Dance to Your Daddy

'The police will want to question them,' said Judith. 'We were asked whether anyone else was staying in the house.'

'Where is Giles?'

'He hasn't come back from the New Forest yet. I expect his friends who were members of the Hunt have asked him to stay. We had to mention him, too, of course, and we had to tell the police that you, Tancred and Trilby, and also Humphrey and Binnie, had been staying here.'

'How did Giles get to the meet?'

'Oh, a friend with a horse-box picked him up and will bring him back-a young man who lives at Lyndhurst and is a follower of the Hunt. I suppose we shall have to ask Giles to stay for dinner, but I do hope he won't expect to be put up for the night again. Perhaps he could stay with the people he stayed with last night, instead of with us. It's no time to have casual visitors in the house,' said Judith. She had regained something of her usual colour and animation.

'Suppose we begin at the beginning,' suggested Dame Beatrice. 'Having disposed of the rest of us, you two were left here alone, except for the servants. Please go on from there.'

'We had lunch at half-past one,' said Judith, 'and then, as it was a fine day and Uncle Romilly seemed restless, as I said, I thought it might be a good idea to go out for a short drive, leave the car at a convenient spot and take a stroll. I drove, and it was left to me to choose the route, so we went to Lulworth Cove and parked the car on the grassy common there, where everybody parks in the summer, but, of course, at this time of year, it's too early for visitors, so we had the parking space pretty much to ourselves.'

'Judith wanted to walk over Dungy Head to Durdle Door,' said Romilly, 'but it is a steep climb and I thought the path might be slippery, so I suggested going down to the Cove and then returning to the car and continuing our drive. We did this, and from Lulworth we took the road to Steeple and then it occurred to me to show Judith where I had found Trilby when she drowned the cat and the monkey...'

'And the life-sized baby doll,' put in Dame Beatrice, who, after her sessions with the girl, no longer believed a word of this story.

'Exactly,' agreed Romilly, with suspicious alacrity. 'And the life-sized baby doll. Well, as you probably know, there is no very direct route from Steeple to Dancing Ledge. We had to go through Church Knowle to Corfe Castle and then branch off for Kingston and go a good part of the way towards Langton Matravers. We left the car at the nearest possible point and took a path to make the rest of the way on foot. Dancing Ledge is not entirely a natural formation. The cliffs have been ridded (as it is called in these parts) by blasting, in order to quarry the stone, and then galleries have been driven into the rocks. Long platforms of stone have been left, and on these, at this particular spot, the waves do appear to dance, and on the Ledge itself a bathing place was blasted out for the use of schoolboys at the end of last century.'

'Uncle Romilly has a poor head for heights,' said Judith, taking up the tale, 'so he did not linger long on the nearby cliff-top, only long enough to say to me, "I can't stay here, my dear, I must retreat. But your eyes are younger than mine. Isn't there a man lying out on Dancing Ledge?" I looked as he pointed, before he walked away, and, of course, it was as he had said.'

'I went to the coastguard station as soon as we got back to the car,' said Romilly, 'and told them I feared someone had fallen over the cliff, but, of course, we never dreamed it was Hubert. The police obtained my address from the coastguards and they've been here since yesterday harassing and harrying us.'

'Has anything been heard of Willoughby, the brother?'

'Not a thing. He has not written and he has not come. I wondered whether I should mention to the police that he seems to have disappeared, but it is somewhat early days to suggest that.'

'Disappeared?'

'Well, I would not think of using such an expression had it not been for this dreadful business about Hubert.'

'You had no difficulty in identifying the body, then?'

'Well, the head and face were greatly disfigured, I suppose through contact with the rocky ledge, but I had little doubt.'

'Why should the police have thought that you might know who the dead man was?'

'I have myself to thank for that. I was greatly upset when I first spotted the body on the ledge, and I blurted out something at the coastguard station about Hubert and Willoughby having failed to turn up at my house, and, of course, that got passed on to the police. It's the most terrible thing! They seem prepared to treat Hubert's death as a case of murder!'

'So I gathered from Judith's telegram. Have they anything to go on?'

'I have no idea. They tell one nothing; they merely put interminable and very searching questions. I suppose they are inclined to rule out suicide, as Hubert was in holy orders, but I think they have ruled out the possibility of accident, too. Their questions suggest as much. Now you, my dear Beatrice, have had a wide experience in these matters. I told you that I had fears for my own life, and now I am beginning to wonder whether Hubert could possibly have been mistaken for me. What do you think about that?'

'Well, I can hardly say, but it seems to me very unlikely. How old would Hubert have been?'

'Yes, I see what you mean. Nobody knowing me can have thought that so young a man-yes, yes, I take your point, of course. But it seems inexplicable. Besides, what was he doing in the neighbourhood of Dancing Ledge? It really is nowhere near this house. He could not have been on his way to us, could he, if he made so stupid a detour as that?'

'When is the murder supposed to have taken place?'

'Oh, if the police know that-as, I suppose, they must do, near enough-they are keeping it to themselves. You know what they are! They never tell you anything if they can possibly help it.'

(4)

'I could bear to go and take a look at Dancing Ledge,' said Laura, when they had thoroughly discussed this latest visit to Galliard Hall. 'Is there any reason why I shouldn't?'

'I do not suppose so. The police will have completed their on-the-spot investigations by the time we go, I should imagine, and the place ordinarily must be open to the public, or Romilly and Judith could not have gone there. Get out the Ordnance maps and let us decide upon the best way to get to the Ledge from here.'

Laura did as she was told. Dancing Ledge was clearly marked. Behind it the hills rose steeply for about a quarter of a mile, and after that the slope was more gentle. Working inland from the cliffs, nothing but a footpath was marked until the map showed the secondary road which ran between Kingston and Langton Matravers and finished at Swanage.

'Bournemouth and Sandbanks for us,' said Laura, 'and then over the ferry, don't you think? Looks a bit of a scramble to get down to the Ledge. Is Romilly capable of it?'

'I shall know better when we have explored the terrain for ourselves. I wonder whether Rosamund would care to come with us? The invitation would come better from you than from me, I think.'

'Is that an order?'

'Yes,' said Dame Beatrice thoughtfully, 'I think it is. I should like to know how she reacts to the suggestion. Approach the matter bluntly. Simply tell her we are going to Dancing Ledge, and ask her whether she would like to accompany us.'

'Does she know about the body?'

Dame Beatrice favoured her secretary with a crocodile grin.

'Oh, I'm sure she does,' she replied. 'There is an account of it in the newspaper which arrived this morning and I am perfectly sure that she has read it.'

Laura found Rosamund in the library and issued the invitation in the forthright manner advised by Dame Beatrice.