The Saltmarsh Murders Read Free

roundabouts, swing-boats, houp-la, darts, and a rifle-shooting game. We don’t allow them to import a cocoanut-shy now, because, at my suggestion, old Lowry, the innkeeper, gets us the cocoanuts by the hundred from a pal of his at Covent Garden, and William, Daphne and I carpentered the stands the year before last, and we use the tennis club’s netting to markthe pitch and protect the bystanders. William and I run the shy at five hundred and fifty per cent, profit on the great day, in the intervals of batting and fielding in the cricket match against Much Hartley which is another Bank Holiday feature. During our compulsory absences, old Lowry looks after it, which is very decent of him, because every year he applies for a licence to sell beer on the ground, and every year the magistrates, directed by Sir William, who is under instructions from Coutts, who is bowing to the inevitable in the guise of Mrs. Coutts, refuse to grant him the licence. He never seems to get shirty about it. Marvellously good-humoured bloke.
    At tea on the following Wednesday, Mrs. Coutts said she couldn’t see how on earth she was going to seat fifteen of the nobs on nine deck chairs, and directed Daphne to go and see whether Mrs. Gatty had any to lend. Daphne grabbed my hand under the table and squeezed it quickly three times, which is our S.O.S. signal. I knew she was afraid of going to the Moat House alone, as Mrs. Gatty, who is a fat, placid-looking lady with gold-rimmed glasses, has decidedly bats in the belfry. Hoots at one, and compares one with the beasts of the field. Most peculiar, and, of course, instructive, if one is of a philosophical turn of mind. She thinks I’m a goat. Literally, I mean. She once got me by the ankle in a running bowline and tethered me to the leg of an occasional table. Of course, I know her now, and when I go to see her, which I do fairly often, because she’s a lonely sort of woman—her husband is a traveller in motors—I sit in one chair and stick my feet up on another. That does her, of course, because she thinks itcruel to tether animals by the neck. One comfort about people with a mania is that they are so beautifully consistent. Once you’ve grasped their point of view there’s nothing more to worry about unless they’re homicidal, when to grasp the main theme is hardly good enough, unless, again, one happens to be a philosopher!
    After tea, then, Daphne and I set off for the Moat House. It lies a little way out of the village, but is on the main road. It is one of those eerie, shrubbery-haunted houses, with high brick walls and big gates. We walked up the drive and rang the front-door bell, and were received by Mrs. Gatty in person, as she kept only two servants, a parlourmaid and a cook, and it was the parlourmaid’s evening out. The cook never answered the door, of course, upon principle. She said it wasn’t her place. This was unanswerable. Mrs. Gatty used to liken her to a duck, but the cook was from Aylesbury, so she took it for a compliment, which was just as well, as I can’t really believe that it was meant for one.
    She asked us in, conducted us to her boudoir—it used to be the padded cell when the house was a private asylum—and asked us to sit down. Then she shut the door and tip-toed to her chair, sat down, leaned forward, and said in an excited whisper:
    â€œIt’s done! The deed is done!”
    â€œOh, splendid,” I said, quite at sea, of course.
    Daphne goggled a bit and looked nervously at me. I rose to it.
    â€œEr—could you lend us a couple of deck-chairs for the fête, you know, on August Bank Holiday?” I said, and she replied most amicably.
    â€œI’ll lend you three, if you won’t tell anybody. It’s Jackson, you know. You won’t tell, will you? Mr. Burt told me. I think it’s simply beautiful. Don’t tell!”
    We said we wouldn’t, and I said I’d send the Scouts up with