‘Is this a leg-pull?’ she enquired at last. Dame Beatrice cackled.
‘Your legs are long enough already,’ she replied, inspecting those handsome appendages, which were encased in tapering trousers of the Menzies hunting tartan. ‘I should not dream of pulling either of them. How near to the Arthurian ideal of knighthood do you suppose Mr Basil to be?’
‘Miles and miles and miles away from it. He’s the bounder complete, I should say.’
‘I am not so sure.’ She did not enlarge upon this, but sent to order the car for nine o’clock on the following morning. They drove to Calladale College, where Dame Beatrice had a conversation with Miss McKay in which she recounted the talk she had had with Coles.
‘Of course, he still doesn’t know that the dead girl was the sister, and not his wife,’ said Miss McKay. ‘Didn’t you think you ought to tell him? He’s got to know, sooner or later, and you would break the news more gently than most people. Is it right to keep from him what will give him almost unbearable relief and pleasure?’
‘At the present stage of the enquiry it would not be at all a good idea to enlighten him,’ said Dame Beatrice, very decidedly.
‘Oh, well, I suppose you know best. The only thing is, where is the wretched Coles girl?’
On the following morning Dame Beatrice went to Garchester police station.
‘He’s staying as my guest,’ said the inspector. ‘We’ve nothing on him, you see, and he seems prepared now to co-operate. He’ll be here at any moment. What have you got to tell us before he comes?’
‘Nothing, but when the interview is over, if we’re not completely satisfied, I want you to witness an experiment.’
‘Not a reconstruction of the crime, madam? I don’t go for that kind of thing very much. Too French, in my opinion, to suit our English ideas.’
‘Not a reconstruction of the crime—by which, I imagine, you mean the murder of Carrie Palliser—but a reconstruction of a crime, yes. That is to say, a reconstruction of what, I suppose, the law would consider was a crime. To my mind, however—but we won’t anticipate.’
‘As Henry V did not say when he tried on his father’s crown,’ suggested Laura. A constable came in at this moment to announce that Mr Basil was at the inspector’s disposal.
Piggy was looking the worse for wear. His heavy face was so pale that it gave the impression that he had not shaved, for the dark hair-roots pigmented the skin on his cheeks and chin. He bowed to Dame Beatrice and seated himself on the chair which the inspector indicated. He placed pudgy, large hands on his knees and leaned back.
‘What is it this time?’ he asked; but his tone indicated weariness, not curiosity and certainly not belligerence.
‘Just another word or two, Mr Basil.’ The inspector was brisk. ‘We’d appreciate a little co-operation on a certain matter.’
‘Yes? Oh, well, fire away.’
‘Where is Mrs Coles?’
Piggy stared at him witn the eyes of a defunct fish. There was a pause.
‘Your guess is as good as mine, Inspector. I haven’t a clue.’
‘She has been seen and recognised here in Garchester, as I have already told you, and that quite recently. Now, Mr Basil, we want Mrs Coles and we want her badly, and we are pretty sure you know where she is.’
‘I don’t, I tell you. I haven’t set eyes on her since we parted in Northern Ireland.’
‘Well, sir, if that’s your story, and you intend to stick to it, I have to warn you that you are placing yourself in a very dangerous position.’
‘That’s as may be. I’ve done nothing against the law.’
‘You failed to report a death, Mr Basil,’ said Dame Beatrice. Piggy shrugged his fleshy shoulders.
‘You can’t prove that,’ he said. ‘In any case, it was not my business to report it.’
‘You admit that you knew of a death which nobody reported?’
‘I admit nothing. My conscience is quite clear. What is the charge you are bringing? My failure to report Whose death?’
‘That of Mrs Coles’ sister, Miss Carrie Palliser.’
‘But why should I report her death? It had nothing to do with me.’
‘I propose to take you up on that last statement, Mr Basil. I will undertake to prove to you that I know it had something to do with you. I will show what it had to do with you, and I will tell you why you acted as you did, and how mistaken you were.’
‘Mistaken? Are you sure?’ Colour came into his face. ‘If you can prove that—or don’t you mean what I think you mean?’
‘I shall leave that question unanswered. It will answer itself in time. Thank you, Inspector. I do not need to stay any longer.’
chapter nineteen
The Grey Mare’s Ghost
‘ …she would rise, lie down, turn, walk, trot or gallop at the command of her leader.’
Ibid.
« ^ »
Now,’ said Dame Beatrice, when she and Laura were at the hotel in Garchester where they had taken rooms, ‘we must hire, beg, borrow, steal or even purchase, a grey horse. A draught animal would be best, as it has to carry two persons. I wonder whether we can persuade some brewers’ drayman to oblige us?’
‘They take the stuff round to the pubs by lorry nowadays, don’t they? Why don’t you let me ring up Highpepper? Somebody there is sure to know of a grey.’
‘An excellent idea! By all means do that.’
Laura returned with the news that nobody at Highpepper possessed or hired a grey horse, but that the Garchester cricket team used one to pull the heavy roller and that, out of the season, it was returned to a farmer who lived on the western outskirts of the town.
‘The same horse as Miss Good saw that night, I’ll bet,’ added Laura, at the end of her triumphant recital. ‘You said once that if we found that horse we’d find the murderer, didn’t you?’
‘I have no recollection of it. If I did say so, I was jumping to conclusions which have proved to be unwarranted. Nevertheless, we may be able to establish a connection between Mr Basil and the dead girl if it is the same horse.’
The farmer was willing to let his grey horse out on hire for a Lady Godiva item in a pageant.
‘Of course,’ said Laura, who, at her own wish, was doing the lying, ‘we’re not actually doing the pageant until the spring, but we want time to assemble the props. Will you send the horse over to Calladale College tomorrow afternoon?’
‘Too far. Her won’t go in a horse-box and it’s a waste of a lad’s time to ride her over, her being slow-moving, do you see? Why don’t you bring your good people over here?’
‘Well, they can’t spare the time, either. I suppose you don’t know of anybody nearer the college who owns a grey carthorse?’
The farmer shook his head.
‘There’s young Jem Townsend owns a dapple,’ he said, ‘and there’s old Tom Garter owns a blue roan, but for Lady Godiva you’d be better off with an old white pony such as Colonel Grant’s got for his little grand-niece.’
Laura thanked him, regretted that they could not come to terms and asked where the dapple and the blue roan could be found. The farmer, slightly surprised that even a stranger should not know where young Jem Townsend and old Tom Carter lived, supplied the required information and wished her good day, asking, with twinkling eye as he eyed Laura’s splendid proportions, whether she herself was cast for the part of Lady Godiva. Laura told him to wait and see, and drove to Jem Townsend’s farm.
Here her luck was in.
‘Want my old Flossie for Lady Godiva again? Have they found a young woman brave enough to take it on, then? Last time the gentleman said the one they’d picked lost her nerve, so he brought the horse back next day.’