Death of a Burrowing Mole

‘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

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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 boxing 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