An Advancement of Learning

Dalziel nearly had them over the threshold now. He thrust his great face at them.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. I really do.’

They took a step back and he closed the door.

‘Well,’ he said rubbing his hands. ‘That’s better. So far, so good. It’s all possible. Now we can sleep. Tomorrow we’ll set about finding out when. Did she get to Austria and come back to be killed? Or perhaps she never got to Austria at all! But she’s kept five years. She’ll keep another day. Not a bad night’s work, this. A bit of luck’s always handy, isn’t it, Sergeant? Wouldn’t you say this has been our lucky night?’

But Pascoe was not at all certain that he fully agreed.

It had certainly been Harold Lapping’s lucky night.

Harold was over seventy, but still in possession of all his faculties. He had served his country with common sense if not distinction in two world wars. He had loved and outlived two wives, and on certain great family festivals he could look with pride on more than twenty legitimate descendants.

Now in retirement he was a man respected near and far, a church-warden, a pillar of strength in the bowling club, the oldest playing member of the golf club though his handicap had slipped to 12, and an enthusiastic ornithologist.

He was also a voyeur.

It started by accident one spring night as he lay silently in the tough sea-grass above the beach vainly watching through his night-glasses (a memento of one of the wars, he forgot which) a weaving of grass which he had optimistically decided was a dunlin’s nest. If it was, the dunlin was obviously spending the night elsewhere. Bored, Harold moved his glasses slowly along an arc, some thirty or forty yards ahead. And found himself peering into a fascinating tangle of arms and legs. It seemed incredible that only two people could be involved. Harold had no desire to disturb the happy pair, so he waited until their demeanour seemed to indicate they were completely oblivious to anything outside themselves before departing. But while waiting he saw no harm at all in continuing to view with expert approval the techniques on display.

Thereafter whenever his evening’s ornithological research was finished, Harold always cast around with his glasses for a few moments before heading for home.

Tonight was different. It was far too late for any self-respecting birds to be on show. Harold was on his way home after a couple of pints of mild ale followed by two or three bottles of Guinness and the remnants of a cold pie at a friend’s house. It was close on midnight, but the sun’s light was not long out of the perfectly clear sky. He had turned off the road and cut across the golf course to the sea, more to prolong than shorten his journey home. The tide was half-way in, still a long way to go, and the surface of the sea was like cellophane, perfectly still. He could not recall a night so calm.

Then his sharp old eyes caught a flicker of movement among the dunes a furlong ahead.

Without thinking he halted and raised his glasses, without whose weight around his neck he would have felt only half-dressed.

What he saw sent him scrambling up a heathery bank to his right to gain a better vantage point. Then his glasses were up again, swinging wildly round in his incredulity.

In a hollow in the dunes ahead there were about twenty naked men and women dancing. At least that was the only name he could give to it. They were roughly in a circle, moving clockwise; generally in pairs, some facing each other, gripping each other’s arms, sinking to the ground together and leaping up again, their heads flung backwards, shaking in apparent frenzy. Others, arms linked behind, danced back to back, spinning round and round with increasing violence.

He could only see two-thirds of the circle because of the fold of the ground, and even with the clearness of the night and the help of his glasses, detail was not all that clear. But it was obvious that all the men were in a state of great sexual excitement.

A girl appeared alone in the centre of the circle. She seemed to be facing something he could not see because it was on the nearer side of the hollow. She knelt down, her arms flung wide, just in his view. Something advanced towards her from the side of the hollow, blocking her from Harold’s view. Something difficult to make out, dark and shadowy, a strange animal-like silhouette, like the head of a bull.

The dancing reached a new pitch of frenzy, the couples leaping high and shaking their bodies at each other with a wild abandon. Finally one pair collapsed in a tight embrace to the ground, another followed, then another, till in a few moments all lay there together, and a new dance began.

But this had no chance to reach any conclusions. Something happened, Harold couldn’t tell what. But a man leapt up suddenly and looked around. He obviously said something to the others, seemed to shout it in fact, but the distance was too great for Harold to hear.

Then they were all up on their feet and moving again. Not now in the convulsive provocative gyrations of sexual frenzy, but the uncertain changes of direction of fear and panic.

The man who was first to his feet disappeared at a run out of the hollow towards the sea. Instantly the rest scattered and in seconds, as far as Harold could see, the hollow was empty. He followed one or two of the naked figures with his glasses for a few moments, but soon they had all passed completely from view.

Still he swung his glasses to right and left hoping for a brief encore. A movement to the landward side caught his attention. He stopped and focused, but immediately snorted in disappointment. It was a figure all right, but obviously fully clothed. For a moment it stood silhouetted against the night sky, just a bulky shape topped absurdly by a pork pie hat. Then it moved forward down into a hollow among the dunes.

After that all was still.

Harold remained sitting on his vantage point for another fifteen minutes or so. Finally, ‘Now I’ve bloody well seen it all,’ he said to himself in gratulatory tones.

And, rising, he made his way back to the road and thence home.

Truly, so it seemed at the time, it had been Harold Lapping’s lucky night.

Chapter 7 (#ulink_eb892719-e910-5482-97ff-86972e1a073d)

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest; and surely the fairer way is not much about?

SIR FRANCIS BACON

Op. Cit.

The next day dawned as bright as those preceding it, but by breakfast a stiff breeze had sprung up from somewhere and students and staff alike began searching for the cardigans and pullovers they had so recently discarded.

Dalziel set off early in the morning to confer with his superiors. Pascoe couldn’t imagine what such a conference would be like. Who could possibly be Dalziel’s superior without having dismissed him on sight? If you needed qualities of wisdom and tolerance like these to get to the very top, Pascoe despaired of his own prospects. On the other hand there was the example of Kent.

Detective-Inspector Kent, who had supervised the digging of the garden and the collection of the remains the previous day, now appeared in Landor’s office and gave himself a few airs for a while. But he was too nice a man to keep it up. Pascoe liked him, but, like everyone else, marvelled that he had reached his present eminence. He was married with three young children and his family were devoted to him. But the one real love of his life was golf. It was an obsession with him. A week in which he played less than four rounds was to him a wasted week, though other men found it difficult to fit in nine holes between the demands of the job and their domestic responsibilities.

But Pascoe could feel almost sorry for the man now as he stared out of the window in the direction of the golf course. Dalziel distrusted him and though he’d left a whole list of instructions for Pascoe, Kent had nothing but a few reports to work on and Pascoe could almost feel him working himself up to take a stroll towards the links.

Which would be foolish, but it wasn’t Pascoe’s business to say so. He had work enough to do.

The first thing was to get as clear a picture as possible of Miss Girling’s movements on the day of her departure for Austria.

It is remarkable how difficult it is to reconstruct one particular day after five years. Pascoe tried it for himself and found it impossible.

The actual disaster had taken place in the early hours of December 20th. A Tuesday. Pascoe had arranged for copies of relevant press reports to be discreetly obtained for him. There was no point in provoking interest before they had to. The discovery of the bones had created a small stir, but generally speaking the public preferred fresh, warm blood.

Examination of the relevant year book which had provided much help with his lists the day before revealed that term had ended on Friday December 16th.

This seemed late to him. He consulted Landor who came in from time to time in search of files to take to his new office.

‘We are not a university, Sergeant,’ he answered drily. ‘I am realistic enough to fear that many of our students will not deign to open a book once away from us for the vacation. So we keep them here as long as we can. And in Miss Girling’s day, the place was very much a ladies’ seminary.’

Pascoe was growing to like Landor. Before leaving, Dalziel had told him of the previous night’s discoveries. Landor was unamazed.

‘How clever of you, Superintendent,’ he had said. ‘May we expect an early solution? It has taken a mere five years to discover that poor Miss Girling was murdered.’

Landor now suggested that Miss Scotby might have preserved some record of the sequence of end-of-term events. He himself was quite unable to help. Nothing in the registrar’s office was of any assistance either.

But before he could even start another Scotbyhunt, there was an interruption.

A small aggressive man with a Scottish accent burst in.

‘Where’s the other, the fat one?’ he demanded.

‘You mean Superintendent Dalziel?’

‘Dalziel? He’s a Scot?’