Ngaio Marsh - Dead Water

“There’s only one thing against it,” Jenny said. “I don’t believe Wally would ever deliberately hurt anyone. And he’s a very bad shot.”

Alleyn stepped ashore.

“I expect,” said Patrick’s voice quietly from the shadowed boat, “you’ll be relieved to get her away.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “I shall. Good night.”

As he walked down the jetty he heard the dip of Patrick’s oars and the diminishing murmur of their voices.

He found Superintendent Coombe’s cottage and his host waiting for him. They had a glass of beer and a talk, and turned in. Alleyn thought he would telephone his wife in the morning — and went fast to sleep.

He was wakened at seven by a downpour of rain. He got up, bathed and found breakfast in preparation. Mr. Coombe, a widower, did for himself.

“Bit of a storm again,” he said, “but it’s clearing. You’ll have a pleasant run.”

He went into his kitchen, whence, presently, the splendid smell of pan-frying bacon arose. Alleyn stood at the parlour window and looked down on a deserted front: gleaming mud flats and the exposed spine of the causeway.

“Nobody about,” he said.

“It’s clearing,” Coombe’s voice said later above the sizzle of bacon. “The local people think the weather’s apt to change at low tide. Nothing in it.”

“It’s flat out, now.”

“Yes,” Coombe said. “Dead water.”

And by the time breakfast was over, so was the rain. Alleyn rang up his wife and said he’d be back for dinner. He put his suitcase in his car and, as it was still too early to collect Miss Emily, decided, it being low tide, to walk over the causeway, up Wally’s Way to the spring and thence by footpath back to the hotel. He had an inclination to visit the spring again. Coombe, who intended to fish, said he’d come as far as the Portcarrow village jetty. Alleyn drove there and left him with the car. The return trip, with Miss Emily and her luggage, would be by water.

When he reached the Island, the bell for nine o’clock service was ringing in Mr. Carstairs’s church, back on the mainland.

Wally’s Way was littered with evidence of yesterday’s crowds: ice cream wrappers, cigarette cartons, and an occasional bottle. Alleyn wondered whose job it was to clear up.

It was a steep pull, but he took it at a fair clip and the bell was still ringing when he reached the top.

He walked towards the enclosure and looked through the netting at the spring.

On the shelf above it, open, and lying on its side, was a large black umbrella.

It was one of those moments without time that strike at body and mind together with a single blow. He looked at the welling pool below the shelf. A black shape, half-inflated, pulsed and moved with the action of the spring. Its wet surface glittered in the sun.

The bell had stopped and a lark sang furiously overhead.

He had to get through the turnstile.

The slot machine was enclosed in a wire cage, with a padlock which was open. He had no disk.

For a second or two, he thought of using a rock, if he could find one, or hurling his weight against the netted door, but he looked at the slot mechanism and, with fingers that might have been handling ice, searched his pockets. A half-crown? No. A florin? As he pushed it down, he saw a printed notice that had been tied to the netting. Warning , it was headed, and it was signed Emily Pride. The florin jammed. He picked up a stone, hit it home and wrenched at the handle. There was a click and he was through and running to the spring.

She was lying face-down in in the pool, only a few inches below the water, her head almost at the lip of the waterfall.

Her sparse hair, swept forward, rippled and eddied in the stream. The gash in her scalp had stopped bleeding and gaped flaccidly.

Before he had moved the body over on its back he knew whose face would be upturned towards his own. It was Elspeth Cost’s.

When he had made certain, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that there was nothing to be done, he ran out of the enclosure and a few yards along the footpath. Down below, by the causeway, he saw Coombe, in bis shirt sleeves, with his pipe in his mouth, standing on the end of the village jetty. He looked up, saw Alleyn, waved and then straightened. Alleyn beckoned urgently and signaled that they would meet at the top of the hotel steps. Coombe, seeing him run, himself broke into a lope, back down the jetty and across the causeway. He was breathing hard when he got to the top of the steps. When Alleyn had told him, he swore incredulously.

“I’ll go into the hotel and get one of those bloody disks,” Alleyn said. “I had to lock the gate, of course. And I’ll have to get a message to Miss Pride. I’ll catch you up. Who’s your Div. Surgeon?”

“Mayne.”

“Right.”

There was no one in the office. He went in, tried the drawers, found the right one, and helped himself to half a dozen disks. He looked at the switchboard, plugged in the connection and lifted the receiver. He noticed, with a kind astonishment, that his hand was unsteady. It seemed an eternity before Miss Emily answered.

He said: “Miss Emily? Roderick. I’m terribly sorry but there’s been an accident and I’m wanted here. It’s serious. Will it be a great bore if we delay your leaving? I’ll come back later and explain.”

“By all means,” Miss Emily’s voice said crisply. “I shall adjust. Don’t disarrange yourself on my account!”

“You admirable woman,” he said and hung up.

He had just got back on the lawful side of the desk when the hall porter appeared, wiping his mouth. Alleyn said: “Can you get Dr. Mayne quickly? There’s been an accident. D’you know his number?”

The porter consulted a list and, staring at Alleyn, dialled it.

“What is it, then?” he asked. “Accident? Dearrr, dearr!”

While he waited for the call to come through, Alleyn saw that a notice, similar to the one that had been tied to the enclosure, was now displayed in the letter rack. Warning . And signed Emily Pride. He had started to read it when the telephone quacked. The porter established the connection and handed him the receiver.

Alleyn said: “Dr. Mayne? Speaking? This is a police call. I’m ringing for Superintendent Coombe. Superintendent Alleyn. There’s been a serious accident at the spring. Can you come at once?”

“At the spring ?”

“Yes. You’ll need an ambulance.”

“What is it?”

“Asphyxia following cranial injury.”

“Fatal?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Thank you.”

He hung up. The porter was agog. Alleyn produced a ten-shilling note. “Look here,” he said, “can you keep quiet about this? I don’t want people to collect. Be a good chap, will you, and get Sergeant Pender on the telephone. Ask him to come to the spring. Say the message is from Mr. Coombe. Will you do that? And don’t talk.”

He slid the note across the desk and left.

As he returned by the footpath, he saw a car drive along the foreshore to the causeway. A man with a black bag in his hand got out.

Coombe, waiting by the gate, was peering into the enclosure.

“I may have broken the slot machine,” Alleyn said. But it worked, and they went through.

He had dragged the body to the verge of the pool and masked it, as well as he could, by the open umbrella.

Coombe said: “Be damned, when I saw that brolly, if I didn’t think I’d misheard you and it was the other old — Miss Pride.”

“I know.”

“How long ago, d’you reckon?”

“I should have thought about an hour. We’ll see what the Doctor thinks. He’s on his way. Look at this, Coombe.”