When Last I Died

"Not if you read what the wife said at the inquest. She practically accused Bella Foxley of the murder, and the coroner's jury brought in a verdict accordingly. She let out—only, of course, it had to be suppressed—that she believed the real motive was that Tom knew Bella had murdered the ancient aunt. He was murdered to shut his mouth, and to put an end to the blackmail. She wanted to shout the same thing at the trial, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she could be persuaded to be quiet about it, because, of course, the aunt's death was all signed up and generally accounted for by the local doctor, and as there was no question of poison or violence, and the death certificate was in order, it was hardly possible to drag it up again. Would have meant an exhumation order and all that, so, although the prosecution knew all about her ideas on the subject, they didn't feel they could possibly admit her theories—because, dash it, that's all they were !—as part of the evidence."

"I see," said Mrs. Bradley. "The wife appears to have adopted a very biased, not to say spiteful, attitude towards Bella. It seems odd, considering that Bella had benefited them since she had come into the money."

"I know. I think she really had got a bee in her bonnet about Bella's having been the murderess, but I believe she thought, too, that there was something between Bella and her husband. Anyway, she was so much incensed against her that one of the solicitors told me the prosecution had grave doubts about calling her at all. They were afraid she would prejudice their case. Juries detest a spiteful witness, and rightly. Spite and truth are never too closely related, even though the one may be based upon the other."

"How true," said Mrs. Bradley, sighing. "And I suppose, whether she murdered her cousin or not, there isn't much doubt that Bella really did murder the aunt?"

Mr. Pratt shrugged and smiled.

"One thing I can tell you," he said. "We were all after her for her story when she was acquitted, but she wouldn't give us anything at all. Said she wanted to get away and be at peace."

"She went to her sister, I suppose."

"Well, no. Some of the reporters lay in wait for her there, but, although the house was fairly persistently haunted, she did not turn up."

"How long after the trial did she commit suicide?"

"Oh, about a year. She took a cottage—two cottages turned into one, it was—not far from the New Forest. The reporters trailed her, but she still held out on them, and after a week or two she ceased to be news, of course, and so they went away. She didn't become news again until she committed suicide, and then she only got a line or two, because most people had forgotten all about her by then. Funnily enough, she had then joined forces with the sister. They were living together when it happened."

"Really?" There was a lengthy pause.

"She may have murdered the cousin, but she hadn't dismembered the body," said Mrs. Bradley, referring to the fact that a fickle populace had so soon forgotten Bella. "That always keeps a murderer's memory green. The public has a passion for horrors; although how they think most murderers can dispose of a body neatly and successfully without dismembering it I can't imagine."

"The haunted house was the only interesting and unusual feature in Bella Foxley's case," said Mr. Pratt. "But, you know, some quite ordinary murders remain in people's memories. Take the case of Jessie M'Lachlan, for instance...."

"The details were inclined to be unsavoury," Mrs. Bradley remarked. "And, of course, from the criminologist's point of view, what a beautiful case! You have not chosen a good example. Two hundred years hence the case of Jessie M'Lachlan will still fascinate, tease, beckon, and defeat the student of crime. It was a case in a million. No, not even that. I believe it is, and always will be, unique."

The conversation turned easily, from this statement, to a discussion of the verdict in the case of Ronald True, and the problem in English law of the criminal lunatic; the eternal query in the case of Madeleine Smith; the vexed question of Thomson and Bywaters; and the talk continued into the small hours.

The next day was Sunday, and at half-past five in the evening the guest departed regretfully for London.

On Monday morning Mrs. Bradley telephoned her son.

"I am eaten up with curiosity," she said. "Can't you find me somebody else who was mixed up with it all?"

"Would one of the jurors do?" Ferdinand inquired. "I think I could get you a perfectly good juror. As a matter of fact, he's my barber."

"Ah, an artist. Most satisfactory. When and where?"

"I'll tell him you're coming, and let you know the arrangements. I suppose your time is your own?"

"Better than that: my time is his," said Mrs. Bradley. She hung up and rang for Henri. Her cook appeared, preceded, in the manner of the Cheshire cat's grin, by an expression of marked anxiety.