Faintley Speaking

She asked them whether the dredger was often there, and if they knew why the bay needed deepening. One of them volunteered the information that she was dredging on the site of a supposed wreck which had had bullion on board. He had gathered this from talk at the hotel where he was staying. One of the local boatmen, it was understood, had gone out to the dredger to pass the time of day and ask whether they wanted to buy shellfish. He had never heard of any wreck, but thought it must date from the war and had been hushed up for some reason.

‘I thought they generally used divers to get stuff up from wrecks,’ said Laura. ‘I don’t see what you could expect to get up in those buckets, unless it might be proof that you’d found the right spot. And they haven’t got a hopper alongside, and nothing is dumped in the hold. All that sand and stuff just keeps getting put back again. It all seems such a waste of time.’

The boys paddled shorewards, and Laura went below to scrape potatoes. She had no idea of when she might expect Mrs Bradley, but there seemed no harm in getting lunch ready to cook. When she came on deck again the dredger was entertaining a visitor. A rusty-looking sea-going cruiser had joined her and was taking on board some wooden crates. After a bit, with a farewell toot of her siren, she was off, bumping choppily but going fast, and was soon out of sight round the headland. The dredger had ceased work some time previously, and now sheered off, out to sea. Laura watched until she disappeared over the horizon. When the girl looked shorewards again, somebody was signalling from the beach. Laura turned the binoculars on to the small figure and was relieved to discover that it was, as she had hoped, Mrs Bradley.

‘Still in one piece,’ thought Laura. ‘Thank goodness for that! Wonder whether she’s found out anything useful?’

She cast off in the dinghy and rowed to the beach.

‘The house has been used again,’ said Mrs Bradley, when they were once more on board Canto Five. ‘An unwithered frond of Asplenium Septentrionale, the Forked Spleenwort, was lying just inside the front door. I climbed in by means of the back window, which, since the police broke it, has not been mended.’

‘Anything else interesting?’

‘No, not to me. Apart from Asplenium Septentrionale, there was nothing to discover except the cellar.’

‘I don’t remember seeing a cellar door.’

‘No. It is a trap-door, covered by matting, in the floor of that one furnished room.’

‘I wonder why they didn’t shove Faintley’s body into the cellar? Nobody would ever have found it.’

‘The cellar is not very large and a body might have been in the way. Besides, bodies do decompose, you know.’

‘Did you expect to find a cellar?’

‘No, but I always look under rugs and mats and the like as a matter of course because of my interest in priest’s holes and church crypts.’

‘Anything interesting on the cliff-top?’

‘I regret to emphasize that there was nothing interesting at all. Nevertheless, I was inclined to be sorry I had not taken you along. You would have enjoyed it. It was gloriously hot on the headland, and the scent of the gorse was very pleasing.’

‘It’s been a bit boring here except for the dredger that dredged up sand, and the story of a wreck that doesn’t seem to have happened.’ She described her morning while the potatoes were boiling. Mrs Bradley was interested in the story of the dredger. ‘I wonder whether you’d mind if I shifted over after lunch and dropped anchor just about where they did?’ Laura concluded. ‘There must have been some method in the madness, but I’m hanged if I can spot what it was. You don’t think there was any connexion between the dredger and the people we’re after, do you? It wasn’t doing its proper job, and it did unload those packing-cases on to the cruiser.’

‘I was wondering, child. If there were some reason for hanging about, to pretend to be dredging would be as good a way as any of appearing to have legitimate business, I should think. Move over, by all means. I doubt whether we shall learn anything, but one never knows. You cannot tell, of course, whether the cabin cruiser was the one which may have shipped away the case of ferns?’

The move, made as soon as the washing-up was done, gave them no help. Mrs Bradley, while Laura lazed and digested her lunch before dropping overboard for a swim, studied the cliff-face earnestly through binoculars, but there was nothing to be seen but the gulls.

Laura’s deep dives, when she had gone in for her dip, were equally unproductive. After tea she took up anchor and slid away on a longish north-east slant to attempt to get some satisfactory evidence from the clue supplied by Mr Trench’s confession to the police. The sun began to dip, the sea grew calm as the breeze died, and Laura, who had studied the Yachtsman’s Pilot until she could have drawn in her sleep the plan of the harbour entrance she wanted, took the wheel from Mrs Bradley as the Isle of Wight loomed larger, and made for the western end of the island.

Mrs Bradley, standing beside her with the binoculars trained on the land, said suddenly:

‘There’s your dredger, child, in that little bay ahead of us. Put your helm over. We don’t want to get near enough for the men on board to recognize this as the cruiser which shared the bay with them this morning. It won’t matter if they are on their lawful occasions, but, if they are not, we don’t want to give the impression that we are following them about. I also find that rusty cruiser interesting. I wish I knew whether it took off those two men and the large case of ferns – and, if it did, whether the people on board her recognized Canto Five when they saw her again.’

‘They seemed too busy loading those stores — whatever they were – to notice anything, but you never know. Anyway, even if they did recognize her, there’s no reason why they should connect her with anything to their disadvantage, is there?’

‘No, but if their occasions are unlawful they are bound to be deeply suspicious. I am very anxious not to arouse their suspicions, because, if we do —’

‘They’ll merely lead us a dance, and we shan’t be any nearer to a solution of our problem. Yes, I see what you mean. All right, we’ll steer clear for a bit. As the dredger is anchored off the Isle of Wight, perhaps the cruiser will