Dead Water (10 page)

The bell had stopped and a lark sang furiously overhead.

He had to get through the turnstile.

The slot machine was enclosed in a wire cage, with a padlock which was open. He had no disc.

For a second or two, he thought of using a rock, if he could find one, or hurling his weight against the netted door, but he looked at the slot mechanism and with fingers that might have been handling ice, searched his pockets. A half-crown? No. A florin? As he pushed it down, he saw a printed notice that had been tied to the netting: ‘Warning,’ it was headed, and was signed: ‘Emily Pride.’ The florin jammed. He picked up a stone, hit it home and wrenched at the handle. There was a click and he was through and running to the Spring.

She was lying face-down in the pool, only A few inches below the water, her head almost at the lip of the waterfall.

Her sparse hair, swept forward, rippled and eddied in the stream. The gash in her scalp had stopped bleeding and gaped flaccidly.

Before he had moved the body over on its back he knew whose face would be upturned towards his own. It was Elspeth Cost’s.

When he had made certain, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that there was nothing to be done, he ran out of the enclosure and a few yards along the footpath. Down below, on the far side of the causeway he saw Coombe, in his shirtsleeves, with his pipe in his mouth, fishing off the end of the jetty. He looked up, saw Alleyn, waved and then straightened. Alleyn beckoned urgently and signalled that they would meet at the top of the hotel steps. Coombe, seeing him run, himself broke into a lope, back down the jetty and across the causeway. He was breathing hard when he got to the top of the steps. When Alleyn had told him, he swore incredulously.

‘I’ll go into the hotel and get one of those bloody discs,’ Alleyn said. ‘I had to lock the gate, of course. And I’ll have to get a message to Miss Pride. I’ll catch you up. Who’s your div. surgeon?’

‘Maine.’

‘Right.’

There was no one in the office. He went in, tried the drawers, found the right one, and helped himself to half a dozen discs. He looked at the switchboard, plugged in the connection and lifted the receiver. He noticed with a kind of astonishment that his hand was unsteady. It seemed an eternity before Miss Emily answered.

He said: ‘Miss Emily? Roderick. I’m terribly sorry but there’s been an accident and I’m wanted here. It’s serious. Will it be a great bore if we delay your leaving? I’ll come back later and explain.’

‘By all means,’ Miss Emily’s voice said crisply. ‘I shall adjust. Don’t disarrange yourself on my account!’

‘You admirable woman,’ he said and hung up.

He had just got back on the lawful side of the desk when the hall-porter appeared, wiping his mouth. Alleyn said: ‘Can you get Dr Maine quickly? There’s been an accident. D’you know his number?’

The porter consulted a list and, staring at Alleyn, dialled it.

‘What is it, then?’ he asked. ‘Accident? Dearrr, dearr!’

While he waited for the call to come through, Alleyn saw that a notice, similar to the one that had been tied to the enclosure, was now displayed in the letter rack. ‘Warning.’ And signed ‘Emily Pride.’ He had started to read it when the telephone quacked. The porter established the connection and handed him the receiver.

Alleyn said: ‘Dr Maine? Speaking? This is a police call. I’m ringing for Superintendent Coombe. Superintendent Alleyn. There’s been a serious accident at the Spring. Can you come at once?’

‘At the
Spring?’

‘Yes. You’ll need an ambulance.’

‘What is it?’

‘Asphyxia following cranial injury.’

‘Fatal?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘Thank you.’

He hung up. The porter was agog. Alleyn produced a ten-shilling note. ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘can you keep quiet about this? I don’t want people to collect. Be a good chap, will you, and get Sergeant Pender on the telephone. Ask him to come to the Spring. Say the message is from Mr Coombe. Will you do that? And don’t talk.’

He slid the note across the desk and left.

As he returned by the footpath, he saw a car drive along the foreshore to the causeway. A man with a black bag in his hand got out.

Coombe, waiting by the gate, was peering into the enclosure.

‘I may have broken the slot-machine,’ Alleyn said. But it worked and they went through.

He had dragged the body on to the verge of the pool and masked it, as well as he could, by the open umbrella.

Coombe said: ‘Be damned, when I saw that brolly, if I didn’t think I’d misheard you and it was the other old – Miss Pride.’

‘I know.’

‘How long ago, d’you reckon?’

‘I should have thought about an hour. We’ll see what the doctor thinks. He’s on his way. Look at this, Coombe.’

The neck was rigid. He had to raise the body by the shoulders before exposing the back of the head.

‘Well, well,’ said Coombe. ‘Just fancy that, now. Knocked out, fell forward into the pool and drowned. That the story?’

‘Looks like it, doesn’t it? And, see here.’

Alleyn lifted a fold of the dripping skirt. He exposed Miss Cost’s right hand, bleached and wrinkled. It was rigidly clenched about a long string of glittering beads.

‘Cor!’ said Coombe.

‘The place is one solid welter of footprints but I think you can pick hers: leading up to the shelf. The girl dropped the beads yesterday from above, I remember. They dangled over this ledge, half in the pool. In the stampede nobody rescued them.’

‘And she came back? To fetch them?’

‘It’s a possibility, wouldn’t you think? There’s her handbag on the shelf.’

Coombe opened it. ‘Prayer-book and purse,’ he said.

‘When’s the first service?’

‘Seven, I think.’

‘There’s another at nine. She was either going to church or had been there. That puts it at somewhere before seven for the first service. Or round about eight-forty-five if she had attended it or was going to the later one. When did it stop raining? About eight-thirty, I think. If those are her prints, they’ve been rained into and she’d got her umbrella open. Take a look at it.’

There was a ragged split in the wet cover which was old and partly perished. Alleyn displayed the inside. It was stained round the split and not with rainwater. He pointed a long finger. ‘That’s one of her hairs,’ he said. ‘There was a piece of rock in the pool. I fished it out and left it on the ledge. It looked as if it hadn’t been there long and I think you’ll find it fits.’

He fetched it and put it down by the body. ‘Any visual traces have been washed away,’ he said. ‘You’ll want to keep these exhibits intact, won’t you?’

‘You bet I will,’ said Coombe.

There was a sound of footsteps and a metallic rattle. They turned and saw Dr Maine letting himself in at the turnstile. Coombe went down to meet him.

‘What’s it all about?’ he asked. ‘ ‘Morning, Coombe.’

‘See for yourself, Doctor.’

They joined Alleyn who was introduced. ‘Mr Alleyn made the discovery,’ said Coombe and added: ‘Rather a coincidence.’

Dr Maine, looking startled, said: ‘Very much so.’

Alleyn said: ‘I’m on a visit. Quite unofficial. Coombe’s your man.’

‘I wondered if you’d been produced out of a hat,’ said Dr Maine. He looked towards the Spring. The umbrella, still open, masked the upper part of the body. ‘Good God!’ he ejaculated. ‘So it
has
happened after all!’

Coombe caught Alleyn’s eye and said nothing. He moved quickly to the body and exposed the face. Dr Maine stood stock-still.
‘Cost!’
he said. ‘Old
Cost!
Never!’

‘That’s right, Doctor.’

Dr Maine wasted no more words. He made his examination. Miss Cost’s eyes were half-open and so was her mouth. There were flecks of foam about the lips and the tongue was clenched between the teeth. Alleyn had never become completely accustomed to murder. This grotesque shell, seconds before its destruction, had been the proper and appropriate expression of a living woman. Whether here, singly, or multiplied to the monstrous litter of a battlefield, or strewn idiotically about the wake of a nuclear explosion, or dangling with a white cap over a cyanosed, tongue-protruding mask; the destruction of one human being by another was the unique offence. It was the final outrage.

Dr Maine lowered the stiffened body on its back. He looked up at Alleyn. ‘Where was she?’

‘Face down and half-submerged. I got her out in case there was a chance but obviously there was none.’

‘Any sign of rigor?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s well on its way now,’ said Dr Maine.

‘There’s the back of the head, Doctor,’ said Coombe. ‘There’s that too.’

Dr Maine turned the body and looked closely at the head. ‘Where’s the instrument?’ he said. ‘Found it?’

Alleyn said: ‘I think so.’

Dr Maine glanced at him. ‘May I see it?’

Alleyn gave it to him. It was an irregular jagged piece of rock about the size of a pineapple. Dr Maine turned it in his hands and stooped over the head. ‘Fits,’ he said.

‘What’s the verdict then, Doctor?’ Coombe asked.

‘There’ll have to be a PM. of course. On the face of it: stunned and drowned.’ He looked at Alleyn. ‘Or, as you would say: “asphyxia following cranial injury”.’

‘I was attempting to fox the hotel porter.’

‘I see. Good idea.’

‘And when would it have taken place?’ Coombe insisted.

‘Again, you’ll have to wait before you get a definite answer to that one. Not less than an hour ago, I’d have thought. Possibly much longer.’

He stood up and wiped his hands on his handkerchief.

‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I saw her. I saw her: it must have been about seven o’clock. Outside the church with Mrs Carstairs. She was going in to early service. I’d got a confinement on the Island and was walking down to the foreshore. Good lord!’ said Dr Maine. ‘I saw her.’

‘That’s a help, Doctor,’ said Coombe. ‘We were wondering about church. Now, that means she couldn’t have got over here until eight at the earliest, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I should say so. Certainly. Rather later if anything.’

‘And Mr Alleyn found her at nine. I suppose you didn’t notice anyone about the cottages or anything of the sort, Doctor?’

‘Not a soul. It was pouring heavens-hard. Wait a moment though.’

‘Yes?’

He turned to Alleyn. ‘I’ve got my own launch and jetty, and there’s another jetty straight opposite on the foreshore by the cottages. I took the launch across. Well, the baby being duly delivered, I returned by the same means and I do remember that when I’d started up the engine and cast off, I saw that fantastic kid – Wally Trehern – dodging about on the road up to the Spring.’

‘Did you watch him?’ Coombe asked.

‘Good lord, no. I turned the launch and had my back to the Island.’

‘When would that be, now, Doctor?’

‘The child was born at 7.30. Soon after that.’

‘Yes. Well. Thanks,’ said Coombe, glancing rather self-consciously at Alleyn. ‘Now: any ideas about
how
it happened?’

‘On what’s before us, I’d say that if this bit of rock
is
the instrument, it struck the head from above. Wait a minute.’

He climbed to the higher level above the shelf and Coombe followed him.

Alleyn was keeping a tight rein on himself. It was Coombe’s case and Alleyn was a sort of accident on the scene. He thought of Patrick Ferrier’s ironical remark: ‘Matter of protocol’ and silently watched the two men as they scrambled up through bracken to the top level.

Dr Maine said: ‘There are rocks lying about up here. And yes – But this is your pigeon, Coombe. You’d better take a look.’

Coombe joined him.

‘There’s where it came from,’ said Maine, ‘behind the boulder. You can see where it was prised up.’

Coombe at last said, ‘We’d better keep off the area, Doctor.’ He looked down at Alleyn: ‘It’s clear enough.’

‘Any prints?’

‘A real mess. People from above must have swarmed all over it when the rain came. Pity.’

‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘Pity.’

The other two men came down.

‘Well,’ Dr Maine said. ‘That’s that. The ambulance should be here by now. Glad you suggested it. We’ll have to get her across. How’s the tide?’ He went through the exit gates and along the footpath to a point from where he could see the causeway.

Alleyn said to Coombe: ‘I asked the porter to get on to Pender and say you’d want him. I hope that was in order.’

‘Thanks very much.’

‘I suppose you’ll need a statement from me, won’t you?’

Coombe scraped his jaw. ‘Sounds silly, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘Well, yes, I suppose I will.’ He had been looking sideways at Alleyn, off and on, for some time.

‘Look,’ he said abruptly. ‘There’s one thing that’s pretty obvious about this affair, isn’t there? Here’s a case where a Yard man with a
top reputation is first on the scene and you might say, starts up the investigation. Look at it what way you like, it’d be pretty silly if I just said: “thanks, chum” and let it go at that. Wouldn’t it now? I don’t mind admitting I felt it was silly, just now, with you standing by, tactful as you please and leaving it all to me.’

‘Absolute rot,’ Alleyn said. ‘Come off it.’

‘No, I mean it. And, anyway,’ Coombe added on a different note, ‘I haven’t got the staff.’ It was a familiar plaint.

‘My dear chap,’ Alleyn said, ‘I’m meant to be on what’s laughingly called a holiday. Take a statement for pity’s sake, and let me off. I’ll remove Miss Pride and leave you with a fair field. You’ll do well. “Coombe’s Big Case”.’ He knew, of course, that this would be no good.

‘You’ll remove Miss Pride, eh?’ said Coombe. ‘And what say Miss Pride’s the key figure, still?
You
know what I’m driving at. It’s sticking out a mile. Say I’m hiding up there behind that boulder. Say I hear someone directly below and take a look-see. Say I see the top of an open umbrella and a pair of female feet, which is what I’ve been waiting for. Who do I reckon’s under that umbrella? Not Miss Elspeth Cost. Not her. O, dear me no!’ said Coombe in a sort of gloomy triumph. ‘I say: “That’s the job,” and I bloody well let fly! But I bring down the wrong bird. I get –’

‘All right, all right,’ Alleyn said exasperated by the long build-up. ‘And you say: “Absurd mistake. Silly old me!
I
thought you were Miss Emily Pride”.’

The upshot, as he very well knew it would be, was an understanding that Coombe would get in touch with his Chief Constable and then with the Yard.

Coombe insisted on telling Dr Maine that he hoped Alleyn would take charge of the case. The ambulance men arrived with Pender and for the second time in twenty-four hours, Miss Cost went in procession along Wally’s Way.

Alleyn and Coombe stayed behind to look over the territory again. Coombe had a spring-tape in his pocket and they took preliminary measurements and decided to get the areas covered in case of
rain. He showed Alleyn where the trip-wire had been laid: through dense bracken on the way up to the shelf. Pender had caught a glint of it in the sunshine and had been sharp enough to investigate.

They completed their arrangements. The handbag, the string of beads and the umbrella were to be dropped at the police-station by Pender who was then to return with extra help if he could get it. The piece of rock would be sent with the body to the nearest mortuary which was at Dunlowman.