“No, sir.” But it would have to be Crosby because there wasn’t anyone else.
“All right,” sighed Leeyes. “Take him—but do try to see that he doesn’t say ‘You can’t do that there ’ere’ to the Earl.”
Detective Constable Crosby—raw, but ambitious, too—drove Inspector Sloan the odd fifteen miles or so from the Police Station at Berebury to the village of Ornum. The village itself was clustered about the entrance to the Park—and it was a very imposing entrance indeed. Crosby turned the car in between two magnificent wrought-iron gates.
The gates were painted black, with the finer points etched out in gold leaf. If the state of a man’s gate was any guide to the man—and in Sloan’s working experience it was—the Earl of Ornum maintained a high standard. Surmounting the pillars were two stone spheres, and crouching on top of the spheres was a pair of gryphons.
Constable Crosby regarded them critically. ‘They’re funny-looking birds, aren’t they? Can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like that flying around.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Constable. They don’t exist.”
Crosby glanced up over his shoulder at the solid stone. “I see, sir.”
“A myth,” amplified Sloan. “Like unicorns.”
“Yes, sir.” Crosby slid the car between the gryphons and lowered his speed to a self-conscious fifteen miles an hour in deference to a notice which said just that. Then he cleared his throat. “The house, sir. I can’t see it.”
“Stately Homes aren’t meant to be seen from the road, Constable. That’s the whole idea. Carry on.”
Crosby subsided into silence—for perhaps half a minute. “It’s a long way, sir…”
Sloan grunted. “The distance in this instance between the rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate is about a mile.”
“A mile, sir?” Crosby digested this, dropping a gear the while. This particular police car wasn’t used to a steady fifteen m.p.h.
“A mile,” confirmed Sloan, whose own single latched gate led up a short straight path to a semidetached house in suburban Berebury. In his view his own path had the edge—so to speak—on the Earl’s inasmuch as it was flanked by prize rose bushes as opposed to great oak trees. Sloan favoured roses. He felt that there should be a moratorium on crime while they were in bloom.
“Sir, if we were to go over fifteen miles an hour would a prosecution hold under the Road Traffic Acts?” Crosby was young still and anxious for promotion. “They’d have to bring a private prosecution, wouldn’t they? I mean, we couldn’t bring one, or could we?”
Sloan, who was watching keenly for a first glimpse of Ornum House, said, “Couldn’t do what?”
“Bring a prosecution for speeding on private land.” Crosby kept his eye on the speedometer. “Traffic Division wouldn’t be able to do a thing, would they?”
Sloan grunted. Traffic Division were never ones for being interested in the finer academic points of law. Their line of demarcation was a simple one. Fatals and non-fatals.
However, if Crosby wanted to split hairs… “Going over the limit anytime, anywhere, Constable, isn’t the same thing as proving it.”
“No, sir, but if you had two independent witnesses…”
“Ah,” said Sloan drily. “I agree that would be different.” He peered forward, thinking he saw a building. “I don’t know when I last saw two independent witnesses. Rare birds, independent witnesses. I’d put them in the same category as gryphons myself.”
Crosby persisted, “But if you had them, sir, then what? I could ask Traffic, I suppose…”
Sloan happened to know that Inspector Harpe of Traffic Division wouldn’t thank anybody for asking him anything else just at this moment. Superintendent Leeyes had today posed him about the most awkward question a police officer could ever be asked. It was: “Why were all the damaged cars from the accident jobs attended by his three crews finding their way into the same garage for repair? If anyone was getting a rake-off there would be hell to pay…”
“Sir,” Crosby pointed suddenly. “Something moved over there between the trees. I saw it.”
Sloan turned and caught a glimpse of brown. “Deer. And there’s the house coming up now. Keep going.” There was a young woman sitting by a baize-covered table near the front door. She had on a pretty summer frock and she was all for charging Sloan and Crosby half a crown before she would let them in.
“Half a crown, did you say, miss?” Sloan was torn between a natural reluctance to tell anyone who didn’t already know that the police had been sent for—and the certain knowledge of the difficulty he would have in retrieving five shillings from the County Council No. 2 Imprest Account, police officers, for the use of.
“Half a crown if you want to go into the House,” she said firmly. “Gardens and the Park only, a shilling.”
They were rescued—just in time—by a competent-looking young man who introduced himself as Charles Purvis, Steward and Comptroller to the Earl of Ornum.
“That’s all right, Lady Eleanor,” he said. “These two gentlemen have come to see me. They’re not visitors.”
She nodded and turned to give change to the next arrivals.
The Steward led the two policemen through the Great Hall—Mr. Feathers was saying his piece there to a fresh party—and then down the spiral staircase.
“We closed the armoury at once, Inspector—you’ll watch your step here, won’t you…”
Sloan was going to watch his step in Ornum House all right. He had his pension to think of.
“Shall I go first, Inspector?” offered Purvis. “It’s a bit tricky on the downward flight.”
It wasn’t only going to be the staircase that was tricky either. Sloan could see that already.
“Hang on to the rope,” advised Charles Purvis. “As I was saying, we closed the armoury at once but didn’t tell more people than was absolutely necessary.”
“Not Lady Eleanor?” said Sloan.
“No, she doesn’t know yet.” Purvis turned left at the bottom of the staircase and led the way down the dim corridor. “We felt it would only cause comment to close the entire house at this stage.”
A body in the armoury of a Stately Home was going to do more than cause comment, but Sloan did not say so. Instead, he murmured something about not letting those which were in the house out.
“The earlier parties will have gone by now,” said Purvis regretfully. “The armoury is the last of the rooms on exhibition because relatively few people are interested. They mostly don’t come down here at all, but go into the Park next.”
They passed the dungeon and the well head and found Bert Hackle standing guard at the armoury door.
“There’s nobody here now, Mr. Purvis, but me. Mr. Dillow—”
“The butler,” put in Purvis.
“That’s right,” said Bert Hackle. “He’s taken all those that were in here along to the kitchen with Mrs. Morley.”
“Thank you, Hackle.” Purvis opened the armoury door and walked in, the two policemen at his heels.
At first glance it did not seem as if anything was amiss.
All was still and the room resembled a museum gallery as much as anything. There were eight suits of armour, each standing attentively facing the centre of the room as if alert for some fresh call to arms. Sloan regarded them closely. The visors were down on all of them, but one at least was more than a mere shell.
“Which…” he began.
“The second on the right,” said Charles Purvis.
Sloan and Crosby advanced. A little plaque on the floor in front of it read armour with tilt pieces, circa 1595.
Sloan lifted the visor very very carefully. There might be more fingerprints than those of Michael Fisher here. The visor was heavier than he expected but, just as the boy had done, he got it up at last.