‘No, no. I suggested it, but they vetoed the idea, saying that five days a week were sufficient. They were not prepared to supervise their pupils on Saturdays and during school holidays.’

  ‘One could not help but sympathise,’ observed Streatley, with his lazy smile, ‘so we had the High School girls and the older boys from the Technical College. The boys brought their metalwork-master and a mistress at the High School brought her girls.’

  ‘A distinction and also a difference, I feel.’

  ‘Oh, yes. The girls were undoubtedly under the control of the mistress and the boys dominated, in no uncertain fashion, their instructor.’ He rose and sauntered out, with an apologetic wave of the hand to the chairman.

  ‘Is there anything else that any member would care to contribute?’ Dame Beatrice enquired. There was the briefest of pauses; then Downing, in the voice of one pronouncing a benediction, formally declared the meeting closed. Brent, Vindella, Bell, Chipping and Glover rose as one man and hastened away to find another kind of meeting legally open.

  Dame Beatrice found herself alone with David Gold, Ronald Downing and Philip Carfrae. Diana had dashed off, presumably to comfort her mother and take the dog for a run, and Laura had slipped out at the same time.

  ‘Well, Dame Beatrice,’ said Downing, ‘did you really glean anything of value?’

  Dame Beatrice cackled, and the three men glanced round the echoing hall in fear.

  ‘I have gained one piece of knowledge which may be useful,’ she said, ‘and that is that others besides yourselves, the members, were employed occasionally on the sites. I am also greatly obliged to you, the officers of the Society, for allowing me to have access to your records.’

  ‘I can’t see what you expect to gain from those,’ said Downing, ‘but you are very welcome to consult them, of course.’

  ‘I expect to obtain first-hand information about all your finds and I expect to be able to draw a map showing the various sites you have excavated. I am particularly anxious to find out whether any of you have dug in other parts of the world and in other parts of the British Isles.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ said Gold. ‘Well, you’ll find plenty of that sort of information if you want it. Ready, Downing? Ready, Carfrae?’

  ‘Yes. You go on ahead with Dame Beatrice. I have a certain amount of locking up to do.’

  ‘Well,’ said Laura, when she and Dame Beatrice were back at the Gauntlet, ‘what’s the news along the Potomac?’

  ‘Nothing more than you yourself heard. In short, it seems to be that Sir John’s visit is fixed for Thursday week; that I am to have access (untrammelled, I trust) to all the Society’s records; that Mr Gold is prepared to give me any further information I ask for. By the way, though, Mr Downing took good care to get rid of me before he locked up for the night. However, to resume: it appears that, on occasion, the Society enlists the help of boys and girls from the Technical College and the high school and that the officers of the Society, notably Mr Downing and Mr Gold, have harboured suspicions that Mr Breydon Waters did not hand in every object he excavated, but they did not know how to prove this.’

  ‘His precious collection will prove it, I should think.’

  ‘They know something about that, of course, but I do not wish to refer to it again until after Sir John’s visit.’

  ‘And Sir John is going to talk about chalk and limestone, with special reference to flint-mines, especially local ones. May I come along to hear him?’

  ‘I will mention it to Mr Downing. I am sure there will be no objection to your presence. In fact, the public are to be invited, I believe.’

  ‘Good. What are you going to do between now and then?’

  ‘I am going to visit the other two candidates. In fact, I shall do that before I tackle the Society’s records.’

  ‘Alice’s pals? The gassed girls?’

  ‘Yes. I shall ask the Superintendent to obtain their home addresses from the Education Office.’

  ‘I knew they’d been discharged from hospital. The postponed interview is this Friday, but Alice says that both have withdrawn their application. They seem to think that the air of Nodding isn’t too healthy for them. I suppose that means that Alice is certain to get the job.’

  ‘It is to be hoped so.’

  ‘What’s your object in visiting them? It means a couple of fairly long journeys.’

  ‘I do not object to long journeys and George, fortunately, likes them. My object in visiting them is to find out whether they have any useful information to impart. I hardly expect that they have, but…’

  ‘Not to leave any stone unturned. I know. Do I accompany you?’

  ‘I should like that very much. What can you do with Hamish?’

  ‘Oh, Mrs Pierce will have him again, I feel certain. She’s always told me not to hesitate when I want to get rid of him. I’ll write to her at once. He likes it at the vicarage, although I expect he’ll kick a bit at leaving this hotel. He’s got a rave on the hall porter. Helps him with people’s luggage and opens the doors of cars. Gets tips, too, the monkey.’

  ‘Yes, he has a splendidly commercial mind, bless him!’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I had better ring up Mr Downing tomorrow and put off my visit to the Georgian Room to look at those records. They may mean a great deal more to me after Sir John has passed an opinion on Mr Breydon-Water’s collection of antiquities, and after the members of the Society have seen them.’

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  The Subterranean Canaries

  * * *

  ‘Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death.’

  Shakespeare

  « ^ »

  BY Wednesday morning in the same week, Dame Beatrice had received replies from both the young teachers of physical education in response to her prepaid telegrams and she sent off immediately to state that she would be in Edinburgh on Saturday and in Ilfracombe on the following Tuesday. These second telegrams contained invitations to lunch in Edinburgh, and to dinner in Ilfracombe respectively. The hotels were contacted over the telephone by Laura, and rooms booked for the nights of Saturday and Sunday in Edinburgh, and for Tuesday in Ilfracombe. On the Wednesday Dame Beatrice proposed to return to Nodding and on Thursday to attend Sir John’s lecture.

  She set off, Laura beside her, and the respectable and stolid George driving, immediately after an early breakfast. They went north by way of Kings Lynn, Spalding, Lincoln and Doncaster and spent the night with friends in York. The next day, after another early start, they covered one hundred and forty-five miles to Berwick, had a fairly late lunch at the Kings Arms and then pressed on, to reach Edinburgh in the early evening of Friday.

  The Scottish teacher, whose name was Maxwell, arrived punctually at the hotel on the following day and proved to be a pleasant, freckled girl of about twenty-four. She and Laura took to one another at sight and the three had sherry and then went in to lunch.

  It was not until the main course was finished that Dame Beatrice introduced the subject of Pigmy’s Ladder.

  ‘I should value your personal account of what happened when you went there with Miss Hooper and Miss Boorman,’ she said. ‘It is a lovely afternoon. Shall we find a seat in Princes’ Gardens?’

  ‘Yes, if we can,’ the girl replied. ‘There will be a good many people there on an afternoon like this.’

  They were fortunate, however. Miss Maxwell sat between Dame Beatrice and Laura, so that both could hear the tale, and asked where she should begin.

  ‘Begin with your arrival at Miss Boorman’s flat,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and give all the relevant details.’

  ‘Very good. I travelled by the night train and reached Nodding Central station, after changing at Lincoln, on the Saturday morning at just after nine. I had breakfast in the station restaurant. I had no difficulty in finding Miss Boorman’s flat because she had given me a meal there after the first interview at which three of us were shortlisted – Miss Boorman, Miss Hooper from Devonshire and myself.

  ‘When Miss Boorman let me in, I found that Miss Hooper had already arrived, having got to Nodding on the previous night. They were having breakfast. I had a cup of coffee, but, of course, did not need anything else. Then Miss Boorman cleared away and she and Miss Hooper washed up and tidied the flat while I slept. I could not book a sleeping compartment on the journey down, and I felt tired.

  ‘I slept until about eleven and then Miss Boorman asked whether we’d like to see some of the historic buildings in the city. We visited the Cathedral first. It is very close to where Miss Boorman lives. Then we saw the castle but did not spend much time in the museum because we preferred to go up on to the battlements and down into the dungeons. I enjoyed the castle very much. After that we took a look at the cattle market, where they had some Aberdeen Angus cows, and then we visited the other market where there were striped awnings over the stalls – very gay and pretty and such a number of them – and we bought some fruit. There was no time for more before lunch, because the clock said a quarter to two.

  ‘We lunched at a fifteenth-century hotel called the Gauntlet, not far from Miss Boorman’s flat, and I was wondering how we were going to spend the afternoon and early evening – the interview was called for a quarter to nine – when Miss Hooper asked about the old flint-mines called Pigmy’s Ladder. That is not a place I shall forget in a hurry.’

  ‘I should say not,’ said Laura, who had listened attentively to the recital.

  ‘We now get to the hub of the wheel,’ said Dame Beatrice. She had been checking Miss Maxwell’s account by referring to the notebook in which she had taken down the story as told by Miss Boorman. So far, the two exactly tallied.

  ‘Miss Boorman took us in her car,’ Miss Maxwell continued, ‘and we got there at about half-past three. Nobody was about, except the man in charge. He was in a wee hut and took our sixpences, but wanted us to wait and see whether others came along. Miss Boorman explained that we were short of time, and said that we must go down immediately, or not at all, so he came across to the main shaft with us and unlocked the cover.

  ‘Then Miss Boorman said she was not coming down because she had a dread of low ceilings and enclosed spaces, but would wait at the top for us. There was an iron ladder and Miss Boorman gave us a wee torch each, as being preferable to the candles we would find at the foot of the shaft, and down we went. I went first and Miss Hooper followed as soon as I called out that I was at the bottom.

  ‘It was good fun and quite eerie. The roofs of the galleries were very low, but none of the passages seemed to be very long, although they were narrow. We separated and explored different ones, and I soon began to feel sleepy and rather sick. I thought I would go back into the open air, and I called to Miss Hooper, but got no answer, so I thought I should try the gallery she had taken. I did not want to leave her down there alone. I began to trail her along the gallery, and that is the last I remember until I woke up in hospital.’

  ‘Were you surprised that Miss Boorman did not go down?’

  ‘No, not at all. She said, when it was suggested, that she thought we would find Pigmy’s Ladder interesting, and, speaking for myself, I took it for granted that she had been there before and would probably wait in the car while we went down.’

  ‘Did she suggest any time limit for your explorations?’

  ‘Yes. She said she thought we’d see all that we wanted to in a quarter of an hour, and we agreed, because, of course, we knew we’d got to be back in time for a meal and to tidy up for the interview.’

  ‘Did nothing warn you that there was butane in the mines?’

  ‘No, nothing at all. As it happens, my sense of smell has always been defective. Luckily for me, it’s never been discovered at any of the medicals I’ve had to attend for my job, but I’m always gey canny about turning off gas taps.’

  ‘Quite. That makes one aspect of the matter quite clear. What would be your reaction if somebody suggested that you visit Pigmy’s Ladder again?’

  ‘I should like to go. I’ve read about the murder. It seems that we were near the dead man. I would be interested to see just where he lay.’

  ‘A not uncommon point of view.’

  ‘Nice kid,’ said Laura, when she and Dame Beatrice were on the way back to Nodding. ‘I wonder what the other one’s like?’

  ‘We shall know very soon, child.’

  They spent the Sunday night in Harrogate, lunched next day in Lincoln and visited the County Museum. This was Laura’s choice, since the prospect of a visit to Breydon-Waters’ collection had fired her with a desire to be able to identify some, if not all, of the specimens he had amassed. They were in London in time for dinner. This was at Dame Beatrice’s Kensington house, to which Laura’s husband, Detective Chief-Inspector Robert Gavin, of the C.I.D. had been invited.

  ‘Nice to see you again,’ said Laura, when they met. Gavin bowed.

  ‘How’s Nodding?’ he asked.

  ‘Its delightful mediaeval self, castle, Cathedral, markets and all.’

  ‘And the Pigmy’s Ladder case?’ he asked of Dame Beatrice.

  ‘We are still trying to find out whether our suspicions are justified.’

  ‘You have definite suspicions, then?’

  ‘Count me out,’ said Laura. ‘My suspicions are most indefinite. If it was a member of the Nodding Archaeological Society who did it, it might as well have been one as another. I can’t see that there’s a pin to choose between any two of them. Actually, I can’t imagine any one of them as a murderer.’

  ‘This was no ordinary murder,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and it was committed, in my opinion, for none of the usual motives. I hope I am not wrong.’

  ‘If you are, we shall have to begin all over again,’ said Laura. ‘Suits me. I like Nodding. I want to get in some sailing later on.’

  ‘The grass-widower gave a hollow groan,’ said Gavin. ‘Nothing I can do, I suppose, Dame B.?’

  ‘You can listen while I give you a résumé of events and the conclusions I have drawn, if you will. Then you can give me your expert opinion as to whether those conclusions are justified.’

  ‘I wouldn’t presume to do that, Dame B. But let’s have the gen, please. I’m enormously interested.’

  ‘Be that as it may, here goes. We were drawn into the affair, as you probably know, by one Alice Boorman, a fellow-student of Laura’s at Cartaret College.’

  ‘An alma mater of teachers in training? I know. How Laura contrived to stay the course, I don’t know.’

  ‘It may have saved somebody’s life,’ said Laura, smugly. ‘Actually, I didn’t, but I meant well, didn’t I, Mrs Croc.?’

  ‘Let us take it as read, dear child.’

  ‘Yes, well, back to Alice Boorman,’ said Gavin. ‘She got herself into some sort of mess, I believe. Accused of attempted murder, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Not exactly accused,’ said Laura, ‘but things began to tend towards that. Anyhow, she appealed to Mrs Croc. and we immediately leapt into the fray.’

  ‘Let Dame B. do the talking,’ said Gavin. ‘It may be less picturesque, but it’s a lot meatier, if you don’t mind my saying so.’ He grinned with lazy amiability at his wife, who put out her tongue at him.

  ‘I knew that Alice Boorman could have had nothing to do with the accident to the two young teachers whom she accompanied to Pigmy’s Ladder, and I knew, too, that she would have had little difficulty in proving her innocence to the police. The real interest in the affair, therefore, was to discover why the butane had been released and who had released it. The first was not difficult to solve. It had been released in order that someone might die. As that person could not have been any of the three young women, since their decision to visit the flint-mines had been taken on the spur of the moment and had been communicated to nobody else, I concluded that another victim would be found, and this proved to be the case.’

  ‘And the murderer?’

  ‘Is a member of the Nodding Archaeological Society, I feel sure, although I have no proof of that yet. I have interviewed each member privately, with the exception of a couple of schoolboys whose alibis I shall check as a matter of course, but of whose complete innocence I am convinced, and I have attended a meeting of the Society at which all members except the boys in question were present.’

  ‘And what has come out?’

  ‘That nearly every member disliked the dead man.’

  ‘Not exactly helpful, that.’

  ‘There were degrees of dislike. One man did not so much dislike as despise him. Others almost reached the heights of hating him. These were personal feelings, and I do not believe that they were enough to account for his death.’

  ‘No. People in England very rarely kill because they hate. We’re not so pure-minded. Does anyone benefit financially by his death?’

  ‘His mother hopes to do so.’

  ‘His mother? Nobody else?’

  ‘Nobody else.’

  ‘Oh, Lord!’

  ‘Oh, I do not suspect the mother. I have met her twice and talked with her. She is slightly unbalanced but quite incapable of murder, although she tells me that she had a conviction for theft some years ago.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Gavin, knitting his brows, ‘but surely of no importance in this particular instance?’

  ‘It has this much of importance: Oliver Breydon-Waters seems to have inherited his mother’s light-fingered propensity, and therein, I believe, lies the reason for his death.’

  ‘Because he stole something of importance?’

  ‘Rather to prevent him from stealing it.’

  ‘And to think,’ said Laura, ‘that I have been kept in the dark about all this.’

  ‘I expect that, like Watson, you’ve had all the clues and are just too cloth-headed to interpret them,’ said her husband.

  ‘Ho!’ said Laura, belligerently. ‘Mrs Croc. please give him all the clues and see whether he can do better.’

  ‘He has all the clues,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘with the exception of the most important of all. But you are equally at a disadvantage there. He has not met the people concerned, and neither, on the whole, have you.’

 

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