‘No. He offered to do a stint to help us out and that was the tour without a driver.’
‘I see.’
‘You mean you won’t go up there, then, and look into things for yourself and on our behalf?’
‘For myself, well, yes. Curiosity, apart from my dislike of murder, will impel me to continue my investigations.’
‘My Company will be glad to…’
‘I am not interested in rewards and I do not believe in fairies.’
‘But we’d like to express…’
‘Look, my dear Mr Honfleur, does not one thing strike you very forcibly?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘If you have not guessed my meaning it will be kinder if I do not expound it.’
Basil Honfleur got up from his chair and walked to the window of this office. The view was pleasant. The window did not overlook the busy bus station but gave a prospect of the municipal park. There were lawns, trees and flower-beds and among these meandered a tiny stream. Broad paths were thronged with holiday crowds, but their laughter and conversation scarcely penetrated to the room, which was high up in the building. Faintly, also, like the dying fall referred to by Shakespeare, came the far-off music played by the municipal orchestra, for the bandstand was opposite the window from which Honfleur surveyed the scene.
He remained where he was for a minute or two and then turned to Dame Beatrice.
‘I won’t pretend I don’t understand you,’ he said. ‘You mean this dreadful business is something to do with our organisation, don’t you?’
‘I think that, somewhere among your members, you have what my secretary would call a bent operator.’
‘Yes,’ said Honfleur gloomily, ‘I know all the evidence suggests that, particularly the hijacking of the coach in Wales and the planting of it in Swansea. But it doesn’t follow, you know. Our chaps are by no means the only people who can handle a coach. Take that tank chap at Hulliwell, for example. If he could take that coach-load back to their hotel without any trouble, so could hundreds of others.’
‘That is true. Where is the passenger list for this tour conducted by Knight?’
‘As we live there, we picked up the coach in Canonbury,’ said Mrs Grant. ‘I travelled with my neighbour, Mrs Kingsbury, while our husbands went fishing. I did a coach tour with Ian last year. I liked it, but he was less keen. Anyway, we agreed that it wasn’t a bad idea to have separate holidays for a change, so he fixed up with Edward Kingsbury while I went off with Susan. We took a room with twin beds because we thought you got a better room that way, and we know each other quite well, so neither of us minded sharing and it’s more companionable, too.
‘We stayed the first night in Harrogate and went on to Edinburgh. We had thought of going out after dinner, but it rained. It was still raining when we left at nine on the following morning – Monday, that would have been – but the rain cleared away before lunch, so we had a really enjoyable run, although it was too misty to see much at first.
‘We crossed the Forth Bridge and had a rather poor coffee-stop, I thought. It was only so that people could use the loo, of course. I don’t think anybody bothered with coffee; it wasn’t that sort of place. But the lunch stop was delightful, right at the end of Loch Earn, and we had enough time to walk around a little, when the meal was over, and look at the view. The driver came with Susan and me and told us the names of the mountains, but, of course, I don’t remember what they were.’
The driver? Mr Knight?’
‘Yes. Such a helpful man and so knowledgeable. There wasn’t a question he couldn’t answer, although he said he had done the tour only once before.’
‘So you had no suspicions?’
‘Suspicions of what?’
‘That he might have had something on his mind, perhaps.’
‘Good heavens, no, except that I suppose the drivers must always have something on their minds. It must be a big responsibility to have thirty people depending on you for nine whole days and all that driving to do. He was always most jovial, though. When we got back on to the coach after the next stop, which was for tea after we’d been through Glen Coe, he said, “You think you’re going to Fort William, don’t you? Well, you’re not.” I remember I felt very disappointed. I wondered whether that meant we were not going to Skye, either, because, of course, they reserve the right to change the route, but, as it turned out, all was well. We stayed at a new hotel, most of it built bungalow-fashion with one three-storey wing, and, I must say, it was excellent. It was about five miles south of Fort William and —’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Dame Beatrice, who did not want to waste time in listening to a description of a hotel which she herself proposed to visit in the near future, ‘and it was from that hotel that Knight disappeared.’
‘He sat at dinner the first night with Susan and me and a man who had come on his own, and Knight was as cheerful and talkative as ever. After dinner Susan and I went for a stroll. The hotel was on the shores of Loch Linnhe and it was a lovely evening. There were mountains on the other side of the loch and the water was calm and lovely. If Ian had been there instead of Susan it would have been like our honeymoon. (We spent it in the Highlands.) When we got back, the woman who sat behind us in the coach was reading people’s palms and there was a big group round her, of course, and a lot of laughing and exclamations. The tour had certainly got into its stride and everybody seemed relaxed and happy, especially Mr Knight. I suppose it’s a relief to know a tour is going well.’
‘And on the following day you went to Skye.’
‘Yes, but the best part of the drive was from Fort William to Kyle of Lochalsh. That was glorious, especially after we turned westwards at Invergarry. Skye wasn’t nearly so impressive, but I don’t think we saw the best part of it, because we took the road straight up to Portree on the east side and didn’t get any real views of the Cuillins or anything like that.’
‘And after you got back from Skye?’
‘I think most people turned in fairly early. I wrote some postcards and then Susan and I went to bed. We talked about the views of Ben Nevis we had seen on the way back.’
‘Did you see any more of the driver after he had brought the party back from Skye?’
‘Oh, yes. Somebody bought him a drink at the bar and he was at dinner – not with us, of course, this time. He had to go the rounds. After dinner he was not in the lounge for coffee and I concluded he was checking the coach against the next day’s run.’
‘And you never saw him again?’
‘No. He wasn’t at breakfast, but nobody thought anything about that, because we concluded he’d had his early so as to get all our suitcases on board ready for the nine o’clock start, but when we came out from breakfast and Susan had been back to our room to make sure the suitcases had been collected from outside the bedroom door and that we’d left nothing behind, we went to the hotel reception to hand in our key and there was all the luggage still stacked in the vestibule and no sign of Knight or the coach. One of the porters was asking whether anyone had seen him, but, of course, nobody had.’
‘But the coach was still there? He had not gone off in it?’
‘Oh, no, it was where, I suppose, he had parked it overnight behind the hotel. Well, we hung about and hung about. Some sat in the lounge, others looked at the things in the hotel shop, then the newspapers came in, so that helped a bit. I spoke to the manager, but he couldn’t tell us a thing except that Mr Knight must have thumbed a lift into Fort William to buy something and hadn’t been able to get a lift back.’