Skeleton Island (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Oh, that’s an easy one. We found the shirt and pullover. Nice clothes. He meant to flog ’em when he got on to the mainland to get hold of a bit of dough. Wouldn’t take a minute to pull ’em off in the Gents at the back of a pub when nobody else was about, and roll ’em up and offer ’em to a back-street slop-shop. All he’d do then would be to turn up the collar of the raincoat to hide the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt.”

  “You know it all,” said Laura. “I don’t think much of the inspector’s argument about the murder, though,” she added to Dame Beatrice, when they were on their way again. “As I see it, Marsh was as likely as anybody else to tip Ferrars over the cliff. The rest of his story could still be true. I’ll tell you one thing that does intrigue me, though. What about those six steps that lead up to the room where Howard put the body?”

  “What about them?” asked Dame Beatrice.

  “What do you suppose is underneath them? Never mind. Which is our next port of call?”

  “There are one or two questions I should like to put to Mrs. Spalding, when she is available, but possibly they won’t be necessary.”

  “You don’t think she pushed Ferrars over the edge?”

  “I do not think she knew he was standing on the edge. I should like to find out whether she knew that he intended to visit her that afternoon. If she did not, then her visit to her acquaintances in the other lighthouse would have been natural enough. If she expected him, then that visit seems a little out of character, does it not?”

  “I should say she didn’t expect him. Either that, or else she realised that Howard had got wise to the goings-on.”

  “That is a likely explanation, and one which, it would seem, she had had no opportunity of giving to Mr. Ferrars. I should say that it is certain he expected to see her that day, as he did not take his car. There is one other person, however, whom I really must contact, and that is Miss Nina Beverley. I only hope she has a complete alibi for the afternoon in question.”

  “Fair enough. She must have been hopping mad with Ferrars by that time. First he’d ditched her for the Keggs girl, and then he went wolfing after Fiona Spalding. But if she did the pushing, it wouldn’t have been murder, you know, but just an impulsive shove from a righteously indignant girl-friend.”

  “I would accept that theory if a vicious attack had not been made on Mr. Ferrars before he fell, or was pushed, over the edge of the cliff.”

  Laura whistled.

  “Oh, dear!” she said; and was silent until they reached the school. Here they were met in the entrance hall by Peters and Chorley. They advanced coyly, with nods and becks and wreathéd smiles, as Laura put it. She looked at them sternly. “You shouldn’t be here. You know it’s forbidden to boys,” she admonished them.

  “Special permission, Mrs. Gavin,” said Peters. “We wanted to speak to Dame Beatrice, please, Dame Beatrice, so would you mind very much, Mrs. Gavin, please?”

  Correctly assessing this as a signal of dismissal, Laura went to her room, leaving Dame Beatrice with the two children.

  “Am I to be held to ransom?” asked Dame Beatrice, cackling.

  “Oh, no, please, of course not. It’s just that we wondered whether you could get Mrs. Gavin along to an Assembly as soon as prep. is over. You see, we’ve had a whip-round for her leaving present. The prefects dunned everybody for a bob, which, of course, they can easily afford, because we all got our travel money this morning, and we asked Mrs. Eastleigh to buy us some stockings for Mrs. Gavin because she got us some for Miss Beverley, so we know she likes them, and, as we got double the money, we’ve got the nineteen and eleven ones, four pairs. We want to give them to her tonight, because there’ll be too much hoo-ha in the morning. Now you,” said Peters, breaking off his oration and addressing Chorley.

  “It’s the Extra English boys,” said Chorley. “She tried to teach us to spell.” He drew a box from his pocket. “It’s only scent. Mrs. Eastleigh said to give a small bottle of the good, rather than a big bottle of the not-so-good, so this is it. It doesn’t really look much, but it cost ten and six, so do you think she’ll know that it’s really good? And could you give it her privately?”

  “I am positive that she would like you to give it to her yourselves,” said Dame Beatrice, “and I am equally certain that she will much prefer it to a large bottle of the not-so-good.”

  “Her form have got something for her, too,” went on the handsome, grave-faced Chorley. “It’s handkerchiefs. To put the scent on, you know.”

  “You think of everything! She will be delighted and touched,” said Dame Beatrice, knowing that the last word, at least, was true.

  “de Roseda wanted to give five pounds towards the stockings,” said Peters, “but, of course, we clumped his head and told him not to get above himself, and took his bob, like everybody else.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Master of Pronax

  “What were these villains after but money? What do they care for but money? For what would they risk their rascal carcasses but money?”

  Miss Beverley, whose home address had been obtained from Mr. Eastleigh, was “doing the flowers” when Dame Beatrice and Laura called. She said she was glad to see them, and introduced her mother, a gay and fashionable forty-five-year-old in bell-bottom trousers and a printed silk house-coat.

  “We have come,” said Dame Beatrice, “upon a melancholy errand, I fear.”

  “Oh, about poor Ronnie Ferrars. Yes, it was terribly sad,” observed Miss Beverley insincerely. “What do you think really happened? It couldn’t have been suicide, could it?”

  “What makes you think of that as a possibility, I wonder?”

  “Oh, I don’t—not really. I mean, I shouldn’t have thought he was the type. All the same, he was sort of dating up three of us, you know, and he may have felt he’d got himself in a bit of a muddle, don’t you think?”

  “As I had not the pleasure of his acquaintance, I could not undertake to say. At the time of his death he appears to have been paying his addresses to a Mrs. Spalding. You knew about that, I think?”

  “Oh, yes, I knew about that.”

  “Personally, I think Nina was well out of the whole thing,” said her mother. “I am only too thankful that she had dropped Ronald before there was all this scandal. At least she is not mixed up in it.”

  “Actually, of course, Ronnie dropped me, dearest. Don’t let’s mince our words. And all for that common little June Keggs,” said Miss Beverley, on a vindictive note which, under the circumstances, was excusable.

  “Oh, come now!” said Mrs. Beverley. “June was not really common—not really, darling. After all, you were girls together.”

  “Well, her mamma was common. You can’t deny that. Anyway, she had a nice facer—both of them did—when it was found out that Ronnie was stuck on this Mrs. Whatname.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Dame Beatrice. “Did you know her?”

  “No. I met her son when he first came to the school. That was just before I left, you know. I looked him over, but he wasn’t my cup of tea. Terribly young, if you know what I mean.”

  “Well, he isn’t twenty yet,” said Laura, “so being terribly young wasn’t really his fault.”

  Miss Beverley laughed.

  “Anyway, what did you come here for?” she asked, with reassuring frankness.

  “To ask whether you pushed Mr. Ferrars over a cliff,” replied Dame Beatrice, with equal directness.

  “Good gracious! You don’t mean…? Did somebody?”

  “We are inclined to think so. I represent the Home Office in the capacity of psychiatric adviser, and am working with the police over this affair. We are at the stage of eliminating those of Mr. Ferrars’ acquaintances who were living on the island at the time of his decease.”

  “You can certainly eliminate Nina,” said Mrs. Beverley, speaking very sharply indeed, “and I may say that I consider you have forced your way into her home under false pretences. I’m afraid I must ask you to leave. W
e have nothing to do with anything unpleasant which may have happened, and I really cannot think…”

  “Hold your horses, dearest,” said her daughter. “Nothing is gained by putting on a righteous indignation act.”

  “Quite so,” agreed Dame Beatrice. “I take it, Mrs. Beverley, that you would prefer this enquiry to be conducted by me rather than by the police themselves, would you not?”

  “Oh? Oh, well, if that is the alternative,” said Mrs. Beverley, deflated by this hit below the belt, “very well, then. Won’t you sit down? Darling, ring the bell for some coffee.”

  “Well, I think it’s a case of Pass, Beverley. All’s well, don’t you?” asked Laura, when the interview was over. “It should be easy enough to check her alibi.”

  “Yes, indeed. A motor-car salesman is unlikely to have forgotten the sale of a new Mercedes-Benz, and, in any case, the transaction and date will have been recorded,” said Dame Beatrice. “Moreover, London is sufficiently far from the island for two whole days to be considered reasonable for the journey and the purchase. I certainly think we may dismiss Miss Beverley from our minds.”

  “Leaves us with the Spaldings, any one of them.”

  “Mr. Colin, because of the time factor, is the least likely, so long as we can establish that he did not use his father’s car that day.”

  “What about Fiona, the femme fatale?”

  “Oh, I really cannot believe that Mrs. Spalding would make a vicious attack on her lover, push him over a cliff, and then calmly go out to tea. She is a nervous, hysterical woman. It would be entirely out of character for her to behave in such a way.”

  “That leaves us with poor old Howard, whose conduct, to put it mildly, has been somewhat odd all along. But do you really think he would have had a fight with a much younger and stronger man, and come off best at that?”

  “I think we may accept it that what he has done was done in what he thought were the interests of his son. I do not believe for an instant, though, that he is a murderer.”

  “But that leaves us with X, and there simply isn’t an X on the horizon.”

  “I wonder?” said Dame Beatrice. “It seems to me that, as nobody can be found who hated Mr. Ferrars enough to murder him, then he was killed for some reason other than hatred.”

  “You talk in riddles, as usual. What are you going to do about Colin’s car?”

  “Nothing in particular. As a matter of form, I shall ask Mr. Heathers whether Mr. Colin came back in it at the conclusion of the games period, but, if that were so, I think Mr. Heathers would have mentioned it when I questioned him before.”

  “Oh, yes, I suppose he would. He couldn’t say whether Colin went out that afternoon, because he was in class, but he would certainly have seen him come back. He and his babes were playing football on the front grass and gravel, and Colin was certainly at school in time to get his boys washed and take them in to tea.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What’s our next real move, then?”

  “To the lighthouse, to take up secret residence there. Be sure that you mention it to nobody.”

  “There won’t be anybody to mention it to. The boys all went off this morning, and the Staff all go this afternoon. But what’s the big idea?”

  “I quote the late Mr. Asquith. In the immediate future, however, nothing remains for us to do but to call at the school, take leave of Mr. and Mrs. Eastleigh, and to allow it to be inferred that we, too, are going home.”

  “But what is this cloak-and-dagger stuff? Not that I’m not all for it. It makes me feel about the same age as Hamish. Still, I could bear to be put in the picture.”

  “I will explain later. Of course, it may lead to nothing, but I have hopes of high adventure.”

  “What put that sort of idea into your head?”

  “Oh, Moonfleet,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “I see! Do you really think so?”

  “I think that by this time it will be generally known that the Spaldings have vacated the lighthouse. Moreover, you tell me that tonight the full moon and the full tide will be coincident.”

  “Once aboard the lugger…! So now for pistols, black masks, and down with Dan Maskell and all his works! Well, I never!” said Laura. “To think I should live to see this day! Won’t Hamish be sick when he hears of the fun we’re having!”

  In front of the disused lighthouse, which Laura and Dame Beatrice approached at just after sunset that evening, a large bill-board had been erected. It bore the information that the place was to let, fully furnished, and gave Howard’s home address as the tenancy was still in his hands and he was still under contract to pay the rent.

  After she and Dame Beatrice had bidden farewell to the Eastleighs, Laura had driven herself and her employer a convincing twenty-five miles towards their home in Hampshire and then had doubled back, left the car at a garage for an unnecessary check-up and testing, hired another, and driven back to the island.

  Laura had obtained the keys from Colin. She unlocked the door to the living-quarters, carried in luggage and the food they had purchased on the mainland, and then she climbed to the gallery, unslung her binoculars, and studied the fast-fading scene long and earnestly and from all sides, before she descended to the bungalow.

  “Better have some grub while we can still see what we’re doing,” she said. “Bread and cheese and burgundy. All right?”

  It had been agreed that they would use no lighting except that given by Dame Beatrice’s electric torch, and as soon as the early, simple supper was over, Laura took the torch into the base of the tower and to the room in which Ferrars’ body had been found. Dame Beatrice followed, and received the torch from Laura while Laura pulled back the square of cocoa-matting which covered most of the circular stone floor.

  “Here we are,” she said. “I thought as much. It’s flush with the floor, though, and there’s no ring-bolt or anything by which I can lift it up.” The trap-door was of wood. It had neither hinges nor handle. “Pity we don’t possess a crow-bar.”

  “We might look about in the living-quarters for a chisel. That might do it,” suggested Dame Beatrice.

  “I shouldn’t think Howard’s the sort of man to possess a tool-box, but we may as well go and see. I can’t wait to find out whether there’s brandy stashed away down below. When do you think the inspector and his men will turn up?”

  “Very soon now, but they will take no action until we flash the torch from the gallery. He agrees with me that to catch these smugglers red-handed is much the best way, because then there can be no argument about their guilt. If we knew exactly where they were likely to land the cargo, the police could catch them there, but we know neither the spot they will choose nor the means they have of getting the goods ashore.”

  “I know what I should do. I should lower the stuff into a ship’s boat, run it in under these cliffs, and use the fishermen’s davits to winch it up.”

  “That might be a feasible plan if it could be done in the dark.”

  “The one thing that isn’t possible. Much too dangerous, on a coast like this. They may try it by moonlight, though. That’s what you’re hoping, isn’t it?”

  “It is the inspector’s idea, not mine. I put to him my theory that Mr. Ferrars’ death was not a murder for revenge but of convenience. I think the smugglers, taking advantage of the mist on the afternoon when Mr. Ferrars last came here, realised that he had seen something they did not wish him to see, or, possibly, that he was a threat to their safety in some other way.”

  “And one or more of them clobbered him and then pitched him over the cliff? I suppose they thought the sea would wash him away. They must have had a big surprise when the boatmen winched him up.”

  “I should not think they saw it happen. I think they came in with the mist and went out with it, too, having surveyed the scene and, possibly, tested the tackle.”

  “But that means they had a confederate based on the island itself. One of the fishermen, do you think?”

  “
Oh, no. I think their confederate was Mr. Ferrars himself.”

  “What?” cried Laura. How on earth do you make that out? And, if you’re right, why on earth should they kill him?”

  “That we cannot tell for certain yet, but I have no doubt that all will be made clear in time. He must have done something to prejudice their safety, I should think.”

  “Wanted to protect Fiona! That would be it! But you must have something to go on, if you think Ferrars was one of the smugglers.”

  “Oh, I do not go as far as that, but I have a radical objection to things which do not make sense.”

  “Such as my recognising a snapshot of Ferrars which is not a snapshot of Ferrars but a snapshot of a Mr. Bunting?”

  “Yes, indeed,” agreed Dame Beatrice, “and also such a young man taking a five-mile walk to meet a woman who, he must have known perfectly well, would not be there when he arrived; such as another young man consenting to run a valuable boat all round the Channel Islands at a bad time of year to please a woman he had met only once before in his life…”

  “Oh, Thorvald! But I paid him for his time and trouble.”

  “Was it you who was so certain that Mr. Howard had taken Manoel out to Les Ecrehous?”

  “Well, no, it wasn’t. You mean Thorvald himself had business on Les Ecrehous?”

  “And with Pierre Logard, I have little doubt. Logard’s appears to have been a very convenient boat, so far as Mr. Howard and Manoel were concerned.”

  “Well, of course, I know Les Ecrehous used to be a half-way house for smugglers, but I thought that was a long time ago.”

  “It is always possible to revive a moribund industry, I suppose. Well, let us see whether we can find some implement with which to raise the flap of that cellar.”

  They slipped into the living-quarters and, with the aid of the torch, made a search, but before they could find anything useful there was a stealthy sound outside.

  “Get behind me,” whispered Dame Beatrice, “and give me the torch. I have my little friend in my pocket.” Laura did as she was told, and stood with her back to the wall on the blind side of the door which led to the small yard. Dame Beatrice stepped behind the end of a Welsh dresser and, transferring the torch to her left hand, she drew from her deep skirt pocket a small but efficient revolver. Then she and Laura waited while somebody fumbled with the catch of the living-room window.