straight to Sekhmet’s shed before breakfast. Dame Beatrice agreed, but added a rider to the effect that people did do strange things and that there was nobody more unpredictable than a more-or-less educated middle-aged spinster.
‘We don’t know that Susan is middle-aged,’ said Laura. ‘Anyway, a former theory comes back to me. Couldn’t there be a connection between this dog-stealer, if there is one, and the mysterious prowler we’ve heard about? He taps on windows, apparently, and the Rants are too scared to go out and challenge him. Couldn’t he have been making sure that the coast would be clear for dog-stealing because the Rants would never venture out of the house at night? It seems like that to me. Anyway, I’ll give the Rants a ring after tea and ask whether Susan found Sekhmet.’
4
Dead in the River
« ^ »
When Laura made her telephone call, she was told an interesting story which was likely to last the village gossips and the frequenters of the only public house in Abbots Crozier for some time to come.
Susan’s narrative had begun, as narratives should, at the beginning and it lost nothing in the telling or in Morpeth’s version of it which came over the telephone.
That morning, Susan had tramped uphill by the zigzag path from Abbots Bay as usual and had found the hounds very restless. She had inspected each one and Nephthys, in particular, had seemed very unhappy. Susan let her and Isis out and although Isis only sniffed around as though she had detected some unusual aroma in the air, Nephthys made a bee-line for the garden shed.
Susan followed, for she had never known the bitch to do such a thing before. It was immediately clear that Sekhmet had gone. Susan called her by her ‘calling’ name — each dog had one, since their official names were not altogether suitable by which to summon them in public. Sekhmet was called Fret. Usually she came at once and made wild demonstrations of affection even to Susan, who had no use for them, but on this occasion she did not respond to her name.
Susan had been told about the prowler. She jumped to the conclusion that he had taken Sekhmet in mistake for a hound bitch — ‘although he can’t know much about dogs,’ she said ‘if he couldn’t tell a Labrador from a Pharaoh, even at night, when the job must have been done.’
She took Isis and Nephthys back to the stables, shut them away and let the other hounds out into the stable yard, then she went to the front gates. They had been shut, but, as usual, not locked when she arrived. When she had heard about the prowler she had suggested a chain and padlock, but, so far, this had not materialised, for the sisters were dilatory even though they were scared.
Susan reported up at the house, had a quick breakfast, leaving the sisters to finish theirs, and volunteered to go in search of the missing animal. She took Anubis and Amon with her, remarking before she left that if one of the dogs had to be enticed away ‘poor old Sekhmet was most easily to be spared’. She loosed her two hounds into Sekhmet’s shed, then put them in leash and sallied forth, hoping that they would be able to follow the aniseed scent.
She had had a hunch (she told the sisters on her return) that the thief would make for Abbots Bay. From there the main road led to Axehead, where there was a railway station, but if the man had a car, he could have taken the hill road to Abbots Crozier or left the car below on the sea front. The options were open.
Amon and Anubis ignored the entrance to the zigzag path and at first Susan thought that the smell of aniseed must have vanished in the keen morning air, and that the hounds, having nothing to guide them, were now intent on their accustomed run on the moor and were heading for their usual playground.
This did not prove to be the case. They rejected the right-hand turning with which they were familiar and proved that they had their minds on the job after all — for, when they had led her across a bridge and had reached a wicket gate which, to Susan’s certain knowledge, they had never seen opened, they stopped, looked up at her and whined impatiently.
‘Good boys,’ she said. She opened the little gate and went with them on to a path beside the river. It led to one of the beauty spots of the neighbourhood and was a favourite walk for summer visitors.
As it happened — perhaps because it was still early morning — she met nobody. She released the hounds and they took her through a wooded glade on an uphill track, which, in spite of the summer weather, was still miry underfoot in places. She followed the river, less boisterous here than it would be when it reached the top of the cliffs and cascaded noisily down to Abbots Bay, and followed the hounds, who were obviously eager in pursuit of their quarry.
The rough path mounted and dipped and then mounted again until it reached the confluence of two streams at a very picturesque viewpoint known as Watersmeet. It looked no less beautiful, presumably, than usual, but more interesting.
Wedged in a cleft of the rocks over which the foaming waters were pouring lay the body of a man. His head was face-down under water and he was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and briefs. On the bank was a badly ripped pair of grey flannel trousers — and Sekhmet, sitting on them.
‘Well, I’m damned!’ said Susan to the hound. ‘What the bloody hell have
Sekhmet responded dutifully, but picked up the trousers in her powerful jaws and backed away with them.
‘Oh, suit yourself,’ said Susan. ‘Home!’ The two hounds cast around for a bit, but soon followed the woman and the Labrador. Sekhmet stumbled over the dragging trousers, but would not abandon them. Arrived back at Crozier Lodge, Susan returned the three dogs to their quarters and the last she saw of Sekhmet was a seemingly smiling and gratified animal once again seated on the trousers.
‘So you found her, ’ said Bryony, when Susan went up to the house.
‘Sure I found her. Mind if I use the phone? I found a drowned man, too. I think she took a chunk out of his trousers. He must have pulled them off and thrown them to her and then rushed into the river to get away from her. If he were still alive, I think it would be the last time he went in for dog-stealing. She brought the trousers home with her as battle honours, and if any policeman thinks he can take them away from her at present, he is welcome
