The Black Tower Read Free

Pevsner’s guide to the buildings of Dorset. This was to be a convalescent’s holiday: familiar books; a brief visit to an old friend to provide an object for the journey; a route left to each day’s whim and including country both familiar and new; even the salutary irritant of a personal problem to justify solitude and self-indulgent idleness. He was disconcerted when, taking his final look round the flat, he found his hand reaching for his scene-of-crime kit. He couldn’t remember when last he had travelled without it, even on holiday. But now to leave it behind wasthe first confirmation of a decision which he would dutifully ponder from time to time during the next fortnight but which he knew in his heart was already made.
    He reached Winchester in time for late breakfast at a hotel in the shadow of the Cathedral, then spent the next two hours rediscovering the city before finally driving into Dorset via Wimborne Minster. Now he sensed in himself a reluctance to reach journey’s end. He meandered gently, almost aimlessly, north-west to Blandford Forum, bought there a bottle of wine, buttered rolls, cheese and fruit for his lunch and a couple of bottles of Amontillado for Father Baddeley, then wandered south-east through the Winterbourne villages through Wareham to Corfe Castle.
    The magnificent stones, symbols of courage, cruelty and betrayal, stood sentinel at the one cleft in the ridge of the Purbeck Hills as they had for a thousand years. As he ate his solitary picnic, Dalgliesh found his eyes constantly drawn to those stark embattled slabs of mutilated ashlar silhouetted high against the gentle sky. As though reluctant to drive under their shadow and unwilling to end the solitude of this peaceful undemanding day he spent some time searching unsuccessfully for marsh gentians in the swampy scrubland before setting off on the last five miles of his journey.
    Toynton Village; a thread of terraced cottages, their undulating grey stone roofs glittering in the afternoon sun; a not too picturesque pub at the village end; the glimpse of an uninteresting church tower. Now the road, bordered with a low stone wall, rose gently between sparse plantations of fir and he began to recognize the landmarks on Father Baddeley’s map. Soon the road would branch, one narrow route turning westward to skirt the headland, the other leading through a barrier gate to Toynton Grange and the sea. And here, predictably, it was, a heavy iron gate setinto a wall of flat, uncemented stones. The wall was up to three feet thick, the stones intricately and skilfully fitted together, bound with lichen and moss and crowned with waving grasses, and it formed a barrier as old and permanent as the headland from which it seemed to have grown. On each side of the gate was a notice painted on board. The one on the left was the newer; it read:
    OF YOUR CHARITY PLEASE RESPECT OUR PRIVACY
    The one on the right was more didactic, the lettering faded but more professional.
    KEEP OUT
    THIS LAND IS STRICTLY PRIVATE
    DANGEROUS CLIFFS NO ACCESS TO BEACH
    CARS AND CARAVANS PARKED HERE WILL BE MOVED
    Under the notice was fixed a large postbox.
    Dalgliesh thought that any motorist unmoved by this nicely judged mixture of appeal, warning and threats would hesitate before risking his car springs. The track deteriorated sharply beyond the gate and the contrast between the comparative smoothness of the approach road and the boulder edged and stony way ahead was an almost symbolic deterrent. The gate, too, although unlocked, had a heavy latch of intricate design, the manipulation of which gave an intruder ample time in which to repent of his rashness. In his still weakened state, Dalgliesh swung back the gate with some difficulty. When he had driven through and finally closed it behind him it was with a sense of having committed himself to an enterprise as yet imperfectly understood and probably unwise. The problem would probably be embarrassingly