Laura looked perplexed.
‘Gipsy encampment?’ she said. ‘How do you make that out? She’s the complete German housewife – clean, neat, tidy, house-proud. She’d never cast in her lot with the gipsies, surely? And, anyway, would they have her?’
‘She may have shown them goodwill at some time, or, perhaps more likely, her husband did.’
‘Allowed them to camp on some land belonging to the cottage, you mean? Well, that’s possible, I suppose, but we’ve no knowledge that it was so, so where does your idea come from? Is it a shot in the dark?’
‘Not altogether. The dog I killed was a lurcher, a type of animal, my reading informs me, which is widely used by poachers, and gipsies, in country districts, are inveterate poachers.’
‘Where on earth did you read about lurchers, and relate them to poachers and gipsies?’
‘My dear Laura! “A Pharaoh with his wagons coming jolt and creak and strain.”’
‘Oh, Roundabouts and Swings!’ “And keep that lurcher on the road, the gamekeepers are out!” Of course! Simple, when you come to think of it, but I must admit I didn’t. Well, now, are the police still holding on to Edward James? It’s a bit much, if all he did was to tell Mrs Schumann that he had been interviewed again by the police. You can’t call that being an accessory after the fact!’
‘So the magistrates thought. The Bench declined to commit him. They dismissed the case.’
‘Good. By the way, I take it that we are going over to the cottage again to leave food for the dogs? I mean, if they’ve been turned loose, they’ll come back to where they’re accustomed to being fed.’
‘Yes. I left the doors of the sheds wide open so that they could get to their bedding if they wished to do so, and you, I noticed, left them the food we had brought. A pity I had to shoot the other dog, but I felt that there was no alternative.’
‘Yes, I was sorry about that, too – very sorry. Afer all, he was only doing his job as he saw it, I suppose.’
‘A magnanimous observation on your part.’
‘I suppose it was Mrs Schumann who shut him up there and let the other dogs loose?’
‘Nobody else would have left such a booby-trap for us. I hope the police have buried the poor thing. And now I do not wish to pry, but did I gather from something Hamish said—?’
‘Yes, you did. I think it’s so, but I have to see a doctor to get my diagnosis confirmed. I wasn’t going to tell anybody until I was certain, but something I said seems to have caused Hamish to do an inspired bit of guessing. I wonder how soon the police will get hold of Mrs Schumann now that we can be pretty certain she’s somewhere in the neighbourhood? You know, dreadful creature though she is, I hate to think of her being hunted down.’
Something in her voice made Fergus lift his noble head from its resting-place on Dame Beatrice’s left instep. He rose, walked sedately across to Lindy Lou’s basket, picked up the tiny creature – she was about the size of a small cat – and carried her by the scruff of her neck over to Laura. He deposited her in Laura’s lap and, with great dignity, resumed his former position.
Lindy Lou climbed rapidly up Laura, gave her a swift lick on the cheek, walked round the back of her neck, descended by way of her right arm and, settling down on her lap with a sigh of pleasure, turned round twice and went to sleep.
‘Dogs!’ said Dame Beatrice suddenly. Laura, her hand almost covering Lindy Lou’s small body, looked across at her employer and grinned.
‘In the plural,’ she said, indicating Fergus and Lindy Lou. ‘One Irish wolfhound, one Yorkshire terrier. Saint Patrick converted the Irish, and Saint Hilda had a nunnery-cum-monastery at Whitby. Neither of these saints, however, was a heretic, so what, exactly, are you getting at?’
‘I was not thinking in terms of Irish wolfhounds and Yorkshire terriers. Clumber spaniels, I think, might be very much nearer the mark. I must go and see Miss O’Reilly and Miss Tompkins. I wonder where they are living now?’
‘Oh, the two girls who shared digs first with Karen Schumann and then with Mrs Castle? What on earth have they to do with clumber spaniels?’
‘Time will show. Ring up Superintendent Phillips. If they have moved from Mrs Castle’s house, he will have their present address. Better still, ask him whether he can spare the time to come and see me.’
(5)
‘It’s another link in the chain, ma’am,’ said Phillips. ‘Acting on your suggestion, we asked the two young ladies whether Mrs Castle had received any letters on Whit Saturday. She had. Miss O’Reilly collected the post, as she usually did, and sorted it out. She thinks there were two letters for Mrs Castle, and she knows there was one. She noticed it particularly, and remembers it, because it had been re-addressed from the school and was marked, Please forward. I then asked them whether Mrs Castle had ever mentioned to them that she thought of buying a dog, and Miss Tompkins said she certainly had, and added that she herself had said, “If an Irish wolfhound or a clumber spaniel would do, I know the very place. A girl we used to dig with, her mother breeds dogs, and Karen was always handing out sales talk in the staffroom and telling us that the dogs were pedigree animals, but that there would be a special price to members of the staff.”’
‘If the letter was addressed to Mrs Castle at the school, why did it need to be forwarded?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘I asked Miss Tompkins and Miss O’Reilly that. They said that the
