‘I was told you were shy.’
‘Oh, I see. Yes, that wouldn’t be a word you would use to describe Basil, I admit. Was that all?’
‘Apart from a feeling I had.’
‘Of something fishy? How extraordinary!’
‘Not so very extraordinary. You see, the dead girl’s sister is missing from the college. We were led to suppose, at first, that it was the student who had been killed. I will not—in fact, I need not—give you all the details, but the police will have to find the girl. Is she with Basil?’
‘Honestly, that I don’t know. Look here, Basil’s in Ulster— somewhere near Londonderry, I believe. But you can take it from me that he hasn’t done any killing. He runs after women all right, but he doesn’t murder his little friends; he simply discards them.’
Dame Beatrice nodded.
‘What would he have done, I wonder, if you had not broken your leg?’ she said. Simnel laughed.
‘I suppose he’d have been a good boy and gone back to his job at the right time,’ he replied. ‘Anyway, I can see he’d better get himself straightened out with the police. When was the job supposed to have been done?’
‘That cannot be answered exactly, but, from the medical evidence given at the inquest, the girl probably died towards the end of September.’
‘Then, if it can be proved that Basil was in Ireland at the time…?’
‘Yes, it would clear him.’
‘You see, I busted my leg on the thirtieth of August, and after he’d seen me into hospital and let my people know and all that, he told me he’d need this alibi and asked whether I was prepared to play ball. Well, we were pals, anyway, and then, you see, my cracking up like that had spoilt his holiday, and then, again, he’d been very decent in getting me fixed up, so, as I took it for granted that he wanted to go off with some woman, I agreed to take his name and let him use mine.’
‘But was all this arranged before you came to hospital?’
‘Oh, no. Nothing was fixed up before I had the fall. The hospital part of it helped him to get away with things. He just registered me in the name of Basil and wrote the letter explaining about the broken leg to the principal of the college, and there he was—all set and everything in the garden lovely.’
‘I am surprised that the hospital has kept you here so long.’
‘Oh, I’m a mess, you know. They keep grafting bits on to me and taking bits out—the surgeon has had the time of his life. I don’t believe he’ll ever let me go.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. The grub’s good up here.’
‘There is one more thing, Mr Simnel. You said just now that Mr Basil informed your relatives of your accident. Surely they apprised the matron here of your real name?’
‘No. They live in Australia, and would take for granted what they were told.’
‘I see. Will you give me Mr Basil’s address in Ireland?’
‘You’ll find it in that small diary in my locker. Help yourself.’
‘By the way,’ said Dame Beatrice, when she had found the entry and had copied it into her own diary, ‘you have already had the police here, I suppose?’
Simnel looked genuinely surprised.
‘News to me,’ he said. ‘I suppose they interviewed the matron.’
This supposition proved to be correct, as Dame Beatrice discovered after she had taken leave of the patient. The police had asked whether she had a patient named Basil, and, when she had answered in the affirmative, they had asked some questions about his injuries and were particularly interested to hear that he had been admitted to hospital on the date she gave them.
‘They were satisfied,’ she told Dame Beatrice, ‘that he was not the man they were looking for, and begged me not to worry him by telling him of their visit. They might have spared themselves the trouble. Police or no police, no patient in my hospital is going to be worried by anybody, let alone by me.’
‘So now we know,’ said Laura, when, at dinner that evening, Dame Beatrice gave her a report of the interview. ‘It looks like this Piggy Basil, doesn’t it?’
‘We shall find out when he crossed over to Ireland and whether he can prove that he was there when the murder was committed. We had better put through a long-distance call to the police, and give them Mr Basil’s Ulster address.’
‘How many flies do you think there are on this Piggy?’ demanded Laura. ‘He seems to me a very smooth type. This alibi now. How do you really think of it?’
‘As the work of an unscrupulous man.’
‘Unscrupulous enough to commit murder?’
‘Murder is often not only the result of unscrupulousness but is also a matter of expediency.’
‘I can see why he should kill Norah Coles if he took her away and, as they say, “done her wrong,” but I can’t see how the sister Carrie comes into it. Still, they must be pretty well alike for their own mother to have mixed them up when she identified the body.’
‘As we have already realised, that attempt at identification was a horrid and difficult matter. Perhaps, after all, we had better go over to Northern Ireland and see Mr Basil for ourselves. Armed with the college photographs, we should be able to ascertain whether his companion is Mrs Coles.’
‘We don’t know that he’s got a companion. He may simply be hiding from the English police.’
‘Then Northern Ireland is not the most sensible place to choose. Kindly obtain reservations for our journey and rooms at an hotel in Londonderry, and we will be off at the earliest possible moment.’
Nothing could have suited Laura better. By the end of the week they were established in the Hotel Fingal, just outside Londonderry, the hotel in which, according to Simnel’s diary, their quarry was also staying. At that time of year the hotel was by no means crowded and it was not long before they felt certain that they had identified Basil. He was a hearty, uninhibited creature of about forty, fattish and going slightly bald. The hotel employed waitresses only, and his manner with the girl who looked after his table was what Laura had been led to expect. He was loud-laughing and brash, and appeared to embarrass the girl a good deal.
‘This,’ said Laura to Dame Beatrice, ‘is where I scrape acquaintance with Piggy. His looks give point to his name. I am observing him closely, and, as soon as the time is ripe, I suggest that I spring myself upon him with a moot question about holiday camps. What do you think about that?’
‘It might be as good a way as any other of giving him either a shock, a warning or a chance of telling you that he has never been to such a place in his life.’
‘You don’t think he would simply come clean and give me the low-down about himself and his girl-friend? Wonder where she is? Nobody seems to be sharing his table.’
‘I hardly think he will be prepared to confide in you. Still, do your best and bravest. The repercussions should be of interest.’
Laura’s opportunity soon came. In fact, Basil himself provided it. She arranged so that they reached the door of the lounge together. Piggy opened it with a flourish,and an unnecessary obeisance, Laura thanked him, sailed through and seated herself on a settee. From the reputation he had been given, she felt certain that he would join her, and so he did. Dame Beatrice, who, by arrangement, had left the dining-room earlier, watched the little comedy from an armchair near the fire.
Laura took out a cigarette and Basil’s lighter was immediately brought into play. Laura thanked him again and asked how he liked the hotel.
‘Oh, I’m leaving tomorrow,’ he said. ‘At least’—with a gallant smirk—‘I was. Not so sure now, Mrs…?’
‘Gavin.’ (He had been quick to spot the wedding-ring, thought Laura. A mistake, perhaps, not to have removed it.) ‘You do like it here, then? Do you know the country well?’
‘So-so. You can’t do much without a car, and I didn’t bring mine over.’