Tom Brown's Body by Gladys Mitchell

Author:Gladys Mitchell [Mitchell, Gladys]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781405685290
Google: uqtcNCfRJRUC
Amazon: 160187023X
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1978-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

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11. The Ladies, God Bless Them

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Insinuating Monster! So you think I know nothing of the Affair of Miss Polly Peachum?

ibid (Act 2, Scene 9)

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Unhappily,’ said Mrs Poundbury, ‘we haven’t a Hamlet in the House. You will appreciate that it is so much simpler to have at least the chief parts taken by boys in our own House. The rehearsals, you know, and just that last little ounce of whatever it is that puts the polish on the principals. We should have done Hamlet, without a doubt, had we had Issacher, who is quite the type, Gilbert says, and is, like most Jewish boys, quite marvellously fluid on the stage, but we haven’t him. It really is unfortunate!’

Mrs Bradley remarked that to have a fluid Hamlet would scarcely be just to Shakespeare, and at this Mrs Poundbury relinquished serious platitudes for a girlish and attractive giggle.

‘I’ve heard Gilbert on the heartrending subject of “too, too solid flesh”,’ she observed. ‘The trials of a schoolmaster’s wife! However, what we are putting on is something much nearer to the hearts of our Philistine House. Gilbert has produced three short plays. One is a play about murder.’

‘Oh?’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Won’t that…?’

‘Oh, Gilbert asked Mr Wyck, and Mr Wyck saw a couple of rehearsals. He doesn’t object at all. He thinks it will help to rationalize the situation here. The boys show no signs of it, but they must be pretty well strung up, like the rest of us.’

‘Are the rest of you strung up?’ asked Mrs Bradley; but she did not say whether she agreed with Mr Wyck’s application of psychiatric principles to the minds of his boys. ‘Well, I shall look forward to it all very much,’ she added, with sincerity and no mental reservations. ‘Now, tell me — are you prepared to meet the young man from Scotland Yard?’

Mrs Poundbury looked surprised, and then she laughed and exclaimed, ‘Who on earth am I, to take up the time of Scotland Yard?’

‘You are a woman with a secret,’ Mrs Bradley calmly replied, ‘which secret may cost you very dear if you insist upon keeping it. Speak, Mrs Poundbury, speak; for, if you do not, I wash my hands of the consequences.’

‘But I haven’t any secret!’ cried Mrs Poundbury. ‘Not, at any rate, the kind of secret that could interest Scotland Yard.’

‘Think again!’ Mrs Bradley advised her. ‘What did you do on the night of Mr Conway’s death?’

‘I?’

‘You.’

‘But I’ve told you — I’ve told the police — I’ve told everybody — I was asleep in my room, the room I share with Gilbert! And he was asleep there, too! At least, I don’t know whether he was asleep, of course, but he was most certainly there. We’ve both got the same what-do-you-call it? — alibi. We can give it to one another. No one can contest that!’

‘One might if a certain note of assignation were found,’ said Mrs Bradley drily.

‘Oh, but I — Oh, but!’ said Mrs Poundbury, taken by a stratagem and struggling in the net of the fowler.

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