There, another test of character awaited her. She found as she stood upright that her way was obstructed by an uncountable number of thin metal struts radiating from a common center. It was like looking into an ornamental bird cage large enough to house a peacock, but the creature on the other side was not feathered or exotic: it was a policeman, shining his bull’s-eye lantern through the fore-wheel of a penny-farthing bicycle.
CHAPTER 4
A towpath dialogue-Short digression on diabolical practices-A constable’s consideration
“Would you be requiring assistance, miss?” he gently inquired in the dialect rarely heard by the sheltered community at Elfrida College.
“Oh!” Her hands moved with a speed that would have drawn a cry of admiration from a drill sergeant. “It would oblige me if you would point your lantern in some other direction.”
“Certainly, miss. Been swimmin’, have you? ’Tis nothin’ unusual to drift downstream a little. Where are you from?”
She hesitated, reluctant to throw herself on his mercy, but recoiling from telling a lie to the Law. Candour triumphed. “I belong to the training college. I was taking a midnight bathe. My clothes are half a mile that way.” She indicated the direction with a small movement of her head.
“Then you’d better put my tunic about you. ’Tis a tidy walk from here.” He set down his bicycle and lamp and began unfastening buttons. “That’s Medmenham Abbey behind me,” he said. “You’ll no doubt have heard of the Hell Fire Club of a hundred years ago. They were a prime set of rogues, they were. We remember ’em in these parts-Sir Francis Dashwood and that John Wilkes and Members of Parliament comin’ here regular from Westminster. There, put that round your shoulders, miss. Yes, when I saw you climbin’ up that bank, I don’t mind admittin’ the thought crossed my mind that you were the tormented spirit of some poor village girl, taken advantage of by those wicked rascals. Would you permit me to accompany you, miss?”
It seemed a superfluous question when she was wearing his tunic, but he must have asked it out of courtesy. He was a singularly considerate constable, standing in the moonlight in his braces with his bull’s-eye pointing discreetly at the ground. And he looked not many years older than she.
“I shall feel the safer for your company, Officer.”
He left the bicycle on the grass, explaining that he would collect it later when he returned to his vigil. There had been reports that night fishing was going on and he was deputed to investigate.
“I did notice three men in a boat, but I don’t believe I saw fishing rods,” said Harriet. She was feeling more comfortable in the tunic, which she wore like a cloak. It extended past the middle of her thighs.
“What sort of boat was it, miss?”
“Oh, a rowing boat, a skiff, I believe. Two men were rowing and the third was seated facing them. They had a dog with them. They didn’t look like poachers.”
“You can’t tell, miss. They might have been trailing nets.”
Even in her moment of greatest alarm this was not a thought which had occurred to Harriet. Imagine becoming tangled in their net! Things could certainly have turned out worse than they had. If the constable’s tunic had been only a foot or two longer, or, better still, if he had been wearing a greatcoat, the walk along the riverbank might have been quite agreeable. He was a tall young man and he moved with a confident air, one hand gripping his braces and the other pulling aside occasional branches that over-hung their route.
It occurred to Harriet that if night fishing was illegal, naked bathing was probably against the law as well. She wondered whether the constable proposed to make an arrest. It seemed to matter less than the reception awaiting her at College. Expulsion was inevitable, for what was “indecorous or unladylike conduct” if it was not coming back in the small hours dressed only in a policeman’s tunic? She would surely become a legend among the students, but she would never become a teacher.
She stole a glance at his face. He still had an accommodating look. Perhaps it was the way his moustache curled at the ends. No, she could see his eyes quite clearly in the moonlight and they twinkled with good humour, like her papa’s. They must be blue, she decided.
“I shall be in fearful trouble.”
“Why is that, miss?” He was genuinely surprised.
“We are not supposed to go out. It was a madcap adventure. I was dared to do it, you see. When Miss Plummer finds out-”
“Miss Plummer?” His accent made the name quite sweet to the ear.
“Our principal.”
“Why should she find out, miss?”
“Aren’t you taking me back to the College?”
“You ain’t in custody, miss.” He smiled. “If you got out without that lady knowin’ it, I dare say you can get in again. I’ll just walk along with you and make sure your clothes are still where you left them. When we get there, I’ll turn the other way and you can return my tunic and I’ll make my way back to Medmenham. I’ve no mind to disturb your principal’s sleep, any more than you have, miss. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to say to the lady. After all, I don’t even know your name.”
“Thank you.”
They walked the next two hundred yards in silence. Then she put her hand lightly on his sleeve.
“It’s Harriet Shaw.”
CHAPTER 5
Penny-farthing shocker-Before the Plum-Something rather horrid
“Harriet! Here comes your policeman, riding up the drive on his bicycle.”
“Let me see!” cried Jane, at the landing window before Molly had completed her announcement. “My word, Harriet, he is a cut above the average. Look at the way he rides-that straight back, like a Prussian. Is it really your policeman? What a perfectly ravishing moustache! Why do you suppose he’s here?”
If Harriet had known the answer to that, she would not have turned so pale. Two days after the episode in the river she had begun to hope that she might have got away with it. The Plum had not said a word, nor even looked more disagreeable than usual, although the rest of the College had been buzzing with the story, amended slightly under the influence of good taste and girls’ adventure stories. There was not one inmate of Elfrida who had not pictured herself plucked from the roaring weir by Harriet’s policeman, wrapped in his enormous cape, carried to safety and dosed with a strong-tasting restorative from a hip flask.
And now her rescuer, who had given his word not to speak to Miss Plummer about what had happened, was riding up to the front door as coolly as the cat’s-meat boy.
“He is the same one, isn’t he?” demanded Jane, pink with excitement.
Harriet admitted that he was.
“Marvellous! Why don’t you lean out and wave to him?”
“Let’s not forget who we are,” cautioned Molly. “Besides, it might cause an accident, surprising a bicyclist like that. You’re too impulsive, Jane. I don’t suppose his visit has anything to do with Harriet. The gardener must have been intemperate again in Henley last night.”
Jane pointed dramatically along the drive. “And do you suppose that this is the gardener being driven home in a growler?”
Their faces pressed to the window and watched a four-wheeled cab follow the wide curve of the drive and stop below them, almost out of view. Its connection with the policeman was made clear at once. Two bowler hats emerged and approached the helmet, all that was visible from this angle of the hero of Hurley Weir. Words were exchanged, impossible to hear, but suggestive of a prior arrangement. Fully a minute passed before the doorbell rang.
“I believe he is going to tell Miss Plummer everything,” said Harriet, sounding disturbingly like a clairvoyant. “Those men know all about it and they have come to make sure nothing is left out.”
“Harriet, what an appalling thought!”
Jane had lost her colour completely. “He doesn’t know about us-Molly and me-does he? You didn’t tell him there were three of us in the river?”
“I told him I was bathing alone.”
�
��You wouldn’t say anything to the Plum yourself, would you?”
Her fellow-conspirators waited, fingering their necks, for their reprieve.
“No.”
There followed one of the more uncomfortable intervals in Harriet’s life. Sensing her ordeal, the others talked of other things, as wardresses do in the condemned cell, but each time a door opened anywhere in the house the conversation faltered.
Crocker, the Plum’s personal maid, delivered the summons after forty minutes. “Begging your pardon, miss, the Principal wishes you to come to her study immediately.”
Sympathy mingled with awe surrounded Harriet as she stepped downstairs. At the Plum’s door she drew a deep breath, thought of all the Tudors and Stuarts who had faced the headsman with dignity, and knocked once.
“Enter.”
She had been in the study just once before, on her first day at College, and then it had looked more roomy, possibly because it was not full of large men. The two who had arrived by cab were seated in leather armchairs flanking Miss Plummer’s desk. The bowler hats rested catlike on their knees. Harriet’s constable was standing rigidly to the right, next to a Chinese screen depicting a stag hunt.
Her worst intimations were confirmed at once.
“Is this the girl, Constable?” the Plum asked in a voice of doom.
The quickness of his glance showed how ill at ease he was. “It is, ma’am.”
“You could not be mistaken?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then it seems that the mistake is mine. I reposed my trust in you, Harriet Shaw, and I am advised that you betrayed it by breaking bounds last Tuesday night. Is this correct?”
“Yes, Miss Plummer.”
Miss Plummer closed her eyes. “Is it also true that you put your life and the good name of the College at risk by recklessly plunging into the River Thames?”
“Quite true, I am afraid.”
The eyes opened. “What were you wearing at the time?”
“Nothing, Miss-”
The policeman firmly interjected, “Nothing liable to cause offence to passers-by, ma’am, if that was what you were thinkin’.”
Whatever Miss Plummer was thinking, she was determined to investigate the matter at the source. “Do you possess a bathing dress, Harriet?”
The person to her right shifted in his chair. “With respect, ma’am, we haven’t time to go into the contents of Miss Shaw’s wardrobe. You seem to have established that she was the young lady Constable Hardy came across on Tuesday night and now I propose to put some questions to her. With your permission, I hope.”
The speaker’s tone left no doubt that his hope was Miss Plummer’s command.
“If that is what you wish. The girl is at your disposal. Harriet, these gentlemen are going to speak to you about something rather horrid that has occurred in our locality. Please answer them truthfully. They are detectives from Scotland Yard, Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray.”
CHAPTER 6
Introducing Sergeant Cribb-The hand in the weir-Harriet in custody
Scotland Yard Detectives. Harriet knew she had broken the rules, but this was going rather far, even for the Plum. Sergeant Cribb, the one who had spoken, turned in her direction. “I think you should sit down, miss.”
The other detective stood up and she took his place in the armchair and faced Sergeant Cribb. In profile he reminded her of Portugal, sharp-featured with an imperfect line to the nose. She often saw people as maps, and maps as people. It was a useful faculty she intended to pass on in the classroom, if ever she got into one. His full face was more northern in character, long and somewhat lined by glaciation, with side-whiskers, like Norway. She was not good at estimating men’s ages, but she supposed he had reached what her mother called the dangerous time of life. His eyes certainly had the glitter of a man confident in his exchanges with the opposite sex and his clothes showed indications of being chosen with some thought to the impression he would make.
“I want to tell you something at the start, Miss Shaw. You’ve every right to think that Constable Hardy over there”-he turned a finger at Harriet’s policeman without looking at him-“has broken a promise he made to you. And so he has. It’s put you in a very difficult position. Constable Hardy isn’t going to blame you in the least if you set about him, pummel him all over and lead him round the room by the ends of his moustache. He’s mortified with shame, is Hardy.” Sergeant Cribb this time turned to regard the constable, who was staring dolefully in the direction of the wall opposite. “Now you might be thinking, Miss Shaw, that Hardy lightly disregarded that promise. Not so.” The Sergeant moved forward confidentially. “He’s like a cracker on Christmas Day, miss. Torn clean in two. It was his duty as a police officer against his promise to you. Terrible conflict. Duty prevailed.” Sergeant Cribb spread his hands eloquently. “And that’s why we’re here.” He immediately countered the callousness of this by holding up a cautionary finger. “I think you will discover that Hardy ain’t the scoundrel you take him for. There were circumstances, miss. Circumstances.” He glanced in Miss Plummer’s direction. “May I speak plain, ma’am?”
Miss Plummer lifted her shoulders a fraction. “Say whatever you like. A girl who brazenly leaves the protection of this house in the middle of the night to bathe in the river is not likely to be shocked by anything you may tell her.”
“A point I hadn’t considered, ma’am. Well, Miss Shaw, there’s reason to suppose that at about the time you were taking to the water a rather ugly crime was taking place not far away. It was brought to the attention of the police on Wednesday morning. The lockkeeper at Hurley was crossing the weir bridge at a quarter to seven when he noticed an obstruction caught against the paddles. It looked to him like a sack of rubbish, and he went to fetch his boat hook to try and work it clear. He was making his way back along the bridge looking for the spot, when it was marked for him in a somewhat unexpected manner. A human hand and arm rose out of the water and stayed there with fingers spread, as rigid as a post. His sack of rubbish was a corpse. The current must have shifted it slightly against the paddles and brought the hand jutting out as if it were alive. Would you like a glass of water, miss? Well, I think I would. I’ve been talking far too much. If it could be arranged, Miss Plummer …”
The Principal left the room frowning.
“Now,” said Cribb to Harriet. “You must be quick, miss. You saw some men, I understand.”
“Men?”
“The men who startled you.”
“Oh,” said Harriet. “The men in the boat.”
“How many, miss?”
“Three-and a dog.”
“What sort of boat?”
“A long rowing boat of the sort people hire at Henley. Two of them were rowing and the third was sitting facing them. There was a large amount of luggage behind him, enough for a trip of several days, I should imagine.”
“Make a note, Thackeray. Double-sculled skiff. The rowers-did you see their faces, miss?”
“Not at first. They had their backs to me, you see. But they were beginning to draw level and I did glimpse the sides of their faces before I got into difficulties in the water. One was wearing a cap and the other a straw hat. The one in the cap was very like the Gulf of Bothnia.”
“The what, miss?”
“The Gulf of Bothnia, between Sweden and Finland. Studying maps is my favourite pastime and I can remember people best by comparing their outlines with what I have in my atlas. The man in the hat was taller and leaned back a long way, like the Persian Gulf. Are you familiar with its shape?”
“I can’t say I am just now, miss. Would you remember these men if you saw them again?”
“I think I should if I saw them in their boat. I’m less confident about the third, the man facing them. His outline was difficult to distinguish from the cushions.”
“But you’re sure it was a man? It’s usually a lady’s privilege to be rowed.”
“It was a man. No lady would
recline in quite the attitude this person did.”
“Was it after the manner of Japan, miss?” hazarded Cribb.
Harriet brought her hands together with a small clap. “You have it exactly!” She was beginning to respect this sergeant from Scotland Yard who could dismiss the Plum so easily and understood the principle of recognizing people as maps. “And do you actually suspect these men of having something to do with the body at Hurley Weir?”
“Difficult to say, miss. I can’t discount it as a possibility. Did you”-Sergeant Cribb tapped his forehead gently with his fingers-“did you say there was a dog, miss?”
“Indeed, yes. A fox terrier. That’s a breed I can easily recognize. We kept one at home before Mamma got the French poodle. Rex was so much more dependable than Alphonse.”
“Fox terrier.” As Cribb thoughtfully repeated the information, Miss Plummer returned, followed by Crocker bearing a tray with a jug of water and four glasses. Cribb filled one for himself. “Most hospitable of you, ma’am. You’re sure you won’t, Miss Shaw?”
Harriet declined.
“Well, Miss Plummer,” he went on. “This has been most valuable. If the rest of your young ladies are as sharp-eyed as Miss Shaw, there won’t be much that escapes them in their schoolrooms. Not like that unfortunate woman entrusted with my education. It makes me wince to think of the things we got up to behind our slates.”
The revelations this promised struck no chord with Miss Plummer. “Do you have the information you came for?”
“As much as I can get at this stage, ma’am. I shan’t take up any more of your time. The water was excellent. Sweeter to the taste than river water, I should think, Miss Shaw.”
Harriet nodded, unable to bring herself to smile, knowing that as soon as the policemen left she had to face the cross-examination, summing-up and sentence.
Her apprehension must have communicated itself to Cribb. He paused at the door, already held open by Miss Plummer. “A word, outside, if you please, ma’am.” When she had made a sound of impatience and complied, he asked, “What do you propose to do about Miss Shaw?”
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