“No. I shall go and you may please yourself. On second thoughts, do not communicate with Miss Starr. We will wait upon events.”
Owen’s reunion for the members of his tour who were able to attend it was in the form of a cocktail party, and this was already in the warming-up stage when Dame Beatrice and Laura were shown in. There were others present in the persons, Laura decided, of Owen’s colleagues and their wives. Their host greeted the newcomers, found Dame Beatrice a chair and a glass of sherry, and, as the most illustrious and widely-known person present, she was soon surrounded.
Laura caught only one or two sentences of the ensuing conversation before, realising that Dame Beatrice had been commandeered by the Faculty and that there was no place in the gathering for herself, she wandered to the edge of the circle. All that she heard before she sighted Stewart and made her way to him was curious but not, at that stage, illuminating.
A very old man leaning on a stick and appearing to be very shortsighted, said in the high and tremulous voice which matched his years, “And have you known young Le Mans long, my dear lady? I hope he behaved on your trip to the Balkans. He got divorced, you know, the naughty fellow. You can’t trust these youngsters who want to take bites at a cherry.” He finished this speech with a shrill burst of laughter. Professor Owen intervened.
“This is Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley,” he shouted in the old man’s ear, “and my name is Owen, as you very well know, my dear Godalming. We went to Scotland, not to the Balkans. We went to look at standing stones.”
Laura moved out of earshot and made her way over to Stewart, who appeared to be presiding over the bar, although a waiter had supplied her with a drink as soon as she and Dame Beatrice had been announced.
Stewart greeted her with a smile.
“Hullo there, Mrs. Laura of the welcome presence!” he said. “Thank God for the sight of a Christian soul in this Roman Saturnalia! What’s that you’re holding? One of Owen’s almost nonalcoholic specials? Tip it into the garbage pail—which is to say, leave it on the end of the table and have a drop of honest Scotch.”
Laura accepted this advice and then she said, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“No. I had hoped to be still on the job for my thesis, but hotels and transport came rather expensive, so I’ll have to get back to work until the spring and carry on from there.”
“Aren’t you a little bit surprised at Owen’s throwing a party so soon after—?”
“After Catherine’s death? No, I’m not really surprised. He wasn’t all that fond of her and he’s a cold sort of fish, anyway.”
“I would have thought she was the cold fish. That’s how she struck me.”
“You’d be surprised. She and I were going to be married, you know.”
“Really? Well, I hope I’m not talking out of turn, but I quite thought that if you were going to take on anybody, it would be Capella.”
“That female kid? Good Lord, no. I may have chatted her up a bit, but that was only to keep my hand in and put Owen off the scent. Capella? Dear, dear! Who wants a wife who sees fairies at the bottom of the garden?”
“Well, you could have fooled me,” said Laura.
“Yes. Perhaps I overdid it a bit. Catherine seemed to think so. She got me on my own at Kilmartin and made herself very clear. I explained it was to put Owen off the scent and reminded her that he would take a dim view if he knew we had a clear understanding and were only waiting for the registrar to pronounce the magic words. Owen had ideas of his own, you see. They were first cousins, but the law of the land allows cousins to marry, so I was rather a spoke in his wheel.”
“Were you fond of Catherine?”
“She was very beautiful.”
“And had a lot of money.”
“You are a deep thinker, Mrs. Laura. All the same, I wouldn’t have married a moron or an old or ugly woman, and I would have made Catherine a good husband.”
“When did you hear the news?”
“Not until I got back from Ireland. When I had seen Clava and the passage graves and ring cairns. I went to Loanhead of Daviot, across the moor. Hired a car. I wondered whether Owen would opt to join me, but he wasn’t keen.”
“When did you see him last?”
“Before today? Oh, the night we were all together in Inverness. I didn’t want him with me at Clava, so I was away before any of you were up, and I didn’t go back to Inverness. Since then I’ve been to several sites, one after another, and finished up in Ireland. I would have liked to stay longer, but the cash began to run out. Drombeg, in Cork, is a perfect circle, with the sea just over the horizon, and there are three circles in Wicklow, with a specially fine one at Boleycarrigeen. Then I went to the amazing complex at Millin Bay in County Down. There’s nothing whatever like it in this country.”
“Glad you had such a good time,” said Laura, deciding to cut the recital short. “Well, I’d better circulate, I suppose.”
“I can’t, thank goodness. I’m anchored here.”
Laura went over to Lionel and Clarissa and was making easy, rather pointless conversation with them when Capella came in. She greeted Owen, who came forward to welcome her and then went over to Laura. Lionel and Clarissa drifted off to join the group around Dame Beatrice, and Stewart came across with a glass which he handed to Capella.
“Welcome to the revels,” he said.
“Thank you,” she replied. “Am I the last to come?”
“The very last. We don’t expect the Sisters and there is another absentee, of course, unfortunately.”
“What have you been doing since we left Inverness?”
“Going to and fro. How did you find Callanish? Did you see the stones by moonlight?”
“Yes, and we saw something else by moonlight, too.”
“Oh, really? What was that?”
“A bad dream, a dream that came true.”
“Yes? You must tell me about it sometime. I’d better get back to my bottles.”
Dame Beatrice came over as he took himself off and said that, when Laura was ready, she thought they should leave. She said to Capella, “Are you working?”
“Not until next week.”
“Then why not spend a few days with us?” The visit was arranged there and then. Laura was to pick Capella up in Oxford in two days’ time and she was to spend a week at the Stone House before taking up the tutoring assignment she had been promised.
“Are you going to pump her about Stewart?” Laura asked, when she and Dame Beatrice were on their way home.
“There may be a little sifting of the evidence,” Dame Beatrice admitted. “I shall be interested to hear of any reaction which she experienced when she met Stewart again. I noticed that when we were saying goodbye to Professor Owen she was already gravitating towards the young man.”
“Girls are damn fools,” said Laura. “I don’t like that boy. Never have.”
“Did you ever read Huntingtower?”
“John Buchan? Oh, rather! Revelled in it, although I preferred John McNab. Why?”
“Because Huntingtower suggested something to me which I would not have thought of without its help, but which, for what it is worth, I have passed to the police.”
“Well, now,” said Laura, “I know the book inside out. Ought it to suggest something to me?”
“Oh, I am sure it will. I wonder how the police are getting on? It must be very difficult to trace holiday passengers in August, but, no doubt, with their resources, they will be able to manage it.”
Laura looked at Dame Beatrice enquiringly, but met nothing but a bland, noncommittal smile.
“So you know the answer,” she said.
“I knew the answer some time ago, and so did you, but we still have to prove that it is correct,” said Dame Beatrice.
“Not us, but the police, you mean.”
“They need something they can take into court, and I cannot give it to them yet. We may know more when they have found out, on my advice, when and where
Mrs. Lemon was married.”
“So there is a connection between the murders.”
“Oh, there had to be. People who murder more than once nearly always repeat the method. The death of poor Catherine is a case in point.”
On the following morning there was a call from Marsh. He had been in touch with Catherine’s lawyers. She had made no valid will, although they had always advised her that to remain intestate gave the executors a lot of unnecessary trouble and made equally unnecessary delays in administering the estate. However, she had told them, only a week or so before her death and in a letter from Scotland, that she had changed her mind. She was engaged to be married and proposed to make a formal declaration of her intentions in order to be fair to somebody who would have expected to benefit a great deal more than she now intended that he should. She said she had warned him of this.
“Hell knows no fury like a disappointed man,” quoted Laura to Dame Beatrice when she delivered the message. “I suppose she spoke her own death sentence.”
“Exactly,” Dame Beatrice agreed. “Ring Inspector Marsh again and tell him I am expecting to attend an autumn solstice and its revels. Add that, whether invited or not, you and I will be among those present and would welcome his company. I think he may have reached our own conclusions by now.”
“Do you think Capella will keep the date?”
“Yes, since she believes that the invitation comes from Stewart.”
“I suppose you think young girls are very silly.”
“They are as God made them, I suppose.”
CHAPTER 18
CAPELLA AND THE KING STONE
“And ever about that knight’s middle
Of silver bells are nine;
And no maid goes to Carterhaugh
And maid returns again.”
Border Ballad— Tam Lin
On the following day, when she had sorted out the correspondence, answered such letters as lay within her province, and taken dictation from Dame Beatrice for all the others except for her own private post, Laura took Huntingtower from the library shelf which she and her employer reserved for light literature and settled down to study John Buchan’s fascinating adventure story.
She found what she thought she was looking for and when lunch had been cleared away she said, “I think I’ve got it. Leon equals Lean; Spittal equals Spidel; therefore Le Mans equals Lemon; but how did you tumble to it? That gaga old gentleman at the cocktail party, I suppose. It wouldn’t have occurred to me in a thousand years.”
“You do yourself an injustice. However, I have given the police my theory. If they do not choose to act on it I can do no more, but when their own enquiries are completed I think they and I will be in full accord. You ask me how I tumbled to it. I will put the same question to you.”
“Well, I suppose it was the foreign names angle. In the book, both Leon and Spidel had foreign names which, spoken, could sound like Scottish ones, particularly as L-E-A-N in Scotland is pronounced Lane in English. Spittal, well, it’s the Highland word for a hospice or perhaps a hospital, although hospice is more likely. Spidel sounds sufficiently like it, but is completely foreign. All the same, you know, Lemon, whether it’s spelt with one M or two, is not such an uncommon name. There are a dozen Lemons or more in our local telephone directory. I guess it’s nothing to do with fruit, but harks back to the old word leman, meaning a sweetheart.”
“Your erudition soars beyond my grasp. Do we expect the young Capella for lunch tomorrow?”
“I should think so. I’ll make an early start and pick her up in good time.” At this moment the telephone rang. Laura went off to answer it. “Inspector Marsh,” she said, when she came back. “He thanks you for your tip about the air service between London, Glasgow, Inverness, and Stornoway. He says there’s a combined operation going on and he hopes to report progress shortly. He is sure you’re right and he only wishes he had some excuse for holding the man while the police conclude their enquiries.”
Capella, when Laura presented her at the Stone House, had news. It came first in the form of a question.
“Are you going to the equinox party?” she asked.
“The autumn equinox?” asked Dame Beatrice.
“Yes. It’s being held at midnight on September twenty-second. Stewart is arranging it. It’s to be held in a stone circle, but he doesn’t know yet which one. You will come, won’t you? Everybody is being invited. It ought to be fun.”
“We don’t keep blind dates,” said Laura. “Did Stewart invite you while you were at Professor Owen’s?”
“No. Professor Owen told me about it after Stewart had gone.”
“What do you think of that stone circle party?” asked Laura, when Capella had gone to bed.
“I await our invitation to it,” Dame Beatrice replied. The week passed pleasantly with walks and drives in and around the New Forest, and Capella went home delighted with her visit. She wrote her thanks and said that she had received a formal invitation from Stewart in the form of a typewritten card.
“Ring up,” said Dame Beatrice, “and find out exactly how the invitation was worded and what was the postmark on the envelope.” Laura asked no questions, did as she was asked, and came back with the answer.
“Stewart requests the pleasure of your company at the Rollright Stones at eleven-thirty for twelve on the night of September twenty-second when the autumnal equinox will be celebrated in honour of Catherine Owen, deceased. No R.S.V.P. required. Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?”
“Ah,” said Dame Beatrice, “and the postmarks?”
“She’s chucked away the envelope and didn’t look at the postmark.”
“What was the address on the card?”
“I asked. There wasn’t one. But no R.S.V.P? That’s funny! I suppose she had already accepted. I wish I knew what this is in aid of. It seems, apart from all else, in very bad taste. ‘In honour of Catherine Owen, deceased’ indeed! And to hold a party where her body was found! Extraordinary ideas some people have; and that means Stewart. The bit of nonsense from A Midsummer Night’s Dream is typical of his sense of humour.”
“Which perhaps somebody besides yourself has studied.”
Capella dismissed the taxi, left the village in which, to her relief, lights were still burning, and made her way towards the stone circle.
The sun had set at seven and there had been a daylight moon which set at about a quarter to eight that evening, so, once she had left the village behind her, she had no comfort except the torch she had brought with her and the stars in the clear sky.
She had lunched as well as dined at a hotel in Chipping Norton and had spent the afternoon in making sure that she could find her way on foot from Little Rollright to the Stones. She experienced no difficulty after she had left the taxi, but did not notice, as she passed it that there were two private cars in the lay-by. The occupants were aware of her passing, and two men got out of one of the cars and went up to the other, which contained two women.
“He’ll think your car is simply the one she came in,” said a low voice, speaking in at the open window of the women’s car, “so we’ll move out now. The other one, if you’re right, may be early, so we had better be on the spot. There may be nothing in it, but better safe than sorry, and you’ve been right about everything else.”
The car drove off, but not towards the village. It continued on down the lane past the King Stone on the left, and, a little further on, stopped just beyond the path which skirted the reaped and empty barley field. The occupants of the second car got out and walked to the stone circle. The entrance was closed, as they had expected, but under the stars the stones themselves, dark, misshapen, and appallingly like crippled and evil men, stood in their timeless ring, reinforced by the bits and pieces of which the ravages of the upland weather had robbed them and which some pious or tidy-minded hands had added to the original circle.
Having made their survey, the watchers melted away without exchanging a
word and five minutes later Capella walked up to the spot on which they had stood. The air was chilly, but her involuntary shivering was from apprehension, not from cold. She glanced round and was aware that someone was approaching her. A spotlight from a torch shone on her and a voice said,
“Ah, splendid! I saw your car in the lay-by and hoped I should find you here. Well, shall we make for the meeting-place?”
“Oh, Professor Owen! I’m glad to see you,” she said with great relief. “I was beginning to wish I had not come. Where are the others?”
“Oh, coming, coming. All will be with us anon.”
They moved off down the lane, but at the stile leading to the King Stone, Capella said, “I’m not going any further.”
“Oh, but surely! Our rendezvous is with the Whispering Knights.”
“Mine isn’t.” She stood still. “Let’s wait here until the rest of them come.”
“They are probably in position already.”
“I don’t think so. We would have heard them from here.” Suddenly all the apprehension she had felt when she had stood and looked at the crowded circle of misshapen stones less than five minutes before almost overwhelmed her. “I’m going back to the lay-by to meet them,” she said.
“Not before you tell me what Catherine said to you before she left Ardrossan.” He put an authoritative hand on her arm.
“But she said nothing to me,” said Capella. “What are you talking about?” She shook off his hand.
“You are a very attractive girl,” he said, this time putting an arm round her shoulders, “and you must not tell lies. What did she say? She told you, and you only, that she was going to marry Stewart, didn’t she?”
Capella twisted herself from his grasp and ran to the stile which led to a path to the King Stone. Clumsily, because of the darkness combined with her feeling of terror, she half-climbed, half-tumbled over it, regained her balance, and began to run uphill towards the Stone. Over the brow of the hill the stars were clustered about its head. She hoped that one of them was Capella, the star for whom she was named.
“You must help me!” she cried wordlessly to the shapeless mass of time-eaten limestone. “I didn’t betray you! I only took back an oath I couldn’t keep. Hide me! Hide me!”
The Whispering Knights (Mrs. Bradley) Page 20
