The Death-Cap Dancers (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Thanks for telling us,” said Tony. As they tramped down the lane towards the coast-road he said to Steve, “What do you think? Was he? He could be, I suppose.”

  “Whether he was or not, he’s a dirty dodder,” said Steve morosely.

  “You mean an artful dodger, old man.”

  “No, I don’t. I mean a dirty dodder.”

  “What’s a dodder?”

  “It’s a plant. My botany book says it’s a vampire. It feeds solely on the sap of other plants, just as a vampire lives by sucking other people’s blood. Besides, if this dodder of ours is a murderer, he must have sucked somebody’s blood.”

  “Oh, hang it all, you can’t write him off like that. You only thought he was a tramp down on his luck, and I daresay that’s all he was, you know.”

  “I shall think twice another time. It’s a bit hard if you only try to carry out your ideals and a serpent turns and bites you in the heel.”

  “When we get to a telephone you’d better give a description of him to the police.”

  “How can I? They would ask all sort of questions and I should have to say I’d got him into the hostel on somebody else’s ticket.”

  “I don’t suppose the police would worry about that. If he is the escaped murderer they ought to be told about him. You can describe your anorak and your rucksack, can’t you? Lucky he didn’t pinch your boots as well.”

  “I don’t suppose he could get them on. I’ve got small feet for my height. Why don’t we flag down a likely car and hitch a lift? I don’t feel like footslogging it all day. Somebody can jolly well do me a good turn for a change.”

  “Where shall we go?” asked Erica, when they were all in the car after she had bought the tickets for the dancers’ show.

  “To identify this church hall and then south, more or less,” said Isobel.

  “To keep out of the murderer’s way?”

  “We don’t know which is his way. I said south because we haven’t explored in that direction.”

  Enquiry at the post office in Gledge End produced directions so that they found the church hall, and then Erica turned on to the outskirts of the southern end of the little town and took the road to Alderwood where there were castle ruins for Tamsin to sketch and the others to explore.

  “Although we’d better take it in turn to be with her in the car,” said Erica, “in case our bright lad has taken it into his head to follow us again on that damned motorbike. Not you, Hermy. It would take Isobel or me to wipe the floor with him. Not that I think he’ll bother us again.”

  They saw nothing of Adam and had forgotten all about the convict until they had the most grim of reminders. They had tea at the only café in the little town of Alderwood and then, as there was plenty of daylight left, Erica decided to make a long cast round to get back to the forest and the cabin.

  The route was supposed to take them across country by secondary roads to Gledge End and so home, but proved shorter than Erica had thought, so, instead of picking up the main road at a village called Yieldrigg, she went north on another secondary road with the intention of half-circling the forest area before dropping south again.

  Eventually this brought them on to the moor and Hermione soon realised that they were on the road she had taken by mistake on her first journey. There was no fear of getting lost this time, as the neighbourhood was now familiar ground. She was looking out of the side window of the back seat which she was sharing with Isobel when she spotted the bicycle. Tamsin, seated beside the driver, saw it at the same moment and said, “Somebody seems to have had a nasty spill. There’s a bike in the heather.”

  Erica pulled up on the verge.

  “No reason for anybody to have had an accident on a road like this,” she said, “unless there was a car involved.” Isobel said that perhaps they had better take a look. “You and me,” she said to Erica. “You two can stay with the car.”

  — 5 —

  BLOODSTAINED BRACKET

  Tamsin, made unusally nervous because of her damaged and now treacherous ankle, said, “Do be careful! There are stories of girls being pulled from bikes. This may have happened here. That convict, you know. He may still be about and he may be desperate for money.”

  As soon as the other two had left the car Hermione got out too, went round to the driver’s seat and joined Tamsin.

  “Cheer up,” she said. “If the convict pops out on them from one of the dips they can make a dash for it and I can start up the car in no time. But don’t worry. He’ll be far enough away by now. Is that ankle being a nuisance?”

  “Aches a bit. It makes me feel helpless.”

  “Yes, we shouldn’t have let you walk on it. Keep a lookout on your side and if they begin to run I’ll start the engine.”

  “They’ve picked up the bike.”

  “Yes. The front wheel looks as though it’s buckled.”

  “They’re walking away from us.” Both girls watched as the older ones, having moved further off, stood with their backs to the car and looked into one of the dips in the moor. Then Erica went forward, while Isobel remained looking downwards. They returned at a sober pace and Hermione relinquished the driver’s seat, but Erica said, “I’m all shook up. It’s rather nasty. We’ve got to go to Gledge End and see the police. You drive.”

  “Well, of course you weren’t to know, miss,” said the Superintendent of Police, “but it’s a pity you picked up the bicycle. We may have to depend on the handlebars for an attacker’s dabs. Still, no doubt we can manage. We’ll have to eliminate yours. Which of you picked up the bicycle? Both of you handled it? Of course we shall destroy your prints as soon as we’ve done with them. You need not think they’ll be on permanent record. Staying in one of the forest cabins are you? If I might have the number? Right. Just out for a drive, you say, when one of you spotted the bike. Just so. Thought, when you found the body, that there might have been a hit-and-run motorist? On a lonely moorland road it’s quite possible that’s just what happened. We can’t be sure until we get a full report of the injuries. A nasty experience for you ladies, but I’m bound to say that you have acted in a very public-spirited manner in looking about you and then coming straight to us to report that you found the body.”

  “I rather wish we hadn’t found it,” said Erica when they were back in the cabin. “Her head was an awful mess. I’ve seen some results of accidents on the building sites, but I’ve never seen anything like that. Whoever did it, motorist or whatever, must be in a desperate flap to have dragged the body off the road and tumbled it into that dip. You’d have thought he would have chucked the bike in after it, and I wish to goodness he had. Then none of us would have spotted it and stopped to investigate, and somebody else, later on, would be carrying the can instead of us.”

  “I expect his only idea was to make his getaway before another motorist came along,” said Tamsin. “You think it was a motorist and not the convict, then?”

  “I don’t want to think at all. Yes, I’ll have another cup of tea, please. No, nothing to eat. I couldn’t face it.”

  “Was it very bad?” said Hermione to Isobel when their door was shut and they were in their bunks that night.

  “I didn’t go close, but Erica is pretty tough and she said it made her feel sick. I saw a lot of blood on the face and clothes, that’s all.”

  “You don’t suppose the police think we bumped her, do you?”

  “Good heavens, no. Why should they?”

  “Well, they might, that’s all.”

  “They wouldn’t be so fatheaded. If we’d done it we should hardly have gone haring off to the police station to report it, should we?”

  “Well, of course we would. Any decent person would.”

  “Yes, but any decent person wouldn’t have hidden the body in that hole. The person who did that wasn’t going to run straight to the police. Look, are you trying to tell me something? Don’t forget I spend my life dealing with cagey adolescents, so speak up.”

  “I’m not
an adolescent and I’m not cagey, but there’s something perhaps I ought to tell you before the police spot it. You remember that Erica was a bit shaken and made me drive the car after she had seen the body?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “First to the police station and then here to unload Tamsin and you two before I put the car into the carpark?”

  “Yes, I remember all that. What about it?”

  “Well, on the way to the carpark I had a skid on some wet leaves and hit a tree. Oh, no real damage done, and I’m going to tell Erica that I’m afraid I’ve marked her paint, but it has suddenly come to me that the police might decide to take a look at the car.”

  “And think their own thoughts when they spot the marks? I shouldn’t worry. I’m quite sure the scratches made by a tree-trunk wouldn’t in the least resemble the marks made by the impact of a girl on a bike. Besides, we’ll all back you up. You know that. Anyway, I’m glad you thought of it and told me. It can’t have been very serious, or you would have told the three of us when you got back from the carpark.”

  “It was dark, so I don’t know what the damage is. It can’t be anything much, because I corrected the skid and really only skimmed the tree.”

  “Tell Erica in the morning and we’ll go down and take a look. Meanwhile, forget it and go to sleep.”

  “What did you two tell them at the police station?”

  “Only what we’ve already told you. The girl was dead. We didn’t touch the body—that is to say, Erica didn’t and I didn’t go down into the dip. We picked up the bicycle to see what the damage was and got a bit of a rocket from the superintendent because we had probably messed up any fingerprints there might be on the handlebars.”

  “That was unfair. You didn’t know at that point that the girl was dead. Was it just an accident, do you think?”

  “I have no idea. Anyway, whether she was knocked off her bike by a car or whether the convict had had a go at her, somebody had dragged her away from the roadside and tried to hide the body, that’s for sure. What’s more, whoever it was must have been in a bit of a flap, or he would have hidden the bike, too. It was a clear giveaway to leave it at the roadside where anybody passing would spot it.”

  “I don’t know so much. Leaving it at the roadside would look as though a car had hit it, so, as the convict wouldn’t have had a car, that would tend to tell in his favour, wouldn’t it?”

  “Then why try to hide the body?”

  “Oh, to make it look as though the car-driver had taken the girl to hospital, I suppose.”

  In the far bedroom the subject of conversation was on the same lines. “Do the police think the convict did it?” asked Tamsin.

  “I couldn’t say. The police are like the doctors. They never tell you what they’re thinking if they can possibly help it.”

  “The bicycle being damaged makes it look more like a car accident with a hit-and-run driver, wouldn’t you say?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I say. It is what the police think that counts. Go to sleep. I need to be fresh and bright when I meet them in the morning.”

  “The police?”

  “Who else? Don’t you realise there’s a fair chance they’ll decide I could have been the driver who killed that girl?”

  “But you and Isobel went to them straight away and reported finding the body.”

  “That doesn’t prove it wasn’t my car which killed her.”

  That there was considerable substance in this remark was proved in the middle of the next morning. Apart from some necessary shopping which was done at the little shop near the warden’s office, nobody felt inclined for an outing and, after what had been said the night before, nobody was surprised when a detective-inspector and a sergeant turned up, just after the mid-morning coffee and biscuits had been cleared away, and asked for an interview.

  Erica, as usual, answered the door.

  “Good morning, miss. Detective-Inspector Ribble and Sergeant Nene. May we come in?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you, miss. Just one or two points and then we would like you to accompany us to your carpark. You were the driver, I believe you told the superintendent, miss.”

  “Yes, I was. Won’t you sit down?”

  “Thank you, miss. Would you repeat what you reported yesterday about the route you took?” Erica repeated the information she had supplied at the police station. “So you did not pass through Gledge End on your return?”

  “Only on our outward journey. We went there to locate the church hall where there is to be an entertainment for which we have tickets.”

  “Then you went on to—” he looked at the sergeant, who turned to his notebook and read aloud.

  “That’s right,” said Erica, when he had finished.

  “So you were almost home when you saw the bicycle. I suppose it was getting near dusk by that time?”

  “Oh, no, there was plenty of daylight left.”

  “So you hadn’t switched on the car lights?”

  “It wasn’t necessary.”

  “Well, not in your opinion, anyway. I would like you to accompany me to the carpark. You were the driver when the bicycle came into view?”

  “Yes, I drove the whole time until after we found the body. I was shaken up and thought I’d better not drive after that.”

  “I took over,” said Hermione, “and there is something I ought to tell you before you inspect the car.”

  “Oh, yes, miss? What would that be?”

  “I scratched the paint, I think, when the car skidded.”

  “Oh, it skidded, did it?”

  “Yes, on some slippery fallen leaves. I corrected the skid, but I think in doing so I slightly bumped a tree.”

  “You—or somebody else—certainly bumped something, miss. We have already looked at the car.”

  “In that case,” said Erica, “why do you want me to look at it?”

  “The car is marked, miss. Whether by a tree or a bicycle we don’t yet know.”

  “Oh, look here!” said Isobel. “Our car never touched that bicycle!”

  Erica returned from the carpark unaccompanied by the police, but she was looking worried.

  “The car is marked all right,” she said. “They don’t exactly say they don’t believe me, and it was good of you, Hermy, to speak up the way you did, but I’m afraid I’m for it. That policeman has got it all worked out, I think. He believes we ran down that girl and realised what we’d done—I mean that we’d killed her. He thinks we panicked and tried to hide the body and then thought again and decided to report it. He also thinks we concocted that story Hermy told about the skid just to account for the marks on the car.”

  “Oh, dear, what a mess!” wailed Tamsin.

  “But, look,” said Isobel, “if the tree made marks on the car, the car must have made marks on the tree. Hermy, you probably know more or less whereabouts you were when you had the skid. The road ought to show some signs of it, and then all we have to do is to find the tree. Besides, surely their forensic experts, or whoever delves into these police things, can spot the difference between marks made by hitting a bike and marks made by bashing into a tree.”

  “I didn’t bash into it. I only sort of skimmed it. There might not be any recognisable marks on the tree at all.”

  “But if the car is marked?” said Tamsin.

  “That’s the worst of this cheap paint they put on cars nowadays,” said Isobel. “Come on, Hermy. Let’s go and see if we can spot this tree of yours. Mind you watch your step! There may be a copper behind every bush keeping a suspicious eye on us.”

  “I’ll tell you what else I’m going to do,” said Hermione, when they were outside the cabin. “Do you know what I think? I think the police have some reason for not suspecting that convict.”

  “Picked him up before the girl was killed?”

  “It’s more than likely.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. If that’s so, then we, and especially poor old Erica, really are
in the cart. So what’s your idea?”

  “To go straight to the telephone before we begin looking for trees and skidmarks and call up my great-aunt, only hoping she is free and at home. She will get us out of this mess if anybody can and a good old mess I think it’s going to be.”

  “Your great-aunt? Not Laura Gavin’s boss? Not the great Dame Beatrice?”

  “Yes, of course; and, if she can’t help us, my Uncle Ferdinand will.”

  “Who’s he? What could he do?”

  “He is Sir Ferdinand Lestrange, Q.C. Appearing for the defence is his main line of country. He loves getting people off, whether they’ve done it or not.”

  “I don’t call that ethical.”

  “When did ethics have anything to do with the law?”

  “Be that as it may, how very well connected you are!”

  “We may be glad of it, especially me. I only hope my great-aunt is at home.”

  The telephone call was taken by Dame Beatrice herself, for Laura was still in Scotland and not expected back for a day or two. Hermione recognised at once the beautiful voice and said, “Oh, darling! Thank goodness it’s you. Great-aunt, I’m in trouble.”

  “What have you done—burnt down the woodland nook of which Laura speaks so highly?”

  “Much worse than that. The police think we knocked a girl cyclist down with our car and not only left her dead, but tried to hide the body.”

  “Dear me! Is there any substance at all in the story?”

  “Of course there isn’t. We’ve never knocked anybody down, let alone killed her. We even went straight to the police and reported finding the body. We should hardly have done that if we were guilty, would we?”

  “Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”

  “That’s what the police think. They think that, after we’d hidden the body, we panicked and went racing off to them to unburden ourselves.”

  “Do they suspect simply because you reported the accident?”

  “We didn’t have any accident. The whole thing was nothing to do with us at all.”

  ‘But the police must have some good reason for suspecting you.’

  “That’s the worst of it. When I was on my way through the woods to park the car that evening, it skidded and hit a tree.”