Читать книгу Cornish Castle Mystery Collection: Tales of murder and mystery from Cornwall - Vivian Conroy - Страница 16

Chapter Five

The man stopped a few paces away from their little group. He surveyed all of them quickly. Guinevere had the impression that not much escaped his dark eyes. He was younger than Eal, lean, with a face full of sharp angles. He didn’t extend a hand to shake, but said in general, ‘Inspector LeFevre. I’ve been assigned to this case to support the local force. I came out here first thing, but apparently I’m already too late. The body has been removed, I heard?’

He gave Eal a cold look as if it had happened on purpose, to frustrate his own investigation.

Eal nodded. ‘No need to have it lying around there any longer. I saw all I need to see.’

It clearly conveyed: this is my case, and I intend to solve it my way. Just leave me alone.

‘Yes, well,’ LeFevre said, ‘I guess I’ll have photos to study.’ He focused on Guinevere and Oliver. ‘And you are?’

‘He’s Bolingbrooke’s son,’ Eal shot, pointing at Oliver, ‘and she just got here today. From London. To help catalogue books or something.’

‘Had you been here before?’ LeFevre asked.

Guinevere said, ‘No, never.’

‘I see. Nice dog.’ There was a flash of a smile on his face.

Guinevere used this moment of goodwill to say, ‘We were just asking the constable about something.’

Eal looked ready to burst a vessel, but Guinevere continued calmly, ‘These bushes here hide the exact location of the air hole leading into the cage in the dungeon in which Mr Haydock died. We wanted to know if there are traces – like footprints, a snapped branch or something – that can prove someone made his way over to the air hole.’

LeFevre studied her expression. ‘I heard the victim was stabbed from close proximity. Can it have been done through the air hole?’

‘Never!’ Eal shot in a ridiculing tone. ‘A child could understand that.’

‘It might have been possible if Haydock stood at the air hole,’ Guinevere said, even though Oliver had argued before it was impossible considering the height of the air hole. A stab would then have landed in Haydock’s face, not his chest. But she had to use LeFevre’s unexpected appearance on Cornisea to get more investigative effort than Constable Eal wanted to make.

Eal shook his head. ‘If Haydock stood at the air hole, it wouldn’t have worked either. He would have backed away when the hand came in. It would have been right in front of his face.’

‘Still, we have to make sure that all ground is covered,’ LeFevre said. He used the powerful torch he carried to shine across the brush, then the ground underneath. He grunted as if he had already seen something, then moved into the brush, careful not to disturb anything in front of him.

‘Seems like he has done this before,’ Oliver said to Guinevere. There was a hint of hope to his voice.

Eal was watching, leaning back on his heels. ‘Inspectors!’ he spat. ‘Always think they can muscle in on someone’s territory. This is my island. My case.’

Guinevere whispered to Oliver, ‘Do you know this LeFevre?’

‘No. I have no idea where he came from all of a sudden. He must have come out here by boat. There’s a little landing pier over there.’ Oliver gestured over his shoulder. ‘Jago uses it all of the time.’

Jago, yes, their missing judge. He had said he couldn’t make it tonight.

But what if he had come over anyway?

‘Is the pier far away?’ Guinevere asked. ‘How many minutes to get from there to here?’

‘Five if you’re walking. Less if you run.’

‘Aha!’ they heard LeFevre call from the other side of the rhododendrons.

Guinevere gave Oliver an expectant look. Dolly sat up in her arms, struggling to be released and run over to see for herself what the inspector had discovered.

Eal leaned forward. ‘It can’t be,’ he muttered.

After a few more minutes, LeFevre returned. He handed the torch back to Eal and said, ‘You’ll make a note of the fact that a person moved through the rhododendrons to the air hole and sat there on his haunches. That’s clear from the depth of the imprints of his or her shoes. I’m inclined to think it was a woman as the foot is quite small. The imprints suggest little to no profile. Could have been a rubber sole.’

Oliver and Guinevere looked at each other. A small foot. Tegen?

LeFevre said, ‘This idea of yours wasn’t half bad.’ He looked at Oliver. ‘I understand the dungeon has more than one cage?’

‘Yes.’

‘And they’re identical in setup? They all have an air hole and it’s all in the same place?’

‘Yes.’ Oliver was obviously puzzled as to what the inspector was driving at.

‘Good.’ LeFevre turned to Eal. ‘You stay out here. In a few minutes you go over to an air hole. Not the one of the cage in which the murder took place but another. You wait there for my instructions from the inside.’

Eal looked at him as if he had gone crazy.

But LeFevre had already turned on his heel and waved Guinevere and Oliver along. ‘We’ll go inside and see what we can make of it.’

As they walked, LeFevre said, ‘My condolences on the death of the victim. I suppose he was well known around these parts?’

‘He was,’ Oliver said, ‘but not exactly well liked.’

LeFevre smiled. ‘A candid assessment.’

‘Coming from a potential suspect?’ Oliver retorted at once. ‘It’s the truth. And I’m sure a good policeman would find out about it soon enough.’

LeFevre hmm-ed. ‘A good policeman just because I can find some footprints in muddy earth? That’s hardly a compliment, Mr Bolingbrooke.’

‘It wasn’t meant as a compliment, just a statement of fact. And you can call me Oliver. I avoid the name Bolingbrooke.’

‘May I ask why?’

‘Because people feel uncomfortable when they know you have a title and most likely a big bag of money. They either start sucking up to you or get jealous and try to derail your career out of spite. I have enough experience with both to know that.’

‘I see. What is your career?’

‘I make wildlife documentaries. Not on my own of course, with a whole crew. We travel out to Madagascar or the North Pole and then I sit in a hide for weeks hoping to make a few minutes worth of good footage.’

‘And you can actually make a living that way?’ LeFevre asked.

‘If you’re any good.’

LeFevre nodded. ‘And why are you suddenly back home?’

‘I’m having some time off. I just wanted to look in on my father.’ Oliver glanced at LeFevre. ‘He didn’t like Haydock. Any local can tell you that. They even had an argument this evening, right before the re-enactment started. But my father would never have killed him. I know that for a fact.’

‘And why are you so sure? Apart from family loyalty of course.’

Oliver grimaced. ‘My relationship with my father wasn’t all hearts and flowers. When Guinevere here arrived, he was just throwing me out of the door for even suggesting he could think about putting the castle in a trust. But I know, and so do others who are close to him, that he wouldn’t kill.’

‘You agreed that the castle should be put in a trust? So you supported Haydock?’

‘Of course not. I wanted my father to get professional assistance to keep the castle away from the likes of Haydock.’

‘Yes.’ LeFevre suddenly looked down, at Guinevere’s feet. ‘I suppose the footprints left at the air hole can’t be yours?’

Guinevere’s heart skipped a beat at this unexpected turn of the conversation. ‘Would I draw your attention to them if they were mine? Besides, I can assure you my feet aren’t very small.’

Oliver had to laugh.

LeFevre’s expression was tight though. ‘The air hole theory is yours, right?’

Oliver said quickly, ‘Guinevere comes from the theatre world so she worked it out by suggesting an alternative scenario for the murder. It’s probably the only way we can prove my father’s innocence. I think we should keep her on.’

‘I have to say,’ LeFevre said slowly, ‘that this case is different from what I usually come across. A man stabbed in a centuries-old dungeon while he was locked in and nobody could get to him. Something probably well planned and executed. Too bad I won’t have a lot of time to spend on it.’

Oliver glanced at Guinevere. So their additional inspector was really up to his elbows in cases and wouldn’t be able to dig deep for motives. He’d probably look at the witness statements Eal had taken tonight. But Eal hadn’t bothered to ask any probing questions.

LeFevre looked up at the castle’s imposing form. ‘This is also an unusual place. The whole setup on an island.’

‘There are more like it,’ Oliver said. ‘Not just here in Cornwall but also along the coast of France. Not a castle there, though, but an abbey. I guess it makes sense when you think about it. The water forms a natural protection.’

‘It sure saved them the trouble of digging a moat around it.’ LeFevre gestured. ‘Ah, there we are. Lead on into this dungeon.’

After a few more minutes they were down in the dungeon. The lanterns were still lit as apparently nobody had thought to put them out. LeFevre looked at the cage that had a rope with a red flag on it woven through the bars. ‘That’s our crime scene?’

‘Yes.’ Oliver nodded at the rope. ‘The constable didn’t have any official police tape on him so we had to improvise.’

‘Fine. Now we can use this one here to do our little re-enactment of the murder.’

LeFevre opened the door into the next cage and went in, crouching as his height didn’t allow him to stand up without brushing the top of his head on the ceiling. ‘Eal!’ he called out of the air hole. ‘Are you there?’

There was a silence, and LeFevre had to call again before Eal responded. ‘I’m here.’ It sounded begrudging.

‘All right,’ LeFevre said. ‘I’m Haydock standing at the air hole. I’m leaning forward because I’m trying to see something outside. Passing time, whatever. Maybe I’ve heard a suspicious sound that the killer created to draw the victim to the air hole. You’re that killer. Can you get your fist through the air hole?’

In a flash a fist appeared, and LeFevre could just duck away, instinctively, or the fist would have hit him full on the nose.

‘Is that correct?’ Eal’s voice asked sweetly from the outside.

Oliver poked Guinevere with his elbow, a grin on his face.

‘Perfect,’ LeFevre said to Eal. ‘However, this would have stabbed the victim right in the face. Let me see. Are you sitting on your haunches?’

‘Yes.’

‘Could you crouch lower? A woman might have been shorter and more agile.’

Oliver suppressed a guffaw at this subtle sting.

Eal’s fist came a little lower now. So apparently he was trying to follow the instructions.

‘Let’s try it this way.’ LeFevre took a hold of Eal’s wrist and tried to yank Eal’s arm further down to reach his chest.

Outside Eal cried out in pain. LeFevre let go of his arm and said, ‘Doesn’t seem to be working. I don’t see how the knife could have been pushed into the victim’s chest with enough strength to kill him. The stab would then also have been downward. We’ll have to wait and see what the post-mortem report says about the stab wound’s angle.’

Eal had pulled his fist back. Guinevere bet he was raving mad at the inspector’s antics.

But LeFevre didn’t seem to notice or care. He was studying the air hole with an expression of utter concentration. ‘If Eal’s fist fits through, a woman’s fist certainly would. Her arm would be thinner so she would be able to push it in further. Still the angle wouldn’t be right.’

Oliver leaned over to Guinevere. ‘Maybe he’ll ask you to go out and repeat the experiment? Your arm must be thinner than Eal’s.’ He lowered his voice even further to add, ‘A younger person might have an even thinner arm.’

Guinevere knew he was thinking of Tegen.

LeFevre was done with the air hole and turned to study the cage construction. ‘The only way in is through the door? No secret passageways?’

‘No.’

‘And your father had the only key?’

‘Yes, the doors are normally never locked.’ Oliver gestured around him. ‘Haydock went down here and could get in by himself. The lanterns were already lit because Guinevere and I had done that earlier.’

LeFevre nodded thoughtfully. He came out of the cell he had used for his experiment and went to the one secured with the rope and the red banner. He peered in. ‘Was the chair moved?’

Oliver looked at it, frowning to remember. ‘Yes, I think it must have been moved when they took away the body. When we came in here and saw Haydock dead on the floor, the chair was lying there.’ He pointed. ‘Like it had toppled when he fell.’

LeFevre studied the layout. ‘So he could have been stabbed near the air hole and, staggering back, he hit the chair, and it toppled with him as he fell to the floor.’ He looked at Guinevere. ‘Your idea that the air hole was used isn’t bad. Not bad at all.’

Oliver seemed to get annoyed with the inspector’s appreciative tone. ‘You said yourself that the angle of the stab wound will be decisive.’

‘Of course.’ LeFevre peered again into the cage where it had all happened. ‘What’s that there?’ He leaned even closer, taking care not to touch the bars. ‘It seems there’s something dark on the floor.’

Oliver came to stand beside him and peered in as well. ‘It looks like plant material. I remember that Haydock was wearing boots. That must have come off the soles.’

‘The path up to the castle is cobbled,’ LeFevre observed. ‘How would plant material end up on the soles of his boots?’

‘I have no idea. Maybe he had been hanging around the gardens, looking for something? He did treat the place like it was already his.’

LeFevre studied Oliver. ‘You sound like you really didn’t like him.’

‘I didn’t kill him if that’s what you think. Guinevere was with me the whole time.’

Guinevere nodded. ‘That’s true. Oliver had to stand in for the local playing the judge and I helped him rehearse his lines until the re-enactment started.’

‘And where were the others?’

Oliver made a dismissive gesture. ‘Can’t be sure. My father was down here to lock the door. Everybody else was getting dressed, I suppose. Medieval garb and all that.’

‘Of course,’ Guinevere said, ‘Kensa and Tegen came already dressed. They need not have changed at all. They had time to …’ She let it hang. If LeFevre had little time for the case, it was important they handed him some starting points that would pique his interest.

LeFevre studied the scene again as if he was trying to impress it all upon his memory. Then he said, ‘And this Kensa and Tegen live on the island?’

‘Sort of,’ Oliver said.

LeFevre hitched a brow. ‘Sort of?’ He repeated the cryptic reply.

Oliver said, ‘Kensa inherited the B&B on the island from her husband’s parents. She runs it in the summertime when the tourists pour in. In the winter she lives on the mainland. Her daughter Tegen has to go to school of course, so she’s on the mainland most of the time. She can only be here in the holidays.’

LeFevre said, ‘So Kensa also has a house on the mainland?’

Oliver nodded. ‘Her husband left her quite a bit of money when he died.’

‘Widow,’ LeFevre said pensively. ‘And Tegen is her only child?’

‘No, she also has a son: Lance. Six years older than Tegen. He’s just finished university. I don’t know exactly what he plans to do now.’

‘I see. But this Lance wasn’t here tonight, right? And you also said that one of the locals who was supposed to be here wasn’t here this evening?’

‘The judge in the play: Jago the boatman.’

‘Jago who?’ LeFevre asked.

‘His official name is Jago Trevelyan. But nobody ever calls him that. He’s Jago the boatman and we all know who’s meant. He’s run a fishing business for decades and provides services for people to cross to the island. His sons have the fishing business now but Jago still comes to Cornisea most every day. He’s a famous figure in these parts, with a beard like a hermit, so it seemed fitting to make him the judge in the re-enactment. He only has to stop smoking his ever-present pipe for the duration of the play, which according to him is pure torture. He seems to have been born with that thing in his hand.’

LeFevre had listened with a keen interest. ‘A pipe, you say? And you’re sure that this Jago Trevelyan really wasn’t here on the island tonight? He didn’t pop up later? Or you didn’t notice a shadowy figure outside?’

Oliver hitched a brow. ‘You think Jago might have been watching us? Waiting for a chance to stab Haydock?’

‘I’m just looking at all possibilities. And I did find some tobacco near a path. Fresh. And probably coming from a pipe.’

Oliver pursed his lips. ‘Interesting. But you’ll have to ask him yourself where he was.’

‘Of course.’ LeFevre rubbed his hands together. ‘Oh, and when I called at the castle’s front door, a sort of butler type opened the door.’

Guinevere perked up. She had forgotten all about him. The quiet little man, in dark clothes. Someone you just didn’t notice. Used to moving around noiselessly, almost invisibly. That came with his work.

Oliver looked sceptical. ‘Cador has been with my father for all of his life. Surely you don’t think that he –’

LeFevre cut across him. ‘He was here at the castle at the time of the murder. That’s all I’m taking into account right now. Whether he had a motive … But as you say he was with your father for all of his life, I assume he didn’t like Mr Haydock bargaining to get the castle away from the Bolingbrooke family. That’s all for tonight. I’ll find my own way out. Oh, and I want that plant material in the cage analysed. I’ll send Eal in to get it. Please leave the lanterns on for him.’

He stalked off, disappearing up the steps.

‘What an arrogant chap,’ Oliver said.

‘I think he’s pretty good at what he does. And he listened to our suggestions. That’s more than Eal did, you know.’

Guinevere suddenly felt the draught in this chill place and hugged Dolly closer. The dog had kept very quiet during the inspector’s investigation, as if she sensed it was serious.

Or maybe she was just tired and had been dozing off.

Guinevere herself longed for her bed in the tower. And a peek at the letter Mr Betts had given her to read when she was all settled in. The first night was a little early maybe, but under the strange circumstances she itched to know what he had written.

She said to Oliver, ‘I’d better turn in. Will you stay here to see to Eal coming to collect that plant material from the cage?’

Oliver nodded. ‘Sure. But I don’t see what it has to do with the murder.’

‘Maybe we’ll find out later.’ Guinevere turned away.

Oliver caught up with her at the bottom of the steps, arresting her arm. ‘If you think LeFevre is so capable and he’ll handle the case like a pro, we need not continue sleuthing. We can just let my father await the verdict of the police.’

Guinevere looked up into his eyes. They seemed to flicker in the light of the lanterns. Was he already tired of working with her?

Or was he actually daring her to continue?

Guinevere said, ‘LeFevre is good but he doesn’t know too much about local sentiments and he doesn’t have the time to dig in deep. Eal is a native, but he won’t help LeFevre. So we can be LeFevre’s eyes and ears. Just gather some information that might help. If we think we’re close to the right solution, we can just deliver our findings to LeFevre and let him deal with it. We need not … run any risk of confrontation with the killer.’

Oliver nodded. ‘My thoughts exactly. Well, sleep tight then, and I’ll see you in the morning.’

Guinevere went up the steps. In the dimly lit corridor she held Dolly tighter against her. She had no idea who had killed Haydock. Whether that person was with her in the castle right now or somewhere else on the island or on the mainland nearby.

Could his or her guilt be proven?

The tower steps seemed even steeper than they had been this afternoon, and Guinevere was glad when she was at her room’s door. She went in and stood a few moments to steady her breathing.

Dolly wriggled to be released, and Guinevere put her down. The dog ran straight to the bed and hid under it.

‘I know how you feel, girl,’ Guinevere said. ‘I wish I could crawl under there as well.’

Guinevere put a chair in front of the door and put her empty suitcase on it. If anybody tried to get in during the night, the suitcase would fall off and create a racket.

Then she went to her handbag and got out the letter Mr Betts had given her to read when she was all settled in. She slipped her finger under the flap and ripped it open, then extracted a sheet full of Betts’s dense handwriting.

‘Dear Gwen and Dolly,’ she read aloud.

At hearing her name, Dolly’s head appeared from under the bed, listening to what came next.

Guinevere continued, ‘You’re reading this, so you must have arrived. I hope you find Cornisea every bit as appealing as I did as a lad. I grew up there, and my sister Meraud still lives there. Hers is the bookshop you have no doubt noticed in the harbour area.’

Guinevere looked at Dolly. ‘Do you hear that? The Cowled Sleuth belongs to Mr Betts’s sister. It looked like a great place to browse.’

Dolly now crawled out from underneath the bed completely. She dashed over to her and sat down in front of her, looking up with a squeak as if to urge her to continue reading.

Guinevere scanned to find her place again and read, ‘Don’t be afraid to ask her for any book you might like to borrow. Especially if it’s about local history and archaeology – she knows it all. I must admit that I set this whole thing up with Oliver. I just wanted to know where you’d land as you left for the summer. I wanted you to be in a safe place.’

Guinevere cocked a brow at Dolly. ‘A safe place, right, girl. Where a murder has just happened!’

Shaking her head, she continued reading: ‘The others also asked me, one by one, as they heard the news of the renovations going through: “Where will Guinevere be going? What will happen to her?”’

Guinevere smiled to herself. They were her family, and as family you cared for each other. ‘We have to buy postcards for them, huh,’ she said to Dolly. ‘We have to send them all our love soon.’

Then she read on from the letter, ‘I wanted you to experience the individuality of the world that Cornisea is. A place that can exist almost on its own, drifting in the sea. People may need to get to know you first before they confide in you, but you have a way of winning people over. In any case, Dolly can help you.’ She winked at the doggy. ‘See, girl? Mr Betts has every confidence in you.’

She turned over the sheet and continued, ‘And the castle … What can I say about that? It’s a heritage. It deserves keeping. You’ll understand that better once you’ve lived in it for a while. Explore its secrets. Look beyond what you first see. Under the surface. Behind the masks. You know how to do it. You are one of us, after all. Don’t hesitate to call me, should you need anything. Love from all.’

Guinevere had to make out the last few words through a blur. Her eyes were a bit wet after reading this. She looked away from the sheet to the view outside the window. Through her tears she caught a glimpse of something. A flash. On and off.

She blinked and focused better.

A little light on the beach below. Lighting, dimming, lighting, dimming.

Like the light was being swung to and fro.

A lantern?

In the hand of a wandering man?

Branok the Cold-hearted, who haunted the beach?

A shiver went down her spine for a moment, and she wanted to back away from the window.

But then she steadied her nerves and forced herself to look at the light. Nonsense. Branok was long dead, resting in a grave, not wandering. It had to be something else.

There. It was gone already.

Guinevere tried to take a deep breath and calm her fluttering heartbeat. ‘This place does make you a little jumpy, hey, Dolly?’ she said.

Looking over her shoulder, she discovered that the dachshund was under the bed again, just her nose peeping out.

Guinevere didn’t reproach her. It all seemed oddly ominous.

Branok was dead, and now the man who had played him for the trial re-enactment was dead as well.