Skeleton Island (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “You mean you can clear us?” He opened his eyes and struggled to sit up as he asked the question.

  “Take it easy,” advised Laura, “but spill all the beans you can.”

  “Very well. I am in your hands, and in yours, Dame Beatrice. Where do you want me to begin?”

  “Well, can you remember what you did immediately after lunch that day? You see, we can account for Mr. Colin’s movements up to two o’clock that afternoon, and from half-past four that evening.”

  “But you don’t know where he was between those times?”

  “No, although it scarcely matters at the moment. In fact, it may not matter at all. I am prepared to accept this story that he was up in his bedroom writing letters, although I cannot really confirm it.”

  “Then why are you prepared to accept it? What is more, are the police prepared to accept it?”

  “The police do not suspect your son. You see, you and I have a piece of evidence which is not yet in their possession. I refer to the fact that your son had shown a sort of calf-love for your wife.”

  “Calf-love? Is that all you think it was?”

  “Certainly I do. At his first meeting with Laura here, he immediately transferred his admiration to her. That, to me, has been obvious.”

  “The fortunate woman bridled and preened herself,” said Laura. Howard looked from one to the other of them, bewildered by what he heard. “Oh, yes,” Laura went on. “One could spot the symptoms a mile off, so I set about effecting the kindly but definite choke-off. It probably caused him to go back to your wife for a bit, but then, of course, Ferrars stepped in, and Colin’s masculine self-confidence received another nasty jolt. He’s not the stuff of which either Don Juan or a murderer is made. At least, that’s my opinion.”

  “I seem to have been very foolish,” admitted Howard; but some colour had come back to his face, and his eyes had brightened. “Very well, then: here is what I know. But, first, will you tell me—it will help me to get matters clear—why you are prepared to accept my son’s story that he did not leave the school that afternoon?”

  “I have been studying the time-factor. We know he was in school at two o’clock. That is amply confirmed. We know he was there, as I told you, at half-past four, and from then onwards it is certain that he did not leave the building. Now, how far would you say it is from the school to your lighthouse?”

  “Oh, every bit of five miles.”

  “So, if I can show that he did not use your car that afternoon, you will agree, I think, that Mr. Colin is hardly likely to have walked five miles out, fought with Mr. Ferrars, pushed him over a cliff near the lighthouse, and walked five miles back, all of this inside two and a half hours.”

  “And can you show that he did not use the car? He is no sort of walker, I know that. He hates it.”

  The nurse came in with a tray of tea and biscuits and put it on the table beside the bed.

  “Ah, thank you, Nurse,” said Dame Beatrice. “I will see to it that your patient does not over-tire himself.”

  “He looks all the better for seeing you, Doctor,” said the nurse. Dame Beatrice cackled, and began to pour out the tea.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Chaff from the Wheat

  “…about three o’clock of a bitter, foggy, frosty afternoon…”

  “We always lunch,” said Howard, when the tray had been removed, “at one o’clock precisely. I have a great belief in the value of regular meal-times. I can say, therefore, that on the day in question I would have risen from the table at a quarter to two, finished helping my wife with the washing-up by two o’clock, and then, as is my invariable custom, so long as the afternoon is fine, I would have ascended to the gallery of the lighthouse.

  “You may take it that this is what I did, although I have no clear recollection of it. The rest of the day and night, however, I recall with singular vividness. After I had been on the gallery for about an hour, seated on the tall stool I keep up there and wrapped in my sheepskin jacket for warmth, I became aware that a thickish mist was sweeping in from the sea. Besides obscuring the view, it was extremely damp and unpleasant, so I retreated with my stool and notebooks to the lamp room and began to write up some notes I needed for my forthcoming volume on the sea-birds of the Wessex coast.

  “At the end of another hour I had finished my task. I looked at my watch, realised that it was half-past four and decided that I would like a cup of tea. I saw that the mist had rolled away—when, in my absorption, I had not noticed—and that a weak sun had broken through. What made me go out on to the gallery again I cannot say, unless it was the attraction of the sunshine, for the week had been one of dull, although rainless, weather. However, I did go out, and that is when I saw a man lying on the cliff-top about thirty yards or so from the lighthouse.

  “He was so still, and his pose seemed so unnatural that I concluded he had been taken ill. I hastened down the stairs to call my wife to have blankets ready, and found that she had left a note on the living-room table to the effect that she had gone over to the other lighthouse for tea, and would be back in time to get the supper. (We have it at six-thirty, so I had no fear of her being out after dark.)

  “Having read the note, I left the bungalow and ran to where the man was lying. To my extreme horror I discovered that it was Ronald Ferrars and that he was dead, and that the body had sustained various serious injuries. The most dreadful thoughts raced through my mind. I felt sick and faint, but, my thoughts being what they were, I realised that some action must be taken before others discovered the body.”

  The thin, precise voice broke off its clichés. The eyes, which had lost their passing look of animation, gazed back at the horrific past.

  “You say the body was lying on top of the cliff?” said Dame Beatrice.

  “Yes, indeed. Had it been on the flat rocks below—I went to the edge and peered over—I should never have jumped to the dreadful conclusion which I did. I should simply have thought that poor Ronald had been baffled by the sea-mist and had missed his way to us and had sustained a fatal fall. As it was”—he paused again—“as it was, there seemed only one possibility—that my unhappy lad had followed him, knowing that he was proposing to visit my wife, and had fallen upon him with some weapon or a lump of quarried stone, and, in a fit of jealous rage, had killed him.”

  “Yes, I understand your feelings. What were your reactions?” asked Dame Beatrice.

  “Finding a strength I did not know myself to possess,” continued Howard, “I raised the body and staggered with it to the lighthouse tower. My first concern was to conceal it. I confess that my thoughts were chaotic. By far the best thing I could have done—as I realised many days later—was to have tumbled the body over the edge of the cliff and left it to be found by others, but I was quite distraught when I believed that my son was a murderer.

  “I have a full set of keys to the lighthouse, so I dragged the body into the lowest room of the tower and locked the door on it. Then I went back into the living-room and poured myself out a modicum of brandy. Then I went back to the tower, in a sort of dreadful fascination—and, I think, in the vain hope that perhaps Ronald was not dead—and took another look at him. There is no window in that lowest room, so I took my electric torch with me. This time I saw something which seemed to bring my heart into my mouth. Ronald was wearing Colin’s tie!

  “All the stories, both real-life and fiction, which I had read in my younger days, came flooding back into my mind. I remembered how the discovery of a hotel duster—or some such thing—had helped to hang a man. At all costs, I decided, there must be nothing to connect my son with the body for whose death I believed him to be responsible. Dame Beatrice, I cannot describe to you how I felt as I essayed the terrible task of undressing the body. The socks, which matched the tie, were also Colin’s. I bundled the clothes together and had just finished doing so when I heard my wife come back. She called out, ‘Are you ready for your tea, dear? I’ve come back early to give you a surprise!
’ She thought that I was still up on the gallery, of course, so I locked the door on the naked body, pocketed the keys, went up a few stairs to the next landing and then called out, ‘Just coming, dear!’ Then I went into the living-room.”

  “Yes?” said Dame Beatrice, when she thought the pause sufficiently prolonged for dramatic effect. “That must have been a difficult moment.”

  “So difficult,” said Howard, collecting himself, “that, of course, I muffed it. Instead of trying to break matters gently to the poor girl, I blurted out, ‘Fiona, Ronald is dead, and I think Colin killed him.’ She was so stunned that she did not say a word. She sank into an armchair and lay back and closed her eyes. I said, ‘It’s no good taking it like that. We’ve got to do something.’ She looked at me then, and said—people always do say rather silly things at moments of crisis, I’ve noticed—‘Are you sure he’s dead?’ I almost retorted—for my nerves, you understand, were quite on edge: ‘If you don’t believe me, come and look at him!’ Then I remembered that he was naked and that his clothes were bundled up where I’d dropped them on the floor in that room at the foot of the tower.”

  “So you went back for them and went out and chucked them into a disused quarry,” said Laura.

  “Not straight away, no. I realised I must wait until dark for that. I made us a cup of tea and put some brandy in each cup, and made Fiona drink up. Neither of us said any more. I went out to the scullery with the tray and washed-up the tea-things, and then she said, ‘What makes you think Colin did it?’ I said, ‘He was wearing Colin’s tie and socks.’ She argued that didn’t prove anything, so I agreed that, in itself it didn’t, but nobody but Colin had any reason to wish Ronald dead, and that she must know that as well as I did. Then she began to cry, and I couldn’t bear that, so I went up to the gallery again and waited for it to get dark enough for me to go out and hide Ronald’s clothes. Just as I was about to go down to do this, Fiona called out to me that she was afraid to be left alone.”

  “That ties in with what the convict told the police,” said Laura to Dame Beatrice.

  “The convict?” asked Howard.

  “Yes, when you left the lighthouse and picked up little Manoel de Roseda, you were taking the chance of running into an escaped convict,” Laura explained.

  “I see. That’s what the gun meant, I suppose. I thought at one point, earlier in the day, I heard firing. But there is more to tell before I met the little boy. You will want to know all the details, I suppose. I went down when I heard Fiona call out. I could tell how frightened she was. I told her what I was going to do with the clothes, all but the tie and the socks. Those I decided to put among Colin’s things in his dressing-chest. They could prove nothing to anybody who found them there. I was beginning to get a grip on myself, you see, and to make plans. These I broke to her, telling her that for my sake and Colin’s she had to be very brave and agree to do as I told her.”

  “That was when you’d decided to make tracks for the Channel Islands,” said Laura.

  “Yes, that’s right. I thought, you see, that if they accepted her story—suppose it came to the point and she were asked for one—the idea that I’d gone on a bird-watching expedition would seem reasonable enough to pass muster. If her story was not accepted, the pursuit of the murderer would pass from Colin to me. You see, I realised clearly that it would only be a matter of hours before Ronald was missed and a search made for him.”

  “The convict gave you a few hours’ grace there,” said Laura. “We were forbidden to search for Ferrars while the convict was still on the run.”

  “I see. Well, I packed up a rucksack ready for the morning, collected all the money we had—I knew that Fiona could get what she wanted from the bank in the town, and that one of the women from the other lighthouse would give her a lift in a car to go and get it—and, taking the clothes with me, I set out, making for the small village on the west side of the island, beyond which, I knew (from various walks abroad) that there was an abandoned but fairly deep quarry. Into it I threw Ronald’s clothes. It was an easy enough descent, as stunted bushes had grown up round the sides, so I climbed down and, with the aid of my torch, made certain that the garments were more or less at the bottom.”

  “This, of course, was before you met Manoel,” said Laura.

  “Oh, yes. I did not meet him until the following morning. I soon realised that my wife would become hysterical if I left her that night, so I decided, having got rid of the clothes, to return to the lighthouse. I left at daybreak next morning, and on the road to the mainland I encountered the little boy. I could see, from his dress, that he was one of the preparatory-school children. He asked me the way to the ships which crossed to the Channel Islands. I said, ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’ He replied, ‘I am going to church, but there is not my church here. I have money to travel. Please tell me which way to go.’ It was then, of course, that I was tempted to take him with me.”

  “As cover, I suppose?” said Laura.

  “Well, it occurred to me that if I were sought in connection with Ronald’s disappearance—for, of course, there might be those who would put two and two together”—Howard’s smile was a bitter one—“the description given of me would not include the fact that I was accompanied by a small boy.”

  “We thought he’d been kidnapped, and that Ferrars had gone off with him,” said Laura. “That gave you another good break, because, of course, the description of the kidnapper was of Ferrars, not of you.”

  “Oh, dear! What a very tangled web! However, my son has written to tell me that the little boy is safe and well. I am so glad to know that. I had a dreadful time, when I recovered consciousness after my accident, wondering what had become of him in the flat where I had left him, and imagining what he must have suffered when he thought that I had deserted him.”

  “And now,” said Dame Beatrice, “we have persuaded you to talk for long enough. Sleep well tonight, and we will come back tomorrow to hear the rest of this enthralling story.”

  The rest of the story did not take long to tell, because Laura saved Howard from recounting a good deal of it, as she knew it already from her own visit on the Pronax to the Channel Islands.

  “How did you come to meet with your accident?” she asked. “We did rather wonder whether it was an accident,” she added. Howard answered the unspoken question.

  “Oh, up to that point, the thought of suicide was the last in my mind,” he said. “My hobby is such that when I fell into talk with the fisherman who took us over to Les Ecrehous, where I thought I might see the roseate tern, and he described to me a bird he had seen on Alderney which, from what he told me, I thought might be Anthus spinoletta spinoletta, the water pipit, nothing, of course, would satisfy me but to stalk and photograph this bird, which, although it is a frequent visitor to England, I had never seen. Arriving on Alderney, I made enquiries as to accommodation, and was recommended temporarily to take a flat which happened to be vacant in Essex Castle. This place…”

  “Yes, I went to it,” put in Laura.

  “…was originally, it is thought, of Norman origin, enlarged in the sixteenth century and, apparently, rebuilt then, and now converted into flats. The child, of course, was delighted with the place, particularly when he learned from the porter that a tunnel once led from the castle to the fortress of the Nunnery, so named, I gather, from the original Longy Nunnery, now ruined and tide-washed. Like all little boys, he has a romantic and bloodthirsty mind. For my own part, I had no wish to listen to the tale. It involved a description of skeletons washed out of the burial-place of the fort by the high tides of the year 1923, and some other bodies which the builders unearthed when the nearby coastguard station was constructed.”

  “Talking of coastguards,” said Dame Beatrice, “the body of Mr. Ferrars was discovered by the police when they were searching for contraband in your lighthouse.”

  “Indeed?” said Howard, almost listlessly. “Well, perhaps it’s as well. The strain on my wife, knowing that t
he body was in the tower, must have been almost insupportable. Mind you,” he added, with some show of animation, “sometimes, in my more sadistic moments, I have felt that to live in close proximity with the corpse of her lover was only her just deserts. I am very fond of her, but I don’t really think she has treated me very well.”

  “What about your accident?” asked Laura, dreading a pause after this statement of the obvious.

  “Oh, yes, my accident. Well, when the woman who was to look after the child and myself—shop and cook and clean, you know—heard that I was to search the coast and perhaps climb the rocks and so forth, she told me that, for the little boy’s sake as well as my own, I ought to wear a life-jacket, especially as I had to confess that I have never learned to swim. The porter’s story of the tides and the skeletons caused me to take this suggestion seriously, and there is no doubt in my mind that it saved my life.

  “I left the boy in this woman’s charge, and, having possessed myself of the life-jacket by purchasing it at a marine store on the quay at Braye Harbour, I returned to Longy Bay and armed with camera and binoculars—two items without which I never travel—I began to tour the coast. I spotted gannets, puffins, and storm-petrels, and took some photographs, but of my real quarry there was no sign.

  “I do not know how far I went. I believe the full coast walk is one of about eleven or twelve miles, so I certainly did not walk as far as that. At one point, however, a path seemed to lead from the cliff-top to the beach. This I took, but it proved to be precipitous and slippery. Moreover, as I descended, I disturbed more stones, one of which struck me on the head. I remember nothing more until I recovered consciousness and found myself in a ward in this hospital. They tell me that I must have fallen into the sea just at the turn of the tide, and was fortunate to have been swept clear of the rocks. Later, of course, the orders were that I should be moved into this single room where the police, no doubt, will interview me as soon as the hospital authorities give permission for them to do so.”