The Mystery At Lover's Cave

The village of Ludmouth lies about half a mile back from the sea. At the nearest point to the village, where Roger and Anthony had left the road to strike across open country, the water had broken in upon the stern lines of the high cliffs which form the coast-line for several miles in either direction. The result is a tiny little inlet, almost completely circular in shape, which has been dignified by the name of Ludmouth Bay.

At either horn of this minute bay, which could hardly have been more than a couple of hundred yards wide, the cliffs rise almost sheer to a height of at least a hundred feet, to sink gradually down as they follow the bay’s curve into a strip of sandy beach at the innermost edge, whence a steep track leads up to the village on the high ground behind. It is a charmingly picturesque spot and, lying as it does a little way off the beaten track, has not yet been spoiled (except for occasional excursion parties on bicycles from the neighbouring town of Sandsea, half-a-dozen miles away to the West) by the ubiquitous tripper; for the roads on all sides are too steep and too dangerous for char-à-bancs—a matter of much comfort to those of the inhabitants who keep neither public-houses nor banana shops.

The cliffs which stretch toward Sandsea face the open sea with considerably less frowning austerity than those to the East; they slope slightly backward instead of dropping sheer, and are so irregular and split up into huge boulders, clefts and rocky knobs, as to be by no means impossible for a determined man to climb. About a third of the way down their face they bear a narrow ledge, which proceeds more or less level for a considerable distance and has been turned, by means of a flight of steps cut in the rock at either end, into a pathway. At one time this pathway had been in some favour among the lads of the village as a place from which to fish when the tide was high; but customs change even in Ludmouth, and nowadays anyone in search of solitude could usually be sure of finding it here. To add to its advantages in this respect, a bulge in the rock just above served to hide it completely for nearly its whole length from the eyes of anybody standing on the top of the cliff overhead. Inspector Moresby, sitting on a low boulder at a spot where the ledge widened out to a depth of nearly a dozen feet, could be observed from nowhere except the open sea.

Inspector Moresby was as unlike the popular idea of a great detective as can well be imagined. His face resembled anything but a razor, or even a hatchet (if it must be compared with something in that line, it was far more like a butter-knife); his eyes had never been known to snap since infancy; and he simply never rapped out remarks—he just spoke them. Let us not shirk the fact: a more ordinary-looking and ordinarily behaved man never existed.

To proceed to details, the inspector was heavily-built, with a grizzled walrus moustache and stumpy, insensitive fingers; his face habitually wore an expression of bland innocence; he was frequently known to be jovial, and he bore not the least malice toward any of his victims.

At the moment of our introduction to him he was gazing with an appearance of extreme geniality, his chin on his knuckles and one elbow perched on either knee, at a small rowing-boat half-a-mile out at sea; but his expression was not inspired by any feeling of affectionate regard for the boat’s horny-handed occupant. He was, indeed, quite unaware of the boat’s existence. He was engaged in wondering very intensely how a lady could have managed to fall accidentally off this ledge at the particularly broad part where he was now sitting; and why, if the lady had not fallen off accidentally but had been committing suicide, she should have done so with a large button from somebody else’s coat tightly clenched in her right hand.

Quite an interesting problem, Inspector Moresby had decided; interesting enough, at any rate, to call him over semi-officially that morning from Sandsea, where he had been in the middle of his annual holiday with his wife and two children, to look into the matter a little further pending instructions from Scotland Yard and the county police authorities.

The sound of footsteps advancing along the path from the East caused him to glance up sharply, his face just a shade less genial than usual. The next moment a stockily-built man, hatless and wearing a pair of perfectly shapeless grey flannel trousers and a disreputable old sports coat, and smoking a short-stemmed pipe with an enormous bowl, came into sight round a bend in the path, walking rapidly.

The newcomer slowed up at sight of the inspector and glanced at him with an air of elaborate carelessness. A look of equally elaborate incredulity appeared on his face, then he smiled widely and hurried forward with outstretched hand.

“Great Scott, Inspector Moresby! Well, fancy seeing you here, Inspector! You remember me, don’t you? My name’s⸺”

“Mr. Sheringham! Of course I remember you, sir,” returned the inspector warmly, shaking the other’s hand with great heartiness. “Shouldn’t be likely to forget you after enjoying your books so much, you know, let alone the way you astonished us all at the Yard over that business at Wychford. Let’s see now, it was with Mr. Turner of the Courier, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. The ‘Hattan Garden jewel case,’ as the papers called it. Well, Inspector, and what are you doing in this peaceful part of the world?”

“I’m on my holiday,” replied the inspector with perfect truth. “Staying over at Sandsea with the wife and children.”

“Oh, yes,” said Roger innocently.

“And how do you come here, sir? Holidaying too?”

Roger winked broadly. “Me? Oh, no. I’m down here in pursuit of a new profession that’s just been thrust upon me.”

“Indeed, sir? What’s that?”

“Well, to put it quite bluntly, I’m down here to ask Inspector Moresby on behalf of the Courier what he’s got to tell me about a lady who fell off the cliff somewhere about here a day or two ago, and why such an important person as he should be so interested in an ordinary accident.”

The inspector rubbed his chin with a rueful grin. “And I’d just strolled over here from Sandsea to get away from the crowds for a bit!” he deplored innocently. “I’ve only got to yawn at the wrong time, and there’s half-a-dozen gentlemen of your new profession round the next minute asking what the significance is.”

“Going to have a nice nap before you go back to Sandsea?” Roger asked with a twinkle in his eye.

“A nap?”

“Yes; at least, I don’t suppose you booked that room at the Crown just to brush your hair in, did you?”

The inspector chuckled appreciatively. “Got me there, sir! Well, I may be staying over here for a day or two, yes. Even accidents can have their interesting side, you know, after all.”

“Especially an accident that isn’t an accident, eh? Come on, Inspector; you can’t put me off like that, you know. I’m developing a nose like a bloodhound’s for this sort of thing, and it’s busy telling me very hard that you’ve got something up your sleeve. What’s the idea? Can’t you give me a pointer or two?”

“Well, I don’t know that perhaps I mightn’t. I’ll think it over.”

“Can’t you do it now? Just a few words to send the Courier before the other johnnies turn up. I’ll get ’em to splash your name all over it, if that’s any good to you. Come now!”

The inspector considered. He was never averse to having his name splashed about in an important paper like the Courier if the circumstances warranted it. As long as the bounds of discretion were not overstepped a little publicity never did a police officer any harm, and it has frequently done him a great deal of good.

“Well, without saying too much, I don’t mind telling you that there are one or two suspicious circumstances, Mr. Sheringham,” he admitted at length. “You see, the lady was supposed to have been alone at the time when she fell over here.”

“At this very spot, I take it?” Roger put in.

“At this very spot. But I’m not at all sure—not at all sure!—that she was alone. And that’s really all I can say at present.”

“Why do you think she wasn’t?”

“Ah!” The inspector looked exceedingly mysterious. “I can’t go so far as to tell you that, but I think you can let your readers know that I’m not speaking altogether at random.”

“ ‘Inspector Moresby, who has the matter in hand, intimated that he has discovered an important clue. While not at liberty to disclose the precise nature of this, he assured me that important developments may be expected shortly,’ ” Roger intoned solemnly.

“Something like that,” the inspector laughed. “And of course I needn’t point out to a gentleman like you how improbable it would be for anyone to fall over accidentally just here where this ledge is so deep.”

Roger nodded. “Suicide, by any chance?”

“May have been,” agreed the inspector in a perfectly expressionless voice.

“But you’re quite sure it wasn’t!” Roger smiled. “Eh?”

The inspector laughed again. “I’ll be able to let you know a bit more later on, no doubt, sir. In the meantime⸺” He paused significantly.

“In the meantime you’d be very much obliged if I’d stop these awkward questions and leave you in peace again? I get you, Inspector. Very well. But you don’t mind if I just have a look round here before I go, do you?”

“Of course not, Mr. Sheringham,” said the inspector heartily. “By all means.”

It was with a mild feeling of resentment, however, in spite of the inspector’s friendly reception of him, that Roger embarked upon a cursory examination of the ledge on which they were standing. It was more in the nature of a demonstration than anything else, for he knew perfectly well that there would be nothing for him to find; Inspector Moresby would have seen to that. No doubt it was perfectly right and proper to withhold from him the clues which he had most certainly discovered—no doubt at all. But Roger did think the man might have treated him somewhat differently from an ordinary reporter, especially after his reference to Wychford. It was annoying in a way; decidedly annoying. And still more annoying was the fact that he had nothing whatever to be annoyed about. In the inspector’s eyes he was a reporter, and that was all there was to it; he had come down here as a reporter, he was acting as a reporter, he was a reporter. Hell!

As he had expected, the ledge yielded nothing at all.

“Humph!” he observed, straightening up from a boulder behind which he had been peering. “Nothing much here. And no signs of a struggle either.”

“There wouldn’t be, on this rocky surface,” the inspector pointed out kindly. “Too hard to take impressions, you see.”

“Yes, that idea occurred to me,” Roger remarked a trifle coldly. He walked over to the western end of the ledge, where it narrowed down rapidly into a pathway not more than four or five feet wide, and began to stroll along it.