‘I shall be interested in pursuing my own enquiries, subject to your permission, of course.’
‘Please go ahead, ma’am. I trust our former agreement stands and that you’ll keep in touch with us and give us the benefit of your findings?’
‘If any, yes, of course, but I have a feeling that our murderer may have slipped through our fingers.’
The Superintendent stared at her.
‘Is that another of your hints, ma’am?’
‘Perhaps. Need I say more?’
‘No, I daresay you need not. It would explain a good many things, but I’ll have to mull it over in my mind. Yes, it would explain quite a lot, that would, but we’ll have to add chapter and verse before it’ll be acceptable in a court of law.’
‘But it is feasible, you think?’
‘Oh, undoubtedly, especially taken in conjunction with the changed lock on the bungalow door. When could that have been done, though, without Miss Nutley knowing? We understand that she wouldn’t allow any tampering with any of the fastenings – no bolts, no safety gadgets, no anything – unless she authorised the job and supervised it herself.’
‘Have you forgotten, or did you not know, that Miss Nutley was accustomed to drive from Weston Pipers into the town quite frequently in order to swim from a beach which was more attractive than the one at the bottom of Weston Pipers’ lawn? At least, that was her excuse, but I think you will find that on these occasions she was absent for longer than was needed for a swim, and quite long enough for a lock to be changed in her absence.’
‘Yes, and, of course, we know from the Nosey Parker at Number Twelve in the next street that she used to visit that junk shop now and again, probably before Piper came back from Paris. May I ask how you plan to proceed, ma’am?’
‘Certainly. I shall go to Weston Pipers again and speak to the groundsman, Penworthy.’
‘We’ve tried him, but he seems a bit of a dim-wit.’
‘It was he who gave us the clue to the buckets of sea water. Once it was realised that Miss Minnie need not have been drowned in the cove and her body carried back to the bungalow, one part of the puzzle fell into place and the first doubts were cast upon the likelihood of Mr Piper’s guilt.’
‘It wasn’t the drowning itself so much as his motive, ma’am. There doesn’t seem any reason to disbelieve the story that, until Miss Nutley and Piper had the downstair windows made secure, Minnie used to break in and snoop around looking for a later will than the one which gave Piper his inheritance.’
‘But Miss Nutley, later on, after Miss Minnie’s death, did the same thing.’
‘Guilty conscience, I reckon, ma’am, or just ornery curiosity about some of the guests’ sleeping habits. There’s a crazy streak in that lady, ma’am.’
‘A tearful one, at any rate.’
‘I don’t think her conscience would let her rest. There’s no doubt in my mind that she did her best to frame Piper for the murder. I’m almost inclined to put her back on my list of suspects, you know. I reckon she’s capable of murder. She’s big-built and, for a woman, very muscular. It wouldn’t have taken her long to overpower Minnie, who was a little thing and old.’
‘I know. I also thought of her at first, but the problem there is that she did not have a key to the new lock on the bungalow until you gave her one.’
‘Well, I reckon that’s right enough. Mr Piper and Mr Evans let us in after they’d busted a window and climbed in and found the body, and we gave Minnie’s own key to Miss Nutley after we’d concluded our investigations at the bungalow.’
‘Yes. When I took over the bungalow for a few days, I remember that Miss Nutley’s own key would not operate the lock and she was obliged to return to the house for the key you had given her.’
‘Well, that only means one thing, ma’am. Except for Mr Piper breaking the window, which he admitted doing, and which we thought at first was a suspicious circumstance, as he claimed he had lost his key to the bungalow—’
‘Found later by you and Miss Nutley. At the time, she was ignorant of the fact that neither it nor the duplicate in her own possession, would open the bungalow door.’
‘So, ma’am, the suspects are narrowed down in number, it seems to me.’
‘Quite so. It appears that Miss Minnie herself opened the door to her murderer.’
‘That’s it. She must have done.’
‘On the evidence we have been given, she made it a point never to open the door to anyone.’
‘We only know that from Piper, though. She might have made exceptions he didn’t know about. From your own researches of which you have been good enough to keep me informed, it seems that several of the tenants of Weston Pipers had visited that hell’s kitchen on the top floor of that junk shop. Couldn’t Minnie have been persuaded to let one or two of them into the bungalow?’
‘It is possible, certainly, although, except for one person, it seems to me unlikely.’
‘And that one person could have been Miss Barnes, who used to give her those lifts into the town and was in the running to become a sacrificial virgin. That’s who you meant when you spoke of the murderer slipping through our fingers, wasn’t it? You mean she’ll have cooked up an alibi.’
‘I was not thinking of Miss Barnes, Superintendent. If you remember, you were convinced that this was not a woman’s crime and I agree with you. However, I shall know more perhaps, when I have paid my next visit to Weston Pipers.’
‘Right. You do that, ma’am. We’ve still got plenty on our plate trying to trace those missing schoolgirls. Either they or their bodies must be somewhere about. We’re still going through Bosey’s villainous records.’
(2)
‘I am afraid that any morbid discoveries the police may make regarding the fate of the missing schoolgirls will represent but a Pyrric victory,’ said Dame Beatrice to Laura, ‘since it will have cost the taxpayers a great deal of money and bring less than comfort to bereaved parents, for the prime movers in this truly infernal business are both dead. Do you care to accompany me to Weston Pipers? Do as you wish, for neither of us, I am afraid, is exactly persona grata where Miss Nutley is concerned.’
‘Nothing would keep me away.’
They went to Weston Pipers, Laura driving, on the following morning and pulled up in front of the house. Early daffodils and late crocuses were showing in the beds under the windows of Niobe’s office and Chelion Piper’s study, the tide at the foot of the lawn was at the full and the groundsman Penworthy was leaning against the handle of a garden roller watching other people at work.
The work in question was the demolition of the bungalow. Already the doors and window-frames were out and stacked on the grass, and workmen were beginning to load them on to a lorry. A pile of broken glass was lying nearby and other workmen were digging a deep hole in the soft earth at the foot of the high bank near the back of the bungalow as a repository for the glass and any other unsaleable rubbish. Standing by and occasionally dabbing at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief, was Niobe.
Dame Beatrice got out of the car, closely followed by Laura, and went up to her.
‘Good morning, Miss Nutley,’ said Dame Beatrice briskly. ‘Rather early, I’m afraid, for a social call, but this is nothing of that kind. I want a word with your man Penworthy.’
‘Oh?’ said Niobe. ‘Well, there he is—’ she raised her voice – ‘idling his time away as usual. Oh, good morning, Mrs Gavin. Do you know Mrs Farintosh, then?’
‘I work for her, only I know her as Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley,’ said Laura.
‘Well, yes, of course, I know that now, but I knew her first as Mrs Farintosh. There’s Penworthy. Help yourselves. Is it – may I know what it’s about?’