clear as stencils against the morning sky, the blue gap looked like a hag with a sharply pointed profile wearing voluminous skirts.
As Laura walked on, the figure vanished and the rock presented the appearance of battlements. Below her, there was an area of grass, an oasis in a wilderness of rocks, bracken and heather which, from the evidence of a carefully mown patch in the middle of it, appeared to be the local cricket pitch.
Laura descended into the valley by a steep, rough path and found, on her right, a slope of grass which formed a kind of amphitheatre for cricket spectators. Whether the grass was natural or had been lovingly provided by the devotees of a game once played in gentlemanly and sporting fashion without the aid of bouncers, facemasks and illogical appeals for l.b.w., Laura did not know. The cricket ground was a small one, all that could be conjured out of that otherwise inhospitable and arid valley, but it was a tiny miracle in such a setting.
Above it, opposite Laura, was a fortress of rock pinnacles, and below her was the stony road traversing the valley.
Descending to it, she set a brisk pace towards the village, but when she came to the place where the hiker had found the murdered body, she slowed down. The caravans and the Guides’ tents had gone, but the signs of police- trampled grass and bracken still marked the spot.
Laura did not come to a halt. There was a knot of sightseers who had heard the news of the murder and she had no intention of joining them. She swung the strap which held the camera case and its contents and got into her stride again.
There was time for a drink before lunch. She had it in the hotel bar, went to her room to change her shoes and then joined Dame Beatrice in the garden.
The afternoon was a busy one. Having been shown the scalpels in their leather case — this in the privacy of Laura’s bedroom — Dame Beatrice decided to take the bundle immediately to the police station and hand it over.
‘The things all look clean enough,’ said Laura.
‘A stream runs through the valley, I noticed,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and I have no doubt the crime was premeditated and that the murderer had come with materials to clean the-weapon. However, present-day methods of testing for bloodstains are well advanced and if there is the slightest trace of them the forensic experts will find it.’
The detective-inspector accompanied them up to Abbots Crozier and, while Dame Beatrice remained in the hotel, Laura guided him to the spot at which she had seen the little leather case. He asked whether she could be certain, so she indicated the flat outcrop upon which she had seated herself and directed his attention to the clump of beautiful pink thrift and the tangle of bramble runners.
‘Careless of the chap,’ he said. ‘Anybody could have spotted it if they had happened to take a seat on that ledge, as you did. Why on earth didn’t he chuck it further down the cliff where nobody could have seen it either from above or below?’
‘I think he thought he had,’ said Laura. ‘If he and the murdered man had arranged to meet in the valley when no holidaymakers were about, it must have been almost dark. I imagine the murderer was in a great hurry to get back to wherever he had come from and chose this cliff path so as not to go into Abbots Crozier past any of the cottages. From the top of the cliff railway it’s no distance to the zigzag path down to Abbots Bay. Goodness knows where he went from there.’
‘So you think that the murder was committed in the semi-darkness, so it might have been quite dark before he had cleaned up and taken to the cliff path?’
‘Yes, and thought he had thrown the leather case safely away.’
‘Of course,’ said the detective-inspector, ‘there’s no proof yet that a scalpel was the murder weapon, you know. There is no doubt the case was stolen from that loft, but the thief may have decided that what he had stolen might identify him if he tried to sell it. He may not have known what the scalpels were, but I suppose he realised they were no ordinary implements. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he chucked away
‘The bag won’t matter all that much if one of the scalpels was not the murder weapon,’ said Laura.
‘Ah, well, we shall know more about that when Forensic have had their go, Mrs Gavin.’ His sergeant, who had remained in the police car which had brought him to Abbots Crozier, departed with him and Laura rejoined Dame Beatrice and asked what came next on the agenda. Dame Beatrice replied that a visit to the Rants, the real reason for their stay in Abbots Crozier, was the next item.
‘There are some questions I want to put to them and to Susan,’ she said. ‘Now that we have had this second death, a pattern begins to emerge.’
‘As how? One took place soon after dawn at Watersmeet and was a drowning following severe concussion; the other must have happened at dusk in Rocky Valley and was caused by a throat-slitting. There is still a doubt, even, as to whether the first death was a murder at all, but there is certainly no doubt about the second one. I don’t see much of a pattern emerging. The only thing common to both is that Susan seems to have been involved in some way. She found the first body and was told about the second one.’
‘Your comments are very just. Do you think it rather more than coincidence that two unnatural deaths have occurred within such a short period of time so near a village as small as Abbots Crozier?’
‘Well, there are all these holiday visitors around and about. Apparently, one of them found the second body. Who is to say that he himself wasn’t the murderer of Ozymandias? Do you think I might ring up Axehead and ask what they know about the chap? After all, they owe me something for finding the scalpels for them.’
‘True, but if you had not found them, I think somebody else would have done so and might have thought it necessary to hand them over to the police.’
‘Somebody who knew what they were and that a doctor had lost them? Yes, I suppose that’s more than likely. The case has already had a fair amount of coverage in the press, so anybody who found anything unusual would feel bound to report it, just as I did. Besides, by now those Guides will be having a whale of a time telling all and sundry how they helped the police at the place where the murder was committed, and hunting for a knife must have given them a thrill which it would be ridiculous to expect them to keep to themselves.’
‘Knives may not have been specified definitely, but I agree with your conclusions.’
