The Seaside Corpse, page 3
“You find all this since you arrive in Lyme Regis?” said Hector.
“Yes,” said Nina. “All this in three weeks. Though every lovely ammonite and belemnite now sits woefully ignored because of Izzy! That’s what my husband calls the giant fossil I fell over last week. I am still shivering in awe. The size alone!” She tapped her palm several times above her bosom, to mimic an ecstatic heartbeat.
Everett had come in while she was talking. “Our Young Scientists can help us catch up with these smaller things, starting tomorrow, eh? We’ll get them goggled and wielding hammers first thing.”
Yes! We were eager to feel part of the team.
“Has Miss Spinns gone home?” said Everett. “Will you come with us to see the sun go down?”
“Miss Spinns left ages ago.” Nina glanced at a table in one corner that held a typewriter on a bit of a slant, and a tidy stack of envelopes. “She left letters for me to approve, being the efficient secretary that she is, and I now must go through and sign them all. Say goodnight to the sea for me.”
* * *
“Watch out for adders during the day,” said Arthur, as we walked toward the edge of the cliff to wait for the sunset. “They like to warm up in the sun as much as we do.”
“Adders?” Hector’s voice was nearly a squeak.
“Long gray wriggly things?” teased Arthur. Snakes were very low on Hector’s list of worthy members of the animal kingdom. He found a stick and began to smack the long grass with every step.
“The beach disappears completely at high tide,” said Everett, as we neared the edge of the cliff. “Six hours and roughly twelve minutes later, the water is as low as it ever gets. And then it turns and starts back in again. Over and over and over. Right now, it’s on the way out.”
Pale violet clouds scudded across a glowing orange sun, with the silvery sea shimmering gently to the horizon. It didn’t look as if it raced back and forth all day and all night.
“This is called Back Beach,” said Arthur, pointing to the curved stretch below us.
“Not much sand.” I foolishly said what we all could see.
“Mostly stones and pebbles, it’s true,” said Everett. “Not very welcoming—unless you’re looking for prehistoric treasures.”
Arthur was bent on instructing us. “Those flat limestone slabs are underwater half the time. They’re called the ledges. When the sea pulls back, like now, the spaces between them make excellent rock pools, for crabbing or finding good fossil bits.”
“And do you see that pile of black stones a little beyond the ledges?” Everett pointed to a spot dozens of yards out from shore.
Yes, we could see.
“Nina collected those stones and made that heap to mark where Izzy lies,” he said. “And has been lying for an uncountable number of years.”
I considered what uncountable might mean, as the very, very old sun sank a little lower in the old, old sky.
“And along the beach?” said Hector. “What is this, where the cliff face is spilling down?”
“That’s called a landslip,” said Arthur. “My dad’s grandpa lived here when that one happened. Great chunks of the cliff broke loose in the middle of the night after days of rain. Tons and tons of earth slid down to make a new foothill. Whole houses are in there somewhere. And a field of sheep.”
“Not to mention prehistoric bones,” said Everett. “A landslip is a fossil-hunter’s happiest disaster, uncovering lots of surprises.”
“Cazelty weather we call it in Dorset,” said Arthur. “A tide swollen by the storm. Banging waves weaken the cliff foundation, and boom!”
Hector shuddered. But the scene before us was the opposite of cazelty. Wet sand freckled with clumps of seaweed glimmered faintly as the sun sank over the nearly still sea.
“The main thing to remember,” Everett said, “is that the beach down there is engulfed at high tide, no matter the weather. You must never imagine that you can run more quickly than the English Channel.”
Chapter 4
A Growing Cast of Characters
I awoke to an exotic light I had never known before.
Last evening the canvas walls seemed close and rough as they rippled slightly in a steady breeze from the sea. Our lantern flickered from its spot on the makeshift table between the cots, casting spooky shadows as we undressed and put on nightclothes. I pretended that Helen was my cousin, for the purpose of not being worried about her seeing me in my underthings—or me seeing her in hers.
But the white canvas glowed in today’s early sunshine, making it seem that I had slept inside a seashell. The rolling murmur of waves was as steady as blood through a vein. Helen was still sleeping, the faint burr of her breath moving a lock of hair that had fallen by her mouth. I dressed carefully, not wishing to wake her, thankful for buttons up the front of my dress instead of at the back. I carried my hairbrush outside and sat on a hefty tussock of grass while carefully detangling and rebraiding my hair. Helen slipped past after a bit, heading to the cook tent, but I watched terns and gulls diving for their breakfasts as the tide drew back. What a delicious way to greet the day!
“Bonjour, Aggie.” Hector’s sailor suit was a little rumpled. He’d smoothed flat his hair, but under his eyes were gray shadows.
“Hullo. Did you not sleep well?”
“Crickets,” he said. Before I could laugh, he listed more woes. “The relentless muttering of Arthur Haystead. The snoring of the professor. Even from a distant tent, it is most insistent. Noisy water crashing against the cliff. The anticipation of adders slithering beneath the edge of the tent. Also, I think there is a bear creeping nearby. One thin piece of cloth between myself and certain death.”
“I don’t think we have bears in Dorset,” I said. “Was it a badger, perhaps? Too bad Tony isn’t here to bark at intruders! Did it snuffle?”
Hector shuddered. “This I do not know, as my head is under what they are calling a pillow but truthfully is a towel folded in half.” He plunked himself down with an enormous sigh but then hopped up to check the backside of his trousers for grass stains.
“But look.” I waved my arm across the magnificent vista of sky and sea.
“I look,” he said, still gloomy.
Under the canopy beside the cook tent, Arthur was at one end of the table, while two strangers sat, hunched over bowls, at the other end. They wore workmen’s garments, dark in color and ill-fitting about the shoulders. One of them, with sun-scorched cheeks and a stubbled chin, had removed his cap and set it beside his mug on the table. The older man had a fuller beard, ragged and laced with gray, and great creases about the eyes.
“Good morning, Mr. Jarvis,” Helen said to the younger one. “And Mr. Volkov. Miss Aggie and Master Hector have joined Arthur as fellow Young Scientists.”
Their return greetings were nods and soft grunts, hardly interrupting the business of eating porridge. When Hector produced his customary bow, they stared at him and then at one another, truly startled.
A stack of buttered bread showed that Helen had been hard at work. Tea, milk and honey—for putting on the porridge or on the bread or even in the tea. That was breakfast, plain and simple. We served ourselves from a big iron pot that held the cooked oatmeal, and joined Arthur. After a night of breathing salty air, with a breeze blowing in over the water, I was as hungry as a bear awakening in spring, as famished as a sailor on a long sea voyage, as greedy as a hummingbird in a flower shop.
Mr. Jarvis and Mr. Volkov took last gulps from their tea mugs and attached tool belts to their waists. I enviously examined these leather aprons slung with loops and pockets that held chisels and hammers and awls. How convenient for carrying a notebook and pencils and a sharpener, or a magnifying glass and a torch for detecting in the dark. Which might I prefer, a tool belt or a pocketed waistcoat?
“They’re from the cement factory, t’other side of town,” Helen explained, after the men had gone in the direction of the shop yard. “Quarrymen know how to cut rock better than anyone. Missus hired them for digging out the fossil she’s so excited about, but they build things too.”
“Good morning!” Everett’s hair was damp, as if he’d generously splashed his face. He poured tea for himself and dropped onto the bench beside me.
Helen cleared the dishes left by the quarrymen. Arthur refilled his bowl with porridge.
“Did Nina eat breakfast?” asked Everett. “Or just the men?”
“You know her,” said Helen. “She likes to walk out inches behind the tide with a mug of tea in her hands.”
“Barefoot,” said Everett, laughing.
“How she goes over those stones without boots, I can’t think,” said Helen, shuddering. “And that’s before she wades into water that’s barely melted ice.”
“I’d meant to get you all out to look at Izzy this morning,” Everett said to us, “but low tide was so early! And we should be here anyway, to greet our American visitors, Oscar and Mr. Osteda.”
“Speaking of,” said Helen, “I’ll nip into the boys’ tent. Make certain it’s tidy enough to receive our new guest. I won’t be doing this every day,” she assured Arthur and Hector. “You’d best learn to do for yourselves, or what good will you be in the army, without a mother or a wife in sight?”
In the work tent, we met the secretary, Miss Spinns. An older lady, she was neatly dressed in a peach-colored blouse under a brown wool jacket and skirt, making my skin itch to look at her. Her hair, mostly silver, was tightly pulled back into an old-fashioned net snood. Thick black-framed spectacles rested crookedly on her pointed nose. Her eyes bulged with a look close to horror at the sight of three children, before she quickly ducked her head. The light was bright and pearly in this tent too, making even the bumpy rows of fossils look like treasures.
“Did you collect the post this morning, Miss Spinns?” asked Everett.
“When have I not done that, Mr. Tobie?” she said sharply, in a thin voice.
Everett sighed. “Thank you. Was there anything of note?”
“Not the one from the Natural History Museum that you’re all so eager to receive.” She turned her attention to the page in her typewriter, but then looked up again. “I’m sorry to say there has been a breach in the privacy of your endeavors, Mr. Tobie.” She patted a folded newspaper that lay on the table beside her. “An article today announces that Mr. Blenningham-Crewe has discovered an item of scientific note.”
“Oh dear,” said Everett. “We’d hoped to keep things quiet until the specimen is actually extracted from the seabed.”
“Too late for that,” said Miss Spinns.
“Let’s keep the newspaper well out of sight unless it is asked for,” Everett suggested.
Miss Spinns tucked away the offending object just as Mr. B-C arrived. It was our first glimpse since yesterday’s mortifying encounter.
“Children!” he boomed. “Forgive my bad manners on our previous meeting.” His eyes twinkled at us, fully expecting his apology to be accepted. He was a different man this morning and wished to be our friend. “Welcome to our dragon’s lair of keepsakes! Have you had a look around?”
“Yes, sir,” said Arthur.
“Not everything yet,” I said.
“Always take a collecting sack when you go down to the beach,” he said, pointing to where several heavy muslin bags were hanging from a coatrack near the entry to the tent. “You never know when you’ll spot a prize to bring back to camp.”
“Good advice,” agreed Everett. He showed how the sacks had a long strap to be worn over one shoulder and slung across the chest, leaving hands free to pick things up. An embroidered crest embellished the bottom corner of each one, with the letters B and C entwined, for Blenningham-Crewe.
“And when you arrive in camp with your sack full of crusty lumps,” said Everett, “each one gets labeled with the date and place where you picked it up. When it comes time for cleaning, you’ll select a small chisel or a pick and begin the careful work of revealing what you’ve found.” He distributed goggles and rock hammers and chisels, and showed us how to hold the tools.
“Since you haven’t yet been down to collect your own samples,” Everett said, “you can practice today on ours.” We crept around the tables, looking for the perfect things. “Best to start with one of the bigger pieces,” he suggested. “You won’t be so likely to break it to bits.”
I chose one whose label read:
→ JUNE 27 1903 ←
MONMOUTH BEACH LYME REGIS DORSET
NINA BLENNINGHAM-CREWE
ANDROGYNOCERAS AMMONITE
Everett soon had us noticing glimpses of a rippled formation under the encasing layer of ancient stone. He demonstrated where and how hard to tap the chisel with the hammer, to slowly chip through to what lay beneath. Within minutes I was utterly absorbed, as the world shrank to the tip of a small tool nudging its way through to the mysterious skeleton inside.
“Have we heard an exact time for the Ostedas’ arrival?” Mr. B-C’s voice broke through the quiet tap-tap of our chiseling.
“After breakfast is what I was told, sir,” said Miss Spinns, “though what that means to an American, I cannot say.”
“This fellow is from Mexico originally,” Mr. B-C told us. “As a young fellow, he was on a team that discovered a Baptanodon, in America. The state of Wyoming, I believe. That hooked him! Then he had some luck in Texas a couple of years ago. I think they call it an oil gusher. But he’s still a keen collector of prehistoric bones! We’re hoping he’ll direct some of his fortune our way.”
“I don’t think Izzy is actually for sale,” said Everett. “Nina is very keen to get it into the museum.”
“Plenty of time to change her mind about that,” said Mr. B-C.
“What, please, is a Baptanodon?” said Hector.
“It’s a kind of ichthyosaur, much like ours,” said Everett, “but with even bigger eyes and a fishier body.”
“Ours?” Mr. B-C looked at Everett in a not-friendly way. “You’ve become an owner overnight?”
Everett flushed. “Any of you youngsters ready for a change of scene?” he said. “Let’s go along the cliff and meet Nina coming up from the beach.”
We scrambled to follow him, away from his suddenly cranky boss. But we’d scarcely reached the cliff path when we heard a motorcar rumbling down the rutted track and coming to a noisy stop. Mr. B-C greeted the American guests and waved at us to hurry back. Mr. Osteda was brown-skinned with a black mustache and a wide-brimmed straw hat pulled so low that his eyes were nearly hidden. He wore a white linen suit and soft green leather shoes that surely had not been made for treading on stones or seaweed. Mr. B-C, in his loose beige trousers and matching shirt, appeared creased and shabby beside the elegance of his guest. The boy, Oscar, loitered off to one side, looking glum.
“He wishes to be anywhere but here,” murmured Hector.
Oscar picked up a stone and hurled it high into the air as if he might fell a bird out of the sky. His bronze coloring was similar to his father’s, and his dark hair so long that it flopped over his collar. His eyes were the color of wet sand.
“Hello, and welcome!” Everett managed to sound cheery. “I am Everett Tobie, the project photographer and artist. Mrs. Blenningham-Crewe will be here in a few minutes.” He glanced toward the cliff path, as if willing her to appear.
“I was telling Mr. Osteda,” Mr. B-C said, “that we missed our chance to visit Izzy this morning, with low tide come and gone. The next low water is this evening, when it will be too dark to see properly.”
“Tomorrow will do!” said Mr. Osteda. “The marvel will wait, will it not?”
“Ha!” said Mr. B-C. “The marvel has waited over a million years or more, by our guess. I think we can depend on her staying in place for another night without floating away.”
“Welcome to you too, Oscar,” said Everett. “We’ve looked forward to your joining our company.”
We each said our names, but when Oscar’s turn came, he said, “You already know my name. He just announced it.” Grannie Jane would have bitten off my nose for such a retort! Eight words to be rude instead of one to be polite!
But Mr. Osteda was hurrying on. “We would have been on time, but we got caught behind a parade of circus wagons. Flags flying, dogs yapping, trumpets blaring! At this time of day!” His accent had an American twang as well as a lilt that I took to be Spanish. He clapped his son on the back and beamed. “We followed them to the site—a mile or so from here—where they are pitching a gigantic tent. The ticket booth was not yet open, but that didn’t stop me! I have secured us a box for the matinee tomorrow!”
Chapter 5
An Extraordinary Visitor
The circus! Tomorrow! I wished I were five years old and could hop up and down while squealing and clapping my hands.
Arthur’s face shone. “A box!”
“Where else?” said Mr. Osteda. “The view is best from a box beside the ring.”
“We haven’t taken an afternoon off since we got here!” said Mr. B-C. “What a treat. Say thank you, children.”
We needed no prompting to thank him with giddy enthusiasm.
“Mr. Osteda?” said Mr. B-C. “Shall we walk to the cliff to intercept my wife on her return from the beach? She has been looking forward to your arrival.”
