Dance to Your Daddy

west by a small wood. They found Tancred, in a sheepskin jacket, jeans and fur-lined boots, seated on the steps of his caravan, engaged, apparently, with his Muse, for he had a large scribbling-tablet on his knees and a pencil in his hand.

'Oh, Lord!' he said, looking up, as, the car having come to a bumping halt on the wheel-rutted turf, he saw Dame Beatrice. 'So you've tracked me down, have you? Trust the blasted police to give me away!'

'I am the police,' said Kirkby. 'I am conducting an investigation into the death of the Reverend Hubert Lestrange, whose body was found below the cliff's on Dancing Ledge.'

'So that's who it was,' said Tancred.

'Sir?'

'Oh, I spotted it, you know, last-when would that have been?-last Tuesday. Yes, that's right. Day after I'd accepted my invitation to old Romilly's place, Galliard Hall. I wrote a ballad about it. You know-four-line stanzas with a b c b rhymes. Martha set a tune to it, and we have it as one of our fireside songs. Would you care to hear it?'

'You saw the body last Tuesday? What time would that have been, sir?'

'Let's see, now. We'd come up here from London the day before. Martha drove me to Blandford for her weekly shopping, and we got there at ten and had loaded up the boot of her car by about eleven, I suppose. We'd planned to get lunch out, but it was much too early to have it then, so I said, 'Why don't we stick old Romilly up? Save our money, and give me a chance to find out what sort of ideas he's got, because he's holding a family pow- wow and I wouldn't mind having a shot at finding out why.' Well, Martha wouldn't wear it, so I said, 'Well, it wouldn't hurt for you to have a look at the outside of it. It's crumbling a bit, but it's a fine old place. We'll have lunch in Wareham and go on from there.'

'And did you lunch in Wareham, sir?'

'Well, no-at least, not table d'hote. More a la carte, if you know what I mean. We bought rolls and ham and cheese and apples and beer, and had an al fresco in the car.'

'Whereabouts, sir?'

'There's a rather jolly little parking-place on the quay. All right this time of year, but the hell of a place to get out of in the holiday season because of the two-way traffic on the Swanage road.'

'And then, sir?'

'Well, then we came out and drove over the bridge, and we were all right until we got to Langton Matravers, but it appeared we'd missed some sort of turning and had come too far south or east or something. The post-office people directed us, but it sounded so horribly complicated that, after we'd looked at the map, when we got back into the car, Martha said, 'Let's pack it in, and go and have a look at the sea. The cliffs are marvellous this side of Swanage.' So, of course, that's how I came to spot the body, but I hadn't a clue who it was.'

'You did not examine it, sir?'

'Good Lord, no! I'm a poet, not a blasted bloodhound! It gave me the idea for this ballad, though. That's the main thing.'

'It did not occur to you that the gentleman might not be dead, and that maybe you could help him?'

'He was dead enough! The waves were gently rolling him about.'

'And you did not report what you had seen?'

'Why should I? It never occurred to me. Martha was a bit chastened, so I piloted her to the car and comforted her, and then we drove back to Wareham and had tea in that jolly bow-window place where they have lashings of cream and always do you so well.'

'May I have the young lady's address, sir?'

'Well, for the present, she's living here. You're not going to bully her, I hope? She can't tell you any more than I can, and, anyway, at present, she's out.'

'When do you expect her back, sir?'

'God knows! She's gone in to Shaftesbury to have her hair done.'

'We'll wait, sir. Have you anywhere for Dame Beatrice to sit down?'

'Why, yes, of course. Come in, both of you. Martha cleared up before she went, so there's plenty of room. By the way, just as a matter of interest, who says the body was Hubert's?'

'Mr Romilly Lestrange, of course, sir,' replied Kirkby, giving him a long stare.

(3)

Martha was a very pretty girl, small-boned, well-groomed, supremely mistress of herself and, in both senses, mistress of Tancred.

'Go and sit in the car,' she said to him, when Kirkby had stated his business, 'and don't come back until I tell you. If you want something to do, you can peel the potatoes. We're having Irish stew tonight.'

Having got rid of him, she turned to Kirkby and asked:

'Have you come about the court-case? Is it worse than he told me? I hope he hasn't done anything really silly. He never does behave himself in pubs. Thank goodness I wasn't with him.'

'But you were with him on the day he went to Dancing Ledge.'

'Oh, dear! Don't remind me of that! There was nothing we could do, you know. The poor man was hideously dead.'

'You could have reported finding the body.'