Have His Carcase (15 page)

developments which might interest him. It was now pretty certain that it was a

case of suicide. Stil, one had to go into these matters pretty carefuly. Had the

body been found? No. The body had not come ashore, and the wind was stil

holding the tide up and making it impossible to undertake any operations off the

Grinders.

IX

THE EVIDENCE OF THE FLAT-IRON

‘Come, tell me now,

How sits this ring?’

The Bride’s Tragedy

Sunday, 21 June

Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey sat side by side on the beach, looking

out towards the Devil’s Flat-Iron. The fresh salt wind blew strongly in from the

sea, ruffling Harriet’s dark hair. The weather was fine, but the sunshine came

only in briliant bursts, as the driven clouds roled tumultuously across the

belowing vault of the sky. Over the Grinders, the sea broke in furious patches

of white. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon, and the tide was at its

lowest, but even so, the Flat-Iron was hardly uncovered, and the Atlantic

waves, roaring in, made a heavy breach against its foot. A basket of food lay

between the pair, not yet unpacked. Wimsey was drawing plans in the damp

sand.

‘The thing we want to get,’ he said, ‘is the time of the death. The police are

quite clear about how Alexis came here, and there doesn’t seem to be any

doubt in the matter, which is a blessing. There’s a train from Wilvercombe that

stops at Darley Halt on Thursdays at 10.15, to take people in to Heathbury

market. Alexis traveled by that train and got out at the Halt. I think it must have

been Alexis al right. He was pretty conspicuous with his black beard and his

natty gent’s outfitting. I think we can take that bit as proved. The guard on the

train remembered him, and so did three or four of his felow-travelers. What’s

more, his landlady says he left his rooms in time to catch the train, and the

booking-clerk remembers him at Wilvercombe.
And
, dear Harriet, there is a

first return-ticket from Wilvercombe to that Halt that was never given up and

never accounted for.’

‘A return-ticket?’ asked Harriet.

‘A return-ticket. And that, as you so acutely remark, Sherlock, seems to

knock the suicide theory on the head. I said as much to the Super, and what

was his reply? That suicides, let alone foreign suicides, were that inconsistent

there was no accounting for them.’

‘So they may be, in real life,’ observed Harriet, thoughtfuly. ‘One wouldn’t

made an intending suicide take a return-ticket in a book, but real people are

different. It might have been a slip, or just habit – or he may not have quite

made up his mind to the suicide business.’

‘I thought my friend Chief Inspector Parker was the most cautious beggar on

the face of the earth, but you beat him. You can knock out habit. I refuse to

believe that our dainty Alexis made a habit of traveling to the Halt in order to

walk four and a half miles to weep by the sad sea waves. However, we’l just

note the return half of the ticket as something that needs explainin’. Very good.

Wel, now, there was nobody else got off at the Halt, though quite a bunch of

people got in, so we don’t know what happened to Alexis; but if we alow that

he could walk at the moderate rate of three miles an hour, he can’t have got to

the Flat-Iron later than, say, 11.45.’

‘Stop a minute. How about the tide? When was low water on Thursday?’

‘At 1.15. I’ve been into al that. At 11.45 there would be about five feet of

water at the foot of the Flat-Iron, but the rock is ten feet high, and rises

gradualy from the landward side. At 11.45, or very shortly after, our friend

could have walked out dry-shod to the rock and sat upon it.’

‘Good. We know he did go out dry-shod, so that al fits in nicely. What

next?’

‘Wel, what? Whether he cut his own throat or somebody cut it for him when

did he die? It’s an awful pity we’ve lost the body. Even if it turns up now, it

won’t tel us a thing. It wasn’t stiff, of course, when you saw it, and you say you

can’t tel if it was cold.’

‘If,’ said Harriet, ‘there had been a block of ice on that rock at that time, you

could have boiled eggs on it.’

‘Tiresome, tiresome. Wait a minute. The blood. How about that? Did you

notice whether it was in thick red clots, or whether it was a sort of jely of white

serum, with the red part at the bottom, or anything?’

Harriet shook her head.

‘It wasn’t. It was liquid.’

‘It was
what
?’

‘Liquid. When I put my hand into it, it was quite wet.’

‘Great Scott! Half a sec. Where was the blood? Splashed al over the place,

I suppose.’

‘Not exactly. There was a big pool of it underneath the body – just as though

he had leaned over and cut his throat into a basin. It had colected in a sort of

holow in the rock.’

‘Oh, I see. That explains it. I expect the holow was ful of sea-water left by

the tide, and what looked like blood was a mixture of blood and water. I began

to think—’

‘But listen! It was quite liquid everywhere. It dripped out of his neck. And

when I lifted his head up and disturbed the body, it dripped some more.

Horrid!’

‘But, my darling girl—’

‘Yes, and listen again! When I tried to take his glove off, the leather wasn’t

stiff – it was soft and wet. His hands had been lying right under his throat.’

‘Good lord! But—’

‘That was the left hand. The right hand was hanging over the side of the rock

and I couldn’t get at it without clambering over him, which I didn’t fancy,

somehow. Otherwise, I should have tried that. I was wondering, you see, why

the gloves?’

‘Yes, yes, I know. But we know there was nothing wrong with his hands.

That doesn’t matter now. It’s the blood – do you realise that, if the blood was

stil liquid, he
can
only have been dead a few minutes?’

‘Oh!’ Harriet paused in consternation. ‘What a fool I am! I
ought
to have

known that. And I thought I was deducing things so nicely! He couldn’t have

been bleeding slowly to death for some time, I suppose?’

‘With his throat cut to the neck-bone? Dear child, pul yourself together.

Look here. Blood clots very quickly – more quickly, of course, on a cold

surface. In the ordinary way it wil clot almost instantaneously on exposure to

the air. I daresay it might take a little longer on a hot surface like the rock you

describe so graphicaly. But it couldn’t take more than a few minutes. Say ten,

to give it an outside limit.’

‘Ten minutes. Oh, Peter!’

‘Yes?’

‘That noise that woke me up. I thought it was a sea-gul. They sound so

human. But suppose it was—’

‘It must have been. When was that?’

‘Two o’clock. I looked at my watch. And I shouldn’t think it took me more

than ten minutes to reach the rock. But – I say!’

‘Wel?’

‘How about your murder-theory? That’s done it in absolutely. If Alexis was

murdered at two o’clock, and I was there ten minutes after –
what became of

the murderer
?’

Wimsey sat up as suddenly as though he had been stung.

‘Oh,
hell
!’ he exclaimed. ‘Harriet; dear, sweet, beautiful Harriet, say you

were mistaken. We
can’t
be wrong about the murder. I’ve staked my

reputation with Inspector Umpelty that it couldn’t have been suicide. I shal

have to leave the country. I shal never hold my head up again. I shal have to

go and shoot tigers in fever-haunted jungles, and die, babbling of murder

between my swolen and blackened lips. Say that the blood was clotted. Or say

there were footprints you overlooked. Or that there was a boat within hail. Say

something.’

‘There
was
a boat, but not within hail; because I hailed it.’

‘Thank God there was a boat! Perhaps I may leave my bones in Old

England yet. What do you mean, not within hail because you hailed it? If the

murderer was in the boat, naturaly he wouldn’t have put back if it had hailed

sweet potatoes. I wish you wouldn’t give me such shocks. My nerves are not

what they were.’

‘I don’t know much about boats, but this one looked to me a pretty good

way out. The wind was blowing in-shore, you know.’

‘It doesn’t matter. So long as there was a good stiff wind, and he could sail

close enough to it, he might have made quite a good way in ten minutes. What

sort of boat was it?’

Here Harriet’s knowledge failed her. She had put it down as a fishing-boat –

not because she could scientificaly distinguish a fishing-boat from a 5-metre

yacht, but because one naturaly, when visiting the seaside, puts down al boats

as fishing-boats until otherwise instructed. She thought it had a pointed sort of

sail – or sails – she couldn’t be sure. She was sure it was not, for example, a

fuly rigged four-masted schooner, but otherwise one sailing-boat was to her

exactly like any other; as it is to most town-bred persons, especialy to literary

young women.

‘Never mind,’ said Wimsey. ‘We’l be able to trace it al right, Al boats must

come to shore somewhere, thank goodness. And they’re al wel known to

people along the coast. I only wanted to know what sort of draught the boat

was likely to have. You see, if the boat couldn’t come right in to the rock, the

felow would have had to row himself in, or swim for it, and that would delay

him a good bit. And he’d have to have somebody standing on and off with the

boat while he did it, unless he stopped to take in sail, and al that. I mean, you

can’t just stop a sailing boat and step out of it like a motor-car, leaving it on its

own al ready to start. You’d get into difficulties. But that makes no odds. Why

shouldn’t the murderer have an accomplice? It has frequently happened before.

We’d better assume that there were at least two men in a smal boat with a very

light draught. Then they could bring her close in, and one of the men would

bring her round to the wind, while the other waded or rowed alone, did the

murder and got back, so that they could make off again without wasting a

moment. You see, they’ve got to do the murder, get back to the boat and clear

out to where you saw them within the ten minutes between the cry you heard

and the time of your arrival. So we can’t alow a lot of time for puling the boat

to shore and making fast and pushing off again and setting sail and al that.

Hence I suggest the accomplice.’

‘But how about the Grinders?’ asked Harriet, rather diffidently. ‘I thought it

was very dangerous to bring boats close to shore at that point.’

‘Blow it! So it is. Wel, they must have been very skilful sailors. But
that

would mean further to row or wade, as the case may be. Bother it! I wish we

could alow them rather more time.’

‘You don’t think—’ began Harriet. A very unpleasant idea had just struck

her. ‘You don’t think the murderer could have been there, quite close, al the

time, swimming under water, or something?’

‘He’d have had to come up to breathe.’

‘Yes, but I might not have noticed him. There were lots of times when I

wasn’t looking at the sea at al. He would have heard me coming, and he might

have ducked down close under the rock and waited there til I came down to

look for the razor. Then he might have dived and swum away while my back

was turned. I don’t know if it’s possible, and I hope it isn’t, because I should

hate to think he was there al the time – watching me!’

‘It’s a nasty thought,’ said Wimsey. ‘I rather hope he was there, though. It

would give him a beast of a shock to see you hopping round taking

photographs and things. I wonder if there is any cleft in the Flat-Iron where he

might have hidden himself. Curse the rock! Why can’t it come out and show

itself like a man? I say, I’m going down to have a look at it. Turn your modest

eyes seawards til I have climbed into a bathing-suit, and I’l go down and

explore.’

Not content with this programme, unsuited to a person of her active

temperament, Harriet removed, not only her glance, but her person, to the

shelter of a handy rock, and emerged, bathing-suited, in time to catch Wimsey

as he ran down over the sand.

‘And he strips better than I should have expected,’ she admitted candidly to

herself. ‘Better shoulders than I realised, and, thank Heaven, calves to his legs.’

Wimsey, who was rather proud of his figure, would hardly have been flattered

could he have heard this modified rapture, but for the moment he was happily

unconcerned about himself. He entered the sea near the Flat-Iron with caution,

not knowing what bumps and boulders he might encounter, swam a few strokes

to encourage himself, and then popped his head out to remark that the water

was beastly cold and that it would do Harriet good to come in.