The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [121]
11. Denny and Mrs. Mount are now left to bring the boats back. They swab up the blood behind the old boat-house as best they can. Mrs. Mount, threatened by Denny whom she has just seen kill a man, helps without protest. Denny puts the Admiral’s coat on him—(or he put it on himself when he arrived)—and stuffs in the pocket the evening paper which Walter or Denny brought to the meeting. (It was purchased in Whynmouth that night or Walter brought it from town.) At about one o’clock they start with the slack of the tide. They put the body in the Vicar’s boat, unshipping the rowlocks, and putting Denny’s coat over it to hide the face. This explains why the body is not wet with the dew. The Vicar’s boat with the body in it is tied by the painter to the stern of the Admiral’s boat and towed along. The incompetent Denny naturally ties it in one of those landsman’s knots which nothing but a marlin-spike will ever undo, especially as the painter has got wet and the new rope has swollen with the water. With a boat to tow and two incompetent oarsmen, they do not make very good time, and the ghastly dawn is breaking before they get up to Rundel Croft. Walter is there, chafing at the delay. He has locked the window and brought the key, but in helping the idiotic Denny alongside he drops the key. It falls, as he thinks, into the mud, but actually into the Admiral’s boat and is kicked under the boards by Denny. Anyway, they can’t search now. It is getting light. Damn Denny and his inextricable knot! They hew the rope off with Denny’s knife and push the boat with the body adrift. It dawdles out into the river and fetches up against the opposite bank. Later, the tide frees it and carries it on up the river. They hack and tear away the remains of the rope from the Admiral’s boat, having taken it into the boat-house wrong end first. Then they return to Whynmouth in Denny’s car, dropping Walter and Mrs. Mount. Walter retrieves his own car from wherever he left it when he came from London and takes Mrs. Mount away in it—and if that poor woman comes out of this business alive I shall be very much surprised. (N.B.—Or Walter’s car can be used throughout. Or Walter and Mrs. Mount may return to town by the milk-train. In any case these movements of cars should be traceable.)
12. Holland. What has he been doing? He may, of course, have been innocently in bed and asleep, but I think it would be more fun if he wasn’t. I think that, after putting out his boots to be cleaned, he thought he would have another shot at the Admiral. He went out, unseen by the Boots, sometime between ten and eleven (not too early, or the family will not have returned from the Vicarage). He strolls two and a half miles leisurely in his rubber-soled canvas shoes. He reaches Rundel Croft say at 11.15 (Admiral at boat-house, Elma upstairs). House dark. They are not in yet. He goes down to the boat-house. No boat. They are still at the Vicarage. Good. He goes for a stroll down the road, keeping an eye on the house. No lights yet. Very odd. He muses on love and marriage and recites the Ode to the Nightingale to fill up time. House still dark. Can he have missed them? He goes down to the boat-house again. Boat still out. No lights anywhere. Past midnight. Well, he can hardly knock them up at this time of night. Hullo! Somebody has gone in by the drawing-room window! Light in the study. He distinctly sees the Admiral’s bearded profile (really Walter’s, of course, with the family resemblance) in the study. Curiouser and curiouser. Where is the boat? He goes up to the house. The curtains have now been drawn in the study, but there is a light in the drawing-room now. He taps. Elma opens the window. She seems very much startled at seeing him. Can he see the Admiral? No—Oh, no—but there is no need. The Admiral has consented to the marriage. Look! Here is the written consent.