Caroline Minuscule by Andrew Taylor Page A

completely uninformative – Dougal argued that it might well be irrelevant: ‘Maybe the photo was given to Hanbury and the key to some sort of cryptogram to Lee. It could be a Cardano grill.’
    â€˜What?’ Amanda looked puzzled.
    â€˜It’s a sheet of paper the same size as the page with numbered, letter-size windows. You put the two together and read off the letters which aren’t blocked out, in the order shown. And there’s your message . . . I read about it in an annual I had for Christmas when I was ten.’
    Amanda laughed. ‘But if codes were Vernon-Jones’s hobby, you’d expect something much cleverer. He wouldn’t have wanted to make it easy.’
    But none of this was helpful: they simply didn’t know where to begin. Dougal was aware that Lee’s presence had brought a touch of fear to the proceedings, which was sapping his enthusiasm. Secretly he admitted to himself that he wanted to leave Rosington, but found it impossible to say to Amanda: ‘Look, I’m scared. We’re leaving this afternoon.’ Those dark, fine eyebrows would arch themselves and . . . oh, God, why was he such a coward? It made him angry and despairing at the same time. All of which led quite naturally to him resting his elbows on the table and saying quietly:
    â€˜I’m going to break into Bleeders Hall this evening.’
    Dougal left the hotel at seven-thirty promptly. By this time the inhabitants of the close should be sitting down to their evening meals, watching television or listening to the concert in the cathedral.
    He was well prepared physically for the expedition. He was wearing the duffel coat, jeans and a pair of boots with soles which were not only air-cushioned but virtually noiseless on hard surfaces. During the afternoon he had bought a small torch, some brown paper and glue, and a pair of fine rubber gloves. He had felt self-conscious about it, for life was imitating art, but in the absence of any other model, what else could life do? His purchases were distributed among his pockets.
    With Amanda he had reconnoitered the rear approach to Bleeders Hall before doing the shopping. The house had a small garden, bounded on one side by the building itself; the second and third walls divided it from neighbours’ gardens, while the fourth separated it from Canons’ Meadow. This was a large, bumpy field which sloped down to the river. It was the site of the monastic fishponds: shallow, grass-covered depressions marked the spots where carp and pike had waited for the fatal Friday. The eastern border of the meadow was formed by Bridge Street, a long thoroughfare which ran parallel to the river. There were two entrances to the meadow from the close which the public could use: one was a narrow footpath which ran from the door at the southeast angle of the cloister, skirted the Canon’s residence at the southwest corner of Infirmary Lane and debouched into the meadow by way of a stile; the other lay in the south part of the close, remote from the cathedral.
    The occupant of Bleeders Hall had access to the meadow by a door set in the garden wall. Dougal had tried it, but found it locked. The wall itself, however, had not looked an impassible obstacle. It was perhaps seven feet high, but it sloped gently inwards with age and the mortar which held the jumble of stone and brick had in places crumbled away, leaving convenient holes for the hands and feet. Peeping surreptitiously through the keyhole, Dougal had seen the house itself – a back door on the right, and three large windows on the left. The windows were unshuttered and within easy reach of the ground.
    Dougal set off down the High Street, feeling at once lonely and conspicuous, as if he were a leper wearing a placard round his neck in a crowd. It had not been a pleasant afternoon. Having announced his plan, Amanda’s enthusiasm had made it impossible to change his mind. She wanted to come as