When Last I Died

"I shall be out by twelve noon," said Mrs. Bradley. The old man pattered away, and the inspector wished her good-bye.

"You know," said Mrs. Bradley, detaining him out of earshot of the sergeant, "I think you ought to finish that business in the cellar, or you may be too late to find what we think may be there."

The inspector looked sharply at her.

"It wouldn't do not to find them if they're there, ma'am," he agreed.

"Leave the sergeant to keep an eye on me, so that you're sure there will be no monkey-business," Mrs. Bradley tactfully observed, "and get back as soon as you can with something to mop up that water and a few more men to dig."

The inspector was back in less than an hour. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bradley and the sergeant had tea just outside the summer-house and discussed old-fashioned flowers, women's fashions (of which the sergeant proved to have far-reaching and extraordinary knowledge), and the breeding of pedigree Airedales.

The inspector brought back with him a posse of six men, about a hundredweight of sacking, two more crowbars, a waterproof sheet, some spades, rubber gloves, a coil of rope, three dark lanterns, and a doctor.

He left two men on guard over Mrs. Bradley, who sat with her escorts in the drawing-room, and regaled them with stories of poltergeist activity both real and faked, asked the doctor to remain in the kitchen (upon whose table he proposed to lay the results of his researches in the cellar), and took the rest of his party and their accoutrements with him into the crypt.

They emerged an hour and a quarter later. The inspector himself summoned Mrs. Bradley. He had a triumphant and congratulatory expression, but swallowed from time to time, as though it would have done him good to be sick.

"We've found 'em all right, ma'am," he said. "As you're a doctor, and put us on the track, as you might say, perhaps you'd like to be with Dr. Ellis, who is going to give them the once-over, what there is of 'em. Seems to be two boys, according to him, though I couldn't stick it long enough, myself, to be sure of anything. Buried before death, he reckons."

The gruesome and pitiful task concluded, Mrs. Bradley again found the inspector at her elbow. Half apologetically he laid his hand upon her arm.

"And, although there's, maybe, another explanation, ma'am," he said, "it is my duty to warn you that anything you say will be taken down, and may be used in evidence."

Chapter Eight

THE WIDOW'S MITE

Ah! when will this long weary day have end, And lend me leave to come unto my love? How slowly do the hours their numbers spend; How slowly does sad Time his feathers move!

SPENSER.

MURIEL was hysterical in her denials. She knew nothing about poltergeist phenomena, she said, and nothing about the well in the courtyard. Her husband had earned an honest living, she declared; it was not his fault, poor man, that he had been duped and victimised by that wicked Cousin Bella.

Oh, yes, the photograph was a very clear one. She would have said it was Bella anywhere. No, she could think of no reason why Bella should pass herself as Tessa, unless it was because she had had such a bad scare over the trial for Tom's murder that she thought she ought to take advantage.

Take advantage of what, the police enquired. Why, of the fact of the death; the suicide, Muriel vaguely explained. They pressed the point, and this frightened her, as Mrs. Bradley could have told them it was bound to do. Muriel crawled back into her shell, and the utmost they could then achieve was an alarmed squeaking from her that she did not know a thing more, not a thing.

"The most valuable witness simply thrown away, Mother," said Ferdinand, after Mrs. Bradley's release and the inspector's apologies. "Couldn't you do something with the woman? They'll never prove their case without her. She must know all about it, really. She simply wants handling, and the witness-box won't be the best place to do it. She's full of venom against Bella Foxley, and these flat-footed idiots have gone and stamped it all out of her. She's out to save her own skin now; nothing more."

"I know," replied Mrs. Bradley.