‘Yes. Then we got into conversation and the upshot was that I went back with her to Crozier Lodge and offered to help with the hounds and they accepted.’
‘Up to that time, your time was your own, I take it. I wonder how you occupied yourself before you joined forces with the two sisters? Were you alone in the world?’
Susan told her story. She and her elder brother had been orphaned at a very early age — or else they had been born on the wrong side of the blanket. Whichever it was, they had been taken into care by the county authority and, later, Susan had been separated from her brother, fostered and then adopted by the late vicar of Axehead Abbots Bay and Abbots Crozier. When his wife died she had looked after the ageing man, and on his retirement in favour of a younger incumbent had moved with him into a local cottage, which he had since left to her by will. She had continued to live in the cottage after his death.
What money he left also came to her and, although it was not much, it brought her a tiny income which she had eked out by doing casual work, sometimes fruit picking or other harvesting jobs, sometimes as a domestic help, sometimes working in the hotels in Abbots Bay and Abbots Crozier.
‘So you knew all about the Rant sisters before you joined them,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘I knew their father got himself a bad name because a couple of his patients died. There was a lot of trouble about one of them in particular. You hear so much gossip when you go from one job to another, as I was doing. There were rumours that Dr Rant had had to leave his practice in the Midlands for much the same kind of reason and, of course, that story blossomed and it was suspected that the Midlands patient had been conned into leaving him her money. You never know where scandalmongering will stop when once tongues start wagging.’
It was clear that the conversation had come to an end so far as Susan was concerned. Dinner was served and Susan, who had eaten her meal almost in silence, retired early to bed. On the following morning, she was sent off in the car, driven by George.
‘Well, ’ said Laura, when she had waved Susan goodbye from the front steps of the Stone House, ‘where do we go from here? If she didn’t go swimming that morning, where did she go?’
‘I think we had better take it as a working hypothesis that she may have gone to Crozier Lodge, that there she may have met this man who had spent the night in the room above the garage, and that then she may have taken Sekhmet to Watersmeet and left her there — ’
‘And on the excuse of going to look for the dog, she could have met the man again and killed him?’
‘I do not know. If she did, it will be necessary for the police to find out what previous connection they had had with one another. Until the man is identified, that will be impossible, I think.’
‘The non-fit hat and the useless piece of trouser-band could have been planted by Susan herself for the police to find, I suppose,’ said Laura. ‘She could prove the hat was quite the wrong size and the bit of material gave nothing away. If it was proved that she did plant them with intention to deceive, that would about cook her goose.’
‘I think I would like a word with the poacher myself. Now that George has paved the way with largesse, the man should not be unwilling to talk to me.’
Darne Beatrice refused to have Laura accompany her to the shack and timed her arrival for four in the afternoon — an hour, she decided, when all sensible poachers and other night-birds would be at home catching up on their sleep.
Adams came to the door with the lurcher at his heels and no very friendly expression on his face. He said in surly tones that he did not want any magazines or tracts and was C. of E. Dame Beatrice cackled and said that her own prejudice concerning religious literature coincided with his and, indicating the briefcase she was carrying, added that all she had come for was an exchange of opinions concerning the Rant sisters and any information about them which he was willing to supply.
‘For a consideration, of course,’ she added. ‘I hope that you possess two chairs which you are prepared to place out here on the moor. One likes to be outdoors in this extremely pleasant weather.’
‘Ah, the shack do stink,’ he agreed. “ ’Tis the bitch and the rabbits, and I’ve had a hare hanging up. What sort of consideration would you have in mind, mum?’
‘I would prefer to do that kind of thinking when I have put my questions to you. I ought to warn you that I have made contact with a journalist who interviewed you at the Crozier Arms recently, so I shall be able to check your statements to some extent. I want facts, not fairytales.’
‘Not over-civil, be you?’
‘Bring out the chairs and let us get down to business. Neither of us, I imagine, has time to waste.’
‘I wonder a little old lady like you has the nerve to come out to a place like this on your own and tell a man you reckons he’s a liar, given half the chance, specially when you got money on you.’
‘Oh, as to that,’ said Dame Beatrice, slipping a hand into a pocket and producing a small revolver, ‘I usually travel with what the American gangsters used to refer to as the old equaliser. An apt name for a gun, don’t you think?’
At this he grinned, saluted with mock ceremonial, went indoors and a few moments later they were seated out on the moors with bees busy in the early heather of the south-west and the flies rising in the bracken. The lurcher remained indoors, shut away from the conference.
Whether it was because she had already heard the story from George or for some other reason, Adams repeated to Dame Beatrice what he had told the so-called reporter and, incidentally, what he had told the police, although he did not mention this. When she had heard the account, she began to question him. The poacher answered readily enough, although he told her that most of his knowledge had been gained by hearsay and not by personal experience. ‘Me not having no sort of use for a doctor,’ he explained. ‘When I got anything wrong I cures it meself, same like me father before me. Never knoo me mother. I don’t reckon her and me dad was ever married — ’
‘Yes, now to get back to the matter in hand. It could have been a woman you saw with the man who had slept in the loft above the Rants’ garage — ’
‘Wot of it? I can only tell you what I told the police. I don’t know who it was.’
‘To have been up and about so early, the person must have lived locally, and a villager, from what I have been told, would not have ventured into the garden of Crozier Lodge.’
‘I ent saying nothing about that. I was too far away to spot who it was. That’s to say, if I had knowed ’em anyway. I didn’t call nobody to mind as they reminded me of, though.’
‘This other person, the one you found in the loft, did he remind you of anybody you knew?’
‘Not as I recollects.’
‘It seems to me that he must have known the house. He would not otherwise have realised that the loft was available for occupation. Was Dr Rant the village physician when you were younger?’
‘Him? Cor! Even if I was a-dying, I wouldn’t never have gone to that murdering sod.’
9
Poacher and Doctor
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The noun,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘I will ignore. The adjective I find intriguing. Whom did Dr Rant murder? — and under what circumstances?’
‘Is it worth a fiver to you?’
‘We shall both know that when I have heard the story.’
‘What do you want to know for?’
‘Because this death at Watersmeet may well lead to a charge of murder against person or persons so far unknown.’
‘Dr Rant couldn’t a-done it. He’m dead.’
‘I believe, though, that certain people still harbour such a grudge against him that they have extended it towards his daughters and even to their kennel-maid. What can he have done to arouse and sustain such rancour? All doctors make mistakes at times.’