Ngaio Marsh - Dead Water

Down below, at the end of the jetty, a group of fishermen stood talking. The police constable, she noticed, had joined them. They seemed to be looking up at her. “I daresay it’s got about,” she thought, “who I am and all the rest of it. Bah!”

She stayed on until she was refreshed. The evening had begun to close in and she was in the lee of the hill. There was a slight coolness in the air. She prepared, after the manner of old people, to rise.

At that moment she was struck between the shoulder blades, on the back of her neck and head and on her arm. Stones fell with a rattle at her feet. Above and behind her there was a scuffling sound of retreat and of laughter.

She got up, scarcely knowing what she did. She supposed afterwards that she must have cried out. The next thing that happened was that the policeman was running heavily uphill towards her.

“Hold hard, now ma-am,” he was saying. “Be you hurt, then?”

“No. Stones. From above. Go and look.”

He peered at her for a moment and then scrambled up the sharp rise behind the bench. He slithered and skidded, sending down a cascade of earth. Miss Emily sank back on the bench. She drew her glove off and touched her neck with a trembling hand. It was wet.

The sergeant floundered about overhead. Unexpectedly two of the fishermen had arrived and, more surprising still, the tall bronze girl. What was her name?

“Miss Pride,” she was saying, “you’re hurt! What happened?” She knelt down by Miss Emily and took her hands.

The men were talking excitedly and presently the constable was there again, swearing and breathing hard. “Too late,” he was saying. “Missed ’im.”

Miss Emily’s head began to clear a little.

“I am perfectly well,” she said in French — rather faintly and more to herself than to the others, “it is nothing.”

“You’ve been hurt. Your neck!” Jenny said, also in French. “Let me look.”

“You are too kind,” Miss Emily murmured. She suffered her neck to be examined. “Your accent,” she added more firmly, “is passable though not entirely d’une femme du monde . Where did you learn?”

“In Paris,” said Jenny. “There’s a cut in your neck, Miss Pride. It isn’t very deep but I’m going to bind it up. Mr. Pender, could I borrow your handkerchief? And I’ll make a pad of mine. Clean, luckily.”

While Miss Emily suffered these ministrations the men muttered together. There was a scrape of boots on the steps and a third fisherman came down from above. It was Trehern. He stopped short. “Hey!” he ejaculated. “What’s amiss, then?”

“Lady’s been hurt, poor dear,” one of the men said.

“Hurt!” Trehern exclaimed. “How? Why, if it bean’t Miss Pride! Hurt! What way?”

“Where would you be from, then, Jim?” Sergeant Pender asked.

“Up to pub as usual, George,” he said. “Where else?” A characteristic parcel protruded from his overcoat pocket. “Happen she took a fall? Them steps be treacherous going for females well gone into the terrors of antiquity.”

“Did you leave the pub this instant-moment?”

“Surely. Why?”

“Dicl you notice anybody up-along — off of the steps, like? In the rough?”

“Are you after them courting couples again, George Pender?”

“No,” said Mr. Pender shortly. “I bean’t.”

“I did not fall,” said Miss Emily loudly. She rose to her feet and confronted Trehern. “I was struck,” she said.

“Lord forbid, ma-am! Who’d take a fancy to do a crazy job like that?”

Jenny said to Pender: “I think we ought to get Miss Pride home.”

“So we should, then. Now, ma-am,” said Pender with an air of authority. “You’m not going to walk up them steps, if you please, so if you’ve no objection us chaps’ll manage you, same as if we was bringing you ashore in a rough sea.”

“I assure you, officer—”

“Very likely, ma-am, and you with the heart of a lion as all can see, but there’d be no kind of sense in it. Now, then, souls: Hup !”

And before she knew what had happened, Miss Emily was sitting on a chair of woollen-clad arms with her own arms neatly disposed by Mr. Pender round a pair of slightly fishy-smelling shoulders, and her face in close association with those of her bearers.

“Pretty as a picture,” Pender said. “Heave away, chaps. Stand aside, if you please, Jim.”

“My umbrella.”

“I’ve got it,” said Jenny. “And your bag.”

When they reached the top Miss Emily said: “I am extremely obliged. If you will allow me, officer, I would greatly prefer it if I might enter in the normal manner. I am perfectly able to do so and it will be less conspicuous.” And to Jenny: “Please ask them to put me down.”

“I think she’ll be all right,” Jenny said.

“Very good, ma-am,” said Pender. “Set ’er down, chaps. That’s clever. Gentle as a lamb.”

They stood round Miss Emily, and grinned bashfully at her.

“You have been very kind,” she said; “I hope you will be my guests; though it will be wiser, perhaps, if I do not give myself the pleasure of joining you. I will leave instructions. Thank you very much.”

She took her umbrella and handbag from Jenny, bowed to her escort and walked quite fast towards the entrance. Jenny followed her. On the way, they passed Wally Trehern.

Patrick was in the vestibule. Miss Emily inclined her head to him and made for the stairs. Her handbag was bloody and conspicuous. Jenny collected her room key from the desk.

“What on earth…?” Patrick said, coming up to her.

“Get Dr. Mayne, could you? Up to her room. And Patrick — there are two fishermen and Mr. Pender outside. She wants them to have drinks on her. Can you fix it? I’ll explain later.”

“Good Lord! Yes, all right.”

Jenny overtook Miss Emily on the landing. She was shaky and, without comment, accepted an arm. When they had reached her room she sat on her bed and looked at Jenny with an expression of triumph.

“I am not surprised,” she said, “it was to be expected, my dear”—and fainted.

“Well,” said Dr. Mayne, smiling into Miss Emily’s face, “there’s no great damage done. I think you’ll recover.”

“I have already done so.”

“Yes, I daresay, but I suggest you go slow for a day or two, you know. You’ve had a bit of shock. How old are you?”

“I’m eighty-three and four months.”

“Good God!”

“Ours is a robust family, Dr. Mayne. My sister, Fanny Winterbottom, whom I daresay you have met, would be alive today if she had not, in one of her extravagant moods, taken an excursion in a speedboat.”

“Did it capsize?” Jenny was startled into asking.

“Not at all. But the excitement was too much and the consequent depression exposed her to an epidemic of Asiatic influenza. From which she died. It was quite unnecessary, and the indirect cause of my present embarrassment.”

There was a short silence. Jenny saw Dr. Mayne’s eyebrows go up.

“Really?” he said. “Well, now, I don’t think we should have any more conversation tonight. Some hot milk with a little whisky or brandy, if you like it, and a couple of aspirins. I’ll look in tomorrow.”

“You do not, I notice, suggest that I bathe my injuries in the spring.”

“No,” he said, and they exchanged a smile.

“I had intended to call upon you tomorrow with reference to my proposals. Have you heard of them?”

“I have. But I’m not going to discuss them with you tonight.”

“Do you object? To my proposals?”

“No. Good night, Miss Pride. Please don’t get up until I’ve seen you.”

“And yet they would not, I imagine, be to your advantage.”