‘Well,’ said Harriet, looking round at the lonely, sea and shore, ‘there doesn’t seem to be much reason why anyone should habitually, tie a boat up here.’
‘There doesn’t. In that case the murderer, if there was one—’
We’re taking him for granted, aren’t we?’
‘Yes. He may have put this here for his own private use. Either he tied a boat up, or he’-’
‘Or he didn’t.’
‘I was going to say, used it for something else, but I’m dashed if I know what.’
‘Well, that’s fearfully helpful. I say, I’m getting cold. Let’s swim about a bit, and then get dressed and discuss it.’
Whether it was the swim or the subsequent race over the sands to get warm that stimulated Harriet’s brain is not certain, but when they were again sitting by the lunch-basket, she found herself full of ideas.
‘Look here! If you were a murderer, and you saw an interfering woman pottering about among the evidence and then going off in search of help, what would you do?’
‘Leg it in the opposite direction:
‘I wonder. Would you? Wouldn’t you like to keep an eye on her? Or possibly even do away-with her? You know, it would have been fearfully easy for Bright — if we may call him so for the moment — to slaughter me then and there.’
‘But why should he? Of course he wouldn’t. He was trying to make the murder look like suicide.. In fact, you were a very valuable witness for him. You’d seen the body and you could prove that there really was a body, in case of its subsequently getting lost. And you could prove that there actually was a weapon there and that therefore suicide was more likely than not. And you could swear to the absence of footprints — another point in favour of suicide. No, my dear girl, the murderer would cherish you as the apple of his eve.’
‘You’re right; he would. Always supposing he wanted the body found. Of course there are lots of reasons why he should want; it found. If he inherited under a will, for instance, and had to prove the death.’
‘I don’t fancy friend Alexis will have left much in his will. In fact, I’m pretty sure he didn’t. And there might be other reasons for wanting to tell the world he was dead.’
‘Then you think that when I’d gone, the murderer just totted off home to Lesston Hoe? He can’t have gone the other way, unless he deliberately kept behind me. Do you think he did that? He may have followed me up to see what I was going to do about it.’
‘He might. You can’t say he didn’t. Especially as you left the main road quite soon after, to go up to the farm.’
‘Suppose he missed me there and went on ahead of me along the road to Wilvercombe. Would it be possible to find out if he had passed over the level-crossing at the Halt, for instance? Or I say! Suppose he’d’ gone along the main road and then turned back again, sows to pretend he’d come from Wilvercombe?’
‘Then you’d have met him.’
‘Well, suppose I did?’
But — oh! lord, yes — Mr What’s-his-name from London! By Jove!’
‘Perkins. Yes. I wonder. Could anybody be genuinely as foolish as Perkins appeared? He was a rat of a man, too, quite small, and he was sandy-haired.’
‘He was short-sighted, didn’t you say, and wore glasses. Merryweather didn’t’ say anything about Bright’s wearing them.’
‘It may have been a disguise. They may have been quite plain glass. I didn’t examine them, a la Dr Thorndyke, to see whether they reflected a candle-flame upside-down or right way up And, you know, I do think it’s awfully funny the way Mr Perkins simply evaporated when we got to the village shops. He was keen enough to come with me before, and then, just as I’d got into touch with civilisation, he went and vanished. It does look queer. If it was Bright, he might just have hung round to get some idea of what I was going to say to the police, and then removed himself before the inquiry. Good lord! Fancy me, meekly trotting along for a mile and a half hand in hand with a murderer!’
Juicy,’ said Wimsey, ‘very juicy! We’ll have to look more carefully into Mr Perkins. (Can that name — be real? It seems almost too suitable.) You know where he went?’
‘He hired a car in the village and got himself driven to Wilvercombe railway station. He is thought to have taken a train to somewhere, but the place was full of hikers and trampers and trippers that day, and so far they haven’t, traced him further. They’ll, have to try again. This thing is getting to look almost: too neat. Let’s see how it goes. First of all, Alexis arrives by the 10.15 at the Halt and proceeds on foot or otherwise, to the Flat Iron. Why, by the way?’
‘To keep an appointment with Perkins, presumably. Alexis wasn’t the sort to take a long country walk for the intoxicating pleasure of sitting on a rock.’
‘True, O Queen. Live for ever. He went to keep an appointment with Perkins at two o’clock.’
‘Earlier, surely; or why arrive by the 10.15?’
‘That’s easy. The 10.15 is the only train that stops there during the morning.’
‘Then why not go by car?’
‘Yes, indeed. Why not? I imagine it was because he had no car of his own and didn’t want anybody to know where he was going.’
‘Then why didn’t-he hire a car and drive it himself?’ ‘Couldn’t drive a car. Or his credit is bad in Wilvercombe. Or — no!’
‘What?’
‘I was going to say: because he didn’t intend to come back.; But that won’t work, because of the return-ticket. Unless he took the ticket absentmindedly, he did mean to come back. Or perhaps he just wasn’t certain about it. He might take a return-ticket on the off-chance — it would only be a matter of a few pence one way or the other. But he couldn’t very well just take a hired car and leave it there.’
‘N-no. Well, he could, if he wasn’t particular about other people’s property. But I can think of another reason for it. He’d have to leave the car on top of the cliff where it could be seen, Perhaps he didn’t want people to know that anybody was down on the Flat-Iron at all.’
‘That won’t do. Two people having a chat on the Flat-Iron would be conspicuous objects from the cliff, car or no car.’
‘Yes, but unless you went down close to them, you wouldn’t know who they, were; whereas you can always check up on a car by the number-plates.’
‘That’s a fact — but it seems to me rather a thin explanation, all the same. Still, let it stand. For some reason Alexis thought he would attract less attention if he went by, train. In that case, ‘I suppose he walked along the road — he wouldn’t want to invite inquiry by taking a lift from anybody.’
‘Certainly not. Only why, in the world he should have picked on such an exposed place for the appointment—’
‘You think they ought to have had their chat behind a rock, or under some trees, or in a disused shed or a chalk quarry or something like that?’
‘Wouldn’t it seem more natural?’
‘No. Not if, you didn’t want to be overheard. If you ever need to talk secrets, be sure you avoid the blasted oak, the privet hedge and the old summer-house in the Italian garden — all the places where people can stealthily creep up under cover with their ears flapping. You choose the middle of a nice open field, or the centre of a lake — or a rock like the Flat-Iron, where you can have half-an-hour’s notice of anyone’s arrival. And that reminds me, in one of your books