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ain’t no need to shout,’ said the old man. ‘I bain’t deaf. Eighty-two
    come Michaelmas, and al my faculties, thank God.’
    ‘How far—’ began Harriet.
    ‘I’m teling ’ee, amn’t I? Mile and half by the lane, but if you was to take the
    short cut through the field where the old bul is—’
    A car came suddenly down the road at considerable speed and vanished into
    the distance.
    ‘Oh, bother!’ muttered Harriet, ‘I might have stopped that if I hadn’t wasted
    my time on this old idiot.’
    ‘You’re quite right, miss,’ agreed Old Father Wiliam, catching the last word
    with the usual perversity of the deaf. ‘Madmen, I cals ’em. There ain’t no sense
    in racketing along at that pace. My niece’s young man—’
    The glimpse of the car was a deciding factor in Harriet’s mind. Far better to
    stick to the road. If once she began losing herself in by-ways on the chance of
    finding an elusive farm and a hypothetical telephone, she might wander about til
    dinner-time. She started off again, cutting Father Wiliam’s story off abruptly in
    the middle, and did another dusty half-mile without further encounter.
    It was odd, she thought. During the morning she had seen several people and
    quite a number (comparatively) of tradesmen’s vans. What had happened to
    them al? Robert Templeton (or possibly even Lord Peter Wimsey, who had
    been brought up in the country) would have promptly enough found the answer

    to the riddle. It was market-day at Heathbury, and early-closing day at
    Wilvercombe and Lesston Hoe – the two phenomena being, indeed,
    interrelated so as to permit the inhabitants of the two watering-places to attend
    the important function at the market-town. Therefore there were no more
    tradesmen’s deliveries along the coast-road. And therefore al the local traffic to
    Heathbury was already wel away inland. Such of the aborigines as remained
    were at work in the hayfields. She did, indeed, discover a man and a youth at
    work with a two-horse hay-cutter, but they stared aghast at her suggestion that
    they should leave their work and their horses to look for the police. The farmer
    himself was (naturaly) at Heathbury market. Harriet, rather hopelessly, left a
    message with them and trudged on.
    Presently there came slogging into view a figure which appeared rather more
    hopeful; a man clad in shorts and carrying a pack on his back – a hiker, like
    herself. She hailed him imperiously.
    ‘I say, can you tel me where I can get hold of somebody with a car or a
    telephone? It’s frightfuly important.’
    The man, a weedy, sandy-haired person with a bulging brow and thick
    spectacles, gazed at her with courteous incompetence.
    ‘I’m afraid I can’t tel you. You see, I’m a stranger here myself.’
    ‘Wel, could you—?’ began Harriet, and paused. After al, what could he
    do? He was in exactly the same boat as herself. With a foolish relic of
    Victorianism she had somehow imagined that a man would display superior
    energy and resourcefulness, but, after al, he was only a human being, with the
    usual outfit of legs and brains.
    ‘You see,’ she explained, ‘there’s a dead man on the beach over there.’ She
    pointed vaguely behind her.
    ‘No, realy?’ exclaimed the young man. ‘I say, that’s a bit thick, isn’t it? Er –
    friend of yours?’
    ‘Certainly not,’ retorted Harriet. ‘I don’t know him from Adam. But the
    police ought to know about it.’
    ‘The police? Oh, yes, of course, the police. Wel, you’l find them in
    Wilvercombe, you know. There’s a police-station there.’
    ‘I know,’ said Harriet, ‘but the body’s right down near low-water mark, and

    if I can’t get somebody along pretty quick the tide may wash him away. In fact,
    it’s probably done so already. Good lord! It’s almost four o’clock.’
    ‘The tide? Oh, yes. Yes, I suppose it would. If’ – he brightened up with a
    new thought – ‘if it’s coming in. But it might be going