Noonday and Night mb-51

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Well, there certainly is a gatehouse at the entrance to the bishop’s outer courtyard at Dantwylch,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I noted that the medical evidence mentioned traces of soil in Noone’s hair,’ she added, with apparent inconsequence. ‘I think the unfortunate man was persuaded to pick up his murderer outside Hulliwell Hall and take him some short distance, perhaps towards a public house or a garage. On the way the murderer stabbed the unsuspecting man in the back and…’

  ‘But the coach would have been filthy with blood. Nobody has mentioned anything of that sort, have they?’ asked the Chief Constable.

  ‘Presumably because there was not anything of that sort. You would need to ask the medical officer about that and, of course, the driver who actually brought the coach home, but I have known cases…’

  ‘This idea that Noone picked up an acquaintance could only mean that he picked up another coach-driver, don’t you think? We may be able to get a line on that. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find out which other coaches were at the Hall at the approximate time that day.’

  ‘It need not necessarily have been somebody who was in charge of a coach, of course.’

  ‘I suppose not, and that doesn’t help these needle-in-a-haystack goings-on. What made you mention the soil was found in Noone’s hair? They’d have had to dump the body somewhere while daylight lasted.’

  ‘It might be worth-while to find out whether there was any trace in a half-dug grave in the churchyard at that date. A grave was in process of being dug when I visited the churchyard and I noticed two others which had been filled in but looked new.’

  ‘They’d have been spotted dumping the body. You only said “murderer”.’

  ‘Oh, there must have been two of them, as you say. Anyway, the body had to be disposed of quickly and in a place they could find very easily after dark. They had only to watch their opportunity. Of course, there may be nothing in this theory of mine unless somebody in the village saw something suspicious.’

  ‘I doubt it. We’ve combed the neighbourhood pretty thoroughly and I doubt very much whether there is anything more to be learned around Hulliwell village.’

  CHAPTER 7

  The Watchman Waketh But In Vain

  « ^ »

  If Daigh is also dead and his body hidden in a similar sort of place in Swansea,’ said Laura, ‘the murderer might take the hint and shift it somewhere else, don’t you think?’

  ‘Perhaps so, but I am not thinking of trying first in Swansea. There is the gatehouse of the bishop’s palace at Dantwylch which must be explored, I think,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘The coach went to Swansea, it is true, but I doubt whether a body went in it. The object of the murderer would have been to get rid of the evidence as soon as he possibly could. To transport it from Dantwylch to the docks at Swansea would have been to take an incalculable risk, because anything might have happened on the journey – engine failure involving attendance at a garage, an accident on the road, a police trap…’

  ‘Our engines don’t fail. The other things are possibilities, no doubt. Where do you think Noone’s death took place?’ asked Honfleur.

  ‘Well, certainly not on top of that gatehouse.’

  ‘Because the police did not find traces of blood on the roof at Hulliwell?’

  ‘No, but because I think he was killed in the coach.’ She repeated what she had said to the Chief Constable,

  ‘But surely there would have been bloodstains on the floor or on one of the seats?’ suggested Honfleur.

  ‘No. A wound of that nature could have bled internally only. I have known of such cases. The weapon, as visualised by the doctors who examined Noone’s body, must have been a very sharp-pointed knife with a six-or seven-inch blade. It penetrated deep into the heart and there could have been really no evidence of external bleeding, particularly if the weapon was left sticking in the body for a bit. When I looked in at the churchyard in Hulliwell village, the sexton and his assistant were digging a grave, and I noticed that there were two other graves fairly recently filled in. One of them, before the burial of its rightful occupant took place, could have made a convenient dumping-place for Noone’s body as soon as dusk fell, and then the murderers could have returned for it in the dead hours of the night and…’

  ‘Murderers? More than one?’

  ‘I think so, because of the difficulty of getting the corpse on to the roof of the gatehouse. One would have climbed the ladder first and then, when the second – a stronger man – hoisted the body up the ladder, there would be a hand at the top to help with pulling the body on to the roof. Even so, it could not have been an easy task, because the corpse would have stiffened, most likely, by then.’

  ‘But if he was killed in the coach, where did they hide the body before dusk fell and they could risk dumping it in the open grave?’

  ‘In the boot of the coach, of course. At Hulliwell Hall the boot was empty. All the luggage was at the hotel. A boot capable of taking thirty persons’ luggage could certainly have taken a corpse.’

  ‘Then the body went back to the Dovedale hotel.’

  ‘And was transferred to a fast car, no doubt, while the coachparty was at dinner.’

  ‘It was taking an awful risk. Suppose, in broad daylight, somebody had come by while the body was being carried out of the inside of the coach and bundled into the boot?’ asked Laura.

  ‘They, or he, for I believe this part of the business could have been done by one man, had only to drive the coach on to the moors and watch for his opportunity.’

  ‘I wonder he did not dump the body there on the moor and leave the police to find it.’

  ‘The plan was that neither body was to be found for a very considerable time – time for the murderers to leave the country, I imagine. It would have been very difficult to trace them after months, perhaps years, had gone by.’

  ‘Wasn’t it a bit elaborate, this business of first dumping the body in an open grave and then hoisting it on top of the gatehouse?’ said Honfleur.

  ‘Two minds were at work. One man was in favour of your suggestion, to dump the body and leave the police to find it. The other wanted it hidden to gain time.’

  ‘Do you think they’ve already gone abroad?’

  ‘It depends upon whether their business here is concluded. Well, I shall go back to Dantwylch to find out, if I can, what has happened to Daigh. The discovery of Noone’s body has been a break-through, of course, but I am sorry it could not have been kept out of the newspapers. The murderers will have been warned and anything may happen now. My hope is that they will panic and so make at least one bad mistake.’

  ‘So long as the mistake is not to kill another of my drivers! As it happens, the man on sick leave has reported back for duty, so that relieves us a bit. He is on the Skye run, so I do hope he really is feeling fit. I don’t want him having to go sick again, both for his sake and my own. This business of finding Noone’s murdered body, coupled with the disappearance of Daigh and the hijacking of the coach, hasn’t done the general morale at our depot the least bit of good, I can tell you. If it gets any lower I may have to take a coach out myself, just to show the flag, as it were.’

  ‘Could you not use Signor Vittorio?’ asked Dame Beatrice flippantly. ‘He can drive a car.’

  ‘Oh, I passed up on Vittorio months ago. I began to wonder what he was up to and how he got hold of some of the bits he tried to flog to me. Then, when you tipped me off about that Chinese stuff which he had shown Miss Mendel and had tried to sell me, I thought it was high time to sever the connection. I was tactful, of course. Told him that now the Welsh dresser, which I’d found for myself, was completely stocked, I’d lost interest and was thinking of going over to France and handling the Continental side of our business myself and expanding it. I have turned that idea over in my mind, as a matter of fact. There might be big opportunties if we could run our Continental tours from over there instead of from here. We might do Greece and Turkey, as well as the south of Italy, none of
which we touch at present.’

  ‘I see. And how did Vittorio receive this information?’

  ‘Shrugged his shoulders, wished me luck and said that he had much enjoyed our acquaintanceship. Whether he put two and two together and realised that I thought some of his acquisitions might come from rather dubious sources, of course I don’t know, but we parted amicably enough. I hope he did take the hint. He did his best to find me the things I wanted, and he was an amusing sort of chap in his way.’

  ‘ “The Smiler With the Knife,” ’ quoted Dame Beatrice absently. Honfleur looked startled.

  ‘You don’t mean that?’ he cried.

  ‘Mean what? Oh, good gracious me! Does one ever learn to cope with the subconscious mind when, occasionally, it chooses to rear its ugly head?’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right, then,’ said Honfleur, relieved. ‘I knew you must be joking.’

  Dame Beatrice did not reply to this. She changed the subject to her proposed journey into Wales, but later, to Laura, she said, ‘There’s many a true word spoken in jest, and this would fit. How beautifully, how logically, how perhaps all too easily it would fit! But it is useless and wrong to jump to conclusions at this stage of the enquiry. I must keep an open mind.’

  For some reason, perhaps again there was more prompting from the subconscious, Dame Beatrice found that she was not particularly surprised by the next development. She had made all her preparations for departure, and Laura was actually seated at the wheel of the car, when Honfleur’s call came through. A third coach-driver had disappeared, this time on the tour to West Scotland and Skye.

  ‘Can you possibly call and see me?’ asked the worried man.

  ‘I am about to depart for Wales, but I could break my journey,’ she replied.

  ‘I do so wish you would. At my office, not my house, if you don’t object. I’ve got to be here now this wretched news has come in. I only heard it half an hour ago and I’m nearly out of my mind. There won’t be a man willing to take a coach anywhere after this! Thank goodness we’re getting near the end of the season!’

  ‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, when she met him, ‘this is a pretty state of affairs, is it not? And there is disaffection among your men?’

  ‘Not yet, but there will be when they know about this third disappearance. At the moment every coach is on the road. We go out on Mondays, Saturdays and Sundays, you see, so at mid-week every driver is taking out a tour. The nine-day trips go on Saturdays and the six-day and seven-day on Mondays or Sundays. The idea is that, whichever tour is taken, the passengers are never back later than the following Sunday evening, so that they can get to work, if necessary, on the Monday morning after their tour ends. Some companies do ten- to fourteen-day tours, but we don’t, except on the Continent. That’s one reason why I’d like to get out there. If we could shorten up a twelve- or thirteen-day tour to nine days, we could run more often and also I believe we’d get extra bookings. At present our Continental coaches are rarely fully booked, and that’s uneconomic.’

  He appeared to be about to expand on the subject, but Dame Beatrice checked the flow with a direct question.

  ‘So when I have been to Wales, would you like me to visit Scotland?’

  ‘Why not leave Wales to the police and go straight to Fort William? The trail up there will still be hot.’

  ‘Are you more concerned about this man than about the second driver?’

  ‘No, no, of course not, but I suppose I’ve got a special feeling for him. I was entirely responsible for getting him a job here. He wasn’t seconded to us from the buses, as most of our fellows are, but he was down on his luck after the war and came and asked me if I’d got anything for him. He’d been a van driver, but got into trouble for stealing cigarettes. The company didn’t press charges, but they sacked him. He asked me to give him a chance. I was dubious, needless to say, but he was frank with me about his record and I knew it was his first lapse, and I took a bet with myself that it would be his last. I knew the man, you see, because he had been in my unit during the war. He was a first-class soldier. Didn’t mind what risks he ran. Brave as a lion. He said he’d yielded to a sudden temptation and I believed him.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And now this has to happen to him!’

  ‘You must be an extremely worried man.’

  ‘Honestly, Dame Beatrice, this third disappearance has knocked me endwise. One thing: the police really will have to charge into the matter bald-headed now.’

  ‘The police are doing that already, since they know a driver has been murdered. What happened, so far as you have been told, in the case of this third driver? Did he also disappear on a day’s outing after the passengers had left the coach to go sightseeing?’

  ‘No. He does appear to have vanished from the hotel itself. It’s in a fairly remote sort of spot right down on the shore of the loch with nothing but a narrow road between it and the water. The coach did the Skye trip and Knight, the driver, had dinner with the passengers, but in the morning there was the coach still parked at the back of the hotel, but with no sign of the driver. The passengers’ baggage was neatly stacked in the hotel vestibule, where the hotel porters had put it, but the driver’s bed was untouched and the passengers have not seen him again.’

  ‘So what steps were taken?’

  ‘Fortunately we’ve got a man in Edinburgh whom the Scottish hotels are asked to contact if anything untoward happens. He ’phoned me this morning to tell me what steps he had taken.’

  ‘So you are prepared for emergencies?’

  ‘It is in case of a road accident or the driver or one of the passengers being taken ill. Well, the Edinburgh chap got the Scottish Tourist Board on the job and they sent a coach to collect our passengers and take them to their hotel in Perth. Meanwhile we shall have to take another driver up by car to the hotel at Saighdearan to collect our own coach, drive it to Perth and bring our passengers home. There’s been no more sign of Knight than there was of the other two drivers and we’re particularly anxious about him because he had been on sick leave, as I said, for some time, and only came back to take this Scottish tour out of loyalty to us because he knew how short-handed we were after losing Noone and Daigh.’

  ‘So we go to Scotland,’ said Laura, pleased.

  ‘After we have visited Dantwylch again,’ amended Dame Beatrice.

  The Cathedral Close at Dantwylch was walled around like a city and much of the stone walls was still standing. Originally there had been four fortified entrance-gates, for the mediaeval bishops either mistrusted or did not rely upon the hill-top castle which had been built to protect them. The gatehouse to the palace itself, which Laura had found walled off from the ruined chapel, had been an extra defence, but not the only one.

  The way by which visitors now approached the Cathedral and the ruins had been one of the original ways down into the dip in the hills where the buildings were situated, but the path had lost its gatehouse and was now no more than a gap in the walls from which the public descended, by means of a long flight of steps and a steep slope, to reach the West Door of the Cathedral.

  Opposite the West Door a further path ended in the narrow bridge crossed by Laura and Dame Beatrice on their previous visit, and beyond the bridge a rougher path led to the gatehouse.

  Dame Beatrice attached little importance to the police inspection of its roof. Had some of the former entrances to the palace courtyard been open to the public, she might have had hopes of its gatehouse, but, except for one which led only to the archdeacon’s house, which was almost on the perimeter of the Cathedral Close, there was no entrance wide enough to take a car or a motor-coach or anything else in which a body could have been transported unseen.

  The gatehouse which gave access to the archdeacon’s lodging was in poor repair, but was still standing and was only about twenty yards from the town highway. Thus it was a likelier hiding-place than the archbishop’s ruins. However, it offered no admission to the public and was firmly labelled PRIVA
TE.

  ‘I imagine that the archdeacon would be glad to have a body removed from the top of his gatehouse if, indeed, a body is there,’ said Dame Beatrice, gazing from the approach road and through the archdeacon’s iron gates at the crude and partly ruinous little structure.

  ‘No doubt, lady bach,’ agreed the Welsh inspector of police, ‘and we shall leave no stone unturned. Thorough we are, here in Dantwylch. There is another gatehouse to be inspected before we trouble the archdeacon.’

  ‘The gatehouse which is still standing at the entrance to the ruins of the bishop’s palace?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Yes, but it would have been a dangerous and difficult proceeding to carry a body so great a distance from the road. It is not as though a vehicle could have been used.’

  ‘All those steps, you mean. True that is, then, but we will take a look, all the same, just to make sure. My men will be along with an aluminium ladder.’

  His men trundled the extending ladder on a two-wheeled truck down the public steps and the subsequent incline and then across the bridge which spanned the stream. There was nobody about, as it happened, to see the sergeant climb to the top of the gatehouse. To nobody’s surprise, his activities had no result.

  ‘Never mind, boyo,’ said the inspector. ‘You did your best. Thorough we are, see?’

  ‘All right with the archdeacon, then?’ asked the sergeant, adding a belated ‘sir’ as an afterthought.

  ‘All right with the archdeacon, boyo,’ the inspector responded, ‘though a surprise for him, of course, to think of a body on his property, perhaps. Nothing here, then? No surprise about that. We will now take the short cut past the Cathedral, look you, and follow the archdeacon’s private little path up the hill. The entrance to the old tower – nearly in ruins it is, but strong enough still, I am told – is on the side away from the town, on the inside of the gateway.’