Have His Carcase

‘Very likely,’ said the Inspector, ‘but I expect there’ll be somebody that knows about him, all the same. This is where you get off, Saunders. Raise all the help you can, and get Mr Coffin to run you over to Wilvercombe when you’re through. Now then, miss.’ What did you say this young chap was like?’

Harriet again described the corpse.

Beard, eh?’ said the Inspector. ‘Sounds like a foreigner, doesn’t it? I can’t just place him for the moment, but there’s not much doubt he’ll be pretty easily traced. Now, here we are at the police-station, miss. If you’ll just step in here a minute, the Superintendent would like to see you.’

Harriet accordingly stepped in and told her story once again, this time in minute detail, to Superintendent Glaisher, who received it with flattering interest. She handed over the various things taken from the body and her roll of film, and was then questioned exhaustively as to how she had spent the day, both before and after finding the body.

‘By the way,’ said the Superintendent, ‘this young fellow you met on the road what’s become of him?’

Harriet stared about her as though she expected to find Mr Perkins still at her elbow.

‘I haven’t the slightest idea. I’d forgotten all about him. He must have gone off while I was ringing you up.’

‘Odd,’ said Glaisler, making a note to inquire after Mr Perkins.

‘But he can’t possibly know anything about it,’ said Harriet. ‘He was fearfully’ surprised — and frightened. That’s why he came back with me.’

‘We’ll have to check up on him, though, as a matter of routine,’ said the Superintendent. Harriet was about to protest that this was a waste of time, when she suddenly realised that in all probability it was her own story that was due to be ‘checked up on. She was silent, and the Superintendent went on:

‘Well, now, Miss Vane. I’m afraid we shall have to ask you, to stay within reach for a few days. What were you thinking of doing?’’

‘Oh, I-quite understand that. II suppose — I’d better put up somewhere in Wilvercombe. You needn’t be afraid of my running away. I want to be in on this thing.’

The policeman looked a little disapproving. Everybody is, of course, only too delighted to take the limelight in a gruesome tragedy, but a lady ought, surely, to pretend the contrary. Inspector Umpelty, however, merely replied with the modest suggestion that Clegg’s Temperance Hostel was generally reckoned to be as cheap and comfortable as you could require.

Harriet laughed, remembering suddenly that a novelist owes a duty to her newspaper, reporters. ‘Miss Harriet Vane, when interviewed by our correspondent at Clegg’s Temperance Hostel—‘That would never do.

‘I don’t care for Temperance Hostels,’ she said, firmly. ‘What’s the best hotel in the town?’

‘The Resplendent is the largest,’ said Glaisher.

‘Then you will find me at the Resplendent,’ said Harriet, picking up her dusty knapsack and preparing for action.

‘Inspector Umpelty will run you down there in the car,’ said the Superintendent, with a little-nod to Umpelty.

‘Very good of him,’ answered Harriet, amused.

Within a very few minutes the car deposited her at one of those monster seaside palaces which look as though they had been designed by a German manufacturer of children’s cardboard toys. Its glass porch was crowded with hothouse plants, and the lofty; dome of its reception-hall was supported on gilt pilasters rising out of an ocean of blue, plush. Harriet tramped heedlessly through its spacious splendours and demanded a large single bedroom with private bath, on the first floor, and overlooking the sea.

‘Ai’m afraid,’ said the receptionist, casting a languid glance of disfavour at Harriet’s knapsack and shoes, ‘that all our rooms are engaged.’

‘Surely not,’ said Harriet, ‘so early in the season.. Just ask the manager to come and speak to me for a moment.’ She sat down with a determined air in the nearest well-stuffed armchair and, hailing a waiter, demanded a cocktail.

‘Will you join me, Inspector?’

The Inspector thanked her, but explained that a certain discretion was due to his position.

‘Another time, then,’ said Harriet, smiling, and dropping a pound-note on the waiter’s tray, with a somewhat ostentatious display of a well-filled note-case

Inspector Umpelty grinned faintly as he saw the receptionist beckon to the water. Then he moved gently across to the desk and spoke a few words. Presently the assistant-receptionist approached Harriet with a deprecating smile.

‘We find, madam, that we can efter all accommodate you. An American gentleman has informed us thet he is vacating his room on the first floor. It overlooks the Esplanade. Ai think you will find it quaite satisfactory.’

‘Has it a private bath?’ demanded Harriet, without enthusiasm.

‘Oh, yes, madam. And a belcony.’

‘All right,’ said Harriet, ‘What number? Twenty-three. It has a telephone, I suppose? Well, Inspector, you’ll know where to find me, won’t you?’

She grinned a friendly grin at him.