The Murder of Busy Lizzie

Thursdays and Saturdays are the arrival days, and as the conference people are expected to come by the Saturday boat, your aunt will certainly not delay her own arrival until then. I confidently expect her this morning at about half-past eleven or so. It appears that the Thursday boat puts in earlier than ours did yesterday.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Margaret, ‘perhaps we had better come back to lunch, then, if Aunt Eliza is expected.’

‘There is no need for you to put yourselves out, my dear. In fact, it is so long since I saw my sister that I believe I would prefer to break the ice before I introduce you to her.’

‘Thank goodness for that!’ said Sebastian, when they had left the hotel and were making their way towards the northwest corner of the island. ‘We didn’t want him tagging along and making us look at what interests him and bores us crosseyed. He has such weird ideas of enjoyment.’

‘Poor old Tutor! Do you sometimes think perhaps we’re a bit lousy where he’s concerned?’

‘Good heavens, no! He’s got a job he likes and isn’t much good at (so he’s lucky to keep it, and he wouldn’t, except at a university), we don’t cost him much and he’s stingy about my allowance, anyway, and I don’t drink (much) or dope at all, and we’re both quite reasonably intelligent—and that’s a miracle when you think of Boob. Besides—’

‘Oh, not that ancient Sicilian Vesper about not having asked to be born! I’m jolly glad I was born, and I’m going to enjoy myself as long as I can manage to stay alive. Look, there’s the church. Shall we take a look at it?’ said Margaret.

Sebastian took a look at it and snorted disgustedly.

‘Victorian Gothic,’ he said.

‘Well, John Betjeman likes Victorian Gothic, and he’s the Poet Laureate now, so don’t be snobby.’

Sebastian tried the door, but the church was locked.

‘Oh, well, that’s that, and I don’t think we’ve missed much,’ he said.

‘I wonder whether there are any interesting old grave-stones in the churchyard,’ said Margaret.

‘There couldn’t be. I should think the building was put up in about 1880, and not a day earlier.’

‘There might be an amusing inscription or so, all the same. Come on, let’s look around. We’ve time to kill.’

‘Not if we’re going to get as far as the northern end of the island.’

‘Well, we need not do that today. We’ve got a whole month to mess about in.’

Sebastian gave way and tagged along after her as she inspected the graves. The churchyard was ragged and untidy and on three of the headstones vandals had been at work. Red paint had been splashed on them in the forms, respectively, of a giant letter s followed by the word murder, a five-pointed star labelled lucifer and a sprawling, badly-executed swastika.

‘Amateur satanists!’ said Sebastian. ‘Cor!’

There was one more item of interest. A notice in the church porch, addressed to visitors, supplied the information that services were held once a month, but that special arrangements could be made with J. Dimbleton at Lighthouse Cottage by any who wished at any time to go to church on the mainland. tariff by mutual agreement depending on numbers, the notice stated.

‘Might come in useful, even if one didn’t want to go to church on the mainland,’ said Sebastian. ‘Sundays are bound to be pretty grim in a place like this. Oh, well, let’s press on, shall we? There’s only one track in this direction, so there’s no need to argue about which way we should go.’

The track brought them to a farm and continued past it. The farmhouse was perched high up on the plateau in what seemed to be an unnecessarily exposed position and adjoining it were piggeries, cattle-sheds, a walled kitchen garden and a good-sized cottage and smallholding. Apart from the buildings and the rough road which hereabouts was muddy with the tramplings of cattle and plentifully endowed with large pats of cow-dung, there was nothing to be seen but pasture dotted freely with the black and white of Fresian cattle and also a number of white-faced Herefords which were quietly grazing.

As they approached the cottage a man came out. He gave them a polite good-day as they passed, and as soon as they were out of earshot Margaret remarked,

‘He was on the boat that brought us ashore. I was certain he and the older man with him were natives. He might be able to tell us quite a lot about the island.’

‘What I’d like him to tell us,’ said Sebastian, ‘is whether the island supports a pub. We have sandwiches, but nothing to drink.’

‘They did offer us a thermos flask of coffee at the hotel.’

‘I know, but it’s such a drag hauling drinks about.’ He turned, ran, and caught up with the man, who had turned towards the farmhouse. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but is there a pub within measurable distance? My sister and I could do with a drink.’

‘A drink? Oh, sure. I could do with one myself. It’s this way, if you’d like to come along. You’ll be visitors to the island, no doubt.’

‘Yes, we came over yesterday. Didn’t we see you on the boat?’ asked Sebastian.

‘Me and my dad, yes, I expect you did. We were on it, anyway.’

‘There were two other people, two women.’

‘That’s right. Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley and her secretary, Mrs Gavin.’

‘Is Dame Beatrice really a criminologist?’ asked Margaret.

‘Shouldn’t think so, except that she’s a psychiatrist. It might come to the same thing, I suppose.’

‘Does she come here often?’

‘Never been before, to my knowledge.’

‘But you know all about her.’

‘Well, she’s famous, I believe. Writing her memoirs, so I hear, and has taken Puffins for three months to get away from her friends and relatives. A gaggle of servants came over last week to get the house ready.’

‘To get it ready?’

‘Well, yes. The family left when the other house was turned into a hotel. It’s been up for sale for years. The agents let it when they can, but that’s not often.’

‘We wondered,’ said Margaret, falling into step beside him while Sebastian loitered behind, ‘whether our Aunt Eliza —Mrs Chayleigh—was expected back this morning.’

‘Expected back? Back from where?’

‘I don’t know exactly. From the mainland, anyhow. We were told she had gone over to make arrangements.’

‘For what?’

‘Well, isn’t she expecting to have a bevy of bird-watchers at the hotel?’

‘Goodness knows! Is she?’

‘So we were told. That’s why Seb and I have to sleep in one of the chalets. She couldn’t let us have rooms in the house because of all these ornithologist people.’

‘I know nothing whatever about it. I never go up to the hotel. It will be nice for my mother to have it full, I should think. It doesn’t usually do too well, I believe.’

‘Oh, doesn’t it?’ said Margaret, concealing her interest in what she had just learned.

‘No, not really at all too well. Even in August it never seems anything like full. I know a bit about it, you see, because we supply her with farm and garden stuff, so according to the orders she sends down we can always tell roughly how many guests she has.’

‘I should think, then…’ Margaret hesitated before completing her sentence.

‘What should you think?’

‘Oh, well, I only meant that I should think you’d get bumper orders for your produce next week, when all these people turn up. I believe forty of them are expected. Of course, we should never have come if my father had known that the hotel was going to be crowded out, but I expect it will be a very profitable thing for Aunt Eliza.’

‘Oh, well, that’s no business of mine. As for our produce, well, my father lets her have it at bargain prices, so it won’t be at all to our advantage to let her have enough for forty people. We’ve a built-up market on the mainland, you see, where the prices are very much better. How many people are already staying at the hotel?’

‘I don’t really know. There were only five other people at dinner last night, apart from the woman at the