On their right they were passing a pine-forest which looked almost black because of its density. On their left, dreary with faded heather and sad, although colourful, with acres of gold, dead bracken, the moors rose in the distance in folds of blue, grey and dirty green, a mysterious, monotonous, nostalgic, tragic landscape, while ahead of the car there stretched, wound, mounted and fell the apparently endless ribbon of moorland road snaking its way towards the world’s end. Laura summed up the landscape.
‘Enough to give you the willies,’ she said. As the car approached Long Cove Bay the road began to descend, but very gradually and then it turned to the right, past the Youth Hostel, and made for the town.
Ribble had served Dame Beatrice well. He had named the pub in his notes and had given the address to which he had taken the girl, whose name he could give only as Marion. He had added a footnote to the effect that she had been of no help to him.
The pub was small, cosy and not particularly busy, as it was past one o’clock and its habitues had gone home or to cafes for their midday meal. Laura ordered ham sandwiches and beer for herself and George, a cheese sandwich and sherry for Dame Beatrice and then, going to the counter for a second round of drinks, she mentioned Marion’s name.
‘You know her?’ asked the barmaid.
‘Mutual friends,’ said Laura, ‘asked me to look her up. Is she working?’
‘Her? Not bloody likely!’ said the barmaid. ‘What, with the Welfare only too ready and willing? I wouldn’t work, either, if I could stick being at home all day with my old man, but I can’t. One thing about this job, you’ve always got company and you don’t have to fork out for their nosh.’
‘You don’t come from these parts,’ said Laura. ‘Neither do I. Good old London! Is Marion likely to be in this morning?’
Correctly interpreting this, the barmaid replied that Marion would not be in until the evening for her ‘usual’ and that she and the barmaid were going out that afternoon window-shopping in Gledge End.
‘Marion can borrow the tandem,’ she said, ‘on account her boyfriend has got to go to Birmingham on business by train.’
Laura returned to the table at which she had left Dame Beatrice and communicated these tidings to her. Dame Beatrice made no comment, but as soon as Laura had drunk her second half-pint she led the way out and went straight to a public call-box from which she rang Detective-Inspector Ribble, told him where he could find a tandem, and suggested that it might be the one stolen from the church hall.
‘It’s the right tandem,’ said Ribble on the following day. ‘Right make, right colour, right lamps, right accessories, as described to us by young Marton. I was allowed in to see him again. He expects to be discharged from hospital in a day or two, but, except for the description of the tandem, about which he was very clear — he and Nicolson appear to cherish the thing the same way as some young men cherish a sports car — he couldn’t help me any further. Still has no idea who his assailant was and remembers nothing of Miss Raincliffe’s bursting into the room. I suppose he’d just been knocked unconscious when she arrived on the scene. Anyway, we’ll pick up our chap for the theft of the tandem. We can hold him for that and, as there is this more serious charge of murder in the offing, we shall be fully justified in opposing bail.’
‘I don’t think you need waste the time of the Birmingham police,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘If I read his mind aright, the most likely place to find him will be in or near the village of Stanton St John. He will have found out by this time that his next victim (as he supposes) is not at her home address.’
‘If you’re right about the motive for the murder of Mrs Tyne and the murderous attack on Mr Marton, I think you’re right about Stanton St John, ma’am. As you indicated, why else would the forest warden’s records have been stolen?’
‘So you have come round to my point of view.’
‘He must be pretty reckless to have stuck to the tandem. He must have known it would be recognised sooner or later,’ said Ribble.
‘He may have felt safe at first when he knew you had rounded up the dancers and placed them in a position which approximated to their being held in custody. As soon as he found out that you had let them go, he co-opted this girl Marion, thinking that nobody would be looking for
‘I suppose she is in no danger from him?’
‘None at all, unless she wounds his
‘We used to have a marvellous cook who was also quite a character,’ said Jenny to Erica. ‘Her name was Mrs Ditch. Of course she’s been dead for some years now, but we still have her son, known to all as Our Walt. He is Carey’s pig-man now and has three underlings to whom he acts as a benevolent despot. I don’t know what we should do without him.He’s a first-class handyman as well. His wife is the present cook and she’s good, too.’
‘I wish she would show me how to make a bacon pudding and how to do pig’s fry.’
‘She’ll be delighted to, if you ask her. What about her recipe for black pluddings? What are the others doing this morning? I haven’t seen them since breakfast.’
‘Isobel needed exercise and has walked to Oxford. She said she might do some shopping. I expect that means she’ll look at the University booksellers and take a taxi back here to be in time for lunch. You said it would not be until two, so she thought she would have time. She’ll be back all right. She isn’t scatty, like young Tamsin. Tamsin is sketching pigs.’
‘I hope she is well wrapped up. It’s a bit chilly sitting about at this time of year.’
‘Oh, yes, she’s got a windcheater and a scarf. She’ll be all right. Hermione is more or less with her.’
‘Only more or less?’
‘I think she said she was going the rounds with Our Walt.’
‘I didn’t intend her to start work again while you three girls were here. Carey has gone to Oxford, too. I want some household things and he’s ordering feed, so I thought he could combine the two. If only he had known, he could have taken Isobel in the car.’
‘Oh, she wanted to walk. Perhaps they will meet and he will bring her back. I think I ’ll take a stroll myself and see how Tamsin is getting on.’
‘Are you worried about yourself and the others? What did Aunt Adela tell you? She telephoned me, you know, when she heard from Hermy that you were all coming here to finish your holiday.’
‘She told me that we weren’t safe so long as we stayed in the forest cabin. She said she thought Tamsin was the most vulnerable, Isobel the least, and Hermione in less danger than myself. She told us all not to trust anybody we had met while we were in the forest and, except that I don’t scare easily, she would have had me scared, because, of course, we did get well acquainted with a hefty young man named John Trent, who seemed rather interested in young Tamsin.’
‘Aunt Adela did not name any particular person, though, did she?’
‘Well, yes, she did, but it seems so improbable that he could be a danger to any of us. The only ones who seem to have upset him are a company of folk-dance people. They are the ones he seems to have it in for, not us.’
‘If Aunt Adela said that you four were in danger, she meant it,’ said Jenny. ‘You say that Isobel is not particularly vulnerable, but ought she to have walked into Oxford alone?’
‘You can’t argue with Isobel and she’s very sensible. She’ll be all right once she gets to Headington. That’s the way she was going to take. It’s about five miles, she thought, to get right into the city.’
At this point, before the conversation could continue, Our Walt’s wife appeared.
‘The poultry be at the door, missus, and want to know what about a fowl for Sunday, loike.’
‘We shall need two, Mrs Ditch. I’d better see him.’ She went out to the back door and Erica followed her plan of going out to see how Tamsin was progressing with her pencil sketches of the pigs.
She found the youngest member of their party outside Lucifer’s pen. Tamsin looked round and said, ‘He won’t keep still long enough for me to draw him properly. I think he can smell one of the sows.’
‘He’s not supposed to be able to,’ said Hermione, coming up to them. ‘He probably objects to an alien presence and perhaps he’s got a “thing” about having a picture made of himself. Boars are very primitive, I always think, unlike sows and young pigs, who are very intelligent and good-humoured. Did you ever see a pig smile? They do, you know,
