she had seen it last, had been carefully smoothed and sanded. It was much trampled now, probably, she thought, by policemen’s boots. She wondered whether the police had discovered any clues to the identity of Miss Faintley’s assailant, and she left the path to inspect the bush beneath which Miss Faintley’s head had been thrust. It was likely that the woman had been struck down on the path, and then the path resanded to obscure footprints and perhaps to cover up blood. The painstaking police no doubt had swept the path, taken a sample, and put the sand back.
She turned away, walked back to the path and followed it up to the house. At the great front door she knocked. The reverberation of emptiness came booming at her. She listened intently, but, once the sound of her own knocking had died, the silence, except for screaming gulls whom the noise, most likely, had disturbed, and the far- off sound of the sea on the headland rocks, settled down again even as, after a minute or two, the gulls returned to their fastnesses, the ledges and clefts of the cliff.
Laura went on round the house and found the window which (presumably) the police had broken in order to force an entrance. The catch was temptingly exposed. Laura was not the person to ignore a challenge. She pushed back the catch, opened the window and inserted her head. In a very loud voice she called out: ‘Hullo, there! Anybody in?’ There was no answer. A sudden breeze blew past her ear and shut an open door with a bang which sounded loud enough to bring down the house.
‘Hope it hasn’t jammed!’ thought Laura. She waited for a few moments to see whether the slam of the door would bring anybody to find out what had happened, but everything remained still, so she climbed in through the window, determined to tour the house.
It was a big place. Besides the kitchen regions and a large, much-scrawled-upon room which seemed to speak of bored children on wet afternoons and which was completely unfurnished even to the bare floorboards much trampled, again, she supposed, by policemen, there were seven other rooms on the ground floor. Only one of these, the curtained room she had seen on her first visit, was furnished. It contained a carpet, a suite of upholstered furniture, several small chairs, a large table (much scratched), a rusty metal filing-cabinet which she opened and found to be empty, and a case of pressed ferns. This was fastened to the wall and each exhibit was labelled, both botanically and in English, thus:4
Polypodium Vulgare
Polystichum Lonchitis
Trichomanes Radicans
Asplenium Ceterach
Asplenium Septentrionale
Lastrea Filix-Mas
Polypodium Phegopteris
Asplenium Fontanum
Asplenium Marinum
Athyrium Filix-Foemina
Botrychium Lunaria
Blechnum Spicant
Lastreas (Nephrodium)
Ophioglossum Vulgatum
Osmunda Regalis
Common Polypody
Holly Fern
British Fern
Scaly Spleenwort
Forked Spleenwort
Male Fern
Beech Fern
Smooth-Rock Spleenwort
Sea Spleenwort
Lady Fern
Moonwort
Hard Fern
Buckler Fern
Adder’s-Tongue Fern
Royal Fern
‘Shades of the prison house!’ said Laura aloud, thinking of her own schooldays. ‘Wonder why they didn’t take it with them?’ The specimens were indeed remarkably well preserved and had been carefully – one would say lovingly – mounted, and the printing, carried out in Indian ink, was both artistic and neat. The other downstairs rooms having provided nothing of interest, Laura decided to try the rooms on the first floor. These did not coincide in every case with the ground floor rooms, and she concluded that some had been considerably altered, possibly to provide dormitories. This theory was substantiated by her discovery of a row of small washbasins, five tiny bathrooms with partitions between them which did not reach the ceiling, and, opposite them, a row of water-closets.
