The Death-Cap Dancers

Chapter 13: ELDER

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As they took the road to the hostel at Long Cove Bay, the car passed the spot where the first murder had taken place. Ribble pointed out the spot on the roadside verge where the damaged bicycle had lain.

‘Interesting,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘She was either cycling on the wrong side of the road or else she was returning to the rest of the party at Long Cove Bay, one would suppose.’

‘Unless the murderer shifted the bike across the road, ma’am, but that seems unlikely. Our guess is that she had thought better of scarpering and perhaps had realised she had nowhere to sleep. They were booked in at Long Cove Bay for the Thursday and Friday nights, but not at the Lostrigg hostel until last night.’

‘Do the Youth Hostels not take in benighted travellers?’

‘It would be chancing your luck. They would, if they had room, I suppose, but, as I understand it, booking beforehand and in writing is the general rule. Besides that, she would have had another forty miles to cycle, even after she reached Gledge End, and she may well have baulked at that, especially if the wind was against her.’

Dame Beatrice had been conscious of the wind as soon as the car had come out upon the open moor. She looked out of the window at the rising slopes covered in dying heather and the sinister dark gold of acres of dead bracken and, through the wind-screen, at the narrow serpentine road winding its way over the bleak autumn landscape. Further on there were patches of stonewalled pasture with here and there a shepherd’s hut and a sheep-fold, sometimes whole, sometimes in ruins. But soon even this primitive evidence of human occupation was left behind, and when the car came in sight of the hostel, that, too, was surrounded by a waste of moorland. As a private house it had had a large garden for which many tons of soil had been imported from more fertile localities, but there was nobody at the hostel to give it the care, attention and hard work necessary for its preservation and unkeep.

Occasionally Mrs Beck made it one of the hostellers’ chores to get to work on the gorse bushes, brambles, bilberries and crowberries, and a bill-hook and secateurs were kept in the warden’s cottage for this purpose. The job was an unpopular one, however, as the hostellers maintained, with some reason, that they were responsible for keeping the house tidy but that their obligations did not extend to the garden.

Ribble took Dame Beatrice straight to Mrs Beck’s cottage. The warden was in and greeted Ribble with a grim smile.

‘I expect you’ve heard we’ve had more trouble with your dance lot,’ Ribble said.

‘More trouble? I’ve heard nothing.’

‘This is Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley. May we come in?’

‘Happen you must. What’s amiss now?’

Ribble told her.

‘Dame Beatrice is consultant psychiatrist to the Home Office,’ he said. ‘We think we’ve got a homicidal maniac on our hands.’

‘I should think so, too. Nobody’s safe these days, are they?’

‘I think you are wise to keep a dog,’ said Dame Beatrice, giving the Alsatian her fingers to sniff. ‘I wonder whether I might look at your register of guests? I am anxious to establish any possible overlaps.’

‘Overlaps? Oh, I see what you mean. Folks that were staying with me at the same time as the dancers. It won’t help you. The dancers came in last Wednesday evening and, except for poor Judy Tyne, stayed Thursday night and Friday night. I had nobody else except a party of four schoolteachers on Wednesday night and they went off first thing Thursday morning. I’ve had them before and I’m sure I can vouch for them.’

‘Were they cyclists?’

‘No, walkers. They couldn’t possibly have picked up Judy on her bicycle.’ Mrs Beck produced her records. Dame Beatrice took down the names and addresses of the teachers. They were all women and she could see why Ribble had not troubled, in his own phrase, to chase them up.

‘The only help we might get from them,’ she said, when she and the inspector were back in his car, ‘is if they heard anything of the quarrel which caused Mrs Tyne to take herself off on Thursday morning.’

‘I can find that out while you’re busy on your own course of action, ma’am, but from what I’ve been able to find out, the row was nothing more than a cat-fight between Mrs Tyne and this other dead girl.’

‘You spoke of what seems to be an alibi for the death of Mrs Tyne, Inspector.’

‘Won’t take five minutes, if you’d like to call on Mrs Ramsgill, ma’am.’

Mrs Ramsgill, like Mrs Beck, had not heard the news of the second death and the injury to Mick. She was deeply concerned.

‘To think that Ramsgill and I were actually in that hall just before it happened!’ she said. ‘Well, I never did! How upset poor little Pippa Marton must be to think of her brother being set upon like that!’

‘Ah, yes, Miss Marton,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘She was with you on the day Mrs Tyne was killed, I believe.’

‘Never went outside the door, once she got here, until she left at after five to go back to the hostel. Young Adam did his best to wheedle her into going out on the back of his motorbike, but she said she’d come to see me, not to go gallivanting.’

‘Was the young man disappointed?’

‘Oh, I don’t really think so. He put on a bit of a show, but you know what boys are. If they can’t get one girl, they know they can get another. That’s what he did. Picked up a girl in a pub, he told me, and they had a champion time together.’

There was mist on the moors as Ribble drove Dame Beatrice back to the Ewe and Lamb. She thought she had never gazed upon a more desolate scene. The hills looked higher than they had done on the outward journey, their outlines blurred and yet magnified by the combination of eerie mist and the fading light.

She invited Ribble in for a drink when they reached the comfortable, friendly little hostelry, but he excused himself on the grounds that he had paperwork to do when he got back to the police-station.

‘I’ll pick you up and take you to where they are holding the inquest,’ he said. ‘We shall ask for an adjournment, of course, so the proceedings will be brief and we’re not calling any of the dancers this time. We shall need them later, I expect, when we resume. After the inquest I shall have to go to the Lostrigg hostel to pick up those young people and put them in their forest cabin. Perhaps you would care to accompany me and get your first impression of them.’

‘You think one of them is your murderer, don’t you?’

‘Difficult to put anybody else in the picture. I shall have to see the caretaker again, but I think I’ll be wasting my time unless something helpful has occurred to him now he’s had time to think things over. I wish, when I’ve got them treed in the forest (sorry for the pun, I’m sure — not intended) you would have a real good go at the five boys, ma’am. Not an alibi among the lot of them, neither for the job on the moor or the murder at the hall. With a mixed troupe like that, and most of them what you might call artistic, there’s no knowing what went on behind the scenes, is there?’

Dame Beatrice agreed, but in an absent-minded way which indicated that her mind was not entirely occupied with speculations upon the young men members of Wild Thyme.

The inquest next day was as formal as the inspector had promised and in the afternoon he and she drove to the hostel at Lostrigg. Its situation was very different from that of the house at Long Cove Bay. It was surrounded by high green hills of a benignity unimaginable after the bleak, forbidding uplands of the moors. The house itself was gracious, too, and was flanked by decidous woods, the trees showing brown, copper-coloured, gold and with some of their boughs still green. The mansion was double-fronted behind a beautifully-kept lawn, and the approach to the house was by an equally well-maintained broad gravel path. There were projecting wings to the house and beyond the trees were bright green upland pastures divided here and there by drystone walls.

The overall impression was one of peace, stability and moderate prosperity, and it was difficult to believe that the way to it had been by a road which writhed across the high moors and then made long sweeps and curves past isolated stone-built shepherd-huts until it reached the lower ground and entered the beginning of arable and pasture-land.

Ribble’s driver pulled up at the side of the house and the other police cars, two of them, (for there were to be six passengers from the hostel), drew in behind him. Ribble and Dame Beatrice walked up to the front door of the hostel.

The warden this time was a man. Moreover, he lived on the premises, was married, and had a sitting-room, a bedroom and a private bathroom on the second floor of the building. He was a bearded, expansive individual and when he saw the police cars he went to the door himself.

‘They’re a bit restive, Inspector,’ he said. ‘I had to tell them you were coming again, otherwise I couldn’t have kept them here. It’s all a little bit off-beat, isn’t it, wouldn’t you say?’

‘The warden, Dame Beatrice,’ said Ribble. ‘Mr Conyers, this is Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley. She is consultant psychiatrist to the Home Office and we are going to relieve you of the guests I mentioned over the phone.’

‘I shall be glad to be rid of them. It’s strictly against regulations to keep them here all day and all of yesterday, as I explained, but police business is police business, of course. You didn’t give me any details when you brought Miss Marton along, but I gather the affair is serious.’

‘About as serious as it can be,’ replied Ribble. ‘There may be a murder charge against one or more of them.’

‘Good heavens! Come up to my sitting-room and I’ll send for them.’

‘Yes, they may as well hear what I’ve planned while they are all together. We can sort them out separately when we get them back to Wayland Forest.’

Given the news that they were virtually in custody, the remaining members of the Wild Thyme group were shocked into absolute silence for a minute or two. Dame Beatrice noted that they avoided one another’s eyes. The first to speak was Willie, the dark Scot.

‘But the tandem,’ he said. ‘It went, you know. What happened to the tandem? We thought the two of them had gone off on it until Pippa told us that Peggy was dead and Mick in hospital.’

‘We shall find the tandem in good time, sir,’ said Ribble. ‘Well, now, we want you all to come back with us to Wayland Forest, as I said. I have accomodation for you there.’

‘Oh, but, look here,’ said Giles, ‘our jobs, you know, and some of us are at College. We’ve got to clock in! Our half-term holiday ended yesterday.’

‘You can notify the authorities, sir, and the Chief Constable will endorse your statements.’

‘Oh, but, dammit, that’s not good enough!’

‘I ought to point out to you, sir, that I have the option of holding you in custody as suspected persons.’

‘Suspected of what, for God’s sake?’

‘Murder is a very serious offence, sir.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Let it go, Giles,’ said Plum. ‘No use kicking up a shine. Later on, when this ghastly business is cleared up, you can sue for unlawful arrest, but it’s no good beefing now.’

‘I am not arresting anybody as yet,’ said Ribble, ‘and for your own sakes, gentlemen, you will be well advised to co-operate with me. I have cars waiting outside.’

‘What about young Pippa?’ asked Peter.

‘We shall take her with us, sir. Are you a particular friend of hers? If so, perhaps you would care to travel back with her and one of the other gentlemen. You, sir,’ he said to Giles, ‘will travel with Dame Beatrice and myself, and the rest will be accommodated in another police car.’

‘What about our bikes?’ demanded Plum.

‘I will send a van to pick them up, sir, but you will not have access to them for a couple of days or so, for obvious reasons.’

‘Oh, we shan’t attempt to do a bunk,’ said Ronnie. ‘Personally I’m all in favour of a couple of days’ extra holiday.’

The shock, Dame Beatrice saw, was wearing off. She was interested to note that there were no signs whatever of grief. Those must have worn off, too, if they had ever existed.

Over the Sunday night dinner at the Ewe and Lamb, Dame Beatrice had received a lively and more detailed account of the previous week’s happenings than she had already gained. John Trent and, to a lesser extent, Adam Penshaw, came into the picture and so did further accounts of the Wild Thyme show.

Dame Beatrice added her quota of information and then said to Hermione, ‘Laura will be here tomorrow. I shall be busy, I hope, as soon as she arrives and shall not be available to keep an eye on you. This murderer is one who appears to have a particular spite against young women—’

‘One of the two dancers who was attacked on Saturday was a man, I thought you said. ’

‘He was dressed as a woman, dear child.’

‘And made a remarkably good job of the impersonation, then. You could have fooled me,’ said Isobel.

‘He certainly seems to have deceived the murderer,’ said Erica.

‘Then why have the police rounded up the rest of them?’ asked Tamsin. ‘We’ve been talking things over since you went off with the inspector. They all knew this dead boy. They wouldn’t have mistaken him for a woman. They knew he was putting on an act.’

‘If he looked like a woman that might have been enough for the murderer. I mean, whoever has done these awful things must be completely insane,’ said Hermione. ‘Isn’t that so?’

‘Maybe, maybe not. There are legal definitions of insanity which may not coincide with your own. What I was about to do was to issue an order,’ said Dame Beatrice, leering at her great-niece.

‘I need only one guess. You gave me a pretty plain hint when you came to the cabin, didn’t you? You want me to go home. But why should I? I don’t know any of the Wild Thyme lot and none of them knows me. In any case you say the police have got the tabs on them. I’m not in any danger and there’s nearly another week of our holiday to run.’

‘Don’t be silly, Hermy One,’ said Isobel. ‘If it were certain that one of the Wild Thyme lot had murdered two of the others you might have a point, but it isn’t at all certain that one of them did. The police may have rounded them up as much for their own safety as because the inspector thinks one of them may be guilty. Another murder done elsewhere while they’re incarcerated could put them in the clear. Anyway, if you want to know, Tamsin and I are going home tomorrow. I don’t believe it was one of those dancers. Nobody breaks up a successful team by getting rid of two of its members and putting another one in hospital.’

‘So speaks the schoolmistress,’ said Erica, ‘and I agree with her. The murderer is some sort of sex-maniac. That’s clear enough. If you really want to know, our clinging burr, or even John Trent, is as likely a candidate as anybody else, and there may be a dozen other possibilities. There’s plenty of motiveless violence about in these days, unfortunately.’

‘I wish the police would put that girl under separate guard or let her go home,’ said Tamsin. ‘If it is one of the other Wild Thymers — and really I think it must be, so you can leave that stupid Penshaw and John Trent out of it — surely Pippa isn’t safe while she’s among them?’

‘Well, of course, she could be the murderer,’ said Hermione. ‘She may have had it in for the other two girls and hated her brother, too. You never know with families. All right, Great-aunt, you win, but I’d much rather stay here and see the thing through.’

‘You’d only be in the way,’ said Isobel. ‘Tell you what. Tamsin will go back to our parents and Erica will go home, so why don’t you come back and spend the week at my flat with me? The murders have spoilt this holiday, anyway. We could have lots of fun together in London.’

‘So there it is,’ said Dame Beatrice to Laura, whom she had sent for to join her at the Ewe and Lamb. ‘What do you make of it?’

‘Three girls and six men make a rather lop-sided team, don’t you think?’

‘Especially, perhaps, when the girls provide the music and the men do most of the dancing.’

‘Well, of course, morris and sword dances are male specialities. What else was on the programme?’

‘According to Hermione, a dozen folk-songs in which all the members except the flautist took part, a solo sword dance by the Scottish lad—’

‘Oh, yes, crossed claymores, I suppose.’

‘— a sailors’ hornpipe performed by two men and a girl, except that on this occasion the girl was a man in what the only remaining girl in the company referred to as ‘drag’—’

‘Oh, you’ve had speech with her, have you?’

‘Yes, this morning at the forest cabin where the dancers have been lodged by the police while enquiries are being pursued.’

‘What’s the girl like?’

‘I gathered that she is more apprehensive on her own account than grief-stricken because her brother has been injured.’

‘That’s interesting. Still, it does look as though it is the women in the party that the murderer is after.’

‘Yes, indeed. The sister told me that when her brother was dressed as a girl it was difficult for anybody, even the members of the company, to tell them apart. I think there is little doubt that he was attacked in mistake for her.’

‘In that case, won’t the murderer have another go? It seems hardly safe to let her stay among the rest of them.’

‘Unless, of course, Pippa Marton herself is the killer.’

‘And had it in for the other two girls? But what about her brother? Could he have found out that she was a murderess and so she had to try to eliminate him for her own sake in case he shopped her to the police?’

‘Any number of wild surmises can be made. The trouble with this one is that, unless the farmer’s wife is lying, the girl cannot have killed the first young woman. For that death she has a complete alibi.’

‘Alibis, like promises and eggs, are made to be broken.’

‘This one seems to be particularly sound.’

‘In other words,’ said Laura, ‘you don’t believe she did it. Well, I must say that knocking holes in people’s heads doesn’t seem the method a girl would choose for disposing of those she doesn’t like, so Pippa passes, I suppose.’

‘Are we overlooking Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite? When I have questioned the girl further, I may go to see the farmer’s wife again.’

‘And try to bend her round to your way of thinking?’

‘In these latitudes, as you should be well aware, such effort would be wasted. People up here are not malleable.’

‘They cling to their opinions with the single-minded tenacity of limpets clinging to rocks, you mean. Yes, I suppose they do. What’s my part in all this?’

‘The humble but essential office of scribe. I do not care to use a tape-recorder. People distrust them.’

‘Well, they are a kind of bugging device, I suppose.’

‘And, being evil-minded, as all mechanical contraptions, in fact, all inanimate objects, are, they may go wrong at crucial moments. I prefer the written word, even though it does not appear originally in longhand.’

‘Forward, Sir Isaac Pitman,’ said Laura. ‘You say you’re sending those four girls home. Didn’t Hermione chafe a bit? She’s an independent young madam, I thought, as a general rule.’

‘Fortunately Hermione is in no position to object to her deportation. The cabin is booked in the name of Miss Erica Lyndhurst and she agreed with me that the four of them are better out of the way.’

‘But why? You must have said something which convinced her.’

‘Oh, I did.’

‘Any use asking what it was?’

‘I took her aside and told her that the greatest danger was to the young Tamsin Lindsay. I thanked her for upholding my authority and advised her to vacate the forest cabin forthwith. They left this morning.’

‘I don’t get it. Could you supply chapter and verse, or is it one of those guessing games?’

‘By no means. When we have heard the stories which the dancers have to tell and can co-relate them with what I have heard already from the cabin party, you will know as much as I do and, I have little doubt, will come to the same conclusion as I have done.’

‘You know my methods, Watson. Apply them,’ said Laura. ‘Right. Fair enough. When do we start?’