Murder in the Mill-Race

as in his politics. It was ingrained in him to trust and respect the ‘right people,’ and he felt uncomfortable about the D.D.I.’s comments on Lady Ridding, and still more uncomfortable when he remembered that phrase, “It’s up to you, sir.” Did Grey think he was going to shut down on an enquiry because its continuance would cause discomfort to the Riddings? But Rootham was honest enough to admit to himself that he would feel relieved if this case were to be handled by C.O., and not by the County men. It would have been very uncomfortable to have a sense of divided loyalties, a desire to save ‘the right people’ discomfort and a desire to back up his own men, no matter which way their enquiries led them. “Probably all a mare’s nest, but there may be some mud slinging,” he thought to himself.

The thing which nagged uncomfortably at the back of Rootham’s mind was that he believed he had a faint glimmering of what might have been going on so far as the mystery of Sister Monica’s finances were concerned. Lady Ridding had paid the Warden’s salary, in cash. Officially that salary was £10 a month, all of which had been thriftily paid into the Building Society. Had Lady Ridding augmented the salary, unofficially? Rootham remembered hearing a woman friend of his wife’s say: “You can always get a little extra from Etheldreda Ridding.” Mrs. Rootham had promptly changed the subject. Cream, was it, or butter? pondered Rootham. Had the Warden of Gramarye tumbled to it? A trivial thing, but unpalatable. Of course, Major Rootham didn’t really know anything about Lady Ridding’s affairs: he’d only overheard a remark—and ignored it. He had not been Deputy C.C. at the time, and a man can’t snoop on his wife’s friends.

Major Rootham stretched out his hand for the phone. “I’ll ask for a first rate man,” he said to himself.

The upshot of Major Rootham’s request to the Commissioner’s Office was that Chief Inspector Macdonald was detailed to investigate the matter of Sister Monica’s death.

Chapter VII

1

Macdonald enjoyed his drive down to Devonshire. He took Detective Inspector Reeves with him, and they left London at 5.30 a.m. on June 27th. At that hour, the London streets were almost deserted, and Macdonald drove south-westwards through Chelsea and Mortlake and then on through Staines before the inevitable lorries had set out in any great numbers. It was a glorious morning and Reeves sat in happy companionable silence as Macdonald’s well serviced car slipped easily along the sunlit roads. They drove by Basingstoke and Andover, and then increased speed over the fine Wiltshire roads to Amesbury, with Salisbury Plain to their right, and the chalk downs beyond. Reeves gave a grunt of surprise when he first saw the stone circle of Stonehenge in the distance. It looked so small—like a model of the familiar reality.

“I’ve never seen it before,” said Reeves.

“High time you did,” said Macdonald.

He pulled the car up, and they walked towards the mighty stones. Reeves stood and stared, and at last he asked a question: “Where did they get them from, originally?”

“The outer circle, the sarsen stones, from the Wiltshire downs: the inner ones, the blue stones, from Pembrokeshire.”

“How the heck did they move them?”

“When you’re tired of detecting events concerned with the unruly wills and affections of sinful men, you might find it refreshing to try to answer that ‘How?’” said Macdonald. “The most probable answer is by floating them here, and to do that they would have had to excavate canals connecting up existing rivers.”

“Some job.”

“Yes. Some job. As a variation, you can think out the mechanics of moving them on rollers, invoking such assistance as the law of the lever might give, bearing in mind that there were no roads and that stone age Britain was pretty thickly covered with forest.”

“Yes. Quite a nice problem,” said Reeves. “Seems to me it’d be simpler to concentrate on Who killed Sister Monica? plus How and Why? But I’ll keep your tip in mind. It’d make a nice change of thought some time when I’m browned off.”

“And when I retire, I might write a monograph, for private circulation only, on the subject of stones,” said Macdonald. “Stonehenge, the Dale Stones in Lunesdale, and the London Stone.”

“Not forgetting the item from Scone,” chuckled Reeves.

“I hadn’t forgotten it, but let sleeping stones lie,” replied Macdonald. “If you’ve stared enough, what about some coffee? We’ve made good time. 78 miles in two hours isn’t bad going, remembering we started from Westminster.”

They drove on through Taunton and reached Milham Prior in time for an early lunch at the George, Reeves studying the Victorian decor with lively amusement. After lunch they drove to Milham Prior police station to consult with Sergeant Peel and the Barnsford Inspector.

2

“There’s something wrong there,” said Peel, after he and Macdonald had discussed the report which had been sent to the Commissioner’s Office. “I know it’s no use guessing, and our deputy C.C. said, ‘Leave it to the Yard,’ so I’ve left it. But my opinion is that every single witness I interrogated could have told me more than they did. They just shut down, and that goes for the Manor House as well as the cottagers: old Dr. Brown, the Rev. Kingsley, the estate agent—Sanderson—they all know more than they admitted.”

Macdonald looked at Peel’s carefully typed lists. “I have a feeling that the fellows who were there when you first arrived on the scene ought to be able to give a bit more factual evidence than they have,” he said. “If I’ve got things right, all those chaps were closely associated with that bit of the village nearest to the mill stream. There’s Samuel Venner, who lives at the Mill House, Bob Doone, who’s foreman at the saw mill close by, George Wilson, who’s electrician in charge of the generating plant, and Jack Hedges, cowman at the farm close by the Mill House. Jim Rigg, who found the body, is second cowman