‘My dear sir,’ said Maisry, ‘we should be in dead trouble if we hounded anybody. We simply need your help. Five women have been done to death. To be frank with you, we believe that we are trying to find three murderers, two of whom are sane and culpable, the third of whom is a madman. As it happens, Dame Beatrice has discovered what appears to be a tie-up between these persons, but, so far, unless you can suggest an explanation, this tie-up does not lead to anything except a blank wall.’
‘You believe there are three murderers living in this area? That seems incredible,’ said James. Dame Beatrice noted that his voice and his attitude had changed. He spoke with an air of interest and animation; his sullen demeanour and hangdog look had vanished; he was sitting up straight in his hard-backed chair and was leaning slightly forward as though anxious not to miss a word of what was being said.
‘Well, sir, consider the facts,’ went on Maisry. ‘I need not recapitulate them now. That will come later, perhaps. It is these dates we are concerned with.’
‘Yes? What dates?’ The question, on the face of it, was innocent enough, but Dame Beatrice was conscious of a slight stiffening in the attitude of Superintendent Phillips. Maisry, however, remained urbane and undisturbed.
‘It seems possible,’ he said, ‘that the numbers on the pieces of paper which we found attached to the bodies may have some significance as dates. Take the first one, for example. You remember what it was, I suppose?’
‘I am not likely to forget it, but why should you suppose it was a date?’ He looked directly at Dame Beatrice.
‘I believe you also remember my asking you whether you could tell me any signficant dates in the fourth century A.D.’ she said, ‘or something to that effect. You gave me, I recollect, the dates of the reign of the emperor Julian the Apostate, of whom, I admit, I knew nothing but his name.’
‘I remember that, of course, but the dates were not the same as the number found on – found on Karen. Do you mean that the other bodies …?’
‘Yes,’ said Phillips, speaking for the first time during the interview. ‘We’ve managed to keep it from the Press, but similar pieces of paper, not all with the same wording but all bearing a number, were found on the other bodies. We tried various solutions, and the idea that they might be dates occurred to Dame Beatrice as well as to ourselves, although our interpretation of them was not the same as hers.’
‘By the way,’ said Maisry, ‘how did you know that a piece of paper was found on Miss Schumann’s body?’
‘Mrs Schumann told me. She saw it – was shown it, I believe – when she identified the body.’
‘Oh, yes, of course. We asked her whether she could explain it, but she said she could not.’
‘I see. Well, what do you expect me to do?’
‘Suppose that Dame Beatrice is right, and that 325 refers to a date in the fourth century, what would it mean to you, as a scholar and a theologian?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Come, come, sir! It is a definite date in church history. You must have come across it in your studies.’
‘Come across it? Well, it’s the date, near enough – some of those dates are approximate only, you know – of the condemnation of the heretic Arius by the Synod of Antioch.’
‘And,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘you once called your fiancée a misguided little Aryan or Arian.’
‘So you told me before. I have no recollection of it.’
‘It was during a discussion you had with her one afternoon after school hours. You were in the school library. The discussion was interrupted by the school secretary, who came to ask for the key to the library so that she could lock up and go home.’
‘Oh, yes, I begin to remember. We had been debating the Divine Nature. Karen had access to her father’s very considerable library and had a moderately good brain. It helped my studies to talk things over with her – clarified my ideas, fixed facts in my head, and so forth.’
‘And did her mother ever discuss your work with you?’ Dame Beatrice asked.
‘Not often. Occasionally she would quote her late husband’s opinions when Karen and I were talking, but whether her recollection of them was as complete as she claimed I could hardly say. Some of them sounded very unorthodox to me.’
‘I wonder …’ Dame Beatrice paused, as though doubtful of the propriety of her thoughts.
‘Yes?’
‘I wonder whether you were more attracted by her father’s library than by Karen herself?’
To her surprise, James smiled.
‘I knew, of course, that her father had such a library, but it was closed to me until some months after we became engaged,’ he said. ‘The room was kept locked in respect for his memory, so Mrs Schumann told me.’
‘Indeed? What led her, then, to admit you to it, and to allow you the use of it, as I understand is now the case?’
‘Oh, as to that – well, does it really matter?’
‘If it did not, you would have no hesitation in answering my question. Let me put it in another way. It is true, is it not, that you have had the full use of that library only since your fiancée’s death?’
‘In a sense that is true. Before that, at Mrs Schumann’s invitation, I used to make out lists of books which I wished to consult, and Karen would bring them to school on Mondays when she returned from the week-end spent with her mother.’
‘While Miss Schumann was alive you spent only about one week-end in four with her at her mother’s cottage?’
‘About one in four, yes. I could not take any more time off from my studies. I needed my week-ends to visit public libraries in Southampton, London and elsewhere.’
‘Yet, since Miss Schumann’s death, you are far
