‘Oh, you thought these three had spent the night on the moors, did you?’
‘No, only the one you want me to describe.’
‘Ah, only the one you think stole the anorak and the rucksack. Now, madam, what did he look like?’
‘Nothing on earth, poor man. He was a lot older than the other two. They would have been in their early twenties, I dare say, and quite well-spoken and just the decent, quiet type we like to have. Did his share of the chores, too, as well as their own, before they left in the morning.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Because he must have sneaked out of the hostel before anybody was stirring. By the way, my name is Beck — Mrs — and, as you see, I don’t live in the hostel myself. Some wardens do, but they’re generally men, I should think. I prefer to keep myself as much out of the way as I can. I think the hostellers prefer it that way and I’m sure I do. I’ll tell you another thing: on thinking things over, I don’t believe the two younger ones knew this older fellow, else why should he have robbed one of them and then sneaked off like that? Something fishy about him to do a thing like that, wouldn’t you say?’
‘An older fellow?’ said Ribble. ‘How much older?’
‘Oh, into his fifties I wouldn’t wonder, but perhaps looked older than he really was because of being so wet and tired and dirty, and not being shaved and all that. He would have been a right mean-looking fellow, anyway, and had hardly a word to say for himself.’
‘But he was correctly booked in, I think you said. ’
‘Well, somebody was, but I’ve been wondering whether that somebody was him or somebody else. I’ll just fetch the register book. If he was a cuckoo in the nest I can’t help it. I can only go by the membership cards they hand in.’
The detective-sergeant politely opened the door for her. They heard her call the dog and then they heard the front door close. Apparently she kept the register over at the hostel itself and not in the cottage.
‘Well,’ said Ribble, when the sergeant had returned to his seat, ‘what do you make of all that?’
‘Could be our man, sir.’
‘I’ll lay a ducat it is our man. I’ll show her his picture when she gets back. I mean, it all tallies, doesn’t it? What with the age, the theft, the mean look, the sleeping rough and getting wet through, it could almost add up, and I’m inclined to bet on it. Well, there’s one obvious line of country we can take as soon as we’ve got the addresses. We can check on all three of these chaps and see what kind of story they have to tell. Before that, though, we’ll see whether Mrs Beck can give us any help over this murdered girl. From the fact that she was cycling between this place and Gledge End, I think it’s quite possible that she was either coming away or going to the hostel, although, of course, she may have been coming from her own home or been staying at one of the farms.’
‘Or in one of the forest cabins, sir, and had been out for a spin on her bike.’
‘We can ask, but I doubt whether she was one of the forest lot. She wouldn’t have booked one of the cabins all to herself. They are geared to accommodate parties of five or six people with rent appropriate to this number. If she had been a member of such a party, enquiries would have been made about her before now, and we should have found out who she was.’
Upon her return to her cottage Mrs Beck was able to supply some information. She opened the register, but, before she could say anything, Ribble asked whether either of the younger men had stayed at the hostel on any other occasion.
‘No,’ she said, ‘but I think they had done quite a lot of hostelling. They seemed to the manner born, if you know what I mean. You can always tell the experienced ones. Here we are, look. I didn’t have a lot in that night or the night before. Time of year, you know. They mostly come in the summer, not late autumn like this, and in this part of the country.’
‘Ah, yes. Now, can you tell me which of the names you have down under this date is that of the older man we require?’
Mrs Beck could help him only a little over this. The bookings had been made and the fees sent by Steve Piggott. The other two were down as Tony Mackie and Bert Leeds, but which was which she had no idea, since Steve had handed in and, at the end of the stay, collected all three membership cards.
‘All I know is that Piggott, Mackie and Leeds are the three that came together, as you see by the way I’ve bracketed them in the book. I know which was Piggott because of the three cards being handled and all the fees paid in by him and him giving his own name to me, but none of them had ever been here before. Piggott wanted to hold some kind of gospel meeting in the common-room, but I said I couldn’t permit that, as the common-room was common to all and some members might object. He took it very well. It was a shame he was the one to be robbed, but it’s what the innocent must expect, I suppose.’
‘There was a photograph on the warning notices we sent out,’ said Ribble. ‘Couldn’t you have compared it with this third man, the scruffy one?’
‘Oh, it was very smudgy,’ said the warden. ‘Besides, he came with the other two, and all three cards handed in together, so I didn’t connect anything. Well, you wouldn’t, would you? If he’d come alone and without a membership card — but, then, he wouldn’t, would he? — I should have suspected something, but with everything seeming to be in order…’
Ribble said that he quite understood. He added that it must be very lonely for her in the winter, but it turned out that from the middle of November until the end of February she spent much of her time at her sister’s house in Long Cove Bay, returning to open up the hostel only if there happened to be any bookings. These, as she had explained, had to be made in advance, ‘I always know where I am, you see,’ she said. ‘It’s all down in writing.’
Ribble said that he was glad to hear it and was relieved that she had the dog. Then he showed her a clear photograph of the convict, but she refused to commit herself.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘if that’s all, I generally have a cup of tea about now, before I open up at five for the hostellers. Perhaps you’d join me.’
‘Thanks, but there is one other matter, Mrs Beck. I think I mentioned we’re interested in two people. One is this escaped convict, the other is a young woman aged somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, of slight build and brown-haired. She was a cyclist and could have been making for this hostel or coming away from it. She was wearing blue jeans, an orange-coloured shirt, a brown pullover, brown shoes and a bright yellow anorak.’
‘Oh, dear! You don’t mean something’s happened to her? Did she have an accident? Is she hurt?’
‘Yes, she met with a serious accident. You seem to recognise the description.’
‘Oh, good gracious, yes! That’s Tyne, Judy Tyne. She was one of the dancers, you know, only she had a tiff with one of the others and took herself off yesterday morning. She’s stayed here before. They’ve all stayed here before. It’s half-term holiday for them. Some are teachers and some might be students. They do sword-dances and jigs and sing the old-fashioned country songs. I’ve sometimes watched them rehearsing. But how bad is Judy? Is she in hospital?’
‘No, not in hospital. You say she had a disagreement with one of the others and took herself off?’
‘Yes, but I think the rest of them thought she would come back when she’d cooled down. They were booked in for three nights, you see, so she wouldn’t have anywhere else to sleep. But what has she got to do with this prisoner you’re chasing after?’