‘She turned quiet at that, and began to cry. She said she was sure her landlady wouldn’t have her back, so what was she to do, and where could she go? I said, “Well, you threatened to go to my mother. Why don’t you just do that? You can say what you like about me. She’ll believe you, whatever it is, and I believe she’ll take you in until you can find fresh digs for next term.” Then I gave her a five-pound note I couldn’t really spare, and put her on the train for Lymington. I knew she could thumb a lift from there if she switched on the old charm.’
‘But a lift would not take her to an out-of-the-way spot like your mother’s cottage,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘It was the best I could do, and I didn’t think she deserved even that much.’
‘Did you ever hear from her or see her again?’
‘No. The next thing was the dicks pulling me in for murdering her. I reckon she got fresh with some lorry-driver or car-owner, and he had what he wanted and then did for her and ditched her. She wasn’t found so far away from one of the roads to Dorchester, you know. Quite a lot of stuff goes to the south-west that way.’
‘Of course,’ said Maisry, ‘you’ve no alibi for the time of her death – nothing that would convince a jury.’
‘Then why did you let me go, after you arrested me? You knew you had nothing on me, and you’ve got nothing on me this time, either.’
‘We are not arresting you this time,’ said Maisry.
‘Back to square one,’ he added to Dame Beatrice when Otto had gone. ‘What did you make of our likely lad this time?’
‘Nothing that I had not made of him before. I think we ought to have another talk with Edward James.’
‘If Maria Machrado did go back to Mrs Schumann’s cottage, the inference, considering what we suspect about that lady, is pretty clear. The trouble will be to prove that she did go back there. Personally, I should doubt it. She must have known what kind of reception she would get after the deception she’d practised, and all that sort of thing.’
‘I pin my hopes on Mr James. He may have been at the cottage when she turned up, if she did turn up.’
‘Yes, that’s a thought. Right. We’ll sort him out.’
(5)
This time James was not required to go to the police station.
‘We know where we stand,’ said Maisry. ‘There are only two bits of information we want from him. Even with those we shan’t have enough to secure a conviction, but now we’re certain as to means and motive, it’s only a question of patience plus spadework before we know opportunity. Once we can show all three we’ll be justified in making an arrest and, after that, it’s up to the prosecution. I couldn’t, at first, see why you questioned Schumann about his father, and I’m not sure I grasp the point now.’
‘A father’s relationship with his children is always important, I think, particularly with his sons. I did not know, when I began, exactly how Otto would react, but it was immediately apparent that his answers, from our point of view, were important. The relationship does not seem to have been a happy one. I imagine that the father was bigoted, narrow-minded and selfish, and that his attitude towards the boy was humourless and unkind. Otto expressed his resentment and intolerance of this attitude by annoying his father in a way which, to a religious although bigoted man, must have been particularly galling.’
‘In other words, he delighted in taking the micky out of papa in the most irritating way he could think up. Apart from indicating that he’d inherited a streak of cruelty, I didn’t see where this got us, though, and I was very much surprised (although I tried not to show it) when you told him that he was practically in the clear. After all, if there was one thing which his evidence showed, it was that, as a boy, he was perfectly familiar with these heresies which seem to be part of the plot and, as a man, he certainly remembered a good deal about them.’
‘Yes, that is my point. I mean, that is why I practically exonerated him. I think a guilty man would have left out Priscillian and given us Arius, of whom he most certainly would have heard, since Arianism was easily one of the longest-lasting, and, except for Protestantism, which is, to all intents and purposes, now widely acceptable and respected, by far the most important of the heresies.’
‘I see your drift. Arius connects with his sister, whom we know with absolute certainty he could not have murdered …’
‘Whereas Priscillian connects with the Spanish girl, whom he most certainly could.’
‘Yes, it’s a point, but to you it seems a stronger one than it does to me. I wouldn’t put it past him to bluff matters out. He’s a slippery young customer.’
‘No, he is a boaster and a liar. I doubt whether he has the strength of character to bluff his way out of anything.’
‘You think he was telling us the truth this time, though, do you?’
‘I think we know enough from other sources to be reasonably sure that he was. The most important piece of information which he gave us we cannot check at present – indeed, I doubt whether we shall ever be able to check it sufficiently to be able to make court evidence out of it, but it is psychologically so satisfying that I propose to accept it without question.’
‘You have me fogged. I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re getting at.’
‘Really? Did you not obtain a mental picture of the family? The father studying and making notes for this book he
