‘No,’ replied the witness unwillingly, ‘but I am more inclined to think that it was the result of a blow on the head and that this was delivered and was received before the body entered the water.’
‘Yes, the court accepts your evidence that death was not due to drowning, but, judging by the way you have framed your answer, are we to understand that you refer to a deliberate attack?’
‘Oh, no, you must not infer that. There is nothing in my findings to support such a theory,’ said the police surgeon hastily.
‘Still, the jury will wish to have the matter investigated,’ said the coroner coldly.
He investigated it by recalling in turn Miss Crimp, Marius and the boatman. Summed up, their evidence amounted to (Miss Crimp), a vehement assertion that poor Eliza had no enemies and many, many friends; that (Marius) so far as he knew, his sister was not the kind of person to have given offence to anybody (he did not mention his wife); and that (Dimbleton) Mrs Chayleigh was a nice, goodhearted lady who was at odds with nobody and who was generous with hand-outs at Christmas.
‘Granted,’ said the coroner to Dimbleton, ‘that the deceased was blown off the cliffs, can you suggest whereabouts on the island this tragic accident could have taken place?’
‘Almost anywhere, sir, in a strong enough wind, but being as she was found caught up in the rocks we calls the Fiddlers, I should reckon she went in near enough by the old quarries and got caught in the current—a regular race, that is, sir—as we calls Dead Man’s Day.’
The jury retired and, strongly advised by the coroner, brought in an open verdict. The inspector met the doctor later and remarked that the coroner was an old ass who had rushed the case through because he was going yachting and wanted to catch the tide, but that he (the inspector) did not intend to let the case drop.
‘Glad to hear it,’ said the police surgeon. ‘If the thing ever gets as far as the magistrates, I’ll get a chance, perhaps, to air the opinion which I wasn’t allowed to voice—namely, that it is a great deal more likely that somebody knocked her on the head and threw the body into the sea, than that the wind blew her over the cliff. That’s a tale I really cannot swallow, especially considering the nature of the head-wound. Besides, she’d never have risked being blown off a cliff. She’d lived on the island for years, and she was a middle-aged woman and cautious, I imagine.’
‘I wonder whether anybody stood to gain anything by her death? That’s the first thing which needs looking into,’ said the inspector to the local superintendent when they, in their turn, were discussing the inquest. ‘You know, sir, I wouldn’t trust that partner of hers, that Crimp woman, further than I could see her. She’s a creep.’
‘Then there’s the brother. Hasn’t seen his sister for twenty years, yet suddenly goes to stay at her hotel and, next thing you know, she’s found dead under what could certainly look like suspicious circumstances,’ said the superintendent. ‘What about getting the plain-clothes blokes to look at it? A few discreet enquiries is all it wants.’
‘The doctor doesn’t like that knock on the head, sir, in spite of the fact that he wouldn’t state it was caused deliberately. I reckon he thought there had been foul play, all the same.’
‘Think he’s got anything to go on?’
‘Nothing that looks like evidence, but he’s seen a lot of knocks and bruises in his time and I’d trust his instinct, sir. He doesn’t accept that yarn about her being blown off the cliff any more than I do.’
There was another person, apart from the police and the doctor, who was not satisfied with the verdict. Marius, back at his hotel, telephoned his wife that, after all, he thought he would return to the island, send the children home and take up his residence at the hotel again for a time.
‘I do not know what more I can find out,’ he said, concluding the conversation, ‘but I am not willing to allow matters to remain as they are.’ He rang off, oblivious of a cry from Clothilde of ‘Oh, but, Marius—’ for he knew that his wife would argue against his proposed course of action and turn the telephone call into an expensive battle of personalities which she would probably make acrimonious. He was not a particularly mean man, but he could see no point in paying for a one-sided and probably lengthy dispute from which nobody would gain except the Post Office.
Meanwhile his children had confided in Laura, who, picking out the word vigilantes from Sebastian’s improbable tale, relayed the gist of his account to Dame Beatrice.
‘They’ve told me that this Ransome Lovelaine has the farm cottage with the smallholding,’ she concluded. ‘Don’t you think we should get speech with him? He’ll surely be willing to talk, if these smugglers attempted to drown him.’
‘But he does not think they did try to drown him. He appears to have regarded the incident merely as a warning, and he may accept it as such. That being so, the last thing he is likely to do—’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Is to grass on the smugglers, you mean.’
‘We have no direct information that the men who set about him are smugglers, you know.’
‘Not even with the tip-off we had from Gavin? Come now, Mrs Croc!’ said Laura, using her private name for her saurian employer.
‘Very well, I concede the point, but the time to talk openly to Ransome Lovelaine is not yet. I will go and see him a little later on, so that there will appear to be no obvious connection between my visit and his experiences in the cave, but, even then, smuggling is the last thing I shall mention,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Won’t you even tell Gavin that we may be on to something?’
‘No, but you are at liberty to do so.’
‘May I say you think as I do?’
‘You may say that I have certain suspicions, if you like.’
‘Do you think the witches were all mixed up in it? I mean, they were the ones who blindfolded him and tied his hands behind his back. I can’t help thinking it was all a put-up job. If we could show that the witches are the smugglers — and I told you before that I think they are—’
‘You may be correct, of course, in thinking that.’
‘You mean you think so, too?’
‘I retain an open mind. But where does Eliza Chayleigh come into all this? I shall be interested to hear what happened at the inquest.’
‘We shan’t know, unless it was a verdict of murder and, taking everything into account, I don’t believe that’s likely.’
The verdict was brought to the island by Marius. His children, who were not expecting him back, were not in the hotel when he arrived. However, even although their table-companions, with a few other of the bird-watchers, had left the island, Sebastian and Margaret were not very pleased to see him. All the same, as much out of kindness as out of policy, they decided to disguise their feelings. Miss Crimp, on the contrary, made no attempt to disguise hers.
‘Oh, Mr Lovelaine!’ she had exclaimed in dismay when he presented himself at the reception desk. ‘I quite understood that you had left us! I have let your room.’
‘Then I fear, Miss Crimp, that I must ask you to find me another. I have come to escort my son and daughter home, and that, as you are well aware, cannot be done until the next boat calls.’
‘Well, you know how full the hotel is, Mr Lovelaine. The only thing I can suggest is that we put up a camp bed in the sitting-room of your son’s chalet. That really is the best I can do for you.’
‘Go home?’ said Sebastian, when, on meeting him after his interview with Miss Crimp, he informed them that she proposed to instal him (until the boat called) in their tiny sitting-room. ‘But why? And why have you come back, Father? Not that we aren’t glad to see you, of course, but we thought you had left the island for good and were quite agreeable to our finishing out the month here.’