The Death-Cap Dancers (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “The window is too high up.”

  “Too high up for anybody to get in by without a ladder, yes, sir.”

  “But not so high up that a lissom person could not leap up and take a look at the room,” said Dame Beatrice. “He probably heard you moving about and was actuated at first simply out of curiosity. When he saw what he thought was your sister who, so far as he knew, had no reason to suspect him of evil intentions, he knocked on the door which, for your own reasons, you had already decided to open.”

  “But why didn’t I see him?”

  “He had already taken cover.”

  “But what did he have against Pippa?—that is, if he mistook me for her.”

  “A deep wound to his vanity,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “But what about Judy? Why was she killed that day on the moors?”

  “The inference is that he met her, waylaid her and was repulsed, as your sister repulsed him. Mrs. Tyne did not want his company, I think. He then knocked her off her bicycle and assaulted her, an assault which ended in her death. We shall never prove this, but it is a tenable hypothesis.”

  “But, if you know all this, why can’t you arrest him?’

  “Because, as Dame Beatrice says, we have no proof,” said Ribble.

  “Oh, Lord! If only I hadn’t opened that damned back door!”

  “No need to blame yourself,” said Dame Beatrice briskly. “You could not possibly have known that anybody would attack you or Miss Raincliffe.”

  “Granted that your theories about the murderer are right, ma’am,” said Ribble, when they had left the hospital, “why was the murderer lurking? If he had it in mind to kill Miss Pippa, whom her brother so closely resembles, he must have known or found out that the back door was kept bolted. Why was he round there at all?”

  “Oh, Inspector, what a question! He was not there with intent to commit murder, but to carry out a natural function which the screening bushes made possible. It was when he had fulfilled his perfectly innocent purpose that he heard sounds from inside, leapt up to glance in at the window and saw (as he thought) Miss Pippa. The opportunity thus fortuitously offered him was too good to let slip. He had intended to follow her up and kill her at some time, in any case. Mr. Marton’s very thick wig and Miss Raincliffe’s sudden appearance saved one life but destroyed the other.”

  “The other dancers would have known of Mr. Marton’s claustrophobia, you know, ma’am.”

  “I see what you mean, Inspector.”

  “One, in particular, being closest to him, would have counted on him opening that back door when he found himself shut up alone in that changing-room with no window it was possible for him to open. What was to stop this man from slipping out of the main door while the rest of them were chatting with the photographer? It wouldn’t take him a minute to nip round the building, and Mr. Marton would probably have recognised his knock on the door, but isn’t going to incriminate him.”

  Dame Beatrice shook her head.

  “You are forgetting the tandem,” she pointed out. “It had disappeared. That means that it was probably cycled on to the moor and hidden there. No member of the dance company could have been absent long enough to have carried out such an operation. Oh, no, Inspector, your theory will not hold water. Mr. Nicolson is not our murderer.”

  “There’s the psychological angle, as you yourself agree, ma’am. In other words, I reckon Mr. Nicolson had a stronger motive for murdering those two girls than anybody else we’ve considered. They were a menace, as I see it, to what might be called by some ‘a beautiful friendship.’”

  “But we’ve discussed that aspect. It does not account for the vicious attack on Mr. Marton himself.”

  “Punishment for stepping out of line? Jealousy is a strange force, ma’am. That also we’ve discussed.”

  “Why do you suppose Mrs. Beck’s records were stolen? That also we have talked about. You think they were taken as a blind, don’t you? I say that the murderer needed them because he did not know the home address of Miss Marton, and that he took the records from the forest warden’s filing-cabinet because he did not know the home address of Tamsin Lindsay, or where the other girls live.”

  Ribble spread out his hands.

  “I grant everything you say, ma’am,” he admitted, “but my theory seems so much more likely than yours, if you’ll allow me to say so. Look, you say your man is still in the neighbourhood and you met him in the forest. Suppose I pull him in and question him? I can’t hold him, but his answers might give me a line. Why, in any case, should he have stolen the tandem? One of the bicycles would have been far easier for him to manage and much less noticeable on the road. And who’s to say whether the tandem was ever put into that shed at the church hall at all? I don’t suppose all—the dancers turned their bikes in at exactly the same time.”

  “Mr. Marton would have known if the tandem had been left in some other place.”

  “It wouldn’t have been any use him knowing if Mr. Nicolson murdered him. I’ve convinced myself that the attack on Mr. Marton was with murderous intent, ma’am, and that Nicolson’s plan was to hide the tandem so as to make it look as though Mr. Marton and Miss Raincliffe had gone away on it at the end of the show. According to what the caretaker told me, that’s what the others did think until the truth came out. We were told by his sister that Marton is weak and impressionable. It would have been easy enough, it seems to me, for Nicolson to have given Marton some reason or other as to why they shouldn’t leave the tandem with the other bikes in that shed.”

  “Your reasoning is valid up to a point, and I think you might be justified in arresting Mr. Nicolson on the strength of it, but only if Mr. Marton were dead, Mr. Marton is very much alive and could refute your theory about the tandem as soon as the defending lawyer had put him in the witness box.”

  “The prosecution would claim that he was still under Nicolson’s influence, ma’am, and was unwilling to denounce his friend. Anyway, I shall have another go at Marton as soon as he can be discharged from hospital. I am impressed by your ideas, ma’am. It’s only that I prefer my own.”

  “As who would not?” said Dame Beatrice cordially. “Nevertheless, Inspector, I’ll take the high road and you’ll take the low road (or vice versa, of course—the choice is yours) and I have a feeling that I’ll be in Scotland before you.”

  “There’s always the story of the hare and the tortoise, ma’am.”

  “I know; but which of us is which?”

  “Do you really believe Ribble will arrest Nicolson?” asked Laura. Dame Beatrice cackled.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “Inspector Ribble knows perfectly well that he has no case against Mr. Nicolson. He was enjoying himself by arguing with me, that is all. On the other hand, neither have I a case which, at present, would survive examination. Our next excursion, yours and mine, is to Long Cove Bay.”

  “That hostel again?”

  “No. We are going to visit a public house.”

  “Good-o, but why?”

  “You may know when we get there, but I can promise nothing. This really will be a shot in the dark. If it finds its mark it will be because of the notes of his own painstaking work with which the inspector provided me, and I shall take pleasure in saying as much, both to him and to his Chief Constable.”

  “So he doesn’t mean to arrest our nominee either?”

  “Good gracious, no. That was a probe to find out whether I know something I have not told him. It failed because I have disclosed to him all that is in my heart concerning this affair.”

  “But he thinks it’s weak on motive. Is the motive he assigns to Nicolson any stronger?”

  “A policeman would think so, I daresay. There is considerable bias about some relationships.”

  — 17 —

  DESTROYING ANGEL

  Hermione, sure of her road, brought Isobel by way of High Wycombe, skirted Wheatley and then took the minor road northwestward through Forest Hill and so to her home. Erica and Tamsin, in
Erica’s car, arrived an hour later, and all were soon at table.

  “So you’ve been having adventures,” said Jenny, their hostess.

  “What has Aunt Adela been up to?” asked Carey. “You say she sent you away from the forest area.”

  “She thought we might be murdered if we stayed, so Isobel took me to her London flat and Erica took Tamsin home with her, and then I got this idea of all of us coming down here. The two working women have to go back on Saturday afternoon, but Tamsin can stay on for a bit. She wants to draw pigs. You might like to have a portrait of Lucifer,” said Hermione to her father.

  “Is Lucifer a pig?” asked Tamsin.

  “He’s my prize boar,” Carey replied. “You shall see him tomorrow. We call him Lucifer, but his name, when I show him, is Harold Longtooth of Roman Ending. There’s a Roman villa not too far away and I bought the farm which is next door to it and added it to my own. I’ve built my pig-man a cottage out there and pulled the old farmhouse down. It was a bit of an eyesore, anyway.”

  “Would you really let me paint Harold? I’ve sketched dogs, but never a boar. And are there woods on your estate?”

  “I expect you miss the forest,” said Jenny, “but we do have woods near by. We don’t own them, but we have rights of pannage, so, if any of you are short of something to do while you’re here, you can always go and gather acorns and beech-mast. The pigs love both, and I can supply baskets and clean sacks. Pigs are forest animals. Of course nowadays we don’t let them loose in the woods, which is what they would enjoy most, but we keep them in pig-houses with a shed and a large outside run, so I think they are fairly happy, especially as they’ve never known anything else. The pig-houses are a good way off, but Carey will trundle you round in the jeep and you can easily get to the woods from there.”

  “I hope Aunt Adela isn’t in danger of being murdered,” said Carey, who had not taken the possibility seriously.

  “She told me she would still have Laura and Detective-Inspector Ribble with her,” Hermione replied, “so she ought to be all right. In any case the murderer only specialises in young women. That’s why Tamsin is such a responsibility.”

  “What about you?” retorted Tamsin. “Anyway, it is all to do with those dance people. None of us was in any danger.”

  “Then why was Dame Beatrice so anxious that we shouldn’t let anybody know where we were going?” asked Isobel, looking at Erica.

  “Oh, it is a precautionary measure,” Erica replied, “but she was insistent about our leaving the forest cabin, so I felt I had to agree. After all, two girls have been killed. She was right to make us leave.”

  “Oh, well, nobody knows where we are except for Mr. and Mrs. Lestrange and my mother,” said Tamsin. “I thought somebody in the family ought to be told where we were.”

  “Quite right,” said Jenny. “I should always want to know where Hermy was.”

  “‘That old-fashioned mother of mine!’” chanted Hermione. “You are way, way behind the times, darling! Parents never want to know what their children are up to nowadays in case somebody holds them responsible for whatever it is.”

  “If only the parents were held responsible there would be a lot less truancy in schools and far better behaviour all round,” said Isobel severely. “As for this nonsense that a child of under ten is incapable of committing any crime, I never heard such rubbish in my life. I could tell you—”

  “Oh, head her off, somebody!” said Tamsin. “You shouldn’t talk shop, Isobel, especially at table.”

  “Oh, oh!” said Erica. “Is this a case of the bunny biting the stoat? What have you been up to that you turn so belligerent all of a sudden?”

  “I haven’t been up to anything. Of course I haven’t. What should I have been up to?”

  “‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much,’” said Hermione. “Come clean, young Tamsin. You’ve given somebody else this address, haven’t you?”

  “Well, only John,” admitted Tamsin, “and that can’t possibly hurt. He won’t pass it on, I’m sure. He would hate not to know where I am.”

  “‘Kind hearts are more than coronets And simple faith than Norman blood,’” said her sister. “What a priceless fathead you can be when you really make up your mind to it!”

  “So we visit another pub,” said Laura, “but why George? I could have driven the car. Do we need a bodyguard?”

  “We may have to park outside a house while we conduct what I think will be our last interview. As I have a feeling that a back street in Long Cove Bay may not be the safest place to leave an unattended car, I decided to bring George along,” Dame Beatrice explained.

  “I see. So the visit to the pub is not the only reason for our taking this trip across the moors.”

  On their right they were passing a pine-forest which looked almost black because of its density. On their left, dreary with faded heather and sad, although colourful, with acres of gold, dead bracken, the moors rose in the distance in folds of blue, grey, and dirty green, a mysterious, monotonous, nostalgic, tragic landscape, while ahead of the car there stretched, wound, mounted and fell the apparently endless ribbon of moorland road snaking its way towards the world’s end. Laura summed up the landscape.

  “Enough to give you the willies,” she said. As the car approached Long Cove Bay the road began to descend, but very gradually and then it turned to the right, past the Youth Hostel, and made for the town.

  Ribble had served Dame Beatrice well. He had named the pub in his notes and had given the address to which he had taken the girl, whose name he could give only as Marion. He had added a footnote to the effect that she had been of no help to him.

  The pub was small, cosy, and not particularly busy, as it was past one o’clock and its habitués had gone home or to cafés for their midday meal. Laura ordered ham sandwiches and beer for herself and George, a cheese sandwich and sherry for Dame Beatrice and then, going to the counter for a second round of drinks, she mentioned Marion’s name.

  “You know her?” asked the barmaid.

  “Mutual friends,” said Laura, “asked me to look her up. Is she working?”

  “Her? Not bloody likely!” said the barmaid. “What, with the Welfare only too ready and willing? I wouldn’t work, either, if I could stick being at home all day with my old man, but I can’t. One thing about this job, you’ve always got company and you don’t have to fork out for their nosh.”

  “You don’t come from these parts,” said Laura. “Neither do I. Good old London! Is Marion likely to be in this morning?”

  Correctly interpreting this, the barmaid replied that Marion would not be in until the evening for her “usual” and that she and the barmaid were going out that afternoon window-shopping in Gledge End.

  “Marion can borrow the tandem,” she said, “on account her boyfriend has got to go to Birmingham on business by train.”

  Laura returned to the table at which she had left Dame Beatrice and communicated these tidings to her. Dame Beatrice made no comment, but as soon as Laura had drunk her second half-pint she led the way out and went straight to a public call-box from which she rang Detective-Inspector Ribble, told him where he could find a tandem, and suggested that it might be the one stolen from the church hall.

  “It’s the right tandem,” said Ribble on the following day. “Right make, right colour, right lamps, right accessories, as described to us by young Marton. I was allowed in to see him again. He expects to be discharged from hospital in a day or two, but, except for the description of the tandem, about which he was very clear—he and Nicolson appear to cherish the thing the same way as some young men cherish a sports car—he couldn’t help me any further. Still has no idea who his assailant was and remembers nothing of Miss Raincliffe’s bursting into the room. I suppose he’d just been knocked unconscious when she arrived on the scene. Anyway, we’ll pick up our chap for the theft of the tandem. We can hold him for that and, as there is this more serious charge of murder in the offing, we shall be fully justi
fied in opposing bail.”

  “I don’t think you need waste the time of the Birmingham police,” said Dame Beatrice. “If I read his mind aright, the most likely place to find him will be in or near the village of Stanton St. John. He will have found out by this time that his next victim (as he supposes) is not at her home address.”

  “If you’re right about the motive for the murder of Mrs. Tyne and the murderous attack on Mr. Marton, I think you’re right about Stanton St. John, ma’am. As you indicated, why else would the forest warden’s records have been stolen?”

  “So you have come round to my point of view.”

  “He must be pretty reckless to have stuck to the tandem. He must have known it would be recognised sooner or later,” said Ribble.

  “He may have felt safe at first when he knew you had rounded up the dancers and placed them in a position which approximated to their being held in custody. As soon as he found out that you had let them go, he co-opted this girl Marion, thinking that nobody would be looking for two people on the tandem.”

  “I suppose she is in no danger from him?”

  “None at all, unless she wounds his amour propre, and from what I saw of the two of them in the forest clearing, there is little chance of that at present.”

  “We used to have a marvellous cook who was also quite a character,” said Jenny to Erica. “Her name was Mrs. Ditch. Of course she’s been dead for some years now, but we still have her son, known to all as Our Walt. He is Carey’s pig-man now and has three underlings to whom he acts as a benevolent despot. I don’t know what we should do without him. He’s a first-class handy-man as well. His wife is the present cook and she’s good, too.”

  “I wish she would show me how to make a bacon pudding and how to do pig’s fry.”

  “She’ll be delighted to, if you ask her. What about her recipe for black puddings? What are the others doing this morning? I haven’t seen them since breakfast.”

  “Isobel needed exercise and has walked to Oxford. She said she might do some shopping, I expect that means she’ll look at the University booksellers and take a taxi back here to be in time for lunch. You said it would not be until two, so she thought she would have time. She’ll be back all right. She isn’t scatty, like young Tamsin. Tamsin is sketching pigs.”