of her own.’
‘I suppose you do intend to go and see the Rants?’ said Laura, ignoring this piece of persiflage.
‘Nothing would keep me away. The sisters are interesting persons, Susan is a somewhat mysterious figure. The hounds, I trust, will be under restraint when we arrive and I cannot wait to hear the whole story — if possible, from Susan herself.’
This was told them when they arrived after lunch the following day at Crozier Lodge. The dog hounds were in their stables compound, Isis and Nephthys were occupying two armchairs in the study with the door closed on them, and Sekhmet, who appeared to think that she was in bad odour, had accompanied Susan to the main gates when the visitors rang the bell. She gave every indication of wanting to ingratiate herself with them, but refused to accompany them up to the front door.
‘I think she’s saying she’s sorry she stole the trousers,’ said Susan, ‘but it’s a bit late for that now. Bryony and Morpeth think she may have landed us in for trouble, but I don’t see how that can be. Oh, well, I’ll leave you with them. They know everything that I know.’
‘That will not do, ’ said Dame Beatrice firmly. ‘We have had their version and have been called into consultation. What we need now is a first-hand account from a primary source. The police will not allow matters to rest where they are. Speak freely and at whatever length you like.’
‘Leaving out no detail, however slight,’ said Laura. ‘Your story will be of the utmost interest.’
Susan repeated the account she had given the sisters. The listeners heard her without interrupting the narrative and then Dame Beatrice asked, ‘Would Sekhmet have turned savage in her desire to obtain possession of the trousers?’
‘Never known her to go nasty on anybody,’ said Morpeth.
‘But, then,’ put in Bryony, ‘I don’t think she has had much opportunity to show her seamy side, if she’s got one. Nobody ever comes across the garden. The tradespeople won’t approach the house. We have to go along and take in the post and the goods, or whatever, when the bell rings. We are not exactly popular in the village.’
‘The man must have been in a panic to have abandoned his trousers,’ remarked Dame Beatrice.
‘What on earth would the police have to say if he walked into the next village in his underpants?’ said Laura.
‘I shall never believe Sekhmet scared him so much that he let her have his trousers,’ said Morpeth. ‘Actually, she’s affectionate to the point of being a nuisance, but she would never frighten anybody.’
‘The fact remains that he did part with the trousers and he even seems to have dashed into the river to get away from her, ’ said Laura.
‘That does appear to have been an unnecessary proceeding, ’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘if the trousers were all the dog wanted. Were they dry or wet when you found Sekhmet sitting on them?’
‘Dry, except where she’d slobbered over them,’ replied Susan. ‘He would hardly have taken them off in the river, especially as he had slipped and bashed his head.’
‘Can you prove at what time you left Abbots Bay to walk up here yesterday morning?’
‘Not unless somebody saw me leave my cottage,’ said Susan, surprised and somewhat disconcerted by the question. ‘I walked up from Abbots Bay — I usually do, because the cliff railway doesn’t function so early in the morning — and I don’t remember meeting a soul. I saw nobody on the path to Watersmeet, either. I suppose I shall have to give evidence at the inquest.’
‘Of course,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘You cannot say for certain that the trousers the dog was guarding are the trousers which belonged to the dead man. You never saw him wearing them.’
Susan looked surprised and disconcerted again.
‘They must have been his,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t wearing trousers when I saw him in the river.’
‘Which proves nothing. What was to prevent an attacker giving the hound another pair of trousers sprinkled with aniseed to keep her occupied while he removed the garment from his victim’s dead body, and made off with whatever was in the pockets?’
‘Oh, but, surely that is a fantastic suggestion!’ exclaimed Morpeth.
‘I merely throw it out as such,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Did you find the square of cloth which had been so neatly cut out of the trousers?’ she added, turning to Susan.
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Would Sekhmet have gone into the stream after the man?’
‘No. For one thing, the sound of the rushing water would have put her off, I’m sure. In any case, she was quite dry when I found her.’
‘Well, we must see what the police think of it all,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘You will have to answer a good many questions, I am afraid.’
‘You’ll stand by us, won’t you?’ said Morpeth.
The inquest, held in the parish hall, was sparsely attended, for it happened on a Tuesday and began at ten in the morning when the villagers were out at work or busy in the house or looking after summer-holiday guests. In any case, not much interest was taken in a drowning fatality. Such deaths were far from unknown to the twin villages. The coast was inhospitable and dangerous and the river, in a never-to-be-forgotten spate in the year 1952, had shown what it could do in the way of danger to life and the destruction of property.
There would have been more interest shown had the man been a native of the place, but in this case the dead was a stranger and, to that extent, expendable. In fact, the first difficulty the coroner encountered was that, so far, the corpse remained unidentified. Nobody had come forward to say who he was or where he came from. Though his face had been badly disfigured, a rough artist’s impression had been posted up outside the police station. There had been appeals in the local press and the police had made patient house-to-house and hotel-to-hotel enquiries, but without result. An enterprising young reporter had even suggested to his editor that the Kennel Club should be approached with a request for the names and addresses of the known breeders of Pharaoh hounds, but this
