The Death-Cap Dancers

Just as you like, of course.’

‘I do like pigs,’ said Isobel. ‘I dote on them. Oh, yes, do ring her, Hermy! It’s a great idea. The only thing is — well, for all four of us to descend on your parents seems a bit much, doesn’t it?’

‘Heavens, no! My mother adores having the house full of people, and we’ve plenty of room to put up a dozen guests. My father is never happier than when he is showing off the pig population to anybody who will go the rounds with him, and so I know he will be glad to see us. Isobel —’ She broke off and gazed at her friend, her eyes alight and wide open.

‘Say on. You have our ear,’ said the older woman.

‘Isobel, why did my great-aunt insist that Tamsin should not go to her own home until the murderer is caught?’

‘Oh, you know Tamsin. She has given John Trent her home address.’

‘John Trent? Oh, but, surely—’

‘I know. I can’t believe it, either.’

‘It couldn’t be John!’

Isobel shrugged her shoulders and looked out of the window at the grey London sky.

‘Why should John have told those lies about seeing you skid the car into that tree?’ she said. ‘If it had been Tamsin I could understand it. She’s crazy about him, you know, and, being about as goofy as they come, she makes no secret of the fact, but why should he tell lies to the police to keep you out of trouble?’

‘Not, as you so tactfully point out, because of my womanly charm, but because of his own chivalrous nature, I suppose. Let’s phone mother and then Erica, shall we?’

‘The Ewe and Lamb first, dearie. I am so much impressed by Dame Beatrice that I don’t take any further steps without her knowledge and consent. She told us about John’s lie.’

Laura took the call and relayed it to Dame Beatrice, for they had just finished dinner when the message came through.

‘An excellent plan,’ said Dame Beatrice, when she had gone to the telephone. ‘I hope you will all have an enjoyable few days at Stanton St John. Tell nobody where you are going and ask Miss Tamsin Lindsay and Miss Erica Lyndhurst to leave no forwarding address. These are probably unnecessary precautions, but, as I have heard it said, better to be safe than sorry.’

‘There is something I’m dying to ask you, great-aunt, but I don’t suppose you would answer me.’

‘No, I would not, at this juncture. Let us say, in Laura’s elliptical phrase, that your guess is as good as mine.’

‘I don’t believe that’s true.’

‘How right you probably are. Goodbye, my child, and bless you.’

The girls had split up into couples immediately the inquest on Judy Tyne was adjourned and they were free to leave the forest region. The telephone conversation was held on the same evening, Monday, and by tea-time on Tuesday, the day on which Dame Beatrice had concluded her interviewing of the members of Wild Thyme, the four from the forest cabin were reunited at Carey Lestrange’s farmhouse at Stanton St John in Oxfordshire.

Following this, events at the Long Cove Bay hostel and in Wayland forest took a new turn. The first intimation of this came to Ribble’s notice by way of a telephone call from the police station at Long Cove Bay itself. It was to the effect that the police there had been told of a broken window in the Youth Hostel and the theft of the warden’s records.

‘Wouldn’t bother you with this except that you’ve had trouble over that group of folk-dance people with two of them murdered, and they all stayed at the hostel and were resident there when the first girl was killed,’ the message ran. ‘Don’t suppose there’s any connection, but thought we would let you know.’

Ribble who, with his sergeant, had been making so-far fruitless house-to-house enquiries at Gledge End in an attempt to trace the missing tandem, gave up the quest temporarily and went over to the hostel.

Mrs Beck was in her cottage.

‘I reported it because of the broken window and my register gone,’ she said. ‘Nothing else missing? Well, there wouldn’t be, would there? I never leave any money there and, as it happens, I didn’t have any hostellers that night. Time of year, you see. Folks don’t much fancy walking or cycling on the moors when it comes near to November. Besides, these murders have been in all the papers. The nuisance I’ve had to put up with from reporters! You the same, I suppose, Inspector. But who on earth would want to make off with my registers?’

‘I suppose somebody wanted some names and addresses, Mrs Beck.’

‘To burgle their houses? Seems far-fetched to me. You don’t find well-off folks using the hostel. They would stay at hotels, wouldn’t they? My members’ homes wouldn’t be worth burgling.’

‘You never know, Mrs Beck.’

His private opinion, expressed later to Dame Beatrice was: ‘If your ideas are the same as mine about this business, ma’am, I reckon this latest effort is an attempt to throw dust in our eyes. He had no need to steal the hostel register because, to my way of thinking, he already had stayed there. He would have had ample opportunity, if so, to take a look at the books, and most likely no need to do so, anyway, since he already knew the address he wanted. This must have been to try to make out that he had never seen the register or been in the hostel before. The Long Cove Bay chaps have had a look for the record, but ten to one it’s in the sea by now, and no use to anybody.’

‘Have you any news about the missing tandem?’

‘Nothing helpful, no, ma’am. Several people saw a man riding it solo, but nobody seems to have taken enough notice of it to be able to describe him and the different opinions as to which direction he was taking are enough to drive me haywire. He certainly didn’t ditch the tandem anywhere near Gledge End, or we would have found it by now.’

‘It looks less and less like one of the Wild Thyme dancers, don’t you think?’

‘So you’ve hinted before, ma’am, and I don’t want you to name me any names. I can’t pre-judge the case and I’ve got to get sufficient evidence to produce in court. I take it that you can’t supply me with that?’

‘Most unfortunately, no, I cannot, and you are right not to allow prejudice to distort your mind.’

‘That Willie Nicolson distorts it, ma’am. He’s a Highlander and that race are apt to be very dark horses compared with the likes of you and me. Devious is the word.’

‘My secretary is a Highlander, and a more open, and, in every way, a more ingenuous woman, I have yet to meet.’

‘The ladies come outside the scope of my argument, ma’am. I’m only saying that Nicolson was the owner of that tandem.’ He chuckled and rang off, but there was soon another story to be told and it concerned another set of records, this time those of the forest warden. When she heard of this, Dame Beatrice confessed to Ribble that she was perturbed.

‘There is only one interpretation to be put upon these two thefts, Inspector,’ she said. ‘Our murderer is what my secretary would call ‘in business’ again.’

‘You may well be right, ma’am, and a very nasty business it is. What’s in his mind, do you suppose?’

‘Revenge,’

‘Sounds more like a foreigner, then.’

‘Well, the English are not good at hating, but, unlike Bottom, who could merely gleek, no doubt they can murder, upon occasion.’

‘And the Scots, ma’am?’

‘Ah,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘I see that you are still barking up the same tree. ‘Out with your man and set him against the wall.’ Your mind still runs on Mr Nicolson.’

‘It would, if I had a little more to go on,’ said Ribble. ‘He has no alibi for the first murder and, as I see it, the rest of them would lie themselves black in the face to cover up for him for the second one.’

The story told by the forest warden was similar, in many respects, to that told by Mrs Beck. Having received his telephone call, Ribble went to see him.

‘You know the set-up here, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Non-residents are entitled to enter the forest on payment of a toll, so although we have a check on all the cabin parties, we have virtually none on our occasional visitors. However, I really can’t think that one of these could be responsible for the disappearance of my records. I mean,