Dead Water (12 page)

She was of course dressed for travel. Her luggage, as he saw through the open door, was ready. She was wearing her toque.

He told her what had happened. Miss Emily’s sallow complexion whitened. She looked very fixedly at him and did not interrupt.

‘Roderique,’ she said when he had finished. ‘This is my doing. I am responsible.’

‘Now, my dearest Miss Emily –’

‘No. Please. Let me look squarely at the catastrophe. This foolish woman has been mistaken for me. There is no doubt in my mind at all. It declares itself. If I had obeyed the intention and not the mere letter of the undertaking I gave you, this would not have occurred.’

‘You went to the Spring this morning with your notice?’

‘Yes. I had, if you recollect, promised you not to leave my apartment again last night and to breakfast in my apartment this morning. A loophole presented itself.’

In spite of Miss Emily’s distress there was more than a hint of low cunning in the sidelong glance she gave him. ‘I went out,’ she said. ‘I placed my manifesto. I returned. I took my
petit déjeuner
in my room.’

‘When did you go out?’

‘At half past seven.’

‘It was raining?’

‘Heavily.’

‘Did you meet anybody? Or see anybody?’

‘I met nobody,’ said Miss Emily. ‘I
saw
that wretched child. Walter Trehern. He was on the roadway that leads from the cottages up to the Spring. It has, I believe, been called – ’ She closed her eyes. ‘Wally’s Way. He was half-way up the hill.’

‘Did he see you?’

‘He did. He uttered some sort of gibberish, gave an uncouth cry and waved his arms.’

‘Did he see you leave?’

‘I think not. When I had affixed my manifesto and faced about, he had already disappeared. Possibly he was hiding.’

‘And you didn’t, of course, see Miss Cost.’

‘No!’

‘You didn’t see her umbrella on your ledge above the pool? As you were tying up your notice?’

‘Certainly not. I looked in that direction. It was not there.’

‘And that would be at about twenty to eight. It wouldn’t, I think, take you more than ten minutes to walk there, from the pub?’

‘No. It was five minutes to eight when I re-entered the hotel.’

‘Did you drop the notice, face down in the mud?’

‘Certainly not. Why?’

‘It’s no matter. Miss Emily: please try to remember if you saw anybody at all on the village side of the causeway or indeed anywhere. Any activity round the jetty, for instance, or on the bay or in the cottages? Then, or at any time during your expedition.’

‘Certainly not.’

‘And on your return journey?’

‘The rain was driving in from the direction of the village. My umbrella was therefore inclined to meet it.’

‘Yes. I see.’

A silence fell between them. Alleyn walked over to the window. It looked down on a small garden at the back of the old pub. As he stood there, absently staring, someone came into the garden from below. It was Mrs Barrimore. She had a shallow basket over her arm and carried a pair of secateurs. She walked over to a clump of Michaelmas daisies and began to cut them, and her movement was so unco-ordinated and wild that the flowers fell to the ground. She made as if to retrieve them, dropped her secateurs and then the basket. Her hands went to her face and for a time she crouched there, quite motionless. She then rose and walked aimlessly and hurriedly about the paths, turning and returning as if the garden were a prison yard. Her fingers twisted together. They might have been encumbered with rings of which she tried fruitlessly to rid them.

‘That,’ said Miss Emily’s voice, ‘is a very unhappy creature.’

She had joined Alleyn without attracting his notice.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What’s the matter with her?’

‘No doubt her animal of a husband ill-treats her.’

‘She’s a beautiful woman,’ Alleyn said. He found himself quoting from – surely? – an inappropriate source. ‘ “What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands”’ and Miss Emily replied at once: ‘ “It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands”.’

‘Good heavens!’ Alleyn ejaculated. ‘What do we think we’re talking about!’

Margaret Barrimore raised her head and instinctively they both drew back. Alleyn walked away from the window and then, with a glance at Miss Emily, turned back to it.

‘She has controlled herself,’ said Miss Emily. ‘She is gathering her flowers. She is a woman of character, that one.’

In a short time Mrs Barrimore had filled her basket and returned to the house.

‘Was she very friendly,’ he asked, ‘with Miss Cost?’

‘No. I believe, on the contrary, that there was a certain animosity. On Cost’s part. Not, as far as I could see, upon Mrs Barrimore’s. Cost,’ said Miss Emily, ‘was, I judged, a spiteful woman. It is a not unusual phenomenon among spinsters of Cost’s years and class. I am glad to say I was not conscious, at her age, of any such emotion. My sister Fanny, in her extravagant fashion, used to say I was devoid of the mating instinct. It may have been so.’

‘Were you never in love, Miss Emily?’

‘That,’ said Miss Emily, ‘is an entirely different matter.’

‘Is it?’

‘In any case it is neither here nor there. What do you wish me to do, Roderique? Am I to remain in this place?’ She examined him. ‘I think you are disturbed upon this point,’ she said.

Alleyn thought: ‘She’s sharp enough to see I’m worried about her and yet she can’t see why. Or can she?’

He said: ‘It’s a difficult decision. If you go back to London I’m afraid I shall be obliged to keep in touch and bother you with questions and you may have to return. There will be an inquest, of course. I don’t know if you will be called. You may be.’

‘With whom does the decision rest?’

‘Primarily, with the police.’

‘With you, then?’

‘Yes. It rests upon our report. Usually the witnesses called at an inquest are the persons who found the body; me, in this instance, together with the investigating officers, the pathologist and anyone who saw or spoke to the deceased shortly before the event. Or anyone else who the police believe can throw light on the circumstances. Do you think,’ he asked, ‘you can do that?’

Miss Emily looked disconcerted. It was the first time, he thought, that he had ever seen her at a loss.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I think not.’

‘Miss Emily, do you believe that Wally Trehern came back after you had left the enclosure, saw Miss Cost under her umbrella, crept up to the boulder by a roundabout way (there’s plenty of cover) and threw down the rock, thinking he threw it on you?’

‘How could that be? How could he get in? The enclosure was locked.’

‘He may have had a disc, you know.’

‘What would be done to him?’

‘Nothing very dreadful. He would probably be sent to an institution.’

She moved about the room with an air of indecision that reminded him, disturbingly, of Mrs Barrimore. ‘I can only repeat,’ she said at last, ‘what I know. I saw him. He cried out and then hid himself. That is all.’

‘I think we may ask you to speak of that at the inquest.’

‘And in the meantime?’

‘In the meantime, perhaps we should compromise. There is, I’m told, a reasonably good hotel in the hills outside Dunlowman. If I can arrange for you to stay there, will you do so? The inquest may be held at Dunlowman. It would be less of a fuss for you than returning from London.’

‘It’s inadvisable for me to remain here?’

‘Very inadvisable.’

‘So be it,’ said Miss Emily. His relief was tempered by a great uneasiness. He had never known her so tractable before.

‘I’ll telephone the hotel,’ he said. ‘And Troy, if I may,’ he added with a sigh.

‘Had I taken your advice and remained in London, this would not have happened.’

He was hunting through the telephone book. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is a prime example of utterly fruitless speculation. I am surprised at you, Miss Emily.’ He dialled the number. The Manor Court Hotel would have a suite vacant at five o’clock the next day. There would also be a small single room. There had been cancellations. He booked the suite. ‘You can go over in the morning,’ he said, ‘and lunch there. It’s the best we can do. Will you stay indoors today, please?’

‘I have given up this room.’

‘I don’t think there will be any difficulty.’

‘People are leaving?’

‘I daresay some will do so.’

‘O,’ she said, ‘I am so troubled, my dear. I am so troubled.’

This, more than anything else she had said, being completely out of character, moved and disturbed him. He sat her down and
because she looked unsettled and alien in her travelling toque, carefully removed it. ‘There,’ he said, ‘and I haven’t disturbed the coiffure. Now, you look more like my favourite old girl.’

‘That is no way to address me,’ said Miss Emily. ‘You forget yourself.’ He unbuttoned her gloves and drew them off. ‘Should I blow in them?’ he asked. ‘Or would that be
du dernier bourgeois?’

He saw with dismay that she was fighting back tears.

There was a tap at the door. Jenny Williams opened it and looked in. ‘Are you receiving?’ she asked and then saw Alleyn. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll come back later.’

‘Come in,’ Alleyn said. ‘She may, mayn’t she, Miss Emily?’

‘By all means. Come in, Jennifer.’

Jenny gave Alleyn a look. He said: ‘We’ve been discussing appropriate action to be taken by Miss Emily,’ and told her what he had arranged.

Jenny said: ‘Can’t the hotel take her today?’ And then hurried on: ‘Wouldn’t you like to be shot of the Island as soon as possible, Miss Pride? It’s been a horrid business, hasn’t it?’

‘I’m afraid they’ve nothing until tomorrow,’ Alleyn said.

‘Well then, wouldn’t London be better, after all? It’s so anti-climaxy to gird up one’s loins and then ungird them. Miss Pride, if you’d at all like me to, I’d love to go with you for the train journey.’

‘You are extremely kind, dear child. Will you excuse me for a moment. I have left my handkerchief in my bedroom, I think.’

Jenny, about to fetch it, caught Alleyn’s eye and stopped short. Alleyn opened the door for Miss Emily and shut it again.

He said quickly: ‘What’s happened? Talk?’

‘She mustn’t go out. Can’t we get her away? Yes. Talk. Beastly, unheard-of,
filthy
talk. She mustn’t know. God!’ said Jenny, ‘how I hate
people.’

‘She’s staying indoors all day.’

‘Has she any idea what they’ll be saying?’

‘I don’t know. She’s upset. She’s gone in there to blow her nose and pull herself together. Look. Would you go with her to Dunlowman? It’ll only be a few days. As a job?’

‘Yes, of course. Job be blowed.’

‘Well, as her guest. She wouldn’t hear of anything else.’

‘All right. If she wants me. She might easily not.’

‘Go out on a pretence message for me and come back in five minutes. I’ll fix it.’

‘OK.’

‘You’re a darling, Miss Williams.’

Jenny pulled a grimace and went out.

When Miss Emily returned she was in complete control of herself. Alleyn said Jenny had gone down to leave a note for him at the office. He said he’d had an idea. Jenny, he understood from Miss Emily, herself was hard up and had to take holiday jobs to enable her to stay in England. Why not offer her one as companion for as long as the stay in Dunlowman lasted?

‘She would not wish it. She is the guest of the Barrimores and the young man is greatly attached.’

‘I think she feels she’d like to get away,’ Alleyn lied. ‘She said as much to me.’

‘In that case,’ Miss Emily hesitated. ‘In that case I – I shall make the suggestion. Tactfully, of course. I confess it – it would be a comfort.’ And she added firmly: ‘I am feeling old.’

It was the most devastating remark he had ever heard from Miss Emily.

When he arrived downstairs it was to find Major Barrimore and the office clerk dealing with a group of disgruntled visitors who were relinquishing their rooms. The Major appeared to hang on to his professional aplomb with some difficulty. Alleyn waited and had time to read a notice that was prominently displayed and announced the temporary closing of the Spring owing to unforeseen circumstances.

Major Barrimore made his final bow, stared balefully after the last guest and saw Alleyn. He spread his hands. ‘My God,’ he said.

‘I’m very sorry.’

‘Bloody people!’ said the Major in unconscious agreement with Jenny. ‘God, how I hate bloody people.’

‘I’m sure you do.’

‘They’ll all go! The lot! They’ll cackle away among themselves and want their money back and change their minds and jibber and jabber and in the bloody upshot, they’ll be off. The whole bloody boiling of them. And the next thing: a new draft! Waltzing in and waltzing out again. What the – ’ His language grew more fanciful; he sweated extremely. A lady with a cross face swept out of the lounge and up the stairs. He bowed to her distractedly. ‘That’s right, madam,’ he whispered after her. ‘That’s the drill. Talk to your husband and pack your bags and take your chronic eczema to hell out of it.’ He smiled dreadfully at Alleyn. ‘And what can I do for
you?’
he demanded.

‘I hardly dare ask you for a room.’

‘You can have the whole pub. Bring the whole Yard.’

Alleyn offered what words of comfort he could muster. Major Barrimore received them with a moody sneer but presently became calmer. ‘I’m not blaming you,’ he said. ‘You’re doing your duty. Fine service, the police. Always said so. Thought of it myself when I left my regiment. Took on this damned poodlefaking instead. Well, there you are.’

He booked Alleyn in and even accepted, with gloomy resignation, the news that Miss Emily would like to delay her departure for another night.

As Alleyn was about to go he said: ‘Could you sell me a good cigar? I’ve left mine behind and I can’t make do with a pipe.’

‘Certainly. What do you smoke?’

‘Las Casas, if you have them.’

‘No can do. At least – well, as a matter of fact, I do get them in for myself, old boy. I’m a bit short. Look here – let you have three, if you like. Show there’s no ill-feeling. But not a word to the troops. If you want more, these things are smokable.’

Alleyn said: ‘Very nice of you but I’m not going to cut you short. Let me have one Las Casas and I’ll take a box of these others.’

He bought the cigars.

The Major had moved to the flap end of the counter. Alleyn dropped his change and picked it up. The boots, he thought, looked very much as if they’d fit. They were wet round the welts and flecked with mud.

He took his leave of the Major.

When he got outside the hotel he compared the cigar band with the one he had picked up and found them to be identical.

Coombe was waiting for him. Alleyn said: ‘We’d better get the path cordoned off as soon as possible. Where’s Pender?’

‘At the Spring. Your chaps are on their way. Just made the one good train. They should be here by five. I’ve laid on cars at Dunlowman. And I’ve raised another couple of men. They’re to report here. What’s the idea, cordoning the path?’

‘It’s that outcrop,’ Alleyn said and told him about the Major’s cigars. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘there may be a guest who smokes his own Las Casas and who went out in a downpour at the crack of dawn to hide behind a rock, but it doesn’t seem likely. We may have to take casts and get hold of his boots.’

‘The Major! I
see!’

‘It may well turn out to be just one of those damn’ fool things. But
he
said he got up late.’

‘It’d fit. In a way, it’d fit.’

‘At this stage,’ Alleyn said. ‘Nothing fits. We collect. That’s all.’

‘Well, I know that,’ Coombe said quickly. He had just been warned against the axiomatic sin of forming a theory too soon. ‘Here are these chaps now,’ he said.

Two policemen were walking over the causeway.

Alleyn said: ‘Look, Coombe. I think our next step had better be the boy. Dr Maine saw him and so did Miss Pride. Could you set your men to patrol the path and then join me at Trehern’s cottage?’

‘There may be a mob of visitors there. It’s a big attraction.’

‘Hell! Hold on. Wait a bit, would you?’

Alleyn had seen Jenny Williams coming out of the old pub. She wore an orange-coloured bathing dress and a short white coat and looked as if she had had twice her fair share of sunshine.

He joined her. ‘It’s all fixed with Miss Emily,’ she said, ‘I’m a lady’s companion as from tomorrow morning. In the meantime, Patrick and I are thinking of a bathe.’

‘I don’t know what we’d have done without you. And loath as I am to put anything between you and the English Channel, I have got another favour to ask.’

‘Now, what is all this?’

‘You know young Trehern, don’t you? You taught him? Do you get on well with him?’

‘He didn’t remember me at first. I think he does now. They’ve done their best to turn him into a horror but – yes – I can’t help having a – I suppose it’s a sort of compassion,’ said Jenny.

‘I expect it is,’ Alleyn agreed. He told her he was going to see Wally and that he’d heard she understood the boy and got more response from him than most people. Would she come down to the cottage and help with the interview?

Jenny looked very straight at him and said: ‘Not if it means you want me to get Wally to say something that may harm him.’

Alleyn said: ‘I don’t know what he will say. I don’t in the least know whether he is in any way involved in Miss Cost’s death. Suppose he was. Suppose he killed her, believing her to be Miss
Emily. Would you want him to be left alone to attack the next old lady who happened to annoy him? Think.’

She asked him, as Miss Emily had asked him, what would be done with Wally if he was found to be guilty. He gave her the same answer: nothing very dreadful. Wally might be sent to an appropriate institution. It would be a matter for authorized psychiatrists. ‘And they do have successes in these days, you know. On the other hand, Wally may have nothing whatever to do with the case. But I must find out. Murder,’ Alleyn said abruptly, ‘is always abominable. It’s hideous and outlandish. Even when the impulse is understandable and the motive overpowering, it is still a terrible, unique offence. As the law stands, its method of dealing with homicide is, as I think, open to the gravest criticism. But for all that, the destruction of a human being remains what it is: the last outrage.’

He was to wonder after the case had ended, why on earth he had spoken as he did.

Jenny stared out, looking at nothing. ‘You must be an unusual kind of cop,’ she said. And then: ‘OK. I’ll tell Patrick and put on a skirt. I won’t be long.’

The extra constables had arrived and were being briefed by Coombe. They were to patrol the path and stop people climbing about the hills above the enclosure. One of them would be stationed near the outcrop.

Jenny reappeared wearing a white skirt over her bathing dress.

‘Patrick,’ she said, ‘is in a slight sulk. I asked him to pick me up at the cottage.’

‘My fault, of course. I’m sorry.’

‘He’ll get over it,’ she said cheerfully.

They went down the hotel steps. Jenny moved ahead. She walked very quickly past Miss Cost’s shop, not looking at it. A group of visitors stared in at the window. The door was open and there were customers inside.

Coombe said: ‘The girl that helps is carrying on.’

‘Yes. All right. Has she been told not to destroy anything – papers – rubbish – anything?’

‘Well, yes. I mean, I said: just serve the customers and attend to the telephone calls. It’s a sub-station for the Island. One of the last in the country.’

‘I think the shop would be better shut, Coombe. We can’t assume anything at this stage. We’ll have to go through her papers. I suppose the calls can’t be operated through the central station?’

‘Not a chance.’

‘Who is this assistant?’

‘Cissy Pollock. She was that green girl affair in the show. Pretty dim type, is Cissy.’

‘Friendly with Miss Cost?’

‘Thick as thieves, both being hell-bent on the Festival.’

‘Look. Could you wait until the shop clears and then lock up? We’ll have to put somebody on the board or simply tell the subscribers that the Island service is out of order.’

‘The Major’ll go mad. Couldn’t we shut the shop and leave Cissy on the switchboard?’

‘I honestly don’t think we should. It’s probably a completely barren precaution but at this stage –’

‘ “We must not”,’ Coombe said, ‘ “allow ourselves to form a hardand-fast theory to the prejudice of routine investigation.” I know. But I wouldn’t mind taking a bet on it that Miss Cost’s got nothing to do with this case.’

‘Except in so far as she happens to be the body?’

‘You know what I mean. All right: she fixed the earlier jobs. All right: she may have got at that kid and set him on to Miss Pride. In a way, you might say she organized her own murder.’

‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘You might indeed. It may well be that she did.’ He glanced at his colleague. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Pender will be coming back this way any time now, won’t he? I suggest you put him in the shop just to see Miss Cissy Thing doesn’t exceed her duty. He can keep observation in the background and leave you free to lend a hand in developments at Wally’s joint or whatever it’s called. I’ll be damned glad of your company.’

‘All right,’ Coombe said. ‘If you say so.’

This, Alleyn thought, is going to be tricky.

‘Come on,’ he said and put his hand on Coombe’s shoulder. ‘It’s a hell of a bind but, as the gallant Major would say, it
is
the drill.’

‘That’s right,’ said Superintendent Coombe. ‘I know that. See you later, then.’

Alleyn left him at the shop.

Jenny was waiting down by the seafront. They turned left, walked round the arm of the bay, and arrived at the group of fishermen’s dwellings. Boats pulled up on the foreshore, a ramshackle jetty and the cottages themselves, tucked into the hillside, all fell, predictably, into a conventional arrangement.

‘In a moment,’ said Jenny, ‘you will be confronted by Wally’s Cottage, but
not
as I remember it. It used to be squalid and dirty and it stank to high heaven. Mrs Trehern is far gone in gin and Trehern, as you may know, is unspeakable. But somehow or another the exhibit has been evolved: very largely through the efforts of Miss Cost egged on – well – ’

‘By whom? By Major Barrimore?’

‘Not entirely,’ Jenny said quickly. ‘By the Mayor, who is called Mr Nankivell, and his councillors and anybody in Portcarrow who is meant to be civic-minded. And principally, I’m afraid, by Mrs Fanny Winterbottom and her financial advisors. Or so Patrick says. So, of course, does your Miss Emily. It’s all kept up by the estate. There’s a guild or something that looks after the garden and supervises the interior. Miss Emily calls the whole thing
“complètement en toc”.
There you are,’ said Jenny as they came face-to-face with their destination. ‘That’s Wally’s Cottage, that is.’

It was, indeed, dauntingly pretty. Hollyhocks, daisies, foxgloves and antirrhinums flanked a cobbled path: honeysuckle framed the door. Fishing-nets of astonishing cleanliness festooned the fence. Beside the gate, in gothic lettering, hung a legend: ‘Wally’s Cottage. Admission I/-. West-country Cream-Teas, Ices.’

‘There’s an annex at the back,’ explained Jenny. ‘The teas are run by a neighbour, Mrs Trehern not being up to it. The Golden Record’s in the parlour with other exhibits.’

‘The Golden Record?’

‘Of cures,’ said Jenny shortly.

‘Will Wally be on tap?’

‘I should think so. And his papa, unless he’s ferrying. There are not nearly as many visitors as I’d expected. O!’ exclaimed Jenny stopping short. ‘I suppose – will that be because of what’s happened? Yes, of course it will.’

‘We’ll go in,’ Alleyn said, producing the entrance money.

Trehern was at the receipt of custom.

He leered ingratiatingly at Jenny and gave Alleyn a glance in which truculence, subservience and fear were unattractively mingled. Wally stood behind his father. When Alleyn looked at him he grinned and held out his hands.

Jenny said: ‘Good morning, Mr Trehern. I’ve brought Mr Alleyn to have a look round. Hallo, Wally.’

Wally moved towards her: ‘You come and see me,’ he said. ‘You come to school. One day soon.’ He took her hand and nodded at her.

‘Look at that, now!’ Trehern ejaculated. ‘You was always the favourite, miss. Nobody to touch Miss Williams for our poor little chap, is there, then, Wal?’

There were three visitors in the parlour. They moved from one exhibit to another, listened, and looked furtively at Jenny.

Alleyn asked Wally if he ever went fishing. He shook his head contemptuously and, with that repetitive, so obviously conditioned, gesture, again exhibited his hands. A trained animal, Alleyn thought with distaste. He moved away and opened the Golden Record which was everything that might be expected of it: like a visitors’ book at a restaurant in which satisfied clients are invited to record their approval. He noted the dates where cures were said to have been effected and moved on.

The tourists left with an air of having had their money’s-worth by a narrow margin.

Alleyn said: ‘Mr Trehern, I am a police officer and have been asked to take charge of investigations into the death of Miss Elspeth Cost. I’d like to have a few words with Wally, if I may. Nothing to upset him. We just wondered if he could help us.’

Trehern opened and shut his hands as if he felt for some object to hold on by. ‘I don’t rightly know about that,’ he said. ‘My little lad be’ant like other little lads, mister. He’m powerful easy put out. Lives in a world of his own, and not to be looked to if it’s straight-out facts that’s required. No hand at facts, be you, Wal? Tell you the truth, I doubt he’s took in this terrible business of Miss Cost.’

‘She’m dead,’ Wally shouted. ‘She’m stoned dead.’ And he gave one of his odd cries. Trehern looked very put out.