‘Well, bad luck, of course, but I hope Adrian will be satisfied. You don’t really believe it was murder, do you?’
‘I am hoping that you will be able to persuade me that it was not.’
‘How do I go about persuading you?’
‘Well, except for the murderer – if there was one – you appear to have been the last person to have seen the girl alive. I understand that you returned to the cottage that night—’
‘Only to change my clothes and pick up my things!’
‘Quite – leaving Miss St John in the sea.’
‘Swimming about as merrily as a young water-beetle, I assure you. The tide certainly hadn’t turned when I left her.’
‘Of course not. I suppose one of the “things” you picked up at the cottage was not Miss St John’s suitcase?’
‘Good Lord, no! – only my own.’
‘You had not already put that in the boot of your car? – before you took the others for an evening drink, I mean.’
‘No, I hadn’t. I only intended to sleep in the car. I was going back to the cottage for breakfast. I thought I could collect my traps then.’
‘But you abandoned that plan. Why, Mr Palgrave?’
Palgrave faced her with hostile, suspicious eyes.
‘Look, what is this?’ he said angrily; but it was the anger of fear, she surmised. ‘You don’t think I had anything to do with that wretched kid’s death, do you?’
‘I am waiting for you to convince me that you had not. Her suitcase has been found, you know.’
‘Well, if she took it out of the cottage, it was bound to turn up sooner or later, I suppose.’
‘It turned up in an unexpected place and under what I consider were very suspicious circumstances.’
‘Oh? How do you mean?’
‘Never mind. I may tell you later. First I must hear your own account of that evening and why you changed your plans about breakfasting at the cottage.’
‘Oh, that’s easily explained. Look here—’ he had abandoned his belligerent attitude and spoke quietly, almost placatingly – ‘please tell me what all this is about, won’t you? Am I being accused of anything?’
‘I am not in a position to accuse anybody. Tell me your story of that night and the following morning.’
‘I suppose,’ said Palgrave, half ruefully, half humorously, ‘you can check what I tell you about myself?’
‘To a certain extent, yes, unless Mrs Kirby and Mr Lowson have been lying to me.’
‘What did they say?’
‘I will fill in the gaps if you leave any.’
‘You’re a hard nut to crack, Dame Beatrice. Does anybody know you are here?’
‘Oh, yes, my son knows, and so does Mr Kirby. I always make certain that more than one person knows where I am when I am employed on Home Office business.’
‘I thought Adrian Kirby was employing you.’
‘I do not accept employment from private persons in cases where there is a suspicion that murder has been committed. Mr Kirby drew my attention to this case, that is all. I could hardly invoke the assistance of the police if—’
‘Oh, the police are still in on this, are they? I was under the impression that they had accepted the verdict given at the inquest, and were going to leave me alone.’
‘The discovery of the suitcase—’
‘Oh, that damned suitcase!’
‘— may have shaken their complacency a little, I fancy. So now, since you are a busy man, let us have your account and then I can be gone and leave you to your writing. How is the book going?’
Palgrave smiled for the first time during the interview. ‘Marvellously!’ he said. ‘Of course I’m finding one or two snags. I suppose every writer does. Apart from that, the thing almost writes itself. I spent months trying to get the right idea, but when it came there was no holding it. Of course I’m only on the first draft and I can see already how I can polish up certain bits, but the main theme is dead right. I know that in my bones. It’s all I can do not to show it around to my friends and have them tell me how damned good it is, but most people shy away from reading a typescript and say they’ll wait until they can get the book from the library.’
‘I am delighted to hear that you are making such good progress with it. You are still on holiday?’
‘Yes. I shall have to slow up when I begin school again, but I shall have the book so well set by then that it won’t matter all that much. Those marshes have been sheer inspiration.’
‘ “Mud, mud, glorious mud, Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood” ’, carolled Dame Beatrice, to her hearer’s astonishment.
‘Yes, well, you wanted to hear how I spent that evening,’ he said. ‘Where do you want me to begin?’
‘Did you dislike Miss St John?’
‘What a question to ask me when you think somebody murdered her!’
‘Well, did you dislike her? And why did you leave the cottage?’
‘Dislike her, no. She wouldn’t have been a bad little bint if only she’d had a bit more sense, but I got sick to death of it when she insisted on pursuing me when I was trying to work out something for my novel. I could have wrung her skinny little neck! All the same, I didn’t drown her.’
‘Plainly and clearly stated.’
‘It’s perfectly true, I assure you. I decided to leave the cottage when I discovered my former fiancée and her husband there. The Kirbys were a bit upset when I said I was leaving, but the situation was too much for me to cope with. All the same, I didn’t just want to walk out on the Kirbys. They had been very kind to me, and Morag didn’t seem to bear me any grudge. Although I’d jilted her she seemed friendly, so I suggested a little farewell party at the pub, all drinks on me.’
‘So where was Miss St John? Did she know what you had planned?’
‘I don’t think we’d seen Camilla all day. Oh, wait a minute, though. I didn’t see her myself, but I think the others must have done. She was at supper with us the night before, I’m certain, and she must have been there at the next breakfast with the others – this was before Morag and Lowson turned up, of course – but I didn’t see her then because I got my own breakfast that morning and had it early and went over to Stack Ferry for the day, and Camilla wasn’t there when I got back in the evening.’
‘And this was before Mr and Mrs Lowson arrived at the cottage? You are sure of that?’
‘Oh, yes. I had the shock of my life when I got back in the evening and found them there.’
‘And Miss St John was not there when you got back? – so you really did not see her all that day? Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Otherwise I would have invited her to go with us to the pub. I didn’t grudge the little limpet a couple of drinks. Of course I did see her later when we had our moonlight dip.’
‘If you did not see her all day, perhaps she had given up pursuing you.’
‘As to that, I’d had a bit of a toss-up with her because the day before (I think it was) she had sneaked off with Adrian in my car, of all the damn’ cheek, and I’d rather told her what I thought of her.’
‘And when your little party at the public house was over?’
‘Ah, we’re coming to the point now, I suppose you think.’
‘Well, I think that what you are about to tell me may prove interesting, if not particularly useful.’
‘You won’t be able to check it, but I’ll tell you the truth.’ Dame Beatrice waited. It seemed that Palgrave was assembling his thoughts, or perhaps his memories, and arranging them in some sort of order. At last she asked: ‘Is the truth so complicated?’
‘Eh? Oh, sorry! I was just thinking. Well, when we left the pub I got into my car to spend the night on the back seat, as I thought, but it was so chilly and downright uncomfortable that I soon had to get out and tramp up and down for a bit to warm up and get the stiffness out of my legs. It was bright moonlight and that’s how I came to spot Camilla coming towards the car.’