The Croaking Raven

by Gladys Mitchell

“But the surveyor declared that it isn’t.”

  “That is quite true, so we go to work at once on the assumption that both victims were murdered. It may be significant that Thomas was in possession of the Dysey inheritance and that Eustace had laid some claim to it.”

  “I wonder why Eustace didn’t come forward and press his claim after the death of Tom? Press it through the courts, I mean.”

  “There are two possible reasons—maybe more. First, when murder is suspected, the first object of the police is to establish the identity of the person who stood to gain most from the death. In the case of Thomas Dysey, the claimants to the property would appear to be his twin brothers Eustace and Cyril. The fact that neither openly pressed his claim seems to me to be indicative of certain knowledge on their part.”

  “You mean they had no doubt whatever that Tom had been murdered, and they had some reason (possibly apart from their position of being next in line to inherit) to fear that suspicion would fall on them if they seemed too eager to step into Tom’s shoes? Yes, I see that, and, of course, the whole situation is complicated by the fact that neither can prove which is the older twin.”

  “From what he told us, it would seem that Mr. Cyril Dysey had no intention of arguing about that, so far as the inheritance is concerned.”

  “I know that’s what he says. It isn’t necessarily the truth, though, is it?”

  “I agree, but, of course, there is also the possibility that Mr. Cyril himself now stands in some danger of being the next victim. The loquacious Bellairs indicated to Laura that Thomas Dysey had a son.”

  “That opens up a field for speculation, doesn’t it? That is, if the son is still alive. I suppose Bellairs didn’t think to mention that? I’ll have speech with Bellairs a bit later on.”

  When the inspector called again, he confided to Gavin that Cyril Dysey had asked for police protection.

  “Which made us think a bit, sir,” the inspector continued.

  “Yes,” said Gavin. “Presumably he’s the heir apparent to the estate, now that both his brothers are dead. If he thinks they’ve been murdered, and if he knows that he himself is not the murderer, he’d naturally have a thought for his own skin.”

  “He’d have a thought for it, too, if he is the murderer, sir.”

  “You suspect him, then?”

  “Not to say suspect him, sir. We haven’t got that far yet. And then, of course, there’s Mr. Henry, who lives with him and is said to be his by-blow. And again, we know that Mr. Thomas had a son, but it’s common belief he died.”

  “Have you found out how many people knew the secret of the priest’s hole? Quite a bit hangs on that, of course.”

  “I realise that, sir, but it’s not going to be an easy thing to sift out. They’ve only got to stick to stout denial, as the gentleman said.”

  “Yes, a cast-iron defence, provided that you don’t weaken, and that there’s no evidence to the contrary. Well, you’ve heard all that I know, which is precious little, so I’d better get back to my job. You know where to find me if you want me. I take it you won’t need to keep the others here when their lease expires? In any case, Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Bradley know nothing which could help you, and I don’t want my small son involved. He goes away at the end of the week, by the way.”

  “That’s quite all right, sir, and about Mr. and Mrs. Bradley, too. We’ve got Mr. Bradley’s statement about accidentally finding the staircase to the priest’s hole, and your son can’t possibly be of any help.” He chuckled. “He went out of his way to tell us about the ghost he claims he saw, and, of course, it might be useful if he could describe him, but he can’t, and we didn’t like to put too much stress on the matter. It would have been useful if it had helped us to establish whether the figure was that of the dead man or his murderer. Help a bit with establishing the time of death, too, perhaps.”

  “Not really, you know. It could only establish the fact that Eustace Dysey, if he was the ghost, was still alive on that particular night. Personally, I’d be prepared to bet that the ghost was that of the murderer and, if it was, that wouldn’t establish anything at all, unless you got actual proof of the ghost’s identity and so were in a position to show that he, at least, knew of the existence of the priest’s hole and how to get to it.”

  “There’s still the question as to how the murderer got the body to it, sir. He could hardly have brought it through the house. It must have come in from the other end of that staircase, and that would fit in very nicely, except for one thing—you can’t get into the undercroft, as Dame Beatrice calls it, except by way of the priest’s hole. Anyway, our next job is to have a good look round again, although I can’t really think we’ve missed anything.”

  “We’re all missing one thing, and Dame Beatrice thinks so, too. We’ve simply got to find another entrance from outside the house, you know. Think what the murderer had to do. He meets his victim on the gallery in the keep, stuns or kills him, pitches the body over the railing, retrieves it and drags it along the ramped passage to the priest’s hole. How did he break into the house to get to the priest’s hole, then out to the keep, then back with the body, then out of the house again? How did this chap who stole food get into and out of the house? I absolutely refuse to believe that nobody ever heard anything. Either somebody did, and won’t say (and that, again, I don’t credit) or else there’s another secret entrance, and I bet I know where it is.”

  “Where would that be, sir?—although I grant that you’re quite right.”

  “Somewhere at the base of that flanking tower at the end of the kitchen garden. But never mind that now. We can investigate the possibility later. To what extent does this case resemble that of the late Mr. Tom Dysey?”

  “Apart from the nature of the injuries, we don’t know yet. There was no attempt at all to hide Mr. Tom’s body, the way this one was tucked away.”

  “No, so I gather. But Tom’s body had been moved from the spot where death actually took place, though, hadn’t it?”

  “According to the medical evidence, yes, it had. Mr. Tom certainly couldn’t have got the injuries the doctors described from just tumbling down a few steps in a spiral staircase. It was because the body had been moved that we suspected murder. If the body had been left where it was, which we also reckon was at the foot of that gallery inside the castle, the whole thing could have been taken as a suicide.”

  “Not an accident?”

  “No, sir, not an accident. Or, if it was, it would have been the kind of accident that can’t happen in that particular place. The railing is stout, and up to breast height. You yourself don’t entertain the idea Mr. Tom’s death was an accident, do you? I think you’ve come to the same conclusion as we have. Both men were first killed up there on the gallery and then thrown over the railing. We suggested it to the doctors, and they agreed that it could have been done in just that way, and would be consistent with the injuries sustained, and the absence of bloodstains on the floor of the tower. The head-wounds which were the actual cause of death needn’t have bled, it seems.”

  “When is the inquest to be held on Eustace Dysey?”

  “Saturday, sir. We couldn’t fix it earlier than that. For their own sakes I hope the jury won’t want to inspect the body. It isn’t pretty.”

  “I’ll try to get along. In the morning, is it?”

  “Ten o’clock, in the schoolroom at Ravens Dysey, sir. Only convenient place at short notice. It’s a church school, but I’ve spoken to the vicar about it, and he hummed and hawed a bit, but I pointed out it was Crown business.”

  “What’s your idea about all this, Inspector? Do you think it’s all in the family, so to speak?”

  “If so, it looks bad for Mr. Cyril and Mr. Henry, sir. Still, we’ve got to be sure of ourselves. Another thing is, if it happened as we think it did, we’ll need to try and trace the weapon. A good chunk of stone would be the handiest, and if that was it, likely it will be anywhere in the lake or the river. Of course, with the place thr
own open to the public twice a week, it wouldn’t hurt to take a look at your visitors. Is there any chance of finding out who they were?”

  “A pretty good one. We keep a Visitors’ Book and try to get everybody to sign it. You’ll have quite a job on your hands if you intend to interview them all, but I think it might just be worthwhile,”

  “I reckon it’s worth a try, sir. I wonder whether, before we do anything else, I could take a look at the other rooms open to the visitors? I’ve seen the hall and the dining-room, but I believe there’s a state bedroom and a library on show.”

  “Right. You have a look at the state bedroom, then, and I’ll wait for you in the library.”

  The inspector soon joined him.

  “Nothing in the bedroom to help us, and there’s nothing fishy in this room, sir, I take it?” he said, glancing round at the dark-panelled walls and the open book-shelves.

  “Not so far as we know,” Gavin replied, “but that means nothing. We had no idea of the secret stair and the priest’s hole in the dining-room until Mr. Bradley discovered them by accident.”

  “Guided by your son’s story of the ghost, of course.”

  “Yes. We can search this room, if you like—that is, if you think it worth while.”

  “Not unless somebody else turns up missing, sir. What I’d like to do now is to take another look at that staircase and the castle basement it leads to. I think you said you’d like to take a look round with me. My sergeant will keep the trap open for us.”

  Obedient to the sergeant’s twelve stone, the panelling opened and the inspector led the way into the short passage and down the stone steps. He paused at the priest’s hole. It had no door and must have been a chilly harbourage, even in summer, Gavin thought, for there was, of necessity, no fireplace and the walls were of solid stone. There was a cavity at the far end which indicated a cupboard in which food could have been stored, otherwise there was nothing except an empty bleakness which their torches seemed only to make more obvious.

  The inspector continued the descent. Seventeen more steps brought him and Gavin to another passage and this, sloping upwards, led them into the undercroft of the keep. Above them were the holes in which the timber beams to support the floor of the Great Hall had been lodged, and further support to this floor was indicated by the traces of pillar-foundations on the floor of the undercroft. The ruined stair (noted from the gallery by Laura) was in the south-west angle of the building, but only the last two steps of it were still intact. They went over and looked at it. The inspector shook his head, and switched off his torch.

  “Not possible, I’d say, sir. There’s nothing but these broken-away bits of the treads, and, anyway, they only continue as rubble up the wall, just beyond those square holes. There’s no way of getting down from the gallery. He must have sneaked in through the house, unless we can find this other entrance we spoke of. Some people can be as quiet as cats, you know.” Gavin looked doubtful.

  “You may be right, of course,” he said, “but my wife needs very little sleep and her hearing is acute. Added to that, Dame Beatrice sleeps on a hair trigger. Both would have been aware of it if anybody had sneaked up through the house, you know. No, no, I’m certain there’s another way into the priest’s hole—ah, and that reminds me of another thing.”

  “Yes, sir?” The inspector looked interested, but the question was put in a guarded, non-committal tone which made Gavin smile.

  “The pantry is directly under that little room from which, I’m told, the kitchen maid here heard singing. My son and my wife, at different times, heard singing coming from that flanking tower at the end of the kitchen garden. The body of Tom Dysey was found at the foot of the same tower. It seems to me to add up.”

  “Yes, we must have a go at that tower, sir. You mean there’s an underground passage from it to the pantry, and from there to the priest’s hole, but, if so, one thing needs explaining. If there are all these bolt-holes, why did the ghost, so-called, whether he was Mr. Eustace or the murderer, come out into the dining-room at all? It was taking a risk, and seems to have been unnecessary.”

  “Yes, I agree. Perhaps Dame Beatrice has a theory.”

  Her opinion being canvassed, Dame Beatrice said composedly,

  “Yes, I’ve been wondering how to account for the appearance of the ghost that night. I think he had been paying a visit to the library.”

  “What for?” asked Gavin.

  “In search of information on family matters, I assume.”

  “If so, that narrows things down to the family again. If he had been doing a bit of research, would you deduce that he was Eustace, or the murderer, or A.N. Other?”

  “I think he was almost certainly the murderer, and was in search of information he had hoped to find on Eustace’s body. I deduce that this information had not materialised.”

  “Yes, that sounds likely. Well, come on, Inspector. I could bear to have another look at the undercroft.”

  They quartered the ground conscientiously for the better part of an hour. Then the inspector straightened his back and suggested that they return to the house. In the dining-room they found the sergeant stolidly on duty. The inspector told him to remain where he was, then he took a stop-watch from his pocket and said,

  “On the word, Pallis, step off. I want to time this thing exactly. Now!” The sergeant stepped out of the cavity. Ten seconds later the panelling was in place again. “So there it is,” said the inspector, putting away the stop-watch. “Plenty of time for the murderer to step up out of the hole and get into the passage, but there he would have to stay, unless he had an accomplice, or there was this other bolt-hole, sir.”

  “There’s still another answer,” said Gavin, “and I suggest we try to find it.”

  “You mean it may be possible to open the panelling from inside, sir? Well, there’s nothing to stop us trying. Step on it again, Pallis, will you? We’ll give it half an hour when we get inside. Hope your watch is going. Park yourself in an easy chair when you step off, but do your clock-watching. We don’t want to be buried alive.”

  The sergeant stepped back on to the spot, the panelling opened and the inspector entered the passage while Gavin went off to borrow Dame Beatrice’s powerful torch. The panelling closed, and the two men began a systematic study of the walls of the passage before subjecting the staircase to the same scrutiny. Their inspection and all their rappings, tappings and manual explorations came to nothing. At the end of the prescribed thirty minutes they returned to the dining-room.

  “Well, that answer’s a lemon,” said Gavin, “and after we’ve had something to drown our disappointment and eaten a square meal, I had better be off. I’ll be back again for the inquest. I particularly want to hear the medical evidence, and I’m also interested to know what Cyril Dysey will have to say. I take it that he is the person to identify the body?”

  “If he isn’t bumped off before he can do it,” said the inspector, cynically. “Looks as though he’s next in line of succession, as you might say, and it don’t look as though that’s any too healthy a thing to be, where this house and castle are concerned—unless, as I’m inclined to think, he did it.”

  “You think the Dysey inheritance is lethal, then, Inspector?” Gavin asked the question gravely.

  “They’re a funny lot, the Dyseys, sir, and this is a family matter, or I’m no judge of such things. Inheritances, like women, are kittle cattle, if I’ve got the right meaning of that saying.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Return of Mrs. Dysey

  “She hadna ridden a mile, a mile,

  A mile but barely three,

  Ere she came to a new-made grave

  Beneath a green aik tree.”

  Jellon Grame

  In addition to questioning the inhabitants of Dysey Castle and investigating the priest’s-hole and the state rooms, the inspector had also searched the rest of the house. He had found nothing helpful, he informed Dame Beatrice, except the address of the pens
ion in Paris to which Mrs. Dysey had ostensibly repaired a day or two before the lessees of the castle had come into residence. He had notified her of her brother-in-law’s death and had given her the date of the inquest, but she did not attend it and the body was identified, as Gavin had foreseen that it would be, by Cyril Dysey.

  The medical evidence provided nothing new. There was no doubt but that Eustace Dysey had been dead before his body had fallen from a height considerable enough to cause the injuries which had been produced, and the post-mortem had revealed no trace of poison. However, the injuries resulting from the fall were so extensive that the doctor was not prepared to state the exact cause of death.

  “Could the deceased have received a blow on the head sufficient to result in death?” the coroner asked him.

  “That is possible.”

  “Could he have been strangled before he fell?”

  “There is no evidence of that.”

  “Will you give the court your reasons for your opinion that he had been dead for at least five days when you examined the body?”

  “I arrived at that opinion when I performed the post-mortem examination. There was gaseous swelling and internal disruption, with major staining of the skin. Skin blebs were also present.”

  “And these conditions have caused you to place the time of death as you have stated?”

  “Yes. Rigor mortis had passed off completely and the green staining of the flanks, usually noticeable after two days, had been added to by later purple staining, by marbling of the veins, and by further spreading of discoloration into the neck and limbs. This would have been noticeable after three to four days, and would be followed by the symptoms which I have already described. Thus I concluded that the corpse was at least five to six days old.”

  “Will you tell the jury what you mean by skin blebs?”

  “These are caused by small bubbles which disrupt the tissues, leading to the characteristic which is termed blebbing.”

  “Can you be sure that death could not have occurred earlier than you have diagnosed—that the deceased might have been dead longer than six days?”