The Mudflats of the Dead

bed!’

‘If I might just have a look round, sir.’

Palgrave produced his key. The Inspector was not long gone. He handed back the key. Palgrave took it with an attempt at a contemptuous snort.

‘I hope you found the hoard of illicit diamonds,’ he said.

‘Now, now, sir,’ said the Inspector, smoothly. ‘All I was looking for was a suitcase.’

‘Well, you were in luck, then, weren’t you? I actually possess such an object. I hope you examined it for a false bottom.’ The Inspector smiled gently.

‘I am perfectly satisfied with what I found, sir – or, rather, with what I did not find.’

‘And that was? – or shall I be snubbed again for daring to ask a question?’

‘We are still looking for the suitcase which belonged to the deceased. Thank you for your co-operation, sir. I don’t think I shall need to trouble you again.’

‘That’s as well. I shall be leaving here quite soon and going back to London. No objection to that, I hope? Do you want my home address?’

‘That will not be necessary, sir,’ said the Inspector gravely. ‘We have all the information we need at present. Is it true that you went swimming with the young lady?’

‘Now and again I did.’

‘When was the last time, sir?’

‘The night before I came here. Why?’

‘Just cross-checking, sir. You mean that you were the last of your party to see her alive.’

‘How do you know that? I was not the only one from the cottage who was out that night.’

‘Your exit disturbed the gentleman in the parlour. What made you return to the premises that night, sir?’

‘I went back to collect my things.’

‘Would that not have waited until the morning?’

‘I suppose so, but I thought I might as well be off.’

‘And where was the young lady, when you returned to collect your things?’

‘Still in the sea, I suppose. She always stayed in the water much longer than I did.’

‘Were any other members of your party out that night, sir?’

‘We all were, at some time or other. When I found myself unwilling to accept the arrangements which had been made to accommodate us all, I took the entire party out for a farewell drink. I didn’t want anybody to think I was going off in a huff. It was none of their faults that the cottage had been double-booked.’

‘Was Miss St John with you?’

‘No. She wasn’t in the cottage when I issued my invitation and, to save you the bother of asking the question, I have no idea where she was.’

‘But you met her later.’

‘Purely by accident. I was standing beside my car when she came along and asked me to come for a swim. It was so damned uncomfortable trying to sleep in the car that I thought I might as well use up some of the time, so I went along with her. I came out of the water before she did, dried and dressed, went back to the cottage to change my clothes, as I think I told you, collected my suitcase and drove about until I found a cafe where I could get some breakfast.’

‘After you had had your drinks, sir, can you be sure that the rest of your party returned to the cottage?’

‘No, of course I can’t be sure. My car was parked further up the road. I said goodbye, climbed into it and made myself as comfortable as I could on the back seat.’

‘And later you went swimming with Miss St John.’

‘That’s the size of it.’

‘Did either of you see anybody else about?’

Palgrave thought for a moment in order to consider his answer.

‘I believe one or two of the others may have gone for a stroll by moonlight,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t be sure. There was some talk of it, I believe.’

‘While you were at the public house?’

‘Yes, that’s when it would have been.’

‘But you don’t know whether any of the party except you and Miss St John were actually out of the cottage while you were swimming?’

Palgrave could answer that question truthfully and without equivocation.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I know nothing of what the others were doing while we were swimming.’

‘What about when you went back to the cottage after your bathe?’

‘I’ve no idea about that, either.’ The Inspector gave him a very sharp glance, but did not query the answer. He closed his notebook and merely said:

‘Thank you for your help, sir. It’s only the missing suitcase that bothers us. Mr and Mrs Kirby, who brought the young lady down here on holiday, are convinced that she wouldn’t have bathed on an outgoing tide. Have you any ideas about that, sir?’

‘She wouldn’t if she had realised that the tide was going out.’

‘Just so, sir. If she had realised. Just so.’

CHAPTER 6

SERIOUS DOUBTS

‘Ah, salt and sterile as her kisses were,

The wild sea winds her and the green gulfs bear

Hither and thither, and vex and work her wrong,

Blind gods that cannot spare.’

A.C. Swinburne

« ^ »

Somewhat shattered by the interview with the Inspector, Palgrave decided to leave Stack Ferry at the end of the week. The plot of his book was maturing in the most irresistible and comforting way. All that remained, he thought, was to write the story. That would be done more conveniently in his London lodgings than in the claustrophobic, barely furnished little upstair room at The Stadholder, especially if it was going to be open to police inspection at any hour of the day or night. He recognised this last thought as psychotic and wondered whether he was becoming the victim of a persecution mania. This must at all costs be suppressed. He could not afford to have irrational fears come between him and his novel.

He thought he had settled upon his heroine. She was to be a femme fatale in her early thirties, beautiful, sophisticated, incredibly attractive, but he realised that she was turning into Morag, and this was the last thing he had either envisaged or wanted. He made a determined effort to turn her into the Camilla he had known. She would have to be older than Camilla, of course, and that coltish immaturity changed to suit his theme, but Camilla it would have to be. In bed that night he wondered (and found himself worried about it) whether in death she was going to haunt him even more effectively than, during the few days of their acquaintanceship, she had attempted to do in life.

He began to think over everything he knew about Camilla.

It was precious little, but that, he realised, would prove more of an advantage than the reverse. She would have to be provided with a background. He wondered what sort of childhood she had had, how and when she had lost both her parents and under whose testamentary dispositions she had obtained her modest but undeniable private income.

He knew that she had shared a London flat with three other women all older than herself. He had heard little about them from Camilla, but Miranda had told him more. There was fat, dark, slightly moustached Gerda who, like Miranda, taught part-time at the art school and otherwise painted racehorses, pedigree hunters and showy little trotting-ponies. There was Mevagissey, descendant, (according to Camilla, who obviously had not believed the