Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

who subsequently discovered the body seems to think he heard a scream coming from this direction about an hour beforehand; in fact, he says that’s probably what made him look over here as he was rowing past. But he didn’t pay any attention to it at the time, thinking it was some dratted girl being tickled – his own words, by the way.”
    “That’s interesting,” observed Roger, the light in his eye belying his laconic words. “By the way, I suppose you’ve been down to those rocks?”
    “No, sir, I’m afraid I haven’t,” said the inspector a little guiltily. “I should have done, I know, but I’m not built for climbing down from here, and I don’t seem to have had time to get round there in a boat. In any case, I’m pretty sure there’d be nothing to find. The constable who recovered the body brought her handbag and her parasol, and he said he’d had a good look round. Strictly between ourselves, Mr Sheringham, I was going to assume that his eyes are as good as mine; but don’t put anything about that in the Courier .”
    “I’ll have to think that over,” Roger laughed. “Anyhow, I’m a man of stern duty: I’m going to see if I can scramble down and poke round. I know there won’t be anything to find, but it’s the sort of thing that gives one a lot of satisfaction afterward to have done.”
    “Well, don’t you stumble and pitch on the rocks too,” said the inspector humourously. “Somebody might come along and accuse me of things.”
    The way down was not nearly so difficult as it looked from above. Everywhere the face of the cliff was so seamed and fissured that foothold was easy, while halfway down a great piled-up pyramid of boulders provided a kind of giant’s staircase tolerably simple to negotiate. Within five minutes of leaving the inspector, Roger was standing on the big rock beside which Mrs Vane’s body had been found.
    For some minutes he poked about, peering into pools and religiously exploring the recesses of every cranny, while the inspector kept up a running commentary upon the habits of crabs, lobsters and other seagoing creatures which lurk in dark holes awaiting an opportunity to deal drastically with exploratory hands; then he stood up and swept a brief glance round before beginning the climb back.
    “No,” he called up to the inspector, who had just finished recounting an anecdote about the grandfather of a friend of his who had been stung to death by a jellyfish while paddling among the rocks off Sandsea. “Nothing here! Now tell me a story about the great-aunt of another friend of yours who fell down a hundred feet when rock-climbing in Cumberland. I shall be ripe for something like that in about five minutes, when I’m clinging on to that last bit of cliff up there with my teeth and eyebrows.”
    The obliging inspector instantly embarked on the anecdote required, and at the same moment Roger, in mid-stride between two boulders, noticed something white glistening below him. Action was almost instinctive.
    “Hullo!” exclaimed the inspector in concern, breaking off his narrative abruptly. “Hurt yourself?”
    Roger picked himself up slowly and brushed a little green slime off his trousers with his hands. “No, thanks,” he called back cheerfully. “Not a bit!” And he went on brushing himself with his hands.
    He couldn’t use his handkerchief, because that was lying in his breast pocket, wrapped about a piece of paper on top of which he had skilfully stage-managed his fall.

chapter four
Anthony Interviews a Suspect
    Anthony had not had very much experience with women. In the brief instant after the girl had spoken it occurred to him with some force that his ideas on the subject might require drastic revision. Women were not necessarily weak, helpless creatures. Names such as Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, Queen Elizabeth, occurred to him with startling rapidity. Were they weak, helpless creatures? They were not. Nor was the girl who was standing in