Have His Carcase

‘It’s all right,’ Mr Perkins sipped and regained his colour. ‘As a matter of fact I can tell you exactly where I was at two o’clock. It’s very fortunate that that should be the time. Very fortunate. I was at Darley.

‘Oh, indeed,’ said Mr Ormond, ‘that’s very satisfactory.’

‘Yes, and I can prove it. You see, I’d come along from Wilvercombe: I bought some calamine lotion, there, and I daresay the chemist would remember me. My skin is very sensitive, you know, and we had a little chat about it. I don’t know just where the shop was, but you could find out. No; I don’t know quite what time that would be. Then I walked on to Darley. It’s four miles. It would take me a bit over an hour, you know, so I must have started from Wilvercombe about one o’clock,’

‘Where did you stay the night before?’

‘In Wilvercombe. At the Trust House. You’ll find my name there all right.’

Rather a late start, wasn’t it, sir?’

‘Yes, it was; but I didn’t sleep very well. I was rather feverish. Sunburn, you, know; it takes me that way; It does some people. I come out in a rash — most painful. I told you my skin was sensitive.. It was the hot sun that last week. I hoped it would get better, but it got worse, and shaving was an. agony, really, an agony. So I stayed in bed till ten and had a late breakfast at eleven, and got to Darley about two o’clock. I know it was two o’clock, because I asked a man there the time.’

‘Did you indeed; sir? That was very fortunate. We ought to be able to substantiate that’ ‘Oh, yes. You’d find him easily enough. It wasn’t in the village itself. It was outside. It was a gentleman that was camping in ‘a tent. At least, ‘I call him a gentleman,’ but I can’t say he behaved like one.’

P.C. Ormond almost jumped. He was a young man, unmarried and full of enthusiasms, and he had fallen into a state of worshipping admiration for Lord Peter Wimsey. He worshipped his clothes, his car and his uncanny skill in prediction. Wimsey had said that the, gold would be found on the body; and lo it was so. He had said that, as soon as the inquest had established the time of death, Henry Weldon would turn out to have an alibi for two o’clock, and here was the alibi arriving as true to time as moon and tide. He had said that this new alibi would turn out to be breakable. P.C. Ormond set out with determination to break it.

He asked, rather suspiciously, why Mr Perkins had inquired the time of a casual stranger and not in the village.

‘I didn’t think about it in the village. I didn’t stop anywhere there. When I got out of it I began to think about my lunch. I’d looked at my watch a mile or so back and it said five-and-twenty to two and I thought I’d push along to the shore and have my meal there. When I looked at it again it still said five-and-twenty to two, and I found it had stopped, so I knew time must be getting on. I saw a kind of little lane going down towards the sea, so I turned down that way. There was an open space at the foot of it with a, motor-car and a little tent, and a man doing something to the car. I hailed him and asked what the time was. He was a big man with dark hair and a red face, and he wore coloured spectacles. He told me it was five minutes to two. I set my watch going and thanked him and then I just said something pleasant about what a nice camping-place he had found. He grunted rather rudely, so I thought perhaps he was put out by his car being out of order, so I just asked him — most politely — whether there was anything wrong. That was all. I can’t think why he should have taken offence but he did. I expostulated with him and said I only asked out of politeness and to know if I could help him in any way, and he called me a very vulgar name and Mr Perkins hesitated and blushed.

‘Well?’ said P.C. Ormond.

‘He — I am sorry to say he forgot himself so far as to assault me,’ said Mr Perkins.

‘Oh! what did he do?’

‘He — kicked me,’ said Mr Perkins, his voice rising up, into a squeak, ‘on my — that is to say, from behind.’ ‘Indeed!’

‘Yes, he did. Of course, I did’ not retaliate. It would not have been fitting. I just walked away and told him that I hoped he would feel ashamed of himself when he thought it over. I regret to say that he ran at me after that, and I thought it would be better not to associate with such a person any longer. So I went away and had my lunch on the beach.’

‘On the beach, eh?’

‘Yes. He had — that is to say, I was facing in that direction when the assault took place — and I did not wish to pass this unpleasant person again. I knew by my map that it was possible to walk along the shore between Darley and Lesston Hoe, so I thought it better to go that way.’,

‘I see. So you had your lunch on the shore. Whereabouts? And how long did you stay: there?’

‘Well, I stopped about fifty yards from the lane. I wished to let the man see that he could not intimidate me., I sat down where he could see me and ate my lunch.’

P.C. Ormond noted that the kick could not have been a painfully hard one. Mr Perkins could sit down.