Chapter 26 #2
“There he is!” Eyes straining, Daisy had caught a glimpse of a white face as the light passed. “Back a bit. Down. There!”
Sid crouched on a rock shelf, clinging to a crack in the wall. The passing swell had drenched him. Water streamed from his clothes and hair. His face was turned towards the dinghy, his eyes closed against the blinding light.
“Throw un a belt and us’ll haul un in.”
The dinghy was bobbing in the backflow again, but Baxter’s throw was perfectly timed and placed. The white life-belt landed right beside Sid.
He flinched and backed away.
“Sid!” Daisy called, as the dinghy rose on the next swell. Her ears felt funny from the air pressure and her voice sounded strange.
The swell moved on and the beam of acetylene light steadied again on the floundering figure of the beachcomber. Somehow he was holding on. Scattered light showed the cork ring floating nearby, unreachable.
Swearing, Baxter pulled in the line. “Reckon us’ll have to go in after un?”
“Jimmy, turn the light on me for a moment. Sid! This is the lady on the beach, the one with the two little girls.” Boom! and a shower of spray. “We’ve come to help you. He’s throwing the belt again. You must catch it and put it over your head, put your arms through it. Hurry!”
The boat rose. Sid disappeared as the wave caught him. The light reflected off the dark water. Then his head reappeared, gasping.
“Keep that light out o’ his eyen, Jim!”
The light slid to one side, reflecting off the water, and once more Baxter flung the belt.
“Catch it, Sid! Put it on!”
Sid grabbed at the belt. Daisy thought it was slipping from his fingers, but he hung on. He crouched there holding it, uncertain.
Daisy yelled, “Sid, put it—” Boom! Jimmy flashed the light on her again, then back to Sid. “Put it over your head and under your arms. That’s right! And the other arm.”
“Best he come when the water’s high,” said Watson as another swell darkened the entrance. “Less like to knock on the rocks.”
As the dinghy rose, as the swell reached for Sid, Daisy shouted: “Jump! Now, Sid. Jump!”
At the same moment, Baxter yanked on the line. Whether deliberately or not, Sid was floundering in deep water, moving towards the boat, his instinctive dog-paddle aided by Baxter’s steady pull.
“Missus, over to this side, now. Careful!” Jimmy set down the lantern and crossed to join Baxter as Daisy scrambled the other way. Watson, his oars never still as he kept the boat in place, shifted along his bench towards Daisy.
Boom! and a shower of spray. The choppy backwash arrived just as Sid reached the dinghy.
He caught hold of the gunwale. The boat tilted, and Daisy automatically leant back over the water to balance it, gripping tight with fingers beginning to feel like icicles.
Baxter and Jimmy reached down to haul Sid aboard.
Daisy leant further back, very glad she was wearing a life-jacket.
Sid flopped onto the bottom boards and lay there coughing and shivering convulsively.
The next swell arrived as Baxter sat down on the second rowing bench and lifted his oars into the rowlocks.
Daisy thankfully—and carefully—moved to the stern, while Jimmy took the boathook to the bows.
He gave three tugs on their umbilical cord to the lifeboat. It tautened.
Oars beating time, the dinghy slid down the back of the swell and out into daylight.
“Baxter and Watson and Jimmy whatever-his-name-is all told Mr. Wallace they’d have had to go into the water after Sid if I hadn’t been there,” Daisy defended herself before Alec had a chance to open his mouth.
She was sitting up in bed, well wrapped in her dressing-gown and a shawl of Cecily’s, and well supplied with hot-water bottles.
Alec stood over her, glowering. “Great Scott, Daisy!”
“Daddy,” Belinda said anxiously, “Mummy’s a heroine. I heard people saying so, on the quay when the lifeboat came in, didn’t we, Deva?”
Deva nodded. “Everyone in the village came to see. It was a great occasion, like a festival in India. You were there, Mr. Fletcher, you must have heard them say Mrs. Fletcher was very brave.”
“Bat-witted!”
“Off you go, girls,” Daisy said hurriedly.
“You can come back later. Darling, please don’t rag me.
Try to imagine how I’d be feeling if Sid had drowned because I’d funked it.
It was … it was pretty terrifying in the cave, though I was too busy to worry about it at the time.
” In spite of all the aids to warmth, she shivered.
Sitting down on the bed beside her, Alec took her into his arms. “You’re a bat-witted little idiot,” he said, nuzzling her hair, “but I love you anyway. I was terrified too, you know, for you and the baby.”
“If I’d thought it might harm the baby, I might not have …
But after all the walking I’ve been doing, not to mention rushing up cliffs to report bodies, I’ve been feeling so well, it never crossed my mind.
I’m perfectly all right now, and Dr. Vernon says there’s no harm done. But what about poor Sid?”
“Sid’s as tough as boot leather from tramping the hills in all weathers. But Dr. Vernon has him under observation.”
“He must be so frightened!”
“He’s not keen on the doctor but he seems to trust Andrew Vernon, oddly enough. Apparently he’s once or twice presented young Vernon with tennis balls he found on the beach. Soggy and quite useless, of course, but Vernon paid him a few pennies for them.”
“Where is he?”
“At the doctor’s house. With a constable at the door. Daisy, Sid was seen right where and when Enderby went over.”
“By whom?” Daisy demanded.
“By Olive Coleman.”
“Did she say she saw Sid push Georgie Porgie over? She probably did it herself!”
“It’s possible, but I think she’s telling the truth. She says she ran away. She doesn’t claim to have seen Sid attack Enderby, which she might have done if she had wanted to shift the blame from herself.”
“Well, I’m sure he didn’t.”
“In that case, he probably saw whoever did, and the constable is there to protect him. Though if that’s the case, I don’t see how he’ll ever manage to tell us whom he saw.”
“Darling, let me talk to him. If you try to question him, he’ll just be too scared to attempt to explain what happened. Besides, you’d be limited to yes or no questions. You couldn’t count it as evidence if he did try to show you with gestures and actions, could you?”
“It’s debatable, certainly. That’s why I’ve asked Baskin to give me a hand.”
“Is he in the clear?”
“Yes, the hiker he gave the Anstruthers’ address to actually turned up on the doorstep this afternoon asking for a bed.”
“Good. I can’t help liking him, and he’s been so good to the girls.”
“Yes, I was happy to cross him off my list. He’s sent a wire to his friend in London, the one who’s an expert in teaching the deaf and dumb. The man’s coming down tomorrow to help us question Sid, but I want to get a preliminary interview this evening.”
Daisy threw back the bedclothes. “It’ll be much better if Mr. Baskin and I do that, honestly.”
“Baskin, yes. He seems to have established some rapport with Sid. He was very helpful in getting him from the lifeboat to the doctor’s, and he’s offered to give us a hand.”
“Only he and I. You’re a stranger and a policeman. You won’t get
anything out of poor Sid. Just your being there would be enough to stop him trying to communicate. Baskin can ask the questions and I’ll take notes in shorthand, on what he says and what Sid does.”
“Since neither of you is a police officer, that won’t do me much good.”
“But, darling, once he’s told us, he may not be nearly so shy of telling you. And at least you’ll know what happened, even if it doesn’t count as evidence.”
It took all her persuasive talents, and a good deal of time, but in the end she talked Alec round. If Baskin agreed, if she was good and stayed in bed till dinnertime, if Dr. Vernon said Sid was well enough, after dinner she and Baskin could tackle him.