Murder on the Cliffs

by Joanna Challis

  As the rain began to pelt upon my face, I lowered my head, struggling to keep up with his long, determined strides. Fortunately the wind remained at bay as we continued across the headland. Another secret path, I thought. Imagining Victoria standing at the edge of the headland.

  Lianne gripped my hand. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  She reminded me of a frightened kitten. What was she afraid of? Did she know something about Victoria’s death? Perhaps she’d witnessed the crime . . . is that why she wished to hide behind my façade?

  Wait, I was getting ahead of myself.

  It would likely turn out to be an accidental drowning. Such things often occurred in the summertime. The bride may have decided to go for an evening swim or stroll upon the beach.

  Yet for some reason I didn’t think so.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sea spray foamed at the mouth of the restless sea.

  “Where?” David croaked. “Where? Where did you find her?”

  Catching my breath, I pointed to the curve beneath the cliffs. The water had covered the area. Seeing the pain reflected in the taut lines of his face, I walked toward the very spot, through the dashing icy waters that saturated my skirt until it clung wet and heavy to my legs.

  The rain pelted down and I shivered in the cold.

  “Sorry,” David mumbled. “But I must see.”

  I nodded, finding the place where we’d found her, gesturing as to how she had lain and wishing myself far away. I had no business being there, sharing his grief in companionable silence.

  He turned and his eyes hardened at the sight of Sir Edward and Lady Florence standing under an umbrella at the cliff top. “Blast! You’d think they’d leave me alone. Can’t a man have a moment of peace?”

  “Well, they’re not likely to come down here,” I said, and then, to fill the seemingly interminable silence between us, I asked, “Did she often go swimming?”

  “She did not drown.”

  He had just confirmed what I suspected: that this girl had been strong and healthy, a beauty, and if she’d gone for a foolish late-night swim, she had enough wits to see herself out of danger.

  “Then she err . . .”

  “She’s dead,” he croaked again, looking like a lost little boy. “There’ll be no wedding . . . no—”

  Burying his face in his hands, he sank to his knees and sobbed, the waters rushing around him, carving a tragic picture.

  I sank to my knees beside him.

  So did Lianne, who’d crept up behind us.

  “Oh, Davie,” she whispered. “It’s so awful. I’m so sorry . . .”

  She flung her arms around his neck but he brushed them off.

  What comfort dare one attempt to give? There was none. Death was death. One had to live it.

  I got up and started back up the path to Sir Edward and Lady Hartley. Lianne followed and we huddled into each other to avoid the lashing rain, a futile endeavor for we’d no umbrella and our drenched clothes provided no protection.

  Staggering up the sandy trek, I glanced back to see David still sitting in the tide, hugging his knees. The vision so inspired me, I felt guilty. The urge to write, to capture what I’d seen, was overwhelming.

  Sir Edward’s conscientious observation barely flickered as we reached the top of the cliff. His stern gaze remained fixed on the beach . . . on the lone figure in the sand.

  “Ah, Sir Edward.” Lady Hartley shook her head. “I warned her not to go swimming down at the cove, but did she listen to me? No. These young ones think they are invincible, but who can tame the tide?”

  The tide reveled in its intensity. Forced to move, David roused himself, dragging his limbs mechanically up another route.

  “I suppose questions are going to be pointless today?” Sir Edward’s murmur hung ominously in the air.

  Adjusting her umbrella, Lady Hartley turned on her heel. “Who knows where he’ll go now. If he doesn’t ride back with us, he may go off to the pub. It’s a great shock. A great shock to us . . . all.”

  She headed to the motorcar and Lianne and I, shivering and hovering under Sir Edward’s massive black umbrella, joined her. Inside the safety of the spacious car, the rain raked hard welts across the windows.

  Sir Edward shook his head. “He’ll catch cold. It’ll be the death of him. I can barely see the road!”

  “We should try to find him.” Tapping anxious fingers on the door handle, Lianne peered through the glass. “There he is! Over there!”

  “What? Go cross- country? In this?”

  “I don’t think Lord David will appreciate being hunted like an animal,” Sir Edward seconded Lady Hartley’s protest. “He’s a man in mourning. He needs to grieve.”

  Navigating slowly through the rain, we soon reached the grand house. Helping myself out of the car, I pinched myself. Had I truly stumbled upon this adventure?

  “Miss du Maurier,” Sir Edward summoned. “I shall drive you home. I have questions to ask.”

  Lianne pulled me up the stairs to the house.

  “Stay with me,” she urged.

  Having entered the house without a backward glance, Lady Hartley had assumed I’d follow, but Sir Edward had a different plan.

  “This is a murder inquiry, Miss du Maurier,” Sir Edward pressed. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Lianne’s mouth opened wide. “A murder?”

  Sir Edward ignored her.

  “But she drowned! She often went swimming at night!”

  “Victoria Bastion did not drown, Miss Hartley. Ask your brother if you do not believe me.”

  “I will.”

  Lianne thundered into the house and I hurried around to the passenger seat beside Sir Edward. I’d never driven a mile with a policeman before, and the prospect quite excited me. This was not a drama of the stage, but a real life drama. What had my father joked? You never know. Might even find something to use in a play.

  I kept a lookout for David Hartley, not wanting to leave him, or the silent mansion alone in the rain. “Is this the largest house in the area, Sir Edward?”

  “Yes. Grand old place, isn’t it?”

  “It’s beautiful. How long have the family lived there?”

  My teeth chattered and Sir Edward despaired he did not have a shawl to offer me. “For generations the Hartleys have ruled Padthaway. Hartley’s not a Cornish name, note.”

  Yes, I had noted.

  “They inherited the estate in the sixteenth century through their Tremayne cousins, and have lived here ever since.” He turned into the village, his windshield wipers slashing through the rain. “I can drive you as far as the end of the lane and then perhaps we can seek shelter in the cottage. I am very keen to ask you questions as you are the one who discovered the body.”

  A tremulous sensation tickled the back of my neck. “Yes, I understand. If you want to wait while I change, I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have.”

  My voice sounded so calm, it even fooled me. I did not feel calm. In fact, I felt entirely the opposite. I shouldn’t have agreed so hastily to support Lianne Hartley. Why should she fear finding the body first unless she knew something about the murder case?

  A murder case.

  As Sir Edward and I clambered down the muddy lane, dodging minute rivers and into Ewe Sinclaire’s warm and dry cottage, my heart began to palpitate. I hadn’t come here to involve myself in a murder. Ewe’s inherent sense of duty, despite her love for gossip, would compel her to inform my mother posthaste. What would my parents think? They’d demand I return at once.

  Leaving Sir Edward to manage his wet umbrella and coat alone, I presented a dripping image to Ewe. She twirled around in the kitchen, her fry pan flying out of one hand to the other.

  “Mercy me! Don’t frighten me like that!”

  Settling the fry pan to the safety of the stove, her hands hugged her hips. “A drowned cat is what you look like. Didn’t they even offer to drive you home? Those snub- nosed no- good Hart—”
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  “Sir Edward’s here,” I blurted, quickly summarizing the rest. “I’ve got to change and I’m sure he’d like a cup of tea.”

  “Sir Edward! Here?”

  I thought she’d have a heart attack.

  “Yes,” I whispered. “And I must beg of you to speak of this case to no one. Not even Mother.”

  I ran off before she had a chance to reply or recover from the shock of having the local magistrate, the grandee, descend upon her humble parlor without due warning.

  My years of rapidly changing school costumes into day wear bore fruit. I had on dry, fresh clothes within an instant and returned to the parlor to save Ewe Sinclaire from smothering Sir Edward with vociferous attention.

  Thankfully, the kettle called her back to the kitchen as I seated myself across from Sir Edward.

  He’d already taken out his notebook in preparation, his sternness apparent while rereading over prerecorded notations. “Miss du Maurier . . . you’re in the area to conduct research or on holiday?”

  “Both, Sir Edward.”

  “How long do you intend to stay?”

  “That depends on what interests me here.”

  A grave brow crossed the center of his face. “As witness to this case, I’d ask you not to leave the village without advising me. Will you promise to do so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now, if you will relay, in your own words again, exactly how you happened upon the body.”

  Uttering the near- truth under Ewe’s watchful and sympathetic gaze combined with Sir Edward’s methodical recording proved a challenge of the highest degree. Guilt consumed me. Lianne may have been there a long time before I arrived; she may have even pushed Victoria to her death.

  “Did you examine or touch the body, Miss du Maurier?”

  I cringed at the reminder of those icy cold veins. “I checked her throat and wrist . . . for a pulse. She was so cold . . . so cold . . .”

  “Did you see any bruises on her? Anything unusual or suspicious?”

  Ewe’s rounded eyes remained intent upon me, encouraging and supportive. “Go on, dearie. You just say all you saw. Don’t be afraid, now.”

  “Afraid,” I echoed.

  Sir Edward’s mouth drooped to show his compassion. “Seeing dead bodies is not an easy thing, whether family or strangers.”

  “I’ve seen both during the war,” I said, ending the upsetting discussion.

  “So you’re not afraid of bodies and death, Miss du Maurier?”

  Lowering my eyes, I seethed beneath my skin. I didn’t like the inference of Sir Edward’s tone, and there was something about the man himself I didn’t like either. Some unexplained instinct warned me of a coldness in his character, perhaps a natural condition for one in his occupation. “I saw no bruises on her neck . . . she may have had bruises around the back of her neck but I only felt for a pulse. I moved her only to protect her body from the incoming tide. She just looked so peaceful . . . so beautiful. It saddened me. So young, with such promise in life! Why . . . why?”

  “The why is the answer to any mystery,” Sir Edward replied. “I’m treating this as a suspicious death. As you say, the girl had everything to live for. She was about to marry Lord David—the wedding invitations had all gone out and my wife and I were among the guests.”

  I recalled the ring on her stiff finger— the diamond glistening, sparkling in the daylight.

  “Where’ve you put the poor girl?” Ewe dared to ask. “In the church like Ralph Fullerton?”

  Sir Edward flicked his notebook cover down. “There’s no mortuary here so the church has to suffice. Vicar Nortby is in charge and I’m keeping the Bastion family away until we’ve had time to fully examine the body. I’d appreciate, ladies, if you kept what you know private for the moment. It’s a small town and there’s bound to be talk.”

  “Oh, ye can’t keep this one under your hat, Sir E,” Ewe piped. “It’s the Hartleys. Those papermen will come down from London like hornets.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that.” Standing, Sir Edward shook out his coat while consulting the time on Ewe’s cuckoo clock. “Blast! I should have been at the church an hour ago.”

  Ewe and I saw him to the door, Ewe unable to resist asking the likely verdict at this stage. “It’s murder, do you think? Or suicide? Don’t sound like she was strangled if there’s no bruises. And a lovely white little neck like hers, the bruises would show up . . . maybe they’ll show up in the next few days, mind. You got one of them body experts coming from London, Sir Edward? I don’t suppose we’ve got any here in town, have we?”

  “That’s whom I am to meet,” Sir Edward divulged, opening his umbrella and sauntering off down the path. “Good day, ladies.”

  “Well.” Ewe shut the door behind him. “What a to- do! And you, a key witness. Even if I don’t tell ye mother, she’s bound to find out, y’know.”

  “I’ll write them. Please, Ewe.”

  “Please what?”

  “Don’t say a word.”

  She chuckled, her copious chin rumbling a little. “Keeping secrets from parents, eh? I’ve done that before. Quite skilled at it.”

  “It’ll be our secret.” I seized her hands. “I’ll only say in the letter what terrible event occurred upon my arrival. They never need know I am involved or else they’ll whisk me away and I can’t bear to leave this place now I’m here. ‘Windemere Lane,’ ” I mused to myself aloud, “ ‘a beautiful bride washed up at the cove.’ Oh, what inspiration!”

  “Inspiration, my foot,” Ewe mumbled. “Now, why don’t you inspire me and cut up some potatoes?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As promised, I’d sat down and composed a letter to my parents. This appeased Ewe and set her mind to rest, though she expressed her disapproval with my wording of the incident.

  “They’ll see it in the papers,” she warned.

  The death of a beautiful young bride was bound to cause a sensation anywhere. That the affianced groom should prove to be Lord David Hartley, known throughout town and abroad in his earlier years, qua drupled the sensation.

  I loved the sensation. I knew I shouldn’t, but a feast for the imagination had greeted me at Windemere Lane.

  I soon remembered that I’d stumbled upon Victoria’s body during my erstwhile search for the abbey, an abbey I’d since abandoned.

  For my second attempt, Ewe gave me the directions. “You’ll get lost easily in these parts, winding narrow lanes galore, but if you follow what I’ve mapped out for you, you’ll find the Grand Dame up there nestled in what we kids used to call the Dark Grove.”

  “The ‘dark grove,’ ” I sighed, chewing on the edge of my pencil.

  “Children went missing there years and years ago,” Ewe went on. “It’s a creepy old place. Too silent for my liking and run by a bunch of nasty nuns.”

  “Nasty nuns?” I laughed. “How could a nun ever be nasty?”

  “Pious old birds. Too pious for my liking. Keep themselves away and think themselves above all of us mortals below. Oh,” she wrinkled her nose, “they never set foot in the village. Oh no. They send their lackeys down to get their supplies, just like they used to do in the old days.”

  Deliberating whether or not to take an umbrella for my excursion, I decided on caution. One could never predict the weather. Thanks to Ewe’s hot composts, I had not caught a cold from following David Hartley out into the sea.

  “If Victoria didn’t drown as Lord David says,” I queried Ewe before I left, “then how do you suppose she died?”

  “I haven’t a clue, but I wouldn’t trust one word out of the mouths of them Hartleys. They’ve got the talent to lie. Born with it, like all the richies. Sir Edward will have his work with them.”

  “He may be ill equipped to handle the case.”

  Ewe shrugged. “We’ll find out. Well, off to the abbey you go and don’t be finding any more bodies on the way. Oh”—she stopped me, placing a few pennies in my hand—“could you go to the drugstore on ye w
ay back and pick up me powders? Mr. Penford knows the one.”

  I set upon my journey, my thoughts full of David Hartley. His grief seemed too genuine to fault. He’d fallen stunned, sagging to his knees out there in the waters, unable to believe she was really gone.

  It was a tragic scene and one I itched to write, somewhere out here in the wilderness, in my own little notebook not unlike the one Sir Edward carried. Dare I make my own notes about the murder?

  The mischievous notion appealed to me. Why should I not conduct my own murder investigation? My interest in people, potential characters, and their motivations demanded I at least try; what had I to lose? Nobody need know.

  The hour- long walk to the abbey gave me ample time to absorb the innocence of early summer, the still- budding flowers from a late spring, the evergreen growth, the whisper of the morning breeze through the silent trees, their swaying branches drinking in the few glimmers of sunlight. A fine day for a wedding, I thought.

  How had she died? I tried to think of her face, the way her body had lain there in the sand. There were no defining marks, no marks of strangulation or even a look of terror to denote murder. On the contrary, her face appeared so peaceful, so . . .

  Suddenly, through the trees, the stone abbey arose, piece by piece, a towering monument, gothic, medieval, aloof. Around it, the deeply cut grass shone, as though a satin mat for its masterpiece.

  Spying a lone nun powering across the green, I approached. “Hello, there. Is the abbey open today? I’ve come to look at the records and I have a letter of introduction by Bishop Rogers.”

  It always helped to have useful family friends and upon hearing of my interest in the abbey, Bishop Rogers had readily written a letter to the abbess.

  The nun, a severe- looking woman of some forty years, accepted the letter from my hands and silently guided me inside the abbey.

  Whenever I entered such ancient, quiet places, I experienced immediate peace. I understood how the church became a sanctuary for so many through troubled times.

  “Wait here,” the nun instructed, and I spied a nearby pew, one of twenty or so, and sat down to gaze up on the huge vaulted ceiling and admire the arched curves. Fairly quickly the nun returned.