Morpeth said no more. She was not at all anxious to have the responsibility of driving the car, and the realisation that a driving test would have to be taken daunted her. When her sister had gone shopping, she prepared the vegetables for lunch and played for a time with Sekhmet and a rubber ball. It then occurred to her that a tramp, even though Adams had described him to her as ‘summat a cut above the usual’, might have left the loft very untidy and possibly in an offensive condition which ought to be dealt with before the door was padlocked against further intruders.
Morpeth armed herself with dustpan, soft-haired brush and a duster and walked over to the garage. She mounted the outside stair and opened the door of the loft. The room had a window, but she left the door wide open in order to obtain more light as she looked around her.
The room appeared to be in order. She saw her father’s old but favourite armchair, a table with some books on it, his desk with its drawers and a wardrobe from which she and Bryony had taken his clothes. They had disposed of them to a church jumble sale in Axehead except for his raincoat and a tweed hat he put on when he went fishing. Both garments were too grubby to be offered in such a state and Bryony had decided that it was not worth the money to have them cleaned.
There seemed nothing much which needed to be done in tidying the room except to dust it. Morpeth did this thoroughly, shaking the duster out at the open doorway every now and then. She opened the drawers, but they were empty, as she expected. It occurred to her that she ought to inspect the interior of the wardrobe in case the intruder had used it as a convenience. Dreading that such might be the case, she hesitated for a bit and then nerved herself to make the inspection.
The wardrobe was empty. The bag which the doctor had carried with him on his afternoon calls on his patients, the ancient raincoat and the hat which Morpeth knew had been left in the wardrobe had gone. Morpeth, although fearing it was useless, searched the room again. Then she left the loft and went back to the house. On Bryony’s return from shopping, they unpacked the baskets, put away the food and the other household necessities, and made coffee. When they had settled down, Morpeth broke the news of the disappearance of the hat, bag and raincoat.
‘Father’s bag gone, and that old raincoat and hat?’ said Bryony. ‘Must have been taken by the tramp Adams talked about. I suppose the man thought he could sell them, especially the leather bag. Is anything else missing?’
‘Not so far as I know. Perhaps you would go and have a look round. You see, if the bag is missing, father’s scalpels and perhaps other dangerous things have gone. The bag was fitted up just as he left it.’
‘After lunch, then. There’s no hurry. Have you done the vegetables? Susan will enjoy the cutlets I’ve brought in. What’s she doing this morning?’
‘She is still out. She must be taking Anubis and Amon for a longer walk than usual.’
Susan came back with startling and disturbing news.
‘Police all over the moor,’ she said. ‘A hiker has found a body in that rocky valley which runs out to Castercombe.’
‘Not another dead body?’ exclaimed Bryony.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. I met the shepherd whose flock graze the pastures below Cowlass Hill and he says the man’s throat was cut.’
‘How horrible! Worse than the other death! At least that one was brought in as accident. This one must have been murder or suicide,’ said Bryony.
‘Yes, I suppose so. What’s for lunch?’
‘You feel like having lunch after hearing a thing like that?’ asked Morpeth.
‘I didn’t see the body and I’m hungry.’
‘Did the police stop you?’
‘No. I was right over near the Witch’s Cauldron rock and they were mostly on the road. I thought they might be looking for somebody who had escaped from Castercombe gaol. Then, when I got to Cowlass Hill and met the shepherd, he told me what had happened. He got the low-down from his son, who happens to be a policeman. It seems to be a suicide so I suppose it was all right for the policeman to blab.’
‘Did you see the police on your way back?’
‘No. I kept well in the shelter of the rocks and then I took the cliff path, which is quite hidden from the road. Anyway, I think they were too busy to notice me.’
‘You were determined to dodge them, I suppose,’ said Bryony. ‘Well, I don’t blame you.’
‘I should think not indeed!’ said Susan, her sun-and-wind-roughed face flushing angrily. ‘If you had been given the going-over they gave me when they were in my cottage and found that silly hat and the piece of trouser-band, you would have dodged them, too. It was my rotten luck to find that dead man at Watersmeet and I don’t want any more to do with dead bodies for a long time to come, thank you!’
The news was all over the village by the early evening. The three women had supper at seven and Susan, presumably on her way home, called at the Crozier Arms for a beer and then, to the surprise of the sisters, she came back to Crozier Lodge with as much of the matter as she had been able to gather at the pub.
‘Didn’t like to ask any questions,’ she said, ‘me not being exactly what you might call popular in the village, but the barmaid was getting a pretty lurid account from a man who had a cousin in the telephone exchange in Axehead, so I gathered an earful, but whether it was fact or romance I wouldn’t care to guess. Apparently the police plan to telephone the hotels to find out whether any guest is missing, as nobody in the village seems to know anything.’
‘Well, it doesn’t sound like a convict, does it? Where was the body found?’ asked Bryony.
‘I told you, near enough. I don’t know the exact spot.’
‘Perhaps the poor man had a sudden fit of depression. That valley can be very lonely at times and it’s a nasty spooky place, anyway,’ said Morpeth. ‘Some people think it’s haunted.’
‘Talking of lonely and spooky,’ said Susan, ‘would you mind if I kipped here for the night? That’s what I came back to ask.’
