Herbert greeted Henry affably. “Comin’ to the ceremony?” he enquired, graciously.
“You mean the inauguration of the new mayor?”
“Hay?”
“The new mayor,” Henry shouted raucously.
“Ar. Next Sat’day. Proper booze-up,” said Herbert succinctly.
“Yes, we’ll be there,” Henry bellowed. “I understand you’re running for office.”
Herbert looked suspicious. “I don’t do nothing what’s not legal,” he said defensively. Then, after a pause, he added, “Never ’ad the perlice in, up to now.”
“Of course not,” said Emmy, slightly baffled.
“Will ’ave this time, though, eh?” Herbert gave Henry a sly dig in the ribs with his skinny elbow. Henry looked surprised. “You,” explained Herbert.
“How did you know I was a policeman?”
“Size of yer boots, o’ course,” retorted Herbert impishly. But a significant jerk of his head indicated the landlord of The Berry Bush. “All round the borough, it is,” he said. “You’ll ’ear some pretty tales, I wouldn’t wonder, now they know ’oo y’are. Not so fancy as what you might ’ave ’eard a while back, though.”
“What do you mean?” Henry asked. But Herbert contented himself with dark rumblings about people who minded their own business, and least said soonest mended, and eventually took himself off to cadge a drink from Alastair.
Emmy glanced quickly round to make sure that she could not be overheard, and then said softly, “Wasn’t Bob Calloway a fence?”
Henry nodded. “We always thought so,” he said. “Couldn’t ever prove anything. It’s extremely interesting to find him here.”
“Perhaps,” said Emmy, “Priscilla is right, and her precious jewellery will turn up after all.”
“If it’s still intact,” said Henry, “it’s almost certainly in the neighbourhood. But it’s a hell of a place to search.”
“Do you think,” Emmy ventured, “that the robbery could be connected with...with the other...?”
“I don’t know,” said Henry. “And the fact that everybody now knows who I am isn’t going to help.”
David Crowther came over to the table and sat down.
“Nothing but boring talk about today’s sailing over there,” he said. “Colin and I are regarded as spineless outcasts because we didn’t go out. I simply cannot understand the passion that some people have for making themselves thoroughly uncomfortable and then boasting about it afterwards.”
Henry grinned sympathetically. “I’m on your side,” he said.
David finished his drink in one gulp. “Well,” he said, “I’ll be off now. It’s a long drive to London in my old bus. Will you be here next weekend?”
“If we’re not drowned,” said Emmy cheerfully.
Surprisingly, David said, “Yes. Do be careful, won’t you? Well...goodbye. Till next Friday.”
He collected his oilskin jacket and went over to say goodbye to the other members of the Fleet. Henry heard Anne saying, “But what are you doing on Wednesday, David? You always say you never go out, and it’s the first party for ages that Colin and I—”
“I’m busy,” said David briefly. “Good night.”
He made his way over to the door, and went out. A couple of minutes later he was back. He came straight over to Henry.
“I say,” he said, diffidently, “I’m terribly sorry to have to ask you, but I wonder if you’d give me a hand with the car. I can’t start her.”
“Of course,” said Henry, “but I’m afraid I’m not much of a mechanic.”
“That’s O.K. I know what has to be done.”
Henry followed David out of The Berry Bush. The moon was up, throwing a pathway of cold light across the river. The two men walked over to the ancient black Riley which stood on the hard.
“Get in,” said David.
Henry obeyed. To his surprise, David climbed in beside him.
“Sorry to drag you out,” said David. His voice was serrated with nervousness. “There’s nothing wrong with the car. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh,” said Henry. “What about?”
David lit a cigarette. His face, illuminated momentarily by the flame, looked haggard and old. “It’s fairly obvious why you’re here,” he said.
“Is it?”
“About Pete.”
“Why should you think that?”
“It was too much to expect that nobody would tumble to it,” said David. “I’ve been expecting you—or somebody like you.”
Henry said nothing. David took a long pull at his cigarette. “I suppose you think it was Colin,” he said.
“I don’t think anything,” said Henry. “I’m here on holiday.”
David did not appear to have heard him. He went on in a low voice. “It’s so damned hard to know what’s the right thing to do. I think I told you, I didn’t like Pete myself. But disliking a man is one thing, and killing him—”
“It’s the first time I’ve heard anybody suggest that he was killed,” said Henry quietly.
“Oh, God,” said David. “Now I suppose I’ve said too much. All right. Forget it. It was an accident.”
“I’m not at all sure that it was,” said Henry, “but I do assure you that this isn’t an official investigation—yet. I really am on holiday. It was only when I heard the whole story of what happened...”
David was staring fixedly straight ahead. “It wasn’t Colin,” he said.
“From the way you say that,” Henry said, “you make me think that you know who it was.”
There was a long silence. “I’ve been nearly mad, wondering what to do,” he said.
Henry said gently, “Anything you tell me now is absolutely unofficial. And whatever standards of loyalty you may have, nothing can justify you in shielding a murderer, you know.”
After another endless pause, David swung round in his seat to look at Henry. “All right,” he said. “I’m not accusing anybody of anything. I just think you ought to know that Hamish rowed ashore to Steep Hill Sands that day in the fog.”
Henry considered this information. “How do you know?” he said.
“Because,” said David, “I was there myself.”
“I think,” said Henry, “that you had better elaborate that a bit.”
David began to speak rapidly, as though the relief of speech were immense. “Anne was sailing with me that day. We saw Pete go aground. When the fog came down, we anchored, just off the sandbank, a couple of hundred yards behind Tideway. Anne and I talked for a long time. Anne was infatuated with Pete. I suppose you knew that. He was a swine. He’d deliberately led her on, made trouble between her and Colin—and then dropped her. Wouldn’t even talk to her. The poor child was nearly frantic. So when she knew he was there on Steep Hill, she got this crazy idea of going ashore to speak to him. I told her she was a fool—that she’d only lose herself in the fog, and that it was a stupid and dangerous thing to do. But when Anne really sets her mind on something...” David broke off, and grinned ruefully. “She talked me round in the end. The tide was out, and the channel was only a few yards wide by then, so I strung all my available warps together, and we rowed ashore, with the dinghy still attached to the boat, so that we could haul ourselves back. I beached the dinghy, and left Anne sitting in it, while I went off on the end of another rope to look for Pete. Frankly, I didn’t think I’d find him. I told Anne that if I found Blue Gull I’d give two tugs on the rope, and she could follow it up.”
David stopped again, and lit another cigarette. His hands were shaking badly.
“Well,” said Henry, “did you find him?”
“I walked about on that bloody sandbank for what felt like hours,” said David. In his nervousness he had developed a slight stutter. “The f-fog was white and damp, and I felt lost and m-miserable. I kept on thinking that Anne might have done something d-damn silly like letting go of the other end of the rope, and then I’d have been in the soup, all right, when the tide came
up. And then, suddenly, I heard v-voices. Close to me. I couldn’t see a thing, but the voices were quite clear.”
“Whose voices?” Henry asked.
“Pete and H-Hamish. They were fighting.”
“Fighting?”
“Arguing, I m-mean. I didn’t stay long to listen. But I heard Pete say, ‘I’ve t-told you before that it’s out of the question. Now for God’s sake get back to your boat and don’t be a b-bloody fool.’ And then Hamish said, ‘The money’s just as much m-mine as yours,’ and Pete said, ‘That’s not true.’ Th-then Hamish said, ‘I’ve got as much damned right to it as you have.’ He sounded furious and s-sort of desperate. I didn’t wait to hear any more. I f-followed the rope back to the dinghy.”
“And what did you tell Anne?”
“I told her I hadn’t been able to locate Pete,” said David. He seemed more self-possessed now, and the stutter had almost disappeared. “I didn’t see any point in telling her about Hamish. Of course, she wanted to go and look for herself, but she was pretty cold and wet by then, and I imagine she realized she was making a c-considerable fool of herself. So we hauled the dinghy back to Pocahontas and went below and brewed coffee.”
“What time was this?” Henry asked.
David considered. “The fog came down about half past nine,” he said. “I suppose it was about a quarter past ten.”
“And when the fog lifted, in the afternoon—what did you see then?”
“We saw Blue Gull, of course,” said David. “She was surrounded by water, but still hard aground. No sign of Pete. We assumed he was below. Actually, the poor sod must have b-been on the sand, on the far side of the hull. If only we’d seen him...”
“You haven’t told anybody else about this? About going ashore, I mean.”
There was the faintest hesitation before David said, “Of course not. I didn’t see any point.” He paused for a moment, and then added, “You said something about shielding a m-murderer. That’s rot. It wasn’t murder.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“Of course not. Hamish must have lost his temper and hit Pete. I’m certain he never meant to kill him.”
“Isn’t it rather strange,” Henry remarked, “to knock somebody senseless and then leave him on a sandbank, knowing that the tide would be coming up?”
David considered. “Perhaps he didn’t know he knocked him out,” he said. “Don’t these things have a delayed reaction sometimes? I mean, suppose Hamish hit Pete, and then p-panicked and made off to his boat, leaving Pete still on his feet, and then Pete c-collapsed and—”
“The boom,” said Henry, “was out of the gallows. Swinging free. And traces of blood and hair were found on it. How do you account for that?”
David was silent. Henry went on. “That was what you meant when you said that somebody was sure to tumble to it. Wasn’t it?” There was another long pause. Then Henry said, “You can’t go back on it now. You’ve accused Hamish Rawnsley of murder.”
“For Christ’s sake,” said David. “I d-didn’t mean—”
“Unless, of course,” Henry added, “you’ve told me a pack of lies.” He opened the door of the car and got out. “You’d better get back to London now,” he said. “Thank you for an extremely interesting talk.”
David said nothing, but started the engine and slammed the car into gear. It shot forward and disappeared up the twisting lane. Henry watched it go, thoughtfully. Then he walked back into the bar.
He found Rosemary and Alastair just preparing to leave.
“We’re going out to dinner,” said Alastair.
“Good heavens,” said Henry, glancing down at his muddy jeans. “Where?”
“On Mary Jane. Colin and Anne have invited us.”
“Don’t you have to get back to town?” Henry asked Colin.
Colin, who had been gazing at Anne with a darkly adoring intensity, wrenched his attention away, and said, “What? Oh, no, not tonight. Anne’s got tomorrow off as a compensation for working on Saturday, and I’m able to take the odd free day here and there.”
“Well,” said Rosemary, “I absolutely insist that we bring the wine.”
“That’s very sweet of you,” said Anne. “If you can spare...”
“You go back to Mary Jane with Colin and Anne in their dinghy,” said Alastair to Henry and Emmy, “and Rosemary and I will come along via Ariadne and pick up the booze. O.K.?”
Mary Jane was a beautiful boat. Until then, Henry and Emmy had considered Ariadne the peak of perfection, but now they saw the difference between an elderly converted fishing smack and a modern, made-to-measure yacht. For, no getting away from it, Mary Jane was a yacht. Her saloon—considerably larger than Ariadne’s—had a fitted carpet of royal blue whipcord, which matched the tailored settee-covers and was echoed in the handles of the battery of aluminum saucepans hanging up in the galley. While Rosemary washed up in a tin bowl and cooked on an ancient Primus, Anne had the use of a stainless steel sink with a tap which worked, and a handsome stove, fed from a big bottle of liquid gas. A door led into the fo’c’sle, which was equipped with two comfortable bunks, and was unencumbered by the gear and tackle which cluttered the visitors’ sleeping quarters aboard Ariadne. Most impressive of all, there was even a miniature lavatory enclosed in a small compartment opposite the galley.
“All mod. con.,” remarked Emmy, admiringly.
Colin’s sombre face broke into a gratified smile. “Do you like her?” he asked, almost diffidently.
“She’s marvellous.”
“Next season,” said Colin, “I’m going to fit a diesel engine and run electric light off the batteries. And we need a fridge badly.”
“A fridge?” Emmy was almost speechless.
“Oh, yes,” said Anne. “We must have one. Everybody does, nowadays.”
“And do you mean to say,” said Henry to Colin, “that you can handle a big boat like this on your own?”
“Good lord, yes. For a short trip. She’s only eight tons.”
“The menu,” said Anne, “is watercress soup, followed by roast chicken, new potatoes and beans. O.K. for everyone?”
Henry and Emmy murmured reverently that it was most certainly O.K., and Emmy volunteered to help with the potatoes. The two girls disappeared into the galley, and Colin poured Henry a stiff whisky. Henry noticed that, as on Ariadne, the wine cellar was located under one of the bunks.
When the two men were comfortably settled with their drinks, Colin said, “Alastair never told us that you were a detective. Puts us more or less in the same line of country.”
“I’d hardly say that,” said Henry. “My work is done before yours starts. And if you’re acting for the defence, you spend your time trying to undo everything that I’ve done.”
“That’s true.” Colin considered for a moment. “Now that I come to think of it, haven’t I read about you somewhere? Wasn’t there a case in Italy—something to do with skiing?”
“Yes,” said Henry. “That was a messy business. It interrupted my holiday.”
“I wonder,” said Colin thoughtfully, “if you’ll find this holiday similarly interrupted?”
Henry looked at him with interest. Colin’s intelligent face was puckered into what looked like secret amusement.
“It’s rather fun to speculate, don’t you think?” Colin went on. “The only unnatural death that occurred round here recently was poor old Pete Rawnsley. You must have heard all about it. Perfectly straightforward, on the face of it. And yet I wonder. As a matter of fact, I’ve been amusing myself by trying to work up a murder mystery over it.”
“Have you succeeded?” Henry asked.
Colin frowned. “Motive. Plenty of that, when you look a bit. Hamish passionately keen to get a new boat, and unable to lay hands on the money while Pete was alive. Sounds a bit thin as a motive for murder unless you know Hamish. Me—better still. Pete had been running around with Anne—she told you so herself. I don’t pretend I liked him. Unfortunately, when you get to know my fian
cée better, you’ll realize that if I was going to commit murder for that reason, I’d have several deaths on my hands already.” Colin spoke with a bitter lightness. “Still, better put me down on the list. Then there’s Anne herself, of course—a woman scorned. That’s nonsense, too, but I could make a great deal of it in court if I were leading for the prosecution. And of course we mustn’t forget Herbert.”
“Herbert?” Henry was taken aback. “Good heavens, what did Herbert have against the man?”
Colin smiled. “What I meant was...” He stopped. “I’d better not say any more. After all, you are a policeman.
“Don’t tantalize me,” said Henry. “I can’t imagine that any misdemeanour of Herbert’s could possibly excite Scotland Yard’s interest.”
“No,” said Colin. “It wouldn’t be fair. All I’ll say is this. Pete had it in his power to lose Herbert his job. In fact, he had threatened to do just that. I heard him. The day before he...died.”
“Pete sounds rather a vindictive character,” said Henry.
“Not really,” said Colin reasonably. “He was quick-tempered, certainly, and Herbert can be maddening. I don’t think Pete’d ever have done anything about it, in fact.”
“I see,” said Henry. “Any more suspects?”
“That’s all I can think of, off-hand,” said Colin. “Isn’t it enough?”
“Not for a really ingenious detective story,” said Henry, grinning. “What about David?”
Colin shook his head. “No motive and no opportunity,” he said. “David was sailing with Anne that day, and Rosemary and Alastair were together. That lets them all out, I suppose, unless it was a conspiracy.”
“Who did have the opportunity, then?”
“Hamish and I are the obvious suspects,” said Colin promptly. “We were both single-handed. We both saw Pete go aground, and we both anchored just off Steep Hill in the fog.”
“Could you have rowed ashore and found your way back to your boat?” Henry asked.
“I wouldn’t have enjoyed it much,” said Colin, “but if I’d been desperate to kill Pete, I’d certainly have had a go. With the dinghy on the end of a long line. After all,” he added, warming to his theme, “it was a perfect situation for murder, wasn’t it? What with the fog, and—”
The Sunken Sailor Page 9