'Dancing Ledge?' said Rosamund, turning away from the bookshelf she had been studying. 'Why should I want to go there?'
'For the sake of an outing, that's all.'
'Oh, no, thank you, I'd rather stay here. Henri is going to teach me to cook. I am to help get tonight's dinner ready.'
'Oh, well, keep the arsenic well away from the soup,' said Laura lightly, glad that they were not to have Rosamund's company on the expedition. She reported the brief exchange to her employer.
'Didn't turn a hair at the mention of Dancing Ledge,' she said. 'Just said she'd rather stay here because Henri was going to teach her to cook. Do you suppose her childlike appearance and innocent air have bewitched the staff?'
'I think they feel sorry for her. I gave them an account of her orphaned condition-that was for Zena's benefit-and dropped a hint to Henri that she was a patient of mine who was suffering from melancholia and must be taken out of herself as much as possible. I took Celestine more fully into my confidence, for she is intelligent enough to realise that there is nothing melancholic about Rosamund. Well, let us be off. The days still draw in very early, and we have to allow ourselves time to cover the ground after we have reached our objective. Tell Henri to put us up some sandwiches, and perhaps it would be best for us to use your car, and for you to drive it.'
'Fine! I suppose you want to leave George at home to help keep an eye on Rosamund.'
'I want George to stay behind to keep an eye on the other car. If he were to drive us in mine, there is just the chance that Rosamund, if she can drive, might take it into her head to go off in your car and then she might run into some sort of danger. As I have taken her out of Romilly's sphere of influence, an accident to her might place me in an invidious position.'
'You do think she's irresponsible, then?'
'I did not care much about the Ophelia exhibition. It was most extravagant and unnecessary. Irresponsible, however, is not the word I would have chosen. The point is that, having, one might almost say, abducted her, I must exercise the greatest care to see that she comes to no harm and that Romilly has no opportunity to contact her.'
'There's something you're not telling me,' said Laura.
'My suspicions are possibly unfounded, unkind, and unworthy of me,' Dame Beatrice replied, 'so we had better leave it at-that.'
(5)
The trackway to Dancing Ledge, indicated by an unofficial signpost easily missed unless one was looking out for it, was a roughly-made little road much too narrow to allow two cars to pass. It led to a large house with outbuildings, and for a short distance the road was better surfaced, presumably by the owners of the house, for it deteriorated again beyond it. So far it had been bordered by trees and ragged hedges, but suddenly it ended on open pasture and some farm buildings came in sight, together with a notice which forbade parking on the verges but offered facilities for this at the farm.
Laura had driven with extreme caution over the very rough parts of the road, and, in any case, she had to pull up when she reached the farm gate. A comely young woman emerged from the building, smiled, asked a shilling for a parking fee, and indicated where they might leave the car.
After that, it was country walking. There were gates to be opened and shut, fixed wooden barriers to duck under, and a stile, consisting of two iron bars, to be climbed. Dame Beatrice, thin and wiry, and still remarkably agile considering her years, made nothing of these obstacles, and needed no assistance from Laura. On the far side of the last barrier they had to begin the steep descent which they had seen indicated by the contour lines on the map. It was rough and difficult in places, and they took their time.
'Better keep on the grass,' suggested Laura. 'The path is on chalk, and is bound to be slippery this time of year.'
From the top of the slope they had already seen the sea. The countryside was gloriously open, but stone walls and wire fences marked off the various pastures. To the right was Saint Aldhelm's Head, and beneath their feet, when at last they reached the grassy top of the cliff, lay Dancing Ledge, a long, flat platform of rock parallel with the almost straight line of the coast.
'I suppose the body was found out there on the Ledge itself,' said Laura, pointing to where the sea, in the calm air (for it was an almost windless day, unusual on that coast at that early time of the year), lapped lazily in tiny cream-topped ripples. 'How about if I beetled down and took a closer look?'
Knowing that she wanted to do this, Dame Beatrice agreed, and watched her as she made the scrambling descent. The cliff, at this point, was not high, and, in spite of the fact that the way down, worn smooth by the shoes of summer visitors, was very slippery, Laura negotiated it without difficulty and was soon standing on the broken ground where the cliff face, in former times, had been quarried away.
She soon returned, and announced that there was nothing more to be seen than could be descried, perhaps better, from where Dame Beatrice was standing. Then they began the steep climb back to the farm.
'Don't know what you're thinking,' said Laura, as they halted, half-way up, to take breath and look back at the misty view, 'but whoever got poor Hubert down this way had his work cut out.'
'There are two ways in which it could most easily be done,' said Dame Beatrice. 'Either the corpse was not a corpse when the descent was made, but was killed on the sea-shore itself and then pushed on to the Ledge, or else it was brought round by boat. This was a known spot for smugglers, and it was perfectly possible, so I read, to get a boat up to the Ledge in calm weather to land contraband cargo. I think the first theory is the more likely one, but that is for the police to decide.'
'What, then, is our next move?'
'I think it might be interesting to take tea with Romilly and give him an account of our excursion. His last question to me was whether I thought that Hubert could possibly have been mistaken for Romilly himself. I would say that it seems to me extremely unlikely. As to theorising about the means of bringing the body to the Ledge, I am sure I am right. Even if it had been transported as far as the farm by car, it is clear that it would have had to be manhandled from the farm onwards. This could scarcely have been done by daylight, or by one person, and I cannot see that it would be possible after dark, especially at this time of year and on such a rough and slippery path.'
'Besides, there are those over-and-under barriers, put up, I suppose, by the farm people, to stop the passage of cars over their land. I don't suppose there were any barriers at all when the smugglers were operating, but even they must have had their work cut out, even if they parked the contraband at the farm, as I suppose they did. Up to the farmhouse it must be the best part of a mile from the Ledge, and some of it is horribly rough and steep, and going down is as bad as coming up.'
'Oh, yes, I think we must rule out the possibility that the corpse was carried by the way we have come. The police will have come to the same conclusion. Even if more than one person was involved, the operation would be so hazardous that I cannot think anybody would conceive of it.'
'Of course, we don't know yet-and I suppose we shan't, until we hear the medical evidence at the inquest-the cause of the death, do we?'
They found Romilly and Judith in the same state of alarm and despondency as that in which Dame Beatrice had left them. Romilly, however, cheered up at the sight of them, and Judith rang for tea with an alacrity which suggested that she also welcomed their visit.
'So you have been occupying yourself on my behalf,' said Romilly, when the tea-things had been cleared away. 'I had so much hoped you would. It is extremely good of you, Beatrice. The police have not troubled us again, but, as I think I told you yesterday, they want to question everybody who was staying here. I'm afraid my little jokes have had a most unfortunate aftermath. What do you propose to do now? Dare I hope that you and this charming young lady, your secretary, will stay here for a few days and see us through our ordeal? I am sure we have not seen the last of the police, and I should welcome your advice and support.'