‘If you think I’ve brought you out to go rabbiting, you’ve got another think coming. Anyway, that isn’t a rabbit hole, fathead!’ Bryony put a lead on the dog’s collar and hauled him away. Beyond the trees the bank was in full sunshine. Bryony looped the lead over a bush and wondered what Anubis had found. She rolled up her sleeve and reached into the hole. In it she unearthed a sharp, heavy piece of stone. The pointed end of it was stained as though with rust. Bryony, whose fingers could reach where the dog’s muzzle could not go, had soon prised the stone out of its resting place. She inspected it closely. Then she spat on it and rubbed the damp little patch with her handkerchief. The coagulated blood yielded a dirty reddish stain.
‘Oh, Lord!’ said Bryony under her breath. ‘That’s torn the verdict at the inquest, my God it has!’ She carried the stone over to the river, waded in (thankful that she was wearing Wellingtons) and dropped it into the water in midstream. Then, as an extra precaution, she picked it up again and pushed it point downwards between two large boulders before she waded ashore.
She was only just in time. Voices could be heard and, putting Amon also in leash, she strode off along the riverside track towards the rustic bridge and the pub.
‘You’ve been a long time. We’re starving,’ said Susan.
‘Luckily it’s only cold ham, new potatoes and peas,’ said Morpeth, ‘and we can steam up the veg. Where on earth have you been?’
‘She got lost on the moor,’ said Susan, ‘or else she stopped at the Whortleberry in Clapbridge and had a couple.’
‘Well, as a matter of fact, I did just that. The bar was crowded with holidaymakers, so it took ages for me to get served and then people were interested in the hounds and that delayed me. One has to be civil.’
‘I thought they didn’t have dogs in the bar at the Whortleberry.’
‘Oh, the hounds weren’t taken inside. I carried my drinks to the only table out of doors where there was a vacant seat, and the other people there made a terrific fuss of the dogs and fed them snacks. I don’t know how I ever got them away. They drooled and dribbled and made friends with everybody.’
‘That was a change for them, then,’ said Susan sceptically. ‘They don’t usually take any too quickly to strangers.’
‘It was the food, of course. Chicken sandwiches, bits of liver sausage, cake, biscuits — you name it, they had it.’
‘Then they’ll probably keep us up all night. We’ll be lucky if we don’t have to call in the vet.’
‘Oh, Susan! A bit of a treat now and again doesn’t hurt them. We hardly spoil them here, do we? Besides, I am sure they digested it all on the long walk home,’ said Morpeth.
‘If you went across the moor as far as the Whortleberry, it certainly was a long walk home,’ said Susan.
Her tone was dry and Morpeth looked at her in some perplexity. Bryony, hoping that her flushed cheeks did not betray that she had been lying, seated herself at the dining-table and demanded to be fed. When Susan had gone home to her cottage in Abbots Bay after supper that night and the dishes had been cleared away and washed up, Morpeth said, ‘What’s up? What really happened while you were out this morning? You didn’t really go to the Whortleberry, did you?’
‘Well, no, but nothing happened, nothing at all.’
‘You might as well tell me. I shan’t give you any peace until you do. Anybody could see you were lying when you talked about the hounds and their sandwiches and things.’
But Bryony, as she began to explain, had not been lying about the sandwiches and other treats which the hounds had enjoyed. The only lie she had told was that these treats had not been given at the Whortleberry inn on the moor, but at the hotel beyond Watersmeet.
Morpeth was silent for a minute when this was made plain. Then she said, ‘So you took Amon and Anubis to Watersmeet. Why? We never take the hounds along the river. Too many summer visitors and boys throwing stones.’
Bryony found difficulty in explaining what had caused her to take the riverside path, since she knew that it had been her own curiosity, after she had heard the verdict at the inquest, which had given her the incentive to go and study the spot where the body had been found. She was torn between an urgent desire to share the news about the blood-stained stone and a fear that she had done a very wrong thing in trying to hide the evidence of what must have been a vicious attack on somebody. She had tried to convince herself that it was unlikely that the stone had had any connection with the death of the so-far unidentified victim, but there could be little doubt that somebody had pushed the stone into the hole in the bank. The only obvious reason for such an action could have been the intention to hide it.
It was not often that Morpeth was in command of any situation which arose between herself and her elder sister. She pressed home her advantage.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We don’t have secrets from one another. You went to Watersmeet, goodness knows why, and something happened there, didn’t it?’
‘Nothing happened, I tell you. Stop badgering me. Why shouldn’t I go to Watersmeet? Of course I was interested in seeing the place.’
‘It’s days since Susan found that dead man. If you are morbid enough to visit the spot marked with an X, why have you waited until now?’
‘I don’t know why.’
‘You didn’t run into Ozymandias, did you?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘I was scared of him. He’s quite definitely mad.’
‘I didn’t meet him, I tell you. I didn’t meet anybody until I got to the hotel.’
‘What did happen, then? Tell me.’
‘I had better not. The fewer people who know, the better.’
‘We have never kept secrets from one another. I’ve said so. Anyway, I was always better at keeping them than you were.’
‘Because you’re an introvert and I’m an extrovert, that’s why. Introverts are always secretive. You shouldn’t be proud of the fact.’
‘Be that as it may, you know you can trust me.’
Because of her need to confide in somebody, Bryony gave in.
‘Morpeth,’ she said, ‘I think I found the stone which killed that man Susan found in the river. At least, I myself didn’t find it. One of the hounds did.’
‘But where? You couldn’t know that’s what it was if you found it in the river.’
‘I didn’t find it in the river. I only put it there after I had winkled it out of a hole in the bank.’
‘What bank?’
Having committed herself thus far, Bryony came out with the whole story. She concluded it by saying, ‘Well, I hauled Anubis away from the hole and found this stone with the rusty stains. I didn’t see how rust could get on to a stone, so I wetted it and rubbed it with my handkerchief. It came off a dirty red colour. Oh, Morpeth, I’m sure it was blood.’
‘Well, you had better tell the police. They can make tests. It probably wasn’t blood at all. We know the man had a head wound. You simply put two and two together. Anybody else would have done the same. Not to worry. If you planted the stone in the river, it’s probably washed clean by this time. The river was tumbling down quite fast, I suppose. All the same, you may find it a bit embarrassing when you tell the police what you did. I can see why you feel troubled.’
‘I have no intention of telling them anything. Neither must you.’
‘But if you think that man was attacked — ’
‘Look, there are three reasons for keeping our mouths shut. First, I might be in dead trouble for destroying evidence of a crime. Second, the last thing we want is to upset the fortunate verdict at the inquest.’
‘Fortunate?’
‘Of course. Any moderately intelligent person would see that there was something distinctly odd, to say the least, about that piece of cloth being cut — cut, not torn — out of the trousers.’