insurmountable aspect and most repellent mien which reinforced the bent hedge. There seemed no doubt that the owners of the house did not propose to have their privacy violated, for the gate, which was also of iron, showed the same unwelcoming face as the powerfully-constructed railings.
Laura and Mark stood at the gate and looked through. Mark gave the gate a slight shove, but it did not budge. Around the house were long-neglected flower-beds, weed-ridden and sprawling with nasturtium. The freely- flowering roses were small, and were choked by convolvulus and bindweed. Everywhere was the bright and deadly pink of the greater willow-herb.
In contrast to all this decay and obvious neglect, the path from the gate to the house had been carefully sanded. On its level greyish-brown surface there was never a footmark, although the surface here and there had been blown a little by the wind. Beyond that, the sand had not been disturbed, and it was obvious that it had not been laid down long.
‘Queer sort of place,’ said Mark. ‘I shouldn’t want to be about here much in the evening. Are we going to climb over the gate, or what?’
‘We’re in full view of some of the windows of that house,’ Laura pointed out, ‘and as there are curtains to one room it doesn’t look as though the house can be empty. There is a caretaker living there, I should think. Still, having come so far, and the day being young, it seems a pity to go all that way back, so what I say is, let’s take a pop and see what happens.’
They climbed over. The gate was not wired. They skirted the house, walking on the unkempt, weedy lawn. The garden on the other side was wild. The high bluff before them showed only the sky, with a gull turned to silver in the sun. When they got to the top the land dipped again, and they could see the wired hedge, and the post, and the back of that notice-board which they had resented two days earlier.
Mark went up to the board and gave the post a slight kick, but the post seemed firm in the earth and as he was wearing tennis shoes he merely hurt his toe. Laura was prowling along by the side of the hedge, looking for a thin place where possibly they might push their way through.
Suddenly she stopped. She had come to a dip in the ground and in the dip someone was lying. She could see that it was a woman, but her head was hidden in a gorse-bush, and there was something so odd in this as a choice of head-covering that Laura’s heart thumped oddly and she felt sick. Regardless of the fact that she was on private property, she said urgently, ‘Hi, you! Are you all right?’
There was no answer; neither (she knew) had she expected one. She looked back. Mark had swarmed up the post and was now clinging on to the notice-board and gazing out to sea. For the moment he seemed occupied, so Laura took out her towel, covered her hands with it to protect them as far as possible from the gorse prickles, and drew aside the bush.
The woman was dead. There was no doubt about that. The manner of her death was also apparent. A knife, of the type used by Commando troops during the war, had been thrust very neatly and cleanly into the side of her neck. Laura let the gorse fall back and was in time to intercept Mark, who had relinquished his impromptu crow’s- nest and was so soft-footed in his tennis shoes that she had not heard him approach.
‘Keep off,’ said Laura. She held her towel, now full of gorse prickles, between Mark and the dead woman.
‘Why, what’s up?’ asked Mark. He looked scared, and, suddenly, very much younger than his age. ‘It isn’t Miss Faintley, is it?’
‘Heavens, no!’ said Laura, in a hearty, unnatural voice. ‘Come on back, and make it slippy. No, look here, we can’t spare all that time. We’ve got to break through this beastly hedge! Let’s take up that post and use it as a ram! There’s somebody ill in that dip. We must get some help. Look, Mark, do something for me. Get through this wretched hedge somehow, and go to our hotel for Mrs Bradley. She’s a doctor. Ask her to come at once. Now, all hands to this beastly post!’
Her powerful muscles and Mark’s co-operation soon had the post out of the ground. His swarming up it had loosened it. Mark at last charged his way through the hedge where the battering-ram of a post had aided exit, and, scratched, bleeding and breathless, ran down the zigzag path towards the sea. Laura waited until he was well down the slope, and then, with one last look at the body, which, from Mark’s description, she felt certain was that of Miss Faintley, she walked slowly towards the house.
It was a fair-sized place, judging by the number of windows and the length of the side she went towards, but only the one window was curtained. She walked forward as quietly as she could, and peered in. There was nobody to be seen, so she knocked at the door, but, although she knocked again, and yet a third time, there was neither answer nor sound.
Laura tried the door, but it was either locked or bolted. Her excuse, if anybody came, was the body lying in the bushes, but she found that she needed no excuse. The house was most certainly empty. She peered in at other windows, went round to the kitchen entrance and knocked there, even shouted aloud in order to attract attention, but nothing came of any of this.
She returned to the body, but realized that by tramping about she might be destroying evidence, so, in the end, she returned to the notice-board which was now lying on the ground, a witness of her illegal behaviour. While she waited for Mrs Bradley she spent the time in widening the gap in the hedge. Then she crawled through it, sat on the cliff-top and stared thoughtfully out to sea. There was plenty to think about. Miss Faintley inquiring for Torbury railway station, and Miss Faintley dead on top of the Cromlech cliffs did not seem to make sense until it occurred to Laura that Miss Faintley had not intended to travel by train, but had had an appointment to meet someone at the station.
‘And he brought her up here and did for her,’ Laura concluded. ‘Must be one of those insane sex crimes. How deadly dull, and how horrible!’
Mrs Bradley arrived with Mark as guide, crawled through the gap which Laura had considerably enlarged, and sent Mark back to breakfast.
‘And now, child,’ she said briskly, ‘what have we here?’
Laura took her to the spot.
‘Hm!’ said Mrs Bradley, rising after she had examined the wound. ‘A very pretty piece of work, neat, skilful and clean. She was killed somewhere else… on that newly-sanded path, we may conclude, unless other evidence is forthcoming. You had better go at once for the police. I’ll stay here until they come. I presume, from the clothing, that this is Miss Faintley. I take it that Mark has not seen the body?’
‘No, I took care of that, of course,’ said Laura. She nodded, and bounded away.
Mrs Bradley knelt down again as soon as Laura had disappeared. There was something more interesting than
