The Murder of Busy Lizzie

keep on looking for it. Tell me just one more thing. You see, I know you’re right, because you always are right, and if I can follow what you’re thinking, something might crop up which is part of my knowledge, but not part of yours. Anyway, it does look as though somebody disliked the whole Chayleigh family. All the black magic paint was daubed on Chayleigh graves.’

‘And an attempt made to remove old Miss Chayleigh’s name and substitute Eliza’s.’

‘Indicates whoever did it hated both of them, as I say. But, you know, my thought on that is that it could hardly have been Crimp.’

‘Ah, you think she could not have been absent long enough from the hotel to carry out the work involved?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t take long to daub on the red paint, but it’s a different matter when it comes to cutting out one name and substituting another when you’ve got to do it on stone. I say, though! She couldn’t be this dispossessed relative, could she?’

‘We could ask her.’

‘But if she’s the murderer or the accomplice she’ll deny the relationship.’

‘Do you think Farmer Cranby was the accomplice?’

‘I have not said so.’

‘Well, it couldn’t be Mrs Cranby, could it?’

‘Why not? She may have spent the last thirty years in visualising herself as a deeply wronged woman in that her husband seduced Eliza who bore him a son.’

‘That’s all very well, and I know all about Ransome, but why should the coming of the Lovelaines have galvanised her into action after all those years? Besides, it couldn’t have been their actual coming which pushed her over the edge, because, as we’ve already said, Eliza Chayleigh must have been dead for a week before the Lovelaines set foot on the island. And how did she and Miss Crimp ever get together over an awful business like murder?’

‘I have said more than once that we have no proof of the identity of the murderer, or that the murderer may have had an accomplice. However…’

‘Ah, yes, I was going to ask you about that. Why did there have to be an accomplice? To help tip the body over the top of the cliff? That’s what you think must have happened, don’t you?’

‘Because of the contusions on the body? Those could have been caused by the body’s having been bruised by its pounding against the rocks, of course. It was the nature of the head-wound which prompted me to think about murder in the first place. I think death was caused by the use of a sharp-edged piece of slate which somebody with malicious intent had picked up in the quarries.’

‘I thought you believed she was killed here at the back of this house.’

‘It is a simple matter to pick up a piece of slate and carry it away. I think the murder did take place at the back of this house. There is the evidence of the dead pig. But all this is mere speculation. There is much to be cleared up. We need some help, I’m afraid, and I do not see where it is to come from, unless the Lovelaine family have knowledge which they have not disclosed.’

‘I don’t know much about the father, but I don’t think Sebastian and Margaret have kept anything back,’ said Laura.

‘Not deliberately, I feel sure, but in talking together in their own home and in recounting their experiences, something may strike them. I propose to call upon them in the hope that it may be so.’

‘And what about the smugglers? I hope Dimbleton won’t get into trouble. I did my best for him.’

‘Gun-running is not the most innocuous of occupations.’

‘No, I agree about that. He’ll have to take his chance, of course. By the time Gavin gets our message, though, I don’t think anything will be found on the island. We still haven’t actually seen any rifles or ammunition or anything, have we, when one comes to think of it.’

‘Neither do we know where the guns, if any, came from, or what was their destination, but all that can be left to the police.’

‘Anyway, we’ve spoilt the smugglers’ little game, I expect, and the authorities can pick the stuff up at sea, perhaps, but the whole thing must be on a very small scale, wouldn’t you think?’

‘Even one gun is a lethal object, of course,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and it gives me great satisfaction to think that we may have helped to queer somebody’s pitch, however small it may be. Our dear Robert must be told all about that locked old lighthouse.’

chapter seventeen

The End of the String

‘Turn darkness into day,

Conjectures into truth,

Believe what the envious say,

Let age interpret youth.’

Thomas Campion

« ^

As soon as she and Laura had returned from Great Skua to the Stone House at Wandles Parva, Dame Beatrice rang up Gavin and asked him to come over.

‘Well, that’s fine,’ he said, when he heard the story of their short stay on the island. ‘It’s certain that we shan’t pinch these smugglers on the island itself, but we’ll get them all right if they try to shift any more of the stuff, and then we must have a coast-guard station there. Moreover, we can get away with ransacking that old lighthouse, because we can claim it as belonging to Trinity House and therefore that it’s Government property. I’ll let the Customs and Excise people know. They’ll soon sort it all out. But your theory that Eliza Chayleigh was murdered comes into a different category altogether. I don’t see that you’ve much to go on, either, even in view of the open verdict given at the inquest. I’ll ask for a full report and see what your inspector chap has got. What’s your own next move, Dame B?’

‘I propose to visit the Lovelaines who, by this time, will have been reunited.’

As it happened, Laura had the address because she had promised to write to the two young people. Marius and his children welcomed her and she was introduced to Clothilde. She came to the point with what Laura, who had accompanied her, thought was singular abruptness.

‘Not to beat about the bush,’ she said, ‘I am looking for evidence that your sister, Mr Lovelaine, was murdered either by Constance Crimp and Ruth Cranby, or by the latter and an accomplice, probably a man.’

‘The farmer’s wife? What can she have had to do with it? There was no communication between the Cranbys and Lizzie!’ exclaimed Marius. ‘My son has told me that neither Allen Cranby nor Ransome Lovelaine ever visited the hotel. They supplied dairy and garden produce, but that was the extent of their dealings with Miss Crimp and Lizzie.’

‘So far as the two men are concerned, that is very likely true. I doubt whether Ruth Cranby was a stranger to Miss Crimp, though, and one must remember also that it is possible that Dimbleton and Miss Crimp had built up a flourishing little business smuggling guns on to the island and exporting them at a profit.’

‘Yes, it was guns,’ said Clothilde, in a small voice. The others stared at her, her husband in amazement, her children with sardonic amusement and Dame Beatrice interrogatively. ‘Oh, yes,’ Clothilde went on. ‘You had better have the whole story. It is time it all came out.’

‘You do not need to tell Dame Beatrice your reason for going to Great Skua,’ said Marius, recovering himself and speaking gently. ‘It has nothing to do with the present discussion.’

‘She had better hear it all,’ said Clothilde, ‘if we are going to talk about Eliza’s death. To my shame, Dame Beatrice, I ran out of money. In fact, I got into debt and had to overdraw at the bank. This had happened before, and on that occasion my husband took a lenient view which I did not deserve. I could not face him with the same situation again.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Boobie!’ exclaimed her son. ‘It was a joint account! You had every right to draw on it.’