The Thimble River Mystery
Josephine Bell
Josephine Bell was the pseudonym under which Doris Bell Collier (1897–1987) established a reputation as a highly capable author of detective fiction. Like Arthur Conan Doyle, among others, she had previously worked as a physician; her principal series character, David Wintringham, was also a doctor. Over a span of twenty-one years, Wintringham appeared in a dozen books, including Murder in Hospital (1937) and Death at the Medical Board (1944).
Bell’s career in the genre lasted forty-five years, during which time she produced forty-three novels, in addition to numerous short stories. She was elected to membership of the Detection Club in 1954; the previous year she had become a founding member of the Crime Writers’ Association. In 1959, she had the distinction of becoming the first woman to chair the CWA, her predecessors having been John Creasey, Bruce Graeme, and Julian Symons. This story originally appeared in the Evening Standard, it was included in The Evening Standard Detective Book (1950), and six years after that it resurfaced in a landmark anthology, Butcher’s Dozen, which Bell co-edited with Symons and Michael Gilbert. This was the first anthology to appear under the auspices of the CWA, which continues to publish collections of members’ work to this day.
The Thimble River, running out into Southampton Water, is, like most of the small rivers and creeks of that inlet, as of the Solent, much frequented by yachtsmen. Though it winds for more than five miles inshore and is fed at its upper end by a small stream, which earns it the superior title, it is tidal throughout its length, with a considerable rise and fall, that leaves on the ebb a wide stretch of mud at each bank, where much unlovely junk reveals itself, and the seagulls spatter up to their ankles, looking for titbits in the black ooze. At either side of the deep channel there is a continuous line of fixed moorings, bobbing unused and lonely during the short bitter days and black nights of winter, when all but the biggest yachts are laid up on shore, but in the summer serving to keep their charges in a lovely unbroken line of many-coloured hulls, and tall masts, and graceful cobwebs of rigging. On the shores are the various yards, boat-builders’ sheds for construction and maintenance and repairs, and slips for launching or hauling out, and jetties and landing-stages running down to the water. Round these the yachts’ pram dinghies cluster all through the season, in a constant traffic to and from the boats moored out in the river.
Most of the boats, whose owners are at work elsewhere during the week, go out only at the week-ends, and for an annual cruise, coast-wise or across the Channel. But some, whose owners have no other home or occupation, or who prefer and can afford to spend the summer afloat, make their yachts their home, coming ashore regularly for their milk and newspapers and stores, perhaps going off for a day’s sail, or even moving to another port for a week or two, but on the whole staying where they are, comfortably isolated, wholly master of their world.
Of these Mr Harcourt was the best known and the most notable throughout the length of the Thimble River. He had lived in his yacht, Helena II, winter and summer since the end of the Second World War, when the boat-houses, cautiously, because of the necessary restrictions on wood and paint and labour, had begun to put the pleasure boats back on the water. It was said that his son had been killed in the war, and his wife had died at the end of it. His boat, not new, had been laid up for years. She leaked like a sieve when they first put her in the water to test her. But re-caulked and re-fitted, scraped down and painted, she might have been her old self when she was finally out on her moorings, though her lines looked a bit old-fashioned now beside the newer designs all round her.
Tom Winter, who ran the boat-yard and owned the moorings in front of it, was proud of his work of restoration, and pleased to see Helena II so smart and like her old self. He often said it gave him a queer feeling not to see the three Harcourts on deck together as in the old days, casting off for a trip to France, or tying up after a week-end down at Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, or busy just fixing the gear, or polishing the bright work.
For Mr Harcourt was very particular about the way his boat was kept. Helena II might be old, built in the early twenties, before the Bermuda rig became almost universal. But she still looked smarter than many of the other yachts at Winter’s yard, whose owners came down in a hurry on Friday night and sailed hard till Sunday evening, and scrambled ashore in the dusk, to get back to their homes in time to start work again on Monday. Mr Harcourt had always insisted on absolute order above and below. Order and polish and spotless decks and shining paintwork. Now that he was alone the work took up most of his time. When his friends arrived to crew for him, at those times when he wanted to sail, they were filled with admiration and astonishment. To Mr Harcourt their remarks seemed unnecessary and rather foolish.
One evening, when the old man, rag and can in one hand, for he had just finished oiling a sheet winch, leaned against the combing of his cockpit, idly trying the winch with the other hand, he heard the sound of oars, and looked up to see John Chudley, in his dinghy, pulling past him. Chudley owned the next boat downstream from Helena II, and, as he lived in the neighbourhood, was able to get the little jobs on board done in the evening, after he got back from his office in Southampton.
Mr Harcourt did not always feel sociable, but today he decided that he would like to have a chat with young John. He had thought of a way his neighbour might solve one of his problems without too much expense, and by doing his own work. So he put away his oil-can and rag and, going forward along his decks, gave the young man a hail.
John Chudley had nearly reached his own boat by then, and did not feel like going back.
‘Care to come aboard for a drink?’ Mr Harcourt shouted.
Chudley stopped rowing, smiling and wondering whether to accept.
‘I’ve got an idea for fixing your spinnaker halliard,’ went on the old man. ‘But don’t come if you’re pressed for time.’
That decided John. Invitations from Harcourt were rare. The old boy led a lonely existence; perhaps he felt it more often than any of them imagined.
‘Thanks awfully,’ he said. ‘I’ll just dump this stuff, and come over.’
A few minutes later he arrived alongside Helena II, breathing hard from his stiff, though short, pull against the tide. He found two fenders in place to prevent his pram dinghy scraping the spotless white paint of the yacht’s topside, and smiled to himself as Harcourt took the dinghy’s painter and made it fast so that the dinghy was carried out behind by the swift current.
‘Will you come below, or have it up here?’ asked Harcourt.
Chudley had been indoors at his work all day, so they sat in the cockpit and sipped their drinks, while the evening sunshine lay horizontal across the river, turning the white hulls to gold, and the gathering force of the ebb gurgled and slapped its way past, swinging Helena II from side to side on her mooring chain. The air was still: not a breath of wind stirred on the glassy water near the shore. Mr Harcourt’s burgee hung limp against the mast.
The old man delivered his advice about the halliard, but after that they said very little. Conversation is for the cabin. Sitting in the cockpit with the river and the shipping all about them there was no need of it.
John Chudley finished his drink and as soon as he thought it civil to do so, excused himself on the grounds that he had a lot to do on board his boat and very little time to do it in.
‘There’ll be trouble at home if I’m not back in good time for supper,’ he said. ‘And anyway I’ve only got another hour of the tide.’
Mr Harcourt did not delay him, but drew his dinghy alongside for him, and held it while John climbed in and took up an oar.
‘Give me a shove, and the tide’ll do the rest,’ John said, fitting the oar into the slot in the stern of his dinghy.
Mr Harcourt laughed, and walked up to the bows of Helena II to watch his guest moving swiftly across the short gap between their two boats. W
hen Chudley was aboard his own craft he waved to him, called ‘good evening,’ and picking up the glasses out of the cockpit, went below.
Just after seven John Chudley got back into his pram and rowed away to the landing-stage. He was rather glad that Mr Harcourt was below, because he was in a hurry. He had wasted precious time on that drink on Helena II. He hoped the old man was not going to make a habit of hospitality.
He need not have worried, because by the next morning Mr Harcourt was dead.
Bob Goacher was an apprentice in Winter’s shipyard. He was a keen, quick-witted lad, with a natural aptitude for working in wood. He already had an eye for it, both inherited and learned from his father, who was a joiner and carpenter. Bob had always intended to follow his father’s trade, but living near the river had brought him into contact with boats from the start. He had gone bathing early, had learned to swim, and later to swim out and round the yachts. He had always admired their lines and their smooth shining enamel paint. Later he had acquired an old derelict dinghy for a few shillings, and mended her himself with his father’s help, and fitted her with a sail made from a discarded piece of canvas, and took her out proudly, learning to use the wind to drive her along, instead of pulling his arms off with the two sweeps. After Tom Winter took him on, his ambition grew. One day he would have a boat of his own, a real boat. He was never tired of telling his friends and the men at the yard how he would build her, and where he would take her, and how much he despised and envied men like Mr Harcourt who could afford to keep a beautiful boat like Helena II, but hardly ever moved off the mooring.
On the morning after John Chudley had drunk with Mr Harcourt, Bob Goacher arrived at Winter’s as usual at half-past seven, and as usual, when he had hung up his coat and put on his working dungarees, he opened the big doors at the river end of the shed and looked out across the water. He saw at once a thing that startled him, and waited with impatience for his employer to arrive.
Tom Winter came into the shed at eight to see that the tools were ready for the start of the day’s work.
‘Mr Winter,’ said Bob, coming forward. ‘When I got here I saw Mr Harcourt’s burgee was still up.’
‘Still—?’ Winter looked at his watch, saw that it was barely eight, then walked down to the end of the shed and looked out. Across the water, at the masthead of Helena II, the small flag with its gay colours flapped in the morning breeze.
‘That’s funny,’ he said.
‘He’s so particular,’ put in Bob.
‘You’re right there. Looks as if it may have been up all night.’
‘He can’t have gone away, forgetting to take it down. He must be there. His dinghy is alongside.’
Tom Winter’s face hardened.
‘Hope the old boy’s not been taken ill or anything. I think I’ll go off and see.’
With one of the older men from the yard he went off in one of the yard’s old grey dinghies.
And they found Mr Harcourt, fully dressed, lying on his cabin floor, with his head beaten in.
They went ashore, hardly speaking a word, and Winter left the other man on the landing-stage to watch anyone coming or going, while he himself went to his office to telephone to the police. In a short time Detective-Inspector Wright, with a police surgeon and two other assistants, arrived. Winter took them out to Helena II.
‘Before you go aboard,’ the latter said, ‘I’d like to point out to you that mark on her topside. There, with the smear of green paint along it. Mr Harcourt was very particular about his paint. There’d have been hell to pay if anyone bumped his boat. He’d be equal to going for anyone who did it.’
‘You mean there could have been an unpremeditated fight?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Inspector Wright said, and climbed on board the yacht.
Later, when the party landed again at the stage, the man who had been left on guard stepped forward and whispered to Tom Winter.
‘If you’ve anything to say, say it to me,’ said Inspector Wright, severely.
The man reddened, but he spoke up at once.
‘It’s just that I saw you looking at that scrape on the topside,’ he said. ‘I noticed it myself, same as Mr Winter. And I’ve been having a look round these prams.’ He pointed to the little ships’ dinghies, clustered about the stage. ‘There’s one of them got a white mark on her. It shows because she’s painted green.’
‘Green!’ exclaimed the Inspector, going over to look.
‘That’s Mr Chudley’s,’ said Winter, slowly.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Jill Wintringham at breakfast in her pretty dining-room in Hampstead. ‘John Chudley seems to be involved in that affair at Thimble, after all.’
Her husband handed her a letter he had just read, and took the newspaper she gave in exchange.
David read the paragraph she had seen. It was an account of the inquest on an elderly eccentric named Harcourt, who for the last nine years had been living on board a yacht in the River Thimble, ten miles from Southampton.
His body had been found two days before in the cabin of his boat. A sum of money had disappeared.
The account went on to say that death was caused by a fracture of the skull inflicted by an undiscovered weapon. Verdict—murder by some person or persons unknown.
‘Thank God the coroner’s jury has been reasonably cautious,’ said David, when he had finished the paragraph.
Jill nodded.
‘Poor John,’ she said. ‘What a thing to be mixed up in. Shall you go down?’
‘Oh, yes. The sooner this is cleared up the better.’
‘You don’t think the local police will be competent?’
‘I resent the sting concealed in that remark. I have a perfectly open mind about the local police, but John wants me to go down, and he’s in a spot, and—’
‘Of course you must go, darling,’ said Jill, soothingly. ‘I’m not trying to stop you. And I think it’s a very good thing we’ve been crewing for the Foresters so often the last two years, and know a little bit about boats now.’
John Chudley met David at Southampton with a car, and drove him to his house above the Thimble.
‘How did you get mixed up in this at all?’ David asked him.
Chudley answered, ‘My boat happens to be moored next to his. I went aboard him that evening for a drink, round about six, but I didn’t stay long. Actually I was going off to my own boat when he called me on board. As I had things to do I got off to my own boat after a brief chat, and stayed there till just after seven. I couldn’t stay longer than that on account of the tide.’
‘Why?’
‘The landing-stage at Winter’s is on the mud at low water: you can’t approach it from the river without wading ankle-deep in mud.’
‘That must be very inconvenient sometimes.’
‘It is. Perhaps one day Winter will add a piece to his stage.’
‘So anyone coming down after you left would not have been able to take a boat away from there?’
‘No. Not until there was more water as the tide came in.’
‘A couple of hours later?’
‘At least that.’
‘About this burgee. Mr Harcourt was one of these types who observe the strict drill, I suppose? Flags down at sundown, whatever time that is, and up at 08 hours precisely?’
‘Yes.’
‘So that the burgee being left up suggests he was killed before sundown. About nine that evening.’
‘Then it must have been after seven-fifteen. I was near enough in my boat to have heard anyone going aboard his.’
‘And you would have seen a visiting dinghy alongside him as you left to go ashore.’
‘Of course.’
‘And according to you no one could have gone off after you before the tide made the landing-stage unusable, at least f
or a few hours. But you got in, didn’t you? Couldn’t someone have gone down directly after you left and still got off?’
‘I doubt it. I had to punt myself over the mud the last few feet, and it dries out very quickly after it reaches that point. The sheds were all locked up, so there wasn’t anywhere for anyone to hide. I met no one in the lane coming down from the main road.’
‘So you were the last person to see him except the murderer. I suppose that has made the complications for you.’
John Chudley nodded.
‘There is a scrape on the old boy’s topside with green paint in it. My dinghy is the only green-painted one at the yard. And that’s another thing. Harcourt wasn’t expecting his visitor, or he would have been up on deck hanging out fenders to prevent just such a scrape.’
Next morning David made his way to the boat-yard early, and after explaining to Winter who he was, persuaded him to take him off to the yacht.
Helena II, he found, was an old-fashioned, gaff-rigged cutter. He noticed that all her many halliards and other ropes were tied out to the shrouds to prevent them banging against the mast: a sensible precaution to take for one who lived on board, and wished to avoid the annoyance of tapping and rustling noises transmitted down the mast into the cabin.
David’s eyes followed the thin hoist of the burgee from a cleat to which it was fastened at the foot of the mast up to the little flag, still flapping above the masthead. Evidently no one had thought of taking it down since Harcourt’s death.
Turning away, David went carefully over the decks, find nothing of interest until he came to the shrouds on the starboard side. There he checked, stopped, and gathered from the wire, near its foot, a few thin strands, the frayings of a fine rope.
After this he got back into the dinghy, where Winter had been sitting all this time watching him.
David looked him in the eyes.
‘Do you think Mr Chudley did it?’ he asked.
There was no answer.
‘You don’t want to suspect him, but you can’t be sure he didn’t. Any motive, that you know of?’
Deep Waters Page 24
