‘Couldn’t get into your things. Can’t get into this jacket, for a start.’
‘Have the sweater, then. That will stretch.’ He peeled it off and they made the exchange. ‘I say, what was it all about?’
‘Vigilantes.’
‘Why, what have you been doing?’
‘Nothing. They must think I’m an informer.’
‘Did they really mean you to drown?’
‘Shouldn’t think so. Just a warning, I reckon.’
‘But what could you inform about?’
‘That’s telling, isn’t it? Look, they’ll be back to untie me before the tide’s much higher. Let’s go, while the going’s good.’
‘By the way,’ said Sebastian, ‘is the farmer home again yet? I should like to meet him and his wife.’
‘All in good time,’ said Ransome. ‘He’s there, but Lucy still isn’t back.’
chapter thirteen
Unsatisfactory Verdict
‘Ah! woe is me, woe, woe is me,
Alack and well-a-day!
For pity, sir, find out that bee
Which bore my love away.’
Robert Herrick
« ^ »
Margaret heard her brother come in. She opened her bedroom door, crossed the tiny sitting-room and tapped. Sebastian opened his door.
‘Why aren’t you asleep?’ he asked.
‘You made such a row getting in.’
‘You must have been wide awake to hear me.’ She had entered the room and seated herself on the bed, so Sebastian went on: ‘Out of it. I want to get some sleep.’
‘Did you have any fun?’
‘Lots. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.’
‘Tell me a little bit now.’
‘Couldn’t. It can’t be told in bits. Hop it into your bed and leave me mine.’
‘Where’s your sweater?’ asked Margaret, as he removed his jacket.
‘On Ransome. Now get out of my room or I won’t tell you a thing, either now or in the morning.’
‘It’s the morning now.’
‘I know. I shan’t be in time for breakfast if I don’t get some sleep. Also my trouser-legs are wet, my fingers are sore with undoing a knotted rope and I’m so cold I shall get pneumonia if you don’t get off my bed and let me get into it.’ He began to take off his trousers. Margaret accepted the ultimatum and went back to her own room. She had to wake him in the morning to get him up in time for breakfast.
‘Not a question, I promise you, not one,’ she said, ‘until we’ve got to the toast and marmalade.’
‘And not then, not at the table with those two damned bird-men listening-in with their ears flapping. What I have to disclose is first for you and then for Laura.’
‘Are you hoping she’ll pass it on to Dame Beatrice?’
‘That is the thought at the back of my tiny mind. Go along to the dining-room and give our usual order. I’ll be there by the time they’ve put it on the table.’
‘I say, did you know,’ said one of the men who had been allotted to the Lovelaines’ table, ‘that there’s a nudist colony on the island? Somebody saw them last night.’
Sebastian, who had just taken his seat, looked coldly at the questioner and replied:
‘No doubt there are a number of other harmless, unnecessary objects on the island. If nudists excite you, you’re welcome to them.’
‘Thanks for nothing,’ said the ornithologist sourly, turning away from Sebastian in a pointed manner.
‘You needn’t go out of your way to crush the poor things. They’re harmless and unnecessary, too,’ protested Margaret, when the bird-watchers had finished their breakfasts and had left the table. ‘Do you know about the nudists, then?’
‘There aren’t any. Shut up until we’re out of this dining-room. Nudists, in one sense, come into my story, but I can’t tell you about it here.’
Meanwhile Marius, having telephoned his wife as soon as he reached the mainland, booked a room at an hotel and prepared himself for what he felt would be the ordeal of attending the inquest on his sister. Of Miss Crimp he had seen nothing once he had left the island. He imagined that she intended to cross by Dimbleton’s boat and that, as soon as the inquest was over, she would return immediately by the same means so as to be absent (from what he supposed she now regarded as her own hotel) for as short a period as possible. He himself, he had informed Clothilde on the telephone, would return home as soon as the inquest was over, unless there seemed to be any reason for going back to Great Skua and his children.
Fortunately for those who had to come over from the island to attend it, the inquest was held in the port to which the island steamer put in. When the proceedings opened, Marius found himself seated next to Miss Crimp, who had travelled by the means he had envisaged and who had Dimbleton on the other side of her, for the boatman himself had been called to attend the inquest in his capacity as one of the retrievers of the corpse.
The proceedings opened formally and Miss Crimp gave evidence of the identity of the body. She was followed by Marius, who, as next of kin to the deceased (nobody had mentioned Ransome), confirmed what Miss Crimp had declared.
‘Were two witnesses necessary?’ asked the coroner, looking at the inspector of police who was in court. The inspector replied that, as the next of kin had been out of touch with the deceased for twenty years, it had been thought better to have his evidence of identification substantiated by a witness who had been closely associated with the deceased for the past two years.
‘But she didn’t confirm him; he corroborated her,’ said the coroner testily. ‘Oh, well, no matter, no matter. We may need to question both witnesses further, a little later on.’ He called for the medical evidence. This was supplied by the police surgeon. The deceased had met her death as the result of having received a fatal blow on the head. He went into details. There were also a number of contusions on the body and some broken ribs, the witness stated, but these had been sustained after death. It was the head-wound which had done, all the damage.
‘But I thought the body was found in the sea,’ objected the coroner, who had been given this fact before the inquest opened. The police surgeon replied that all the circumstances of death had been fully investigated at the autopsy and that he was able to state with certainty that, although the body had been found in the sea, death was not due to drowning. The coroner, apparently feeling that the jury had had enough of clinical detail, said, ‘Very well, very well. We had better hear from those who found the body.’
Dimbleton took his place in the witness box and, in answer to a question when he had taken the oath, stated that he had not been alone in the rescue boat, but had been told by the police that, as the owner of the craft which had brought the body ashore, he was competent to speak for himself and the rest of the crew.
‘So what do you think happened?’ asked the coroner, dropping his former testy manner and speaking as man to man.
‘My thought, sir, is as the poor lady must have been blowed off the cliff-top,’ said Dimbleton stolidly.
‘Blown off the cliff-top? Incredible!’
‘Oh, no, sir, not if you know the force of the wind on Great Skua. It’s no uncommon matter for cows to be blowed off into the sea, and a cow would weigh a lot heavier than the poor lady, I wouldn’t doubt.’
The police surgeon was recalled.
‘Could the fatal injury you have described have been caused by an accidental fall from the cliffs?’
‘Well, yes, it could have been. On the other hand—’
‘You say it could have been. Is there any evidence to show that it wasn’t?’