Read Have His Carcase for Free Online Page B

waste much time,’ pleaded Harriet, ‘and I thought, supposing the
    body got washed away, or anything, it would be better to have some record of
    it.’
    ‘That’s very true, miss, and I shouldn’t wonder but what you did the right
    thing. Looks like a big wind rising, and that’l hold the tide up.’
    ‘Due south-west it is’ put in the policeman who was driving the car. ‘That
    there rock wil be awash next low tide if it goes on like this, and with the sea
    running it’l be a bit of a job to get out there.’
    ‘Yes,’ said the Inspector. ‘The current sets very strong round the bay, and
    you can’t get a boat in past the Grinders – not without you want her bottom
    stove in.’
    Indeed, when they arrived at ‘Murder Bay’, as Harriet had mentaly
    christened it, there were no signs of the rock, stil less of the body. The sea was
    half-way up the sand, roling in heavily. The little line of breakers that had
    shown the hidden tops of the Grinders reef had disappeared. The wind was
    freshening stil more, and the sun gleamed in spasms of briliance between
    thickening banks of cloud.
    ‘That’s the place, miss, is it?’ asked the Inspector.
    ‘Oh, yes, that’s the place,’ replied Harriet, confidently.
    The Inspector shook his head.
    ‘There’s seventeen feet of water over that rock by now,’ he said. ‘Tide’l be
    ful in another hour. Can’t do anything about it now. Have to wait for low tide.
    That’l be two ack emma, or thereabouts, Have to see if there’s any chance of
    getting out to it then, but if you ask me, it’s working up for roughish weather.

    There’s the chance, of course, that the body may get washed off and come
    ashore somewhere. I’l run you up to Brennerton, Saunders; try and get some
    of the men there to keep a look-out up and down the shore, and I’l cut along
    back to Wilvercombe and see what I can arrange about getting a boat out.
    You’l have to come along with me, miss, and make a statement.’
    ‘By al means,’ said Harriet, rather faintly.
    The Inspector turned round and took a look at her.
    ‘I expect you’re feeling a bit upset, miss,’ he said, kindly, ‘and no wonder.
    It’s not a pleasant thing for a young lady to have to deal with. It’s a miracle to
    me, the way you handled it. Why, most young ladies would have run away, let
    alone taking away al these boots and things.’
    ‘Wel, you see,’ explained Harriet, ‘I know what ought to be done. I write
    detective stories, you know,’ she added, feeling as she spoke that this must
    appear to the Inspector an idle and foolish occupation.
    ‘There now,’ said the Inspector. ‘It isn’t often, I daresay, you get a chance
    of putting your own stories into practice, as you might say. What did you say
    your name was, miss? Not that I read those sort of books much, except it might
    be Edgar Walace now and again, but I’l have to know your name, of course,
    in any case.’
    Harriet gave her name and her London address. The Inspector seemed to
    come to attention rather suddenly.
    ‘I fancy I’ve heard that name before,’ he remarked.
    ‘Yes,’ said Harriet, a little grimly; ‘I expect you have. I am—’ she laughed
    rather uncomfortably – ‘I’m the notorious Harriet Vane, who was tried for
    poisoning Philip Boyes two years ago.’
    ‘Ah, just so!’ replied the Inspector. ‘Yes. They got the felow who did it,
    too, didn’t they? Arsenic case. Yes, of course. There was some very pretty
    medical evidence at the trial, if I remember rightly. Smart piece of work. Lord
    Peter Wimsey had something to do with it, didn’t he?’
    ‘Quite a lot,’ said Harriet.
    ‘He seems to be a clever gentleman,’ observed the Inspector. ‘One’s always
    hearing of him doing something or other.’
    ‘Yes,’ agreed Harriet; ‘he’s – ful of activities.’

    ‘You’l know him very wel, I expect?’ pursued the Inspector, filed with
    what Harriet felt to be unnecessary curiosity.
    ‘Oh, yes, quite