‘I am a very poor man, as you can see, madam. As for the sword, I knew what it was, of course, but people are more impressed by an earlier century of workmanship. I did not expect to come up against an expert in a place like this.’ He pouted childishly and looked away.
‘Dishonesty is not the best policy,’ said Laura sternly. ‘Well, how much?’
The proprietor glanced at Dame Beatrice and then at Laura.
‘It is a nice piece,’ he said hesitantly. ‘Would ten pounds interest you?’
‘Done!’ said Laura, opening her handbag.
‘Well, well!’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘The collector’s acumen appears to be missing from your make-up! You should not have been so precipitate.’
The proprietor twisted his hands together.
‘The lady has made an agreement!’ he said, in agony. ‘Look, I’ll throw in the fire-irons for you yourself if you do not dispute with me. You shall have the fire irons for nothing!’
‘But not the little picture I fancy so much?’
‘I cannot part with it. It has religious significance. Please accept the fire-irons. They are very nice.’
‘Do you hold services here, then?’
‘Oh, well, as to that—’ He turned away from both of them and put Laura’s notes into the till. Then he rummaged around to find wrappings for the fire-irons and the yataghan. At last he handed over the packages and, bowing and smiling, opened the shop door, saw them out and would have followed them to their car but that the stolid chauffeur was already holding the car door open for them.
‘Did I get stung over the yataghan?’ asked Laura, when they were seated and George had reversed the car.
Dame Beatrice cackled. ‘I hardly think so,’ she said, ‘and, in any case, when one really covets an object, the price, so long as one can afford it, is immaterial.’
‘Is that really your philosophy?’
‘Certainly. Besides, the good pastor got rid of the things he really wanted to part with, the things, in fact, that he was almost over-anxious to get rid of.’
‘What, those ungainly fire-irons?’
‘Yes. If I mistake not, he believes that this steel poker, and not the brass one which was found at the bungalow, was used to disfigure Miss Minnie’s face and head. He had to identify the body, you know, and the fire-irons seem to have come from Weston Pipers, so I think he may have put two and two together and come to a very unwelcome conclusion and possibly a correct one.’
‘What was that rather grim picture you tried to buy?’
‘A kind of totem, I think, of an obscure and possibly obscene religious sect. I did not want the picture. I only wanted to find out whether he was prepared to sell it.’
‘And he wasn’t. What did it represent?’
‘The phases of the moon. Had it been sculptured instead of painted, there might have been a fourth face at the back of those three which were depicted.’
‘Black magic?’
‘A magical conception, anyway. The picture represented the Great Mother of the ancients. She belongs to a form of witchcraft innocent enough in itself in pre-Christian times, since it was a form of worship. Fertility, the bounties of nature and, indeed, life itself were worshipped. It became debased later, partly owing to persecution and the need to go underground, and partly because, until modern space travel proved that this was not so, there was believed to be a dark side to the moon.’
‘So these Pan-whatever lot that this chap leads are really modern witches and Miss Minnie was one of them. I suppose her death wasn’t a ritual murder of some sort?’
‘I think there was a more rational reason for her death.’
‘Too bad! I was hoping for sinister revelations. What’s the next move?’
‘I shall show the fire-irons to the police. If they accept my theory that among these is the object with which Miss Minnie was struck after she died, no doubt they will visit the shop and obtain from the proprietor a description of the person who sold the fire-irons to him and the date on which he purchased them. If the police dismiss my theory (as they may and it will not surprise me if they do) we ourselves will pay the shop another visit.’
‘Won’t the chap smell a rat when we go back there again?’
‘After we have been customers and I go solely in order to make him another bid for his picture?’
‘But you said it was a witchcraft thing and that it must have some significance for this sect he leads.’
‘Nothing was said by me or admitted by him along any lines which could connect the symbol with witchcraft. Besides, witchcraft is quite respectable these days. It is even discussed on television.’
‘You rather aroused his suspicions. You rather gave yourself away over the yataghan, I thought.’
‘In what way?’
‘Specialised knowledge and all that.’
‘Specialised knowledge of the weapons of cut and thrust does not also imply specialised knowledge of ancient pagan cults. In fact, the one may allay suspicion in the case of the other. Now, had the yataghan been an athame, there might be some substance in your argument.’
‘Let it go! Let it go! You know, I’m beginning to think I’d like to see the chap’s face when we turn up again and are in the market for that picture.’
‘It will be inscrutable, I fancy. Now I come to think of it, we could go back there after lunch. There is no reason for me to be in a hurry to show the police my fire-irons. There will be no fingerprints on them now except those of the shopkeeper and myself.’
‘Oh, I don’t know so much,’ said Laura doubtfully, ‘about losing time. After all, I am a Scotland Yard wife. If I stalled on showing the police anything which might help an enquiry, however indirectly, Gavin would be livid, and quite right, too.’
‘Very well, I will give up my treasure-trove tomorrow, but if the shopkeeper has any guilty knowledge he will swear that Niobe Nutley sold the fire-irons long before Chelion Piper returned from Paris.’
The police showed what Laura, who had expected rather more to come of Dame Beatrice’s exhibits, thought was a lukewarm interest in the fire-irons, for, as the Chief Superintendent pointed out, nothing was to be gained from them in the way of fingerprints.
‘We didn’t think the poker found in the sitting-room at The Lodge was the weapon used to batter the head of the deceased,’ he said, ‘since the prints on it were those of Mr Evans, who admitted handling it, superimposed on those of the dead woman herself. Our theory is that, like so many lonely old ladies, she kept the poker by her as a means of self-defence, picked it up when she heard her murderer enter the bungalow and was disarmed by him before she could use it. In fact, she may have laid it down again when she saw that the visitor was Piper, from whom she anticipated no harm.’
‘You still think Mr Piper guilty?’
‘Somebody got in who had a pass-key, Dame Beatrice. Except for the window which Piper smashed when he and the other two broke in and found the body, there were no signs of any other forced entry.’
‘If Mr Piper had a pass-key, why, in your opinion, did he not use it instead of breaking a window?’
‘Oh, madam, you know the answer to that, just as well as we do. To our minds, it clinches matters. He was hiding the fact from his companions that he had a pass-key and could get into the bungalow whenever he liked.’
‘Did you ask whether anybody else in the house had a pass-key?’
‘We did, and Miss Niobe Nutley immediately produced hers. Of course, we didn’t find Piper’s key. Miss Nutley said he had had one and must have lost it.’
‘That young lady thinks of everything,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Did you find Miss Minnie’s own door-key?’
‘Yes, it was on the body. Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, nothing – except that Mr Piper clearly was not the only person who could obtain access to the bungalow whenever he wished to enter it. There is another point, too, which you might care to consider: Miss Nutley also used her key (a master-key to which, as housekeeper, I suppose she was entitled), to enter any of the apartments at any time. That must have included the bungalow, one would think.’