‘Yes?’
‘Well, I don’t know how much – I mean, how many details – you’ve been given, but to recap, as they say, Colin didn’t want to stay in the cottage after Cupar and I turned up. It wasn’t just that he didn’t like Miranda’s rearrangement of the sleeping quarters; it was because he had once been engaged to me. He felt it was awkward our both staying in the same house. As for the broken engagement, I didn’t mind in the least. I wouldn’t have been happy if I’d married him. I know that now. Of course, I was hurt and humiliated at the time – any girl would have been – but I soon got over it and then Cupar came along.’
‘A happy solution, I am sure.’
‘Yes, it certainly was. It would never have done for me to have married Colin, particularly now.’
‘You refer, no doubt, to the death of Miss St John.’
‘Well, after Colin bathed with her that night, she was never seen alive again, was she?’
‘We cannot be sure that that is so. Certainly nobody has come forward to say he saw her.’
‘Please tell me something, Dame Beatrice. A woman of your eminence doesn’t interest herself in a matter of this sort unless—’
‘Unless she believes that something more than an accident was involved?’
‘Well, yes. Was she murdered?’
‘I am not the Delphic oracle, my dear.’
‘And, if you were, you would give me one of its double-tongued answers, I suppose.’
‘How well you understand me. Let us take a liqueur with our coffee. I must drink to our better acquaintance.’
‘And then I’m afraid I must go. Cupar will be back and he likes to find me there when he gets in.’ But she did not hurry, Dame Beatrice noticed. They took coffee and brandy in the lounge and their chat became desultory. Dame Beatrice thought that Morag was trying to decide whether to disclose some item of important information or whether either discretion or fear was suggesting that she remain silent on the subject she was turning over in her mind.
At last she appeared to make it up. She spoke abruptly, almost disjointedly, as she asked whether Dame Beatrice had made any enquiries at The Stadholder about Camilla’s missing suitcase.
‘No. I changed my mind,’ Dame Beatrice said. ‘Wherever the suitcase is, it is not in this hotel. I am certain of that.’
‘Well, I don’t believe the girl herself took it out of the cottage. In fact, I know she didn’t.’
Dame Beatrice waited for more, but all Morag asked, before they left the lounge and went out to the car, was not put in a serious tone, but in a light, almost amused one which did not deceive the hearer. The question was intended seriously.
‘Do you believe a murderer always returns to the scene of the crime, Dame Beatrice?’
‘In my experience, a good many murderers cannot leave the scene of the crime without exciting suspicion,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Oh, you’re speaking of domestic murders, family affairs,’ said Morag. She sounded relieved.
‘You began a subject you did not finish.’
‘Did I?’
‘It seemed so to me. How do you know that Miss St John did not take her suitcase when she left the cottage?’
‘Because Cupar saw her leave the cottage while I was still out walking. He says she was carrying nothing but a towel.’
‘That has little or no significance. She probably removed the suitcase from the cottage while the rest of you were at the public house.’
‘I only meant that Cupar actually saw her leave the cottage.’
‘That is a most important statement.’ But Dame Beatrice did not disclose wherein its importance lay, or even whether she believed it.
CHAPTER 9
FURTHER INFORMATION
‘One should never take sides in anything, Mr. Kelvil.’
Oscar Wilde
« ^ »
The next link in the chain came not from the young reporter, but from George. As she sometimes did in cases where her chauffeur’s stolid air of respectability and integrity was of more use in asking questions than her own brains and acumen were likely to be, especially as, at sight of her, nervous or guilty subjects were apt to be on the defensive, she took George into partnership.
‘I think you may have guessed, George, that I have been persuaded to look into the matter of a young woman who was drowned near here a short time ago.’
George, who had been cleaning the car, assumed an attentive attitude and wiped his hands on a piece of clean rag. ‘Indeed, madam?’
‘You have read about it?’
‘The hotel staff, with whom I take my meals, showed me the local paper, madam.’
‘The verdict, as you will know, therefore, was that the girl’s death was accidental.’
‘Due to her own foolishness in bathing at night on an outgoing tide, I understand, madam.’
‘Read this letter.’ She handed him Adrian’s lengthy screed. When he had perused it, she said, ‘You notice the date on which the writer says he accompanied the girl to this place, Stack Ferry? They spent the day here.’
‘But separated almost at once, it seems, madam.’
‘That is the point. He does not know where the girl went or what she did on that day, but he thinks she may have made the acquaintance of some undesirable person who followed her, and subsequently killed her, either accidentally or, as the writer believes, by his wilful act.’
‘It has happened before, madam.’
‘A newspaper reporter has suggested to me that the man whose acquaintance she made here – if, indeed, there was such a man – may have been a yachtsman. Now yachtsmen are a fraternity. They interest themselves in one another’s boats. Will you, with your knowledge of automobile and marine engines, see whether you can find out whether there was a yachtsman involved? This may sound like what Mrs Gavin would call a tall order, but I have to begin my investigation somewhere, and what I have been able to learn from the girl’s holiday companions, including the writer of this letter, has not suggested any particular line which I can follow up.’
‘I shall do my best, madam. These yachtsmen are good natured, open-hearted types, on the whole. It should not be difficult to get into conversation with them.’
Realising that if George talked with yachtsmen he would also have to drink with them, Dame Beatrice did not order the car that afternoon, and it was not until she was taking a mid-morning glass of sherry on the following day that the lounge waiter told her that her man was at the reception desk to ask for orders for the day.
Rightly taking this as an intimation that George had something to tell her, she met him in the hall and they went outside to the hotel courtyard.
‘You’ve found our yachtsman, George?’
‘Yes, but I’m afraid it won’t be helpful, madam. The yacht the young lady was concerned with is a family affair.’
‘Oh, dear!’
‘Yes, madam. There are father, mother and grown-up son. My informant thinks they took the young lady to visit the bird sanctuary out on the Point, and maybe further out to the sandbank they call Seal Island.’
‘How did you come by your information?’
‘The bar where yachtsmen mostly congregate was too full and too noisy for my purpose, madam. I tried it yesterday both midday and evening. This morning I hit upon what I hoped was a better idea. I went down early to the quay and hung about until I got what I had been waiting for.’
‘Ah, yes, and what was that?’
‘An amateur tinkering with a marine engine, madam.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. I should have guessed.’
‘I had to do a bit of guessing myself, madam. I thought they were in some kind of trouble — it was a biggish but old boat and a lady was standing on deck and was seemingly impatient with what was going on. Seeing me standing on the edge of the quay, she told me not to stand there, but to help her husband if there was anything I could do. I was wearing blue trousers, a white shirt and a yachting cap, madam, and I think she took me for one of the fraternity.’