Death of a Burrowing Mole mb-62

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Bein’ as he had drove Mr Sandgate a time or two to the castle to see ’ow the diggin’ was gettin’ on. I reckon as it were ’im what put that bike and sidecar in my woods to put suspicions on me, like, us never ’avin’ got along what you might call matey.’

  ‘Are you accusing Wicklow of murder?’

  ‘Oh, no, sir! Oh, dear me, no! If I knowed anything o’ that nature, sir, I would be in dead trouble for not a-tellin’ you, sir.’

  ‘Well, what are you supposed to be telling me now?’

  ‘Only as I knows nothink of no bodies nor of no motorbikes in my woods, sir.’

  ‘That’s as may be. Anyway, I’m going to charge and arrest you as an accessory after the fact. I don’t think you have the guts for murder, so that won’t come into it, but, if the judge finds you guilty as charged, you’ll get ten years, I shouldn’t wonder. You are not obliged to say anything when I charge you, but if you do…’

  ‘And did he?’ asked Dame Beatrice, when she heard Mowbray’s report.

  ‘Yes, indeed, ma’am. First he said, “Well, even if the judge do give me ten years – and I ain’t proved guilty yet – at least I’ll be alive at the end of ’em, and I’m much obliged to you, guv’nor, for lockin’ of me up. You done me a favour and now I’ll do you one. You get ’old of a dowser to go over them ruins.”

  ‘I told him three wells had been located already and there wasn’t likely to be a fourth.’

  ‘ “I knows all them old stories, for all I’m not a native of these parts”, he said, “and I knows as a dowser with the ’azel twig can find sommat bettern water. You take my tip, sir, and try a dowser with the ’azel rod.”

  ‘Well, I’ve been thanked occasionally, Dame Beatrice, for one thing and another, but I’ve never been thanked before for taking a man into custody and promising him ten years hard. I’m going to put a red ring round the date in my diary.’

  ‘And what about the dowser?’ asked Laura. ‘Are you going to try to get hold of one?’

  ‘Not me, Mrs Gavin. All poppycock, except they can sometimes find water. I make you a present of Goole’s idea for what it’s worth, which, in my opinion, is absolutely nothing.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Dame Beatrice. ‘Metal detectors have come under official disapproval but I myself used to manipulate a hazel twig.’

  18

  Lordly Dishes

  « ^

  We’re still left with the death of Professor Veryan,’ said Laura, when she and Dame Beatrice were alone together. ‘If Mrs Veryan couldn’t prove that she wasn’t even on dry land when her husband died, I think Mowbray would have arrested her.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Well, yes. She gains by the death.’

  ‘Not so much, apparently, as if he had remained alive. She cannot touch the capital and the interest, I understand, is less than the alimony she has been receiving.’

  ‘Do you think he would have changed his will in favour of Susannah Lochlure if he had lived?’

  ‘We have no evidence that he intended anything of the kind.’

  ‘Of course the magistrates will never commit Tynant for trial. Mowbray hasn’t a thing against him except his slightly incredible alibi. He could have got back to the castle in time to shove Veryan off that tower, but only if he’d made that cross-country trip, as I did, and there’s nothing whatever to prove that he didn’t walk all the way by road, as he swears he did. We know there couldn’t possibly be a committal on the present evidence. Why did you tell Mowbray to arrest him?’

  ‘Because the only way we shall find out how Veryan came by his death is by getting a confession from the person most concerned in it.’

  ‘And why did you tell Mowbray not to go up to the manor house and tackle that man whom Goole seems so scared of?’

  ‘Because he would get nothing from the man and his master except stout denial. It would only be necessary for the master to back up the man, and Mowbray’s visit to them would be profitless. What he must do is to keep a nightly watch on the castle ruins, as I have suggested to him.’

  ‘Why? Do you expect the murderer to return to the scene of the crime? I thought you said that was an old-wives’ tale.’

  ‘Not in this case, I think. There is no doubt that Goole has guilty knowledge of some sort. Now that he is in custody and will be under pressure to tell what he knows, the onus is on the murderer to remove Stour’s body from the ditch where, so far as he knows, it still lies buried. With any good fortune, Mowbray should be able to catch the man when he comes along to dig it up with the expectation of transferring it to a safer place, a place unknown to Goole.’

  ‘It’s a long shot, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘If it falls short, Mowbray can then go up to the manor house and confront master and man. Meanwhile, do you remember getting out of the car on our first visit to the castle and finding me a spray of hazel nuts and leaves? Hie you thither again and bring back, if you can find one, a forked hazel twig for a divining rod. There was a time when I had some gift for rhabdomancy, as I claimed.’

  Laura was about to depart on this errand when Mowbray called. He looked worried and dissatisfied.

  ‘Whether Tynant walked the roads or whether he took the short-cut across country hardly seems to matter, because we shall never prove which way he chose to come. My guess still is that he pushed Veryan off the tower and that his pretended anxiety about him, when the professor didn’t come down to breakfast and had not slept in his bed, was nothing more than an excuse to get along to the castle and wipe his own fingerprints off the telescope. What do you say to that, Dame Beatrice? Can you fault it?’

  ‘I think Mr Tynant was genuinely anxious about Professor Veryan’s safety. Everybody knew how dangerous the top of that tower was. I think the first thing Tynant found was the telescope. I think he picked it up from where it lay on the ground and then I think he saw Veryan’s body lying on that heap of stones. He went over to it, ascertained that Veryan was dead and then panicked. He had every reason to know how much the death of his senior colleague would benefit him, and he knew also that the professor had been casting a more than fatherly eye on Dr Lochlure. Then, because of his unnecessarily quixotic action in leaving Dr Lochlure to come back alone to the caravan, he was left without an alibi from midnight onwards and to remove his fingerprints from the telescope seemed to him the logical thing to do.’

  ‘But the fact that he and Dr Lochlure were both in his car when it broke down, ma’am, proves that, in the first place, he had had no intention of letting her come back alone.’

  ‘Ah, but he expected to return her to the caravan when, if you remember, he fully believed it to be empty because of the weekend leave which the caravan party and the others had taken. To return her there under cover of the night could be done secretly. To bring her back on the Monday morning when, for all he knew, the two girls would have returned, was a different matter entirely. He seems to hold old-fashioned views about the necessity to protect a lady’s good name.’

  ‘But Miss Fiona knew they were together, ma’am. She knew that Dr Lochlure had telephoned Tynant to come and take her away from Fiona’s home.’

  ‘Yes, and there was strong presumptive evidence that Dr Lochlure and Tynant spent the weekend together. I allow that. However, there would be no proof so long as Fiona was able to find Dr Lochlure in the caravan and alone on the Monday morning. It would not be difficult for Dr Lochlure to cook up a story about how she had spent the weekend, had she felt any inclination to offer explanations. I do not think she would have bothered, or that either Fiona or Priscilla would have been ill-natured enough to gossip.’

  ‘Tynant and Dr Lochlure would have been in for a bit of a shock if they had returned to the caravan overnight. They would have found those two girls Mr Hassocks and Mr Monkswood picked up,’ said Mowbray with a chuckle. ‘So you think Tynant panicked when he found Veryan’s body.’

  ‘And realised that he had imposed his own fingerp
rints on the telescope. There was no secret about his chance to step into Veryan’s shoes at the university, nor about the amount of Veryan’s money which would be freed for archaeological research if the professor died without changing his will.’

  ‘Then, if he didn’t push Veryan off the tower, who, in your opinion, did, ma’am?’

  ‘Well, there is somebody who ought to be allowed to clear herself, since she almost, but not quite, confessed earlier on that she—’

  ‘Not Mrs Saltergate, that nice motherly lady?’

  ‘She had her husband’s interests very much at heart, and there is no doubt that Veryan was spitefully determined to undermine Saltergate’s walls.’

  ‘Spitefully, ma’am?’

  ‘Oh, yes. From the beginning, there was no reason whatever to suppose that there would still be traces of a Bronze Age burial under one of those flanking-towers. A grave in such a place would have been utterly destroyed centuries ago. Veryan was incensed because Saltergate had been given equal permission with himself to work at the castle, that is all.’

  ‘These scholars, ma’am!’

  ‘Some are giants, others are the pettiest of men, but that is a summary of character, not of attainment.’

  ‘But the two young fellows also seem to have been given permission to root about in the castle grounds, yet neither of the other parties seems to have had any hard feelings towards them.’

  ‘Ah, but they had been sensible enough to disarm both the major parties by helping with the reconstruction and also with the digging.’

  ‘But Mrs Saltergate? I can’t believe it, Dame Beatrice!’

  ‘She will come forward, I am sure, now that you have arrested Tynant. I will also tell you the story she will tell you and I will prophesy further that you will never prove her to be a murderess. Accidental death will be her plea, and I do not see that you can do other than accept it, particularly as, from her point of view, it will be the truth. Do you remember her account of an expedition she and her husband made after nightfall to the castle?’

  ‘Yes, but she said they went back to the hotel at about eleven-thirty and I’ve checked that. According to the doctors, Veryan was still alive at that time.’

  ‘At that time, yes, but I have a theory that she paid a second visit to the castle that night. I suggest that you tell her she did, and ask her for an explanation.’

  Summoned to the police station, Lilian was unperturbed and, seating herself in the chair provided, she stated that she would have come forward if the magistrates committed Tynant for trial.

  ‘That would ruin his career,’ she said, ‘and would be the last thing I intended. Neither he nor I murdered Malpas, you know, Detective-Superintendent, although I suppose I was responsible, in a way, for the accident.’

  ‘Yes, madam?’

  ‘Edward and I did go to the castle that night, but we were there looking at the extent of the excavation before Malpas arrived. Edward tackled him when he turned up and got a very dusty answer which made us both very angry, but after some hot words had been exchanged we returned to the hotel.’

  ‘Yes, I checked that, madam, but you both went back to the castle later, did you?’

  ‘Not Edward. I was so angry and restless when we went up to our room that I knew it was useless to think about going to bed. Edward retired as usual, but I said I was going on to the flat part of the roof to get some air, and that was all I intended to do when I said the words. My husband and I occupy separate beds, so I knew I should not disturb him when I came back to the room, for he is a very sound sleeper and soon drops off.

  ‘When I stepped out on to the leads I saw Malpas silhouetted against the night sky and it occurred to me that perhaps pleading with him to leave Edward’s walls untouched might prove more effective than anger, especially as I am a woman.’

  ‘You left the hotel by way of the fire escape, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, I did. There are only two doors, both at the ends of corridors, on to the fire escape staircase, so I knew that nobody in the hotel would see me, and I was very quiet. Like many people of my build, I am very light on my feet.

  ‘It seemed a long way to the castle and my fear was that Malpas would have given up his star-gazing before I got to the keep, and to waylay him on his way to his hotel did not seem a very good idea, as his only thought would be to get to bed, not to stay on the road and listen to me.’

  ‘But you found that he was still on the tower.’

  ‘I had a torch, the one Edward had used when we were inspecting the trench, so I lighted my way into the keep. I knew, of course, that Bonamy and Tom would not be there, so the coast would be clear. I made my way up that newel stair with great caution and—’

  ‘I wonder Professor Veryan did not hear you. Even with the aid of an electric torch and however light on your feet you are, you must have made some sounds as you climbed up.’

  ‘As to that, I cannot say. All I know is that when I reached the top of the tower Malpas had his telescope to his eye and his back towards me.’

  ‘Could you see as much as that in the dark, madam?’

  ‘Well, I had switched off my torch, but these summer nights are not really dark and on that particular night the sky was clear and luminous. I spoke his name, but he was absorbed in his star-gazing and answered vaguely, “Oh, it’s you again, Lilian.” So I spoke sharply. “Malpas,” I said, “you must do as we wish and leave our work alone. It is intolerable of you to make plans to destroy it.” He retorted that his work was of greater importance than ours. This made me very angry indeed and I used a weapon of which I am now ashamed, and which I am certain caused his death.’

  ‘Dear me, madam,’ said Mowbray, ‘I hope you realise what you are telling us!’

  ‘Of course I do. Dame Beatrice, I spoke to him of Susannah. She used to take walks at night, you know. Most of them were to meet Nicholas. Everybody, I suppose, soon knew about those, but the others were visits to Malpas on his tower. I do not claim that intimacy took place, although Lady Chatterley’s Lover appears to indicate that it can take place anywhere and under the most uncomfortable circumstances, but meet they did. I had seen them from the hotel roof, as I had seen Malpas himself that evening. I threatened him, Superintendent. I pointed out that exposure would ruin Susannah’s career and could also threaten his own. I gave him until the end of the following morning to make up his mind to give me a written pledge that he would give up any interference with our work. I added that I was still in two minds whether I would not, in any case, inform against the two of them. It is my contention that, when I left him, the unfortunate man threw himself off the tower.’

  ‘That is a very interesting theory, madam,’ said Mowbray.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to write it down and ask me to sign it? I suppose it is a confession of blackmail, isn’t it? I threatened him, you know.’

  ‘Thank you for your co-operation, but I hardly imagine we shall be troubling you further, Mrs Saltergate.’

  ‘You mean I can go?’

  ‘Certainly, madam. There is nothing, so far, on which I can charge you.’

  ‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, when, looking both relieved and deflated, Lilian had gone, ‘they say that confession is good for the soul, but the mind is my province and I think she will be relieved to have got that particular confession off hers.’

  ‘You don’t see Professor Veryan as a suicide, ma’am?’

  ‘It has been said in John Peer’s Laws that suicide is the sincerest form of self-criticism and, from all I have heard of Professor Veryan, I doubt very much whether it would ever have occurred to him to criticise himself so adversely. I think Superintendent, that the truth, by this time, is plain to see, for it seems obvious to me that Sandgate and Wicklow, with or without assistance from Goole, murdered Stickle and Stour. I imagine that, if you question the wretched Goole, you will find that, although Sandgate had met none of the castle parties at that time, he knew all about the site and was already in association with Stickle and
Stour and knew, as they did, all the stories about buried treasure.

  ‘To begin with, he relied upon the two men only for information about the progress of the work and the movements of the various parties. From them he learned that the whole site, so far as they knew, would be deserted on the night of Veryan’s death. At that stage I think all he had decided to do was to take a look around the excavations and no more than that.

  ‘What Stickle and Stour had not disclosed, because at so early a date they did not know of it, was that the castle, after all, was not entirely deserted. There, with his telescope, on top of the tower was Veryan. They could excavate for the treasure only at night, and he could study the heavens only at night. He had to be eliminated before they could search for the treasure themselves. The vandalism had to be done so thoroughly that, with any luck, the various parties would give up in despair and go home, leaving everything clear for the treasure-hunters.’

  ‘So Sandgate or Wicklow, or both, murdered Veryan, you think, ma’am, but why Stickle and Stour?’

  ‘Sandgate and Wicklow must have had some sort of row with Stickle and Stour. The two workmen then decided to give up their daytime work and concentrate on finding the treasure for themselves. On the evening Stickle and Stour were murdered, the other three had found the two navvies doing a little night-work on their own, once the castle and its environs were deserted when the young people moved into the cottage and Dr Lochlure to a hotel. There seemed every chance that the workmen might light upon the treasure first, and that could not be risked. Sandgate and Wicklow also felt they had been double-crossed.’

  ‘Wouldn’t Sandgate have noticed that a lot of extra digging had been done? On the other nights, I mean, when, presumably, he and Wicklow turned up at the usual time to do their own treasure-hunting?’

  ‘No, because he did not know how much digging had been done legitimately under Tynant’s supervision during the day. He did not care to appear on the site too often during the morning working hours, I fancy. He probably left his car in the village and sent Goole ahead to reconnoitre. What caused the row with the navvies in the first place I do not know, but nothing makes a man so doubtful of his associates as a lust for wealth.’