Have His Carcase (4 page)

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 dul yelow 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.

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 felow-

traveler; 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 ‘Wil Coffin’s, over to Brennerton’,

was the nearest habitation, and that it could be reached by folowing 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.

‘Wel, I’l try there,’ said Harriet. ‘And if you meet anybody on the road, wil

you tel 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 stil staring after her.

Wil Coffin’s proved to be a smal 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, stil 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 al 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. ‘Wil it be Joe Smith? He was

out with his boat this morning and the rocks be very dangerous thereabouts.

The Grinders, we cal 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. ‘Wel, 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 til 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 tel them that

there’s a dead man on the shore near the Grinders, and that the police ought to

be informed.’

‘Oh, I’l tel 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 caled her back. Harriet turned hopefuly.

‘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 stil 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 wal, 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 til 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’l find her somewhere about.’ While Harriet

was wondering whether the pronoun was the one usualy 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 tel’d her o’ Saturday night she

hadn’t no cal to do it.’

Harriet, leaning far over the wal, 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 al my faculties, thank God.’

‘How far—’ began Harriet.

‘I’m teling ’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 bul 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 Wiliam, catching the last word

with the usual perversity of the deaf. ‘Madmen, I cals ’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 til

dinner-time. She started off again, cutting Father Wiliam’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 al? 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 al the local traffic to

Heathbury was already wel 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 (naturaly) 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 tel me where I can get hold of somebody with a car or a

telephone? It’s frightfuly 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 tel you. You see, I’m a stranger here myself.’

‘Wel, could you—?’ began Harriet, and paused. After al, 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 al, 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, realy?’ 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. Wel, you’l 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?’

‘Wel, 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’l find somebody there.’

‘I’l try there, then. And if you meet anybody would you mind teling them

about it. A man on the beach – with his throat cut.’

‘His throat?’

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

‘Who cut his throat?’

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

‘Yes – oh, naturaly. Yes. Otherwise it would be murder, wouldn’t it?’

‘Wel, 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

awfuly dangerous.’

‘Wouldn’t it? Wel, I’l be pushing on. Don’t forget, wil you? A man with his

throat cut near the Grinders.’

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