‘Did your helicopter fly over Hulliwell Hall?’
‘Over the surrounding countryside it did, but there isn’t much cover there. It was the moorland terrain which we searched most thoroughly for hiding-places, but we’ve made lots of house to house enquiries as well, you know. We particularly asked whether anybody in the village saw anything suspicious or had taken in a lodger, for example, at about the time in question.’
‘I wish you would get your men to inspect the gatehouse at the Hall. Would that be too difficult to arrange?’
‘Well, no, I suppose not. The owners are away and I know the fellow who is agent for the estate. It can be managed if you’re especially keen on it. Nothing will come of it, you know.’
‘I do not expect anything to come of it, but it would oblige me very much if the roof of that gatehouse could be eliminated, as it were, from my list of suspected hiding-places for a body.’
‘Very well, but I think you’re looking for a mare’s nest.’
‘That may be so, but I always pay attention to my secretary’s observations. She has Highland blood and sometimes that brings with it the unenviable gift of second sight.’
‘Oh, come, now, Dame Beatrice! You will not persuade me that you indulge in superstitions of that sort!’
‘To give some credence to the theory that extra-sensory perceptions do exist is not superstition. Besides, Laura has not claimed that Noone’s body is on the top of the gatehouse at Hulliwell Hall. She merely drew my attention to the fact that some of these defensive structures which were erected by our ancestors to keep out unwelcome visitors no longer offer admittance to the porter’s lodging and watch-tower.’
‘There must be arrangements to have the fabric inspected from time to time. The body, if one was there —’
‘When was the gatehouse at Hulliwell Hall last inspected, I wonder?’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Oh, well,’ said the Chief Constable, good-humouredly, ‘that will certainly give me a talking-point with Hutchings. He lives on the estate in what used to be the dower house. I’ll ring him up. If nothing else, he will be charmed to meet you. He loves celebrities.’
It was Mrs Hutchings who answered the telephone. Her husband, she explained, was up at the Hall, where some workmen were repairing part of the stonework balustrade of the terrace. He would be back at tea-time. Would the Chief Constable (she called him Tom) bring Dame Beatrice along for a cup of tea and a chat? She and Hugh would be delighted to meet her.
The gatehouse? Oh, of course it was safe! If Dame Beatrice would like to see the view from the top, that could easily be arranged. The Hall was closed to tourists at six, so perhaps, when she had been shown over the gatehouse, Dame Beatrice might like to see some of those parts of the Hall which were not open to the public. Yes, if they would care to come along at about half-past four, Hugh should be in by then.
Hutchings turned out to be more than willing to show Dame Beatrice any part of the mansion she would like to see. The gatehouse? Oh, was she particularly interested in gatehouses? Had she seen the whacking great structure at Thornton Abbey and the charming little entrance to South Wraxall Manor? Then there was the mighty fortification on the house side of the moat at Kirkby Muxloe, and one of his own favourites was the half-timbered, cottage-style gatehouse at Lower Brockhampton Hall.
‘But, then, I’m a Chester man,’ he said. The conversation turned on to a comparison of Chester and York and might have continued indefinitely but for Mrs Hutchings’ reminder to her husband of his promise to show Dame Beatrice the view from the gatehouse roof.
The dower house was separated from the Hall by about half a mile of park-land, the evening was mellow and it still wanted a couple of hours to sunset, so the three set off on foot and approached the gatehouse from the inside. The cash customers who had come as sightseers had all been shepherded away, but the man on duty was still in his little kiosk checking the takings against the number of tickets sold that day. Hutchings greeted him and told him that he was taking the two visitors up to the roof to look at the view.
On the outer side of the archway a stout door had to be unlocked. Hutchings was carrying an electric torch, for the newel stair which they mounted was lighted only by one slit of a window and there was no handrail.
The porter’s room was tiny compared with that above the Westgate at Winchester, but here, again, there was access to the roof and the soft, clear evening light. Hutchings had led the way up the winding stair, but when Dame Beatrice had made a brief survey, by the light of an electric torch, of the tiny, stone-walled room, she was the first to mount to the leads.
She stood aside at the top of the short, steep, straight flight of steps so that the way was not blocked for her companions, and as they joined her on the small, flat roof she said,
‘Just as well that we are in the open air.’
‘You must have known,’ said the Chief Constable, visiting Dame Beatrice at the Dovedale hotel on the following morning.
‘No,’ Dame Beatrice responded. ‘It fell out just as I told you. Laura had this obsession about gatehouses and they did seem to offer possibilities as hiding-places. It has been pointed out, more than once, that to commit a murder is easy enough. It is the disposal of the body which presents the problem. Some bury the victim’s corpse in somebody else’s grave; others burn it; some dismember it and strew the remains over as wide an area as possible; others are content to dispose only of the head in the hope that the rest of the cadaver will defy recognition and identification; and there is also a school of thought which favours placing the remains in the left-luggage offices at railway stations and destroying the incriminating reclamation ticket. It was left to the fertile imagination of my secretary to envisage the possibilities of mediaevel gatehouses.’
‘Your secretary may have been obsessed by gatehouses, but I don’t believe she thought of them as repositories for murdered bodies. That was your idea, Dame Beatrice. Well, you may as well make up your mind to stay on here for a day or two. You will be needed at the inquest. Mind you, we shall soon get the fellow who did this,’ said the Chief Constable.
‘You think so?’
‘Bound to. Nobody could have got a dead body up that newel stair. It’s so narrow that I had quite a job to squeeze myself up, and I was carrying nothing but an electric torch. The chap or chaps must have had a ladder and reared it up to the gatehouse roof from outside. What’s more, they must have killed poor Noone – we must get the body formally identified, of course, but I have no doubt myself that it’s Noone – they must have killed him somewhere else while the coach-party was inside Hulliwell Hall. Then they brought the body back to the gatehouse by night and in a car. It will be hard luck if we can’t get a line on something there, because, as I say, they must also have brought a ladder. Well, you’ve certainly led us to discover the body. We should never have thought of that gatehouse for ourselves. Now the inquest —’
‘Could I not be represented as a casual visitor taken up, as you told the gatekeeper, merely to admire the view from the gatehouse roof? It would accord better with my plans if the discovery of the body appeared to be fortuitous. I don’t want gatehouses brought too obviously into the picture. I know I was the first person to set eyes on the body, but it was only a matter of seconds before you and Mr Hutchings saw it, too. You will remember that I stood aside immediately I had stepped out on to the roof so that you and he might join me.’
‘I see what you mean. Anyway, we shall hold the inquest as soon as we can get the body identified. Not a very nice job for whoever it is. Let’s hope the poor devil was a bachelor. I’d hate a woman to have to do it.’