Dead Water

VII The Yard

He wondered if she would deny it and what he could say if she did. Very little. His assumption had been based largely on a hunch, and he liked to tell himself that he didn’t believe in hunches. He knew that she was deeply shocked. Her white face and the movement of her hands gave her away completely; but she was, as Miss Emily had remarked, a woman of character.

She said: “I have been very stupid. I suppose I should congratulate you. What gave you the idea?”

“I happened to notice your expression when that monstrous girl walked out from behind the boulder. You looked angry. But, more than that, I’ve been told Wally sticks to it that his Green Lady was tall and very beautiful. Naturally, I thought of you.”

A door slammed upstairs. Someone, a man, cleared his throat raucously.

She twisted her hands into his. Her face was a mask of terror. “Mr. Alleyn, promise me — for God’s sake promise me you won’t speak about this to my husband. It won’t help you to discuss it with him. I swear it won’t. You don’t know what would happen if you did.”

“Does he not know?”

She tried to speak, but only looked at him in terror.

“He does know?”

“’It makes no difference. He would be — he would be angry — that you knew.”

“Why should he mind so much? You said what you said, I expect, impulsively. And it worked. Next morning the boy’s hands were clean. You couldn’t undo your little miracle.”

“No, no, no, you don’t understand. It’s not that. It’s — O God, he’s coming down. O God, how can I make you? What shall I do? Please, please.”

“If it’s possible I shall say nothing.” He held her hands firmly for a moment until they stopped writhing in his. “Don’t be frightened,” he said and let her go. “He’d better not see you like this. Where does that door lead to? The kitchen?” He opened it. “There you are. Quickly.”

In a moment she was gone.

Major Barrimore came heavily downstairs. He yawned, crossed the little hall and went into the old Private Taproom. The slide between it and the parlour was still there. Alleyn heard the clink of glass. A midafternoon drinker, he thought, and wondered if the habit was long-established. He picked up his suitcase, went quietly into the hall, and out at the front door. He then noisily returned.

“Anyone at home?” he called.

After an interval, the door of the Private opened and Barrimore came out, dabbing at his mouth with a freshly laundered handkerchief and an unsteady hand. He was, as usual, impeccably turned-out. His face was puffy and empurpled, and his manner sombre.

“Hullo,” he said. “You.”

“I’m on my way to sign in,” Alleyn said cheerfully. “Can you spare me a few minutes? Routine, as usual. One’s never done with it.”

Barrimore stared dully at him and then opened the door of the parlour. “In here,” he said.

Margaret Barrimore had left the faintest recollection of her scent behind her, but this was soon lost in the Major’s blended aura of Scotch-cigar-and-hair-lotion.

“Well,” he said. “What’s it this time? Made any arrests?”

“Not yet.”

“Everybody nattering about the boy, I s’pose. You’d think they’d all got their knife into the poor kid.”

“You don’t agree?”

“I don’t. He’s too damn’ simple, f’one thing. No harm in him, f’r ’nother. You get to know ’bout chap’s character in a regiment. Always pick the bad ’uns. He’s not.”

“Have you any theories, yourself?”

The Major, predictably, said: “No names, no pack-drill.”

“Quite. But I’d be glad of your opinion.”

“You wouldn’t, old boy. You’d hate it.”

Now, Alleyn thought, this is it. I know what this is going to be. “I?” he said. “Why?”

“Heard what they’re saying in the village?”

“No. What are they saying?”

“I don’t necessarily agree, you know. Still: they hated each other’s guts, those two. Face it.”

“Which two?”

“The females. Beg pardon: the ladies. Miss P. and Miss C. And she was there, old boy. Can’t get away from it. She was on the spot. Hanging up her bloody notice.”

“How do you know?” Alleyn said and was delighted to speak savagely.

“Here! Steady! Steady, the Buffs!”

“The path has been closed. No one has been allowed near the enclosure. How do you know Miss Pride was there? How do you know she hung up her notice?”

“By God, sir—”

“I’ll tell you. You were there yourself.”

The blood had run into patches in the Major’s jowls.

“You must be mad,” he said.

“You were on the path. You took shelter behind an outcrop of stone, by the last bend. After Miss Pride had left and returned to the hotel, you came out and went to the enclosure.”

He was taking chances again, but, looking at that outfaced blinking man, he knew he was justified.

“You read the notice, lost your temper and threw it into the mud. The important thing is that you were there. If you want to deny it you are, of course, at perfect liberty to do so.”

Barrimore drew his brows together and went through a parody of brushing his moustache. He then said: “Mind if I get a drink?”

“You’d better not, but I can’t stop you.”

“You’re perfectly right,” said the Major. He went out. Alleyn heard him go into the Private, and pushed back the slide. The Major was pouring himself a Scotch. He saw Alleyn and said: “Can I persuade you? No. S’pose not. Not the drill.”

“’Come back,” Alleyn said.

He swallowed his whisky neat and returned.

“Better,” he said. “Needed it.” He sat down. “There’s a reasonable explanation,” he said.

“Good. Let’s have it.”

“I followed her.”

“Who? Miss Pride?”

“That’s right. Now, look at it this way: I wake. Boiled owl. Want a drink of water. Very well. I get up. Raining cassandogs. All v’y fine. Look outer th’window. Cassandogs. And there she is with her bloody great brolly, falling herself in, down below. Left wheel and into the path. What’s a man going to do? Coupler aspirins and into some togs. Trench coat. Hat. Boots. See what I mean? You can’t trust her an inch…Where was I?”

“Following Miss Pride along the path to the enclosure.”

“Certainly. She’d gained on me. All right. Strategy of indirect approach. Keep under cover. Which I did. Just like you said, old boy. Perfectly correct. Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes.” He leered at Alleyn.

“Do you mean that you confronted her?”

“Me! No, thank you!”

“You mean you kept under cover until she’d gone past you on her way back to the hotel?”

“What I said. Or did I?”

“Then you went to the enclosure?”

“Nasherally.”

“You read the notice and threw it aside?”

“ ’Course.”

“And then? What did you do?”

“Came back.”

“Did you see Wally Trehern?”

The Major stared. “I did not.”

“Did you meet anyone?”

A vein started out on Barrimore’s forehead. Suddenly, he looked venomous.

“Not a soul,” he said loudly.

“Did you see anyone?”

“No!”

“You met Miss Cost. You must have done so. She was on the path a few minutes after Miss Pride got back. You either met her at the enclosure itself, or on the path. Which was it?”

“I didn’t see her. I didn’t meet her.”

“Will you sign a statement to that effect?”

“I’ll be damned if I do.” Whether through shock or by an astonishing effort of will, he had apparently got himself under control. “I’ll see you in hell first,” he said.

“And that’s your last word?”

“Not quite.” He got up and confronted Alleyn, staring into his face. “If there’s any more of this,” he said, “I’ll ring up the Yard and tell your O.C. you’re a prejudiced and therefore an untrustworthy officer. I’ll have you court-martialled, by God! Or whatever they do in your show.”

“I really think you’d better not,” Alleyn said mildly.

“No? I’ll tell them what’s no more than the case: you’re suppressing evidence against an old woman who seems to be a very particular friend. No accounting for taste.”

“’Major Barrimore,” Alleyn said, “you will not persuade me to knock your tongue down your throat, but you’d do yourself less harm if you bit it off.”

“I know what I’m talking about. You can’t get away from it. Ever since she came here she’s had her knife into poor old Cost. Accusing her of writing letters. Chucking stones. Telephone messages. Planting ornaments.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Miss Pride was wrong there, wasn’t she? Miss Cost didn’t put the Green Lady in Miss Pride’s room. You did.”

Barrimore’s jaw dropped.

“Well,” Alleyn said. “Do you deny it? I shouldn’t, if I were you. It’s smothered in your fingerprints and so’s the paper round its neck.”

“You’re lying. You’re bluffing.”

“If you prefer to think so. There’s been a conspiracy between you against Miss Pride, hasn’t there? You and Miss Cost, with the Treherns in the background? You were trying to scare her off. Miss Cost started it with threatening messages pieced together from the local paper. You liked the idea and carried on with the word Death cut out of your Racing Supplement and stuck round the neck of the image. You didn’t have to ask Miss Cost for one. They’re for sale in your pub.”

“Get the hell out of here. Get out.”

Alleyn picked up his suitcase. “That’s all for the present. I shall ask you to repeat this conversation before a witness. In the meantime, I suggest that you keep off the whisky and think about the amount of damage you’ve done to yourself. If you change your mind about any of your statements I’m prepared to listen to you. You will see to it, if you please, that Miss Pride is treated with perfect civility during the few hours she is most unfortunately obliged to remain here as your guest.”

He had got as far as the door when the Major said: “Hold on. Wait a bit.”

“Well?”

“Daresay I went too far. Not myself. Fellah shouldn’t lose his temper, should he? What?”

“On the contrary,” said Alleyn, “the exhibition was remarkably instructive.” And went out.

And after all that, he thought, I suppose I should grandly cancel my room and throw myself on Coombe’s hospitality again. I won’t, though. It’s too damned easy and it’s probably exactly what Barrimore hopes I’ll do.

He collected his key at the office and went up to his room. It was now a quarter past three. Miss Emily would still be having her siesta. In an hour and forty-five minutes Detective Inspector Fox, Detective Sergeant Bailey and Detective Sergeant Thompson would arrive. Curtis, the pathologist, would be driving to Dunlowman under his own steam. Coombe had arranged for Dr. Mayne to meet him there. The nearest mortuary was at Dunlowman. Alleyn would be damned glad to see them all.

He unpacked his suitcase and began to write his notes on hotel paper. It was the first time he’d ever embarked on a case without his regulation kit, and he felt uncomfortable and amateurish. He began to wonder if, after all, he should hand it over to Fox or somebody else. Triumph for the gallant Major! he thought.

For a minute or two he indulged in what he knew to be fantasy. Was it, in the smallest degree, remotely possible that Miss Emily, inflamed by Miss Cost’s activities, could have seen her approaching, bolted into the enclosure, hidden behind the boulder and, under a sudden access of exasperation, hurled a rock at Miss Cost’s umbrella? It was not. But supposing for a moment that it was? What would Miss Emily then have done? Watched Miss Cost as she drowned in the pool; as her hair streamed out over the fall; as her dress inflated and deflated in the eddying stream? Taken another bit of rock and scraped out her own footprints, and walked back to the Boy-and-Lobster? And, where, all that time, was the Major? What became of his admission that he tore down the notice and threw it away? Suppose there was an arrest and a trial and defending counsel used Miss Emily as a counterblast? Could her innocence be established? Only, as things stood, by the careful presentation of the Major’s evidence; and the Major thought, or pretended to think, she was guilty. And, in any case, the Major was a chronic alcoholic.

He got up and moved restlessly about the room. A silly, innocuous print of anemones in a mug had been hung above the bed. He could have wrenched it down and chucked it, with as much fury as had presumably inspired the Major, into the wastepaper basket.

There must have been an encounter between Barrimore and Miss Cost. He had seen Miss Emily pass and repass, had come out of concealment and gone to the enclosure. By that time Miss Cost was approaching. Why, when he saw her, should he again take cover, and where? No: they must have met. What, then, did they say to each other in the pouring rain? Did she tell him she was going to retrieve the necklace? Or did he, having seen her approaching, let himself into the enclosure and hide behind the boulder? But why? And where, all this time, was Wally? Dr. Mayne and Miss Emily had both seen him, soon after half past seven. He had shouted at Miss Emily and then ducked out of sight. The whole damned case seemed to be littered with people that continually dodged in and out of concealment. What about Trehern? Out and about in the landscape with the rest of them? Inciting his son to throw rocks at a supposed Miss Emily? Dr. Mayne had not noticed him, but that proved nothing.

Next, and he faced this conundrum with distaste, what about Mrs. Barrimore, alias the Green Lady? Did she fit in anywhere or had he merely stumbled down an odd, irrelevant byway? But why was she so frightened at the thought of her husband being told of her masquerade? The Green Lady episode had brought Barrimore nothing but material gain. Wouldn’t he simply have ordered her to shut up about it and, if anything, relished the whole story? She had seemed to suggest that the fact of Alleyn himself being aware of it would be the infuriating factor. And why had she been so distressed when she was alone in the garden? At that stage there was no question of discovery of her identity with the Green Lady.

Finally, of course, was Miss Cost murdered, as it were, in her own person, or because she was mistaken for Miss Emily?

The answer to that one must depend largely upon motive, and motive is one of the secondary elements in police investigation. The old tag jog-trotted through his mind: Quis? Quid? Ubi? Quibus? auxilis? Cur? Quomodo? Quando? Which might be rendered: “Who did the deed? What was it? Where was it done? With what? Why was it done? And how done? When was it done?” The lot!

He completed his notes and read them through. The times were pretty well established; the weapon; the method; the state of the body. The place — no measurements yet, beyond the rough ones he and Coombe had made on the spot. Bailey would attend to all that. The place? He had described it in detail. The boulder? Between the boulder and the hill behind it was a little depression, screened by bracken and soft with grass. A “good spot for courting couples,” as Coombe had remarked, “when it wasn’t raining.” The ledge…

He was still poring over his notes when the telephone rang. Mr. Nankivell, the Mayor of Portcarrow, would like to see him.

“Ask him to come up,” Alleyn said, and put his notes in the drawer of the desk.

Mr. Nankivell was in a fine taking on. His manner suggested a bothering confusion of civic dignity, awareness of Alleyn’s reputation and furtive curiosity. There was another element, too. As the interview developed, so did his air of being someone who has information to impart and can’t quite make up his mind to divulge it. Mr. Nankivell, for all his opéra bouffe façade, struck Alleyn as being a pretty shrewd fellow.

“This horrible affair,” he said, “has taken place at a very regrettable juncture, Superintendent Alleyn. This, sir, is the height of our season. Portcarrow is in the public eye. It has become a desirable resort. We’ll have the press down upon us and the type of information they’ll put out will not conduce to the general benefit of our community. A lot of damaging clap-trap is what we may expect from those chaps and we may as well face up to it.”

“When does the local paper come out?”

“Tuesday,” said the Mayor gloomily. “But they’ve got their system. Thick as thieves with London — agents, as you might say. They’ll have handed it on.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “I expect they will.”

“Well, there now!” Mr. Nankivell said, waving his aim. “There yarr! A terrible misfortunate thing to overtake us.”

Alleyn said: “Have you formed any opinion yourself, Mr. Mayor?”

“So I have, then. Dozens. And each more objectionable than the last. The stuff that’s being circulated already by parties that ought to know better! Now I understand, sir, and I hope you’ll overlook my mentioning it, that Miss Pride is personally known to you.”

With a sick feeling of weariness Alleyn said: “Yes. She’s an old friend.” And before Mr. Nankivell could go any further he added: “I’m aware of the sort of thing that is being said about Miss Pride. I can assure you that, as the case has developed, it is clearly impossible that she could have been involved.”

“Is that so? Is that the case?” said Mr. Nankivell. “Glad to hear it, I’m sure.” He did not seem profoundly relieved, however. “And then,” he said, “there’s another view. There’s a notion that the one lady was took for the other! Now, there’s a very upsetting kind of a fancy to get hold of. When you think of the feeling there’s been, and them that’s subscribed to it.”

“Yourself among them?” Alleyn said lightly. “Ridiculous, when you put it like that, isn’t it?”

“I should danged well hope it is ridiculous,” he said violently and at once produced his own alibi. “Little though I ever thought to be put in the way of making such a demeaning statement,” he added angrily. “However, being a Sunday, Mrs. Nankivell and I did not raise up until nine o’clock and was brought our cup of tea at eight by the girl that does for us. The first I hear of this ghastly affair is at ten-thirty, when Mrs. Nankivell and I attended chapel, and then it was no more than a lot of chatter about an accident and George Pender, looking very big, by all accounts, and saying he’d nothing to add to the information. When we come out it’s all over the village. I should of been informed at the outset but I wasn’t. Very bad.”

Alleyn did his best to calm him.

“I’m very grateful to you for calling,” he said. “I was going to ring up and ask if you could spare me a moment this afternoon but I wouldn’t have dreamed of suggesting you take the trouble to come over. I really must apologize.”

“No need, I’m sure,” said Mr. Nankivell, mollified.

“Now, I wonder if in confidence, Mr. Mayor, you can help me at all. You see, I know nothing about Miss Cost and it’s always a great help to get some sort of background. For instance, what was she like? She was, I take it, about forty to forty-five years old and, of course, unmarried. Can you add anything to that? A man in your position is usually a very sound judge of character, I’ve always found.”

“Ah!” said the Mayor, smoothing the back of his head. “It’s an advantage, of course. Something that grows on you with experience, you might say.”

“Exactly. Handling people and getting to know them. Now, between two mere males, how would you sum up Miss Elspeth Cost?”

Mr. Nankivell raised his brows and stared upon vacancy. A slow, knowing smile developed. He wiped it away with his fingers, but it crept back.

“A proper old maiden, to be sure,” he said.

“Really?”

“Not that she was what you’d call ancient: forty-five as you rightly judged, and a tricksy time of life for females, which is a well-established phenomenon, I believe.”

“Yes, indeed. You don’t know,” Alleyn said cautiously, “what may turn up.”

“God’s truth, if you never utter another word,” said Mr. Nankivell with surprising fervour. He eased back in his chair, caught Alleyn’s eye and chuckled. “The trouble I’ve had along of that lady’s crankiness,” he confided, “you’d never credit.”

Alleyn said “Tch!”

“Ah! With some it takes the form of religious activities. Others go all-out for dumb animals. Mrs. Nankivell herself, although a very level-headed lady, worked it off in cats, which have in the course of nature simmered down to two. Neuters, both. But with Miss Cost, not to put too fine a point on it, with Miss Cost it was a matter of her female urges.”

“Sex?”

“She spotted it everywhere,” Mr. Nankivell exclaimed. “Up hill and down dell, particularly the latter. Did I know what went on in the bay of an evening? Was I aware of the opportunities afforded by open dinghies? Didn’t we ought to install more lights along the front? And when it came to the hills round about the spring, she was a tiger. Alf Coombe got it. The Rector got it, the Doctor got it, and I came in for it, hot and strong, continuous. She was a masterpiece.”

Alleyn ventured a sympathetic laugh.

“You may say so, but beyond a joke nevertheless. And that’s not the whole story. The truth of the matter is, and I tell you this, sir, in the strictest confidence, the silly female was — dear me, how can I put it — she was chewed-up by the very fury she come down so hard upon. Now, that’s a fact, and well known to all and sundry. She was a manhunter, was poor Elspeth Cost. In her quiet, mousy sort of fashion she raged to and fro seeking whom she might devour. Which was not many.”

“Any success?”

The Mayor, to Alleyn’s infinite regret, pulled himself up. “Well, now,” he said. “That’d be talking. That’d be exceeding, sir.”

“I can assure you that if it has no bearing on the case, I shall forget it. I’m sure, Mr. Mayor, you would prefer me to discuss these quite possibly irrelevant matters with you, rather than make widespread inquiries through the village. We both know, don’t we, that local gossip can be disastrously unreliable?”

Mr. Nankivell thought this over. “True as fate,” he said at last. “Though I’m in no position, myself, to speak as to facts and don’t fancy giving an impression that may mislead you. I don’t fancy that, at all.”

This seemed to Alleyn to be an honest scruple and he said warmly: “I think I can promise you that I shan’t jump to conclusions.”

The Mayor looked at him. “Very good,” he said. He appeared to be struck with a sudden thought. “I can tell you this much,” he continued with a short laugh. “The Rector handled her with ease, being well-versed in middle-aged maidens. And she had no luck with me and the Doctor. Hot after him, she was, and drawing attention and scorn upon herself right and left. But we kept her at bay, poor wretch, and in the end she whipped round against us with as mighty a fury as she’d let loose on the pursuit. Very spiteful. Same with the Major.”

“What!” Alleyn ejaculated. “Major Barrimore!”

Mr. Nankivell looked extremely embarrassed. “That remark,” he said, “slipped out. All gossip, I daresay, and better forgotten, the whole lot of it. Put about by the Ladies’ Guild upon which Mrs. Nankivell sits, ex officio, and, as she herself remarked, not to be depended upon.”

“But what is it that the Ladies’ Guild alleges? That Miss Cost set her bonnet at Major Barrimore and he repelled her advances?”

“Not ezackly,” said the Mayor. His manner strangely suggested a proper reticence undermined by an urge to communicate something that would startle his hearer.

“Come on, Mr. Mayor,” Alleyn said. “Let’s have it, whatever it is. Otherwise you’ll get me jumping to a most improper conclusion.”

“Go on, then,” invited Mr. Nankivell, with hardihood. “Jump!”

“You’re not going to tell me that Miss Cost is supposed to have had an affair with Major Barrimore?”

“Aren’t I? I am, then. And a proper, high-powered, blazing set-to, at that. While it lasted,” said Mr. Nankivell.

Having taken his final hurdle, Mr. Nankivell galloped freely down the straight. The informant, it appeared, was Miss Cissy Pollock, yesterday’s Green Lady and Miss Cost’s assistant and confidante. To her, Miss Cost was supposed to have opened her heart. Miss Pollock, in her turn, had retailed the story, under a vow of strictest secrecy, to the girl friend of her bosom, whose mother, a close associate of Mrs. Nankivell, was an unbridled gossip. You may as well, the Mayor said, have handed the whole lot over to the Town Crier and have done with it. The affair was reputed to have been of short duration and to have taken place at the time of Miss Cost’s first visit to the Island. There was dark talk of an equivocal nature about visits paid by Major Barrimore to an unspecified rival in Dunlowman. He was, Mr. Nankivell remarked, a full-blooded man.

With the memory of Miss Cost’s face, as Alleyn had seen it that morning, made hideous by death, this unlovely story took on a grotesque and appalling character. Mr. Nankivell himself seemed to sense something of this reaction. He became uneasy, and Alleyn had to assure him, all over again, that it was most unlikely that the matter would turn out to be relevant and that, supposing it was, Mr. Nankivell’s name would not appear — everything he had said came under the heading of hearsay, and would be inadmissible as evidence. This comforted him and he took his leave with the air of a man who, however distasteful the task, has done his duty.

When he had gone, Alleyn got his notes out again and added a fairly lengthy paragraph. He then lit his pipe and walked over to the window.

It looked down on the causeway, the landing jetty and the roof of Miss Cost’s shop. Across the channel, in the village, trippers still dappled the foreshore. There were several boats out in the calm waters and among them, pulling towards the Island, he saw Patrick’s dinghy with Jenny Williams in the stern. She sat bolt upright and seemed to be looking anywhere but at her companion. He was rowing with exaggerated vigour, head down and shoulders hunched. Even at that distance, he looked as if he was in a temper. As they approached the jetty, Jenny turned towards him and evidently spoke. He lifted his head, seemed to stare at her and then back-paddled into a clear patch of water and half-shipped his oars. The tide was going out and carried them very slowly towards the point of Fisherman’s Bay. They were talking, now. Jenny made a quick repressed gesture and shook her head.

“Lovers’ quarrel,” Alleyn thought. “Damned awkward in a boat. He won’t get anywhere, I daresay.”

“You won’t get anywhere,” Jenny was saying in a grand voice, “by sulking.”

“I am not sulking.”

“Then you’re giving a superb imitation of it. As the day’s been such a failure why don’t we pull in and bring it to an inglorious conclusion?”

“All right,” he said but made no effort to do so.

“Patrick.”

“What?”

“Couldn’t you just mention what’s upset your applecart? It’d be better than huffing and puffing behind a thundercloud.”

“You’re not so marvellously forthcoming yourself.”

“Well, what am I meant to do? Crash down on my knees in the bilge-water and apologize for I don’t know what?”

“You do know what.”

“Oh, Lord!” Jenny pushed her fingers through her dazzling hair, looked at him and began to giggle. “Isn’t this silly?” she said.

The shadow of a grin lurked about Patrick’s mouth and was suppressed. “Extremely silly,” he said. “I apologize for being a figure of fun.”

“Look,” Jenny said. “Which is it? Me going off with Mr. Alleyn to see Wally? Me being late for our date? Or me going to Dunlowman with Miss Emily tomorrow? Or the lot? Come on.”

“You’re at perfect liberty to take stewed tea and filthy cream buns with anybody you like for as long as you like. It was evidently all very private and confidential and far be me from it — I mean it from me — to muscle in where I’m not wanted.”

“But I told you. He asked me not to talk about it.”

Patrick inclined, huffily. “So I understand,” he said.

“Patrick: I’m sorry, but I do find that I respect Mr. Alleyn. I’m anti a lot of things that I suppose you might say he seems to stand for, although I’m not so sure, even, of that. He strikes me as being — well — far from reactionary,” said young Jenny.

“I’m sure he’s a paragon of enlightenment.”

She wondered how it would go if she said: “Let’s face it, you’re jealous,” and very wisely decided against any such gambit. She looked at Patrick: at his shock of black hair, at his arms and the split in his open shirt where the sunburn stopped, and at his intelligent, pigheaded face. She thought: He’s a stranger and yet he’s very familiar. She leaned forward and put her hand on his bony knee.

“Don’t be unhappy,” she said. “What is it?”

“Good God!” he said. “Can you put it out of your mind so easily? It’s Miss Cost, with her skull cracked. It’s Miss Cost, face down in our wonderful spring. It’s your pin-up detective, inching his way into our lives. Do you suppose I enjoy the prospect of—” He stopped short. “I happen,” he said, “to be rather attached to my mother.”

Jenny said quickly: “Patrick — yes, of course you are. But—”

“You must know damned well what I mean.”

“All right. But surely it’s beside the point. Mr. Alleyn can’t think—”

“Can’t he?” His eyes slid away from her. “She was a poisonous woman,” he said.

A silence fell between them and suddenly Jenny shivered unexpectedly, as if some invisible hand had shaken her.

“What’s the matter?” he said irritably. “Are you cold?”

He looked at her miserably and doubtfully.

Jenny thought: I don’t know him. I’m lost…And at once was caught up in a wave of compassion.

“Don’t let’s go on snarling,” she said. “Let’s go home and sort ourselves out. It’s clouded over and I’m getting rather cold.”

He said: “I don’t blame you for wanting to get away from this mess. What a party to have let you in for! It’s better you should go to Dunlowman.”

“Now, that,” said Jenny, “is really unfair and you know it, darling.”

He glowered at her. “You don’t say that as a rule. Everyone says ‘darling,’ but you don’t.”

“That’s right. I’m saying it now for a change. Darling.”

He covered her hand with his. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I am really sorry. Darling Jenny.”

From his bedroom window Alleyn watched and thought: He’ll lose his oar.

It slipped through the rowlock. Patrick became active with the other oar. The dinghy bobbed and turned about. They both reached dangerously overboard. Through the open window Alleyn faintly caught the sound of their laughter.

“That’s done the trick,” he thought. The telephone rang and he answered it.

“Fox, here, sir,” said a familiar, placid voice. “Speaking from Portcarrow station.”

“You sound like the breath of spring.”

“I didn’t quite catch what you said.”

“It doesn’t matter. Have you brought my homicide kit?”

“Yes.”

“Then come, Birdie, come.”

Mr. Fox replaced the receiver and said to Superintendent Coombe and the Yard party: “We’re to go over. He’s worried.”

“He sounded as if he was acting the goat or something,” said Coombe.

“That’s right,” said Fox. “Worried. Come on, you chaps.”

Detective Sergeants Bailey and Thompson, carrying kits and suitcases, accompanied him to the launch. Coombe showed them the way, saw them off and returned to his office.

Alleyn saw them from his window, picked up his raincoat and went down the steps to meet them. They had attracted a considerable amount of attention.

“Quite a picturesque spot,” said Mr. Fox. “Popular, too, by the looks of it. What’s the story, Mr. Alleyn?”

“I’ll tell you on the way, Br’er Fox.”

Alleyn gave a likely-looking boy five shillings to take the suitcases up to the hotel. Numbers of small boys had collected and were shaping up to accompany them. “Move along,” said Mr. Fox majestically. “Shove along, now. Right away. Clear out of it.”

They backed off.

“You’m Yard men, bean’t you, mister?” said the largest of the boys.

“That’s right,” Alleyn said. “Push off or we’ll be after you.”

They broke into peals of derisive but gratified laughter and scattered. One of them started a sort of chant, but the others told him to shut up.

Alleyn took his own kit from Fox and suggested that they all walk round the arm of Fisherman’s Bay and up by Wally’s route to the enclosure. On the way he gave them a résumé of the case.

“Complicated,” Mr. Fox remarked when Alleyn had finished. “Quite a puzzle.”

“And that’s throwing roses at it.”

“Which do you favour, Mr. Alleyn? Mistaken identity or dead on the target?”

“I don’t want to influence you — not that I flatter myself I can — at the outset. The popular theory with Coombe is the first. To support it this wretched boy says he saw Miss Pride arrive, leave and return. She, herself, saw him. Down on the road we’re coming to in a minute. So did Dr. Mayne. Now the second figure, of course, must have been Miss Cost, not Miss Pride. But between the departure of Miss Pride and the arrival of Miss Cost, Barrimore went to the gates and chucked away the notice. Who replaced it? The murderer? Presumably. And when did Wally let himself into the enclosure? If he did? It must have been before Miss Cost appeared, or she would have seen him. So we’ve got to suppose that for some reason Wally did go in and did hide behind the boulder, after Miss Pride had left — avoiding Barrimore, who didn’t see him. I don’t like it. It may be remotely possible, but I don’t like it. And I’m certain he wouldn’t replace the notice. He hasn’t got the gumption. Anyway the timetable barely allows of all this.”

“He’d hardly mistake the deceased for Miss Pride, silly-and-all as he may be, if he got anything like a fair look at her.”

“Exactly, Br’er Fox. As for the galloping Major: he swims round in an alcoholic trance. Never completely drunk. Hardly ever sober. And reputed, incredibly enough, to have had a brief fling with Miss Cost at about the same time as Wally’s warts vanished. He is thought to have proved fickle and to have aroused her classic fury. She also set her bonnet, unsuccessfully it seems, at the Doctor, the Rector and the Mayor. Barrimore’s got a most beautiful and alluring wife, who is said to be bullied by him. She showed signs of acute distress after she heard the news. She’s the original Green Lady. It’s all in the notes: you can have a nice cozy read any time you fancy.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s Wally’s cottage. We are about to climb Wally’s Way — and that is Wally’s mama, another alcoholic, by the by, leering over the back fence. His father is ferryman at high tide and general showman in between. The whole boiling of them — the Barrimores, the Parson, the Doctor, the Major, the Treherns, Miss Cost herself, with pretty well everybody else in the community — stood to lose by Miss Pride’s operations. Apart from arousing the cornered fury of a hunted male, it’s difficult to discover a motive for Miss Cost’s murder… Good evening, Mrs. Trehern!” Alleyn shouted and lifted his hat.

“Yoo-hoo!” Mrs. Trehern wildly returned, clinging to her back fence. “Lock ’er up. Bloody murderess.”

“Who’s she mean?” asked Fox.

“Miss Pride.”

“Bless my soul! Quelle galère!” Fox added, cautiously.

“You must meet Miss Pride, Br’er Fox. She’s a top authority on French as she should be spoke.”

“Ah!” said Fox. “To be properly taught from the word go! That’s the thing. What does she think of the gramophone method?”

“Not much.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Fox with a heavy sigh.

Mrs. Trehern gave a screech, not unlike one of her son’s, and tacked into the cottage. Alleyn went over to the fence and looked into the back garden. The clothesline had been removed.

They climbed up Wally’s Way to the enclosure. One of Coombe’s men was standing a little way along the hotel path.

Alleyn said to Bailey: “The whole area was trampled over when the rain came down. From below, up to the boulder, it’s thick broken bracken and you won’t get results, I’m afraid. On the shelf above the pool where the deceased was crouched, leaning forward, you’ll find her prints superimposed over others. Above that, behind the boulder, is the area where our man, woman or child is thought to have hidden. There’s a clear indication of the place where the rock was prized up, and signs that some effort was made to scrape out the footprints. All this, on top of the mess left by the crowd. And to add to your joy, Superintendent Coombe and Dr. Mayne were up there this morning. Their prints ought to be fairly easy to cut out. The Super was wearing his regulation issue and the Doctor’s are ripple-soled. Thompson, give us a complete coverage, will you? And we’ll need casts, Bailey. Better take them as soon as possible.” He looked up at the sky. Heavy clouds were rolling in from the northwest and a fresh wind had sprung up. The sea was no longer calm. “Anyone notice the forecast?”

“Yes,” said Fox. “Gales and heavy rain before morning.”

“Damn.”

He produced Coombe’s key for the wire cage over the slot machine, which had been locked.

“Notice this, Br’er Fox, would you? It was installed at Miss Cost’s insistence to baffle courting couples after dark, and not often used. I think it might be instructive. Only Coombe and the Boy-and-Lobster had keys. You can get out of the enclosure by the other gate, which is on a spring and is self-locking on the inside. You could go in by this turnstile and, if you used a length of string, pull the padlock, on the slack of its chain, round to the netting, and lock yourself in.”

“Any reason to think it’s been done?”

“Only this: there’s a fragment of frayed string caught in the groove of the wire. Get a shot of it, Thompson, will you, before we take possession?”

Thompson set up his camera. Alleyn unlocked the cage. He gave each of the others a disk and, in turn, they let themselves in. The shelf and the area above it, round the boulder, had been covered with tarpaulins. “Laid on by Coombe’s chaps,” Alleyn said. “He’s done a good job, never mind his great boots.” He stood there for a moment and watched the movement of the welling pool, the sliding lip of water, its glassy fall and perpetual disappearance. Its voices, consulting together, filled the air with their colloquy.

“Well,” Alleyn said. “Here you are, Bailey. We’ll leave you to it. I’d better have a word with the local P.C.s. Here are my notes, Fox. Have a look at them for what they’re worth.”

Mr. Fox drew out his spectacle case and seated himself in the lee of the hillside. Bailey, a man of few words, at once began to work, and in a minute or two Thompson joined him. Alleyn returned to the gates and let himself out. He stood with his back to the enclosure where Miss Emily had hung her notice. He looked down Wally’s Way to the spot where Wally himself had waved and shouted at her and, beyond that, to the back of the Treherns’ cottage and the jetty in Fisherman’s Bay. He was very still for a moment. Then he called to Fox, who joined him.

“Do you see what I see?” he asked.

Fox placidly related what he saw.

“Thank you,” Alleyn said. “Bear it in mind, Br’er Fox, when you digest those notes. I’m going along to that blasted outcrop.” He did so, and on his way was met by the constable on duty. The wind was now very strong and much colder. Clouds, inky dark and blown ragged at their edges, drove swiftly in from the sea which had turned steely and was whipped into broken corrugations. The pleasure boats, all heading inshore, danced and bucketted as they came. Portcarrow front was deserted, and a procession of cars crawled up the road to the downlands. The hotel launch was discharging a load of people, for whom a bus waited by the village jetty. There goes the Major’s drink check, thought Alleyn.

“Evening,” he said to the constable. “This doesn’t look too promising, does it? What are we in for?”

“A dirty spell, sir, by all tokens. When she bears in sudden and hard like this from the nor’west there’s only one way of it. Rain, high seas and a gale.”

“Keep the trippers off, at least. Have you had much trouble?”

“A lot of foolish inquiries, sir, and swarms of they nippers from down-along.”

“Where’s your mate? Round the point there?”

“Yes, sir. Nobody’s come past the point, though there was plenty that tried. Sick ones and all.”

“Anyone you knew?”

“Two of the maids from the Boy-and-Lobster, sir, giggling and screeching after their silly fashion. The Major came. One of his visitors had dropped a ring, they reckoned, behind that rock, and he wanted to search for it. Us two chaps took a look but it warn’t thereabouts. We kept off the ground, sir. So did he, though not best pleased to be said by us.”

“Good for you. Sergeant Bailey will deal with it in a minute, and we’ll get some pictures. Did Major Barrimore leave any prints, did you notice?”

“So he did, then, and us reckons they’m the dead spit-identicals for the ones that’s there already.”

“You use your eyes, I see, in this Division. What’s your name?”

“Carey, sir.”

“I’ll come along with you.”

They went to the outcrop, where Carey’s mate, P.C. Pomeroy, kept a chilly watch. Alleyn was shown the Major’s footprints where he had pushed forward to the soft verge. He measured them and made a detailed comparison with those behind the outcrop.

“Good as gold,” he said. “We’ll get casts. You’ve done well, both of you.”

They said “Thank you, sir” in unison, and glanced at each other. Alleyn asked if they could raise another tarpaulin for the area and Pomeroy said he’d go down to Fisherman’s Bay and borrow one.

They returned with him as far as the enclosure and found Fox in an argument with James Trehern, who was wearing an oilskin coat and looked like a lifeboat hero who had run off the rails. His face was scarlet and his manner both cringing and truculent

“I left my launch in charge of my mate,” he was saying, “to come up yurr and get a fair answer to a fair question, which is what the hell’s going on in these parts? I got my good name to stand by, mister, and my good name’s being called in question. Now.”

Fox, who had his notebook in his palm, said: “We’ll just get this good name and your address, if you please, and then find out what seems to be the trouble.”

“Well, Mr. Trehern,” Alleyn said, “what is the trouble?”

Pomeroy gave Trehern a disfavouring look and set off down the road. Trehern pulled at the peak of his cap and adopted a whining tone. “Not to say, sir,” he said to Alleyn, “as how I’m out to interfere with the deadly powers of the law. Us be lawful chaps in this locality and never a breath of anything to the contrary has blowed in our direction. Deny that if you’ve got the face to, Bill Carey,” he added, turning to that officer.

“Address yourself,” Carey said stuffily, “to them that’s axing you. Shall I return to my point, sir?”

“Yes, do, thank you Carey,” Alleyn said and received a salute followed by a smart turn. Carey tramped off along the path.

“Now,” Alleyn said to Trehern. “Give Inspector Fox your name and address and we’ll hear what you’ve got to say.”

He complied with an ill grace. “I’ve no call to be took down in writing,” he said.

“I thought you were lodging a complaint, didn’t you, Mr. Fox?”

“So I understood, sir. Are you?” Fox asked Trehern, and looked placidly at him over the top of his spectacles. “We may as well know, one way or the other, while we’re about it.”

“Just for the record,” Alleyn agreed.

“Not to say a complaint,” Trehern temporized. “Don’t put words into my mouth, souls. No call for that.”

“We wouldn’t dream of it,” Fox rejoined. “Take your time.”

After an uneasy silence, Trehern broke into a long, disjointed plaint. People, he said, were talking. Wally, he implied, had been taken aside and seduced with ice cream. Anybody would tell them that what the poor little lad said was not to be relied upon, since he was as innocent as a babe unborn and was only out to please all the sundry, such being his guileless nature. They let him ramble on disconsolately until he ran out of material. Fox took notes throughout.

Alleyn said: “Mr. Trehern, we meant to call on you this evening but you’ve anticipated us. We want to search your house and have a warrant to do so. If it suits you we’ll come down with you, now.”

Trehern ran the tip of his tongue round his mouth and looked frightened. “What’s that for?” he demanded. “What’s wrong with my property? I bean’t got nothing but what’s lawful and right and free for all to see.”

“In that case you can have no objection.”

“It’s a matter of principle, see?”

“Quite so.”

Trehern was staring through the wire enclosure at the spring, where Bailey and Thompson had begun to pack up their gear.

“Yurr!” he said. “What’s that! What be they chaps doing up there? Be they looking fur footprints?”

“Yes.”

“They won’t find our Wal’s then! They won’t find his’n. Doan’t ’ee tell me they will, mister. I know better.”

“He was there yesterday.”

“Not up to thikky shelf, he warn’t. Not up to the top neither.”

“How do you know it matters where he may have been? Do you know how Miss Cost was killed?”

Trehern gaped at him.

“Well,” Alleyn said, “do you feel inclined to tell us, Mr. Trehern?”

He said confusedly that everyone was talking about stones being thrown.

“Ah,” Alleyn said. “You’re thinking of the night you encouraged Wally to throw stones at Miss Pride, aren’t you?”

Trehern actually ducked his head as if he himself was some sort of target. “What’s the lad been telling you?” he demanded. “He’s silly. He’ll say anything.”

Alleyn said. “We’ll leave it for the moment and go down to the house.”

He called through the gate for Bailey and Thompson to follow, and led the way down. Trehern looked at Alleyn’s back and opened and shut his hands.

“Will you move along, Mr. Trehern?” Fox invited him. “After you.”

Trehern walked between them down to his cottage.

There were no visitors. The nets were blown half off the fence. The hollyhocks along the front path bent and sprang back in the wind. And the sign rattled.

Trehern stopped inside the gate. “I want to see thik. I want to see the writing.”

Alleyn showed him the warrant. He examined it with a great show of caution and then turned to the door.

Alleyn said: “One moment.”

“Well? What, then?”

“It will save a great deal of time and trouble if you will let us see the thing we’re most interested in. Where have you put the clothesline?”

“I don’t have to do nothing,” he said, showing the whites of his eyes. “You can’t force me.”

“Certainly not. It’s your choice.” He looked at Fox. “Will you take the outhouses? We can go round this way.”

He led the way round to the back yard.

Fox said pleasantly: “This’ll be the shed where you keep all your gear, won’t it? I’ll just take a look round, if you please.”

It was crammed with a litter of old nets, broken oars, sacking, boxes, tools and a stack of empty gin bottles. Alleyn glanced in and then left it to Fox.

There was a hen coop at the far end of the yard with a rubbish heap nearby that looked as if it had been recently disturbed.

“Give me that fork, would you, Fox?” he said and walked down the path with it. Trehern started to follow him and then stood motionless. The first of the rain drove hard on their backs.

The clothesline had been neatly coiled and buried under the rubbish. Alleyn uncovered it in a matter of seconds.

“Shall we get under shelter?” he said and walked back past Trehern to the shed. He wondered, for a moment, if Trehern would strike out at him, but Wally’s father fumbled with his oilskin coat and stayed where he was.

“All right, Fox,” Alleyn said. “First time, lucky. Here we are.”

He gave Fox the coil and took from his pocket the piece of trip wire from Coombe’s office. They held the ends together. “That’s it,” said Fox.

Alleyn looked at Trehern. “Will you come here for a moment?” hç asked.

He thought Trehern was going to refuse. He stood there with his head lowered and gave no sign. Then he came slowly forward, having been lashed, now, by the rain — a black shining figure.

“I am not going to arrest you at this juncture,” Alleyn said, “but I think it right to warn you that you are in a serious position. It is quite certain that the wire which on Friday was stretched across the way up to the shelf above the spring had been cut from this line. Photography and accurate measurements of the strands will prove it. Is there anything you want to say?”

Trehern’s jaw worked convulsively as if he were chewing gum. He made a hoarse indeterminate sound in his throat — like a nervous dog, Alleyn thought.

At last he said: “Whosumdever done them tricks was having no more than a bit of fun. Boy-fashion. No harm in it.”

“You think not?”

“If it was my Wal, I’ll have the hide off of him.”

“I shouldn’t go in for any more violence if I were you, Mr. Trehern. And Wally didn’t rig the trip wire. It was done by a man who knows how to use his hands, and it was done with a length of your clothesline which you’ve tried to conceal. Will you make a statement about that? You are not compelled to do so. You must use your own judgment.”

“A statement! And be took down in writing? Not such a damned fool. Lookie-yurr! What’s these silly larks to do with Elspeth Cost? It’s her that’s laying cold, bean’t it? Not t’other old besom.”

“Of course,” Alleyn said, swallowing the epithet. After all, he’d thrown one or two, himself, at Miss Emily. “So you don’t think,” he said, “that Miss Cost was mistaken for Miss Pride?”

“I do not, mister. Contrariwise. I reckon one female done in on t’other.”

“What were you doing at half past seven this morning?”

“Asleep in my bed.”

“When did you wake?”

“How do I know when I woke? Hold on, though.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, b’God!” Trehern said slowly. “Give a chap time to think, will you? I disremembered but it’s come back, like. I heered the lad, banging and hooting about the place. Woke me up, did young Wal, and I hollered out to him to shut his noise. He takes them fits of screeching. Por lil’ chap,” Trehern added with a belated show of parental concern. “Gawd knows why, but he does. I look at the clock and it’s five past eight. I rouse up my old woman, which is a masterpiece of a job, she being a mortal heavy slumberer, and tell ’er to wet a pot of tea. Nothing come of it. She sunk back in her beastly oblivyan. So I uprose myself and put the kettle on and took a look at the weather, which were mucky.”

“Was Wally still in the house?”

“So ’e were, then, singing to hisself after his simple fashion and setting in a corner.”

“Did you see anybody about when you looked out of doors?”

Trehern peered sidelong at him. He waited for a moment and then said: “I seed the Doctor. In ’is launch. Putting out across the gap to go home, he was, having seen Bessy Tretheway over the way, yurr, come to light with another in this sinful vale of tears.”

“Is your clock right?”

“Good as gold,” he said quickly. “Can’t go wrong.”

“Can I see it?”

He looked as if he might refuse; but in the end, he lurched into the house, followed by Fox, and returned to the shed with a battered alarm clock. Alleyn checked it by his watch.

“Six minutes slow,” he said.

Trehern burst out angrily: “I don’t have no call for clocks! I’m a seafaring chap and read the time of day off of the face of nature. Sky and tides is good enough for me, and my mates in the bay’ll bear me out. Six minutes fast or six minutes slow by thikky clock’s no matter to me. I looked outer my winder and it wur dead water, and dead water come when I said it come, and if that there por female was sent to make the best of ’erself before ’er Maker when I looked outer my winder, she died at dead water and that’s an end of it.”

“Trehern,” Alleyn said, “what are you going to make of this? Mrs. Tretheway’s baby was born at 7:30, and Dr. Mayne left in his launch about ten minutes later. You’re a full half-hour out in your times.”

There was a long silence.

“Well?” Alleyn said. “Any comment?”

He broke into a stream of oaths and disjointed expostulations. Did they call him a liar? Nobody called Jim Trehern a liar and got away with it. If they weren’t going to believe him, why did they ask? There was talk against him in the bay. Jealousy seemed to be implied. His anger modulated through resentfulness and fear into his familiar occupational whine. Finally he said that a man could make mistakes, couldn’t he? When Alleyn asked if he meant that he’d mistaken the time, Trehern said he didn’t want his words taken out of his mouth and used against him.

He could scarcely have made a more dubious showing. He was observed briefly by his spouse, who emerged from the house, stood blinking in the back doorway, and was peremptorily ordered back by her husband. Inside the cottage, actors could be heard, galloping about on horses and shouting “C’m on, let’s go!” to each other. Wally, Alleyn supposed, was enjoying television.

Trehera suddenly bawled out: “You, boy! Wal! Come yurr! Come out of it when you’re bid!”

Wally shambled onto the back porch, saw Alleyn and smiled widely.

“Come on!” his father said. Wally began to whimper, but came on to the shed. His father took him by the arm.

“Now, then. Tell the truth and shame the devil. You been chucking rocks?”

“No. No, I bean’t.”

“No, and better not. Speak up and tell these yurr gents. Swear if you hope you won’t get half-skinned for a liar as you never chucked no rocks at nobody.”

“I never chucked no rocks, only stones,” Wally said, trembling. “Like you said to.”

“That’ll do!” his father said ferociously. “Get in.” Wally bolted.

Alleyn said: “You’d better watch your step with that boy. Do you thrash him?”

“Never raise a hand to him, mister. Just a manner of speaking. He don’t understand nothing different. Never had no mother-love, poor kid. I have to pour out sufficient for both and a heavy job it is.”

“You may find yourself describing it to the welfare officer, one of these days.”

“Them bastards!”

“Now, look here, Trehern, you heard what the boy said. ‘No rocks, only stones like you said to.’ Hadn’t you better make the best of that statement and admit he threw stones at Miss Pride and you knew it? Think it out.”

Trehern made a half-turn, knocked his boot against an old tin and kicked it savagely to the far end of the yard. This, apparently, made up his mind for him.

“If I say he done it in one of his foolish turns, meaning no harm and acting the goat — all right — I don’t deny it and I don’t excuse it. But I do deny, and will, and you won’t shift me an inch, he never heaved no rock at Elspeth Cost. I’ll take my Bible oath on it and may I be struck dead if I lie.”

“How can you be so sure? Miss Pride saw the boy in the lane at about twenty to eight. So did Dr. Mayne. You weren’t there. Or were you?”

“I was not. By God, I was not. And I’ll lay anyone cold that says different. And how can I be so sure?” He advanced upon Alleyn and thrust his face towards him. His unshaven jowls glittered with raindrops. “I’ll tell you flat how I can be so sure. That boy never told a lie in his life, mister. He’m too simple. Ax anybody. Ax his teacher. Ax Parson, Ax his mates. He’m a truth-speaking lad, por little sod, and for better or worse, the truth’s all you’ll ever get out of our Wal.”

Alleyn heard Jenny Williams’s voice: He’s an extraordinarily truthful little boy. He never tells lies — never.

He looked at Trehern and said: “All right. We’ll let it go at that, for the moment. Good evening to you.”

As they walked round the side of the house Trehern shouted after them: “What about the female of the speeches? Pride? Pride has to take a fall, don’t she?”

There was a wild scream of laughter from Mrs. Trehern and a door banged.

“That will do to go on with,” Alleyn said to Fox and aped Wally’s serial: “C’m on. Let’s go!”