Spotted Hemlock

marked on the plan against their chalet. See?’

Dame Beatrice congratulated him on the clearness of the arrangements.

‘So, if I pay a deposit,’ she said, ‘you think I could have the same chalet?’

‘Sure. How long would you want to stay?’

‘Oh, only a week, I’m afraid.’

‘Suits us. The second week’s apt to be a repetition of the first, after all. Shall we say a couple of quid? Less if you like, of course, but a deposit does seem to clinch it.’

Dame Beatrice produced two pound notes, was given a receipt, gave, in return, a date for the following June and had the felicity of seeing Laura Gavin’s name put down in a large ledger. It seemed as though there must be some truth in the story that Norah Coles had stayed at the Bracklesea camp, but why in the name of Palliser and why had Coles denied that he was with her? Dame Beatrice put through a call to her secretary, who was in Kensington, engaged in bringing the clinical records up to date.

‘Leave everything as soon as you can, Laura. I want you at the Stone House for a conference.’

‘That Calladale business? I wondered how soon you’d let me in properly on that. I’ve practically finished here, and Gavin has been called to Nottingham. I’ll come at once, and bring Junior.’

‘No, no. It is much too late to come tonight. You must leave it until the morning. Henri shall get us a special lunch. He has been worried about me since I began making these excursions to Calladale College. He thinks they starve me.’

Henri, it turned out, had been worried to the point of sleeplessness.

‘Lunch is nothing today,’ he announced. ‘A cutlet, a souffle, a cheese. Tonight, at dinner, mesdames, you shall eat! Think of it, Madame Gavin, ma chere Miss Laura! Those meals at the college for women! One says a camp for displaced persons, no?’

As it had proved impossible to reassure Henri upon this point, Dame Beatrice did not attempt to do so this time, and neither did she inform him of the reason for her visit to the college. She knew what his conclusions would be if she told him that one of the students had been poisoned. Laura referred to this as soon as she and her employer were alone.

‘Henri will swear it was the college dinners,’ she affirmed; and Dame Beatrice saw no reason to contradict her.

‘Henri is a monomaniac,’ she observed. ‘Well, dear child, the plot thickens.’

‘Good-o. How thick has it become?’

‘Very, very thick indeed. Do you think you could impersonate a reporter?’

‘Second nature. Whom do I interview?’

‘A bereaved husband.’

‘The villain of the piece?’

‘Well, mistakes have been made, and there seem to be so many and such curious discrepancies at present that he may be.’

She gave Laura an account of all that had happened, including her visit to the holiday camp. Laura, her fine body beautifully relaxed in a deep and comfortable chair, offered an appreciative whistle.

‘He didn’t mention that they went to a holiday camp; just called it a seaside hotel,’ she said, summing up the information. ‘I saw a very short account of the inquest and I noticed it gave nothing away. But I can’t see why he should lie about going to the camp. Did you get anything important out of the inquest?’

‘There was one very interesting point which I was most anxious not to have anyone disclose,’ said Dame Beatrice grimly. ‘The dead girl was said to be in her very early twenties, but the pathologist pointed out to me privately that he would have thought that the body he dissected was that of a woman of thirty.’

‘I suppose he could have been mistaken?’

‘We were both impressed by the maturity of the body, so he made a special X-ray test of the bones. The subject was definitely not under twenty-five years old.’

‘Who identified the body?’

‘The mother.’

‘Well, she ought to know.’

‘I should point out that the body could not have been at all easy to identify.’

‘Been in the water, you mean?’

‘No; in a cellar, I rather fancy.’

‘Oh, Lord! Not rats?’

‘Undoubtedly rats.’

‘How utterly beastly! I once dived for a body which had drowned and been got at by crabs. It’s something I’d like to forget. Anyway, what do you make of the situation?’

‘I may know better what I make of it when you have interviewed the husband, but that will not be just yet.’

‘Dash it, I’m just rarin’ to go.’