“Were your telephone calls of a very private nature?”
The Major winked again cheerfully.
“Well, they were and they weren’t. Wanted to get through to a pal of mine and get him to put somethin’ on a horse. Couldn’t get through to him, worse luck.”
“Where did you telephone from?”
“Call box in the G.P.O. at St. Loo. Then on the way back I got lost—these confounded lanes—twistin’ and turnin’ all over the place. Must have wasted an hour over that at least. Damned confusing part of the world. I only got back half an hour ago.”
Colonel Weston said:
“Speak to anyone or meet anyone in St. Loo?”
Major Barry said with a chuckle:
“Wantin’ me to prove an alibi? Can’t think of anythin’ useful. Saw about fifty thousand people in St. Loo—but that’s not to say they’ll remember seein’ me.”
The Chief Constable said:
“We have to ask these things, you know.”
“Right you are. Call on me at any time. Glad to help you. Very fetchin’ woman, the deceased. Like to help you catch the feller who did it. The Lonely Beach Murder—bet you that’s what the papers will call it. Reminds me of the time—”
It was Inspector Colgate who firmly nipped this latest reminiscence in the bud and manoeuvred the garrulous Major out of the door.
Coming back he said:
“Difficult to check up on anything in St. Loo. It’s the middle of the holiday season.”
The Chief Constable said:
“Yes, we can’t take him off the list. Not that I seriously believe he’s implicated. Dozens of old bores like him going about. Remember one or two of them in my army days. Still—he’s a possibility. I leave all that to you, Colgate. Check what time he took the car out—petrol—all that. It’s humanly possible that he parked the car somewhere in a lonely spot, walked back here and went to the cove. But it doesn’t seem feasible to me. He’d have run too much risk of being seen.”
Colgate nodded.
He said:
“Of course there are a good many charabancs here today. Fine day. They start arriving round about half past eleven. High tide was at seven. Low tide would be about one o’clock. People would be spread out over the sands and the causeway.”
Weston said:
“Yes. But he’d have to come up from the causeway past the hotel.”
“Not right past it. He could branch off on the path that leads up over the top of the island.”
Weston said doubtfully:
“I’m not saying that he mightn’t have done it without being seen. Practically all the hotel guests were on the bathing beach except for Mrs. Redfern and the Marshall girl who were down in Gull Cove, and the beginning of that path would only be overlooked by a few rooms of the hotel and there are plenty of chances against anyone looking out of those windows just at that moment. For the matter of that, I dare say it’s possible for a man to walk up to the hotel, through the lounge and out again without anyone happening to see him. But what I say is, he couldn’t count on no one seeing him.”
Colgate said:
“He could have gone round to the cove by boat.”
Weston nodded. He said:
“That’s much sounder. If he’d had a boat handy in one of the coves nearby, he could have left the car, rowed or sailed to Pixy Cove, done the murder, rowed back, picked up the car and arrived back with this tale about having been to St. Loo and lost his way—a story that he’d know would be pretty hard to disprove.”
“You’re right, sir.”