Noonday and Night

CHAPTER 6

Devil-Porter It No Further

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The Chief Constable of the district in which Hulliwell Hall was situated looked dubious.

‘But what makes you think so?’ he asked. ‘A body on a gatehouse roof? It seems such a fantastic idea.’

‘In Monmouth my secretary remarked on the fact that there appears to be no admission to the watchman’s lodging which forms part of the fourteenth century Monnow bridge.’

‘But Monmouth doesn’t come into the matter, except that County Coaches stay there one night on their Welsh tours, but their Welsh tours are nothing to do with us.’

‘After that, I discovered that, although there used to be a way in and out of the room at the top of the gatehouse to the bishop’s palace at Dantwylch, the passage between that and the ruins of the chapel has been bricked up for years.’

‘I still don’t follow. In any case, what have I to do with all that?’

‘Then I inspected the roof over the watchman’s dwelling on the Westgate at Winchester. The parapet there would conceal anybody who crouched or was lying down on the roof. This, all of it, made me think of the gatehouse which forms the entrance to your Hulliwell Hall.’

‘I think this is all rather far-fetched, you know, Dame Beatrice.’

‘You have searched the moors, you say.’

‘Exhaustively, but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t dozens of hiding-places we could have missed. We’ve even had a helicopter out, but you can’t see into all the holes and crevices. There are stone-quarries, tumble-down drystone walls, disused sheep-pens, limestone caverns — any number of hiding-places and hazards. Besides, you’re going on the assumption that these men are dead. We don’t admit that. We shall continue to do our best to find them, of course, but, as we pointed out to the coach people when they made their first report, men do walk out of their own accord and are quite skilful at covering their tracks. Honestly, Dame Beatrice, don’t you think that is the case here?’

‘I might very well think so if only one coach-driver had been missing, but the disappearance of two of them within such a short space of time gives one food for thought.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose it does, but coincidences are not so very unusual and both men may have become tired of their jobs with the tour company, talked it over with one another and decided to quit.’

‘One in Derbyshire and one in West Wales?’

‘Well, two men roaming together would be more conspicuous than if each man went off on his own. We’ve circulated a description of Noone and the Welsh police, with whom we’re in contact, have done the same for Daigh. Now we and they have combined and issued both descriptions in case the men have teamed up somewhere or other. I don’t see what more we can do, except continue with routine enquiries.’

‘Did your helicopter fly over Hulliwell Hall?’

‘Over the surrounding countryside it did, but there isn’t much cover there. It was the moorland terrain which we searched most thoroughly for hiding-places, but we’ve made lots of house to house enquiries as well, you know. We particularly asked whether anybody in the village saw anything suspicious or had taken in a lodger, for example, at about the time in question.’

‘I wish you would get your men to inspect the gatehouse at the Hall. Would that be too difficult to arrange?’

‘Well, no, I suppose not. The owners are away and I know the fellow who is agent for the estate. It can be managed if you’re especially keen on it. Nothing will come of it, you know.’

‘I do not expect anything to come of it, but it would oblige me very much if the roof of that gatehouse could be eliminated, as it were, from my list of suspected hiding-places for a body.’

‘Very well, but I think you’re looking for a mare’s nest.’

‘That may be so, but I always pay attention to my secretary’s observations. She has Highland blood and sometimes that brings with it the unenviable gift of second sight.’

‘Oh, come, now, Dame Beatrice! You will not persuade me that you indulge in superstitions of that sort!’

‘To give some credence to the theory that extra-sensory perceptions do exist is not superstition. Besides, Laura has not claimed that Noone’s body is on the top of the gatehouse at Hulliwell Hall. She merely drew my attention to the fact that some of these defensive structures which were erected by our ancestors to keep out unwelcome visitors no longer offer admittance to the porter’s lodging and watch-tower.’

‘There must be arrangements to have the fabric inspected from time to time. The body, if one was there —’

‘When was the gatehouse at Hulliwell Hall last inspected, I wonder?’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Oh, well,’ said the Chief Constable, good-humouredly, ‘that will certainly give me a talking-point with Hutchings. He lives on the estate in what used to be the dower house. I’ll ring him up. If nothing else, he will be charmed to meet you. He loves celebrities.’

It was Mrs Hutchings who answered the telephone. Her husband, she explained, was up at the Hall, where some workmen were repairing part of the stonework balustrade of the terrace. He would be back at tea-time. Would the Chief Constable (she called him Tom) bring Dame Beatrice along for a cup of tea and a chat? She and Hugh would be delighted to meet her.

The gatehouse? Oh, of course it was safe! If Dame Beatrice would like to see the view from the top, that could easily be arranged. The Hall was closed to tourists at six, so perhaps, when she had been shown over the gatehouse, Dame Beatrice might like to see some of those parts of the Hall which were not open to the public. Yes, if they would care to come along at about half-past four, Hugh should be in by then.

Hutchings turned out to be more than willing to show Dame Beatrice any part of the mansion she would like to see. The gatehouse? Oh, was she particularly interested in gatehouses? Had she seen the whacking great structure at Thornton Abbey and the charming little entrance to South Wraxall Manor? Then there was the mighty fortification on the house side of the moat at Kirkby Muxloe, and one of his own favourites was the half-timbered, cottage-style gatehouse at Lower Brockhampton Hall.

‘But, then, I’m a Chester man,’ he said. The conversation turned on to a comparison of Chester and York and might have continued indefinitely but for Mrs Hutchings’ reminder to her husband of his promise to show Dame Beatrice the view from the gatehouse roof.

The dower house was separated from the Hall by about half a mile of park-land, the evening was mellow and it still wanted a couple of hours to sunset, so the three set off on foot and approached the gatehouse from the inside. The cash customers who had come as sightseers had all been shepherded away, but the man on duty was still in his little kiosk checking the takings against the number of tickets sold that day. Hutchings greeted him and told him that he was taking the two visitors up to the roof to look at the view.

On the outer side of the archway a stout door had to be unlocked. Hutchings was carrying an electric torch, for the newel stair which they mounted was lighted only by one slit of a window and there was no handrail.

The porter’s room was tiny compared with that above the Westgate at Winchester, but here, again, there was access to the roof and the soft, clear evening light. Hutchings had led the way up the winding stair, but when Dame Beatrice had made a brief survey, by the light of an electric torch, of the tiny, stone-walled room, she was the first to mount to the leads.

She stood aside at the top of the short, steep, straight flight of steps so that the way was not blocked for her companions, and as they joined her on the small, flat roof she said,

‘Just as well that we are in the open air.’

‘You must have known,’ said the Chief Constable, visiting Dame Beatrice at the Dovedale hotel on the following morning.

‘No,’ Dame Beatrice responded. ‘It fell out just as I told you. Laura had this obsession about gatehouses and they did seem to offer possibilities as hiding-places. It has been pointed out, more than once, that to commit a murder is easy enough. It is the disposal of the body which presents the problem. Some bury the victim’s corpse in somebody else’s grave; others burn it; some dismember it and strew the remains over as wide an area as possible; others are content to dispose only of the head in the hope that the rest of the cadaver will defy recognition and identification; and there is also a school of thought which favours placing the remains in the left-luggage offices at railway stations and destroying the incriminating reclamation ticket. It was left to the fertile imagination of my secretary to envisage the possibilities of mediaevel gatehouses.’

‘Your secretary may have been obsessed by gatehouses, but I don’t believe she thought of them as repositories for murdered bodies. That was your idea, Dame Beatrice. Well, you may as well make up your mind to stay on here for a day or two. You will be needed at the inquest. Mind you, we shall soon get the fellow who did this,’ said the Chief Constable.

‘You think so?’

‘Bound to. Nobody could have got a dead body up that newel stair. It’s so narrow that I had quite a job to squeeze myself up, and I was carrying nothing but an electric torch. The chap or chaps must have had a ladder and reared it up to the gatehouse roof from outside. What’s more, they must have killed poor Noone – we must get the body formally identified, of course, but I have no doubt myself that it’s Noone – they must have killed him somewhere else while the coach-party was inside Hulliwell Hall. Then they brought the body back to the gatehouse by night and in a car. It will be hard luck if we can’t get a line on something there, because, as I say, they must also have brought a ladder. Well, you’ve certainly led us to discover the body. We should never have thought of that gatehouse for ourselves. Now the inquest —’

‘Could I not be represented as a casual visitor taken up, as you told the gatekeeper, merely to admire the view from the gatehouse roof? It would accord better with my plans if the discovery of the body appeared to be fortuitous. I don’t want gatehouses brought too obviously into the picture. I know I was the first person to set eyes on the body, but it was only a matter of seconds before you and Mr Hutchings saw it, too. You will remember that I stood aside immediately I had stepped out on to the roof so that you and he might join me.’

‘I see what you mean. Anyway, we shall hold the inquest as soon as we can get the body identified. Not a very nice job for whoever it is. Let’s hope the poor devil was a bachelor. I’d hate a woman to have to do it.’

‘We both are going on the assumption that the body is that of Noone, and I think it a fair assumption, considering all that we know, but what if that particular identification fails?’

‘That will make a nuisance for us, of course, but the body was completely clad and the poor fellow had a pretty full set of false teeth which should be identifiable if we chase around long enough to find the dentist who supplied them. One of the more tedious jobs for my chaps, but one which usually brings results. However, my bet is that we’ve found Noone all right. As you say, given all the circumstances, I shouldn’t think there’s any doubt about it.’

‘No, I do not think there is any doubt at all.’

Papers found on the body identified it as that of Noone and the inquest, which Dame Beatrice decided, after all, to attend, made public the manner of the driver’s death. He had been stabbed in the back.

‘One blow, but whoever did it either knew exactly where to put the knife or else accidentally hit upon just the right spot,’ said the Chief Constable, discussing the inquest later. ‘Could be a Mafia job, but why pick on this particular chap? Wonder what his political affiliations were? He wasn’t an Irishman, was he? – although they generally shoot their victims, not to stab to kill. Was he Jewish, I wonder, and some Arab terrorists got him? Was any one of the coach-party involved? Oh, well, there are a number of lines my chaps can follow up, and that’s always something. As the coach-party came from all over the place, perhaps we ought to get Scotland Yard on to it. I’ll see what my Detective Chief Superintendent thinks. There’s the Welsh job as well, you see. There must be some connection. Do you expect to find Daigh’s body in the same kind of situation?’

‘Well, there certainly is a gatehouse at the entrance to the bishop’s outer courtyard at Dantwylch,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I noted that the medical evidence mentioned traces of soil in Noone’s hair,’ she added, with apparent inconsequence. ‘I think the unfortunate man was persuaded to pick up his murderer outside Hulliwell Hall and take him some short distance, perhaps towards a public house or a garage. On the way the murderer stabbed the unsuspecting man in the back and…’

‘But the coach would have been filthy with blood. Nobody has mentioned anything of that sort, have they?’ asked the Chief Constable.

‘Presumably because there was not anything of that sort. You would need to ask the medical officer about that and, of course, the driver who actually brought the coach home, but I have known cases…’

‘This idea that Noone picked up an acquaintance could only mean that he picked up another coach-driver, don’t you think? We may be able to get a line on that. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find out which other coaches were at the Hall at the approximate time that day.’

‘It need not necessarily have been somebody who was in charge of a coach, of course.’

‘I suppose not, and that doesn’t help these needle-in-a-haystack goings-on. What made you mention the soil was found in Noone’s hair? They’d have had to dump the body somewhere while daylight lasted.’

‘It might be worth-while to find out whether there was any trace in a half-dug grave in the churchyard at that date. A grave was in process of being dug when I visited the churchyard and I noticed two others which had been filled in but looked new.’

‘They’d have been spotted dumping the body. You only said “murderer”.’

‘Oh, there must have been two of them, as you say. Anyway, the body had to be disposed of quickly and in a place they could find very easily after dark. They had only to watch their opportunity. Of course, there may be nothing in this theory of mine unless somebody in the village saw something suspicious.’

‘I doubt it. We’ve combed the neighbourhood pretty thoroughly and I doubt very much whether there is anything more to be learned around Hulliwell village.’