‘Take advantage nothing, madam,’ said George sturdily as Dame Beatrice opened the suitcase. ‘He would never have got a pound for flogging any stuff that’s in here, and the case itself is only one of those cardboard type things, and battered about, at that.’
‘Mr Kirby, in his letter, said that the girl would have been wearing jeans and a sweater. I notice the jeans, but the sweater appears to be missing.’
‘I fancy that old scoundrel was wearing it, madam.’
‘That would explain its absence from the suitcase, except that I do not believe it was put into the suitcase until after the girl’s death. Well, loth as I am to inform on the Old Mole, the police will have to be told. They are still looking for the suitcase.’
‘If I may ask, madam, how did you know this man had it?’
‘I did not know he had it. From what we were told by Mr Sleach, I guessed he might have collected the drowned girl’s outer garments which she would have shed before she entered the water, but finding the suitcase went far beyond my expectations, and the place in which it was found goes a long way towards proving Mr Kirby’s conviction that the girl was murdered. No girl in her senses would carry a suitcase across the marshes for the pleasure of carrying it back again when she had had her bathe.’
‘Not even if she did not intend to return to her friends, madam?’
‘I think not. There are plenty of places near the road where she could have hidden it, not to speak of the boot of a car. If she had intended to leave the Kirbys, she would not have gone off alone. From what I have been told about her, a man would have been involved.’
‘He might have been her murderer, don’t you think, madam?’
‘I think that whoever took that suitcase down to the sand-dunes and buried it so shallowly was pressed for time and is almost certainly the murderer. I also believe that the girl herself had no idea that the suitcase had ever left the cottage.’
The county police were sceptical, but not completely unimpressed.
‘We’ll look into it, Dame Beatrice, of course,’ said the Inspector. ‘The man who found the suitcase ought to have turned it in, and he must have known he ought. We’ve got that much to go on.’
‘I trust no charges will be pressed. I have committed myself, I fear, to a promise that there will be no repercussions.’
‘Mr Kirby or his wife will have to identify the suitcase and its contents, but so far as the finder is concerned, I daresay a warning that findings are not keepings will be sufficient to impress him. We know all about him and he’s never been in trouble. You say he gave up the suitcase without any bother?’
‘Oh, yes. I think it might be interesting to find out exactly where it was buried.’
‘And, if it was buried, how he came upon it – unless, of course, he knew exactly where to look.’
‘You mean he may have witnessed its interment? Most unlikely, I would have thought. More probably, the strong winds blew the loose sand away and uncovered it.’
‘We’ll find out, I dare say. Anyway, thank you for your information, Dame Beatrice. I’ll have a little talk with the chap and get the suitcase identified, and then we’ll see, but, unless he murdered the girl and then pinched the suitcase, I don’t think the verdict at the inquest will be easily upset.’
‘You really think that a girl intent upon a moonlight bathe would have carried all her belongings across the marshes?’
‘You never know what ideas girls get in their heads, madam, especially runaways.’
‘You do realise, Inspector, don’t you? – that, except for this very dubious business of the suitcase, there is no evidence that the poor child ever intended to leave her friends at all.’
‘That, Dame Beatrice, amounts to the serious implication that if Miss Hoveton St John didn’t remove the suitcase from the holiday cottage, one of its other inmates did. Can you substantiate that?’
‘My statement does not necessarily implicate the other tenants, but I admit it does seem rather far-fetched to suppose that anybody else entered the cottage, packed the suitcase, enticed the girl into the sea and drowned her.’
‘So you do think one of her friends did it!’
‘Unless the verdict at the inquest was the correct one, I hardly know what else to think.’
‘The verdict at the inquest mostly likely was the correct one, but we shall keep an eye on things and if you get hold of any more evidence, I’m sure you’ll let us know. Meanwhile, we’ll put the breeze up that mumping old vagabond and also put out a few feelers elsewhere. We know your reputation, madam, and a hint from you is worth thinking over. Did any of them stand to gain anything by the girl’s death, I wonder? A pity they’re not still here, but there! When there’s trouble round here it’s the visitors who cause it. We shall have to get some co-operation from the London end. I took Mr Kirby’s London address when I spoke to him before the inquest and I daresay he knows where the rest of his party can be found. They are all Londoners, I believe.’
Dame Beatrice had had her interview at the police station in Stack Ferry on the day following the discovery of the suitcase. Back at The Stadholder she decided to pay another visit to the Hamiltons on the following day. Mrs Hamilton herself answered the door and invited her in.
‘I must not stay. I am on my way to lunch,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but there is a question I would like to ask you, if I may.’
‘Do come in and ask it. I am quite alone in the house. It’s the maid’s day off, and my husband and son have gone out in the yacht. You’ll take a glass of sherry?’
‘If you are alone, why don’t we both lunch at my hotel? My car is outside and my man can bring you back at any time which suits you.’
‘That would be very nice. I’ll just go up and change and leave a note for my husband in case they get back early. What is your question?’
‘You may think it a strange one, but I have a good reason for asking it. As woman to woman, what did you think of that young Camilla Hoveton St John?’
‘I have a superstition about speaking ill of the dead.’
‘I feel you have answered me.’
‘Well, to tell you the truth, Dame Beatrice, I thought she was quite appalling, and I was annoyed and rather worried when my son brought her on board. Fortunately, when we rounded the Point on the return trip, the sea became rather boisterous.’
‘Fortunately?’
‘Yes. We are all good sailors, but the girl was violently sick. Nothing puts a young man off so completely as seeing the admired object in the throes of extreme nausea. The poor girl was quite revolting and I’m ashamed to say that I was glad of it. I did not want my son to continue the acquaintanceship. It was quite unsuitable in every way. He is still at university and very impressionable.’
‘I understand that for a short time they bathed together. Did he comment at all on her prowess as a swimmer?’
‘Yes, he was quite impressed by it.’
‘Did he make any comment when it was known that she had drowned?’
‘He said he could hardly believe it. The girl had told him about a friend of hers, a man, a very powerful swimmer, who had been foolish enough to bathe off Saltacres on an outgoing tide and had experienced great difficulty in getting back to safety. My son said that unless the girl had intended suicide, he did not believe she would ever have taken such a risk. Could it have been suicide, Dame Beatrice?’
‘It is possible, of course. Did you form any opinion as to her state of mind while she was with you?’
‘Her state of mind (except that she was making open overtures to my son) did not concern me. She seemed perfectly happy, so far as I could tell, although, obviously, the presence of my husband and myself rather cramped her style. When we reached the bird sanctuary, which was our objective, she soon detached my son from us, and they wandered off, as you know, to bathe.’