The Mudflats of the Dead

CHAPTER 9

FURTHER INFORMATION

‘One should never take sides in anything, Mr. Kelvil.’

Oscar Wilde

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The next link in the chain came not from the young reporter, but from George. As she sometimes did in cases where her chauffeur’s stolid air of respectability and integrity was of more use in asking questions than her own brains and acumen were likely to be, especially as, at sight of her, nervous or guilty subjects were apt to be on the defensive, she took George into partnership.

‘I think you may have guessed, George, that I have been persuaded to look into the matter of a young woman who was drowned near here a short time ago.’

George, who had been cleaning the car, assumed an attentive attitude and wiped his hands on a piece of clean rag. ‘Indeed, madam?’

‘You have read about it?’

‘The hotel staff, with whom I take my meals, showed me the local paper, madam.’

‘The verdict, as you will know, therefore, was that the girl’s death was accidental.’

‘Due to her own foolishness in bathing at night on an outgoing tide, I understand, madam.’

‘Read this letter.’ She handed him Adrian’s lengthy screed. When he had perused it, she said, ‘You notice the date on which the writer says he accompanied the girl to this place, Stack Ferry? They spent the day here.’

‘But separated almost at once, it seems, madam.’

‘That is the point. He does not know where the girl went or what she did on that day, but he thinks she may have made the acquaintance of some undesirable person who followed her, and subsequently killed her, either accidentally or, as the writer believes, by his wilful act.’

‘It has happened before, madam.’

‘A newspaper reporter has suggested to me that the man whose acquaintance she made here – if, indeed, there was such a man – may have been a yachtsman. Now yachtsmen are a fraternity. They interest themselves in one another’s boats. Will you, with your knowledge of automobile and marine engines, see whether you can find out whether there was a yachtsman involved? This may sound like what Mrs Gavin would call a tall order, but I have to begin my investigation somewhere, and what I have been able to learn from the girl’s holiday companions, including the writer of this letter, has not suggested any particular line which I can follow up.’

‘I shall do my best, madam. These yachtsmen are good natured, open-hearted types, on the whole. It should not be difficult to get into conversation with them.’

Realising that if George talked with yachtsmen he would also have to drink with them, Dame Beatrice did not order the car that afternoon, and it was not until she was taking a mid-morning glass of sherry on the following day that the lounge waiter told her that her man was at the reception desk to ask for orders for the day.

Rightly taking this as an intimation that George had something to tell her, she met him in the hall and they went outside to the hotel courtyard.

‘You’ve found our yachtsman, George?’

‘Yes, but I’m afraid it won’t be helpful, madam. The yacht the young lady was concerned with is a family affair.’

‘Oh, dear!’

‘Yes, madam. There are father, mother and grown-up son. My informant thinks they took the young lady to visit the bird sanctuary out on the Point, and maybe further out to the sandbank they call Seal Island.’

‘How did you come by your information?’

‘The bar where yachtsmen mostly congregate was too full and too noisy for my purpose, madam. I tried it yesterday both midday and evening. This morning I hit upon what I hoped was a better idea. I went down early to the quay and hung about until I got what I had been waiting for.’

‘Ah, yes, and what was that?’

‘An amateur tinkering with a marine engine, madam.’

‘Ah, yes, of course. I should have guessed.’

‘I had to do a bit of guessing myself, madam. I thought they were in some kind of trouble — it was a biggish but old boat and a lady was standing on deck and was seemingly impatient with what was going on. Seeing me standing on the edge of the quay, she told me not to stand there, but to help her husband if there was anything I could do. I was wearing blue trousers, a white shirt and a yachting cap, madam, and I think she took me for one of the fraternity.’

‘I am sure you looked the part, George.’

‘I hope so, madam. I went aboard and had a look. They had had an auxiliary engine installed – a wise precaution – otherwise they were under sail. I was soon able to locate the trouble. The fault was a trifling one. All that was needed —’

‘Spare me the mechanical details, George. They will be beyond my comprehension.’

‘Very good, madam. Well, I got the boat under way and the old gentleman took over the controls. The lady had suggested that I accompany them in case her husband got into further difficulties, so away we went.’

‘Excellent, George. And the talk turned, no doubt, to drowning fatalities along that particular coast.’

‘I edged it in that direction, madam, according to your instructions, and remarked that boats were safe enough so long as they were seaworthy, but that I understood swimmers along that part of the coast were in great jeopardy if they did not pay careful attention to the state of the tide.’

‘Splendid! And that, as Mrs Gavin would say, brought home the bacon?’

‘The lady responded most satisfactorily, madam. The gentleman was too much occupied handling the boat to have much time for conversation.’

‘I hope you were not taking undue risks in putting to sea with him, George?’

‘By no means, madam. The old gentleman could handle the boat all right, the same as so many motorists can handle their cars without really knowing much about what goes on underneath the bonnet. We’d caught the tide nicely and the sea was calm. I enjoyed the trip very much, and the bird sanctuary, when we reached it, was very interesting.’

‘And did the auxiliary engine fulfil its obligations?’

‘We only needed it just to move off from the quay and into open water, madam. After that, we had beautiful sailing conditions and the old gentleman handled his craft with expertise, needing little help from either the lady or myself.’

‘And did you learn anything in particular about Miss Hoveton St John when you referred to drowning fatalities?’

‘Yes, indeed, madam, chiefly, as I said, from the lady. Having referred to the treacherous nature of the outgoing tides, I ventured the opinion that the coastguards no doubt kept an eye open for swimmers in difficulties and this led naturally to the latest drowning fatality.’

‘Ah, yes. A subtle approach, George.’

‘Thank you, madam. The lady was acquainted with the people who had taken Miss Hoveton St John sailing with them on the day she came here with Mr Kirby.’

‘Was she, indeed? I suppose she had seen the newspaper photograph of Miss St John and recognised the face.’

‘Exactly, madam. Apparently the people who had picked up Miss St John had moorings adjacent to the boat I was on, and my informant had been favoured with a good view of the young lady.’

‘You speak of “people”, George, and I believe you mentioned a family consisting of father, mother and grown-up son.’

‘That is so, madam.’

‘It does not sound very much like what I have been told about Miss St John. I should have thought a lone yachtsman would have been more to her taste.’

‘My information is that Miss St John met the son in a hotel bar and he conducted her to the yacht where his parents made up a family party.’

‘That must have come as an unwelcome surprise to her, I fancy.’

‘So my informant seemed to think, madam, but, at any rate, off they all went. The name of the yacht is the Juniper Mary, and the people are called Hamilton. The yacht has left Stack Ferry, but has its own permanent moorings at a little staithe not far from Capstan Flow. The lady showed it me on the chart. I could easily find it, if you so desire.’

‘I think I must pay them a visit. We will try your staithe this afternoon. In such lovely weather they may well be enjoying a cruise on their yacht, but I have noticed, George, that people who own boats seem to spend much more time at moorings than they do out at sea or in navigating rivers. I wonder at what time Miss St John was landed after her trip with these Hamiltons?’

‘I asked, madam. The party came back while my informant and her husband were enjoying a cup of tea on board their own vessel, which was at moorings. She estimates that the time would have been around four-thirty and that she heard the young lady say that she must be getting back to her car. That was the last any of them – both boat parties, I mean – knew of her until they read about the drowning and saw the newspaper photograph.’

‘How long will it take us to get to this staithe?’

‘I can do it easily in an hour, madam.’

‘Then have the car ready by two-thirty.’ They were in luck. The only person on board the yacht was a young man whom Dame Beatrice rightly assumed to be Hamilton junior. She took the bull by the horns.

‘Ahoy, there, Juniper Mary!’ she called out in her beautiful voice. The young man, who had been doing something complicated with a coil of rope, straightened himself, smiled and waved his hand.

‘Coming!’ he shouted and leapt down on to the tiny quay. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I believe you made the acquaintance of a young woman named Camilla Hoveton St John a week or so ago, at a town called Stack Ferry, not far from here.’

‘I met – we met – a girl called Camilla, yes. She didn’t favour us with her surname. The poor kid got drowned a few days later. The local paper was full of it, complete with a blown-up photograph and a couple of columns of awful warnings to visitors about the danger of bathing on an outgoing tide. I was damn sorry to hear about it. She was a lively young specimen.’

‘Her friends do not think her death was an accident. Is there anywhere that we can sit and talk?’

‘Come aboard. This begins to sound interesting. Have her friends anything to go on?’

‘Not enough to take to the police, but enough to satisfy themselves that more enquiries should be made. I am authorised to make those enquiries.’

‘Golly! Are you a private eye, then?’

‘You may call me that.’ He assisted her on board, put out a deckchair for her in the cockpit and hoisted himself on to the cabin top where he sat with his long legs dangling and a look of anticipation on his youthful countenance. ‘I undertook the task because I feel her friends may well be right,’ she added.

‘Well, she certainly didn’t strike me as a girl who would easily drown.’

‘What causes you to say that?’

‘Oh, while my parents were looking at bird life and taking photographs, she and I sneaked off and had a swim. She was pretty useful in the water, I thought. Of course, if she was crazy enough to bathe on that outgoing tide the papers talked about, I suppose anything might have happened.’

‘We do not think she bathed on an outgoing tide. She knew all about the risks there are in doing anything so foolish.’

‘I say! Really? But surely that means either suicide or—’

‘Yes, it does, but, of course, we have nothing much to go on, so far, so perhaps—’

‘Oh, I won’t breathe a syllable to a soul!’

‘Why not? The more the suggestion is rumoured that the girl’s death was no accident, the sooner the murderer (if there is one) will have to make a move to cover his tracks.’

‘Oh, you’ve done this sort of sleuthing before, then?’

‘A number of times, yes.’ She produced her official card. ‘You must not think that only Miss Hoveton St John’s friends are interested in the case.’

‘Christmas!’ said the young man, handing back the rectangle of expensive pasteboard. ‘The Home Office, eh? Big stuff, no less. Well, what do you want me to tell you? So far as I was concerned, you see, she was just a girl I picked up—’

‘No, a girl who picked you up,’ said Dame Beatrice firmly. The young man looked rueful and agreed.

‘It wouldn’t actually have been the other way about,’ he said, ‘because she really did look more than a bit of a mess. Tatty old reach-me-downs, you know, and a gosh-awful dirty sweater far too big for her, and hair that could have done with a decent shampoo – not that one cares what people look like nowadays, of course, especially on holiday.’

‘But she heard you had a yacht and thought you were alone and told you how she longed to visit the bird sanctuary but could not afford to hire a boatman or join a pleasure cruise, so—’

‘Good Lord! You might have been there! Of course she hadn’t banked on my parents’ coming along. I could have done without them, too, of course, but I could have laughed at the expression on her face when they turned up, Ma complete with sunglasses and a tea basket and Dad in the frightful shorts he wears on the boat. Camilla looked daggers at me when they came aboard. She had shed the washed-out reach-me-downs and the dreadful sweater and was sunning herself in a bikini on the cabin top when they breezed along. She obviously hadn’t expected any additions to the party, and she was anything but pleased to see them. They weren’t too delighted to see her, either. She was a rather obvious little sea-serpent, if it isn’t disrespectful to say so. There’s a type, you know, and they are not very easy to choke off. I hadn’t bothered to attempt to shed her, as a matter of fact, because I knew that the parents, who are not exactly fin de siècle – I mean, they’ve heard of the Permissive Society, but that’s about all – would soon bottle up the young lizard, and so it happened for most of the time.’

‘For most of the time?’

‘Well, yes. She and I went for a swim when we landed at the bird sanctuary, as I think I mentioned.’

‘Did she give you any details about herself or her plans?’

‘When we went swimming?’

‘Or while you were all on the yacht.’

‘She told my mother she was studying art and was staying in Saltacres with some people at a cottage there, that’s all. Oh, she talked a lot of rot (intended to impress us, I suppose) about art being her religion, but I don’t think any of us were taken in by it, and when we reached the bird sanctuary it became pretty clear that she and I were to disappear among the sand-dunes, leaving the parents to look at birds.’

‘Did you find her suggestion embarrassing?’

‘Not really. It struck me as damn’ funny. She was so very undesirable. There are far better prospects at our local tennis club – and that’s not saying a lot! I said it was a swim or nothing, so we swam, but not for long. She was quite good, though – a stronger swimmer than I am, as a matter of fact. I’ll tell you another thing, too. She knew all about the tides along that coast. I believe her friends are right, you know. Funny she took a chance that night and got drowned. Could she have been a bit sloshed or something, and her drowning was accidental?’

‘That is a possibility which had not occurred to me.’

‘Girls can do strange things under the influence,’ said young Mr Hamilton, wagging his head and looking profound. ‘Men also, no doubt.’

‘I once took on a bet that I’d learn to pole-vault. Chickened out later, and lost the bet, of course, after I had sobered up.’ Dame Beatrice cackled and then asked: ‘What happened when you got back to Stack Ferry?’

‘She thanked us for a lovely outing and cut her stick. We never saw her again. I say! It’s tea-time. Do come back to the house and eat a few shrimps with us.’

‘May I venture to enquire whether your enterprise this day did thrive, madam?’ asked George, when, seen off with smiles and cordial hand-wavings by the Hamilton family, she joined him for the return journey to Stack Ferry.

‘Time will show, George. I may or may not have sown productive seed. Tomorrow we go home for the night. In Mrs Gavin’s absence there will be correspondence to deal with. After that, we return to these parts to interview the house agent who lets cottages to summer visitors. Do you like this neighbourhood, George?’

‘I prefer a more rolling and a more wooded countryside, madam.’

To their left stretched the miles of marshes, dunes and banks of shingle. Dame Beatrice had a sudden vision of the body of a thin young girl, her hair looking like a dark tangle of seaweed, lying dead and defenceless while the uncaring moon lit a path of glory across the sea.

‘I agree with you,’ she said. ‘Apart from any tragedies which may have taken place in these parts, there is an infinite sadness about the landscape itself. However, so far as my researches are concerned, I make what may be called negative progress.’

‘The Hamilton family were of no help, madam?’

‘They were of help only in the sense that I indicate. Their son, whom I was able to interview while he was alone on the yacht, gave me his story and it was corroborated, without any prompting from him or me, by his parents, with whom, as you know, I had tea. It does not seem possible, let alone likely, that Miss St John met her murderer in Stack Ferry that day when she and Mr Kirby came there. Her time seems fully accounted for. She was alone when she met young Mr Hamilton in a bar, she was never out of sight of at least one of the Hamilton family on their trip to the bird sanctuary, she and the young man bathed and when they all returned to moorings she appears to have gone straight back to join Mr Kirby at the spot where they had parked the car. Mrs Hamilton saw them together when she, too, went ashore.’

That evening Dame Beatrice informed the receptionist at The Stadholder that she would be going home for a day and a night. She paid the hotel bill up to date and re-booked the two rooms. At the Stone House there was, as she had surmised, a pile of correspondence to be dealt with, including a long letter from Laura describing her holiday activities.

On the appointed day, George drove Dame Beatrice north-eastwards to visit the house agent who let holiday accommodation in and around the village of Saltacres. The Hamiltons had disposed of one problem. The larger matter of what had happened to Camilla’s suitcase still had to be resolved.