'Oh, dear! Burglars, do you mean?'
'Luckily they did not get away with whatever it was they had come for.' (Dame Beatrice did not add that on both occasions it had been her life, not her goods, which the intruders had sought to take away.)
'It must have made you very nervous.'
'Well, a little cautious, perhaps.' She looked at the inside of the opened door. 'Oh, no bolts, I see.'
'I'm afraid not. We have had people here living on their own, so, in case of emergency - illness, you know - it would be necessary to break the door down to reach them and help them if inside bolts were used. But this house is amply secure. There are bolts inside the back and front doors and patent fastenings on all the downstair windows. We are quite impregnable, I assure you.'
The flat consisted of a sitting-room, bedroom, small kitchen and even smaller bathroom, but the windows overlooked the park and gardens and the bathroom window, when its frosted casement was opened, gave a view of the front lawn, the bungalow and the tiny inlet.
'Splendid,' said Dame Beatrice.
'I thought you would like it. It is not completely furnished because our long-stay tenants like to bring their own bits and pieces with them, but I think you will be able to manage with what there is, as you will only be here for a week or two.'
'Oh, I am sure I can manage. It all looks very pleasant and comfortable.'
'The last tenants were two girls, so they took quite good care of the furniture except that, as they were both heavy smokers, I had to have all the curtains cleaned when they went, and new chair-covers made to hide the cigarette-burns. I don't know why women smokers are so abominably careless. I would have seen to it that they paid for the curtains and the damage, but they went off at such short notice, leaving no forwarding address, that the house had to bear the expense.'
'Which meant you yourself, I suppose,' said Dame Beatrice. Niobe did not answer except with a laugh and a shrug of her powerful shoulders. ('She certainly is not going to explain that the owner of the house is in prison and awaiting trial for murder,' thought Dame Beatrice, 'and small blame to her!')
George, waiting at the front door, insisted upon relieving Niobe of Dame Beatrice's suitcases, and then put the car away before being shown his own quarters. Dame Beatrice joined him and Niobe at the front door of the bungalow, where Niobe was vainly attempting to turn the key in the lock. George tried in his turn, but in vain.
'How strange!' said Niobe. 'I had better go back to the house for the key which the police took from the body.'
When she had returned and let them in:
'Will you be comfortable here, George?' asked Dame Beatrice, as soon as Niobe had gone.
'Oh, yes, madam, very comfortable. I have had lessons from Henri, madam, and am in a position to cook for you if you will allow me into your apartment for the purpose.'
'I have a better idea, George. I will come over here for my meals and you shall cook for both of us. Your kitchen is larger than mine and has an electric cooker which, if you have been Henri's pupil, you will know how to handle. It will mean that we can compare notes without appearing to conspire together.'
'Very good, madam. At what time do you choose to dine this evening? I have all the provisions in the boot of the car.'
'At about eight, do you think? Breakfast I will manage for myself, as I require nothing but toast and coffee. Lunch we will take most days at a hotel in the town. I have to keep up a pretence of house hunting.'
'Very good, madam,' He accompanied her to the front door. She inspected it.
'No bolts, George, I see.'
'No, the place is hardly burglar-proof, madam.'
('Nor murderer-proof,' thought Dame Beatrice.) 'If you were moved to drown somebody at the bottom of the lawn, George,' she said to him, 'would you take the trouble to carry the body back to this bungalow and then indulge in the pleasure of smashing it over the head?'
'That, in any case, seems unnecessary, madam, if the body was already a dead one. Possibly the murderer would not have been certain that life was already extinct, though.'
'I have an idea that this particular murderer knew all the tests to make sure of that, George.'
'Then the assault on the head seems to have been superfluous, madam.'
'Or merely an act of sheer spitefulness, but, in that case, I wonder why? But it is the risk the murderer took in bringing the body back from the water which has worried me from the beginning.'
'Is it certain that the victim was drowned in the sea, madam? This bungalow has a bathroom with a full-sized bath in it.'
'The body had drowned in sea water. There was sea water (tested) in the lungs and a small piece of seaweed was found on the body. All the same, I am sure you are right. She was not drowned in the sea. Now that I have seen this place I am convinced of that.'(3)
The invitation to take mid-morning coffee with Constance Kent came as a surprise until Dame Beatrice realised that she was to be the recipient of confidences of a kind which could not be disclosed in front of Evesham Evans, Constance's husband. His temporary absence - he had gone to the bank to draw out some money, his wife explained - gave Constance a chance to unburden herself and she took full advantage of it. The fact of police surveillance, dwelt on with bitter indignation by the torrid novelist, suggested to Dame Beatrice that the case of the police against Chelion Piper was not as strong as they would have liked it to be and that they were half-expecting
