wish to leave anybody out.”
“She has left
“If you can convince me that you had any reason to wish Mr Bourton dead,” began Dame Beatrice, pausing for an instant. Robina took up the challenge.
“Of course I hadn’t, and neither had David,” she said. “You will get nothing out of him because he knows nothing. Why has the inquest been adjourned? That’s what I’d like to know. Donald’s death was the result of a stupid accident due to somebody’s carelessness. Why couldn’t they leave it at that?”
“Because carelessness which results in somebody’s death calls for investigation,” said Dame Beatrice. David Lester, who had come into the room, said quietly,
“All right, mother. I can handle this. I’ve nothing to hide.” He eyed Dame Beatrice with interest, but without apprehension, as his mother went out of the room. “Won’t you sit down?” he said politely. “You think Bourton was murdered, don’t you? You’ve seen Susan and Caroline, I hear. I can’t tell you anything more than they did. My things were on the same table as theirs and my mother’s props. Mrs Yorke’s things were all in a tent in the woods because, to change for the hunting-scene and then back again, she had to strip practically starkers, which she could hardly do in full view of the rest of the cast.”
“When do you suppose the exchange of daggers was made?” Dame Beatrice enquired.
“As though I have any idea! My view, for what it’s worth, is that the harmless dagger fell out of its belt when the clearing-up was done after the second performance and got kicked under the table, so, when Bourton had to take on the part, he realised there was no dagger and simply picked up the one that was lying there, thinking it was the retractable one.”
“That point has been made before, Mr Lester, but why should there have been another dagger, and a lethal one, so handy? That is why we suspect murder. Besides, if the dagger was lying on one of the tables, presumably it was in full view of all those who had reason to approach the tables, yet nobody has mentioned it. Are you telling me that you were the only person who saw it there when you collected your lion-skin and mask?”
“No, I didn’t see it. I was only offering a rational explanation of how it got into the pocket of Pyramus’s belt.”
“Well,
“It went a long way towards proving young Lester’s innocence,” said Dame Beatrice. “I offered him a tempting chance to say that he had seen the lethal dagger lying on the table, but he did not rise to the bait.”
The town of Saxonchurch, still called by its inhabitants a village, was enclosed by earthworks put up on the only bit of high ground between its two rivers. It was otherwise surrounded by watermeadows, and was a pleasant, homely little place reached after a drive along roads which were bordered for miles by rhododendrons. It was the gateway to the wildest and most picturesque part of the locality, a land very different from its own immediate surroundings. It bordered a land of dramatic coastline, great stretches of heath, a castle which had withstood for months the assaults of Cromwell’s troops and, not far from the sea, there was the most perfect, unspoiled Norman church in the county.
At Dame Beatrice’s suggestion, her own car and not an official police car, had been used for the journey. The detective-inspector drove it and found a parking-space just off the ancient market square. The shop of which he and Dame Beatrice were in quest was in one of the many side-roads which led to the market-place and it turned out to be a fine example of a small Georgian residence. It had a tympanum arch to the doorway inset with a finely- designed fanlight, but the ground-floor front windows had been altered to make a shop-front.
A middle-aged woman wearing a flowered overall and a number of ornate bracelets came forward as the inspector and Dame Beatrice went in. Dame Beatrice left the preliminaries to her companion.
“Mrs Wells?” he asked. The woman fluttered her hands at him, causing the bracelets to make a not unmelodious jingling sound.
“Oh, you will be the police, “ she said. “Have you brought the rapier?”
“No, madam. It is a valuable piece of evidence and I am not authorised to tote it around the countryside. You will have to identify it at the station.”
“Oh, but I can’t leave the shop.”
“When do you close?”
“At five, if there aren’t any customers, but of course I never turn anybody away.”
“We will come back at five. We are anxious to get the weapon identified.”
“But, as I think I said in my letter, I don’t suppose for a moment that it’s the one you want.”
“Can you give us a description of the purchaser?”
“More or less. He was quite a neatly-dressed well-spoken lad, about eighteen years old, I should think, and might have been five-seven or five-eight tall, a bit taller than I am, but not very much. He was slim-built, with fair hair just touching his collar. He had blue eyes—I noticed them particularly.”
“That’s a very helpful description, madam.”
“Does it fit anybody you’ve got your eye on?”
“Difficult to say at the moment, madam,” said Conway diplomatically, for his compliment had been a false one.
“Was the blade really of Toledo steel?” enquired Dame Beatrice. Tessa Wells smiled and shook her head.
“If the customer had been a collector and knowledgeable, I should never have said such a thing,” she admitted, “but the boy only wanted the rapier for school theatricals and Toledo blades are the only kind the general public have ever heard of except for the modern Wilkinson steel, so I told the lie hoping it would warn him not to go fooling about with the thing. You know what boys are.”
“You indicated in your letter that the purchase was an expensive one.”
“Well, I really thought he was wasting his money, but it wasn’t for me to say so. It’s hard enough to make a
