‘The usual time, somewhere between six and half-past. I don’t know exactly, but, yes, much as usual. The others will tell you if you ask them.’
‘You were seen to leave your cottage at just before five, miss. Does it really take you more than an hour to get from there to Abbots Crozier?’
‘Of course not. I did leave the cottage just about five. I went for a bathe in the pool. I often do at this time of year. I came up to Crozier Lodge after I was dried and dressed.’
‘Would you mind telling us what you were wearing when you went for your swim, miss?’
‘My cottage is quite near the pool, so I had a rainproof over my bikini and rope-soled shoes on my feet.’
‘No hat, miss?’
‘Why on earth should I need a hat? My hair is short, so I don’t even wear a swimming cap. I just wash the salt water out when I get home. Anyway, I don’t possess a hat.’
‘You were seen to leave your cottage, but you did not return to it until the evening after you had spent the usual day here at Crozier Lodge.’
‘Because I wasn’t
‘There was a man fishing off the jetty early in the morning, miss. He swears there was nobody in the pool before seven.’
‘He wouldn’t be looking towards the pool if he was on the end of the jetty.’
‘There was another chap, a holidaymaker, out with a local boatman. They didn’t see anybody in the pool, either.’
‘Why should they? The sea wall round the pool is quite high and their boat would have been a long way offshore.’
‘When you got to Crozier Lodge, miss, did you meet a man in the garden before you went up to the house?’
‘Certainly not. I should soon have asked him his business if I had. Nobody ever comes up to the house. Isis and Nephthys are often loose in the garden and people round here are afraid of the hounds.’
‘Would you have any objection to accompanying us to your cottage, miss, and letting us have a look round?’
‘Oh, Lord! It’s in a bit of a mess. I’m not a very tidy person and I hate housework.’
‘We’re not critics of housekeeping, miss. We have no authority to search your premises, but it might look a bit like obstruction if you refuse to give us the facilities we ask for.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘No, miss. I’ll come clean with you. We are by no means satisfied with the verdict which was given at the inquest and nor are a lot of people. Matters have been brought to our notice which need some explaining. We shall get at the truth in the end, but meanwhile a bit of co-operation from anybody who is in a position to help us will be welcome.’
‘But I’m not in a position to help you. I don’t know a thing except that I was unlucky enough to be the person who found that man’s body in the river and, because of that, I’ve been hounded and harassed ever since. It’s most unfair.’
‘From what we have been told, you did alter one of your usual habits, miss. Instead of going straight up to this house, you went to a shed in the garden to look at one of the dogs. Why did you do that?’
‘I thought I heard Sekhmet whining. I thought there might be something wrong with her.’
‘And you found she wasn’t there at all, so you could hardly have heard her whining.’
‘When I found she wasn’t there I went up to the house to tell Bryony and Morpeth — to tell the two Miss Rants — and then I went straight off to search for the dog. That’s when I found that drowned man. And I
‘So, of course, we went to my cottage,’ said Susan to Dame Beatrice. ‘There was no reason for me to refuse. When we got there, the first thing the detective said was that he had noticed I didn’t keep my back door locked when I was out. I had taken them in by the back way because I always go in and out by the back door. My front door faces the sea, so the back door’s that much nearer the cliff path. Nobody locks up in Abbots Bay until bedtime. There is nothing in my cottage worth stealing, anyway.’
‘Did they find any hats?’ asked Laura.
‘As a matter of fact, they did. The detective-inspector stayed with me downstairs while his sergeant did the searching. There was a hat on the shelf in my wardrobe and, what I suppose they thought was worse, a piece of cloth which could be part of the waistband of a pair of trousers, although it could have been from a skirt. I insisted that the hat was not mine and I put it on to prove my point. Talk about a pimple on a doughnut! It could have been a doll’s hat when I perched it on my head. You will notice that I have a big, wide cranium. Well, the hat just perched on top of it, as I said. There is a mirror in my sitting-room, so, when I had put it on at their request, I took a peep. Honestly, you never saw anything so ridiculous.’
The police, Susan went on to say, were forced to believe that the hat need not be her property. She suggested that it had been planted on her and pointed out that they had seen for themselves that anybody could enter the cottage while she was out of it during the daylight hours and she added that, if the hat had been left in the cottage, the piece of trousering could have been left at the same time.
‘They had to admit that this could be true,’ she said, ‘but they stuck to their point that, although I had been seen to leave the cottage earlier than I had admitted when they talked to me on the day I found the body, I could give them no proof that I had gone for a swim and then had tramped up to Crozier Lodge at my usual time.’
‘And did the piece of cloth provide any evidence?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
