Chapter 1

It was a little after seven on a summer morning, and William Potticary was taking his accustomed way over the short down grass of the cliff-top. Beyond his elbow, two hundred feet below, lay the Channel, very still and shining, like a milky opal. All around him hung the bright air, empty as yet of larks. In all the sunlit world no sound except for the screaming of some seagulls on the distant beach; no human activity except for the small lonely figure of Potticary himself, square and dark and uncompromising. A million dewdrops sparkling on the virgin grass suggested a world new-come from its Creator's hand. Not to Potticary, of course. What the dew suggested to Potticary was that the ground fog of the early hours had not begun to disperse until well after sunrise. His subconscious noted the fact and tucked it away, while his conscious mind debated whether, having raised an appetite for breakfast, he should turn at the Gap and go back to the Coastguard Station, or whether, in view of the fineness of the morning, he should walk into Westover for the morning paper, and so hear about the latest murder two hours earlier than he would otherwise. Of course, what with wireless, the edge was off the morning paper, as you might say. But it was an objective. War or peace, a man had to have an objective. You couldn't go into Westover just to look at the front. And going back to breakfast with the paper under your arm made you feel fine, somehow. Yes, perhaps he would walk into the town.

The pace of his black, square-toed boots quickened slightly, their shining surface winking in the sunlight. Proper service, these boots were. One might have thought that Potticary, having spent his best years in brushing his boots to order, would have asserted his individuality, or expressed his personality, or otherwise shaken the dust of a meaningless discipline off his feet by leaving the dust on his boots. But no, Potticary, poor fool, brushed his boots for love of it. He probably had a slave mentality, but had never read enough for it to worry him. As for expressing one's personality, if you described the symptoms to him he would, of course, recognize them. But not by name; In the Service they call that "contrariness."

A seagull flashed suddenly above the cliff-top, and dropped screaming from sight to join its wheeling comrades below. A dreadful row these gulls were making. Potticary moved over to the cliff edge to see what jetsam the tide, now beginning to ebb, had left for them to quarrel over.

The white line of the gently creaming surf was broken by a patch of verdigris green. A bit of cloth. Baize, or something. Funny it should stay so bright a color after being in the water so —

Potticary's blue eyes widened suddenly, his body becoming strangely still. Then the square black boots began to run. Thud, thud, thud, on the thick turf, like a heart beating. The Gap was two hundred yards away, but Potticary's time would not have disgraced a track performer. He clattered down the rough steps hewn in the chalk of the Gap, gasping; indignation welling through his excitement. That was what came of going into cold water before breakfast! Lunacy, so help him. Spoiling other people's breakfasts, too. Schaefer's best, except where ribs broken. Not likely to be ribs broken. Perhaps only a faint after all. Assure the patient in a loud voice that he is safe. Her arms and legs were as brown as the sand. That was why he had thought the green thing a piece of cloth. Lunacy, so help him. Who wanted cold water in the dawn unless they had to swim for it? He'd had to swim for it in his time. In that Red Sea port. Taking in a landing party to help the Arabs. Though why anyone wanted to help the lousy bastards — that was the time to swim. When you had to. Orange juice and thin toast, too. No stamina. Lunacy, so help him.

It was difficult going on the beach. The large white pebbles slid maliciously under his feet, and the rare patches of sand, being about tide level, were soft and yielding. But presently he was within the cloud of gulls, enveloped by their beating wings and their wild crying.

There was no need for Schaefer's, nor for any other method. He saw that at a glance. The girl was past all help. And Potticary, who had picked bodies unemotionally from the Red Sea surf, was strangely moved. It was all wrong that someone so young should be lying there when all the world was waking up to a brilliant day; when so much of life lay in front of her. A pretty girl, too, she must have been. Her hair had a dyed look, but the rest of her was all right.

A wave washed over her feet and sucked itself away, derisively, through the scarlet-tipped toes. Potticary, although the tide in another minute would be yards away, pulled the inanimate heap a little higher up the beach, beyond reach of the sea's impudence.

Then his mind turned to telephones. He looked around for some garment which the girl might have left behind when she went in to swim. But there seemed to be nothing. Perhaps she had left whatever she was wearing below high-water level and the tide had taken it. Or perhaps it wasn't here that she had gone into the water. Anyhow, there was nothing now with which to cover her body, and Potticary turned away and began his hurried plodding along the beach again, and so back to the Coastguard Station and the nearest telephone.

"Body on the beach," he said to Bill Gunter as he took the receiver from the hook and called the police.

Bill clicked his tongue against his front teeth, and jerked his head back. A gesture which expressed with eloquence and economy the tiresomeness of circumstances, the unreasonableness of human beings who get themselves drowned, and his own satisfaction in expecting the worst of life and being right. "If they want to commit suicide," he said in his subterranean voice, "why do they have to pick on us? Isn't there the whole of the south coast?"

"Not a suicide," Potticary gasped in the intervals of hulloing.

Bill took no notice of him. "Just because the fare to the south coast is more than to here! You'd think when a fellow was tired of life he'd stop being mean about the fare and bump himself off in style. But no! They take the cheapest ticket they can get and strew themselves over our doorstep!"

"Beachy Head get a lot," gasped the fair-minded Potticary. "Not a suicide, anyhow."

"Course it's a suicide. What do we have cliffs for? Bulwark of England? No. Just as a convenience to suicides. That makes four this year. And there'll be more when they get their income tax demands."

He paused, his ear caught by what Potticary was saying.

" — a girl. Well, a woman. In a bright green bathing dress." (Potticary belonged to a generation which did not know swimsuits.) "Just south of the Gap. 'Bout a hundred yards. No, no one there. I had to come away to telephone. But I'm going back right away. Yes, I'll meet you there. Oh, hullo, Sergeant, is that you? Yes, not the best beginning of a day, but we're getting used to it. Oh, no, just a bathing fatality. Ambulance? Oh, yes, you can bring it practically to the Gap. The track goes off the main Westover road just past the third milestone, and finishes in those trees just inland from the Gap. All right, I'll be seeing you."

"How can you tell it's just a bathing fatality," Bill said.

"She had a bathing dress on, didn't you hear?"

"Nothing to hinder her putting on a bathing dress to throw herself into the water. Make it look like accident."

"You can't throw yourself into the water this time of year. You land on the beach. And there isn't any doubt what you've done."

"Might have walked into the water till she drowned," said Bill, who was a last-ditcher by nature.

"Ye'? Might have died of an overdose of bull's-eyes," said Potticary, who approved of last-ditchery in Arabia but found it boring to live with.

Chapter 2

They stood around the body in a solemn little group: Potticary, Bill, the sergeant, a constable, and the two ambulance men. The younger ambulance man was worried about his stomach, and the possibility of its disgracing him, but the others had nothing but business in their minds.

"Know her?" the sergeant asked.

"No," said Potticary. "Never seen her before."

None of them had seen her before.

"Can't be from Westover. No one would come out from town with a perfectly good beach at their doors. Must have come from inland somewhere."

"Maybe she went into the water at Westover and was washed up here," the constable suggested.

"Not time for that," Potticary objected. "She hadn't been that long in the water. Must have been drowned hereabouts."

"Then how did she get here?" the sergeant asked.

"By car, of course," Bill said.

"And where is the car now?"

"Where everyone leaves their car: where the track ends at the trees."

"Yes?" said the sergeant. "Well, there's no car there."

The ambulance men agreed with him. They had come up that way with the police — the ambulance was waiting there now — but there was no sign of any other car.

"That's funny," Potticary said. "There's nowhere near enough to be inside walking distance. Not at this time in the morning."

"Shouldn't think she'd walk anyhow," the older ambulance man observed. "Expensive," he added, as they seemed to question him.

They considered the body for a moment in silence. Yes, the ambulance man was right; it was a body expensively cared for.

"And where are her clothes, anyhow?"

The sergeant was worried.

Potticary explained his theory about the clothes; that she had left them below high-water mark and that they were now somewhere at sea.

"Yes, that's possible," said the sergeant.

"But how did she get here?"

"Funny she should be bathing alone, isn't it?" ventured the young ambulance man, trying out his stomach.

"Nothing's funny, nowadays," Bill rumbled. "It's a wonder she wasn't playing jumping off the cliff with a glider. Swimming on an empty stomach, all alone, is just too ordinary. The young fools make me tired."

"Is that a bracelet around her ankle, or what?" the constable asked.

Yes, it was a bracelet. A chain of platinum links. Curious links, they were. Each one shaped like a C.

"Well," the sergeant straightened himself, "I suppose there's nothing to be done but to remove the body to the mortuary, and then find out who she is. Judging by appearances that shouldn't be difficult. Nothing 'lost, stolen or strayed' about that one."

"No," agreed the ambulance man. "The butler is probably telephoning the station now in great agitation."

"Yes." The sergeant was thoughtful. "I still wonder how she came here, and what —»

His eyes had lifted to the cliff face, and he paused.

"So! We have company!" he said.

They turned to see a man's figure on the cliff-top at the Gap. He was standing in an attitude of intense eagerness, watching them. As they turned towards him he did a swift right-about and disappeared.

"A bit early for strollers," the sergeant said. "And what's he running away for? We'd better have a talk with him."

But before he and the constable had moved more than a pace or two it became evident that the man, far from running away, had been merely making for the entrance to the Gap. His thin dark figure shot now from the mouth of the Gap and came towards them at a shambling run, slipping and stumbling, and giving the little group watching his advent an impression of craziness. They could hear the breath panting through his open mouth as he drew near, although the distance from the Gap was not long and he was young.

He stumbled into their compact circle without looking at them, pushing aside the two policemen who had unconsciously interposed their bulk between him and the body.

"Oh, yes, it is! Oh, it is, it is!" he cried, and without warning sat down and burst into loud tears.

Six flabbergasted men watched him in silence for a moment. Then the sergeant patted him kindly on the back and said, idiotically, "It's all right, son!"

But the young man only rocked himself to and fro and wept the more.

"Come on, come on," rallied the constable, coaxing. (Really, a dreadful exhibition on a nice bright morning.) "That won't do anyone any good, you know. Best pull yourself together — sir," he added, noting the quality of the handkerchief which the young man had produced.

"A relation of yours?" the sergeant inquired, his voice suitably modulated from its former businesslike pitch.

The young man shook his head.

"Oh, just a friend?"

"She was so good to me, so good!"

"Well, at least you'll be able to help us. We were beginning to wonder about her. You can tell us who she is."

"She's my — hostess."

"Yes, but I meant, what is her name?"

"I don't know."

"You — don't — know! Look here, sir, pull yourself together. You're the only one that can help us. You must know the name of the lady you were staying with."

"No, no; I don't."

"What did you call her, then?"

"Chris."

"Chris, what?"

"Just Chris."

"And what did she call you?"

"Robin."

"Is that your name?"

"Yes, my name's Robert Stannaway. No, Tisdall. It used to be Stannaway," he added, catching the sergeant's eye and feeling apparently that explanation was needed.

What the sergeant's eye said was "God give me patience!" What his tongue said was "It all sounds a bit strange to me, Mr. - er —»

"Tisdall."

"Tisdall. Can you tell me how the lady got here this morning?"

"Oh, yes. By car."

"By car, eh? Know what became of the car?"

"Yes. I stole it."

"You what?"

"I stole it. I've just brought it back. It was a swinish thing to do. I felt a cad so I came back. When I found she wasn't anywhere on the road, I thought I'd find her stamping about here. Then I saw you all standing around something — oh dear, oh dear!" He began to rock himself again.

"Where were you staying with this lady?" asked the sergeant, in exceedingly businesslike tones. "In Westover?"

"Oh, no. She has — had, I mean — oh dear! — a cottage. Briars, it's called. Just outside Medley."

"'Bout a mile and a half inland," supplemented Potticary, as the sergeant, who was not a native, looked a question.

"Were you alone, or is there a staff there?"

"There's just a woman from the village — Mrs. Pitts — who comes in and cooks."

"I see."

There was a slight pause.

"All right, boys." The sergeant nodded to the ambulance men, and they bent to their work with the stretcher. The young man drew in his breath sharply and once more covered his face with his hands.

"To the mortuary, Sergeant?"

"Yes."

The man's hands came away from his face abruptly.

"Oh, no! Surely not! She had a home. Don't they take people home?"

"We can't take the body of an unknown woman to an uninhabited bungalow."

"It isn't a bungalow," the man automatically corrected. "No. No, I suppose not. But it seems dreadful — the mortuary. Oh, God in heaven above!" he burst out, "why did this have to happen!"

"Davis," the sergeant said to the constable, "you go back with the others and report. I'm going over to — what is it? — Briars? with Mr. Tisdall."

The two ambulance men crunched their heavy way over the pebbles, followed by Potticary and Bill. The noise of their progress had become distant before the sergeant spoke again.

"I suppose it didn't occur to you to go swimming with your hostess?"

A spasm of something like embarrassment ran across Tisdall's face. He hesitated.

"No. I not much in my line, I'm afraid: swimming before breakfast. I–I've always been a rabbit at games and things like that."

The sergeant nodded, noncommittal. "When did she leave for a swim?"

"I don't know. She told me last night that she was going to the Gap for a swim if she woke early. I woke early myself, but she was gone."

"I see. Well, Mr. Tisdall, if you've recovered I think we'll be getting along."

"Yes. Yes, certainly. I'm all right." He got to his feet and together and in silence they traversed the beach, climbed the steps at the Gap, and came on the car where Tisdall said he had left it: in the shade of the trees where the track ended. It was a beautiful car, if a little too opulent. A cream-colored two-seater with a space between the seats and the hood for parcels, or, at a pinch, for an extra passenger. From this space, the sergeant, exploring, produced a woman's coat and a pair of the sheepskin boots popular with women at winter race-meetings.

"That's what she wore to go down to the beach. Just the coat and boots over her bathing things. There's a towel, too."

There was. The sergeant produced it: a brilliant object in green and orange.

"Funny she didn't take it to the beach with her," he said.

"She liked to dry herself in the sun usually."

"You seem to know a lot about the habits of a lady whose name you didn't know." The sergeant inserted himself into the second seat. "How long have you been living with her?"

"Staying with her," amended Tisdall, his voice for the first time showing an edge. "Get this straight, Sergeant, and it may save you a lot of bother: Chris was my hostess. Not anything else. We stayed in her cottage unchaperoned, but a regiment of servants couldn't have made our relations more correct. Does that strike you as so very peculiar?"

"Very," said the sergeant frankly. "What are these doing here?"

He was peering into a paper bag which held two rather jaded buns.

"Oh, I took these along for her to eat. They were all I could find. We always had a bun when we came out of the water when we were kids. I thought maybe she'd be glad of something."

The car was slipping down the steep track to the main Westover-Stonegate road. They crossed the high road and entered a deep lane on the other side. A signpost said "Medley 1, Liddlestone 3."

"So you had no intention of stealing the car when you set off to follow her to the beach?"

"Certainly not!" Tisdall said, as indignantly as if it made a difference. "It didn't even cross my mind till I came up the hill and saw the car waiting there. Even now I can't believe I really did it. I've been a fool, but I've never done anything like that before."

"Was she in the sea then?"

"I don't know. I didn't go to look. If I had seen her even in the distance I couldn't have done it. I just slung the buns in and beat it. When I came to I was halfway to Canterbury. I just turned her around without stopping, and came straight back."

The sergeant made no comment.

"You still haven't told me how long you've been staying at the cottage?"

"Since Saturday midnight."

It was now Thursday.

"And you still ask me to believe that you don't know your hostess's last name?"

"No. It's a bit queer, I know. I thought so, myself, at first. I had a conventional upbringing. But she made it seem natural. After the first day we simply accepted each other. It was as if I had known her for years." As the sergeant said nothing, but sat radiating doubt as a stove radiates heat, he added with a hint of temper, "Why shouldn't I tell you her name if I knew it!"

"How should I know?" said the sergeant, unhelpfully. He considered out of the corner of his eye the young man's pale, if composed, face. He seemed to have recovered remarkably quickly from his exhibition of nerves and grief. Lightweights, these moderns. No real emotion about anything. Just hysteria. What they called love was just a barnyard exercise; they thought anything else "sentimental." No discipline. No putting up with things. Every time something got difficult, they ran away. Not slapped enough in their youth. All this modern idea about giving children their own way. Look what it led to. Howling on the beach one minute and as cool as a cucumber the next.

And then the sergeant noticed the trembling of the too fine hands on the wheel. No, whatever else Robert Tisdall was he wasn't cool.

"This is the place?" the sergeant asked, as they slowed down by a hedged garden. "This is the place."

It was a half-timbered cottage of about five rooms; shut in from the road by a seven-foot hedge of briar and honeysuckle, and dripping with roses. A godsend for Americans, weekenders, and photographers. The little windows yawned in the quiet, and the bright blue door stood hospitably open, disclosing in the shadow the gleam of a brass warming pan on the wall. The cottage had been "discovered."

As they walked up the brick path, a thin small woman appeared on the doorstep, brilliant in a white apron; her scanty hair drawn to a knob at the back of her head, and a round bird's-nest affair of black satin set insecurely at the very top of her arched, shining poll.

Tisdall lagged as he caught sight of her, so that the sergeant's large official elevation should announce trouble to her with the clarity of a sandwich board.

But Mrs. Pitts was a policeman's widow, and no apprehension showed on her tight little face. Buttons coming up the path meant for her a meal in demand; her mind acted accordingly.

"I've been making some griddle cakes for breakfast. It's going to be hot later on. Best to let the stove out. Tell Miss Robinson when she comes in, will you, sir?" Then, realizing that buttons were a badge of office, "Don't tell me you've been driving without a license, sir!"

"Miss — Robinson, is it? Has met with an accident," the sergeant said.

"The car! Oh, dear! She was always that reckless with it. Is she bad?"

"It wasn't the car. An accident in the water."

"Oh," she said slowly. " That bad!"

"How do you mean: that bad?"

"Accidents in the water only mean one thing."

"Yes," agreed the sergeant.

"Well, well," she said, sadly contemplative. Then, her manner changing abruptly, "And where were you?" she snapped, eyeing the drooping Tisdall as she eyed Saturday-night fish on a Westover fishmonger's slab. Her superficial deference to «gentry» had vanished in the presence of catastrophe. Tisdall appeared as the "bundle of uselessness" she had privately considered him.

The sergeant was interested but snubbing. "The gentleman wasn't there."

"He ought to have been there. He left just after her."

"How do you know that?"

"I saw him. I live in the cottage down the road."

"Do you know Miss Robinson's other address? I take it for granted this isn't her permanent home."

"No, of course it isn't. She only has this place for a month. It belongs to Owen Hughes." She paused, impressively, to let the importance of the name sink in. "But he's doing a film in Hollywood. About a Spanish count, it was to be, so he told me. He said he's done Italian counts and French counts and he thought it would be a new experience for him to be a Spanish count. Very nice, Mr. Hughes is. Not a bit spoiled in spite of all the fuss they make of him. You wouldn't believe it, but a girl came to me once and offered me five pounds if I'd give her the sheets he had slept in. What I gave her was a piece of my mind. But she wasn't a bit ashamed. Offered me twenty-five shillings for a pillow slip. I don't know what the world is coming to, that I don't, what with —»

"What other address had Miss Robinson?"

"I don't know any of her addresses but this one."

"Didn't she write and tell you that she was coming?"

"Write! No! She sent telegrams. I suppose she could write, but I'll take my alfred davy she never did. About six telegrams a day used to go to the post office in Liddlestone. My Albert used to take them, mostly; between school. Some of them used three or four forms, they were that long."

"Do you know any of the people she had down here, then?"

"She didn't have any folks here. 'Cept Mr. Stannaway, that is."

"No one!"

"Not a one. Once — it was when I was showing her the trick of flushing the W.C.; you have to pull hard and then let go smart-like — once she said: 'Do you ever, Mrs. Pitts, she said, 'get sick of the sight of people's faces? I said I got a bit tired of some. She said: 'Not some, Mrs. Pitts. All of them. Just sick of people. I said when I felt like that I took a dose of castor oil. She laughed and said it wasn't a bad idea. Only everyone should have one and what a good new world it would be in two days. 'Mussolini never thought of that one, she said."

"Was it London she came from?"

"Yes. She went up just once or twice in the three weeks she's been here. Last time was last weekend, when she brought Mr. Stannaway back." Again her glance dismissed Tisdall as something less than human. "Doesn't he know her address?" she asked.

"No one does," the sergeant said. "I'll look through her papers and see what I can find."

Mrs. Pitts led the way into the living room; cool, low-beamed, and smelling of sweet peas.

"What have you done with her — with the body, I mean?" she asked.

"At the mortuary."

This seemed to bring home tragedy for the first time.

"Oh, deary me." She moved the end of her apron over a polished table, slowly. "And me making griddle cakes."

This was not a lament for wasted griddle cakes, but her salute to the strangeness of life.

"I expect you'll need breakfast," she said to Tisdall, softened by her unconscious recognition of the fact that the best are but puppets.

But Tisdall wanted no breakfast. He shook his head and turned away to the window, while the sergeant searched in the desk.

"I wouldn't mind one of those griddle cakes," the sergeant said, turning over papers.

"You won't get better in Kent, though it's me that's saying it. And perhaps Mr. Stannaway will swallow some tea."

She went away to the kitchen.

"So you didn't know her name was Robinson?" said the sergeant, glancing up.

"Mrs. Pitts always addressed her as 'miss. And anyhow, did she look as if her name was Robinson?"

The sergeant, too, did not believe for a moment that her name was Robinson, so he let the subject drop.

Presently Tisdall said: "If you don't need me, I think I'll go into the garden. It — it's stuffy in here."

"All right. You won't forget I need the car to get back to Westover."

"I've told you. It was a sudden impulse. Anyhow, I couldn't very well steal it now and hope to get away with it."

Not so dumb, decided the sergeant. Quite a bit of temper, too. Not just a nonentity, by any means.

The desk was littered with magazines, newspapers, half-finished cartons of cigarettes, bits of a jigsaw puzzle, a nail file and polish, patterns of silk, and a dozen more odds and ends; everything, in fact, except notepaper. The only documents were bills from the local tradesmen, most of them receipted. If the woman had been untidy and unmethodical, she had at least had a streak of caution. The receipts might be crumpled and difficult to find if wanted, but they had never been thrown away.

The sergeant, soothed by the quiet of the early morning, the cheerful sounds of Mrs. Pitts making tea in the kitchen, and the prospect of griddle cakes to come, began as he worked at the desk to indulge in his one vice. He whistled. Very low and round and sweet, the sergeant's whistling was, but, still — whistling. "Sing to Me Sometimes" he warbled, not forgetting the grace notes, and his subconscious derived great satisfaction from the performance. His wife had once shown him a bit in the Mail that said that whistling was the sign of an empty mind. But it hadn't cured him.

And then, abruptly, the even tenor of the moment was shattered. Without warning there came a mock tattoo on the half-open sitting-room door — tum-te-ta-tum-tumta-TA! A man's voice said, "So this is where you're hiding out!" The door was flung wide with a flourish and in the opening stood a short dark stranger.

" We-e-ell," he said, making several syllables of it. He stood staring at the sergeant, amused and smiling broadly. "I thought you were Chris! What is the Force doing here? Been a burglary?"

"No, no burglary." The sergeant was trying to collect his thoughts.

"Don't tell me Chris has been throwing a wild party! I thought she gave that up years ago. They don't go with all those highbrow roles."

"No, as a matter of fact, there's —»

"Where is she, anyway?" He raised his voice in a cheerful shout directed at the upper story. "Yo-hoo! Chris. Come on down, you old so-and-so! Hiding out on me!" To the sergeant: "Gave us all the slip for nearly three weeks now. Too much Kleig, I guess. Gives them all the jitters sooner or later. But then, the last one was such a success they naturally want to cash in on it." He hummed a bar of "Sing to Me Sometimes," with mock solemnity. "That's why I thought you were Chris; you were whistling her song. Whistling darned good, too."

"Her — her song?" Presently, the sergeant hoped, a gleam of light would be vouchsafed him.

"Yes, her song. Who else's? You didn't think it was mine, my dear good chap, did you? Not on your life. I wrote the thing, sure. But that doesn't count. It's her song. And perhaps she didn't put it across! Eh? Wasn't that a performance?"

"I couldn't really say." If the man would stop talking, he might sort things out.

"Perhaps you haven't seen Bars of Iron yet?"

"No, I can't say I have."

"That's the worst of wireless and gramophone records and what not: they take all the pep out of a film. Probably by the time you hear Chris sing that song you'll be so sick of the sound of it that you'll retch at the ad lib. It's not fair to a film. All right for songwriters and that sort of cattle, but rough on a film, very rough. There ought to be some sort of agreement. Hey, Chris! Isn't she here, after all my trouble in catching up on her?" His face drooped like a disappointed baby's. "Having her walk in and find me isn't half such a good one as walking in on her. Do you think —»

"Just a minute, Mr. - er — I don't know your name."

"I'm Jay Harmer. Jason on the birth certificate. I wrote 'If It Can't Be in June. You probably whistle that as —»

"Mr. Harmer. Do I understand that the lady who is — was — staying here is a film actress?"

"Is she a film actress!" Slow amazement deprived Mr. Harmer for once of speech. Then it began to dawn on him that he must have made a mistake. "Say, Chris is staying here, isn't she?"

"The lady's name is Chris, yes. But — well, perhaps you'll be able to help us. There's been some trouble — very unfortunate — and apparently she said her name was Robinson."

The man laughed in rich amusement. "Robinson! That's a good one. I always said she had no imagination. Couldn't write a gag. Did you believe she was a Robinson?"

"Well, no; it seemed unlikely."

"What did I tell you! Well, just to pay her out for treating me like bits on the cutting-room floor, I'm going to split on her. She'll probably put me in the icebox for twenty-four hours, but it'll be worth it. I'm no gentleman, anyhow, so I won't damage myself in the telling. The lady's name, Sergeant, is Christine Clay."

"Christine Clay!" said the sergeant. His jaw slackened and dropped, quite beyond his control.

"Christine Clay!" breathed Mrs. Pitts, standing in the doorway, a forgotten tray of griddle cakes in her hands.

Chapter 3

"Christine Clay! Christine Clay!" yelled the midday posters.

"Christine Clay!" screamed the headlines. "Christine Clay!" chattered the wireless. "Christine Clay!" said neighbor to neighbor.

All over the world people paused to speak the words. Christine Clay was drowned! And in all civilization only one person said, "Who is Christine Clay?" — a bright young man at a Bloomsbury party. And he was merely being "bright."

All over the world things happened because one woman had lost her life. In California a man telephoned a summons to a girl in Greenwich Village. A Texas airplane pilot did an extra night flight carrying Clay films for rush showing. A New York firm canceled an order. An Italian nobleman went bankrupt: he had hoped to sell her his yacht. A man in Philadelphia ate his first square meal in months, thanks to an "I knew her when" story. A woman in Le Touquet sang because now her chance had come. And in an English cathedral town a man thanked God on his knees.

The Press, becalmed in the doldrums of the silly season, leaped to movement at so unhoped-for a wind. The Clarion recalled Bart Bartholomew, their «descriptive» man, from a beauty contest in Brighton (much to Bart's thankfulness — he came back loudly wondering how butchers ate meat), and «Jammy» Hopkins, their "crime and passion" star, from a very dull and low-class poker killing in Bradford. (So far had the Clarion sunk.) News photographers deserted motor race tracks, reviews, society weddings, cricket, and the man who was going to Mars in a balloon, and swarmed like beetles over the cottage in Kent, the maisonette in South Street, and the furnished manor in Hampshire. That, having rented so charming a country retreat as this last, Christine Clay had yet run away to an unknown and inconvenient cottage without the knowledge of her friends made a very pleasant appendage to the main sensation of her death. Photographs of the manor (garden front, because of the yews) appeared labeled "The place Christine Clay owned" (she had only rented it for the season, but there was no emotion in renting a place); and next to these impressive pictures were placed photographs of the rose-embowered home of the people, with the caption "The place she preferred."

Her press agent shed tears over that. Something like that would break when it was too late.

It might have been observed by any student of nature not too actively engaged in the consequences of it that Christine Clay's death, while it gave rise to pity, dismay, horror, regret, and half a dozen other emotions in varying degrees, yet seemed to move no one to grief. The only outburst of real feeling had been that hysterical crisis of Robert Tisdall's over her body. And who should say how much of that was self-pity? Christine was too international a figure to belong to anything so small as a "set." But among her immediate acquaintances dismay was the most marked reaction of the dreadful news. And not always that. Coyne, who was due to direct her third and final picture in England, might be at the point of despair, but Lejeune (late Tomkins), who had been engaged to play opposite her, was greatly relieved; a picture with Clay might be a feather in your cap but it was a jinx in your box office. The Duchess of Trent, who had arranged a Clay luncheon which was to rehabilitate her as a hostess in the eyes of London, might be gnashing her teeth, but Lydia Keats was openly jubilant. She had prophesied the death, and even for a successful society seer that was a good guess. "Darling, how wonderful of you!" fluttered her friends. "Darling how wonderful of you!" On and on. Until Lydia so lost her head with delight that she spent all her days going from one gathering to another so that she might make that delicious entrance all over again, hear them say: "Here's Lydia! Darling how — " and bask in the radiance of their wonder. No, as far as anyone could see, no hearts were breaking because Christine Clay was no more. The world dusted off its blacks and hoped for invitations to the funeral.

Chapter 4

But first there was the inquest. And it was at the inquest that the first faint stirring of a much greater sensation began to appear. It was Jammy Hopkins who noted the quiver on the smooth surface. He had earned his nickname because of his glad cry of "Jam! Jam!" when a good story broke, and his philosophical reflection when times were thin that "all was jam that came to the rollers." Hopkins had an excellent nose for jam, and so it was that he stopped suddenly in the middle of analyzing for Bartholomew's benefit the various sensation seekers crowding the little Kentish village hall. Stopped dead and stared. Because, between the flyaway hats of two bright sensationalists, he could see a man's calm face which was much more sensational than anything in that building.

"Seen something?" Bart asked.

"Have I seen something!" Hopkins slid from the end of the form, just as the coroner sat down and tapped for silence. "Keep my place," he whispered, and disappeared out of the building. He entered it again at the back door, expertly pushed his way to the place he wanted, and sat down. The man turned his head to view this gate-crasher. "Morning, Inspector," said Hopkins. The Inspector looked his disgust.

"I wouldn't do it if I didn't need the money," Hopkins said, vox humana.

The coroner tapped again for silence, but the Inspector's face relaxed.

Presently, under cover of the bustle of Potticary's arrival to give evidence, Hopkins said, "What is Scotland Yard doing here, Inspector?"

"Looking on."

"I see. Just studying inquests as an institution. Crime slack these days?" As the Inspector showed no sign of being drawn: "Oh, have a heart, Inspector. What's in the wind? Is there something phony about the death? Suspicions, eh? If you don't want to talk for publication I'm the original locked casket."

"You're the original camel fly."

"Oh, well, look at the hides I have to get through!" This produced a grin and nothing else. "Look here. Just tell me one thing, Inspector. Is this inquest going to be adjourned?"

"I shouldn't be surprised."

"Thank you. That tells me everything," Hopkins said, half sarcastic, half serious, as he made his way out again. He prised Mrs. Pitts's Albert away from the wall where he clung limpetlike by the window, persuaded him that two shillings were better than a partial view of dull proceedings, and sent him to Liddlestone with a telegram which set the Clarion office buzzing. Then he went back to Bart.

"Something wrong," he said out of the corner of his mouth in answer to Bart's eyebrows. "The Yard's here. That's Grant, behind the scarlet hat. Inquest going to be adjourned. Spot the murderer!"

"Not here," Bart said, having considered the gathering.

"No," agreed Jammy. "Who's the chap in the flannel bags?"

"Boyfriend."

"Thought the boyfriend was Jay Harmer."

"Was. This one newer."

"'Love nest killing'?"

"Wouldn't mind betting."

"Supposed to be cold, I thought?"

"Yes. So they say. Fooled them, seemingly. Good enough reason for murder, I should think."

The evidence was of the most formal kind the finding and identification of the body — and as soon as that had been offered the coroner brought the proceedings to an end, and fixed no date for resumption.

Hopkins had decided that, the Clay death being apparently no accident, and Scotland Yard not being able so far to make any arrest, the person to cultivate was undoubtedly the man in the flannel bags. Tisdall, his name was. Bart said that every newspaper man in England had tried to interview him the previous day (Hopkins being then en route from the poker murder) but that he had been exceptionally tough. Called them ghouls, and vultures, and rats, and other things less easy of specification, and had altogether seemed unaware of the standing of the Press. No one was rude to the Press anymore — not with impunity, that was.

But Hopkins had great faith in his power to seduce the human mind.

"Your name Tisdall, by any chance?" he asked casually, «finding» himself alongside the young man in the crowded procession to the door.

The man's face hardened into instant enmity.

"Yes, it is," he said aggressively.

"Not old Tom Tisdall's nephew?"

The face cleared swiftly.

"Yes. Did you know Uncle Tom?"

"A little," admitted Hopkins, no whit dismayed to find that there really was a Tom Tisdall.

"You seem to know about my giving up the Stannaway?"

"Yes, someone told me," Hopkins said, wondering if the Stannaway was a house, or what? "What are you doing now?"

By the time they had reached the door, Hopkins had established himself. "Can I give you a lift somewhere? Come and have lunch with me?"

A pip! In half an hour he'd have a front-page story. And this was the baby they said was difficult! No, there was no doubt of it: he, James Brooke Hopkins, was the greatest newspaper man in the business.

"Sorry, Mr. Hopkins," said Grant's pleasant voice at his shoulder. "I don't want to spoil your party, but Mr. Tisdall has an appointment with me." And, since Tisdall betrayed his astonishment and Hopkins his instant putting two and two together, he added, "We're hoping he can help us."

"I don't understand," Tisdall was beginning. And Hopkins, seeing that Tisdall was unaware of Grant's identity, rushed in with glad maliciousness.

"That is Scotland Yard," he said. "Inspector Grant. Never had an unsolved crime to his name."

"I hope you write my obituary," Grant said.

"I hope I do!" the journalist said, with fervor.

And then they noticed Tisdall. His face was like parchment, dry and old and expressionless. Only the pulse beating hard at his temple suggested a living being. Journalist and detective stood looking in mutual astonishment at so unexpected a result of Hopkins's announcement. And then, seeing the man's knees beginning to sag, Grant took him hastily by the arm.

"Here! Come and sit down. My car is just here."

He edged the apparently blind Tisdall through the dawdling, chattering crowd, and pushed him into the rear seat of a dark touring car.

"Westover," he said to the chauffeur, and got in beside Tisdall.

As they went at snail's pace towards the high road, Grant saw Hopkins still standing where they had left him. That Jammy Hopkins should stay without moving for more than three consecutive minutes argued that he was being given furiously to think. From now on — the Inspector sighed — the camelfly would be a bloodhound.

And the Inspector, too, had food for his wits. He had been called in the previous night by a worried County Constabulary who had no desire to make themselves ridiculous by making mountains out of molehills, but who found themselves unable to explain away satisfactorily one very small, very puzzling obstacle to their path. They had all viewed the obstacle, from the Chief Constable down to the sergeant who had taken charge on the beach, had been rude about each other's theories, and had in the end agreed on only one thing: that they wanted to push the responsibility on to someone else's shoulders. It was all very well to hang on to your own crime, and the kudos of a solution, when there was a crime. But to decide in cold blood to announce a crime, on the doubtful evidence of that common little object on the table; to risk, not the disgrace of failure, but the much worse slings of ridicule, was something they could not find it in their hearts to do. And so Grant had canceled his seat at the Criterion and had journeyed down to Westover. He had inspected the stumbling block, listened with patience to their theories and with respect to the police surgeon's story, and had gone to bed in the small hours with a great desire to interview Robert Tisdall. And now here was Tisdall, beside him, still speechless and half-fainting because he had been confronted without warning by Scotland Yard. Yes, there was a case; no doubt of it. Well, there couldn't be any questioning with Cork in the driving seat, so until they got back to Westover Tisdall might be left to recover. Grant took a flask from the car pocket and offered it to him. Tisdall took it shakily but made good use of it. Presently he apologized for his weakness.

"I don't know what went wrong. This affair has been an awful shock to me. I haven't been sleeping. Keep going over things in my mind. Or rather, my mind keeps doing it; I can't stop it. And then, at the inquest it seemed — I say, is something not right? I mean, was it not a simple drowning? Why did they postpone the end of the inquest?"

"There are one or two things that the police find puzzling."

"As what, for instance?"

"I think we won't discuss it until we get to Westover."

"Is anything I say to be used in evidence against me?" The smile was wry but the intention was good.

"You took the words out of my mouth," the Inspector said lightly, and silence fell between them.

By the time they reached the Chief Constable's room in the County Police offices, Tisdall was looking normal if a little worn. In fact, so normal did he look that when Grant said, "This is Mr. Tisdall," the Chief Constable, who was a genial soul except when someone jumped in his pocket out hunting, almost shook hands with him, but recollected himself before any harm was done.

"Howdyudo. Harrump!" He cleared his throat to give himself time. Couldn't do that, of course. My goodness, no. Fellow suspected of murder. Didn't look it, no, upon his soul he didn't. But there was no telling these days. The most charming people were — well, things he hadn't known till lately existed. Very sad. But couldn't shake hands, of course. No, definitely not. "Harrump! Fine morning! Bad for racing, of course. Going very hard. But good for the holiday makers. Mustn't be selfish in our pleasures. You a racing man? Going to Goodwood? Oh, well, perhaps — No. Well, I expect you and — and our friend here — " somehow one didn't want to rub in the fact of Grant's inspectorship. Nice-looking chap. Well brought up, and all that — "would like to talk in peace. I'm going to lunch. The Ship," he added, for Grant's benefit, in case the Inspector wanted him. "Not that the food's very good there, but it's a self-respecting house. Not like these Marine things. Like to get steak and potatoes without going through sun lounges for them." And the Chief Constable took himself out.

"A Freedy Lloyd part," Tisdall said.

Grant looked up appreciatively from pulling forward a chair.

"You're a theater fan."

"I was a fan of most things."

Grant's mind focused on the peculiarity of the phrase. "Why 'was'?" he asked.

"Because I'm broke. You need money to be a fan."

"You won't forget that formula about 'anything you say, will you?"

"No, thanks. But it doesn't make any difference. I can only tell you the truth. If you draw wrong deductions from it then that's your fault, not mine."

"So it's I who am on trial. A nice point. I appreciate it. Well, try me out. I want to know how you were living in the same house with a woman whose name you didn't know? You did tell the County Police that, didn't you?"

"Yes. I expect it sounds incredible. Silly, too. But it's quite simple. You see, I was standing on the pavement opposite the Gaiety one night, very late, wondering what to do. I had fivepence in my pocket, and that was fivepence too much, because I had aimed at having nothing at all. And I was wondering whether to have a last go at spending the fivepence (there isn't much one can do with fivepence) or to cheat, and forget about the odd pennies. So —»

"Just a moment. You might explain to a dullard just why these five pennies should have been important."

"They were the end of a fortune, you see. Thirty thousand. I inherited it from my uncle. My mother's brother. My real name is Stannaway, but Uncle Tom asked that I should take his name with the money. I didn't mind. The Tisdalls were a much better lot than the Stannaways, anyhow. Stamina and ballast and all that. If I'd been a Tisdall I wouldn't be broke now, but I'm nearly all Stannaway. I've been the perfect fool, the complete Awful Warning. I was in an architect's office when I inherited the money, living in rooms and just making do; and it went to my head to have what seemed more than I could ever spend. I gave up my job and went to see all the places I'd wanted to see and never hoped to. New York and Hollywood and Budapest and Rome and Capri and God knows where else. I came back to London with about two thousand, meaning to bank it and get a job. It would have been easy enough two years before — I mean, to bank the money. I hadn't anyone to help spend it then. But in those two years I had gathered a lot of friends all over the world, and there were never less than a dozen of them in London at the same time. So I woke up one morning to find that I was down to my last hundred. It was a bit of a shock. Like cold water. I sat down and thought for the first time for two years. I had the choice of two things: sponging — you can live in luxury anywhere in the world's capitals for six months if you're a good sponger: I know; I supported dozens of that sort — and disappearing. Disappearing seemed easier. I could drop out quite easily. People would just say, 'Where's Bobby Tisdall these days? and they'd just take it for granted that I was in some of the other corners of the world where their sort went, and that they'd run into me one of these days. I was supposed to be suffocatingly rich, you see, and it was easier to drop out and leave them thinking of me like that than to stay and be laughed at when the truth began to dawn on them. I paid my bills, and that left me with fifty-seven pounds. I thought I'd have one last gamble then, and see if I could pick up enough to start me off on the new level. So I had thirty pounds — fifteen each way; that's the bit of Tisdall in me — on Red Rowan in the Eclipse. He finished fifth. Twenty-odd pounds isn't enough to start anything except a barrow. There was nothing for it but tramping. I wasn't much put out at the thought of tramping — it would be a change — but you can't tramp with twenty-seven pounds in the bank, so I decided to blue it all in one grand last night. I promised myself that I'd finish up without a penny in my pocket. Then I'd pawn my evening things for some suitable clothes and hit the road. What I hadn't reckoned with was that you can't pawn things in the west-end on a Saturday midnight. And you can't take to the road in evening things without being conspicuous. So I was standing there, as I said, feeling resentful about these five pennies and wondering what I was to do about my clothes and a place to sleep. I was standing by the traffic lights at the Aldwych, just before you turn around into Lancaster Place, when a car was pulled up by the red lights. Chris was in it, alone —»

"Chris?"

"I didn't know her name, then. She looked at me for a little. The street was very quiet. Just us two. And we were so close that it seemed natural when she smiled and said, 'Take you anywhere, mister? I said: 'Yes. Land's End. She said: 'A bit off my route. Chatham, Faversham, Canterbury, and points east? Well, it was one solution. I couldn't go on standing there, and I couldn't think of a water-tight tale that would get me a bed in a friend's house. Besides, I felt far away from all that crowd already. So I got in without thinking much about it. She was charming to me. I didn't tell her all I'm telling you, but she soon found out I was broke to the wide. I began to explain, but she said: 'All right, I don't want to know. Let's accept each other on face value. You're Robin and I'm Chris. I'd told her my name was Robert Stannaway, and without knowing it she used my family pet name. The crowd called me Bobby. It was sort of comforting to hear someone call me Robin again."

"Why did you say your name was Stannaway?"

"I don't know. A sort of desire to get away from the fortune side of things. I hadn't been much ornament to the name, anyhow. And in my mind I always thought of myself as Stannaway."

"All right. Go on."

"There isn't much more to tell. She offered me hospitality. Told me she was alone, but that — well, that I'd be just a guest. I said wasn't she taking a chance. She said, 'Yes, but I've taken them all my life and it's worked out pretty well, so far. It seemed an awkward arrangement to me, but it turned out just the opposite. She was right about it. It made things very easy, just accepting each other. In a way (it was queer, but it was like that) it was as if we had known each other for years. If we had had to start at scratch and work up, it would have taken us weeks to get to the same stage. We liked each other a lot. I don't mean sentimentally, although she was stunning to look at; I mean I thought her grand. I had no clothes for the next morning, but I spent that day in a bathing suit and a dressing gown that someone had left. And on Monday Mrs. Pitts came in to my room and said, 'Your suitcase, sir, and dumped a case I'd never seen before in the middle of the floor. It had a complete new outfit in it — tweed coat and flannels, socks, shirt, everything. From a place in Canterbury. The suitcase was old, and had a label with my name on it. She had even remembered my name. Well, I can't describe to you what I felt about these things. You see, it was the first time for years that anyone had given me anything. With the crowd it was take, take, all the time. 'Bobby'll pay. 'Bobby'll lend his car. They never thought of me at all. I don't think they ever stopped to look at me. Anyhow, those clothes sort of broke me up. I'd have died for her. She laughed when she saw me in them — they were reach-me-downs, of course, but they fitted quite well — and said: 'Not exactly Bruton Street, but they'll do. Don't say I can't size a man up. So we settled down to having a good time together, just lazing around, reading, talking, swimming, cooking when Mrs. Pitts wasn't there. I put out of my head what was going to happen after. She said that in about ten days she'd have to leave the cottage. I tried to go after the first day, out of politeness, but she wouldn't let me. And after that I didn't try. That's how I came to be staying there, and that's how I didn't know her name." He drew in his breath in a sharp sigh as he sat back. "Now I know how these psychoanalysts make money. It's a long time since I enjoyed anything like telling you all about myself."

Grant smiled involuntarily. There was an engaging childlikeness about the boy.

Then he shook himself mentally, like a dog coming out of water.

Charm. The most insidious weapon in all the human armory. And here it was, being exploited under his nose. He considered the good-natured feckless face dispassionately. He had known at least one murderer who had had that type of good looks; blue-eyed, amiable, harmless; and he had buried his dismembered fiancée in an ash pit. Tisdall's eyes were of that particular warm opaque blue which Grant had noted so often in men to whom the society of women was a necessity of existence. Mother's darlings had those eyes; so sometimes, had womanizers.

Well, presently he would check up on Tisdall. Meanwhile —

"Do you ask me to believe that in your four days together you had no suspicion at all of Miss Clay's identity?" he asked, marking time until he could bring Tisdall unsuspecting to the crucial matter.

"I suspected that she was an actress. Partly from things she said, but mostly because there were such a lot of stage and film magazines in the house. I asked her about it once, but she said: 'No names, no pack drill. It's a good motto, Robin. Don't forget. "

"I see. Did the outfit Miss Clay bought for you include an overcoat?"

"No. A mackintosh. I had a coat."

"You were wearing a coat over your evening things?"

"Yes. It had been drizzling when we set out for dinner — the crowd and I, I mean."