At this solemn and impressive moment there was a rude and noisy interruption. Without previous warning—they must have moved like cats along the passage—three men leapt, one after another, down the ladder. Fiercely they fell upon the astonished coven. One seized and flourished the athame, the sacred knife which had been replaced on the altar; another flung the priestess to the ground and, as she dropped it, picked up the ceremonial sword. The third man found the scourge and proceeded to lash the naked bodies of the witches, who yelled, shrieked and swore and, seizing any clothes which came nearest to hand, scrambled up the ladder and made off, leaving Ransome, bewildered, bound and blindfolded, still standing helpless in front of the improvised altar.
‘What’s up? What’s happening?’ he cried, twisting his naked body against his bonds. The intruders wasted no time in answering him. Producing more cord, one of them stooped and bound his ankles, then the three of them bundled him towards the mouth of the cave and, hooking his bound ankles from under him, precipitated him full length on to the sand with his head towards the sea and his whole body well below the tide mark to which the water would rise. Then, still without having spoken a word, they returned to the ladder and were gone.
Whereas, so far as Sebastian could tell, all the actions of the priestess, however threatening they might appear, had been innocent and symbolic, the intention of the three intruders was plain. Ransome, bound, blindfolded and helpless, was to be left to drown and to suffer the mental torture, moreover, of knowing that in time the encroaching tide would wash around his body and finally engulf him.
There was a picture in Sebastian’s mind, a vision of the hapless witches clutching armsful of clothes and fleeing, as their predecessors must have done, from their persecutors. Along the tunnel they must be making their panic flight, then between the dark sides of the overgrown quarry. They must be looking like glimmering ghosts, but, unlike ghosts, they must be conscious of the rough going for their bare feet, and the brambles, nettles and stinging branches of low-growing bushes which tormented their naked bodies as they gasped and stumbled in the moonlight to a place of safety.
He wondered where they would make for, but, as these thoughts crowded his mind, he saw another picture and, this time, not a mental one. Less than a dozen yards from his hiding-place he could make out the hapless figure of Ransome, bound and blindfolded. He was in the water, but a faint white blur showed that he was at least face-upwards and not, at the moment, in danger of being drowned. Sebastian crept towards the far end of the cave and, at the foot of the ladder, strained his ears. He could hear nothing, so he returned to the prostrate man and felt for the cords which bound him.
‘Never mind that, whoever you are,’ muttered Ransome. ‘Pull me up above the tide-mark. The tide’s on the turn and it comes in fast.’
He was much bigger and heavier than Sebastian, but the boy, seizing him by the ankles, heaved and strained against the resisting sand. Then, as soon as he had pulled Ransome to a place of safety and rolled him over on to his chest, he wrestled and sweated with the knots until at last Ransome was free. Ransome pulled the bandage from his eyes and stood up.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, for Sebastian, so far, had not uttered a word and he could not see him in the darkness. Sebastian told him.
‘Better come back with me to the hotel,’ he said. ‘You’ll be safe enough in my room for the rest of the night.’
‘No, that’s all right. Got a torch, by any chance?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Switch it on while I find my confounded clothes.’
They both looked around, but there were no clothes left in the cave. The witches had snatched up every garment they could lay hands on in their panic.
‘Damn! And I’m frozen!’ said Ransome.
‘Have my jacket. I’ve got a sweater. What are you going to do, then?’
‘Make for my cottage and some trousers.’
‘I could fix you up, I expect.’
‘Couldn’t get into your things. Can’t get into this jacket, for a start.’
‘Have the sweater, then. That will stretch.’ He peeled it off and they made the exchange. ‘I say, what was it all about?’
‘Vigilantes.’
‘Why, what have you been doing?’
‘Nothing. They must think I’m an informer.’
‘Did they really mean you to drown?’
‘Shouldn’t think so. Just a warning, I reckon.’
‘But what could you inform about?’
‘That’s telling, isn’t it? Look, they’ll be back to untie me before the tide’s much higher. Let’s go, while the going’s good.’
‘By the way,’ said Sebastian, ‘is the farmer home again yet? I should like to meet him and his wife.’
‘All in good time,’ said Ransome. ‘He’s there, but Lucy still isn’t back.’
chapter thirteen
Unsatisfactory Verdict
‘Ah! woe is me, woe, woe is me,
Alack and well-a-day!
For pity, sir, find out that bee
Which bore my love away.’
Robert Herrick
« ^ »
Margaret heard her brother come in. She opened her bedroom door, crossed the tiny sitting-room and tapped. Sebastian opened his door.
‘Why aren’t you asleep?’ he asked.
‘You made such a row getting in.’
‘You must have been wide awake to hear me.’ She had entered the room and seated herself on the bed, so Sebastian went on: ‘Out of it. I want to get some sleep.’
‘Did you have any fun?’
‘Lots. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.’
‘Tell me a little bit now.’
‘Couldn’t. It can’t be told in bits. Hop it into your bed and leave me mine.’
‘Where’s your sweater?’ asked Margaret, as he removed his jacket.
‘On Ransome. Now get out of my room or I won’t tell you a thing, either now or in the morning.’
‘It’s the morning now.’
‘I know. I shan’t be in time for breakfast if I don’t get some sleep. Also my trouser-legs are wet, my fingers are sore with undoing a knotted rope and I’m so cold I shall get pneumonia if you don’t get off my bed and let me get into it.’ He began to take off his trousers. Margaret accepted the ultimatum and went back to her own room. She had to wake him in the morning to get him up in time for breakfast.
‘Not a question, I promise you, not one,’ she said, ‘until we’ve got to the toast and marmalade.’
‘And not then, not at the table with those two damned bird-men listening-in with their ears flapping. What I have to disclose is first for you and then for Laura.’
‘Are you hoping she’ll pass it on to Dame Beatrice?’
‘That is the thought at the back of my tiny mind. Go along to the dining-room and give our usual order. I’ll be there by the time they’ve put it on the table.’
‘I say, did you know,’ said one of the men who had been allotted to the Lovelaines’ table, ‘that there’s a nudist colony on the island? Somebody saw them last night.’
Sebastian, who had just taken his seat, looked coldly at the questioner and replied:
‘No doubt there are a number of other harmless, unnecessary objects on the island. If nudists excite you, you’re welcome to them.’
‘Thanks for nothing,’ said the ornithologist sourly, turning away from Sebastian in a pointed manner.
‘You needn’t go out of your way to crush the poor things. They’re harmless and unnecessary, too,’ protested Margaret, when the bird-watchers had finished their breakfasts and had left the table. ‘Do you know about the nudists, then?’
‘There aren’t any. Shut up until we’re out of this dining-room. Nudists, in one sense, come into my story, but I can’t tell you about it here.’
Meanwhile Marius, having telephoned his wife as soon as he reached the mainland, booked a room at an hotel and prepared himself for what he felt would be
the ordeal of attending the inquest on his sister. Of Miss Crimp he had seen nothing once he had left the island. He imagined that she intended to cross by Dimbleton’s boat and that, as soon as the inquest was over, she would return immediately by the same means so as to be absent (from what he supposed she now regarded as her own hotel) for as short a period as possible. He himself, he had informed Clothilde on the telephone, would return home as soon as the inquest was over, unless there seemed to be any reason for going back to Great Skua and his children.
Fortunately for those who had to come over from the island to attend it, the inquest was held in the port to which the island steamer put in. When the proceedings opened, Marius found himself seated next to Miss Crimp, who had travelled by the means he had envisaged and who had Dimbleton on the other side of her, for the boatman himself had been called to attend the inquest in his capacity as one of the retrievers of the corpse.
The proceedings opened formally and Miss Crimp gave evidence of the identity of the body. She was followed by Marius, who, as next of kin to the deceased (nobody had mentioned Ransome), confirmed what Miss Crimp had declared.
‘Were two witnesses necessary?’ asked the coroner, looking at the inspector of police who was in court. The inspector replied that, as the next of kin had been out of touch with the deceased for twenty years, it had been thought better to have his evidence of identification substantiated by a witness who had been closely associated with the deceased for the past two years.
‘But she didn’t confirm him; he corroborated her,’ said the coroner testily. ‘Oh, well, no matter, no matter. We may need to question both witnesses further, a little later on.’ He called for the medical evidence. This was supplied by the police surgeon. The deceased had met her death as the result of having received a fatal blow on the head. He went into details. There were also a number of contusions on the body and some broken ribs, the witness stated, but these had been sustained after death. It was the head-wound which had done, all the damage.
‘But I thought the body was found in the sea,’ objected the coroner, who had been given this fact before the inquest opened. The police surgeon replied that all the circumstances of death had been fully investigated at the autopsy and that he was able to state with certainty that, although the body had been found in the sea, death was not due to drowning. The coroner, apparently feeling that the jury had had enough of clinical detail, said, ‘Very well, very well. We had better hear from those who found the body.’
Dimbleton took his place in the witness box and, in answer to a question when he had taken the oath, stated that he had not been alone in the rescue boat, but had been told by the police that, as the owner of the craft which had brought the body ashore, he was competent to speak for himself and the rest of the crew.
‘So what do you think happened?’ asked the coroner, dropping his former testy manner and speaking as man to man.
‘My thought, sir, is as the poor lady must have been blowed off the cliff-top,’ said Dimbleton stolidly.
‘Blown off the cliff-top? Incredible!’
‘Oh, no, sir, not if you know the force of the wind on Great Skua. It’s no uncommon matter for cows to be blowed off into the sea, and a cow would weigh a lot heavier than the poor lady, I wouldn’t doubt.’
The police surgeon was recalled.
‘Could the fatal injury you have described have been caused by an accidental fall from the cliffs?’
‘Well, yes, it could have been. On the other hand—’
‘You say it could have been. Is there any evidence to show that it wasn’t?’
‘No,’ replied the witness unwillingly, ‘but I am more inclined to think that it was the result of a blow on the head and that this was delivered and was received before the body entered the water.’
‘Yes, the court accepts your evidence that death was not due to drowning, but, judging by the way you have framed your answer, are we to understand that you refer to a deliberate attack?’
‘Oh, no, you must not infer that. There is nothing in my findings to support such a theory,’ said the police surgeon hastily.
‘Still, the jury will wish to have the matter investigated,’ said the coroner coldly.
He investigated it by recalling in turn Miss Crimp, Marius and the boatman. Summed up, their evidence amounted to (Miss Crimp), a vehement assertion that poor Eliza had no enemies and many, many friends; that (Marius) so far as he knew, his sister was not the kind of person to have given offence to anybody (he did not mention his wife); and that (Dimbleton) Mrs Chayleigh was a nice, goodhearted lady who was at odds with nobody and who was generous with hand-outs at Christmas.
‘Granted,’ said the coroner to Dimbleton, ‘that the deceased was blown off the cliffs, can you suggest whereabouts on the island this tragic accident could have taken place?’
‘Almost anywhere, sir, in a strong enough wind, but being as she was found caught up in the rocks we calls the Fiddlers, I should reckon she went in near enough by the old quarries and got caught in the current—a regular race, that is, sir—as we calls Dead Man’s Day.’
The jury retired and, strongly advised by the coroner, brought in an open verdict. The inspector met the doctor later and remarked that the coroner was an old ass who had rushed the case through because he was going yachting and wanted to catch the tide, but that he (the inspector) did not intend to let the case drop.
‘Glad to hear it,’ said the police surgeon. ‘If the thing ever gets as far as the magistrates, I’ll get a chance, perhaps, to air the opinion which I wasn’t allowed to voice—namely, that it is a great deal more likely that somebody knocked her on the head and threw the body into the sea, than that the wind blew her over the cliff. That’s a tale I really cannot swallow, especially considering the nature of the head-wound. Besides, she’d never have risked being blown off a cliff. She’d lived on the island for years, and she was a middle-aged woman and cautious, I imagine.’
‘I wonder whether anybody stood to gain anything by her death? That’s the first thing which needs looking into,’ said the inspector to the local superintendent when they, in their turn, were discussing the inquest. ‘You know, sir, I wouldn’t trust that partner of hers, that Crimp woman, further than I could see her. She’s a creep.’
‘Then there’s the brother. Hasn’t seen his sister for twenty years, yet suddenly goes to stay at her hotel and, next thing you know, she’s found dead under what could certainly look like suspicious circumstances,’ said the superintendent. ‘What about getting the plain-clothes blokes to look at it? A few discreet enquiries is all it wants.’
‘The doctor doesn’t like that knock on the head, sir, in spite of the fact that he wouldn’t state it was caused deliberately. I reckon he thought there had been foul play, all the same.’
‘Think he’s got anything to go on?’
‘Nothing that looks like evidence, but he’s seen a lot of knocks and bruises in his time and I’d trust his instinct, sir. He doesn’t accept that yarn about her being blown off the cliff any more than I do.’
There was another person, apart from the police and the doctor, who was not satisfied with the verdict. Marius, back at his hotel, telephoned his wife that, after all, he thought he would return to the island, send the children home and take up his residence at the hotel again for a time.
‘I do not know what more I can find out,’ he said, concluding the conversation, ‘but I am not willing to allow matters to remain as they are.’ He rang off, oblivious of a cry from Clothilde of ‘Oh, but, Marius—’ for he knew that his wife would argue against his proposed course of action and turn the telephone call into an expensive battle of personalities which she would probably make acrimonious. He was not a particularly mean man, but he could see no point in paying for a one-sided and probably lengthy dispute from which nobody would gain except the Post Office.
Meanwhile his children had confided in Laura, who, picking out the word vigilantes from Sebastian’s improbable tale, re
layed the gist of his account to Dame Beatrice.
‘They’ve told me that this Ransome Lovelaine has the farm cottage with the smallholding,’ she concluded. ‘Don’t you think we should get speech with him? He’ll surely be willing to talk, if these smugglers attempted to drown him.’
‘But he does not think they did try to drown him. He appears to have regarded the incident merely as a warning, and he may accept it as such. That being so, the last thing he is likely to do—’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Is to grass on the smugglers, you mean.’
‘We have no direct information that the men who set about him are smugglers, you know.’
‘Not even with the tip-off we had from Gavin? Come now, Mrs Croc!’ said Laura, using her private name for her saurian employer.
‘Very well, I concede the point, but the time to talk openly to Ransome Lovelaine is not yet. I will go and see him a little later on, so that there will appear to be no obvious connection between my visit and his experiences in the cave, but, even then, smuggling is the last thing I shall mention,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Won’t you even tell Gavin that we may be on to something?’
‘No, but you are at liberty to do so.’
‘May I say you think as I do?’
‘You may say that I have certain suspicions, if you like.’
‘Do you think the witches were all mixed up in it? I mean, they were the ones who blindfolded him and tied his hands behind his back. I can’t help thinking it was all a put-up job. If we could show that the witches are the smugglers — and I told you before that I think they are—’
‘You may be correct, of course, in thinking that.’
‘You mean you think so, too?’
‘I retain an open mind. But where does Eliza Chayleigh come into all this? I shall be interested to hear what happened at the inquest.’
‘We shan’t know, unless it was a verdict of murder and, taking everything into account, I don’t believe that’s likely.’
The Murder of Busy Lizzie mb-46 Page 14
