Chapter 8 #2
Was it actually Enderby? He hadn’t taken much notice of the landlord of the Schooner last night until the man had been half strangled with his own tie.
The body’s face was unrecognizable. The thick thatch of sandy hair was the only distinguishing mark, a feature not so uncommon as to make it decisive in identification.
In fact, he had jumped to the conclusion that it was Enderby because when one has seen a man attacked by an avenging berserker one day, to find him dead the next cannot be regarded as entirely unexpected.
Daisy had not expected to enjoy the trek back up the cliff, but she found it even more trying than she had foreseen.
Before they were a quarter of the way up, her legs felt like lead and she was “glowing” like a blast-furnace (“Horses sweat, gentlemen perspire, ladies glow,” had been one of her nanny’s favourite sayings).
Maddeningly, the girls outpaced her without the least apparent effort.
When they reached the big boulder, they were a couple of hundred yards ahead of her. They stopped and looked back. Daisy prayed they were not going to make a fuss about passing it without Alec’s encouragement.
Belinda came back down the path. “Are you all right, Mummy?” she asked anxiously. “You look awfully hot.”
“I am. I wish I’d thought to have a drink before we left our picnic with Daddy, but if wishes were horses beggars would ride, as my nanny used to say.”
“So did my granny.” They exchanged a glance of complicity.
“It doesn’t stop one wishing, does it? I could do with a horse right now, or perhaps a mule would manage this path better. Failing that, I’ll just have to rely on Shanks’ pony. Onward and upward!”
“I’ll stay with you, in case you feel faint. You go first.”
“I’m not ill, darling, merely pregnant. I just need not to be rushed.”
“We’ll go slowly. I’m sorry we were going so fast before.” She hesitated. “You really are going to have a baby?”
“I really am. You guessed, didn’t you?”
“Deva heard you talking to Mrs. Prasad and Mrs. Germond about it.”
“Are you happy that you’re going to have a brother or sister?”
“Oh, yes, but actually, I’m so much older it’ll be more like being an aunt.”
Daisy had no quick answer to this, and she needed her breath for climbing, so they continued in silence until they caught up with Deva. The boulder was negotiated without difficullty.
A few yards beyond, Deva, in the lead, pointed ahead and said over her shoulder, “There is a flat place where you can sit and rest, Mrs. Fletcher. My ayah says English ladies are very hardy, but this is an awfully high cliff.”
“I hope there’s room for you to sit, too, Deva, though you’re getting pretty hardy yourself, after all the long walks we’ve dragged you on.”
“I didn’t think I’d like so much walking, but it’s been fun. And the pool down there was full of interesting creatures. It’s a pity Mr. Fletcher found a murdered man.”
“I didn’t say he was murdered!” With a sigh of relief, Daisy lowered herself to a patch of scrubby grass and the girls squeezed themselves in on each side. “I’m sure it was an accident.”
Deva shook her head. “Mr. Fletcher is a detective, so he’s bound to find people who have been murdered.”
Daisy didn’t feel up to refuting this tangled logic. “Well, that’s as may be,” she said, “but you are absolutely not to tell anyone it’s a case of murder.”
“If you do, Deva, they’ll make Daddy find the murderer and he won’t have any holiday.”
“I shan’t tell,” Deva promised.
After a few minutes they went on. As they moved higher, they began to feel a cooling breeze, which helped Daisy no end. The part that had been the roughest on the way down turned out to be less a walk than a scrambling climb on the way up. At least it used different
muscles from the upward plod, and the girls pushed and pulled Daisy over the biggest obstacles. Their solicitude was touching.
Staggering up the last, smooth stretch to the top, they all collapsed in the heather and lay breathing heavily for a while.
Then, “I’m dying of thirst,” said Deva.
“Daddy will be wondering when we’re going to send help,” said Belinda.
Daisy sat up. “I’m quite restored. Let’s go. It’s all downhill from here.”
That wasn’t quite true, but the upward slopes were short and gentle compared to the rugged hike up the cliff.
They found Daisy’s hat, not too much the worse for lying on the ground with a stone to hold it down.
Soon they were looking down on the inlet, then the beach and the guest-house came into view, and the village beyond.
When they reached the garden wall, Daisy said, “You two can go into the house or garden or down to the beach, but don’t on any account breathe a word to a soul about what’s happened.”
“What if someone asks where you are?” Deva wanted to know.
“Just tell them Mr. Fletcher and I will be back soon.”
“Oh no, Mummy,” said Belinda. “We’ll come with you. You’re going to see that horrid policeman who put poor Sid in prison, aren’t you? We’re coming too.”
Deva looked dismayed but resigned. Though Daisy wondered how Belinda proposed to protect her from the horrid policeman, she wondered silently.
Like Deva, she recognized Bel’s resolute tone.
Once her usually diffident stepdaughter had made up her mind, she was as impossible to budge as a bull elephant.
They went on along the path. The whole way, Daisy felt eyes on her back, as if Cecily Anstruther and her husband guessed her errand and watched her every move. Daisy even glanced back once, but of course the track was empty behind them.
The town was empty too, on a Sunday afternoon with all the shops closed, too early for evensong at the square-towered parish church, much too early for the pubs to open. Their footsteps on the
cobbles sounded loud as they trudged up the hill to the police station. The door stood open. The front room was empty.
“Sit down on that bench,” Daisy told the girls. She tapped the bell on the high counter.
The ping had no immediate effect. Daisy was about to give the bell a sharp thump when Mrs. Puckle bustled through from the back. “You’ll be wanting the constable?” she enquired.
“Yes, please.”
“Puckle is just sitting down to his tea, madam. ’Twouldn’t be urgent, would it?”
“I’m afraid it is,” Daisy apologized.
“Ah well, ’twon’t be the first time he’s had to let his tea go cold, not by a long shot. I’ll see he comes out to you right away, madam.”
She went off. A murmur of voices was followed by a loud, protesting “But, Martha … !”
“Now, Fred, ’tis your job to see what the lady wants.”
Constable Puckle came through, looking sulky as he shrugged into his uniform jacket. “Oh, it’s you”—sulkiness changed to annoyance—“madam. I let Sid out yes’day morning.”
“I know you did. This has nothing to do with him. My husband has found a body.”
Momentarily startled, he then gave her a long, sceptical look. “A body.”
“A dead person.”
“A dead person. And where is this husband o’ yourn? Why don’t he report this dead person hisself, like a good citizen?”
“Because,” said Daisy with all the patience she could muster, “like a good citizen he stayed with the body. In case anyone came by, to make sure they didn’t touch him. It’s at the bottom of the cliff in that little cove you have to climb down to—”
“So your husband stayed down in this tiny cove you have to climb down the cliff to get to, to keep chance passers-by away from this dead body he found … Sounds like a fairy-tale to me.”
Scarlet with fury, Belinda marched up to the counter. “It’s not a
fairy-tale. My father knows what to do when you find a body, because he’s a detective chief inspector at Scotland Yard. So there!”
Casting her an alarmed glance, Constable Puckle at last took out his notebook and found a pencil.
Daisy suppressed a sigh. Fat chance of keeping Alec out of the investigation now! Their holiday was doomed.