‘We had a man fall over the cliff last month,’ she remarked.
‘We were all thrilled to the core. I went to the inquest full of excitement, but it was all rather dull, really.’ ‘Was that a place called Marchbolt?’ asked Sylvia suddenly.
Frankie nodded.
‘Derwent Castle is only about seven miles from Marchbolt,’ she explained.
‘Roger, that must have been your man,’ cried Sylvia.
Frankie looked inquiringly at him.
‘I was actually in at the death,’ said Roger. ‘I stayed with the body till the police came.’ ‘I thought one of the Vicar’s sons did that,’ said Frankie.
‘He had to go off to play the organ or something – so I took over.’ ‘How perfectly extraordinary,’ said Frankie. ‘I did hear somebody else had been there, too, but I never heard the name.
So it was you?’ There was a general atmosphere of ‘How curious. Isn’t the world small?’ Frankie felt she was doing this rather well.
‘Perhaps that’s where you saw me before – in Marchbolt?’ suggested Roger.
‘I wasn’t there actually at the time of the accident,’ said Frankie. ‘I came back from London a couple of days afterwards.
Were you at the inquest?’ ‘No. I went back to London the morning after the tragedy.’ ‘He had some absurd idea of buying a house down there,’ said Sylvia.
‘Utter nonsense,’ said Henry Bassingtonf&ench.
‘Not at all,’ said Roger good-humouredly.
‘You know perfectly well, Roger, that as soon as you’d bought it, you’d get a fit of wanderlust and go off abroad again.’ ‘Oh, I shall settle down some day, Sylvia.’ ‘When you do you’d better settle down near us,’ said Sylvia.
‘Not go off to Wales.’ Roger laughed. Then he turned to Frankie.
‘Any points of interest about the accident? It didn’t turn out to be suicide or anything?’ ‘Oh, no, it was all painfully above board and some appalling relations came and identified the man. He was on a walking tour, it seems. Very sad, really, because he was awfully goodlooking.
Did you see his picture in the papers?’ ‘I think I did,’ said Sylvia vaguely. ‘But I don’t remember.’ ‘I’ve got a cutting upstairs from our local paper.’ Frankie was all eagerness. She ran upstairs and came down with the cutting in her hand. She gave it to Sylvia. Roger came and looked over Sylvia’s shoulder.
‘Don’t you think he’s good-looking?’ she demanded in a rather school-girl manner.
‘He is, rather,’ said Sylvia. ‘He looks very like that man, Alan Carstairs, don’t you think so, Roger? I believe I remembered saying so at the time.’ ‘He’s got quite a look of him here,’ agreed Roger. ‘But there wasn’t much real resemblance, you know.’ ‘You can’t tell from newspaper pictures, can you?’ said Sylvia, as she handed the cutting back.
Frankie agreed that you couldn’t.
The conversation passed to other matters.
Frankie went to bed undecided. Everyone seemed to have reacted with perfect naturalness. Roger’s house-hunting stunt had been no secret.
The only thing she had succeeded in getting was a name.
The name of Alan Carstairs.
CHAPTER 14 Dr Nicholson
Frankie attacked Sylvia the following morning.
She started by saying carelessly: ‘What was that man’s name you mentioned last night? Alan Carstairs, was it? I feel sure I’ve heard that name before.’
‘Oh, he was. Distinctly attractive.’ ‘Funny – his being so like the man who fell over the cliff at Marchbolt,’ said Frankie.
‘I wonder if everyone has a double.’ They compared instances, citing Adolf Beck and referring lightly to the Lyons Mail. Frankie was careful to make no further references to Alan Carstairs. To show too much interest in him would be fatal.
In her own mind, however, she felt she was getting on now.
She was quite convinced that Alan Carstairs had been the victim of the cliff tragedy at Marchbolt. He fulfilled all the conditions. He had no intimate friends or relations in this country and his disappearance was unlikely to be noticed for some time. A man who frequently ran off to East Africa and South America was not likely to be missed at once. Moreover, Frankie noted, although Sylvia Bassington-ffrench had commented on the resemblance in the newspaper reproduction, it had not occurred to her for a moment that it actually was the man.