When Last I Died

"Well, I don't see how you can tell Bella anything," said Miss Foxley in a practical tone. "Bella—if it means my sister Bella—has been dead for years. Still, I don't discredit what you say. The house belonged to Bella once, you know. I inherited it, along with the rest of her stuff." She paused, and then said briskly, "And now, what the hell are you getting at?"

"I want to know whether you will sell me that house," said Mrs. Bradley.

"Oh?—I see." For some reason she seemed taken aback by this simple statement, and repeated it aloud. "You want to know whether I'll sell you that house."

Mrs. Bradley waited. Miss Foxley, slatternly in a blouse which refused to remain tidy at the waist, and a skirt which revealed that one of her stockings was laddered, brooded, her black brows drawn together, her large and very well-kept hands irritably pushing back her hank of greasy hair. Suddenly her brow cleared.

"How much are you offering?" she demanded.

"I hadn't thought of a price."

"You can have it for—— Look here, why don't you rent it? Then you could give it up when you were tired of experimenting with it."

"So I could," said Mrs. Bradley. "But I don't want to experiment with it. I want to pull it down."

"Pull it down?"

"Yes. I think it is a dangerous house. It is too much like Borley Rectory."

"Never heard of the place. Oh, yes, I have, too. Isn't that the place Cousin Tom used to blether about?"

"There's a book on it," said Mrs. Bradley vaguely. "I believe your sister had read it."

"Poor old Bella! What a rotten life, and what a rotten end! I was fond of her, in a way, you know. Surprised at the felo de se and all that."

"Ah, yes. You identified the body, I believe."

"Sure I identified the body. Nobody else to do it."

"Did you have to go all the way from here?"

"No. On the spot."

"Staying with her?"

"Staying with her? Living with her. She'd got the creeps, and asked me to come for good. Good thing for me I'd got a fool-proof alibi, or I might have found myself in the jug, you know. Looks bad to inherit a couple of thousand through the sudden death of a sister. Don't you think so?"

Mrs. Bradley demurred politely, but Miss Foxley was not to be put off.

"I'll say it does," she continued, with truculent emphasis. "Anyway, the vicar swore to me, so that was all right. At a Mothers' Meeting I was, addressing them on Manners and Morals, or some such tripe. Poor old Bella! She was a deep one, she was. I'd never have put it past her to have choked Aunt Flora for the money. She swore she didn't, but ... I wouldn't have a bet on it with the Recording Angel."

"Then what about Cousin Tom?" asked Mrs. Bradley.

"Tom? Oh, Tom was a goop," replied Miss Foxley roundly. "And as for that ... but there! I never knew her, except by hearsay from Bella."

'Never knew whom?" asked Mrs. Bradley.

"That redundant little wife of his—Muriel."

"Oh, I see. But the inquest went off satisfactorily, didn't it?"

"Did it? Would you say that? After all, they nabbed old Bella for slugging him, didn't they? Not that I think she did that. Aunt Flora, yes. Cousin Tom, no. No point in it, for one thing. I reckon Muriel did it."

"I meant the inquest on your sister."

"Oh, that? Yes, that went off all right. There was plenty of motive for suicide knocking about. Only wanted putting together and re-shuffling. Anonymous letters, general feeling of depression, dark hints to one or two of the villagers she might not live long, the disclosure that she had stood her trial for murder and had expressed remorse (that was my contribution, made privately). Didn't want the reporters nosing around, so that bit never came out at the inquest. Unnecessary, really."

"Were the anonymous letters genuine, do you think?" Mrs. Bradley enquired.

"Well, she certainly got 'em. I saw one or two. Pretty stinking. Oh, well!—Oh, and going^* back to the ghosts, didn't you get any wall-writing?"

"Oh, I had overlooked that. Yes," replied Mrs. Bradley. "The word Beads, or something similar. I wasn't interested. It's so easy to get into a house and scribble on the walls. I had it cleaned off."

"I thought you psychists sealed the place up when you were in it? Haven't I read that somewhere? How did anyone come to get in?"

"We did seal up the obvious means of ingress," said Mrs. Bradley carelessly.

"Well, either you slipped up somewhere, or the writing was genuine," said Miss Foxley. "Well, see here. I'll let you know about the house. I'll have to write to my lawyer. Can't keep you any longer now. Got to go out and pull some vegetables and stuff for my dinner. Living the simple life here."

She showed Mrs. Bradley to the door in an uncompromising manner, nodded with grim amiability at parting, and even came on to the road to see her go. A few minutes later, still at her front door, she watched with narrowed eyes as the car drove eastwards.

"Did you get the snapshot, George?" asked Mrs. Bradley.

"Two beauties, madam, I hope. I caught her fairly each time, one full-face and one profile."