swimming, some starting on the round of before-lunch cocktails from silver flasks, some were just lying and letting the sun burn them up.
I changed into my trunks, stepped over muscular, brown bodies, picked my way past blondes, brunettes and redheads, wearing the minimum, before I could get to the sea.
I swam out for about a quarter of a mile at my fastest clip. I felt in need of the exercise. Then I turned around and came back more leisurely. The sun was hot now, and there were even less places on the beach.
I came out of the sea and paused to look around, trying to find a place where I needn’t rub shoulders with anyone else, but it wasn’t easy. Then I saw a girl, sitting under a blue and white umbrella, waving at me.
She was wearing a white swimsuit and she had on a pair of doughnut-sized sun goggles. I recognized her silky blonde hair and her shape before I recognized what I could see of her face.
Margot Creedy was inviting me to join her.
I picked my way over the bodies until I reached her.
She looked up at me, her lovely face wearing a slightly cautious expression, and she gave me the same small smile she had given me when we had first met.
“It’s Mr. Brandon, isn’t it?” she said, and she sounded slightly breathless. “It is Mr. Brandon?”
“Well, if it isn’t, someone has stolen my skin,” I said. “Is that Miss Creedy behind those big, big goggles?”
She laughed and took the goggles off. Make no mistake about this fact: the girl was quite a dish. Apart from her shape which, in that swimsuit, was sensational, there wasn’t a flaw in her.
“Won’t you sit down or are you tied up or something?”
I dropped down on the hot sand right by her.
I said I wasn’t tied up or anything, and went on, “Thank you for being helpful last night. I wasn’t expecting you to do that for me.”
“I just happened to be at the club.” She hugged her knees, staring over the top of them at the sea. “Besides, I was curious. There’s something intriguing as well as morbid about a murder case, isn’t there?” She put on her goggles again. I was sorry because they were so big they blotted out half her face. “I was quite sure when you asked me if your friend had been to the club that he hadn’t. I just had to check to see if I were right. It is very difficult now for a non-member to get in.”
“Have you seen the papers this morning?” I asked, stretching out on the sand. By turning my head I could still have an exciting view of her.
“You mean the second murder? Do you know who the girl is? Was she the one who met your friend: the one he went with to the bathing cabin?”
“That’s her.”
“Everyone is talking about her.” She reached for her big beach bag and began to hunt around in it the way women do. “It’s most mysterious, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but there’s probably a very simple explanation.”
The heat of the sun was beginning to bother me a little so I turned on my face and moved my body a little more into the shade made by the umbrella. Lying that way I could look directly up at her face. It was something that I would be happy to do any time of the day or night: she really was quite a dish. Possibly the loveliest girl I’ve ever seen.
“Could she have committed suicide?”
“She could have, I suppose, but it is very unlikely. Why stab yourself with an icepick? There are simpler ways.”
“But suppose she killed your friend? She might have felt a need to atone for what she had done. The papers say she was very religious. She might have felt the only way to atone was to die the way he had died.”
This startled me.
“For the love of mike! Did you think that up yourself?”
“Well, no. I was talking to some people. One of them said it and I thought it could be right.”
“I wouldn’t worry my brains how she died if I were you,” I said. “That’s a job for the police. She worked at this place out at Arrow Point. The School of Ceramics they call it. Have you ever been there?”
“Why, of course. I go there a lot. I’m just crazy about some of the designs that man Hahn makes. He really is wonderful. Last week I bought a statue of a little boy he made. It was enchanting.”
“Did you ever see the girl there?”
“I can’t remember her. There are so many girls working there.”
“From what I’ve heard, I was under the impression the place was just a tourists’ junk shop.”
“Well, in a way, I suppose it is, but Hahn has a room at the back where he keeps all his newest and best work. Only his very special customers can get in there.”
“So he does pretty well?”
“Of course, and he deserves to. He really is a great artist.”
Watching her, I could see she meant it. Her face was alight with enthusiasm.
“I must go out and take a look one of these days. Maybe you would come with me, Miss Creedy? I’d like to look at his best stuff. I’m not a buyer, of course, but good pottery interests me.”
There was a pause. I wasn’t sure if she were hesitating or thinking or what.
“Yes,” she said. “The next time I go I’ll let you know. Will you still be at the Adelphi Hotel?”
“That reminds me. How did you know I was staying there when you called last night?”
She laughed.
She really had beautiful teeth. They were just the right size, even and as white as orange pith. And she didn’t just make a hole in her face the way some girls do when they laugh. Her laugh sent a little prickle up my spine. This girl was certainly getting me worked up. I hadn’t felt this way since my first serious date, fifteen-odd years back into the past.
“I asked Mr. Hammerschult. You must have met him. He knows absolutely everything. I’ve never asked him a thing that he couldn’t answer.”
“That had me a little foxed. I wondered how you knew. To return to the Adelphi: I won’t be there. They’ve asked me to leave. The police have been in and out of my room so often, the management are afraid someone will think there’s a continuous raid on. I’ve got to find a place before tonight.”
“That won’t be easy. It’s right in the season.”
“Well, I’ll have to look.”
I didn’t much like the idea. Usually Jack found our rooms. He had a natural talent for knowing the hotel that had a vacancy. I would call on ten hotels and be told there wasn’t a room to be had. He would pick one and we’d move in straight away.
“You wouldn’t know of any little place that isn’t expensive?” I said, then remembered who I was talking to and laughed. “No, I guess you wouldn’t. That’s not quite in your line, is it?”
“How long are you planning to stay?”
“Until this case is cleared up. It could be cleared up in a week or it may take a month. I don’t know.”
“Could you look after yourself?”
“Why, sure. You don’t imagine I go in for staff back home, do you? Have you something then?”
“It may not be what you want. I have a little bungalow out at Arrow Bay. I had to take it on a two-year lease. I don’t ever go there now. The lease has still a year to run. You could have it if you like.”
I stared at her.
“No kidding?”
“If you want it, you can have it. It’s furnished and there’s everything there. I haven’t been out to look at it for a month or so, but last time I went it was all right. All you need do is to pay the light bills. Everything else is taken care of.”
“That’s pretty nice of you, Miss Creedy.” I was knocked back on my mental heels. “I’ll take it like a shot.”
“If you’ve nothing better to do, we could go out there tonight after dinner. I have a dinner date, but I’ll be free after ten. I’ll have the water and light turned on between now and then, and I’ll bring the key with me.”
“Honest . . . you embarrass me, Miss Creedy. Such service for a stranger. Look, I don’t want to trouble you . . .”
