‘Why, Professor, did you lead us to think that you left from Wroxham station on the evening of Mrs Crieff-Tweedle’s death?’

  ‘But we did!’ cried Mavis Byland. ‘Of course we did!’

  ‘Then why were you recognised and identified at Norwich station three days later?’

  ‘But we couldn’t have been!’

  ‘I think, Mavis, my dear,’ said her husband, ‘that, unless the Chief Inspector puts a direct question to you, you had better leave this interview to me. Now, Chief Inspector, who was your informant?’

  ‘In the first place, you might say it was Dame Beatrice. She thought it strange, in her female (never mind the ditches, just jump to a conclusion) way, that neither at Wroxham station nor anywhere else, including your own home, was there anybody you could ask to come forward and speak for you that you were in such and such a place at such and such a time.’

  ‘We had bad colds and were well muffled up,’ said Mrs Byland. ‘Nobody would have recognised us.’

  ‘Oh, Mavis!’ moaned her husband.

  ‘You were in Norwich at the time of Mrs Crieff-Tweedle’s death, then?’

  ‘We must have been, but I assure you that we knew nothing about it until we read the newspaper reports.’

  ‘So now perhaps we can have the facts. Such nice little things, facts, wouldn’t you say, you being a man of learning and understanding?’

  ‘Oh, very well; but I don’t suppose you’ll believe me.’

  ‘There is nothing like giving it a trial, is there, then?’

  ‘Oh, well, here goes. We had had this very unpleasant exchange with Dee Crieff-Tweedle and felt that it would be impossible to accept her hospitality any longer. On the other hand, there were still a few days of the promised fortnight to run and we were anxious to complete our study of the birds and plants of Norfolk. After Dee had gone off in the car to dine with the others in Wroxham, therefore, we packed our things, telephoned for a taxi—’

  ‘From where, sir?’

  ‘Oh, there was a telephone in Father Melrose’s annexe.’

  ‘Was he there?’

  ‘No. No, he wasn’t actually there.’

  ‘But you could get in?’

  ‘Well, as to that, I’m afraid I picked the lock. It wasn’t a patent lock, you see; just an ordinary padlock. I really felt I had to get to the telephone, or, of course, I wouldn’t have done it.’

  ‘Of course not. And a taxi came for you?’

  ‘Yes, after some delay. It came from Norwich. There is a fleet of them there. I thought I would be sure to get one from a big concern like that, even on a wet and nasty evening.’

  ‘Where was Mr Crieff-Tweedle at this time?’

  ‘In the bungalow nursing his cold.’

  ‘In bed?’

  ‘Well, not when we left. He saw us off.’

  ‘Did he know you were going to Norwich?’

  ‘No, I did not mention it. I suppose he concluded we were leaving for home from Wroxham.’

  ‘And you saw nothing of Mrs Crieff-Tweedle?’

  ‘Not after she left to take dinner with the others at the Wroxham hotel. May I ask, Chief Inspector, how you can be sure that we were identified on Norwich station three days later?’

  ‘Certainly, if it interests you. You were seen by one of the attendants at the Castle Museum. He was on the station too, see? You asked him some questions when you were in the museum on the previous day and he remembered you as being greatly interested in the ornithological section and especially in those large panoramic views they have there, showing the animals birds and plants in their native habitat. I’m a bit of a bird-watcher myself in my spare time and I was sure that you would have visited the museum during your stay in the county, so I paid it a visit myself and got this man to talk.’

  ‘Well, Chief Inspector, you can understand that, having crossed swords with Mrs Crieff-Tweedle on what turned out to be the evening of her death, we were not anxious for it to be known that we were still in Norfolk, so I’m afraid we fabricated this tale about going home. But I should be glad to know how Dame Beatrice reached her conclusions and passed them on to you. She did not simply jump to them, I feel sure.’

  ‘Oh, that!’ said Rees, in great good humour. ‘Yes, indeed. Well, it goes back, you see, to this business of your allowing her to think that Mr Crieff-Tweedle took you to the station, which indicates Wroxham station. She could not see why he should have done that. There was no car available because Mrs Crieff-Tweedle had taken it, so why should he, with his bad cold, take the trouble to accompany you in a taxi? It had only to drop you at the station and return to its base. Dame Beatrice is a lady who likes things to make sense, look you, and your story did not make sense at all.’

  ‘So I suppose you will now investigate this new story of ours.’

  ‘Ah, that, no. We have already looked into it, see? We only wanted to get you to confirm it without too much prompting. Now I would like you to make a statement please. I will give you the headings from my notes if that will help you.’

  ‘I’m not sure that that is orthodox procedure. I don’t remember seeing it done like that on the BBC

  ‘But what has orthodox procedure to do with a little help between friends, boyo? Still, write it in your own words, if you prefer it that way.’

  ‘May I ask whether there is any danger of our being charged with any kind of offence, Chief Inspector? If so, I wish my wife to be completely exonerated and shall brief my lawyers to that effect.’

  ‘No offence has been committed, boyo; nothing but evasive action taken. Everybody is entitled to a little bit of that in time of danger.’

  * * *

  Chapter Eighteen

  Till Truth Make All Things Plain

  ‘For hord hath hate, and climbing tickelnesse,

  Preese hath envy and wele blent overal;

  Savour no more than thee behove shal;

  Work wel thyself that other folk canst rede;

  And trou the shal delivere, hit is no drede.’

  Geoffrey Chaucer—Balade de Bon Conseyl

  « ^ »

  ‘I hate Rees,’ said Eiladh to Liz Carpenter. ‘I’m not sure I don’t hate you, too. You might have dropped me just a hint that Tom is a policeman.’

  Liz laughed. Dame Beatrice said: ‘You are not the only one of his suspects to dislike Mr Rees. Laura took a telephone call from the Bylands this morning. They appear to have shared your experience of having to confess to something which Mr Rees already knew. His next victim, no doubt, will be Mr Crieff-Tweedle again.’

  ‘Surely poor old Dum couldn’t have any need to tell lies,’ said Eiladh. ‘I know people will say—I’ve said it myself, I expect—that he had the best motive of anybody for putting Dee out of the way, but he couldn’t have killed her. He didn’t know she was going to be alone, either at Burgh Castle or anywhere else. He wasn’t at that last dinner. He would have assumed that some of us would have been with her, wouldn’t he? After all, we three and David and Arcati were at that dinner. Dum couldn’t have known that the two boys had slunk off to a pub and that we three would take umbrage at Dee’s remarks and come back to our bungalow instead of going on the ghost-hunt.’ She looked around her circle. ‘Is there a flaw in my reasoning?’

  ‘If there were, we wouldn’t dare say so,’ said Liz.

  ‘When I talked to Mr Crieff-Tweedle,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘some of his assertions were, to say the least, surprising. We need to remember, too, that, after the departure of the Bylands, he was alone in the bungalow.’

  Dum himself, at his now reappointed house, for the police, having traced the storage place the burglars had used, had restored all the property to its rightful place, was facing some searching questions from Rees. Rees had a copy of Dame Beatrice’s notes open on the table in front of him and to the badly-frightened bereaved he was turning a damned disinheriting countenance, although that, in itself, could not alter the fact that Dee’s Will left everything to her husband.

  ‘Now, sir,’ said Rees, ‘there are some strange assertions you have made to a reliable witness. Perhaps you will be good enough to tell us whether you are prepared to stay by them. Yes, indeed, some strange assertions they are. Now, then.’ He nodded to his sergeant who, seated at a small table at a modest distance from inquisitor and victim, was ready with his notebook.

  ‘If you mean Dame Beatrice,’ said Dum attempting a light tone, ‘well, what was said was between herself and me. There were no others present at the interview and I am sure that her sole object was to protect Miss Eiladh Gavin who, like everyone else in our party, is under suspicion of causing, of causing—well, of causing the death of my wife.’

  ‘That is quite correct, but Dame Beatrice was good enough to let us have an account of the interview, because she is a lady who likes intelligent answers to intelligent questions, and she found some of your answers very difficult to swallow. Not to offend you, mind!’

  ‘She couldn’t have heard me correctly.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that why we’re here, the sergeant and myself, to put right anything which seems to be wrong? Yes, indeed.’

  ‘But you’re already biased in favour of Dame Beatrice’s story, are you not, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘We are only biased in favour of the truth. Now, if you are ready: we don’t like to bustle our witnesses.’

  ‘So I am a suspect, am I?’

  ‘The words are out of your own mouth, boyo, but they are dead right, for all that.’ He glanced around the beautifully-furnished room. ‘Very gratified I am that you got all your property back safely. Not so clever those thieves, were they?’

  ‘I suppose not. Thanks, anyway.’

  ‘All in the course of duty. Now you told Dame Beatrice that your wife conspired with the robbers to take away all that good stuff so that she could claim on the insurance. Correct?’

  ‘Well, what else could I think? She had organised this ridiculous ghost-hunt, got all the servants out of the house, neglected (I imagine) to notify the local police that the house would be empty, seen to it that somebody had a set of keys, made sure that all the burglar alarms were disconnected—’

  ‘Granted that these things appear to be a matter of fact, the other fact remains that you yourself could have seen to all these matters and had the benefit of the insurance yourself.’

  ‘If you think that, you didn’t know my wife! I am not above telling you, Chief Inspector, that I was no more than a pawn on her chessboard. Still, pray go on.’

  ‘You told Dame Beatrice that your wife was much in need of money—’

  ‘Dee told me so.’

  ‘And that she was prepared to diddle the insurance company in respect of property which she had arranged to have stolen while she was sky-larking with the spirit world in Norfolk.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I thought. If I was wrong I’m sorry.’

  ‘Now that her Will has been proved, there is ample evidence that, apart from these treasures which have been restored to the house, your wife was still a very wealthy woman.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. She pleaded poverty and I believed her. If you had seen the food we ate and which, to my shame, we offered our guests, you would have believed her, too.’

  ‘With whom would she have conspired to have the robbery committed, then?’

  ‘With that villainous priest, I suppose. I never took to the chap from the very beginning, never trusted him, but it was no use saying so to my wife.’

  ‘Let me put another proposition to you, then. Is it certain that any fraud on the insurance company was contemplated at all? We share your suspicions of Melrose —not his real name, of course, neither is he a priest—and we believe he contrived to take a copy of the keys to the house while he was staying here, and that he disconnected the burglar alarms. But it was you who claimed from the insurance company.’

  ‘But my wife—’

  ‘Your wife had been dead for some days when the claim was made, see?’

  ‘Well, what did you expect me to do? I knew the stuff was insured, I hadn’t any money— Dee, my wife, kept my allowance down as low as she decently could — the Will took time to prove and meanwhile all things of value had been taken out of the house.’

  ‘It was wrong of you to blacken your dead wife’s name to Dame Beatrice. Not a beautiful action at all. You see, there is no trace of anything which could show that your wife had any intention of defrauding the insurance company or of her collusion with Melrose.’

  ‘She thought the world of the fellow. Still, I may have been wrong in what I assumed.’

  ‘If I might make a suggestion which will not please you, but which Dame Beatrice thinks is the truth, it would be this: are you certain that your wife did not attempt to let your local police force know that the house would be entirely empty while the party was in Norfolk?’

  ‘She’d quarrelled with the local police over a dog the beaks ordered to be destroyed. I’ve told you that.’

  ‘So we understand, but we also think that a lady such as your wife would have put the safety of her treasures above the life of an obviously savage dog. I put it to you, boyo, that the police were not notified because you yourself, although asked to do so, failed, for once, to carry out your wife’s instructions. Having, quarrelled, as you say, with your local police force, she was unwilling to ask a personal favour of them, so she instructed you to contact them. You did not do it, did you?’

  ‘That doesn’t make me a party to the robbery!’

  ‘True enough, although it doesn’t look too good for you, does it? You see, one of your servants heard her mistress give you your instructions—I believe your wife had a penetrating voice—but your local inspector is certain that he had received neither a visit nor a telephone call.’

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ Dum groaned and spread appealing hands. ‘Upon my soul, Chief Inspector, I clean forgot. Then when Dee asked me, after we got to Norfolk, whether I’d let the police know that the house would be empty, of course I swore I had. Any husband would have done the same. I would have phoned them up there and then from our bungalow — Melrose’s annexe was on the telephone—but I did not know the number.’

  ‘A short letter or a telegram, then?’

  ‘Are you mad, Chief Inspector? That woman never let me out of her sight.’

  ‘Except when she sent you to Burgh Castle on the evening when you met with your accident, of course. Have you forgotten your accident, then?’

  ‘Hardly a time when one could write letters or send telgrams. Besides, I should think the burglary was already under way by then.’

  ‘We know it would have taken them the best part of a week to strip the house the way it was stripped, so no doubt you are right about that. Now to another point, if we may, and sorry I am to keep you so long.’

  ‘I’m in your hands, it seems,’ said Dum, bitterly.

  ‘Not to notice, but please be of help if you can. Not our way to harass people unnecessarily.’

  ‘You can say that again!’

  ‘Very painful this for you, yes, indeed, but grateful for your co-operation you’ll find us. Better in your own interests to be frank, see?’

  ‘Oh, all right! Carry on.’

  ‘Well now, you seem to have told Dame Beatrice that you warned your wife not to go alone to Burgh Castle.’

  ‘Of course I did. I knew only too well what had happened to me there.’

  ‘What reason had you to think that she might contemplate going there alone, then? It was the night of her death, remember.’

  ‘There is no need to remind me of that!’

  ‘So what would have put such an idea into your head?’

  ‘Well, I knew the Bylands and myself were not going to be present at the dinner and that Melrose was about some business of his own, and the young men had proved very unstable and selfish the whole of the time, so I put no faith in the idea that they intended to carry out this particular commitment.’

  ‘There remained Dr and Mr Tom Carpenter and Miss Eiladh Gavin. Surely they had proved faithful enough?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course they had. I had some idea that it was their horse-play which pushed me over that broken wall, though. However, Dame Beatrice thought not.’

  ‘Why should you suppose they would play truant on that particular night?’ asked Rees, ignoring Dum’s last remark.

  ‘Well, it was raining,’ Dum said feebly, ‘so I thought they might not go.’

  ‘Was it raining when you saw Professor and Mrs Byland off in their taxi?’

  ‘I don’t remember. Oh, all right, I didn’t warn my wife not to go.’

  ‘That’s better, then. Hindsight is often sent to mislead us, yes, indeed. You also told Dame Beatrice that nobody had a foolproof alibi for the time of your wife’s death. So you knew when she died, did you? That makes you a lot cleverer than the doctors, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake stop hazing me, Chief Inspector! Maybe I did try to fox Dame Beatrice. I’m afraid of her.’

  ‘Only those with a guilty conscience would say that of a very nice lady. As to deceiving her, well, you would have to get up very early in the morning to do that. What did you do when you had said goodbye to Professor and Mrs Byland?’

  ‘I took two more aspirins and went to bed.’

  ‘Do you think your wife really believed in ghosts, I wonder?’

  ‘Not until that wretched Hallowe’en party when all those ghost-stories were told and Melrose came back to the house to say he’d seen the ghost of a dog.’

  ‘Oh, he said that, did he?’

  ‘Yes, and Dee thought she recognised it as the ghost of her dog which had been put down by order of the magistrates.’

  ‘What? In the garden, or whatever, of a place to which the dog had never come? Melrose must have wanted the ghost-hunt very badly, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. He didn’t claim it was the ghost of Dee’s dog. I think he was only adding to the Hallowe’en atmosphere. Perhaps he thought it was a way of expressing thanks for hospitality. The ghost-hunt, I am sure, was entirely Dee’s idea.’

 

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