by M. M. Kaye
Once off the road, their quarry had become hidden from anyone above it by the steepness of the slope, but from the shelter of the palm trunks they could see her again, almost directly below them. She was making for the huge, piled rocks that formed a natural breakwater at one end of the little beach upon which the sea had given up Ferrers Shilto the previous evening. And since there was no cover below the road, and she could now no longer move out of their range of vision — unless of course Copper’s dark suspicion proved correct! — they flattened themselves against the smooth wet boles of the palm trees by the road’s edge and watched her slither down the last few feet of grass and clamber on to the rocks.
The tide was out, and only a breath of wind blew in from the south, stirring but not dispersing the ghostly veils of mist. But the piled rocks were wet and glistening with spray from the huge, smooth-backed rollers that swung in from the misty sea, and Copper shivered as she watched. There seemed to her more menace in the endless, towering advance of that gigantic swell, than in all the shrieking savagery of the gale-hounded seas on the previous evening, but it did not appear to disconcert the shadowy figure on the rocks below.
Mrs Stock, stumbling and slipping on the wet, treacherous surfaces, was making her way to where the sea engulfed them, and Valerie said suddenly: ‘I – I think we’d better shout.’ She opened her mouth to do so, but Copper’s fingers clenched about her arm and checked her, for below them Ruby had stopped____
She stood upon a flat-topped rock, silhouetted dimly against the grey seas and the flung spray, and appeared to fumble at her breast. Then of a sudden they saw her arm come up and back, and then quickly forward as she flung some unseen object far out into the boiling waters beyond the rocks.
A moment later she had turned, and was retracing her steps.
‘This is where we move, I think,’ muttered Valerie, and they turned together and fled back up the steep path to the shelter of the trees beyond the tennis-courts, where they waited, panting, until some minutes later Mrs Stock hurried past them to pause behind the orchid trees, and seizing a favourable opportunity, slip across the gap between the trees and the house and vanish up the back staircase that led to the tiny landing off which both her bathroom and Valerie’s opened.
The amateur detectives, following her example, reached their own rooms, damp and breathless but unobserved, some five minutes later. In which they were luckier than they knew, for while they had been making lists of suspects and shadowing Mrs Stock, the entire population of Ross had been roused to hunt for the missing body of Ferrers Shilto, and search-parties had been scouring the island. This at Nick’s suggestion; though the majority of the searchers were convinced that it was a waste of time.
‘Sheer idiocy!’ had been John Shilto’s verdict. ‘Surely it’s obvious that whoever wanted to get rid of the body would simply have dumped it into the sea? It’s probably miles down the coast by now!’
‘I disagree,’ snapped Nick. ‘The sea handed it back once. And quite apart from that, there’s something else that you haven’t taken into consideration. At what point in this island, with a sea like this running, could a body have been dumped into deep water? The answer is: None!’
Here he had been unexpectedly backed up by Leonard Stock. ‘You see, sir,’ Mr Stock explained apologetically to the Chief Commissioner, ‘the jetty has been completely destroyed, and so has the pier.’
‘No, I am afraid I don’t see,’ said the Chief Commissioner shortly. ‘Perhaps you would be good enough to explain.’
‘Look here,’ cut in Nick brusquely, ‘you saw the sort of sea that was running last night — and for that matter is still running? Well, add to that the fact that the tide is now out, which means that it turned about seven this morning. Q.E.D., it must have been coming in about the time the killer would have been trying to get rid of the body, since it stands to reason he wouldn’t wait until daylight. Well, what’s going to happen to anything that you chuck into that sort of sea from anywhere on this damned island? It’s going to get thrown back at you inside five seconds! And if you want to prove the truth of that, all you’ve got to do is to take a walk round Ross and see for yourself …
‘Had the pier or the jetty been standing, there might have been a chance of weighting the body and pushing it off from the furthest point of either in the hope — not very reliable even then — of the current swinging it clear of the island. But as Stock has just pointed out, there is now no jetty. Therefore the body is still somewhere on this island, and I’ve a strong hunch that when we find it we’ll also find the answer to one or two rather pressing questions!’
‘The most pressing being why anyone should have taken the trouble to switch the corpses,’ said Charles thoughtfully. ‘If you have to dispose of one body by chucking it into the sea, why not chuck in the chap you have just murdered, instead of going in for all this elaborate substitution business?’
‘I imagine a small matter of weight was the main reason,’ said Nick: ‘Dan can’t have been more than four or five inches taller than the original corpse, but he was considerably heftier. Whoever killed him would trust to luck that Dutt and his helpers, lifting that bundle of tarpaulin from the table, would not notice that fact. But the extra two or three stone of dead weight would have made a hell of a lot of difference to anyone hauling the body single-handed down to the shore. And there’s another thing____
‘Once Dan was safely buried as Ferrers, if Ferrers’s body had ever happened to turn up again, it would almost certainly be unrecognizable and would be written off as the corpse of some unknown chap off a passing ship. Whereas if Dan’s body had turned up, however much damage the fishes had done it might still have been obvious to an expert that far from having been accidentally drowned, he had been deliberately and nastily murdered! I can clearly see why the bodies were exchanged. And I am also prepared to bet that the original corpse is still somewhere on this island!’
The Chief Commissioner had been forced to admit the common sense of these statements, and fifteen minutes later the hunt had been organized and was in full cry.
Copper and Valerie, returning from shadowing Mrs Stock, had missed running into a section of the search-party by a narrow margin.
15
The two girls had lunched alone, for the Commissioner had sent word that he, Nick, Stock and John Shilto would be having something to eat at the Mess.
Mrs Stock had had a tray sent in to her room, and shortly after half past one Sir Lionel had returned to the house, where he had held an informal inquiry into the morning’s proceedings. Copper and Valerie had not been required to attend, and they had sat in uneasy silence in the verandah above, listening anxiously to the murmur of voices while the slow minutes crawled past and the fog pressed against the window-panes and crept into the quiet house.
At long last the office door had opened, and they heard Leonard Stock’s voice in the hall below, anxious and protesting: ‘I feel sure there must be some mistake. Perhaps when Dr Vicarjee is back his verdict will be – will be different…’
‘There is no difference, I am telling you!’ — Dutt’s voice, shrill and indignant____ ‘All the facts they are plain. As plain as pikestaffs! It is murder! Miss Gidney, she is agreeing too. You will ask her, please. If it is as you say, that the man he is drowned, then there will be water in his lungs. But there is not water. None. It is murder!’
Valerie got up suddenly and ran to call down over the banisters: ‘Leonard — what is all this? Who are you all talking about? What’s happened?’
‘Oh … er … ah____’ The question appeared to have taken Mr Stock by surprise. ‘I did not realize that you were there. Perhaps I should not have said — that is____’ Dr Dutt’s agitated voice cut hurriedly across Leonard’s stammered incoherencies: ‘You will excuse, please. I go now. There is much work.’ The front door banged behind him, and after a moment or two there was a sound of reluctant footsteps ascending the staircase, and Leonard Stock came into view.
He smiled
nervously at Copper, and having directed a hunted look at Valerie, observed hopefully that it was still very foggy and that he had never known such unseasonable weather: ‘Almost chilly, is it not? In all my years in the Islands, and I think I can safely say that I am the oldest inhabitant … well, hardly inhabitant, I suppose; after all, there must be people here who … what I mean is I really do not think that I can recall such freakish weather … there is no other word for it. I____’
Here Valerie, who had no intention of being sidetracked on to a discussion of the weather, cut through Mr Stock’s nervous spate of words as unceremoniously as Dr Dutt had done: ‘Who were you talking about just now, Leonard? Who wasn’t drowned?’
‘Well … er … um … Ferrers,’ said Leonard unhappily, and cleared his throat with a small embarrassed cough.
‘Ferrers!’ Valerie’s white face seemed to turn whiter. ‘But that’s nonsense! Of course he was drowned. Why we all saw him, and — Leonard! … Have they found him?’
‘Er — yes. I’m afraid so. I mean____ Well, Dutt and Miss Gidney have performed some sort of an — er — an autopsy, and Dutt has advanced the theory that Ferrers too — was er — was in fact — er — um____’ Leonard’s thin bony hands sketched a fluttering futile gesture and Copper caught her breath and said huskily: ‘Murdered!’
Leonard turned towards her with an expression of relief: ‘Yes. Yes, that is what it amounts to. But Dutt must have made a mistake. He is — um — not a very efficient young man as — er — yet. Perhaps when he has had more experience … But I feel sure that once the sea has gone down and the jetty has been repaired and – and Dr Vicarjee has been able to return, we shall find that it is all a — um — a mare’s nest. It has to be. Anything else is unthinkable. After all, who would want to murder Ferrers?’
‘John!’ said Copper before she could stop herself. And was instantly appalled at what she had said.
Leonard Stock appeared equally horrified. His nervous, over-bright eyes widened in dismay and he threw a quick, frightened glance over his shoulder in the direction of the staircase and the hall below. ‘Ssh! He might hear you! No, no really, Miss Randal, you should not — what I mean is____’ Leonard became entangled once more in a maze of half-sentences, and Copper said ruefully: ‘I’m sorry. It was a beastly thing to say and I didn’t really mean it. But I couldn’t help remembering that scene at the Mount Harriet picnic.’
‘Oh, I know; I quite see. And you will have heard, of course, that they did not get on at all well — the Shiltos, I mean. But fratricide! Or – or what amounts to it. Oh no!… unthinkable. You may be quite sure, as I am, that poor Dutt has made a mistake. When Dr Vicarjee returns we shall discover that Ferrers was drowned after all, and then everything will be all right.’
‘All right?’ repeated Valerie, looking at him with a mixture of amazement and contempt. ‘How can it be all right when Dan____ Oh, it’s all awful and horrible and unbelievable! It doesn’t seem possible that any of it can really have happened.’
‘Yes, yes,’ agreed Mr Stock earnestly. ‘Terrible. Quite terrible! I do feel for you. Such a very unpleasant shock. I shall not enjoy having to break it to poor Ruby. I have not yet dared — er — I mean, I did not like____ Well, the truth is that poor Ruby is particularly sensitive to — er — shock. Her nerves, you know. But I suppose she will have to know sometime. There is no point in putting it off. And yet I must own____’
Valerie said quickly: ‘You don’t have to worry, Leonard. She knows. I told her myself.’
Some of the nervous tension seemed to leave Leonard’s meagre body and he relaxed visibly. ‘Oh. Then I need not — um … I do hope she was not too upset?’
‘I’m afraid she was, rather.’
‘Oh. Oh dear. Then I suppose I had better go and see how she is. She will have been expecting me, but I really could not get away before. There were so many things … and then your father…’ His voice trailed away and stopped, and Valerie said encouragingly: ‘No, of course you couldn’t get away. Ruby will realize that. It’s been a horrible day for everybody.’
Leonard smiled wanly, and bracing his thin shoulders, turned and went away across the dim expanse of the ballroom, his shoes squeaking dolefully on the polished boards, and presently they heard him tapping nervously on his wife’s door. It opened and closed again, and Valerie said: ‘Poor Leonard! I’m afraid he’s in for a bad half-hour. And what’ll you bet that before dear Ruby is through with him she’ll have managed to make out that it’s all his fault and that he is personally responsible for the whole thing, and Leonard, poor toadstool, will be apologizing for it. I can’t think how he stands it.’
But Copper was not interested in Leonard Stock’s matrimonial troubles, and she had not been thinking of him. Only of what he had said. She spoke in a half-whisper, as though she were addressing herself rather than Valerie: ‘Murder____! He said that Ferrers was murdered too. Then that was why! Dan must have known…’ She shivered suddenly and violently; and once again a door banged in the hall below and there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. But this time it was Charles and Nick: Charles for once grave and unsmiling, and Nick looking drawn and grim and exhausted.
Charles said briefly, cutting short Valerie’s anxious questions: ‘We can’t talk here. We’d better all go down to the Mess.’ And turning abruptly on his heel he led the way back to the hall and out into the clammy embrace of a fog that seemed to grow thicker by the minute.
Mist filled the long, tree-shaded drive with a dense shifting greyness that smelt as dank as a sea cave uncovered by a spring tide, and when at last the Mess loomed out of it as a dark, dimly seen shape and Charles pushed open the front door, the fog came in with them and eddied about the silent hall.
Charles’s quarters, which lay on the far side of the ante-room, consisted of a small bathroom and a large, white-washed and somewhat untidy bed-sitting room decorated with several photographs of Valerie, some depressing school and regimental groups and a clutter of golf clubs and fishing-tackle. ‘Hardly the Ritz,’ said Charles, ushering in his guests, ‘but at least it’s reasonably private. And there are quite a few things that have come up for discussion.’ He closed the door behind him, and Nick sat down and said tiredly and without preamble: ‘We found Ferrers’s body, and Dutt says that he was murdered.’
‘I know,’ said Valerie with a shudder. ‘Leonard told us. But he seems to think that Dutt must have made a mistake.’
Nick shook his head. ‘Not a chance, I’m afraid. We’ve been checking back over that half hour in the bay in some detail, and one thing is quite clear: Ferrers Shilto survived the overturning of the boats. I can swear to that myself, because I caught sight of him clinging to the keel of one that bumped into ours, and there was nothing much the matter with him then. But sometime just after that — or it may have been any time during the half hour that we were all in the drink — someone smashed in the back of his head.’
Copper gave a swiftly suppressed exclamation, and Nick turned his head sharply towards her. ‘What is it, Coppy?’
‘Nothing,’ said Copper hastily. ‘I only wondered I mean, how could anyone tell it was murder — a blow on the back of the head? It sounds as if it could easily have happened by accident.’
‘This particular blow,’ said Nick grimly, ‘was given with the end of a tiller. The tillers on those boats are the kind that have a metal-bound slot at one end that fits over the top of the rudder, and the wound on the back of Ferrers’s head was made by someone holding the handle of a tiller and hitting him damned hard with the slotted end. There’s no mistake about that; the imprint is quite clear. It wasn’t spotted before because his hair hid the mark and the blood had been washed off by the sea.’
‘But I still don’t see why it couldn’t____’ began Copper.
‘Listen, sweetheart,’ interrupted Charles briskly, ‘the end of the tiller that killed Ferrers is usually attached to the rudder. Therefore it could only have come in contact with his skull once it had come unshi
pped. If it had been floating round loose and a wave had knocked it against his head, the very most it could have done would have been to leave a bit of a bruise. Instead of which it hit him with enough force to smash in his skull, and also produced a hell of a bruise — and a lot of swelling, which apart from anything else, appears to prove that it was done before and not after death. Now perhaps we can go on?… Good! Nick, I think we’d better have a bit of recapping from you. Just to get the record straight.’
‘All right.’ Nick leant back in his chair and frowned at the ceiling as though arranging his thoughts, and presently he said slowly: ‘On Christmas Day — that is, yesterday — we went for a walk round the island at about five o’clock, and very unfortunately for the murderer, Ferrers’s body turned up. Even more unfortunately for him, it had escaped being mutilated by fish or reefs, and Dan, who was a doctor, was on the spot. We don’t know enough to do more than guess at this bit, but it’s pretty obvious that something made Dan suspect that Ferrers had not died by drowning … And if I hadn’t been a triple-distilled idiot,’ added Nick with sudden bitterness, ‘I’d have realized that he suspected it from his subsequent behaviour.’
‘That applies to all of us,’ said Copper quickly.
Nick threw her the ghost of a grin and stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette, grinding it down in the ash-tray with a viciousness that betrayed the state of his nerves. He lit another, and said: ‘Dan apparently saw enough on the beach yesterday evening to make him suspect that this wasn’t a plain case of drowning, and I can only suppose that he didn’t say anything then and there because it wasn’t his job to cut in on the local medico. But of course it’s quite obvious that that young ass of an assistant is as much use as a sick headache, and could barely be trusted to tell the difference between scarlet fever and heat rash. I gather he barely looked at Ferrers’s body other than to see it shoved into the Guest House and sewn up in canvas. And I suppose one can hardly blame him. After all, in justice to young Dutt, it seemed a perfectly clear case to all of us! — except to Dan, who as far as we can make out must have slipped down to the Guest House late last night to take another look at the corpse. And here we stop guessing for a bit and come to the sentry’s evidence. Charles can tell you about that. The sentry was one of his chaps and he did most of the talking.’
