by L. A. Nisula
With everyone on the far side of the bath finished, the constable came around to our side. Mrs. Grangeway took her daughter’s arm and pulled her forward before he could tell us anything about how he planned to question us, but seeing how shocked Miss Grangeway looked, I couldn’t blame her mother for wanting to get her questioning over with. Again, I couldn’t hear anything that was said, but it seemed to be a quick discussion.
Finally, the constable turned to us. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, but everyone seems to think they should be questioned first. If you would just tell me your names and what you saw.” He turned to Milly. “Miss?”
“Mildred Prynne. I saw the whole thing. Well, most of it. I heard Cassie say something and that’s when I turned and saw it. There was a man, under the water. I couldn’t see him though, the suits are so dark and it was shadowy by the pillars, but he was like a darker shadow. And he was holding her under, or pulling her down, I really don’t know. And now that I think of it, I saw her with him before that. She was playing some game, or I thought she was, like tag or something. But that must have been him. That must have been when he pushed her under. Do you think, Cassie?”
“Could you see who it was?” I asked.
“No, his back was to us.”
“Ladies, we’re discussing Miss Caldwell’s unfortunate accident, correct?”
“But it wasn’t an accident,” Milly said.
I added, “I’m afraid she was murdered.”
Chapter 4
CONSTABLE MARCHCLIFF DID HEAR US OUT. He allowed me to tell him everything I’d seen and took notes on all of it, but I could tell he was not convinced that we had seen a murder. From the questions he asked us, I was able to piece together what he had been told by the others. They had been alerted that something had happened by Milly’s scream, but all assumed it had been some terrible accident. Milly and I had been the only ones to see the mysterious figure pull her under or to notice the strange, still way she had lain low on the surface of the water before going under again. Mr. Douglas and Mr. Armstrong had done what they could to get her out quickly, but she had already drowned by the time they’d managed to pull her from the water. Someone from the hotel had gone for the constable and medical assistance, presumably when Mr. Langley let the Fredricksons out the side door, which explained the timely arrival of Constable Marchcliff.
When we’d finished with our stories, he nodded politely and asked if we’d known anyone before coming to the hotel and what we knew of Miss Caldwell, then put away his notebook. “We’ll get your statements typed up and bring them over for you to sign in the morning. I hope you can enjoy at least some of your holiday. If you need any assistance, don’t hesitate to contact us.” He handed over a card with his name and the address of the police station. “Thank you for being so helpful.”
It was all quite proper and polite, but I could tell he didn’t believe a word of our story. Still, it wasn’t his fault, considering what he’d been told by the others. Perhaps, if he’d started with us, he would have been more open-minded. I grabbed Milly’s arm before she could say something rude and steered her towards the exit as Constable Marchcliff went back towards Mr. Langley, who had re-opened the side door he’d let the Fredricksons out of.
Milly was so surprised at being dragged away, she stayed quiet until we were in the hallway to the changing rooms. I was very pleased she’d managed to restrain herself, as her first words were, “That policeman didn’t listen to us at all.”
I glanced back, but we were far enough away from the baths that our voices wouldn’t carry, so I was able to answer, “No, he didn’t. If I were being charitable, I would say he was allowing us to finish quickly so we could change.”
“And if you were being honest?”
“He thought we were hysterical fools.”
“Well, as we are definitely not, what do you propose to do?”
“First, go and change out of these ridiculous costumes, then we’re going to try to find the police station and talk to whoever drew the case. Perhaps Constable Marchcliff took better notes than we think.”
“And if not?”
“We’ll give our statements again.” I had just finished poking around a difficult case in London; I didn’t particularly want to start on another one, but I certainly couldn’t let Miss Caldwell’s killer get away. Not when I’d seen the murder and hadn’t been able to prevent it. If only I’d said something when I’d first noticed her going to the other end of the pool. I’d known it was odd, and what I’d interpreted as a game when she giggled had seemed so foolish, but she had seemed like the sort to play foolish games, so I’d thought it was nothing more than the same sort of trick she was playing at with Miss Morrison in coming down here. But if I’d called out then, perhaps she would have heard me, and her killer would have known I’d seen him with her.
Milly had already started towards the changing rooms, so I followed her, and we walked briskly down the hallway until Milly stopped by the door to the ladies’ changing room. “If Miss Grangeway is in there, we’ll never get away. Can we just run upstairs and change?”
I supposed witnessing a murder would excuse the eccentricity of running through the lobby in our bathing costumes, and as I’d had the sense to bring my key with us, we merely had to hope no one would take our things if we left them in the changing room. “If you don’t mind giving the Bates sisters a bit more to gossip about. We should go quickly, though.” No sense giving more gossip than necessary.
I was hoping everyone would still be distracted by the arrival of the police and ignore us, but as we hurried through the lobby, we ran into Mr. Longridge, me figuratively and Milly quite literally as she hurried out of the bathing room hallway. Apparently he changed his appearance depending on the client he was meeting, although I had no idea what appearance he was trying to project in his current costume. He was wearing a heavier wool suit than the weather seemed to call for which seemed a bit too big for him, with excessive amounts of oil slicking back his hair, and a strong smell of the sort of cheap perfume that was sold in the lobby with a faint whiff of damp wool beneath it. I couldn’t think of any business arrangement that would find the combination attractive. Perhaps that was the point: to seem rather scattered and absent-minded to elicit sympathy or cause the other party to underestimate him.
“Ladies, why such a rush?” he asked as he steadied Milly.
“We’re on our way to the police,” Milly said before I could think of a way to get away from him without revealing our mission.
“The police? You’ve not been the victim of some crime, I hope.”
Mr. Longridge seemed to be in the mood to chat, but I had no desire to stand dripping in the lobby in my rented bathing costume a moment longer than necessary. I grabbed Milly’s arm. “If you’ll excuse us, I’m certain it’s obvious we need to change.” I dragged her in the direction of the staircase.
~ * ~ * ~
By the time we’d changed out of our ridiculous bathing costumes and into something suitable for walking about town, everyone who had assembled to deal with Miss Caldwell’s death had scattered back to their respective offices. We went to the concierge desk to inquire as to the location of the police station, only to be met with confusion. Apparently the hotel had had quite enough disturbances for one day and bringing in more police was the last thing they wanted. As I wasn’t certain if telling them Miss Caldwell’s death had been murder would be a comfort or not—it did mean their baths were not prone to accidents but also that they had allowed a murderer into them—I was not sure of the correct tone to take. In the end, the gentleman at the desk seemed to think getting rid of us was the best he could do under the circumstances—a conclusion that frequently helped my investigations, even if it was a bit insulting when I thought about it too hard. In any case, we managed to start for the police station before any of the other guests had returned to the lobby.
~ * ~ * ~
When we arrived at the station, Milly tagged along behind me as
I found the main reception desk and asked to speak to whoever was in charge of the drowning case at the Fellcroft Hotel. It seemed to take a discouragingly long time for the man at the desk to find us the name of person in charge, an Inspector Sanders. Surely if it had been considered an important case—and the murder of a well-to-do young woman who was a guest at a local hotel would certainly seem to qualify—they would have had the information at their fingertips. But then, perhaps the paperwork was slow to move through their system, I told myself. Perhaps the information was being looked at by those higher-up the chain of command and hadn’t made it to the reception desk yet.
But when we found the office we had been directed to, I knew that had been wishful thinking. The man seated at the desk was buried behind a stack of files I assumed to be a backlog of cases he was working on. When I tapped on the open door to announce our presence, he glared up at us, then seemed to realize we were visitors and not some subordinate he could snap at and quickly changed to a rather paternalistic smile that told me nothing short of a signed confession by the murderer would get him to listen to us.
“How can I help you ladies?”
It was a sign of how seriously Milly was taking our information that she stayed silent and allowed me to explain our arrival. “We’re staying at the Fellcroft Hotel–”
Inspector Sanders cut me off before I could continue. “They’ve sent you to the wrong person. Inspector Humphries is handling the robbery. I’m afraid there isn’t much chance of anything being recovered, but still, give him the details and he can at the very least let the pawnshops know to be on the look-out for your items.”
“Robbery at the hotel?” Milly blurted out. Letting me do the talking hadn’t lasted very long.
“Yes, another one was reported this afternoon.”
“By whom?” I asked. Perhaps there was a motive there.
“I don’t think I should...”
“Not Miss Morrison, I hope,” Milly exclaimed, “that would be too awful.”
“No, not her.”
“Or Miss Grangeway.”
“No.”
Apparently Milly had stumbled on a way of getting answers by process of elimination if nothing else. I joined in. “Not the Bates sisters. They seem so nice.”
“No, it was Mr. Mulgrove, if you must know. Now, I can direct you to Inspector Humphries’s desk...”
“I’m sorry, we got a bit distracted by that news, but I’m afraid robbery is not why we’re here. We were at the Fellcroft Hotel baths this morning, and we have some information on Miss Caldwell’s drowning, and we wanted to be certain you had it.”
“Weren’t you interviewed by Constable Marchcliff?”
I chose my words carefully. I wanted to be certain he understood how serious what we’d seen was, but I did not want to get Constable Marchcliff in trouble. I settled for, “We were, but it was rather awkward being questioned when we had just come from bathing, so we wanted to be certain that you had all of the important facts. You see, we saw her being pushed under.”
“Pushed under?” He did not sound like he believed us.
“Yes,” Milly replied. “We saw all of it.”
“Well, sit down and let me take a look at what you told Constable Marchcliff.” He turned all the way around to look through a stack of folders on the floor behind him. It did not seem to be the place to hold important case files; certainly not where one would keep files on the suspicious death of a young female hotel guest whose father owned a large company. “What were your names, ladies?”
“Cassandra Pengear and Mildred Prynne.”
“Hmm. Mmm. Yes, there you are.” He straightened up, holding a very thin folder, which he opened and began to read. “You seem to have made a very complete statement. What was it you wanted to add?”
I told him the entire story again, beginning when I first noticed there was something wrong and ending with Constable Marchcliff questioning us. Milly chimed in to add her observations. Inspector Sanders nodded in all the right places and took a few—a very few—notes as we spoke, but I could tell when we’d finished that we’d said nothing to change his mind. When he was certain we had nothing more to add, he closed the folder and rested his hands on top of it. “Thank you for bringing this to me. I’m sure you thought you saw something sinister, but no one else reported anything but a terrible, tragic accident.”
“But they weren’t looking at her when it happened,” I pointed out on the small chance that it would make a difference. “It was the merest chance that I was.”
Inspector Sanders nodded as if he understood what I was trying to tell him, but he said, “I realize that you are from London and don’t shock as easily as some, but the mixed bathing is not something you’re used to, I’m sure.”
“Inspector–” I tried to cut him off.
“And even if you weren’t shocked, Miss Caldwell was a sheltered girl from a good family. She would have been. She was distracted and unfortunately this was the consequence.”
“But we saw a man holding her down,” Milly snapped.
“Holding her down? A minute ago you said pushing her under.”
I tried to speak as calmly as possible, although if he’d been seriously considering the theory, he would have understood what we were telling him. “He bobbed up out of the water, put something over her face, pushed her under, then held her down.”
“And yet he wasn’t there when Mr. Douglas and Mr. Armstrong went to assist.”
“He must have swum away, underwater perhaps.”
“And she didn’t struggle? She was in a bathing pool filled with people, and yet she didn’t do anything to alert the rest of you that something was wrong. Why not?”
“Perhaps she didn’t realize something was wrong until it was too late. Or she knew him and trusted him, and he caught her by surprise. I don’t know the exact circumstances–”
“Exactly–”
“Only that someone killed her.”
Inspector Sanders closed the folder and folded his hands on top of it. “I will take your observations under advisement when I make out the final report. Thank you for coming in to tell me what you thought was relevant to my case.”
“But you aren’t treating it as a case.” I knew my objection was falling on deaf ears.
Inspector Sanders picked up the folder and put it back on the stack behind him. “Did you need a cab back to your hotel?”
So we were dismissed. Not that I was surprised after I’d started arguing with him. “No, it’s not far. If you do wish to speak to us again, here’s my card. It has my London address on it.”
Inspector Sanders took the card, gave it the most perfunctory glance, and slipped it into the folder with the rest of the report. It seemed the best I could do. At least, if he did decide to take us seriously, he’d be able to reach us. I touched Milly’s arm to indicate that we were leaving.
Chapter 5
ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE HOTEL, Milly complained. I got the gist of the beginning of it—mainly anger at not being taken seriously—then ignored the rest. I was quite used to not being believed by policemen. Normally, all it took was a bit more evidence to convince them that I was right, or at least that I was telling them something that bore looking into. The question was, how much evidence would it take to convince Inspector Sanders, and was it worth spending the rest of my holiday trying to find it, or would it all be ignored in the end?
When we arrived at the hotel, I half expected Milly to go looking for one of the gentlemen, but she followed me up to our room, talking and, I assumed, complaining the whole way.
As I unlocked the door, Milly said, “Have you heard a word I’ve been saying?”
“Sorry, I was thinking.” I pushed the door open and went in.
“Thinking? Then you don’t plan on leaving Inspector Sanders to believe we didn’t see what we saw? Excellent. I take back everything I just said.”
I decided I was very lucky I didn’t know what she had just said, particularly as w
e would be sharing the very small room for a few more days. I sat down on the edge of my bed. If Milly was going to expect me to investigate, she could certainly help out. “All right, let’s think this through. What did we actually see? We thought a man; are we certain?”
Milly opened her mouth to answer, then paused. I stared at the wall trying to remember.
“I think it was a man,” Milly said. “The sleeves were straight, anyway.”
I nodded. “They were, but the rented suits don’t have particularly puffy sleeves. I wonder if the water would be enough to deflate them. But I had the definite impression that it was a man too, so we’ll tentatively assume it was. What about a description? We saw him from behind, so there wasn’t much.”
“The suit was dark, but so was everyone’s. I don’t remember the trim.”
“Neither do I. What about hair?”
“That’s easy,” Milly said quickly, “dark.”
“But dark naturally or dark because of the water?”
“Oh. I don’t know.”
I sighed. “Neither do I. All right, let’s try a different approach. Which of them could have done it? Mr. Langley.”
“He was by the chairs. He hadn’t even gone in the water yet.”
I nodded. “I remember seeing him there. And he didn’t appear to be wet when he let the Fredricksons out. Then there was Mr. Fredrickson.”
“Oh, I don’t want it to be him.”
“Neither do I, but if we want to sort this out, we have to look at everyone. Mr. Fredrickson.”
“He was holding their baby.”
“Did you see him doing that just before the crime, or would he have had enough time to put it down somewhere and swim over?”
Milly paused. “Before, but when you ask it like that, I don’t really know.”
“I don’t remember either. But it’s not like you can put a baby down just anywhere like a parcel of books or something. He’d have to involve Mrs. Fredrickson, and she was minding the other children. So unlikely, but still, not impossible. Then there’s Mr. Armstrong.”
