landowner is willing, there is sponsorship available from a couple of learned societies, a small government grant is promised, so, if my plans are approved, Lilian and I will take it in turn to supervise the work. I am anxious that the other project shall not encroach upon ours while the reconstruction is in progress.’
‘Ah, yes, the other project. You refer, no doubt, to Mr Tynant’s excavations. I am interested to learn that he proposes to continue them.’
‘You mean in light of the accident to poor Veryan? Yes, it might have seemed in better taste to discontinue the work, at any rate for a time.’
‘Was it generally known that Professor Veryan was an astronomer? But for that, he might still be alive.’
‘Well, yes, we did know of it. No doubt it was nothing more than a hobby. I suppose Tynant knew, and if he did he may have told Dr Lochlure and she may have told her two women undergraduates, I suppose.’
‘Why should you think she might have mentioned it to the undergraduates?’
‘Young women in these times are very much on their guard against prowlers. To reach the keep, Veryan would have needed to pass, each night, very near to the caravan in which the young women were sleeping. Some degree of reassurance would have been advisable in case the girls were aware of footsteps in the night. The castle precincts are outside the village. My wife, I know, would have been happier for the girls to be housed in some less isolated spot.’
‘Nonsense, Edward!’ said Lilian. ‘It was you who worried about them. I had no fears whatever on their account, particularly since Fiona Broadmayne was one of them. My sympathies would be entirely with the prowler if ever she got her powerful hands on him.’
‘ “My anxiety would be entirely for the snake”,’ said Dame Beatrice, in an absent-minded way.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Oh, no, I beg yours. I have picked up a bad habit from Laura of offering quotations in place of rational comment.’
‘What I can’t understand,’ said Lilian, ‘is how Malpas was able not only to pass by the caravan night after night without being heard, but to enter the keep and climb that stair, also night after night, without those two young men being aware of it.’
‘Of course, nobody was in the caravan or the keep on the night of the accident,’ said Edward. ‘All the same, as my wife points out, nobody ever seems to have heard Veryan moving about at night, so the fact that nobody was in the caravan or the keep on the night of his death appears to have no significance.’
‘We have had remarkably clear nights since we have been here,’ said Lilian. ‘Ideal for star-gazing, I suppose. Malpas was probably on the top of the tower as soon as it was dark and before the boys came in. That part seems simple enough, but he seems to have been able to leave the keep without waking them.’
‘I have been wondering whether the police think he committed suicide,’ said Edward.
‘Suicide is no longer a crime. Murder, of course, is a very different matter,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘When did you yourselves first think of it?’
‘At first we were too much in shock to think at all, but then – well, we are people trained to assess evidence. The others are trained, too, and so are the police. Because of that stupid quarrel between Malpas and myself, tongues have been wagging, you may be sure, and naturally, for one wants to be reasonable, we are the obvious suspects. In time of trouble, everybody is anxious to find a scapegoat.’
‘I don’t know so much,’ said Laura, who, so far, had kept out of the conversation. ‘Looking at the thing from the point of view of a complete outsider and saving your presence and all that, would there have been much point in your getting rid of Veryan if Tynant was to be left alive to continue digging that trench?’
‘I don’t suppose any of us thought he
‘It holds water so long as Tynant remains alive and does not die under suspicious circumstances,’ said Lilian, ‘but not any longer than that.’
‘And, after all,’ said Laura, ‘at the resumed inquest there may still be a verdict of accidental death.’
The Saltergates drove back to Holdy village and the Horse and Cart, and Dame Beatrice and Laura settled down in a corner of the Seagull’s lounge.
‘I don’t see how anybody could suspect those two people of murder,’ said Laura.
‘Who would be your choice, then?’
‘Tynant, to get the dig to himself. Veryan obviously thought it an important one, or he would have met the Saltergates halfway instead of quarrelling with them. Of course the killer could have been Tom Hassocks, larking about and meaning no harm—’
‘Not Bonamy?’
‘I don’t want a godmother’s knife in my ribs, but, yes, and/or Bonamy, if you insist, or they may have mistaken Veryan for an unauthorised intruder. Then there are the three females. Their caravan was parked at the bottom of the mound, so any one of them – and I do not exclude the lovely Lochlure – had only to mount the rise and climb the tower to have fun and games with Veryan at the top of it. If the fun and games got out of hand, either the push over the edge could have been accidental or it could have been done a-purpose.’
‘You are not forgetting that everybody except the Saltergates has an alibi for the night of Veryan’s death, are you?’
‘Some alibis! I suppose the two girls can prove theirs, but all the others are suspect, including that of our two lads. Then there are the two workmen. They may have had a dispute with Veryan over pay or something.’
‘Tynant would have known of it and, no doubt, mentioned it as soon as it became obvious that the police had suspicions. In any case, workmen do not murder their employers; they go on strike, thus causing far more disruption than a mere death could do.’
‘Then there is Mrs Veryan. When in doubt, blame the nearest and dearest.’
