“It certainly looks like it,” said Henry. “That was the conclusion Colin came to, anyway, and somebody was sufficiently perturbed about it to kill him before he could investigate. Now, what did you say? High water at eight o’clock next Saturday? That means low water six hours later. Two o’clock in the morning. And a half-moon. Perfect conditions for making a clandestine expedition to Steep Hill. This weekend, high water’s at two, and low water at eight, which means that anybody trying to dig on the sandspit would have to do it in daylight.”
“Mr. Street said,” Proudie remarked, reflectively, “that he knew the how and the why, but not the who. The how is easy enough. Someone knocked Mr. Rawnsley out, and left him to drown. The why—that’s what we’ve just discovered—the buried jewels. Mr. Rawnsley must have disturbed somebody digging up the loot.” He reached for the Almanack again. “Let’s see what the tides were doing that day. May twenty-ninth, it was. Here we are. High water, six fifty-eight A.M.”
“That’s right,” Henry put in. “Alastair said they’d left at seven to catch the ebb tide. So low water was at one.”
“Broad daylight,” said Proudie. “Lunchtime.”
“Now wait a minute,” said Henry. “Don’t let’s go too fast. Remember that this is only Colin’s theory, and even if he was right about the jewels, Pete Rawnsley could have been killed for some quite different reason. Or maybe because of a complicated web of reasons. That’s the first thing to remember. The second thing is the fog. That’s a fact that cuts two ways. You see what I mean?”
“No,” said Proudie. Henry explained.
“Which still leaves us,” said Proudie, “with the question of who?”
Henry took a pen and a notebook out of his pocket and began to write. “There’s a fairly short list of possibles,” he said. “Look at it like this. The person we want has to have certain qualifications. Opportunity to steal the jewels in the first place. Let’s put down both Rawnsleys, Anne Petrie, George Riddle, Herbert Hole, Sam Riddle. I wonder if David Crowther was at that Hunt Ball. Make a note to find out. Then, there’s the question of opportunity to bury them—Herbert, Sam, George and any of the sailing people who had the chance of going out alone. Unless, of course, we’re dealing with a conspiracy.”
“The other day, in my office,” said Proudie, “you came up with a theory about the robbery—”
“I’m afraid I was wrong,” said Henry. “At least, it looks like it. I can check it to a certain extent by one or two questions to a couple of people.” He paused, and considered his notebook. “It would be interesting to find out just what George Riddle was doing that morning,” he went on. “And Herbert turned up unexpectedly in his launch. That’s something that needs investigation.”
“It occurs to me,” said Proudie slowly, “that there’s another way of tackling this. From the other end, as you might say. If somebody has been digging up those jewels, it’s because they got short of cash and wanted to sell some of them. Since none of them has come onto the market in recognisable form, I’m inclined to think that our thief is using a highly skilled professional fence. Which leads us—”
“To Bob Calloway, who’s been making frequent trips
to London recently,” supplied Henry. “I know. I’m prepared to swear that Bob knows a lot more about all this than he’s prepared to say: but now that there’s been a second, rather clumsy murder, he’ll be scared stiff and we won’t get a word out of him. I know Bob of old, Inspector. He just sits tight and refuses to talk—and there’s not a damned thing one can do about it.”
Henry closed his notebook with a snap, and stood up. “Let’s get back,” he said. “There’s work to be done. I’ve wasted a hell of a lot of time already, trying to convince myself that Rawnsley’s death was accidental. Now it’s pretty clear that we’ve got a double murder to investigate. Two trails, one fresh and one stale. And somewhere in the two of them we’re going to find a point of contact, a similarity—”
“Plenty of similarity,” said Proudie, a trifle sourly. “Both victims hit on the head and left to drown. Both interested in Steep Hill Sands. Why don’t we go and dig for the stuff, as a start, sir?”
“No,” said Henry. “I daren’t risk letting the criminal know that we’ve tumbled to the hiding place. Come on, let’s get ashore. This afternoon I want to interview everybody again—in the light of a murder investigation this time. We’ve let things go far enough as it is.”
As they rowed ashore, Proudie spoke only once, to ask, “Do we let on we know it’s murder, sir?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Henry. “But be sure not to give anybody the idea that we’re interested in the sandspit.”
“O.K. by me, sir,” said Proudie. Several minutes later, he added gruffly, “Lovely day.”
It was a lovely day. The tide was full, and the river was a sheet of frosted blue glass, ruffled by tiny wavelets. Once again, Henry experienced a sense of wonder at the subtle intensity of colour. But what had seemed to Henry a week ago to be the essence of calm, uncomplicated beauty, now created an atmosphere at once unspeakably sinister and sad, like the painted face of a corpse in an American mortuary parlour. He was briefly surprised at himself for conceiving such an analogy: he had never been to America let alone into a mortician’s den. Perhaps they weren’t like that at all, in spite of all one read.
“Yes,” said Henry, and Proudie was surprised at the grimness in his voice. “A lovely day for a sail.”
Berrybridge was deserted. Henry found Rosemary and Alastair drinking a sombre pint of beer in The Berry Bush. From them, he learnt that Anne had recovered sufficiently to go off with Hamish for a drive in his car: that David had not yet returned from his lone expedition in Pocahontas: that George Riddle had driven Sir Simon’s Daimler back to Berry Hall, followed by Sir Simon himself in Old George’s taxi, which was to bring Emmy back to Berrybridge. There was no sign of Bob Calloway, and the garage which housed the red Aston Martin was empty. More surprising still, neither Herbert nor Sam Riddle was in The Berry Bush. The only other occupants of the bar were Bill Hawkes and Old Ephraim, who sat facing each other in one of the inglenooks, consuming mild ale in oppressive silence.
Henry took a long drink of beer, and then said quietly, “I’m afraid things are really serious now, and I feel it’s my fault.”
“Oh God,” said Rosemary. She had been crying, and her blue eyes were rimmed with red. “Surely things couldn’t be any worse?”
“Colin was murdered,” said Henry. His voice sounded very weary. “And it’s my fault because I started a hare and didn’t follow it up.”
“Murdered.” Alastair repeated the word in a dull, unwondering way. “Yes, I thought as much.”
“You didn’t!” Rosemary was passionate. “You didn’t, Alastair!”
“I’m not quite such a fool as I look, Henry,” said Alastair, with a small, twisted smile. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? You put the idea into his head that Pete’s death might not have been accidental—and he carried on from there and discovered something important. Then he got drunk last night and blurted out in front of everybody that he’d solved the mystery. So he had to be killed. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” said Henry. “I’m afraid that’s how it was.”
Rosemary was looking at the two men with mounting horror. “But what?” she said, and her voice was shaking. “Oh, it’s not your fault, Henry. This would have happened sooner or later anyway. But what could Colin have discovered?”
“I know that now,” said Henry. “I’ll tell you later. Colin was quicker than I was: and I could have saved his life if I’d gone ahead and beaten him to it.”