When she and Laura were on their way home that afternoon, Dame Beatrice said: ‘Tell me, did you ever know of workmen enthusiastic enough to do too much digging and then have to fill in part of the excavation they had laboured so hard to make?’
‘Oh, you mean that mess they’ve left in the middle of the cloister garth at Abbesses College. What has turned your mind in that particular direction?’ Laura asked.
‘Miss Runmede’s reference to the sack which appears to have aroused your interest. That earth in the cloister garth has been disturbed quite recently.’
‘And you don’t think that was done by honest British workmen? You malign the hardworking fellows.’
‘That may or may not be so. All the same, I have suggested to the Chief Constable that an investigation of the cloister garth at Abbesses College might yield spectacular although macabre results. What with the report of a quarrel, with or without a reconciliation, Miss Runmede’s ghost, Miss Peterson’s prowler, and the apparent disappearance of Miss St Malo, I am wondering whether the surname of the apparition is Lawrence.’
‘I wonder whether Miss Peterson spotted the sack?’
‘I think that if Miss Peterson had noticed the sack she would have reported it.’
‘The idea would be that she saw the prowler the first night he came, but not the second.’
‘What makes you say that? It could be the other way round, could it not?’
‘Well, assuming – as I take it we are assuming – that the sack contained a body, I should imagine that the murderer came the first time to spy out the lie of the land and the second time to dispose of the contents of the sack.’
‘We are assuming, then, that it was the same man both times. That, I think, is likely, although not, of course, certain. As for your theory concerning the two visits, is it not just as likely that it was on the first one that he got rid of the body and that the second visit was to make sure that all was well? However, the matter can soon be settled. Get Abbesses College on the telephone and ask the porter to put you through to the New Buildings, so that you can speak to Miss Runmede. She should still be in College.’
‘She may be out for the evening,’ said Laura, going to the telephone. Miss Runmede, however, was working in her room and was soon answering the call. She was certain that the man had had the sack with him on the first occasion only.
‘It sounds now as though he was a burglar,’ she said, ‘but, if so, why should he appear from Bessie’s Quad? You can’t get in that way once the gatehouse portal is locked. Have they arrested him?’
‘Not yet. You mentioned two o’clock in the morning and that it was at the same hour, approximately, that you saw him each time.’
‘More or less. I remember hearing a clock strike and I hate hearing a clock strike at night. It sounds so sinister – “for whom the bell tolls” and all that.’
‘And it was moonlight both times, you stated.’
‘Moonlight and a clear sky, but even if they catch him, I couldn’t possibly identify him for the reasons I gave you.’
‘So what now?’ asked Laura, later.
‘Nothing. I have drawn the Chief Constable’s attention to the excavation in the cloister garth, and have told him that the man was dragging a sack. We can do no more.’
PART TWO
Seepage in the Cellar
CHAPTER 7
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Chief Superintendent Nicholl was a man of slow thought, but once an idea had lodged itself firmly in his mind he took immediate action. From the moment he had been told that a prowler had been spotted after midnight in the grounds of Abbesses College he had seen to it that two of his men were stationed on duty with reliefs every two hours. One was to remain in view of the gatehouse and Bessie’s Quad, the other to be on patrol duty around the grounds. They would remain until the arrival of the porter in the morning.
The news which he received from the Chief Constable following the luncheon at the High Mistress’s lodging urged him to take further measures, but he retained his bump of caution and proceeded with care.
The first thing he did was to ring up the firm of contractors who had undertaken to establish the lily-pond in the middle of the cloister garth. Their address he obtained from the senior porter. They were not a local firm, but were domiciled in Reading.
The job, he was told, would have been finished during the College vacation following the Lent term which had ended in the last week of March, except for the fact that the Lady Bursar (complained the manager with resigned but scathing emphasis) kept changing her mind. First she wanted a concrete pond, but then she demurred on the score of expense. Then she settled (or so the firm thought) for a pre-fabricated arrangement in glass fibre but, shown a specimen, was not certain that it would meet with her requirements as it was ‘not quite what she had thought of’.
Finally the workmen had excavated to the required depth for a green-painted, metal, kidney-shaped container of more or less the size she specified, but work was held up again when she discovered that to bring the vessel from the cloister into the garth would involve removing stone from two narrow arches, one giving admittance to the cloister itself and the other leading out of the cloister on to the square of grass it enclosed.
