‘How far is it?’ asked Harriet.
The girl opined that it was a good piece, but declined to commit herself in yards or miles.
‘Well, I’ll try there,’ said Harriet. ‘And if you meet anybody on the road, will you tell them there’s a dead man on the beach about a mile back and that the police ought to be told.’
The girl stared dumbly.
Harriet repeated the message, adding, ‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes, miss,’ said the girl, in the tone of voice which makes it quite clear that the hearer understands nothing.
As Harriet hurried away up the lane, she saw the girl still staring after her.
Will Coffin’s proved to be a small farmhouse. It took Harriet twenty minutes to reach it, and when she did reach it, it appeared to be deserted. She knocked at the door without result; pushed it open and shouted, still without result; then she went round to the back.
When she had again shouted several times, a woman in an apron emerged from an outbuilding and stood gazing at her.
‘Are any of the men about?’ asked Harriet.
The woman replied that they were all up to the seven-acre field, getting the hay in.
Harriet explained that there was a dead man lying on the shore and that the police ought to be informed.
‘That do be terrible, surely,’ said the woman. ‘Will it be Joe Smith? He was out with his boat this morning and the rocks be very dangerous thereabouts. The Grinders, we call them.’
‘No,’ said Harriet; ‘it isn’t a fisherman – it looks like somebody from the town. And he isn’t drowned. He’s cut his throat.’
‘Cut his throat?’ said the woman, with relish. ‘Well, now, what a terrible thing, to be sure.’
‘I want to let the police know,’ said Harriet, ‘before the tide comes in and covers the body.’
‘The police?’ The woman considered this. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, after mature thought. ‘The police did ought to be told about it.’
Harriet asked if one of the men could be found and sent with a message. The woman shook her head. They were getting in the hay and the weather did look to be changing. She doubted if anybody could be spared.
‘You’re not on the telephone, I suppose?’ asked Harriet.
They were not on the telephone, but Mr Carey at the Red Farm, he was on the telephone. To get to the Red Farm, the woman added, under interrogation, you would have to go back to the road and take the next turning, and then it was about a mile or maybe two.
‘Was there a car Harriet could borrow?
The woman was sorry, but there was no car. At least, there was one, but her daughter had gone over to Heathbury market and wouldn’t be back till late.
‘Then I must try and get to the Red Farm,’ said Harriet, rather wearily. ‘If you do see anybody who could take a message, would you tell them that there’s a dead man on the shore near the Grinders, and that the police ought to be informed.’
‘Oh, I’ll tell them sure enough,’ said the woman, brightly. ‘It’s a very terrible thing, isn’t it? The police did ought to know about it. You’re looking very tired, miss; would you like a cup of tea?’
Harriet refused the tea, and said she ought to be getting on. As she passed through the gate, the woman called her back. Harriet turned hopefully.
‘Was it you that found him, miss?’
‘Yes, I found him.’
‘Lying there dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘With his throat cut?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dear, dear,’ said the woman, ‘ ’Tis a terrible thing, to be sure.’
Back on the main road, Harriet hesitated. She had lost a good deal of time on this expedition. Would it be better to turn aside again in search of the Red Farm, or to keep to the main road where there was more chance of meeting a passerby? While still undecided, she arrived at the turn. An aged man was hoeing turnips in a field close by. She hailed him.
‘Is this the way to the Red Farm?’
He paid no attention, but went on hoeing turnips.
‘He must be deaf,’ muttered Harriet, hailing him again. He continued to hoe turnips. She was looking about for the gate into the field when the aged man paused to straighten his back and spit on his hands, and in so doing brought her into his line of vision.
Harriet beckoned to him, and he hobbled slowly up to the wall, supporting himself on the hoe as he went.
‘Is this the way to the Red Farm?’ She pointed up the lane.
‘No,’ said the old man, ‘he ain’t at home.’
‘Has he got a telephone?’ asked Harriet.
‘Not till tonight,’ replied the ancient. ‘He’s over to Heathbury market.’
‘A telephone,’ repeated Harriet, ‘has he got a telephone?’
‘Oh, ay,’ said the old man, ‘you’ll find her somewhere about.’ While Harriet was wondering whether the pronoun was the one usually applied in that county to telephones, he dashed her hopes by adding: ‘Her leg’s bad again.’
‘How far is it to the farm?’ shouted Harriet, desperately.
‘I shouldn’t wonder if ’twas,’ said the old man, resting on the hoe, and lifting up his hat to admit the breeze to his head, ‘I tell’d her o’ Saturday night she hadn’t no call to do it.’
Harriet, leaning far over the wall, advanced her mouth to within an inch of his ear.
‘How far is it?’ she bawled.
‘There ain’t no need to shout,’ said the old man. ‘I bain’t deaf. Eighty-two come Michaelmas, and all my faculties, thank God.’
‘How far—’ began Harriet.
‘I’m telling ’ee, amn’t I? Mile and half by the lane, but if you was to take the short cut through the field where the old bull is—’
A car came suddenly down the road at considerable speed and vanished into the distance.
‘Oh, bother!’ muttered Harriet, ‘I might have stopped that if I hadn’t wasted my time on this old idiot.’
‘You’re quite right, miss,’ agreed Old Father William, catching the last word with the usual perversity of the deaf. ‘Madmen, I calls ’em. There ain’t no sense in racketing along at that pace. My niece’s young man—’
The glimpse of the car was a deciding factor in Harriet’s mind. Far better to stick to the road. If once she began losing herself in by-ways on the chance of finding an elusive farm and a hypothetical telephone, she might wander about till dinner-time. She started off again, cutting Father William’s story off abruptly in the middle, and did another dusty half-mile without further encounter.
It was odd, she thought. During the morning she had seen several people and quite a number (comparatively) of tradesmen’s vans. What had happened to them all? Robert Templeton (or possibly even Lord Peter Wimsey, who had been brought up in the country) would have promptly enough found the answer to the riddle. It was market-day at Heathbury, and early-closing day at Wilvercombe and Lesston Hoe – the two phenomena being, indeed, interrelated so as to permit the inhabitants of the two watering-places to attend the important function at the market-town. Therefore there were no more tradesmen’s deliveries along the coast-road. And therefore all the local traffic to Heathbury was already well away inland. Such of the aborigines as remained were at work in the hayfields. She did, indeed, discover a man and a youth at work with a two-horse hay-cutter, but they stared aghast at her suggestion that they should leave their work and their horses to look for the police. The farmer himself was (naturally) at Heathbury market. Harriet, rather hopelessly, left a message with them and trudged on.
Presently there came slogging into view a figure which appeared rather more hopeful; a man clad in shorts and carrying a pack on his back – a hiker, like herself. She hailed him imperiously.
‘I say, can you tell me where I can get hold of somebody with a car or a telephone? It’s frightfully important.’
The man, a weedy, sandy-haired person with a bulging brow and thick spectacles, gazed at her with courteous incompeten
ce.
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you. You see, I’m a stranger here myself.’
‘Well, could you—?’ began Harriet, and paused. After all, what could he do? He was in exactly the same boat as herself. With a foolish relic of Victorianism she had somehow imagined that a man would display superior energy and resourcefulness, but, after all, he was only a human being, with the usual outfit of legs and brains.
‘You see,’ she explained, ‘there’s a dead man on the beach over there.’ She pointed vaguely behind her.
‘No, really?’ exclaimed the young man. ‘I say, that’s a bit thick, isn’t it? Er – friend of yours?’
‘Certainly not,’ retorted Harriet. ‘I don’t know him from Adam. But the police ought to know about it.’
‘The police? Oh, yes, of course, the police. Well, you’ll find them in Wilvercombe, you know. There’s a police-station there.’
‘I know,’ said Harriet, ‘but the body’s right down near low-water mark, and if I can’t get somebody along pretty quick the tide may wash him away. In fact, it’s probably done so already. Good lord! It’s almost four o’clock.’
‘The tide? Oh, yes. Yes, I suppose it would. If’ – he brightened up with a new thought – ‘if it’s coming in. But it might be going out, you know, mightn’t it?’
‘It might, but it isn’t,’ said Harriet, grimly. ‘It’s been coming in since two o’clock. Haven’t you noticed?’
‘Well, no, I can’t say I have. I’m shortsighted. And I don’t know much about it. I live in London, you see. I’m afraid I can’t quite see what I can do about it. There don’t seem to be any police about here, do there?’
He gazed round about, as though he expected to sight a constable on point-duty in the middle-distance.
‘Have you passed any cottages lately?’ asked Harriet.
‘Cottages? Oh, yes – yes, I believe I did see some cottages a little way back. Oh, yes, I’m sure I did. You’ll find somebody there.’
‘I’ll try there, then. And if you meet anybody would you mind telling them about it. A man on the beach – with his throat cut.’
‘His throat?’
‘Yes. Near some rocks they call the Grinders.’
‘Who cut his throat?’
‘How should I know? I should think he probably did it himself.’
‘Yes – oh, naturally. Yes. Otherwise it would be murder, wouldn’t it?’
‘Well, it may be murder, of course.’
The hiker clutched his staff nervously.
‘Oh! I shouldn’t think so, should you?’
‘You never know,’ said Harriet, exasperated. ‘If I were you, I’d be getting along quickly. The murderer may be somewhere about, you know.’
‘Good heavens!’ said the young man from London. ‘But that would be awfully dangerous.’
‘Wouldn’t it? Well, I’ll be pushing on. Don’t forget, will you? A man with his throat cut near the Grinders.’
‘The Grinders. Oh, yes. I’ll remember. But, I say?’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t you think I’d better come along with you? To protect you, you know, and that sort of thing?’
Harriet laughed. She felt convinced that the young man was not keen on passing the Grinders.
‘As you like,’ she said indifferently, walking on.
‘I could show you the cottages,’ suggested the young man.
‘Very well,’ said Harriet. ‘Come along. We’ll have to be as quick as we can.’
A quarter of an hour’s walk brought them to the cottages – two low thatched buildings standing on the right-hand side of the road. In front of them a high hedge had been planted, screening them from the sea-gales and, incidentally, helping to cut off all view of the shore. Opposite them, on the other side of the road, a narrow walled lane twisted down to the sea’s edge. From Harriet’s point of view the cottages were a disappointment. They were inhabited by an aged crone, two youngish women and some small children, but the men were all out fishing. They were late back today but were expected on the evening tide. Harriet’s story was listened to with flattering interest and enthusiasm, and the wives promised to tell their husbands about it when they came in. They also offered refreshment which, this time, Harriet accepted. She felt pretty sure that the body would by now be covered by the tide and that half an hour could make no real difference. Excitement had made her weary. She drank the tea and was thankful.
The companions then resumed their walk, the gentleman from London, whose name was Perkins, complaining of a blistered heel. Harriet ignored him. Surely something would soon come along.
The only thing that came was a fast saloon car, which overtook them about half a mile further on. The proud chauffeur, seeing two dusty trampers signalling, as it appeared to him, for a lift, put his stern foot down on the accelerator and drove on.
‘The beastly road-hog!’ said Mr Perkins, pausing to caress his blistered heel.
‘Saloons with chauffeurs are never any good,’ said Harriet. ‘What we want is a lorry, or a seven-year-old Ford. Oh, look! What’s that?’
‘That’ was a pair of gates across the road and a little cottage standing beside it.
‘A level-crossing, by all that’s lucky!’ Harriet’s sinking courage revived. ‘There must be somebody here.’
There was. There were, in fact, two people – a cripple and a small girl. Harriet eagerly asked where she could get hold of a car or a telephone.
‘You’ll find that all right in the village, miss,’ said the cripple. ‘Leastways, it ain’t what you’d call a village, exactly, but Mr Hearn that keeps the grocery, he’s got a telephone. This here’s Darley Halt, and Darley is about ten minutes’ walk. You’ll find somebody there all right, miss, for certain. Excuse me a minute, miss. Liz! the gates!’
The child ran out to open the gates to let through a small boy leading an immense cart-horse.
‘Is there a train coming through?’ asked Harriet, idly, as the gates were pushed across the road again.
‘Not for half an hour, miss. We keeps the gates shut most times. There ain’t a deal of traffic along this road, and they keeps the cattle from straying on to the line. There’s a good many trains in the day. It’s the main line from Wilvercombe to Heathbury. Of course, the expresses don’t stop here, only the locals, and they only stops twice a day, except market days.’
‘No, I see.’ Harriet wondered why she was asking about the trains, and then suddenly realised that, with her professional interest in time-tables, she was instinctively checking up the ways and means of approaching the Grinders. Train, car, boat – how had the dead man got there?
‘What time—?’
No, it didn’t matter. The police could check that up. She thanked the gate-keeper, pushed her way through the side-wickets and strode on, with Mr Perkins limping after her.
The road still ran beside the coast, but the cliffs were gradually sloped down almost to sea-level. They saw a clump of trees and a hedge and a little lane, curving away past the ruins of an abandoned cottage to a wide space of green on which stood a tent, close by the sandy beach, with smoke going up from a campers’ fire beside it. As they passed the head of this lane a man emerged from it, carrying a petrol-tin. He wore a pair of old flannel slacks, and a khaki shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His soft hat was pulled down rather low over his eyes, which were further protected by a pair of dark spectacles.
Harriet stopped him and asked if they were anywhere near the village.
‘A few minutes farther on,’ he replied, briefly, but civilly enough.
‘I want to telephone,’ went on Harriet. ‘I’m told I can do so at the grocer’s. Is that right?’
‘Oh, yes. Just across on the other side of the green. You can’t mistake it. It’s the only shop there is.’
‘Thank you. Oh, by the way – I suppose there isn’t a policeman in the village?’
The man halted as he was about to turn away and stared at her, shading his eyes from the
sun’s glare. She noticed a snake tattooed in red and blue upon his forearm, and wondered whether he might perhaps have been a sailor.
‘No, there’s no policeman living in Darley. We share a constable with the next village, I believe – he floats round on a bicycle occasionally. Anything wrong?’
‘There’s been an accident along the coast,’ said Harriet. ‘I’ve found a dead man.’
‘Good lord! Well, you’d better telephone through to Wilvercombe.’
‘Yes, I will, thanks. Come along, Mr Perkins. Oh! he’s gone on.’
Harriet caught up her companion, rather annoyed by his patent eagerness to dissociate himself from her and her errand.
‘There’s no need to stop and speak to everybody,’ complained Mr Perkins, peevishly. ‘I don’t like the look of that fellow, and we’re quite near the place now. I came through here this morning, you know.’
‘I only wanted to ask if there was a policeman,’ explained Harriet, peaceably. She did not want to argue with Mr Perkins. She had other things to think of. Cottages had begun to appear, small, sturdy buildings, surrounded by little patches of gay garden. The road turned suddenly inland, and she observed with joy telegraph poles, more houses and at length a little green, with a smithy at one corner and children playing cricket on the grass. In the centre of the green stood an ancient elm, with a seat round it and an ancient man basking in the sunshine; and on the opposite side was a shop, with ‘Geo. Hearn: Grocer’, displayed on a sign above it.
‘Thank goodness!’ said Harriet.
She almost ran across the little green and into the village shop, which was festooned with boots and frying-pans, and appeared to sell everything from acid drops to corduroy trousers.
A bald-headed man advanced helpfully from behind a pyramid of canned goods.
‘Can I use your telephone, please?’
‘Certainly, miss; what number?’
‘I want the Wilvercombe police-station.’
‘The police-station?’ The grocer looked puzzled – almost shocked. ‘I’ll have to look up the number for you,’ he said, hesitatingly. ‘Will you step into the parlour, miss – and sir?’