Free Cold, Lone and Still by Gladys Mitchell

can wait a day, can’t we?’
    ‘We’re only booked in for tonight and this is a very popular hostel,’ I pointed out.
    ‘Then we’ll go to a hotel. Why not?’
    But she was not to climb Ben Nevis on that holiday, for, because of the most startling and utterly unforeseen circumstance, we were out of that hostel as soon as next morning’s breakfast was over. We lost no time in making for the railway station and in taking the train for Glasgow. We were fleeing, as it were, from a disembodied spirit and terrified, so far as I myself was concerned, not for my life, but for my reason. At about seven o’clock that evening when, taking advantage of the fact that only a few hostellers had drifted in, Hera and I had cooked and eaten our simple supper rather earlier than we really wanted it, a lot of hostellers, all chatting and laughing, came in. Among the crowd were four people we knew. The next moment Hera and I were hailed by Carbridge, Todd and the Minches, all very much alive, although tired, they said, from their climb. To clinch matters, we were joined an hour later by Perth and the students. They had climbed with the others, but had stayed longer on the mountain to add little bits of lava and granite to the collection they had already made at Inchcailloch and along The Way and had despatched to London to avoid having to tote so much heavy material on the rest of their march.
    When Carbridge and his companions came in, I heard Hera give a peculiar little cry. As for me, I was so flabbergasted that I could feel my head swimming and I suppose I came as near to fainting as I have ever been in my life. However, it was Carbridge all right and as full of effervescence and bonhomie as ever. He appeared to have forgotten our dispute and my high-handed action at Crianlarich, and soon the ‘old boy, old boy’ stuff began again, and the advice to Hera: ‘My tip, fair one, is to avoid that climb unless you go up by pony.’
    Before the footweary but triumphant quartet — Jane’s feet must have responded to my treatment — had gone to the kitchen quarters to prepare something which would restore their wasted tissues, Hera dragged me outside and on to the bridge over the River Nevis again.
    ‘You told me he was dead ! You said you fell over him ! You said he had been murdered ! You said he had a knife in his back! You said he was stone-cold and stiff !’ she babbled. Well, shock has different effects on different people. Now that I had recovered a little, the shock of seeing him had made me reckless.
    ‘So you believed all that guff,’ I said. ‘Poor old you!’
    She smacked my face and, as I suppose I was really somewhat hysterical at the time, this summary treatment had its usual result. I apologised and assured her that I had been certain it was the body of Carbridge that I had seen. I tried to take her hand. She shook me off, turned aside and began to cry.
    ‘For heaven’s sake, stop it!’ I said. ‘When they’ve had their meal, we’ve got to face that lot again.’ We did. There was much euphoria. There was triumph that they had walked The Way and much exhibiting of souvenirs they had bought in Fort William. Todd, said Carbridge, had been the favourite of the ladies. Tansy and Patsy had both bought him presents.
    When they had all turned in for the night, I said, ‘Darling, I did fall over him, I did see him. I did touch him. I could have sworn it was he. I spoke out of turn just now, I know I did, but please don’t hold it against me. I’ve had the most awful shock. You can’t imagine what it was like when that lot walked in. And then, when you turned on me —’
    ‘I didn’t turn on you. Don’t you think I had a shock, too, after all you’d said?’
    ‘Yes, of course, but (and, please, I am not intending to start an argument) I do think my shock must have been more severe than yours.’
    ‘So you were telling me the truth? — or, at any rate, you thought you were.’
    ‘Darling, I swear I