“G’night,” he said. When they had moved away he called after Alleyn: “If you put her up to it, you’ve done us a damn’ good turn. Have a drink on it, won’t you?”

“Thank you very much, but I really must be off. Good night.”

They went out of doors. The sky had cleared and was alive with stars. The air was rain-washed and fresh.

As they walked down the steps Patrick said abruptly: “I’m afraid my stepfather was not exactly in his best form.”

“No doubt he’s been rather highly tried.”

“No doubt,” said Patrick shortly.

“You were at the Festival, weren’t you?” Jenny asked. “With Mr. Coombe?”

“I was, yes.”

“You don’t have to be polite about it,” Patrick said. “The burning question is whether it was as funny as it was embarrassing. I can’t really make up my mind.”

“I suppose it depends upon how far one’s sympathies were engaged.”

They had reached the halfway bench. Alleyn halted for a moment and glanced up the dark slope above it.

“Yes,” Jenny said. “That was where she was.”

“You arrived on the scene, I think, didn’t you? Miss Emily said you were a great help. What did happen exactly?”

Jenny told him how she had come down the steps, heard the patter of stones, Miss Emily’s cry, and a high-pitched laugh. She described how she found Miss Emily with the cut on her neck. “Very much shaken,” said Jenny, “but full of fight.”

“A high-pitched laugh?” Alleyn repeated.

“Well, really more of a sort of squawk, like—” Jenny stopped short. “Just an odd sort of noise,” she said.

“Like Wally Trehern, for instance?”

“Why do you say that?”

“He gave a sort of squawk this afternoon when that regrettable Green Lady appeared.”

“Did he?”

“You taught him at school, didn’t you?”

“How very well informed you are, Mr. Alleyn,” said Patrick airily.

“Coombe happened to mention it.”

“Look,” Jenny said, “your visit isn’t really unofficial, is it?”

“To tell you the truth,” Alleyn said, “I’m damned if I know…Shall we move on?”

On the way across, Jenny said she supposed Alleyn must be worried on Miss Pride’s account and he rejoined cheerfully that he was worried to hell. After all, he said, one didn’t exactly relish one’s favourite old girl being used as a cockshy. Patrick, involuntarily it seemed, said that she really had rather turned herself into one, hadn’t she? “Sitting on her ledge under that umbrella, you know, and admonishing the pilgrims. It made every one feel so shy.”

“Did she admonish them?”

“Well, I understand she said she hoped they’d enjoy a recovery but they oughtn’t to build on it. They found it very off-putting.”

Jenny said: “Will an effort be made to discover who’s behind all these tricks?”

“That’s entirely up to Superintendent Coombe.”

“Matter of protocol?” Patrick suggested.

“Exactly.”

The dinghy slid into deep shadow and bumped softly against the jetty. “Well,” Alleyn said. “I’m very much obliged to you both. Good night.”

“I can’t imagine why it should be so,” Jenny said, “but Miss Pride’s rather turned into my favorite old girl, too.”

“Isn’t it extraordinary? She doesn’t present any of the classic features. She is not faded or pretty; nor, as far as I’ve noticed, does she smell of lavender. She’s by no means gentle or sweet, and yet she doesn’t exude salty common sense. She is, without a shadow of doubt, a pigheaded, arrogant old thing.” Alleyn rose and steadied himself by the jetty steps. “Do you subscribe to the Wally-gingered-up-by-Miss Cost theory?” he asked.

“It’s as good as any other,” Patrick said. “I suppose.”

“There’s only one thing against it,” Jenny said. “I don’t believe Wally would ever deliberately hurt anyone. And he’s a very bad shot.”

Alleyn stepped ashore.

“I expect,” said Patrick’s voice quietly from the shadowed boat, “you’ll be relieved to get her away.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “I shall. Good night.”

As he walked down the jetty he heard the dip of Patrick’s oars and the diminishing murmur of their voices.

He found Superintendent Coombe’s cottage and his host waiting for him. They had a glass of beer and a talk, and turned in. Alleyn thought he would telephone his wife in the morning — and went fast to sleep.

He was wakened at seven by a downpour of rain. He got up, bathed and found breakfast in preparation. Mr. Coombe, a widower, did for himself.

“Bit of a storm again,” he said, “but it’s clearing. You’ll have a pleasant run.”

He went into his kitchen, whence, presently, the splendid smell of pan-frying bacon arose. Alleyn stood at the parlour window and looked down on a deserted front: gleaming mud flats and the exposed spine of the causeway.

“Nobody about,” he said.

“It’s clearing,” Coombe’s voice said later above the sizzle of bacon. “The local people think the weather’s apt to change at low tide. Nothing in it.”

“It’s flat out, now.”

“Yes,” Coombe said. “Dead water.”

And by the time breakfast was over, so was the rain. Alleyn rang up his wife and said he’d be back for dinner. He put his suitcase in his car and, as it was still too early to collect Miss Emily, decided, it being low tide, to walk over the causeway, up Wally’s Way to the spring and thence by footpath back to the hotel. He had an inclination to visit the spring again. Coombe, who intended to fish, said he’d come as far as the Portcarrow village jetty. Alleyn drove there and left him with the car. The return trip, with Miss Emily and her luggage, would be by water.

When he reached the Island, the bell for nine o’clock service was ringing in Mr. Carstairs’s church, back on the mainland.

Wally’s Way was littered with evidence of yesterday’s crowds: ice cream wrappers, cigarette cartons, and an occasional bottle. Alleyn wondered whose job it was to clear up.

It was a steep pull, but he took it at a fair clip and the bell was still ringing when he reached the top.

He walked towards the enclosure and looked through the netting at the spring.

On the shelf above it, open, and lying on its side, was a large black umbrella.

It was one of those moments without time that strike at body and mind together with a single blow. He looked at the welling pool below the shelf. A black shape, half-inflated, pulsed and moved with the action of the spring. Its wet surface glittered in the sun.

The bell had stopped and a lark sang furiously overhead.

He had to get through the turnstile.

The slot machine was enclosed in a wire cage, with a padlock which was open. He had no disk.

For a second or two, he thought of using a rock, if he could find one, or hurling his weight against the netted door, but he looked at the slot mechanism and, with fingers that might have been handling ice, searched his pockets. A half-crown? No. A florin? As he pushed it down, he saw a printed notice that had been tied to the netting. Warning, it was headed, and it was signed Emily Pride. The florin jammed. He picked up a stone, hit it home and wrenched at the handle. There was a click and he was through and running to the spring.

She was lying face-down in in the pool, only a few inches below the water, her head almost at the lip of the waterfall.

Her sparse hair, swept forward, rippled and eddied in the stream. The gash in her scalp had stopped bleeding and gaped flaccidly.

Before he had moved the body over on its back he knew whose face would be upturned towards his own. It was Elspeth Cost’s.