‘Well, show them in here,’ I said.
‘Which I have told them to wipe their boots before doing so, sir, the drive being that mucky you would not credit.’
‘They can’t have walked up the drive. They come in cars,’ I said.
‘Which they have walked over to The Lodge and back, as I have seen with my own eyes out of the hall windows, being as how I was polishing the table for the letters when I heard the car drive up.’
The Detective Chief Superintendent was affability itself.
‘Sorry to trouble you again, sir, but there are one or two little matters.’
I invited him and his sergeant to sit down and offered them drinks.
‘Not just at the moment, thank you, sir. We won’t keep you long, but we think you may be able to help us to clear up a point or so.’
‘Glad to do anything I can, of course,’ I said; but I was far from happy. His manner was much too smooth.
‘Thank you, sir. When you first saw the body, did you notice anything unusual about it?’
‘I thought it was altogether unusual, Chief Superintendent. The last thing one expects to find on one’s property is a dead body, let alone one with – with—’ I had a sickening recollection of Miss Minnie’s smashed-up face. At the inquest the medical evidence had given drowning as the cause of death, so the head injuries inflicted after death could only have been the act of a sadistic lunatic, I felt, and I was still trying to fight a queasy feeling in my stomach when he spoke again.
‘There was something on the body, sir, which I thought you might have noticed.’
‘I noticed as little as I could,’ I said. ‘One glance was enough for me. I had a job not to be sick.’
‘Strange you did not notice this, sir. The other gentlemen, Mr Targe and Mr Evans, both noticed it and mentioned it to me before I even asked them about it.’ He took an envelope from his pocket, opened it and drew out a bit of seaweed. It was a piece of the dark red, rather pretty, fernlike kind. Most of our local seaweed was either that brilliant green mossy-looking sort which grows on flat rocks which are covered at high tide, or else the glutinous long strands with little dark-brown bladders on them – horrible, slimy stuff, I always thought it. I had seen a few bits of the kind he showed me, but it was not all that common in our bay.
‘Well, I may have seen it unconsciously,’ I said, ‘but I was too horrified to notice any details that I can remember.’
‘I see, sir. I believe you were the manager of a swimming pool before you went over to Paris.’
‘That’s right, yes.’
‘You must have been pleased when you found you had a natural bathing-place at the bottom of your lawn.’
‘Yes, of course, but one hardly uses it at this time of year.’
‘Not even an experienced swimmer such as yourself?’
‘I’m not keen enough to want to catch pneumonia.’
His questions, no doubt, would have alarmed a guilty man even more than they alarmed me, but they made me very uneasy.
‘Do you never go swimming in the winter, sir?’
‘Yes, in an indoor swimming pool where they warm the water, and there is nothing of the sort in these parts.’
‘But you never swim in the open sea?’
‘Not in the winter, no.’
‘You attended the inquest on the body?’
‘Of course. Besides, I was one of the witnesses.’
‘Quite so. There was one item of information which we asked the coroner not to mention. You will recollect that the medical evidence was of death by drowning.’
‘Well?’
‘Well, sir, haven’t you something you would like to tell me about that?’
‘There is nothing I can tell you about it. We thought she had attempted to drown herself, thought better of it, got as far as her bed and then collapsed.’
‘And the state of her head, sir? How do you account for that?’
‘I don’t have to account for it. I suppose a burglar broke in and hit her in case she wasn’t quite dead. It doesn’t sound likely, but it’s the only conclusion we could reach.’
‘You used to swim in your little cove in the summer, of course?’
‘Oh, yes, frequently, but the water was warm in the summer.’
‘Did any of your tenants do the same?’
‘They may have done. The bathing here is free. I don’t keep track of everything my tenants do.’
‘Did you ever know Miss Minnie to do anything of the sort? – to go bathing in the sea?’
‘I knew almost nothing about her. In any case, the answer to that is the same as I have given you in connection with the other tenants. I had neither the time nor the inclination to keep tabs on their activities.’
‘Your housekeeper has mentioned some obnoxious letters which came for you.’
‘Not only for me. She herself had a couple and so did two of my tenants, two girls. There may have been others.’
‘Two girls? Who would they be, sir?’
‘A Miss Kennett and a Miss Barnes. They moved out a few weeks ago. I think the letters were the cause of their leaving.’
‘Can you give me their present address, sir?’
‘Sorry, but no. They didn’t tell us where they were going to live. No doubt the Post Office would have an address for forwarding letters.’
‘No doubt, sir. About the window-fastenings: you said, I think, that they were only a precautionary measure.’
‘That’s right.’
‘But not entirely true, sir. I understood that you suspected the deceased of breaking into the house at night and prowling about in the other tenants’ rooms.’
‘I think that was other people’s idea, not mine. I saw nobody prowling around, but I had the fastenings put on as a precautionary measure, just as I said.’
‘Quite so, sir. You will forgive a very personal question, I hope? How did you come into possession of this property and the money to repair and convert it?’
‘I told you that, the last time you were here. I was left the money and the estate by a Mrs Dupont-Jacobson who entertained the remarkable theory that I had saved her from drowning.’
‘In the sea, sir?’
‘Yes, off Funchal, Madeira.’
‘We know that the deceased claimed to be Mrs Dupont-Jacobson’s next of kin. Are you sure she proposed to contest the will?’
‘So I was informed. I was never approached personally in the matter.’
‘But you were sufficiently impressed by what you had heard to go to your solicitors about it.’
‘Merely another precautionary measure, Chief Superintendent. I was assured that there was no substance in the claim.’
‘That must have gratified you, sir.’
‘Not particularly. If the claim had been a valid one, the time to have made it was when the will was proved, not more than two years afterwards.’
‘Two years, sir?’
‘More than. Nearer three. I was a year in Paris while the renovations and some structural alterations were carried out, and my tenants, as I told you, have been in residence since May twelvemonth.’
‘Thank you for your help, sir. I wonder whether you can place a room at the disposal of my sergeant and myself?’
‘Do you mean you want an interview room? I thought you saw everybody on your first visit.’
‘Mr Evans and Mr Targe, who were with you when you broke into the bungalow, may be able to help us.’
‘Well, I expect my housekeeper will be prepared to give up her office to you for an hour or so.’
He and the sergeant remained for the rest of the morning. When they had gone, little Shard came to see me. The tenants wanted another mass meeting. Evans was to take the chair and they hoped very much that Niobe and I would be present.