got his bees, and Bossie was first-class as aide-de-camp. Those two seem to be the only people who have been up there with those two chests of magazines this year. Joe is sure both chests were left tidily closed when they came away. The one is more or less empty, anyhow, just a few rotting organ scores. Joe is particularly sure because Bossie, when not fully occupied, was poking about curiously in the other chest, the full one. He’d never be able to resist any reading matter, anyhow, the odder the better. But they left everything as they found it when they came down with the swarm.’
‘So that accounts for one person who disturbed the layers of dust,’ agreed Moon placidly. ‘But in May.’
‘And now it’s October, and somebody’s been at them very recently. And Rainbow is an antiquarian, but hardly likely to be after
By the time they adjourned to pick up some cigarettes at the village shop before closing time, and snatch a pint and a sandwich at the ‘Gun Dog’, forensic had rung with reports on the matter found in Rainbow’s head-wound, and on that detected on the sliver of voussoir that had fractured his skull. The same stone-debris, the same species of moss, the same blood. The victim’s finger-nails had also provided specimens of all but the blood. No doubt about it, that was where he had died, and that was how he had died. Only who, and why, remained to be documented.
‘Which first?’ wondered George, stretching lengthily after hours of sitting. ‘Motive? My God, there’s no getting out of range of one motive, up here, is there? And yet ninety-nine-point-nine per cent of the time Middlehope is madly sane, if you’ll permit the paradox. They know this sort of solution only promotes a far worse problem. I don’t say they wouldn’t – I just say they wouldn’t without total safeguards for all the valley. And we also have a most equivocal lady, with a trail of admirers a mile long. And she surprisingly at home here, where he insulated himself totally. Perhaps he did everywhere? There are people who are chronically strangers here!’
‘Sad, that!’ said Sergeant Moon. ‘But what can you do, if they do the sealing? We’ve got nothing from the solicitors yet. Never take for granted the “Cui bono.” ’
‘I’ll see Bowes in person tomorrow morning,’ said George. ‘Do you feel as dry as I do?’
‘Like a lime-kiln. And I’m out of Woodbines. Mind if we stop in at Gwen’s?’
Gwen was Mrs Owen Lloyd, keeper of the shop, and mother of Toffee Bill.
‘A good idea,’ said George. ‘At closing time there might be something interesting to hear.’ For closing time did not hurry in the village. Trade ceased, but social exchanges frequently continued for another half-hour. And there was a sensation to be discussed today.
The shop was located on a corner, an enlarged house-window and an old, leaning roof above it, the usual invaluable local shop that has everything you’re ever going to need in an emergency, from gumstrip to TCP, and frozen peas to fresh eggs. It was as immaculate and brisk as all such genuinely professional shops are, and as informal, an exchange-point for news and gossip, a first-aid post for local protection, sending out feelers towards isolated old people unaccountably not seen for some days, delivering without benefit of fee where there was need, advising where regulation forms frightened intelligent but direct folk out of their normal routine. Its compact space of freezer and cases and shelves was everything anybody needed of modernity, without the gimmicks. And Gwen was a farmer’s daughter, fresh as new milk, large, fair and kind.
Miss de la Pole was standing at the counter when they entered, in the act of lighting one of the small cheroots she had just been buying. ‘I shouldn’t worry,’ she was saying comfortably, in her ripe baritone, ‘the child’s too close to it, that’s all. He just can’t digest it, it isn’t that he really cares. Give him a week or two, and he’ll have forgotten all about it. The man wasn’t likeable, you know, nobody can blame the boys for not liking him.’ She turned and recognised the police entering. ‘Why, hullo, George! We were just talking about this affair. Hullo, Jack, nice to know you’re standing by. I must say, it’s a shake-up for us all.’
‘It is,’ agreed Moon heartily. ‘Here yesterday and gone today. It makes you take stock.’
‘I’ve been doing that for some time,’ she assured him drily. ‘At my age, one does. You’re just a youngster, Jack. And then, I must have disliked him about as violently as anyone could, and that does make one take stock, as you put it.’
‘You didn’t, by any chance, make away with him, did you?’ asked George mildly.
‘No, sorry, George, I don’t really have the resolution, you know. I might dream about it, I’m unlikely ever to do it. In any case, I’m probably one of the last to see him alive, and he was mobile at the time, so I didn’t get the chance. I happened to look out of the window before I drew the curtains, last night, round about a quarter to twelve, and I saw him driving towards the gates, on his way home.’
Wonder of wonders, she was one of those whom the grapevine reached only vaguely, because in her aristocratic solitude she merely received, never queried. She knew Rainbow was dead, but had not acquired the details. Doubtless she knew he had been found broken under the church tower, but the time was unknown to her, and the spectacle of a man driving home at a time when he had almost certainly been dead presented her with no problems. Here was one who could have confessed to his murder with absolute security, her guilt disproved within ten minutes.
‘Oh, really?’ said George cautiously. ‘Coming down from the head of the valley, was he? Which car was he using?’
‘The little sports job.’ Her voice was faintly disapproving. The Aston Martin was not what she would have expected of Rainbow. ‘Very handsome,’ she admitted, ‘as a work of art. Not his style, would you think? There was something so – orthodox and cautious – about him.’
Well, that was something definite. She knew the little sports job too well to be mistaken, and she had the incisive mind that is always scrupulous in reporting and accurate in timing. She had something else, too, the shrewdness to note their very slight stiffening, and the brief glance they had exchanged, and that was all it took to make her look again at what she had seen and said, and wonder exactly what had taken Rainbow up the valley towards Wales after choir practice, and above all, what had taken him back to the church at nearly midnight, since that was where he had been found. From that it was but a step to pondering whether the Aston Martin had been left in its garage or taken out again, and whether, in fact, it had actually been Rainbow driving it…
A remote and thoughtful stillness took possession of Miss de la Pole’s noble countenance, out of which concerned and steely eyes studied George and Sergeant Moon, and drew private conclusions.
‘His missus chose the Aston, I fancy,’ said Sergeant Moon with a face of bovine innocence, and paid for his Woodbines. ‘They both drove it, though. Thanks, Gwen, love!’
He led the way out, and George was aware, as he was, of the deep silence of the two women left behind them in the shop. Moon was grinning.
