No questions were asked by the jurors and the majority of those present were expecting a verdict of accidental death. However, at the conclusion of the medical evidence, Detective-Superintendent Mowbray asked for an adjournment. As the coroner granted this request without surprise or betraying any other emotion, it was clear that it had been anticipated before the inquest opened.
Dame Beatrice had been present, as she had promised. She and Laura took the two young men off to lunch at Holdy Bay. Tynant and the Saltergates went off with Mrs Veryan, but the two girls and Susannah lunched as usual in the caravan which, together with the boys’ cars, had been returned to its former position on the grass verge below the castle ruins.
‘Well,’ said Laura, ‘judging by the remarks I overheard as we left the court, that adjournment has given some of the citizens food for thought.’
‘Not to mention gossip,’ said Bonamy.
‘And the cold touch of fear,’ said Tom. ‘I refer to some of our lot. An adjournment can only mean one thing. As we suspected once Mowbray got to work, the police have doubts about an accident. I foresee that things are going to be very sticky and uncomfortable at Castle Holdy.’
‘Are you all continuing with the work?’ asked Laura.
‘It seems like it. I spoke to Saltergate and he sees no reason to pack up, and Tynant rather smugly says that in tribute to Veryan’s memory the dig must be completed.’
‘I noticed,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘that the trench is now being dug from left to right.’
‘Yes. It was getting perilously near Saltergate’s territory when the row began, so Tynant is now boxing clever and biding his time. One thing, he will be easier to deal with than Veryan would have been, if it comes to the crunch.’
‘Well, that was a turn-up for the books,’ said Fiona.
‘It didn’t surprise me,’ said Priscilla. ‘I’ve been terrified ever since Monday when the police began questioning us all. It was pretty obvious then what they thought and it’s even more obvious now. They must have found what is known as a vital clue.’
‘That’s only what the newspapers call it. All the police will admit is that they’ve “got a lead”. I wonder what on earth it can be?’
‘Fingerprints where no fingerprints should be,’ said Susannah. ‘I wrote a detective story once and fingerprints played a big part in it.’
‘If it’s fingerprints they’re after, we have nothing to worry about,’ said Fiona. ‘Nobody has taken our dabs.’
‘There is plenty of time for that, though,’ said Priscilla, ‘and now that the inquest has been adjourned and everybody suspects that Professor Veryan met with foul play, anybody who objects to being fingerprinted will come under immediate suspicion.’
‘You talk like a character in a third-rate crime film,’ said Fiona, but she looked uneasy.
‘Oh, yes, Mrs Veryan,’ said Tynant, ‘I fully intend to complete Malpas’s work. We have gone so far now that it would be a pity not to finish.’
‘Tell me, Nicholas – and please call me Grace; you know me quite well enough for that – tell me what you really think about this tragic death.’
‘It is tragic, yes. A good man has been lost to our ranks.’
‘You say good. You do not say great.’
‘I am not given to expressing eulogies.’
‘Particularly in connection with a man who has always stood in your way.’
‘That is an unkind and a very unjust way of looking at it. I have always played second fiddle to Malpas, it is true. It was a state of affairs which might have continued until he retired—’
‘Or died,’ said Grace Veyran in a tone which could not be misunderstood. Tynant remained in control of himself, although his long mouth tightened before he said, ‘I was about to add: or until my book comes out.’
‘Your book?’
‘Already with the publishers. In it I refute all Malpas’s theories regarding monoxylous timber coffins in Lower Myria.’
‘But surely their distribution is known? Haven’t they been disinterred and examined?’
‘Yes, indeed, but where Malpas is wrong is in attributing them to the Middle Bronze Age. I place them five hundred years earlier. They belong to Early Bronze Age One.’
‘So your book attacks his theories. I don’t call that very friendly.’
‘It is not meant to be either friendly or unfriendly. It is a question of research and scholarship, that’s all. I am concerned only with the truth.’
‘Did Malpas know you had written this book?’
‘No. I intended to hit him for six with it when it comes out next year. All the fun has gone out of it now.’
‘What a little boy – and what a nasty little boy – you are!’
‘Why did he divorce you?’
‘He didn’t, nor I him. We simply lived apart for the statutory period and got our decree for the modern but incontrovertible reason that the marriage was an absolute failure. Who is the remarkably beautiful creature you sat next to in court?’
‘I sat next to you. Self-praise is no recommendation, so you must leave it to me to praise you if you are to be praised at all.’
‘Don’t fence! You know the woman I mean. She sat on the other side of you and I sensed considerable rapport between you.’
‘She is Dr Susannah Lochlure, and she belongs to Saltergate’s gang, not to ours.’
‘She looks well connected. Is she?’
‘I believe there’s an earldom kicking about in her family.’
‘Any money?’
‘Do earls usually have money nowadays?’
‘I have no idea. Still, blue blood is blue blood.’
‘Yes. “Would a baronet’s sister go in before the daughter of a younger son of a peer?” ’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’ve often wondered, ever since I read The Ordeal of Osbert Mulliner. Do you know the answer?’
‘You are shelving the subject of that girl of yours. Anyway, I am not in the mood for flippancy.’
‘That girl of mine? I only wish she were! And I didn’t mean to be flippant. We’ve all had a shock and it takes people in different ways. It makes me want to make a parade of being nonsensical just to lessen the tension. You know what the police think.’
‘As the inquest has been adjourned, it is rather obvious what they think, but Edward Saltergate didn’t do it, you know. They were in the middle of a battle, you said, but poor old Edward is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. He is quite incapable of murdering anybody.’
‘Idiots have committed murder before now, and all mediaevalists are mad. Why should anyone who had any sense want to revive the Middle Ages? Much better lost and forgotten.’
‘I assume,’ said Dame Beatrice, at the dinner to which she had invited Edward and Lilian in Holdy Bay, ‘that you have something more in mind than the tidying-up of the castle ruins.’
‘If all goes well, we hope to embark on a partial reconstruction of the main features,’ said Edward. ‘The landowner is willing, there is sponsorship available from a couple of learned societies, a small government grant is promised, so, if my plans are approved, Lilian and I will take it in turn to supervise the work. I am anxious that the other project shall not encroach upon ours while the reconstruction is in progress.’
‘Ah, yes, the other project. You refer, no doubt, to Mr Tynant’s excavations. I am interested to learn that he proposes to continue them.’
‘You mean in light of the accident to poor Veryan? Yes, it might have seemed in better taste to discontinue the work, at any rate for a time.’
‘Was it generally known that Professor Veryan was an astronomer? But for that, he might still be alive.’