Death of a Burrowing Mole

8

Interested Parties

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Except to those directly concerned and but for the fact that the deceased was an eminent man of letters, the inquest was as dull as Dame Beatrice had predicted it would be. A fairhaired woman wearing a black hat and a black band around the left sleeve of a light summer coat told the coroner that she was Grace Veryan, the former wife of the deceased, and that she identified the body as being that of her divorced husband.

The medical evidence followed. The spinal injury would have resulted in paralysis; the injuries to the head had caused death. The inference was that Professor Veryan had been seated on a low part of the wall and, in elevating his telescope, had overbalanced backwards on to the lethal collection of broken stones below. The time of death was put at between midnight and two in the morning.

No questions were asked by the jurors and the majority of those present were expecting a verdict of accidental death. However, at the conclusion of the medical evidence, Detective-Superintendent Mowbray asked for an adjournment. As the coroner granted this request without surprise or betraying any other emotion, it was clear that it had been anticipated before the inquest opened.

Dame Beatrice had been present, as she had promised. She and Laura took the two young men off to lunch at Holdy Bay. Tynant and the Saltergates went off with Mrs Veryan, but the two girls and Susannah lunched as usual in the caravan which, together with the boys’ cars, had been returned to its former position on the grass verge below the castle ruins.

‘Well,’ said Laura, ‘judging by the remarks I overheard as we left the court, that adjournment has given some of the citizens food for thought.’

‘Not to mention gossip,’ said Bonamy.

‘And the cold touch of fear,’ said Tom. ‘I refer to some of our lot. An adjournment can only mean one thing. As we suspected once Mowbray got to work, the police have doubts about an accident. I foresee that things are going to be very sticky and uncomfortable at Castle Holdy.’

‘Are you all continuing with the work?’ asked Laura.

‘It seems like it. I spoke to Saltergate and he sees no reason to pack up, and Tynant rather smugly says that in tribute to Veryan’s memory the dig must be completed.’

‘I noticed,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘that the trench is now being dug from left to right.’

‘Yes. It was getting perilously near Saltergate’s territory when the row began, so Tynant is now boxing clever and biding his time. One thing, he will be easier to deal with than Veryan would have been, if it comes to the crunch.’

‘Well, that was a turn-up for the books,’ said Fiona.

‘It didn’t surprise me,’ said Priscilla. ‘I’ve been terrified ever since Monday when the police began questioning us all. It was pretty obvious then what they thought and it’s even more obvious now. They must have found what is known as a vital clue.’

‘That’s only what the newspapers call it. All the police will admit is that they’ve “got a lead”. I wonder what on earth it can be?’

‘Fingerprints where no fingerprints should be,’ said Susannah. ‘I wrote a detective story once and fingerprints played a big part in it.’

‘If it’s fingerprints they’re after, we have nothing to worry about,’ said Fiona. ‘Nobody has taken our dabs.’

‘There is plenty of time for that, though,’ said Priscilla, ‘and now that the inquest has been adjourned and everybody suspects that Professor Veryan met with foul play, anybody who objects to being fingerprinted will come under immediate suspicion.’

‘You talk like a character in a third-rate crime film,’ said Fiona, but she looked uneasy.

‘Oh, yes, Mrs Veryan,’ said Tynant, ‘I fully intend to complete Malpas’s work. We have gone so far now that it would be a pity not to finish.’

‘Tell me, Nicholas – and please call me Grace; you know me quite well enough for that – tell me what you really think about this tragic death.’

‘It is tragic, yes. A good man has been lost to our ranks.’

‘You say good. You do not say great.’

‘I am not given to expressing eulogies.’

‘Particularly in connection with a man who has always stood in your way.’

‘That is an unkind and a very unjust way of looking at it. I have always played second fiddle to Malpas, it is true. It was a state of affairs which might have continued until he retired—’

‘Or died,’ said Grace Veyran in a tone which could not be misunderstood. Tynant remained in control of himself, although his long mouth tightened before he said, ‘I was about to add: or until my book comes out.’

‘Your book?’

‘Already with the publishers. In it I refute all Malpas’s theories regarding monoxylous timber coffins in Lower Myria.’

‘But surely their distribution is known? Haven’t they been disinterred and examined?’

‘Yes, indeed, but where Malpas is wrong is in attributing them to the Middle Bronze Age. I place them five hundred years earlier. They belong to Early Bronze Age One.’

‘So your book attacks his theories. I don’t call that very friendly.’

‘It is not meant to be either friendly or unfriendly. It is a question of research and scholarship, that’s all. I am concerned only with the truth.’

‘Did Malpas know you had written this book?’

‘No. I intended to hit him for six with it when it comes out next year. All the fun has gone out of it now.’

‘What a little boy – and what a nasty little boy – you are!’

‘Why did he divorce you?’

‘He didn’t, nor I him. We simply lived apart for the statutory period and got our decree for the modern but incontrovertible reason that the marriage was an absolute failure. Who is the remarkably beautiful creature you sat next to in court?’

‘I sat next to you. Self-praise is no recommendation, so you must leave it to me to praise you if you are to be praised at all.’

‘Don’t fence! You know the woman I mean. She sat on the other side of you and I sensed considerable rapport between you.’

‘She is Dr Susannah Lochlure, and she belongs to Saltergate’s gang, not to ours.’

‘She looks well connected. Is she?’

‘I believe there’s an earldom kicking about in her family.’

‘Any money?’

‘Do earls usually have money nowadays?’

‘I have no idea. Still, blue blood is blue blood.’

‘Yes. “Would a baronet’s sister go in before the daughter of a younger son of a peer?” ’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I’ve often wondered, ever since I read The Ordeal of Osbert Mulliner. Do you know the answer?’

‘You are shelving the subject of that girl of yours. Anyway, I am not in the mood for flippancy.’

‘That girl of mine? I only wish she were! And I didn’t mean to be flippant. We’ve all had a shock and it takes people in different ways. It makes me want to make a parade of being nonsensical just to lessen the tension. You know what the police think.’

‘As the inquest has been adjourned, it is rather obvious what they think, but Edward Saltergate didn’t do it, you know. They were in the middle of a battle, you said, but poor old Edward is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. He is quite incapable of murdering anybody.’

‘Idiots have committed murder before now, and all mediaevalists are mad. Why should anyone who had any sense want to revive the Middle Ages? Much better lost and forgotten.’

‘I assume,’ said Dame Beatrice, at the dinner to which she had invited Edward and Lilian in Holdy Bay, ‘that you have something more in mind than the tidying-up of the castle ruins.’

‘If all goes well, we hope to embark on a partial reconstruction of the main features,’ said Edward. ‘The landowner is willing, there is sponsorship available from a couple of learned societies, a small government grant is promised, so, if my plans are approved, Lilian and I will take it in turn to supervise the work. I am anxious that the other project shall not encroach upon ours while the reconstruction is in progress.’

‘Ah, yes, the other project. You refer, no doubt, to Mr Tynant’s excavations. I am interested to learn that he proposes to continue them.’

‘You mean in light of the accident to poor Veryan? Yes, it might have seemed in better taste to discontinue the work, at any rate for a time.’

‘Was it generally known that Professor Veryan was an astronomer? But for that, he might still be alive.’

‘Well, yes, we did know of it. No doubt it was nothing more than a hobby. I suppose Tynant knew, and if he did he may have told Dr Lochlure and she may have told her two women undergraduates, I suppose.’

‘Why should you think she might have mentioned it to the undergraduates?’

‘Young women in these times are very much on their guard against prowlers. To reach the keep, Veryan would have needed to pass, each night, very near to the caravan in which the young women were sleeping. Some degree of reassurance would have been advisable in case the girls were aware of footsteps in the night. The castle precincts are outside the village. My wife, I know, would have been happier for the girls to be housed in some less isolated spot.’

‘Nonsense, Edward!’ said Lilian. ‘It was you who worried about them. I had no fears whatever on their account, particularly since Fiona Broadmayne was one of them. My sympathies would be entirely with the prowler if ever she got her powerful hands on him.’

‘ “My anxiety would be entirely for the snake”,’ said Dame Beatrice, in an absent-minded way.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Oh, no, I beg yours. I have picked up a bad habit from Laura of offering quotations in place of rational comment.’

‘What I can’t understand,’ said Lilian, ‘is how Malpas was able not only to pass by the caravan night after night without being heard, but to enter the keep and climb that stair, also night after night, without those two young men being aware of it.’

‘Of course, nobody was in the caravan or the keep on the night of the accident,’ said Edward. ‘All the same, as my wife points out, nobody ever seems to have heard Veryan moving about at night, so the fact that nobody was in the caravan or the keep on the night of his death appears to have no significance.’

‘We have had remarkably clear nights since we have been here,’ said Lilian. ‘Ideal for star-gazing, I suppose. Malpas was probably on the top of the tower as soon as it was dark and before the boys came in. That part seems simple enough, but he seems to have been able to leave the keep without waking them.’

‘I have been wondering whether the police think he committed suicide,’ said Edward.

‘Suicide is no longer a crime. Murder, of course, is a very different matter,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘When did you yourselves first think of it?’

‘At first we were too much in shock to think at all, but then – well, we are people trained to assess evidence. The others are trained, too, and so are the police. Because of that stupid quarrel between Malpas and myself, tongues have been wagging, you may be sure, and naturally, for one wants to be reasonable, we are the obvious suspects. In time of trouble, everybody is anxious to find a scapegoat.’

‘I don’t know so much,’ said Laura, who, so far, had kept out of the conversation. ‘Looking at the thing from the point of view of a complete outsider and saving your presence and all that, would there have been much point in your getting rid of Veryan if Tynant was to be left alive to continue digging that trench?’

‘I don’t suppose any of us thought he would be carrying on with the work,’ said Edward dispassionately, ‘so I don’t believe that argument would hold water, kind though it is of you to put it forward.’

‘It holds water so long as Tynant remains alive and does not die under suspicious circumstances,’ said Lilian, ‘but not any longer than that.’

‘And, after all,’ said Laura, ‘at the resumed inquest there may still be a verdict of accidental death.’

The Saltergates drove back to Holdy village and the Horse and Cart, and Dame Beatrice and Laura settled down in a corner of the Seagull’s lounge.

‘I don’t see how anybody could suspect those two people of murder,’ said Laura.

‘Who would be your choice, then?’

‘Tynant, to get the dig to himself. Veryan obviously thought it an important one, or he would have met the Saltergates halfway instead of quarrelling with them. Of course the killer could have been Tom Hassocks, larking about and meaning no harm—’

‘Not Bonamy?’

‘I don’t want a godmother’s knife in my ribs, but, yes, and/or Bonamy, if you insist, or they may have mistaken Veryan for an unauthorised intruder. Then there are the three females. Their caravan was parked at the bottom of the mound, so any one of them – and I do not exclude the lovely Lochlure – had only to mount the rise and climb the tower to have fun and games with Veryan at the top of it. If the fun and games got out of hand, either the push over the edge could have been accidental or it could have been done a-purpose.’

‘You are not forgetting that everybody except the Saltergates has an alibi for the night of Veryan’s death, are you?’

‘Some alibis! I suppose the two girls can prove theirs, but all the others are suspect, including that of our two lads. Then there are the two workmen. They may have had a dispute with Veryan over pay or something.’

‘Tynant would have known of it and, no doubt, mentioned it as soon as it became obvious that the police had suspicions. In any case, workmen do not murder their employers; they go on strike, thus causing far more disruption than a mere death could do.’

‘Then there is Mrs Veryan. When in doubt, blame the nearest and dearest.’

‘According to what Nicholas Tynant told Bonamy and Bonamy told us, she was on a yacht at sea at the time. Neither was she his nearest nor his dearest. She had been divorced from him for several years.’

‘I wonder, then, why she was brought along to identify the body? Tynant, or any of the others, could have done it just as well.’

‘Detective-Superintendent Mowbray has asked me for an interview. I will put the point to him tomorrow.’

‘Think he’ll tell you why he suspects murder?’

‘Yes, I am sure he will.’

‘Do you know something about this business which I don’t know?’

‘I think not, but I may suspect something which has not yet occurred to you.’

‘Such as what?’

‘Such as Professor Veryan’s telescope.’

‘Nobody has mentioned a telescope to me.’

‘If he was an astronomer, a telescope seems necessary to complete the picture. The fact that it has not been mentioned could mean one of two things: either the police think it of no importance, or they think it of such significance that they are keeping it in the background until they feel the right moment has come to mention any evidence it can produce.’

‘Suppose there wasn’t a telescope at all?’

‘Oh, but, surely, there must have been. Whatever his real purpose, he may have needed an excuse for visiting the keep at night. There was always the chance that Tom or Bonamy would wake and hear him and go up there to find out what was happening.’

‘If it was murder and somebody tumbled him over the edge, the telescope would have flown out of his hand and gone down with him. I wonder whether it was the kind you hold up to your eye, or whether he had a tripod or something of that sort?’

‘No doubt all will be revealed in due course.’

There was a telephone call for Dame Beatrice at breakfast on the following morning. Laura took it and said, ‘Mrs Veryan is on the line and “craves the favour of an interview”. What shall I tell her? She says she is at the Barbican with Tynant.’

‘My appointment with Detective-Superintendent Mowbray is not until eleven. Tell her that I will see her here as soon as she can come along.’

Laura relayed this message, returned to the table and said, ‘I wonder what she wants?’

‘I would like to know whether she stands to gain anything in the way of money or property by her husband’s death,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I believe there is some chance of it.’

‘They were divorced.’

‘That would not prevent her from inheriting anything he may have left to her in his will. I understand that the reasons for divorce were not acrimonious. The couple appear to have separated by mutual consent. It is quite likely that he has left her provided for.’

‘Looks nasty for her if he has. That might be the foxy police reason for bringing her into the picture by getting her to identify the body.’

Mrs Veryan came at a quarter to ten in a car driven by Tynant. He remained in it while the interview took place. There were a couple of men reading newspapers in the hotel lounge, but, one after the other, they soon went out and Dame Beatrice, Laura and Grace had the room to themselves.

‘You say you need my help,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but I am not yet officially connected with the case.’

‘That is my trouble. Why is there a case? Why don’t the police believe it was an accident?’

‘It was a strange accident considering that he had been on the tower more than a dozen times before. That, and the fact that the accident happened at the one time when there was nobody about, was bound to interest the police.’

‘My trouble is that I believe I gain by the death, though I may not be the only person to do so. In fact, I believe that someone may gain from my death.’

‘When did your husband publicly announce that he proposed to dig at Holdy Castle?’ Dame Beatrice enquired.

‘Oh, we kept in touch through mutual friends. I know he had had the project in mind for some time. I don’t think he ever made what one would call a public announcement, but I have no doubt that he had spoken of it to his colleagues at the university and I know there was correspondence between him and the owner of the property. He was rather angry with the owner because permission was also given to Edward Saltergate for the work he wanted to do at the castle. Lilian Saltergate told me so, weeks ago.’

‘Is Mrs Saltergate a friend of yours?’

‘I would not call her a friend; she is an acquaintance only, but I like her well enough, although I suppose if we met three times at conferences or public dinners while I was married to Malpas it was as much as happened. We were attached to different universities, you see, and, in any case, Malpas, as a full professor, moved in a somewhat different sphere from Edward’s.’

‘Would you care to tell me the terms of your husband’s will?’

‘I shall be glad to do that, when I am sure of them. But, although I may gain by his death, I have a perfect alibi, as you probably know.’

‘Then why are you worried?’

‘I dislike wagging tongues, that is all, and I am afraid the wrong person may be blamed for the accident to Malpas.’