Adders on the Heath

Over the sky?

When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting?

When will the heart be aweary of beating?

And nature die?'

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Once the party had left the two cars, Dame Beatrice annexed Laura, leaving the two young men free to wander together down the rough, steep road to the quay. The boys strolled on beside the water, but Dame Beatrice and Laura loitered. The sunshine, for that time of year, was particularly brilliant and there was more blue than cloud in the sky.

Although it was fairly late in the season, a great many craft were still in commission and the scene was gay and pleasing. The Beaulieu River at this point was a quarter of a mile wide, with a deepish channel at the quay. The river here made a magnificent bend, and there were shallows by the opposite bank.

Two catamarans, the double hulls referred to by Dame Beatrice, were drawn well up on the quay-side and she and Laura stopped to examine them.

'I do not think I care about them, so far as looks are concerned,' commented Dame Beatrice. 'What are their particular assets, that you favour them so highly?'

'To quote the book of words, they tack very fast, they're a safe, manoeuvrable sort of craft-you can even lift one hull completely out of the water and still keep going-and they are particularly sensitive to the helmsman. I rather agree with you about their looks, but I suppose they stem from the outrigger canoes that South Sea Islanders use.'

'Yes, I see.'

'They take sail, of course-quite a tall spread if you want to go really fast-and the masts are mostly of metal, the International type if you want a flyer. But, look here, Mrs. Croc, you didn't segregate me from the opposite sex just to talk about catamarans. Did you get anything interesting or important from young Tom Richardson during the car ride?'

'I obtained a detailed account of how he spent his time down here before Denis joined him.'

'Any good?'

'I have not made up my mind. It appears to me that there was a good deal of time, when he was absent from his tent, in which ill-disposed persons could have...'

'Wished the bodies on him?'

'Exactly.'

'But who would want to?'

'By that, I infer that you are asking whether Mr Richardson has enemies.'

'Well, yes, there's that, because I can't quite see the point of putting the bodies, one after the other, in his tent, unless there was some ill-feeling towards him. It would have been much simpler to have dumped them in the woods, the way Richardson and Denis found the second body, which was really, I suppose, the first body-or would you put it third?'

'Let us call it the first body, as Mr Richardson found it first.'

'Less confusing that way, I agree. Incidentally, am I wrong, or did I go to sleep or something at the inquest?'

'To the best of my knowledge and belief, you did not go to sleep at the inquest. And now, to what do we refer?'

'I'll give you three guesses,' said Laura, grinning. 'I say, this is a jolly sort of place, isn't it? Look at that cruiser!'

Dame Beatrice looked at it. Then she said that from what she had gathered of Laura's previous remarks, she would hazard a first guess that her secretary might have noted that there had been nothing in the medical evidence to indicate which of the victims had died first.

'Well!' exclaimed Laura. 'You are, in good sooth, a mind-reader, Mrs Croc, dear!'

'It is part of my profession, of course,' Dame Beatrice modestly pointed out.

'Think there is anything significant about the times of the deaths not being disclosed?'

'It is more than possible, but do you not think that both men may have died at approximately the same time?'

'It seemed to me that the Superintendent was wriggling his toes inside his boots, all the same.'

'You postulate?'

'Like the dickens I do. He was on pins in case anything, however trivial, was going to be given away. After all, doctors (present company excepted, of course!) are a stiff-necked gaggle and don't appreciate having their tails docked. Pun deliberate, intentional and, I thought, rather good. What do you think?'

'That the use of the word "gaggle" did not sustain your metaphor, suggesting, as it does, the presence of geese and not of dogs-or do they dock the tails of Anser Aibifrons, Anser Brachyrhynchus and others of their ilk?'

'You win,' said Laura. 'Glad I didn't bet on my chances. Honestly, though, don't you see that it makes a difference whether one of them was killed first? Of course it does! Gang warfare!'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Simple enough. Gang A do in Citizen B, so Gang B take it out on Citizen A.'

'Gang warfare is seldom so tidy or so restrained.'

'We've never had a gang warfare case,' said Laura, keeping to her point.

'For which we may be devoutly thankful. Gang warfare, as I understand it, is nasty, brutish and without even the advantage of being short, the last being unlike life, which is said to wear the tarnished halo of extreme brevity. We seem to have lost sight of our escorts, by the way.'

'They're round the bend-literally, I mean, not figuratively. Do you want us to step it out and catch them up?'

'No, no. I am finding our tête-à-tête both interesting and profitable. There is one commission over which I shall need assistance of a specialised kind, if we are indeed to undertake this enquiry. What do you really feel about our entangling ourselves?'

'We can't back out now! Young Tom would die of fright. After all, he may be in a dangerous position. We don't really know what the police think about his connection with these deaths and, even if they don't hold him responsible, they'll keep badgering him with questions to see whether he alters his story, and if they do badger him, and if he can't count on our support and sympathy, the highly-strung lad is apt to go up the wall.'

'Yes,' agreed Dame Beatrice, 'but you must not allow your maternal instincts to cloud your judgment, you know.'

Laura almost choked. Dame Beatrice cackled and called her attention to a yacht which was passing.

'Sloop, Bermuda rigged,' said Laura, stopping to watch and appraise it. 'Saw one rather like it at the Boat Show. Coasts and estuaries. Cost about five hundred and fifty. The sails come about fifty pounds extra.'

'I do not understand why sails should be listed as an extra if the craft cannot get under weigh without them,' observed Dame Beatrice.

'Well, you see-Now, there's a nice job!' A four-berth motor-cum-sailing boat was approaching them round the long, handsome sweep of the broad river. 'Draws about three and a half feet of water. Over three hundred feet of sail and, if you're in a hurry, or the wind's wrong, there's an eighteen-horsepower motor to get you out of trouble,' said Laura. 'A lazy owner's delight, in fact, I call her, but a sweet little craft, all the same. You can go to sea in her!'

'Delightful. How well can Hamish swim now?'

'Oh, he's the usual modern water-baby-perfectly safe under any circumstances except extreme cold or a bevy of hungry sharks.'

'Then we had better purchase a handy boat and spend time on the water next summer. It would be convenient enough to come here from the Stone House and I find this place attractive. Then, of course, there is the Hamble River...'

'Both very crowded in the summer. Why don't we go up to Plockton on Loch Carron in Wester Ross? Scenery marvellous, harbour good, and free from strong tides, artists' paradise and yachtsman's dream. (I quote). It's on the railway, if you don't want to take the car, and we could get to Skye or into Loch Torridon or up to Gairloch...'

'I like the sound of that, too. Go ahead, my dear Laura, and make your plans.'

'We could always come here again at this time of year, or even a bit later. But I must point out, Mrs Croc, dear, that we're now losing sight of our raison d'être.'