‘To the local police station, you mean? Well, Superintendent, perhaps what I have to show you upstairs may interest you, although, since the Witchcraft Act was repealed, it will not be so significant as it might have been before 1951, and most certainly before 1736.’ She led the way to the staircase, followed by the Superintendent. Laura, who had stood aside at the doorway of the office to let them out, hesitated a moment, but, impelled by curiosity and having received no orders to remain downstairs, followed them up the staircase.
The Superintendent looked around the walls decorated so startlingly with their nudes and then he looked at the carpet with its white painted square, its circle, its pentagrams and other magical devices, before he turned his attention to the witches’ altar.
‘I suppose that table would be moved into the centre of the circle when anything was going on,’ he said. ‘Oh, well, that metal job must be hiding something – a special cup, I daresay – but it’s locked, so we’ll have to wait before we get it open. Anyway, it ought to yield some very nice dabs, although I bet they’ll only be Bosey’s own. Well, it’s a very elaborate set-up, Dame Beatrice, and hardly tallies with the junk shop downstairs. Neither does the office, for that matter. He can hardly have needed that expensive desk and a big filing-cabinet for the amount of antique-dealing he did. Ah, well, there may be a lot of perverse nastiness attached to this Satan’s Circle, but I can’t spot anything criminal about it, unless we can get him on a charge of procuring, and that’s no use now he’s dead.’
‘Ah!’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Sacrificial virgins! Dear me!’
‘Elysée Barnes!’ muttered Laura in the background. ‘Gosh! That would explain a lot.’
The Superintendent did not seem to have heard the slight mutterings, but when they had returned to the ground floor and the Superintendent, a handkerchief over his hand – ‘although I expect Davis has dusted everything off in here already, to get any dabs there may be – not that they’ll help us much, I’m afraid—’ had drawn back the bolts to let the ladies out by the shop door, Dame Beatrice said, when they were settled in the car:
‘Elysée Barnes? Yes, it all ties up very nicely.’
‘Do you really think she was mixed up in this business? She didn’t seem at all the type to me. Anybody ass enough to rush into marriage for the reason she more or less gave, is too much of a rabbit to be mixed up with what could be black magic.’
‘If there were no rabbits there might be no stoats,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and to that extent the rabbits may be deemed to be culpable. Girls are enticed to embark upon evil courses because human nature, even when revolted by evil, has a devouring curiosity about real wickedness. Before they realise what is happening, these rabbits are petrified and rendered helpless by the stoats and then (to change our metaphor back into human terms) they are first victimised, as I say, then perverted and at last either discarded or, in extreme cases, murdered.’
‘But that only refers to young girls, not to young men.’
‘In a different way, men are corrupted too. The balance of their minds is upset and they find themselves taking part in doings which are more like a madman’s nightmare than any course of conduct they had ever visualised.’
‘Seems to me there must be the germs of corruption, anyway, in such men and women. It can’t just be nothing but curiosity in the first place.’
‘Well, you may be right, but, of all things, I think that witchcraft has its own fascination. The old gods may be dead, but, in the words of Miss Gracie Field’s deservedly popular song, they won’t lie down.’
‘Of course, witchcraft is no longer against the law, as you said. I believe there are dozens of covens in England alone.’
‘And numberless fertility rites outside them, although their practitioners nowadays seldom recognise them for what they are. At risk of causing you a certain amount of disappointment, I will go alone to visit Miss Barnes for this second time.’
‘She’ll be more likely to talk to you on your own, you think? I guess that’s so. Anything useful I can do while you’re gone?’
‘Yes, if you will be so good. Nothing may come of your errand, so I must warn you against more disappointment. I should like you to take your yataghan to Weston Pipers, tell Niobe Nutley where it was purchased, but do not, of course, mention that I was with you when you bought it, and ask her whether it has a history. She will tell you that she knows nothing about it, since it did not come from Weston Pipers, which, I have no doubt, is true.’
‘Then what?’
‘In the words of one of the ancient ballads of which you and I are fond, “and do you stand a little away, and listen well what she shall say”.’
‘Willie’s Lady. You don’t think Niobe is a witch, do you?’
‘There are less likely possibilities. Of course, do not press your point about the yataghan. I trust to your discretion.’
‘Implied rebuke noted and digested.’
‘Neither implied nor intended.’
‘Right, then, I’ll be an auditor.’
‘An actor, too, perchance, if you see cause, but prenez garde, as Abbie would say. First, however, we have to explain ourselves further to the police – or so I fancy. There was an unfathomable expression upon the Superintendent’s bland and otherwise benign countenance. He will want to know more about our researches.’
Chapter Thirteen
Another Case for the Police
« ^ »
‘SO here’s a pretty kettle of fish,’ said Laura to the Detective Superintendent. ‘A nice thing for the wife of an Assistant Commissioner at New Scotland Yard to go about the place snooping in at windows and discovering dead bodies.’
‘Mustn’t pull your rank, you know, Mrs Gavin,’ said the Superintendent, with an avuncular smile.
‘I must. Otherwise you might think I’d done the job myself,’ retorted Laura. ‘I know you lot! The first person on the scene is also the first to be suspected.’
‘Oh, no. That honour, ma’am, goes to the last person known to have been present. I may tell you – but this is not for publication at present – that our investigations into the death of Miss Minnie have caused us to keep a wary eye on this Black Magic gang, and even now that this Bosey whom we think was their leader has gone, if we can catch them putting even half a foot wrong, it’s curtains for their organisation, because we shall jug the lot of them. They wouldn’t be any loss to society, I assure you.’
‘You haven’t really got anything on them yet, then?’
‘Only simple faith that they’re up to N.B.G. That goes especially for Minnie and this Bosey who kept the junk shop. We’ve been able to trace their movements over the last ten years or so, and everywhere they went there are histories of missing schoolgirls. Those two beauties are out of it now, but the rest of their crew must have guilty knowledge of what went on. Of course, girls do go missing, the silly little what-I-won’t-describe, but the coincidences occurred a bit too often to be ignored, and we were getting ready to crack down on this little organisation when this chap, who seems to have been the boss-cat of a very dirty alley, got himself bumped off.’
‘Or bumped himself off,’ put in Dame Beatrice, who, by previous agreement, had left the opening exchanges to Laura as the person who had first seen the body.
‘As you say, ma’am,’ said the Superintendent noncomittally. ‘That could be so of course. Only thing is that those milk bottles seem to tell a different story.’