“Well, that’s about all, except for my final effort. Bob Calloway found that things were getting too hot, and disappeared to dispose of the jewels he had on him as fast as he could. That suited me beautifully. I wrote a note to Sir Simon, purporting to come from Bob, and left it in the bar. George Riddle must have taken it up to the Hall. In it, I told Sir Simon to bring in the rest of the jewellery last night. This he was only too pleased to do. After the episode with Colin, and a few hints I’d dropped, he knew we were getting close to the hiding place. So he went out to collect the loot. Fortunately, Alastair and I were there to meet him.”
“You were there,” said Alastair.
“And a fat lot of good I’d have been without you,” said Henry.
“He damn near killed you,” said Alastair. “He didn’t look a reluctant murderer to me.”
“What I meant by that,” said Henry, “was that the situation
had a tragic irony about it. Sir Simon was in love with the house. And the house demanded from him, as victims, all the people he really cared about. Pete, his best friend: Colin, whose brain he admired: and finally, his own sister, his only surviving relative. In the end, it demanded his own life, too.”
There was a long silence. Then Henry said, “Well, that’s the story, and thank God it’s over. Let’s go down to the Bush.”
EPILOGUE
THE STATION WAGON WAS loaded once again, and stood on the hard, trembling with the vibration of her pulsing motor. Beside her, the M.G. stood, black and sleek.
“We’ll say goodbye now,” said Alastair to Hamish. “You’ll be in London before us.”
“You’ll come down to Lymington next weekend to see the new boat?”
“Of course. By the way, this trip of yours to the Canaries—”
“Is off,” said Anne firmly. “But we will go to Holland, when Hamish can take a holiday.”
There was a round of farewells. The Bensons and the Tibbetts piled into the station wagon. Anne jumped into the M.G. without opening the door, and kissed Hamish on the nose before the little black car roared up the hill. The station wagon followed more sedately.
As the hum of the engines retreated, silence drifted back over Berrybridge Haven. The setting sun sent long fingers of gold across the river, and spattered the mud with topaz gleams. Softly, mysteriously, the landscape sank back into its ancient dream. On the point, Berry Hall looked calmly out to the sea, white and beautiful and very quiet.
In The Berry Bush, Bill Hawkes said, “Game o’ darts, then, Herbert?”
“Hay?”
“I said, game o’ darts?”
Herbert looked quickly round. They were alone in the bar. He winked, and a slow grin spread across his wizened face. “Don’t mind if I do, Bill,” he said.
DATA OUTPUT
THE SUNKEN SAILOR
All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious.
A Felony Mayhem mystery
PUBLISHING HISTORY
First UK print edition (Collins): 1961
First US print edition (as Down Among the Dead Men)
(Holt, Rinehart Winston): 1961
Felony Mayhem print and digital editions: 2018
Copyright © The Estate of Patricia Moyes 1961
All rights reserved
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63194-130-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Moyes, Patricia, author.
Title: The sunken sailor / Patricia Moyes.
Description: Felony Mayhem edition. | New York : Felony Mayhem Press,
2017. | Series: Inspector Tibbett ; 2 | “A Felony Mayhem mystery.”
Identifiers: LCCN 2017034187| ISBN 9781631941290 (softcover) | ISBN 9781631941306 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Tibbett, Henry (Fictitious character)--Fiction. | Tibbett, Emmy (Fictitious character)--Fiction. | Police--Great Britain--Fiction. | Murder--Investigation--Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6063.O9 S86 2017 | DDC 823/.914--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017034187