The Death-Cap Dancers

but there are boulders on that part of the moor where the body was found, and we have found blood on the roadside near where her buckled bicycle was seen by the young ladies. We are going on the assumption that that was where she was killed. Then, as you may have heard, the murderer tried to conceal the body in a dip on the moor where two of the young ladies found it. The murders seem motiveless, so far as we can make out. If they are, it must follow that nobody is safe while this joker is at large. Of course the likely thing is that he is a member of the troupe. These last two attacks don’t point anywhere else. My trouble is that one of my chief suspects was this second murdered girl. She, at least, seems to have had some sort of a motive, but, with her out of the way, there doesn’t seem anything much to choose between the rest of them, although I have a leaning towards one of the men.’

‘You stated that two more had been attacked. Who was the other one? My great- niece mentioned a brother of the girl who came here on Saturday evening.’

‘A young fellow who did female impersonations for them, yes, the brother of this girl Pippa Marton. He was dressed as a girl, ready to have his photograph taken with the rest of the dancers, when he was set upon.’

‘A fact which may be of the greatest importance, don’t you think?’

‘Oh, yes, I do. That’s why we want your help. Our killer seems to have a Jack the Ripper personality, except that he doesn’t mutilate the bodies. He leaves his trade-mark in the form of a poisonous toadstool pressed into the headwounds. Wouldn’t you call that the act of a psycho, ma’am?’

‘I shall know better when I have seen the dancers who are left. Meanwhile, since you are convinced of my own young people’s innocence, I shall suggest to my great-niece and her friends that they return to their homes. You would have no objection to that, I take it?’

‘Not so long as they leave me their home addresses, just in case. I may let the last girl in the concert party go home, too, for her own safety. The female impersonator who was attacked was her brother, as I said, and I have a theory that he may have been attacked in mistake for her. I hope not, because, if that is so, then I have to exonerate the rest of the group. The brother and sister are remarkably alike to look at, it is true, but none of their companions would have mistaken one for the other, so I’m inclined to think that the murderer made a mistake and that the sister was an intended victim, but that is only a hunch.’

‘That is interesting. You prefer it to the other theory you outlined?’

‘Yes, I do, ma’am, but there’s a nigger in the woodpile in the person of the young fellow who used to ride tandem with the injured boy. Mind you, I’m not saying that their relationship was anything but what it ought to be, but there’s a lot of that sort of thing about in these days, especially since the law was changed. The murdered girl — the first one — was sweet on the wounded boy and the second dead girl was, by all accounts, her rival. That part seemed straightforward enough, but to remove both of them would leave the way clear for this tandem partner, if you see what I mean, and that’s a point I have to consider.’

‘But why attack the beloved object as well as the predatory girls, Inspector?’

‘Goodness knows, ma’am. Jealousy is as cruel as the grave, they say. That could be one answer, I suppose. He may have had his suspicions that his friend had paired off with one of the girls and left him flat.’

‘I think I shall enjoy a chat with your dancers, Inspector.’

‘You’ll have a look at the young people, ma’am?’

‘Oh, yes. It seems a pity to come all this way for nothing, does it not? I imagine you have questioned them closely about the first death?’

‘Yes, I have. The only one of them who seemed to have an alibi was this girl Pippa. I know what is thought about alibis, ma’am, but this one seems unbreakable. I thought at first that I could eliminate two of the boys, but then I found I couldn’t. They had spent most of the day in Gledge End getting the hall ready for Saturday’s show, but I was unable to discover at what time they left, and the medical evidence hasn’t been of much help, because the doctors can’t say, within a couple of hours, when the first girl died. Now that we have eliminated your young ladies it has helped a bit, because there is no doubt the girl was dead when they found her. However, they weren’t all that sure of the time they saw the damaged bicycle and when they had made their report and we had got the police surgeon along to look at the body, the best part of another hour had elapsed, which didn’t help much. You see, my trouble is that I neither know when those two fellows left the church hall last Thursday nor at what rate they pedalled back. The death-spot wasn’t all that far from Gledge End. At twelve mph they could have reached it in half an hour, I reckon, so I can’t dismiss them from my calculations.’

‘But your problem, I imagine, is not only that you cannot find out at what time they left the hall, or, presumably, whether they remained together when they had done so. What else?’

‘There’s another thing, yes. According to the rest of them, this Mrs Judy Tyne left the Youth Hostel, which is about twenty-five miles from where her body was found (if she followed the moorland road, as we think she did) at around nine in the morning. It could not have taken her six or seven hours to cycle that distance. This lot went everywhere on their bikes, so she must have been an experienced cyclist.’

‘A puncture?’

‘We don’t think so. In fact, we’re sure not. The tyres were quite tight. One of my chaps tested them. They were nearly new and there was no sign of a mend. The only damage was to the front wheel.’

‘An assignation with somebody — with whoever killed her?’

‘Must have been with one of the dancers, then, and it could have been with any one of them, including this second dead girl, but, of course, she’s out of it now.’

‘What was the alibi of the girl they call Pippa?’

‘She was at Ramsgill’s farm all day, sworn to by Mrs Ramsgill before she knew anything about the murder. I don’t think it’s any good trying to climb that tree, ma’am.’

‘At what time did she leave the farm?’

‘Round about tea-time, roughly speaking. Anyway, far too late for her to have got to where the body was found. Besides, she’s a slip of a thing. Mind you, the doctors are going on the assumption that Mrs Tyne was struck from behind and probably taken by surprise, but, really ma’am, I can’t see that Pippa Marton could have anything to do with it. Besides, there is this second death and also the vicious attack on her brother.’

‘Come, now, Inspector! It is not unknown for sisters to attack their brothers.’

‘I grant you he was attacked from behind, like the girl on the moor, but the second dead girl was face to face with the murderer and she would make two of Miss Pippa.’

‘What about the other young men? Could they be connected with the first death, the death on the moor?’

‘No real alibis at all. Two of ’em went to a swimming pool where nobody can swear to them, and the two on the tandem declare they went to the pictures, but again there is no real proof that they couldn’t have slipped out, met the girl and killed her. But, there again, one of them is this boy who is now in hospital. Of course, the attack on him and the murder of the second girl need not have been by the same person that killed Mrs Tyne, or for the same reason. Against that, a death-cap toadstool was found pushed into all the three youngsters’ headwounds.’

‘Do you mean an extremely poisonous fungus which the botanists call Amanita phalloides?’

‘I don’t know what the botanists call it, ma’am, but I’m told it’s pretty deadly. Anyway, it’s convinced us that the murderer is a psycho and, if I may repeat myself, that is where we hope you will come in.’

‘I am free as soon as I have registered at the Ewe and Lamb, where a room has been booked for me. I should like to begin work on the case at once. Can you pick me up there in half an hour’s time? I am told it is quite near here.’

‘I can drive you there, ma’am, and wait until you are ready to go.’

‘Then I will leave a note here for my great-niece and we can be off at once. Is the death-cap toadstool readily obtainable in these parts?’

‘Oh, yes, ma’am. I’ve had a word with the forest warden and he tells me that it grows under trees and that his foresters, who take the cabin holidaymakers around when they first come, are told to warn people about it and show them the difference between it and the mushroom which it somewhat resembles.’

‘The death-cap, so named, seems reminiscent of the days when the judge in a case of murder was passing sentence, don’t you think, and wore a black square on his august wig?’

‘Yes, ma’am, that had occurred to me. Seems as though our fellow thought he was awarding the death penalty to those girls for some crime he thought they had committed. Wonder what was in his mind?’