‘Because, as Dame Beatrice says, we have no proof,’ said Ribble.
‘Oh, Lord! If only I hadn’t opened that damned back door!’
‘No need to blame yourself,’ said Dame Beatrice briskly. ‘You could not possibly have known that anybody would attack you or Miss Raincliffe.’
‘Granted that your theories about the murderer are right, ma’am,’ said Ribble, when they had left the hospital, ‘why was the murderer lurking? If he had it in mind to kill Miss Pippa, whom her brother so closely resembles, he must have known or found out that the back door was kept bolted. Why was he round there at all?’
‘Oh, Inspector, what a question! He was not there with intent to commit murder, but to carry out a natural function which the screening bushes made possible. It was when he had fulfilled his perfectly innocent purpose that he heard sounds from inside, leapt up to glance in at the window and saw (as he thought) Miss Pippa. The opportunity thus fortuitously offered him was too good to let slip. He had intended to follow her up and kill her at some time, in any case. Mr Marton’s very thick wig and Miss Raincliffe’s sudden appearance saved one life but destroyed the other.’
‘The other dancers would have known of Mr Marton’s claustrophobia, you know, ma’am.’
‘I see what you mean, Inspector.’
‘One, in particular, being closest to him, would have counted on him opening that back door when he found himself shut up alone in that changing-room with no window it was possible for him to open. What was to stop this man from slipping out of the main door while the rest of them were chatting with the photographer? It wouldn’t take him a minute to nip round the building, and Mr Marton would probably have recognised his knock on the door, but isn’t going to incriminate him.’
Dame Beatrice shook her head.
‘You are forgetting the tandem,’ she pointed out. ‘It had disappeared. That means that it was probably cycled on to the moor and hidden there. No member of the dance company could have been absent long enough to have carried out such an operation. Oh, no, Inspector, your theory will not hold water. Mr Nicolson is not our murderer.’
‘There’s the psychological angle, as you yourself agree, ma’am. In other words, I reckon Mr Nicolson had a stronger motive for murdering those two girls than anybody else we’ve considered. They were a menace, as I see it, to what might be called by some “a beautiful friendship”.’
‘But we’ve discussed that aspect. It does not account for the vicious attack on Mr Marton himself.’
‘Punishment for stepping out of line? Jealousy is a strange force, ma’am. That also we’ve discussed.’
‘Why do you suppose Mrs Beck’s records were stolen? That also we have talked about. You think they were taken as a blind, don’t you? I say that the murderer needed them because he did not know the home address of Miss Marton, and that he took the records from the forest warden’s filing cabinet because he did not know the home address of Tamsin Lindsay, or where the other girls live.’
Ribble spread out his hands.
‘I grant everything you say, ma’am,’ he admitted, ‘but my theory seems so much more likely than yours, if you’ll allow me to say so. Look, you say your man is still in the neighbourhood and you met him in the forest. Suppose I pull him in and question him? I can’t hold him, but his answers might give me a line. Why, in any case, should he have stolen the tandem? One of the bicycles would have been far easier for him to manage and much less noticeable on the road. And who’s to say whether the tandem was ever put into that shed at the church hall at all? I don’t suppose all the dancers turned their bikes in at exactly the same time.’
‘Mr Marton would have known if the tandem had been left in some other place.’
‘It wouldn’t have been any use him knowing if Mr Nicolson murdered him. I’ve convinced myself that the attack on Mr Marton was with murderous intent, ma’am, and that Nicolson’s plan was to hide the tandem so as to make it look as though Mr Marton and Miss Raincliffe had gone away on it at the end of the show. According to what the caretaker told me, that’s what the others did think until the truth came out. We were told by his sister that Marton is weak and impressionable. It would have been easy enough, it seems to me, for Nicolson to have given Marton some reason or other as to why they shouldn’t leave the tandem with the other bikes in that shed.’
‘Your reasoning is valid up to a point, and I think you might be justified in arresting Mr Nicolson on the strength of it, but only if Mr Marton were dead, Mr Marton is very much alive and could refute your theory about the tandem as soon as the defending lawyer had put him in the witness box.’
‘The prosecution would claim that he was still under Nicolson’s influence, ma’am, and was unwilling to denounce his friend. Anyway, I shall have another go at Marton as soon as he can be discharged from hospital.I am impressed by your ideas, ma’am. It’s only that I prefer my own.’
‘As who would not?’ said Dame Beatrice cordially. ‘Nevertheless, Inspector, I’ll take the high road and you’ll take the low road (or vice versa, of course — the choice is yours) and I have a feeling that I’ll be in Scotland before you.’
‘There’s always the story of the hare and the tortoise, ma’am.’
‘I know; but which of us is which?’
‘Do you really believe Ribble will arrest Nicolson?’ asked Laura. Dame Beatrice cackled.
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Inspector Ribble knows perfectly well that he has no case against Mr Nicolson. He was enjoying himself by arguing with me, that is all. On the other hand, neither have I a case which, at present, would survive examination. Our next excursion, yours and mine, is to Long Cove Bay.’
‘That hostel again?’
‘No. We are going to visit a public house.’
‘Good-o, but why?’
‘You may know when we get there, but I can promise nothing. This really will be a shot in the dark. If it finds its mark it will be because of the notes of his own painstaking work with which the inspector provided me, and I shall take pleasure in saying as much, both to him and to his Chief Constable.’
‘So he doesn’t mean to arrest our nominee either?’
‘Good gracious, no. That was a probe to find out whether I know something I have not told him. It failed because I have disclosed to him all that is in my heart concerning this affair.’
‘But he thinks it’s weak on motive. Is the motive he assigns to Nicolson any stronger?’
‘A policeman would think so, I daresay. There is considerable bias about some relationships.’
Chapter 17: DESTROYING ANGEL
« ^
Hermione, sure of her road, brought Isobel by way of High Wycombe, skirted Wheatley and then took the minor road northwestward through Forest Hill and so to her home. Erica and Tamsin, in Erica’s car, arrived an hour later, and all were soon at table.
‘So you’ve been having adventures,’ said Jenny, their hostess.
‘What has Aunt Adela been up to?’ asked Carey. ‘You say she sent you away from the forest area.’
‘She thought we might be murdered if we stayed, so Isobel took me to her London flat and Erica took Tamsin home with her, and then I got this idea of all of us coming down here. The two working women have to go back on Saturday afternoon, but Tamsin can stay on for a bit. She wants to draw pigs. You might like to have a portrait of Lucifer,’ said Hermione to her father.
‘Is Lucifer a pig?’ asked Tamsin.
‘He’s my prize boar,’ Carey replied. ‘You shall see him tomorrow. We call him Lucifer, but his name, when I show him, is Harold Longtooth of Roman Ending. There’s a Roman villa not too far away and I bought the farm which is next door to it and added it to my own. I’ve built my pigman a cottage out there and pulled the old farmhouse down. It was a bit of an eyesore, anyway.’