Death of a Burrowing Mole mb-62 Read online

  ‘It turns out that the larger party want to make a survey of the site with a view to restoring the various parts of the castle – the flanking-towers, the postern gates and all that sort of thing – while the two men are planning to dig for evidence of a Saxon cemetery or a Danish tomb, or some such. They want to dig trenches and shift rubble and make sections and all those sort of Sir Mortimer Wheeler things which modern archaeologists do when digging up the past.

  ‘Well, thank goodness, we were all civilised enough to come to an understanding. The big party did not see that their work would interfere with that of the archaeologists, so that was all right, and Tom and I have offered assistance to both sides. In the end I think Tom and I may be the gainers, as it seems navvies have been hired to do some of the heavy work, so here’s hoping that, among the lot of us, somebody uncovers our well!’

  ‘I wonder what effect, if any, the notice at the gatehouse will have on the general public,’ said Dame Beatrice.

  ‘My bet is that they’ll respect it,’ said Laura. ‘The sort of people who would go to look at a ruined castle would be law-abiding. Others will think it’s something to do with nuclear power and the atom bomb, or else that an oil-rig is going to be set up. Those are the things people connect with warning notices nowadays. They may stand and stare, but they won’t encroach. That’s my view.’

  ‘You appear to have your finger on the public pulse.’

  ‘I do better than that. I test its blood pressure,’ said Laura, ‘a thing the politicians seldom do.’

  ‘In any case, five able-bodied men and the Olympic Girl, plus a posse of strong-armed workmen, should be intimidating enough to keep even the most intrepid sightseer at bay,’ commented Dame Beatrice. ‘It occurs to me to wonder whether Bonamy and Tom have done wisely in offering their services to the others.’

  ‘I don’t see that they had much option. “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” is the only sensible motto in these unheroic times,’ said Laura.

  There was a lengthy postscript to Bonamy’s letter:

  ‘In case you may know any of them, Edward and Lilian Saltergate are the married couple, both of them architects, and both have impressive letters after their names. His are B.Arch., ARIBA, and she is MA and FSA. The girls they have with them are Fiona Broadmayne (the large, hefty one) and Priscilla Yateley (the little, thin one). As for the third girl, the glorious Helen of Troy, to our horror she turns out to be a college lecturer and a Ph.D. Her name – just for the record, because it’s no use for anything else – is Dr Susannah Lochlure, and I can tell you the “lure” is there all right. She is the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley, but also a Fellow of the Historical Association. “ ’Tis true ’tis pity, and pity ’tis, ’tis true.”

  ‘Tom had marked her down as his bit of crumpet while we are here, and says he is devastated now he knows that she ranks among the untouchables, but it doesn’t so far seem to have affected his appetite. She really is the most gorgeous bit of plum cake, though.

  ‘I don’t think Tom would have stood much chance with her, anyway, even were she less exalted than turns out to be the case. The two chaps who are proposing to dig up the landscape are a middle-aged man named Professor Veryan and a much younger fellow, a don at Veryan’s university, called Nicholas Tynant. He belongs to the elf-lock-over-the-forehead school of thought, looks shockingly like the portraits of Rupert Brooke, and is obviously keeping a proprietorial eye on the lovely Susannah.

  As for the sweet girl undergraduates, they are both very definitely non-starters from Tom’s point of view. Priscilla shrinks and wilts if anybody so much as looks in her direction and is hardly what one would call an armful, anyway, and Fiona is utterly terrifying, apart from the fact that she quite obviously despises the male sex and is half a head taller than either of us, besides having a presence (to put it politely) which blots out the landscape.

  ‘So what with Priscilla (I have a hunch she writes poetry!) almost swooning at the sight of us, Fiona utterly despising us, and Susannah, that glorious goddess, unaware, it seems, of our existence, we are dependent on the motherly kindness of the plump, unruffled Mrs Saltergate. She and Saltergate talk of taking a holiday cottage in the village instead of staying for two months in their hotel. If that comes off, we may be able to wheedle her into getting our bibs and tuckers washed for us, otherwise we shall have to use the launderette in the nearest town, and that costs money.

  ‘On the surface, everybody seems to conform to one known type or another, so I do not think any one of them would be worthy of your scalpel. Meanwhile Tom and I are confident that, between Saltergate’s reconstructions and Veryan’s excavations, our well will get itself expertly uncovered and then our real fun will begin. We were somewhat taken aback at first when we found there were to be all these cuckoos in our nest, but now, although I think both parties will work Tom and me until our sweat bedews the hillside – Veryan has already laid off two of the four workmen he had hired to do the digging – our gains will more than off-set our losses. Perhaps you will pop along and watch us at work some time? It will be a scene to strike pity and terror into the human heart.’

  2

  Castle in the Sand

  « ^ »

  From the keep there were views of the sea. To the north-east were the shallow waters of the wide estuary beyond which Laura had seen the castle. To the south-west was the open sea in the direction of Holdy Bay, although the town itself was tucked away behind its hills.

  Between the castle and these two wastes of water were the moors. The village at the foot of the castle hill had begun as a collection of huts for the Saxons who had toiled to build the Norman castle. It now lived by tourism. There were no farms in the immediate neighbourhood, for there was neither agricultural land nor pasture. In fact, it was difficult to understand why the village had survived into the twentieth century to enjoy the benefits of the tourist trade and the invasion and almost total takeover by retired people of rather more than average means.

  Malpas Veryan and his companion, Nicholas Tynant, had taken rooms in the slightly larger of the two hotels, and Edward and Lilian Saltergate had booked in at the other. Both parties were old acquaintances and, although they could hardly be called close friends, a mild tolerance existed between them, although they were not attached to the same university. Dr Susannah Lochlure had joined the staff at Edward Saltergate’s college and the two girls mentioned in Bonamy’s letter to his godmother were nominally in her charge and shared a hired caravan with her for what was anticipated to be the time which would be spent on the work on the castle ruins.

  On this first full morning at Holdy, however, nobody felt any inclination to begin labouring on the hill, so, having fraternised over dinner at Veryan’s hotel on the previous evening, the whole company, including Bonamy and Tom, was now a few miles from the castle at a quiet strip of the coast about halfway between Holdy village and the town of Holdy Bay.

  Malpas Veryan, a long, lean man with a talent for complete relaxation when he was not feverishly working, was sprawled on the cliff-top, his eyes closed against the almost intolerable blue of the sky. Beside him sat Nicholas Tynant, a more compact, athletic figure, pipe between his teeth and his arms round his knees while he watched the scene below him. Edward Saltergate, squatting on the firm sand, was using a bit of pointed stick to mark out a plan of what he thought Holdy Castle would have looked like before Cromwell’s artillery got at it, and the four women and the two young men, Bonamy and Tom, were disporting themselves in the ocean.

  There were sea-pinks, the hardy tufts of thrift, in the little hollows and on the ledges of the cliff. On the cliff-top where the two dons were taking their ease, the short but untrimmed grass was scented with thyme. Occasionally Nicholas looked down at the painstaking cartographer below him, but for the most part he watched his Aphrodite as she challenged the waves.

  Now and again a seagull flew past, but all the wading-birds, the ringed plovers, dunlin, sandpipers and sanderlings, had d
isappeared from the flat, wet shore, frightened away first by the bathers as these ran across the sands and into the sea, and then too deeply suspicious of the crouching figure of Edward to return for the molluscs, the small Crustacea, the marine worms and the rest of their natural food.

  After a lapse of time which had been registered by nobody, Edward straightened himself and walked slowly round his sand-map. Then he walked to the edge of the water and called out to the bathers that he was ready.

  Malpas Veryan sat up, Nicholas Tynant put his long-cold pipe in his pocket, and then both men got to their feet and, by means of a flight of wooden steps, descended the cliffs. In the sea, Susannah, with a flash of white arms, sculled shorewards on an incoming wave and the others soon joined her on the beach, splashing through the last of the ripples as the long, lazy, incoming tide followed them on to the sand as though reluctant to let them go.

  The bathers picked up towels and began drying their hair and their arms as they followed one another up the beach, an incongruous quartet of women and two golden-armed Iollans, the graceful, straight-limbed youths.

  ‘The Spartans, on the sea-wet rocks,

  Sat down and combed their hair.’

  said Veryan.

  ‘ “I saw a frieze on whitest marble drawn,” ’ said Nicholas, looking at the white limbs of his so-far unattainable beloved. The swimmers formed themselves into a semicircle around the sand-map. They continued rubbing their hair and arms, but the actions were automatic. Their interest was in what lay at their feet. Edward Saltergate expounded. He still held the sharpened stick with which he had been working and he used it now as a pointer.

  ‘Of course, this rough plan is on the flat,’ he said. ‘You may find it rather different when you tackle the real thing on the slopes of the hill. Here at the top is the keep. There is still quite a lot of it standing, as you saw yesterday afternoon. At the foot of my sketch-plan are the remains of the outer gatehouse, still rather impressive, and the remains of the walls of the outer bailey lie between these two buildings and enclose a large space of a very unusual shape.

  ‘In my survey last week, I made out the remains of the flanking-towers in this outer wall. I think there would have been ten of them altogether, and I do hope that we shall locate them all. The most important (and enough of it remains for identification) is this one at the end of the middle bailey. It would have been circular and, except for its entrance, enclosed. The other towers were semicircular and were merely lookouts and defence posts to prevent enemies from climbing over the walls.

  ‘There may have been a postern gate between the keep and the nearest lookout tower, but now there is nothing but a gap in the wall. On the opposite side there are some remains which may have been the old hall before a larger castle hall was built in the small enclosed inner bailey which also contains the keep.

  ‘There is a long, deep ditch, still plainly to be seen, between the outer bailey and the middle bailey, and we may be able to find the remains of the secondary gatehouse which would have been approached by a drawbridge, for the ditch acted as a dry moat. There would have been no direct access to the inner bailey from this direction. The entry from the middle bailey would have been round to the side in accordance with the strategy of the times, which tried to ensure that an attacker had to walk as far as possible and under constant threat from the besieged garrison before he was able to attempt to storm the last entrance to the castle. Any questions?’

  ‘No,’ said Veryan, ‘but your ditch is interesting.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Tom Hassocks. ‘What about the water supply?’

  ‘That’s a good question,’ said Edward. ‘In a place of this size, there would have been two, or possibly three, wells. A small stream runs past the foot of the hill, and there must be a spring or springs somewhere on the hillside as well. The builders of the Middle Ages were more knowledgeable about feats of engineering than is sometimes thought. They understood the use of water-towers and they knew how to pipe water from the source of supply up to their buildings. They used oak, elm and often lead for their pipes and my secondary interest is to see whether we can locate any of these underground conduits. They still should be in existence.’

  ‘Two or three wells, I think you said, sir,’ said Bonamy.

  ‘Choked with rubble by now, I fear, Mr Monkswood. One of our tasks will be to locate and partly clear them. Are you volunteering for what may prove to be a thankless task?’

  ‘You mean we are unlikely to locate them, sir?’

  ‘Oh, I have every hope of finding them. One was probably in the outer bailey near what I think was another postern gate guarded by its flanking-tower, and there was probably another in the keep itself, where there is a good chance that we shall locate it when we have cleared the interior of the building. Clearing the wells themselves will be a different and more difficult matter.’

  ‘Would there still be water in the wells?’ asked Tom.

  ‘I don’t see why not. Anyway, I have made a large plan in Indian ink of the site, and Dr Lochlure has said she is prepared to pin it up in her caravan in case anybody wishes to consult it, as the next tide will wash away this ephemeral picture we have here.’

  ‘Do you want us any longer, Edward?’ asked his wife, as he paused.

  ‘No, Lilian. There is only one more thing. My concern is with the castle buildings, or what remains of them. The interior of the large outer bailey, which, as we have seen, is the flat expanse between the slope which leads up from the main gatehouse to the defensive ditch, is the province of Professor Veryan and we shall not encroach upon it. Away with you, then. Get some lunch and then everybody should be at the foot of the castle mound by half-past two.’

  The group broke up and dispersed. As they walked back to where the party had left their cars, Tom said to Bonamy, ‘I’ll tell you what. Let’s scour the neighbourhood for a pub outside the village. Veryan and the other overlords will make for the Barbican. We’ve got until two-thirty, so there’s plenty of time for a reconnaissance.’

  There had been a discussion between the two young men concerning cars. Bonamy had suggested that they rely only on his, for Tom had been staying with him the night before the two of them were due to begin the survey of the castle, but Tom dismissed the idea. If the group was to include girls, a party of four in one car might be all right on some occasions, but there would be other occasions when, as he expressed it, a man could work better on his own. There were more important things in life, he pointed out, than sharing the price of a few gallons of petrol, and one of these was that a man must have scope if he wanted to get action.

  The girls, except for Susannah, however, had proved something of a disappointment, and Susannah was as tantalisingly beyond reach as the grapes were to the fox, so the young men had no option but to resign themselves and endeavour to imitate the fox’s bitter attempt at self-consolation by surmising that the grapes were sour.

  ‘She’s probably frigid,’ said Tom. ‘These brainy, beautiful women often are. She must be nearly thirty, anyway. Well, now,’ he went on, ‘our problem, as I see it, is to keep all knowledge of our private activities from the others until we have something to report. It’s a nuisance having the girls’ caravan parked right at the foot of the hill. They will want to know what we’re up to.’

  ‘There isn’t anywhere else near at hand where they can possibly leave it. We’ll have to put our cars there, too. I wonder the gypsies haven’t taken over that verge before this. It’s wide and it’s flat and it’s grassy,’ said Bonamy.

  ‘Well, let’s hope the girls are heavy sleepers.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past that young Priscilla to rise before dawn and gather a nosegay while the dew is still on it. She looks a chronic Gawdelpus to me. I suspect her of being a secret folk-dancer and Fiona is probably an early-morning jogger.’

  ‘Well, so long as she jogs away from our mound and not up it, that won’t affect us. What about Susannah? I don’t see her as part of the dawn chorus.’
r />   ‘Well, it seems as though she will stick to the caravan, anyway. Perhaps she thinks the girls need a chaperone with types like us about.’

  ‘That blest pair of sirens wouldn’t need a chaperone even if you set them down with Brigham Young in Salt Lake City. Never mind the girls. Let us thank goodness for the sybaritic tendencies of the Senior Common Room. At least we shan’t have Veryan, Tynant and the Saltergates breathing down our necks at crack of dawn.’

  ‘True, but I’m not too happy about young Priscilla. The trouble with girls who don’t have a sex life to contend with is that they need an outlet in other directions. Priscilla has all the earmarks of perpetual spinsterhood. That being so, her nose will always be into other people’s business and that’s the last thing we want. I have a hunch that she doesn’t lack brains, either.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about Priscilla. If she did get up early, she wouldn’t trouble about what we were up to. She would probably be saying her prayers to the sun or meditating on mutability. She’s the Yoga type. Any danger, as I see it, would come from Fiona. She is, I suspect, beetle-brained, and probably full of innocent, childish curiosity.’

  ‘If anybody does notice us, let’s hope they will put our activities down to excess of zeal. What about the evenings? I should think we could knock off at five or half-past. We could get dinner at the Barbican at six-thirty, and that would give us a nice bit of time before dark to push on with our search.’

  ‘Perish such an unworthy idea! No, Tommy lad, I’ll get up with the lark, but by the time we’ve done our personal and private stint before breakfast and then put in a nine to one and then a two-thirty to (probably) five-thirty labourer’s day on Saltergate’s account, I shall be ready for beer, skittles and bed.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right. No sense in running ourselves into the ground.’