Free Sick of Shadows by M. C. Beaton

into trying to run away because they were forcing her into marriage with Lord Berrow.”
    “They might just know something,” said Harry. “If you’ve finished toying with your food, we’ll get on the road again.” Inspector Judd entered Kerridge’s office looking excited. “A man’s been dragged out of the Thames under Westminster Bridge.”
    “So?”
    “He hadn’t been in the water long and he looks like the man from Plomley.” The police artist had made a sketch of Rose’s would-be assassin from the Plomley landlord’s description, and the picture, prominently displayed on posters, had already been distributed to every police station in Britain.
    Kerridge leaped to his feet and grabbed his bowler hat. “We’d best get down there and have a look.”
    The body was lying, covered with a blanket, on the landing stage at Charing Cross. “Anything in his pockets?” asked Kerridge.
    “I recognized him from the poster,” said the policeman, “and left him just as he was when he was dragged out of the river and gave instructions that you should be informed, sir.”
    “Good lad. Let’s have a look.”
    The constable pulled back the blanket. “He can’t have been in the water long,” commented Kerridge. “Who found him? Where exactly was he found?”
    “It was low tide and two children found him, half in, half out of the river.”
    “That artist did a good job. Let’s see what he has in his pockets.”
    Kerridge knelt beside the body and began to pull out the contents of the dead man’s pockets. There was a gold watch, a wallet containing a wad of notes, a blackjack, and, in one coat pocket, to Kerridge’s delight, a pistol—a lady’s purse pistol. “This looks like our man,” said Kerridge. He turned the body over with the help of Judd. Someone had struck the man a vicious blow on the back of the head.
    Kerridge sat back on his heels. “I think that’s what killed him, not drowning, but the pathologist will let us know. Let me have a proper look in this wallet.”
    He carefully extracted the sodden notes, all five-pound ones. “I think there’s about five hundred pounds here,” he ex-claimed. “Anything else?”
    He fished out a photograph showing the dead man posing on a beach with a pretty woman. “I want the police photographer to make copies of this and send it to all the newspapers. Where is he, anyway?”
    “Here, sir,” panted the photographer, running up. Kerridge heaved the body back over. “Take a photograph of this, and take this photograph I found in the man’s wallet and see if you can photograph it and send it round to the newspapers. When we know who he is, we’ll know why.”

    Before reaching Apton Magna, they had driven through some very pretty villages, but Apton Magna seemed a dreary, poverty-stricken place. It consisted of a long line of agricultural labourers’ cottages, built like miners’ cottages, directly onto the road and without front gardens. At one end of the row was a village shop and a pub, which was just really someone’s house with a green branch outside to show it sold ale. At the other end was the church with its square Norman tower.
    The rectory was, however, a large handsome Georgian building with a porticoed entrance.
    Dr. Tremaine came out to meet them. He was as thin as his wife was fat, wearing black clericals and buckled shoes. He had a craggy lantern-jawed face and small hazel eyes which regarded them with alarm.
    “What are you doing here?” he demanded as Harry stepped down from the car.
    “Lady Rose was fond of your daughter and wondered whether on calmer reflection Miss Tremaine had said anything to indicate there was anyone she feared.”
    “There was no one. Now, go away.”
    “Dr. Tremaine, I fail to understand your attitude. You must surely want to know who killed your daughter.”
    “That is a job for the police and not for some dilettante aristocrat like you.”
    “At attempt has been made twice on the life of my fiancée,