Have His Carcase

Harriet came in, and agreed that the water was cold and the wind icy. Agreed on this point, they returned to the Flat-Iron, and felt their way carefully round it, Presently Wimsey, who had been doing some under-water investigation on the Wilvercombe side of the rock, came out, spluttering, and asked if Harriet had come down on that side or on the other to hunt for the razor.

‘On the other,’ said Harriet. ‘It was like this, I was up on top of the rock with the body, like this.’ She climbed out, walked up to the top of the rock, and stood shivering in the wind. ‘I looked round on both sides of me like this.’

‘You didn’t look down in this direction, by any chance?’ inquired Wimsey’s head, standing up sleek as a seal’s out of the water.

‘No, I don’t think so. Then, after I’d fussed about with the corpse a bit, I got down this way. I sat on something just about here. and took my shoes and stockings, off and tucked my things up. Then I came round in this direction and groped about under the rock. There was about eighteen

inches of water then. There are about five feet now, I should think.’

‘Can you began Wimsey. A wave slopped suddenly over his head and extinguished him. Harriet laughed.

‘Can you see me?’ he went on, blowing the water out of his nostrils.

‘I can’t. But I heard you. I t was very amusing.’

‘Well, restrain your sense of humour. You can’t see me.’

‘No. There’s a bulge in the rock. Where, exactly, are you, by the way?’

‘Standing in a nice little niche, like a saint over a cathedral door.’ It’s, just about the size of a coffin. Six feet high or thereabouts, with a pretty little roof and room to squeeze in rather tightly sideways, if you’re not what the Leopard called “too vulgar big”. Come round and try it for yourself.’

‘What a sweet little spot,’ said Harriet, scrambling round and taking Wimsey’s place in the niche. ‘Beautifully screened from all sides, except from the sea. Even at quite low tide one couldn’t be seen, unless, of course, somebody happened to come round and stand just opposite the opening. I certainly didn’t do that. How horrible! The man must have been in here all the time.’

‘Yes, I think it’s more plausible than the boat idea.’

‘Bright!’ said Harriet.

‘I’m so glad you think so.’

‘I didn’t mean that — and it was my idea in the first place. I meant Bright, the man who bought the razor. Didn’t the hairdresser person say he was a small man — smaller than you, anyway?’

‘So he did. One up to you. I wish we could get hold of Bright. I wonder — Oh, I say! I’ve found something!’

‘Oh, what?’

‘It’s a ring the sort of thing you tie boats up to, driven right into the rock. It’s under water and I can’t see it properly, but it’s about five feet off the ground and it feels smooth and new, not corroded. Does that help with our boat-theory at all, I wonder?’

‘Well,’ said Harriet, looking round at the lonely, sea and shore, ‘there doesn’t seem to be much reason why anyone should habitually, tie a boat up here.’

‘There doesn’t. In that case the murderer, if there was one—’

We’re taking him for granted, aren’t we?’

‘Yes. He may have put this here for his own private use. Either he tied a boat up, or he’-’

‘Or he didn’t.’

‘I was going to say, used it for something else, but I’m dashed if I know what.’

‘Well, that’s fearfully helpful. I say, I’m getting cold. Let’s swim about a bit, and then get dressed and discuss it.’

Whether it was the swim or the subsequent race over the sands to get warm that stimulated Harriet’s brain is not certain, but when they were again sitting by the lunch-basket, she found herself full of ideas.

‘Look here! If you were a murderer, and you saw an interfering woman pottering about among the evidence and then going off in search of help, what would you do?’

‘Leg it in the opposite direction:

‘I wonder. Would you? Wouldn’t you like to keep an eye on her? Or possibly even do away-with her? You know, it would have been fearfully easy for Bright — if we may call him so for the moment — to slaughter me then and there.’

‘But why should he? Of course he wouldn’t. He was trying to make the murder look like suicide.. In fact, you were a very valuable witness for him. You’d seen the body and you could prove that there really was a body, in case of its subsequently getting lost. And you could prove that there actually was a weapon there and that therefore suicide was more likely than not. And you could swear to the absence of footprints — another point in favour of suicide. No, my dear girl, the murderer would cherish you as the apple of his eve.’

‘You’re right; he would. Always supposing he wanted the body found. Of course there are lots of reasons why he should want; it found. If he inherited under a will, for instance, and had to prove the death.’

‘I don’t fancy friend Alexis will have left much in his will. In fact, I’m pretty sure he didn’t. And there might be other reasons for wanting to tell the world he was dead.’