Cold, Lone and Still (Mrs. Bradley) by Mitchell Gladys

Author:Mitchell, Gladys [Mitchell, Gladys]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2014-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

10

The Disperser of Dreams

Once the magistrates had refused, on the evidence (if one can call it that) given at the hearing, to commit Bull for trial, the heat, of course, was on the rest of us again.

So far as Bingley was concerned, I think that, for a time at least, Bull remained the chief suspect, but I am sure I came next on the list. It still seems to me illogical that this should be so. All I had done, so far as he was aware, was that I had found the body and reported the fact. It was not as though he knew anything about what had happened at Crianlarich or the strange business of the body in the ruins on Rannoch Moor.

Todd was also being pestered. Hera rang me up when I got back from the office one evening to tell me that Todd had turned up at her flat and wanted to have a talk with me.

“Then why didn’t he come here instead of going to your place?” I asked.

“He didn’t know when you got home from work.”

“A likely excuse! All right, I’ll come round, but I can’t stay long. I’ve brought a manuscript home with me and Sandy wants my opinion on it as soon as I’ve read it. Be seeing you in about a quarter of an hour and you take jolly good care that Todd leaves when I do. I don’t trust that picker-up of unconsidered trifles.”

“So that’s what you think I am!”

“Forget it.”

Todd was tall, debonair, and handsome—all the things, in fact, that I am not. He was also beautifully attired and his manners were impeccable.

“How are you?” he said. “Bearing up all right?”

“I might be, if that perishing policeman would get off my neck.”

“Ah, you, too,” he said, standing up as Hera came into the room with the drinks. He took the tray from her, set it down, and added, “Poor old Bull is being needled, too. Too bad, after the beaks dismissed him without a stain on his character.”

“I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” I said. “He was guilty of dereliction of duty. He ought to have replaced that bulb as soon as he knew it had gone. When did he know it had gone, I wonder?”

“I’ve been talking to him. The policeman has rather dwelt on the point, of course, and Bull told me what he told him and he swears it’s the truth. He did not discover it had gone until about two in the afternoon, when he needed to visit the what-have-you. He pressed the switch and no light came on, so he uttered a bold word, cursing whatever student had pinched the bulb for one of the study-bedrooms, and went up the stairs to a loo on the second floor. After that, he says, he was kept on the trot by the people who were giving the party and, although he fully intended to replace the bulb, it meant fetching a ladder—as he is too short

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