Death of a Burrowing Mole mb-62

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Not us. We couldn’t care less. As for Veryan’s and Tynant’s beastly Bronze Age tomb, I wish they would trench right through the middle of the circle they’ve pegged out. They would be bound to find the grave that way, if it’s there, but apparently there’s a tedious scientific way of going about these excavations. You should hear Veryan on the subject of vandals who, in former times, have done what we suggest.’

  ‘So, at some time or other, Professor Veryan’s wide trench is going to undermine the foundations of one of Mr Saltergate’s flanking-towers,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘I shouldn’t have thought one tower would matter,’ said Tom. ‘If you ask me, both parties were pretty fed-up from the very outset when they found that the other lot had been given permission to work on the site. They pretended to accept each other graciously at first, but that’s all over now. You ought to come back with us this afternoon and look at the work we’ve been doing,’ said Bonamy.

  ‘Well,’ said Laura, looking hopefully at Dame Beatrice, ‘there’s the Seagull hotel at Holdy Bay. No doubt they could have us a bit later on. Perhaps the dispute about the trench will be resolved by then. I’d love to see what the castle looks like now.’

  The subject was dropped. Lunch passed pleasantly and early in the afternoon the young men took their leave and drove back to the castle. There was a policeman at the gatehouse and another was on duty on top of the hill. The caravan and Tom’s car had disappeared and there was nobody on the site, although that in itself was not strange. It was the presence of the police which was disconcerting.

  ‘Something wrong, sergeant?’ asked Bonamy.

  ‘Who are you, sir?’

  ‘My name is Monkswood. My friend and I have been away for the weekend since Friday afternoon. Up to that time we’ve been helping out here at the castle. What’s been happening? Why are you here?’

  ‘You will find the Superintendent at the Barbican hotel in the village, sir.’ He took out a notebook, added, ‘He will be glad to see you two gentlemen,’ and then inscribed Bonamy’s name after he had asked for the initials. He then asked for Tom’s full name, wrote that down, too, and asked where they had come from.

  ‘Not your home address, but where you were last night, sir?’

  ‘We camped near the Stone House, Wandles Parva, in Hampshire, the home of my godmother, Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley.’

  ‘The Superintendent will certainly wish to see you, sir. You had best go along at once. He will have interviewed the rest of your party by now.’

  ‘What has happened to the caravan and the car which were parked here?’ asked Tom.

  ‘They have been removed to the village car park, sir. You will have no difficulty in locating them.’

  ‘Can’t you tell us anything about what has been going on?’

  ‘No, sir, I have no instructions to that effect.’

  ‘Can we go up to the keep? We’ve left some gear there,’ said Bonamy.

  ‘Nobody is allowed beyond this point, sir. Your property will be quite safe.’

  ‘Come on, Bonamy,’ said Tom. They got into Bonamy’s car and drove to the Barbican. Bonamy went up to the reception counter.

  ‘Mr Monkswood and Mr Hassocks,’ he said. ‘You know us, I think. We have had meals here with Mr Tynant and Professor Veryan.’

  ‘Which is a gentleman you won’t ever sit down at table with again,’ said the receptionist.

  ‘What!’

  ‘Found dead first thing this morning up at the castle. Mr Tynant and the police are through here.’ She folded back the flap of the counter, led them through a room at the back of her office and tapped on a further door. ‘Mr Monkswood and Mr Hassocks are here,’ she said.

  The room to which they had been admitted was small and overcrowded. All the castle party were there, with the obvious exception of Veryan. At a table sat two men in plain clothes. One of them looked round and then indicated two vacant chairs.

  ‘So now we have a full house,’ he said, in a tone of satisfaction. ‘All I am doing at present, gentlemen, is checking where everybody has been during the weekend. There has been a serious accident resulting in the death of Professor Veryan. He appears to have been alone on the tower of the castle and to have fallen. In all cases of this sort we have to conduct an official enquiry before the coroner takes over, so, if I could just have an account of how you two gentlemen spent your weekend, that will round out my little dossier and we can all go off and have our tea. Now, Mr Monkswood.’ The other plain-clothes policeman opened the door and the rest of the party filed out.

  ‘When did he – when did the accident happen?’ asked Tom.

  ‘The medical evidence will come out at the inquest, sir. When did you leave the castle ruins?’

  ‘On Friday at about midday,’ said Bonamy. ‘Professor Veryan was quite all right then. He walked with us to our car and then he and Mr Tynant went off to have their lunch and Hassocks and I drove to the pub in the village of Stint Magna, where we usually get our snacks at lunchtime, and then we toured and messed about and camped out until today, when we called on my godmother, Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, had lunch with her at her home, the Stone House, and came back here.’

  ‘Where were you last night, sir?’

  ‘Last night? We slept in our tent on the edge of the New Forest. It’s a bit of rough land belonging to my godmother and adjoining her grounds, so we knew it was all right to be there.’

  ‘Were there other campers with you?’

  ‘No, of course not. It’s private land belonging to Dame Beatrice, a sort of paddock, in fact.’

  ‘This was last night. What about the night before?’

  ‘We slept in the car. We were up on Campdown and tried pitching the tent, but it was too windy.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Monkswood. I’d just like a word with Mr Hassocks, and then I’m through for the time being. Now, Mr Hassocks, what made you two gentlemen come to the hotel at this time of day? I was told that you were not due here until just on time for your evening dinner and never came here earlier then seven o’clock.’

  ‘We drove back to the castle to unload our sleeping-bags and take them up to the keep, but the police sergeant at the gatehouse said you were at the hotel and wanted to see us. Look here, it’s been a bit of a shock, you know. Veryan dead? How did it happen? I mean, how did he come to fall off the tower?’

  ‘That is the object of our investigation, sir, to find out how it happened. All we know at present is that Professor Veryan’s body was found at the foot of the castle tower by Mr Nicholas Tynant and it is presumed that he had fallen from the top on to a heap of broken stone below. So the two folding camp-beds and other items which we found inside the tower are the property of you and Mr Monkswood, are they?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve been sleeping there, but we only took sleeping-bags for this weekend’s camping.’

  ‘For how long, sir, have you been sleeping in the castle tower?’

  ‘Ever since Professor Veryan and Mr Saltergate began work in the castle grounds. We’d got the gear, you see, for sleeping out and it saved hotel bills. Using the keep saved us the trouble of putting up a tent.’

  ‘Were you aware that Professor Veryan was in the habit of taking a telescope up to the top of the tower at night to study the stars?’

  ‘He couldn’t have done that. We should have heard him, unless he sneaked up while we were at the pub. Even so, you know, we should have heard him when he came down, and we never did. I don’t suppose he stayed there all night, did he?’

  ‘He was wearing tennis shoes when he was found and young gentlemen like yourselves are sound sleepers. He had a key to the hotel front door and the staff had instructions not to shoot the bolts. He secured them after he had let himself in each night.’

  ‘So the hotel staff knew about him and his telescope,’ said Tom.

  ‘The receptionist and the porter knew. The manager did not know. It was left to the discretion of the desk clerk to give the key to any guest who ex
pected to be out after eleven-thirty at night because the hotel does not employ a night-porter, so it was quite in order for the girl to let Professor Veryan have the key, although it was unusual for the same person to have it night after night.

  ‘What would have happened if somebody else had wanted the key?’

  ‘I have no information, sir. Apparently the question did not arise. There are no evening entertainments in the village and after dinner it would be too late for people to get to the pictures, or whatever, at Holdy Bay. I understand that in the evenings you two gentlemen left the hotel after dinner and did not join Professor Veryan and Mr Tynant again until breakfast on the following day.’

  ‘We’d been with them all the morning and at dinner, so for their sakes as well as ours we found this snug little pub in Stint Magna and we used to have our lunchtime snack and our evening drinks there.’

  ‘Can you give me any proof that you spent last night in a tent in Dame Beatrice’s paddock? I don’t doubt whatever that you did spend the night in the vicinity of the Stone House, but we have to ask these routine questions when there is anything suspicious about a death.’

  ‘Suspicious? You mean Professor Veryan’s death wasn’t an accident?’

  ‘We have to bear all possibilities in mind, sir, and we think it highly suspicious that he met his death when the tower was empty, with you two gentlemen away, so that nobody would have heard him cry out when he fell.’

  ‘What about the girls in the caravan? Didn’t they hear anything?’

  ‘If you mean Dr Lochlure and her two students, they say they were not there. They also say that they would have taken no action even if they had heard anything. They would have supposed it would only have been a drunken villager or some other tipsy person. In any case, the tower is some way off from where the caravan was parked, and ladies have good reason, unfortunately, in these days, to stay safely within four walls after dark, especially in lonely neighbourhoods. Well, that’s all for the present, gentlemen.’

  ‘Except for deciding where we’re going to sleep tonight,’ said Tom to Bonamy, as they went back to Bonamy’s car. This point was settled by Tynant at dinner that evening.

  ‘Veryan’s room is locked up for the time being,’ he said, ‘and anyway I don’t suppose you would care, either of you, to occupy it. The hotel can give you a two-bed room in a cottage which they use as an annexe when the hotel is full. I think you had better accept. As what has happened is no fault of yours, I am prepared to pay for your lodging.’

  ‘No need, sir,’ said Tom. ‘We have a tent and we’ve got our sleeping-bags.’

  ‘They won’t allow you at the foot of the castle mound. There isn’t anywhere else where you could pitch a tent and they certainly won’t allow you to sleep in the keep, even if you wanted to do so.’

  ‘Look here, sir,’ said Bonamy, ‘they don’t really suspect foul play, do they?’

  ‘They are treating the circumstances with reservations, let us say.’

  ‘But why? I’ve climbed that newel stair and it would be easy enough to fall from the top in the dark if you weren’t careful. At one place there is less than a foot of the parapet left standing.’

  ‘I have not been up there myself, but Edward Saltergate made that very observation. All the same, poor Veryan had been up there almost every evening since we’ve been here. He should not have been in any danger on territory he must have known so well. Mind you, anybody can overbalance. The police think he was sitting on the wall and tipped over backwards.’

  ‘I suppose there will have to be an inquest, sir? Shall we all be asked to attend it?’

  ‘Well, Saltergate and I have been told to see that none of our party leaves until it is over.’

  ‘What do you think happened, sir? That policeman—’

  ‘The Detective-Superintendent.’

  ‘Oh, is he? He let it out that they thought it very peculiar that the accident happened while everybody was away. What was everyone else doing?’

  ‘Well, the rest of us spent the weekend in various ways. In other words, we all thought your idea was a good one and that it wouldn’t hurt if the rest of us relaxed a little. I’m afraid the work was beginning to pall. It’s all hard slog and, up to the present, nothing much to show for it.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Tom. ‘If it weren’t for the ditch and the trench, neither of which can be disguised, the castle would now look a lot tidier than it did when we first came. Gosh! My deltoids and hamstrings! My once limber knees and delicately tended hands! I shall never be the same man again.’

  ‘Oh, well, any alteration must be an improvement,’ said Bonamy. ‘Don’t you think so, sir?’

  ‘Why – I’ve often wondered – why did you two fellows come here in the first place?’ asked Tynant.

  ‘We wanted a cheap holiday and to do a bit of reading for our finals and stooge about the neighbourhood and live the simple life. We got caught up in the works when you and Mr Saltergate came along and wanted volunteers, that’s all.’

  ‘I see. Well, look, here’s the key to the cottage. It’s on the left as you leave the village square. You can’t mistake it. It’s got an outside stone staircase up to the bedrooms, and that’s the way you get in, because there is no door at street level.’

  ‘These quaint old Spanish customs!’ said Tom, when they had climbed the outside stair and let themselves in. ‘I noted that you teetered on the edge of telling Tynant about our well. I’m glad you didn’t.’

  ‘You don’t still have hopes of finding the treasure, do you? So why are you glad I didn’t say anything? I was inclined to, as you surmise, but I decided he might think me rather young for my age if I started waffling about buried treasure.’

  ‘Well, that was probably good thinking. Why am I glad you didn’t say anything? I’ll tell you. Against all the odds, I’ve got a feeling that we are destined to find that hoard.’

  ‘God bless you for an innocent, wide-eyed boy!’

  ‘There is no such thing as an innocent boy and boys are only wide-eyed at the sight of lavish, luxurious food. You know, it’s pretty decent of Tynant to have fixed us up in this bijou residence. I can’t help wondering, though, why the police want to keep us all on the spot, but, because they so obviously do want to, I wonder whether we ought to come clean about Virginia and Sarah.’

  ‘Good heavens, no!’ said Bonamy, horrified. ‘If there’s going to be a stink – and it looks that way – we can’t involve two innocent young girls. They couldn’t possibly know anything about Veryan’s death. Keep your fingers crossed and your trap shut. If Veryan hadn’t been an eminent man, there would have been none of this fussation about what must have been a perfectly simple accident.’

  ‘It’s funny it happened just when it did, though. That’s what is bothering the gendarmes,’ said Tom.

  ‘Yes, and that brings me to something else. What on earth made you mention the girls in the caravan to that rozzer? A good thing he thought you meant Fiona and Priscilla. Nobody must know that Virginia and Sarah slept there while Veryan was flinging himself off that tower.’

  ‘Suicide, do you think?’

  ‘I am not thinking anything at all.’

  ‘I wish I felt sorrier about his death.’

  ‘We all will, later on. We’re all suffering from shock at present.’

  7

  Alibis

  « ^ »

  After breakfast Bonamy telephoned the Stone House.

  ‘Don’t bother about coming to the castle at present,’ he said. ‘Work is suspended and everything is haywire.’

  ‘Oh? Has somebody found the treasure?’ asked Laura, who took the call.

  ‘Lord, no, nothing like that. There has been an accident and Veryan is dead.’

  ‘Hold on. I’ll get Dame B.’

  ‘So what has happened to cause Professor Veryan’s death?’ Dame Beatrice enquired.

  ‘He fell from the top of the keep and busted his head and his spine. The police are here and none
of us knows whether we’re coming or going.’

  ‘Are you and Tom free to come here and tell us all about it? When did it happen?’

  ‘The night Tom and I slept in your paddock. Tynant is worried. The police are as busy as a colony of ants. He says he thinks they have a suspicion that something other than an accident was the cause of Veryan’s death.’

  ‘I think, in that case, you certainly had better come here at once. If the police are difficult about it, refer them to me, and I will pull my rank, as Laura would put it.’

  ‘Does that mean it’s serious?’

  ‘Probably not, so far as you and Tom are concerned, but your interests must be protected. Is there any chance that it could have been suicide?’

  ‘I think the attitude of the police suggests something a lot more sinister than that. They are questioning us and probing and ferreting around in the most unnerving manner. Young Priscilla, who is scared almost out of her wits, asked me if it was possible to commit murder in your sleep. I think she has almost persuaded herself that she did the deed under those circumstances. However, she is a poet and, to that extent, mad.’

  ‘So the police have made no secret of their suspicions of murder?’

  ‘The word itself has not been used yet, but actions speak louder than words and they are turning the village and the castle upside down and all of our party inside out.’

  Somewhat to Bonamy’s surprise, the Detective-Superintendent made no objection to the visit to Dame Beatrice.

  ‘We have checked on the information you gave us, sir,’ he said, ‘and Dame Beatrice has confirmed that you and Mr Hassocks were at the Stone House on Monday when you said you were, and that you yourself are well known to her from childhood. When your visit is over, we shall expect to be informed of your whereabouts.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. I say, does that mean you think there was something fishy about Veryan’s death?’

  ‘We are always very thorough in our investigations into “accidental” deaths, especially those of eminent persons which occur under highly suspicious circumstances, sir.’