by JRL Anderson
*
‘What happened, Sally?’ Piet asked when Macleod had gone back into the cabin.
‘When you didn’t ring up I got very worried about you.’
‘I couldn’t ring up. Do you remember how puzzled I was when you told me that you didn’t think Mrs Vincent could have been in London on Monday? Well, that was because a woman calling herself Mrs Vincent, and using one of Mrs Vincent’s trade cards, called on Gavell and Gainsworth, the art dealers, on Monday, to try to persuade them to sell a picture for her. The picture is ostensibly an unknown Constable, but there’s something very funny about it. Wilbur Constantine, the expert at Gavell and Gainsworth, naturally got in touch with us, and I saw him on Tuesday. He stalled off Mrs Vincent for a couple of days, arranging for her to come back yesterday. I was in his office – well, actually in his secretary’s room opening off it – when she came. And it wasn’t Mrs Vincent – she was somebody I’d never seen before. I had to follow her at once and keep her in sight – I never had a chance to go to a phone box. She went to Liverpool Street and got a train to Yarmouth. I had to go too. And now I think I know who she is. She went to the yacht harbour at Yarmouth and went on board the motor-cruiser that I first saw moored at Poplar’s Fen. The man on board called her Trish, so I suppose she’s the Trish of your Malcolm and Trish.’
‘Oh Piet! I think I’m beginning to understand,’ Sally shuddered.
‘I don’t think you can understand everything yet. But you can understand enough to know that you were among some very nasty people. What happened to you?’
‘Well, I told you I was worried about you. I thought that you’d probably decided to go back to Poplar’s Fen, and didn’t want me with you because . . . well, perhaps because you didn’t altogether trust me. I wanted to show you that you could trust me, and if anything dangerous was going to happen to you I wanted to be there, too.’
Piet needed only one hand for the tiller. He ran the other over Sally’s hair. She went on, ‘I hoped you’d be on board Roger’s boat when I got there, but you weren’t. Roger and Trudi were. They were quite nice to me, made some cocoa for me and asked where you were. I said the wrong thing. I said that we’d separated in London and arranged to come independently. I said that you’d probably got held up in London and would be back first thing in the morning. They asked how I’d got back, and I said I’d borrowed a friend’s car. Then Roger asked, “Have you come back to warn us?”
‘I said, “I don’t understand. What on earth do you mean?”
‘Trudi said, “Well, your boyfriend’s a copper, isn’t he?”
‘I said again that I didn’t understand, that I’d known you for ages as an artist, and that I was quite sure you weren’t a policeman.
‘Roger said something like, “I don’t know if I believe you, but even if that’s what you think, you’re wrong. If he” –he meant you – “is coming back in the morning we’ve got to get out first. And I’m afraid you will have to come with us.”
‘I began to get cross, and I said, “I’m damned well not going anywhere with you. I’m clearing out now.” I got up to go, but Roger caught hold of me. While he held me Trudi put a handkerchief in my mouth and tied a gag round it so that I couldn’t scream, and she and Roger tied me up. They had a discussion about whether to leave straightaway, but Roger didn’t like the idea of crossing the bar at night so they decided to wait till morning. They thought you’d be coming by road, anyway, and that they’d be out of sight at sea before you got here. I still don’t understand how you came to be on board that boat.’
‘I’ll explain that later. What happened to you?’
‘They just left me tied up. I don’t know exactly what they did, because I was in the cabin and couldn’t see, but I could hear them on deck, and either one or both of them seemed to make several trips ashore – I could hear coming and going from the river bank. I don’t know where they went – to the mill, perhaps, but I don’t know. Soon after it got light they began to move the boat. There wasn’t much wind – less than there is now. We were tossed about a lot in getting over the bar, but Roger is good with the boat and we got out all right. Because there wasn’t much wind we didn’t get very far until you caught up with us. They didn’t seem to bother about me. Until you started hailing from the other boat they left the cabin door open. When you came up they shut the door and locked it. I haven’t any idea what they were going to do with me.’
‘I’m afraid I have,’ Piet said. ‘Thank God we got to you in time.’
*
With the wind increasing, they made good progress back to the shore and Piet could see the line of breakers on the bar some way ahead. Constable Macleod came out of the cabin. ‘The man says he wants to talk to you,’ he said to Piet.
‘All right. You take the tiller. Hold her as she goes, we’re doing well enough as we are.’
Piet went below, and Roger said, ‘You don’t know the bar, and I do. If you’ll untie my hands and let me take her in, I’ll guarantee to get you over safely.’
‘Why do you suppose I should trust you?’ Piet asked.
‘I haven’t resisted so far, have I? Trudi’s handcuffed in here and there are two of you, with guns, to look after me –three of you, if you count Sally. The most important reason, though, is that since Sandra’s death I don’t really care a damn what happens to me.’
‘You swine,’ Trudi said. ‘What you could ever see in her is beyond me.’
Roger made no comment. ‘How did you know I was a policeman?’ Piet asked.
‘You made a mistake, a rather silly mistake. When you went ashore that first evening and went off to the pub, you left your things on board. Not knowing anything about you, naturally I went through them. And among a lot of painting things in one of your bags there was a police walkie-talkie radio. How did you know about me?’
‘You made mistakes, too. You’ve obviously had some cosmetic surgery and you’ve altered the shape of your nose quite well. But I really am an artist as well as being a policeman – at least, I’ve been to an art school and learned how to look at people before doing portraits. You couldn’t alter the shape of your skull, particularly at the back of your head. I thought I’d seen that shape before, and I saw it again in photographs in our records. I couldn’t be absolutely sure, of course, but you made a worse mistake.’
‘You mean my finger?’
‘Yes.’
‘I got careless, I suppose. I did have an artificial joint made and wore it for some time, but it was never comfortable, and I could use my hand better without it. After three years there seemed no likelihood of any danger at the Fen, so I just gave up using it . . . But we must be closing the coast. Are you going to let me take her in?’
Piet knew enough about sailing on the East Coast to accept the value of local knowledge. He had never entered Poplar’s Fen from seawards and although he had studied the chart on board Daffodil the channels through such bars change frequently. Roger was undoubtedly a competent sailor, he had brought the botter out of the Fen only that morning, and if anyone knew the passage, he did. With himself on one side and Constable Macleod on the other, there didn’t seem much that Roger could do to escape.
‘All right,’ Piet said. ‘Come aft and we’ll unlock your handcuffs. But remember, we’re both armed. Any funny business, and I’ll shoot.’ With the sway of the boat Roger found some difficulty in keeping on his feet. Piet had no intention of removing his handcuffs in the cabin. He put a hand on Roger’s arm and helped him to the cockpit.
X
The Secret of the Fen
‘MY HANDS ARE a bit stiff from being tied,’ Roger said. ‘Do you think you could harden the jib sheet a little?’
Piet took half a turn round the winch. The jib certainly set better and although they were not going very fast they closed the land steadily. They were about half a mile offshore, the breakers of the bar dead ahead, and beyond them, details of the land stood out sharply. ‘In case you ever want to do this again,’ Roger sai
d, ‘keep the tower of the mill on a bearing of 320 degrees.’ He glanced at the compass. ‘We’re about right as we are.’
Piet wondered if Inspector Lennard and the Lowestoft men had got to the Fen, and what had happened when they got there. It might be awkward if they had not arrived, but the botter’s speed compared with what Daffodil could do going all out was so slow that there should have been ample time. Well, they would soon know.
The breakers were only about fifty yards ahead . . . thirty yards . . . ten yards. At the last moment Roger put the tiller hard over. The botter swung almost broadside onto the breakers and there was a dreadful crunching sound as she struck the shingle bank. It was hard shingle, not sand. The breakers kept on coming at her, with that kind of deliberate viciousness that the sea sometimes seems to show towards a vessel in distress. She heeled to her beam ends, the mast went and water began pouring into the wreck of splintered wood and tangle of ropes and sails. Roger made no move, just standing where he was, waist-deep in water.
‘Get the woman out of the cabin and unlock her hands – you have the key. We must give her a chance,’ Piet shouted to Macleod. But the constable didn’t need telling, for he was already fighting his way to the cabin through the wreckage. He found Trudi with water up to her shoulders and managed to drag her to the cabin door, through which the sea was now swirling. Piet went forward to help him and together they contrived to lift her onto the cabin top, still a couple of feet above the sea. ‘I think I’ve broken my arm,’ Macleod said. ‘Can you get the key out of my pocket?’ Piet found the key and freed Trudi’s hands, so that at least she was able to help herself by clinging to the cabin top. Piet got hold of a broken shroud that had fallen across the cabin, tugged at it and found that it was still holding to the chainplate. ‘Hang on to this with your good arm,’ he said to Macleod. Then he went back for Sally.
She had kept her head and was holding herself above water by clutching what was left of the main boom, still half in the boat. She couldn’t have held on long, though, for the breakers were clawing at her and driving the remains of the boom over the side. Piet got a line from the mess of cordage – it was one of the jib halliards – and took it with him. Gripping the line with his left hand he got his right arm round her shoulders. He had a fairly firm foothold on the windward coaming, the higher side of the steeply-heeled wreck. ‘OK now,’ he said. ‘When the next wave comes let it lift you up to the boom. I’ve got you safely.’ As an extra precaution he looped his end of the line under her arms and with the lift of a wave drew her to him. Then they clambered up to the cabin top, and Piet got Sally to cling to the same bit of broken shroud that was supporting Macleod. ‘Look after him as well as you can,’ he said. ‘His right arm’s badly hurt.’
Trudi was lying across the cabin top, with a good grip on the base of a ventilator. She seemed all right for the moment. Piet looked for Roger. He had not moved, and was standing trance-like in the stern, holding the high, curved tiller, still miraculously intact. Water was lapping his neck. ‘Come up here,’ Piet shouted at him. ‘I’ll throw you a line.’ Roger took no notice.
*
No wooden boat, however lovingly built, could long withstand the battering of heavy breakers on that cruel shingle bank. One particularly steep swell lifted her and sent her crashing down again on the stones. On the lee side her timbers were already broached. Now the planking on her weather side began to give, and the sea tore a huge hole in her just below the cabin, splitting the cabin top. She was breaking up.
Trudi was the first to go. The woodwork round the ventilator top to which she was clinging was wrenched away. She clutched at the broken wood but the next wave swept her and about one-third of the cabin top into the sea. Piet, Sally and Macleod were huddled nearer to the stump of the mast. Piet reached out and tried to grab Trudi as she went overboard, but the gap in the planking was too wide and he could not reach her. He threw her the end of the halliard. She made a grab at it, missed, and disappeared in the swirl of breakers. Roger must have seen it all happening. He did nothing whatever.
It could be minutes only before the rest of the little group on the remnants of the cabin top were carried away. The planking round the chainplate holding the shroud was gone, and although the plate itself was through-bolted to a rib, the wrenching away of the planking and the battering on the stones of the shingle bank had broken the rib. The shroud that had been supporting them was useless now. Piet got one arm round the stump of the mast, but that, too, was giving, as the bottom of the boat was ground to pieces. With his other arm Piet held Macleod. Sally worked herself into a position with her feet against the mast and did what she could to help Piet support the injured constable.
There was no respite from the vicious breakers. ‘It’s no good, sir.’ Macleod said gamely. ‘You’ll have to let go of me and maybe I shall be carried ashore somehow.’
‘Thanks, but I’m not having it,’ Piet said. ‘When we go, we’ll go together – with one arm you wouldn’t stand much chance in those breakers. I’ll do my best to keep you up, and Sally will try to make it on her own.’
Man proposes . . . The words were hardly out of Piet’s mouth when the sea settled the matter by sweeping Macleod out of Piet’s grasp, and he was gone. Piet was about to go after him when, to his bewilderment, he saw Roger come alive and plunge into the sea. The man was a powerful swimmer, and clearly he knew something about life-saving. He was up with Macleod before he went under, supported him and struggled with him to the beach.
Piet and Sally followed – there was nothing more to hope for on the broken boat, and no sign of rescue from the shore. Piet could swim well, but it was all he could do to keep himself up in the maelstrom of breakers, and he could feel a savage undertow trying to drag him down. He was determined not to let go of Sally and he didn’t, but their chances of getting ashore seemed slim. The old boat herself, or rather, a plank from her, was their salvation. Piet saw the plank, grabbed it and dragged it to them. It was not enough to support both of them, but with Sally lying across the plank and Piet holding on to it they could keep their heads above water and swim with their legs. Inside the breakers the sea became much calmer, and once clear of the troubled water on the bar it wasn’t long before Piet felt one of his feet touch bottom. Two more strokes and he could walk within his depth, pushing the plank with Sally lying across it to the beach.
As soon as Sally was safely within her depth Piet left her to go to the aid of Roger, who was having a far harder struggle with the injured – and much heavier – Constable Macleod. With Piet’s strength added to Roger’s they got Macleod to the edge of the shore. Sally ran to help, and the three of them carried the injured man safely above the tideline and made him as comfortable as they could with his back against a tussock of marram grass. The four of them, soaked and momentarily exhausted, lay there panting.
‘That was a magnificent act,’ Piet said to Roger.
‘I had nothing against him. Why should he drown?’
Piet went on. ‘In the circumstances it is appalling to say this, but it is my duty to arrest you. I have reason to believe that you are Rupert Lexington, sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment for your part in a bullion robbery at Southampton, who escaped from prison shortly afterwards. I need scarcely add that your act today in saving the life of Constable Macleod will be brought to the notice of the authorities.’
‘That doesn’t matter. Has Trudi gone?’
‘She doesn’t seem to have got ashore.’
‘Good. She poisoned Sandra. That’s why I got Sandra a new sugar tin.’
‘She found out about that. There was arsenic in the new tin. I had it analysed.’
‘Then I hope she’s safely in hell by now.’
‘But she didn’t succeed in killing Sandra.’
‘What do you mean? Of course she killed her. She was jealous of her, partly because of me, mainly because Sandra really could paint. She knew who I was and I could do nothing because she could simply go to the police. And t
hat would mean that other people, quite innocent people, morally at any rate, if not legally, would suffer, too. So I didn’t do enough to stop her killing Sandra.’
‘But Sandra didn’t die from arsenic poisoning.’
*
The man called Roger or Rupert had no time to ask Piet what that meant, for a panting Inspector Lennard came running up. ‘We saw your boat go on the rocks,’ he said, ‘but we could do nothing for we had a full-scale battle on our hands. I had four men – I could have done with forty. Are you all right?’
‘There’s a woman missing from the boat. She was washed overboard and doesn’t seem to have got ashore. I don’t think there can be any hope for her, but the coastguard must be informed and a helicopter sent up to search as soon as possible. Constable Macleod has a broken arm – he owes his life to this man here, who risked his own to save him. I’m afraid that the man himself has to be under arrest. He is Rupert Lexington, the escaped prisoner, whom police all over the world have been looking for.’
The Inspector gasped. ‘The Southampton bullion robbery!’
‘Yes.’
Piet got up. ‘We must get Constable Macleod to hospital,’ he said, ‘but he will be all right here for the moment. Stay with him, Sally, and we’ll send some dry blankets as soon as we can.’ To Roger he said gently, ‘I’m sorry, but you must come with us. We must get an ambulance for the constable and we must organise a search for Trudi. There is a great deal to be done.’
Roger nodded. ‘I shall give you no trouble,’ he said. ‘While you’re about it you might like to get some salvage men to work on the wreck. There’s the best part of a million pounds worth of gold bars lying on the bottom. You ought to be able to recover most of it if you get to work quickly.’
*
‘What happened to you?’ Piet asked the Inspector. They were walking side by side, Roger, still exhausted after his swim with Macleod, plodding a few yards ahead.