‘Fishermen?’
‘Fishers of men, I fancy,’ replied Wimsey, grimly. ‘It’s Umpelty and his merry men. Pass me the field-glasses, Bunter. Yes. They look very busy. They’ve got the drags out. Have a squint.’
He passed the glasses to Harriet, who exclaimed:
‘They’re hauling something up. It must be pretty heavy. The Inspector’s lending a hand and one of the men is hanging on at the other end for dear life to trim the boat. Oh, oh! you didn’t see that. What a pity! Something gave way suddenly, and Inspector Umpelty has gone head over heels backwards into the boat. Now he’s sitting up and rubbing himself.’
‘Dear Umpelty!’ Wimsey helped himself to a sandwich.
‘They’re dragging again; he’s left it to the fishermen this time. . . . They’ve got it – they’re hauling – it’s coming up!’
‘Sit down and have your tea.’
‘Don’t be silly. They’re pulling away like anything. There’s something black just showing –’
‘Here! Let’s have a look.’
Harriet surrendered the glasses. They were Wimsey’s, after all, though if he thought that she would be upset by a distant view of what she had once seen so unpleasantly close –
Wimsey looked and began to laugh.
‘Here, take them, quick! It’s a bit of old iron. It looks like a boiler or something. Don’t miss Umpelty’s face; it’s worth seeing.’
‘Yes; that’s what it is – a sort of cylinder. I wonder how that got there. They’re examining it very carefully. Perhaps they think they’ll find the body inside it. No go. They’ve dropped it back again.’
‘What a disappointment!’
‘Poor Umpelty! I say, these are lovely sandwiches. Did Bunter make them? He’s a genius.’
‘Yes. Hurry up. I want to have another look at that cleft in the rock before we start.’
The cleft, however, remained an enigma. Wimsey’s attention was concentrated on the ring-bolt.
‘I’ll swear,’ he said, ‘that this hasn’t been here more than a fortnight. It looks perfectly new, and the ring isn’t worn anywhere. What the devil he can have wanted that for – Well, let us be going. I’ll take the high road and you take the low road; that is, I’ll scramble among the loose stuff at high-water mark, and you walk along by the sea’s edge, and we’ll work to-and-fro between the two. Anybody who finds anything shouts and we compare notes.’
‘Right-ho!’
To walk along a solitary shore with one’s heart’s idol in the calm of a summer’s afternoon may be classed as an agreeable occupation; but it loses much of its charm when the couple have to proceed, separated by the whole width of the beach, searching with backs bent double and eyes fixed on the ground for something which neither can define and which in all probability is not there. Harriet, mystified, but resolutely believing that Wimsey had some idea in his mind, kept steady to her job; Wimsey, though he searched carefully, paused a good many times to scan sea and shore, and appeared to be computing distances and memorising landmarks. Each explorer carried a satchel in which to store treasure-trove, and the conversation, such as it was, rather resembled the dialogue of a Russian tragedy. Thus:
Harriet: Oy!
Peter: Hullo!
(They meet, centre.)
Harriet: A boot! I’ve found a boot!
Peter: Alas! alas! What boots it to repeat.
Harriet: Hobnailed and frightfully ancient.
Peter: Only one boot!
Harriet: Yes; if it had been two boots, it might mark the place where the murderer started to paddle.
Peter: One foot on sea and one on shore. The tide has risen and fallen ten times since then. It isn’t a good boot.
Harriet: No, it’s a bad boot.
Peter: It’s a rotten boot.
Harriet: Can I throw it away?
Peter: No; after all, it is a boot.
Harriet: It’s an awfully heavy boot.
Peter: I can’t help that; it’s a boot. Dr Thorndyke likes boots.
Harriet: Oh, death! where is thy sting?
(They separate, Harriet carrying the boot.)
Peter: Oy!
Harriet: Hullo!
(They meet again.)
Peter: Here is an empty sardine-tin, and here is a broken bottle.
Harriet: Have you the pen of the gardener’s aunt?
Peter: No; but my (female) cousin has (some) ink, (some) paper and (some) papers (use du, de la, des, de l’ apostrophe).
Harriet: How long has the bottle been there?
Peter: The edges are much abraded by the action of the water.
Harriet: Do murderers eat sardines?
Peter: Do cats eat rats?
Harriet: I have cut my foot on a razor-shell; Paul Alexis had his throat cut with a razor.
Peter: The tide is going out.
(They separate.)
Harriet: (after a long and unproductive pause, meeting Peter with a sodden Gold Flake packet in one hand and half a Bible in the other): Dr Livingstone, I presume. Do murderers read the Bible?
Peter: Any book had served as well, Any book had stopped the bullet – that may be; I cannot tell.
Harriet (reading): ‘Last of all the woman died also’ – probably from backache.
Peter: My back aches, and a drowsy numbness stills My brain, as though of hemlock –
Harriet (suddenly practical): Look at the cigarette-card.
Peter: It belongs to the new series.
Harriet: Then it may be quite recent.
Peter (wearily): All right; keep it; we’ll call it a clue. How about the Holy Writ?
Harriet (in a marked manner): You can keep that; it might be good for you.
Peter: Very well. (In a still more marked manner) Shall we begin with the Song of Songs.
Harriet: Get on with your job.
Peter: I am. How far have we come?
Harriet: How many leagues to Babylon?
Peter: We have walked a mile and a half, and we are still in full view of the Flat-Iron.
(They separate.)
Peter: Oy!
Harriet: Hullo!
Peter: I just wanted to ask whether you’d given any further thought to that suggestion about marrying me.
Harriet (sarcastically): I suppose you were thinking how delightful it would be to go through life like this together?
Peter: Well, not quite like this. Hand in hand was more my idea.
Harriet: What is that in your hand?
Peter: A dead starfish.
Harriet: Poor fish!
Peter: No ill-feeling, I trust.
Harriet: Oh, dear no.
They toiled along, presently coming abreast of the spot where the lane led down from Pollock’s cottage. Here the beach became more shingly, with a number of biggish stones. Wimsey took the search more seriously here, scrutinising the stones above and around high-water mark very carefully, and even going part of the way up the lane. He seemed not to find anything of importance, and they went on, noticing that the high ground hid the cottages from sight of the beach.
A few hundred yards farther on, Harriet gave tongue again.
‘Oy, oy, oy!’
‘Hullo!’
‘I really have found something this time.’
Peter came galloping down the sand.
‘If you’re pulling my leg, I’ll wring your neck. Let your Uncle Peter look. . . . Ah! . . . we are interested, distinctly interested.’
‘It ought to mean good luck, anyway.’
‘You’re holding it wrong way up; all the luck will drop out if you’re not careful, and a black day it will be for – somebody. Hand it over.’
He ran his fingers gently round the hoop of metal, clearing the sand away.
‘It’s a new shoe – and it hasn’t been here very long. Perhaps a week, perhaps a little more. Belongs to a nice little cob, about fourteen hands. Pretty little animal, fairly well-bred, rather given to kicking her shoes off, pecks a little with the off-fore.’
‘Holmes, this is wonderful! How do you do it?’
‘Perfectly simple, my dear Watson. The shoe hasn’t been worn thin by the ’ammer, ’ammer, ’ammer on the ’ard ’igh road, therefore it’s reasonably new. It’s a little rusty from lying in the water, but hardly at all rubbed by sand and stones, and not at all corroded, which suggests that it hasn’t been here long. The size of the shoe gives the size of the nag, and the shape suggests a nice little round, well-bred hoof. Though newish, the shoe isn’t fire-new, and it is worn down a little on the inner front edge, which shows that the wearer was disposed to peck a little; while the way the nails are placed and clinched indicates that the smith wanted to make the shoe extra secure – which is why I said that a lost shoe was a fairly common accident with this particular gee. Still, we needn’t blame him or her too much. With all these stones about, a slight trip or knock might easily wrench a shoe away.’
‘Him or her. Can’t you go on and tell the sex and colour while you’re about it?’
‘I am afraid even I have my limitations, my dear Watson.’
‘Do you think the shoe was lying where it fell? Or would the sea have moved it much? I found it just here, close by the water’s edge, buried deep in sand.’
‘Well, it wouldn’t float, but the tide might drag it a bit one way or the other, and each successive tide would tend to bury it farther. It’s very lucky you found it at all. But we can’t tell exactly at what point the horse passed along, if you mean that. The shoe wouldn’t just drop off. It would be thrown and would spin away on one side or other, according to the speed and direction and all that sort of thing.’
‘So it would. Well, that’s quite a pretty little piece of deduction. . . . Peter! Were you looking for a horse-shoe?’
‘No; I was expecting the horse, but the shoe is a piece of pure, gorgeous luck.’
‘And observation. I found it.’
‘You did. And I could kiss you for it. You need not shrink and tremble. I am not going to do it. When I kiss you, it will be an important event – one of those things which stand out among their surroundings like the first time you tasted li-chee. It will not be an unimportant side-show attached to a detective investigation.’
‘I think you are a little intoxicated by the excitement of the discovery,’ said Harriet, coldly. ‘You say you came here looking for a horse?’
‘Naturally. Didn’t you?’
‘No – I never thought about it.’
‘You miserable little cockney – no! You never thought of a horse except as something that holds up the traffic. Your knowledge of horses is comprised in the rhyme which says, “I know two things about the horse and one of them is rather coarse”. Didn’t it ever occur to you that a horse is made to R,U,N, run, and cover a given distance in a given time. Did you never even have a bob on the Derby? Wretched girl – wait till we are married. You shall fall off a horse every day till you learn to sit on it.’
Harriet was silent. She suddenly saw Wimsey in a new light. She knew him to be intelligent, clean, courteous, wealthy, well-read, amusing and enamoured, but he had not so far produced in her that crushing sense of utter inferiority which leads to prostration and hero-worship. But she now realised that there was, after all, something godlike about him. He could control a horse. She had a fleeting vision of him, very sleek, very smart, in a top-hat and pink coat and gleaming white breeches, loftily perched on an immense and fiery animal which pranced and jiggled about without even disturbing the lofty nonchalance of his demeanour. Her imagination, making a terrific effort, promptly clothed her in a riding-habit of perfect cut, placed her on an animal still larger and fierier and set her at his side, amid the respectful admiration of the assembled nobility and gentry. Then she laughed at this snobbish picture.
‘I could do the falling-off part all right. Hadn’t we better be getting on?’
‘H’m. Yes. I think we’ll do the rest by horse-power. I can’t see the coast-road from here, but we shall probably find the faithful Bunter in attendance not very far off. We can’t hope to find anything more along here. Two horse-shoes would be a work of supererogation.’
Harriet heartily welcomed this decision.
‘We needn’t crawl up the cliff,’ Wimsey went on. ‘We’ll turn up and get to the road by the lane. We’ll chuck the Bible and the boot – I don’t think they’ll get us anywhere.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘To Darley, to find the horse. I fancy we shall find that he belongs to Mr Newcombe, who had occasion to complain of gaps in his hedges. We shall see.’
The two or three miles to Darley were quickly covered, with only the necessary pause while the gates were opened at the Halt. At the top of Hinks’s Lane they got out and walked down to the camping-place.
‘I would draw your attention,’ said Wimsey, ‘to the three grains of oats found at this spot, and also to the two inches of burnt rope found in the ashes. Bunter, have you brought those things?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
Bunter rummaged in the bowels of the car and brought out a small paper bag and a halter. These he handed over to Wimsey, who immediately undid the bag and from it poured a couple of handfuls of oats into his hat.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ve got the halter – now we’ve only got to find a horse to put in it. Let’s go round by the shore to look for the stream our friend Mr Goodrich spoke of.’
The stream was soon found – a small trickle of fresh water emerging through a bank beneath a hedge, some fifty yards from the encampment and wandering away across the sand towards the sea.
‘No good looking for marks this side of the hedge – I fancy the tide comes pretty well up to the foot of the grass. Wait a minute, though. Here we are! Yes – on the very edge of the stream, right up against the hedge – a beauty, with nailmarks all complete. Lucky last night’s rain didn’t wash it out, but the grass overhangs it a bit. But there’s no gap in the hedge here. He must – oh, of course, he would. Yes. Now, if we’re right, this won’t correspond to the shoe we’ve found – it’ll be the other foot. Yes; this is the left fore. Our horse stood here to drink, which means that he (or she) was running loose around here about the ebb of the tide, horses not liking their water salt. The left fore was there – the right should be about here – it is here! Look! the print of the naked hoof, without shoe and rather light in the ground – lame, of course, after coming shoeless for nearly three miles over a stony beach. But where is the gap? Let us walk on, my dear Watson. Here, if I mistake not, is the place. Two new stakes driven in and a bunch of dead thorn shoved in and secured with wire. I agree that Mr Newcombe is not a good hand at mending hedges. Still, he has taken some precautions, so we will hope that our horse is still in the field. We scramble up the bank – we look over the hedge – one, two, three horses, by jove!’
Wimsey let his eye rove meditatively over the large field. At its far side was a thickish clump of spinney, from which the little stream emerged, meandering quietly through the coarse grass.
‘Look how nicely those trees screen it from the road and the village. A pleasant, private spot for horse-stealing. How tiresome of Mr Newcombe to have filled this gap. Aha! What is this, Watson?’
‘I’ll buy it.’
‘There is another gap a few yards down, which has been filled in a more workmanlike manner with posts and a rail. Nothing could be better. We approach it – we climb the rail, and we are in the field. Permit me – oh! you are over. Good! Now, which animal will you put your money on?’
‘Not the black. He looks too big and heavy.’
‘No, not the black, certainly. The chestnut might do, as regards size, but he has seen his best days and has hardly got class enough for our work. The jolly little bay cob rather takes my fancy. Coo-op, pretty,’ said Wimsey, advancing delicately across the field, shaking the oats in the hat. ‘Coo-op, coo-op.’
Harriet had often wondered how people ever managed to catch horses in large fields. It seemed so silly of the creatures to
allow themselves to be taken – and indeed, she remembered distinctly having once stayed in a country rectory where it always took at least an hour for ‘the boy’ to catch the pony, with the result that the pony-trap frequently failed to catch the train. Possibly ‘the boy’ had not gone the right way about it, for, as by the miracle by which the needle turns to the pole, all three horses came lolloping steadily across the field to poke soft noses into the hatful of oats. Wimsey stroked the chestnut, patted the black, weeded out the bay from between them and stood for a little talking to it and running a hand gently over its neck and shoulders. Then he stooped, passing his palm down the off-fore leg. The hoof came obediently up into his hand, while the muzzle went round and gently nibbled his ear.
‘Hi, you!’ said Wimsey, ‘that’s mine. Look here, Harriet.’
Harriet edged round to his side and stared at the hoof.
‘New shoe.’ He put the foot down and reached in turn for the other legs. ‘Better make sure they haven’t made an all-round job of it. No; old shoes on three feet and new shoe on off-fore, corresponding exactly to the specimen picked up on the beach. You notice the special arrangement of the nails. The bay mare brings home the bacon all right. Wait a bit, my girl, we’ll try your paces.’
He slipped the halter neatly over the bay mare’s head and swung himself up.
‘Come for a ride? Your toe on my foot, and up she comes! Shall we ride away into the sunset and never come back?’
‘Better get on with it. Suppose the farmer comes.’
‘How right you are!’ He gave the halter a shake and cantered off. Harriet mechanically picked up his hat and stood squeezing the crown absently in and out, with her eyes on the flying figure.
‘Allow me, miss.’
Bunter held out his hand for the hat; she relinquished it with a little start. Bunter shook out the remaining oats, dusted the hat with care inside and out and restored it to its proper shape.
‘Handy to ride or drive,’ said Wimsey, coming back and slipping down from his mount. ‘Might do nine miles an hour on the road – on the shore, through shallow water, say eight. I’d like – my God! how I’d like – to take her along to the Flat-Iron. Better not. We’re trespassing.’