Free Watson's Choice by Gladys Mitchell Page B

all, I will wait until I’m forty. I shall know my own mind by then. Hullo! Here’s tea. I haven’t had any yet. Too busy. May I join you? There seems plenty for two.’
    ‘You will spoil your dinner,’ said Mrs Bradley, watching, with fascinated gaze, Laura’s ruthless dealing with buttered muffins and cherry jam.
    ‘Impossible,’ replied Laura, ‘as well you know. Another cup of the Suchong? Refreshing stuff, and they make it rather well. I say, there couldn’t really be anything in Grimston’s yarn, could there, do you suppose? An elaborate and somewhat tasteless leg-pull, should you think?’
    Mrs Bradley shrugged her shoulders. Laura looked at her, a startled expression in her eyes.
    ‘The last I saw of Miss Campbell,’ Mrs Bradley said, ‘was at the Queen of the Circus road-house on the heath. She was with a bitter-looking, thoughtful young man, and by the time 1 had finished my lunch the two had gone.’
    ‘Were they having a row?’
    ‘Not at all, so far as I could tell. Their talk was serious, concentrated, grave, but not, it appeared, acrimonious.’
    ‘He’s murdered her,’ said Laura, ‘mark my words. And Grimston knows!’
    ‘What a thing it is to have an imagination nourished at its inception among the dark hills of the firm, true, and tender north,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘But I also have something to disclose. I have met the Hound of the Baskervilles.’
    ‘Again?’
    ‘Yes, again.’
    ‘I say, where?’
    ‘On the heath, where it skirts the village of Common Row. It was in the company of a retired chorus girl.’
    ‘But that doesn’t make sense!’
    ‘Yes, it does, if the dog was hired for the occasion. Still, no matter.’
    Laura looked at her with great interest.
    ‘My thumbs prick,’ she observed with lugubrious relish. ‘We haven’t heard the last of that dog!’

CHAPTER 5
A TUTOR’S DREAM
    ‘So wonder on, till Truth make all things plain.’
    SHAKESPEARE – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
*
    AS SOON AS a maid had taken away the tea-tray, Mrs Bradley rang up Sir Bohun on the house telephone. Sir Bohun was in the bath, and took the call from there.
    ‘Grimston says she’s dead? Out on the heath? Oh, nonsense! He must be mad! I shall have to call the police if she doesn’t come back to-night, though. I wish Bell hadn’t had that sudden call from his father. He’d know what I ought to do. What the deuce has come over the girl? She seemed such a sane little party! Thank heaven I didn’t commit myself to anything! By the way, is Manoel behaving himself as he should? He came to me with a complaint that your Miss Menzies slapped his face, and wants me to order her out of the house. If he doesn’t behave with the women guests, he can go – and so I’ve told him!’
    ‘Laura can take care of herself. Do you think you should speak to Mr Grimston?’
    ‘Yes, I do, and I’d like you to be present, and that policeman chap, too. I’m not well pleased with Grimston for telling that sort of tale. There can’t be anything in it, but it’s not the kind of joke I like very much.’
    ‘You don’t think he can be serious?’
    ‘Hardly. What do you think yourself?’
    ‘I do not commit myself to an opinion. When shall we talk with Mr Grimston?’
    ‘Immediately after dinner. There will be no time for anything before that. If she is out there on the heath, we’d never find her in this. It’s thicker than ever. I’m going to ring off. This dashed water’s getting cold.’
    Mrs Bradley knew better than to suppose that Sir Bohun would be able to refrain from questioning Grimston until after dinner. As soon as the soup-cups had been removed, in fact, Sir Bohun demanded bluntly of the so-far silent tutor:
    ‘What’s all this about Miss Campbell?’
    ‘It looks as though my dream is coming true, Sir Bohun,’ Grimston coolly replied.
    ‘Dream? What dream? What are you blethering about now?’
    ‘I dreamt about Miss Campbell last night. I dreamt that she left the house before