The Watersplash

CHAPTER XVII

The body of Clarice Dean was discovered by Edward Random. It was striking ten by the church clock when he came down to the watersplash and turned the ray of his torch upon the nearest of the stepping-stones. It showed more than he had bargained for-a woman’s hand lying palm downwards on the dark glistening stone. Just a hand, in the circle of the ray. That at the first glance. Then as he slanted the torch, the light picked up the line of the wrist, the drenched sleeve of a coat, the vague darkness of a body half covered by the water. She lay in the pool which had drowned William Jackson. The flow of the water had drifted her hand onto the sloped edge of the stone and kept it there, moving it a little, so that it looked as if it still had some feeble life in it. There was a moment when Edward had no certainty as to who the woman might be. She lay face downwards in the water, and it covered her. She lay still, but the hand moved slowly.

He set his torch on the bank and went down into the pool. She was in the deepest part of it, but the deepest part did not reach his knee. It was a mere narrow pot-hole. If she had put her foot in it and fallen she would have come down in the shallows. She would hardly have drowned.

She had drowned.

He got her out-no such easy matter, with the bank slimy under foot-and when she was clear of the water he turned the torch upon her. He saw that it was Clarice Dean. He also saw that there really was no chance that she wasn’t dead. He felt her wrist, but there was no pulse. He had known that there would be none, but he had to make sure.

In all the talk that followed, it was not to be denied that having got her out of the water, Edward could have done no more than he did, which was to lay the body face downwards on the slope so that the water might drain out of it, and then run to the Vicarage for help.

But Clarice Dean was dead. Dr. Croft found Edward and the Vicar doing the best they knew with artificial respiration, but it was all to no end. The ambulance from Embank made its sinister journey once again, and before the village knew that there had been a second death Clarice Dean was gone from Greenings.

Dr. Croft had to break the news to the Miss Blakes. At his knock on the door Miss Mildred came down to him in her old coat over a cheap flannelette night-dress with a candle in her hand.

“What has happened, Dr. Croft? Why have you come?”

The candlelight flickered between them. She peered at him through it.

“Did you know that Miss Dean was out?”

“No, of course not. She went to bed early-she said she had a headache. What makes you think she would be out? She never goes out so late as this-why should she? It is eleven o’clock!”

“Very nearly. But that is beside the point. She did go out- I’m afraid there is no doubt about that.”

“You are afraid? What do you mean? Has anything happened?”

He said, almost with impatience,

“Yes, it has. It will be a shock to you, and you had better keep it from your sister until the morning. Miss Dean has met with an accident.”

“An accident? What sort of an accident? What has happened?”

“She has been drowned in the splash.”

Miss Mildred set down the candlestick upon the newel-post of the stair and said,

“Impossible!”

“I’m afraid not.”

The old coat had fallen open, showing how scanty was the garment she wore beneath it. It had been white once but was now a dingy grey. A woman would have wondered how old it might be. How many years was it since anyone could buy flannelette? Dr. Croft, being a man, only thought with distaste that she looked as if she had come out of a slum, and wished his errand done. He said briskly,

“Well, there’s nothing to be done about it tonight. The police will be round in the morning. They will want to know whether there were any signs of depression. Don’t touch anything in her room. They will have to go through her things. I’ll look in and see Miss Ora tomorrow. Goodnight!”

Miss Mildred sniffed.

“I don’t know where we’ll get another nurse,” she said in an acid tone.

Dr. Croft shut the door with rather more force than it really required.