Inside was the face of a man verging on the elderly and more than a little dead. Inspector Sloan touched his cheek though he knew there was no need. It was quite cold. He looked back at the Steward.
“Do you know who…”
“Mr. Meredith,” supplied Charles Purvis, adding by way of explanation: “Our Mr. Meredith.”
“Our Mr. Meredith?”
“Librarian and Archivist to his Lordship.”
“You know him well then?”
“Oh yes,” said the Steward readily. “He comes—came—to the House most days. He was writing a history of the family.”
“Was he?” Sloan tucked the fact away in his mind. “Where did he live? Here?”
“No. In Ornum village. With his sister.”
Sloan lowered the visor. It was just like banishing an unpleasant fact to the back of one’s mind. At once the room seemed normal again.
Crosby got out a notebook.
“Mr. Osborne Meredith,” said Purvis, “and his address was The Old Forge, Ornum.”
“If he came here every day,” said Sloan, “perhaps you could tell me the last day you saw him here.”
The Steward frowned slightly. “Not today, I know.”
Sloan knew that too. That cheek had been too chill to the touch.
“I don’t recall seeing him yesterday either, now I come to think of it,” went on Purvis, “but he might well have been here without my seeing him. He came and went very much as he wished.”
Sloan waved a hand in a gesture that took in the whole house. “Whereabouts in here would you expect to see him?”
“He spent most of his time in the Library and in the Muniments Room.”
“Did he?” said Sloan, adding ambiguously, “I’ll be checking up on that later.”
Purvis nodded. “But how he came to be down here in the armoury, and in this, Inspector, I couldn’t begin to say at all.”
“And dead,” added Sloan.
“And dead,” agreed Purvis sombrely. “His Lordship was most distressed when he was told and said that I was to give you every possible assistance…”
“He came and went,” observed the egregious Detective Constable Crosby, “and now he’s gone.”
If anything, Dr. Dabbe, the Consultant Pathologist to the Berebury Group of Hospitals, was more put out by the news than the Superintendent had been.
But for a different reason. Because it was Sunday afternoon and he was sailing his Albacore at Kinnisport.
“Send him along to the mortuary, Sloan,” he said from the yacht club telephone, “and I’ll take a look at him when I get back.”
The tide must be just right, thought Sloan. Aloud he said, “It’s not quite like that, Doctor. The body’s at Ornum House.”
The medical voice sounded amused. “What are you expecting, Sloan? True blue blood? Because I can assure you that—”
“No, Doctor. It’s not like that at all.” The telephone that the Steward had led him to was in a hallway and rather less private than a public kiosk. “We’re treating it as a sudden death.”
The sands of time having run out for one more soul.
“Well, then…” said the doctor reasonably.
“He’s in a suit of armour for the tilt, circa 1595,” said Sloan, “and I not only don’t know that we ought to move him, but I’m not at all sure that we can.”
Then, duty bound, Sloan telephoned Superintendent Leeyes at Berebury.
“I’ve been wondering what kept you,” said that official pleasantly. “And how did you find the man in the iron mask?”
“Dead,” said Sloan.
“Ah!”
“Dead these last couple of days, I should say—though there’s not a lot of him visible to go by, if you take my meaning, sir.”
Leeyes grunted. “I should have said a good look at the face should have been enough for any really experienced police officer, Sloan.”
“Yes, sir.” If the deceased had happened to have been shot between the eyes, for instance. “So?”
“I’ve sent for Dr. Dabbe, sir, and I’d be obliged if I might have a couple of photographers and a fingerprint man—”
“The lot?”
“Yes, please, sir. And if they’ll ask Lady Eleanor to tell the Steward when they arrive—”
“Lady who?”
“Lady Eleanor, sir. His Lordship’s daughter. She’s on duty at the door.”
“Is she? Then she’ll probably send them round the back anyway,” said the Superintendent, “when she’s taken a good look at them.”
“Yes, sir”—dutifully. Then, “The deceased is a Mr. Osborne Meredith, Librarian to the Earl.”
“Ha!” Triumphantly. “What did I tell you, Sloan? Librarian. He got the idea from a book, I’ll be bound. Mark my words, he’ll be one of these suicides that’s got to be different—”
“Different,” conceded Sloan, at once. “This is different all right, but as to the other, sir, I couldn’t say. Not yet.”
4
« ^ »
Detective Constable Crosby was still keeping watch in the armoury when Charles Purvis and Inspector Sloan got back there.
“I’ve just checked up on the other seven suits of armour, sir,” he said virtuously.
“Good.”
“All empty.”
“Good,” said Sloan again, slightly startled this time. Honest as always, even with himself, Sloan admitted that this was something he wouldn’t have considered. He’d got a real eager beaver on his hands in young Crosby. Surely Grand Guignol himself wouldn’t have thought of seven more men in seven more suits.
“And,” went on Crosby, “on the ways into here.”
“There’s just the one, isn’t there?” said Sloan.
“That’s right, sir. The door.”
Purvis, the Steward, seemed inclined to apologise for this. “That’s because we’re below ground level here, Inspector, and so we can’t very well have windows. Nor even borrowed light. It’s all artificial, the lighting down here.”
Sloan looked round. In a fine imitation of medieval times, flaming-torch-style lighting had been fixed into basket-type brackets high up on the walls.
“The lighting’s not very good,” said Purvis.
“Effective, though.”
Purvis nodded. “Most people are glad to get back upstairs again.”
Sloan went back to the second suit of armour on the right. “Tell me, had anyone mentioned to you that Mr. Meredith was missing?”
“No, Inspector. We—that is, I—had no idea at all that everything was not as usual. We shouldn’t have opened the House at all today had there been any suggestion that…” His voice trailed away.
“Quite so,” said Sloan.
“Complete surprise to us all.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Nasty shock, actually.”
“You said he lived with his sister.”
“That’s right. His Lordship has gone down to Ornum to break the news.”
“Himself?”
Purvis looked surprised and a bit embarrassed. “Not the sort of job to delegate, you know. Come better from him anyway, don’t you think? Take it as a gesture, perhaps.”
“Perhaps.”
“Then get the Vicar to go round afterwards. Helpful sort of chap, the Vicar.”
“Good,” said Sloan, content that the ground was also being prepared for him. A visit from a humble policeman shouldn’t come amiss after all that.
“Though, as to the rest”—the Steward waved a hand to embrace the armour—“I can’t understand it at all. It’s not as if it was even his subject. It’s Mr. Ames who’s the expert.”
“Ames?”
“The Vicar. Bit of an enthusiast about armour. If we get any visitors who’re really keen we ring him up at the Vicarage and he comes in.”
Sloan looked round the armoury. “There’s never a full-time guide here, then?”