I was not, however, before any others at the lake. Gathering a great breath, I cupped my hands and shouted at the full strength of my lungs, "Stop where you are! Don't touch him!"
Even over the constant splash of the waterfall my unladylike bellow bounced off the stone walls with sufficient force to startle the would-be rescuers. One of them slipped and fell backwards from the rowboat into the lake, which distracted the others long enough for me to race around the lake's rim and plunge down the closer of the one-time quarry's two access ramps, now a steep hillside heavily overgrown with fern and bramble, and slippery with fallen leaves. I caught my breath at the water's edge and waited for the boat to reach the shore.
Two other men had been picking their way around the precipitous south wall of the lake, and now stood eyeing me disapprovingly.
"Please," I called to them. "You must leave him there until the police have seen him. I know it doesn't seem respectful of the dead, but it's necessary, believe me. And try to walk back in the same place you went over."
I suppose that had it been summer, I might not have been so quick to think of the possibility of what the police blotters call foul play. On a long summer's night I could well imagine the lure this cool, slightly ominous spot might be for a group of young men on their way home from the pub. But in October, and with the awareness of wrongdoing on the moor, it was the first thing that came to mind, and I did not want heavy boots destroying any evidence we might unearth.
The five men gathered around me, one of them dripping wet, none of them showing much inclination to leave. I suggested mildly that the wet one might be better off dry, and thus rid myself of him and an escort, but the three remaining men, one of whom I had seen working around Lew House, planted themselves like trees and looked suspicious.
"Do you know who it is?" I asked them. They did not, only that it was a man, and he was not from around here, both of which facts I had already determined by a brief glance from the quarry rim. (That, and the sure knowledge that it was not Holmes. Not that for a moment I actually thought it was: My mad dash from the house was set off by professional concerns, not wifely imaginings. Truly.) The trousers on those reassuringly short legs had never belonged to a Devonshire working man. "Has anyone gone for the police and a doctor?"
"Don't need doctor for that'n, missus."
"A doctor needs to declare him dead. It's a legal requirement. Did you send for them?"
"Mr Arundell went to fetch'n." Baring-Gould's curate lived in the house overlooking the lake.
"Good. Now, we can't use the boat again in case there are fingerprints on it. Can we find another boat? I'd like to take a look at the body."
They were shocked. "You baint wantin' to be doing that, missus."
"You're quite right, I don't particularly want to, but I think I ought to."
"Thicky be Miz Holmes," the familiar-looking man said to the other two in explanation, and that indeed seemed to explain and excuse all manner of misbehaviour, because they suddenly became cooperative, even eager.
"You feel free to use thicky boat, missus. Baint nobuddy else 'as used'n in weeks. He were dry as an ole bone."
"Well, in that case, good. Now, if you, Mr…?"
We paused for introductions: Andrew Budd was the young gardener, Albert Budd his older cousin, and Davey Pearce the third and eldest, an uncle of some sort. We shook hands gravely, and resumed.
"If Mr Andrew Budd would come and handle the boat for me, and you, Mr Budd the elder, would take up a position on the top of this ramp and stop anyone from coming down, perhaps, Mr Pearce, you could make your way around to the top of the other ramp and stop anyone from interfering on that side. And if you see any footprints, any hoof or tyre marks, any scuffs, give them wide berth. Yes? Good."
It was bitter cold out on the slate-coloured water of the submerged quarry. A layer of mist clung low to the surface of the lake, causing my inadequate clothes to go clammy against my skin, while over our heads the half-bare trees rose up in watchful disapproval, the flares of intense yellow from their remaining leaves the only colours in this tight, closed-in little universe. Budd rowed the short distance over to where the body floated, facedown in the water. A hat, sodden but not yet completely waterlogged, had lodged against a submerged branch ten feet away, and as soon as I saw the thin hair floating like pond weed around the head, I knew who this had been.
My thoughts were echoed in an imperious shout that would have had me in the water beside the corpse had it not been for the strong arm of Andrew Budd.
"Who is it?" The call came from high above, and I turned carefully and saw, to my amazement, Baring-Gould with half a dozen others, perched on the rim looking down. There was a chair in back of him, I saw; he had travelled here by the simple expedient of having himself carried, seat and all, in a makeshift litter.
"It's Randolph Pethering," I called back, and began to shiver. Budd saw it, and began to take off his coat, but I waved him away. "Keep it on, I'll just get it wet. Can you get us a bit closer, please?" We eased up until the prow was touching the antiquarian's sleeve. He was only resting among the floating twigs and leaves against the bank, not lying up on it, and looked to be settling down into the water. Having said we must wait for the police officials to supervise the removal of the body, I was hesitant to interfere, but at the same time I did not wish them to be forced to drag this pit for a sunken corpse, and after all, it was highly unlikely that the constables in charge of recovering the body would pay the slightest attention to the niceties of investigation, anyway. I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth against the reaction of my ribs, and reached down my right hand to take hold of the back of Pethering's jacket. Budd made an inarticulate protest.
"I have to do this," I told him. "He's about to sink in the water. Back us away from the bank a little, please."
When the body was free from the rocks, I rolled him over, taking care not to add any scrapes or marks to those he might already possess, and taking care too not to let go of him lest he disappear into the depths. As I moved him, however, I noted that this did not actually seem an immediate likelihood, which was in itself interesting. Furthermore, his face when it came up to the surface was dark with livor mortis where the blood had slowly settled after death. Pethering had not died in the water, and he had not died in the last few hours.
One side of the thin, pale hair was clotted with a brown bloodstain, and the heels of his sturdy walking boots were heavily scuffed and thick with mud. However, while I was hanging over the edge of the skiff and the body was floating alongside, I could not learn a great deal more. It would have to wait for a methodical examination on dry land, preferably by someone else.
"Can you reach his hat?" I asked Budd, and as I waited for him to manoeuvre to where he could bring the sodden thing onboard, I studied my surroundings. The two steep, overgrown access ramps, on the west and the southeast walls; the stream that Baring-Gould had diverted to fill his father's quarry splashing in from the north, pushing this body down to the south wall along with the other debris; a sad little boathouse, once cheerful; autumnal trees drooping over the water and depositing their leaves; and a crowd now of at least twenty men, women, and children watching with interest this underdressed woman with a corpse on the other end of her arm.
The ramp I had come down, in the south wall, had shown no drag marks; but then again, its top was very near the drive to the curate's house. The western ramp, on the other hand, though actually closer to the house, was more sheltered, and I thought it likely he had been placed in the lake from that ramp. One man could not have tipped him over the edge without a great deal more damage to the body than there seemed to be. Two adults might have swung Pethering and thrown him over, and if so, the launching site would have been precisely where Baring-Gould and the others were standing. I sighed. Little point to objecting, I supposed, but stilclass="underline" "Rector, could you have those people move around to the other side? There could be footprints right there."