The Murder of Busy Lizzie

in Gavin’s madness in sending us here, after all.’

‘What else had Miss Crimp to say?’

‘Nothing more while I was in the cottage, except that she proposed to walk back with me.’

‘And then she conversed with you?’

‘Yes, about witches. Asked me whether I knew there was a coven on the island. I pleaded ignorance of any such thing, but said I had noticed some red paint splashed over one or two of the headstones in the churchyard, and I asked, in my innocent way, whether that was the doing of the witches. At this she waxed shrill and indignant and stated that the coven operated only for good, and that desecration of tomb- stones had no part whatever in its ritual. She added, though, that she knew vandalism was rampant on the mainland and she supposed that at some time it had been brought to Great Skua through the agency of some of the visitors. She hinted that she suspected two women, but she did not disclose any names.’

‘Did she say whether she herself is a member of the coven?’

‘I didn’t think I’d better ask her, and she didn’t volunteer the information, but she seemed to know a good deal about its doings, if that’s anything to go by, but I don’t think it is. I expect she only picks up gossip from the staff at the hotel.’

At dawn on the Friday morning, Laura slipped out of the house and went down to the landing stage. Dimbleton was there with a tiny dinghy. He rowed her out to the cruiser, they hoisted the dinghy aboard and, rounding the long promontory, turned northward up the west coast.

The dark cliffs exhibited a scowling, perpendicular face of savage grandeur and, although Dimbleton kept the boat well out, Laura could see that in the tiny bays which were part natural, part man-made by the quarrymen, it would be possible to run a small boat in if the pilot knew the coast. More exciting still, after they had passed the quarries and were approaching the old lighthouse from whose gallery the body of Eliza had first been sighted, caves began to appear, yawning black holes in the foot of the awe-inspiring, towering cliffs.

She exchanged no words with the skipper. He sat at the wheel and she was perched forward on the cabin top with her rubber-soled shoes pressed against the starboard rail and her notebook open on her knee. They passed the old lighthouse and then the mouth of the river in its deep gorge and, some way further on, came inshore a little to wave to the keepers of the modern lighthouse which guarded the north-west promontory.

They rounded this and, coming southward along the east coast where the cliffs, although formidably grand, lacked the terrifying authority of those on the Atlantic side, Dimbleton spoke for almost the first time.

‘Up there,’ he said, jerking his head, ‘be the remains of homes made three thousand and more years ago.’ Laura nodded. She had explored the island thoroughly in her days of occupation, usually after her early-morning swim, and was sufficiently versed in archaeology to recognise primitive hut-circles. She had found two groups of these perched on the windy plateau between the north-east point and the two swift-flowing little brooks which flowed eastward out of the great combe. Almost opposite the combe was a stack of tall, ragged rocks, part of the island before some natural cataclysm had created the combe and left some indestructible granite in the form of a hazard so dangerous to shipping that a light-ship was anchored half-a-mile to the east of the rocks to warn vessels of their proximity.

There were caves on this side of the island, too, as Laura carefully noted, particularly under the higher and more formidable cliffs on which was the disused lighthouse which Sebastian and Margaret had visited on their first survey of the island and which they had found locked against them. It was built on the southernmost of the south- east promontories and once the boat had passed it and had rounded the point and brought the modern lighthouse into focus, the low shores of the landing-place came into view and a few minutes later Dimbleton dropped anchor, lowered the dinghy and rowed Laura ashore.

‘Get what you wanted for your notebook?’ he asked, with kindly good humour. ‘You’re a grand sailor; I’ll say that for you. Get wet, did you, when we shipped a few off that northwest corner?’

‘Not to notice,’ Laura replied. ‘Anyway, your money was in a waterproof pouch. Here you are, and thanks very much for the trip. That’s a fine boat you have. Must have set you back a bit, didn’t it?’

‘Oh, she’s syndicated. My partners put up most of the money. Couldn’t have afforded her myself. She’s a lovely little job, though, ain’t she?’

Laura agreed, made no reference to the partners he had mentioned and, having parted from him with a handshake, she climbed the cliff road back to a very late breakfast. Dame Beatrice had waited so that they might have it together.

‘And how did you get on?’ she asked, spreading honey on a thin slice of bread and butter while Laura, with a gusto which never failed to fascinate her employer, wolfed eggs, rashers, sausages, toast and fried tomatoes. ‘Did you enjoy your trip?’

‘Yes, marvellous! Dimbleton may be a smuggler—I’m more sure of it than ever, now that he’s told me his boat is the property of a syndicate—but he’s a very decent sort and knows how to handle his cruiser in choppy seas—and choppy I’ll say they were.’

‘Did you manage to get a glimpse of the place where the body was found?’

‘Not a very satisfactory one, but I’ll know a lot more when I get the bird-watchers on the job later on this morning. I’ve got an idea about it all, but I don’t know whether it will work out. Anyway, the police will have thought of it, too. I haven’t a doubt about that. Well, the landing-boat from the steamer was in pretty early on Thursday of last week, so I’d better sneak out and make my descent of the cliffs while those Lovelaine kids are still in the hotel. I’m rather surprised that their father is leaving them behind, but I suppose he thinks they’re old enough to look after themselves, and so, of course, they are.’

What, to Sebastian, would have been a hazardous exploit, was to Laura, an experienced rock-climber who had done the ‘Pinnacle Route’ on Sgurr-nan-Gillean and the west traverse to the top of Bruach-na-Frithe, nothing in particular. Nevertheless, she did not believe in taking chances, especially on cliffs and rocks she did not know, so she had enlisted the aid of two sturdy young men and two girls with whom she had struck up an acquaintance in the bar of the hotel and arranged for them to act as watchmen willing to go for help if she got stuck or had an accident.

She met her helpers at the appointed time and at the appointed place, but apparently the word had gone round that an assault on the cliffs of the terrifying west side was to be attempted, for at least a dozen of the younger ornithologists were assembled at the trysting-place anxious to witness the hazardous feat.

Laura, naturally, had not given her real reason for wishing to make the descent. She stated that she had seen seals on the flat rocks at the base of the cliff, and she also confessed to a desire to watch the plunging guillemots who would make the four-hundred-foot dive from the top of the cliffs for fish, plummeting down with boldness and accuracy in one of the most spectacular sights to be seen on the bird-haunted island.

As soon as she began the downward scramble seawards, she realised that it was not going to be too difficult, after all.

Although, looked down on from above, the face of the cliff appeared to be sheer and wall-like, she found plenty of foot and hand-holds and, after a month of unexpectedly dry weather, there was not much chance of her slipping. Owing to years of experience of rock-climbing and mountaineering in Scotland, Laura had a great head for heights, but she knew better than to look down until she guessed that she must be getting near the foot of the cliffs. As she disturbed them, sea-birds wheeled and screamed, and, adding a threatening bass to their discordant shrieking, the sea below her snarled and thundered as it hurled itself against the immovable granite.

Thirty feet above the waterline she came to an outcrop of rock which made a convenient ledge. On it she rested for a while and turned to look down at the sea. As she watched the waves crashing against the foot of the cliffs, she could see that a rocky shelf ran out some way into the water. It was similar to the shelf off the bathing beach at the southern end despite the water-waves which broke on it so threateningly, it had a friendly appearance which Laura recognised.

Where she was standing, her back against the cliff-face, clumps of sea-pinks were growing. To Laura they formed a welcome landmark. She had not climbed down the cliff vertically, but had been edging gradually away to her right, and she knew from her survey through field-glasses of the terrain, as it disclosed itself from Dimbleton’s boat, that she must be almost directly above the cave she had seen as a black hole in the cliff. The rocks among which Eliza Chayleigh’s body had been found were also well within view and were not far from the mouth of the cave.

‘Good thinking,’ said Laura, self-approvingly. ‘Now to get into the cave.’

This proved to be the most difficult part of the undertaking. She scrambled to within four feet of the water