[Mrs Bradley 41] - Three Quick and Five Dead by Gladys Mitchell

Author:Gladys Mitchell [Mitchell, Gladys]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781448190461
Google: K9H4-plfMgQC
Amazon: B00H4K5DRO
Goodreads: 18001234
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 1968-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Full Fathom Five

‘And first I tried an English lass, but she was fat and lazy …

Away, haul away, haul away, oh!

And then I tried an Irish lass who well-nigh drove me crazy …

Away, haul away, haul away, oh!’

* * *

(1)

‘Yes, it’s like the others,’ said Gavin, ‘except for one or two points which might indicate that it’s a copycat murder and not one in the sequence. For one thing, my chaps and Phillips have traced where she comes from. She’s an Irish girl who lived in Swansea, so the first difference is that she wasn’t, in the usual sense of the words, a foreigner. Then, second point, she has no connection whatever with that comprehensive or any other school. She wasn’t one of the campers, either, and as nobody on the site had ever seen her before, the police chaps didn’t at first know why she was in the neighbourhood. The inference was that she was on holiday, or else, of course, that she had taken a job around these parts, but they found out all about it later.’

‘Didn’t any of the campers hear anything suspicious?’ asked Laura.

‘Not a thing, so far as any of them can remember. The police have checked on all of them very carefully, as you may imagine, but I’m told there’s nothing even remotely suspicious about any of them. At this time of year the camping season hasn’t really got into its stride, so there are only five caravans on the pitch, and as there’s nothing much to do after dark the people all turn in pretty early. Whoever dumped the body – she’d been dead for some days when she was found – probably carried her some distance so as not to bring a car within hearing of the campers. She was a well-built girl, so the chances are that her murderer was a man, although, of course, some women would be quite strong enough to kill her, dump her in a car and then drag her over the short turf to the edge of the pond where she was found. Only her head and one arm were in the water.’

‘How did the police find out where she came from?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘They recovered her handbag from the water. It had been gutted, but the murderer had overlooked the fact that in a tiny pocket inside the otherwise empty notecase was the return half of a railway ticket to Swansea. After that, of course, it was a routine check, a long, boring sort of job, like most police work, but they also issued a description and her Welsh landlady recognised it and came along. Said the girl had answered an advertisement for a children’s nurse, but it was only for a fortnight while the parents were on holiday. The pay was good, so the girl took her own holiday by exchanging dates with another typist in the same office, and hoped to combine business with pleasure, as it were.’

‘So that accounts for the return ticket,’ said Dame Beatrice.

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