The Saltmarsh Murders by Gladys Mitchell Page A

You’ll miss that train.”
    Then he came away. I imagine that Cora and Burt quarrelled a good deal. They were both hot-headed, I had decided, and as I said before, it couldn’t have been much of a life for a gay-living high-spirited young woman of Cora’s type and mentality.
    But all minor excitements paled before the great blaze of terror and thrills that followed the discovery of the murder.
    William, I know, slept with his heaviest catapult under his pillow, and I shrewdly suspect that Mrs. Coutts used to put the kitchen poker on the chair beside her bed. I took care to accompany Daphne even into the garden to pick gooseberries and garden peas. At night I made a point of tapping upon her bedroomdoor and enquiring whether she was all right. She always was, of course.
    On the Tuesday afternoon and evening the men of the village, headed by the squire and the vicar, who had sunk their private differences in this terrible affair of the murder, and supported strongly by William Coutts and the local Boy Scouts, determined to track down the beast who had killed the poor girl. I dug out Burt, who, with his brains and physique certainly would have been a match for any murderer. He agreed willingly to help us, the more so as he was feeling a bit at a loose end, for Cora McCanley had received an offer by telegram that same morning to appear in a piece called
Home Birds
which was touring the provinces, and he supposed he would not see her again until after Christmas. Not that he seemed to care much. The row, I suppose.
    Our first task was to patrol the shore by the Cove, but, although we kept it up from seven in the evening until nearly one in the morning, nothing happened at all. Personally, I could not believe that there had been no connection between the attack on the vicar and the murder of the girl. We were harbouring Thugs in the village. When we arrived home, Mrs. Coutts, William and Daphne were all in bed. The vicar went into his wife’s room, and the next moment I heard him calling me.
    â€œGet some sal volatile from Daphne,” he said. It was rather nice to see Daphne asleep, but I was compelled to wake her for the stuff.
    It appeared that Mrs. Coutts had been out to look for us when it got dark, had missed her way and nearlyfallen down one of the unfenced quarries. She was rather bad.
    And, blow me, if, on the Wednesday, another beastly mysterious affair didn’t occur which put the most fearful wind up Daphne and myself.
    As Mrs. Coutts was so very groggy, and complained of her heart and a bad headache and shock to the system, Daphne had to go down to the church and play the organ for the Women’s Weekly Prayer Meeting and Devotional.
    This was Mrs. Coutts’ job really, so Daphne, who was rather taken on the hop, thought she had better go along at about half-past six that evening and practise the hymns. Although I say it that love her, Daphne is not at her best on the organ unless she’s had considerable practice first. So we arranged to put in an hour from six-thirty to seven-thirty when the meeting was billed to begin.
    I say “we,” because, since the attack on William and myself outside the Bungalow, Daphne had been exceedingly nervous, and so I had fallen into the habit of “standing by.” We kept this pretty little fact to ourselves, because Mrs. Coutts would not have approved.
    So I accompanied Daphne to the church and worked the beastly bellows for her. She was in the middle of “Lead, Kindly Light,” and doing well, when I heard the music stop.
    â€œGee up!” I said loudly and encouragingly. There was no answer, so I slid round, to see what was what.
    â€œOh, Noel!” said Daphne. She threw her arms round me, clutching me tightly.
    â€œSomebody put their hands on my neck! Somebody put their hands on my neck!” she said.
    It was about five past seven then, and the verger came and lit up, and the earliest arrivals began to trickle in. I