Swing, Swing Together

three you saw from the river the other night?”

Positively; this was what they would ask in court when she was there to testify. This was the reason why she was here. “I cannot be positive without seeing them in profile. The largest, Mr. Humberstone, certainly had the same sort of hat, and there was something of the Persian Gulf about him, but I did not get a view of the others from where we were seated. That isn’t much help, I’m afraid.”

“No matter, miss. Cribb caught them out famously, anyway. Their game is up. Did you notice the mistake they made over the Crown at Marlow? Couldn’t see the river from the bank! They’ve never been near the Crown, and that’s plain.”

“It might have been a slip of the tongue,” said Harriet. “I don’t see how anything so trivial as that condemns them. What does it matter where they put up in Marlow?”

“It matters because they claimed to be there on Tuesday, the night the tramp was murdered. If they did stay at the Crown, they’ve got an alibi. Marlow is two miles downriver from Hurley.”

“Couldn’t they have rowed up from Marlow after dark?”

“No, miss. There are two locks in that stretch of the river, Temple and Hurley. Locks are closed at sundown. They might have got to Hurley, but their boat couldn’t. That’s if they did put up at Marlow. If they were lyin’, as seems to be the case, they could have rowed beyond Hurley on Tuesday, murdered the tramp that night and carried on upriver in the mornin’.”

“But why should three respectable employees of an insurance company take it into their heads to murder a wretched vagrant?”

“That’s the biggest mystery of all, miss. Sergeant Cribb is doin’ his best to unravel it at this moment. First he needs absolute proof of their guilt. He was hopin’ you would identify them, but you say you can’t.”

“Not yet. If I see them in their boat, I shall try to be sure. The light is very poor in the Barley Mow.”

“Quite so, miss. You’ve got to be convinced. Proof positive. And I think I’ve got the means of obtainin’ it.”

“What’s that?” demanded Thackeray.

“This.” Hardy took the wrapped polony from under his arm and held it between them in his two hands like an oblation.

“That sausage?”

“We shall shortly put it to the service of Scotland Yard,” Hardy went on, “in accordance with the principles of forensic science.”

“Good Lord!”

“We are not so backward in the country as you might suppose, Ted. When you come up against a crime as sinister as this one, you have to bring the latest methods of detection to bear on it.”

“Sausages?” squeaked Thackeray.

“Murder on the river,” continued Hardy, undistracted by the outburst, “produces its own special problems for the detective. On solid ground the scene of a crime tells some sort of story if you go over it carefully. Footprints, marks of entry, bloodstains, strands of cloth, hairs. On the river, nothing. You’re lucky if the body is recovered. Happily for us the corpse in this case had certain marks of great significance.”

“Bruising round the neck and shoulders,” said Thackeray. “We know all this.”

“And something else.”

“The dog bite, you mean?”

“Exactly. Now suppose you and I could obtain proof that the dog on Humberstone’s boat was the same animal that sank its teeth into the dead man’s leg.”

“Strike a light!” said Thackeray. “Teethmarks-the sausage-that’s bloody smart, young Roger. Forgive my language, miss, but you’ve got to give praise when it’s due. Don’t you think it’s bloody smart too?”

“That is not the expression I would choose,” Harriet answered, “but the idea had not occurred to me, I confess. Do you think it will work?” To admit that Hardy’s plan had set her heart pounding with possibilities was inconceivable. Yet if he actually managed to obtain teethmarks on the polony that matched those on the dead man’s leg, the guilt of the three would surely be proved beyond doubt. The matter would no longer hinge on her ability to identify them. She would be absolved of that awful responsibility.

“We can but try,” said Hardy. “Let’s introduce ourselves to Towser.”

They walked down to the Lucrecia without subterfuge. The direct approach was always best with dogs, Thackeray announced, mentioning that before he joined the C.I.D. his duties had included rounding up strays for the dog pound. It did cross Harriet’s mind that Hardy had taken a little more than his share of the limelight. Fortified by Thackeray’s experience, Harriet and Hardy passed no comment on the intermittent barking as their footsteps sounded on the gravel.

Towser stood on one of the rowing thwarts with his forepaws on the side, a small fox terrier mainly white in colour, with brown patches on the head and tail. From his collar a leather lead hung slackly, its other end attached to the rowlock. He had given up barking now that they were near. He was growling instead, a low, reverberating sound like a boiler with the vent open.

“Leave this to me,” said Thackeray, taking the polony from Hardy with all the authority of the only canine expert in the party. “Keep a reasonable distance from him. That’s just right. You’re downwind of him there. I want him to get a good scent of the sausage before I offer it to him.”

Their vantage point was ten yards from the bank. Thackeray approached the snarling Towser with gladiatorial confidence, keeping the polony wrapped and tucked out of sight under his left arm.

The skiff was moored at the bow and lay at a narrow angle to the bank, held steady by the current. To reach the dog, he would need to board by the bow.

He approached indirectly, in the long, sweeping curve of an experienced tracker, covertly removing the cheesecloth from the polony as he drew level with the bank. Two yards more and he would have been aboard, but the unexpected intervened. He had underestimated the length of the lead trailing from Towser’s collar. The terrier bounded onto the bank just ahead of him, stretching the lead taut against his shins. The impetus of his movement lifted the end of the lead over the rowlock, and the dog was free.

Ignoring Thackeray and the polony, it rushed at Hardy, baying with predatory passion, and sank its teeth into his leg.

CHAPTER 16

Ace of trumps with iodine-The polony comes in useful-Hardy gets his marching orders

“Beautiful!” declared Sergeant Cribb, a man not often given to aesthetic pronouncements.

A perfect set of teethmarks was displayed on Hardy’s left calf, uncovered for inspection in his room at the Barley Mow. He lay face down on the bed moaning faintly as Harriet dabbed the wound with iodine.

“Believe me, Constable, I’d never have asked you to do such a thing,” Cribb went on. “Quite beyond the call of duty. I don’t know who it was that thought of this, but it’s the ace of trumps. Exhibit number one! There’s a commendation in this for someone.”

“It was Constable Hardy’s own idea to purchase the sausage,” said Harriet generously.

“Good thinking,” said Cribb. “Give the dog a scent of meat and then show it your leg.”

“It wasn’t quite like that,” said Harriet. “Constable Thackeray was holding the polony and-”

“Thackeray, eh?” said Cribb. “I thought this had the stamp of Scotland Yard on it. Stout work, Thackeray! I should have known that if there was a dust with a dog, you’d be in the thick of it. And when the evidence was firm, so to speak, you disconnected Towser from Hardy and secured the beast to the boat again?”

“That’s right, Sarge.”

Thackeray’s emphasis sought to convey that Cribb’s assumptions were not correct in every respect, but it was lost on the sergeant. “Capital work! The suspects won’t have any notion of the evidence we’ve secured. They’re paddling blissfully up to Culham at this minute to spend the night in the backwater, quite unaware of what was going on while they were drinking. I forgot to ask you if you recognized them, Miss Shaw.”

That question again. Harriet had hoped it had been forgotten in the excitement over Hardy’s leg. “They could