The Crozier Pharaohs

5

Theories and Speculations

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So we suspect that there has been dirty work at the crossroads or, in this case, at the confluence of the waters,’ said Laura, when she and Dame Beatrice were back at the Stone House. ‘What are you going to do about it? According to the verdict we heard pronounced, the answer is a lemon.’

‘There are various ways of dealing with dirty work,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Name two.’

‘Well, there is the way adopted by the priest and the Levite in the story of the good Samaritan — pass by on the other side of the road and so avoid all chance of becoming implicated. Another way is to proceed with some dirty work of one’s own. I fail to see how lemons come into the matter.’

‘Just a manner of saying that the verdict has shut all doors to further investigation of that de-trousered fellow’s death.’

‘Not necessarily. The circumstances are bizarre and therefore, to that extent, interesting. Further interest is added by the fact that Bryony shares our suspicions.’

‘It’s a pity Sekhmet can’t talk.’

‘I hardly think Susan would agree with you.’

‘Do you think the dead man was the Crozier Lodge prowler?’

‘Time will tell, perhaps.’

‘It seems a bit much to suspect Susan on no evidence at all.’

‘We have only Susan’s word for it that the man was dead when she got to Watersmeet. Her wet jeans could be (and no doubt were) explained by her statement that she waded into the river to look at the body. She is the one person, apart from the two sisters, who could be quite sure that Sekhmet would not attack her, whatever she did.’

‘The evidence is that Sekhmet would not attack anybody.’

‘I am acting as the Devil’s advocate, as usual, but one must always be prepared to look at a problem from all sides.’

‘You don’t deny that somebody enticed Sekhmet away with intent to steal her, do you?’

‘I have an open mind about the question of stealing her. Why steal a comparatively valueless Labrador bitch when there are two pedigree Pharaoh hounds of the same sex at Crozier Lodge? It does not strike me as a very sensible procedure.’

‘Oh, well, yes, there is that, I suppose. The smell of aniseed would have attracted the other hounds as much as it did Sekhmet, but, of course, the answer is that all the Pharaohs were shut safely away, so Sekhmet was the only dog available.’

‘We come now to the question of the mutilated trousers.’

‘Well, if the circumstances of the death were more suspicious than the inquest verdict would have us believe, there is no doubt why that particular chunk was chopped out of them, although there is no reason to think Susan did that. It would have shown the name of the tailor or outfitter who had supplied the pants and the police are pretty hot at tracing people when they’ve got that much to go on. On the other hand, if the death was purely accidental, surely somebody will turn up at some time and report this man as missing.’

‘A question which ought to have been raised at the inquest is whether the trousers on which Sekhmet was sitting were the trousers of the dead man or of somebody else. They could be the murderer’s own trousers (if murder has been committed) and he could have gone off in the victim’s garments.’

‘Well, that would let Susan out, surely?’

‘Who can tell? The Rant sisters could say what she was wearing when she went off to Watersmeet, no doubt, but — ’

‘I think you are trailing your coat. What do you expect me to do about it?’

‘Tread on the tail of it, of course, and challenge every suggestion I make. The more we argue, the more likely we are to arrive at some aspect of the truth.’

‘You really do believe this is a case of murder, don’t you?’

‘Believe is too definite a word. I certainly think there are strong reasons for keeping the possibility of foul play in the forefront of our minds. Presumably the man and the hound had been in amicable relationship on their walk, so it seems strange that he panicked at Watersmeet, discarded his trousers — surely not easy if the dog was paying him the close attention which has been postulated — and then that, having bestowed the garments on her, he leapt into the torrent. The whole suggestion seems to me bizarre in the extreme.’

‘But so is your own suggestion that the murderer hit the man over the head, changed into the man’s trousers and then wedged the body among the boulders in the river.’

‘Touché! said Dame Beatrice, leering at her secretary. ‘Both theories are idiotic. We must return to the subject later.’

‘No, honestly, tell me what you really think happened.’

‘My thoughts do not appear to impress you.’

‘Well, you’ve admitted that they do seem a bit far-fetched. Don’t you think the verdict of accidental death may be the right one after all?’

‘I might, were it not that possible evidence of identity had been cut out of the trousers. I do not see how the significance of that can be overlooked.’

‘The coroner and the police seem to have overlooked it.’

‘They may have thought that the trousers had been made to fit more comfortably when the piece of the waistband was removed. I daresay that if you asked the opinion of that erudite young detective-sergeant, he would quote you the case of The Aunt and the Sluggard.’

‘To what purpose?’

‘I seem to remember that, when Rockmetteller Todd borrowed Bertram Wooster’s dress clothes, he split the waistcoat up the back in order to make it more comfortable to wear.’

‘You think of everything,’ said Laura, in mock admiration.

‘All the same, having made my point, I will now retract. I do not believe that anybody had chopped a piece out of the waistband of those trousers for the purpose of making them more comfortable to wear. I do think there has been murder committed and I am sufficiently interested to pursue the matter further, although I shall not assume Susan’s guilt unless or until I can find proof of it.’

‘Well, thank goodness that’s all over,’ said Bryony. She glanced at the clock. ‘Isn’t it time you took Amon and Anubis out for their run?’

‘Can’t we shut Isis and Nephthys and Sekhmet in the house and give my two the run of the garden just for once?’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t feel like going out.’

‘Not feeling seedy, are you?’

‘No, just disinclined to leave the house, that’s all.’

‘Suit yourself. It’s no good letting this wretched drowning get you down, though, you know. If that man had not tried to steal poor old Fret, he would still be alive, no doubt.’

‘I know. I just don’t fancy going out, that’s all.’

‘You ought to watch yourself, Morpeth.’ Bryony looked at her sister with sympathy mixed with slight exasperation and a certain amount of anxiety. ‘Once you start this kind of opting out, you may find it grows on you. You don’t want to end up with agoraphobia.’

‘You always fly to extremes when you criticise me. The fact is, I can’t get that strange Ozymandias man out of my head. I don’t intend to get mixed up with him again, and somehow I can’t help connecting him with this drowning.’

‘Absolute nonsense!’

‘Suppose he were to pop out on me when I was out with the dogs and begin gibbering at me! I should be shattered with terror.’

‘Good gracious! The hounds would chew him up if he threatened you.’

‘There might be other conclusions about Sekhmet if any of the hounds savaged Ozymandias.’

‘Oh, forget about that lunatic. Look here, I’ll take Amon and Anubis for their run, if you like. I shan’t be all that long. That inquest ate into the morning. Put lunch back a bit, will you? I’ll be back at half one.’

Morpeth accompanied her to the door. They found Sekhmet with her nose against it. As it was opened, she shot past the pair of them and made for the drawing-room. Bryony followed, ousted her unceremoniously from an armchair and said, ‘No!’ The bitch looked at her meltingly, but Bryony hustled her off the chair and conducted her into the garden.

‘A fine mess you seem to have got us into,’ she said to the dog severely, ‘you and your damned aniseed.’

Sekhmet dropped her tail dejectedly as Bryony conducted her to her kennel. When she rejoined Morpeth, Bryony said, ‘There never was any smell of aniseed in that shed so far as I could ever detect.’

‘I suppose it’s very volatile,’ said Morpeth. ‘I’ll come with you as far as the gate.’

‘I don’t know what has come over you, Morpeth. You’ve taken your hounds out every day since Susan found the body. Why suddenly change like this?’

‘I don’t know. The inquest has upset me.’

On the way through the wilderness they called the garden they met Susan.

‘Hullo,’ she said, noting Bryony’s Wellingtons and Morpeth’s sneakers. ‘What’s afoot, then? Swopping partners or something?’

‘Bryony is going out today instead of me.’

‘Oh, why is that? Aren’t you well?’

Morpeth gave her the reason she had given Bryony. ‘The inquest upset me, I think.’

‘Well, I must say the influence it had on me was to buck me up. No accounting for reflexes and reactions. The verdict completely exonerated old Fret. She looks a bit dejected. Come on, Fret! Raise your flag!’

Bryony left her with the bitch and she and Morpeth collected the two hounds; Bryony passed out of the grounds with them and headed for the moor. Curiosity, however, and some other impulse which she could not define, caused Bryony to diverge from the usual track and take a path which led to the bridge over the river and the wicket-gate which opened up the way to Watersmeet. Here she slipped the leads.

Nothing loth, the hounds poured themselves through the aperture and were soon enjoying themselves among the trees and bushes. Bryony kept to the path alongside the water and looked at the river, silver in the light, flecked with foam on the wilder reaches and dappled under the banks by the sunshine glinting through the trees.

It was about a mile and a half to Watersmeet. Here she stopped and gazed at the confluence of the two streams. The rapids lacked the depth and grandeur of Aysgarth Force, the beauty of the Falls of Rogie or the cascading hill-top tumble and roar of Ardessie, all of which Bryony had seen, but, although they were on a smaller scale, the rapids at Watersmeet were reminiscent, because of their woodland surroundings and the way they foamed over the boulders, of the Falls of Bracklinn, she thought.

They were also not unlike the Falls of Dochart, either, Bryony decided, remembering holiday photographs she had taken when she and her sister had gone with their father on holiday to Scotland, although the scene at Watersmeet certainly lacked the backdrop of the mountains behind Killin.

She stood there for some time and then whistled up the hounds, intending to walk on for about half a mile to where a rustic bridge led across the upper waters to a hotel where she could get a drink at the bar. Amon came at her call, but Anubis did not appear.

‘Find!’ commanded Bryony of the obedient hound. ‘Find Nubi!’ She went with the dog, calling the other’s pet name; still Anubis did not appear. The other hound, however, knew where he was, for he led Bryony beyond the belt of trees and bushes, and there was Anubis with his nose to a hole in the bank of soft earth.

‘If you think I’ve brought you out to go rabbiting, you’ve got another think coming. Anyway, that isn’t a rabbit hole, fathead!’ Bryony put a lead on the dog’s collar and hauled him away. Beyond the trees the bank was in full sunshine. Bryony looped the lead over a bush and wondered what Anubis had found. She rolled up her sleeve and reached into the hole. In it she unearthed a sharp, heavy piece of stone. The pointed end of it was stained as though with rust. Bryony, whose fingers could reach where the dog’s muzzle could not go, had soon prised the stone out of its resting place. She inspected it closely. Then she spat on it and rubbed the damp little patch with her handkerchief. The coagulated blood yielded a dirty reddish stain.

‘Oh, Lord!’ said Bryony under her breath. ‘That’s torn the verdict at the inquest, my God it has!’ She carried the stone over to the river, waded in (thankful that she was wearing Wellingtons) and dropped it into the water in midstream. Then, as an extra precaution, she picked it up again and pushed it point downwards between two large boulders before she waded ashore.

She was only just in time. Voices could be heard and, putting Amon also in leash, she strode off along the riverside track towards the rustic bridge and the pub.

‘You’ve been a long time. We’re starving,’ said Susan.

‘Luckily it’s only cold ham, new potatoes and peas,’ said Morpeth, ‘and we can steam up the veg. Where on earth have you been?’

‘She got lost on the moor,’ said Susan, ‘or else she stopped at the Whortleberry in Clapbridge and had a couple.’

‘Well, as a matter of fact, I did just that. The bar was crowded with holidaymakers, so it took ages for me to get served and then people were interested in the hounds and that delayed me. One has to be civil.’

‘I thought they didn’t have dogs in the bar at the Whortleberry.’

‘Oh, the hounds weren’t taken inside. I carried my drinks to the only table out of doors where there was a vacant seat, and the other people there made a terrific fuss of the dogs and fed them snacks. I don’t know how I ever got them away. They drooled and dribbled and made friends with everybody.’

‘That was a change for them, then,’ said Susan sceptically. ‘They don’t usually take any too quickly to strangers.’

‘It was the food, of course. Chicken sandwiches, bits of liver sausage, cake, biscuits — you name it, they had it.’

‘Then they’ll probably keep us up all night. We’ll be lucky if we don’t have to call in the vet.’

‘Oh, Susan! A bit of a treat now and again doesn’t hurt them. We hardly spoil them here, do we? Besides, I am sure they digested it all on the long walk home,’ said Morpeth.

‘If you went across the moor as far as the Whortleberry, it certainly was a long walk home,’ said Susan.

Her tone was dry and Morpeth looked at her in some perplexity. Bryony, hoping that her flushed cheeks did not betray that she had been lying, seated herself at the dining-table and demanded to be fed. When Susan had gone home to her cottage in Abbots Bay after supper that night and the dishes had been cleared away and washed up, Morpeth said, ‘What’s up? What really happened while you were out this morning? You didn’t really go to the Whortleberry, did you?’

‘Well, no, but nothing happened, nothing at all.’

‘You might as well tell me. I shan’t give you any peace until you do. Anybody could see you were lying when you talked about the hounds and their sandwiches and things.’

But Bryony, as she began to explain, had not been lying about the sandwiches and other treats which the hounds had enjoyed. The only lie she had told was that these treats had not been given at the Whortleberry inn on the moor, but at the hotel beyond Watersmeet.

Morpeth was silent for a minute when this was made plain. Then she said, ‘So you took Amon and Anubis to Watersmeet. Why? We never take the hounds along the river. Too many summer visitors and boys throwing stones.’

Bryony found difficulty in explaining what had caused her to take the riverside path, since she knew that it had been her own curiosity, after she had heard the verdict at the inquest, which had given her the incentive to go and study the spot where the body had been found. She was torn between an urgent desire to share the news about the blood-stained stone and a fear that she had done a very wrong thing in trying to hide the evidence of what must have been a vicious attack on somebody. She had tried to convince herself that it was unlikely that the stone had had any connection with the death of the so-far unidentified victim, but there could be little doubt that somebody had pushed the stone into the hole in the bank. The only obvious reason for such an action could have been the intention to hide it.

It was not often that Morpeth was in command of any situation which arose between herself and her elder sister. She pressed home her advantage.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We don’t have secrets from one another. You went to Watersmeet, goodness knows why, and something happened there, didn’t it?’

‘Nothing happened, I tell you. Stop badgering me. Why shouldn’t I go to Watersmeet? Of course I was interested in seeing the place.’

‘It’s days since Susan found that dead man. If you are morbid enough to visit the spot marked with an X, why have you waited until now?’

‘I don’t know why.’

‘You didn’t run into Ozymandias, did you?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘I was scared of him. He’s quite definitely mad.’

‘I didn’t meet him, I tell you. I didn’t meet anybody until I got to the hotel.’

‘What did happen, then? Tell me.’

‘I had better not. The fewer people who know, the better.’

‘We have never kept secrets from one another. I’ve said so. Anyway, I was always better at keeping them than you were.’

‘Because you’re an introvert and I’m an extrovert, that’s why. Introverts are always secretive. You shouldn’t be proud of the fact.’

‘Be that as it may, you know you can trust me.’

Because of her need to confide in somebody, Bryony gave in.

‘Morpeth,’ she said, ‘I think I found the stone which killed that man Susan found in the river. At least, I myself didn’t find it. One of the hounds did.’

‘But where? You couldn’t know that’s what it was if you found it in the river.’

‘I didn’t find it in the river. I only put it there after I had winkled it out of a hole in the bank.’

‘What bank?’

Having committed herself thus far, Bryony came out with the whole story. She concluded it by saying, ‘Well, I hauled Anubis away from the hole and found this stone with the rusty stains. I didn’t see how rust could get on to a stone, so I wetted it and rubbed it with my handkerchief. It came off a dirty red colour. Oh, Morpeth, I’m sure it was blood.’

‘Well, you had better tell the police. They can make tests. It probably wasn’t blood at all. We know the man had a head wound. You simply put two and two together. Anybody else would have done the same. Not to worry. If you planted the stone in the river, it’s probably washed clean by this time. The river was tumbling down quite fast, I suppose. All the same, you may find it a bit embarrassing when you tell the police what you did. I can see why you feel troubled.’

‘I have no intention of telling them anything. Neither must you.’

‘But if you think that man was attacked — ’

‘Look, there are three reasons for keeping our mouths shut. First, I might be in dead trouble for destroying evidence of a crime. Second, the last thing we want is to upset the fortunate verdict at the inquest.’

‘Fortunate?’

‘Of course. Any moderately intelligent person would see that there was something distinctly odd, to say the least, about that piece of cloth being cut — cut, not torn — out of the trousers.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. People do the most extraordinary things to their clothes.’

‘Third, and most important, we have to protect Susan.’

‘Good gracious! You don’t really think Susan attacked the man, do you? I know we did wonder, but when we were sure it was not Ozymandias — ’

‘But we’re not sure. We never saw the body. Whoever it was, if Susan found him ill-treating Sekhmet after he stole her, or if he kicked one of the hounds she had taken with her, I would not go bail for anything Susan might do. Have you forgotten how she collared and thrashed the butcher’s boy when he got Nephthys in the ribs with a half-brick? She’s as strong as a horse and doesn’t give a damn for anybody. I wouldn’t put anything past her if she was in a rage.’

‘She would never go so far as murder.’

‘Intentionally, perhaps not, although I wouldn’t take my oath on that either. She is capable of extreme violence. All the same, I don’t forget that the doctors didn’t say the head wound killed the man. Actually it was brought in as accidental death by drowning. I think it more than likely that the man annoyed Susan, that she attacked him with this sharp piece of stone, that she then attempted to hide it in this hole in the bank, that she then realised that he was unconscious, so de-trousered him and chucked the trousers to Fret to keep her occupied, and then dumped the man in the river, perhaps with the idea that the cold water would revive him.’

‘Oh, Bryony, she couldn’t have done! I’ll never believe it. Besides, why would she chop a bit out of the trousers? She wouldn’t have had any scissors, for one thing.’

‘See here, Morpeth. The man is dead. Nothing can bring him back to life. We must let the matter rest. Do you really want to have another inquest and another verdict, and police and the press and crowds of morbid sightseers swarming all over the place?’

‘No, of course I don’t. All right, then, I’ll keep absolutely quiet about what you’ve told me. All the same, innocent blood, you know, cries from the ground for vengeance. We are told so.’

‘This wasn’t innocent blood. He was attempting to steal one of our dogs.’

‘Well, if you suspect Susan as you say you do — ’

‘Suspicion is not proof. I don’t propose to accuse her of anything. I simply want things left exactly as they are and the verdict given at the inquest to stand. I don’t want this business stirred up again.’

‘All I was going to say is that, if you think as you do, we must get rid of Susan. We can’t possibly keep her here.’

‘And blow the lid off the whole thing? I refuse to think of Susan as a murderess, although she may have been an agent of death, as I believe she was. Anyway, we can’t do without her. You know that, as well as I do. She manages the hounds far better than you and I can. Besides, I am going only on suspicion and surmise, and that is very wrong of me. There isn’t an atom of proof against her. We must remember that.’

‘But we may be shielding another murderer, not Susan at all.’

‘We must take our chance of it, I’m afraid.’