‘Mr Stratford, from what you have told me, I gather that you were the first person to see Miss Mundy arrive at Beeches Lawn.’
I looked out of the window at the trees and shrubs which bisected the garden and, turning again to Dame Beatrice, I agreed and added,
‘She came along the front of the house, where we are now. I saw her from my bedroom window.’
‘So much I remember. She came in from the direction of the playing-field. To do that, would she have had to pass a convent which was mentioned to me in connection with quite another matter?’
‘It’s no longer a convent,’ said Celia. ‘You are talking about that car which was burnt up?’
‘And Miss Mundy arrived here on the Sunday I left?’ went on Dame Beatrice.
‘On the Sunday, yes. Some local craftsmen use the building now, but they wouldn’t have seen Gloria go past the place,’ said Anthony. ‘The old convent is empty at weekends.’
‘Splendid,’ said Dame Beatrice. I thought I knew the reason for her satisfaction. All the same, I wondered how Gloria could have known that the convent building would have been deserted on the Sunday of her arrival. Dame Beatrice, who appeared to be able to read my mind without asking questions of me, said calmly, ‘She asked what the building was, I suppose, and one of the local people or perhaps one of the schoolboys told her.’
‘I wonder whether she saw that burnt-out car,’ said Celia. ‘I don’t think the police knew about it until the lessee of the convent building reported it, though. It probably wasn’t there when Gloria came that way.’
‘I do not see how it could have been,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Does your gardener work on Sundays?’
‘Certainly not. I’m a churchwarden,’ said Anthony, ‘and am in honour bound to keep the fourth Commandment.’
‘Except in the case of cook and her scullery maid,’ said Celia. ‘There are limits to his pious observance of the Sabbath. He does love his midday Sunday dinner, although we do have a cold meal at night.’
11
A Conference with the Accused
« ^ »
The next question was put to me personally. Dame Beatrice asked me whether I wrote shorthand, adding that as, among my other activities, I was a newspaper reporter (or so William Underedge had told her), no doubt I numbered shorthand among my accomplishments. Wondering what this was leading up to, I admitted that this was so.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘You shall accompany me upon my mission.’
‘And we hope,’ said Laura Gavin, ‘that shades of the prison-house will not begin to close upon the growing boy.’
‘You mean you want me to sit in on your interview with Coberley?’ I said. ‘He won’t like that very much.’
‘Did you not get on well with him when you met?’
‘Oh, I saw very little of him, but he did show me over the old house one morning.’
‘Well, he can refuse to talk to me in front of you, but I think he would prefer you to Laura. He may even feel he has a friend at court when he sees you with me.’
So off we went. Apparently she had made all the arrangements beforehand, for we were taken straightaway to the governor’s office, where Dame Beatrice was received with deference.
‘You had better see Coberley in here,’ said the governor and he sent off the prison officer who had brought us into his presence to conduct Coberley to the sanctum. ‘I told him that we were expecting a visit from you and that he could have his lawyer present at the interview if he so wished, but he said that he had met you and needed no other help.’
Coberley looked better than I had expected. He was well-shaven and was wearing a good suit. His demeanour was cheerful. In fact, he looked fresher and more alive than he had appeared at Beeches Lawn. I think he had shed the image of the headmaster and had reverted to that of the business tycoon who, no doubt, had been in tight places before and had come out of them unscathed. He greeted us with an impartial, ‘Very good of you both to come,’ shook hands with us and the governor, and then the prison officer left us and we, so to speak, settled down, myself at the desk ready to take notes, the other two in chairs adjacent to one another.
‘I take it that you know the magistrates have decided I must stand trial,’ said Coberley. ‘It means the end of the school, so far as I am concerned, of course, but my first assistant will carry on and if the boys stay he will buy me out and take over completely. That is all arranged. Whatever the result of the trial, I can hardly go back there myself. I shall miss the boys, of course, but Marigold will enjoy living in our villa in the south of France. I am pretty sure I shall be able to join her there. I don’t see how this charge can possibly stick. There isn’t enough evidence against me to hang a dog.’
‘A pity the magistrates did not share that view,’ said Dame Beatrice drily.
‘Oh, the Bench always believe the yarns the police cook up,’ said Coberley, appearing less and less like my previous picture of him. ‘The Chief Constable brought pressure to bear on that rather obtuse detective-inspector, I think, so an arrest had to be made and I drew the short straw.’
‘Why was that, do you suppose?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I’m an old lag, you know. I’ve done time for assault and battery. I was an obvious choice, since a choice had to be made.’
‘Who, in your opinion, were the other candidates for incarceration?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘Well, I don’t want to sound unchivalrous, but, speaking quite objectively, I see this as a woman’s crime. There were a number of guns in the house — ’
