When Last I Died

A curious point which did not come out in court but was told to Bella Foxley's solicitors by the youth Hodge who discovered the body, was that the 'hauntings' were always believed to take the form of a headless huntsman dressed 'like Robin Hood,' but having deer's antlers sprouting from his shoulders—a local variant of the legend of Herne the Hunter, apparently. The poltergeist phenomena were 'a new one on we,' the youth averred. He proved to be an earnest patron of the nearest cinema. He added that cries, groans and a kind of miserable wailing had been heard to come from the haunted house a few days previous to Thomas Turney's death, and that when people heard of the death they 'said there had been warning of it.'

The sequel to the case is well known, but it deserves to be detailed here, if only to show that in prosecuting Bella Foxley for the murder of her cousin the Crown was not entirely in the wrong, despite her acquittal by the jury. Almost a year after her release she was found dead in the village pond which was near the house she had taken in a remote part of Hampshire, far from all her old haunts, and where, presumably, she thought the past could be safely forgotten.

It was explained at the inquest that anonymous letters were the cause of her suicide, but it seems more likely that remorse had at last overtaken her, and that she had expiated her crime in the only manner which was in keeping with what she knew were her just deserts."

Mrs. Bradley shook her head in denial of this conclusion and returned the book to its owner when he and Ferdinand returned from golf. She announced that she was going to solve the mystery of Bella Foxley.

"Oh, Mother! That wretched woman! After all, she's dead and buried. Why don't you leave well alone?" enquired her son.

"So said the ghost of Joan of Arc to George Bernard Shaw," Mrs. Bradley replied, with a chuckle.

Chapter Four

THE WIDOW'S MITE

Who can tell what thief or foe, In the covert of the night, For his prey will work my woe, Or through wicked foul despite? So may I die unredrest, Ere my long love be possest.

CAMPION.

THERE were several avenues of approach (as the politicians might say) and it remained to arrange them in order. Mrs. Bradley gave this arrangement some thought whilst enjoying to the full the delightful early summer and the no less delightful results of it which were to be found in the garden of the Stone House and in the country around Wandles Parva.

At the end of a week she had made her decision, having put before herself in judicial manner all the alternatives.

There was the widow of Cousin Tom, the prejudiced and apparently spiteful Muriel. It was more than probable that she knew more than she had been permitted to disclose either at the inquest or the trial. It would be interesting to find out where she was living—Eliza Hodge might know—and to find out, too, whether, with the passing of time, her views had become modified in any way.

Then there was the sister Tessa, who had inherited all the aunt's money following Bella's barely comprehensible suicide. Mrs. Bradley would have said that the suicide was entirely incomprehensible but for the evidence of the diary which revealed its author as anti-social, introverted and somewhat defeatist by nature. Possibly the sister could throw more light upon these idiosyncrasies.

There remained the Institution. There Bella had worked as housekeeper and she had hated it with great intensity. Fortunately Mrs. Bradley was in a position to re-introduce herself there without being under the necessity to state her real errand.

She decided to take Muriel first. Her behaviour at the inquest and the trial scarcely accorded with the somewhat mouse-like character which Bella had given her in the diary, but that was not necessarily surprising. Bella, possibly, had never seen her roused. And yet—hadn't she?

Before she tackled Muriel, however, Mrs. Bradley decided to take a look at another factor in the case, one with a personality, possibly, of its own; to wit, the haunted house.

She drove first to the inn at which Bella and Muriel had lodged. It was an old place pleasingly reconditioned, and George drove in through an ancient gatehouse arch and drew up in a gravelled courtyard.

Mrs. Bradley, bidding George put the car up and go and get himself a drink, went into the lounge and ordered a cocktail which she did not really want. While it was being brought, she looked about her.