Inspector Abbott had left Sea View.

No, he was not at the police station.

Inspector Abbott? The receptionist at the George would see if he was in the hotel.

She stood at the writing-table and waited through some very long minutes until the line came alive and Frank Abbott was saying,

“Miss Silver?”

“Yes, Frank.”

“What is it?”

“I am not at all easy.”

“What can I do for you?”

“You are a good swimmer?”

“Well, I rather flatter myself-”

“Then-” She spoke rapidly for a minute or two. He received his instructions. Even if the weather had not rendered them extremely agreeable, there was an urgency in voice and manner which he would have hesitated to neglect. As it was, it was easy and pleasant enough. He had not been fool enough to come down to the sea in this heat without providing for at least a swim before breakfast, and the George on the sea front was no more than an easy distance from the private beach which served the houses on the cliff.

At her end Miss Silver rang off, and with her mind somewhat relieved picked up her knitting-bag and went to join the others.

Lady Castleton and Mrs. Field were in their accustomed place. Since there was at this hour nothing to be gained by such close proximity to the beach hut, the sun being now directly overhead and no shade obtainable, Miss Silver found herself a little surprised that they should not have preferred to be at a greater distance from the scene of Wednesday’s crime. The surprise deepened when she learned that both ladies intended retiring into the hut in order to change. Some of this surprise must have been apparent, as Esther Field remarked,

“You think that strange. But isn’t it really better that we should just go on using everything before there are any foolish stories? They start so easily, and are so hard to get rid of. A friend of mine found that to her cost. There was a violent death in the house-a relative committed suicide there. She had a feeling about using the room, and in less than no time people were saying it was haunted and no one would sleep there. It was very inconvenient, as it left them a room short, and in the end she had to give up her own bedroom and move into it. But it was quite a long time before the talk died down. So we thought-”

Miss Silver measured the foot of her little pink bootee.

“Yes, that was wise of you. Especially as Mrs. Hardwick tells me they are anxious to sell the house.”

Esther Field tilted the large sun-umbrella which shaded her. Having never been able to acquire a fondness for glare, she had been delighted to discover this antique object in a corner of the hall amongst a collection of sticks which had belonged to Octavius Hard wick. She found the holland cover and green lining a very comfortable protection from the heat. But Adela Castleton sat in the eye of the sun and looked out over the bright water which reflected it.

With a slight preliminary cough Miss Silver ventured a remark on this. She did not herself feel the heat-the English summer was so sadly short that it was a pity not to take advantage of it-but she was not averse from the protection of an old black umbrella so much more often in use against the rain. She said,

“You do not feel the sun, Lady Castleton?”

“Oh, no.”

There was a hint of surprise that the question should have been put-almost of surprise that Miss Silver should have addressed her at all. There was certainly nothing to encourage a continuance of the conversation. Yet Miss Silver continued it.

“You do not find that it gives you a headache?”

“No, I do not.”

Miss Silver went on knitting.

“Mrs. Hardwick mentioned that you had been suffering from headaches, and I wondered whether it was really prudent to expose yourself so freely to this heat.”

Adela Castleton looked out over the sand to that bright stretch of sea. The shingle ended, the sand ran out, the tide was coming in. The Black Rock showed like a distant speck. Without taking any notice of what Miss Silver had said or so much as looking at her she got to her feet.

“Well, I think I shall go in,” she said, and strolled towards the hut. “Are you coming, Esther? James and Carmona are down by the pools, but she isn’t going to swim. It’s a pity you never had her taught properly.”

She raised her voice to carry the last few words, and so came to the beach hut and went in. The door stood open to the sun and to the air. The floor had been scrubbed. A new gay strip of matting lay across it. Under it, stubborn and enduring, the stain of Alan’s blood.

As she watched, Miss Silver could not see that there was either hesitancy or avoidance. Lady Castleton crossed the threshold with an even step and shut out the sun.

Turning her head again, she saw that Esther Field was folding her white embroidery and wrapping it in an old soft handkerchief.

“I don’t really care to walk so far down the beach, but Adela never can bear to wait. If she wants a thing, it has to happen at once. But I’m not like that. I don’t mind how long I wait if there is something worth while at the end of it.”

She too went up the beach, and she too was watched. But at the closed door there was again no hesitation. Her hand came up and knocked. Then she lifted the latch and went in.

Lady Castleton was the first to come out-black bathing-suit modelling the perfect figure, black and emerald scarf hiding the close-bound hair, a bright green towelling robe across her arm. She went down the beach without looking back, passed Miss Silver without a glance or a word, and so down to the water’s edge, where she stood talking to James and Carmona.

Esther Field followed her. She too wore a plain black suit, but conscious that she no longer had a figure slim enough to display, she hugged her robe about her and only handed it to Carmona at the water’s edge.

Carmona came up with it over her arm. She looked relaxed and happy. Her brief sun-bathing suit was splashed and wet. Its colours contrasted gaily with the bare brown of her skin. She slipped into the matching overdress and buttoned it. Then she sat down to watch the three swimmers who were making for the Rock. The hot, lazy time went by.

Frank Abbott was finding his assignment a pleasant one. The temperature was probably climbing towards the nineties. Colt and the Superintendent were stewing in it, and the hotter it got, the more passionately would they feel about arresting Miss Anning. And here he was, in the water where they couldn’t get at him. He had now for many years considered Miss Silver to be unique, but seldom had he experienced such a glow of admiration as when he reflected that it was her beneficent hand which had plucked him from being a fellow sufferer with the Superintendent and Colt and plunged him into this cool buoyancy. He began to assemble a suitable tribute, enhanced by quotation from Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

“Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy cliffs, O Sea-or was it crags?

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.”

After which he would, of course, do his best to utter them.

As he rounded the point, the Black Rock came into view, looking small and far away. It would take him another quarter of an hour, he judged. Having all but reached it early yesterday morning, he had been near enough to identify it as one of those chimneys which rise up suddenly in prolongation of a headland. On the landward side it rose sheer from the water, but towards the sea where the tides had fretted it there was a series of ledges, accessible to swimmers at any but the highest of the spring tides and a pleasant basking-ground in weather like this.

As he drew nearer, someone dived from the rock and began to swim towards the shore-a woman in a black bathing-suit.