Death of a Burrowing Mole mb-62

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘How do you mean – highly suspicious circumstances?’

  ‘Now, sir, you must not question a police officer who is only performing his duty. The Chief Constable sends his regards to Dame Beatrice. She has been in touch with him.’

  ‘So she did pull her rank,’ said Bonamy to Tom, when they were on their way to the Stone House, ‘and I take it very kind of her, because it’s a thing she hates and detests doing.’

  ‘You don’t suppose she thinks we might be in trouble?’

  ‘We haven’t an alibi, you know.’

  ‘Neither has anybody else, so far as I can see.’

  ‘The Saltergates? After all, if the police are going to find out about that row between them and Veryan, Edward Saltergate will come under suspicion, so it’s lucky for him that he can prove he was safely in harbour at the Horse and Cart.’

  ‘But can he prove it? I should have thought it was almost impossible to prove that you were in bed with your wife while evil deeds were being committed.’

  ‘Somebody at the Horse and Cart would have known if he had sneaked out at night.’

  ‘I doubt it. These country people sleep like the dead. Besides, he wouldn’t need to use the front door to get in and out. There’s an iron fire-escape staircase reaching right up to the roof, so it must connect with every floor.’

  ‘You know,’ said Bonamy, ‘I think the police have something to go on, apart from mere suspicion and being thorough, and all that. I wonder what it is? It must be a real clue of some sort.’

  ‘Well, it was strange that the thing happened just when it did, with everybody away except the Saltergates. It almost lets them out, alibi or no alibi, if you see what I mean. If an intelligent man like Saltergate meant to murder somebody, he wouldn’t do it when he was the only man on the spot, especially if the murder was the result of a quarrel.’

  When lunch was over at the Stone House, Dame Beatrice and Laura took the young men into the library, ‘As being,’ said Laura, ‘a room of more sober aspect than the drawing-room,’ and there the conference was held.

  ‘I gather,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘that the death took place at night.’

  ‘Yes. It seems that Veryan was a bit of an amateur astronomer. He used to take his telescope up to the top of the keep and study the stars from there.’

  ‘I thought you two slept in the keep. You say “it seems”. Does that mean you were unaware until now that he must always have passed through your sleeping quarters to get to the newel staircase?’

  ‘We’ve discussed that,’ said Tom. ‘We think he must have gone to the keep and climbed the stair before we got back from the pub.’

  ‘That would account for his comings, but what about his goings?’

  ‘Must have been some time after we were asleep. The newel stair is in the opposite corner from where our beds were placed and the keep is pretty wide. Besides, apparently he wore sneakers on these occasions, so, unless he fell over something or made any other kind of noise, we wouldn’t have been disturbed. We had worked very hard during the mornings, including the time we spent looking for our well before breakfast each day, and then we would drive to our pub after dinner and stay there until closing time.’

  ‘So all work at the castle has ceased. Is that a temporary measure? Will the parties carry on later?’

  ‘I think they may. Tynant is staying on, anyway, after the inquest, to carry on with the Bronze Age dig.’

  ‘If the police have questioned all the members of the party – separately, I suppose you mean – and are still there, they certainly have their suspicions,’ said Laura.

  ‘Well, there were two rather strange things about the night of the accident. We told them about our being here instead of in the keep when the accident happened.’

  ‘But it doesn’t seem as though you could have prevented the accident if you had been there.’

  ‘No, but we might have heard him yell out as he fell. In that case we could have rushed out and got a doctor to him straight away. It might have done some good.’

  ‘What was the other strange thing?’

  ‘On that night the three women weren’t in their caravan any more than we were in the keep. I don’t know what they’d been doing for the rest of the weekend, but Dr Lochlure and Tynant were in Holdy Bay on that particular day. It was Sunday, if you remember. Tom and I left you early on Monday afternoon. Well, apparently Tynant’s car broke down (or he says it did) soon after they had left Holdy Bay on Sunday night. He tinkered about with it, but soon realised there was nothing he could do, so he walked Dr Susannah back to the hotel at which they had dined – not the Seagull, but the other one – and made them give her a bed for the night. Then he walked all the way back to the Barbican and, not liking to knock them up in the small hours, he says he sat on the stone coping until the sleeping-out staff arrived on duty and went in with them.’

  ‘What of Dr Lochlure?’

  ‘Says she got a taxi after an early breakfast in Holdy Bay on Monday morning and was back at the caravan before the two girls arrived a bit later.’

  ‘So where had the two women students been?’

  ‘Well, it was they who were responsible for our deciding to play hooky for the weekend. They had struck work and, like true daughters of Eve, had tempted us to do likewise. Fiona’s home is only about thirty miles from the castle, and Priscilla has friends who live on a farm between Holdy Bay and Fiona’s home, so, as they have the use of Tom’s car, Fiona dropped Priscilla off at the farm, went on home and picked up Priscilla again first thing on Monday morning. It appears they and Dr Lochlure were accustomed to wait in the caravan after breakfast for Mrs Saltergate to come and dig them out for the start of the day’s work. On Monday it wasn’t she who came; it was the police. Then, I suppose, it all happened at once – police towing their caravan away and ordering them to take Tom’s car to the car park and then the general round-up at the Barbican, where they were given the news. Of course Tom and I didn’t show up until nearly teatime because, while all this was going on, we were here with you.’

  ‘That appears to account for everybody except for Mr and Mrs Saltergate,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘They were staying at the Horse and Cart, the other hotel in the village. The first they knew was when they got a phone message from Tynant to tell them that Veryan had had a fatal accident and to ask them to come round to the Barbican instead of going to the castle.’

  ‘What did the police think of what various people told them? Were they satisfied with it?’ asked Laura.

  ‘We don’t know. Of course, at first nobody let on that there had been a disagreement between Veryan and Saltergate. It wasn’t all that serious, anyway, I’m sure. A compromise would have been reached if Veryan had lived. Until the little skirmish about the trench, the two sides had always got on perfectly well together and were sharing Tom and me and the two navvies in the most amicable fashion – at least, I thought so. Anyway, the police got to know about the quarrel, but we don’t know who blew the gaff.’

  ‘Probably nobody did, in that sense,’ said Laura. ‘The police are pretty good at deducing that sort of thing.’

  ‘Whatever people want to think, I don’t believe Veryan’s death was an accident,’ said Tom.

  ‘Oh? Why?’ asked Laura.

  ‘Too many alibis floating around.’

  ‘Your own being one of them, of course.’

  ‘Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately, no. You can only swear that we were with you from about ten on Monday morning until after lunch, and that’s no help at all,’ said Bonamy.

  ‘I bet the coroner brings in death by misadventure,’ Tom went on. ‘Is that quite the same as “accidental death”?’

  ‘Whether it’s the same or not, it makes no difference from a practical point of view,’ said Bonamy. ‘Either verdict takes the police out of the picture, but I agree with you. I’m sure the police are not satisfied and I’m sure they have something specific to go on in their not being satisfied.’ />
  ‘Suspicious of all those alibis,’ said Tom, ‘and I don’t blame them.’

  ‘Granted, but I think they’ve got hold of something else. Wish I knew what it was.’

  ‘Tell me all that you can about your weekend,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘You think you have no alibi, but one never knows.’

  ‘As we indicated, we’re not at all sure we want to produce an alibi when all the others are so sketchy.’

  ‘Are they, indeed? Perhaps we will examine them in detail later. What about your own adventures?’

  ‘We didn’t have any. We left the castle as soon as the Friday morning work was finished, had a snack and a beer at our usual pub at Stint Magna and then went wherever the car took us. We collected up bread and cake and cheese and beer, so that, if we couldn’t find anywhere to have an evening blow-out, we wouldn’t go hungry or thirsty and at about six in the evening we began looking about for somewhere to pitch the tent. As we were by the sea, we decided to sleep on the sands. There are worse beds’than a soft, dry sand-dune.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Laura sceptically. ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Sometimes Tom had the wheel and sometimes I did,’ said Bonamy, ignoring the question and also avoiding his godmother’s suddenly enlightened eye. ‘We did not go far on the Friday afternoon – about eighty or ninety miles. On Saturday we stopped in the afternoon to watch a village cricket match—’

  ‘ “Caught at point by a man in braces”,’ murmured Laura.

  ‘— and then we drove on to the moors, but up there it was so windy that we didn’t attempt to put up the tent. The heather was quite dry and beautifully springy, so we tried that in turns while the other one had the back seat of the car. But, of course, those are not the nights that matter. It was on the Sunday night that Veryan either fell or was pushed, and that’s the night we slept in your paddock with never a soul to know we were there.’

  ‘You ought to have come up to the house and let us give you some supper,’ said Laura. ‘Then we could have given you a cast-iron alibi.’

  ‘It was too late to disturb you. We didn’t get here until after eleven. Your Dobermanns would have torn us to bits if we’d come up to the house at that time of night.’

  ‘They wouldn’t tear anybody to bits. They would be very menacing and kick up the devil of a shindy, but they wouldn’t savage anybody who was not threatening Dame B. or myself.’

  ‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘you certainly have not furnished yourselves with an alibi, and your simple, unembroidered story rings so false that it must be conceded that you could have pushed Professor Veryan off the tower, driven here during the night and appeared daisy-fresh at my front door on Monday morning. Let us abandon this sad scenario and concentrate on those alibis which do appear to exist.’

  ‘I suppose the two girls’ statements will hold water,’ said Laura.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bonamy. ‘Fiona’s parents will vouch for her, I suppose, and Priscilla’s friends ditto.’

  ‘What of Mr Tynant and Dr Lochlure?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘Are their alibis equally sound?’

  ‘Hardly. It seems to me that Tynant’s has great big holes in it,’ said Bonamy, ‘and I’ll tell you why. When we got back to the castle on Monday afternoon, the police wouldn’t let us park my car at the foot of the mound, but sent us to the village car park. Tynant’s car was there. I recognised it. It couldn’t have broken down late on Sunday night. He could not have got a garage to salvage it, repair it and get it back to the village in so short a time.’

  ‘You would have to prove that,’ said Laura. ‘You did not see the car until nearly teatime, remember. It could have been put right in an hour or so. It would depend on what was wrong with it and how busy the garage was.’

  ‘I’ll bet the two of them spent the night in Holdy Bay, all the same,’ said Tom, ‘and came back in the car on Monday morning.’

  ‘Under the suspect names of Mr and Mrs Smith?’ asked Laura, grinning. ‘Surely not, in this day and age!’

  ‘Actually it would strengthen their alibi if they did spend the night at a Holdy Bay hotel, I suppose,’ said Tom, ‘because the hotel staff could swear to them. If you accept Tynant’s version, it seems to put Dr Lochlure in the clear, but to make his alibi the weakest of all, except—’

  ‘Except for the Saltergates,’ Dame Beatrice pointed out. ‘Not only were they still in the village, but they are the people who are known to have quarrelled with Professor Veryan. But I think it is premature to talk about suspects. We must hear the coroner’s verdict before we jump to too many conclusions. There were injuries to the head and the spine, you tell me.’

  ‘So Tynant told us,’ said Tom. ‘Veryan landed on a pile of masonry which Saltergate’s party had cleared out of the keep. It wasn’t all that far to fall, and I suppose, if he’d landed on grass, the fall would not have been fatal, but he couldn’t have stood any chance if he hit his head on those jagged blocks of stone.’

  ‘I shall attend the inquest. Has either of you a reputation for practical joking?’

  ‘If you think that in a playful spirit we tilted Veryan over the edge of the keep, you’re wrong and you know it,’ said Bonamy. ‘Good Lord! You don’t think somebody will pull that one on us, do you?’

  ‘Well, we haven’t an alibi,’ said Tom, ‘but who on earth would have known we would need such a thing? Mind you—’

  ‘Ah!’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Elsie and Lacey, or was there Tillie as well?’

  ‘You rotter!’ said Bonamy to Tom. ‘We said we wouldn’t mention them.’

  8

  Interested Parties

  « ^ »

  Except to those directly concerned and but for the fact that the deceased was an eminent man of letters, the inquest was as dull as Dame Beatrice had predicted it would be. A fairhaired woman wearing a black hat and a black band around the left sleeve of a light summer coat told the coroner that she was Grace Veryan, the former wife of the deceased, and that she identified the body as being that of her divorced husband.

  The medical evidence followed. The spinal injury would have resulted in paralysis; the injuries to the head had caused death. The inference was that Professor Veryan had been seated on a low part of the wall and, in elevating his telescope, had overbalanced backwards on to the lethal collection of broken stones below. The time of death was put at between midnight and two in the morning.

  No questions were asked by the jurors and the majority of those present were expecting a verdict of accidental death. However, at the conclusion of the medical evidence, Detective-Superintendent Mowbray asked for an adjournment. As the coroner granted this request without surprise or betraying any other emotion, it was clear that it had been anticipated before the inquest opened.

  Dame Beatrice had been present, as she had promised. She and Laura took the two young men off to lunch at Holdy Bay. Tynant and the Saltergates went off with Mrs Veryan, but the two girls and Susannah lunched as usual in the caravan which, together with the boys’ cars, had been returned to its former position on the grass verge below the castle ruins.

  ‘Well,’ said Laura, ‘judging by the remarks I overheard as we left the court, that adjournment has given some of the citizens food for thought.’

  ‘Not to mention gossip,’ said Bonamy.

  ‘And the cold touch of fear,’ said Tom. ‘I refer to some of our lot. An adjournment can only mean one thing. As we suspected once Mowbray got to work, the police have doubts about an accident. I foresee that things are going to be very sticky and uncomfortable at Castle Holdy.’

  ‘Are you all continuing with the work?’ asked Laura.

  ‘It seems like it. I spoke to Saltergate and he sees no reason to pack up, and Tynant rather smugly says that in tribute to Veryan’s memory the dig must be completed.’

  ‘I noticed,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘that the trench is now being dug from left to right.’

  ‘Yes. It was getting perilously near Saltergate’s territory when the row began, so Tynant is now b
oxing clever and biding his time. One thing, he will be easier to deal with than Veryan would have been, if it comes to the crunch.’

  ‘Well, that was a turn-up for the books,’ said Fiona.

  ‘It didn’t surprise me,’ said Priscilla. ‘I’ve been terrified ever since Monday when the police began questioning us all. It was pretty obvious then what they thought and it’s even more obvious now. They must have found what is known as a vital clue.’

  ‘That’s only what the newspapers call it. All the police will admit is that they’ve “got a lead”. I wonder what on earth it can be?’

  ‘Fingerprints where no fingerprints should be,’ said Susannah. ‘I wrote a detective story once and fingerprints played a big part in it.’

  ‘If it’s fingerprints they’re after, we have nothing to worry about,’ said Fiona. ‘Nobody has taken our dabs.’

  ‘There is plenty of time for that, though,’ said Priscilla, ‘and now that the inquest has been adjourned and everybody suspects that Professor Veryan met with foul play, anybody who objects to being fingerprinted will come under immediate suspicion.’

  ‘You talk like a character in a third-rate crime film,’ said Fiona, but she looked uneasy.

  ‘Oh, yes, Mrs Veryan,’ said Tynant, ‘I fully intend to complete Malpas’s work. We have gone so far now that it would be a pity not to finish.’

  ‘Tell me, Nicholas – and please call me Grace; you know me quite well enough for that – tell me what you really think about this tragic death.’

  ‘It is tragic, yes. A good man has been lost to our ranks.’

  ‘You say good. You do not say great.’

  ‘I am not given to expressing eulogies.’

  ‘Particularly in connection with a man who has always stood in your way.’

  ‘That is an unkind and a very unjust way of looking at it. I have always played second fiddle to Malpas, it is true. It was a state of affairs which might have continued until he retired—’

  ‘Or died,’ said Grace Veyran in a tone which could not be misunderstood. Tynant remained in control of himself, although his long mouth tightened before he said, ‘I was about to add: or until my book comes out.’