Chapter 17 #2
“Up on the cliffs. Andrew told me he was going up there with a bunch of bobbies to search for clues. He said I couldn’t go with them, so I took Popsy for a walk,” Miss Bellamy revealed defiantly.
“Naturally,” said Daisy with a smile of approval.
“We didn’t get in their way. But I saw one of the bobbies find a jacket, which I’m sure was that snake Enderby’s. It’s all very well for Daddy to say, ‘De mortuis nil nisi bonum,’ and not to be un-Christian, but he was a snake!”
“I know. What happened next?”
“They all hunted madly on hands and knees in the heather around where they found the jacket, and Andrew found something else, something small, but he won’t tell me what it was.”
“The rotter!”
“That’s what I said. I hoped you might know. Anyway, they all moved away towards the cliff edge. Of course Popsy was sniffing
around where they’d been crawling, but she wasn’t as interested as she would have been if they’d been other dogs, not till she found a rabbit-hole right by the main stem of a big clump of heather.
She started digging, and when I managed to haul her out, there was the earring caught in the ruff around her neck. Her fur is pretty shaggy there.”
Daisy glanced down at Popsy, who looked pretty shaggy all over. “What sort of earring?” she asked.
“Oh, a horribly vulgar dangly diamanté thing, all sparkly.”
“The height of fashion in London.”
“No, is it? Mother would never in a million years let me wear anything so flashy! Oh dear, I hope you don’t … ?”
“Not I. Did you give it to the police up there right away, or bring it down to Alec?”
“I was about to hand it over to the sergeant in charge up there when Andrew got all upset because I’d touched it and left my fingerprints on it.
It’s not as if I’m a burglar!” Miss Bellamy said indignantly.
“Ordinary people aren’t always thinking about fingerprints.
Mr. Fletcher said most men would have done just the same. ”
“Of course they would.”
“Well, Andrew took it from me with his blasted forceps—that’s why they didn’t take his fingerprints, which jolly well serves him right—and he tucked it away in an envelope and we brought it and the jacket down to Mr. Fletcher. And the other thing he found, as well, that he won’t talk about.”
“You have no idea what it is?”
“Not the foggiest. He wouldn’t even give me a hint. I do think men are sometimes the pink limit, don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” said Daisy. Which wasn’t really fair, because this time Alec had been far too grateful for the information to kick up a dust about how she had obtained it.
“Well, now,” said Inspector Mallow, “it’s a proper marvel what Mrs. Fletcher comes up with!”
Alec still was not sure whether Mallow was admiring or sarcastic. “If only half of what she told us is accurate, it’s of vital importance,” he pointed out.
“Pity she’s up and vanished, this Olive Coleman, if she really was there with Enderby.”
“We know he was with a woman. The earring and the condom were found in close association with the jacket identified as his by Nancy Enderby, who has half a dozen witnesses to give her an alibi. Mrs. Stebbins, who, I assure you, has only to open her mouth to stand out a mile in this part of the world, was recognized on the Abbotsford ferry and at the hotel.”
“And you yourself, sir, and Mrs. Fletcher were with Mrs. Anstruther. But who’s to tell how many other lady friends he had!”
“It’s possible, of course, but we already knew we were looking for a farmer’s daughter. Olive Coleman is our only prospect so far.”
“You reckon her dad chased her up on the cliffs then waited while Enderby had his way with her before he attacked?” Now Mallow’s scepticism was unmistakable.
“Highly unlikely,” Alec said dryly. “Remember that we have the story of Coleman chasing the girl from the house at third hand—Mrs. Coleman told Mrs. Hammett, who told my wife, who passed it on to us. Olive may have escaped him, though, and he continued searching till he came upon them by chance. However, we haven’t managed to eliminate any of the other male suspects. ”
The inspector ticked them off on his fingers.
“Stebbins claims he was working in his vegetable garden round the side of his cottage, where it’s quite credible none of the neighbours saw him.
Baskin may have been at the inn and on that ferry, but it’s the high season, lots of hikers and bicyclists about, and he’s not distinctive enough to be remembered.
And Anstruther may or may not have met young Mr. Wallace’s car when and where he says: Mr. Wallace vaguely recalls several bicyclists but paid no attention being as how he was concentrating on peculiar noises coming from his carburettor, which quit
half a mile outside Westcombe, making him arrive at his parents’ much later than intended.”
“But he was on the road where and when Anstruther claims to have seen him, and how would Anstruther have known that if he wasn’t there?” Alec promptly answered his own question: “He didn’t specify Rory Wallace’s car. We’d have had a hard time proving no grey or blue two-seater had passed that way.”
“Still, they’ve all got reasonable explanations, sir. Let’s see if Alfred Coleman does too. You want me to go and see him?”
Alec suppressed a shudder at the notion of introducing the man Daisy had described as a dropper of bombs into the already explosive situation at the Coleman farm. “No,” he said, “I’ll go.”