The dancing druids mrs b.., p.24
The Dancing Druids (Mrs. Bradley), page 24
“Upon my soul! So the two things are connected! You’d better—Oh, no, I remember. Yes, of course. Oh, Lord! I hope young O’Hara’s all right. An intelligent boy. His great grandfather was the young Tim O’Hara who said to Queen Victoria—”
A long reminiscence followed to which Mrs. Bradley, accustomed to improbable stories about Queen Victoria, scarcely listened. At the end of the narrative, she said:
“I was going to tell you, just before the telephone rang, that I don’t think Michael O’Hara is in any more danger now than his cousin or Laura or myself or even Denis, and, possibly, George.”
“Why not? I thought you said—”
“Yes, but, you see, when we were pretending to begin some archaeological excavations at the circle of the Dancing Druids, a man came up to O’Hara and asked him why he had left the car on the night when he helped to carry the body.”
“He did? Point-blank, like that?”
“Apparently.”
“So all of you could swear to this man?”
“Yes, but it wouldn’t help very much with a jury, any more than—”
“No,” said Sir Crimmond, thoughtfully, “I can see that. There are no other material witnesses except the body, which isn’t proved to be Allwright’s. It would be young O’Hara’s story against this fellow’s denials.”
“He might not even deny it.”
“Eh?”
“O’Hara may be able to recognize Battle—I call him Battle because that is who it must be—but he could not possibly identify the body he helped to carry.”
“Oh!”
“It was wrapped and swathed in such a way that no features were distinguishable.”
“So?”
“So all that Battle, who is nothing if not a resourceful and desperate man, would need to do is to provide himself with an accident case—not difficult; the gang he and Cassius have had to employ is fairly large, and one or two of them that I myself have seen must be heavy men—and take you to hospital to see it. The ‘case’ will have been primed with a tale—”
“But a hospital would see through a malingerer in half a minute!”
“The man wouldn’t be a malingerer,” Mrs. Bradley pointed out in gentle tones. “He would be a genuinely wounded man. Battle and Cassius would certainly see to that. In fact, I should say that such a ‘case’ has existed since the day that Firman saw Gascoigne and O’Hara at that farm on the Sunday morning.”
“Then wouldn’t he give the game away through sheer annoyance at having been victimized? This fellow they crocked, I mean.”
“Not if he has been told that his life depends upon his compliance, do you think? And, of course, he’s been very well paid. The only thing is that he was not at a local hospital. Still, they will have thought of the time-factor. He will be in a hospital outside the county boundaries.”
“Then how are we going to get them?”
“I want you to arrest Battle’s wife and his son David.”
“I can’t do that!”
“It’s our only chance, and you must do it at once, and not bother about a warrant.”
“I won’t do it! Good Lord, what next? Gangster methods, nothing less! I’m surprised at you for suggesting such a way out!”
“Very well. It’s the only solution, so far as I can see at present.”
She was silent. The Chief Constable glanced at her once or twice, but her witch-like countenance was as calm as the face of a Chinese, and her brilliant eyes were closed, displaying long black lashes against cheeks the colour of old ivory. Her ungloved, claw-like hands were gently clasped in her lap, and the September sun glinted suddenly on the jewels in her rings, giving the Chief Constable a start, as though a dagger had been flashed before his eyes.
“Well, suppose I did do it?” he said presently.
“I think that the birds might fly,” said Mrs. Bradley, opening her eyes. “You can, I imagine, find some reason for arresting Battle and Cassius for trying to leave the country?”
“Ah,” said the Chief Constable, looking happier. “And you think the wife and son will give us all the evidence we want?”
“Yes, and you will obtain more from the death of Firman. There is nothing very secret about that. But—”
“Don’t you think that as a result of that—if they did it! We’ve no evidence, mind!—they will cut and run before we arrest the wife and son?”
“I don’t know whether they can.”
“We can have the ports watched, just in case—”
“They won’t leave from a port,” said Mrs. Bradley. “They will leave from their smugglers’ hole. They’ve got their own ship, remember! The one which they used to carry the pictures. But they will have to get in touch with her, and, if you act quickly, they won’t have very much time.”
“Which of them did kill Firman, do you suppose?”
“Cassius, I should say.”
“But Battle—if that’s who it is!—is surely the killer, from what you’ve told me.”
“Yes, but I expect he wanted to have Cassius as deeply implicated as he is himself. Besides, although we’ve no evidence that Cassius is a killer, there’s not much doubt that his son is a murderous little brute.”
“Yes, but—”
“I always think the Copper Beeches is one of the best of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and, in my own profession, you know, we learn a good deal about parents from a careful study of their children.”
“But I’m going to have a warrant, all the same,” said Sir Crimmond suddenly. “I had to call on Beauchamp, anyway.” He lay back in his seat, looking pleased. “What was that last ‘but’ of yours?” he asked suddenly.
“No,” said Laura decidedly. “I’m not going to be a decoy duck for anybody! If I sit for the bloke it’s to be because he wants to paint me, and not just to keep him busy while the police come along to arrest him. You can keep me out of it.”
“I only asked! I only asked!” said Sir Crimmond, annoyed. “What on earth a respectable young woman is thinking about to be painted like that by a fellow who is no better than a common criminal, I don’t know. If you were my daughter—!”
Laura put out her tongue at him, and went out, humming a tune.
“Confound this new-fangled morality,” growled the irate man. “Imagine a girl willing to be painted in the nude and yet not willing to assist the police in the execution of their duty by keeping the fellow busy until we can get along to arrest him!”
“Speeches on morality from a man who is willing to persuade a girl to act like a Judas, and yet himself won’t do a simple, illegal little thing like arresting a man without a warrant, gives me food for thought,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I am on Laura’s side.”
“Oh, you women always stick together!” said the Chief Constable pettishly.
“If we did, we should have ruled the world long ago,” Mrs. Bradley retorted. “Arrest the man, and don’t keep cackling about it. But, if I were you, I’d arrest the woman first. Send your police to Newcombe Soulbury, to Cottam’s and to the farm simultaneously. She’s sure to be at one of them, unless they’ve spirited her away.”
But Mrs. Battle—a name she confessed to as soon as she saw Inspector Fielding, who came (armed with a warrant), to arrest her, had not been spirited away.
“She says she doesn’t know a thing about Battle,” said the Chief Constable peevishly to Mrs. Bradley, later, “except that he belonged to a Fascist organization and had to ‘disappear’ as a precautionary measure. She affects to believe that it’s in connection with pro-Fascist activities that we want to arrest him now, but swears she knows nothing about that side of his life. She says he’s been a good husband, and that’s all she cares about. She also reminded Fielding that we can’t use her evidence against Battle. So that’s your precious idea gone west, as I knew it would! Now what do you suggest?”
“That you try your luck with David Battle,” said Mrs. Bradley, unperturbed by these slurs upon her theories. But David Battle’s reactions were not more helpful than those of his stepmother. He would answer any questions the police liked to ask, he would go to prison, he would be hanged if necessary, so long as he was allowed to paint Laura Menzies as Atalanta, Hippolyta, or, as he now thought likely, Artemis Orthia.
“Did he really say that?” Mrs. Bradley immediately enquired.
“What?”
“Artemis Orthia.”
“Yes, he did. The sergeant’s shorthand is impeccable. If he wrote Artemis Orthia, then that’s what the fellow said.”
“I’ll tell Laura,” said Mrs. Bradley. “You may find her less scrupulous this time.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“After some time, however, the old fox really died; and soon afterwards a wolf came to pay his respects.”
THE BROTHERS GRIMM (Mrs. Fox)
“Artemis Orthia?” said Laura. “But wasn’t she made out of a tree? Well, I take it as a mark of favour on David Battle’s part that he should give me a warning of my impending demise!”
“So, you see,” said Mrs. Bradley, “we want to know why the ice-cart came here that day.”
“Ice?” said the old man with the wheelbarrow. “Oh, ah. Ice. I remember.” He ruminated, pulling at a small clay pipe the colour of the soil. “Ice, says you. And proper, too. But it were them fillum folks ordered it. Wanted to make a picture of the North Pole explorers, or summat of that, so they tell me. Photography, like. The ice all throwed out in a pond they dug in the garden. Show ee? Ah, I’ll show ee. It were over there where they planted them bits of pine trees.”
“And who stayed here besides the film people and Mr. Concaverty?” Mrs. Bradley enquired. “Did you ever see anyone else?”
“Why, no, I dunno as I did.”
“No one else was a stranger to you except the film people?”
“Nobody else, without it might be some of the indoor servants. But such as them ’aven’t time for the likes of me.”
“So that’s that,” said the Chief Constable briefly. “Now, what? Or shall we go to the cave? Is that old man in the plot?”
“I was right to forbid Laura to go to David Battle’s studio,” said Mrs. Bradley, following her own train of thought. “Behold the fifth dead tree.”
She went back to the old man. He had finished his pipe and was contemplating it before knocking it out against the ancient brick wall of the culvert.
“What killed the trees?” she enquired.
“Ah!” said the old man, making up his mind, and knocking the pipe out carefully. “Got a hairpin, I wonder?”
Mrs. Bradley produced one from among her shining locks and handed it over.
“You know who killed them, I suppose?” she asked carelessly.
“Me? Oh, I knows. None better. It were that there expert they brought down. ‘Got to ’ave ’em dead,’ says Mr. Concaverty to me. ‘Wanted for the fillum,’ he says. ‘Can you kill ’em?’ he says. ‘I can kill moles and that old water-rat, and chickens and pigs, and an old turkey gobbler or two. That’s me,’ I says. ‘But trees! Nobody don’t kill trees,’ I says, ‘without they’re daft,’ I says. ‘Now if ’twere only that there old water-rat,’ I says …”
“Yes, but what did this expert look like? And how did he kill them?” enquired the Chief Constable brusquely. The old man looked at him with rheumy, intelligent, blue eyes.
“He were biggish,” he said. “Ay, he were biggish. And he killed ’em with turps and resin, and with burnin’ at the roots, and with brimstone from hell, and with curses. Ay, how he cursed them there trees!”
“So you’ve come!” said David Battle.
“Yes,” Laura agreed. “But only to arrange terms.”
“Terms?”
“Sure. If I’m to sit to you for some kind of anonymous classical work, I must receive pay.”
“Pay?”
“Don’t keep up this Echo on Parnassus stuff. What sort of mutt do you think I am? I have to earn my living, don’t forget.”
“Yes, but …”
“But me no buts. What are the odds?”
“Odds?”
“Oh, Lord!”
“Now, look here,” said Battle, putting down the charcoal he had picked up and coming over to her, “nothing was said about fees.”
“I know. I’ve come to say something about them now. Your rake-off from those faked pictures must have been fairly considerable. Where do I come in?”
“You little … !” said Battle, looking dangerous.
Laura, who topped him by two and a half inches, and weighed considerably more than he did, resented the adjective considerably more than the noun.
“Little nothing,” she observed coldly. “And while we’re on the subject of emoluments, just what did they pay you for blotting out that wretched Firman?”
Battle went white, and Laura, accustomed to teasing her brothers, instinctively ducked. But he made no move to attack her. He turned away and said pettishly:
“Don’t be a lout. You know perfectly well I don’t kill people.”
“Still got to break your duck?” said Laura pleasantly. “Well, that’s all right with me. If it comes to a toss up between us, I bet I’m as good as you are. Now, reverting to the main topic of conversation …”
“Will five bob an hour do? I can’t afford more than that.”
“Make it seven and six, and it’s a do.”
“But … all right, then. There’s a screen over there. Get ready behind it, and then—”
“Yes, I know,” said Laura. She had to pass the screen to reach the door, and gave it a hearty shove as she went by. Apart from the fact that, as she had supposed, there was someone concealed behind it, she learned nothing from this manoeuvre, and did not stay to repair her knowledge. She tore down the stairs and went straight, to Cuchester police station. By the time the police got to the house, however, both David and the other bird had flown.
“So now for the cave,” said O’Hara. “You know, Laura, you ought to be throttled for going to Battle and risking your silly young life.”
“So I shall be, when my young man comes here, and he’s due back any day now,” said Laura with great contentment. “Mrs. Croc, created a bit—unusual with her—but I still say it was worth it. I intended to bust David Battle’s bona fides, and I did.”
“His what?” asked Gascoigne loftily. He also was very angry with Laura for placing herself in danger, a position reserved by rights for gods and men, and, apart from this lordly sally, had ignored her since their reunion.
“Suspenders to you,” said Laura vulgarly.
“Laura,” said Mrs. Bradley, later, “cannot forgive David Battle for having the same Christian name as her fiancé. It endeared him to her at first, and the reaction is all the more severe.”
Unaware of this acute reading of her subconscious mind, Laura sent an affectionate telegram to her beloved, and prepared herself for the cave.
The company, apart from policemen, was to consist of all the protagonists in the drama except for Denis, who had been requested to turn out for his Rugby football club against Richmond. This call of the wild could scarcely be ignored, so, regretfully, he had been obliged to leave his favourite aunt to her own devices for a while and shoulder the responsibilities of manhood.
The others, as Laura gleefully expressed it, were all in the swim, and the party went by car to Slepe Rock under the cover of the darkness and the protection of the police.
“We shall depend upon you to identify these men, sir,” said Inspector Fielding to O’Hara.
“I’ll do that,” the kingly youth responded. “The thing is, what are you going to charge ’em with? Those remains in the iron box haven’t been identified yet, and I don’t think my identification of the fellow who kidnapped poor Firman would be accepted.”
“Well, sir,” said the Inspector, “we are hoping to charge them with the murder of a Mr. and Mrs. Nankison, whose bodies have been identified.”
“Never heard of ’em.”
“Not by name, sir, perhaps. Since we got to know of the goings-on in this cave, we’ve been doing a bit of investigating, and the conclusion we’ve come to is that drowned persons—you may recollect hearing that the first owners of Slepe Cottage, as it was then called, were lost in a yachting accident—might possibly get washed up in a cave or almost anywhere, but what doesn’t happen to them, strange to say, is that they get themselves nicely buried there, with a couple of limestone boulders to keep them down.”
“Good heavens!” said O’Hara. “Not really? I mean, you haven’t really found that drowned couple who inherited the house from Bulstrode?”
“And Mr. Bulstrode himself, sir, what is more,” said the Inspector with great satisfaction. “Also a head and a pair of hands, which we should like to have identified.”
“Did Mrs. Bradley put you on to it?”
“Yes, she did, sir. And a nod was as good as a wink. The police, in their way, sir, are not entirely without imagination.”
O’Hara and Gascoigne, not unused to the interior of Bow Street after Boat-Race night, did not believe this last statement. Gascoigne chuckled, O’Hara was silent, and soon the police car, followed by that of Mrs. Bradley, crept down the long hill towards the sea, and drew up half a mile from the bay.
“Now, then,” said the inspector, “everybody quiet, please. And no torches unless you see me use mine. You’ll have to manage in the dark, the same as cats.”
“And bats and owls,” muttered Laura. But, like the others, she followed the route in silence and in the darkness. The little party—there were a sergeant and two constables with the inspector—soon climbed the grassy slope to the top of the cliffs above the bay, and there, at a curt command, they lay and waited.
Time passed, and three of the hunters had begun to think that the quarry was not going to show up when a searchlight, playing over the bay from a point to the east of the watchers, picked out a fair-sized yacht and a couple of boats which seemed to be making towards her.
“O.K. for vision,” muttered Inspector Fielding contentedly, and took his policemen away with him. The boats, in the searchlight’s beam, became a couple of frenzied insects, their oars sprouting like legs.
“Why can’t we go with them?” demanded Laura, referring to the police, and feeling disappointed and affronted by the rather mean tactics of the regulars.
