‘Salcombe Hardy rang me up from, the Morning Star. Said “my Miss Vane” had found a corpse, and did I know, anything about it. I said I knew nothing about it and that Miss Vane was unhappily not mine — yet. So I buzzed off, and here I am. I brought Sally Hardy down with me. I expect that’s what he really rang me. up for. Smart old bird, Sally always on the spot.’
‘He told you where to find me, I suppose.’
‘Yes — he seemed to know all about it. I was rather hurt. Fancy having to ask the Morning Star where the pole-star of one’s own heaven has, gone to. Hardy seemed to know all about it. How do these things get into the papers?’
‘l rang them up myself,’ replied Harriet. ‘First-class publicity, you know, and all that.’
‘So it is,’ agreed Wimsey, helping himself lavishly to butter. ‘Rang ’em up, did you, with all the gory details?’
‘Naturally; that was the first thing I thought of.’
‘You’re a woman of business. But does it not, pardon me, indicate a certain coarsening of the fibres?’
‘Obviously,’ said Harriet. ‘My fibres at this moment resemble coconut matting.’
‘Without even “Welcome” written across; them. But, look here, beloved, bearing in mind that I’m a corpse-fan, don’t you think you might, as man to man, have let me in on the ground-floor?’
‘If you put it that way,’ admitted Harriet, rather ashamed of herself, ‘I certainly might. But I thought-’
‘Women will let the personal element creep in,’ said Wimsey, acutely. ‘Well, all I can say is, you owe it to me to make up for it now. All the details, please.’
‘I’m tired of giving details,’ grumbled Harriet, perversely.
‘You’ll be tireder before the police and the newspaper lads have finished with you. I have been staving off Salcombe Hardy with the greatest difficulty. He is in the lounge. The Banner and the Clarion are in the smoking-room. They had a fast car. The Courier is coming by train (it’s a nice, respectable, old-fashioned paper), and the Thunderer and the Comet are hanging about outside the bar, hoping you may be persuaded to offer them something.. The three people arguing with the commissionaire are, I fancy, local men. The photographic contingent have gone down en masse, packed in a single Morris, to record the place where the body was found, which, as the tide is well up, they will not see. Tell me all, here and now, and I will organise your publicity for you.’
‘Very. well,’ said Harriet, ‘I tell thee all, I can no more.’
She pushed her plate aside and took up a clean knife.
‘This,’ she said, is the coast-road from Lesston Hoe to Wilvercombe. The shore bends about like this—’ She took up the pepper-pot.
‘Try salt,’ suggested Wimsey. ‘Less irritatin’ to the nasal tissues.’
‘Thank you. This line of salt is the beach. And this piece of bread is a rock at low-water level.’
Wimsey twitched his chair closer to the table.
‘And this salt-spoon,’ he said, with childlike enjoyment,
‘can be the body.’
He made no comment while Harriet told her story, only interrupting once or twice with a question about times and distances. He sat drooping above the sketch-map she was laying out among the breakfast-things, his eyes invisible, his long nose seeming to twitch like a rabbit’s with concentration. When she had finished, he sat silent for a moment and then said
‘Let’s get this clear. You got to the place where you had lunch when, exactly?’
‘Just one o’clock. I looked at my watch.’
‘As you came along the cliffs, you could see the whole shore, including the rock where you found the body.’
‘Yes; I suppose I could.!
‘Was anybody on the rock then?’
‘I really don’t know. I don’t even specially remember noticing the rock. I was thinking about my grub, you see, and I was really, looking about at the side of the road for a suitable spot to scramble down the cliff. — My eyes weren’t focused for distance’
‘I see. That’s rather a pity, in a way.’
‘Yes, it is; but I can tell you one thing. I’m quite sure there was nothing moving on the shore. I did give one glance round just before I decided to climb down. I distinctly remember thinking that the beach seemed absolutely and gloriously deserted — a perfect spot for a picnic. I hate picnicking in a crowd.’
‘And a single person on a lonely beach would be a crowd?’
‘For picnicking purposes, yes. You know what people are. The minute, they see anyone having a peaceful feed they gather in from the four points of the compass and sit down beside one, and the place is like the Corner House in the rush hour.’
‘So they do. That must be the symbolism of the Miss Muffet legend.’
‘I’m positive there wasn’t a living soul walking or standing or sitting anywhere within eyeshot. But as to the body’s being already on, the rock, I wouldn’t swear one way or the other. It was a goodish way out, you know, and when I saw it from the beach I took the body for seaweed just at first. I shouldn’t make a mental note of seaweed.’
‘Good. Then at one o’clock the beach was deserted, except possibly for the body, which may have been, there making a noise like seaweed. Then you got down the side of. the cliff. Was the rock visible from where you had lunch?’
‘No, not at all. There is a sort of little bay there — well, scarcely that. The cliff juts out a bit, and I was sitting close up against the foot of the rocks; so as to have something to lean against. I had my lunch it took about half an hour’ altogether.’
‘You heard nothing then? No footsteps or anything? ‘No car?’
‘Not a thing,’
‘And then?’
‘Then I’m afraid I dozed off.’’
‘What could be more natural? For how long?’
‘About half an hour. When I woke I looked at my watch again.’
‘What woke you?’
‘A sea-gull squawking round after bits of my sandwich.’ ‘That makes it two o’clock.’
‘Yes.’
‘Just a minute. When I arrived here this morning it was a bit early for calling on one’s lady friends, — so I’ toddled down to the beach and made friends with one of the fishermen. He happened to mention that it was low tide off the Grinders yesterday afternoon at 1.15 Therefore when you arrived, the tide was practically out. When you woke, it had turned and had been coming in for about forty-five minutes. The foot of your rock — which, by the way, is locally named The Devil’s Flat-Iron is, only uncovered for about half an hour between tide and tide, and that only, at the top of springs, if you understand that expression,’
‘I understand perfectly, but I don’t see what that has to do with it.’
‘Well, this — that if anybody had come walking along the edge of the water to the rock, he could have got there without leaving any footprints.’
‘But he did leave footprints. Oh, I see. You’re thinking of a possible murderer.’