‘Oh, the bird-watchers’ conference, I suppose,’ said Sebastian. ‘Maggie and I will be out of it, anyway. We’re going to explore the island. Do you think, Father, that we could ask for a packed lunch? If there’s going to be a sort of spring-cleaning done here, I want no part of it.’
‘I should have liked to come with you, but I think I will stay here to greet Lizzie upon her arrival. I did ask the porter about steamers and it appears that one is due today, but not another one until Saturday. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays are the arrival days, and as the conference people are expected to come by the Saturday boat, your aunt will certainly not delay her own arrival until then. I confidently expect her this morning at about half-past eleven or so. It appears that the Thursday boat puts in earlier than ours did yesterday.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Margaret, ‘perhaps we had better come back to lunch, then, if Aunt Eliza is expected.’
‘There is no need for you to put yourselves out, my dear. In fact, it is so long since I saw my sister that I believe I would prefer to break the ice before I introduce you to her.’
‘Thank goodness for that!’ said Sebastian, when they had left the hotel and were making their way towards the northwest corner of the island. ‘We didn’t want him tagging along and making us look at what interests him and bores us crosseyed. He has such weird ideas of enjoyment.’
‘Poor old Tutor! Do you sometimes think perhaps we’re a bit lousy where he’s concerned?’
‘Good heavens, no! He’s got a job he likes and isn’t much good at (so he’s lucky to keep it, and he wouldn’t, except at a university), we don’t cost him much and he’s stingy about my allowance, anyway, and I don’t drink (much) or dope at all, and we’re both quite reasonably intelligent—and that’s a miracle when you think of Boob. Besides—’
‘Oh, not that ancient Sicilian Vesper about not having asked to be born! I’m jolly glad I was born, and I’m going to enjoy myself as long as I can manage to stay alive. Look, there’s the church. Shall we take a look at it?’ said Margaret.
Sebastian took a look at it and snorted disgustedly.
‘Victorian Gothic,’ he said.
‘Well, John Betjeman likes Victorian Gothic, and he’s the Poet Laureate now, so don’t be snobby.’
Sebastian tried the door, but the church was locked.
‘Oh, well, that’s that, and I don’t think we’ve missed much,’ he said.
‘I wonder whether there are any interesting old grave-stones in the churchyard,’ said Margaret.
‘There couldn’t be. I should think the building was put up in about 1880, and not a day earlier.’
‘There might be an amusing inscription or so, all the same. Come on, let’s look around. We’ve time to kill.’
‘Not if we’re going to get as far as the northern end of the island.’
‘Well, we need not do that today. We’ve got a whole month to mess about in.’
Sebastian gave way and tagged along after her as she inspected the graves. The churchyard was ragged and untidy and on three of the headstones vandals had been at work. Red paint had been splashed on them in the forms, respectively, of a giant letter s followed by the word murder, a five-pointed star labelled lucifer and a sprawling, badly-executed swastika.
‘Amateur satanists!’ said Sebastian. ‘Cor!’
There was one more item of interest. A notice in the church porch, addressed to visitors, supplied the information that services were held once a month, but that special arrangements could be made with J. Dimbleton at Lighthouse Cottage by any who wished at any time to go to church on the mainland. tariff by mutual agreement depending on numbers, the notice stated.
‘Might come in useful, even if one didn’t want to go to church on the mainland,’ said Sebastian. ‘Sundays are bound to be pretty grim in a place like this. Oh, well, let’s press on, shall we? There’s only one track in this direction, so there’s no need to argue about which way we should go.’
The track brought them to a farm and continued past it. The farmhouse was perched high up on the plateau in what seemed to be an unnecessarily exposed position and adjoining it were piggeries, cattle-sheds, a walled kitchen garden and a good-sized cottage and smallholding. Apart from the buildings and the rough road which hereabouts was muddy with the tramplings of cattle and plentifully endowed with large pats of cow-dung, there was nothing to be seen but pasture dotted freely with the black and white of Fresian cattle and also a number of white-faced Herefords which were quietly grazing.
As they approached the cottage a man came out. He gave them a polite good-day as they passed, and as soon as they were out of earshot Margaret remarked,
‘He was on the boat that brought us ashore. I was certain he and the older man with him were natives. He might be able to tell us quite a lot about the island.’
‘What I’d like him to tell us,’ said Sebastian, ‘is whether the island supports a pub. We have sandwiches, but nothing to drink.’
‘They did offer us a thermos flask of coffee at the hotel.’
‘I know, but it’s such a drag hauling drinks about.’ He turned, ran, and caught up with the man, who had turned towards the farmhouse. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but is there a pub within measurable distance? My sister and I could do with a drink.’
‘A drink? Oh, sure. I could do with one myself. It’s this way, if you’d like to come along. You’ll be visitors to the island, no doubt.’
‘Yes, we came over yesterday. Didn’t we see you on the boat?’ asked Sebastian.
‘Me and my dad, yes, I expect you did. We were on it, anyway.’
‘There were two other people, two women.’
‘That’s right. Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley and her secretary, Mrs Gavin.’
‘Is Dame Beatrice really a criminologist?’ asked Margaret.
‘Shouldn’t think so, except that she’s a psychiatrist. It might come to the same thing, I suppose.’
‘Does she come here often?’
‘Never been before, to my knowledge.’
‘But you know all about her.’
‘Well, she’s famous, I believe. Writing her memoirs, so I hear, and has taken Puffins for three months to get away from her friends and relatives. A gaggle of servants came over last week to get the house ready.’
‘To get it ready?’
‘Well, yes. The family left when the other house was turned into a hotel. It’s been up for sale for years. The agents let it when they can, but that’s not often.’
‘We wondered,’ said Margaret, falling into step beside him while Sebastian loitered behind, ‘whether our Aunt Eliza —Mrs Chayleigh—was expected back this morning.’
‘Expected back? Back from where?’
‘I don’t know exactly. From the mainland, anyhow. We were told she had gone over to make arrangements.’
‘For what?’
‘Well, isn’t she expecting to have a bevy of bird-watchers at the hotel?’
‘Goodness knows! Is she?’
‘So we were told. That’s why Seb and I have to sleep in one of the chalets. She couldn’t let us have rooms in the house because of all these ornithologist people.’
‘I know nothing whatever about it. I never go up to the hotel. It will be nice for my mother to have it full, I should think. It doesn’t usually do too well, I believe.’
‘Oh, doesn’t it?’ said Margaret, concealing her interest in what she had just learned.
‘No, not really at all too well. Even in August it never seems anything like full. I know a bit about it, you see, because we supply her with farm and garden stuff, so according to the orders she sends down we can always tell roughly how many guests she has.’
‘I should think, then…’ Margaret hesitated before completing her sentence.
‘What should you think?’
‘Oh, well, I only meant that I should think you’d get bumper orders for your produce next week, when all these people turn up. I believe forty of them are
expected. Of course, we should never have come if my father had known that the hotel was going to be crowded out, but I expect it will be a very profitable thing for Aunt Eliza.’
‘Oh, well, that’s no business of mine. As for our produce, well, my father lets her have it at bargain prices, so it won’t be at all to our advantage to let her have enough for forty people. We’ve a built-up market on the mainland, you see, where the prices are very much better. How many people are already staying at the hotel?’
‘I don’t really know. There were only five other people at dinner last night, apart from the woman at the reception desk who had a table to herself just inside the service door, and there were only two others at breakfast this morning.’
‘That’s what I mean. The place is never more than one-fifth full, I would say.’
The track they were following dipped to a little, fast-running river and a bridge. Near the bridge and high above the river-gorge was the pub. It was a slate-roofed, long, low building covered with white-washed rough-cast and it had a stone wall along one side of its yard with a gap in it to give access to a small building of quarried stone which was half woodshed and half earth-closet.
Right across the front of the pub itself there was a long board between the downstair and upstair windows which bore in very large letters executed by an unpractised hand the information that the building was the Great Skua tavern and general stores. There were two front doors, one leading into the bar and the other into the shop. Sebastian pushed open the former and held it for the others.
‘Expect we’re too early for drinks,’ he said. ‘It’s only a quarter past ten.’
‘No, that’s all right,’ said the man. ‘No nonsense like permitted hours on Great Skua. Now, then, sit down. What will you have? Not that there’s any real choice. It’s beer or whisky and there won’t be any ice for the whisky, so it’s no good asking for Scotch on the rocks, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, beer for me,’ said Sebastian, ‘and a lemonade shandy, if they can do one, for my sister.’ When they had finished their drinks, he added, ‘My round now. Same again for everybody?’
‘Not for me, thanks,’ said the man. ‘Got to be getting back. Glad to have met you. Why don’t you drop in at the farm some time? Come and have some tea. Any relations of Eliza Chayleigh are welcome. She used to be called Eliza Lovelaine until she inherited old Miss Chayleigh’s property. The old lady made her change her name as a condition of being made the heiress.’
‘Well!’ said Margaret to her brother as they took their way north-westward again. ‘What do you make of that!’
‘Make of what?’ asked Sebastian. ‘What on earth made him give us an invitation to tea at the farm? It would be frightful. I don’t know the first thing about pigs and mangold-wurzels.’
‘Oh, Seb, don’t you know what that man is? That must be his reason for inviting us. He knew us when we mentioned Aunt Eliza.’
‘Oh, Lord! Not Ransome?’
‘I’m sure of it. There’s the smallholding and the farm, and he said that the older man on the boat with him was his father and he spoke of Aunt Eliza as his mother. I’m dying to know more about him.’
‘Why on earth?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, except that I liked him. Didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t have much to do with him. He seemed all right, but he talked mostly to you.’
‘I wonder what he really thinks of his life?’
‘Goodness knows, and I couldn’t be less interested.’
‘Well, where do you think he fits in? And how do you think he reacts to Aunt Eliza? He said he never goes up to the hotel.’
‘That could mean anything or nothing. Aunt Eliza must be kept pretty busy and I expect this chap is busy, too, if he runs that big kitchen garden which goes with the cottage and helps the farmer as well.’
‘He seems fairly well-educated, doesn’t he?’
‘I should think he went to an agricultural college and then she let him have the cottage and the smallholding. She’d feel bound to do something for him, and the farmer would, if he’s his father, you know.’
‘It might come as a big jolt to The Tutor to find that Aunt Eliza seems to have taken enough interest in him to have him trained and to find him a job on the island. I wish we knew more about it all. Are we going to tell The Tutor we’ve met him?’
‘Yes, but not that you like him. We must mention the meeting itself because he may find out about it for himself if we don’t and that might prove embarrassing.’
‘Do we go down and watch the boat come in? I’d like to get a first sight of Aunt Eliza.’
‘We shouldn’t know which person was Aunt Eliza. Besides, I’m not going to sweat down and up that cliff road again today. What about those sandwiches?’
‘If we eat them now we’ll be hungry before we get back to the hotel.’
‘I’m hungry now,’ said Sebastian. ‘There is a mass of granite rock sticking up there ahead of us. Let’s find a flat bit and sit and stodge. We can then get another drink at the pub on our way back.’
‘Aren’t we going to explore the rest of the island?’
‘Yes, when we are refreshed and “Richard is himself again”. It’s going to be hot this afternoon, though.’
The rest of the trackway skirted a small disused airfield and led out to the north-west lighthouse. Here, in spite of the warmth of the afternoon, the wind was strong, so that, instead of following a cliff path which, they could see, would take them southwards along the rocky coast which formed the west side of the island, they skirted its tip and took the more sheltered but very rough path on the east cliff, stopping here and there to rest. The turf was close, dry and springy and the day was hot. The east cliffs were high and steep, but were less formidable than those on the Atlantic side of the island, and the path they were following dipped occasionally into boggy hollows. One or two small streams made their way down to the sea, but were summer-thin and easily forded and their waterfalls were pleasant but not spectacular.
The brother and sister talked little and were often apart as one or the other found something of interest in the dips and hollows or scrambled up a goat-track among the bracken to reach a view-point which disclosed a stretch of the coast.
Sebastian found what he thought were some primitive hut-circles. Margaret gathered wild flowers. Both stopped to watch sea-birds and saw what they thought must be seals lying out among the flat rocks.
Beyond the little streams the path rose again, but soon descended to, and wandered across, a large and beautiful combe which ran down to the sea. This they explored, and found another small beach with a cave which penetrated far into the cliff.
They marked it for future exploration and then re-traced their steps, since there was no way round the next headland from the shore. When they regained their cliff path they soon found a deviation from it which led across to the farm, the buildings of which stood out prominently on the grassy plateau.
‘We don’t want the farm or that chap again,’ said Sebastian. ‘Let’s go this way.’ Another deviation, almost overgrown with bracken, led up to a hillock on which was perched another lighthouse, but this was an eighteenth century building long out of use. Sebastian, who tried it (tentatively at first then more determinedly), found the door in the surrounding wall had been made fast.
‘It probably isn’t very safe, anyway,’ he said, surveying the structure over the top of the wall which, by taking advantage of his height, he found himself able to do. He was peering over when a thickset, middle-aged man came up to watch him.
‘You don’t want to bother with that there,’ he said. ‘No admittance. That’s a very dangerous building. Try one on’t’other side the island. Just as good. Safe, too. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Best keep away from here.’
‘Thanks. We couldn’t climb over, anyway,’ said Sebastian. The man nodded and walked off in the direction of the farm. ‘That’s the bloke who was on the little boat when we came over,’ he added to his sis
ter. They returned to their path, but Margaret looked back once or twice at the lighthouse.
‘There’s that other old one on the other side of the island,’ she said. ‘I spotted it when we came out of the pub. He mentioned it, didn’t he? They might even open it up to the bird-watchers. There must be thousands of sea-birds on those western cliffs, and from the lamp-room gallery there ought to be very good views of the rest of the island.’
‘Oh, well, we’ll certainly mark it for future reference if we find we can get inside the tower, but I expect that’s locked up, too,’ said Sebastian. ‘If they’ve had to build the two new ones, these ancient structures may never be opened to the public. By the way, I wonder what The Tutor has done with himself all day?’
‘Written to Boobie, I expect, or found himself some sheltered spot in which to read and snooze. Oh, no, he won’t, though, because surely Aunt Eliza is back by now?’
chapter five
The Missing Hostess
‘Plover, partridge, for your dinner,
And a capon for the sinner,
You shall find ready when you’re up,
And your horse shall have his sup:
Welcome, welcome, shall fly round,
And I shall smile, though under ground.’
John Fletcher
« ^ »
Sebastian reclaimed the keys which he had handed in when he and his sister had left the hotel, and they went to have tea in the lounge before he unlocked the chalet so that they could change for dinner. They were too leg-weary to have any desire to go out again, and, as the hour for tea was almost over when they ordered theirs, it was turned half-past five before Sebastian, with a sweater under his dressing-gown, went off to the bathhouse and Margaret, fully clothed but carrying sponge-bag, towel and toilet accessories, knocked at her father’s bedroom door.
The Murder of Busy Lizzie mb-46 Page 5
