Crooked Wreath (16 page)

“I dare say,” said Mrs. Brough.

“Sir Richard called you in–
didn't
he? And you witnessed the new will before you went up to the house; you and Brough witnessed it. Brough told me about his supper that evening; he said that you had told him you ‘would get him an onion and some cheese to his bread: and that you hadn't time to make him tea–he'd better have a glass of beer.' The reason your meal wasn't ready, Mrs. Brough, was that he had taken you over to the lodge to witness the will. Wasn't it?”

“He told me to say nothing,” said Mrs. Brough, glancing down at the covered body on the couch, “but I suppose I'd better, now. Yes, the old man called us in and he showed us a couple of great long sheets of paper and he says: ‘I want you to watch me sign,' he says, ‘and then put your names here.' ‘I'm signing nothing I don't understand,' said Brough; he was always a fly one, was Brough. ‘I'm changing my will,' says Sir Richard, impatient. ‘That's all it is, it's nothing to do with you. I'm leaving all to her ladyship,' he says, ‘and after her to Mister Edward. I'm leaving all away from my grandchildren,' he says, and he starts in leading off something dreadful about them and their wicked ways, ungrateful and immoral and such. ‘Oh, get on with it,' I thought, ‘I got to get up to me work at the 'ouse,' and at last he's finished his rigmarole and signs his name and I signs mine, and Brough signs his as I've taught him to do, me being the one that had the schooling, for all he talked so grand: and then I went over to the lodge to get his supper. After about ten minutes or so he came in and a little after eight I went on up to the house. The old woman gets the dinner, but I helps with the clearing away and washing up.”

“Did Brough say anything to you about the will when he came over for his supper?”

“He said it was a shame to do the doctor out of his birthright. He was fond of Doctor Philip, along of what he done for our Rosy once. He thought the doctor ought to be master here, not a pack o' women, and he said he would've been, only for that Mr. Garde interfering. When Mr. Philip first came home, Sir Richard would've changed his will then, but Mr. Garde went round asking a lot of questions and in the end he persuaded the old man to leave the whole lot to Miss Peta; meaning to marry her himself some day, I suppose, these lawyers are that sly!”

“When did Brough tell you that Sir Richard was dead?”

“He told me next morning,” said Mrs. Brough. “He came up from 'is fire watching–so called; sitting up drinking with his pals at the Swan, more like–and told me he'd heard it straight from Mrs. Hoggin, her whose daughter runs the telephone exchange. I'd been out at the back of our lodge, and I hadn't heard the commotion over the way. ‘They've found the old man dead,' he says. ‘And seemingly they can't find the will,' he says. ‘Florrie Hoggin heard Mr. Garde ringing up for Inspector Cockrill. He said there was some poison missing and that they couldn't find the will. This is our chance to do something with–something for the doctor,' he said; meaning that now the doctor would keep his own,” elaborated Mrs. Brough; but she was walking warily among her words.

Cockrill considered for a long time, scattering the spotless linoleum with a layer of cigarette ash. “I see. And he didn't–didn't tell you before he went up to the house that evening that Sir Richard was dead?”

“How could he? The old man was alive and kicking ten minutes before.”

“He's dead now,” said Cockrill, “so perhaps we could have a little more respect in speaking of him. Now, Mrs. Brough–is there any reason why, between the time you left the lodge and went up to the house, and the time Brough went off to his fire watch in the village, he shouldn't have slipped into the drawing-room at the big house while the family were safely at dinner; taken the coramine and gone back and given it to Sir Richard, or placed it in the glass on the desk beside him; and then have left the lodge, covering up his footsteps with the sand as he went? Can you see any objection to that theory?”

“No,” said Mrs. Brough. “I don't think there's any reason why he couldn't have done that; no reason at all.” She added calmly: “And no reason why I shouldn't have been in on it with him.”

Cockrill lifted an eyebrow. “Well, I don't know what you're trying to provoke me into, Mrs. Brough, but, of course, we both know that that would have been impossible. Mrs. Ellen March left Sir Richard at a quarter to eight, and you were up at the house a few minutes after eight. There wouldn't have been time for you to be called in, witness the will, obtain the poison and murder Sir Richard, let alone discussing the whole thing and working it out. As to whether you knew about it, that's different; but Brough had gone off to his fire watching before you left the house. The Turt–er, Mrs. Featherstone, testifies that you and she were in the kitchen at the back of the house all that time.”

“
So
we were!” said Mrs. Brough, rather sneeringly, as though she were humouring an obstreperous child.

Cockrill ignored the sneer. “He could have managed it all sometime between eight o'clock and twenty to nine, and hidden or destroyed the will, and concealed the strychnine and the hypodermic–in case of accidents. He didn't think there'd be any accidents, but there was one–Mrs. March was accused of the murder that he had committed. He had thrown the blame onto just the person he had done it for. He couldn't save her without confessing to the murder, so he killed himself.”

Mrs. Brough ejected a sort of horrible, snorting laugh; she still held the dead hand in hers and she gave it a rough little jerk, looking down at the covered body with a curling lip. “Well, well, Brough,” she said, sneeringly again. “Fancy you!”

Bella, entering the narrow doorway, stood appalled; but she came forward immediately and, ignoring Cockrill, went up with a little gesture of pity and kindliness to Mrs. Brough. “I came down to tell you … We're all so sorry, Mrs. Brough. It's dreadful for you; if there's anything in the world any of us can do–though I don't know what there could be …”

“Thank you, m'lady,” said Mrs. Brough stonily. She lifted the cover of the couch and pushed the cold hand under it. “Such sights are not for the like of you,” she said.

For answer, Bella went up deliberately to the sofa and pulled back the rug and looked down pitifully on Brough's terrible dead face. The grey hair had become disarranged by the covering and she put out her hand and gently brushed it back. “Poor Brough,” she said, and covered him up again. Cockrill, watching her from the hearthrug, could scarce forebear from giving a little cheer.

“It's very good of your ladyship, I'm sure,” said Mrs. Brough, coldly.

Bella took her unresponsive hand. “Oh, Mrs. Brough, I do feel for you; I do understand. After all, I've just lost my husband, too; and though perhaps it isn't as bad as this–well, it
is
dreadful, you know, to have to bear the loss and to know as well that the person you loved has been–murdered.”

“If you care so much–it's funny you don't seem to hold it against Brough and me,” said Mrs. Brough, but without humility.

“Well, this isn't quite the time or the place to hold it against you or him; I try to remember that whatever he did, however terrible it has been for me, and for all of us–at least when he found someone else was to be punished for it he–he prevented that.”

Mrs. Brough laughed again.

Bella had driven herself to come, meaning only to be kind. She said now, growing indignant: “Considering everything, Mrs. Brough, I think you are–well, not very kind. All I have done is to tell you that I and my family are sorry that so much of this tragedy has fallen on you, the innocent one …”

“Innocent's right,” said Mrs. Brough. “And well you know it.”

It was more than a gibe; it was an accusation. “What do you mean?” said Cockrill quickly, coming forward, tossing his cigarette butt in among the pleated crepe fans in the fireplace.

“I mean that she's right when she says I'm innocent; and she knows it well enough; and she knows he's innocent, too …” She jerked her head in the direction of the sofa. “Her and her sympathy! Do you think I don't know that you're all rejoicing up at the house because your precious Mrs. March can come out of prison now? Much you care, the whole pack of you, as long as you can go free, that he lies dead, to pay for your sins for you. Let the servants suffer! Don't dream of punishing the rich or suspecting the rich, or saying a word that might hurt the precious feelings of the rich–not if you can find a servant to suffer in their place! You know as well as I do that he never killed Sir Richard! Brough! Brough kill a man to prevent an injustice!
Him
get himself into trouble to help somebody else! I can just see him! And then kill hisself to prevent another injustice …” She laughed again, the same short, ugly, mirthless laugh. “He kept back the business of the will and that's all he did …
He
never killed the old man; not he!”

“But then … But, Mrs. Brough, then who killed
him?
And why? Why should anyone kill poor old Brough?”

“Because poor old Brough could use his wits, my lady! Oh, yes, he saw you sitting there all right, sitting on the window sill with your back to the garden, talking to Sir Richard while he ate his dinner, while Miss Peta was in the kitchen. Brough was outside the lodge, rolling the paths. ‘They asked me if she moved,' he said. ‘Well, she didn't move, and I told them so. It wasn't for me to put ideas into their heads–what do I care who killed the old beggar!' says Brough. ‘But didn't I see Doctor Philip squirt out the water from that there syringe, the afternoon before? Squirted it out across the terrace, and it went in a big curve a couple of yards across and landed up in in a little pool right near where I was standing. And haven't I seen her, time after time,' he says, ‘chucking lumps of sugar and bits of biscuit to that dog of hers? Is it the dog that's clever, sitting still with its mouth open? No, it isn't, of course. It's her. If she didn't aim straight–but she does; she's got a damn good eye, that's all,' he says. ‘Sir Richard looks round for a minute, perhaps to call to Miss Peta in the kitchen,' says Brough, ‘and her ladyship presses the plunger of that there syringe and the poison stuff squirts in a curve across the desk and lands on his plate of food!' That's what Brough knew, my lady, my fine lady!–and that's what you knew he'd tell if you let Doctor Philip's wife be accused of your dirty work. So you killed him, too. You and your ‘innocent!'” She bent over with a swift movement and stripped the cover right off Brough's misshapen corpse. “There–look at him!
Look
at him! Look how he suffered, look at his poor face and his eyes sticking out of his head, look at his mouth and his hands …” And suddenly she threw herself down on her knees beside the couch and burst into hysterical tears.

Bella stood, stricken, staring down at her. “You don't really think …? You can't believe … Inspector!” she cried, turning round upon Cockrill, holding out her hand to him, “
you
don't believe this,
you
don't think it's true, you don't, you
can't
…”

“No,” said Cockrill. “Nobody killed Brough but himself. He was lying in the sitting-room near the door leading into the hall; everything was locked and sealed from the inside and there was no possible way of getting there except across the hall. It's the old story of the sand again; the dust in the hall has not been crossed by anybody but Brough. Nobody could have followed him and killed him–they couldn't have got in and they couldn't have got away. He killed himself and he wrote a confession in the dust of the hall to say why he had done so. Nobody else could have written those words. Brough wrote them himself.”

Mrs. Brough knelt by her husband's body, with uplifted head, staying her tears to listen. When he had done, she got to her feet again, brushing away her tears with her big, bony knuckles, straightening her ugly black dress, pushing back her disordered hair; and facing them, upright and calm, she returned to her former hostility, cold and sneering, and blackly menacing.

“He wrote it himself,” said Cockrill steadily, unwaveringly meeting her eyes.

“But he couldn't write!” said Mrs. Brough, and broke once more into her dreadful laughter.

The funeral was a terrible experience to them all. It seemed so incredible to be walking there behind Sir Richard's great, handsome coffin, in a tiny group of which, almost certainly now, one was a murderer; to be walking there slowly and solemnly, black-clad on this sunny day, beneath the avid stares of large crowds of unknown people sprung suddenly from nowhere to see a murdered man laid at last to rest; to be looked at askance by a huddle of relatives and “friends of the family,” anxious, curious, angry at all this publicity, and afraid; to be importuned by, and photographed by the press, impudent young men and brazen young women–and yet, young men and women who only had their job to do; to be crowded and jostled and pushed past, to have the lovely flowers all broken and bruised, the sheaves torn apart by the ugly hands of souvenir hunters, the cards made dirty by numberless fingers, turning them over to read the brief sad messages of sorrow and farewell … They stood at the graveside, eyeing each other tearfully, grimly, distrustfully, trying to believe that one among them was wicked and cruel, a murderer for greed–trying to believe that after all it must have been Edward who was mad, poor child, and not responsible for what he did; trying to think only of the dear departed and not all the time so selfishly of the effects of his death upon themselves. But now there was Brough. Brough had been killed, too. Murder and all its terrors were among them, and God knew where it was all going to end and when. You could not be truly sorry for an old man who was dead; you could only think of him resting and at peace from all this.