“You didn’t say anything,” Basil remonstrated.
“It seemed too absurd. But sure enough, next morning Pamela and aunt were up and away for an all-day picnic before we were down to breakfast.”
“Do you think,” said Gwyneth, “that Pamela is really Burse’s illegitimate daughter?”
“Rats!” said Sally.
“And I gather,” said Daphne, “that people here know about the existence of Pamela, so that wouldn’t be a reason for keeping her away from Oxford.”
“Pamela was rather like Miss Denning,” said Basil; “but that would be natural in a niece. Your bursar was a handsome woman and Pamela was a softened version, and slighter, a regular sylph.”
“Softened?” queried Nina. “Do you mean the girl’s soft? Of course, that would be a reason for sending her to Cambridge.”
“You mistake my meaning,” Basil told her solemnly. “The grey matter’s all right, but she seemed a kind-hearted wench, whereas Miss Denning struck me as a trifle flinty.”
A party at a neighbouring table was evidently discussing the news in the Oxford Mail, and in a lull which fell over the League’s table, a shrill affected voice rang out:
“Quite dretful! So glad Linda went to Somerville and not to that Persephone place. I suppose it will be quite full of those dretful reporter people taking photographs for the worst papers!”
“There you are!” murmured Sally gloomily, with a movement of her sleek head towards the offending voice. “We’ve become a byword! Burse’s final achievement.”
Betty looked a little shocked. “Sally,” she said, to divert her young sister’s attention, “I feel awfully sorry for Pamela. Do you think she will have to come here? I believe she said she had no other relatives, and if she never came here she probably doesn’t know anyone at Oxford. Do you think we might drive over to Cambridge and fetch her and have her here with us? That’s to say, if she really has to come. We both liked her, and we might be better than nothing if she’s alone and wretched.”
“Good idea,” Sally agreed. “You’d better go and see the Cordial about it, I should think. Now—” hastily swallowing a last mouthful of biscuit—“if those others have finished gorging, what about moving on?”
When they were all settled in the well-padded arm-chairs of the private sitting-room, Sally opened the proceedings.
“We decided last night that each of us should explore an avenue, as Prime Ministers say, and now we will all report. Gwyneth first, on Burse’s movements yesterday afternoon.”
“There hasn’t been much time yet,” Gwyneth pointed out; “and apparently very few people, apart from Draga, noticed Burse. Theo was in the library with Draga and saw her, Burse, I mean, and says it was before two, she’s sure, because she rushed through lunch and dashed down to the library to look up some date or something. And Bronwen Evans saw Burse going through the hall with paddles just as she came out from lunch—about a quarter to two, she thinks.”
“We’ll put it as between one-thirty and two.” Sally made an entry in a businesslike note-book. “Anyone see her on the river?”
“Was it likely anyone would be on the river yesterday afternoon, except Burse? I didn’t find anyone. But I heard quite a lot more about Burse from Hermione Blair.”
“How did you gate-crash into third-year society?”
“As it happened, Hermione ran into me as I was coming out of the Schools—I had to go to a lekker because no one else who goes to that one takes decent notes—and she asked me about how we found Burse. You know, she was rather a friend of hers, and she’s terribly upset, and I think the Cordial told her that we found her. She had heard all about Pamela from Burse, who was frightfully fond of the girl, Hermione says, but even Hermione has only seen Pamela once. It’s quite true that Burse didn’t want her to have anything to do with Oxford, but Heaven knows why. Burse didn’t seem to want to conceal the fact of the girl’s existence, but only to keep her away from here. Hermione isn’t really so bad, but she’s utterly shattered by Burse being drowned, and walked beside me, all weepy, right along the High, with everyone looking.”
“I s’pose Hermione didn’t know any more about when Burse went on the river or anything?”
“No—but she knew she was going, because Burse was going to tea with Hermione and said she’d be back in the canoe about four.”
“And so she was—how awful!” said Daphne.
“But that’s a bit queer, isn’t it?” inquired Basil. “I mean mentioning that she meant to go on the river in a canoe by herself at this time of year? What I mean is, you might go off on a sudden impulse, if you had nothing better to do and wanted to eat worms, but it’s a queer thing to plan it definitely and say beforehand you were going.”
“Burse was definitely queer,” said Nina.
“There’s something in what Basil says,” Sally pointed out, as if this were an unusual phenomenon. “We know she did go off in the canoe by herself quite often, but it does look rather as if she had some special reason for going that afternoon.”
“The only thing I can think of is to meet someone,” Betty suggested.
“I wonder. I suppose the police might find out who else had a canoe or anything out on the upper Char that afternoon, but I don’t see how we can.”
“Could she meet someone who was not on the river?” asked Betty. “I mean, is there a path or road, or anything?”
“Marvellous place for a secret meeting,” Basil pointed out. “One goes by water and one goes by land. Only one set of footprints, y’see, for the police to follow; trail consequently confused.”
“There’s the Parks, and then higher up there’s Lady Margaret Hall and St. Simeon’s College; and on the opposite side there are fields, with a footpath,” Sally explained.
“Probably pretty well deserted at this time of year?” Betty suggested.
“Mm, yes. And how could we find out who might have been there?” Sally pondered for a moment. “Well, Nina, what about Draga?”
“She went out yesterday afternoon,” declared Nina dramatically, “and she won’t say where.”
There was a long-drawn gasp.
“Of course, I was very tactful,” Nina explained. “She told me how she was sitting in the library, reading The Golden Bough——”
“Witchcraft!” commented Basil. “Who’s Draga, by the way?”
“She’s a Yugo-Slav and she’s rather odd,” Gwyneth explained. “But she may be quite normal for a Yugo-Slav. Burse insulted her yesterday and she says it was enough to start a blood feud.”
Basil whistled. “Nice lot of ruffians you seem to have at Persephone College! Is it your idea that she’s carried the blood feud to its logical conclusion?”
“Not really,” said Sally; “but Draga will go about saying that Burse deserved to die, so we thought it best to make some inquiries.”
“Draga seems to think that she was almost insulted again by the bare fact that Burse passed within her range of vision on the way down to the river,” Nina continued. “She will hardly mention it, but she did tell me that she only read for half an hour or so and then went out. ‘I had affairs,’ she said. There may be nothing in it, but I don’t see why she should be so secret.”
“Lady goes up the river in canoe, apparently with an appointment; another lady, who has a blood feud against the first, goes out shortly afterwards on ‘affairs.’ Seems to fit,” said Basil.
“Oh, but it doesn’t fit,” cried Sally. “No one could possibly imagine that Burse would have an appointment with Draga on or by the river.”
“I don’t want to suggest that one of your students has murdered your bursar, but I want to eliminate possibilities,” Basil explained. “Suppose Miss Denning had some other reason for going up the river, and this Draga girl, seeing her go, gets another canoe and goes haring after her——”
“Hopeless!” Sally declared. “Draga’s as likely to swarm up the Martyrs’ Memorial as to take out a canoe. Let’s go on to the next point—Daphne, what a
bout the river?”
“I had a pretty thin job,” Daphne told them. “I suppose you didn’t expect me to swim up and down? I mooned around the garden and talked to William and I did find out from him that the police have found the two paddles—Burse’s paddles—in the New Lode, I gather, nearly at the top of our island, one floating and one in the bushes. Also William saw her start and says it was just beginning to rain. He remembers that, because he had decided that it was too detrimental to his rheumatics and although as he said, ‘Miss Denning was a rare one for the river, wet or fine,’ all the same it struck him as a bit queer the way she got into her canoe as calmly as if the sun were shining.”
“That looks like an appointment again,” said Sally. “But did you look along the Parks bank, and the fields?”
“I did not,” said Daphne firmly. “If there’s anything to find there, the police will have found it, and I wasn’t going to be seen mooning along there, like Ophelia looking for a willow tree.”
“I dare say there wouldn’t be much,” said Sally, rather displeased. “And have you got a line on what I told you this morning?”
“Not a chance yet, but I may see Owen this afternoon.”
“Between eleven p.m. and midnight yesterday,” Sally announced impressively, “Nina and I did our first piece of investigation.” She related to a startled audience their adventure with the unknown trespasser. “We can’t explain it,” she confessed at the conclusion, “and they’ve taken the canoe away this morning. To-day I made some investigations at Ferry House. First of all I took the footpath through old Lond’s garden, making a bit of a detour to go to a lekker. I found that old beetle—Lond’s gardener—hoeing the right-of-way path, if you please! I shouldn’t think that path’s been hoed since Persephone was built; they’d hardly defile a Lond hoe on gravel where the accursed women students’ feet have trod. Anyway, there he was, scratching away first at the gravel and then at his head; just keeping a lookout to see who passed, I’m sure. He gave a sort of snort as I came along. I stopped and said ‘Good morning! Nice weather for hoeing!’ Snort again. ‘Making the path nice and tidy for Mr. Lond?’ I suggested. The Beetle jumped and snorted louder than ever. ‘Expecting Mr. Lond here soon?’ I asked. ‘That’s none o’ your business,’ he snorted. ‘I thought I saw him about here yesterday,’ said I. ‘Master don’t tell me when he comes or when he goes.’ I thought he sounded a bit threatening, so I went on.”
“You didn’t see old Lond?” inquired Gwyneth.
“Wait a bit——”
“I don’t quite see why you should walk through old Lond’s garden, whoever he may be,” said Basil.
“It’s all a bit difficult for you to understand,” said Sally kindly. “It’s supposed to be a right-of-way, and Burse fought for it like a tiger and old Lond disputes it. I’ll make you a map this evening, to help you. The right-of-way is a sort of tradition and the women’s colleges have so few traditions, we hang on to any we have got.”
“And old Lond is another suspect?” asked Betty.
“Possibly. Anyway, when I returned I came by the footpath again and passed the Beetle near the first stile. When I got to our lane I took a good look round; the Beetle was hidden by the orchard trees and no one else was in sight, so I crept along the fence towards the river, very cautiously—still inside Lond’s garden; round the back of that shed in the corner and then along the bottom of the garden, on the bank of the New Lode—only there was a shrubbery and a wall between me and the river. When I got to the boathouse I had a good look round but I couldn’t see any clues. It’s all very tumbledown and the bushes grow close round.”
“What did you expect to find? Footprints?” inquired Daphne.
“Well, there were a lot of those—police presumably. You see, it seems to me that just that point where Lond’s boathouse is, at the top of our island, is where you might expect whatever did happen, to happen. I don’t believe the canoe would drift very far, it would probably get caught in bushes and stick, especially at the top of our island where the stream divides. And now Daphne says the paddles were found just there.”
“And of course,” said Nina, “you’d think that even in the winter there’d be someone in the Parks to notice a canoe drifting down the Char with a corpse in it.”
“Exactly,” Sally agreed. “I thought the boathouse and garden of Ferry House might hold some clues, so I sleuthed around, beyond the boathouse, among a lot of bushes on the bank, and there I found a long slidy mark right down the muddy bank into the water!”
“One of the police got his feet wet!” was Basil’s suggestion.
“I’m sure it wasn’t!”
“Any sign of a cloven hoof on the slide-mark?”
“Basil, I wish you’d be serious about this. And that’s only the beginning of my discovery.”
“Well, hurry up with it—but of course don’t leave out any important details. If you found any shreds of clothing on the bushes they ought to be analysed.”
“Well; I couldn’t see any other clues, so began to make my way back to our lane, when I caught sight of someone up by the house dodging about behind bushes; I thought it might be old Lond, so I crept in behind the shrubbery, close to the wall on the bank.”
“Hold hard!” interrupted Basil. “You say there’s a wall along the bank, but farther on you found a slidy mark down the bank. Does the wall stop?”
Sally meditated. “It’s all very overgrown, but I think the wall stops at the boathouse and beyond there’s only a broken fence and willows leaning over the water. Anyway, I crept along between the bushes and the wall and suddenly I butted into something stretched across in front of me—I was going along with my head down. I almost let out a shriek, it gave me such a shock. It was a rug!”
“What sort of rug?”
“How did it get there?”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t move it, but it seemed to be a small rug with a brownish sort of plaid pattern; the kind anyone might have for a car or the river. It was caught up on the bushes; I should think it had been thrown in there by someone who wanted to get rid of it.”
“Don’t you think,” said Daphne slowly, “that it may have been there for ages; thrown up over the wall from the river, by someone larking?”
“No, I don’t.” Sally disagreed indignantly. “It would need a pretty hefty throw to hurl it over that high wall from the level of the river, and it didn’t look as if it had been there for ages. It was dampish; but if it had been there long it would be soaked, and full of dead leaves and things.”
“Did your bursar take a rug with her on the river?” asked Betty.
The girls looked uncertain. “I don’t think so,” said Nina at last. “She was rather Spartan, and then she always went in that long Burberry; she wouldn’t need a rug.”
“It seems to me, my girl,” declared Basil paternally, “that at this point you hand over your two clues—the penknife and the rug—to the police, apologize for messing about and perhaps spoiling the footprints and fingerprints for them, and then go quietly about your work and your play and leave them to carry on.”
“I’m not ‘your girl,’” Sally told him indignantly. “As for the police, they can find the rug if they’re doing their job properly. I’m not sure that it’s safe to give them the knife—I mean, it may implicate people we don’t want implicated.”
“I quite see,” said Betty soothingly, “that you don’t want to find your fellow students mixed up with this affair, but if they are, you can hardly hope to put the police off the scent, and you had much better not be mixed up in what may be a nasty business.”
“But look here, Betty,” Sally urged. “Draga’s a perfect ass; we understand her, but the police won’t. We must try to protect her from her own idiocy.”
“There’s no harm in your keeping an eye on her and trying to persuade her not to make incriminating remarks. Also it’s true that you may in the course of conversation gather information that the police wouldn’t g
et by questioning. But I’m quite sure that you ought to hand over to them any clues whatever—material things or information. For heaven’s sake don’t hold back what may be important information—it might get you into quite serious trouble.”
“Well, I’ll think about it,” Sally agreed, rather downcast.
“And I don’t see what this rug can possibly have to do with the crime,” said Daphne. “Lond can hardly have strangled Burse with a rug.”
“And then poured water over her to look as if she’d been drowned,” added Gwyneth.
“And of course there’s the time difficulty,” Sally pointed out. “If Burse set out at about 1.45 and her body came drifting down in the canoe after four, she would have had time to go quite a long way up the river, unless she talked to someone for ages.”
“No one could talk to old Lond for ages. His usual conversation is a stream of abuse and then he bolts away,” Nina pointed out.
“Could old Lond have decoyed Burse into the house and murdered her there, with the help of the Beetle, and then put her back into the canoe, to get her off the premises?” hazarded Gwyneth.
“Apart from the fact that Lond is ancient and tottering and the Beetle incredibly old and bent, I don’t believe he would ever have let her into the house, much less enticed her there,” said Nina authoritatively. “Mary Wentworth once told me a lot about him—you know she has a North Oxford aunt and so knows all the local gossip. The reason why Lond’s so furious about the footpath is simply because we’re women; he’s a misogynist and won’t ever let a woman set foot in the house. It’s Elizabethan you know, supposed to be rather special, and once some old archæological johnny got permission from Lond to go and see over it, but he turned up with his wife and Lond met them at the door, and went off the deep end when he set eyes on the lady, and almost pushed them out of the place, yelling curses after them. Since then it’s said that he’s never allowed anyone inside. He’d never let Burse in—not even to murder her.”
Death on the Cherwell (British Library Crime Classics) Page 7