‘I believe Eliza did something for her, and it was Eliza, of course, who gave Allen Cranby the farm. Conscience money she called it.’
‘She seems to have been a generous woman.’
‘Not generous enough to have renounced her rights and returned her gains to those who were of Chayleigh blood,’ said Miss Crimp acrimoniously.
‘That would have been expecting rather much of her, would it not?’
‘That depends upon the way you look at it.’
‘Do you mind a direct question, Miss Crimp?’ A spasm of alarm appeared for an instant on the receptionist’s pinched little face, but she said that she did not mind. ‘Do you suspect Allen Cranby of having murdered Eliza Chayleigh?’
‘That is indeed a direct question, Dame Beatrice. I have no idea, but I should think it most unlikely. In any case, it is not a fair question.’
‘True enough. I beg your pardon and I withdraw my query.’
‘In any case, what is your interest in the matter?’
‘The interest of all good citizens when they suspect that a crime has been committed. Who desecrated the Chayleigh headstones in the churchyard?’
‘I have no idea. I do not go to church.’
‘Who wrote the legend which adorns the long front of the public house-cum-village shop?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because Laura thinks that the same hand desecrated the Chayleigh graves.’
‘I should not have thought there was sufficient evidence for thinking that.’
‘Laura is highly imaginative, of course,’ said Dame Beatrice indifferently. ‘Would the local witches do such a thing?’
‘I really have no idea. At any rate they did not write the public house sign. That was done a year ago by one of the hotel visitors who thought she had a turn for such matters.’
‘There is just one more small point,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I understand that, on the day she disappeared, Mrs Chayleigh carried some provisions over to the house I have leased. Is that so?’
‘Yes, indeed, although why she could not have sent one of the servants I cannot think. She must have had some reason.’
‘Did you see her go?’
‘Yes, I did. I asked her why and she made some excuse about wanting to make sure that everything was in readiness for your tenancy.’
‘You did not suggest that she should go, of course?’ Miss Crimp shook her head. ‘So she had an interest in the letting, had she?’ Dame Beatrice continued.
‘Not to my knowledge. I cannot think why she went, except that it must have been to meet the person who turned out to be her murderer.’
‘Had anybody else on the island a key to the house?’
‘I believe Farmer Cranby was given one by the agents so that he could show intending tenants or purchasers over it.’
‘You said you did not suspect him of…’
‘Neither do I. I cannot explain my conviction, but he simply is not that sort of man.’
‘Have you seen a copy of Mrs Chayleigh’s will?’
‘No. She told me of its provisions, though.’
‘I suppose there is no chance that she might have changed its provisions without your knowledge?’
Miss Crimp changed colour.
‘Oh, but surely…!’ she said. ‘After all, I was her partner.’
‘Yes, quite. By the way, do you know who, on the island, killed a pig shortly before Mrs Chayleigh’s death?’
‘Killed a pig? I have no idea. What has that to do with either you or me?’
‘Time will show, I hope. Well, it is very kind of you to have granted me this interview, Miss Crimp. May I venture to ask a last and a personal question?’
‘You may ask,’ replied Miss Crimp with a slight and crooked smile.
‘Thank you. It is merely this: how did you come to be Mrs Chayleigh’s partner in the hotel business?’
‘Oh,’ said Miss Crimp, looking relieved, ‘Eliza advertised and, as I had the necessary capital, she took me on. I have been here just under a year, and have not, on the whole, regretted it.’
‘So what do you make of it?’ asked Laura.
‘I shall know better how to answer that question when I have talked to Farmer Cranby and his son Ransome Lovelaine.’
‘Is there any tie-up with our raison d’être ici?’
‘None that I can see, but Time, as usual, will show.’
‘I wonder whether you’d mind if I did a follow-up with J. Dimbleton, boatman? I feel I’ve rather left him and his pirate-pal in mid-air.’
‘Oh, Miss Crimp and her fish? It’s possible that that is all it was, you know — fish for the hotel meals.’
‘Why should she go in person to see the men, though?’
‘There may have been complaints.’
‘Well, actually, I believe there were. In casual chat on the bathing-beach I gathered as much from the Lovelaine youth. All the same, I’d like to find out a bit more from Dimbleton. We became reasonably friendly on that boat-trip I made round the island.’
‘Do not commit yourself as to the real reason for our presence here.’
‘A warning I don’t need. After lunch, then? We can stroll together as far as the farm and I can leave you there to do your stuff while I beard Dimbleton in his cottage.’
This programme was carried out. Laura escorted Dame Beatrice up to the farmhouse door, waited while her employer was admitted, and then sought Lighthouse Cottage and her own quarry. Dimbleton, however, was not at home, but, unless he had gone out in his boat, she thought she knew who could help her to find him. She and Dame Beatrice had lunched early, and it was barely a quarter past one when they had arrived at the farm. Laura therefore, made her way to the public house, where the landlord told her that Dimbleton had been in, but was now on his way to the landing-beach, ‘where,’ said the landlord, with a secretive smile, ‘maybe he won’t want company.’
‘Not even if I want to hire his boat?’ asked Laura.
‘Doubt it,’ said the innkeeper. ‘Other fish to fry.’
‘How long has he been gone?’
‘Matter of twenty minutes, maybe.’
‘Thanks.’ Laura left the pub, turned in her previous tracks and walked along the rough road towards the hotel. She took the steep cliff-path and descended to the beach. She was in luck. Dimbleton was on board his cruiser. She hailed him. He climbed into his tiny dinghy, which he was about to winch up to the davits at the stern of his powered craft, and rowed himself ashore.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Nothing doing today, Mrs Gavin. I got business.’
‘It’s about fish,’ said Laura. Dimbleton’s expression altered.
‘That might be different,’ he said. ‘What about fish?’
‘There are complaints at the hotel.’
‘Honest? I’ve heard nothing of it. Where did you get it from?’
‘Where do you suppose?’
‘The game’s up, then. I thought so when McKell and his lads came over here on that bird-watching lark. Well, thanks for the information, Mrs Gavin. And now, just for the record, come clean. What’s your part in all this?’
‘That’s a difficult question,’ said Laura coolly. ‘Anyway, if you’ve anything to dump, I should get rid of it pronto. No point in hanging on to stinking fish.’
‘Where do you come in on the share-out?’
‘Ain’t going to be no share-out. Same like the boy with the apple-core, if you happen to know that story,’ said Laura. The boatman looked at her and scratched his head.
chapter sixteen
Into the Maze
‘Fountain-heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan!
These are the sounds we feed upon.’
John Fletcher
« ^ »
So something has been going on,’ said Laura, when she met Dame Beatri
ce again. ‘Gavin and his people suspected gun-running, so now it’s up to them. I gave Dimbleton as much of a tip-off as I thought was ethical, because I don’t believe he’s a villain, only a tool. I expect he’s been well paid for the hire of his boat and told not to ask too many questions. And do you know what else I think? I think Eliza Chayleigh was murdered because she did ask too many questions. There’s that so-called poem, you know, about only watching the shadows on the wall when the “gentlemen” go by. And I think Ransome Lovelaine may have been mixed up in something fishy, too, and I think some of them had the impression he’d grassed to his cousins, those two rather decent Lovelaine youngsters, and that they may have told their father and he may have told us. I know I haven’t much to go on in saying all this, but it would account for a lot of the things which have been happening, wouldn’t it, don’t you think?’
‘I do not think it accounts for the death of Eliza Chayleigh. Apart from solving that problem, though, I think our work here is finished and I shall be glad to return home.’
‘You don’t intend to work out our three months’ tenancy of this house?’
‘I see no particular point in doing so.’
‘The rent’s paid. Are you going to lose all those extra weeks, then? This isn’t a bad spot in which to get on with the memoirs, you know.’
‘I propose to stay only long enough to clear up the mystery I mentioned. I still want to know who occupied this house on the Wednesday before we arrived and who entertained somebody to a cup of tea here.’
‘Well, we’re sure that one of the two was Eliza Chayleigh, aren’t we?’
‘It could well be so, of course, but who was the other?’
‘One of the smugglers, I should say, was the other person with her, if they thought she was an informer. He met her here and murdered her and chucked the body into the sea. Well, you’ve heard my yarn, so now what about your own?’
‘The farmer was not in when I was admitted, but his wife received me and intimated that if I cared to wait she would send Ransome to find him. Ransome, she said, was at work on his smallholding and would probably know whereabouts on the farm his father could be found.’
‘Did she actually call the farmer Ransome’s father?’
‘Oh, yes, quite freely and openly.’
‘Then she doesn’t mind her husband’s little departure from the straight and narrow? After all, it happened after they were married, I thought, so you’d imagine she’d take a dim view.’
‘She betrayed no animosity towards either her husband or Eliza or Ransome. She is a suspiciously placid woman. Well, she left me to go and send Ransome on his errand and, in due course, when we had drunk a cup of strong tea and eaten soda-cake—’
‘Bit of a martyr in a good cause, weren’t you?’
‘It is true that I do not care for strong tea and soda-cake, but it would have been discourteous to refuse the proffered hospitality and I was anxious to be agreeable.’
‘What’s the farmer like?’
‘You saw him on the boat. He crossed with us when we arrived, if you remember.’
‘He couldn’t have been the chap who tackled Mr Lovelaine that night, I suppose?’
‘He both could have been and was.’
‘You mean he admitted it?’
‘In response to a direct question, yes, he did.’
‘But what made you think he was the one?’
‘Perhaps if I give you a complete account of the interview you will see how events shaped themselves.’
‘Oh, sorry! Yes, of course. First say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.’
‘Exactly. Well, he greeted me in breezy fashion and asked what he could do for me. I replied that I had some very personal questions to put to him, but that, of course, I should understand and sympathise if he refused to answer them. At that he studied me for a while as though he were summing me up and asked whether it was anything to do with Dimbleton’s boat. This intrigued me very much, as you may imagine, and I made a cautious reply to the effect that it might or might not have to do with boats, including Dimbleton’s.’
‘So they’re on to the gun-running, are they?’ he said. ‘I knew it could only be a question of time.’
‘So he’s given the game away,’ said Laura. ‘Was he in on it, then?’
‘He says not, but that he and Ransome knew all about it and that one small party of ornithologists were smugglers in disguise.’
‘We guessed as much, didn’t we? I wonder what the genuine bird-watchers made of them?’
‘I doubt whether they mixed with any of the others. I think Miss Crimp had apportioned them to the chalets and had given them tables to themselves in the dining-room. She knew all about them, I’m sure.’
‘I said, if you remember, that she was mixed up in the smuggling racket. That day I called on Dimbleton when he had that gipsy type with the earrings at his cottage, Crimp was there, too, and talking about fish.’
‘Which you thought meant money.’
‘And which I also think meant guns. Did Cranby have anything more to say about guns?’
‘Only that he thought the witches’ cave had been the original storehouse, but that the witches fell foul of Eliza Chayleigh because hotel guests complained of their dancing naked by moonlight. It seems that their meetings were held out in the open over by the pre-historic hut-circles, but that, following the complaints, the cave became the meeting place of the coven and another hiding-place for the weapons had to be found. However, Cranby thinks that the owners of Puffins had left a key with Miss Crimp when they vacated the house, and that they had an arrangement with her that, from time to time, she would have the house dusted and windows opened and that, when she was notified of an imminent holiday tenancy, she would see to it that the beds were aired.’
‘But I thought he was the holder of the key? If this house was a hidey-hole, how did the smugglers expect to manage when the holiday tenants turned up?’
‘According to Allen Cranby, they had ample notice from Miss Crimp to get rid of the merchandise and hide it elsewhere when it was known that people were coming in.’
‘Yes, but where?’
‘In that locked-up old lighthouse on the east cliff, he thinks.’
‘Oh, yes. The Lovelaine kids told me they tried to get into it and couldn’t.’
‘That certainly seems to lend weight to his theory, especially as the other old lighthouse seems to have been open to the public’
‘There were that man and woman who were up on the gallery when Mrs Chayleigh’s body was spotted. I still think the witches are all part and parcel of the smuggling racket, you know.’
‘Then why did the smugglers need to find another hiding-place when the witches took over the cave?’
‘Oh, because not all the witches were in with the smugglers, of course. You see,’ said Laura, warming to her argument, ‘it’s so odd that those two bird-watchers were the first people to spot the body. If you ask me what I think, I think they’re a fishy couple. What were they doing up on that gallery, anyway?’
‘Watching for birds, I suppose.’
‘And spotting Eliza Chayleigh’s body. Don’t you call that a suspicious circumstance?’
‘Somebody had to spot it,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘What I would like to be able to confirm is the identity of the female relative of old Miss Chayleigh who was dispossessed by Eliza, I wonder whether Mr Lovelaine would know who it was?’
‘You don’t think that, if he does, we shall know the name of Eliza Chayleigh’s murderer, do you?’
‘Far from it, dear child. To suspect is not to know.’
‘Could it be somebody who actually lives on this island? The dead pig rather indicates that, don’t you think? There’s that empty sty at the end of Dimbleton’s garden. Is that worth investigating? Incidentally, do you really think everybody on the island knows about the smuggling?’
‘I could not say. A great many do, no doubt, and
a great many more may suspect. The island is a very small place.’
‘What else did you glean from Allen Cranby?’
‘Nothing of any moment, so far as I can tell at present.’
‘You didn’t ask him whether Miss Crimp was mixed up in the smuggling racket? I still think that’s why she was in Dimbleton’s cottage that day talking about fish.’
‘I did not put the question to Allen Cranby, although I expect he could answer it if he chose.’
‘You were going to tell me about a question you did put to him, though. You said he admitted attacking inoffensive little Professor Lovelaine.’
‘Yes, so he did. He claimed that he had mistaken him for somebody else.’
‘Did you believe him?’
‘No, but I did not say so.’
‘Why do you think he did go for him?’
‘I think he feels that Marius Lovelaine was unduly favoured as a result of Eliza’s death. He may even hold him partly responsible for it.’
‘You couldn’t explain that to me, could you? I don’t feel so very bright at the moment.’
‘You are not doing yourself justice. Besides, I can give no logical explanation of my theory. There is something I do not know.’
‘What sort of something?’
‘Merely the identity of the person whom Eliza Chayleigh met at Puffins when she was supposed to be crossing to the mainland.’
‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever find a name for that person. What do you make of this man the young Lovelaines complain of? — the fellow who tried to get into their chalet.’
‘I suppose that could have been some inebriate who had mistaken their lodging for his own.’
‘He seems to have made more than one attempt to get in. You don’t think it could be a vendetta directed against the Lovelaine family, do you?’
‘Well, perhaps it is just as well that the family have left the island. I wonder whether your question has solved my problem?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Is there a Mrs Lovelaine?’
‘Oh, yes. The kids call her Boobie. Apparently, from what they tell me, she’s capable of making the most fearful floaters and embarrassing one and all.’
‘Dear me! Do you suppose they left her at home in order to avoid these contingencies?’
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