‘I am sure you looked the part, George.’
‘I hope so, madam. I went aboard and had a look. They had had an auxiliary engine installed – a wise precaution – otherwise they were under sail. I was soon able to locate the trouble. The fault was a trifling one. All that was needed —’
‘Spare me the mechanical details, George. They will be beyond my comprehension.’
‘Very good, madam. Well, I got the boat under way and the old gentleman took over the controls. The lady had suggested that I accompany them in case her husband got into further difficulties, so away we went.’
‘Excellent, George. And the talk turned, no doubt, to drowning fatalities along that particular coast.’
‘I edged it in that direction, madam, according to your instructions, and remarked that boats were safe enough so long as they were seaworthy, but that I understood swimmers along that part of the coast were in great jeopardy if they did not pay careful attention to the state of the tide.’
‘Splendid! And that, as Mrs Gavin would say, brought home the bacon?’
‘The lady responded most satisfactorily, madam. The gentleman was too much occupied handling the boat to have much time for conversation.’
‘I hope you were not taking undue risks in putting to sea with him, George?’
‘By no means, madam. The old gentleman could handle the boat all right, the same as so many motorists can handle their cars without really knowing much about what goes on underneath the bonnet. We’d caught the tide nicely and the sea was calm. I enjoyed the trip very much, and the bird sanctuary, when we reached it, was very interesting.’
‘And did the auxiliary engine fulfil its obligations?’
‘We only needed it just to move off from the quay and into open water, madam. After that, we had beautiful sailing conditions and the old gentleman handled his craft with expertise, needing little help from either the lady or myself.’
‘And did you learn anything in particular about Miss Hoveton St John when you referred to drowning fatalities?’
‘Yes, indeed, madam, chiefly, as I said, from the lady. Having referred to the treacherous nature of the outgoing tides, I ventured the opinion that the coastguards no doubt kept an eye open for swimmers in difficulties and this led naturally to the latest drowning fatality.’
‘Ah, yes. A subtle approach, George.’
‘Thank you, madam. The lady was acquainted with the people who had taken Miss Hoveton St John sailing with them on the day she came here with Mr Kirby.’
‘Was she, indeed? I suppose she had seen the newspaper photograph of Miss St John and recognised the face.’
‘Exactly, madam. Apparently the people who had picked up Miss St John had moorings adjacent to the boat I was on, and my informant had been favoured with a good view of the young lady.’
‘You speak of “people”, George, and I believe you mentioned a family consisting of father, mother and grown-up son.’
‘That is so, madam.’
‘It does not sound very much like what I have been told about Miss St John. I should have thought a lone yachtsman would have been more to her taste.’
‘My information is that Miss St John met the son in a hotel bar and he conducted her to the yacht where his parents made up a family party.’
‘That must have come as an unwelcome surprise to her, I fancy.’
‘So my informant seemed to think, madam, but, at any rate, off they all went. The name of the yacht is the Juniper Mary, and the people are called Hamilton. The yacht has left Stack Ferry, but has its own permanent moorings at a little staithe not far from Capstan Flow. The lady showed it me on the chart. I could easily find it, if you so desire.’
‘I think I must pay them a visit. We will try your staithe this afternoon. In such lovely weather they may well be enjoying a cruise on their yacht, but I have noticed, George, that people who own boats seem to spend much more time at moorings than they do out at sea or in navigating rivers. I wonder at what time Miss St John was landed after her trip with these Hamiltons?’
‘I asked, madam. The party came back while my informant and her husband were enjoying a cup of tea on board their own vessel, which was at moorings. She estimates that the time would have been around four-thirty and that she heard the young lady say that she must be getting back to her car. That was the last any of them – both boat parties, I mean – knew of her until they read about the drowning and saw the newspaper photograph.’
‘How long will it take us to get to this staithe?’
‘I can do it easily in an hour, madam.’
‘Then have the car ready by two-thirty.’ They were in luck. The only person on board the yacht was a young man whom Dame Beatrice rightly assumed to be Hamilton junior. She took the bull by the horns.
‘Ahoy, there, Juniper Mary!’ she called out in her beautiful voice. The young man, who had been doing something complicated with a coil of rope, straightened himself, smiled and waved his hand.
‘Coming!’ he shouted and leapt down on to the tiny quay. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I believe you made the acquaintance of a young woman named Camilla Hoveton St John a week or so ago, at a town called Stack Ferry, not far from here.’
‘I met – we met – a girl called Camilla, yes. She didn’t favour us with her surname. The poor kid got drowned a few days later. The local paper was full of it, complete with a blown-up photograph and a couple of columns of awful warnings to visitors about the danger of bathing on an outgoing tide. I was damn sorry to hear about it. She was a lively young specimen.’
‘Her friends do not think her death was an accident. Is there anywhere that we can sit and talk?’
‘Come aboard. This begins to sound interesting. Have her friends anything to go on?’
‘Not enough to take to the police, but enough to satisfy themselves that more enquiries should be made. I am authorised to make those enquiries.’
‘Golly! Are you a private eye, then?’
‘You may call me that.’ He assisted her on board, put out a deckchair for her in the cockpit and hoisted himself on to the cabin top where he sat with his long legs dangling and a look of anticipation on his youthful countenance. ‘I undertook the task because I feel her friends may well be right,’ she added.
‘Well, she certainly didn’t strike me as a girl who would easily drown.’
‘What causes you to say that?’
‘Oh, while my parents were looking at bird life and taking photographs, she and I sneaked off and had a swim. She was pretty useful in the water, I thought. Of course, if she was crazy enough to bathe on that outgoing tide the papers talked about, I suppose anything might have happened.’
‘We do not think she bathed on an outgoing tide. She knew all about the risks there are in doing anything so foolish.’
‘I say! Really? But surely that means either suicide or—’
‘Yes, it does, but, of course, we have nothing much to go on, so far, so perhaps—’
‘Oh, I won’t breathe a syllable to a soul!’
‘Why not? The more the suggestion is rumoured that the girl’s death was no accident, the sooner the murderer (if there is one) will have to make a move to cover his tracks.’
‘Oh, you’ve done this sort of sleuthing before, then?’
‘A number of times, yes.’ She produced her official card. ‘You must not think that only Miss Hoveton St John’s friends are interested in the case.’
‘Christmas!’ said the young man, handing back the rectangle of expensive pasteboard. ‘The Home Office, eh? Big stuff, no less. Well, what do you want me to tell you? So far as I was concerned, you see, she was just a girl I picked up—’