs Bradley remarked. ‘Let us try the banks of the river.’

A narrow path ran beside the stream. At the foot of the bridge there was access to this path down a shelving bank. They gained it and followed it for about a mile and a quarter. Mrs Bradley then looked at her watch.

‘What are we looking for?’ asked Laura.

‘Possible ways to the abandoned railway station, child.’

‘Well, there hasn’t been a bridge, and we’re on the wrong side of the stream.’

‘Very true. Let us return to the highway. Keep your eyes open, won’t you?’

‘If only I knew what I was supposed to be looking for!’ Laura exclaimed.

‘It is better that you do not know. Report to me anything which strikes you as being out of the ordinary,’ her implacable employer replied. They tramped along the highway for another quarter of a mile. The peculiar mixture of urban and rural scenery was both
interesting
and repellent. On the one side, once they had passed the swamp, was the outline of a factory building. Almost opposite this was a small market garden. At the entrance to this garden Mrs Bradley halted.

‘It says we’re to beware of the dog,’ Laura pointed out.

‘And since when have you and I been afraid of dogs, child? Remember the heroic front we displayed when confronted by the
Hound of the Baskervilles!
’

‘You think the
Hound of the Baskervilles
might live here? I should hardly think so, you know, right on a main road like this.’

Mrs Bradley made no reply, and Laura went with her up to a very small bungalow. A woman with a deeply suspicious expression opened the door.

‘We’re not selling,’ she said flatly, ‘so get out.’

‘I am extremely perplexed,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Is not this the Curlew Kennels? I want to buy a dog.’

‘We’ve only one dog here,’ said the woman roughly, ‘and he don’t take to strangers. Didn’t you see the notice? Can’t you read?’

‘Is your dog homicidal, then?’

‘He might be – given the chance!’

‘Perhaps we ought not to provide the chance,’ said Mrs Bradley hastily to Laura. The woman snorted sardonically. Laura laughed aloud, and the woman’s face changed suddenly.

‘If you want to buy a dog,’ she said, ‘you better try Jim Reynolds’ place. I never heard of those kennels you mentioned.’

‘And
I
have never heard of Jim Reynolds,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘How do we find him?’

The woman gave directions.

‘Bit of luck it’s on our way,’ said Laura as they departed. ‘I should have been most put out if we’d had to turn in our tracks. Why did we annoy her? And what caused us to knock at her door in the first place?’

‘Instinct,’ Mrs Bradley replied, ‘and it has played us false, as it so often does. Man is a reasoning animal. So much for civilization.’

‘In other words,’ said Laura, with her usual shrewdness, ‘you know the answer, and you’re looking for proof. I suppose it’s of no use to ask you who did kill Linda Campbell?’

‘I know who, and I think I know why. I know – or can guess – how, and, of course, from the medical evidence, we all know when.’

‘Then what
don’t
you know?’

‘As you yourself suggested, how to bring it home to the guilty person.’

‘Are we going to visit Jim Reynolds?’

‘Oh, no. If you feel adventurous at any time, you might come back to this woman’s place, and take a look at her dog. I should like to be perfectly sure.’

‘Then you think – ?’

‘I think it was interesting that she would not allow us to see him, but I attach no particular importance to the fact. Now for the
Queen of the Circus
.’

But before they reached the road-house it was evident that Mrs Bradley had another port of call. She passed by the gipsy encampment (one of the caravans, Laura noted, possessed a television aerial), and also by a rubbish dump where a man and two youths were sorting cardboard boxes, old iron, and newspapers; but she stopped outside a tall, double-fronted house whose broad door was approached by a flight of stone steps.

‘Every window,’ she pointed out to Laura, ‘has a different kind of curtaining. What do we deduce from that?’

‘A sort of respectable lodging-house, I suppose.’

‘Exactly, and for women only, I have discovered. I propose to knock on the door and enquire whether there is a room to let.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘I have no ideas beyond dogs, child.’

She gave her secretary a nod, and walked up the steps. Laura strolled a few yards further along the road. From a side view the house seemed to go a long way back, and still in no two rooms was the curtaining quite the same.

‘What a rabbit-warren of old tabbies it must be,’ thought Laura, in confused metaphor. She heard the front door slam, and strolled back. There was no sign of Mrs Bradley. ‘Copped behind the Iron Curtain! Wonder how long she’ll be?’ Laura always thought in words, the fruits, she was fond of explaining, of having been exceptionally gifted in essay writing at school. She wandered away.

Mrs Bradley had been admitted by a nervous-looking middle-aged woman who was wearing a uniform which appeared to be a cross between that of a hospital nurse and of a nun of the Anglican Church.

‘Come in, by all means,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t promise
you
anything, as I told the Reverend Stopley. We’re quite full up, I’m afraid. I’m afraid we shall have to ask you to wait for a little while. I don’t think it will be very long, if you could manage until then. Old Mrs Finch is failing, Doctor says, but, of course, he can’t set a time limit. Perhaps you would like to have a look round while you’re here.’

‘I seem to be here under false pretences,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I am connected with the Home Office.’

‘Oh!’ said the woman, dismayed. ‘But there’s nothing of that sort here! Oh, dear me, no! We take only the most
respectable
poor! I am afraid you have been misinformed. Our boarders have never been in
any
sort of trouble, I can assure you! We take only recommendations from clergymen, you know, and they are quite, quite aware of our rules.’

‘I think we are still at cross purposes,’ said Mrs Bradley with her mirthless grin. ‘The Home Office is not in the least concerned to look into the private affairs of this excellent institution which is doing such invaluable work. No, indeed.’ She stopped, and regarded the matron of the home with the loving smile of a shark as it turns on its side and opens its mouth for prey.

‘I – I see,’ said the woman. ‘Then – what –?’

‘Exactly. I wonder whether we might go somewhere where we shall not be overheard?’ (She had become aware of a stealthy footstep on the stair and had seen a shadow appear where the thin winter light picked out the banisters.)

‘By all means.’ The matron led the way to a door which opened off the right-hand side of the hall. The room to which it admitted them was furnished as an office, but contained a couple of ancient easy-chairs. The matron closed the door, indicated the slightly less worn of the chairs to her visitor and seated herself in the other. ‘And now, Mrs – ’

‘Bradley. Doctor Beatrice Lestrange Bradley. I see that you have never heard of me. I had better produce my credentials.’

‘Oh, not at all! Not at all, Doctor Bradley!’

Mrs Bradley, who would have been hard put to it to produce anything except the small notebook which was her invariable companion, nodded amiably and fixed the matron with a basilisk eye.

‘Well, now,’ she said, ‘to explain my business here. You have read in the newspapers, I take it, that the dead body of a young
woman
has been found on a deserted railway station not so very far from this house.’

‘I did not read of it myself – I don’t read the newspapers – but Miss Galbraith has been full of it.
Not
our best type, I’m afraid. In fact – difficult. Very difficult. She has been on the stage, and she finds it hard to settle to the kind of life we lead here. If it had not been for the Reverend Snaith, who happens to be very sorry for her, I would have preferred not to take her. She is not very manageable, I’m afraid.’

Mrs Bradley had begun to be fascinated by the numbers of things of which the matron appeared to be afraid. Like that humane genius Sigmund Freud, Mrs Bradley did not believe that people used words at random. Censorship was always present, but the subconscious mind was desperately honest in the sense that it was apt to produce the truth at very awkward times. The matron certainly
was
afraid – afraid of responsibility, most probably – and her constant use of the word, in contexts where it appeared to make nonsense of itself, was revealing.

‘The less inhibited your Miss Galbraith is, the better for my purpose,’ said Mrs Bradley briskly. ‘You say she has read about the case?’

‘In
all
the Sunday papers, I’m afraid. The Sunday papers and her daily ten cheap cigarettes are what she spends her money on. Her nephew pays for her keep here. We charge very little, of course, as we have connexions with various charitable organizations, but I’m afraid he can ill spare the money.’

Mrs Bradley wagged her head solemnly. A knowledge of the significance of most apparently altruistic actions caused her to suppose that the nephew, whoever he was, might prefer to make considerable financial sacrifices rather than have an aged and slightly disreputable aunt to live with him. She did not mention this view to her present audience, but remarked cheerfully:

‘She sounds just the kind of person who might be very useful to us.’

‘Yes, well, I’m afraid she’s out at present. She goes for a walk on the heath every fine morning with her dog.’

‘Her dog?’ The matron did not understand Mrs Bradley’s prompt reaction to this word. She nodded unhappily.

‘She refuses to be parted from it. Pets are not allowed here except for cage-birds, and not many take advantage of that. I
myself
had a dear pussy, but when this great dog came along I had to get rid of her. She would not have been safe. I’m afraid I have sometimes harboured very uncharitable feelings towards Miss Galbraith.’

‘I am sure you must have done. Oh, well, if she is not here, I won’t detain you any longer. By the way, I suppose Miss Galbraith’s dog hasn’t had a
holiday
recently?’

‘A holiday? Not exactly a holiday. He was hired to take part in a film, I understand. I don’t know what they paid her, but I suspect her, I’m afraid’ – the matron lowered her voice – ‘I
suspect
her of having smuggled
drink
into the house. Of course, if I had been able to prove it, she would have had to go. We couldn’t begin
that
sort of thing!’

‘Of course not. Of course not. Well, good-bye, Matron.’ Mrs Bradley rose.

‘I’m afraid I still don’t know why you want to see Miss Galbraith,’ said the matron. ‘Is it secret official business?’

‘No, not secret. Official, of course.’

‘Oh, yes. Oh, I see. Well, thank you so much for calling. Might I – might I use your name when I write to our Committee?’

‘Certainly. I will give you one of my cards.’ She had just remembered that Laura had pushed two or three of these misleading, grandiose objects inside the cover of the notebook. Mrs Bradley left the matron to study the card. The matron looked awe-stricken. Laura, who had had the cards printed, had not stinted Mrs Bradley’s share of honours.

‘
Dame!
’ murmured the matron ecstatically. ‘Not only
Doctor
, but
Dame!
Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley – ’ She continued to peruse the card, mouthing the formidable degrees which followed the aristocratic announcement. Mrs Bradley turned at the gate and bowed. The matron returned the bow, looking slightly dazed; then she skipped down the steps to the gate. ‘You
will
come and see us again, won’t you, Dame Beatrice? Any time at
all!
We shall be
honoured
to meet you.’