Noonday and Night mb-51

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘That’s right. The man on the barrier remembered our coach perfectly, and, near enough, the time.’

  ‘Oh, he noticed the time, did he?’

  ‘Eleven o’clock, give or take five minutes, he told my husband.’

  ‘Did he mention whether he recognised the driver?’

  ‘He didn’t say. Not that it would have done much good to ask, I don’t suppose. There’s a lot of shift-work, I dare say, in these car-parks, especially in holiday places. Long hours, you see. You couldn’t have one man on duty all the time. Like enough he wouldn’t have recognised Mr Daigh unless he’d just happened to be on duty the other times the coach parked there on the Pembroke tour.’

  ‘And there was no suggestion that more than one man was in the coach, I suppose?’

  ‘Nobody asked. Well, as I said, there couldn’t have been, could there? We all got off the coach at the bus stop where Mr Daigh set us down.’

  ‘He might have picked up somebody in the car-park, I suppose – somebody he knew and who had asked him for a lift.’

  ‘What! A lift into Swansea when we were due to be picked up in an hour’s time to go to lunch in Fishguard? Surely he wouldn’t have been so silly! Even if he was, well, I mean, why wasn’t he with the coach when the police found it? He was hijacked, that’s what my husband says.’

  CHAPTER 5

  The Bishop’s Palace

  « ^ »

  Following almost but not quite the same procedure as in Derbyshire, this time Dame Beatrice took her secretary with her and left her chauffeur at home. Laura was a first-class driver and, in any case, was what she herself described as ‘mad to get in on the man-hunt’ which she regarded as more of a holiday spree than a serious quest.

  They followed the route taken by Driver Daigh’s coach-party, but stayed only one night at Tenby following the night at Monmouth. Laura commented upon the Monnow bridge.

  ‘Pity there’s no access to the public,’ she said, eyeing the structure with its fort-like aspect. ‘If people are allowed up into the porter’s lodging over the Westgate at Winchester, I don’t see why we can’t be allowed the same sort of access to the lodging over the Monnow bridge.’

  ‘The pavement is narrow. There might be congestion and foot-passengers not wishing to visit the lodging might be forced into the road, don’t you think?’

  ‘Well, I find this a tantalising town,’ said Laura. ‘I got up early this morning and went to look at the castle where H. Five was born. There’s very little of it left, and what there is appears to be on land which belongs to the military.’

  They lunched at the hotel and then, without stopping at Swansea, made for the hotel at Tenby where the coach-party had stayed for three nights. Enquiries there led to nothing and both the receptionist and the manager proved a trifle restive, already, they stated, having been questioned exhaustively by the police.

  Dame Beatrice and Laura remained there for the night and early on the following morning they set out for Dantwylch and drove straight to the car-park. Here they met with the same kind of reception as they had experienced in Tenby. However, Dame Beatrice’s questions were answered civilly enough, although no fresh information was forthcoming and the man on duty at the exit could give no description of the County Motors driver.

  ‘So now back to Swansea, I suppose,’ said Laura, ‘although it seems a pity not to take a look at the Cathedral while we’re here.’

  ‘And the ruins of the bishop’s palace,’ agreed Dame Beatrice. ‘We have plenty of time before we go off for lunch.’

  The Cathedral detained them for half an hour. Dame Beatrice purchased a handbook and studied it while she sat in a pew. Laura poked around and identified the various architectural periods beginning with the Norman mouldings of the nave arcade and ending with the modern statue of the patron saint with the Celtic dove of eloquence perched upon his shoulder.

  When Laura had looked also at the fifteenth century misericords on the choir stalls, studied the shrine of the saint with its rearward holes for pilgrims’ offerings, seen the early fifteenth-century carvings which formed part of the canopy of the bishop’s stall, she and Dame Beatrice left the Cathedral, crossed the water, came to the gatehouse of the bishop’s palace, paid the entrance fee and passed into the courtyard.

  The ruins were vast and imposing. From the hut just inside the outer courtyard where they had taken tickets and bought a descriptive, illustrated brochure, Laura, delighted with the size and complexity of the place, began her exploration.

  Dame Beatrice stayed and chatted with the man on duty at the hut, for there were few visitors that morning, as no coach-parties had yet arrived. People came from all over the country, he averred. The ruins were the finest in Britain, although he confessed that he had seen no others. Yes, there two hall, as was stated in the brochure. One had been for the bishop’s own use, look you, and the other was for important persons, some of them not too nice, no, indeed, not from all he had read of them, but important, oh, yes, very important, no doubt.

  No, the gatehouse was never closed. Who would want to visit the ruins after dark? Even if they did, there was little damage they could do and a good chance of breaking their necks on the outside steps or on the newel staircases.

  Yes, it was all open to the public during the daytime except the porter’s room over the gate. That had been bricked up in – when was it now? – oh, yes, in the wartime, because, although the roof had gone, the upper floor remained. If there were traitors about, or enemy agents, it could have been used as a signalling base to enemy aircraft.

  ‘Right over on this west side of the country?’ Dame Beatrice sceptically enquired. She was asked what a hundred or so miles meant to an aeroplane and was told that in time of war no safety measure was out of place.

  ‘Then is the fabric never inspected?’ she asked. ‘What if the gatehouse itself were unsafe?’

  Oh, the Department of the Environment would see to that. A regular check was kept on all the historic buildings, yes, indeed. It would not be fair to the public, who paid to visit the ruins, if their safety was not looked to. Very bad that would be, and bad, too, for the tourist trade. Dame Beatrice nodded sympathetically in agreement with all this.

  A couple more visitors turned up at this point, so Dame Beatrice walked across the courtyard and inspected the long, vaulted undercroft whose top storey had disappeared. Then, faced by a steep stone stair which led up to the great hall, she gazed at it, but did not mount. She walked along the front of the buildings, and from the plan and photographs in the brochure she identified the rest of the ruins and then seated herself on one of the steps which led up to the bishop’s hall, his kitchen at one end and his solar and chapel at the other, and prepared to wait for Laura.

  The plan, which she continued to study, suggested that, at one time, there had been access to the porter’s room from the chapel, but, according to the brochure, that was indeed now blocked. She read on until Laura came back, delighted with everything.

  ‘Four newel staircases in the thickness of the walls, two outside stairs, three wall-fireplaces – the great hall must have had a central hearth, I should think – barrel vaulting, some decorated tracery in two of the windows and there’s a kitchen hatch opening on to a long corridor so that food could be taken to both of the halls.

  ‘There are some gorgeous carvings of grotesque stone heads, used, I suppose, as corbels to support a floor which has gone, and I spotted two garderobes, although there must have been more. You don’t seem to have poked about much. Weren’t you interested?’

  ‘Immensely so, but climbing down newel staircases, and mounting outer ones which have no handrail, does not appeal to me. I have talked to the man who issues tickets of admission and have made a close study of the plan which is in the handbook. I have also looked at the gatehouse.’

  ‘Yes, but, same as at Monmouth, there’s no admission to the porter’s room. You can see where the opening from the chapel has been closed up, though, and I noticed that wh
at must have been the entrance to a staircase on the inside wall of the gatehouse has also been blocked off. What interested you specially?’

  ‘Merely random thoughts.’

  Laura looked at her suspiciously.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ she said. ‘Too random to be recollected in tranquillity?’

  ‘Perhaps I should have called them idle thoughts. Moreover, they were primarily your responsibility. Twice, on this pilgrimage of ours, we have passed under gatehouse archways. Each supports a room which is closed to the public. But for you, I should not have thought twice about these facts, but, now that my attention has been drawn to them, I find them interesting.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was wondering what has become of Driver Daigh.’

  ‘The man we’re chasing? Well, we both wonder about him, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes. I see that the custodian is at liberty again, so I will venture to accost him once more.’ She walked across the courtyard to the little kiosk. ‘I suppose you get coach-parties every day in summer,’ she said, when she had purchased half-a-dozen picture postcards of the ruins.

  ‘Not every day, perhaps, but most days.’

  ‘I suppose their drivers come with them and show them round?’

  ‘Oh, no, indeed. A driver would be taking the coach to the car park and having a good talk with other drivers and getting himself a cup of coffee, maybe. No, I never knew a driver to come down here. Drivers don’t care about walking, look you, and having a stiff climb up a lot of steps to the top. Oh, the drivers wouldn’t trouble themselves, not they. And the people off the coaches, go into the Cathedral they do – no charge for that, see? – but not so many come on here, not nearly so many as you would suppose. Admission charge, you see, and not much time to have a good look round, anyway, by the time they’ve had their coffee and seen the Cathedral.’

  ‘So now for Swansea, I suppose,’ said Laura, when they left the ruins.

  ‘No, I think not. The police will have made exhaustive enquiries there and, in any case, I believe that the appearance of Daigh’s coach in Swansea was intended to deceive.’

  ‘What makes you think so?’

  ‘It was all too obvious that the police were intended to think that something or someone was shipped over from Swansea to Cork. It is the route by which this particular company conveys its passengers when they take their tour of Southern Ireland.’

  ‘Well, why shouldn’t the police think so? They might be right.’

  ‘The effort to deceive often defeats its own purpose. Let us lunch, as the coach party did, at the hotel overlooking Fishguard Bay. It is very well situated, I am told, and I have the name of it from Mr Honfleur.’

  The view from the terrace of the hotel was spacious and beautiful. Below it was the bay. The sea, calm in its sheltered inlet, reflected the blue sky. A rocky promontory at the entrance to the harbour stood out black against the afternoon brightness. Immediately below the terrace the steep slope of the hill was green and gold and there were wild flowers among the grasses. A lane wound away past the hotel seawards down a slope which began a gradual descent and then steepened. Laura, after lunch, walked a little way down it, but soon trees and tall bushes hid the harbour and she returned to the front of the hotel where she had left Dame Beatrice in contemplation of the view.

  ‘What now?’ she asked. Dame Beatrice waved a yellow claw.

  ‘The boat from Rosslare is just coming in,’ she said. ‘A good lunch, did you not think? Also, if I mistake not, here comes a motor-coach party. I would prefer to retain our privacy and peace. Shall we return by way of Hereford? I booked rooms there for tonight.’

  ‘And we’re really not going to Swansea?’

  ‘And we really are not going to Swansea. I must speak to Mr Honfleur again, and as soon as I can.’

  ‘But you’ve nothing to report, have you?’

  ‘I shall say that we made no enquiries in Swansea.’

  Laura gave it up. They got into the car and headed for Carmarthen and Brecon.

  It was impossible to leave Hereford next morning without visiting the Cathedral, so it was not until half-past ten that Dame Beatrice and Laura left the hotel. When they were headed for Winchester Dame Beatrice said,

  ‘I have a strange yearning to inspect the Westgate ahead of us.’

  ‘Haven’t you seen it before?’

  ‘Only the exterior.’

  ‘May I ask why this sudden enthusiasm?’

  ‘Because I have often suspected you of possessing second sight, and, as I told you, it is you who have directed my attention to gatehouses.’

  Laura, who often suspected her employer of laughing at her, disdained to continue the conversation. She parked the car as near the Westgate as the regulations allowed and together they ascended the flight of stone steps which led up to a vast door. The room they entered was furnished as a tiny museum and behind a table sat the curator.

  ‘There is a way up to the roof, if you wish,’ he said. Laura guessed that this roof was their objective, but they looked at the exhibits in what had been the thirteenth-century gatekeeper’s lodging and then they climbed a second staircase, a shorter one this time, and stepped out into the open air.

  The parapet was crenellated with alternate embrasuers and merlons. Dame Beatrice regarded it with approval, while Laura went from side to side of the flat roof to obtain the views.

  ‘What next, then?’ she asked, when she had done this.

  ‘Home, when I have telephoned Henri that we shall arrive in time for dinner. The afternoon is yet young. Let us walk alongside the delightful River Itchen wherein an acquaintance of mine once assured me that he had seen a naiad. We will go as far as St Cross, a modest mile or so away, and hope to see a kingfisher or maybe a wily trout as we wander across the water-meadows.’

  On the following morning, chauffeur-driven, this time, by her man-servant George, Dame Beatrice went to report to Basil Honfleur.

  ‘So you did not go to Swansea,’ said Honfleur, when they met.

  ‘I thought it unnecessary. All the possible enquiries there have been made by the police.’

  ‘Yes, well, naturally I’ve had to answer their questions. It seems that the port authorities are accustomed to seeing our coaches in the parking lot, and thought nothing of it when Daigh’s coach arrived.’

  ‘But did they expect it to stay so long?’

  ‘The police asked them that and they said it was unusual, but they weren’t worried. The point is, as I told you, that an Irish coach takes over when our passengers reach Cork. The tour really starts from there.’

  ‘With an Irish driver, I think you said.’

  ‘Oh, yes. You’ll remember that our man brings our coach back here so that it can be used for one of our shorter tours while the passengers are over in Ireland. Then it returns to Swansea in time to pick them up again. It takes them to Llanelli for the night, because the boat does not get in very early. They’re due for an extra dinner, bed and breakfast, anyway, before we bring them back here. Besides, it’s a lovely drive on the last day. They come by way of the Severn Bridge, and feel they’re getting a bonus.’

  ‘Tell me, where would you hide a murdered body, should you chance to have such an incubus about you?’

  ‘Murdered? You don’t think these poor chaps of mine have been murdered?

  ‘Your affectation of astonishment does not deceive me. Our first conversation convinced me that you yourself already feared as much.’

  ‘Only because I couldn’t think of any other reason for their disappearance. I never mentioned murder, did I?’

  ‘I do not remember, but it was clear to me that you had murder in mind.’

  ‘Well, they were such good chaps, you see. I couldn’t imagine them just walking out on their jobs, let alone on their wives and children.’

  ‘Have they wives and children?’

  ‘Now that you ask me, I must confess that I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You suggested, I remember – or somebody did –
that they might have domestic troubles.’

  ‘Oh, well, now! After all, their domestic complications are no business of mine.’

  ‘Oh, quite. No doubt the police have made that sort of enquiry their affair, if only to be sure of getting the bodies identified if my fears prove to be justified.’

  ‘Look here, you’re hinting at all sorts of horrible things. What do you think has happened? You’re holding out on me, aren’t you? You know something you haven’t told me.’

  ‘It is not knowledge. It is merely surmise. Moreover, it takes me back to a question which, so far, you have not answered.’

  ‘Where would I hide a murdered body? That is if I had been the murderer, I assume.’

  ‘The murderer or his accomplice.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘On this occasion, yes.’

  ‘You’re thinking of Derbyshire, I suppose. Well, there’s plenty of space on the moors.’

  ‘And in West Wales?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, but there must be plenty of places. I suppose it would depend upon how quickly one wanted to get rid of the body.’

  ‘Yes, no doubt a great deal would depend upon that.’

  ‘Look, what are you getting at?’

  ‘I hardly know.’

  ‘Well, I know this much: you wouldn’t be talking like thus unless you had something to go on. Why don’t you tell me what it is?’

  ‘Because I do not trust your walls.’

  ‘Good God, they’re not bugged!’

  ‘No, but they are said to have ears.’

  ‘You don’t trust my drivers?’

  ‘I am not sure that I have ever fully trusted anybody except Laura and my servants.’

  ‘But that’s a terrible philosophy!’

  ‘Not at all. Remember what Gilbert Keith Chesterton said.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘ “Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised.” ’

  ‘Well, suppose you surprise me, and not necessarily gloriously. What are you getting at? Let’s go outside if you don’t want to talk here.’