to look up â and he saw her. Reported it to the police.â
âItâs a fact,â Emlyn said. âIt would have to be old Mash, wouldnât it? He was training, would you believe? Pounding up the prom and he spots this old girl up there. Just goes to show â if you want to hide something then leave it in a prominent place.â
We were aboard the Ariadne , sitting on some sackcloth because the roof of the cabin was so hot. Mash was giving another coat of red paint to the old boatâs keel. Heâd looked up and she was sitting there on the old Kingâs knee, sea holly in her hand. He was very proud that he had been the one to find her, Emlyn said. But they held him at the police station all morning.
Emlyn pointed towards the dune âOh God, look whatâs coming â anyone for tennis? You can smell the mothballs from here!â
Amos Ellyott stood on top of the dune, his stick raised like a sword. He was wearing a white shirt with billowing sleeves, a tie and white cricket flannels of stunning tightness. On his head the biggest straw hat. âHalloo there,â he called, âit is I, Ellyott!â
I suggested that we hide, but Emlyn went down to escort him over the mud and heave him, rung by rung, up the ladder. And all of that afternoon under a burning sun the old man talked death from the deck chair. He knew little more than we did about Miss Porterhouse, but he was positive that she had died of strangulation. He found that fascinating. The same method as before. Some sort of strap had been used. Bizarre, the old man said, bizarre and puzzling. No one, as yet, had come forward to claim her, either.
âNo oneâs claimed Lilian â is that what you mean?â I said.
Two ladies of such different backgrounds, he went on. Lilian Ridetski had no relations because of an accident of birth; Miss Porterhouse would probably have outlived hers â and she had never been married to a Polish airman, now officially listed as a deserter. Andrei Ridetski. A very fastidious gentleman. Something of a dandy, and rumoured to be involved in the underworld of Warsaw.
Had he perhaps taken flight because of the ladyâs sexual appetite? âThat is a possibility, my friends â but I doubt such a reason would instigate him opting for desertion in a foreign land, for leaving a prospering little business, and a warm little nest. The premises were in the ladyâs name, but they were purchased by Ridetski, who, we are led to believe is a penniless Polish refugee. Where did the money come from? Was there, perhaps, assistance? There are claims that he has been sighted, he added from behind a white handkerchief which now covered his face.
âSeen here â in Maelgwyn?â I asked.
âElsewhere,â Amos replied. âPersons answering to his description.â
Later he awoke to tell us that George Garston had admitted finally that he had made use of the secret room on the top floor to store unspecified goods.
âGeorge Garston would be involved in the black market, wouldnât you say? But on the night in question he was attending a concert in the village hall at Brynberth. He was accompanied by his son, he claims. It was an affair that continued well into the night. But there would have been time. There is always time when one is desperate.â He appeared to have gone to sleep again. We stretched out and surrendered to the heat.
âHowever,â he said. We both sat up. Beneath us we could hear the old boatâs timbers shrinking, âlet us consider some other intriguing factors...â
âNot the day for considering anything,â Emlyn protested. âI think Iâve got heat stroke.â
Amos Ellyottâs thin, precise voice, rasped on relentlessly. âMrs Ridetski was a lady who loved finery â a gaudy dresser, I am given to understand. Yet, on the night in question, she had not dressed in her usual fashion. We must
Victoria Christopher Murray, Reshonda Tate Billingsley
Will Hill
Susanna Carr
Marie O'Regan, Paul Kane
Rebecca King
Roger Landry
Mick Farren
Chris Nickson
Melissa A. Hanson
Raine Thomas