The Mudflats of the Dead (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  Then another thought struck him. Adrian and Miranda would have vacated the cottage and gone back to London, but the Lowsons would still be in possession. A longing came over him to see Morag again. When he came to a turning which would have taken him back to Stack Ferry he avoided it and continued on his way.

  He was ready with his excuse for calling on the Lowsons. He would ask whether they knew the Kirbys’ London address so that he could write and thank them for their kindness to him and to ask whether he might call upon them when he got back to his lodgings and take them out for a drink or perhaps to the theatre.

  Thus armed, he parked his car in the wide part of the village street where he had always left it, smoothed down his hair and went along to knock on the cottage door.

  Morag was alone. She did not seem in the least surprised to see him, but invited him in as though she had been expecting him.

  “Why, Colin, how very nice!” she said. “We were hoping you would call before you went back to London. Miranda was sorry you didn’t go to the funeral, but Adrian said it was understandable, as you hardly knew the poor girl.”

  “I knew her quite well enough, thank you!” Palgrave found himself saying.

  “Oh, dear, yes, I know! Well, do sit down and I’ll get the tea. I’m sorry Cupar isn’t here. He’s out sailing. I didn’t want to go, but I’m awfully glad of some company.”

  “I haven’t really come to inflict myself on you,” said Palgrave. “I just wanted Adrian’s London address, if you have it.”

  “Yes, I do have it, but please don’t hurry away. You don’t look very well, Colin. You’re worried about that poor girl’s death, aren’t you? So are your friends, you know. They’re so worried that they are going to do something about it.”

  “What can anybody do? She’s dead; the coroner has given the only verdict which is possible under the circumstances, and there’s an end of it.”

  “Your friends don’t think so. I believe they’re wasting their time and that of the police, but they are determined to keep the case open.”

  “But, Morag, there simply isn’t a case, and when you call them my friends, well, I hope they are, but I’ve only known them since I came down here.”

  “Yes, they told me. You were a stranger and they took you in—literally, not metaphorically, of course.”

  “It was really Camilla’s doing, I think, although the invitation was supposed to come from them. I wish to goodness now that I’d refused it.”

  “Because this drowning business has happened? My thought is that it would have happened anyway. I think the verdict was right. The poor girl chose the wrong state of the tide, got carried out to sea on an undertow, couldn’t get back and was drowned. The incoming tide brought the body back to shore and somebody—that man who gave evidence at the inquest—found and reported it. It’s all simple enough and it’s the sort of thing that must happen every year during the holiday season on some part of the coast. People who ought to know better will do these daft things, and you must know, being one of them yourself, as I well remember, that there is nobody so arrogant as a strong swimmer.”

  “She wasn’t all that strong a swimmer,” said Palgrave. “She wasn’t nearly as powerful as you, from what I remember, but she couldn’t have drowned that last night I was here. The tide was still coming in. Mind you, if later on she did bathe on an outgoing tide and got carried out to sea, I don’t think she could have fought her way back. I had the devil of a job myself that time I was fool enough to pit myself against the undertow. It was terribly alarming and one tended to panic, which certainly didn’t help matters.”

  “Well, Adrian and Miranda are so certain that the girl would never have taken such a risk that, apart from anything the police may be thinking of doing, they have decided to take matters further.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “They want to put a private investigator on to the job of finding out what happened. It’s a nuisance the doctors couldn’t decide exactly when the girl was drowned and, of course, there is still the question of that suitcase of hers. It hasn’t turned up anywhere yet.”

  “So what exactly are Adrian and Miranda trying to do? I hope they are not taking on more than they can cope with.”

  “Oh, they are going to do that, all right.”

  “You mean they’ve got hold of some private eye who’ll lead them up the garden and charge them the earth for doing so?”

  “Not at all. They are going to find out whether Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley will look into the thing for them.”

  “But she’s a top-notch mental specialist, accredited to the Home Office and goodness knows what all besides! I’ve heard her lecture.”

  “Yes, so have Cupar and I. Cupar is a doctor and he’s actually met her, and he says it’s a crazy idea to approach her. He says that, if she thought the case had any interesting possibilities, she’d certainly take it on and probably charge no more than her expenses, but she won’t touch it, I’m sure. Of course I wish them luck with her, but, to start with, she has as much money as anybody either needs or wants, even in these days of inflation, and unless it will advance or in any way improve her reputation, which, in all conscience, is formidable enough already, she won’t be interested in an open and shut case like this one. Adrian and Miranda may have their own opinions, but they are only opinions, after all, and, as Cupar says, in face of the verdict at the inquest, worth less than nothing. Of course I feel very sorry for them, because, however illogical such an attitude may be, they will always feel in some degree responsible for this girl’s death. I quite understand that, nonsense though it is. By the way, how old was she?”

  “Nineteen or twenty, I think, but she seemed such a kid, all the same.”

  “Granted, but she was not such a kid, as you call her, in some of the ways that matter, especially to a fairly newly married wife such as myself.”

  “You don’t mean she made a pass at Lowson?”

  “At Cupar? Yes, indeed she did. She took him for a walk and he came back quite upset and said awful things about her.”

  “I thought she was out all that day. Anyway, she was a bit of a nymphomaniac, I rather fancy.”

  “Is that why you left the cottage and took a room at Stack Ferry?”

  “How did you know where I’d gone? Oh, I had told Adrian and Miranda, I suppose. No, Camilla was not the reason. I wanted a setting for my second book. I had hoped to find it here, but nothing worked out, so I decided to push on and try my luck elsewhere.”

  “Is that the whole story?” She met his eyes and held them.

  “Well, not quite. Actually I had intended to finish the week here and squash in with the overspill until Adrian and Miranda went back to London, but, well, the personnel of the overspill forced me to change my mind.”

  “I see.” Palgrave saw that she did. He looked away and said:

  “Well, you must admit that the circumstances had their embarrassing aspect.”

  She smiled with the sudden sweetness it gave him a pang to remember.

  “Not for me,” she said. “But, then, I’m very happy, and that makes all the difference. Besides, this is the last you will see of me. We’re moving.”

  “Are you really happy, Morag?”

  “There is no need to ask, is there? And if I were not?”

  “They say nobody should marry a writer.”

  “Except perhaps another writer, and that is something I shall never be.”

  “People who inspire writers don’t need to be writers themselves.”

  “Colin—”

  “Well?”

  “You used a key to get in that night, didn’t you?”

  “Which night?”

  “The night Camilla must have come back later and packed her suitcase.”

  “I didn’t know Lowson heard me. I tried not to make any noise, but I had to find my suitcase.”

  “Miranda and Cupar both heard you go out. Why did you go upstairs?”

  “Simple reason. I had
been trying to camp out in my car and found it very uncomfortable, so I came back here and thought I might as well stretch out on the spare bed in her room for half an hour, but I changed my mind and only changed my clothes and had a shave, then went back to the car before Camilla came in.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, when she did come in she must have been quieter than you were, because nobody seems to have heard a sound. I suppose she did come back that night?”

  “She hadn’t come back by the time I left, that’s all I know. What time was it when you came back from your walk?”

  “My walk?”

  “I thought you went for a walk on the marshes. I half thought I saw you.”

  “It couldn’t have been me. I was never on the marshes that night. You must have seen a ghost!”

  “I hardly think so. I don’t believe in them. The thing was a good way off. I took it to be you because I remembered you were wearing white.”

  “But I wasn’t! I had been back to the cottage and changed into something warmer before I went out again. It turned quite chilly that evening after we left the pub.”

  “Yes, I can subscribe to that! It was damned chilly on the back seat of my car with a window open to let in some air. Oh, well, it must have been a pocket of mist that I saw.”

  “Colin, I’m going to ask you to tell me something in confidence.”

  “That sounds sinister—or it would do, if my blameless past wasn’t an open book.”

  “I’m not so sure about that! Anyway, here goes—and, if you refuse to answer, this jury will find you guilty.”

  “You make me feel guilty already! Why are you being so mysterious?”

  “Oh, there isn’t any mystery. Colin, you know Camilla’s suitcase and all her clothes are missing, don’t you?”

  “I ought to, considering that one of the County plainclothes flatties did his best to turn me and my hotel bedroom upside down in a search for the same suitcase.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Sneak back here that night and pack it and take it and her off somewhere?”

  Palgrave was too much astonished to be angry.

  “Of course I didn’t,” he said. “What a question! The girl was far too much of an incubus for me to have taken on her and her blasted suitcase.”

  “I only asked because, when you left, Miranda saw you from her bedroom window and you were carrying something.”

  “Yes, my own suitcase.”

  “Surely that could have waited until the morning?”

  “Not if you knew how cold and uncomfortable it was, trying to kip down on the back seat of the car.”

  “Anyway, I thought I remembered you putting your suitcase in the boot of your car when we were on the way to the pub.”

  “Then your memory was playing tricks, my dear girl. I had every intention of coming back here to breakfast and picking up my suitcase then. It was only the discomfort of sleeping in the car that made me change my mind. Either Camilla took her suitcase out of the cottage before we had our swim, or she sneaked back after I’d gone, picked it up and went along to meet some bloke.”

  “I suppose either is possible. We don’t know there was a bloke, though, do we?”

  “Oh, Morag,” said Palgrave, exasperated at last, “don’t talk so bloody daft! Of course there was a bloke, and he’s not damn well going to come forward and produce that suitcase. I wouldn’t, either, in his shoes. One thing I do know. Camilla would never have gone off on her own! It’s true we can’t prove there was a bloke, but, if you knew Camilla as we knew her, the inference is obvious. Besides, you said you did know.”

  “You said she sneaked back. Why would she need to do that? She could have told Adrian and Miranda that she had changed her plans. She wasn’t scared of them, was she?”

  “No, but it was ungrateful to push off with somebody else when they’d brought her here with them. She may have felt delicate about leaving.”

  “That doesn’t sound like her. I shouldn’t think she ever considered anybody but herself. If it had been known she was leaving, there would have been no need for you to go, would there?”

  “Oh, Morag! Of course I had to go. You, of all people, ought to realise that! You do realise it! You’ve admitted as much.”

  “Bygones have to be bygones, Colin.”

  “Oh, God! Don’t I know it! Well, I had better push off.”

  “No, do stay for a cup of tea. I’ll get it at once.” She went out to the kitchen. Palgrave walked over to the window and gazed out over the marshes. It seemed to him that an age had passed since he had seen them first. He was still standing there when Morag came in with the tea-tray.

  “A penny for them!” she said gaily as she set the tray down. Palgrave turned a startled face to her.

  “Good Lord! Don’t say that!” he said.

  “Why ever not? Oh, I see! She said that to you at some time or another. I’m sorry, Colin. How was I to know? Were you a little bit fond of her?”

  “No, I was not! She was a thundering little nuisance. She latched on to me the minute she saw me.”

  “Poor old Colin! Milk and two lumps is it?—or have you gone in for slimming? I tried it once, but I only got depressed and I didn’t seem to lose any weight whatever. Colin, what’s the matter? Is it just the girl’s death, or is something else bothering you?”

  “There’s nothing, honestly, except that, as I told you, I had a visit from the police.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday, at my hotel. They seemed to think I was hiding something.”

  “And were you?”

  “For goodness’ sake stop barking up the wrong tree!”

  “It almost looks as though they are having second thoughts about the verdict at the inquest. Adrian and Miranda are sure there was something wrong about the girl’s death. They say she never would have bathed on an outgoing tide. They are certain of it, as I told you. It’s they who are barking up the wrong tree.”

  “The only thing which was wrong about that death was that it happened at all,” said Palgrave. “If it wasn’t accidental and somebody contrived it, the place to look is into the girl’s past. I don’t want to say anything more against her than I’ve said already, but you know as well as I do that her sort are asking for trouble every minute of their waking lives.”

  “If she was only about twenty years old, she couldn’t have had all that much of a past, though, could she?”

  “Oh, they begin at eleven years old these days. They get away with it for a time, but they’re caught out in the end.”

  “But not necessarily murdered.”

  “Who’s talking about murder?”

  “I thought we were, because that’s what Adrian and Miranda think. I think they’re crazy.”

  “Oh, yes, they’re going much too far. As I say, she met some bloke—probably that day she pinched my car and went off with Adrian to Stack Ferry—and they met again by arrangement, probably more than once—”

  “And bathed together on an outgoing tide? Then why wasn’t the man drowned as well as the girl?”

  “That’s quite an easy one. It may have been a mere matter of muscle. I bathed on an outgoing tide once, as I told you, and got back all right. It was a fight, but I managed it and so, we may assume, did he. Or he may have stayed in shallow water and been in no particular danger. But what’s the use of speculating?”

  “No use at all. Well, if you don’t want any more tea, I’ll get you Adrian’s address and then perhaps you had better go.”

  “Thanks.” He looked at her helplessly. “I—well, yes, I think I had better go.”

  Morag laughed. She had always been much tougher than he, he reflected, except when he had hardened his heart and broken their engagement.

  PART TWO

  Dame Beatrice

  CHAPTER 7

  DISCREET ENQUIRIES

  “Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.”

  O
scar Wilde

  “Well, here is a thing and a very pretty thing,” said Dame Beatrice to her son who was breakfasting with her. “A pity Laura is not here. An accomplished swimmer might be very useful in helping me to deal with this very pretty thing.” She handed a letter across the table. Sir Ferdinand studied it.

  “A girl drowned by swimming on an outgoing tide?” he said. “The writer thinks it unlikely that she would have done such a thing, but I note that he does not say it is impossible. Holidaymakers take these foolish risks, as he admits.”

  “You will be leaving after lunch and Laura will not be back here for another fortnight. I am at leisure and I feel inclined to look into this matter. The writer thinks the drowned girl was involved with a man.”

  “Girls always are involved with a man. It’s what girls and men are created for. What possible interest can this particular case have for you? The writer says that the verdict at the inquest was clear and undisputed.”

  “It seems to me that, although he does not say it in so many words, he suspects that the girl was murdered.”

  “Well, girls on holiday are quite liable to pick up a wrong ’un, I suppose, but drowning fatalities are always a bit tricky. Very difficult to prove anything unless there is definite evidence of foul play.”

  “What are you proposing to do with yourself this morning?”

  “Oh, golf at Brockenhurst, I think. What time lunch?”

  “When you like.”

  “Let’s say one-thirty, then. I’m dining this evening with Radcliffe, so I have plenty of time. I shan’t need to hurry away from here this afternoon.”

  When he had left her, Dame Beatrice read Adrian Kirby’s long letter again.

  “We hope it is not too presumptuous of us to ask your help,” Adrian had written, “but our lawyer told us that you were probably the only person who could get to the bottom of this mystery, for mystery it most certainly is. We are convinced, my wife and I, from all that we know of Camilla Hoveton St. John, that she had far too much sense of self-preservation and ordinary commonsense, too, to have done anything so foolish as to swim on an outgoing tide on this dangerous part of the coast. We feel that if only we could trace her movements after she and her suitcase left the cottage …” There followed several pages of explanation. Dame Beatrice perused them carefully for the third time. Then she went to the telephone, rang Adrian’s number and promised to meet him at his London flat on the following day.