Death and the Maiden (38 page)

‘Ah, the soap and the nailbrush,' said Gavin. ‘But—'

‘Mr Tidson was so much annoyed by that particular incident,' went on Mrs Bradley, ‘that he even struck his wife, providing her with an injury equal to, and similar to, his own. I don't wonder she does not like you very much,' she continued, turning to the unfortunate Mr Tidson.

‘I've spent all my money on her,' he said, with a frightened look. Mrs Bradley nodded.

‘So much so,' she said, ‘that you've been suspected of having designs on the life of young Arthur Preece-Harvard so that you could inherit his estate.'

Mr Tidson's expression of fright and concern deepened. ‘But I don't even know what the boy looks like!' he protested. ‘I should not recognize him if I saw him!'

‘Mrs Tidson knows him,' said Gavin drily.

‘Whether Mr Tidson knows him or not, or has designs on him or not, does not affect our enquiry,' said Mrs Bradley.

‘Tidson has no alibi, then, for the death of Bobby Grier, but that doesn't necessarily connect him with the death of young Biggin,' said Gavin, frowning. ‘Well, that brings us back to Connie Carmody.'

‘Whose motive, as she has informed me several times, was to get me hanged,' said Mr Tidson, plucking up heart and looking a great deal more cheerful.

‘And not such a bad idea at that,' said Gavin unkindly. ‘However, we're interrupting Mrs Bradley.'

‘Connie was the tenant of that flat on the Great West Road,' said Mrs Bradley. ‘I knew that she must be. For one thing, we were told that the tenant was a woman. Besides, I knew that Connie would never have risked going there if she had thought there was the slightest chance of running into Mr Tidson.'

‘But what about the rent?' asked Gavin.

‘Ask Miss Carmody. Connie had a hundred a year of her own from the late Mr Preece-Harvard's private fortune, and her aunt, you will discover, supplemented that. Connie's rather ungracious remarks about charity told me the truth. She did not regard her hundred a year as charity, and there was no earthly reason why she should. Where you went wrong, you know, Mr Tidson,' she added, turning towards the little man, ‘was in letting her know that Mr Preece-Harvard was her father. That was very unkind, I thought. Naturally prone to brood and to feel ill-used, those tidings had the worst effect upon Connie. They also brought to her notice the full implication of what it would mean to you if Arthur Preece-Harvard should die. She began to see you as a double enemy – for you are right in supposing that Connie intended you mischief. She saw you first as an interloper, a nuisance and an expense to her aunt. It also became obvious to her that the flat on the Great West Road (which she had so very recently rented) would have to be given up, and, with it, every thought of her independence, if you persisted in living on Miss Carmody's money.'

‘I thought Connie did not show Prissie sufficient gratitude, and that was why I told her about her father,' protested Mr Tidson.

‘Well, be that as it may, Connie disliked you very much. Her first act of revenge and antagonism was designed to make you look foolish. She wrote the letter to the paper about the naiad. She selected a neighbourhood of which she had some knowledge (she had accompanied her aunt to Winchester during the season of air raids) and it soon became a matter of interesting conjecture whether a stranger
(yourself, say) or only someone well acquainted with the neighbourhood, could have staged the two murders so successfully.'

‘Now I know it was Connie Carmody,' said Gavin, with an innocent look, ‘I can't see why I ever thought it was you, Tidson. Her character, her temperament, that one brick we found with the blood and the fingerprints on it—'

‘Yes, she was clever in a way about that,' said Mr Tidson. ‘In fact, she was very clever indeed to risk leaving it with
my
dog's blood and
her
prints. I suppose she had washed off the original human blood in the river.'

‘That is certainly an idea,' said Mrs Bradley. ‘And when one comes to think, she was very slow to enter that grove of trees the day she and I took a walk to the top of Saint Catherine's Hill.'

‘You remember that I mentioned repressed spinsters,' said Mr Tidson.

‘I do remember. You meant me to think you were referring to Miss Carmody, but, as I realize now, you were really giving me a pointer to Connie,' Mrs Bradley agreed. Mr Tidson began to preen himself a little.

‘Well, I knew
I
hadn't killed anyone,' he said. ‘And if it
had
to be one of our party, naturally I fastened on Connie. She was out that night alone—'

‘Oh, yes! She left her aunt at the west front of the Cathedral and went off by herself, did she not? Of course,' Mrs Bradley added, eyeing Mr Tidson with that expression of kindly curiosity to which she had subjected him before, ‘she is so much stronger than you are that I
did
wonder whether you would have been able to transport Biggin's body from the top of the hill to the weir.'

‘Oh, I am not so puny!' said Mr Tidson shortly. ‘Besides, I could have rolled it down the slope.'

‘When did you come across it, by the way?' asked Mrs Bradley?'

‘Why, when I was searching for my dog,' replied Mr Tidson. ‘I found it in the bushes with the dead animal, and I thought our friend the inspector ought to know what had happened. I therefore pushed it out where I knew it would
immediately be seen. I suppose I ought to have reported it, but I thought – well, no doubt even the inspector, prejudiced as he is against me, can understand the feelings of an uncle.'

‘Even a wicked uncle, eh?' said Gavin, scowling at the toes of his boots. Mr Tidson sniggered.

‘I do like a good loser, Inspector,' he remarked.

‘Yes, indeed,' said Mrs Bradley. ‘But, since the dog is going to figure largely in the enquiry, it would be interesting to know how you recognized it as your dog. It was in a sorry state when Laura Menzies found it.'

‘The dog? Oh, I recognized it by the collar, of course,' said Mr Tidson eagerly. ‘That was how I came to connect poor Connie with the second murder. I never thought there was any doubt about the first one.'

‘Got an answer to everything, haven't you?' said Gavin, still with his eyes on his boots. Mr Tidson giggled happily.

‘And where is this collar now?' Mrs Bradley enquired.

‘Ask the inspector,' Mr Tidson replied. ‘I have no doubt he has it in safe keeping.'

‘You, too, I hope,' said Gavin, touching the bell on his desk. ‘Ah, come in, Sergeant. Edris Tidson, I arrest you for the wilful murders of Robert Grier and John Biggin, and it is my duty to warn you that anything you say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence.'

‘But why, why,
why?
' screamed Mr Tidson. ‘I tell you – I tell you—!'

‘There, there, sir. Best take it easy,' said the sergeant.

‘I want to know
why!
' yelled Mr Tidson.

‘In a word, you gave yourself away over the dog-collar,' said Gavin. ‘In fact, you've given yourself away over the dog altogether. Mrs Bradley and I have been playing ball, and you've dropped neatly into a trap. – Got his statements down, Sergeant? – You couldn't have seen the body when you were looking for your dog. It had been discovered before you even bought your dog. That's one thing. Then, that sandal you brought to the hotel. Your having retained possession of it was inadvertent; your disposal of it was masterly; but you forgot that if you had really picked
it up in all innocence it would have had your fingerprints on it, didn't you? Even
you
do not keep your gloves on when you go fishing!'

‘But my fingerprints
are
on it! Of course they're on it!' shrieked Mr Tidson, struggling ineffectually with the sergeant.

‘It was Connie who faked all the evidence, of course,' said Mrs Bradley, ‘just as it was Connie who wrote the truth to Crete Tidson from Lewes.'

‘But it was Tidson who attempted to murder Crete when she taxed him with his crimes! We found the forked branch, you remember, with which he had held her down,' said Gavin, nodding.

‘That is what we were meant to find. She got nurses to guard her night and day until she felt fully recovered. I agree about that,' said Mrs Bradley. Laura noted and digested this reply.

‘But why didn't we see him?' she asked. ‘We looked, you know, didn't we, David?'

‘The reeds made sufficient cover for a fisherman, I expect,' said Gavin. ‘I know they would for me, and it would not have taken him more than a minute to wriggle away from us there.'

‘And did he really kill little Grier because the kid had seen someone push him into the river?' demanded Laura.

‘It scarcely seems credible, does it?' said Mrs Bradley. ‘But injured vanity is an imponderable factor, and Mr Tidson's vanity had been very sadly injured.'

‘Do you think he would ever have harmed Arthur Preece-Harvard?'

‘Well, if he had, I'm afraid he would have been suspect at once, unless he could have made it look as though Connie had done it out of jealousy or revenge.'

‘Well, I wouldn't put anything past him. One thing puzzles me more than the murders, though, really. Did he truly believe in his nymph?' demanded Gavin.

‘Yes, I'd like to know that,' said Laura.

‘Who can say? Your thought on that matter is just as good as mine. Look around you. What do you see?' said Mrs Bradley.

Laura obeyed the command, but did not answer the question. Instead she said to Gavin:

‘When did
you
know he had done it?'

‘As soon as I heard about the first panama hat. I did not see how Potter could have invented that hat which he declared he had seen beneath the boy's body. It is not a usual type of hat in these days, and is, I should say, completely unknown in the district in which Potter lives. I didn't think there was the slightest reason why he should have mentioned it unless he had actually seen it. And as, therefore, I concluded that that part of his story was true, and as Mr Tidson's activities on the night in question were somewhat odd, a field of what Mrs Bradley calls speculation was opened.'

‘Wasn't it the sandal which really dished him, then?'

‘Not in my opinion. The defence, I think you will find, will challenge us to prove that the two sandals make a pair. They are both so very badly worn that I think such proof would be almost out of the question.'

‘Besides,' said Mrs Bradley, ‘Mr Tidson's behaviour with the one which he brought to the hotel was not that of a guilty person, and, if he sticks to his story of having found it alongside the river, I doubt whether we can successfully contradict him. Besides, I think you forget—'

‘You don't think he stands a chance of getting off, do you?' asked Laura, struck suddenly by this unwelcome thought. Gavin shrugged.

‘Stranger things have happened,' he replied. ‘It is almost impossible to tell what kind of evidence will convince the general public, and in a case of child murder it will make a difference if there are women on the jury. Well, I must go back now. Some of us work.' He grinned. Laura nodded, a little coolly, and, looking at Mrs Bradley, said:

‘I suppose Connie's evidence would dish herself as well as Mr Tidson if she could be got to speak? I mean, she helped to transport the body, didn't you say?'

‘No, I didn't say so, and I don't think she did. I don't think Biggin was killed on Saint Catherine's Hill at all. I think the murder took place very close to where he was found. None but a madman would have dreamed of transporting the body that distance and over such difficult ground.'

‘How did Connie get hold of Mr Tidson's gloves to be able to plant them in that hole on the hill? And the second sandal – where did that come from?'

‘I leave all that to you,' said Mrs Bradley. ‘I can only say that they appeared in the hole
after
the police and I had both scrutinized its contents. Does that suggest anything to you?'

‘Only that Connie went to some pains to make certain that the sins of her Uncle Edris should find him out.'

‘True. Go on from there.'

‘I can't.'

‘You will. But Mr Tidson did
not
try to murder Crete. He has a perfect alibi, unless Mrs Preece-Harvard is lying.'

‘And is she?'

‘No, I don't think so, child. The forked stick was Connie again.'

Chapter Twenty-Two