The Seaside Corpse, page 17
“Let’s move.” Cavalier Jones clapped a large hand on Oscar’s head to wish him luck, and nudged P.C. Sackett toward the beach. Hector and Arthur also waded ahead. After a few splashing steps, Arthur looked back.
“Come on, Aggie!” he hollered, and waved me on. Hector must have been unhappy with having wet shoes and stockings, because he didn’t even turn around.
“I hate to leave you all alone,” I said to Oscar. “Shall I come with you?”
“Nice of you to offer, Aggie. But there’s a small chance something might go tipsy. I don’t want to be worrying about you if I have to swim for it.” He leaned over and peered at the rising water. Nearly knee-deep, but not yet helping the boat to float.
“Your father will be proud to see you at the oars,” I said. It seemed impossible for anyone to row so far with such weight in the boat.
“I’d like that,” he said quietly. “Now, go on! With any luck, I’ll see you back in camp in about an hour. You’ll be completely soaked if you don’t hurry!”
As it was, my shoes and stockings and the hem of my skirt were awash. I sploshed a few paces, lifting my skirt high, remembering the journal in my pocket. I turned to make certain that Oscar and the Touch Wood were safely launched. But the boat sat unmoving on the seabed as the water crept up its sides. Oscar swung himself to-and-fro, trying to generate some motion—but no chance that a meager boy could rock the mighty ichthyosaur!
“Keep going!” he yelled at me. Heart thudding, I inched backward toward the shore, unwilling to abandon Oscar if he were about to be swamped. What if the boat was simply too burdened to float?
But then, with a great slurping whoosh, the Touch Wood let go of the ledge and rose, bouncing almost, to the surface. Water sprayed as Oscar cheered. He positioned the oars and glanced over his shoulder to where he was headed. I clapped my hands and turned to push on toward the beach.
“Aggie!” Oscar’s shout spun me around. The look on his face chilled me right through. “We forgot to bring up the anchor!”
The rowboat couldn’t move. Oscar was penned in by pieces of a massive stone sea monster, unable to reach the cable holding the anchor. The water was nearly up to my waist. I could not wait to consider. The sodden notebook knocked against my thigh as I waded back to the boat. A cable pulled tautly from the prow, straining against the weight it was trying to hold.
“Why isn’t the boat dragging it?” I said. “The boat is heavier than the anchor.”
“It might be wedged in a crack,” said Oscar.
I slid my fingers down the chain as far as I could reach, but knew I’d be taking a plunge.
“Can you move the boat,” I said, “to let the tension slacken a bit?”
“I’ll try,” he said, “but I don’t want to hit you.”
I took in a full breath and pulled myself under, both hands holding the cable. The anchor was snagged between ledges. I surfaced to tell him, and to inhale. Oscar maneuvered with the oars, doing his best to lessen the tug on the chain. On the next plunge, I dislodged the anchor and stood up. The task was done in the space of one breath. I clasped the anchor by its neck, trying to keep my balance in the swelling sea. Oscar let the boat rock a little closer. He rested one oar and stretched out a hand to help topple the anchor into the boat. There.
He pulled away at once. I swam toward dry land, now farther away than ever.
Chapter 24
A Frightening Interlude
The boys were well ahead of me, clambering over the ledges near the shore. Arthur would already have been safe on the beach had he not slowed down to wait for Hector. But even Hector was moving at an impressive pace—for Hector. I guessed that the fear of not knowing how to swim must be propelling him forward like wind under a sail. Each of them had a collecting sack slung over his shoulder, empty now but for the flasks of water. I set my sights on the two boys, my yearned-for destination. The beam from a lighthouse on a stormy night. A flag raised in the smoky aftermath of battle. A simmering soup waiting at the end of a snowy day.
I thought the tide might help to carry me in. But with the tide came a surprising lift and fall. Only minutes ago, it had not been enough to float a boat but now, spring tide! Higher and stronger than the usual one. I could not touch down, except occasionally. I swallowed a nasty salty gulp. I began to swim as hard as ever I had. The water buoyed me up, but then pulled back and left me breathless. My dress clung around my legs like a fisherman’s net around an octopus. An octopus with two legs. Wearing waterlogged shoes. I despaired for my notebook.
Arthur and Hector had got to where the shore usually existed, but the pebbled beach was wetter with each inflow. Hector finally noticed that I was not right behind him. He took a few steps toward me before Arthur grabbed his arm, as I got another face full of seawater. My hat was tugged from my head and sailed away. Coughing, with stinging eyes, I kept going. The boys shouted and I swam harder still. Next time I could see, they were climbing up the rough slope of what Arthur called the landslip. With the sheer cliff rising behind it and the incoming water lapping at its base, this bumpy bluff offered refuge above the reach of high tide. Arthur must have known, from living in Lyme Regis, that it was wiser to seek elevated ground than to splash along the fast-disappearing ribbon of dry land. The sea would not pause to let frightened children slip by unharmed.
My foot knocked against something underwater. And then my other foot! I tried to stand and got washed off course, but the ledges were there. Frantically cycling my legs, I swiped a sharp ridge of stone that tore wide the bottom of my shoe. Between the tugging waves, my stupid skirt and the flapping leather sole, I could not kick with any power. I tried to find my laces to untie them, but it was impossible while being tossed about.
Hector and Arthur jumped and hollered when I finally found my footing. I pulled my skirt right up away from my legs and held it bundled at my middle. I lunged forward through shallower water, jump after jump after jump. The water tugged and tumbled, what would have made for fun wading on a usual day at the seaside. Until, at last, the pitted side of the landslip. The boys hauled me to safety, a slippery and miserable water rat. I wrung the sea from my skirt while Hector rubbed my arms. Arthur wrung my heavy braid, squeezing out a torrent of drips and a very small crab. From the height of this new vantage point—above the waves instead of in them—we saw Oscar and the Touch Wood move steadily over the gently rolling surface of the water.
“Flatter out there than close to shore.” I was still catching my breath. Our perch on the landslip was nearly surrounded by rolling waves. Where we were sitting had been a disaster when Arthur’s great-grandpa was a boy. Rocks and mud, cottages and even sheep had tumbled down the face of the cliff in a terrifying slide, landing in this tremendous heap of rubble. Today, it was our refuge. I looked at the cliff face above our backs, as high as two churches. We were safe, but until the spring tide subsided, we were also trapped.
Plunked down on the scrubby ground, Hector cajoled my wet shoelaces to loosen and my shoes to come off. I rolled down the clammy stockings, shivered, clapped my hands against my arms and spread my skirt across my lap. I took the notebook from my pocket and peeled apart the pages, fanning each one briefly. With the book spread flat, the penciled pages were nearly legible.
“Come on, sun, do your job!” I longed to be warm. I stood up again to jiggle and hop about. Moving helped a bit, so I kept at it a while longer. Arthur offered his cardigan, but I said no. We’d be stuck here for hours and might need a sweater later. Silly for it to get wet too.
“How long?” I said to Arthur. Each minute had seemed an hour since Cavalier Jones hoisted those tremendous stone blocks into P.C. Sackett’s rowboat.
“Six hours and twelve minutes between highest and lowest tides,” he said. “We’re still ages from the high point. And then it will have to recede partway for us to cross the beach. We’ve got hours and hours to go.”
I slumped onto my back and summoned warm thoughts. The eiderdown quilt on my bed at home. Tony snuggling and snuffling on my lap. The crackling fire in the nursery at Owl Park. The steam room at the Wellspring Hotel in Harrogate.
Yooo-hooo, we heard. I looked about for an injured bird. “What is that peculiar hooting?”
“Your grand-mère,” said Hector.
My heart turned over in my chest. Grannie Jane and Helen, way up on the cliff to the east, waved their arms like children at a passing train. Oh, Grannie! She must have seen me caught by the sea and been frantic! To the point of making most unladylike noises to catch my attention! But now she raised her parasol and twirled it, as calmly as could be. I blew her a fistful of kisses, and wrung out my skirt another time.
“I’d take off my underslip,” I said, “except that Grannie Jane is watching.” Arthur blushed the color of a sunburn.
“Oscar is rowing still,” Hector said, “as if someone winds him up with a key.”
“Turns out his boast was true,” I said. “Lucky for Nina.”
“He may be regretting that boast by now,” said Arthur. “I’ll wager the sea is harder than a river.”
“The sea plus a ton of ichthyosaur,” I said. We watched the dot of a rowboat for a long, long time, until finally it disappeared around the curve of Church Cliff.
“The grown-ups dispersed pretty quickly,” I said. “No one noticed that we hadn’t kept up.”
“They all went to meet Oscar,” said Arthur, “and Izzy, of course. P.C. Sackett must be having a heart attack, waiting to see his boat come safely ashore.”
“Mr. Fibbley is hot on the trail of the fossil story,” I said. “Passing time until the killer is found.”
Hector made a little cough to put me on guard. As if I would blab in front of Arthur about Mr. Fibbley also being Miss Spinns!
“I know that cough is a code of some kind,” said Arthur.
I rolled my eyes at Hector.
“And I’m not blind either,” said Arthur. “Just not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is what my father says.”
“Does he really say that? How awful,” I said. Even if it was true.
“While you’re playing detective,” said Arthur, “who do you think killed Mr. B-C?”
“Oscar thinks the killer is a ‘she,’ ” said Hector, “but he does not say why.”
“Pah!” said Arthur. “Oscar would say anything to distract people from blaming his father.”
“He may not have all the facts,” I said, “but I don’t think he’s a liar.”
“Not like his father,” said Hector.
“Well, I don’t trust him,” said Arthur. “Sneaking about after dark, saying Helen was going later to visit her mum. Nine o’clock at night? Mrs. Malone goes to bed much earlier than that!”
“How do you know when she goes to bed?” I said.
“Everyone knows,” said Arthur. “She’s up and baking by half four in the morning. All the bread we eat at camp is made by her—before she starts the laundering.”
“Goodness.” Certainly a baker must rise before the sun. I trusted Arthur on this point. So, why did this news send a prickle across my shoulders?
I flapped my notebook at Grannie Jane to show that we were still safe. She twirled her parasol and Helen waved again. A series of hand motions followed, but it was only when their figures disappeared that I understood they were departing. I trusted that the signaling had promised their return.
“Is it lunchtime?” I said.
“Well past,” said Arthur.
A curious herring gull landed a few feet away and hopped closer, beady eye swiveling.
“He hears you say lunch,” said Hector.
“Sorry, Gully. We have no sandwiches to share,” I said.
“Don’t mention food,” said Arthur. “We’ve missed lunch and we’ll miss tea stuck here.”
“Seven silly seagulls,” I said, “sat upon the shore. Eating seven sandwiches till they could eat no more.”
“Jolly good!” cried Arthur.
“You try thinking one up,” I said. But Arthur was a hopeless poet. He tried to rhyme amazing with raisin.
“Seven soggy sandwiches,” Hector said, “sink into the sea. Silver sharks eat sandwiches instead of eating me.”
I’d finally stopped trembling. My arms and legs stopped tingling. A salty residue was beginning to itch my skin. Had Oscar made a hero’s landing at the Gun Cliff jetty, where they were expecting him? Maybe someone would think to bring the rowboat back to rescue us! That was optimistic, I supposed. Oscar mightn’t realize we were trapped. They all likely assumed us safe and sound at Camp Crewe.
We’d be here for ages yet.
I rolled onto my tummy and closed my eyes, letting the sun dry the back of me. Ahh, finally warm, and almost comfortable. Even the rough ground did not stop me drifting off for a while.
The lonely professor looked out at the glittering twilit sea. Was he so unlikable that he could not name one true friend? Would anyone care if he did not return to camp this evening? But where else could he go? How had he lost the love and respect of everyone around him? He determined that tomorrow he would be more patient, possibly even kind! Everett could keep his position. Spud would keep cooking inedible food, and he’d allow those pesty children to…
How long did I nap? How much longer would we be here? The landslip was still surrounded but I could see a distinct waterline above where the waves were hitting now. Grannie Jane and Helen had not returned to their perch on the cliff. Watching children lie about on a rock, I supposed, was not compelling enough to keep them rooted to their seats. The boys must have dozed as well, but now they became noisy again and got up to explore the terrain. They poked at stones in the hopes they were actually skulls—as if we hadn’t done enough fossil-finding for one day. Arthur told Hector not to step in a slurry. These were mudholes that looked hard and firm on top, but were ghastly sinking mud below and would suck off your shoe when you tried to pull out. One of nature’s nasty secrets.
Renewed hooting came from the top of the cliff. Grannie and Helen were back!
“Hallooooo!” I called, blowing kisses. Had Grannie Jane perhaps needed a rest? Had Helen somehow made her comfortable in our stuffy tent? She’d be tuckered out with no afternoon siesta. I tried to picture my grandmother lying on my cot in her corset, but such a sight was impossible to summon.
My brain cells whirred back to Helen’s mother’s bedtime. The point that had bothered me earlier came clear…What if it were not Oscar who had told a fib, but Helen? What if she’d told Oscar she was going to see her mother when really she’d had somewhere else to be? She’d not come back to camp until quite a bit later than Oscar had. The bonfire was well over and we’d all been in our tents. Had Helen sneaked off to meet Ned? Or had she witnessed something she was afraid to tell about? Had she seen her own father in a place where he shouldn’t have been? Was Helen protecting her father, a key to the mystery, rather than Oscar protecting his?
Or…was there a more complicated explanation? Spud had an alibi, vouched for by more than one person. For whom else might Helen lie to protect? Did Ned have a reason to attack the professor? They’d never met! And Ned was tending to Oscar’s injured father at the hotel for much of the evening. I blinked. I was circling the obvious answer, like a puffin ignoring the fish in its beak.
My eyes flew to where Helen stood at the top of the cliff, a mere push away from my grandmother. Why was Oscar so sure that the killer was female? Could Helen be the “she” that he meant?
A noise pierced my thoughts, like the cry of a seagull but longer.
Agonized rather than greedy.
I had never heard Hector scream before.
Chapter 25
A Poisonous Encounter
“It bites!” he shrieked. “It bites!”
I saw movement in the scrub at Hector’s feet, a telltale slither, black zigzags on silvery-gray scales. For a moment, I assumed that he’d seen the snake and succumbed to panic.
“Adder!” Arthur scooped up a stone and threw it.
But Hector crouched to grab his ankle and fell to one side with a sob of pain. Arthur and I sank to the ground next to him, my blood sizzling in alarm. Hector had been bitten by a venomous snake!
“Let’s have a look, old boy,” said Arthur, with unexpected gentleness. His father must have used those very words at a moment when Arthur had been injured. It took some coaxing for Hector to let go of his ankle and lie back. His straw hat was useless as a pillow, so Arthur tore off his cardigan and rolled it under Hector’s head.
“You mustn’t move,” said Arthur. “Rule number one with adder bites. No jiggling.”
Hector froze. The whimper died on his lips and he did not make another sound, even when Arthur peeled down his sock to reveal an ankle already puffy and pink.
“Only one real puncture,” said Arthur. “That’s good! The other fang must have got caught in the sock.”
“F-fang?” Hector whispered. This was the very worst thing that could happen to him. Even looking at a picture of a snake in a book he found to be loathsome. Revolting and reptile were the same word in his vocabulary.
Arthur took Hector’s sock all the way off and handed it to me. “Can you douse this in seawater?” he said. “We should clean the puncture as quickly as possible.”
“Pity my skirt has dried out,” I said.
“We need more than a dribble anyway,” said Arthur. I scrambled down as near as I could get to the waves splashing against the base of the slip. One dunk to soak Hector’s sock and back I climbed. Hector’s face was paler and sweatier than I’d ever seen it, his ankle even redder now. The wound was tiny but vivid scarlet. Arthur dabbed at the spot and then wrapped the sock all the way around, tucking in the ends to make a secure compress.
