“It would be interesting, particularly to me, to find out whether the lethal dagger was really intended for Bourton, or whether Rinkley thought that I was to be his understudy.”
“I do not believe we shall know that, unless evidence is forthcoming which at present we do not possess. We may know more when the identity of this dead youth is disclosed. I wonder where the body was put into the water.”
“Goodness knows. I’ve done very little sailing since I came down here, although Simon introduced me to the secretary of the yacht club and told him that I might be using Simon’s boat. I was warned that these almost inland waters are tricky.”
“Because of the sandbanks?”
“Not those so much. The trouble is that in the bay storms are apt to blow up with great suddenness. I made up my mind there and then that I would never risk taking Rosamund and Edmund out in the boat. You can’t take chances with other people’s children. Deb and I had an example once of what the elements can do in these parts. It was really quite freakish. We set off in lovely sunny weather with the water looking like a lake, hardly a movement on the surface at all, so we put off from the yacht club’s little pier and sailed to Castle Island, that’s the largest of the three. Suddenly over those hills beyond the north shore of the island black clouds loomed and blotted out the sun, and the breeze which had been carrying us changed to half a gale. Then the water got up and did its best to swamp us. I was jolly glad to get back, I can tell you. I suppose the trouble is that there is only that one exit to the open sea from the bay; that’s where the ferry runs between those two points and it’s only about a quarter of a mile across.”
“Could the body have been put into the water more or less where it was found? Suppose it was put in at high tide, could not the ebb, in such shallow water, have left it stranded?”
“Possibly. The only thing is that I don’t believe anybody would have risked being seen dumping it. After all, a body is a pretty conspicuous object and, I would think, unmistakable for anything else. Have you been along there?”
“Yes. I realise what a busy road it is which connects with the ferry, but surely that is only while the ferry is working.”
“No, it’s pretty busy until after midnight. You will have noticed that, all the way along, the road is bordered by bungalows, houses and two big hotels. It’s very well-lighted and people who have been to entertainments in the nearby seaside resort come home at all hours. Anybody messing about on the foreshore would be spotted, even by the occupants of a fast car. My bet is that the body was chucked overboard from a boat off the south side of Castle Island for it to fetch up where it did.”
“You think the death-wound was struck while the youth was on board a yacht?”
“The police have examined all the local boats for bloodstains, of course, but there are visiting yachts in and out of the harbour all the time at this season of the year. Anyway, it’s likelier, I think, that death occurred on land and the boy was dead when he was taken aboard.”
“A risky proceeding, surely?”
“Murder is a risky proceeding. It must have happened on the island itself, I should think. People don’t land there as a general rule, but I can visualise a picnic party, a sudden flare-up, then panic as to what to do with the body. The murderer can’t have known much about these waters, or he would have realised what would happen. He must have thought that the ebb would carry the body across the track of the ferry and out into the open sea.”
“So where did the calculations go wrong?”
“The body ought to have been dumped off the opposite side of the island. Then it would have been caught up in the ebb current they call the Fishermen’s Race and that would have taken it right away into the Channel. I was yarning with the secretary of the yacht club and this was his idea. It was he who told me that the police had inspected all the boats for bloodstains. I’ve got a map upstairs. I’ll get it and show you what he means about the island.”
He went off to find the map. Left alone, for Deborah was in the kitchen talking to the cook, Dame Beatrice went to the window and gazed out at the vast expanse of shallow, innocent-looking water which formed the bay, and at its flotilla of small yachts and cruisers. When Jonathan returned with a map of the area, he spread it out on the newly-cleared breakfast table and said,
“The charts are on Simon’s yacht, but this will serve us. Nash, the secretary of the yacht club, has told me about the vagaries of these waters. From what he told me, I reckon that a body which was put into the sea here, on the north side of the island, would stand two chances. Either it would fetch up on the strand, as this body did, or it would get caught up at low tide on one of the sandbanks. On the other hand, if it was chucked in at full tide on the other side of the island, it would get pulled along by the Fishermen’s Race as soon as the tide turned, and be carried across the track of the ferry and, with any luck, out into the English Channel and possibly right across to the Isle of Wight.”
“I see what you mean,” said Dame Beatrice, “but wouldn’t all this be common knowledge?”
“Yes, of course all the local yachtsmen would know how the tides run. My idea is that the boy and his murderer are both strangers to the district, and Nash agrees with me.”
“And my idea is that no boat was involved, but that the murderer planted the body where it was found and that there is a connection between the dead boy and the rapier which was purchased from Mrs Wells. Everything has turned out much too pat for there to have been no such connection.”
“But I thought Mrs Wells said the rapier was purchased weeks ago.”
“Yes, but we did not go to visit Mrs Wells weeks ago.”
“You think the visit gave somebody a fright and he hurried up and killed the kid he had sent into the shop to buy the rapier for him?”
“It could well be so, except that I am surprised the boy was allowed to live so long. As you point out, Mrs Wells sold the rapier weeks ago. Her records were very clear, and there had been several sales noted down in her ledger since she sold the weapon in question.”
“Do you really think there is anything in your arsenic theory?”
“I think the analyst will take precautionary measures on the strength of the shaven head and the evidence of the extremely well-clipped finger and toenails, that is all.”
“Of course it’s easy enough to get hold of arsenic,” said Jonathan. “Rather stupid of murderers to use it, because, if poisoning is suspected, arsenic is just about the first thing people think of. You only need a tin of weedkiller or insecticide in the garden shed to become an immediate suspect. It used to be in flypapers and the paint on children’s toys, and it’s still in some colours and dyes and in wallpapers. Taxidermists use it and it’s put into sheep-dip—remember the case of that woman who got off because her brute of a husband had an open cut on his hand when he was dipping sheep?—and there is arsenic in rat-poisons and ant-repellants, apart from its proper use in medicine.”
“Let us abandon the subject of arsenic and discuss another one.”
“I’ll get away from arsenic if you wish. To me it’s very strange you should have been so much impressed by the purchase of that rapier. So far, there is nothing whatever to connect the dead boy with our play. The fact that a boy mentioned amateur theatricals to Mrs Wells doesn’t really mean a thing. There are hundreds of amateur dramatic societies up and down the country. Are you sure you haven’t got a bee in your bonnet, aunt, dear?”