‘Well, yes, we did know of it. No doubt it was nothing more than a hobby. I suppose Tynant knew, and if he did he may have told Dr Lochlure and she may have told her two women undergraduates, I suppose.’
‘Why should you think she might have mentioned it to the undergraduates?’
‘Young women in these times are very much on their guard against prowlers. To reach the keep, Veryan would have needed to pass, each night, very near to the caravan in which the young women were sleeping. Some degree of reassurance would have been advisable in case the girls were aware of footsteps in the night. The castle precincts are outside the village. My wife, I know, would have been happier for the girls to be housed in some less isolated spot.’
‘Nonsense, Edward!’ said Lilian. ‘It was you who worried about them. I had no fears whatever on their account, particularly since Fiona Broadmayne was one of them. My sympathies would be entirely with the prowler if ever she got her powerful hands on him.’
‘ “My anxiety would be entirely for the snake”,’ said Dame Beatrice, in an absent-minded way.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Oh, no, I beg yours. I have picked up a bad habit from Laura of offering quotations in place of rational comment.’
‘What I can’t understand,’ said Lilian, ‘is how Malpas was able not only to pass by the caravan night after night without being heard, but to enter the keep and climb that stair, also night after night, without those two young men being aware of it.’
‘Of course, nobody was in the caravan or the keep on the night of the accident,’ said Edward. ‘All the same, as my wife points out, nobody ever seems to have heard Veryan moving about at night, so the fact that nobody was in the caravan or the keep on the night of his death appears to have no significance.’
‘We have had remarkably clear nights since we have been here,’ said Lilian. ‘Ideal for star-gazing, I suppose. Malpas was probably on the top of the tower as soon as it was dark and before the boys came in. That part seems simple enough, but he seems to have been able to leave the keep without waking them.’
‘I have been wondering whether the police think he committed suicide,’ said Edward.
‘Suicide is no longer a crime. Murder, of course, is a very different matter,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘When did you yourselves first think of it?’
‘At first we were too much in shock to think at all, but then – well, we are people trained to assess evidence. The others are trained, too, and so are the police. Because of that stupid quarrel between Malpas and myself, tongues have been wagging, you may be sure, and naturally, for one wants to be reasonable, we are the obvious suspects. In time of trouble, everybody is anxious to find a scapegoat.’
‘I don’t know so much,’ said Laura, who, so far, had kept out of the conversation. ‘Looking at the thing from the point of view of a complete outsider and saving your presence and all that, would there have been much point in your getting rid of Veryan if Tynant was to be left alive to continue digging that trench?’
‘I don’t suppose any of us thought he would be carrying on with the work,’ said Edward dispassionately, ‘so I don’t believe that argument would hold water, kind though it is of you to put it forward.’
‘It holds water so long as Tynant remains alive and does not die under suspicious circumstances,’ said Lilian, ‘but not any longer than that.’
‘And, after all,’ said Laura, ‘at the resumed inquest there may still be a verdict of accidental death.’
The Saltergates drove back to Holdy village and the Horse and Cart, and Dame Beatrice and Laura settled down in a corner of the Seagull’s lounge.
‘I don’t see how anybody could suspect those two people of murder,’ said Laura.
‘Who would be your choice, then?’
‘Tynant, to get the dig to himself. Veryan obviously thought it an important one, or he would have met the Saltergates halfway instead of quarrelling with them. Of course the killer could have been Tom Hassocks, larking about and meaning no harm—’
‘Not Bonamy?’
‘I don’t want a godmother’s knife in my ribs, but, yes, and/or Bonamy, if you insist, or they may have mistaken Veryan for an unauthorised intruder. Then there are the three females. Their caravan was parked at the bottom of the mound, so any one of them – and I do not exclude the lovely Lochlure – had only to mount the rise and climb the tower to have fun and games with Veryan at the top of it. If the fun and games got out of hand, either the push over the edge could have been accidental or it could have been done a-purpose.’
‘You are not forgetting that everybody except the Saltergates has an alibi for the night of Veryan’s death, are you?’
‘Some alibis! I suppose the two girls can prove theirs, but all the others are suspect, including that of our two lads. Then there are the two workmen. They may have had a dispute with Veryan over pay or something.’
‘Tynant would have known of it and, no doubt, mentioned it as soon as it became obvious that the police had suspicions. In any case, workmen do not murder their employers; they go on strike, thus causing far more disruption than a mere death could do.’
‘Then there is Mrs Veryan. When in doubt, blame the nearest and dearest.’
‘According to what Nicholas Tynant told Bonamy and Bonamy told us, she was on a yacht at sea at the time. Neither was she his nearest nor his dearest. She had been divorced from him for several years.’
‘I wonder, then, why she was brought along to identify the body? Tynant, or any of the others, could have done it just as well.’
‘Detective-Superintendent Mowbray has asked me for an interview. I will put the point to him tomorrow.’
‘Think he’ll tell you why he suspects murder?’
‘Yes, I am sure he will.’
‘Do you know something about this business which I don’t know?’
‘I think not, but I may suspect something which has not yet occurred to you.’
‘Such as what?’
‘Such as Professor Veryan’s telescope.’
‘Nobody has mentioned a telescope to me.’
‘If he was an astronomer, a telescope seems necessary to complete the picture. The fact that it has not been mentioned could mean one of two things: either the police think it of no importance, or they think it of such significance that they are keeping it in the background until they feel the right moment has come to mention any evidence it can produce.’
‘Suppose there wasn’t a telescope at all?’
‘Oh, but, surely, there must have been. Whatever his real purpose, he may have needed an excuse for visiting the keep at night. There was always the chance that Tom or Bonamy would wake and hear him and go up there to find out what was happening.’
‘If it was murder and somebody tumbled him over the edge, the telescope would have flown out of his hand and gone down with him. I wonder whether it was the kind you hold up to your eye, or whether he had a tripod or something of that sort?’
‘No doubt all will be revealed in due course.’
There was a telephone call for Dame Beatrice at breakfast on the following morning. Laura took it and said, ‘Mrs Veryan is on the line and “craves the favour of an interview”. What shall I tell her? She says she is at the Barbican with Tynant.’
‘My appointment with Detective-Superintendent Mowbray is not until eleven. Tell her that I will see her here as soon as she can come along.’
Laura relayed this message, returned to the table and said, ‘I wonder what she wants?’
‘I would like to know whether she stands to gain anything in the way of money or property by her husband’s death,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I believe there is some chance of it.’
‘They were divorced.’
‘That would not prevent her from inheriting anything he may have left to her in his will. I understand that the reasons for divorce were not acrimonious. The couple appear to have separated by mutual consent. It is quite likely that he has left her provided for.’