Here Lies Gloria Mundy

shelter of Mr Wotton’s hospitable home.’

‘But it wasn’t raining, nor was the girl inside the old house, when McMaster saw her among the bushes as he crossed the kitchen garden. Of course he only saw the top of her head, I believe.’

‘But it was, as you say, her head he saw, and her hair was, to him, unmistakable.’

‘He didn’t have the help of it at Trends.’

‘Nevertheless, I believe him and I believe Mr Thornbury and Miss Shortwood. It was Miss Mundy they saw.’

‘I thought you were doubtful about Kay and Roland.’

‘Not if my interpretation of the known events is correct. I think the murder was committed on the Saturday night, the night before Miss Mundy presented herself at Beeches Lawn.’

‘She would never have dared leave a stabbed and burnt body in that car. The police would have found it when the man who rented the old convent building reported the obstruction.’

‘The car, I believe, was not drawn to their attention until the Monday or Tuesday.’

‘That’s true. They hadn’t got rid of it even when Celia Wotton came back from the hospital after Miss Brockworth’s accident. I suppose they were still trying to trace the owner, so wanted to have the car all in one piece, which it wouldn’t have been, perhaps, if they’d moved it. Did Gloria steal the car as well as burn it.’

‘No, I think it was her own car and an old one which she was prepared to sacrifice in order to further her own ends. The number plates, I am told — I have been in conference with Detective-Inspector Rouse, as you know — had been removed. My reading is that this was done to prevent the car’s being traced to Miss Mundy, not that the vehicle had been stolen.’

‘There are other ways of identifying cars, apart from their number plates,’ I pointed out.

‘No doubt she trusted that the fire would eliminate other clues. I will let you know how I get on at Trends. Where will you be during the next few days?’

‘At Beeches Lawn, if I am not in my flat. The Wottons have invited me for another visit.’

The shell of the old house was a grim reminder of the days of my first visit to Beeches Lawn. What remained of the roof had been removed for reasons of safety, I supposed, so that, apart from the ravages which it had suffered from the fire, the house was now completely open to the weather. I wondered what Anthony proposed to do with it. I supposed that it was not impossible to renovate it, but in his place I would have pulled it down.

Celia opened the subject at lunchtime. She said that the house now gave her the horrors, but that Anthony wanted to preserve it. The contractor was coming that afternoon to make another survey.

‘Now that the roof has gone, something must be done soon if I am to save the rest of the structure,’ said Anthony, ‘but Celia is too emphatic. The trouble is that, before I came into the property, a preservation order was slapped on the old place, so I’ve got to find out where I stand now with regard to that.’

‘While Anthony and the man are confabulating, will you take me out in your car, Corin?’ asked Celia. ‘It’s either that, or both of us staying indoors all the afternoon. I don’t suppose the survey will be over until teatime at the earliest.’

‘Where would you like to go?’

‘Oh, anywhere. Just out and around. Anywhere you would care to take me.’

‘Don’t keep her out after dark. I don’t trust bachelors,’ said Anthony. I laughed as I thought of Imogen.

‘I’ve got myself a girl of my own,’ I said. Celia was all speculation and curiosity, but I said that, as the evenings were shortening and I had received my orders not to keep her out after dark, I would unburden myself to her uttermost satisfaction when we were in the car.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked, as I took the Cheltenham road.

‘Can you climb a hill?’

‘I hope so.’

‘And visit a church?’

‘If have to.’

‘Right. We’ll climb up to Belas Knap and then go and look at Elkstone.’

I was surprised that she had never seen either, but then I remembered some American friends of mine who had been astonished to find how little I knew of historical London, a city in which I had spent the best part of my adult life.

I locked the car and we left the road and made the steep climb by way of a route marked out by the National Trust. A thousand feet up the shoulder of the beautifully named Cleeve Cloud was the long barrow, a grass-covered mound with an impressive forecourt, a false entrance and, round at the sides, the burial chambers in which, four thousand years ago, Neolithic men had buried the dead. I crept inside one of the short passages, but Celia remained outside.

‘How did they make such a place?’ she asked, when I emerged.

‘Drystone walls made of limestone blocks,’ I answered. ‘The Cotswolds haven’t changed.’

‘You’ve changed,’ she said, as we stood together in the wind which was driving ragged autumn clouds across the sky. ‘Are you very happy, Corin?’

‘As happy as a man contemplating matrimony can expect to be,’ I replied. She laughed.

‘A two-edged answer,’ she said. ‘Race you down the hill.’

‘No, you won’t. You’d find the slope too steep for safety. You’d tumble over and get covered in cowpats. I’m not