The Sunken Sailor

by Patricia Moyes

  “Yes,” said Henry, and Proudie was surprised at the grimness in his voice. “A lovely day for a sail.”

  ***

  Berrybridge was deserted. Henry found Rosemary and Alastair drinking a sombre pint of beer in The Berry Bush. From them, he learnt that Anne had recovered sufficiently to go off with Hamish for a drive in his car: that David had not yet returned from his lone expedition in Pocahontas: that George Riddle had driven Sir Simon’s Daimler back to Berry Hall, followed by Sir Simon himself in Old George’s taxi, which was to bring Emmy back to Berrybridge. There was no sign of Bob Calloway, and the garage which housed the red Aston Martin was empty. More surprising still, neither Herbert nor Sam Riddle was in The Berry Bush. The only other occupants of the bar were Bill Hawkes and Old Ephraim, who sat facing each other in one of the inglenooks, consuming mild ale in oppressive silence.

  Henry took a long drink of beer, and then said quietly, “I’m afraid things are really serious now, and I feel it’s my fault.”

  “Oh God,” said Rosemary. She had been crying, and her blue eyes were rimmed with red. “Surely things couldn’t be any worse?”

  “Colin was murdered,” said Henry. His voice sounded very weary. “And it’s my fault because I started a hare and didn’t follow it up.”

  “Murdered.” Alastair repeated the word in a dull, unwondering way. “Yes, I thought as much.”

  “You didn’t!” Rosemary was passionate. “You didn’t, Alastair!”

  “I’m not quite such a fool as I look, Henry,” said Alastair, with a small, twisted smile. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? You put the idea into his head that Pete’s death might not have been accidental—and he carried on from there and discovered something important. Then he got drunk last night and blurted out in front of everybody that he’d solved the mystery. So he had to be killed. Isn’t that so?”

  “Yes,” said Henry. “I’m afraid that’s how it was.”

  Rosemary was looking at the two men with mounting horror. “But what?” she said, and her voice was shaking. “Oh, it’s not your fault, Henry. This would have happened sooner or later anyway. But what could Colin have discovered?”

  “I know that now,” said Henry. “I’ll tell you later. Colin was quicker than I was: and I could have saved his life if I’d gone ahead and beaten him to it.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Rosemary said again, with curious emphasis. “It was all our faults. Especially mine.”

  “Yours?” said Alastair sharply.

  “Of course,” said Rosemary. “I begged Henry to drop the whole thing. I did everything I could to divert him—”

  “Because you were afraid,” said Henry.

  “Yes.” It was no more than a whisper.

  “Because you knew that—”

  “He told me.”

  Alastair was looking from one to the other in bewilderment. “What on earth is all this about?” he demanded.

  “It’s none of your business,” said Rosemary tersely. She had gone very white.

  “It certainly is my business,” Alastair retorted angrily. “You’re my wife, and—”

  “That,” said Rosemary, “is a fact which you only seem to remember when it’s convenient.” She stood up. “Excuse me please, Henry. I don’t feel very well. I’m going back on board.”

  “And how am I expected to get back to the boat?” said Alastair. “Don’t be a fool, Rosemary.”

  “It’s rather too late to say that now,” said Rosemary. She walked out of the bar and into the sunshine. Alastair half-rose, then sat down again.

  “Women,” he said, bitterly. “As if things weren’t bad enough already. I suppose I should go after her, but—”

  “How long,” said Henry, “did you say you two had been married?”

  “Six years. Sometimes it feels like a hundred.”

  “When Emmy and I had been married six years, and there were still no children,” said Henry, in deep embarrassment, “I started to think I was in love with—well it doesn’t matter who. A nice girl. Emmy guessed it, and retaliated, as any person of spirit would. Things had got pretty desperate before we both realized what fools we were making of ourselves.”

  Alastair was concentrating on the inside of his beer mug. “It’s possible to go on being a fool for years,” he said.

  “You’re telling me,” said Henry, guiltily. “But there’s no need to be a damn fool. The ordinary foolishness of the human animal, who is naturally polygamous, is—thank God—generally weaker than his capacity for commonsense. But damn foolishness gets you nowhere—except out in the cold, with a bad conscience. I came to my senses just in time. Some people don’t.”

  There was a long and uneasy pause. Then Henry said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to tell you the story of my life.”

  “It’s not a very original story,” said Alastair.

  “I know,” said Henry. “It’s commonplace and boring. Let’s talk about something else. Like lunch, for instance.”

  “I don’t feel like eating today,” said Alastair.

  “Nor do I. But Emmy and I always...by the way, where is Emmy?”

  “Emmy? Haven’t seen her since early this morning.”

  Henry felt a tiny pang of apprehension. “Surely Old George must be back by now,” he said. “What time did Sir Simon leave?”

  “About half past one, I suppose.” Alastair looked up at the big, white-faced clock over the bar. “It’s half past two now. Still, I wouldn’t worry. She’s probably stayed to have lunch with Sir Simon.”

  Henry stood up. “I think I’ll just go and see...” he said, vaguely, and walked out into the yard.

  With an increasing sense of uneasiness, Henry walked up the lane towards Old George’s cottage. When he saw the black Lanchester standing like a monument in the open-doored garage, it was no more than he had expected. He quickened his pace, pushed between tall hollyhocks to the back door, and knocked. Old George opened the door.

  Trying to keep his voice light and matter-of-fact, Henry said, “I’m sorry to disturb you. I was looking for my wife.”

  “Wife?” Old George glanced behind him, as though half-expecting Emmy to materialize in the kitchen.

  “The lady you drove out to Berry Hall this morning,” said Henry patiently. “You brought her back again, didn’t you?”

  “That I didn’t,” said Old George. “Left, she had.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I say,” said Old George, a shade truculently. “Waste of a journey. Sir Simon had me drive him back special to pick up the lady. Some people don’t have no consideration.”

  “And she’d already left when you got there?” It sounded to Henry as though his own voice were coming from a long way away. “How very strange. Can you tell me just what happened?”

  Old George shot him a suspicious look. “Nothing happened,” he said. “I parks in the drive behind the Daimler, and Sir Simon goes into the house. He says for me to wait. A minute or so after, he comes out and says as how the lady’s left, and I’m to go back. Anything wrong in that?”

  “No, no,” said Henry. “Nothing at all. Thank you.”

  He almost ran back to The Berry Bush, only to find that Alastair had left. Hurrying down the hard, Henry was just in time to see him clambering aboard Ariadne from Hamish’s dinghy, which now bobbed astern side by side with the Bensons’ own. Henry shouted and waved. Alastair waved back cheerfully. It wasn’t until Henry had nearly dislocated his shoulder making exaggerated movements of beckoning that Alastair understood that his presence was required ashore. He nodded encouragingly, and disappeared below for what felt to Henry like an hour, but was in fact about three minutes. When he emerged into the cockpit again, Rosemary was with him. They took a dinghy apiece and pulled for the hard again.

  Alastair was first ashore. “What’s up, Henry?” he asked.

  “It’s Emmy,” said Henry. “She’s disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Old George says she�
��d already left Berry Hall when Sir Simon got back. That’s impossible. She had no form of transport.”

  “She might have walked,” put in Rosemary, who had pulled in alongside and was tying up her painter.

  “If she’d walked,” said Henry, “Old George would have met her on the way, or else she’d be back by now. Anyhow, she wouldn’t have walked. I don’t know what’s happened to her and, frankly, I’m frightened.”

  “Oh, really, Henry,” said Rosemary. “She probably decided to cut across the fields, or—well, after all, Emmy’s not a child. She can cope.”

  “I’m sorry to sound melodramatic,” said Henry, abashed, “but I don’t think you quite understand. I feel like a man in a fog. We’re dealing with somebody desperate and not entirely sane. I’ve got to be terribly careful.”

  There was a pause, and then Alastair said, “What do you want us to do?”

  “I don’t really know,” said Henry. “Let’s get into the car and drive slowly up the lane, while I think.”

  In the car, Rosemary said, “She might be anywhere.”

  “No,” said Henry abstractedly. “Not far away. No time.” Even as he said it, he remembered that the Aston Martin was not in its garage, but he put the thought firmly to one side. “Berry Hall is the obvious place to start. We’ll go there.”

  “Perhaps if we were to ask Sir Simon—” Alastair began.

  “No,” said Henry. “Nobody. Not even him. Don’t talk to anybody about it. It’s too dangerous.”

  Alastair looked sceptical, but all he said was, “What shall we do then?”

  “Is it possible,” Henry asked, suddenly, “to drive a car right down to the Berry Hall boathouse?”

  “Yes,” said Alastair. “There’s a drive that goes round the back of the house and down to the river. But we can’t very well just take the car down there without a word of—”

  “I don’t want you to take the car down,” said Henry. “I want you to drop me off just before we get to Berry Hall, and go on up to the house yourselves. Pretend it’s an ordinary social call—”

  “At three o’clock on a sunny afternoon?” said Rosemary. “Sir Simon will think we’re—”

  “Say you’ve come to collect Emmy. That you didn’t know about the arrangement with Old George. Don’t be perturbed when you hear she left earlier. Just say she’s probably gone for a walk. Try to keep an eye on Riddle, and keep everybody away from the window of the Blue Drawing Room if you can.”

  “And what will you—”

  “I’m going to investigate the boathouse. And anywhere else that might make a hiding place. I’ll meet you at the same spot where you dropped me off. Wait for me.”

  “I suppose you know what you’re doing, Henry.” Alastair’s voice sounded disapproving.

  “I wish to God,” said Henry bitterly, “that I did. On second thoughts, if I don’t turn up by half past four, go to the nearest public telephone and get on to Inspector Proudie. Tell him to come to Berry Hall with a squad of strong men and a search warrant.”

  “Good heavens,” said Rosemary. “I can’t think what Sir Simon will—”

  “I can’t help that,” said Henry. “Emmy was alone there this morning, apart from Priscilla, who doesn’t count. Anybody could have gone in and—”

  “This,” said Alastair, “is just like a rather improbable thriller. I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “I daresay Pete Rawnsley and Colin found it pretty unlikely, too,” said Henry. “Right. I’ll get off here. Good luck, and thanks a lot.”

  He watched the station wagon as it drove off down the lane and into the gates of Berry Hall. Then he pushed his way uncomfortably through a prickly hedge and headed towards the river.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WHEN EMMY OPENED her eyes, she was lying on her back in darkness, aware only of the sound of lapping water and a splitting pain in her head. For a moment, she imagined that she must be in the fo’c’sle of Ariadne: then, as consciousness returned and she tried to move, she realized with a pang of horror that she was efficiently gagged with some soft material, and that her wrists and ankles were bound. Memory came flooding back. She had been at Berry Hall...and Priscilla...had just been going to say something important. And then, without warning, there had been a sickening, thudding crash: she recalled a glimpse of Priscilla’s vacuous face expressing a mild surprise, and, after that, darkness.

  Now, with returning lucidity, Emmy strained her eyes in the gloom to take in her surroundings. She had not been so far mistaken in her first impression. She was indeed in the fo’c’sle of a boat, and the uncomfortably lumpy surface on which she was lying was a coil of rope. She wriggled desperately, but found that she could not move more than a few, painful inches. As her eyes grew slowly more accustomed to the gloom, she turned her head agonizingly from side to side in an effort to locate anything sharp-edged against which she might be able to chafe the rope round her wrists. The only possible object seemed to be a muddy CQR anchor on her right, but its flukes looked depressingly blunt.

  Still, thought Emmy, fighting back panic, it’s better than nothing. She began to edge her way towards it. The situation had a ridiculous, nightmare quality. One came sailing with friends to Berrybridge Haven. One met charming people and grew to love a quiet, secluded corner of England. And then... Colin. Suddenly she remembered Colin. Colin was dead. Nice, intelligent Colin with his dangerous sense of humour—Colin had been murdered. Pete Rawnsley had been murdered. And she was in the process of being murdered, too. Hysteria rose from her throat and threatened to suffocate her. Somebody had knocked her out and tied her up and thrown her into the bows of a boat. Soon somebody would be back to finish the job. Soon...

  Simultaneously, came noise and movement. The boat rocked violently, and there was the unmistakable sound of a footfall on deck. Somebody had come aboard. Emmy froze into immobility. She heard the noise, immeasurably magnified by the echo chamber of the fo’c’sle, as somebody moved about the boat. There was the dull ring of metal on metal. And then she heard a voice, and tears of relief and joy came into her eyes. For it was Henry’s voice, and it said, in a diffident and embarrassed tone, “Oh, hello...”

  “Good heavens, Tibbett,” said Sir Simon. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  ***

  Henry had reached the boathouse by a devious route through bushes and undergrowth, and was considerably disheveled. Gingerly, and with a nervous glance in the direction of the house, he emerged from the shelter of shrubbery and made a run for it across the few yards of open field that separated him from the black wooden walls of the shed. A moment later, he was in the cool darkness of the boathouse, and looking straight into the startled blue eyes of Sir Simon Trigg-Willoughby, who stood in Priscilla’s open cockpit, a bag of tools in his hand. The two men regarded each other in silence for a moment. Then Henry, feeling exceptionally foolish, said, “Oh, hello...”

  “Good heavens, Tibbett.” Sir Simon put his tool bag down. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “I was...that is, I came over with the Bensons,” said Henry.

  “My dear fellow,” said Sir Simon. He climbed out of the boat and on to the concrete landing stage. “You must come up to the house. I was just tinkering with Priscilla’s engine. Something wrong, as I told you this morning. Most annoying.”

  Even Sir Simon’s well-bred politeness could not quite disguise the strong undercurrent of curiosity in his voice. Henry felt compelled to give some sort of explanation, and he decided that the least complicated one would be the truth.

  “I’ll be frank with you, Sir Simon. I came down here to look for my wife.”

  “Your wife? But she left some time ago.”

  “That’s just what’s worrying me,” said Henry. “She hasn’t arrived back in Berrybridge, and it’s extremely unlike Emmy to go off on her own without leaving any message for me. I didn’t want to trouble you, but I felt I must look for her. I don’t suppose,” he added, “that she could be anywhere in here?�
�

  “In here?” Sir Simon was clearly taken aback. “Heavens, no. I’ve been working on Priscilla most of the time since I got back. There’s certainly nobody here.” He climbed out of the boat, and wiped his hands on a filthy rag. “This is very disturbing, Tibbett,” he went on. “I got back about two o’clock, I suppose, and there was no sign of her. Thought it was strange, myself. Still, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. Come on up to the house. I’ve got the car down here—just been into Woodbridge to buy some tools I needed. I’ll run you up, and we’ll soon find out what’s happened.”

  “It’s very kind of you,” said Henry. “I’m sorry if I appear to be panicking unnecessarily, but I may as well tell you that we now have definite proof that Colin Street was murdered. Inspector Proudie is back in Berrybridge, carrying out his investigations. It means that there’s a very unpleasant character loose in the neighbourhood, and—”

  “Murdered? My dear chap—” Sir Simon was momentarily speechless. “In that case, the sooner we locate your wife, the better. Come with me. I suggest we start by telephoning...”

  The voices faded into silence. In the dark fo’c’sle, Emmy wept.

  ***

  Rosemary and Alastair were sitting disconsolately side by side on the sunny terrace. They heard the Daimler draw up in the drive, and were more than a little surprised to see Henry getting out of it, in company with Sir Simon. Henry’s passage through the undergrowth had not improved his appearance. His face and hands were scratched with brambles, and his sandy hair stood up like a halo round his thin, worried face. Sir Simon boomed an uneasy welcome.

  “Ah, there you are. Henry told me. Council of war, eh?”

  Rosemary and Alastair scrambled to their feet. “We just came over—” Alastair began.

  “I know, I know. Mrs. Tibbett. Very worrying.” Sir Simon turned to Henry. “Have you notified the police?”

  “No,” said Henry. “I am the police.”