Spotted Hemlock

two persons. I wonder whether we can persuade some brewers’ drayman to oblige us?’

‘They take the stuff round to the pubs by lorry nowadays, don’t they? Why don’t you let me ring up Highpepper? Somebody there is sure to know of a grey.’

‘An excellent idea! By all means do that.’

Laura returned with the news that nobody at Highpepper possessed or hired a grey horse, but that the Garchester cricket team used one to pull the heavy roller and that, out of the season, it was returned to a farmer who lived on the western outskirts of the town.

‘The same horse as Miss Good saw that night, I’ll bet,’ added Laura, at the end of her triumphant recital. ‘You said once that if we found that horse we’d find the murderer, didn’t you?’

‘I have no recollection of it. If I did say so, I was jumping to conclusions which have proved to be unwarranted. Nevertheless, we may be able to establish a connection between Mr Basil and the dead girl if it is the same horse.’

The farmer was willing to let his grey horse out on hire for a Lady Godiva item in a pageant.

‘Of course,’ said Laura, who, at her own wish, was doing the lying, ‘we’re not actually doing the pageant until the spring, but we want time to assemble the props. Will you send the horse over to Calladale College tomorrow afternoon?’

‘Too far. Her won’t go in a horse-box and it’s a waste of a lad’s time to ride her over, her being slow-moving, do you see? Why don’t you bring your good people over here?’

‘Well, they can’t spare the time, either. I suppose you don’t know of anybody nearer the college who owns a grey carthorse?’

The farmer shook his head.

‘There’s young Jem Townsend owns a dapple,’ he said, ‘and there’s old Tom Garter owns a blue roan, but for Lady Godiva you’d be better off with an old white pony such as Colonel Grant’s got for his little grand-niece.’

Laura thanked him, regretted that they could not come to terms and asked where the dapple and the blue roan could be found. The farmer, slightly surprised that even a stranger should not know where young Jem Townsend and old Tom Carter lived, supplied the required information and wished her good day, asking, with twinkling eye as he eyed Laura’s splendid proportions, whether she herself was cast for the part of Lady Godiva. Laura told him to wait and see, and drove to Jem Townsend’s farm.

Here her luck was in.

‘Want my old Flossie for Lady Godiva again? Have they found a young woman brave enough to take it on, then? Last time the gentleman said the one they’d picked lost her nerve, so he brought the horse back next day.’

‘May I see the mare?’ asked Laura. Old Flossie turned out to be a twelve-year-old Clydesdale and as strong as an elephant. ‘You say she’s been hired out for a pageant before? When would that have been?’

‘A matter of a few weeks back, but I understood they’d give up the idea of holding the pageant. Seems a funny time of year to have a Lady Godiva, anyway. Catch her death, more likely than not.’

‘Who hired the mare?’

‘Some young woman. I didn’t know her, and ten to one I wouldn’t recognise her.’

‘And did she bring the mare back?’

‘No. I’ve never seen her again. The mare was put back in my paddock, with a pound note pushed through my door.’

‘In an envelope?’

‘Yes. Nothing wrote on it except To loan of grey mare. Pageant off. Lady Godiva yellow. So I read between the lines the girl had turned it down.’

‘You didn’t keep the envelope?’

‘Why, what was wrong with it?’

Laura saw that his suspicions were aroused and that it would be best to beat a retreat. She laughed.

‘Just badinage,’ she said. ‘Well, let’s come to an agreement about the mare. We shall need her for at least a week. Send her over to Calladale College as soon as you can.’

‘Fancy a ladies’ college doing Lady Godiva! That’s a new one, that is!’

‘Oh, I don’t know. History, and all that, you know.’

‘Have you got a Peeping Tom?’

‘I hope we’ll have hundreds. We shall take up a silver collection.’

The great, docile animal arrived on the following day in charge of a lad and was stabled. Then Dame Beatrice asked to have a word with Miss Good. Young Cleeves’ Thisbe listened attentively and agreed that she might be able to tell whether the horse resembled that from which she had fled on the night of Norah Coles’ disappearance, but added that, of course, she couldn’t be sure.’

A tableau, or, rather a mime was arranged, therefore, and she received permission from Miss McKay to be a spectator. More difficult to arrange was that Basil should also be there.

‘Not being able to charge him at present,’ the inspector pointed out, ‘we haven’t what you’d call much control over him, madam. If he comes at all, it’ll mean he’ll have to come willing. We can’t press the point much.’

‘I am going to interview him. I’ll invite him to tea at my hotel in Garchester, and then it should be a simple matter to arrange. Now that he has heard what I had to say the other day, I think he will prepared to assist us by every means in his power. I have taken a weight off his mind.’