‘You said she sneaked back. Why would she need to do that? She could have told Adrian and Miranda that she had changed her plans. She wasn’t scared of them, was she?’
‘No, but it was ungrateful to push off with somebody else when they’d brought her here with them. She may have felt delicate about leaving.’
‘That doesn’t sound like her. I shouldn’t think she ever considered anybody but herself. If it had been known she was leaving, there would have been no need for you to go, would there?’
‘Oh, Morag! Of course I had to go. You, of all people, ought to realise that! You do realise it! You’ve admitted as much.’
‘Bygones have to be bygones, Colin.’
‘Oh, God! Don’t I know it! Well, I had better push off.’
‘No, do stay for a cup of tea. I’ll get it at once.’ She went out to the kitchen. Palgrave walked over to the window and gazed out over the marshes. It seemed to him that an age had passed since he had seen them first. He was still standing there when Morag came in with the tea-tray.
‘A penny for them!’ she said gaily as she set the tray down. Palgrave turned a startled face to her.
‘Good Lord! Don’t say that!’ he said.
‘Why ever not? Oh, I see! She said that to you at some time or another. I’m sorry, Colin. How was I to know? Were you a little bit fond of her?’
‘No, I was not! She was a thundering little nuisance. She latched on to me the minute she saw me.’
‘Poor old Colin! Milk and two lumps is it? – or have you gone in for slimming? I tried it once, but I only got depressed and I didn’t seem to lose any weight whatever. Colin, what’s the matter? Is it just the girl’s death, or is something else bothering you?’
‘There’s nothing, honestly, except that, as I told you, I had a visit from the police.’
‘When?’
‘Yesterday, at my hotel. They seemed to think I was hiding something.’
‘And were you?’
‘For goodness’ sake stop barking up the wrong tree!’
‘It almost looks as though they are having second thoughts about the verdict at the inquest. Adrian and Miranda are sure there was something wrong about the girl’s death. They say she never would have bathed on an outgoing tide. They are certain of it, as I told you. It’s they who are barking up the wrong tree.’
‘The only thing which was wrong about that death was that it happened at all,’ said Palgrave. ‘If it wasn’t accidental and somebody contrived it, the place to look is into the girl’s past. I don’t want to say anything more against her than I’ve said already, but you know as well as I do that her sort are asking for trouble every minute of their waking lives.’
‘If she was only about twenty years old, she couldn’t have had all that much of a past, though, could she?’
‘Oh, they begin at eleven years old these days. They get away with it for a time, but they’re caught out in the end.’
‘But not necessarily murdered.’
‘Who’s talking about murder?’
‘I thought we were, because that’s what Adrian and Miranda think. I think they’re crazy.’
‘Oh, yes, they’re going much too far. As I say, she met some bloke – probably that day she pinched my car and went off with Adrian to Stack Ferry – and they met again by arrangement, probably more than once—’
‘And bathed together on an outgoing tide? Then why wasn’t the man drowned as well as the girl?’
‘That’s quite an easy one. It may have been a mere matter of muscle. I bathed on an outgoing tide once, as I told you, and got back all right. It was a fight, but I managed it and so, we may assume, did he. Or he may have stayed in shallow water and been in no particular danger. But what’s the use of speculating?’
‘No use at all. Well, if you don’t want any more tea, I’ll get you Adrian’s address and then perhaps you had better go.’
‘Thanks.’ He looked at her helplessly. ‘I – well, yes, I think I had better go.’
Morag laughed. She had always been much tougher than he, he reflected, except when he had hardened his heart and broken their engagement.
PART TWO
Dame Beatrice
CHAPTER 7
DISCREET ENQUIRIES
‘Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.’
Oscar Wilde
« ^ »
‘Well, here is a thing and a very pretty thing,’ said Dame Beatrice to her son who was breakfasting with her. ‘A pity Laura is not here. An accomplished swimmer might be very useful in helping me to deal with this very pretty thing.’ She handed a letter across the table. Sir Ferdinand studied it.
‘A girl drowned by swimming on an outgoing tide?’ he said. ‘The writer thinks it unlikely that she would have done such a thing, but I note that he does not say it is impossible. Holidaymakers take these foolish risks, as he admits.’
‘You will be leaving after lunch and Laura will not be back here for another fortnight. I am at leisure and I feel inclined to look into this matter. The writer thinks the drowned girl was involved with a man.’
‘Girls always are involved with a man. It’s what girls and men are created for. What possible interest can this particular case have for you? The writer says that the verdict at the inquest was clear and undisputed.’
‘It seems to me that, although he does not say it in so many words, he suspects that the girl was murdered.’
‘Well, girls on holiday are quite liable to pick up a wrong ’un, I suppose, but drowning fatalities are always a bit tricky. Very difficult to prove anything unless there is definite evidence of foul play.’
‘What are you proposing to do with yourself this morning?’
‘Oh, golf at Brockenhurst, I think. What time lunch?’
‘When you like.’
‘Let’s say one-thirty, then. I’m dining this evening with Radcliffe, so I have plenty of time. I shan’t need to hurry away from here this afternoon.’
When he had left her, Dame Beatrice read Adrian Kirby’s long letter again.
‘We hope it is not too presumptuous of us to ask your help,’ Adrian had written, ‘but our lawyer told us that you were probably the only person who could get to the bottom of this mystery, for mystery it most certainly is. We are convinced, my wife and I, from all that we know of Camilla Hoveton St John, that she had far too much sense of self-preservation and ordinary commonsense, too, to have done anything so foolish as to swim on an outgoing tide on this dangerous part of the coast. We feel that if only we could trace her movements after she and her suitcase left the cottage… ’ There followed several pages of explanation. Dame Beatrice perused them carefully for the third time. Then she went to the telephone, rang Adrian’s number and promised to meet him at his London flat on the following day.
There was no doubt whatever about the warmth of his reply. He was more than grateful, he said, that Dame Beatrice should be willing to interest herself in the matter and that his wife would be delighted to provide her (and anybody she chose to accompany her) with a bed for the night. Dame Beatrice assured him that that would not be necessary, since her chauffeur could easily make the double journey in a day. It was then arranged that Adrian and Miranda would be ready to receive her at any time after two in the afternoon.