“The puir beastie,” Mackenzie said at last.
It had been a large dog of confused parentage in which the Alsatian may have predominated. What had happened to it was no nicer to look at than it is to catalog. Its head and hind quarters were partly mashed to a red pulp, and plainly traceable across its chest was a row of slot-like gashes, each about an inch long and close together, from which blood had run and clotted in the short fur. Mackenzie squatted and stretched the skin with gentle fingers to see the slits more clearly. The Saint also felt the chest: it had an unnatural contour where the line of punctures crossed it, and his probing touch found only sponginess where there should have been a hard cage of ribs.
His eyes met Mackenzie’s across the pitifully mangled form.
“That would be quite a row of teeth,” he remarked.
“Aye,” said the Inspector grimly. “But what lives here that has a mouth like that?”
They straightened up and surveyed the immediate surroundings. The ground here, only a stride or two from the beach, which in turn was less than a yard wide, was so moist that it was soggy, and pockets of muddy liquid stood in the deeper indentations with which it was plentifully rumpled. The carpet of coarse grass made individual impressions difficult to identify, but three or four shoe-heel prints could be positively distinguished.
“I’m afraid I made a lot of those tracks.” Bastion said. “I know you’re not supposed to go near anything, but all I could think of at the time was seeing if he was still alive and if I could do anything for him. The constable tramped around a bit too, when he was here.” He pointed past the body. “But neither of us had anything to do with those marks there.”
Close to the beach was a place where the turf looked as if it had been raked by something with three gigantic claws. One talon had caught in the roots of a tuft of grass and torn it up bodily: the clump lay on the pebbles at the water’s edge. Aside from that, the claws had left three parallel grooves, about four inches apart and each about half an inch wide. They dug into the ground at their upper ends to a depth of more than two inches, and dragged back towards the lake for a length of about ten inches as they tapered up.
Simon and Mackenzie stood on the pebbles to study the marks, Simon spanning them experimentally with his fingers while the detective took more exact measurements with a tape and entered them in his notebook.
“Anything wi’ a foot big enough to carry claws like that,” Mackenzie said, “I’d no’ wish to ha’ comin after me.”
“Well, they call it a Monster, don’t they?” said the Saint dryly. “It wouldn’t impress anyone if it made tracks like a mouse.”
Mackenzie unbent his knees stiffly, shooting the Saint a distrustful glance, and turned to Bastion. “When did ye find all this, sir?” he asked.
“I suppose it was about six o’clock,” Bastion said. “I woke up before dawn and couldn’t get to sleep again, so I decided to try a little early fishing. I got up as soon as it was light—”
“Ye didna hear any noise before that?”
“No.”
“It couldna ha’ been the dog barkin’ that woke ye?”
“Not that I’m aware of. And my wife is a very light sleeper, and she didn’t hear anything. But I was rather surprised when I didn’t see the dog outside. He doesn’t sleep in the house, but he’s always waiting on the doorstep in the morning. However, I came on down here — and that’s how I found him.”
“And you didn’t see anything else?” Simon asked. “In the lake, I mean.”
“No. I didn’t see the Monster. And when I looked for it, there wasn’t a ripple on the water. Of course, the dog may have been killed some time before, though his body was still warm.”
“Mr Bastion,” Mackenzie said, “do ye believe it was the Monster that killed him?”
Bastion looked at him and at the Saint.
“I’m not a superstitious man,” he replied. “But if it wasn’t a monster of some kind, what else could it have been?”
The Inspector closed his notebook with a snap that seemed to be echoed by his clamping lips. It was evident that he felt that the situation was wandering far outside his professional province. He scowled at the Saint as though he expected Simon to do something about it.
“It might be interesting,” Simon said thoughtfully, “if we got a vet to do a post-mortem.”
“What for?” Bastion demanded brusquely.
“Let’s face it,” said the Saint. “Those claw marks could be fakes. And the dog could have been mashed up with some sort of club — even a club with spikes set in it to leave wounds that’d look as if they were made by teeth. But by all accounts, no one could have got near enough to the dog to do that without him barking. Unless the dog was doped first. So before we go overboard on this Monster theory, I’d like to rule everything else out. An autopsy would do that.”
Bastion rubbed his scrubby mustache.
“I see your point. Yes. that might be a good idea.”
He helped them to shift the dog on to the sack which had previously covered it, and Simon and Mackenzie carried it between them back to the driveway and laid it in the trunk of the detective’s car.
“D’ye think we could ha’ a wurrd wi’ Mrs Bastion, sir?” Mackenzie asked, wiping his hands on a clean rag and passing it to the Saint.
“I suppose so,” Bastion assented dubiously. “Although she’s pretty upset about this, as you can imagine. It was really her dog more than mine. But come in, and I’ll see if she’ll talk to you for a minute.”
But Mrs Bastion herself settled that by meeting them in the hall, and she made it obvious that she had been watching them from a window.
“What are they doing with Golly, Noel?” she greeted her husband wildly. “Why are they taking him away?”
“They want to have him examined by a doctor, dear.”
Bastion went on to explain why, until she interrupted him again:
“Then don’t let them bring him back. It’s bad enough to have seen him the way he is, without having to look at him dissected.” She turned to Simon and Mackenzie. “You must understand how I feel. Golly was like a son to me. His name was really Goliath — I called him that because he was so big and fierce, but actually he was a pushover when you got on the right side of him.”
Words came from her in a driving torrent that suggested the corollary of a powerhouse. She was a big-boned strong-featured woman who made no attempt to minimize any of her probable forty-five years. Her blond hair was unwaved and pulled back into a tight bun, and her blue eyes were set in a nest of wrinkles that would have been called characterful on an outdoor man. Her lipstick, which needed renewing, had a slapdash air of being her one impatient concession to feminine artifice. But Bastion put a soothing arm around her as solicitously as if she had been a dimpled bride.
“I’m sure these officers will have him buried for us, Eleanor,” he said. “But while they’re here I think they wanted to ask you something.”
“Only to confairrm what Mr Bastion told us, ma’m,” said Mackenzie. “That ye didna hear any disturrbance last night.”
“Absolutely not. And if Golly had made a sound, I should have heard him. I always do. Why are you trying so hard to get around the facts? It’s as plain as a pikestaff that the Monster did it.”
“Some monsters have two legs,” Simon remarked.
“And I suppose you’re taught not to believe in any other kind. Even with the evidence under your very eyes.”
“I mind a time when some other footprints were found, ma’m,” Mackenzie put in deferentially, “which turrned oot to be a fraud.”
“I know exactly what you’re referring to. And that stupid hoax made a lot of idiots disbelieve the authentic photograph which was taken just before it, and refuse to accept an even better picture that was taken by a thoroughly reputable London surgeon about four months later. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve studied the subject. As a matter of fact, the reason we took this house was mainly because I’m hoping to discover the Monster.”