The Seaside Corpse, page 8
“We’ll report this find to the sergeant,” said Everett.
I waited until he was noisily tramping on pebbles a few yards ahead.
“I suppose the coroner will know whether or not he drowned,” I said to Hector. “But doesn’t this stranded hat suggest that he might have fallen?”
Chapter 11
A Second Clue
Getting Nina back to camp was like guiding a blind dog to its bed. She knew the direction in which she was meant to be going but kept veering off the path or stopping in her tracks as if realizing all over again that her husband was dead.
“How did this happen?” she said, seven or eight times. “What was he doing there?”
Everett patiently repeated the answers: The police will tell us. We’ll have to wait for more information. It certainly is baffling.
As we neared the camp, Miss Spinns hurried toward us on the path, sunbonnet pulled low over her eyes and blue coat flapping. She carried a thermos in her hands and a bulky collecting sack over one shoulder.
“Can it be true?” she said. “The American boy told me—”
“I’m afraid it’s true, Miss Spinns,” Everett said gently.
“He rushed up the path, blurted, ‘The professor is dead,’ and raced away,” said the old lady. “A drowning, was it?”
Nina ignored her, pushing past with a glazed expression. She went ahead to the work tent, propelled by habit.
“I’m taking tea to the policemen.” Miss Spinns lifted the thermos to show us and hurried away.
“Good idea,” said Everett. “I will do the same for Nina. Hot sweet tea. Will you two find Oscar? He had rather a shock, I think. We all have. Try to be a friend to the poor boy.”
Hector and I found Oscar curled on his cot like a six-year-old with a tummy ache. He sat up quickly and came out into the sunshine.
“I’m all right now,” said Oscar. “I…well…It was pretty nasty, wasn’t it?”
We agreed that it was pretty nasty. Hector retrieved a blanket from their tent to spread out on a patch of grass. Everett went by, bearing two mugs.
“His face was horrible,” said Oscar. “Did he go la-la and jump into the ocean?”
“In England we call it the sea,” I said.
“I do not know this word, la-la,” said Hector.
Oscar circled a finger beside his temple to show one’s brain going loopy. “I never saw a dead person before,” he admitted, “except for my mother’s aunt. But she was lying peacefully in her coffin, wearing her favorite necklace, not—” He shuddered. “Did anyone say when he died?”
Hector and I looked at each other.
“No one mentioned when,” I said. “The body needs to be examined by the coroner. Properly, in his examining room, not a quick peek on the beach. Oh, here’s Arthur.”
Arthur saw us waving and trotted over from the cliff path.
“Odd bird, Miss Spinns.” He plunked himself down on a corner of the blanket. “I offered to carry the thermos, and she said, ‘Certainly not, young man, do I look defective?’ ”
“What did we miss down there?” I said. “Has the tide turned?”
Arthur’s face shone. Partly with a sheen of sweat, but partly, I saw, because he had a story to tell. Arthur’s cousin’s wife, Bessie, had made a smashing lunch of fish paste sandwiches and cheddar with pickle, but only Arthur and the constables ate anything. Sergeant Harley (who was smashing) and Mr. Pallid, the coroner (a bit weedy), had turned the body over. They’d knelt on the stones poking the dead man, lifting bits of his clothing and muttering to each other in voices too discreet to be overheard. The coroner left to make preparations at the morgue, and Sergeant Harley barked at Sackett to get over to Cobb harbor and bring around the fishing boat he was so proud of because that’s how the body was to be moved! Sadly, this was when the sergeant noticed Arthur and sent him packing. P.C. Guff was to remain on guard duty while Sergeant Harley returned to the station to summon more assistance.
“If I’d been there, I could have offered to row,” said Oscar. “I’ll bet that podgy policeman can’t row for beans.”
Arthur objected to Oscar’s boast. “I thought you lived in a desert,” he said. “Isn’t Texas a desert? How do you know how to row?”
“It’s dry, yeah,” said Oscar, “but we’ve got rivers! The Rio Grande is where I won a race last summer and I would have this year too, except we came to England.”
Arthur looked utterly disbelieving. I quickly brought the corpse back into the conversation.
“I wish we could watch when they move the body,” I said. “It was too dark the last time we saw a body moved, and we were upstairs behind a window.”
“That’s why I asked to help Miss Spinns with the thermos,” said Arthur. “I wasn’t being polite. I wanted a reason to go back.”
“Since Arthur mentions sandwiches,” said Hector, “I am most ravenous.”
We all were ravenous, and we went to see if food would be served despite the exit of Howard Blenningham-Crewe from the universe.
“I knew people would be hungry,” said Helen. Her eyes were pink-rimmed. From crying? “My dad’s crousty, his last words to the deceased being angry ones. He’d take it all back in a minute.” She gave us each a plate. “Eel pie and crab cakes.”
Arthur was first to help himself from the covered dishes, despite having eaten Bessie Guff’s picnic. I was not wildly fond of eels, and chose crab cakes with bread and butter. Hector had small helpings of everything, hoping there’d be one edible offering.
“Eels?” said Oscar. “Those black things like giant, evil caterpillars? What I’d like is a grilled Texan steak.” He chose bread and butter, and Helen kindly cut him a wedge of cheddar cheese.
“What’s that noise?” she said.
Mr. Cavalier Jones had arrived on his Runabout machine.
“What’s he doing here?” said Oscar, sounding rather like his father.
The clamor drew Everett and Nina out of the work tent. The Spotted Pony’s tail had been braided with a gold ribbon and she swished it proudly. Mr. Jones dismounted with his usual aplomb. He slapped his hat against one thigh, dislodging small puffs of dust. His lower lip was swollen from some small injury. One of the dangers of lifting large objects, I guessed.
“Hallo, one and all!” Mr. Jones greeted us as if from the circus ring. But we were a miserable audience, awash with calamity.
“Tell him, Everett.” Nina backstepped a few paces, ready to retreat. “Did he have an appointment with—?”
“Mr. Jones,” said Everett. “I am grieved to inform you that we’ve had a tragedy this morning.” He quickly told the news.
Mr. Jones looked stricken. “Oh, my lady!” he said to Nina, bowing his head. “My heart breaks for you! I will leave you in peace.” He turned to climb back on the Runabout but paused to look at Everett. “We are mere minutes’ away,” he said. “Please send word if I can be of assistance…”
“Thank you, sir, for understanding,” said Everett.
Mr. Jones looked at Nina most sympathetically. “What of your mission, madam? It will now be forgotten?”
“We are going ahead.” Nina spoke in a rush. “We will recover the fossil this weekend, during Sunday’s spring tide.”
“Nina,” said Everett. “Need we decide now?”
Miss Spinns came along the footpath, thermos swinging in one hand. Clouds were gathering over the sea, promising rain.
“I see in you a passion for science that I applaud most ardently,” said Cavalier Jones.
Everett sighed.
“The circus moves to Seaton on Sunday,” said Mr. Jones. “However! If at all possible, I would be thrilled to witness this unique moment in the history of our wondrous earth! A great creature dies and lies at rest for many thousands of years, gently rocked in the arms of the sea. It is no less than our duty to honor the resurrection!”
I slipped my notebook out of its pocket and scribbled in haste, gently rocked in the arms of the sea. Would it be cheating to use that in a poem some day?
“Howard would wish us to proceed,” said Nina, and disappeared through the flap of the work tent.
“It may be more complicated than wishing,” said Everett. “And you Young Scientists should be prepared for a quiet day or two, as we adapt our priorities. But if Nina says we’re going ahead, no argument will change her mind…unless she remembers that her husband needs a funeral.” The drizzle began, as light as mist. Mr. Jones returned his hat to his head and lifted a hand in farewell.
“Young man,” said Miss Spinns, her crackly voice louder than usual. “Mr. Jones? I have a pressing errand in the village. I wonder if you would be so kind as to—”
Mr. Jones did not even blink, as if the delight of driving an old lady to town was the purpose for which he’d come to Camp Crewe. He assisted her in boarding the Runabout, cautioned her to secure her hat and away they bounced.
“That’s quite a sight,” said Everett.
“And the first time Miss Spinns has ever accepted a ride,” said Helen. “She walked even during that crashing downpour last week. What errand is so urgent?”
“Maybe she’s smitten with our friend the ringmaster?” said Everett. We all had a chuckle at that, but soon squelched our merriment. Mr. B-C was dead and always would be.
“Let’s go for a walk,” I said, tipping my head west so Hector would understand. “This rain won’t last.” Everett had told the sergeant about our discovery on the slope of Church Cliff but none of the others knew. Our guess was that the professor had fallen into the sea from a great height. Likely from the churchyard or nearby.
“To the cemetery?” Hector said. “Would anyone care to join us?”
Helen vigorously shook her head no. “I’ll be helping my father make supper. And I don’t fancy walking over there, now or anytime soon.” She flushed pink. “What if…what if his ghost is lurking?”
“I won’t go either,” said Oscar. “My father will come for me. Soon, I think. Our arrangement was unclear.”
“Your father was here shortly after dawn,” said Helen. “We’d hardly got the kettle on.”
Oscar stared at her. “Dawn? This morning?”
“It did seem a bit odd,” said Helen. “He went to your tent to make certain you’d shown up here. He’d been expecting you to stay with him last night in the fancy hotel.” She tipped her head, prodding for an answer. “Only you didn’t.”
Oscar blushed the color of strawberry jam. “Did he…say anything else?”
“He asked my dad for a beefsteak to put on his black eye,” said Helen, “but we haven’t got beefsteaks to give away around here, so I made him a packet of ice chips instead.”
“Black eye?” Oscar jolted upright. “Where did he get a black eye?”
“Not likely I’d ask!” said Helen, laughing. “It were nasty, though. I will say that.”
“Oi!” called Spud from inside the kitchen. “These potatoes won’t peel themselves!”
“Come on.” Helen tapped Oscar’s arm. “You help us prepare for tea. We’re behind because of all the upset.” Then she leaned in to whisper, “Me own dad weren’t too sharp this morning either, thanks to a few tipples at The Crow’s Nest.”
“But how did my father get a black eye?” said Oscar. “He didn’t have one last night before he went to The Crow’s Nest.”
“He’s staying an extra day,” Helen said. “Needs time to recover. If it were me, I’d be on my bed with the shades down.”
“If he does show up,” I said, “tell him he can’t take you away until we’re back. Hector, if we hurry now, we might see the boat carrying Mr. B-C.”
“Smashing idea,” said Arthur. He felt he’d been cheated earlier, being booted off the beach.
Hector collected his binoculars and the three of us set out. The drizzle had subsided and a nice breeze riffled the grasses along the path. The ledges were slowly being swallowed by shallow swirls. A while from now the beach would be swamped with the incoming tide. Any sign of disturbance or evidence near the corpse would be swirled away. We paused to take turns with the binoculars, and could see the rowboat, with poor tubby Sackett hauling on the oars as Oscar had predicted. The professor’s body had been wrapped in white sheets and laid out on the stretcher that P.C. Guff had assembled. The stretcher nearly filled the boat, with Mr. B-C’s feet nudging the constable’s knees. The men had propped him in place so he wouldn’t roll with the motion of the sea. Through the binoculars we tried to identify the odd assortment of objects holding him. A tackle box. A mackintosh raincoat. The beach umbrellas. A blanket.
“I hope he feels honored to be transported by boat,” I said, “since he liked history.” Hadn’t the Vikings buried their dead in boats, believing the custom would allow for safe passage to the afterlife? Constable Sackett was rounding the bump of Church Cliff and about to disappear from sight. Sergeant Harley and P.C. Guff had packed up and were climbing the path at the west end of the beach, heading to meet the body in Cobb harbor, we guessed.
“How will they get him to the coroner’s office?” I said. “He can’t be carried through town over their shoulders like a sack of laundry.”
“The coroner uses a hearse,” said Arthur. “He shares it with the undertaker. For funerals it has black bunting and the horses wear plumes, but when a body is moved, they leave it plain.”
In the churchyard, we passed the grave that Mary Anning shared with her brother and three infants. A bouquet of weeds and wildflowers lay in the grass above her resting place.
“Visitors leave flowers here all the time,” Arthur said. “Or sometimes fossils. She’s the most famous person ever born in Lyme Regis. Except possibly for Captain Thomas Coram, who was a captain, after all. He started the Foundling Hospital in London, and saved thousands of foundling children from dying. I suppose that’s easily as important as saving the bones of a few prehistoric monsters. He’s not buried here, though, and Mary Anning is.”
“What would you choose to have on your headstone?” I asked, looking at the few plain words under Anning.
“Here lies Arthur John Haystead,” said Arthur. “England’s greatest prime minister.”
We laughed.
“Hector Perot, 1890 to 1995,” said Hector. “One of a kind.”
“A hundred and five years old?” I said. “Grannie Jane is sixty-seven and she is already antique!”
“What about you?” asked Arthur.
“Aggie Morton, poetess?” I said.
“Aggie Morton, mystery queen,” said Hector, “if Mr. Fibbley is still alive to write your obituary.”
We wandered through the cemetery and closer to the cliff’s edge, but not too close because the sound of the sea was a steady reminder of the peril waiting below. Was it possible that a person might get disoriented in the dark and topple right off the cliff? Thinking back, the moon had shown itself rarely last night, during the bonfire. The clouds had been dark, in an even darker sky.
“Look there,” I pointed. Something white and wrinkled was caught in the brambles growing beside the narrow path at the edge of the cliff. “Is that a collecting sack?”
Arthur bounded over and gently tugged the cloth free of prickers. “That’s what it is, all right.” He showed us the embroidered initials in the lower corner.
Hector poked the bulges and we heard clinking.
“Huh,” said Arthur. “These are half-pint pub glasses.” He pulled out one and then another bevel-edged glass with a short stem, the second with a chipped rim. I held them while he reached inside the bag to bring out a flask. A plain pewter hip flask with a monogram etched into its side: H.B.C.
Chapter 12
An Uncomfortable Suggestion
“It’s his,” I said. “Full or empty?”
Arthur shook it and we heard a slight slosh. He unscrewed the cap and held it under my nose.
A quick, potent whiff. “I’d say Scotch whisky,” I said, “but I am not an expert.”
He put the cap back on.
“Should we not leave this where we find it?” said Hector.
My heart sagged and so did Arthur’s grin. We shouldn’t have touched it, in case the police—
“The police!” I said. “They’ll likely be in the camp by now. We should give the sack to them. It’s too late to put it back where it was. They don’t like people to tamper.”
“Carrying evidence half a mile is tampering,” said Hector.
I laughed, outwitted by Hector’s logic yet again. “Ugh,” I said. “Why are you always right?”
“Evidence of what?” said Arthur.
“This we do not know,” said Hector.
“You can’t think he jumped?” said Arthur. “From Church Cliff? On purpose?”
“We do not say this,” said Hector.
“We can’t know anything yet,” I said. “But don’t you think it’s a bit peculiar that we found his flask at the top, his hat halfway down and his body several hundred feet to the east?”
Arthur looked back and forth between us. “We should give the sack to the police.”
He was right. Mr. B-C’s death was looking more like murder every minute.
“It’s drizzling again,” I said. “Let’s go back. Oscar might be leaving soon.”
Hector peered over stalks of rosemary that clung to the edge of the cliff. “In some places we have plants or bushes, elsewhere nothing. The police perhaps can match the place of the hat with a spot along this path where an exit is indicated?”
The sky spat rain all the way back. Arthur tucked the collecting sack under his shirt and held it tightly while we ran so that the glasses didn’t knock together. When we came into camp, Sergeant Harley was speaking to Nina and Everett at one of the tables under the kitchen canopy.
“Must we hand over the bag straightaway?” said Hector.
