Death of a Burrowing Mole

13

Vandalism

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Mowbray, having thought matters over, went back to the castle again, walked under the arch of the cleared gatehouse and up the slope to where Tynant was pegging out his second circle assisted by Susannah, and asked, ‘Could I interrupt you for a moment, sir?’ Susannah moved away.

‘Of course. No trace of my workmen, I suppose?’ said Nicholas.

‘It is concerning them that I’ve come. I’ve been wondering whether you or any of your companions have missed anything?’

‘Had something stolen? Not that I know of. You think those men made off with some of our property?’

‘It occurred to me, sir. Now, about their means of transport. They lodged a good way from here.’

‘I thought you knew that they came on a biggish old motorbike, with a sidecar. I don’t know which of them it belonged to or whether it was jointly owned. Why?’

‘What about tools for the digging? Did you supply those, or did they bring their own?’

‘I supplied a pick and two shovels. The ground is rock-hard and has to be broken up before we can excavate.’ A pickaxe was lying on the ground near where the sweating Bonamy and Tom were shifting soil out of the almost completed outer trench. Tynant motioned towards it and went on, ‘Young Hassocks has been using it. I wasn’t too keen on letting him try, but he said he had used one before. You can give yourself a very nasty wound on the foot if you’re not careful. The curve on the blade, or whatever it’s called, is deceptive.’

‘Yes, I tried taming a wild part of my garden with a reaping-hook last year and gave myself the deuce of a chop on the shin before I got the hang of the thing,’ said Mowbray.

‘A scythe is worse still. Anyway, so far, Tom has done himself no mischief with the pick, and we really can’t manage without it.’

‘I suppose you have contacted the hostel again where Stickle and Stour were staying, sir?’

‘Oh, yes. They haven’t been back there. The warden promised to let me know if they turned up again. If they don’t come back, I must still try to get somebody else.’

‘Why did Professor Veryan settle for the hostel chaps, and not men from the village, sir?’

‘Goodness knows. I don’t suppose he had any particular reason. Just had to make a choice, I suppose. Perhaps he preferred men who came from a distance. I believe there has been some resentment in the village because of the ruins being closed to the public. The hotel bars and the little restaurant have probably suffered from a lack of tourists, and the shopkeepers and the petrol pumps as well. A place like Holdy lives on the summer visitors and they only come to climb about on the ruins, so – no castle, no visitors.’

‘I see that the ladies’ caravan is no longer here, sir. We had it put back after the inquest, as you know.’

‘Now that the two lads have moved out of the keep, the girls were not very keen on staying here at night.’

‘Not even though there were three of them?’

‘There weren’t, you see. I persuaded Dr Lochlure that it would be better if she moved into one of the hotels and the students moved into the cottage which I’m renting for the boys. When Susannah found out how nervous Priscilla was feeling at being so near the spot where Malpas was killed, and Fiona’s being all upset after an encounter she had with a licentious gamekeeper—’

‘Oh, Miss Broadmayne told you about that, did she?’

‘No, she told Susannah and Susannah told me. I then suggested the cottage for the girls and, at that, Susannah agreed to move into the hotel.’

‘The Barbican?’

‘Yes. They agreed to put somebody else into Veryan’s room, as she would hardly like to sleep in there, and they have given her a bed on another floor. I must say that I am glad of her company at table. She makes a very agreeable addition, as the two boys, I’m sure, would agree.’

‘Where did Stickle and Stour leave their motorbike and sidecar while they were at work, sir?’

‘In the inn yard at the Barbican. Veryan made them sign on each morning, so that was the most convenient place.’

‘Could I see the signing-on book, sir?’

‘The men met him in the inn yard each morning, so I expect it’s somewhere in Veryan’s car. I myself haven’t bothered with it. I should have thought your chaps found it when they looked at the car and at his room.’

‘Would it be a small black notebook with shiny covers?’

‘I don’t believe I ever saw it.’

‘We tested it for fingerprints and put it back in the glove compartment, where we found it.’

‘So you’ve got those fellows’ prints.’

‘No, sir – at least, not from the notebook. It contained dates and crosses, and the only prints we have from the notebook are those of Professor Veryan himself, which we verified from the body.’

‘Why did you need to check?’

‘Just routine procedure, sir, in following up a doubtful matter.’ Mowbray thought that Tynant was about to ask another question, but it did not come, so he went over to the two young men. They had knocked off work and were leaning on their shovels. Mowbray gestured towards the pick.

‘Warm work,’ he said, ‘in this weather.’

‘Don’t mock,’ said Tom.

‘And how do you like your new quarters, sir?’

‘We no longer have them to ourselves, but we’re not there much. We still eat at the Barbican and we let the girls have first go at the bathroom in the cottage, so they’re up and away before we turn out. It seems to work out all right and, as we are not doing the paying, we can’t grumble.’

‘Would you know how the two young ladies spend their evenings?’

‘Not a clue. They are always in by the time we get back from the pub. We hear their voices, so we know they’re there, but we don’t fraternise. They are no more enthralled with the arrangements than we are. Veryan’s death has upset everybody.’

Mowbray nodded and strolled over to where Edward Saltergate, seated on a chunk of what had been part of the castle wall, was sketching with a stick of charcoal on the top sheet of a thickish block of cartridge paper. He looked up as Mowbray loomed over him.

‘Ah, Detective-Superintendent!’ he said in amiable greeting. ‘Are you on duty or are you merely taking the air?’

‘Both, sir. How is the work going?’

‘Oh, nicely, very nicely. Come and see what we have done in the keep and the hall.’

‘Some other time, if you don’t mind, sir. I’m glad everything is going well. You remember two workmen who were helping with Mr Tynant’s trench?’

‘I have good reason to remember them. I had to warn them to keep clear of my flanking-towers. They were beginning to threaten my walls with their abominable trench.’

‘When did you issue this warning, sir?’

‘Oh, a few days ago. I took the matter up with Tynant, too. He had promised me that his trench would be continued in a clockwise direction, to take it away from my walls, but he must have broken his promise or misdirected them and they reverted to anti-clockwise, as they had been doing under Veryan’s instructions.’

‘Some men find it easier to trench from right to left, I suppose, sir, and others from left to right. Anyway, they seem to have taken your words to heart, in a way. They’ve passed up on the job altogether.’

‘I know. Tynant was not very pleased when I told him. He thinks it’s my fault that they have decided to leave.’

‘Were you very severe on them?’

‘Not at all. I reminded them of the arrangement I had made with Tynant and insisted that they respect it. They apologised and agreed to work away from my foundations. I thought that was the end of it, because they turned up on the next two mornings; so obviously they had not taken offence.’

‘Will you spare Miss Broadmayne from her labours for a few minutes, sir?’ Without waiting for an answer, he walked up the steepest part of the castle mound, passed by the wall of the inner bailey, or what remained of it, and accosted Fiona, who was contemplating a semicircular bulge which had been part of the main defences to the entrance to the keep. ‘Could I have a word, miss?’ he said.

‘Anything to knock off work for a bit. What is it?’

‘When you’ve had your lunch, miss, I’m going to drive you over to the gamekeeper’s cottage.’

‘Good Lord, I don’t want to meet that oaf again!’

‘You will be safe with me and my driver, miss. Perhaps you would care to have another of the ladies to accompany you.’

So, at just after two o’clock, Mowbray and a detective-constable in the front seats, Fiona and Lilian at the back, the party of four drove to the manor house, passed in through open gates beside the untenanted lodge and made for the woods.

The gamekeeper’s cottage was on the edge of them and the gamekeeper himself was stretched out in a long wicker chair with the dancing flecks of sunshine and the shifting shadows of leaves making patterns on his shirt and the cushions.

‘Rouse up, Goole,’ said the Detective-Superintendent. The man swung his legs over the side of the chair and stared at the visitors. ‘You know this young lady, I think,’ Mowbray went on.

‘She was all amongst my pheasants I be rearing against the autumn shoot. I thought as how she were a poacher.’

‘When was this?’

‘Couple o’ weeks back, I daresay. Yes, and on a Sunday night, too! No time for a young female to be walkin’ alone in the woods.’

‘You had no business to lock her up,’ said Lilian Saltergate severely.

‘I on’y meant to scare her a bit. I soon let her go, and if she says I laid a finger on her, she’s lying.’

‘You threatened me with a gun,’ said Fiona.

‘What time was this?’ asked Mowbray. The detective-constable fished out a notebook. The gamekeeper eyed it apprehensively.

‘That old owl had just screeched for the second time that night. Good as a clock he is. That would have been about midnight, near enough,’ he said.

‘And you thought the young lady was setting snares?’

‘ “Them rabbits ain’t game,” ’ she says, “so you can’t poach ’em,” she says. “But my pheasants is game,” I says, “and you be all among ’em, disturving of their night’s rest,” I says, “so you come along o’me,” I says.’

‘And you threatened me with your gun and locked me in that beastly smelly shed for two hours. I’ve got a luminous watch, so I timed you,’ said Fiona, ‘and when you let me out you made a filthy suggestion to me.’

‘That were only a joke, sir,’ said Goole, appealing to Mowbray.

‘Do you agree with the young lady’s estimate that she was locked up for two hours?’

‘I only wanted to teach her a lesson and the smell was only my ferrets.’

‘They nearly scared me to death,’ said Fiona. ‘I heard them moving about. I thought the beastly shed was haunted.’

‘It might not be a bad idea,’ said Mowbray to his driver as they were returning Fiona and Lilian to Holdy village, ‘to have a look round that fellow’s place. I don’t like the cut of his jib. I’ll tell Harrow to take you and a couple of the uniformed branch along. If the agent challenges you, tell him in a polite way to go to hell. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with Goole. He will let you into his cottage without a warrant and you won’t find anything there, but have another look at that shed where the young lady was locked up. I’ve no idea what you may find there but, if it’s been inspected once, he won’t think we’ll go to it again, so if he has got anything to hide—’

‘Such as a motorbike and sidecar, sir?’

‘No. I was only thinking of a pick and a couple of shovels.’

‘Dear Godmother,’ (wrote Bonamy), ‘I don’t want to telephone you because I think the police are now tapping all calls that go out from the village and I’m not sure whether we’re supposed to be incommunicado so far as the outside world is concerned, so I’m sending you this letter. Fun and games are still going on here. It’s all very uncomfortable for us, but nobody can say it’s dull.’

There followed an account of Fiona’s adventures, for she had broken the barrier at the cottage and, waylaying Bonamy as he and Tom left the Barbican after dinner, she said, ‘Could you bear to have a confab with us when you get back this evening? Things are hotting up and we could do with some support from our contemporaries.’

‘Sure,’ said Bonamy. ‘We would invite you to join us at the pub in Stint Magna, but it would make an awkwardness. We’ve—’

‘Got a couple of birds there,’ said Tom, ‘and we wouldn’t want to give them a false impression, if you see what I mean.’

‘See you later, then,’ said Fiona.

‘Have you two got wind-up about something?’ asked Bonamy.

‘Not exactly, but we’re not very easy in our minds.’

‘Oh, well, we’ll be back soon after eleven. Our pub’s got an off-licence. We’ll bring back something to drink and make it a party.’

The party broke up at midnight because, after her third gin, Priscilla began to cry, but, before that, the young men had received a graphic account from Fiona of the night excursion to the woods, the encounter with the gamekeeper, her incarceration in the shed with the ferrets, and, finally, of her second visit, this time in the company of Lilian and Mowbray.

‘So,’ Bonamy’s letter went on, ‘although I suppose this gamekeeper Goole could have gone to the keep and shoved Veryan off the top of it while Fiona was locked in the shed, there is no proof that he knew anything about the work being done at the castle, or that Veryan was an amateur astronomer – are there professional ones? – or, in fact, that he and Veryan had ever set eyes on one another. It’s true that Veryan had been up to the house to argue his case against Saltergate, but that had nothing to do with the gamekeeper who, hereafter, will be ignored, I’m sure, by the police. Well, I had better get to the point…’

‘I guess he better had,’ commented Laura, when, having been handed the letter, she had read the first scribbled pages.

‘The point is this,’ Bonamy had continued. ‘Last night, while we were hobnobbing in the cottage with the two girls, somebody or bodies must have been playing merry hell with Tynant’s trenches. Of course, with our removal from the keep and the caravan gone from the verge below the gatehouse, the place is a free-for-all once we’ve stopped work at lunchtime, for nobody goes back in the afternoons because of the hard work and the heat. Tom and I pick up Virginia and Sarah; Fiona and Priscilla go off in Tom’s car and find a quiet beach for sunbathing and a swim; Tynant, I have no doubt, is still pursuing Susannah; and I rather imagine that the Saltergates spend a lazy afternoon on the flat roof of the Horse and Cart because an awning has been erected, so they would be in the shade.

‘Well, when we arrived with Tynant and Susannah after breakfast – we’ve given up our early morning search for the treasure; three wells have been located and cleared, but only to a depth of about a couple of feet, which is no good to Tom and me, for, without proper equipment, we can see no way of excavating them further – where was I? Oh, yes! The devastation was immediately obvious. The village yobs had been playing a game of Up, Guards, and at ’em, I should think, and the fun has ended in sheer bloodyminded destruction.’

‘Typical of the modern young,’ said Laura, reading the last few words aloud.

‘Typical of some of them,’ amended Dame Beatrice. ‘As Mowbray telephoned to tell us two workmen are missing, I think I would like to go along and visit the scene of this devastation. I wonder whether it ties up with something the boys told us about a trench being unlawfully deepened?’

‘I’m all for it, but what is the object of the exercise?’

‘I think there must be a rumour current in the village that somewhere in the castle grounds treasure has been buried.’

‘So you don’t think there has been just plain blind vandalism?’

‘It is only a suggestion that there may have been method in the seeming madness. I have an open mind.’

‘Slightly biased by what you know of human nature and its go-get instinct, though. Oh, I still haven’t finished reading Bonamy’s letter.’

‘The damage to the site is pretty considerable,’ Bonamy had continued. ‘Everybody is certain that it is the work of village hooligans, although I’m bound to say that, although we’ve now been on the spot for some time, we have never seen a sign of skinheads or other rumbustious gangs. However, something young Priscilla said, just as the gin, plus a poem she insisted on reciting to us, caused her to wash out the party atmosphere with some very embarrassing sobs and tears, has made me think a bit. She said that she is certain Tynant and Saltergate have had a worse row than the one Saltergate had with Veryan, and we know how that one ended up, although it would be libellous for me to make any obvious connection.’

‘He’s made one all right, though,’ commented Laura, ‘but we gave up suspecting Saltergate ages ago, and I thought Bonamy had too. Still, there’s the hint, for what it’s worth. As for the row, I’ve no doubt that Priscilla, the wan little half-portion, is right. There’s so little of her, and what there is is so quiet and unnoticeable, that perhaps she gets to hear things which would not be said in front of other people.’

‘I think you may be right about Priscilla, but I certainly refuse to believe that Mr Saltergate, however bitter his feelings, would stoop to the kind of revenge at which Bonamy hints. We may be able to come to firmer conclusions when we have seen for ourselves how much and what kind of damage has been done. Ring up Holdy Bay and find out whether our hotel can lodge us tonight and tomorrow night. I want to get to Castle Holdy before too much clearing up is done.’

‘Right. I love not to let the grass grow.’ Laura skipped to the end of the letter, folded it and handed it back. She returned from the telephone to report that rooms were available at the Seagull. ‘I suppose business has fallen off since they axed the local railway,’ she said. ‘Are we proposing to look at the castle before we clock in at the hotel?’

‘Certainly. We can lunch on the way down.’

‘Do you think I underestimate young Yateley?’

‘She may not have a head for gin and she may be affected deeply by poetry, especially when she is reciting it, but there is nothing wrong with her brains. So far as I know, she has made only one slip. According to the Chief Constable, she stated to Detective-Superintendent Mowbray that, during the fateful weekend when Professor Veryan died, she joined in some kind of political demonstration. Investigation proved that there were no London marches, political or otherwise, at that time. I wonder why she made a statement which could be disproved by the county police in contact with the Metropolitan branch? I suppose W. S. Gilbert has the answer.’

‘To lend verisimilitude, et cetera?’

‘Exactly.’

Bonamy’s reference to the damage was, as Laura put it, the understatement of the century. Tynant’s outer trench was a gaping, soil-scattered ruin. The pegs he had put in to mark the inner trench had been dragged out and thrown away and a pick and shovel had eliminated all traces of his carefully measured inner circle.

‘Looks as though the Gadarene swine have been out on a bender,’ said Laura. There was more to come, but of a very different nature. Mowbray’s posse, sent to search Goole’s shed and the woods, had found a motorcycle combination in a little clearing. Goole, although hard-pressed by Mowbray, strenuously denied all knowledge of how it had come to be there.

‘And I believe him up to a point, sir,’ said Harrow. ‘I don’t think he would have left it in the open. He’d have hidden it in that shed of his.’

‘But then he couldn’t have denied knowledge of it,’ said Mowbray.