‘Dear, dear,’ said the woman, “Tis a terrible thing, to be sure.’
Back on the main road, Harriet hesitated. She had lost a good deal of time on this expedition. Would it be better to turn aside again in search of the Red Farm, or to keep to the main road where there was more chance of meeting, a passerby? While still undecided, she arrived at the turn. An aged man was hoeing turnips in afield-close by. She hailed him.
‘Is this the way to the Red Farm?’
He paid no attention, but went on hoeing turnips.
‘He must be deaf,’ muttered Harriet, hailing him again. He continued to hoe turnips. She was looking about for the gate into the field when the aged man paused to straighten his back and spit on his hands, and in so doing brought her into his line of vision.
Harriet beckoned to him, and he hobbled slowly up to the wall, supporting himself on the hoe as he went.
‘Is this the way to the Red Farm?’ She pointed up the lane.
‘No,’ said the old man, ‘he ain’t at home.’
‘Has he got a telephone?’ asked Harriet.
‘Not till tonight,’ replied the ancient. ‘He’s over to Heathbury market?
‘A telephone,’ repeated Harriet, ‘has he got a telephone?’
‘Oh, ay,’ said the old man, ‘you’ll find her somewhere about.’ While Harriet was wondering whether the pronoun was the one usually applied in that county to telephones, he dashed her hopes by adding: ‘Her leg’s bad again.’
‘How far is it to the farm?’ shouted Harriet,desperately.
‘I shouldn’t wonder if ’twas,’ said the, old man, resting on the hoe, and lifting up his hat to admit the breeze to his head, ‘I tell’d her o’ Saturday night she hadn’t no call to do it’
Harriet, leaning far over the’ wall, advanced her mouth to within an inch of his ear.
‘How far is it?’ she bawled.
‘There ain’t no need to shout,’ said the old man. ‘I bain’t deaf. Eighty-two come Michaelmas, and all my faculties, thank God.’
‘How far—‘began Harriet.
‘I’m telling ‘ee, arnn’t I? Mile and half by the lane, but if you was to take the short cut through the field where the old bull is—’
A car came suddenly down the road at considerable speed and vanished into the distance.
‘Oh, bother!’ muttered Harriet, ‘I might have stopped that if I, hadn’t wasted my time on this old idiot.’
‘You’re quite right, miss,’ agreed Old Father William, catching the last word with the usual perversity of the deaf. ‘Madmen, I calls ’em. There ain’t no sense in racketing along at that pace. My niece’s young man—’
The glimpse of the car was a deciding factor in Harriet’s mind. Far better to stick to the road. If once she began losing herself in by-ways on the chance of finding an elusive farm and a hypothetical telephone, she might wander about till dinner-time. She started off again, cutting Father William’s story off abruptly in the middle, and did another dusty half mile without further encounter.
It was odd, she thought. During the morning she had seen several people and quite a number (comparatively) of tradesmen’s vans. What had happened to them all? Robert Templeton (or possibly even Lord Peter Wimsey, who had been brought up in the country) would have promptly enough found the answer to the riddle. It was market-day at Heathbury, and early-closing day at Wilvercombe and Lesston Hoe — the two phenomena being, indeed, interrelated so as to permit the inhabitants of the two watering-places to attend the important function at the market-town. Therefore there were no more tradesmen’s deliveries along the coast-road. And therefore all the local traffic to Heathbury was already well away inland. Such of the aborigines as remained were at work in the hayfields. She did, indeed, discover a man and a youth at work with a two-horse haycutter, but they stared aghast at her suggestion that they should leave their work and their horses to look for the police. The farmer himself was (naturally) at Heathbury market. Harriet, rather hopelessly, left a message with them and trudged on.
Presently there came slogging into view a figure which appeared rather more hopeful, a man clad in shorts and carrying a pack on his back — a hiker, like herself. She hailed him imperiously.
‘I say, can you tell me where I can get hold of somebody with a car or a telephone? It’s frightfully important.’
The man, a weedy, sandy-haired person with a bulging brow and thick spectacles, gazed at her with courteous incompetence.
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you. You see, I’m a stranger here myself.’
Well, could you — began Harriet, and paused. After all, what could he do? He was in exactly; the same boat as herself. With a foolish relic of Victorianism she had somehow imagined that a man would display superior energy and resourcefulness, but, after all, he was only a human being — with the usual outfit of legs and brains.
‘You see,’ she explained, ‘there’s a dead man on the beach over there.’ She pointed vaguely behind her.
‘No, really?’ exclaimed the young man. ‘I say, that’s a bit thick, isn’t it? Er — friend of yours?’
‘Certainly not,’ retorted Harriet. ‘I don’t know him from Adam. But the police ought to know about it.’
‘The police? Oh, yes, of course, the police. Well, you’ll find them in Wilvercombe, you know. There’s a police-station there.’
‘I know,’ said Harriet, ‘but the body’s right down near low-water mark, and if I can’t get somebody along pretty quick the tide may wash him away. In fact, it’s probably done so already. Good lord! It’s — almost four o’clock.’
‘The tide? Oh, yes. Yes, I. suppose it would. If — he brightened up with a new thought—‘if it’s coming in. But it might be going out, you know, mightn’t it?’
‘It might, but it isn’t,’ said Harriet, grimly. ‘It’s been coming in since two o’clock. Haven’t you noticed?’
‘Well, no, I can’t say I have. I’m shortsighted. And I don’t know much about it. I live in London, you see. I’m afraid I can’t quite see what I can do about it. ‘There don’t seem to be any police about here, do there?’
He gazed round about, as though he expected to sight a constable on point-duty in the middle-distance.
‘Have you passed any cottages lately?’ asked Harriet.
‘Cottages? Oh, yes — yes, I believe I did see some cottages a little way back. Oh, yes, I’m sure I did. You’ll find somebody there.’
‘I’ll try there, then. And if you meet anybody would you mind telling them about it. A man on the beach with his throat cut.’
‘His throat?’
‘Yes. Near some rocks they call the Grinders.’ ‘Who cut his throat?’
‘How should I know? I should think he probably did it himself.’
‘Yes — oh, naturally. Yes. Otherwise it would be murder, wouldn’t it?’
‘Well, it may he murder, of course.’ The hiker clutched his staff nervously. ‘Oh! I shouldn’t think so, should you?’
‘You never know,’ said Harriet, exasperated. ‘If I were you, I’d be getting along quickly. The murderer may be somewhere about, you know.’