Fall of a Philanderer by Carola Dunn Page B

thrift, even red valerian clinging to ledges, cracks and niches, but nothing remotely resembling a tree. Nothing Enderby could have hit on the way down that would have lodged splinters in his skin.
    â€œHere.” The coxswain, shaking his head, handed over binoculars. They failed to miraculously reveal a tree of any size, with or without broken branches, even right at the top of the cliff.
    â€œSummun hit him,” said Tom Stebbins with ghoulish satisfaction.
    â€œSir!” Vernon was almost dancing with excitement. “Shall I extract a couple of splinters? I can put them in a specimen bottle. There’d be some left in the skin for the autopsy. Sir, do you think I could attend the autopsy?”
    â€œThat’s not for me to say,” Alec pointed out firmly. “You’ll have to ask the local authorities. Yes, you’d better pull a couple of splinters, just in case the body is damaged … further damaged on the way to port. I’ll take responsibility.”
    Three splinters, ranging from a quarter-inch long to nearly invisible,
were safely deposited in a small glass specimen bottle with a rubber-sealed stopper, which was then safely tucked away in the black bag. Alec went through the dead man’s pockets, but anything that had been in them must have fallen out on the way down. Even through the binoculars, there had been no sign of a jacket on the cliff face. If the local police wanted to climb down the cliff to search along the way, that was up to them. Alec wasn’t going to attempt it.
    The lifeboatmen, with solemn mien, lifted the body and laid it on the stretcher. Covering it with a tarpaulin, they strapped it down and started down the beach towards their vessel.
    â€œYou’ll be coming back with us?” the coxswain asked Alec.
    Alec eyed the waves, which recalled to mind all too clearly his interior distress last time he went to sea. With relief, he remembered the village bobby who had failed to negotiate the cliff path. The blue figure still stood up there by the big boulder, feet the regulation distance apart, hands behind his back, staring into the distance, doing his best to look as if he were on guard duty.
    â€œI must talk to the constable.” Alec tried to sound regretful. “Puckle, is it?”
    â€œFred Puckle. You want to come with us, Vernon?”
    â€œNo, thanks, sir. Another day.”
    â€œI expect you’d better deliver the body to the police station,” said Alec, “unless by then there’s a Devon detective waiting for you on the quay to direct matters. Thanks for your help, Coxswain. I hope you’re not called out again today.”
    â€œBelieve me, so do I, Chief Inspector. I’d rather have a hurricane than a fog, and after lawyering all week, I must say I like to put my feet up on a Sunday afternoon.” With a gesture halfway between a wave and a salute, the coxswain went after his men.
    â€œA lawyer!” Alec stared after him. “I assumed he was a seaman.”
    â€œOh no, sir, though he’s a keen sailor. He has his own yacht. The lifeboatmen are all volunteers, mostly fishermen. When the maroon goes up, they come running from whatever they’re doing. They’ve let me go out with them a couple of times. I generally spend a few
weeks in the summer at my uncle’s, don’t you know. Mr. Wallace is a solicitor, the only one in Westcombe. If it’s really murder, he’ll be kept busy! Do you think it’s murder, sir? It must be, mustn’t it?”
    As Vernon chattered, he and Alec made their way towards the foot of the cliff path. At this point, Alec stopped and gave the young man a stern look.
    â€œI have not said so, and you are not to say so. To anyone at all. This is not my case; you are not a qualified medical practitioner, far less a police surgeon. I want your word that you won’t speak to anyone of murder.”
    â€œOh no, sir, I wouldn’t. I can be the