The Murder of Busy Lizzie

chapter thirteen

Unsatisfactory Verdict

‘Ah! woe is me, woe, woe is me,

Alack and well-a-day!

For pity, sir, find out that bee

Which bore my love away.’

Robert Herrick

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Margaret heard her brother come in. She opened her bedroom door, crossed the tiny sitting-room and tapped. Sebastian opened his door.

‘Why aren’t you asleep?’ he asked.

‘You made such a row getting in.’

‘You must have been wide awake to hear me.’ She had entered the room and seated herself on the bed, so Sebastian went on: ‘Out of it. I want to get some sleep.’

‘Did you have any fun?’

‘Lots. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.’

‘Tell me a little bit now.’

‘Couldn’t. It can’t be told in bits. Hop it into your bed and leave me mine.’

‘Where’s your sweater?’ asked Margaret, as he removed his jacket.

‘On Ransome. Now get out of my room or I won’t tell you a thing, either now or in the morning.’

‘It’s the morning now.’

‘I know. I shan’t be in time for breakfast if I don’t get some sleep. Also my trouser-legs are wet, my fingers are sore with undoing a knotted rope and I’m so cold I shall get pneumonia if you don’t get off my bed and let me get into it.’ He began to take off his trousers. Margaret accepted the ultimatum and went back to her own room. She had to wake him in the morning to get him up in time for breakfast.

‘Not a question, I promise you, not one,’ she said, ‘until we’ve got to the toast and marmalade.’

‘And not then, not at the table with those two damned bird-men listening-in with their ears flapping. What I have to disclose is first for you and then for Laura.’

‘Are you hoping she’ll pass it on to Dame Beatrice?’

‘That is the thought at the back of my tiny mind. Go along to the dining-room and give our usual order. I’ll be there by the time they’ve put it on the table.’

‘I say, did you know,’ said one of the men who had been allotted to the Lovelaines’ table, ‘that there’s a nudist colony on the island? Somebody saw them last night.’

Sebastian, who had just taken his seat, looked coldly at the questioner and replied:

‘No doubt there are a number of other harmless, unnecessary objects on the island. If nudists excite you, you’re welcome to them.’

‘Thanks for nothing,’ said the ornithologist sourly, turning away from Sebastian in a pointed manner.

‘You needn’t go out of your way to crush the poor things. They’re harmless and unnecessary, too,’ protested Margaret, when the bird-watchers had finished their breakfasts and had left the table. ‘Do you know about the nudists, then?’

‘There aren’t any. Shut up until we’re out of this dining-room. Nudists, in one sense, come into my story, but I can’t tell you about it here.’

Meanwhile Marius, having telephoned his wife as soon as he reached the mainland, booked a room at an hotel and prepared himself for what he felt would be the ordeal of attending the inquest on his sister. Of Miss Crimp he had seen nothing once he had left the island. He imagined that she intended to cross by Dimbleton’s boat and that, as soon as the inquest was over, she would return immediately by the same means so as to be absent (from what he supposed she now regarded as her own hotel) for as short a period as possible. He himself, he had informed Clothilde on the telephone, would return home as soon as the inquest was over, unless there seemed to be any reason for going back to Great Skua and his children.

Fortunately for those who had to come over from the island to attend it, the inquest was held in the port to which the island steamer put in. When the proceedings opened, Marius found himself seated next to Miss Crimp, who had travelled by the means he had envisaged and who had Dimbleton on the other side of her, for the boatman himself had been called to attend the inquest in his capacity as one of the retrievers of the corpse.

The proceedings opened formally and Miss Crimp gave evidence of the identity of the body. She was followed by Marius, who, as next of kin to the deceased (nobody had mentioned Ransome), confirmed what Miss Crimp had declared.

‘Were two witnesses necessary?’ asked the coroner, looking at the inspector of police who was in court. The inspector replied that, as the next of kin had been out of touch with the deceased for twenty years, it had been thought better to have his evidence of identification substantiated by a witness who had been closely associated with the deceased for the past two years.

‘But she didn’t confirm him; he corroborated her,’ said the coroner testily. ‘Oh, well, no matter, no matter. We may need to question both witnesses further, a little later on.’ He called for the medical evidence. This was supplied by the police surgeon. The deceased had met her death as the result of having received a fatal blow on the head. He went into details. There were also a number of contusions on the body and some broken ribs, the witness stated, but these had been sustained after death. It was the head-wound which had done, all the damage.

‘But I thought the body was found in the sea,’ objected the coroner, who had been given this fact before the inquest opened. The police surgeon replied that all the circumstances of death had been fully investigated at the autopsy and that he was able to state with certainty that, although the body had been found in the sea, death was not due to drowning. The coroner, apparently feeling that the jury had had enough of clinical detail, said, ‘Very well, very well. We had better hear from those who found the body.’

Dimbleton took his place in the witness box and, in answer to a question when he had taken the oath, stated that he had not been alone in the rescue boat, but had been told by the police that, as the owner of the craft which had brought the body ashore, he was competent to speak for himself and the rest of the crew.

‘So what do you think happened?’ asked the coroner, dropping his former testy manner and speaking as man to man.

‘My thought, sir, is as the poor lady must have been blowed off the cliff-top,’ said Dimbleton stolidly.

‘Blown off the cliff-top? Incredible!’

‘Oh, no, sir, not if you know the force of the wind on Great Skua. It’s no uncommon matter for cows to be blowed off into the sea, and a cow would weigh a lot heavier than the poor lady, I wouldn’t doubt.’

The police surgeon was recalled.

‘Could the fatal injury you have described have been caused by an accidental fall from the cliffs?’

‘Well, yes, it could have been. On the other hand—’

‘You say it could have been. Is there any evidence to show that it wasn’t?’

‘No,’ replied the witness unwillingly, ‘but I am more inclined to think that it was the result of a blow on the head and that this was delivered and was received before the body entered the water.’

‘Yes, the court accepts your evidence that death was not due to drowning, but, judging by the way you have framed your answer, are we to understand that you refer to a deliberate attack?’

‘Oh, no, you must not infer that. There is nothing in my findings to support such a theory,’ said the police surgeon hastily.

‘Still, the jury will wish to have the matter investigated,’ said the coroner coldly.

He investigated it by recalling in turn Miss Crimp, Marius and the boatman. Summed up, their evidence amounted to (Miss Crimp), a vehement assertion that poor Eliza had no enemies and many, many friends; that (Marius) so far as he knew, his sister was not the kind of person to have given offence to anybody (he did not mention his wife); and that (Dimbleton) Mrs Chayleigh was a nice, goodhearted lady who was at odds with nobody and who was generous with hand-outs at Christmas.

‘Granted,’ said the coroner to Dimbleton, ‘that the deceased was blown off the cliffs, can you suggest whereabouts on the island this tragic accident could have taken place?’

‘Almost anywhere, sir, in a strong enough wind, but being as she was found caught up in the rocks we calls the Fiddlers, I should reckon she went in near enough by the old quarries and got caught in the current—a regular race, that is, sir—as we calls Dead Man’s Day.’

The jury retired and, strongly advised by the coroner, brought in an open verdict. The inspector met the doctor later and remarked that the coroner was an old ass who had rushed the case through because he was going yachting and wanted to catch the tide, but that he (the inspector) did not intend to let the case drop.

‘Glad to hear it,’ said the police surgeon. ‘If the thing ever gets as far as the magistrates, I’ll get a chance, perhaps, to air the opinion which I wasn’t allowed to voice—namely, that it is a great deal more likely that somebody knocked her on the head and threw the body into the sea, than that the wind blew her over the cliff. That’s a tale I really cannot swallow, especially considering the nature of the head-wound. Besides, she’d never have risked being blown off a cliff. She’d lived on the island for years, and she was a middle-aged woman and cautious, I imagine.’

‘I wonder whether anybody stood to gain anything by her death? That’s the first thing which needs looking into,’ said the inspector to the local superintendent when they, in their turn, were discussing the inquest. ‘You know, sir, I wouldn’t trust that partner of hers, that Crimp woman, further than I could see her. She’s a creep.’

‘Then there’s the brother. Hasn’t seen his sister for twenty years, yet suddenly goes to stay at her hotel and, next thing you know, she’s found dead under what could certainly look like suspicious circumstances,’ said the superintendent. ‘What about getting the plain-clothes blokes to look at it? A few discreet enquiries is all it wants.’

‘The doctor doesn’t like that knock on the head, sir, in spite of the fact that he wouldn’t state it was caused deliberately. I reckon he thought there had been foul play, all the same.’

‘Think he’s got anything to go on?’

‘Nothing that looks like evidence, but he’s seen a lot of knocks and bruises in his time and I’d trust his instinct, sir. He doesn’t accept that yarn about her being blown off the cliff any more than I do.’

There was another person, apart from the police and the doctor, who was not satisfied with the verdict. Marius, back at his hotel, telephoned his wife that, after all, he thought he would return to the island, send the children home and take up his residence at the hotel again for a time.

‘I do not know what more I can find out,’ he said, concluding the conversation, ‘but I am not willing to allow matters to remain as they are.’ He rang off, oblivious of a cry from Clothilde of ‘Oh, but, Marius—’ for he knew that his wife would argue against his proposed course of action and turn the telephone call into an expensive battle of personalities which she would probably make acrimonious. He was not a particularly mean man, but he could see no point in paying for a one-sided and probably lengthy dispute from which nobody would gain except the Post Office.

Meanwhile his children had confided in Laura, who, picking out the word vigilantes from Sebastian’s improbable tale, relayed the gist of his account to Dame Beatrice.

‘They’ve told me that this Ransome Lovelaine has the farm cottage with the smallholding,’ she concluded. ‘Don’t you think we should get speech with him? He’ll surely be willing to talk, if these smugglers attempted to drown him.’

‘But he does not think they did try to drown him. He appears to have regarded the incident merely as a warning, and he may accept it as such. That being so, the last thing he is likely to do—’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Is to grass on the smugglers, you mean.’

‘We have no direct information that the men who set about him are smugglers, you know.’

‘Not even with the tip-off we had from Gavin? Come now, Mrs Croc!’ said Laura, using her private name for her saurian employer.

‘Very well, I concede the point, but the time to talk openly to Ransome Lovelaine is not yet. I will go and see him a little later on, so that there will appear to be no obvious connection between my visit and his experiences in the cave, but, even then, smuggling is the last thing I shall mention,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Won’t you even tell Gavin that we may be on to something?’

‘No, but you are at liberty to do so.’

‘May I say you think as I do?’

‘You may say that I have certain suspicions, if you like.’

‘Do you think the witches were all mixed up in it? I mean, they were the ones who blindfolded him and tied his hands behind his back. I can’t help thinking it was all a put-up job. If we could show that the witches are the smugglers — and I told you before that I think they are—’

‘You may be correct, of course, in thinking that.’

‘You mean you think so, too?’

‘I retain an open mind. But where does Eliza Chayleigh come into all this? I shall be interested to hear what happened at the inquest.’

‘We shan’t know, unless it was a verdict of murder and, taking everything into account, I don’t believe that’s likely.’

The verdict was brought to the island by Marius. His children, who were not expecting him back, were not in the hotel when he arrived. However, even although their table-companions, with a few other of the bird-watchers, had left the island, Sebastian and Margaret were not very pleased to see him. All the same, as much out of kindness as out of policy, they decided to disguise their feelings. Miss Crimp, on the contrary, made no attempt to disguise hers.

‘Oh, Mr Lovelaine!’ she had exclaimed in dismay when he presented himself at the reception desk. ‘I quite understood that you had left us! I have let your room.’

‘Then I fear, Miss Crimp, that I must ask you to find me another. I have come to escort my son and daughter home, and that, as you are well aware, cannot be done until the next boat calls.’

‘Well, you know how full the hotel is, Mr Lovelaine. The only thing I can suggest is that we put up a camp bed in the sitting-room of your son’s chalet. That really is the best I can do for you.’

‘Go home?’ said Sebastian, when, on meeting him after his interview with Miss Crimp, he informed them that she proposed to instal him (until the boat called) in their tiny sitting-room. ‘But why? And why have you come back, Father? Not that we aren’t glad to see you, of course, but we thought you had left the island for good and were quite agreeable to our finishing out the month here.’

‘Well, we will talk that over later. Do you not wish to know how it went with your aunt?’

At this incongruous way of putting it, Margaret gave an hysterical little squeal of laughter which her brother stifled by giving her a slight but meaningful kick on the ankle.

‘What did the coroner’s jury decide?’ he asked his father.

‘An open verdict was returned. We may expect the police to be interested. The medical evidence was that she had hit her head and was dead by the time the body had reached the water. It is quite established that death was not by drowning.’

‘So police action is contemplated? Oh, well, that’s a good thing, I suppose, although nobody wants to be mixed up with the rozzers.’

‘From the point of view of common justice it is, as you say, a good thing, my boy. I do not believe that your aunt, knowing the island and its dangers from high winds — the man Dimbleton told the court of cattle which had been blown over the cliffs, incidents within his own experience — I cannot believe that your aunt would have exposed herself to such an obvious danger.’

‘No, it doesn’t seem likely that Aunt Eliza would have taken that sort of risk,’ said Sebastian. ‘Besides, I don’t believe the winds at this time of year would be all that strong. I mean, Maggie and I have walked all round the island, on and off, since we’ve been here, and on the cliff paths, too, and although it’s true that the wind never seems to stop blowing, we never felt we were in any danger of being blown over.’

‘So,’ said Marius, ‘I suggest that you two leave the island and that I employ a private detective to look after my interests. I do not rule out my first impression, which was that your aunt met with foul play. I do not care, either, for the thought that Ransome and his father live on the island and have an interest, very possibly, in Lizzie’s death.’

‘Well, you thought we ourselves might have an interest in it, Father,’ said Margaret, with a bluntness and a boldness which surprised her hearers and herself.

‘Here, steady on, Maggie!’ protested her brother.

‘Really, my dear!’ remonstrated Marius.

‘Well,’ said the girl, facing these strictures with the grimness of one who now felt that, having started a hare, she had better pursue it to the kill, ‘suppose you do employ a private detective, Father, and suppose he does find out that there was something suspicious about Aunt Eliza’s death, isn’t it going to occur to somebody that she was quite all right until we decided to visit the island? It seems…’ Margaret faltered a little, but continued, albeit without quite daring to meet her father’s eye ‘… it seems pretty logical to me. I mean, do we really want to start people talking?’

Sebastian suddenly decided to back her up.

‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘can bring Aunt Eliza back, so I can see Maggie’s point, Father. A private-eye might stir up all sorts of mud. I mean, Aunt Eliza’s past isn’t exactly that of Caesar’s wife, is it? I’ve got to go back to college in the autumn, and Maggie’s got another year at school. We don’t want to have to live down Aunt Eliza’s murder or something else unsavoury. There’s your own professorship, too, to think about, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I should hardly lose that through the death of my only sister,’ said Marius stiffly and, almost for the first time in their lives, speaking as man to man with his son. ‘That is unless there were some reason for thinking that I had a hand in it. All the same, if there was something criminal, I feel I owe it to your aunt’s memory to have it unmasked.’

‘Yes, quite, and all very fine, but dirty linen isn’t only grubby, Father. It also is inclined to stink.’

‘Father,’ said Margaret suddenly, ‘you mentioned Ransome just now. There’s something you ought to know about him. If Seb hadn’t happened to be on the spot, the chances are that Ransome could have been murdered. What we ought to do—’

‘Ransome murdered?’

‘He himself says he thinks it was only horse-play,’ said Sebastian, ‘but I’m not sure he’s telling his true thoughts. It was only a day or two ago…’ He told the story truthfully but economically.

‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed his father. ‘Witches and warlocks, bird-watchers and thugs! What sort of place is this island? I am more anxious than ever that you should leave it.’

‘Father,’ said Margaret, ‘Seb and I still want to stay. We thought we might be able to get Dame Beatrice to look into things. You said she was a criminologist and a consultant psychiatrist to the Home Office, didn’t you? We promised Laura—her secretary, you know — that we’d let them know what happened at the inquest, and as you mentioned bringing in a private detective, what about your getting in touch with Dame Beatrice? She wouldn’t stir up mud, so, if it would make you any happier—’

‘My dear child, I can’t ask Dame Beatrice to act as a private detective! It would be an insult to suggest such a thing to a person of her eminence.’

‘Of course you couldn’t ask her outright. I realise that. But there wouldn’t be any harm in telling her about the inquest and seeing how she reacts, particularly as she was the first doctor to see the body. She might even want to give you her views when she’s heard what you have to say. Do speak to her, Father. She is bound to be discreet and, if she did decide to look into the thing, it would relieve your mind, you know it would, and you couldn’t have a cleverer person on your side if all that you think about her is true.’

‘I do not need anybody “on my side” as you call it, but perhaps it would not be a bad thing to canvass Dame Beatrice’s views. Very well. I will go along to Puffins as soon as we have dined.’

‘I still think you’d do better to leave things as they are,’ said Sebastian. ‘Pig or no pig, I mean.’

‘Pig? What are you talking about?’

‘You had better ask Dame Beatrice,’ said Margaret.