Suddenly the south porch of St. Eata’s was a seething hive of industry, and there were some eight or nine people clustered like bees in swarm round the indifferent body of Gerry Bracewell.
Before eleven o’clock they had lifted the body carefully into an outspread polythene sheet, retrieved the open briefcase from under it, and packed the deceased into a plastic shell, which was promptly whisked away under Dr. Goodwin’s supervision to the hospital mortuary in Comerbourne. It was inconveniently far from the scene, but that was unavoidable, there was no suitable place nearer. The relevant exhibits had vanished with the man from the forensic laboratory. The south porch looked empty and innocent again, and the imperturbably amiable iron beast chewed his twisted ring and grinned as before. In the vicarage George made hurried notes before following the body to the mortuary, and somewhere on the road to Birmingham his sergeant fretted at a succession of red traffic lights, on his way to break the news to Mrs. Roberta Bracewell, and bring her to identify her husband’s body. It was a job that mustn’t be put off, but on the other hand couldn’t be indecently rushed. George reckoned he had plenty of time to call at Dave Cressett’s garage, and still be at the mortuary before the post mortem could begin.
The Morris was four years old, none too well maintained, and had accumulated the usual hotchpotch of appurtenances official and unofficial, assortment of cleaning rags, old tools, paper tissues, folding red triangle for travel abroad, one left glove, a man’s knitted scarf, a crumpled packet of cigarettes, a box of first-aid dressings and a dismembered morning paper, but nothing at all suggestive or interesting. It stood waiting in. the rear part of the yard, beyond the workshop.
“You’ll probably want to take it away,” said Dave, watching the chief inspector’s face attentively. A thin, dark, self-contained, mildly humorous face. Moon liked him, and Moon’s liking was a decided recommendation.
“I doubt it,” said George, “seeing he left it here with you yesterday morning, and it’s been here ever since. Keep it for a couple of days, and I’ll get it looked over here on the spot. It’s as private as anywhere. When we’ve finished with it I’ll clear it for you, and you can hand it over to the widow. Or if you prefer, we’ll do that for you.”
“I’d rather do it myself. He left it here for a job to be done, and I’d like to hand it back in good order to whoever owns it now. There’s a widow, then?”
“Yes, he was married. No children, apparently. He took just his briefcase out of the back there when you left, you said? Nothing else?”
“No, nothing else. He said he might stay overnight, so I thought nothing of it when he didn’t show up in the evening.” He wanted to ask if Bracewell had indeed booked a room at the Martel Arms Hotel, but he wasn’t on that kind of terms with the chief inspector. If it had been Sergeant Moon he would have asked whatever he wanted to know, and Moon would have told him as much as he thought he should be told. George was to be encountering the shadow of Sergeant Moon on every side in this valley, but it didn’t matter. Moon was his man, and could pick up at leisure what was withheld from his chief.
A confidence might always be worth a confidence in return. “He booked in all right,” said George. “He left his pyjamas and shaving kit there in the room. Nobody realised he wasn’t in overnight, because up here—but I realise I’m telling a native the facts of life—nobody bothers to lock hotel rooms or hand in keys. They thought he was sleeping a bit late this morning, but he hadn’t asked for a call, so they never even wondered until around nine o’clock.” He turned briskly away from the car. “Now if I could have one more word with Miss Cressett and your partner…”
Dinah and Hugh were in the kitchen together, and the shocked and wary glances they turned when they were interrupted, and the way their low-pitched and subdued voices died upon the air, spoke for them.
“Don’t let me disturb you,” George said. “I just wanted to make sure on one point. On your way back from the Abbey last night—that would be at about ten o’clock?”
“Just about ten past when we got here,” said Hugh. “I looked at my watch after we said good night.”
“So probably around ten when you came though the village. You’d touch only one side of the churchyard on that route, I know, but did you see anyone moving around at that hour? Anywhere in that stretch?”
They had not, and said so. “Except Joe Lyon, just making off across the lane to the fields, on his way home,” added Hugh. “But I bet you’ll find he’d left the bar of the ‘Duck’ a couple of minutes before. He always leaves just before ten, he’s got a long way to go.”
“Nobody else at all?”
“Not a soul. It was misty and miserable outside.”
“Yes, that’s true, not an attractive night. Then there’s nothing else you can add? Nothing that might be relevant in any way?”
“There’s one thing that’s just too relevant,” said Dinah abruptly. She looked at Hugh for guidance, but he was gazing back at her with eyes wide in wondering inquiry. “But it isn’t a matter of fact at all, and you’ll think I’m crazy. If it wasn’t for the—the resemblance…”
“Tell me,” George suggested, “and let me judge.”
“It’s what Dave told us about how he was found, huddled up facing the door, and with his hand stretched out touching it—as if he’d been holding the knocker when he was struck, and just slid down the door as he fell. Last night Robert told us a story about that door. There’s supposed to have been another queer death connected with it, centuries ago.”
Light had dawned on Hugh. “Oh, that! But that’s just nonsense, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means there could be people who think of the door in that way, plenty of people. It could even mean that someone might try to reproduce what’s supposed to have happened all that time ago—supposing he wanted to kill at all, that would be one way of creating a complete fog around the act, wouldn’t it? Even if there’s nothing at all in the superstition itself, it could be effective, couldn’t it?”
“What is this story? The door’s supposed to have killed someone before?” asked George.
“Not so much killed him as refused to save him.” Dinah told the story, as nearly as she could remember them in the words Robert had used. “But Mrs. Macsen-Martel said how odd, she couldn’t remember hearing that legend before.”
“My mother hears only what she wants to hear,” Hugh said indulgently, “and she hates all this superstitious mush. If she met a couple of ghostly monks pacing along the gallery, she’d walk straight through them and pretend they weren’t there. There are plenty of odd stories, there always are about old houses. But none of us ever think about them at all unless we’re prodded. Dinah did ask about the door.”
She admitted it. “Yes, I began it. But isn’t it queer that this man Bracewell should be killed just there—close to the door—touching it? Exactly the same!”
“Oh, come off it!” protested Hugh bracingly. “Any moment you’ll be crediting it that the devil took this one, too!”
“I shan’t,” said Dinah, “but once the word gets round, half Middlehope will. Maybe that’s what somebody wants to happen.”
George made no comment, merely thanked her and took his leave. But as he drove down the valley towards Comerbourne and the unpleasant and lengthy rendezvous at the mortuary, he could not help feeling that Dinah might turn out to be a true prophet. Much worse, the first whispers of words like “devil.” “witchcraft.” “ghost,” would bring the representatives of the more sensational Sunday papers converging on Middlehope like hounds in full cry. Some fast and determined work was indicated, if they were to escape that fate.