‘Good Lord! I hope so!’
‘Then you had better be prepared with it. The husband or wife is usually first on the list of suspects.’
He shrugged, laughed, then bit his lip, as though recollecting what had happened to cause her to make the statement. He got up, then.
‘Well, thank you for your help,’ he said. ‘I’d better say good-bye to Miss McKay and get back to Garchester. We shall meet again at the inquest, perhaps?’
‘I shall be there.’
‘Well, what do you make of him?’ asked Miss McKay, when Coles had taken his leave and gone. Dame Beatrice waved a yellow claw.
‘I must have notice of that question,’ she said. ‘I want to look over Mrs Coles’ wardrobe.’
Miss McKay asked no questions. She touched the buzzer for her secretary, who delivered Dame Beatrice into the charge of the head student. There was little wardrobe accommodation in the study bedrooms, and, beyond a suit obviously retained for best wear, a dance frock, a stuff frock for ordinary college wear, and some sweaters, blouses and changes of stockings and underclothes, there was nothing very much in the missing student’s room and certainly nothing to excite remark. It was not what was there, but what was not there, which interested Dame Beatrice.
‘Are there any clothes in a trunk in the boxroom or the basement?’ she enquired.
‘Yes. Most people keep clothes in their trunks, and then, of course, we are allotted lockers for such things as dungarees, Wellingtons and dairy dresses,’ the head student replied.
‘Yes, I see. I should like to look into her trunk.’
She was shown this and, for form’s sake, she also inspected the dead girl’s locker in the basement. She shook her head.
‘Did the student not possess a dressing-gown?’ she asked. ‘And I have seen only one pair of pyjamas.’
‘One pair would be in the wash, but there ought to be a third,’ said the head student. ‘And a dressing-gown—I don’t know for certain. She may have used her overcoat.’
‘But that also is missing, and she was not wearing it when she was found. Will you please keep this little expedition of ours strictly secret from the rest of the college?’
‘Yes, of course, if you wish, but would you not like me to try to find out about the dressing-gown?’
‘The overcoat seems far more important. Considering the time of year, one can deduce that it does exist somewhere. No doubt your reactions to that supposition are the same as my own.’
‘I take it you mean that if it’s not in college, it must be somewhere else. The question, I suppose, is—where?’
‘Exactly.’ She beamed upon the student and returned to acquaint Miss McKay with the negative result of her researches.
‘We didn’t fathom her,’ said Miss McKay. ‘But, of course, a girl who will contract a secret marriage in the middle of her training may be a darker horse than I had suspected. I wonder how far on the police are in their investigation? So far, they haven’t troubled the college. I suppose that is because she was found twenty-five miles away. All the same, I shall be surprised if we are not overrun as soon as the inquest is over. What, if anything, will come out at the inquest, I wonder?’
‘Probably nothing but the cause of death.’
‘You actually named spotted hemlock as the vehicle. How was that?’
‘That was simply guess-work. I had noticed the spotted hemlock about the neighbourhood. Of course, the murderer has had bad luck. It was by the merest chance in the world that your students took up the piece of material that hid the body from view. Who could have supposed that they would want to use the stage-coach?’
‘Ah, yes. I have asked no questions in case I might hamper the police or your own enquiry, but I should be interested to know what caused them to explore the interior of the coach. I realised at the time, of course, that they were up to mischief.’
‘They were seeking a hiding-place for some sacks of sprouting rhubarb.’
‘Oh, I see. Preparatory to rendering unto Caesar the things they presumed to be Caesar’s, I take it? Ah, well, since they did not succeed in their object, there is no reason for me to appear in the matter.’
‘I made some enquiries at the inn, and it appears that the presence of an unspecified heap on the floor of the coach would have brought no investigation from the owners, as they never went near it except to paint it every fifth year in order to preserve the bodywork.’
‘Is there anything else I can do for you? Any way I can be of help?’
‘Well, I wish I could find some way of meeting the girl’s mother and stepfather. I should very much like to hear what they have to say.’
‘I can arrange that, I think. I shall have to invite them to college after the inquest to collect the poor girl’s things. Then you can meet them on neutral ground, as it were, and under non-suspicious circumstances. Will that do?’
‘Most admirably. I wonder who was the last person to see her before she encountered her death? In the case of a murder by poisoning, the actual killer need not have been on the spot.’
‘We don’t seem able to find out. In other words, I don’t think there was any one particular person. You know how it is in a hostel. The students are almost always in groups, and that is the way we like it. A gregarious student, on the whole, is a happy student. You still cling, I suppose, to the idea that Miss Palliser—I mean, Mrs Coles—was spirited away on that horse Miss Good saw?’
‘I still think that, if she was not, coincidence has an even longer arm than I have ever suspected.’
‘I still don’t know why the parents have troubled the college so little. I wonder what made the mother marry again? It does not seem to have been for financial reasons, from what one can gather. I’ll tell you one thing, though— not that it could have any bearing upon what has happened, but—I don’t like the sound of that stepfather. I wonder whether he has children of his own? I also wonder whether Mrs Coles left a will. Not that I know whether she had anything very substantial to leave.’
‘Are you arguing that the stepfather may have killed the girl to get possession of her inheritance, not knowing that she was married? It is possible.’
Miss McKay wagged her head.
‘Wills cause more trouble and more bad feeling than wars,’ she pronounced solemnly. ‘But, of course, we have yet to discover whether a will was involved. If not, we may have a crime of jealousy, although one can hardly credit that one of our students would be mixed up in that sort of thing. They always seem such pedestrian, ordinary girls.’
‘Yes, I know what you mean, but how can one tell? Of course, pedestrian, ordinary girls do get themselves murdered, I suppose.’
‘Oh, dear!’ exclaimed Miss McKay. ‘There goes the refectory bell. I don’t know about you, but at the first sign of trouble I eat like a horse. Come along.’
While the plates were being changed for the second course, the college secretary was called away. She came back with a message.
‘Miss Palliser’s parents are here, and would like to see you.’
‘Tell them I won’t keep them waiting for more than a few minutes. I shall indicate, without actually committing myself to a spoken lie, that you are a member of the staff, if you don’t mind,’ she added, in an aside, to Dame Beatrice. ‘I met the mother once, but not the stepfather. I shall be interested to know what you make of them.’ She finished her meal, drank a cup of black coffee and then, with an apology to the rest of the high table, rose and made her way, with Dame Beatrice, to the visitors’ parlour.
chapter six
Case History
‘These are, I think, guinea-pigs, but of a particular kind.’
Ibid.
« ^ »
The dead girl’s stepfather wore a black armband and a black tie. He was a swarthy Italianate man, short and of stoutish build, with clear, amber, cat-like eyes, a broad nose and a slightly paunched belly. The mother bore no possible resemblance to the dead girl and did not appear to be old enough for the relationship between them. Her first words were in explanation of this.