The Death-Cap Dancers

‘It wouldn’t have been any use him knowing if Mr Nicolson murdered him. I’ve convinced myself that the attack on Mr Marton was with murderous intent, ma’am, and that Nicolson’s plan was to hide the tandem so as to make it look as though Mr Marton and Miss Raincliffe had gone away on it at the end of the show. According to what the caretaker told me, that’s what the others did think until the truth came out. We were told by his sister that Marton is weak and impressionable. It would have been easy enough, it seems to me, for Nicolson to have given Marton some reason or other as to why they shouldn’t leave the tandem with the other bikes in that shed.’

‘Your reasoning is valid up to a point, and I think you might be justified in arresting Mr Nicolson on the strength of it, but only if Mr Marton were dead, Mr Marton is very much alive and could refute your theory about the tandem as soon as the defending lawyer had put him in the witness box.’

‘The prosecution would claim that he was still under Nicolson’s influence, ma’am, and was unwilling to denounce his friend. Anyway, I shall have another go at Marton as soon as he can be discharged from hospital.I am impressed by your ideas, ma’am. It’s only that I prefer my own.’

‘As who would not?’ said Dame Beatrice cordially. ‘Nevertheless, Inspector, I’ll take the high road and you’ll take the low road (or vice versa, of course — the choice is yours) and I have a feeling that I’ll be in Scotland before you.’

‘There’s always the story of the hare and the tortoise, ma’am.’

‘I know; but which of us is which?’

‘Do you really believe Ribble will arrest Nicolson?’ asked Laura. Dame Beatrice cackled.

‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Inspector Ribble knows perfectly well that he has no case against Mr Nicolson. He was enjoying himself by arguing with me, that is all. On the other hand, neither have I a case which, at present, would survive examination. Our next excursion, yours and mine, is to Long Cove Bay.’

‘That hostel again?’

‘No. We are going to visit a public house.’

‘Good-o, but why?’

‘You may know when we get there, but I can promise nothing. This really will be a shot in the dark. If it finds its mark it will be because of the notes of his own painstaking work with which the inspector provided me, and I shall take pleasure in saying as much, both to him and to his Chief Constable.’

‘So he doesn’t mean to arrest our nominee either?’

‘Good gracious, no. That was a probe to find out whether I know something I have not told him. It failed because I have disclosed to him all that is in my heart concerning this affair.’

‘But he thinks it’s weak on motive. Is the motive he assigns to Nicolson any stronger?’

‘A policeman would think so, I daresay. There is considerable bias about some relationships.’

Chapter 17: DESTROYING ANGEL

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Hermione, sure of her road, brought Isobel by way of High Wycombe, skirted Wheatley and then took the minor road northwestward through Forest Hill and so to her home. Erica and Tamsin, in Erica’s car, arrived an hour later, and all were soon at table.

‘So you’ve been having adventures,’ said Jenny, their hostess.

‘What has Aunt Adela been up to?’ asked Carey. ‘You say she sent you away from the forest area.’

‘She thought we might be murdered if we stayed, so Isobel took me to her London flat and Erica took Tamsin home with her, and then I got this idea of all of us coming down here. The two working women have to go back on Saturday afternoon, but Tamsin can stay on for a bit. She wants to draw pigs. You might like to have a portrait of Lucifer,’ said Hermione to her father.

‘Is Lucifer a pig?’ asked Tamsin.

‘He’s my prize boar,’ Carey replied. ‘You shall see him tomorrow. We call him Lucifer, but his name, when I show him, is Harold Longtooth of Roman Ending. There’s a Roman villa not too far away and I bought the farm which is next door to it and added it to my own. I’ve built my pigman a cottage out there and pulled the old farmhouse down. It was a bit of an eyesore, anyway.’

‘Would you really let me paint Harold? I’ve sketched dogs, but never a boar. And are there woods on your estate?’

‘I expect you miss the forest,’ said Jenny, ‘but we do have woods near by. We don’t own them, but we have rights of pannage, so, if any of you are short of something to do while you’re here, you can always go and gather acorns and beech-mast. The pigs love both, and I can supply baskets and clean sacks. Pigs are forest animals. Of course nowadays we don’t let them loose in the woods, which is what they would enjoy most, but we keep them in pig-houses with a shed and a large outside run, so I think they are fairly happy, especially as they’ve never known anything else. The pig-houses are a good way off, but Carey will trundle you round in the jeep and you can easily get to the woods from there.’

‘I hope Aunt Adela isn’t in danger of being murdered,’ said Carey, who had not taken the possibility seriously.

‘She told me she would still have Laura and Detective-Inspector Ribble with her,’ Hermione replied, ‘so she ought to be all right. In any case the murderer only specialises in young women. That’s why Tamsin is such a responsibility.’

‘What about you?’ retorted Tamsin. ‘Anyway, it is all to do with those dance people. None of us was in any danger.’

‘Then why was Dame Beatrice so anxious that we shouldn’t let anybody know where we were going?’ asked Isobel, looking at Erica.

‘Oh, it is a precautionary measure,’ Erica replied, ‘but she was insistent about our leaving the forest cabin, so I felt I had to agree. After all, two girls have been killed. She was right to make us leave.’

‘Oh, well, nobody knows where we are except for Mr and Mrs Lestrange and my mother,’ said Tamsin. ‘I thought somebody in the family ought to be told where we were.’

‘Quite right,’ said Jenny. ‘I should always want to know where Hermy was.’

‘ “That old-fashioned mother of mine!” ’ chanted Hermione. ‘You are way, way behind the times, darling! Parents never want to know what their children are up to nowadays in case somebody holds them responsible for whatever it is.’

‘If only the parents were held responsible there would be a lot less truancy in schools and far better behaviour all round,’ said Isobel severely. ‘As for this nonsense that a child of under ten is incapable of committing any crime, I never heard such rubbish in my life. I could tell you—’

‘Oh, head her off, somebody!‘ said Tamsin. ’You shouldn’t talk shop, Isobel, especially at table.’

‘Oh, oh!’ said Erica. ‘Is this a case of the bunny biting the stoat? What have you been up to that you turn so belligerent all of a sudden?’

‘I haven’t been up to anything. Of course I haven’t. What should I have been up to?’

‘ “Methinks the lady doth protest too much”,’ said Hermione. ‘Come clean, young Tamsin. You’ve given somebody else this address, haven’t you?’

‘Well, only John,’ admitted Tamsin, ‘and that can’t possibly hurt. He won’t pass it on, I’m sure. He would hate not to know where I am.’

‘ “Kind hearts are more than coronets And simple faith than Norman blood,” ’ said her sister. ‘What a priceless fathead you can be when you really make up your mind to it!’

‘So we visit another pub,’ said Laura, ‘but why George? I could have driven the car. Do we need a bodyguard?’

‘We may have to park outside a house while we conduct what I think will be our last interview. As I have a feeling that a back street in Long Cove Bay may not be the safest place to leave an unattended car, I decided to bring George along,’ Dame Beatrice explained.

‘I see. So the visit to the pub is not the only reason for our taking this trip across the moors.’