Chapter Fourteen
Watching the Tide
THE DOCTOR saw that there was much to be said for the pessimistic view old Mr. Norris had taken of Dick's disappearance, and he went into the castle feeling it a difficult task to try to be cheerful and hopeful. No one them was sorry when dinner was over. They all tried to avoid the subject uppermost in their thoughts, and the meal was taken almost in silence.
"What a nice girl Doris Somerville is," said Mrs. Sinclair, after there had been a long pause in the conversation. "She has been with me all the morning, and I really don't know what I would have done without her. We've known her such a short time really, and yet I feel that I can lean on her with confidence. You don't often come across a girl like that, do you?"
"No," said Forester quietly, "not often."
In his innermost heart he gave another answer: "Never, no, never will you find one like her."
When dinner was over, Forester sat with Mr. Sinclair for a little time on the seat in the castle courtyard, and they consulted together about their next movements. Forester had made up his mind that if Dick did not appear before the afternoon he would tell Mr. Sinclair about the blood they had seen under the oak tree, and would also hint at his suspicions with regard to Daniel and the two men who had left on Saturday. But Mr. Norris's suggestion had concerned him. He began to see that a more simple, though no less tragic, solution of the mystery was possible. If that was the case, he did not think that the time had arrived to put the police on the scent or call in detectives from Scotland Yard. He, like old Mr. Norris, would wait for the incoming tide.
If nothing was revealed then, or when the tide returned again the following morning, he would once more consider the advisability of communicating his suspicions to Dick's father. He therefore now merely suggested that the coastguards should be questioned as to whether they had seen anything of Dick while on their morning beat. Then the search party must call at every cottage in the village to find out whether any of the Hildick people had been on the shore early. They would also ask for their assistance in the search, and thus get together a large band of helpers.
Mr. Sinclair seemed relieved to be at work again, so they hurried down the hill. On meeting with the others, they divided the village between them, each of them taking a certain number of houses in which to make inquiries, after which, and in about an hour's time, they arranged to meet on the shingle to share with each other any information they had obtained.
At four o'clock, the appointed time, they all went to the place where they had agreed to meet. Doris Somerville and Mab and Dolly Mainwaring were already there when they arrived, all anxious to hear the result of their inquiries.
Forester was the first to speak. He reported that the coastguards could give him no information whatever. They had patrolled along the shore in both directions during the night in their normal routine. One had skirted Hildick Bay, the other had gone round the headland, but neither of them had come across anything extraordinary. They had met no one, and had heard no sound but the waves beating on the rocks. However, Forester found when he questioned them that they had returned to the station about three o'clock, long before daylight. He had found them helpful, and they promised to let him know if anything came under their observation which might throw light on the mystery.
He told how he went next to the house of the old sailor who owned the only boat in Hildick Bay. His was the boat that Forester was watching that first morning, when he sat beside Mr. Somerville on the shore and shared his newspaper.
Old Treverton's sea-going days were over. He sometimes did a little fishing when the herrings came into the bay. When the visitors were in Hildick, provided that the day was fine and the sea perfectly calm, he would row them about slowly and carefully in the quiet water. But his working days were almost done, for he was more than eighty years of age.
Old Treverton was always glad of a chat with anyone whom he could persuade to stop to talk to him, and was ready to spin as long a yarn as the time of the passerby would allow. He was therefore highly gratified by a call from Forester, and invited him into his little parlour.
"Well, could he tell you anything?" asked Mr. Sinclair.
"No, he knew nothing about Dick. He hasn't seen him since yesterday morning. The old man has a good memory, and seems to know us all by name."
"Then that was a failure too," said Mr. Sinclair in a disappointed voice, for he had hoped from the doctor's manner that he had something to tell them.
"I went on," Forester continued, "to question him as to whether he had seen anything unusual on the shore, and then he told me rather an odd thing. You know where he keeps his boat, on the rocks, well out of the reach of the tide? It was an exceptionally high tide this morning, but it came nowhere near the place where the boat was moored. Yet when Treverton went to look at the boat this morning it was gone."
"Gone?"
"Yes, it had been taken out by someone. Treverton is sure of that. The tide had not been near it. All the rocks round were dry, but the boat was gone. The old man has been in an awful way about it all day."
"And he hasn't found it yet?"
"No, and the worst of it is that now he seems to think Dick has taken it out, and he is sure he would not be able to manage it. Old Treverton thinks no one can row that boat but himself. Still, it does seem a possible solution of the mystery. Dick may have gone out in the boat, and have been carried out by the receding tide farther than he bargained for. If so, we shall probably hear of him soon. So many ships pass the entrance to the bay that he would be in no great danger on a day like this, for the sea has been fairly calm and that old tub would not easily be overturned."
"I don't believe for a moment that my brother would take the boat," said Val.
"Well, we shall see. To my mind it is a hopeful view of the matter," said Forester.
He was glad to dismiss old Mr. Norris's suggestion from his mind. He had seen one great difficulty in accepting the theory that Dick had jumped off the rocks and been drowned, for if this had been the case surely his clothes would have been found. Still, on the other hand, he had remembered that Dick might have bathed before high tide, and the unusually high water could have carried his clothes away. Now the idea that Dick had gone out to sea in old Treverton's boat was a far less painful one to entertain, for in that case he might possibly be alive and well, and Norman Forester breathed much more freely than before.
None of the others had anything special to report except Jack. He had been to the myrtle-covered cottage which was famous on account of John Wesley's visit to it. He and Mrs. Lloyd, the old woman who lived there, had become great friends during his stay in Hildick, and as a special mark of her favour she always dusted John Wesley's chair with her apron and put it by the fire for him to sit on.
Jack had told her the trouble they were in, and in her own homely way she had expressed her sorrow and her sympathy. He asked her whether she or her husband had been on the shore early that morning, or had seen anything or anyone about. She told him that she was up early, for her husband had to go on business to a farm on the Llantrug road. He had returned not long ago, and was in the backyard.
Jack had asked if he could speak to Mr. Lloyd, and the old woman called to her husband to come in. He said that he had set off about five o'clock and driven across the marsh to the Llantrug road. No one was about in the village when he started, and when he got up the hill and looked back on the bay he saw no one on the shore. He was sorry to hear that old Treverton had lost his boat, but he had seen nothing of it in the bay, and he felt sure had it been there he would have noticed it.
"Was that all?" asked Forester.
"Well, yes, all that seemed to have anything bearing on Dick's disappearance," said Mr. Sinclair. "Mr. Lloyd had rather a curious experience farther along the road, but you won't care to hear about that. We must not lose time, must we?"
"Wait a minute," said Forester. "All evidence is worth having, whether at first sight it seems to help us or
not. Would you mind telling us what Mr. Lloyd's curious experience was?"
"Well, he was driving his cart along the Llantrug road, when he came to the place where another road joins it. I think it comes from the village on the top of the hill. It isn't much of a road, I believe, more like a lane. However, just at the corner where it comes into the main road, old Mr. Lloyd came upon an upset."
"What kind of upset?
"It was a horse and trap that had come to grief. It had evidently been coming down the lane at a great pace and the horse had stumbled and fallen. It was lying on the ground when Lloyd came up."
"Well, what was there odd about that?" asked Don.
"Oh, nothing about that, of course. But what struck him was the peculiar appearance of the people in the trap."
"How many were there?"
"Only two."
"Men?"
"No, two stout females dressed in the old-fashioned style. Short full skirts and long cloaks. One had a hat on and a thick woollen veil, the other had a large bonnet and gray curls in front. They were trying to get the horse up when Mr. Lloyd got near, and he stopped his cart and went to give them a hand. He could not imagine who they were. He knows all the Garroch people well, but they told him that they had come from some village ten miles inland, and were going to see a daughter of the old woman who lived in a farm near Llantrug, and who was dangerously ill."
"What was remarkable in that?"
"Nothing at all," said Jack. "But as old Mr. Lloyd was helping them with the horse, he happened to look inside the cart."
"What did he see there?"
"He saw something covered with a rug. A long bundle of some kind, and the rug was tucked tightly over it. 'What have you got there?' he asked, for old Mr. Lloyd does not mind asking anything he wants to know."
"And what did they say?
"They said they had been pig-killing at home, and had not had time to salt the pig, so they were taking it with them to the daughter's to do it there. Old Lloyd thought this was a suspicious story, and I agree with him. If the daughter was dangerously ill, why would they take a big job like that into a sick house?"
"Did they tell him anything else?"
"Nothing else. They jumped into the trap as quickly as possible and drove off at a tearing pace towards Llantrug. Mr. Lloyd said he quite expected that the horse would be down again."
Forester nodded thoughtfully. "So what are we to make of that?" he asked.
"Well, I don't see what it has to do with us at all," said Mr. Sinclair, "unless you want to suggest that those two old dames were taking Dick away in a cart. Don't you think we ought to scatter now and continue our search?"
Norman Forester and Don Mainwaring had been together all day, and they agreed to keep together now. Forester was anxious to be on the shore, to watch the incoming tide. It was now five o'clock, and the sea was coming in apace. By this time many of the residents had come out to help in the search, and as the doctor and Don went down towards the rocks they saw the searchers scattering in all directions -- into the fields, onto the sand dunes, and among the woods round the bay.
Arriving at the shore, they found old Treverton still on the lookout for his boat. The poor man was as mournful as if he had lost a child.
"I've had her thirty years, sir," he said, "and I thought she would last my lifetime."
"Well," said Forester, "perhaps you haven't lost her. Don't despair yet. She may turn up somewhere."
"Any word of the young gentleman, sir?"
"No, not yet, but we haven't given up hope."
"Well, sir, I may be wrong, but it strikes me that the lad and the boat are together. I'm afraid they are -- very much afraid."
Forester, Don and old Treverton walked on together to the farthest point they could reach on the rocks and watched the advancing tide. Steadily, slowly but surely, it was coming in. As they stood there they could actually see the water rising. First it covered the little island far out at sea, then it swept over the stretch of seaweed-covered shore. Soon it was creeping round the high rock. It seemed only a matter of minutes before it reached the breakwater by the church. Like a relentless force it kept coming higher, and still higher.
The three men stood silently, gazing far out to sea. The old sailor had brought his small telescope with him, and was looking through it at the waves.
"What is that?" he said suddenly. "What do I see driving in towards the other side of the bay?"
He handed his glass to the doctor. "Your eyes are younger than mine, sir," he said. "Tell me what you see there."
"I see nothing yet."
"Look again, sir."
"I am looking again. Yes, now I do see something. It looks like a small speck on the water."
"It must be more than a speck for us to see it here, sir, three miles or more away."
"Look, Don," said Forester, "take the glass."
Don Mainwaring could see it too. "Seaweed," he suggested, "or perhaps a log of wood."
"It may be, or it may not be," Treverton said in an excited voice. "I shall go across the bay and watch it come in."
"We'll come with you, but we must hurry up," said Forester, "or the tide will turn and we'll be too late."
He and Don ran on ahead, and the old man followed. It was not easy to go quickly, for the tide now covered the hard sand, and the shore above high water-mark was covered with heavy and loose shingle which made it difficult to keep up any great pace.
They did not stop to take off their boots and socks when they came to the stream, but ran quickly through the water. On, and still on they hurried, and the speck was now a large object on the crest of the waves. They needed no glass to see it clearly. Each advancing wave brought it nearer, straight for the shore of the bay in which they had enjoyed that pleasant picnic only the week before.
The three men hurried on and reached the bay at last.. The busy waves had almost finished their work. The object on the water was reaching the shore. They could see it distinctly now. As they ran to meet it in the water could almost touch it. There was no room for speculation or doubt. A high wave was rising. This one would bring it within reach.
Old Treverton was running along the bay, but long before he reached the spot, Forester and Don caught it, rescued it from a receding wave, and dragged it ashore.
It was old Treverton's boat, and it had come in bottom upwards.