local police was assigned to this task and within a short time Sergeant Cribb was observed to be standing beside a table bearing a formidable haul of knives, cleavers and hand-saws, while the fish-mongering contingent vainly solicited prospective customers to purchase unfilleted sole and plaice.
A suitable weapon not having been identified, the search was extended to the arches under the adjacent promenade, in which nets, pots and other impedimenta of the fishing community are stored. Those tenants of the arches who were present unlocked their premises, but a number of doors had to be forced open on the Sergeant’s orders. After some twenty minutes the search was concentrated on a particular arch in which the lock was found to be faulty. Inside, the officers found CLEAR EVIDENCE OF RECENT BLOOD-STAINS on the floor and on several packing cases which appeared to have been utilised as a dissecting table. Nothing else having been found, Sergeant Cribb took the unusual steps of ordering the stretch of beach where the market is situated to be cleared and roped off. Shovels were called for, and reinforcements from the Corporation Works Department were summoned to join the police in the macabre exercise of digging the shingle for human remains.
The activity attracted considerable interest, and before long additional police were called for to patrol the margins of the roped-off area, which were lined with inquisitive spectators, including many YOUNG CHILDREN AND MEMBERS OF THE FAIR SEX. The section of the promenade overlooking the scene was at times impassable, so thick was the concourse, and itinerant vendors of refreshments did a brisk trade.
A selection of objects was uncovered in the first half-hour, providing flurries of excitement among the onlookers, but nothing to interest Sergeant Cribb, the finds consisting in the main of such flotsam and jetsam as may be deposited on any beach, together with the detritus of previous Bank Holiday invasions, stone beer bottles, cutlery mislaid from picnic hampers, and children’s beach-implements.
It was towards four o’clock, when interest in the excavation was beginning to flag in favour of thoughts of tea, that one of the workmen uncovered a parcel roughly wrapped in newspaper and buried some eighteen inches below the surface. On being unwrapped, it was found to contain PART OF A HUMAN LEG SEVERED BELOW THE KNEE.
The grisly prize was borne in triumph to Sergeant Cribb, who demonstrated a proper concern for the sensibilities of his audience by immediately ordering the place where it was found to be screened from public view with sheets of canvas improvised from nearby bathing-tents. Digging then commenced in earnest and within the space of ten minutes several other parcels containing
He folded the newspaper carefully, with the article innermost, and set it beside him with two large pebbles to anchor it. A third he kept in his hand, enjoying the feel of its smooth, cool underside in his palm. The colour was the bluish-grey that seemed to prevail in the shingle near the West Pier. A white seam, marvellous in its precision, bisected it. He turned the stone slowly, examining the surface for some flaw, but there was none. A perfect object in an imperfect world. He rested it against his cheek and tried to decide what he should do.
The subject of the newspaper article accounted for his almost solitary occupation of the beach-or at least the stretch of it between the two stone groynes. It was not that people shunned the foreshore because of its association with violence, nor that they paled at the prospect of what little William might turn over with his wooden spade. Almost the contrary. They were all at the fish market, watching the comings and goings of the police, or filing through the Aquarium for a peep at the crocodile tank. The public at large had an insatiably morbid curiosity- so long as events did not touch them personally.
A woman of about thirty, the newspapers said. Dark complexion. Black sealskin jacket. It was not much to go on, not the kind of description that settled anything, although who was to say what the surgeon might discover in his examination-some scar, perhaps, or a birthmark? In cases of that sort, did the relatives of the deceased have memory or knowledge of such intimate details; weren’t those the very blemishes a young woman sought to conceal from everyone-even her husband? Perhaps, after all, the remains would never be identified.
That was the curious thing about it: that the husband and son had not come forward to report her disappearance. How could anyone be so lacking in concern, so callous as to continue the holiday-the daily swim, the promenading, the visits to Lewes Crescent-as though nothing untoward had happened? If it were cruel to die, how infinitely more cruel when one’s closest relatives appeared not to have noticed one’s passing.
Going to the police would ruin the rest of his holiday, he knew. There would be difficult questions, statements to make, hours of waiting in police stations and later in the courts, notoriety of a sort-bad for business. Yet there was an inevitability about it all, a feeling that from the moment he had first brought her into focus he was no longer in control of events. So many things he had done since then had been contrary to all his practice, entirely out of character. Who would have thought a fortnight previously that he would today be sitting on a deserted beach actually
It was gratifying to discover that Sergeant Cribb was a sensitive listener, tolerant of others’ little whimsies, not in the least disparaging about the optical experiments. The interview at Grafton Street lasted more than two hours and he was treated throughout with the utmost civility. He told the sergeant everything he thought he should know about Zena-of course, there were things one did not need to go into-even offering at the end to look at the severed hand, but Cribb explained that it was now in formalin and would be difficult to identify unless one were accustomed to such things.
‘For the present,’ said the sergeant, ‘I’m quite content with the information you’ve volunteered, Mr. Moscrop. You don’t mind if I go over one or two points again, so that Constable Thackeray here can check his notes?’
‘Please do.’
‘Very good, sir. The last time you saw Mrs. Prothero yourself was last Friday, when you met her by the croquet-lawn at the Albemarle to collect the sleeping-draught and get it analysed, is that correct, sir?’
‘On Friday, yes.’
‘And she seemed in good spirits then?’
‘Oh yes. There was an air of conspiracy about the whole thing which seemed to excite her. I found it rather taxing, myself.’
‘She arranged to meet you outside the hotel the following evening, to get the results of the analysis?’
‘Yes, at half past eight.’
‘But you were met by Bridget, the maid, instead. What time was that?’
‘Later. I remember looking at my watch. It was about nine o’clock. I had almost decided to leave.’
‘You’ve got that, Thackeray?’ said Cribb. ‘And what did Bridget say about her mistress, Mr. Moscrop?’
‘I understood that she was prevented from coming to meet me by her husband announcing that he was going out and insisting that she took her sleeping-draught before he went. However, she was reluctant to take the preparation without having seen the formula, so she pretended to have taken it-”foxed” was Bridget’s expression, I remember- and feigned sleep when Dr. Prothero looked in on her. Of course, it was impossible afterwards, even though she was awake, to dress again in the short time remaining and come to meet me.’
‘I can appreciate that, sir. So you gave the slip of paper with the formula on it to Bridget instead?’
