The Death-Cap Dancers

Chapter 7: WILD THYME (1)

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The little band of musicians and dancers who billed themselves under the name of Wild Thyme had been nine in number (as the warden had stated) before the death of the companion who was known to them as Judy. There were the fair-haired Giles, the dark Scot Willie, brawny Plum, the slim, girlish-looking, agile Mick, the artist Peter and the good-natured, easy-going, rather lazy Ronnie. These were the morris dancers. The three girls provided most of the music, but Judy and Peggy teamed up with Giles, Ronnie and Plum for such folk-dances as called for a team of three men and three women, the third girl being impersonated by Mick in print frock and fichu, while Peter took over the violin-playing from Peggy and, if there was a piano available (as more often than not there was) Willie played the accompaniment to Pippa’s flute.

Judy, the dead girl, had played a small concertina, and in addition to playing the flute and the violin, both Pippa and Peggy could act as accompanists on the piano if they were called upon to do so, and so could others.

Peter’s artistic talents were of considerable value to the company. He was the male equivalent of wardrobe mistress and in addition to having an eye for colour and the general effect of the costumes, he was particularly successful at designing any ‘props’ which might be needed for the dances and folk-songs which were the main items in the company’s repertoire. Thus, for the final dance, he had made a terrifying outfit for the hobbyhorse based on the wicker-work processional figure called Snap the Dragon, which he had seen in a Norwich museum and adapted to a ferocious-looking design of his own. In addition, and for the end of the dance, which terminated in ritual slaughter, he had made a horrifying bloody head which was triumphantly displayed by the leader as the company performed the last figure of the dance.

At just after five o’clock on the Friday afternoon of Ribble’s visit to the Youth Hostel, the company, who had been rehearsing in the church hall over at Gledge End for the following day’s performance, came back and were met by Mrs Beck, who, having been returned by Ribble from the mortuary, took Giles, the leader, over to her cottage to break to him the news of Judy’s death.

‘And the police will be here again,’ she said, ‘so you had better warn the others. The inspector seems a nice man, but you never know with the police.’

Giles’ reactions to the news were two-fold. He felt and expressed shock and grief, but on the way back from the cottage to the hostel his mind was already busy with his own concerns. To himself he said, ‘Well, thank goodness it isn’t one of the morris men! We can manage the music, but Mick will have to stand in for Judy and the folk dances will have to be done by us men, unless we leave them out altogether, but, if we do, it’s going to make a big hole in the programme. Perhaps we ought to cancel tomorrow’s show. No, too late for that. We shall have to go through with it somehow.’

‘Why did she want you?’ asked Plum, when the company had settled to their meal of baked beans and pork sausages.

‘Tell you later,’ said Giles, who found that shock and grief, contrary to popular belief, can put a keen edge on the appetite. ‘We’ll take an hour’s rest after this, just to settle our stomachs, and then we’ve got to go over what we rehearsed this afternoon.’

‘Judy really has walked out on us, then?’

‘She won’t be coming back, that’s for sure.’ When they had spent the hour lying on their bunks, he called them into the common-room. ‘We have to carry on with tomorrow’s show,’ he said. ‘We’ve sold the tickets and the money has been promised to the Spastics Society. We can’t back out now.’

‘Judy said she would rather die than stay with us,’ observed Pippa. ‘It makes you think a bit, doesn’t it? Tempting providence, I mean, and all that.’

‘Oh, shut up! ’ said Peggy, knowing that it was the quarrel with her which had precipitated Judy’s departure.

‘What we’ve got to think about is that ending to Kirkby Moorside,’ said Plum. ‘That sword dance is one of our high spots and it loses a lot if there’s no victim.’

‘Oh, Peggy can do that,’ said Peter. ‘We didn’t rehearse it this afternoon, but she’s only got to run into the circle after we’ve made the knot and then fall down dead when we draw the swords out.’

‘I couldn’t get into the costume,’ protested Peggy. ‘I’m taller and bigger than Judy.’

‘Then Mickie will have to do it,’ said Plum. ‘He looks lovely in drag and he can do a beautiful death-fall, can’t you, Mick?’

‘ “Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming”,’ said the graceful juvenile.

‘You were marvellous in the folk dances this afternoon, when there were only the five of us. Never made any muddles,’ said Plum, ‘but then there’s the Irish jig. I must have a partner for that and Mickie can’t do everything.’

‘Well, can’t Peggy let the Irish costume out?’ said Ronnie. ‘It doesn’t matter whether the victim in the sword dance is a man or a woman, but the Irish jig needs a man and a girl, doesn’t it?’

‘Even if Peggy could adapt the costume, she can’t do the jig,’ said Giles.

‘Why not? She knows the steps. We all do.’

‘The Irish jig needs a fiddler and she is the only one we’ve got.’

‘What’s the matter with the piano in the church hall? It’s in tune.’

‘You can’t have a piano accompaniment for the Irish jig,’ said Peggy. ‘It would be most inartistic. Besides, that costume is down to raw edges already. You can’t possibly let it out enough to fit me.’

‘So that’s settled,’ said Giles, ‘and good old Mickie will have to save the show. Good on yer, Mick, me old cobber!’ He patted him encouragingly on the back.

‘Well,’ said Mick dubiously, ‘I’ll do what I can if the Kirkby Moorside dress and the Irish jig costume fit me, but…’

‘We’ll see they do,’ Peter promised him. ‘They’ll be a tiny bit short on you, but you’ve got lovely legs.’

‘Will you fit me up with whatever I wear underneath them, Pippa?’

‘You shall have my personal slip, pants and built-up bra,’ said Pippa. Nobody had suggested that she should stand in for Judy. ‘She’s a good tootler on the flute,’ as one of the men put it, ‘but, when it comes to the light fantastic, she has two left feet and trips over both of them.’

‘Are you certain Judy won’t come back?’ asked Mick. ‘Did she take her hostel membership card back from Ma Beck when she lit out for the wide open spaces?’

‘I didn’t think to ask, but it doesn’t matter now.’

‘But if she did take back her card she’ll have nowhere to sleep. We’re not booked in at the other hostel until tomorrow night,’ said Pippa.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Giles again. The others looked at him.

‘Well, spill it,’ said Plum. ‘She isn’t coming back. That’s clear. Why isn’t she?’

‘Something’s happened to her.’ said Peggy, somewhat hysterically, ‘and it’s my fault! It’s all my fault! She’s met with an accident! She’s in hospital! She’s had an accident and fallen off her bike. She went belting off at such a rate that anything could have happened to her.’

‘Yes, it’s happened to her,’ said Giles. ‘She won’t be coming back because she’s dead.’

Ribble showed up at Mrs Beck’s cottage again at half-past six and asked whether the troupe had been given the news of Judy’s death.

‘I told the leader,’ she replied, ‘and he will have told the others by now.’ She took the inspector over to the hostel just as the shocked company was about to begin the rehearsal upon which Giles insisted. Ribble summed them up and made his own announcement. It was received in mixed fashion. Pippa, who had been crying, burst into tears again. Her girlish-looking brother put his arm round her and said nothing. Giles said, ‘O Lord! The police!’ Plum said, ‘If only she’d stayed with us!’ Ronnie found Peter’s hand and squeezed it so hard in his emotion that Peter, with an oath indicative of pain, wrenched the crushed fingers from his neighbour’s grasp and massaged them. He said, ‘She knew about the convict on the moor. There was a notice up.’ Willie agreed, but added, ‘It was a car. Must have been.’ Peggy said, ‘I never meant to quarrel with her,’ and joined in with Pippa’s tears.

Judging, from these reactions, that Plum and Giles were the least emotionally affected, Ribble decided to interview them first.

‘Perhaps, sir,’ he said to Giles, ‘you would accompany me to Mrs Beck’s cottage, where she has placed her sitting-room at my disposal. She will remain with the rest of the party over here. You, sir,’ he addressed Plum, ‘will come across when this gentleman returns. As the matter may turn out to be more serious than a road accident, I shall be obliged if, on your return from the cottage, neither of you discusses what has been said there until I have spoken with every one of your party.’

‘Is that the reason for bringing Mrs Beck over?’ asked Giles. ‘To make sure they keep their mouths shut, I mean.’

‘Yes, sir. At any rate, it is one reason,’ Ribble replied, ‘and the same applies to the rest of you.’

‘I say!’ said Peter. ‘I don’t like this! Shouldn’t we have a lawyer present or something?’

‘As you wish, sir, but you will appreciate that if this death was not caused by a hit-and-run driver — and I have reasons for keeping an open mind about that — to insist upon having your lawyer present would hamper my enquiries because, by the time you had got in touch with him, a good deal of police time would have been lost and possible clues might have been destroyed.’

‘Oh, don’t be an ass, Peter,’ said Giles. ‘Do you want the inspector to think you did it? Lawyers indeed!’

‘Now, sir,’ said Ribble, when he had taken him across to Mrs Beck’s cottage and the warden had remained in the hostel commonroom, ‘perhaps you would give me an account of the circumstances which led to the young lady going off alone on her bicycle yesterday.’

‘I don’t want to say anything against her now she’s dead.’

‘Anything you say against her will hardly be as shocking as what somebody has done against her, sir, and may help me to apprehend this party of the second part. Either he is a cowardly and utterly callous motorist, or else, as we are inclined to suspect, we have to look for a deliberate murderer. I shall be grateful for anything you can tell me. The circumstances of this girl’s death must be cleared up, so — the whole truth, if you please, sir.’

‘Yes, all right, then. Well, I ought to explain that Judy was almost a newcomer to the gang. She was a replacement, in fact, for Cynthia.’ Abandoning his first attitude, Giles went into detailed explanations. There had to be nine people in the troupe. Nine was a magic and mystical number in folklore. There were the Nine Muses, the Nine Men’s Morris, the Nine Stones of Winterborne Abbas, ninepins, the nine gods of the Etruscans, the nine Worthies, the nine points of the law, Milton’s nine enfolded spheres, the nine days of Deucalion’s ark before it was stranded on Mount Parnassus.

Ribble let him go on, realising that the young man was under more strain than he had thought. Giles continued his recitation.

‘Then there are “dressed up to the nines”,’ he said, ‘and the nine earths with Hela the Norse goddess of the ninth one, and there are nine Orders of angels, not to mention the nine virgin goddesses of the ancient Gallic religion, the nine days it took the rebellious angels to fall from heaven, the nine fairies of the Armorica, the nine serpents worshipped in Southern India, the nine-headed Hydra, the nine lives of a cat and the cat o’nine tails — tell me,’ he interrupted himself, ‘is one of us suspected?’

‘Suspected, sir?’

‘Oh, come now, Inspector! You wouldn’t be wasting your time with us if you even suspected that Judy was killed by a hit-and-run car. You said as much. Do you think one of us is a murderer?’

‘All I need to find out at present, sir, is how the deceased came to be cycling alone when she was a member of your company. According to Mrs Beck there had been some cause for disagreement between two of the young ladies.’

‘Good Lord! It wasn’t serious enough for Peggy to have done Judy any harm.’

‘Probably not, sir, but I should like to hear about it. When did the disagreement take place?’

‘Last Wednesday; two days ago. It wasn’t about anything much, but you know what girls are. They fly off the handle for anything or nothing. This was all about the hornpipe.’

‘The hornpipe, sir?’

‘Yes. You see we are always trying to put new things into our show, so Peter suggested this sailors’ hornpipe, and everybody thought it a good idea, catchy and sort of patriotic, if you know what I mean. I mean jolly Jack tars and all that. It was to follow a couple of sea shanties we were all going to sing. I think the real trouble was that Peggy was to play the fiddle for the hornpipe, whereas Judy thought her concertina would be better.’

‘Are you telling me that this was the first time the two young ladies had fallen out, sir?’

‘Well, they never did get along very well together. This was only one of a number of skirmishes. There was really nothing in it at all, but Judy decided to make an issue of it and took herself off on Thursday morning.’

‘So the quarrel was on Wednesday. How did you yourself spend Thursday?’

‘Plum and I went on our bikes to Gledge End to confirm the arrangements for tomorrow’s show.’

‘Did you catch up with or pass Judy?’

‘No, but I expect we were on a.different road. A number of roads from here lead across the moors.’

‘Only one, sir, from near the hostel.’

‘Oh, you mean the turning as you go towards Long Cove Bay. We went right into the town and took the main Gledge End road from there. It’s a better surface and more direct. Where was Judy when — when it happened?’

‘Near a turning to the village of Wayland, which is on the border of the Forestry Commission’s property. At what time did you get to Gledge End, sir?’

‘I don’t know exactly. We didn’t rush things. When we got to the town we had a bite to eat and then we went to the church hall and arranged the chairs ready for our show. We don’t use a stage, you see. We make a hollow rectangle to dance in and put three rows of chairs round to enclose it, so there was a quite a bit of work for us to do and we were at it until about three o’clock. Then we cycled back along the road by which we had come and got in just before the others turned up.’

‘Did you expect that Judy would think better of her departure and turn up again that evening?’

‘We thought she might have done, because otherwise we couldn’t see where she was going to sleep. We’re not booked in anywhere else until tomorrow night, but of course we didn’t know that it was impossible for her to come back.’

‘Well, that’s all for the present. Will you send me the gentleman who went with you to Gledge End?’

‘I say, are you going to question us one by one?’

‘Such is my intention, sir. Why?’

‘Well, you see, we simply must have a rehearsal tonight to make sure people can fill in for Judy. You know the saying, the show must go on. We’ve sold the tickets, you see, and it’s far too late to call the thing off.’

‘I shall be as expeditious as I can, sir, but surely you rehearsed earlier today at Gledge End?’

Giles’s return to the hostel was greeted with a barrage of questions.

‘Did he grill you?’

‘Is it third-degree stuff?’

‘What sort of things does he ask?’

‘He wants to see Plum next,’ shouted Giles above the other voices. ‘And for goodness’ sake,’ he added, ‘don’t spin out the interviews, or we shall never get our rehearsal. He wants to see all of us in turn. It will take all night if you argue, so tell him what he wants to know and don’t embroider it.’

All that Ribble wanted from Plum was confirmation of what Giles had told him. He was careful to ask no leading questions, but Plum’s answers were all in agreement with the approximate times which Giles had given him, the route the two of them had taken to get to Gledge End and the way they had occupied themselves when they had arrived there. Ribble soon dismissed him and asked him to send over the girl who had quarrelled with Judy.

Peggy was very much on the defensive and began by blurting out the bald question: ‘You think somebody murdered Judy, don’t you?’

‘We have to keep all possibilities in mind, miss.’

‘Well, it certainly wasn’t one of us.’

‘If you would just answer one or two questions, miss, bearing in mind that nobody has been accused of murder or anything of the kind. My object is to eliminate, not to accuse. Now I would like to know exactly how you spent Thursday.’

‘I went to the hairdresser’s in Broadsands.’

‘You were hardly there all day, miss.’

‘It took me an hour and a half to cycle there and an hour and a half to cycle back, half an hour for a café lunch and an hour in the hairdresser’s.’

‘Can you give me the name of the hairdresser, miss?’

‘Yes. It is Antoine’s in Duke Street. I always go there. The assistant I always have is called Marcelle. Does that satisfy you?’

‘Thank you, miss.’

‘I suppose you’ve heard that I had a row with Judy on Wednesday. Well, we did have a few words and she took offence and went off in a temper on Thursday, but we all thought she would come back, although Giles put in a rehearsal on Thursday evening just in case.’

‘So you went nowhere near Gledge End on Thursday, miss?’

‘Of course not. I cycled into Long Cove Bay and then turned north for Broadsands. I didn’t go anywhere near Gledge End.’

‘May I ask why you quarrelled with Judy?’

‘It wasn’t so much a quarrel; just an argument. One thing led to another. It always does. It was about the music for the hornpipe at first and then it sort of hotted up and Mick got involved.’

‘You mean he joined in the argument?’

‘No. Judy and I both had a mother-complex about him. He’s only nineteen and really more like a girl than a boy. You feel protective towards him. We both did, but it didn’t bring us together. Quite the reverse, in fact.’

‘May I put a question which is not directly concerned with the matter at issue, miss? Do you and the rest depend upon your performances for earning a living?’

‘Good gracious, no! Some of us are teachers on half-term holiday, Mick is on strike from a factory office, and Judy was married and ran a play-school. Any money we make goes mostly in expenses and anything over goes to charity. Mostly we only put on a Saturday show, and that’s what we’re going to do in Gledge End. We’re really simply on holiday, cycling and walking and staying at the hostels.’

‘Would you know Judy’s home address? She was not wearing a wedding-ring when we found her. What was her married surname?’

‘She was Mrs Tyne, But I don’t know the address. I expect Giles does. He’s secretary as well as leader, so she was sure to be in his book. Running a play-school she would have to be on the telephone, too. He probably knows the number.’

‘Thank you for your help, miss. Would you kindly ask the youngest gentleman to come over here?’

Mick was nervous. Ribble tried to put him at ease.

‘Just a few questions, sir,’ he said. ‘Perhaps only one, in fact, will be necessary. Will you tell me exactly how you spent Thursday?’

‘Thursday? That’s the day it happened.’

‘The death? Yes, that’s right, sir.’

‘I feel responsible, you know.’

‘Why is that, sir?’

‘The row, the disagreement, you know.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about that, sir. Just tell me where you went and what you did on that day.’

‘Willie and I have a tandem.’ (Ribble had seen one among the bicycles in the shed.) ‘We went to Crosswell on it.’ i ‘Was it customary for your party to break up in that way, sir?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘It was not your custom to remain together on the days when you were not performing?’

‘Quite often we did stick together, but there was this row between the two girls, you see, and anyway Plum and Giles thought they ought to go over to Gledge End to make sure everything was all right for Saturday.’

‘But the rest of you saw no reason why you should go with them?’

‘They said they didn’t need any help. Of course, they hadn’t thought about having to rearrange all the seating. We usually perform on Saturday mornings in school halls, you see, and the school arranges the chairs the way we want them before the kids go home on Friday.’

‘So you and Willie cycled to Crosswell on your tandem. A good long stretch, wasn’t it?’

‘Not on a tandem. We left at soon after nine and got back at six or thereabouts, and, of course, we didn’t hitch on the trailer which carries the dance things.’

‘Did you know before you started that Mrs Judy Tyne had decided to leave the party?’

‘We knew she had threatened it, yes. She said so the night before while the row was on. It was the night we got here. We’re only allowed three nights at the same hostel, so it was to be Wednesday, Thursday and tonight here, then the afternoon show tomorrow at Gledge End and then the night at the next Youth Hostel and back to our own homes on Sunday.’

‘So what did you and Willie do in Crosswell?’

‘We had a rather slap-up meal to which Willie treated me, and then I’m afraid all we did was to go to the cinema. Willie said we needed a rest before we did the ride back.’

‘Now let me get this straight, sir. You left the hostel at soon after nine, cycled thirty miles to Crosswell, had a meal — how long did the lunch take?’

‘About an hour, I suppose. We got to the cinema just before it opened at two o’clock.’

‘And left at what time?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you sit through the whole programme?’

‘I don’t know. I always go to sleep at the pictures, and the same when I’m watching television. All I know is that Willie woke me when the lights went up and said we had better be moving.’

‘You must have some idea of what time it was when you left the cinema.’

‘Afraid not, no. It was still quite light, if that’s any help.’

‘To get to Crosswell you would need to go by way of Gledge End, wouldn’t you?’

‘Not really. We took the narrow road this side of Long Cove Bay, so we by-passed the town.’

‘In that case you would have passed the spot where Mrs Tyne was killed. I may as well tell you that, sir.’

‘But we would have been miles ahead of her, Inspector. We can kick hell out of our tandem and anyway we left the hostel before she did and did not stop anywhere until we got to Crosswell.’

‘Quite so, sir, I would like you to stay here while I go over to the hostel.’

‘Willie will confirm my story, you know.’

‘No doubt he will, sir. By the way, Mrs Tyne was quite a generously built lady, was she not?’

‘Generously built? You must be joking, Inspector. She was as thin as I am, but not quite so tall. One of our problems is that Peggy can’t get into Judy’s dance costumes and Pippa can’t dance. Are you trying to trick me? You’ve seen her body, haven’t you?’

Ribble was not gone long. Willie confirmed Mick’s story in every particular, so the inspector took Peter and Ronnie back with him to the cottage and put one more question to Mick before he released him.

‘Which restaurant did you and Willie patronise in Grosswell, sir?’

‘Oh, we went to the Anchor and sat at the table in the far window on the left as you go in. I’m sure they’ll remember us — Willie sent back the soup because it wasn’t hot enough.’

‘Quite a useful alibi if one is needed,’ thought Ribble. Peter and Ronnie could offer no more help than the others had been able to give. They had left the hostel a little later than anybody else, and had cycled north-east to a holiday resort called Stone-ship where there was an indoor heated swimming pool with its own restaurant and a hall for table-tennis. There they claimed to have spent the entire day.

All the stories would need to be confirmed by independent witnesses, Ribble decided. He dismissed the young men and asked them to send Pippa to him.