A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs

the ways there are of getting in there, since somebody did get in and dump a body. So that’s it. It’s the only other key I know of, and I’ve got it. I’ll turn it in if you want to have it in your own hands.”

Hewitt closed his notebook with a movement of terrible forbearance. “Oh, you have a key. Well, that’s helpful, at any rate. Would you mind telling us how you got it in the first place?”

“Not a bit. When I was a kid, St. Nectan’s was our favourite playground. I found the key, once when we dug our way into the church for some game or other. It was down in the sand, under a nail on the wall, where I take it it used to hang. The wire on the bow was frayed through. I brought it home and cleaned it up, and it didn’t take me long to find out it fitted the Treverra vault. We were a bit scared of going in,” said Sam, smiling broadly under cover of his whiskers, “but sometimes we did. I’ve had the key ever since. It’s in a bunch on a nail in my shed right now.”

“Where, I take it, anyone could get at it? Do you keep the shed locked, even?”

“No, there’s nothing special in it, and anyhow, we don’t lock things, you know that. So I suppose anyone could get at it. But he’d have to know it was there, or else have an extraordinary stroke of luck, happening on it and finding out where it fitted. Do you want me to turn it in? I’ll go and get it right now, if you’ve finished with me for the moment.”

“If you’ll be so good.” And there were not now, and there never would be hereafter, any awkward questions about how, and how often, that key had been used. Hewitt was after a murderer, he was not going to be side- tracked. Sam rose and left the conference with only one bright, backward glance in Simon’s direction.

“Now, Mr. Towne, you were going to add something, too?”

“Yes, I was. I didn’t think much of it at the time—I don’t now, for that matter—but you know all the talk there was when I first let it get round that I meant to open the Treverra tomb? A lot of people went off at half-cock, as usual, about the attempt being irreverent and blasphemous, about how a curse would fall on us, and so on. You must have heard it. Then when we made it known that it was a serious project, and the bishop had given permission, and Miss Rachel was positively egging us on, then all the fuss died down. All but this chap Trethuan. Well, of course, he was the verger, and I made allowances for certain prejudices, but he did begin to be a bit of a nuisance. He took every occasion he could to buttonhole me and try to persuade me to drop it. At first he just denounced it as ungodly, and said there’d be a judgment if we went ahead. Then he began to get threatening. I listened politely at first and made soothing noises, but I got tired of it finally and gave him the brush-off. But he didn’t give up. He got more urgent.”

“And was that what he spoke to you about on Wednesday,” asked Hewitt, “when you came away from the vicarage?”

“It was all he ever spoke to me about. He saw me coming through the churchyard, and he came and stood right in the path, blocking the way, with the scythe in his hand. Something between Father Time and Holbein’s ‘Death’,” said Simon wryly, “that long, bony man with his lantern face, clutching a scythe and pronouncing doom.”

“Did he actually threaten you?”

“Physical threats? Not exactly. Just hints that I should regret it if I went ahead. But he did seem desperately disturbed about the whole thing, as if it was a matter of life and death to him.”

“And what did you say to him?”

“Told him to do his worst, of course. Bring on your lightnings, I said, and pushed past him and left him standing there.”

“By the Vicar’s account,” said Hewitt sharply, “he didn’t stand there long. He didn’t, by any chance, follow you to Treverra Place? He turned up there shortly afterwards.”

“If he did, I never looked back to see. I didn’t see him at the Place, either, I didn’t know he was there. I spent the next hour or so with Miss Rachel, sitting talking in the garden. So it must have been after I left that he took his plums into the house and talked to her. I left around four o’clock, I suppose.”

“You didn’t say anything about Trethuan’s queer behaviour to the old lady?”

“No, why should I? Oh, because it was her pet project—no, I didn’t. I’d forgotten all about him by then, and anyhow, why bother Miss Rachel with it? We weren’t even talking about Treverra that day, only about personal things.”

“And after you left?”

“I hadn’t brought the car out that day. I walked down into Maymouth for some cigarettes, and then took my time walking back over the Dragon’s neck on my way home to Pentarno to tea. And that’s when I came upon George’s boy and our Paddy, down on the Pentarno beach. I saw them from the road and ran down to them. Dominic had just hauled Paddy out of the sea. And that reminds me,” he said, stricken, “of why he said he went out so far. He said he’d seen a man in the sea.”

“A man in the sea?” Hewitt’s head jerked up smartly at that. “This is the first I’ve heard of any man in the sea.”

“We didn’t believe there ever was one. But, my God, now I’m beginning to wonder. It’s like this, you see. There were these two boys, and it seemed Dominic had seen Paddy swimming dangerously far out off the point, and felt he ought to go and bring him in. But when he did, Paddy up and swore he thought he’d seen a body going out with the tide, and was trying to reach him. Dom and I went in again to see if we could see anything of him, but never a sign. Neither of us thought there was anything in it. But now—if Trethuan really drowned in the sea, as it seems he probably did—”

“About what time would that be?”

“Past five, maybe as late as half past, or even a little later. Could it have been? As early as that?”

“And only young Paddy actually claims he saw anything?”

“Even he wasn’t positive. But he was worried. I promised I’d notify the coastguard, just to satisfy him, and I clean forgot. Not believing in it, you see, and then there was no report of anyone missing. I wish now I’d taken it more seriously.”

Hewitt looked at Tim. “We’d better get hold of your boy, Mr. Rossall, and let him tell his own story. There may be nothing in it, but we can’t afford to miss anything.”