Nest of Vipers

‘So you know that, do you? You were a great help, you know. Will you help me again?’

Penworthy wiped the palm of his hand down the side of his trousers. Dame Beatrice took the hint and produced a fifty pence coin.

‘I likes to be helpful, I do,’ said Penworthy, taking the coin and giving it the benison of a slight spit on the reverse side before he tucked it away. ‘What would it be this time?’

‘Trespassers.’

‘Trespassers?’

‘Trespassers.’

‘Oh, them! Only ent ever been one or two. They come paddlin’ round at low tide along the foreshore. Ent nothin’ to stop ’em, not at low tide.’

‘I am surprised that this only happened once or twice, if it is so easy to get to these grounds that way.’

‘Course there might have been more. If I’d been in the kitchen up at the house getting my elevenses, any number could of come and I wouldn’t see ’em, but you wouldn’t get ’em comin’ this time of year. Nobody wouldn’t come paddlin’ round the creek at this time o’ year. Come to think of it, though, I do recollect of one what come, but I don’t reckon he paddled, ’cos he had his shoes and socks on, you see.’

‘How observant you are! Did you speak to him?’

‘Ar, of course I did. I said as how he was on private property. He said he had heard a friend of his, Mr Shard, had rented a flat here, and he give me ten p. to go and find out if Mr Shard would come out and speak to him.’

‘Did you not think that a very strange request? Why could he not have gone up to the house?’

‘He had give me ten p., so I went, but when I got back, me having to go by way of the kitchen, not being allowed the front door, and having to find somebody as was willin’ to take a message to Miss Nutley’s office to ask her to get hold of Mr Shard, and me ’angin’ about only to find as Mr Shard had gone out, well, when I goes back to tell the feller, what does I find but he’s gorn. Got tired of waitin’, I suppose, and me takin’ all that trouble.’

‘Can you describe the man?’

‘Ar, reckon I can, near enough. He was a shortish, roundish kind of feller with one of them faces, all smooth- shaven and a bit yeller, what look as if they’re smilin’ until you look at their eyes. Some kind of a foreigner, though you couldn’t tell that from the way he talked, and his hair was jet black and quite thick and looked kind of greasy.’

‘That is a very good description. Had you ever seen him anywhere before?’

‘Not so far’s I know. I reckon I’d have remembered him if I had.’

‘Now how long ago was this? Can you remember?’

‘Oh, that’s an easy one. He come the day I took the last buckets of sea water up to the bungalow door. The arrangement was that when the old lady wanted her sea water she put out the buckets first thing in the mornin’. She never stuck to no regular days, but it was always three times a week she had the sea water. Well, I used to fill the buckets as soon as the tide come in and took ’em to her front door and give her a knock and a shout, and then, when she felt like it, which was always in my dinner-time, so I never see her do it, she took ’em in.’

Dame Beatrice took Laura, who had been talking to Niobe, in tow, they drove back to the hotel and she telephoned the Superintendent. He came round at once and listened to the story.

‘The description fits Bosey well enough,’ he said, ‘but there is no proof that he was admitted to the bungalow.’

‘It seems to me significant that those were the last buckets of sea water which Miss Minnie seems to have required. Besides, I think, now that we know the connection between them, that Bosey was the only person Miss Minnie would have admitted to the bungalow.’

‘But why should Bosey have murdered his right-hand helper?’

‘Because he no longer trusted her. She must have miscalculated in some way, and her usefulness had not only gone, but she may have brought you and your police force very close to him. We shall never know the details, but I think it highly significant that, following his visit, Miss Minnie needed no more sea water baths.’

(3)

‘So now we come to your affairs, Miss Kennett,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘They don’t bear looking at,’ said Billie. ‘I suppose you’ve got it all worked out. Oh, well, I don’t care what happens now.’

‘I hear that Mr Piper has left Weston Pipers to Miss Nutley and has gone away to be married.’

‘Yes, to Elysee. They are going to live in Paris.’

‘Very wise. That will take Miss Barnes well away from all her unhappy memories.’

‘They weren’t all unhappy, you know. It was just that it took me a long time to accept the fact that Elysee was hetero and not homo. Are you prejudiced against people who don’t conform?’

‘Only against such people – if one is justified in calling them people – as Miss Minnie and Bosey.’

‘So somebody killed Bosey and got away with it. At the resumed inquest – my paper sent me to cover it – the verdict was suicide. Anyway, suicide or murder, it was much too easy a death for that monster.’

‘Why didn’t you put the milk bottles into the refrigerator?’ asked Dame Beatrice. Billie stared at her. Then she laughed.

‘So you know,’ she said. ‘How did you find out?’

‘By inference, deduction and the laws of probability.’