“I’m busy,” said David briefly. “Good night.”
He made his way over to the door, and went out. A couple of minutes later he was back. He came straight over to Henry.
“I say,” he said, diffidently, “I’m terribly sorry to have to ask you, but I wonder if you’d give me a hand with the car. I can’t start her.”
“Of course,” said Henry, “but I’m afraid I’m not much of a mechanic.”
“That’s O.K. I know what has to be done.”
Henry followed David out of The Berry Bush. The moon was up, throwing a pathway of cold light across the river. The two men walked over to the ancient black Riley which stood on the hard.
“Get in,” said David.
Henry obeyed. To his surprise, David climbed in beside him.
“Sorry to drag you out,” said David. His voice was serrated with nervousness. “There’s nothing wrong with the car. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh,” said Henry. “What about?”
David lit a cigarette. His face, illuminated momentarily by the flame, looked haggard and old. “It’s fairly obvious why you’re here,” he said.
“Is it?”
“About Pete.”
“Why should you think that?”
“It was too much to expect that nobody would tumble to it,” said David. “I’ve been expecting you—or somebody like you.”
Henry said nothing. David took a long pull at his cigarette. “I suppose you think it was Colin,” he said.
“I don’t think anything,” said Henry. “I’m here on holiday.”
David did not appear to have heard him. He went on in a low voice. “It’s so damned hard to know what’s the right thing to do. I think I told you, I didn’t like Pete myself. But disliking a man is one thing, and killing him—”
“It’s the first time I’ve heard anybody suggest that he was killed,” said Henry quietly.
“Oh, God,” said David. “Now I suppose I’ve said too much. All right. Forget it. It was an accident.”
“I’m not at all sure that it was,” said Henry, “but I do assure you that this isn’t an official investigation—yet. I really am on holiday. It was only when I heard the whole story of what happened...”
David was staring fixedly straight ahead. “It wasn’t Colin,” he said.
“From the way you say that,” Henry said, “you make me think that you know who it was.”
There was a long silence. “I’ve been nearly mad, wondering what to do,” he said.
Henry said gently, “Anything you tell me now is absolutely unofficial. And whatever standards of loyalty you may have, nothing can justify you in shielding a murderer, you know.”
After another endless pause, David swung round in his seat to look at Henry. “All right,” he said. “I’m not accusing anybody of anything. I just think you ought to know that Hamish rowed ashore to Steep Hill Sands that day in the fog.”
Henry considered this information. “How do you know?” he said.
“Because,” said David, “I was there myself.”
“I think,” said Henry, “that you had better elaborate that a bit.”
David began to speak rapidly, as though the relief of speech were immense. “Anne was sailing with me that day. We saw Pete go aground. When the fog came down, we anchored, just off the sandbank, a couple of hundred yards behind Tideway. Anne and I talked for a long time. Anne was infatuated with Pete. I suppose you knew that. He was a swine. He’d deliberately led her on, made trouble between her and Colin—and then dropped her. Wouldn’t even talk to her. The poor child was nearly frantic. So when she knew he was there on Steep Hill, she got this crazy idea of going ashore to speak to him. I told her she was a fool—that she’d only lose herself in the fog, and that it was a stupid and dangerous thing to do. But when Anne really sets her mind on something...” David broke off, and grinned ruefully. “She talked me round in the end. The tide was out, and the channel was only a few yards wide by then, so I strung all my available warps together, and we rowed ashore, with the dinghy still attached to the boat, so that we could haul ourselves back. I beached the dinghy, and left Anne sitting in it, while I went off on the end of another rope to look for Pete. Frankly, I didn’t think I’d find him. I told Anne that if I found Blue Gull I’d give two tugs on the rope, and she could follow it up.”
David stopped again, and lit another cigarette. His hands were shaking badly.
“Well,” said Henry, “did you find him?”
“I walked about on that bloody sandbank for what felt like hours,” said David. In his nervousness he had developed a slight stutter. “The f-fog was white and damp, and I felt lost and m-miserable. I kept on thinking that Anne might have done something d-damn silly like letting go of the other end of the rope, and then I’d have been in the soup, all right, when the tide came
up. And then, suddenly, I heard v-voices. Close to me. I couldn’t see a thing, but the voices were quite clear.”
“Whose voices?” Henry asked.
“Pete and H-Hamish. They were fighting.”
“Fighting?”
“Arguing, I m-mean. I didn’t stay long to listen. But I heard Pete say, ‘I’ve t-told you before that it’s out of the question. Now for God’s sake get back to your boat and don’t be a b-bloody fool.’ And then Hamish said, ‘The money’s just as much m-mine as yours,’ and Pete said, ‘That’s not true.’ Th-then Hamish said, ‘I’ve got as much damned right to it as you have.’ He sounded furious and s-sort of desperate. I didn’t wait to hear any more. I f-followed the rope back to the dinghy.”
“And what did you tell Anne?”
“I told her I hadn’t been able to locate Pete,” said David. He seemed more self-possessed now, and the stutter had almost disappeared. “I didn’t see any point in telling her about Hamish. Of course, she wanted to go and look for herself, but she was pretty cold and wet by then, and I imagine she realized she was making a c-considerable fool of herself. So we hauled the dinghy back to Pocahontas and went below and brewed coffee.”
“What time was this?” Henry asked.
David considered. “The fog came down about half past nine,” he said. “I suppose it was about a quarter past ten.”
“And when the fog lifted, in the afternoon—what did you see then?”
“We saw Blue Gull, of course,” said David. “She was surrounded by water, but still hard aground. No sign of Pete. We assumed he was below. Actually, the poor sod must have b-been on the sand, on the far side of the hull. If only we’d seen him...”
“You haven’t told anybody else about this? About going ashore, I mean.”
There was the faintest hesitation before David said, “Of course not. I didn’t see any point.” He paused for a moment, and then added, “You said something about shielding a m-murderer. That’s rot. It wasn’t murder.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“Of course not. Hamish must have lost his temper and hit Pete. I’m certain he never meant to kill him.”
“Isn’t it rather strange,” Henry remarked, “to knock somebody senseless and then leave him on a sandbank, knowing that the tide would be coming up?”
David considered. “Perhaps he didn’t know he knocked him out,” he said. “Don’t these things have a delayed reaction sometimes? I mean, suppose Hamish hit Pete, and then p-panicked and made off to his boat, leaving Pete still on his feet, and then Pete c-collapsed and—”
“The boom,” said Henry, “was out of the gallows. Swinging free. And traces of blood and hair were found on it. How do you account for that?”
David was silent. Henry went on. “That was what you meant when you said that somebody was sure to tumble to it. Wasn’t it?” There was another long pause. Then Henry said, “You can’t go back on it now. You’ve accused Hamish Rawnsley of murder.”