The Death-Cap Dancers

Chapter 17: DESTROYING ANGEL

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Hermione, sure of her road, brought Isobel by way of High Wycombe, skirted Wheatley and then took the minor road northwestward through Forest Hill and so to her home. Erica and Tamsin, in Erica’s car, arrived an hour later, and all were soon at table.

‘So you’ve been having adventures,’ said Jenny, their hostess.

‘What has Aunt Adela been up to?’ asked Carey. ‘You say she sent you away from the forest area.’

‘She thought we might be murdered if we stayed, so Isobel took me to her London flat and Erica took Tamsin home with her, and then I got this idea of all of us coming down here. The two working women have to go back on Saturday afternoon, but Tamsin can stay on for a bit. She wants to draw pigs. You might like to have a portrait of Lucifer,’ said Hermione to her father.

‘Is Lucifer a pig?’ asked Tamsin.

‘He’s my prize boar,’ Carey replied. ‘You shall see him tomorrow. We call him Lucifer, but his name, when I show him, is Harold Longtooth of Roman Ending. There’s a Roman villa not too far away and I bought the farm which is next door to it and added it to my own. I’ve built my pigman a cottage out there and pulled the old farmhouse down. It was a bit of an eyesore, anyway.’

‘Would you really let me paint Harold? I’ve sketched dogs, but never a boar. And are there woods on your estate?’

‘I expect you miss the forest,’ said Jenny, ‘but we do have woods near by. We don’t own them, but we have rights of pannage, so, if any of you are short of something to do while you’re here, you can always go and gather acorns and beech-mast. The pigs love both, and I can supply baskets and clean sacks. Pigs are forest animals. Of course nowadays we don’t let them loose in the woods, which is what they would enjoy most, but we keep them in pig-houses with a shed and a large outside run, so I think they are fairly happy, especially as they’ve never known anything else. The pig-houses are a good way off, but Carey will trundle you round in the jeep and you can easily get to the woods from there.’

‘I hope Aunt Adela isn’t in danger of being murdered,’ said Carey, who had not taken the possibility seriously.

‘She told me she would still have Laura and Detective-Inspector Ribble with her,’ Hermione replied, ‘so she ought to be all right. In any case the murderer only specialises in young women. That’s why Tamsin is such a responsibility.’

‘What about you?’ retorted Tamsin. ‘Anyway, it is all to do with those dance people. None of us was in any danger.’

‘Then why was Dame Beatrice so anxious that we shouldn’t let anybody know where we were going?’ asked Isobel, looking at Erica.

‘Oh, it is a precautionary measure,’ Erica replied, ‘but she was insistent about our leaving the forest cabin, so I felt I had to agree. After all, two girls have been killed. She was right to make us leave.’

‘Oh, well, nobody knows where we are except for Mr and Mrs Lestrange and my mother,’ said Tamsin. ‘I thought somebody in the family ought to be told where we were.’

‘Quite right,’ said Jenny. ‘I should always want to know where Hermy was.’

‘ “That old-fashioned mother of mine!” ’ chanted Hermione. ‘You are way, way behind the times, darling! Parents never want to know what their children are up to nowadays in case somebody holds them responsible for whatever it is.’

‘If only the parents were held responsible there would be a lot less truancy in schools and far better behaviour all round,’ said Isobel severely. ‘As for this nonsense that a child of under ten is incapable of committing any crime, I never heard such rubbish in my life. I could tell you—’

‘Oh, head her off, somebody!‘ said Tamsin. ’You shouldn’t talk shop, Isobel, especially at table.’

‘Oh, oh!’ said Erica. ‘Is this a case of the bunny biting the stoat? What have you been up to that you turn so belligerent all of a sudden?’

‘I haven’t been up to anything. Of course I haven’t. What should I have been up to?’

‘ “Methinks the lady doth protest too much”,’ said Hermione. ‘Come clean, young Tamsin. You’ve given somebody else this address, haven’t you?’

‘Well, only John,’ admitted Tamsin, ‘and that can’t possibly hurt. He won’t pass it on, I’m sure. He would hate not to know where I am.’

‘ “Kind hearts are more than coronets And simple faith than Norman blood,” ’ said her sister. ‘What a priceless fathead you can be when you really make up your mind to it!’

‘So we visit another pub,’ said Laura, ‘but why George? I could have driven the car. Do we need a bodyguard?’

‘We may have to park outside a house while we conduct what I think will be our last interview. As I have a feeling that a back street in Long Cove Bay may not be the safest place to leave an unattended car, I decided to bring George along,’ Dame Beatrice explained.

‘I see. So the visit to the pub is not the only reason for our taking this trip across the moors.’

On their right they were passing a pine-forest which looked almost black because of its density. On their left, dreary with faded heather and sad, although colourful, with acres of gold, dead bracken, the moors rose in the distance in folds of blue, grey and dirty green, a mysterious, monotonous, nostalgic, tragic landscape, while ahead of the car there stretched, wound, mounted and fell the apparently endless ribbon of moorland road snaking its way towards the world’s end. Laura summed up the landscape.

‘Enough to give you the willies,’ she said. As the car approached Long Cove Bay the road began to descend, but very gradually and then it turned to the right, past the Youth Hostel, and made for the town.

Ribble had served Dame Beatrice well. He had named the pub in his notes and had given the address to which he had taken the girl, whose name he could give only as Marion. He had added a footnote to the effect that she had been of no help to him.

The pub was small, cosy and not particularly busy, as it was past one o’clock and its habitués had gone home or to cafés for their midday meal. Laura ordered ham sandwiches and beer for herself and George, a cheese sandwich and sherry for Dame Beatrice and then, going to the counter for a second round of drinks, she mentioned Marion’s name.

‘You know her?’ asked the barmaid.

‘Mutual friends,’ said Laura, ‘asked me to look her up. Is she working?’

‘Her? Not bloody likely!’ said the barmaid. ‘What, with the Welfare only too ready and willing? I wouldn’t work, either, if I could stick being at home all day with my old man, but I can’t. One thing about this job, you’ve always got company and you don’t have to fork out for their nosh.’

‘You don’t come from these parts,’ said Laura. ‘Neither do I. Good old London! Is Marion likely to be in this morning?’

Correctly interpreting this, the barmaid replied that Marion would not be in until the evening for her ‘usual’ and that she and the barmaid were going out that afternoon window-shopping in Gledge End.

‘Marion can borrow the tandem,’ she said, ‘on account her boyfriend has got to go to Birmingham on business by train.’

Laura returned to the table at which she had left Dame Beatrice and communicated these tidings to her. Dame Beatrice made no comment, but as soon as Laura had drunk her second half-pint she led the way out and went straight to a public call-box from which she rang Detective-Inspector Ribble, told him where he could find a tandem, and suggested that it might be the one stolen from the church hall.

‘It’s the right tandem,’ said Ribble on the following day. ‘Right make, right colour, right lamps, right accessories, as described to us by young Marton. I was allowed in to see him again. He expects to be discharged from hospital in a day or two, but, except for the description of the tandem, about which he was very clear — he and Nicolson appear to cherish the thing the same way as some young men cherish a sports car — he couldn’t help me any further. Still has no idea who his assailant was and remembers nothing of Miss Raincliffe’s bursting into the room. I suppose he’d just been knocked unconscious when she arrived on the scene. Anyway, we’ll pick up our chap for the theft of the tandem. We can hold him for that and, as there is this more serious charge of murder in the offing, we shall be fully justified in opposing bail.’

‘I don’t think you need waste the time of the Birmingham police,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘If I read his mind aright, the most likely place to find him will be in or near the village of Stanton St John. He will have found out by this time that his next victim (as he supposes) is not at her home address.’

‘If you’re right about the motive for the murder of Mrs Tyne and the murderous attack on Mr Marton, I think you’re right about Stanton St John, ma’am. As you indicated, why else would the forest warden’s records have been stolen?’

‘So you have come round to my point of view.’

‘He must be pretty reckless to have stuck to the tandem. He must have known it would be recognised sooner or later,’ said Ribble.

‘He may have felt safe at first when he knew you had rounded up the dancers and placed them in a position which approximated to their being held in custody. As soon as he found out that you had let them go, he co-opted this girl Marion, thinking that nobody would be looking for two people on the tandem.’

‘I suppose she is in no danger from him?’

‘None at all, unless she wounds his amour propre, and from what I saw of the two of them in the forest clearing, there is little chance of that at present.’

‘We used to have a marvellous cook who was also quite a character,’ said Jenny to Erica. ‘Her name was Mrs Ditch. Of course she’s been dead for some years now, but we still have her son, known to all as Our Walt. He is Carey’s pig-man now and has three underlings to whom he acts as a benevolent despot. I don’t know what we should do without him.He’s a first-class handyman as well. His wife is the present cook and she’s good, too.’

‘I wish she would show me how to make a bacon pudding and how to do pig’s fry.’

‘She’ll be delighted to, if you ask her. What about her recipe for black pluddings? What are the others doing this morning? I haven’t seen them since breakfast.’

‘Isobel needed exercise and has walked to Oxford. She said she might do some shopping. I expect that means she’ll look at the University booksellers and take a taxi back here to be in time for lunch. You said it would not be until two, so she thought she would have time. She’ll be back all right. She isn’t scatty, like young Tamsin. Tamsin is sketching pigs.’

‘I hope she is well wrapped up. It’s a bit chilly sitting about at this time of year.’

‘Oh, yes, she’s got a windcheater and a scarf. She’ll be all right. Hermione is more or less with her.’

‘Only more or less?’

‘I think she said she was going the rounds with Our Walt.’

‘I didn’t intend her to start work again while you three girls were here. Carey has gone to Oxford, too. I want some household things and he’s ordering feed, so I thought he could combine the two. If only he had known, he could have taken Isobel in the car.’

‘Oh, she wanted to walk. Perhaps they will meet and he will bring her back. I think I ’ll take a stroll myself and see how Tamsin is getting on.’

‘Are you worried about yourself and the others? What did Aunt Adela tell you? She telephoned me, you know, when she heard from Hermy that you were all coming here to finish your holiday.’

‘She told me that we weren’t safe so long as we stayed in the forest cabin. She said she thought Tamsin was the most vulnerable, Isobel the least, and Hermione in less danger than myself. She told us all not to trust anybody we had met while we were in the forest and, except that I don’t scare easily, she would have had me scared, because, of course, we did get well acquainted with a hefty young man named John Trent, who seemed rather interested in young Tamsin.’

‘Aunt Adela did not name any particular person, though, did she?’

‘Well, yes, she did, but it seems so improbable that he could be a danger to any of us. The only ones who seem to have upset him are a company of folk-dance people. They are the ones he seems to have it in for, not us.’

‘If Aunt Adela said that you four were in danger, she meant it,’ said Jenny. ‘You say that Isobel is not particularly vulnerable, but ought she to have walked into Oxford alone?’

‘You can’t argue with Isobel and she’s very sensible. She’ll be all right once she gets to Headington. That’s the way she was going to take. It’s about five miles, she thought, to get right into the city.’

At this point, before the conversation could continue, Our Walt’s wife appeared.

‘The poultry be at the door, missus, and want to know what about a fowl for Sunday, loike.’

‘We shall need two, Mrs Ditch. I’d better see him.’ She went out to the back door and Erica followed her plan of going out to see how Tamsin was progressing with her pencil sketches of the pigs.

She found the youngest member of their party outside Lucifer’s pen. Tamsin looked round and said, ‘He won’t keep still long enough for me to draw him properly. I think he can smell one of the sows.’

‘He’s not supposed to be able to,’ said Hermione, coming up to them. ‘He probably objects to an alien presence and perhaps he’s got a “thing” about having a picture made of himself. Boars are very primitive, I always think, unlike sows and young pigs, who are very intelligent and good-humoured. Did you ever see a pig smile? They do, you know, and they can say “Thank you” when you feed them. Think of Empress of Blandings when some kind person picked up a potato she’d dislodged and returned it to her trough. Why don’t you let Lucifer settle down a bit and go and sketch Sunspot?’

‘Which is Sunspot?’

‘She is that lovely Gloucester Old Spot over there. She’s only a young gilt and hasn’t farrowed yet. She’s as docile as a pet dog. We are thinking of breeding Gloucesters.’

‘Do you really like pigs, Hermy?’ asked Tamsin, accompanying her friend across the rough grass.

‘Love them. They’re clean and they’ve got such a sense of humour. Besides, I was brought up with them.’

She saw Tamsin settled and watched the first confident strokes of the pencil. Sunspot came to the front of the sizeable wired pen, looked enquiringly at Tamsin and Hermione through the meshes and then went to the wooden gate through which she was sometimes allowed to pass while her domain was mucked out. On these occasions she was kept happy and from straying by the present of a succulent cabbage or some other interesting tit-bit and for some reason she seemed to think that Tamsin’s activities promised something pleasant of this nature. She scrabbled at the woodwork with her little front trotters and made pleading little anticipatory grunts, snorts and snuffles.

Tamsin got up from her stool and looked over the four-foot door which was hung between two higher iron posts.

‘I can’t sketch you if you’re going to stay there,’ she protested. Hermione laughed and said that she would go and get the pig an apple. Erica volunteered to accompany her and as they made towards the house the pigmen joined them to go in for their mid-morning snack. At the same time as they and the girls disappeared, a young man came out of the woods and walked up a miry but well-marked path which led to a five-barred gate in a wired-up hedge. The gate and hedge marked Carey’s boundaries on that side of the pig-farm.

The man stood looking over the gate for some minutes, but as soon as the coast was clear, with Hermione, Erica and the pigmen out of sight, he climbed over the gate. Tamsin, who was completely absorbed in looking over the top of Sunspot’s gate and trying to cajole that engaging animal into going into the open run, was surprised, but not startled, to hear a shout of ‘Hi!’ She turned to see Adam Penshaw coming towards her. Her first feeling was one of disappointment. She had been hoping for John Trent to come and look them up. She was pretty sure that, when he found she was not in her own home, he would have got the Oxfordshire address from her mother.

When she recognised Adam her reaction was one of anger. It was intolerable that he was still determined to pester her. She shouted, ‘Go away! You’re trespassing!’

He continued to advance, calling out, ‘Come for a walk in the woods. I want to talk to you!’

‘Go away! You’re being a nuisance,’ she called back. He halted.

‘I’m being what?’ he shouted.

‘A beastly nuisance! You’re not wanted. Go away!’

‘If you don’t come I’ll let all these pigs out!’

At this moment Hermione reappeared. She took in the situation in an instant and began to walk towards him. As she did so, he laughed and pushed back the bolt of the pig-pen on which he was leaning. Hermione turned and tore back towards where Tamsin was irresolutely standing.

‘Quick, Tammie,’ she yelled. ‘Get over the door. Sunspot won’t hurt you.’ Tamsin accepted this reassurance and took the breathless advice, and Hermione tumbled over Sunspot’s door almost on top of her. Sunspot, who had retired into the centre of her fenced enclosure in rational surprise at receiving this sudden and unexpected influx of visitors, stood regarding the heap of arms and legs before she retired to her covered shed, from the opening to which she poked out an enquiring snout.

Tamsin began to scramble to her feet, but Hermione pulled her down as a hoarse and terrible screaming broke out.

‘You don’t want to see what’s happening,’ she stammered. ‘He’s let out that devil Lucifer.’

‘No suggestion that Lucifer should be put down,’ said Carey, when the inquest on Adam Penshaw was concluded. ‘The verdict was death by misadventure. There was a notice up beside the gate the lad came in by, and another notice beside the boar’s pen.’

‘You knew Adam was the murderer, didn’t you?’ said Hermione to her great-aunt. ‘How long ago did you know it?’

‘The various encounters you four girls had with him were pointers. After what he thought was a promising beginning, you all rejected him, and not only once. Then Miss Pippa rejected him that day at Ramsgill farm and at the hall he mistook her brother for her and did his best to kill the young man. Subsequently, of course, he learned from the newspapers that he had chosen the wrong victim. In the state of mind in which I judged him to be, it was inevitable that he would attempt to attack Miss Pippa again, but while she was under police protection he realised that this would be far too risky a proceeding. That turned his attention to his other objective, you four. At your first meeting you gave him a lift in your car. He had tricked you into doing this, his ego was satisfied and you, at that point, were safe.’

‘He shouldn’t have attempted to presume on the acquaintanceship,’ said Hermione. ‘He must have known that Tamsin and I were pretty sick with him for leading us up the garden so as to get a free ride to that Youth Hostel.’

‘His natural conceit led him to take a chance, but after that you rejected him.’

‘And John Trent threw him over our verandah railings,’ said Erica. ‘I wonder he didn’t have a go at John. If it was rejection that upset him, well, nobody could have been more forcibly rejected than that.’

‘Penshaw attacked only the unsuspecting, and even then they had to be weaker than himself,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Inspector Ribble would have got a conviction in due course, for Penshaw was becoming reckless. The girl Marion and her possession of the tandem almost clinched the matter. She had no reason to lie to the police on Penshaw’s behalf. Well, I suppose it has been an interesting case, psychologically.’

‘With a horrible ending,’ said Tamsin, shuddering at the recollection of Adam Penshaw’s screams.

‘So did Judy Tyne and Peggy Raincliffe have a horrible ending. Don’t forget that,’ said Isobel.

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[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away]

[A 3S Release— v1, html]

[September 18, 2006]