“I’m afraid we laughed like a row of buckets. Poor old Pete, flying his racing burgee and all set to cover himself with glory, stuck for the day on Steep Hill. We shouted some fairly derisory remarks about explaining to his racing friends in the Deben just exactly where Blue Gull was. Old Pete was quite imperturbable, though. When we last saw him, he’d snugged the boat down, got the sails off her, and was sitting on the edge of the cockpit, puffing away at his pipe, as serene as you please. I dare say he was thinking up suitable replies to shout at Tideway and Mary Jane and Pocahontas when they came along and saw what had happened.
“Actually, though, none of us got to the Deben that day. We hadn’t been sailing for more than an hour after that when a fog suddenly came down. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced fog at sea, but it’s horrifying. It comes up from nowhere, all in half an hour, and suddenly you’re in a blanket of white cotton wool, with no wind and no visibility. Frankly, I was scared. There’s a fair amount of big shipping round this coast, not to mention sandbanks. I reckoned the safest thing to do was to go as close inshore as I dared and anchor, and then sit on deck blowing the foghorn and beating the bottom of the bucket with the starting handle of the engine. Not a pleasant way of passing a day, believe me. We could hear other boats blowing their horns—it’s the most mournful, eerie sound I know—and the occasional throb of an engine, which we felt certain was going to materialize into a dirty great steamer looming through the mist and crashing into us.
“It seemed like a thousand years before the fog lifted. As a matter of fact, it was about six hours. Round about three o’clock in the afternoon a smart little northerly breeze blew up, the fog dispersed, and all was well again. However, the tide had turned by then, and we decided it was too late to go on to the Deben, so we turned round and headed back to Berrybridge. We reckoned Pete would have the laugh on us after all; he should have floated by about half past three, and been back and moored and having a pint in The Berry Bush by the time we arrived. But when we rounded the point at nearly half past four, there was Blue Gull, well afloat, riding quietly to her anchor and with nobody aboard. At first, we thought Pete must be in the cabin, but we couldn’t understand what he was playing at, staying there. We kept the glasses on her, and when there was still no sign of life, we got worried and decided to investigate.
“We anchored as near the bank as we dared, and rowed over in the dinghy. I’ll never forget it—the empty boat with her big boom swinging from side to side with a faint creaking noise, and not a soul to be seen. When we got there, we beached the dinghy—the top of the sandbank was still dried out—and then we saw Pete. The incoming tide was gradually washing him up onto the dried-out sand. He’d drowned in a few inches of water.”
“Drowned?” Henry repeated. “How on earth did that happen?”
“The boom,” said Alastair. “There was an inquest, of course, and they worked out what must have happened. Pete evidently got out when the boat was high and dry, and walked around on the sand. And somehow the boom caught him a whack over the head and knocked him out. It may even have knocked him right out of the boat. So there he was, lying unconscious on the sand, and when the tide came in—”
“There’s no doubt that that’s what happened?”
“None at all. They found traces of blood and hair on the boom, and a cracking great bruise on the side of Pete’s head. Of course, at the time, we didn’t realize straight away that he was dead: we hoped we’d be able to revive him with artificial respiration. We got the poor chap into our dinghy and rowed him up the creek to Sir Simon’s boathouse. Rosemary went for help, and I tried to do what I could for him. I laid him down on the pontoon and—it’s silly, isn’t it, the things one does at moments like that? I remember being obsessed with the importance of getting dry cushions under him and wrapping him up with rugs, to make him comfortable. I found some rugs in Sir Simon’s motorboat, but there weren’t any dry cushions—everything was soaked from the fog. I remember I was ridiculously worried about it—not that it could have mattered less. The poor man was already dead, as it turned out. Anyway, I did what little I could. I tried artificial respiration, and then old Herbert Hole turned up to help—he’d been chugging round in his motor launch and seen us. Unfortunately, Sir Simon was in Ipswich for the day, so Rosemary had to tell Priscilla, who promptly got hysterics. If it hadn’t been for Riddle—that’s Sir Simon’s man—I don’t know what would have happened. But he was very efficient and called the doctor and—well, that’s all. It was a very nasty experience, I can tell you.”
Alastair’s voice trailed off into silence. Henry said slowly, “Did Blue Gull have a boom gallows?”
“Of course,” said Rosemary quickly. “And now for heaven’s sake let’s talk about something cheerful for a change.”
“Please don’t think I’m being officious,” said Henry apologetically, “but I’m a policeman by profession, and it seems to me that there are some very odd things in the story you’ve just told us.”
“Odd?” said Alastair. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Henry, don’t try to make a mystery out of poor old Pete’s death. It’s perfectly clear what happened.”
“I don’t think it is,” said Henry, with a sort of sad stubbornness. “You told me that when you last saw him, he had taken the sails off the boat and was smoking a pipe.”
“That’s right.”
“Then surely the boom must have been in the gallows.”
“Of course it was,” said Alastair at once.
“Then,” said Henry, “how did it get out again?”
There was a silence. Rosemary said brusquely, “It must have been the wind.” She got up and began to clear up the picnic things.
“The boom was swinging freely when you saw it?” Henry persisted, addressing himself to Alastair.
“Yes. And the gallows were lying flat on deck. I remember. But there was quite a brisk breeze, as I told you.”
“Yes,” said Henry, “but at the time when Pete died—when the water was still low enough for him to be walking about on the sandbank—there was still fog, wasn’t there?”
Alastair began to look worried. “I see what you mean,” he said. “Fog, and no wind. So even if Pete had for some reason taken the boom out of the gallows—which he wouldn’t have—”
“I wish you’d stop this nonsense,” said Rosemary. “Remember that Blue Gull was well heeled over. The boom could have slipped out.”
“Look at Ariadne now,” said Henry. “She’s leaning at a considerable angle, but the boom’s firmly in position. I suppose in a gale it might come loose—but there was no wind.”
“And in any case,” said Alastair, “now I come to think of it, why was the mainsheet free? Because it was—otherwise the boom couldn’t have been swinging the way it was. Pete would never have left his mainsheet loose—he was much too careful a sailor.”
“So,” said Henry, “the boom lifted itself out of the gallows, the mainsheet un
tied itself, and your friend Pete got hit on the head—hard enough to knock him unconscious—all in a fog, without a breath of wind.”