‘So you spent an hour and ten minutes in the Hall, and an hour and a half had been allowed. Was the coach in the same place, when you returned to it?’
‘Near enough.’
‘Near enough?’
‘It was about thirty yards further from the path we had to take to walk up to the house.’
‘How do you know? I mean, how can you be sure?’
‘Where we got out of the coach there was a chunk of rock – limestone, I think – at the side of the road. I noticed it, although I’m not much of a geologist; I do photography in my spare time. I noticed it again when I passed it on my way back to the coach. The boulder wouldn’t have moved, so the coach must have done.’
‘Did you wonder why the coach had been moved?’
‘No, not to say wonder. There were a number of visitors, apart from our lot, so I supposed our driver had moved the coach to accommodate somebody’s car.’
‘And was there a car opposite the boulder you noticed?’
‘No, but a car could have been driven away again, of course, before I got back.’
‘It did not occur to you that your coach might have made quite a journey while your party was going over the Hall?’
‘No, I never thought of that, but I suppose it could have done. It was a long time for the driver to hang about.’
‘When you got back to the coach, you say it was open. Was it merely unlocked or was the door set back?’
‘Oh, the door was wide open. It is operated from the driver’s seat, you know, and I had noticed that when Noone got in after a stop he did so by unlocking the emergency door at the side of the coach near the back and then coming forward to his seat to let us in at the front. I assumed this was the only way of opening up the coach once the passengers’ door was properly closed. Mind you, I thought it was damned careless of him to have left the coach open with nobody in it, considering that people had left all sorts of gear on their seats and on the rack.’
‘What did you think had happened to him?’
‘At the time I thought he’d merely strolled off to speak to other coach-drivers and pass the time of day. We were by no means the only coach-party there.’
‘You did not think he had moved off in the coach and that perhaps somebody else had brought it back and had not parked it in exactly the same spot?’
‘No, that never occurred to me; and he wouldn’t have driven off to get the tank topped up, because he told us he’d taken on fourteen gallons before we started out after lunch.’
The police, it turned out, had already explored that particular avenue. The only garage the coach had visited that day was the one nearest to the hotel in Dovedale. Here the fourteen gallons had been taken on board and the drive to Hulliwell Hall had been a short one and could not have used up any considerable amount of fuel.
Dame Beatrice put up at the hotel which the coach-party had used and then she visited Hulliwell Hall. She pulled up opposite the boulder which Tedworthy had noticed, left her chauffeur in charge of the car and took the rough path up to the great house.
The original structure, in effect, had been a castle dating from the late twelfth century. On to it had been grafted a large parlour and a chapel, both of the fourteenth century, and a magnificent long gallery of Elizabethan date. Another parlour had been added at the same time, and was known as the dining-parlour. It was wainscoted, had a large window decorated with coats of arms, a very fine fireplace and a painted ceiling.
The banqueting hall was larger and a couple of centuries earlier in date. It retained its minstrels’ gallery and the dais and long tables of its mediaeval period, but there was modern clear glass in the window which was furnished with two stone corner seats approached by a steep stone step.
Dame Beatrice allowed herself the hour and ten minutes which Tedworthy had given as the time he himself had spent at the Hall and then she returned to her car. Of one thing she had made certain. She had looked out of every window in the rooms open to visitors. From none of them had her car been visible. She had allowed for the superior height of a motor-coach, but had calculated that it also would be out of sight from the windows. Not even the most observant visitor to the Hall, therefore, could have said whether Noone’s coach had been driven away, and, if so, when it had returned and how long it had been absent.
‘I have discovered little that was not already known to the police,’ said Dame Beatrice, when she met Honfleur again. ‘There was an interval of roughly an hour and a quarter between the time the passengers left the coach to visit Hulliwell Hall and the time when the first of them returned to it.
‘From evidence given to me by Mr Tedworthy, a most sensible and observant witness, it is pretty certain that the coach had been moved while it was vacant except for the driver. I attempted to check where it went by enquiring at the nearest public house, but obtained no definite information, as coach-drivers, you may be relieved to know, do not indulge in alcoholic refreshment in the middle of the day.
‘On the way to the public house my car had passed a church and I noticed that the sexton and an assistant were engaged in digging a grave. I stopped the car and went into the churchyard to make enquiries, but it seems that the person to be buried was a woman who died a natural death and who had lived in the village all her life.
‘Mr Tedworthy asserts that, when he returned to the coach, it was open, in spite of the fact that the passengers had left possessions on the seats and the racks. This further inclines me to the belief that the coach had been moved some distance and that when it returned, not exactly to the same spot as before, your driver was no longer with it. I informed the local police of my opinion and they agree with me that the coach might have been moved, but not necessarily very far. They say that their search for Driver Noone is being prosecuted with the utmost endeavour, but I am inclined to think that they still believe his disappearance was voluntary.’
‘I suppose we must consider it as a possibility,’ said Basil Honfleur. ‘Well, what’s the next move?’
‘I think we must leave Derbyshire to the police for the time being and I will see what Dantwylch has to offer. If one thing is clear, it is that your two drivers are either part of a conspiracy…’
