Noonday and Night

‘Better than that, because there was six pots between four of us, but, of course, we only took one pot each…’

‘And I finished yours up, you not liking too much marmalade on top of your butter and me not liking to waste good food.’

At last Dame Beatrice got them to describe the journey itself and their experiences in Dantwylch.

‘Can you remember the last words you heard the driver say?’ she asked, at the end of another pointless recital.

‘Not word for word, but it was clear enough,’ said Mrs Williams. ‘He was putting us down so we could have a coffee and a walk round, and we was to be back in the same place at twelve sharp ’cos he wasn’t allowed to hang about for us. If anybody was late back, he’d wait for them in the carpark further up the hill. But nobody was late back and we all hung about there for more than half the day, all told. We was just mooching around and looking at the shops, but not liking to go far away in case the coach turned up while we was gone. My feet ached, because it was a fair old climb up from the Cathedral, and not all that much to see when you got inside. Dark, I mean, and, to my mind, not so good as Christchurch Priory.’ Mrs Williams seemed prepared to go on, but Dame Beatrice prevented this.

‘You had stopped for lunch in Swansea on your second day out. Did the driver give any indication that he knew anybody or had any friends there?’

‘Swansea? What about it? Oh – Swansea. You mean because that’s where they found our coach?’

‘Yes. Did the driver appear to make any contacts there?’

The sisters shook their heads.

‘He never said nothing about knowing nobody there, not in particular,’ said Mrs Williams. ‘He knew the hotel, of course. Good food, but very crowded it was. He knew the hotel because he’d taken coach parties there before. It was the coaches’ usual lunch stop and right in the middle of the town. The dining room was so full that some of our gentlemen had a job to get hold of anybody to bring a glass of beer to the table and there hadn’t been no time to go into the bar. At table there wasn’t hardly elbow-room to use your knife and fork. I had a steak. Maud, you had the plaice, didn’t you?’

‘So the driver knew the hotel, but you do not think he had friends in the town,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Let us return to Dantwylch. What happened at the end of your long wait for the coach which did not return to pick you up?’

‘A policeman come up and one or two of the gentlemen explained what had happened.’

‘And then?’

‘He sent two of them up to the car-park, but, of course, Mr Daigh and the coach wasn’t there. Funny you should ask about friends in the town, though, now I come to think of it. Mind you, we thought he was only joking, but he did say, pulling our legs, like, mine and my sister’s (very pleasant he always made himself to everybody), he did say as he might be picking up his girlfriend in Dantwylch. “And her trousseau,” he said. “Funny, some of the things these women like,” he said. Then he laughed, very pleasant he was, and off we went to Dantwylch and, of course, we never see him again once he’d drove off to the car park. I was real sorry, I can tell you.’

‘Did the two gentlemen find out whether the coach had ever reached the car park?’

‘Oh, yes. It had got there all right, but it wasn’t there when they arrived. There was two other coaches, they said, but not ours. The spoke to the drivers, but they couldn’t tell them nothing.’

‘Can you remember their names?’

‘Our two gentlemen, do you mean? One was Mr Ames. I don’t know the other one’s name. He was travelling on his own, I think, wasn’t he, Maud? Mr Ames was married, but the other gentleman

‘Nice and polite, but kept to himself except at the table,’ said Miss Harvey. ‘Nobody couldn’t keep to theirselves there, because of the numbers, you see.’

‘But the other coach drivers had seen your coach come in, had they?’

‘No, but they’d seen it drive out. They didn’t think nothing of it, because they thought our driver was going off to pick us up, but, of course, it was much too early for that. It wouldn’t have been no more than about eleven o’clock, they said.’

Slightly wearied by the witnesses, Dame Beatrice went to Mr Ames’ address. He was at work, but his wife was at home.

‘He can’t tell you anything more than I can,’ she said. ‘We’ve discussed it over and over. I’m glad the Company’s doing something about it as well as the police. The last we heard of Mr Daigh, he was going to pick us up again at twelve. I wanted coffee and the Cathedral, but Tom thought better of a pub, so I went with him, of course, and never saw the Cathedral at all, but when some of them told me what a long climb up it had been I was glad I hadn’t gone.’

‘So at what time did you and your husband return to the picking-up place?’

‘Oh, not until just on twelve. Tom said there wasn’t any point and it was a very nice pub, so we got into conversation and stopped on.’

‘And then you waited for your coach, but it did not materialise.’

‘That’s right. Very put out we all were. Well, I mean, you don’t pay that sort of money to waste time hanging about on your holiday and being jostled on the pavement, do you?’

‘What had your husband to say about his visit to the coach station?’

‘The policeman suggested it, so he and Mr Mellick went, but it wasn’t any good. They asked around and there was no doubt our coach had been there, because another coach driver had seen it drive off.’

‘With nobody in it except for Mr Daigh, I suppose?’