Spotted Hemlock

horse to pick the way. The gravel squeaked and spurted under the horse’s hoofs. The student, in Laura’s arms, grew very heavy. There was a faint shriek, followed by a scrabbling noise as the horse passed out of the gate. It broke into an uncomfortable trot, taking the direction for which Laura had hoped.

Piggy Basil had accompanied the inspector, but without enthusiasm. He was not told whither they were bound, and showed increasing reluctance to continue the journey as it became more and more obvious that they were on the way to Calladale.

‘Look here, what’s in the wind?’ he enquired plaintively, as the car drew up fifty yards or so from the college gates. ‘What’s behind all this?’

‘We get out here, sir,’ said the inspector, not attempting to answer these questions. ‘All we want you to do, sir, if you will be so good, is to keep your eyes and ears open.’

‘If I will be so good! And, if I don’t choose to be so good, I shall be in trouble for obstructing the police in the execution of their duty, I suppose! And they call this a free country!’

The inspector, disregarding this rhetoric, stepped out in the direction of the light which was shining down on the college gates, a light which served to emphasise the contiguous blackness. Just as they were about to enter the tiny pool of illumination which was cast around the gates and upon the ground, the inspector stopped. He caught Basil by the arm to bring him to a halt.

‘Listen, sir,’ he said. ‘Do you hear anything?’

‘No,’ Piggy replied, after a short pause. ‘I don’t. Yes… yes, I can hear a horse, I think. Sounds like a heavy carthorse!’

‘That’s what I thought, sir. Let’s get into the hedge. I don’t want us to be spotted,’ said the inspector. ‘Who the devil would be riding a horse at this time of night?’ he added. This was a disingenuous question; he knew the answer perfectly well.

‘Damn the old bitch! I’m being framed!’ muttered Piggy. He stumbled into the muddy ditch just as the grey mare and her double burden came into the lamp-light that shone down on the college gates.

‘Christ!’ he muttered. The ghosts passed on into the darkness, an amorphous glimmer in the gloom. ‘The old girl knows! She must know everything!’

‘Yes,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘I knew. There could have been other explanations of the appearance of the ghost-horse at that particular time and on that particular night, but this, as we came to gather and put together the facts of the case, seemed to me the most likely.’

‘I always thought it was Mr Basil abducting Mrs Coles,’ said Laura.

‘No. It was Mr Basil assisting Mrs Coles by removing the body of Miss Palliser from the college cellar. Last night’s little plot had a double purpose. I had to prove that it could be done that way, and I had to let Mr Basil realise by the most dramatic means in my power—since I wanted to give him a shock—that I knew the truth so far as the removal of the body to the old stage-coach was concerned.’

‘I’ll bet you gave him a shock, all right,’ said Carey. It was the weekend, and the three of them were in his house at Stanton St John. ‘I wonder the chap didn’t pass out.’

‘Oh, you Piggies are made of stern stuff,’ said Laura. ‘Anyway, he was so overcome he came clean. Then he said he supposed he might as well hold out his wrists for the handcuffs.’

‘But he wasn’t arrested, you say? I should have thought moving a dead body so as to conceal it was a pretty serious offence.’

‘Yes. He was actuated by chivalry, of course.’

‘Chivalry?’

‘Certainly. He tells us that Mrs Coles found herself in possession of her sister’s dead body, hid it in the college cellar —the inner one, where it was almost certain nobody would find it—and then panicked and called upon Mr Basil to help her get it out of the building. He responded nobly.’

‘Then you mean he carried it on horseback to that coach near the back gates of Highpepper Hall?’

‘No. He carried it on horseback to his car which he had left about two hundred yards from Calladale in a side road. He did not bring it to the college for fear of attracting attention at that time of night.’

‘It was bad luck, that girl Good spotting him,’ said Laura. ‘But for that, he would never have been involved. But why did he do it?’

‘He thought that Mrs Coles had murdered her sister. When I was able to reassure him on that point, he consented to assist us. He did not know, and it would not have fitted in with our plans to have told him, of the form that assistance was to take.’

‘So where do we go from here? You know the identity of the murderer. It wasn’t Piggy and it wasn’t Norah Coles. The girl was murdered in college. Norah panicked and Piggy, that perfect, gentle knight, helped her out. Palliser was murdered in college! ... That ought to ring a bell, but it doesn’t. The murderer couldn’t have been a student, unless it was an accident, in which case it couldn’t be called murder.’

‘It was, and it was not, an accident.’

‘You mean the dope was really intended for Mrs Coles, don’t you? I’ve thought that one out ad nauseam, but it doesn’t add up. The sheer, hard fact remains that Palliser couldn’t have been killed in the college, and yet she was. How do you work it out?’

‘Impersonation, child.’

‘Eh? Good Lord!’

‘Cast your mind back a little. I believe I told you of a conversation I had with a certain Miss Bellman, a conversation which, for two particular reasons, intrigued me.’

Oh?’

‘Yes. It appeared from this conversation that the fact of Norah Coles’ marriage was fairly widely known to the