The Sunken Sailor

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MARY JANE WAS as trim and tidy as ever when Henry and Proudie climbed aboard her. Henry went straight to the bookshelf, ran his finger along the row of volumes, and said, “I thought so. It’s not here.”

“What isn’t?”

“The Venturesome Voyages of Captain Voss. I,” he added, “am a bloody fool.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, sir.”

“Colin as good as told me twice that that book was the key to the whole thing,” said Henry moodily. “Voss on Sea Anchors.”

“Sea anchors?” Proudie repeated, bewildered: and added, apologetically, “I’m afraid I don’t follow you, sir. I’m a fishing man myself. What have sea anchors got to do with it?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Henry helpfully. “Thank goodness, Alastair has a copy aboard Ariadne. Would you like to row over and get it, Inspector, while I have a look around here?”

“Anything you say, sir,” said Proudie, in the tone of one who has given up trying to make sense of the situation. He clambered laboriously out into the cockpit, as Henry turned his attention to Colin’s bunk.

When Proudie got back to Mary Jane, with the little book tucked firmly into his pocket, he found Henry in a state of some excitement.

“I’m prepared to take a bet with you, Inspector Proudie,” he said, “that Colin Street did come back to his boat last

night.”

“How do you work that out?”

“Little things,” said Henry, with satisfaction. “We’ll be able to check them with Miss Petrie later on—but for once, this is classic, story-book detection. Exhibit one: an unwashed mug in the galley, which has clearly contained Alka-Seltzer. Colin was pretty drunk, and he’d almost certainly have taken something for it.”

“He might have taken it earlier on,” objected Proudie.

“No,” said Henry. “I’ve been on a boat long enough to know that one doesn’t leave loose, unwashed crockery about. Everything is washed and stowed away as soon as it’s been used. Then there’s exhibit two—Colin’s bunk. You see that mattress isn’t rectangular; it tapers slightly towards the bows to fit the shape of the bunk, and the daytime cover is tailored to the same shape. Well, it’s been put on the wrong way round. That’s a thing Anne would never do. Then there’s another thing. Anne’s sleeping bag is stowed up in the forepeak, with the sails, while Colin’s is under his bunk. We’ll check with Miss Petrie, but it seems likely to me that they were both normally stowed in the forepeak. It’s drier there. My guess is that Colin came back here, took an Alka-Seltzer, removed his bunk cover, laid out his sleeping bag, and probably climbed into it fully clothed, except for his shoes. In the state he was in, he must have gone out like a light, and almost certainly he wouldn’t have woken up if anyone came aboard—especially as he was expecting Anne to come and get her sleeping bag, so that the sound of a dinghy alongside wouldn’t have worried him. His murderer got aboard, knocked Colin out, probably with the dinghy oar, and heaved him into the water. Then he—or even possibly she—cast off Mary Jane’s dinghy, capsized it, and left it to drift upriver on the tide, meanwhile hastily tidying the cabin to make it look as though Colin had never been back aboard. It was obviously somebody who doesn’t know the boat too well, or they wouldn’t have made those mistakes about the bunk cover and the sleeping bag: but that doesn’t get us far because I don’t suppose anybody here except Anne has actually slept aboard.”

Henry paused for breath, and ran a hand through his sandy hair, so that it stood spikily on end. “Let’s see that book,” he went on. “And by the way, can you read Tide Tables?”

“I can, sir,” said Proudie. “Most people can, in these parts.”

“Then look up the tides for next weekend,” said Henry, “while I wade through this.”

For a few minutes there was silence in the small cabin. Proudie ruffled the pages of the Nautical Almanack, muttering to himself about Summer Time and variations on High Water Dover. Henry immersed himself in the chronicles of Captain Voss. Then Proudie said, “Next Saturday, high water Berrybridge eight four A.M. and eight sixteen P.M. Any use?”

“Not at the moment, but it will be,” said Henry. “Write those times down, like a good chap.”

He went on reading, flipping through the pages, devouring paragraphs whole. Proudie sat on the opposite bunk in silence. Suddenly Henry gave a shout. “We’re getting hot,” he said. “What about this for a chapter heading? ‘History of the Great Treasure—Where is it Hidden?—Prospecting and its Difficulties.’ This is all about how Voss and a friend went hunting hidden treasure in the Cocos Islands.”

“Blimey.” said Proudie, but without emphasis. He was beyond surprise. “Did they find it?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t got that far.” Henry read on, absorbed. Voss’s simple, graphic prose had caught his imagination, and he felt the liberating exhilaration of following the great nineteenth-century seaman, with all his paradoxical romanticism and tough expertise, on the quest of pirate gold. He turned the page: read a paragraph: reread it with mounting excitement: then said quietly, “Inspector, I’m an even bloodier fool than I thought. It’s so obvious. Listen to this.

“The island was then searched high and low by the crew of the cutter, but nothing was found. Not even traces in the vegetation.

“That no traces could be discovered in the vegetation so soon after the crew of the ‘Mary Dyer’ had left the island is almost impossible to believe... After looking carefully over the foot of the hills and sandspit I came to the conclusion that if I had been the captain of the ‘Mary Dyer’ I should certainly have buried the treasure in the sandspit, for the following reason. The spit is solid sand, and at low water is dry. At high tide, it is submerged to a depth of three feet, and it would have been very little trouble to take a boat-load of the treasure over the spit at high water, dump it overboard and bury it when the tide was out. Then, in about six hours time, when the first tide washed over the spit, the traces would have been entirely obliterated...”

Henry shut the book slowly, and he and Proudie looked at each other in silence for a moment. Then Proudie said, “So that’s where the Trigg-Willoughby jewels are. Buried in Steep Hill Sands.”

“It certainly looks like it,” said Henry. “That was the conclusion Colin came to, anyway, and somebody was sufficiently perturbed about it to kill him before he could investigate. Now, what did you say? High water at eight o’clock next Saturday? That means low water six hours later. Two o’clock in the morning. And a half-moon. Perfect conditions for making a clandestine expedition to Steep Hill. This weekend, high water’s at two, and low water at eight, which means that anybody trying to dig on the sandspit would have to do it in daylight.”

“Mr. Street said,” Proudie remarked, reflectively, “that he knew the how and the why, but not the who. The how is easy enough. Someone knocked Mr. Rawnsley out, and left him to drown. The why—that’s what we’ve just discovered—the buried jewels. Mr. Rawnsley must have disturbed somebody digging up the loot.” He reached for the Almanack again. “Let’s see what the tides were doing that day. May twenty-ninth, it was. Here we are. High water, six fifty-eight A.M.”

“That’s right,” Henry put in. “Alastair said they’d left at seven to catch the ebb tide. So low water was at one.”

“Broad daylight,” said Proudie. “Lunchtime.”

“Now wait a minute,” said Henry. “Don’t let’s go too fast. Remember that this is only Colin’s theory, and even if he was right about the jewels, Pete Rawnsley could have been killed for some quite different reason. Or maybe because of a complicated web of reasons. That’s the first thing to remember. The second thing is the fog. That’s a fact that cuts two ways. You see what I mean?”

“No,” said Proudie. Henry explained.

“Which still leaves us,” said Proudie, “with the question of who?”

Henry took a pen and a notebook out of his pocket and began to write. “There’s a fairly short list of possibles,” he said. “Look at it like this. The person we want has to have certain qualifications. Opportunity to steal the jewels in the first place. Let’s put down both Rawnsleys, Anne Petrie, George Riddle, Herbert Hole, Sam Riddle. I wonder if David Crowther was at that Hunt Ball. Make a note to find out. Then, there’s the question of opportunity to bury them—Herbert, Sam, George and any of the sailing people who had the chance of going out alone. Unless, of course, we’re dealing with a conspiracy.”

“The other day, in my office,” said Proudie, “you came up with a theory about the robbery—”

“I’m afraid I was wrong,” said Henry. “At least, it looks like it. I can check it to a certain extent by one or two questions to a couple of people.” He paused, and considered his notebook. “It would be interesting to find out just what George Riddle was doing that morning,” he went on. “And Herbert turned up unexpectedly in his launch. That’s something that needs investigation.”

“It occurs to me,” said Proudie slowly, “that there’s another way of tackling this. From the other end, as you might say. If somebody has been digging up those jewels, it’s because they got short of cash and wanted to sell some of them. Since none of them has come onto the market in recognisable form, I’m inclined to think that our thief is using a highly skilled professional fence. Which leads us—”

“To Bob Calloway, who’s been making frequent trips

to London recently,” supplied Henry. “I know. I’m prepared to swear that Bob knows a lot more about all this than he’s prepared to say: but now that there’s been a second, rather clumsy murder, he’ll be scared stiff and we won’t get a word out of him. I know Bob of old, Inspector. He just sits tight and refuses to talk—and there’s not a damned thing one can do about it.”

Henry closed his notebook with a snap, and stood up. “Let’s get back,” he said. “There’s work to be done. I’ve wasted a hell of a lot of time already, trying to convince myself that Rawnsley’s death was accidental. Now it’s pretty clear that we’ve got a double murder to investigate. Two trails, one fresh and one stale. And somewhere in the two of them we’re going to find a point of contact, a similarity—”

“Plenty of similarity,” said Proudie, a trifle sourly. “Both victims hit on the head and left to drown. Both interested in Steep Hill Sands. Why don’t we go and dig for the stuff, as a start, sir?”

“No,” said Henry. “I daren’t risk letting the criminal know that we’ve tumbled to the hiding place. Come on, let’s get ashore. This afternoon I want to interview everybody again—in the light of a murder investigation this time. We’ve let things go far enough as it is.”

As they rowed ashore, Proudie spoke only once, to ask, “Do we let on we know it’s murder, sir?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Henry. “But be sure not to give anybody the idea that we’re interested in the sandspit.”

“O.K. by me, sir,” said Proudie. Several minutes later, he added gruffly, “Lovely day.”

It was a lovely day. The tide was full, and the river was a sheet of frosted blue glass, ruffled by tiny wavelets. Once again, Henry experienced a sense of wonder at the subtle intensity of colour. But what had seemed to Henry a week ago to be the essence of calm, uncomplicated beauty, now created an atmosphere at once unspeakably sinister and sad, like the painted face of a corpse in an American mortuary parlour. He was briefly surprised at himself for conceiving such an analogy: he had never been to America let alone into a mortician’s den. Perhaps they weren’t like that at all, in spite of all one read.

“Yes,” said Henry, and Proudie was surprised at the grimness in his voice. “A lovely day for a sail.”

Berrybridge was deserted. Henry found Rosemary and Alastair drinking a sombre pint of beer in The Berry Bush. From them, he learnt that Anne had recovered sufficiently to go off with Hamish for a drive in his car: that David had not yet returned from his lone expedition in Pocahontas: that George Riddle had driven Sir Simon’s Daimler back to Berry Hall, followed by Sir Simon himself in Old George’s taxi, which was to bring Emmy back to Berrybridge. There was no sign of Bob Calloway, and the garage which housed the red Aston Martin was empty. More surprising still, neither Herbert nor Sam Riddle was in The Berry Bush. The only other occupants of the bar were Bill Hawkes and Old Ephraim, who sat facing each other in one of the inglenooks, consuming mild ale in oppressive silence.

Henry took a long drink of beer, and then said quietly, “I’m afraid things are really serious now, and I feel it’s my fault.”

“Oh God,” said Rosemary. She had been crying, and her blue eyes were rimmed with red. “Surely things couldn’t be any worse?”

“Colin was murdered,” said Henry. His voice sounded very weary. “And it’s my fault because I started a hare and didn’t follow it up.”

“Murdered.” Alastair repeated the word in a dull, unwondering way. “Yes, I thought as much.”

“You didn’t!” Rosemary was passionate. “You didn’t, Alastair!”

“I’m not quite such a fool as I look, Henry,” said Alastair, with a small, twisted smile. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? You put the idea into his head that Pete’s death might not have been accidental—and he carried on from there and discovered something important. Then he got drunk last night and blurted out in front of everybody that he’d solved the mystery. So he had to be killed. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes,” said Henry. “I’m afraid that’s how it was.”

Rosemary was looking at the two men with mounting horror. “But what?” she said, and her voice was shaking. “Oh, it’s not your fault, Henry. This would have happened sooner or later anyway. But what could Colin have discovered?”

“I know that now,” said Henry. “I’ll tell you later. Colin was quicker than I was: and I could have saved his life if I’d gone ahead and beaten him to it.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Rosemary said again, with curious emphasis. “It was all our faults. Especially mine.”

“Yours?” said Alastair sharply.

“Of course,” said Rosemary. “I begged Henry to drop the whole thing. I did everything I could to divert him—”

“Because you were afraid,” said Henry.

“Yes.” It was no more than a whisper.

“Because you knew that—”

“He told me.”

Alastair was looking from one to the other in bewilderment. “What on earth is all this about?” he demanded.

“It’s none of your business,” said Rosemary tersely. She had gone very white.

“It certainly is my business,” Alastair retorted angrily. “You’re my wife, and—”

“That,” said Rosemary, “is a fact which you only seem to remember when it’s convenient.” She stood up. “Excuse me please, Henry. I don’t feel very well. I’m going back on board.”

“And how am I expected to get back to the boat?” said Alastair. “Don’t be a fool, Rosemary.”

“It’s rather too late to say that now,” said Rosemary. She walked out of the bar and into the sunshine. Alastair half-rose, then sat down again.

“Women,” he said, bitterly. “As if things weren’t bad enough already. I suppose I should go after her, but—”

“How long,” said Henry, “did you say you two had been married?”

“Six years. Sometimes it feels like a hundred.”

“When Emmy and I had been married six years, and there were still no children,” said Henry, in deep embarrassment, “I started to think I was in love with—well it doesn’t matter who. A nice girl. Emmy guessed it, and retaliated, as any person of spirit would. Things had got pretty desperate before we both realized what fools we were making of ourselves.”

Alastair was concentrating on the inside of his beer mug. “It’s possible to go on being a fool for years,” he said.

“You’re telling me,” said Henry, guiltily. “But there’s no need to be a damn fool. The ordinary foolishness of the human animal, who is naturally polygamous, is—thank God—generally weaker than his capacity for commonsense. But damn foolishness gets you nowhere—except out in the cold, with a bad conscience. I came to my senses just in time. Some people don’t.”

There was a long and uneasy pause. Then Henry said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to tell you the story of my life.”

“It’s not a very original story,” said Alastair.

“I know,” said Henry. “It’s commonplace and boring. Let’s talk about something else. Like lunch, for instance.”

“I don’t feel like eating today,” said Alastair.

“Nor do I. But Emmy and I always...by the way, where is Emmy?”

“Emmy? Haven’t seen her since early this morning.”

Henry felt a tiny pang of apprehension. “Surely Old George must be back by now,” he said. “What time did Sir Simon leave?”

“About half past one, I suppose.” Alastair looked up at the big, white-faced clock over the bar. “It’s half past two now. Still, I wouldn’t worry. She’s probably stayed to have lunch with Sir Simon.”

Henry stood up. “I think I’ll just go and see...” he said, vaguely, and walked out into the yard.

With an increasing sense of uneasiness, Henry walked up the lane towards Old George’s cottage. When he saw the black Lanchester standing like a monument in the open-doored garage, it was no more than he had expected. He quickened his pace, pushed between tall hollyhocks to the back door, and knocked. Old George opened the door.

Trying to keep his voice light and matter-of-fact, Henry said, “I’m sorry to disturb you. I was looking for my wife.”

“Wife?” Old George glanced behind him, as though half-expecting Emmy to materialize in the kitchen.

“The lady you drove out to Berry Hall this morning,” said Henry patiently. “You brought her back again, didn’t you?”

“That I didn’t,” said Old George. “Left, she had.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I say,” said Old George, a shade truculently. “Waste of a journey. Sir Simon had me drive him back special to pick up the lady. Some people don’t have no consideration.”

“And she’d already left when you got there?” It sounded to Henry as though his own voice were coming from a long way away. “How very strange. Can you tell me just what happened?”

Old George shot him a suspicious look. “Nothing happened,” he said. “I parks in the drive behind the Daimler, and Sir Simon goes into the house. He says for me to wait. A minute or so after, he comes out and says as how the lady’s left, and I’m to go back. Anything wrong in that?”

“No, no,” said Henry. “Nothing at all. Thank you.”

He almost ran back to The Berry Bush, only to find that Alastair had left. Hurrying down the hard, Henry was just in time to see him clambering aboard Ariadne from Hamish’s dinghy, which now bobbed astern side by side with the Bensons’ own. Henry shouted and waved. Alastair waved back cheerfully. It wasn’t until Henry had nearly dislocated his shoulder making exaggerated movements of beckoning that Alastair understood that his presence was required ashore. He nodded encouragingly, and disappeared below for what felt to Henry like an hour, but was in fact about three minutes. When he emerged into the cockpit again, Rosemary was with him. They took a dinghy apiece and pulled for the hard again.

Alastair was first ashore. “What’s up, Henry?” he asked.

“It’s Emmy,” said Henry. “She’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Old George says sheލ

€™d already left Berry Hall when Sir Simon got back. That’s impossible. She had no form of transport.”

“She might have walked,” put in Rosemary, who had pulled in alongside and was tying up her painter.

“If she’d walked,” said Henry, “Old George would have met her on the way, or else she’d be back by now. Anyhow, she wouldn’t have walked. I don’t know what’s happened to her and, frankly, I’m frightened.”

“Oh, really, Henry,” said Rosemary. “She probably decided to cut across the fields, or—well, after all, Emmy’s not a child. She can cope.”

“I’m sorry to sound melodramatic,” said Henry, abashed, “but I don’t think you quite understand. I feel like a man in a fog. We’re dealing with somebody desperate and not entirely sane. I’ve got to be terribly careful.”

There was a pause, and then Alastair said, “What do you want us to do?”

“I don’t really know,” said Henry. “Let’s get into the car and drive slowly up the lane, while I think.”

In the car, Rosemary said, “She might be anywhere.”

“No,” said Henry abstractedly. “Not far away. No time.” Even as he said it, he remembered that the Aston Martin was not in its garage, but he put the thought firmly to one side. “Berry Hall is the obvious place to start. We’ll go there.”

“Perhaps if we were to ask Sir Simon—” Alastair began.

“No,” said Henry. “Nobody. Not even him. Don’t talk to anybody about it. It’s too dangerous.”

Alastair looked sceptical, but all he said was, “What shall we do then?”

“Is it possible,” Henry asked, suddenly, “to drive a car right down to the Berry Hall boathouse?”

“Yes,” said Alastair. “There’s a drive that goes round the back of the house and down to the river. But we can’t very well just take the car down there without a word of—”

“I don’t want you to take the car down,” said Henry. “I want you to drop me off just before we get to Berry Hall, and go on up to the house yourselves. Pretend it’s an ordinary social call—”

“At three o’clock on a sunny afternoon?” said Rosemary. “Sir Simon will think we’re—”

“Say you’ve come to collect Emmy. That you didn’t know about the arrangement with Old George. Don’t be perturbed when you hear she left earlier. Just say she’s probably gone for a walk. Try to keep an eye on Riddle, and keep everybody away from the window of the Blue Drawing Room if you can.”

“And what will you—”

“I’m going to investigate the boathouse. And anywhere else that might make a hiding place. I’ll meet you at the same spot where you dropped me off. Wait for me.”

“I suppose you know what you’re doing, Henry.” Alastair’s voice sounded disapproving.

“I wish to God,” said Henry bitterly, “that I did. On second thoughts, if I don’t turn up by half past four, go to the nearest public telephone and get on to Inspector Proudie. Tell him to come to Berry Hall with a squad of strong men and a search warrant.”

“Good heavens,” said Rosemary. “I can’t think what Sir Simon will—”

“I can’t help that,” said Henry. “Emmy was alone there this morning, apart from Priscilla, who doesn’t count. Anybody could have gone in and—”

“This,” said Alastair, “is just like a rather improbable thriller. I don’t believe a word of it.”

“I daresay Pete Rawnsley and Colin found it pretty unlikely, too,” said Henry. “Right. I’ll get off here. Good luck, and thanks a lot.”

He watched the station wagon as it drove off down the lane and into the gates of Berry Hall. Then he pushed his way uncomfortably through a prickly hedge and headed towards the river.