Read Online Speedy Death by Gladys Mitchell - Free Book Online Page A

by her jumper, and produced a gentleman’s silver watch.
    ‘Poor Alastair,’ she remarked, laying the watch on the mantelpiece, ‘I thought he would go when I came in. I cannot help sympathizing with him over the private detective business. But it was so necessary that he should go, wasn’t it? Do you recognize this watch, Mr Carstairs?’
    Carstairs opened the back of the watch, and then, after the most cursory glance inside, shut it with a snap and laid it down.
    ‘It’s Mountjoy’s, of course,’ he said. ‘What about it?’
    Mrs Bradley sat down and composed her skirt before replying. Then she said: ‘That watch was not in Mountjoy’s bedroom after her death. It could not be found, I know, because I looked for it.’
    ‘I am afraid I don’t follow,’ said Carstairs apologetically.
    ‘Of course you don’t,’ said Mrs Bradley conclusively. ‘Why should you?’
    Carstairs gazed at her until she laughed.
    ‘Oh, I’m not mad. Not the least little bit in the world,’ she hastened to assure him. ‘But I don’t think I had better explain about the watch.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter what you explain to me,’ Carstairs countered swiftly, but without a smile. ‘You see, I think I know.’
    Mrs Bradley, who seemed about to commence another remark, checked herself, and avoided his eyes.
    ‘So you know what I know,’ said Carstairs gloomily. ‘Well, I’m glad, in a way, because perhaps you’ll tell me what on earth we are going to do about it now that we
do
know.’
    ‘Nothing,’ said Mrs Bradley quietly.
    ‘Nothing! But, my dear lady——’
    She nodded rapidly two or three times, looking more like some cruel but sagacious bird than ever. ‘Don’t trouble to say it,’ she observed, in the same tone of almost hypnotic calmness. ‘I know all about it. It was murder, and if we did our duty as good citizens we should take steps immediately to ensure that the murderer was apprehended. If we don’t perform this perfectly plain and straightforward duty, we are accessories after the fact—that is to say, persons who have given tacit consent to a crime by helping to shield the murderer.’
    Carstairs grinned, but the troubled expression did not leave his face.
    ‘Go on, please,’ he said.
    ‘I am going to tell you where I found the watch,’ said Mrs Bradley confidentially. She glanced to right and left, and then behind her, emitted a hoarsegurgle which might have signified amusement, relief, or indigestion, and finally murmuring, with a kind of solemn rapture in her voice:
    ‘It was at the bottom of the toilet-jug on Mountjoy’s washing-stand. I can’t understand why Eleanor doesn’t introduce some newer fashions in furniture,’ she added, as an abrupt and inconsequential afterthought. ‘These antiquated toilet sets—abominable!’
    She paused, as though she expected Carstairs to make some remark, but he remained silent.
    ‘The jug was three-quarters full of water,’ she added.
    Carstairs shook himself, as though he and not the silver watch had emerged from the jug, and turned upon his informant a very puzzled gaze.
    ‘Why ever did he—I mean she—keep a watch in the toilet-jug?’ he asked solemnly. ‘Or didn’t you say that? Am I imagining you said it? It seems so utterly idiotic.’
    ‘You’re getting warm,’ said Mrs Bradley, with her horrid cackling laugh. ‘Put another word in place of idiotic, and I think you’ve hit it.’
    ‘Idiotic?’ Carstairs pursed his lips. ‘Idiotic—another word for idiotic?’
    He smote the table.
    ‘Mad!’ he cried. ‘Mountjoy was mad, and it wasn’t a murder, after all, thank goodness, but a suicide. Oh, I’m so glad you found that watch.’
    ‘Are you?’ asked Mrs Bradley, in a peculiar tone. She paused. ‘I hate to undeceive you,’ she added, at length, ‘but it was not a suicide. It was mostcertainly a murder, and not Mountjoy, but the murderer, was the mad person.’
    ‘Oh?’ said Carstairs. ‘Well——’ He, too,