The Death-Cap Dancers

Chapter 16: WITCHES’ FINGERS

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‘Well, we can both give a pretty accurate description of the chap,’ said Laura, ‘but I suppose Ribble can hardly arrest him on a charge of mistaking a deadly poisonous Amanita for a harmless, delicious Agaricus, can he?’

‘Someone else appears to have done some homework! No, of course he cannot, especially as the two species can be confused quite innocently.’

‘If you are right, what about that girl he had with him? Isn’t she in the most frightful danger?’

‘Up to the present she is in no danger at all.’

‘Just because she doesn’t happen to be one of the dancers?’

‘That is not the reason. Do not tantalise yourself with these speculations. The person I am most anxious about is one of the dancers, however. It is the girl they call Pippa. I also feel concern for the younger Miss Lindsay, but Miss Erica Lyndhurst has been warned. I am thankful that those four young women are getting together again and that my nephew Carey’s farm is a very long way from the murderer’s sphere of activities. Tamsin would be perfectly safe there except for one thing.’

‘Let me guess. Those stolen records, the one from the Youth Hostel and the set from the forest office, contain the home addresses of all the people concerned.’

‘Yes, including that of the murderer. Fortunately Inspector Ribble has listed the hostel addresses in the notes he gave me, so we have that much help.’

‘Will it be sufficient?’

‘Unless the murderer gave a false address. It is quite likely that he did. It is a pity that Hermione’s home address was on record in the files stolen from the forest warden, but, as I say, Stanton St John is a long way from here.’

‘The murderer wouldn’t know that the girls have gone there.’

‘It may not take him long to find out. He has all their home addresses.’

‘Is Hermione herself in any danger?’

‘All four girls are in some danger, perhaps. That depends upon how far our murderer is prepared to go; but the greatest danger is to Miss Tamsin Lindsay. When I have done what still remains to be done here, I shall make it my business to go to the farm and keep an eye on things.’

‘I don’t see what else can be done here that Ribble can’t do.’

‘Well, perhaps not here, exactly. It is very fortunate that I was able to see Mrs Beck’s register before it was stolen.’

‘I thought you got the dancers’ addresses from Ribble. You didn’t need—’

‘Oh, I like to check my information,’ said Dame Beatrice airily. ‘To add to yours, I will disclose to you all my suspicions and my reasons for them, but, until today’s encounter, I had nothing to go on except applied psychology.’

‘Where is our next assignment? — and with whom?’

‘The inquest on Miss Peggy Raincliffe is to be held at Gledge End tomorrow. I am anxious to hear the medical evidence. After that, I hope to be allowed to talk to young Mr Marton before we go to Stanton St John.’

‘Meanwhile, what about this girl Pippa?’

‘She is under police protection and Inspector Ribble has promised me that she will be extremely well-guarded until the murderer is caught. There is nothing more that she can tell us, although I may perhaps go to see her at her home.’

‘Surely she’s got some suspicions of who killed the other girls and attacked her brother?’

‘Except for her music, she is an exceptionally imperceptive child, I think.’

‘Well, I’m all agog for information. Who dunnit?’

Dame Beatrice told her, but added, ‘There isn’t an atom of proof, of course, that would stand up to lawyers’ arguments.’

The coroner sat with a full complement of jurors, seven men and four women, and he explained to them that he could accept a majority verdict provided that not more than two of them dissented from it.

‘So nine of you have to be agreed,’ he said, stressing his point. ‘This is not a trial, I would have you remember. It is an enquiry into the cause of death, when and at what place death occurred, and whether the deceased has been formally identified and by whom. You are permitted to ask questions of the witness, but I shall rule out any queries which I deem to be irrelevant or in any way mischievous. You are to find your verdict purely on the evidence that you will hear, putting out of your minds any rumours, gossip or slander which may have come to your ears.’

Having done his best to cow them and added the further warning that he had power to override their verdict if he did not agree with it, he opened the proceedings by calling for the identification of the body. This was sworn to by the mother of the deceased, and the medical evidence followed.

Death had been assured by one heavy blow in the centre of the forehead which had rendered the victim unconscious and which could not have been self-inflicted. It was followed by other assaults after she had fallen down. There were more blows to the back of the head which would have caused death. The weapon had probably been a heavy stone with a rough surface.

Inspector Ribble was called. He said that he had been asked to go to St Vortigern’s Church Hall as there had been an accident. When he arrived he was shewn two bodies, one still alive, the other dead.

‘Who telephoned you?’ asked the coroner.

‘William Dexter, the caretaker at the church hall. He had also telephoned for a doctor.’

When the caretaker was called he made as good and as laconic a witness as the inspector had done, having forgotten none of his training as a policeman in the art of giving evidence in court. All the same, his story took some time to tell, as the corner asked for a good many details.

‘You knew nothing of what had happened until you went to your broom-cupboard?’

‘Not a thing, sir.’

‘Did nothing strike you as being out of the ordinary?’

‘Yes, sir. I noticed, soon as I went in, that the back door was wide open.’

‘Was that unusual?’

‘Most unusual, being that it’s always kept bolted on the inside.’

‘Why is that?’

‘We get tramps, sir, and boys up to mischief. There’s a fair bit of waste ground outside that door. There’s trees and bushes.’

‘To whom does it belong?’

‘I reckon it belongs to the hall, sir, but nobody tends it and children use it as a playgound. If I left the back door of the hall unlocked, tramps might use that room as a doss-down or boys could get in and do damage. It’s happened, sir, so I had vicar order the bolts to be put on. The window is too high up to be reached without a ladder, and the little window in the washroom adjoining is too small even for a thin boy to get through, so vicar and me have found the bolts quite adequate.’

‘But not on this occasion.’

‘One of the party as hired the hall opened the door from the inside — must have done, sir. There’s no other way.’

‘Well, as whoever did that is not present…’

‘No, he’s in hospital and won’t be available yet for questioning,’ said Ribble from his seat.

‘Thank you, Inspector.’ The coroner turned again to the witness. ‘After you had found the deceased’s body…’

‘That there body found him, as I understand it,’ put in a juryman.

‘Just so. The point is immaterial.’

‘Begging your leave, it ent nothing of sort. Ask him how long that corpse would have stayed in cupboard if he hadn’t happened to go to it for his broom.’

‘Well, Dexter, you may answer the question,’ said the coroner.

‘I reckon it would have stayed there till Wednesday, when I should have needed my broom to sweep the hall for the Women’s Institute Keep Fit, them doing some of their exercise laying on the floor. The hall wasn’t let to any outsiders this week, so I could make one sweep-up sufficient.’

‘Sufficient for several days?’ asked a woman juror.

‘I don’t sweep up after the Saturday Youth Club, the man that runs it being an ex-sergeant who don’t allow smoking nor litter, and, if the hall ent let, there’s no need to sweep up after the Sunday school until the W.I.’s on Wednesday. Then it does again until the Saturday, those being my orders and by arrangement with the churchwardens.’

‘Well, your question seems to have been relevant, after all,’ said the coroner to the juror. ‘Now, Dexter, how did you come to discover the injured man?’

‘When I went to close the back door, sir, thinking it unwise to leave it open, I saw his foot sticking out from under a bush on that bit of waste ground I mentioned. Then I phoned about him and the body.’

‘You seem to have acted very promptly and sensibly all through. Well, I think we have heard enough. The jury may consider their verdict.’

‘Person or persons unknown,’ said Ribble to Dame Beatrice, when they had left the court. ‘Unanimous, too, as it could hardly fail to be. I thought that one or two of them would have liked to ask something more about this boy who’s in hospital. I’m applying again for permission to question him. I’ve seen him, but they wouldn’t let me stay. He doesn’t know yet that the girl is dead. That will have to be broken to him because he will have to give evidence when the inquest is resumed. I hope you will accompany me, ma’am, when I go to see him. What he has to say may help to prove whether your ideas are right. I still have a kind of liking for my own.’

The meeting with the injured boy took place on that same afternoon. Mick was sitting up and smiled when he saw them.

‘Does this mean I can get out of this place?’ he asked. ‘I’m perfectly all right, you know.’

‘You won’t be here much longer, I’m sure, sir. You know who I am, don’t you?’

‘I haven’t lost my memory. Have you come to grill me again?’

‘Just to put a few questions. This is Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley.’

‘Good Lord! They haven’t told you I’m crazy, have they? Have I been babbling while I was unconscious? You have to get two doctors, don’t you? I know Dame Beatrice is a supremo, but—’

‘Calm yourself,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I am not here as a psychiatrist, but as one who is deeply concerned to prove the identity of the person who attacked you and who killed Mrs Tyne.’

‘And you and Mrs Tyne are not his only victims,’ said Ribble, ‘so tell us everything you know. First, did you know that Miss Peggy Raincliffe followed you into the changing-room?’

‘Trust her! She would!’

‘Steady on with your strictures, sir. I am afraid she pursued you once too often. The poor young lady is dead… Take it easy, sir. I thought you might have guessed.’

‘I had no idea, of course I hadn’t! All I know is that I opened the back door and went outside to get a breath of air. Besides, I thought I heard somebody knock.’

‘This was after you had changed your dance costume at the end of the show?’

‘Yes. The sword-dance team, with me in my whites and that stinking beard, had been photographed, and then they wanted a picture of the other dancers. Well, the other men didn’t have to change because they had kept on most of the morris gear for the last item — it’s a sword-dance, as I said — and Peggy didn’t have to change, either, because she played for the last item, she didn’t dance in it, so that only left me. Well, I changed in the washroom and then opened the door and just stepped out into that shrubbery bit, and before I knew anything about it, some frightful lout must have come up behind me and hit me over the head.’

‘And that is really all you remember, sir?’

‘Of course it is. I say, tell me about Peggy, will you?’

‘You were a long time gone, sir, so I understand that she volunteered, in an impetuous manner which forestalled anybody else among your company, to go into the changing-room to hurry you up. We think she must have been a witness to the assault on you.’

‘And this crazy devil turned on her…’

‘That is about the size of it, sir. He dared not leave her alive when he knew she had seen him.’

‘But why should the fellow want to attack me?’

‘We think that, once you had changed your clothes for the last photograph, he mistook you for your sister,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘But why should he knock on the door?’

‘Well, sir,’ said Ribble, ‘if Dame Beatrice is right, he must have seen you through the window when you came out of the washroom.’

‘The window is too high up.’

‘Too high up for anybody to get in by without a ladder, yes, sir.’

‘But not so high up that a lissom person could not leap up and take a look at the room,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘He probably heard you moving about and was actuated at first simply out of curiosity. When he saw what he thought was your sister who, so far as he knew, had no reason to suspect him of evil intentions, he knocked on the door which, for your own reasons, you had already decided to open.’

‘But why didn’t I see him?’

‘He had already taken cover.’

‘But what did he have against Pippa? — that is, if he mistook me for her.’

‘A deep wound to his vanity,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘But what about Judy? Why was she killed that day on the moors?’

‘The inference is that he met her, waylaid her and was repulsed, as your sister repulsed him. Mrs Tyne did not want his company, I think. He then knocked her off her bicycle and assaulted her, an assault which ended in her death. We shall never prove this, but it is a tenable hypothesis.’

‘But, if you know all this, why can’t you arrest him?’

‘Because, as Dame Beatrice says, we have no proof,’ said Ribble.

‘Oh, Lord! If only I hadn’t opened that damned back door!’

‘No need to blame yourself,’ said Dame Beatrice briskly. ‘You could not possibly have known that anybody would attack you or Miss Raincliffe.’

‘Granted that your theories about the murderer are right, ma’am,’ said Ribble, when they had left the hospital, ‘why was the murderer lurking? If he had it in mind to kill Miss Pippa, whom her brother so closely resembles, he must have known or found out that the back door was kept bolted. Why was he round there at all?’

‘Oh, Inspector, what a question! He was not there with intent to commit murder, but to carry out a natural function which the screening bushes made possible. It was when he had fulfilled his perfectly innocent purpose that he heard sounds from inside, leapt up to glance in at the window and saw (as he thought) Miss Pippa. The opportunity thus fortuitously offered him was too good to let slip. He had intended to follow her up and kill her at some time, in any case. Mr Marton’s very thick wig and Miss Raincliffe’s sudden appearance saved one life but destroyed the other.’

‘The other dancers would have known of Mr Marton’s claustrophobia, you know, ma’am.’

‘I see what you mean, Inspector.’

‘One, in particular, being closest to him, would have counted on him opening that back door when he found himself shut up alone in that changing-room with no window it was possible for him to open. What was to stop this man from slipping out of the main door while the rest of them were chatting with the photographer? It wouldn’t take him a minute to nip round the building, and Mr Marton would probably have recognised his knock on the door, but isn’t going to incriminate him.’

Dame Beatrice shook her head.

‘You are forgetting the tandem,’ she pointed out. ‘It had disappeared. That means that it was probably cycled on to the moor and hidden there. No member of the dance company could have been absent long enough to have carried out such an operation. Oh, no, Inspector, your theory will not hold water. Mr Nicolson is not our murderer.’

‘There’s the psychological angle, as you yourself agree, ma’am. In other words, I reckon Mr Nicolson had a stronger motive for murdering those two girls than anybody else we’ve considered. They were a menace, as I see it, to what might be called by some “a beautiful friendship”.’

‘But we’ve discussed that aspect. It does not account for the vicious attack on Mr Marton himself.’

‘Punishment for stepping out of line? Jealousy is a strange force, ma’am. That also we’ve discussed.’

‘Why do you suppose Mrs Beck’s records were stolen? That also we have talked about. You think they were taken as a blind, don’t you? I say that the murderer needed them because he did not know the home address of Miss Marton, and that he took the records from the forest warden’s filing cabinet because he did not know the home address of Tamsin Lindsay, or where the other girls live.’

Ribble spread out his hands.

‘I grant everything you say, ma’am,’ he admitted, ‘but my theory seems so much more likely than yours, if you’ll allow me to say so. Look, you say your man is still in the neighbourhood and you met him in the forest. Suppose I pull him in and question him? I can’t hold him, but his answers might give me a line. Why, in any case, should he have stolen the tandem? One of the bicycles would have been far easier for him to manage and much less noticeable on the road. And who’s to say whether the tandem was ever put into that shed at the church hall at all? I don’t suppose all the dancers turned their bikes in at exactly the same time.’

‘Mr Marton would have known if the tandem had been left in some other place.’

‘It wouldn’t have been any use him knowing if Mr Nicolson murdered him. I’ve convinced myself that the attack on Mr Marton was with murderous intent, ma’am, and that Nicolson’s plan was to hide the tandem so as to make it look as though Mr Marton and Miss Raincliffe had gone away on it at the end of the show. According to what the caretaker told me, that’s what the others did think until the truth came out. We were told by his sister that Marton is weak and impressionable. It would have been easy enough, it seems to me, for Nicolson to have given Marton some reason or other as to why they shouldn’t leave the tandem with the other bikes in that shed.’

‘Your reasoning is valid up to a point, and I think you might be justified in arresting Mr Nicolson on the strength of it, but only if Mr Marton were dead, Mr Marton is very much alive and could refute your theory about the tandem as soon as the defending lawyer had put him in the witness box.’

‘The prosecution would claim that he was still under Nicolson’s influence, ma’am, and was unwilling to denounce his friend. Anyway, I shall have another go at Marton as soon as he can be discharged from hospital.I am impressed by your ideas, ma’am. It’s only that I prefer my own.’

‘As who would not?’ said Dame Beatrice cordially. ‘Nevertheless, Inspector, I’ll take the high road and you’ll take the low road (or vice versa, of course — the choice is yours) and I have a feeling that I’ll be in Scotland before you.’

‘There’s always the story of the hare and the tortoise, ma’am.’

‘I know; but which of us is which?’

‘Do you really believe Ribble will arrest Nicolson?’ asked Laura. Dame Beatrice cackled.

‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Inspector Ribble knows perfectly well that he has no case against Mr Nicolson. He was enjoying himself by arguing with me, that is all. On the other hand, neither have I a case which, at present, would survive examination. Our next excursion, yours and mine, is to Long Cove Bay.’

‘That hostel again?’

‘No. We are going to visit a public house.’

‘Good-o, but why?’

‘You may know when we get there, but I can promise nothing. This really will be a shot in the dark. If it finds its mark it will be because of the notes of his own painstaking work with which the inspector provided me, and I shall take pleasure in saying as much, both to him and to his Chief Constable.’

‘So he doesn’t mean to arrest our nominee either?’

‘Good gracious, no. That was a probe to find out whether I know something I have not told him. It failed because I have disclosed to him all that is in my heart concerning this affair.’

‘But he thinks it’s weak on motive. Is the motive he assigns to Nicolson any stronger?’

‘A policeman would think so, I daresay. There is considerable bias about some relationships.’