‘You mean he would suddenly find he could do with somebody’s commentary on something or other, and would buzz off to her on the chance that she was in and would lend it to him?’
‘It seems a reasonable supposition.’
‘What did you make of the last note left on the body?’
‘Nothing whatever.’
‘I wonder what James did on Whit Monday?’
‘If the body was placed in the bushes near Badbury Rings on Sunday night or early on Monday morning, it would scarcely matter what anybody did on Whit Monday, but, as a point of interest, we will find out.’ She rang up Phillips a little later in the day.
‘On Whit Monday?’ he said. ‘Well, if he’s our man, he’s got a first-class alibi for that day, and that’s rather interesting, because it would mean that to him the Monday was more important than the Saturday or Sunday. He was at his digs all the morning. This is confirmed by his landlady, who gave him his breakfast at half-past eight, his morning coffee at eleven and his lunch at one-thirty. After lunch he went to Wimborne Minster to look at the chained library there. This is confirmed by the custodian who recognised the description of the clothes he was wearing – we got this description from his landlady – and his height and colouring. There were only four other visitors to the chained library in the Minster that afternoon, and the custodian remembers them particularly clearly, as three of them were Australians, a father, mother and little girl. James had tea in Wimborne – there is no confirmation of this, but it hardly matters because, long before tea-time, those Boy Scouts had discovered the body – and then says he went to Shaftesbury and returned to his lodgings at just after eight in the evening.’
‘How did he get to Mrs Schumann’s cottage on the Sunday?’
‘In a hired car, an Austin 1000, whose number, of course, we got from the garage. We have examined it most carefully and there is nothing suspicious about it. He took it out at half-past two and returned it and paid for the hire of it at six. He always hired from the same people. Says it worked out cheaper than running a car of his own, as he lived so near the school that he could walk there.’
‘I see. Thank you very much.’
‘It doesn’t help us, you know.’
‘Unless we can show that his story of how he spent Saturday and Sunday is either totally untrue or is false in certain particulars.’
‘If it weren’t for the fact that he was engaged to Karen Schumann and that, in every case except that of Machrado, there is some sort of connection with the school – although I admit it is very slight indeed in the case of the Italian maidservant – I’d now be inclined to write him off completely. He seems a steady, conscientious, serious-minded fellow, not at all the type of mass-murderer who is indicated by the present circumstances, and, I would have said, above suspicion, except as aforesaid. I admit I suspected him at first, but that was over the death of Karen Schumann.’
‘I think I would like to speak to him again. Can that be arranged? And would you mind?’
‘I’d be delighted. I only hope it will lead to something. The line Detective-Inspector Maisry is taking is to research into the background of these women’s lives. He’s certain there’s some connection with their past, but, so far, nothing adds up anywhere.’
‘Where will you meet James?’ asked Laura, when Phillips had rung off.
‘At his lodgings will be the best place. He may be more relaxed and informative there than he was when I saw him in the headmaster’s room at the school.’
‘He won’t be either relaxed or informative if he’s the murderer.’
‘That remains to be seen, does it not?’
What was seen, in the first place, was that James was not prepared to be co-operative. He replied to Dame Beatrice’s letter with a curt note to the effect that he was not in need of a psychiatrist and that he was extremely busy. This she countered by ringing him up at the school and inviting him to Saturday lunch at the Stone House, adding that she was including Mrs Schumann in the invitation. James refused, point-blank, to go anywhere near the Stone House, and was abrupt to the point of rudeness.
‘A bit suspicious, don’t you think?’ suggested Laura. ‘Anyway, this is where I go to Southampton and do my homework.’
‘By which you mean?’
‘Didn’t you, some time ago, suggest that I try my luck in a public library?’
‘It may be a waste of your time, but, if you remember, we thought that the digits printed on the papers pinned to the bodies might be dates.’
‘I thought that we’d abandoned that idea, but I’ll have a go. If the numbers represent dates, none of them rings a bell in my mind, in spite of the fact that I did history at College. The nearest would be 1140, when the Council of Sens condemned Peter Abelard and a chap named Arnold of Brescia for heresy.’
Dame Beatrice asked sharply,
‘What did you say?’
Laura gazed at her in astonishment. Then she thumped the arm of her chair. The penny had dropped.
‘Arnold of Brescia,’ she repeated. ‘Matthew Arnold! The Scholar Gipsy! I say, do you really think we’ve got a clue at last?’
‘Go to the library and find out,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I cannot see, at the moment, where Arnold of Brescia will lead us, but I deduce, from his name, that he was an Italian, and The Scholar Gipsy was the caption found on the body of Lucia, the Italian maid. There must be a connection.’
‘I’ll turn up Arnold in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, then, and see whether I can get a lead.’
‘According to our information,
