‘And the ruins of the bishop’s palace,’ agreed Dame Beatrice. ‘We have plenty of time before we go off for lunch.’
The Cathedral detained them for half an hour. Dame Beatrice purchased a handbook and studied it while she sat in a pew. Laura poked around and identified the various architectural periods beginning with the Norman mouldings of the nave arcade and ending with the modern statue of the patron saint with the Celtic dove of eloquence perched upon his shoulder.
When Laura had looked also at the fifteenth century misericords on the choir stalls, studied the shrine of the saint with its rearward holes for pilgrims’ offerings, seen the early fifteenth-century carvings which formed part of the canopy of the bishop’s stall, she and Dame Beatrice left the Cathedral, crossed the water, came to the gatehouse of the bishop’s palace, paid the entrance fee and passed into the courtyard.
The ruins were vast and imposing. From the hut just inside the outer courtyard where they had taken tickets and bought a descriptive, illustrated brochure, Laura, delighted with the size and complexity of the place, began her exploration.
Dame Beatrice stayed and chatted with the man on duty at the hut, for there were few visitors that morning, as no coach-parties had yet arrived. People came from all over the country, he averred. The ruins were the finest in Britain, although he confessed that he had seen no others. Yes, there two hall, as was stated in the brochure. One had been for the bishop’s own use, look you, and the other was for important persons, some of them not too nice, no, indeed, not from all he had read of them, but important, oh, yes, very important, no doubt.
No, the gatehouse was never closed. Who would want to visit the ruins after dark? Even if they did, there was little damage they could do and a good chance of breaking their necks on the outside steps or on the newel staircases.
Yes, it was all open to the public during the daytime except the porter’s room over the gate. That had been bricked up in – when was it now? – oh, yes, in the wartime, because, although the roof had gone, the upper floor remained. If there were traitors about, or enemy agents, it could have been used as a signalling base to enemy aircraft.
‘Right over on this west side of the country?’ Dame Beatrice sceptically enquired. She was asked what a hundred or so miles meant to an aeroplane and was told that in time of war no safety measure was out of place.
‘Then is the fabric never inspected?’ she asked. ‘What if the gatehouse itself were unsafe?’
Oh, the Department of the Environment would see to that. A regular check was kept on all the historic buildings, yes, indeed. It would not be fair to the public, who paid to visit the ruins, if their safety was not looked to. Very bad that would be, and bad, too, for the tourist trade. Dame Beatrice nodded sympathetically in agreement with all this.
A couple more visitors turned up at this point, so Dame Beatrice walked across the courtyard and inspected the long, vaulted undercroft whose top storey had disappeared. Then, faced by a steep stone stair which led up to the great hall, she gazed at it, but did not mount. She walked along the front of the buildings, and from the plan and photographs in the brochure she identified the rest of the ruins and then seated herself on one of the steps which led up to the bishop’s hall, his kitchen at one end and his solar and chapel at the other, and prepared to wait for Laura.
The plan, which she continued to study, suggested that, at one time, there had been access to the porter’s room from the chapel, but, according to the brochure, that was indeed now blocked. She read on until Laura came back, delighted with everything.
‘Four newel staircases in the thickness of the walls, two outside stairs, three wall-fireplaces – the great hall must have had a central hearth, I should think – barrel vaulting, some decorated tracery in two of the windows and there’s a kitchen hatch opening on to a long corridor so that food could be taken to both of the halls.
‘There are some gorgeous carvings of grotesque stone heads, used, I suppose, as corbels to support a floor which has gone, and I spotted two garderobes, although there must have been more. You don’t seem to have poked about much. Weren’t you interested?’
‘Immensely so, but climbing down newel staircases, and mounting outer ones which have no handrail, does not appeal to me. I have talked to the man who issues tickets of admission and have made a close study of the plan which is in the handbook. I have also looked at the gatehouse.’
‘Yes, but, same as at Monmouth, there’s no admission to the porter’s room. You can see where the opening from the chapel has been closed up, though, and I noticed that what must have been the entrance to a staircase on the inside wall of the gatehouse has also been blocked off. What interested you specially?’
‘Merely random thoughts.’
Laura looked at her suspiciously.
‘Oh, yes?’ she said. ‘Too random to be recollected in tranquillity?’
‘Perhaps I should have called them idle thoughts. Moreover, they were primarily your responsibility. Twice, on this pilgrimage of ours, we have passed under gatehouse archways. Each supports a room which is closed to the public. But for you, I should not have thought twice about these facts, but, now that my attention has been drawn to them, I find them interesting.’
‘Why?’
‘I was wondering what has become of Driver Daigh.’
‘The man we’re chasing? Well, we both wonder about him, I suppose.’
‘Yes. I see that the custodian is at liberty again, so I will venture to accost him once more.’ She walked across the courtyard to the little kiosk. ‘I suppose you get coach-parties every day in summer,’ she said, when she had purchased half-a-dozen picture postcards of the ruins.
‘Not every day, perhaps, but most days.’
‘I suppose their drivers come with them and show them round?’
‘Oh, no, indeed. A driver would be taking the coach to the car park and having a good talk with other drivers and getting himself a cup of coffee, maybe. No, I never knew a driver to come down here. Drivers don’t care about walking, look you, and having a stiff climb up a lot of steps to the top. Oh, the drivers wouldn’t trouble themselves, not they. And the people off the coaches, go into the Cathedral they do – no charge for that, see? – but not so many come on here, not nearly so many as you would suppose. Admission charge, you see, and not much time to have a good look round, anyway, by the time they’ve had their coffee and seen the Cathedral.’
‘So now for Swansea, I suppose,’ said Laura, when they left the ruins.
‘No, I think not. The police will have made exhaustive enquiries there and, in any case, I believe that the appearance of Daigh’s coach in Swansea was intended to deceive.’
‘What makes you think so?’
‘It was all too obvious that the police were intended to think that something or someone was shipped over from Swansea to Cork. It is the route by which this particular company conveys its passengers when they take their tour of Southern Ireland.’
‘Well, why shouldn’t the police think so? They might be right.’
‘The effort to deceive often defeats its own purpose. Let us lunch, as the coach party did, at the hotel overlooking Fishguard Bay. It is very well situated, I am told, and I have the name of it from Mr Honfleur.’
The view from the terrace of the hotel was spacious and beautiful. Below it was the bay. The sea, calm in its sheltered inlet, reflected the blue sky. A rocky promontory at the entrance to the harbour stood out black against the afternoon brightness. Immediately below the terrace the steep slope of the hill was green and gold and there were wild flowers among the grasses. A lane wound away past the hotel seawards down a slope which began a gradual descent and then steepened. Laura, after lunch, walked a little way down it, but soon trees and tall bushes hid the harbour and she returned to the front of the hotel where she had left Dame Beatrice in contemplation of the view.