Swing, Swing Together

In a confidential tone Cribb said, “I’ve guarded the Sovereign herself in my time, ma’am. Have no fears about that. Go back into the room now and tell her you’re suspending her and committing her into my custody. She has half an hour to pack her things. We shall leave by the front door”-he drew out his watch-“at half-past eleven. Just think of the effect it will have on the other students.”

CHAPTER 7

The Bushman of the Yard-Literary pursuits of the police-Concerning the corpse

That was how Harriet found herself bowling along the Henley road in a growler in the company of three policemen. Her travelling bag sat importantly on the roof-privileged treatment, because P. C. Hardy’s bicycle, which could have been strapped up there, was left behind, propped against the gardener’s shed. Sergeant Cribb had made a pointed remark about the pace of life in the country and indicated with a jerk of his thumb that he wanted the constable to travel with the rest of the party in the cab. The bicycle had not been mentioned. It said much for P. C. Hardy’s judgment, in Harriet’s view, that he did not contest the point.

She was seated next to Cribb, with the two constables opposite: a daunting experience considering that Miss Plummer allowed no member of the opposite sex except the Vicar of Henley into the same room with her students. It would have been gross bad manners to stare out of the window for the whole of the journey, however, but unendurably embarrassing to have caught P. C. Hardy’s eye (for he seemed determined not to look out of the window), so when she shifted her gaze from the beech trees, it turned without deviation to Constable Thackeray. And, most unusually when she first examined a face, the image that came to her was not from her atlas but her geography textbook, which had a frontispiece illustrating the multiformity of facial characteristics throughout the world. There was a striking resemblance between Constable Thackeray and Bushman, New Guinea. Harriet had never been quite sure whether “bush” referred to the man’s prodigious growth of whiskers or the sparse vegetation in the background. But Scotland Yard was quite the equal of New Guinea in growth of beard. Thackeray had the same broad forehead, shaggy eyebrows and generously proportioned ears, and if he lacked the finishing touch of a quill through his nostrils, at least he sported a fine brown bowler hat with a curly brim! Harriet decided she would not be intimidated by a set of whiskers. The face behind them was probably quite as jolly in reality as Esquimau, North America.

“Have you read it yet?” Sergeant Cribb asked unexpectedly.

After reflection, Thackeray replied, “Read what, Sarge?”

“Three Men in a Boat. Appeared this summer. Popular book. You see it on the bookstalls at every London terminus.”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“I have, too,” contributed P. C. Hardy.

“What about you, Miss Shaw?” asked Cribb, ignoring such meagre responses. “Student like yourself must read books by the dozen.”

Harriet shook her head. “Nothing like that, I’m afraid. Miss Plummer regards books you can buy on railway stations as unsuitable. Somebody came back after the Christmas vacation with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and there was the most frightful scene.”

“Pity,” said Cribb. “I was hoping to have a profitable discussion on the subject. Well-written book, too. I’m surprised not one of you has read it.” He turned his head to look out of the window, as if having taken the cultural pulse of his fellow travellers, he had decided he would be better employed looking at trees.

Thackeray cleared his throat to speak and, unless Harriet were mistaken, winked at the same time. “Perhaps you could tell us what it’s about, Sarge. Just the outline of the story, like. We’d appreciate that.”

Cribb returned a sharp look. “Three hundred pages, with illustrations? I haven’t time for that. You must read it for yourselves. I’ll tell you one thing, though. There’s a dog in it.”

“So there is!” confirmed Hardy. “I’ve seen the picture on the cover-a silhouette with two men rowin’ and the third takin’ his ease on the cushions smokin’ a pipe. The dog is sittin’ at the front.”

“In the prow,” said Cribb curtly. “The author is Mr. Jerome K. Jerome.”

“That’s right,” said Hardy. “That’s on the cover, too.”

Thackeray, who plainly knew the limit of Sergeant Cribb’s tolerance, quickly put in, “Is it a true story, Sarge?”

Instead of attacking Hardy, Cribb rounded on his assistant, “That’s not a question you should put to me, Thackeray. Only Mr. Jerome himself can answer that. If I was so incautious as to say that it was true, it wouldn’t be admissible evidence, and you as an officer of the law shouldn’t place any reliance upon it. However”-the sergeant’s tone mellowed a little-“it’s a question which indicates that you’ve applied your mind to recent events, and that’s to be welcomed. No doubt you were pondering the significance of the three men in the boat seen by Miss Shaw on Tuesday night.”

“To say nothing of the dog,” added Thackeray.

“That’s part of the title!” exclaimed Hardy in some excitement.

Cribb eyed him witheringly. “What do you suggest I do-arrest Mr. Jerome K. Jerome?”

Harriet spoke: “How can you be sure that there is any connection at all between the three men I saw and the unfortunate man at Hurley Weir?”

“Can’t be sure, miss,” said Cribb, “but there are certain indications. Circumstantial evidence, we’d say. The doctors tell me that the man at Hurley died from drowning. Now, that’s nothing unusual in a corpse taken from the Thames.”

“It nearly happened to me.”

“So I believe, miss. But, as I understand it, you were in the water because you chose to be. You weren’t wearing any-that is to say, many clothes. The man in the water was fully dressed right down to his boots. It’s a wonder the boots stayed on, because they had no proper laces. He was a vagrant, miss, a gentleman of the road, to coin a phrase. We haven’t identified him yet. Aged about forty-five, although he looks older-they always do. Good physique. Hands and feet a bit weathered. I’m not distressing you, am I? Not so different, as I say, from scores of other corpses we take from the river every month. Some of ’em get in by accident-drunks falling off the Embankment and the like-and some are suicides and I dare say there’s a few that are helped in. They’re mostly derelicts and one more wouldn’t have brought me here from Scotland Yard except for some uncommon circumstances. You see, he was taken from the water within six or seven hours of his death, and there were signs of violence on his body. Bruising round the shoulders: the clear marks of a hand on the nape of the neck, as if somebody had held him face down in the water.”

“But who would want to drown a tramp?” asked Harriet.

“Someone with a grudge, perhaps. Another tramp, maybe. There’s a complicated code of conduct among ’em. Or it could be someone from his past-the life he chose to turn his back on. He might have taken to the roads to escape from somebody. We shan’t know the answer until we can identify him. One thing’s certain: the motive wasn’t theft. When he was taken from the water, he still had a packet in his pocket containing almost thirty pounds in banknotes.”

“A tramp, with that money?”

“They aren’t all paupers, miss. It isn’t only want of funds that can drive a man out of his home. What surprises me isn’t that he had the money; it’s that his killers left it on him.”

“Did he carry any papers or things that might help you to identify him?”

“Like a set of visiting cards? No, miss. A knife, some matches and a clay pipe. It won’t be easy. That’s why we’re here from Scotland Yard-Thackeray and me, that is. P. C. Hardy’s here because he bumped into you on the night in question. Or did you bump into him? Never mind. What matters is that he was smart enough to put two and two together. When I picked him up at Medmenham this morning, he was ready to tell me about his meeting with you and what you said about the three men. It wasn’t easy for him, mind. It was breaking a confidence and he didn’t do it lightly, but the capital crime was involved, Miss Shaw, the capital crime. I hope you don’t blame him in any way.”