Free The Cornish Coast Murder (British Library Crime Classics) by John Bude Page B

with me. Anything you may show me will be treated in strict confidence of course.”
    The Vicar agreed to this proposal and settled down forthwith to a methodical search of the big rolltop desk which stood, rather out of place in its ugly utility, in a corner of the sitting-room.
    Out on the front drive the Inspector was met by Grimmet and the Constable who reported an unsuccessful morning's work. They had discovered nothing which might serve to elucidate the case in any way and the Inspector, who had rather anticipated this result, ordered Grimmet to start up the car and left the portly Constable in charge of Greylings. Just as the car swung round and headed up the rise of the drive, Grouch hove in sight and started to freewheel swiftly down the slope. The Inspector raised his hand and Grouch, applying his brakes with more fervour than discretion, skidded alarmingly and plunged sideways off his machine. Regaining the upright he saluted smartly.
    “Are these acrobatics necessary, Grouch?” asked the Inspector with a faint smile. “I've got quite enough work in hand for the Coroner without asking him to hold an inquest on you. Anyway, leave your juggernaut here and hop in. You can direct us to Cove Cottage, and after that I want to see Mrs. Mullion.”
    As the car rose and dipped like a veering gull between the gorse-dotted greenness of the open common, the Inspector arranged that Grouch should be dropped at Cove Cottage, so that the Constable could go down and interview the landlord of the Ship Inn. The Chief Constable had been in touch with the Coroner, a Greystoke solicitor, before the Inspector had left for Boscawen that morning and the inquest had been fixed for two o'clock on Thursday. As it was expected that a number of witnesses might have to be subpœnaed, Bigswell had suggested that a room in the local inn might prove more convenient and central than Greylings. He had little doubt in his own mind as to what the Coroner's verdict must be—murder, without a doubt, and in the view of the somewhat conflicting and puzzling evidence so far collected—“murder by person or persons unknown.” For all that he felt distinctly sanguine as to his chances of driving home the crime, by force of carefully gathered circumstantial evidence, to one particular person.
    Nearing the village the Inspector ordered Grimmet to slow up, whilst he took a good look at the general topography of the district. As the car topped the little rise at the end of the undulating road, Boscawen itself came suddenly into view—a scattered collection of grey-walled, green-tiled cottages clustering about a rocky cove, which was edged with a glorious carpet of smooth, silvery sand. Looking back, Greylings now appeared as an isolated little fort, standing well out on the broad ness, linked by the tiny thread of the cliff-path to the cove below.
    The car came to a fork in the road—the metalled surface drove straight on down into the hollow, whilst a rough and slatey by-road dipped to the left and appeared to run directly into the sea. Grouch lent forward.
    “If you drop me here, sir, I'll slip down and fix up with Charlie Fox about the room. You take the road here to the left and Cove Cottage lies on your right, about a hundred yards round the corner.”
    “Right! When you've seen the landlord, Grouch, put a call through to Greystoke if it's O.K. They'll be anxious to fix things up with the Coroner. Then meet me up at Cove Cottage.”
    Grouch saluted, got out of the car and trudged off down to the village. The car swung left and descended steeply toward the sea.
    Cove Cottage proved to be a small, detached building, standing back, behind a tidy garden, from the road, surrounded by a few wind-swept crab-apple trees. Picturesque enough, but nothing out of the ordinary, obviously inhabited by a woman who believed in tidiness and utility.
    Leaving Grimmet in the car, the Inspector went up the short path and finding no bell or knocker, tapped smartly on