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    Have His Carcase
    Have His Carcase
    Have His Carcase
    Ebook632 pages10 hours

    Have His Carcase

    By Simon Winchester

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane investigate a dead body on the beach in this “nearly perfect detective story” by the author of Busman’s Honeymoon (Saturday Review).

    Harriet Vane has gone on vacation to forget her recent murder trial and, more importantly, to forget the man who cleared her name—the dapper, handsome, and maddening Lord Peter Wimsey. She is alone on a beach when she spies a man lying on a rock, surf lapping at his ankles. She tries to wake him, but he doesn’t budge. His throat has been cut, and his blood has drained out onto the sand.
     
    As the tide inches forward, Harriet makes what observations she can and photographs the scene. Finally, she goes for the police, but by the time they return the body has gone. Only one person can help her discover how the poor man died at the beach: Lord Peter, the amateur sleuth who won her freedom and her heart in one fell swoop.
     
    Have His Carcase is the 8th book in the Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, but you may enjoy the series by reading the books in any order.
     
    This ebook features an illustrated biography of Dorothy L. Sayers including rare images from the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateJul 31, 2012
    ISBN9781453258910
    Have His Carcase
    Author

    Simon Winchester

    Simon Winchester is the acclaimed author of many books, including The Professor and the Madman, The Men Who United the States, The Map That Changed the World, The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, and Krakatoa, all of which were New York Times bestsellers and appeared on numerous best and notable lists. In 2006, Winchester was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen. He resides in western Massachusetts.

    Read more from Simon Winchester

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    Reviews for Have His Carcase

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      Re-read. Harriet is on a walking holiday on the south coast when she comes across a dead body on a deserted rock on a beach. She takes advantage of her crime writer's experience to take note of the body, the location, state, the gloves, the pockets, the blood, remembers to take some pictures and remove some of the contents of the pockets to identify him. Good thing she does, as it then takes her quite some time to walk to civilisation and contact the authorities. She then contacts the newspaper with an exclusive and that brings Lord Peter Wimsey running to her side. Between them, they investigate. It gets difficult when the body seems to have vanished and doesn't turn up for some time. This is a fun read, as it progresses the relationship between Harriet & Peter, they bicker and banter and are on the high road to falling in love. A good read all round.
    • 4/5
      This mystery was good - not a straightforward, easy-to-solve one - but some parts lingered on for longer than I would have liked. I love codes and codebreaking, but even so, some of the discussions about solving the code were just way too long. The banter between Wimsey and Harriet was good. More of that, please!
    • 3/5
      An improvement on Five Red Herrings, mostly due to the interactions between Peter and Harriet. It still felt a bit "too clever" to me compared to some of the earlier books.
    • 4/5
      Many murder mysteries have been given odds titles, but “Have His Carcase” (1932) by Dorothy L. Sayers must be one of the oddest, at least for American readers. Yet for its time and place it is actually a very good title. Under British law, the Have-His-Carcase Act, you cannot hold an inquest into a death until you have a body.In this clever, always interesting novel, there is photographic evidence of a death, yet the body is swept out to sea by the tide, so for about half the book the sleuths, both professional and amateur, can only speculate.Mystery writer Harriet Vane, herself a murder suspect until cleared after the intervention of Lord Peter Wimsey in a previous novel, discovers a young man with his throat cut along the coast. She finds fresh blood and a razor, but no footprints in the sand other than hers and the victim's. Realizing the tide is coming in, she takes a few photographs and then leaves to summon helpThe body soon disappears, but Wimsey arrives, still trying to get Harriet to marry him. He believes it's a murder case, even through the local police and, eventually, the inquest say it's a suicide.The victim had supported himself by dancing with wealthy older women at a nearby hotel. One of these women says the man had promised to marry her.Other than the missing body, the case's other major complication is that two men, including this woman's son, had been behaving suspiciously, but both have ironclad alibis for the time of the murder. But if they didn't murder the man, who did?When I devoured the Dorothy L. Sayers mysteries back in the late Sixties and early Seventies, I considered “Have His Carcase” my favorite. This rereading doesn't change my opinion.
    • 4/5
      Another romp of a “Golden Age” detective story, gently poking fun at the complexity of the detective tradition with great good humour. I got lost and skipped parts of the chapter concerning the detailed solving of a cipher, but otherwise the story moved apace with wonderful period detail. I enjoyed references to (now vintage) cars, the (Lyons) Corner House at Piccadilly and the gold standard (published in 1932, the book was written before Britain came off the gold standard in 1931). But I especially enjoyed the descriptions of the hotels, guest houses, Winter Gardens and evening dancing, with professional partners.Sayers delights in describing her detective hero, Lord Peter Wimsey, and heroine, Harriet Vane:“Wimsey was lingering lovingly over his bacon and eggs, so as to leave no restless and unfilled moment in his morning. By which it may be seen that his lordship had reached that time of life when a man can draw an Epicurean enjoyment even from his own passions - the halcyon period between the self-tormenting exuberance of youth and the fretful carpe diem of approaching senility.”
    • 5/5
      Enjoyed this very much on the first read, lo those many years ago.

      Re-read as audio book -- quite disappointing, as it turned out to be a full cast BBC reading instead of the excellent Ian Carmichael, and I'm pretty sure it was also abridged. Still, the mystery is good, and Harriet and Peter relating to each other as humans and sleuths was delightful.
    • 4/5
      Whimsy and Harriet Vane work together to solve another murder she's stumbled upon. I love their conversations, which are both natural and incredibly witty. There are some misunderstandings between them, but it is so obvious that they belong together that I squee whenever they're on the same page. Contains some great quotes about relationships, including "But you must remember that one may have an important love for an unimportant person." As to the mystery, I had the key fact figured out within like 10 pages, so eh. Sayers, get more ingenius!
    • 4/5
      Decided to revisit the whole series starting with no. one. Like seeing old friends again.
    • 5/5
      I believe this was the first Peter Wimsey novel I read, in a copy belonging to my parents. I was drawn in by the pseudo-Ruritanian plot (as I loved and still love Ruritanian adventures) ; at the time I knew nothing of the novel's place in the whole Wimsey-Vane saga. I have seen a critic refer to this books "longeurs" but actually I think it gets off to a faster start than several of the others and has some interesting twists.
    • 4/5
      Harriet Vane, on a walking holiday, discovers a body on a rock about to be washed away by the tide. She examines and photographs it. The police have to decide if it was suicide or murder (the body is eventually recovered) and Sir Peter Wimsey travels down to assist and vouch for Harriet. Overall very enjoyable, especially the relationship between Harriet and Peter. The plot is pretty convoluted and far-fetched, but it moves along briskly for the most part, although I did skim various paragraphs about timings and horses and speeds and skipped an entire chapter in which a cipher is broken. Bunter shadowing a suspect was a lovely chapter. My enjoyment was slightly marred by the fact that my copy is missing four pages and I somehow managed to remember the fact which is the key to the whole thing from the last time I read it, about 25 years ago!
    • 4/5
      While on a seaside holiday, detective writer Harriet Vane discovers a body on a secluded shore. With no help in site, Harriet does the best she can to document the scene and the condition of the body before the tide washes it away. This event naturally makes news headlines, and it doesn’t take long for Lord Peter Wimsey to appear. He is still in love with Harriet, and she still refuses every proposal (although some thawing is becoming evident). Who was the dead man? Did he commit suicide, or was he murdered? If he was murdered, how did the murderer come and go without leaving a trace, and without being seen by Harriet?I love the developing relationship between Wimsey and Harriet, but there wasn’t enough of it to compensate for a pace that drags in places. Agatha Christie sets the standard for me. Christie focuses on character and dialogue, resulting in shorter and better paced novels. Sayers focuses more on the intricacies of the plot and on her characters’ thoughts and observations, resulting in longer and slower-paced novels.
    • 4/5
      Another good mystery featuring Wimsey and Vane. Not quite as good as Strong Poison, perhaps, but still a nice read with some very amusing moments.
    • 4/5
      Harriet Vane stumbles upon a body along the seaside but suspects it may wash out to sea before police can arrive. The inspector needs her to remain until the body can be located. Vane photographed and collected evidence before she set out to get help, knowing things could be lost. Lord Peter shows up. He, Harriet, and the inspector investigate, but, of course, Harriet and Lord Peter come up with the solution. The full-cast dramatisation by BBC Radio was quite enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      Once the solution is known, this book stands up less well than any to re-reading. I so often wanted to bash LPW&HV for not figuring it out chapters earlier, and really didn't enjoy the rotten lots and the rotten attitudes which filled the majority of those chapters. It's full of cleverness, of course, and making games, rhymes and puzzles of bits is so literary, but to me, quite unreal.
    • 5/5
      Harriet and Peter meet again - this time when Harriet, on a walking tour, discovers the body of a freshly dead young man with his throat cut. Was it murder or suicide? Was it a Bolshevik plot or was there a more personal motive tied up with his marriage plans with a wealthy widow many years his senior? The clues are all there, but the time frame won't fit no matter how hard the detectives try. Good fun, good characterisation, and the next step in Peter and Harriet's burgeoning relationship. Some very clever code breaking too but you can skim read the details and not miss much. You could read this as a stand alone but it's better if you have at least read "Strong Poison" from the earlier works.
    • 5/5
      The First of the Fabulous Final Five WimseysReview of the Hodder & Stoughton paperback edition (2016) (with an Introduction by Lee Child) of the 1932 original Wo then to whom I shall discover hereLoitering among the tents, let him escapeMy vengeance if he can. The vulture's mawShall have his carcase, and the dogs his bones.- Book II, The Iliad, translated by [author:William Cowper|352881] (1791)
    • 4/5
      Have His Carcase by Dorothy Sayers is the seventh book in her Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series and I enjoyed this one a great deal. Harriet Vane moves front and center in this story as she discovers a dead body on a beach. The second he hears of this, Lord Peter is there is assist her and ferret out the truth - is this suicide or a murder?An entertaining puzzler that moves Harriet and Lord Peter’s relationship along. He is still throwing marriage proposals at her and she is still refusing but, the reader can’t escape that sparks are flying between these two and it is pretty obvious that the lady is on the cusp of falling in love. The mystery was intricate and inventive. The banter between Lord Peter and Harriet was crisp, funny and irresistible. These two characters are made to be together and I look forward to reading more about them.I have enjoyed all of the Lord Peter mysteries but I would have to say Have His Carcase is my favorite one so far. This complex mystery combined with it’s charming romance made for a delightful read.
    • 3/5
      I wonder if I should create a cosy or comfy shelf? For the e-books, anyway. I know where I keep my comfort hard copies.

      I find I skip the technical parts of detective stories like this (the railway timetable sections - though in this one it's several pages of deciphering secret letters) much as I used to skip the technical descriptions in Golden Age science fiction. Oh, Doc Smith, you were always a fast read!

      Anyway, long passages of detail aside, there's the slow progress of a witty romance and a mystery I thought I'd got but there was always another ludicrous twist.
    • 4/5
      A glorious return to form after the painful Five Red Herrings nearly halted my obsessive devouring of this series. Alas! No Miss Climpson, but we've got Harriet Vane to make up for it. I like the Vane/Wimsey duo because it adds an interesting element of actual character development to the detective romping. The mystery element of the books is also stronger with Miss Vane present because she serves as a sounding board for Lord P.--there's a lot less of the climactic "all is revealed!" explication of the crime; through Harriet's interactions with Peter Sayers actually shows a bit of the thought process behind the detecting, which is much more fun.

      I desperately want the next book after so thoroughly enjoying this one but it is not to be found anywhere in Western Colorado. I may have to break down and order from the internet. These books are the best kind of comfort reading: witty and wonderful, light enough to decrease stress but intelligent enough to give sustenance.
    • 4/5
      Funny, romantic, psychologically complex, and a really good (if somewhat out there) mystery! One of my favorites in the series.
    • 4/5
      I'm a fan of Harriet, and the counterpoint between her and Wimsey kept the story going. I'm not entirely sure I'm in love with their romance, but a pair of well-matched detectives is better than just one. And the central assumption that sets up the whole rigmarole was very clever - I'm not quite sure how scientific it is, but it seemed plausible enough to me.
    • 4/5
      I had no idea what was going on for most of this book. The relationship between Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane was delightful -- some of their conversations made me grin from ear to ear in a most undignified way, and I love the character of Harriet. But the mystery... so much complication, and the pages on pages of discussion of how to crack the code didn't help.

      Bunter gets a chance to shine too, which I liked a lot. Of course, there was very little of Parker, which balanced that pleasure. I love all the recurring characters!

      More interesting than Five Red Herrings, to me, by virtue of being more emotionally engaging. But both mystery plots were a wee bit impenetrable, with the missing information in each of them.
    • 4/5
      Having been found innocent of murder, thanks to Lord Peter Wimsey, Harriet takes off on a walking tour of the south coast of England. She falls asleep on the beach reading Tristram Shandy (I did too, although not on the beach, when I tried to follow her example), and wakes up to find a dead body. She manages to photograph it before the tide carries it out to sea, and then she and Peter set out to find out who it was and how he died.What makes this a good book is not so much the mystery, but the growing relationship between Peter and Harriet. Sayers gives Harriet a distinct personality and style that nicely complement Peter's, and Peter begins to come down to earth a bit. There were contemporaneous complaints that he was losing his elfin charm, but Sayers rather sharply said that at his age, if he had elfin charm he should be locked in a lethal chamber. Watching the two of them adjust to each other, and watching their minds work and seeing how well their different styles mesh is simply a delight.
    • 5/5
      Where I got the book: my bookshelf. Continuing my re-read of the Wimsey books.The plot: novelist Harriet Vane takes a walking vacation along the south coast of England to work on the plot of her latest murder mystery, but finds the body of a young man instead. Her suitor Lord Peter Wimsey is quickly on the scene, but the investigators are puzzled. All the signs seem to point to a particular perpetrator, but his alibi for the time of death is rock solid. Something is wrong with the picture--but what?Having waded through Five Red Herrings, I now feel like I'm on the downhill slope of this reading marathon. And what delights are before me--Have His Carcase, Murder Must Advertise, The Nine Tailors and Gaudy Night are, imho, the Golden Age of the Wimsey books. Sayers simply seems to hit her stride with Have His Carcase and the energy doesn't quit till Busman's Honeymoon, where Wimsey and Vane simply become too quotation-ridden to be believable. One of the beauties of Have His Carcase is the introduction of the inside of Harriet Vane's head, which is a delightfully down-to-earth counterpart to Wimsey's flights of fancy. She is practical, forthright and yet never overly wonderful--her insecurities and mistakes are laid bare for all to see, and she's definitely not always reasonable where Wimsey is concerned. The introduction of a fully-rounded character into the Wimsey books forces Sayers to make Wimsey himself more vulnerable, even as the list of his accomplishments stretches toward the exaggerated.The only place where my attention flags a bit in this book is the long explanation of the code-cracking, although it is very clever and no doubt puzzle buffs must thoroughly enjoy it. I noticed, for the first time, that my 1977 edition was typeset the old-fashioned way, making the code grids rather wobbly. I'm so glad I kept it, because it reminds me of how books used to be before all this newfangled computer stuff came in. I would truly like to own the yellow-jacketed Gollancz hardbacks (the form in which I discovered the series, in my school library) but I imagine they are collector's items and priced accordingly.If I thought really hard about this novel I would probably discover its flaws; Sayers herself cheerfully admitted that she screwed up sometimes. But I was too busy reading it...
    • 4/5
      I’ve been reading my way, slowly but surely, through the Lord Peter Wimsey series for about 4 years now—not necessarily in series order, since I started with Murder Must Advertise.Have His Carcase opens with the mystery writer Harriet Vane, who, on a walking tour, discovers a dead body lying on a rock. The murdered man is a Russian emigrant and a dancing teacher at a local hotel who may or may not have been associated with Bolsheviks. Naturally, Lord Peter is interested in the case, and he makes haste to join Harriet Vane to solve the mystery (with periodic marriage proposals). However, once the tide comes in, the body is swept out to see, leaving the two detectives with a mystery but no physical evidence.Dorothy Sayers was the queen of sharp, smart mystery stories. On the surface they’re straightforward police procedurals that happen to have a rich dilettante as the detective. But her stories are much more than that—Sayers understands human motives better than most detective writers I’ve read. The Lord Peter Winsey series is better, I think, with the addition of Harriet, who is Lord Peter’s equal in terms of wit and intelligence. I love watching the banter and barely-concealed sexual tension between the two of them as they tried to solve the murder. Dorothy Sayers doesn’t insult her reader with endless exposition, or a scene at the ending in which the villain conveniently reveals all. She is a master of the genre because of her subtlety in writing.What’s interesting about this case is the lack of physical evidence—if Harriet hadn’t seen the body and taken photographs, it’s almost as though the murder might not have taken place at all (if a tree falls in a forest, does it make a noise?). Have His Carcase is another really strong addition to this series, but if you’re new to the series, I’d try another one of her books first to gain more background on the recurring characters.
    • 5/5
      The second Harriet Vane novel, in which Harriet finds what appears to be a fresh corpse on a deserted beach, she and Wimsey investigate, and the two of them develop their prickly and cautious relationship.
    • 4/5
      As I've been rereading the Sayers' novels, I keep noticing how overly complex the plots are and this is one that rivals The Five Red Herrings for twists and turns. Harriet Vane is on a walking tour of the coast of England and finds a body on a beach, takes pictures of it and then it disappears. Peter Whimsey comes down and they work with the police to solve the case but every new piece of information creates more confusion. The final reveal is simple and clever but the true joy of this novel is seeing the growing partnership between Vane and Whimsey. Their dialogue and interactions feel true of two people who are trying to understand who they are and might be with each other. This book is best read after Strong Poison and before Gaudy Night to see the progression of Vane and Whimsey's romance.
    • 3/5
      The sustaining power of Dorothy Sayers English mysteries continues to be the interesting chemistry between Lord Peter Wimsey, the sensitive yet formidable solver of murder and Harriet Vane, a writer of mysteries and the object of Lord Peter's affections. The plot is complicated with numerous rabbit holes being examined by Lord Peter, Harriet and an ample assortment of policemen, detectives and junior detectives, all trying to discover why a Russian emigre gigolo was found murdered on a lonely, English beach. Along with these experts, we are confronted with codes, false identities, disguises, tides, Bolsheviks, pretenders to thrones, secret letters and uncooperative fishermen. To sift truth from falsehood we have the analytical minds of Lord Peter and Harriet sometimes in harmony and sometimes at odds working together with the competent village constabulary.The language, settings and cultural mannerisms are interesting in displaying the character of 1920's England. The plot, though intricate, is frequently updated by the author in case the reader has lost a thread. Written by an author who shared her Victorian worldview through the thoughts and actions of her honest and courteous heros. A mystery of still enduring interest.
    • 4/5
      I haven't read the Lord Peter Wimsey series systematically and in order. My first was Gaudy Night, which I adored and would rank five stars. I wouldn't myself recommend starting there, because I think readers would enjoy following the development of the romance between Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane from its beginning in Strong Poison, the sixth book. This book begins with Harriet, still somewhat shaken by the events of that book, and definitely not intending to comfort herself on the "manly bosom" of Wimsey even though he'd eagerly offer it. There's a feminist subtext there from the beginning I think I enjoyed all the more knowing this was published in 1932. The mystery from internal evidence seems set in the preceding year, in a time between wars where relations between the sexes had undergone a revolution. I found striking this passage in an early chapter regarding women in a ballroom in old-fashioned regalia:The slender-seeming waists were made so, not by savage tight-lacing, but by sheer expensive dressmaking. Tomorrow, on the tennis court, the short, loose tunic-frock would reveal them as the waists of muscular young women of the day, despising all bonds. And the sidelong glances, the downcast eyes, the mock-modesty--masks only.... A quite different kind of womanliness--set on a basis of economic independence.Harriet Vane is a very modern woman--and that's definitely part of the appeal. And Lord Peter Wimsey is a charmer, and underneath the upper-class dandy there's a keen mind--someone who could truly partner her even if she can't yet see it. The beginnings of attraction are hinted at here in her not quite being able to keep her mind off him, in noticing nicely broad shoulders and well-turned calves. There's a sharp wit and humor in the narrative that mostly keeps things bubbling along and since Harriet Vane is herself a mystery novelist, there is some sly twitting at the conventions of the genre.If there's anything here not first rate, it's the mystery itself. Which isn't bad--I don't see yawing holes, but the convoluted scheme does rather strain credibility without quite having a Christie-worthy jaw-dropping resolution. But it did keep me guessing. Some parts dragged for me a bit--especially all the stuff about the ciphers. All in all in my opinion a much stronger novel than the first Wimsey, Whose Body? but not as wonderful as Gaudy Night, yet still an overall engaging read.
    • 4/5
      Ha, ha, ha another great Dorothy Sayers ending. The problem is that after listening to about 5 of these Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, I'm getting a little tired of all the convolutions getting to that great ending. My advice, don't listen to too many of these at once. Separate them by a few months and you'll probably find them witty and entertaining and of course, informative.

    Book preview

    Have His Carcase - Simon Winchester

    Have His Carcase

    A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery

    Dorothy L. Sayers

    NOTE

    In The Five Red Herrings, the plot was invented to fit a real locality; in this book, the locality has been invented to fit the plot. Both places and people are entirely imaginary.

    All the quotations at the chapter heads have been taken from T. L. Beddoes.

    My grateful acknowledgments are due to Mr John Rhode, who gave me generous help with all the hard bits.

    DOROTHY L. SAYERS

    CONTENTS

    I. The Evidence of the Corpse

    II. The Evidence of the Road

    III. The Evidence of the Hotel

    IV. The Evidence of the Razor

    V. The Evidence of the Betrothed

    VI. The Evidence of the First Barber

    VII. The Evidence of the Gigolos

    VIII. The Evidence of the Second Barber

    IX. The Evidence of the Flat-Iron

    X. The Evidence of the Police-Inspector

    XI. The Evidence of the Fisherman

    XII. The Evidence of the Bride’s Son

    XIII. Evidence of Trouble Somewhere

    IX. The Evidence of the Third Barber

    XV. The Evidence of the Ladylove and the Landlady

    XVI. The Evidence of the Sands

    XVII. The Evidence of the Money

    XVI. The Evidence of the Snake

    XIX. The Evidence of the Disguised Motorist

    XX. The Evidence of the Lady in the Car

    XXI. The Evidence at the Inquest

    XXII. The Evidence of the Mannequin

    XXIII. The Evidence of the Theatrical Agent

    XXIV. The Evidence of the L.C.C. Teacher

    XXV. The Evidence of the Dictionary

    XXVI. The Evidence of the Bay Mare

    XXVII. The Evidence of the Fisherman’s Grandson

    XXVIII. The Evidence of the Cipher

    XXIX. The Evidence of the Letter

    XXX. The Evidence of the Gentleman’s Gentleman

    XXXI. The Evidence of the Haberdasher’s Assistant

    XXXII. The Evidence of the Family Tree

    XXXIII. Evidence of What Should Have Happened

    XXXIV. Evidence of What Did Happen

    Preview: Hangman's Holiday

    A Biography of Dorothy Sayers

    CHAPTER I

    THE EVIDENCE OF THE CORPSE

    ‘The track was slippery with spouting blood.’

    Rodolph

    THURSDAY, 18 JUNE

    THE BEST REMEDY FOR a bruised heart is not, as so many people seem to think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth. After being acquitted of murdering her lover, and, indeed, in consequence of that acquittal, Harriet Vane found all three specifics abundantly at her disposal; and although Lord Peter Wimsey, with a touching faith in tradition, persisted day in and day out in presenting the bosom for her approval, she showed no inclination to recline upon it.

    Work she had in abundance. To be tried for murder is a fairly good advertisement for a writer of detective fiction. Harriet Vane thrillers were booming. She had signed up sensational contracts in both continents, and found herself, consequently, a very much richer woman than she had ever dreamed of becoming. In the interval between finishing Murder by Degrees and embarking on The Fountain-Pen Mystery, she had started off on a solitary walking-tour: plenty of exercise, no responsibilities and no letters forwarded. The time was June, the weather, perfect; and if she now and again gave a thought to Lord Peter Wimsey diligently ringing up an empty flat, it did not trouble her, or cause her to alter her steady course along the south-west coast of England.

    On the morning of the 18th June, she set out from Lesston Hoe with the intention of walking along the cliffs to Wilvercombe, sixteen miles away. Not that she particularly looked forward to Wilvercombe, with its seasonal population of old ladies and invalids and its subdued attempts at the gay life, seeming somehow themselves all a little invalid and old-ladyish. But the town made a convenient objective, and one could always choose some more rural spot for a night’s lodging. The coast-road ran pleasantly at the top of a low range of cliffs, from which she could look down upon the long yellow stretch of the beach, broken here and there by scattered rocks, which rose successively, glistening in the sunlight, from the reluctant and withdrawing tide.

    Overhead, the sky arched up to an immense dome of blue, just fretted here and there with faint white clouds, very high and filmy. The wind blew from the west, very softly, though the weather-wise might have detected in it a tendency to freshen. The road, narrow and in poor repair, was almost deserted, all the heavy traffic passing by the wider arterial road which ran importantly inland from town to town, despising the windings of the coast with its few scattered hamlets. Here and there a driver passed her with his dog, man and beast alike indifferent and preoccupied; here and there a couple of horses out at grass lifted shy and foolish eyes to look after her; here and there a herd of cows, rasping their jawbones upon a stone wall, greeted her with heavy snufflings. From time to time the white sail of a fishing-boat broke the seaward horizon. Except for an occasional tradesman’s van, or a dilapidated Morris, and the intermittent appearance of white smoke from a distant railway-engine, the landscape was as rural and solitary as it might have been two hundred years before.

    Harriet walked sturdily onwards, the light pack upon her shoulders interfering little with her progress. She was twenty-eight years old, dark, slight, with a skin naturally a little sallow, but now tanned to an agreeable biscuit-colour by sun and wind. Persons of this fortunate complexion are not troubled by midges and sunburn, and Harriet, though not too old to care for her personal appearance, was old enough to prefer convenience to outward display. Consequently, her luggage was not burdened by skin-creams, insect-lotion, silk frocks, portable electric irons or other impedimenta beloved of the ‘Hikers’ Column’. She was dressed sensibly in a short skirt and thin sweater and carried, in addition to a change of linen and an extra provision of footwear, little else beyond a pocket edition of Tristram Shandy, a vest-pocket camera, a small first-aid outfit and a sandwich lunch.

    It was about a quarter to one when the matter of the lunch began to loom up importantly in Harriet’s mind. She had come about eight miles on her way to Wilvercombe, having taken things easily and made a detour to inspect certain Roman remains declared by the guide-book to be ‘of considerable interest’. She began to feel both weary and hungry, and looked about her for a suitable lunching-place.

    The tide was nearly out now, and the wet beach shimmered golden and silvery in the lazy noonlight. It would be pleasant, she thought, to go down to the shore—possibly even to bathe, though she did not feel too certain about that, having a wholesome dread of unknown shores and eccentric currents. Still, there was no harm in going to see. She stepped over the low wall which bounded the road on the seaward side and set about looking for a way down. A short scramble among the rocks tufted with scabious and sea-pink brought her easily down to the beach. She found herself in a small cove, comfortably screened from the wind by an outstanding mass of cliff, and with a few convenient boulders against which to sit. She selected the cosiest spot, drew out her lunch and Tristram Shandy, and settled down.

    There is no more powerful lure to slumber than hot sunshine on a sea-beach after lunch; nor is the pace of Tristram Shandy so swift as to keep the faculties working at high pressure. Harriet found the book escaping from her fingers.

    Twice she caught it back with a jerk; the third time it eluded her altogether. Her head drooped over at an unbecoming angle. She dozed off.

    She was awakened suddenly by what seemed to be a shout or cry almost in her ear. As she sat up, blinking, a gull swooped close over her head, squawking and hovering over a stray fragment of sandwich. She shook herself reprovingly and glanced at her wrist-watch. It was two o’clock. Realising with satisfaction that she could not have slept very long, she scrambled to her feet, and shook the crumbs from her lap. Even now, she did not feel very energetic, and there was plenty of time to make Wilvercombe before evening. She glanced out to sea, where a long belt of shingle and a narrow strip of virgin and shining sand stretched down to the edge of the water.

    There is something about virgin sand which arouses all the worst instincts of the detective-story writer. One feels an irresistible impulse to go and make footprints all over it. The excuse which the professional mind makes to itself is that the sand affords a grand opportunity for observation and experiment. Harriet was no stranger to this impulse. She determined to walk out across that tempting strip of sand. She gathered her various belongings together and started off across the loose shingle, observing, as she had often observed before, that footsteps left no distinguishable traces in the arid region above high-water mark.

    Soon, a little belt of broken shells and half-dry seaweed showed, that the tide-mark had been reached.

    ‘I wonder,’ said Harriet to herself, ‘whether I ought to be able to deduce something or other about the state of the tides. Let me see. When the tide is at neaps, it doesn’t rise or fall so far as when it is at springs. Therefore, if that is the case, there ought to be two seaweedy marks—one quite dry and farther in, showing the highest point of spring tides, and one damper and farther down, showing today’s best effort.’ She glanced backwards and forwards. No; this is the only tide-mark. I deduce, therefore, that I have arrived somewhere about the top of springs, if that’s the proper phrase. Perfectly simple, my dear Watson. Below tide-mark, I begin to make definite footprints. There are no others anywhere, so that I must be the only person who has patronised this beach since last high tide, which would be about—ah! yes, there’s the difficulty. I know there should be about twelve hours between one high tide and the next, but I haven’t the foggiest notion whether the sea is coming in or going out. Still, I do know it was going out most of the time as I came along, and it looks a long way off now. If I say that nobody has been here for the last five hours I shan’t be far out. I’m making very pretty footprints now, and the sand is, naturally, getting wetter. I’ll see how it looks when I run.’

    She capered a few paces accordingly, noticing the greater depth of the toe-prints and the little spurt of sand thrown out at each step. This outburst of energy brought her round the point of the cliff and into a much larger bay, the only striking feature of which was a good-sized rock, standing down at the sea’s edge, on the other side of the point. It was roughly triangular in shape, standing about ten feet out of the water, and seemed to be crowned with a curious lump of black seaweed.

    A solitary rock is always attractive. All right-minded people feel an overwhelming desire to scale and sit upon it. Harriet made for it without any mental argument, trying to draw a few deductions as she went.

    ‘Is that rock covered at high tide? Yes, of course, or it wouldn’t have seaweed on top. Besides, the slope of the shore proves it. I wish I was better at distances and angles, but I should say it would be covered pretty deep. How odd that it should have seaweed only in that lump at the top. You’d expect it to be at the foot, but the sides seem quite bare, nearly down to the water. I suppose it is seaweed. It’s very peculiar. It looks almost more like a man lying down; is it possible for seaweed to be so very—well, so very localised?’

    She gazed at the rock with a faint stirring of curiosity, and went on talking aloud to herself, as was her rather irritating habit.

    ‘I’m dashed if it isn’t a man lying down. What a silly place to choose. He must feel like a bannock on a hot girdle. I could understand it if he was a sun-bathing fan, but he seems to have got all his clothes on. A dark suit at that. He’s very quiet. He’s probably fallen asleep. If the tide comes in at all fast, he’ll be cut off, like the people in the silly magazine stories. Well, I’m not going to rescue him. He’ll have to take his socks off and paddle, that’s all. There’s plenty of time yet.’

    She hesitated whether to go on down to the rock. She did not want to wake the sleeper and be beguiled into conversation. Not but what he would prove to be some perfectly harmless tripper. But he would certainly be somebody quite uninteresting. She went on, however, meditating, and drawing a few more deductions by way of practice.

    ‘He must be a tripper. Local inhabitants don’t take their siestas on rocks. They retire indoors and shut all the windows. And he can’t be a fisherman or anything of that kind; they don’t waste time snoozing. Only the black-coated brigade does that. Let’s call him a tradesman or a bank-clerk. But then they usually take their holidays complete with family. This is a solitary sort of fowl. A schoolmaster? No. Schoolmasters don’t get off the lead till the end of July. How about a college undergraduate? It’s only just the end of term. A gentleman of no particular occupation, apparently. Possibly a walking tourist like myself—but the costume doesn’t look right.’ She had come nearer now and could see the sleeper’s dark blue suit quite plainly. ‘Well, I can’t place him, but no doubt Dr Thorndyke would do so at once. Oh, of course! How stupid! He must be a literary bloke of some kind. They moon about and don’t let their families bother them.’

    She was within a few yards of the rock now, gazing up at the sleeper. He lay uncomfortably bunched up on the extreme seaward edge of the rock, his knees drawn high and showing his pale mauve socks. The head, tucked closely down between the shoulders, was invisible.

    ‘What a way to sleep,’ said Harriet. ‘More like a cat than a human being. It’s not natural. His head must be almost hanging over the edge. It’s enough to give him apoplexy. Now, if I had any luck, he’d be a corpse, and I should report him and get my name in the papers. That would be something like publicity. Well-known Woman Detective-Writer Finds Mystery Corpse on Lonely Shore. But these things never happen to authors. It’s always some placid labourer or night-watchman who finds corpses. …’

    The rock lay tilted like a gigantic wedge of cake, its base standing steeply up to seaward, its surface sloping gently back to where its apex entered the sand. Harriet climbed up over its smooth, dry surface till she stood almost directly over the man. He did not move at all. Something impelled her to address him.

    ‘Oy!’ she said, protestingly.

    There was neither movement nor reply.

    ‘I’d just as soon he didn’t wake up,’ thought Harriet. ‘I can’t imagine what I’m shouting for. Oy!’

    ‘Perhaps he’s in a fit or a faint,’ she said to herself. ‘Or he’s got sunstroke. That’s quite likely. It’s very hot.’ She looked up, blinking, at the brazen sky, then stooped and laid one hand on the surface of the rock. It almost burnt her. She shouted again, and then, bending over the man, seized his shoulder.

    ‘Are you all right?’

    The man said nothing and she pulled upon the shoulder. It shifted slightly—a dead weight. She bent over and gently lifted the man’s head.

    Harriet’s luck was in.

    It was a corpse. Not the sort of corpse there would be any doubt about, either. Mr Samuel Weare of Lyons Inn, whose throat they cut from ear to ear, could not have been more indubitably a corpse. Indeed, if the head did not come off in Harriet’s hands, it was only because the spine was intact, for the larynx and all the great vessels of the neck had been severed ‘to the hause bone’, and a frightful stream, bright red and glistening, was running over the surface of the rock and dripping into a little hollow below.

    Harriet put the head down again and felt suddenly sick. She had written often enough about this kind of corpse, but meeting the thing in the flesh was quite different. She had not realised how butchery the severed vessels would look, and she had not reckoned with the horrid halitus of blood, which streamed to her nostrils under the blazing sun. Her hands were red and wet. She looked down at her dress. That had escaped, thank goodness. Mechanically, she stepped down again from the rock and went round to the edge of the sea. There she washed her fingers over and over again, drying them with ridiculous care upon her handkerchief. She did not like the look of the red trickle that dripped down the face of the rock into the clear water. Retreating, she sat down rather hastily on some loose boulders.

    ‘A dead body,’ said Harriet, aloud to the sun and the seagulls. ‘A dead body. How—how appropriate!’ She laughed.

    ‘The great thing,’ Harriet found herself saying, after a pause, ‘the great thing is to keep cool. Keep your head, my girl. What would Lord Peter Wimsey do in such a case? Or, of course, Robert Templeton?’

    Robert Templeton was the hero who diligently detected between the covers of her own books. She dismissed the image of Lord Peter Wimsey from her mind, and concentrated on that of Robert Templeton. The latter was a gentleman of extraordinary scientific skill, combined with almost fabulous muscular development. He had arms like an orangoutang and an ugly but attractive face. She conjured up his phantom before her in the suit of rather loud plus-fours with which she was accustomed to invest him, and took counsel with him in spirit.

    Robert Templeton, she felt, would at once ask himself, ‘Is it Murder or Suicide?’ He would immediately, she supposed, dismiss the idea of an accident. Accidents of that sort do not happen. Robert Templeton would carefully examine the body, and pronounce—

    Quite so; Robert Templeton would examine the body. He was, indeed, notorious for the sang-froid with which he examined bodies of the most repulsive description. Bodies reduced to boneless jelly by falling from aeroplanes; bodies charred into ‘unrecognisable lumps’ by fire; bodies run over by heavy vehicles, and needing to be scraped from the road with shovels—Robert Templeton was accustomed to examine them all, without turning a hair. Harriet felt that she had never fully appreciated the superb nonchalance of her literary offspring.

    Of course, any ordinary person, who was not a Robert Templeton, would leave the body alone and run for the police. But there were no police. There was not a man, woman or child within sight; only a small fishing-boat, standing out to sea some distance away. Harriet waved wildly in its direction, but its occupants either did not see her or supposed that she was merely doing some kind of reducing exercise. Probably their own sail cut off their view of the shore, for they were tacking up into the wind, with the vessel lying well over. Harriet shouted, but her voice was lost amid the crying of the gulls.

    As she stood, hopelessly calling, she felt a wet touch on her foot. The tide had undoubtedly turned, and was coming in fast. Quite suddenly, this fact registered itself in her mind and seemed to clear her brain completely.

    She was, as she reckoned, at least eight miles from Wilvercombe, which was the nearest town. There might be a few scattered houses on the road, but they would probably belong to fishermen, and ten to one she would find nobody at home but women and children, who would be useless in the emergency. By the time she had hunted up the men and brought them down to the shore, the sea would very likely have covered the body. Whether this was suicide or murder, it was exceedingly necessary that the body should be examined, before everything was soaked with water or washed away. She pulled herself sharply together and walked firmly up to the body.

    It was that of a young man, dressed in a neat suit of dark-blue serge, with rather over-elegant, narrow-soled brown shoes, mauve socks and a tie which had also been mauve before it had been horridly stained red. The hat, a grey soft felt, had fallen off—no, had been taken off and laid down upon the rock. She picked it up and looked inside, but saw nothing but the maker’s name. She recognised it as that of a well-known, but not in the best sense, famous, firm of hatters.

    The head which it had adorned was covered with a thick and slightly too-long crop of dark, curly hair, carefully trimmed and smelling of brilliantine. The complexion was, she thought, naturally rather white and showed no signs of sunburn. The eyes, fixed open in a disagreeable stare, were blue. The mouth had fallen open, showing two rows of carefully-tended and very white teeth. There were no gaps in the rows, but she noticed that one of the thirteen-year-old molars had been crowned. She tried to guess the exact age of the man. It was difficult, because he wore—very unexpectedly—a short, dark beard, trimmed to a neat point. This made him look older, besides giving him a somewhat foreign appearance, but it seemed to her that he was a very young man, nevertheless. Something immature about the lines of the nose and face suggested that he was not much more than twenty years old.

    From the face she passed on to the hands, and here she was again surprised. Robert Templeton or no Robert Templeton, she had taken for granted that this elegantly-dressed youth had come to this incongruous and solitary spot to commit suicide. That being so, it was surely odd that he should be wearing gloves. He had lain doubled up with his arms beneath him, and the gloves were very much stained. Harriet began to draw off one of them, but was overcome by the old feeling of distaste. She saw that they were loose chamois gloves of good quality, suitable to the rest of the costume.

    Suicide—with gloves on? Why had she been so certain that it was suicide? She felt sure she had a reason.

    Well, of course. If it was not suicide, where had the murderer gone? She knew he had not come along the beach from the direction of Lesston Hoe, for she remembered that bare and shining strip of sand. There was her own solitary line of footprints leading across from the shingle. In the Wilvercombe direction, the sand was again bare except for a single track of footmarks—presumably those of the corpse.

    The man, then, had come down to the beach, and he had come alone. Unless his murderer had come by sea, he had been alone when he died. How long had he been dead? The tide had only turned recently, and there were no keel-marks on the sand. No one, surely, would have climbed the seaward face of the rock. How long was it since there had been a sufficient depth of water to bring a boat within easy reach of the body?

    Harriet wished she knew more about times and tides. If Robert Templeton had happened, in the course of his brilliant career, to investigate a sea-mystery, she would, of course, have had to look up information on this point. But she had always avoided sea-and-shore problems, just precisely on account of the labour involved. No doubt the perfect archetypal Robert Templeton knew all about it, but the knowledge was locked up within his shadowy and ideal brain. Well, how long had the man been dead, in any case?

    This was a thing Robert Templeton would have known, too, for he had been through a course of medical studies among other things and, moreover, never went out without a clinical thermometer and other suitable apparatus for testing the freshness or otherwise of bodies. But Harriet had no thermometer, nor, if she had had one, would she have known how to use it for the purpose. Robert Templeton was accustomed to say, airily, ‘Judging by the amount of rigor and the temperature of the body, I should put the time of death at such-and-such’, without going into fiddling details about the degrees Fahrenheit registered by the instrument. As for rigor, there certainly was not a trace of it present—naturally; since rigor (Harriet did know this bit) does not usually set in till from four to ten hours after death. The blue suit and brown shoes showed no signs of having been wet by sea-water; that hat was still lying on the rock. But four hours earlier, the water must have been over the rock and over the footprints. The tragedy must be more recent than that. She put her hand on the body. It seemed quite warm. But anything would be warm on such a scorching day. The back and the top of the head were almost as hot as the surface of the rock. The under surface, being in shadow, felt cooler, but no cooler than her own hands which she had dipped in the sea-water.

    Yes—but there was one criterion she could apply. The weapon. No weapon, no suicide—that was a law of the Medes and Persians. There was nothing in the hands—no signs of that obliging ‘death-grip’ which so frequently preserves evidence for the benefit of detectives. The man had slumped forward—one arm between his body and the rock, the other, the right, hanging over the rock-edge just beneath his face. It was directly below this hand that the stream of blood ran down so uninvitingly, streaking the water. If the weapon was anywhere it would be here. Taking off her shoes and stockings, and turning her sleeve up to the elbow, Harriet groped cautiously in the water, which was about eighteen inches deep at the base of the rock. She stepped warily, for fear of treading on a knife-edge, and it was as well that she did, for presently her hand encountered something hard and sharp. At the cost of a slight cut on her finger, she drew up an open cut-throat razor, already partially buried in the sand.

    The weapon was there, then; suicide seemed to be the solution after all. Harriet stood with the razor in her hand, wondering whether she was leaving finger-prints on the wet surface. The suicide, of course, would have left none, since he was wearing gloves. But once again, why that precaution? It is reasonable to wear gloves to commit a murder, but not to commit suicide. Harriet dismissed this problem for future consideration, and wrapped her handkerchief round the razor.

    The tide was coming in inexorably. What else could she do? Ought she to search any pockets? She had not the strength of a Robert Tempeton to haul the body above high-water mark. That was really a business for the police, when the body was removed, but it was just possible that there might be papers, which the water would render illegible. She gingerly felt the jacket pockets, but the dead man had obviously attached too much importance to the set of his clothes to carry very much in them. She found only a silk handkerchief with a laundry-mark, and a thin gold cigarette-case in the right-hand pocket; the other was empty. The outside breast-pocket held a mauve silk handkerchief, obviously intended for display rather than for use; the hip-pocket was empty. She could not get at the trouser-pockets without lifting the corpse, which, for many reasons, she did not want to do. The inner breast-pocket, of course, was the one for papers, but Harriet felt a deep repugnance to handling the inner breast-pocket. It appeared to have received the full gush of blood from the throat. Harriet excused herself by thinking that any papers in that pocket would be illegible already. A cowardly excuse, possibly—but there it was. She could not bring herself to touch it.

    She secured the handkerchief and the cigarette-case and once more looked around her. Sea and sand were as deserted as ever. The sun still shone brightly, but a mass of cloud was beginning to pile up on the seaward horizon. The wind, too, had hauled round to the south-west and was strengthening every moment. It looked as though the beauty of the day would not last.

    She still had to look at the dead man’s footprints, before the advancing water obliterated them. Then, suddenly, she remembered that she had a camera. It was a small one, but it did include a focusing adjustment for objects up to six feet from the lens. She extracted the camera from her pack, and took three snapshots of the rock and the body from different viewpoints. The dead man’s head lay still as it had fallen when she moved it—canted over a little sideways, so that it was just possible to secure a photograph of the features. She expended a film on this, racking the camera out to the six-foot mark. She had now four films left in the camera. On one, she took a general view of the coast with the body in the foreground, stepping a little way back from the rock for the purpose. On the second, she took a closer view of the line of footprints, stretching from the rock across the sand in the direction of Wilvercombe. On the third, she made a close-up of one of the footprints, holding the camera, set to six feet, at arm’s-length above her head and pointing the lens directly downwards to the best of her judgement.

    She looked at her watch. All this had taken her about twenty minutes from the time that she first saw the body. She thought she had better, while she was about it, spare time to make sure that the footprints belonged to the body. She removed one shoe from the foot of the corpse, noticing as she did so that, though the sole bore traces of sand, there were no stains of sea-water upon the leather of the uppers. Inserting the shoe into one of the footprints, she observed that they corresponded perfectly. She did not care for the job of replacing the shoe, and therefore took it with her, pausing as she regained the shingle, to take a view of the rock from the landward side.

    The day was certainly clouding over and the wind getting up. Looking out beyond the rock, she saw a line of little swirls and eddies, which broke from time to time into angry-looking spurts of foam, as though breaking about the tops of hidden rocks. The waves everywhere were showing feathers of foam, and dull yellow streaks reflected the gathering cloud-masses further out to sea. The fishing-boat was almost out of sight, making for Wilvercombe.

    Not quite sure whether she had done the right thing or the wrong, Harriet gathered up her belongings, including the shoe, hat, razor, cigarette-case and handkerchief, and started to scramble up the face of the cliff. It was then just after half-past two.

    CHAPTER II

    THE EVIDENCE OF THE ROAD

    ‘None sit in doors,

    Except the babe, and his forgotten grandsire,

    And such as, out of life, each side do lie

    Against the shutter of the grave or womb.’

    The Second Brother

    THURSDAY, 18 JUNE

    THE ROAD, WHEN HARRIET reached it, seemed as solitary as before. She turned in the direction of Wilvercombe and strode along at a good, steady pace. Her instinct was to run, but she knew that she would gain nothing by pumping herself out. After about a mile, she was delighted by the sight of a fellow-traveller; a girl of about seventeen, driving a couple of cows. She stopped the girl and asked the way to the nearest house.

    The girl stared at her. Harriet repeated her request.

    The reply came in so strong a west-country accent that Harriet could make little of it, but at length she gathered that ‘Will Coffin’s, over to Brennerton,’ was the nearest habitation, and that it could be reached by following a winding lane on the right.

    ‘How far is it?’ asked Harriet.

    The girl opined that it was a good piece, but declined to commit herself in yards or miles.

    ‘Well, I’ll try there,’ said Harriet. ‘And if you meet anybody on the road, will you tell them there’s a dead man on the beach about a mile back and that the police ought to be told.’

    The girl stared dumbly.

    Harriet repeated the message, adding, ‘Do you understand?’

    ‘Yes, miss,’ said the girl, in the tone of voice which makes it quite clear that the hearer understands nothing.

    As Harriet hurried away up the lane, she saw the girl still staring after her.

    Will Coffin’s proved to be a small farmhouse. It took Harriet twenty minutes to reach it, and when she did reach it, it appeared to be deserted. She knocked at the door without result; pushed it open and shouted, still without result; then she went round to the back.

    When she had again shouted several times, a woman in an apron emerged from an outbuilding and stood gazing at her.

    ‘Are any of the men about?’ asked Harriet.

    The woman replied that they were all up to the seven-acre field, getting the hay in.

    Harriet explained that there was a dead man lying on the shore and that the police ought to be informed.

    ‘That do be terrible, surely,’ said the woman. ‘Will it be Joe Smith? He was out with his boat this morning and the rocks be very dangerous thereabouts. The Grinders, we call them.’

    ‘No,’ said Harriet; ‘it isn’t a fisherman—it looks like somebody from the town. And he isn’t drowned. He’s cut his throat.’

    ‘Cut his throat?’ said the woman, with relish. ‘Well, now, what a terrible thing, to be sure.’

    ‘I want to let the police know,’ said Harriet, ‘before the tide comes in and covers the body.’

    ‘The police?’ The woman considered this. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, after mature thought. ‘The police did ought to be told about it.’

    Harriet asked if one of the men could be found and sent with a message. The woman shook her head. They were getting in the hay and the weather did look to be changing. She doubted if anybody could be spared.

    ‘You’re not on the telephone, I suppose?’ asked Harriet.

    They were not on the telephone, but Mr Carey at the Red Farm, he was on the telephone. To get to the Red Farm, the woman added, under interrogation, you would have to go back to the road and take the next turning, and then it was about a mile or maybe two.

    Was there a car Harriet could borrow?

    The woman was sorry, but there was no car. At least, there was one, but her daughter had gone over to Heathbury market and wouldn’t be back till late.

    ‘Then I must try and get to the Red Farm,’ said Harriet, rather wearily. ‘If you do see anybody who could take a message, would you tell them that there’s a dead man on the shore near the Grinders, and that the police ought to be informed.’

    ‘Oh, I’ll tell them sure enough,’ said the woman, brightly. ‘It’s a very terrible thing, isn’t it? The police did ought to know about it. You’re looking very tired, miss; would you like a cup of tea?’

    Harriet refused the tea, and said she ought to be getting on. As she passed through the gate, the woman called her back. Harriet turned hopefully.

    ‘Was it you that found him, miss?’

    ‘Yes, I found him.’

    ‘Lying there dead?’

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘With his throat cut?’

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘Dear, dear,’ said the woman, ‘’Tis a terrible thing, to be sure.’

    Back on the main road, Harriet hesitated. She had lost a good deal of time on this expedition. Would it be better to turn aside again in search of the Red Farm, or to keep to the main road where there was more chance of meeting a passerby? While still undecided, she arrived at the turn. An aged man was hoeing turnips in a field close by. She hailed him.

    ‘Is this the way to the Red Farm?’

    He paid no attention, but went on hoeing turnips.

    ‘He must be deaf,’ muttered Harriet, hailing him again. He continued to hoe turnips. She was looking about for the gate into the field when the aged man paused to straighten his back and spit on his hands, and in so doing brought her into his line of vision.

    Harriet beckoned to him, and he hobbled slowly up to the wall, supporting himself on the hoe as he went.

    ‘Is this the way to the Red Farm?’ She pointed up the lane.

    ‘No,’ said the old man, ‘he ain’t at home.’

    ‘Has he got a telephone?’ asked Harriet.

    ‘Not till tonight,’ replied the ancient. ‘He’s over to Heathbury market.’

    ‘A telephone,’ repeated Harriet, ‘has he got a telephone?’

    ‘Oh, ay,’ said the old man, ‘you’ll find her somewhere about.’ While Harriet was wondering whether the pronoun was the one usually applied in that county to telephones, he dashed her hopes by adding: ‘Her leg’s bad again.’

    ‘How far is it to the farm?’ shouted Harriet, desperately.

    ‘I shouldn’t wonder if ’twas,’ said the old man, resting on the hoe, and lifting up his hat to admit the breeze to his head, ‘I tell’d her o’ Saturday night she hadn’t no call to do it.’

    Harriet, leaning far over the wall, advanced her mouth to within an inch of his ear.

    ‘How far is it?’ she bawled.

    ‘There ain’t no need to shout,’ said the old man. ‘I bain’t deaf. Eighty-two come Michaelmas, and all my faculties, thank God.’

    ‘How far—’ began Harriet.

    ‘I’m telling ’ee, amn’t I? Mile and half by the lane, but if you was to take the short cut through the field where the old bull is—’

    A car came suddenly down the road at considerable speed and vanished into the distance.

    ‘Oh, bother!’ muttered Harriet, ‘I might have stopped that if I hadn’t wasted my time on this old idiot.’

    ‘You’re quite right, miss,’ agreed Old Father William, catching the last word with the usual perversity of the deaf. ‘Madmen, I calls ’em. There ain’t no sense in racketing along at that pace. My niece’s young man—’

    The glimpse of the car was a deciding factor in Harriet’s mind. Far better to stick to the road. If once she began losing herself in by-ways on the chance of finding an elusive farm and a hypothetical telephone, she might wander about till dinner-time. She started off again, cutting Father William’s story off abruptly in the middle, and did another dusty half-mile without further encounter.

    It was odd, she thought. During the morning she had seen several people and quite a number (comparatively) of tradesmen’s vans. What had happened to them all? Robert Templeton (or possibly even Lord Peter Wimsey, who had been brought up in the country) would have promptly enough found the answer to the riddle. It was market-day at Heathbury, and early-closing day at Wilvercombe and Lesston Hoe—the two phenomena being, indeed, interrelated so as to permit the inhabitants of the two watering-places to attend the important function at the market-town. Therefore there were no more tradesmen’s deliveries along the coast-road. And therefore all the local traffic to Heathbury was already well away inland. Such of the aborigines as remained were at work in the hayfields. She did, indeed, discover a man and a youth at work with a two-horse hay-cutter, but they stared aghast at her suggestion that they should leave their work and their horses to look for the police. The farmer himself was (naturally) at Heathbury market. Harriet, rather hopelessly, left a message with them and trudged on.

    Presently there came slogging into view a figure which appeared rather more hopeful; a man clad in shorts and carrying a pack on his back—a hiker, like herself. She hailed him imperiously.

    ‘I say, can you tell me where I can get hold of somebody with a car or a telephone? It’s frightfully important.’

    The man, a weedy, sandy-haired person with a bulging brow and thick spectacles, gazed at her with courteous incompetence.

    ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you. You see, I’m a stranger here myself.’

    ‘Well, could you—?’ began Harriet, and paused. After all, what could he do? He was in exactly the same boat as herself. With a foolish relic of Victorianism she had somehow imagined that a man would display superior energy and resourcefulness, but, after all, he was only a human being, with the usual outfit of legs and brains.

    ‘You see,’ she explained, ‘there’s a dead man on the beach over there.’ She pointed vaguely behind her.

    ‘No, really?’ exclaimed the young man. ‘I say, that’s a bit thick, isn’t it? Er—friend of yours?’

    ‘Certainly not,’ retorted Harriet. ‘I don’t know him from Adam. But the police ought to know about it.’

    ‘The police? Oh, yes, of course, the police. Well, you’ll find them in Wilvercombe, you know. There’s a police-station there.’

    ‘I know,’ said Harriet, ‘but the body’s right down near low-water mark, and if I can’t get somebody along pretty quick the tide may wash him away. In fact, it’s probably done so already. Good lord! It’s almost four o’clock.’

    ‘The tide? Oh, yes. Yes, I suppose it would. If’—he brightened up with a new thought—‘if it’s coming in. But it might be going out, you know, mightn’t it?’

    ‘It might, but it isn’t,’ said Harriet, grimly. ‘It’s been coming in since two o’clock. Haven’t you noticed?’

    ‘Well, no, I can’t say I have. I’m shortsighted. And I don’t know much about it. I live in London, you see. I’m afraid I can’t quite see what I can do about it. There don’t seem to be any police about here, do there?’

    He gazed round about, as though he expected to sight a constable on point-duty in the middle-distance.

    ‘Have you passed any cottages lately?’ asked Harriet.

    ‘Cottages? Oh, yes—yes, I believe I did see some cottages a little way back. Oh, yes, I’m sure I did. You’ll find somebody there.’

    ‘I’ll try there, then. And if you meet anybody would you mind telling them about it. A man on the beach—with his throat cut.’

    ‘His throat?’

    ‘Yes. Near some rocks they call the Grinders.’

    ‘Who cut his throat?’

    ‘How should I know? I should think he probably did it himself.’

    ‘Yes—oh, naturally. Yes. Otherwise it would be murder, wouldn’t it?’

    ‘Well, it may be murder, of course.’

    The hiker clutched his staff nervously.

    ‘Oh! I shouldn’t think so, should you?’

    ‘You never know,’ said Harriet, exasperated. ‘If I were you, I’d be getting along quickly. The murderer may be somewhere about, you know.’

    ‘Good heavens!’ said the young man from London. ‘But that would be awfully dangerous.’

    ‘Wouldn’t it? Well, I’ll be pushing on. Don’t forget, will you? A man with his throat cut near the Grinders.’

    ‘The Grinders. Oh, yes. I’ll remember. But, I say?’

    ‘Yes?’

    ‘Don’t you think I’d better come along with you? To protect you, you know, and that sort of thing?’

    Harriet laughed. She felt convinced that the young man was not keen on passing the Grinders.

    ‘As you like,’ she said indifferently, walking on.

    ‘I could show you the cottages,’ suggested the young man.

    ‘Very well,’ said Harriet. ‘Come along. We’ll have to be as quick as we can.’

    A quarter of an hour’s walk brought them to the cottages—two low thatched buildings standing on the right-hand side of the road. In front of them a high hedge had been planted, screening them from the sea-gales and, incidentally, helping to cut off all view of the shore. Opposite them, on the other side of the road, a narrow walled lane twisted down to the sea’s edge. From Harriet’s point of view the cottages were a disappointment. They were inhabited by an aged crone, two youngish women and some small children, but the men were all out fishing. They were late back today but were expected on the evening tide. Harriet’s story was listened to with flattering interest and enthusiasm, and the wives promised to tell their husbands about it when they came in. They also offered refreshment which, this time, Harriet accepted. She felt pretty sure that the body would by now be covered by the tide and that half an hour could make no real difference. Excitement had made her weary. She drank the tea and was thankful.

    The companions then resumed their walk, the gentleman from London, whose name was Perkins, complaining of a blistered heel. Harriet ignored him. Surely something would soon come along.

    The only thing that came was a fast saloon car, which overtook them about half a mile further on. The proud chauffeur, seeing two dusty trampers signalling, as it appeared to him, for a lift, put his stern foot down on the accelerator and drove on.

    ‘The beastly road-hog!’ said Mr Perkins, pausing to caress his blistered heel.

    ‘Saloons with chauffeurs are never any good,’ said Harriet. ‘What we want is a lorry, or a seven-year-old Ford. Oh, look! What’s that?’

    ‘That’ was a pair of gates across the road and a little cottage standing beside it.

    ‘A level-crossing, by all that’s lucky!’ Harriet’s sinking courage revived. ‘There must be somebody here.’

    There was. There were, in fact, two people—a cripple and a small girl. Harriet eagerly asked where she could get hold of a car or a telephone.

    ‘You’ll find that all right in the village, miss,’ said the cripple. ‘Leastways, it ain’t what you’d call a village, exactly, but Mr Hearn that keeps the grocery, he’s got a telephone. This here’s Darley Halt, and Darley is about ten minutes’ walk. You’ll find somebody there all right, miss, for certain. Excuse me a minute, miss. Liz! the gates!’

    The child ran out to open the gates to let through a small boy leading an immense cart-horse.

    ‘Is there a train coming through?’ asked Harriet, idly, as the gates were pushed across the road again.

    ‘Not for half an hour, miss. We keeps the gates shut most times. There ain’t a deal of traffic along this road, and they keeps the cattle from straying on to the line. There’s a good many trains in the day. It’s the main line from Wilvercombe to Heathbury. Of course, the expresses don’t stop here, only the locals, and they only stops twice a day, except market days.’

    ‘No, I see.’ Harriet wondered why she was asking about the trains, and then suddenly realised that, with her professional interest in time-tables, she was instinctively checking up the ways and means of approaching the Grinders. Train, car, boat—how had the dead man got there?

    ‘What time—?’

    No, it didn’t matter. The police could check that up. She thanked the gate-keeper, pushed her way through the side-wickets and strode on, with Mr Perkins limping after her.

    The road still ran beside the coast, but the cliffs were gradually sloped down almost to sea-level. They saw a clump of trees and a hedge and a little lane, curving away past the ruins of an abandoned cottage to a wide space of green on which stood a tent, close by the sandy beach, with smoke going up from a campers’ fire beside it As they passed the head of this lane a man emerged from it, carrying a petrol-tin. He wore a pair of old flannel slacks, and a khaki shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His soft hat was pulled down rather low over his eyes, which were further protected by a pair of dark spectacles.

    Harriet stopped him and asked if they were anywhere near the village.

    ‘A few minutes farther on,’ he replied, briefly, but civilly enough.

    ‘I want to telephone,’ went on Harriet. ‘I’m told I can do so at the grocer’s. Is that right?’

    ‘Oh, yes.

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