The Death-Cap Dancers (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

“Hullo,” she said. “Only one of you?”

  “Yes, and I’ve got a puncture.”

  “Oh, bad luck. Let’s go round to the other door and then you can leave the bike in our little vestibule, where it will be under cover, and we’ll help you mend the puncture if you’ve got the wherewithal in your little saddlebag. That was a first-class show you put on. We enjoyed it very much and so did the man we had with us.”

  “Yes, your party on the platform led all the applause, and it made a lot of difference,” said Pippa, already feeling more cheerful. “People always respond when anybody gives a lead. I’ve always noticed that.”

  “The last item was a regular cliff-hanger. Where did you get that fearful-looking horse’s head and the other one? That nearly turned us green because”—she had remembered the dead girl they had found on the moor and she changed what she had been about to say—“because it looked so realistic.”

  “Peter makes all our props. The hobby-horse thing I wore was his work, too,” said Pippa, as they wheeled the bicycle round the side of the cabin. “He’s an art student and awfully good at all that kind of thing.”

  Inside the wooden building Erica was superintending her cooking and supper was soon on the table.

  “I expect you’re hungry after all that exertion,” she said. “We loved the show.”

  “We mostly give it to schools on Saturday mornings,” said Pippa, “but this afternoon’s may be the last one we shall do.”

  “How’s that?” asked Tamsin.

  “We lost one of our members. That girl on the moor. And now my brother and the other girl have run away together.”

  “Your brother? Which one was he?”

  “He was the sacrificial victim in the last dance and he doubled as a girl in two of the folk-dances and the Irish jig and the hornpipe.”

  “A man of parts indeed!” said Isobel.

  “Tell us about the elopement. I didn’t think such romantic doings happened nowadays,” said Erica.

  “I don’t think it was that kind of elopement,” said Pippa, scraping her plate. “Peggy has been pursuing Mick for ages and I simply think she’s got her hooks into him at last.”

  “In other words, Europa has run off with the bull; but I have always thought it was that way round, you know. As I read the story, there was no reason for her to climb on the bull’s back. Simply asking for trouble,” said Isobel.

  “I expect the other girls dared Europa,” said Tamsin. “Anyway, it’s a Cretan legend, so a bull would have to come into it. Besides, Zeus was good at impersonating animals.”

  “What a resourceful chap Zeus was,” said Hermione. “Now a bull, now a shower of gold, fostered by a goat when he was a baby, turned into a ram to escape the monster Typhon—really, a human chameleon, you might say.”

  “Wonderfully gifted at swallowing his children, too,” said Isobel. “Wish he could teach me how it’s done. A wonderful way to get rid of undesirable brats, and I could name a few, I can tell you!”

  “There speaks the wolf in sheep’s clothing which teachers have to be nowadays,” said Erica. “More pie, anybody?”

  It was just as the washing-up was finished that Ribble knocked on the cabin door.

  “Oh, no!” said Isobel, opening the door in answer to Ribble’s knock. “Not you again, Inspector!”

  “I’m afraid so, miss. May I ask whether you’ve got a visitor?”

  “We’re giving supper, bed, and breakfast to a girl who was in this afternoon’s folk-song and dance thing at Gledge End.”

  “May I come in, miss? All I want is a word with Miss Pippa Marton.”

  Pippa, who had caught her name, got up from the settee as Ribble walked into the lounge.

  “Has one of them had an accident?” she asked anxiously.

  “Why should you suppose that, miss?”

  “Oh, don’t be an ass!” said Isobel. “One of them was killed only the other day. Can’t you see she has been scared stiff that something else would happen? It was a perfectly reasonable question.”

  “All I want to know,” said Ribble smoothly, ignoring Isobel’s outburst and speaking to Pippa, “is where the rest of your party were making for when they left the church hall.”

  “We are booked in at the Youth Hostel at Lostrigg. Why? Do please tell me what has happened.”

  “There’s been an accident, I’m afraid, miss. I can’t tell you more than that until I know a bit more myself. I think you would be better with your friends, miss, when I break the news to them. I can run you over to the Lostrigg hostel straight away.”

  “I’ve got my bicycle here.”

  “I will arrange for it, miss.”

  “It’s got a punctured tyre.”

  “I daresay one of my men can cope with that.”

  “Did they have an accident with the tandem?”

  “No, miss.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake tell the poor girl what has happened!” cried Isobel. “You can’t leave it until you get her over to the hostel.”

  “Very good, miss. First, Miss Marton, your brother has been injured, but he’s going to be all right. We’ve got him to hospital and I’ve just been over there. He can’t have visitors just at present, but you shall see him as soon as the doctors allow it. Don’t worry on that score, miss. Lucky for him he was wearing a wig. It probably saved his life.”

  “You mean he was attacked, like poor Judy?”

  “That’s the size of it. Miss Raincliffe, I’m very sorry to say, was not so lucky.”

  Pippa, who had remained standing, collapsed on to the settee. Isobel sat down beside her and looked with hostile eyes at the detective-inspector.

  “Dead, like the other one?” she asked, her arm round Pippa’s shoulders. Ribble inclined his head.

  “Only too much like the other one,” he said grimly, “except that she must have met her attacker face to face. We shall have to hold all your company for a bit, Miss Marton, but I’ll arrange everything.”

  Pippa disengaged herself from Isobel. Her colour began to come back.

  “Didn’t they go off on the tandem, then?” she asked. Ribble shook his head. “Were they—oh, so that’s why we couldn’t find them after the show! But why couldn’t we? Where were they?”

  “Still at the hall, miss.”

  “So, if Peggy had not gone rushing off to find out what was keeping Micky—”

  “One of your men might have stood a better chance than she did, yes, miss, but we can’t be certain of that. If you would get your coat on, I think we ought to be going. I want to get to your friends before they go to bed. My car is just outside.”

  “Can’t you leave her here for the night?” asked the motherly Erica. “We’ll look after her.”

  “No, I’d rather go. I must go,” said Pippa. “Thanks all the same,” she added wanly.

  “I’ll tell you more about things on the way to Lostrigg,” said Ribble.

  When Pippa had gone into the vestibule to put on her coat, Isobel said to him, “Well, at least you can’t suspect us any more.”

  “Once the doctors were satisfied that what happened on the moor could not have been a hit-and-run accident, you were all in the clear, miss.”

  “Thanks for nothing! You ought never to have suspected us in the first place!”

  “We have to look at all sides of a question,” said Ribble mildly.

  “It looks as though we could have saved my great-aunt a journey,” said Hermione.

  “Your great-aunt, Miss Lestrange?” Ribble looked at her in sudden comprehension. “Good gracious me! That couldn’t be Dame Beatrice, could it?”

  “Yes, of course it could,” said Isobel. “She is coming here tomorrow to get us out of your clutches. At least, that was the idea, but it hardly seems necessary now.”

  “I will let the Super know and he will want to tell the Chief Constable. We all know Dame Beatrice by repute and it will bean honour to meet her,” said Ribble.

  “All the same, it looks as though we c
ould have saved her the journey,” repeated Hermione, “since we are now in the clear without her help.”

  “Ah, but I may be very glad of it myself,” said Ribble, “if she will be prepared to assist me. I reckon I can do with a psychiatrist on the job. I’ll call in at the station on my way to the hostel and mention that she is coming down. What time do you expect her, Miss Lestrange?”

  “In the middle of the afternoon, I think. She will have lunch on the way and then come straight here before she goes to her hotel.”

  “Then I’ll come along, too, if I may.” He turned to Pippa, who had come back into the room. “Well, miss, we’ll be off. My car is outside.”

  “Who on earth can be doing these awful things?” said Tamsin, when the inspector had taken Pippa away. “Is it one of the dancers, do you think?”

  “I don’t know who else,” said Erica. “I shall be glad when Monday is over. I’ve got to go to the inquest, as I was the one who actually saw that girl’s body on the moor.”

  — 12 —

  YELLOW ARCHANGEL

  “So what is all the brouhaha?” enquired Dame Beatrice, who had driven straight to the cabin on Sunday and had arrived at the time of siesta which followed the young women’s Sunday lunch. “Parlez lentement, doucement, en anglais and, if possible, one at a time.”

  “The floor is yours, Hermy One,” said Isobel. Hermione told the story of their troubles and told it well.

  “But I think we’ve brought you here on a fool’s errand, great-aunt,” she concluded. “Something else has happened—we don’t know all the details, but it’s pretty bad and it’s something the inspector knows we couldn’t have done. We’ve discussed it, and it seems another one in that folk-dance party has been badly injured and another killed. One of them—one of the girls—ran off to find one of the boys after the show. The other girl was supposed to be staying the night here with us and some of what happened seems to have happened to her brother. He was the boy, she told us, who was thought to have gone off with the girl. She knew all about that before she left the hall. What she didn’t understand, she said—she seems a simple, naive sort of bod—is why he went off in girl’s clothes, but the inspector came and told her what really happened.”

  “I mentioned transvestites,” said Isobel, “but she sounded genuinely convinced when she said there was nothing of that sort about him. He had simply filled in for that girl who was killed so that the show could be presented more or less as they had rehearsed it. She told us that the other girl—Peggy she called her—had had her hooks in the brother for months and they thought she must have persuaded him to run off with her. It seems to have been a sort of Daisy Bell in reverse, because, although they were supposed to have taken the tandem on which brother Mick was usually the back-seat operator with another man in front, Pippa was sure her brother would not have been the instigator of the move, but, of course, it wasn’t like that at all. Anyway, the inspector insisted—it amounted to that—on taking Pippa in his car to join her friends, so she didn’t spend the night here after all, and that’s all we know.”

  “Oh, well,” said Dame Beatrice, “you had better get your car and lead mine to the hotel I hope you have booked for me.”

  “We booked you in at the Ewe and Lamb pub in the village. It’s highly spoken of and has four bedrooms only, so we thought you would find it nice and quiet and it only takes about ten minutes in a car from here. Have you had any lunch? They only do shacks at lunch-time but we are told that Sunday dinner there is quite something. This is a holiday place, you see, and lots of the cabin people go there, so it flourishes.”

  “I had lunch on the way up here, so perhaps you would all care to join me for dinner tonight, then.”

  “Would we!” exclaimed Tamsin.

  “She looks ethereal,” said her sister, “but she’s the prototype of the human boa-constrictor, and so I warn you.”

  “Oh, come, now” said Hermione, “be fair to the girl, The worst that can be said of her is that, like Bingo Little, she is apt to get a bit rough when in the society of a sandwich.”

  “I’m not sure we ought to be joking,” said Erica very seriously. “Two murders and very nearly a third don’t make me feel exactly light-hearted and I’ve got to attend that inquest tomorrow and speak my piece about finding the body on the moor.”

  “If the police are still conducting an investigation, the inquest will be adjourned as soon as the identity of the corpse has been formally established and the medical evidence given,” said Dame Beatrice. “Almost nothing will be required of you. If you so desire, I will accompany you. In any case I shall be interested to hear what the doctors have to say.”

  Ribble came to the cabin at half-past three and was introduced to Dame Beatrice.

  “Our Superintendent has notified the Chief Constable of your arrival, ma’am,” he said, “and they will be glad and honoured to meet you. May we take it that you will be willing, now you are on the spot, to put your great experience at our disposal?”

  “What I have heard from these children,” replied Dame Beatrice, leering benevolently at the four young women, “has aroused my interest, Inspector. I shall be delighted to put in my thumb.”

  “Then, perhaps”—he, too, looked at the girls—“I might have a word in private with you.”

  “We can take any hint which is reinforced with the aid of a sledger-hammer,” said Isobel. “Come along, children. We are being turned out into the snow.”

  “If you ladies are going out, go in a car, keep together all the time, and on no account give anybody, male or female, a lift,” said Ribble impressively.

  He waited until they were out of the cabin and even stood at the trench doors to watch their departure towards the carpark, before he turned to Dame Beatrice and said, “We can do with your help, ma’am. May I put my own version of the case before you? I expect the young ladies have told you something, but there are features in the case that they don’t yet know about. There is a disordered mind at work. That’s where we should welcome your cooperation. Somebody seems to have got it in for the young people who put on that song-and-dance show at Gledge End. The girl who was killed belonged to them and now one more of them has been murdered. Another is lucky to have escaped death, and this time there is no question of a hit-and-run car.”

  “Then I can take it that you really have exonerated my great-niece and her friends?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed. Apart from the fact that they could have had no hand in Saturday’s nasty business —“

  “Why not? They attended the performance.”

  “They must have left the premises before the murderer did his job. A whole convoy of the cabin holidaymakers’ cars left the carpark at the end of the show and I have evidence that theirs was among them and was sandwiched in, so to speak. I have witnesses who can swear to the number plates. Needless to say, my chaps have made a very careful check. There is only one direct road from Gledge End to the two-mile drive into the forest to get back to the cabins, and nobody deviated from it.”

  “What about the car which brought up the rear of the procession? Couldn’t that have slipped away without anyone being the wiser?”

  “It was driven by an elderly lady who had a disabled passenger. I can’t see how either of them, or both of them together, could have attacked two strong and healthy young people.”

  “It seems unlikely, I admit.”

  “There is another argument, anyway, regarding the first death, and one which a layman can’t gainsay. The pathologist’s report makes it clear that the girl was not knocked down by a hit-and-run car. Her injuries were only to the back of the head and were caused by repeated blows, probably from a heavy stone. We haven’t found the stone but there are boulders on that part of the moor where the body was found, and we have found blood on the roadside near where her buckled bicycle was seen by the young ladies. We are going on the assumption that that was where she was killed. Then, as you may have heard, the murderer tried to conceal the body in a d
ip on the moor where two of the young ladies found it. The murders seem motiveless, so far as we can make out. If they are, it must follow that nobody is safe while this joker is at large. Of course the likely thing is that he is a member of the troupe. These last two attacks don’t point anywhere else. My trouble is that one of my chief suspects was this second murdered girl. She, at least, seems to have had some sort of a motive, but, with her out of the way, there doesn’t seem anything much to choose between the rest of them, although I have a leaning towards one of the men.”

  “You stated that two more had been attacked. Who was the other one? My great-niece mentioned a brother of the girl who came here on Saturday evening.”

  “A young fellow who did female impersonations for them, yes, the brother of this girl Pippa Marton. He was dressed as a girl, ready to have his photograph taken with the rest of the dancers, when he was set upon.”

  “A fact which may be of the greatest importance, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, yes, I do. That’s why we want your help. Our killer seems to have a Jack the Ripper personality, except that he doesn’t mutilate the bodies. He leaves his trade-mark in the form of a poisonous toadstool pressed into the headwounds. Wouldn’t you call that the act of a psycho, ma’am?”

  “I shall know better when I have seen the dancers who are left. Meanwhile, since you are convinced of my own young people’s innocence, I shall suggest to my great-niece and her friends that they return to their homes. You would have no objection to that, I take it?”

  “Not so long as they leave me their home addresses, just in case. I may let the last girl in the concert party go home, too, for her own safety. The female impersonator who was attacked was her brother, as I said, and I have a theory that he may have been attacked in mistake for her. I hope not, because, if that is so, then I have to exonerate the rest of the group. The brother and sister are remarkably alike to look at, it is true, but none of their companions would have mistaken one for the other, so I’m inclined to think that the murderer made a mistake and that the sister was an intended victim, but that is only a hunch.”