‘You fill my mind with pity and terror.’
‘No, seriously, though. What is the classic reason for bashing in a face? I mean the face of a person who is already dead? I’ve got an idea that my first thought was wrong.’
‘There is more than one reason. I can name four. There is the attempt to make the features unrecognisable; there is blind hatred; there is the pathological feeling that it is unbearable to look upon beauty which was once the object of the divine passion – and, of course, there is the need to cover up injuries inflicted before death, as you said.’
‘I was thinking of the first one you mentioned. Suppose Miss Minnie was not Miss Minnie at all?’
‘It is not our province to suppose anything of the kind. In any case, the police will have given careful consideration to that question.’
‘And bully-ragged this pastor person who was called upon to identify the body?’
‘I hardly think dear Robert would approve of your description of police methods.’
‘Of course he wouldn’t. He’s always worn kid gloves, but I wouldn’t go bail for all his rank and file.’
‘Well, if you feel strongly on the subject, there seems no reason why we should not seek out this pastoral leader and put him to the question. He may not consent to talk to us, but it is worth remembering that, even if Miss Minnie was not entitled to that name, she has been identified unconditionally as the woman who took up residence in the bungalow. The three men who broke in and found the body were in no doubt that it was that of the woman they knew as Miss Minnie.’
‘But they seem to have seen very little of her while she was alive, and to some people who are not particularly interested or not very observant, I dare say one old lady they haven’t seen much of looks very like other old ladies of about the same age and size.’
‘There is, as always, much in what you say. I can readily obtain the pastor’s address from the police, so let us pay him a visit.’
The pastor proved to be a plump, smooth-faced, smiling individual whom Laura immediately wrote off as a scoundrel. Dame Beatrice, more perceptively, recognised that he was an Eurasian, probably half-Sinhalese, half-English. The address she had been given was that of a murky little junk shop in a side street of the seaside town nearest to Weston Pipers. The side street, which was partly cobbled roadway, partly widely-spaced steps, went steeply uphill from the seaside promenade which was the high street of the pleasant, unpretentious little town, and the shop was on a corner where the cobbled road ended and the flight of steps began.
It had two windows, one on to the cobbled street, the other on to a narrow concreted way which ran parallel with the high street. Dame Beatrice studied both windows of the shop before she entered. One was cluttered with items which included such miscellaneous objects as a bicycle pump, two dejected-looking, grimy, pink parasols, a torn lace fan, a rolled-up pair of unsavoury-looking corsets, a set of heavy steel fire-irons, a pair of oleographs depicting rural scenes, and there were also half a dozen vases of various sizes, shapes and colours arranged around a couple of pitchers of the kind used as part of the furniture of an old-fashioned wash-hand stand.
The other window displayed, among less identifiable objects, several wine glasses, a decanter which had lost its glass stopper, some china trinket-boxes, a Malay kris and a Balkan yataghan.
‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘we had better steel ourselves to make a purchase. Has your fancy strayed in favour of any of these, to my mind, undesirable objects?’
‘Wonder how much they want for that thing in the leather-covered scabbard? Hamish collects swords and I don’t think he’s got one of that type.’
‘The yataghan? It will make an excellent bargaining-point. If it is as good a specimen as it looks, the blade will be damascened.’
The proprietor, whom they had noticed taking stock of them from behind a lace curtain, came forward as soon as they entered and made them an ingratiating bow.
‘You have seen something you like, ladies?’
‘Perhaps we may look around,’ said Dame Beatrice, noting that objects d’art littered three small tables in the middle of the shop.
‘But of course! Take your time. A pleasant day, is it not? You are visitors to the town, perhaps?’
Without answering, except with a reptilian smile which made the fat proprietor banish his own in favour of a grave inclination of the head and a hastily-sketched gesture designed to counteract the Evil Eye, Dame Beatrice picked up and studied one or two repellent pieces of china and glass and a paper-knife in the form of a fish, asked the price of each, shook her head as though in regret that the amount was beyond her means and then added:
‘Does your stock contain anything from the house which is now called Weston Pipers? I believe most of the furniture and effects were sold when the previous owner died.’
‘You have a connection with the house, madam?’
‘As a temporary tenant, yes. A very dreadful affair, the murder which, I am told, took place there recently, but I believe the police have made an arrest.’ She walked over to the torn lace curtain which only partly screened the collection of which the yataghan formed an item, as though to indicate that she had no further interest in the murder. She peered at the sorry display in the window. The proprietor came and stood at her shoulder.
‘The only things I have from the house,’ he said, in a purring tone which brought the suspicious Laura level with him, a heavy glass paperweight in her hand, ‘are a fine set of fire-irons. With all this central heating and electric fires of the present day, there is little call for such things. If madam would care to have a memento of Weston Pipers I would accept a cheap price.’
‘I have seen something in your shop I like better. I wonder whether that came from Weston Pipers as well?’
‘I think not, madam, but please to point it out.’
Dame Beatrice turned and faced that side of the room where the wall was partly barred off by a small wooden counter which held a till. On the wall, its only ornament, was a strange little picture hardly visible in the dim light of the interior of the shop.
It depicted a head with three aspects. One was full-face, the other two were in profile. On the top of the head was an erection which looked like a broad-based, rather squat vase and surrounding this were the two horns of the crescent moon. The head was one of dignified, disdainful malignity. It had broad, negroid features and a thick, curved, sensual, cruel mouth. The eyes were set unnaturally high on the forehead, the creature had no ears. Dame Beatrice pointed to it.
‘At my own home I have a little niche where that would go,’ she said. ‘How much are you asking for it?’
‘Oh, that is not for sale, I’m afraid, madam.’
‘A pity. I have a taste for the grotesque. Is it a talisman of some kind? Your good luck sign, perhaps?’
‘Nothing of the sort. Is there anything else you have seen?’
Laura, who had begun to think that she was not to be allowed to make an offer for the yataghan, cut in on him to ask:
‘What do you want for that sword-thing in the window?’
Obviously relieved to have someone other than Dame Beatrice to deal with, the bland proprietor drew aside the curtain, took up the yataghan and handed it over.
‘A very nice piece,’ he said. ‘A duelling sword of best French workmanship of the eighteenth century. Beautiful all-leather sheath.’
Laura drew the weapon out of its scabbard. The blade, although tarnished, was not rusty, and it was damascened in silver whorls and twirls.
Dame Beatrice took the sword and scabbard from Laura and looked them over.
‘A battle sword of Balkan manufacture,’ she said. ‘Nineteenth, not eighteenth, century. The scabbard is of wood covered thinly with leather. Name your price.’