Lovers Make Moan

Chapter 13

Cut Down to Size

“So quick, bright things come to confusion.”

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Poor kids! It’s a shame that they should be involved. Mind you, they are not the only people to be upset, apart from the recipients of anonymous letters. When the inquest was adjourned, what tickled me was the obvious surprise and displeasure of the coroner. He was all ready with his cosy little verdict of death by misadventure,” said Jonathan. “I don’t suppose this borough has had a case of murder on its books since the old smuggling days, and he didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would want to break the record. Did the girls tell you anything useful at all?”

“No. They suggested—a ploy which must have been agreed on because I interviewed them separately and both of them mentioned it—that I should put them under hypnosis.”

“Whatever for?”

“So that they could convince me that they had no hand in Donald Bourton’s death.”

“Good heavens! Whatever next?”

“They did convince me of one thing. When Rinkley was taken ill, they fully expected that you, and not Donald Bourton, would take Pyramus upon you. They stressed that, although Bourton had made himself somewhat objectionable to them in certain ways, and Rinkley had done the same in certain other ways, they had nothing against you at all, and certainly had no reason to wish you harm.”

“Fair enough. Beyond the general greetings at rehearsals and so forth, I doubt whether I ever spoke to them at all, and I don’t suppose they did know that Bourton, and not I, was to stand-in for Rinkley. Why should anybody have bothered to mention it to them? Once our cocktail party was over, I don’t suppose any of our guests gave the alteration another thought until Rinkley was actually laid low.”

“That brings us to another point. Unless one of the others told him, Rinkley himself did not know that Mr Bourton and not yourself was to be made his understudy. So much I had already had clear in my mind, so what it comes to is that the only people who were present when the change of understudy was suggested and agreed on were Marcus and Emma Lynn, yourself and Deborah, Brian and Valerie Yorke and Donald and Barbara Bourton. Those who were not told at the time and who may or may not have picked up the information later, are Tom and Peter Woolidge, Robina and David Lester, young Jasper Lynn, Rinkley himself, Susan Hythe and Caroline Frome. I leave out the children and am prepared to leave out Peter. The boy could have had no conceivable interest, so far as I can tell, in who would substitute for Rinkley should a substitute be called for, but Jasper may have heard something from his parents, so he cannot be ruled out.”

“Well, that’s got everybody pegged out on the line,” said Jonathan, “so now, I suppose, you’ll take a closer look at those who knew of the alteration.”

“Useless, until we get some evidence. I have little hope of the antiques dealers. The purchase of the rapier-dagger may have been made years ago and not necessarily in this neighbourhood. The conversion of the rapier into a dagger may offer more scope. The newspapers now report that it was done recently.”

“You have taken Peter Woolidge and possibly Jasper Lynn off your list, but what about David Lester? He is only about their age—well, Peter’s age—you know. Doesn’t he qualify to be let off the hook?”

“I understand from the two young women that his mother had been roughly spoken to by Rinkley and that the young man was also very angry when the girls told him about Bourton’s conduct off-stage with them.”

“So whether Rinkley or Bourton was the intended victim, you are keeping David very much in the picture. He had reason to dislike both men.”

“Yes, but he may have thought Jonathan was to be the understudy. However, he was one of the workmen and, as Lion, had access to the tables which held the properties.”

“Well, so had his mother and the two girls, come to that. I suppose that’s why you have kept them on your list, but I don’t suppose for a moment that they had anything to do with changing over the daggers, you know,” said Deborah. “They wouldn’t nurse that sort of grudge.”

The next visitor was the Chief Constable of the county. He, too, had received a letter, but not directly and it was not anonymous. It had been sent to the local police station and had been handed to the Chief Constable by the superintendent with the remark, “One for Dame Beatrice, perhaps, sir, now that she has been co-opted on to the strength.” The letter ran:

“I don’t suppose it’s what you are looking for, as my shop is twenty miles from your town, but I sold a rapier to a young lad about six weeks ago, and the hilt looks a little bit like the hilt of the one in your picture which came on the TV last night after the late news, also an incised letter or two on the blade, but not very distinct in your picture. I do not usually bother with the late news, having seen it earlier and liking an early bedtime, but if I could see the dagger you have I might be able to identify it. I sold it to a young lad as a rapier which he said was for theatricals. I warned him to be careful, as it was Toledo steel and made for real use. I was surprised he had the money to buy it.”

The letter was signed Tessa Wells and was sent from an address in the little town of Saxonchurch which was indeed about twenty miles off and lay between broad, lazy rivers which meandered through meadow-lands and past what had been a monastery before the Dissolution. The rivers eventually found their way into the enormous, shallow bay overlooked by Jonathan’s temporary home.

“I don’t suppose there’s anything in it,” said the Chief Constable, referring to the information in the letter, “but in a puzzling case of this kind I suppose we must catch at straws. The Super thinks so, anyway, and so does Conway, I gather.”

“A puzzling case?” said Dame Beatrice.

“Yes, because, so far as I can see, it could be a case of accident, suicide or murder. You pays your money and you takes your choice.”

“Oh, I choose murder. The substitution of the lethal dagger for that with the retractable blade was no accident, although there is a distinct possibility that it did not kill the person it was intended to kill. Suicide, from all that I have been told, seems unlikely. Incidentally, this woman’s reference to theatricals may be important if she identifies the lethal weapon and can describe the customer who purchased the rapier.”

“It’s a very long shot, don’t you think?”

“Yes, indeed. However, I shall be interested to meet this shopkeeper. There is only one young man on our books who is still a schoolboy and interested, to some extent, in amateur theatricals, but there are two others, not so much older, who took part in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“But what reason would any of these boys have had to murder Rinkley, Bourton, or your nephew?”

“No reason at all except, perhaps, for young David Lester. He may have felt resentment at the way Rinkley had insulted his mother’s stagecraft and at the way Bourton had attempted to take advantage of two young women in whom he seems to have taken an interest, his fellow Thespians Susan Hythe and Caroline Frome, both of whom have been to see me.”

“Have you met David Lester?”

“No. I shall make a point of speaking with him before I go to Saxonchurch.”

“As I see it, he would have had as much opportunity as anybody else to change over the daggers.”

“His lion-skin was on a table with the rest of the properties, it is true, but I adhere to my theory that the daggers were changed over before the play opened on the third night. I have my reasons for thinking so and I have not changed my mind, although I am willing to be convinced.”

Young David Lester, fresh-faced and looking less than his twenty-two years, was employed in a bank, but not at the branch of which his father was manager. He lived with his parents and his mother had answered Detective-Inspector Conway’s telephone call.

“You want to bring Dame Beatrice to see David? But why?” Robina had enquired. Conway’s answer had not reassured her and she admitted the visitors in a reserved manner which indicated that she regarded their advent as an intrusion.

“I don’t know how you think David can help you,” she said.

“We don’t suppose he can,” said Conway, “but Dame Beatrice has talked to most of the actors and wouldn’t wish to leave anybody out.”

“She has left me out, for a start.”

“If you can convince me that you had any reason to wish Mr Bourton dead,” began Dame Beatrice, pausing for an instant. Robina took up the challenge.

“Of course I hadn’t, and neither had David,” she said. “You will get nothing out of him because he knows nothing. Why has the inquest been adjourned? That’s what I’d like to know. Donald’s death was the result of a stupid accident due to somebody’s carelessness. Why couldn’t they leave it at that?”

“Because carelessness which results in somebody’s death calls for investigation,” said Dame Beatrice. David Lester, who had come into the room, said quietly,

“All right, mother. I can handle this. I’ve nothing to hide.” He eyed Dame Beatrice with interest, but without apprehension, as his mother went out of the room. “Won’t you sit down?” he said politely. “You think Bourton was murdered, don’t you? You’ve seen Susan and Caroline, I hear. I can’t tell you anything more than they did. My things were on the same table as theirs and my mother’s props. Mrs Yorke’s things were all in a tent in the woods because, to change for the hunting-scene and then back again, she had to strip practically starkers, which she could hardly do in full view of the rest of the cast.”

“When do you suppose the exchange of daggers was made?” Dame Beatrice enquired.

“As though I have any idea! My view, for what it’s worth, is that the harmless dagger fell out of its belt when the clearing-up was done after the second performance and got kicked under the table, so, when Bourton had to take on the part, he realised there was no dagger and simply picked up the one that was lying there, thinking it was the retractable one.”

“That point has been made before, Mr Lester, but why should there have been another dagger, and a lethal one, so handy? That is why we suspect murder. Besides, if the dagger was lying on one of the tables, presumably it was in full view of all those who had reason to approach the tables, yet nobody has mentioned it. Are you telling me that you were the only person who saw it there when you collected your lion-skin and mask?”

“No, I didn’t see it. I was only offering a rational explanation of how it got into the pocket of Pyramus’s belt.”

“Well, that didn’t prove much,” said Conway, when they had left the house.

“It went a long way towards proving young Lester’s innocence,” said Dame Beatrice. “I offered him a tempting chance to say that he had seen the lethal dagger lying on the table, but he did not rise to the bait.”

The town of Saxonchurch, still called by its inhabitants a village, was enclosed by earthworks put up on the only bit of high ground between its two rivers. It was otherwise surrounded by watermeadows, and was a pleasant, homely little place reached after a drive along roads which were bordered for miles by rhododendrons. It was the gateway to the wildest and most picturesque part of the locality, a land very different from its own immediate surroundings. It bordered a land of dramatic coastline, great stretches of heath, a castle which had withstood for months the assaults of Cromwell’s troops and, not far from the sea, there was the most perfect, unspoiled Norman church in the county.

At Dame Beatrice’s suggestion, her own car and not an official police car, had been used for the journey. The detective-inspector drove it and found a parking-space just off the ancient market square. The shop of which he and Dame Beatrice were in quest was in one of the many side-roads which led to the market-place and it turned out to be a fine example of a small Georgian residence. It had a tympanum arch to the doorway inset with a finely-designed fanlight, but the ground-floor front windows had been altered to make a shop-front.

A middle-aged woman wearing a flowered overall and a number of ornate bracelets came forward as the inspector and Dame Beatrice went in. Dame Beatrice left the preliminaries to her companion.

“Mrs Wells?” he asked. The woman fluttered her hands at him, causing the bracelets to make a not unmelodious jingling sound.

“Oh, you will be the police, “ she said. “Have you brought the rapier?”

“No, madam. It is a valuable piece of evidence and I am not authorised to tote it around the countryside. You will have to identify it at the station.”

“Oh, but I can’t leave the shop.”

“When do you close?”

“At five, if there aren’t any customers, but of course I never turn anybody away.”

“We will come back at five. We are anxious to get the weapon identified.”

“But, as I think I said in my letter, I don’t suppose for a moment that it’s the one you want.”

“Can you give us a description of the purchaser?”

“More or less. He was quite a neatly-dressed well-spoken lad, about eighteen years old, I should think, and might have been five-seven or five-eight tall, a bit taller than I am, but not very much. He was slim-built, with fair hair just touching his collar. He had blue eyes—I noticed them particularly.”

“That’s a very helpful description, madam.”

“Does it fit anybody you’ve got your eye on?”

“Difficult to say at the moment, madam,” said Conway diplomatically, for his compliment had been a false one.

“Was the blade really of Toledo steel?” enquired Dame Beatrice. Tessa Wells smiled and shook her head.

“If the customer had been a collector and knowledgeable, I should never have said such a thing,” she admitted, “but the boy only wanted the rapier for school theatricals and Toledo blades are the only kind the general public have ever heard of except for the modern Wilkinson steel, so I told the lie hoping it would warn him not to go fooling about with the thing. You know what boys are.”

“You indicated in your letter that the purchase was an expensive one.”

“Well, I really thought he was wasting his money, but it wasn’t for me to say so. It’s hard enough to make a living without telling customers how they can do things on the cheap without buying from me. I was a bit suspicious, as a matter of fact, about his claim that he wanted the thing for theatricals. He seemed a respectable enough lad, but nowadays, what with their bicycle chains and flick-knives and all the horrors they go in for, you can’t trust any of them, can you?”

“I am myself somewhat of a connoisseuse of arms and armour. Will you give me what perhaps I may term a ‘trade description’ of the rapier?” said Dame Beatrice.

“Yes, if you think you know what I’ll be talking about. It won’t mean much to you if you don’t.” To Dame Beatrice’s amusement, Tessa Wells eyed her distrustfully before she went behind a curtain at the back of the shop and returned with a large ledger which she placed on top of a glass-topped show-case containing snuff-boxes and some ornate rings. There was also a small object on which Dame Beatrice had already fixed an acquisitive eye. “Here we are,” said the shopkeeper, opening the ledger and consulting a neat index. “Lot 20101. Rapier with flat quillons and sideguards ovoid, rather distinctive pommel, acorn button, rewired grip, ricasso three inches below quillons, swordsmith’s mark on blade, could be running wolf of Solingen. Overall length forty inches. Length of blade thirty-four inches. German, about 1620 if genuine. Ex private collection bombed in last war and sold among other things as salvage.”

“Thank you,” said Dame Beatrice, as Tessa closed the book. “What are you asking for the Babylonian cylinder seal?” She pointed to the tiny object in the show-case.

“That? You can have it for thirty pounds.”

“I think I will offer less. I think that you have little chance of selling it at that price. What does it represent?”

“Date-palms and date harvesting. Do you want me to roll it out for you?”

“Not at the moment, but we will talk again. Where can the inspector and I get some tea?”

“At the bow-fronted shop in the high street nearly opposite the Lion.”

“See you again at five, then, madam,” said Conway. “Much obliged for your help, I’m sure.”

At the police station that evening Tessa Wells was hesitant about identifying the weapon because, she said, the hilt had been somewhat altered.

“There was nothing so very special about the rapier itself. I expect they’ve got others like it in the Tower and other museums. They are sure to have a collection in Gratz and Vienna as well, and probably in the Musée Royal de l’Armée in Brussels, as well as in the Berlin and Solingen collections,” she said.

“To name but a few, as my secretary would say,” said Dame Beatrice, cackling.

“It does seem a shame to have cut this one down to this miserable sliver,” went on the dealer in antiques. “They’ve only left six inches of the blade and they’ve polished out the ricasso, although you can make out the different colour of the metal.”

“This weapon had to go in up to the hilt. It has killed a man, as I suppose you have heard,” said Dame Beatrice.

“You wouldn’t be bothering me otherwise, would you?”

“When we were in your shop you indicated, I think, that you thought the boy was wasting his money.”

“Well, if he only wanted the rapier for theatricals, I don’t see why he couldn’t have got a carpenter to make him a nice wooden one and painted it silver.”

“The hilt might have posed a problem.” Dame Beatrice signed to the inspector, who produced the dagger which had the retractable blade. “Tell me, Mrs Wells, if you do not think these hilts look very much alike.”

“Well, yes, to an untrained eye, I would agree they do. I’m sorry I can’t be positive about my rapier being cut down to this little dagger, but without the rest of the blade I couldn’t be sure.”

“What would you say if I suggested to you that the lad to whom you sold the rapier was not making the purchase on his own behalf, but was acting for somebody else?”

“For somebody else? But why?”

“Because, perhaps, the interested party did not want to appear in the transaction.”

“That boy in my shop seemed a good boy, but could have been got at, I suppose. They’ll do anything for money these days.”

“You did not recognise him as a local boy?”

“No, but I thought he might have come from a public school and that he was in the school play and wanted to show off a bit with a real rapier.”

“There is a public school just outside her town,” said the inspector to Dame Beatrice after they had taken Mrs Wells home, “so her idea would be valid enough.”

“Could the cutting down have been done in the school metalwork department?”

“It’s a line I can follow up. We know the date when the lad bought the rapier. Mrs Wells keeps good records.”

“One thing about the purchase surprised me and that is why I suggested that the boy was only an agent in the affair. I was surprised that he appears to have been alone when he bought the rapier. One would have supposed he would have had friends— possibly envious ones—with him when he made such an ostentatious and costly purchase.”

Enquiries at the school produced nothing. The school provided for boys whose hobby was woodwork, but there was no metalwork centre, neither had a school play been under contemplation. “You will appreciate, Inspector, that this is our examination term.”

“So, unless something turns up out of the blue,” said the Chief Constable to Dame Beatrice, “and, as I see it, that means getting our hands on the blacksmith, or whatever, who cut down that rapier, we’re stymied.‘”

“The antiques dealer came forward; why should the metalworker not decide to do the same?”

“I reckon there’s an answer to that one, ma’am,” said the inspector, who was present at the conference. “While the weapon was sold as a rapier, the dealer could afford to come forward, but whoever cut it down to dagger length might be asked some very awkward questions, don’t you think? Nobody likes getting mixed up with the police, however innocent they are.”

“No doubt you are right, but we need that man.”

“What, ma’am, is a ricasso?” asked Conway.

“Oh, a practice begun in the fourteenth century, and extensively used in the sixteenth century, of leaving a few inches at the top of the blade unsharpened, rough and unpolished as a protection to the fingers of the swordsman. The amount of protection was increased in some cases by the provision of a hook or a bar below the quillons, which are these side-pieces which form the cross-hilt of the weapon. In this case, as Mrs Wells saw, the original ricasso had been polished and sharpened because in order to sustain the resemblance to the retractable dagger, it was essential that when the actor used it, it should go in right up to the quillons, as the harmless dagger would be expected to do if it were to remain in place after the actor had struck himself with it.”

“You say we need this blacksmith, Dame Beatrice,” said the Chief Constable, “and we most certainly do. One thing, there are not so many independent blacksmiths nowadays.”

“Oh, now we’ve got this far, we shall turn him up sooner or later. It’s just a question of time, sir, and the usual spadework,” said Conway.

“I am hoping that he will not turn himself up,” said Dame Beatrice.

“I thought that’s just what we could do with,” said the Chief Constable. “You said so yourself, didn’t you?”

“I mean that I hope he will not present himself to us in the form of a corpse. I have a feeling that Mrs Wells may have started a landslide by coming to the police with her information about the rapier and I am sure no time should be lost in locating this man who turned it into a dagger. I hope he has sense enough to realise that his own safety may depend upon getting in touch with the authorities as soon as possible.”

“Depends whether he knows what the dagger was to be used for, ma’am,” said Conway. “I wish we could find the rest of the blade. There must be quite a length of it somewhere, if the rapier was the length the lady specified.”

“She refused to identify the dagger as having been part of the rapier she sold,” said Dame Beatrice, “but the circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that it was.”