His Lordship—who was not slow—had done nothing to stop him. Indeed, on the last occasion he had been down there, the Earl had gone so far as to congratulate Bert on the fern species which were growing from a crack in the wall.
(“Fine plant you have there, Hackle,” he had said.
“Thank you, my lord.”)
Which Bert had taken as tacit approval.
“There’ll be a well somewhere,” said someone in the party who knew about castles.
Bert Hackle pointed. “Over there.”
The castle well was deep enough to need no faking and had been firmly boarded over on the advice of his Lordship’s insurance company.
“Good water,” said the gardener. “Nice and sweet.”
“Better than the piped stuff,” said a woman who had heard of—but knew nothing about—typhoid fever.
Hackle moved beyond the well head and took up a fresh stance in front of a low grating cut in the side of the wall. He cleared his throat impressively. The echo didn’t quite know what to make of this and there was an appreciable pause before he began on what was obviously his pièce de résistance.
“If you was bad,” he said, “you were thrown into the dungeons, but if you was really bad…”
Mrs. Fisher was sure Michael must be about somewhere.
“If you was really bad, they put you in here.” He bent his powerful arms down and pulled at the two iron bars of the grating. A great stone pivoted outwards, revealing a hole beyond. Three men might have stood in it.
“It’s a n’oobliette,” announced Hackle. “Where you put your prisoners and forgot them.”
“From the French,” translated the earnest woman.
Mrs. Fisher craned her neck to make sure that Michael wasn’t in it.
“They had it just here,” Hackle said in a macabre voice, “so that the prisoners could see the water being brought up from the well. Then they didn’t give them none.”
It took everyone except Mrs. Fisher a little time to sort out this double negative.
“They died of thirst,” she said at once, “while they was watching the water.”
Bert Hackle sucked his lips. “That’s right. Now, if you’ll all come along here with me I’ll show you the way to the armoury. It’s been reconstitooted from part of the old curtain wall…”
But the oubliette—or perhaps the stone staircase—had been enough for some, and the party that eventually entered the armoury was a very thin one. The earnest woman came—of course—and some three or four others.
“Michael Fisher!” Michael Fisher’s mother gave a shriek of mingled anger and recognition. “You naughty boy! You wait until I get you home.”
“It’s lovely down here, Mum.”
“What ever do you mean by running away like that?”
“It’s much more fun down here.” Michael remained undismayed by her anger.
Mrs. Fisher took a quick look round. There was one thing about this part of the house that reassured her. The old things, having stood the test of so very much time, were more likely to stand the test of Michael Fisher. His mother did not think he could have got up to much in the armoury.
Wherein she was sadly wrong.
It was a truly fearsome collection. Weapons sprouted from the walls, antique swords lay about in glass cases, chain-mail hung from hooks, and—as if this weren’t enough—several suits of armour stood about on the floor.
“Whoopee,” shouted Michael. “Look, Mum, this is what I’ve been doing.”
He darted off down the centre of the armoury, shadow-boxing with the coat of war of some long-forgotten knight of a bygone age.
“Got you,” he said to one of them, landing a blow on the breastplate. It resounded across the hall.
“Mum…” This was Maureen, who had been studying the contents of one of the glass cases without real interest.
“What?”
“Mum, what’s a belt of chastity?”
Mrs. Fisher’s answer to this was what the psychologists call a displacement activity. She shouted at her son.
“Michael, leave that suit of armour alone.”
“I just want to look inside.”
“Leave it alone, I tell you.”
The earnest woman looked up at the raised voice and politely looked away again.
Michael was struggling with the visor.
“Can’t you hear what I say?”
There was at least no doubt about that. Mrs. Fisher in full voice could be heard clearly from one end of Paradise Row to the other, so the armoury presented no problem in audibility.
“Yes, I just want to…” Michael heaved at the visor with both hands.
“Mum…” It was a whine from Maureen. “Mum, what’s a belt of chastity?”
“Michael Fisher, you’ll leave that suit of armour alone or else…”
What the alternative was no one ever knew. At that moment Michael Fisher managed to lift the visor.
He stared inside.
A face stared back at him.
It was human and it was dead.
3
« ^ »
The information was not exactly welcomed at the nearest police station. In fact, the Superintendent of Police in Berebury was inclined to be petulant when he was told. He glared across his desk at the Head of his Criminal Investigation Department and said:
“You sure it isn’t a false alarm, malicious intent?”
“A body in a suit of armour,” repeated Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan, the bearer of the unhappy news.
“Perhaps it was a dummy,” said Superintendent Leeyes hopefully. “False alarm, good intent.”
“In Ornum House,” went on Sloan.
“Ornum House?” The Superintendent sat up. He didn’t like the sound of that at all. “You mean the place where they have all those day trippers?”
“Yes, sir.” Sloan didn’t suppose the people who paid their half crowns to go round Ornum House thought of themselves as day trippers, but there was no good going into that with the Superintendent now.
“Whereabouts in Ornum House is this body?”
Sloan coughed. “In the armoury, actually, sir.”
“I might have known,” grunted Leeyes. “In that sort of set-up the armour is always in the armoury.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who said so?”
Sloan started. “The Steward.”
“Not”—heavily sarcastic—“not the butler?”
“No, sir. He’s gone down to keep guard. The Steward—his name’s Purvis—came to telephone us.”
“And,” asked Leeyes pertinently, “the name of the body in the armour?”
“He didn’t say, sir. He just said his Lordship was sure we would wish to know.”
The Superintendent glared suspiciously at his subordinate. “He did, did he?”
“Yes, sir.”
Leeyes took a deep breath. “Then you’d better go and—what is it they say?—unravel the mystery, hadn’t you, Sloan?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Though I don’t want any touching of forelocks, kow-towing or what have you, Sloan. This is the twentieth century.”
“Yes, sir.”
“On the other hand”—very silkily—“you would do well to remember that the Earl of Ornum is a Deputy Lieutenant for Calleshire.”
“I shan’t forget, sir.” Even though it was the twentieth century?
“Now, who have you got to go with you?”
“Only Detective Constable Crosby”—apologetically.
Leeyes groaned. “Crosby?”
“Sergeant Gelven’s gone on that training course, if you remember, sir.”
The Criminal Investigation Department at Berebury was a very small affair, all matters of great criminal moment being referred to the County Constabulary Headquarters at Calleford.
The Superintendent snorted gently. “I shouldn’t have thought Crosby could unravel knitting let alone some masochistic nonsense like this.”