Free Dancers in Mourning by Margery Allingham

torch they found the spot where Sutane had jammed on his brakes, and a little further on the dreadful smother of stones and dust with the pitifully small stain in it where the woman had fallen. Sutane’s teeth were chattering.
    â€˜She just dropped in front of me,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see her till she flashed past the windscreen. She chucked herself under the car. I didn’t know what had happened until I came back to see what I’d hit.’
    â€˜It was an accident.’ Poyser’s voice was pleading. ‘A pure accident, old boy. Where was she standing?’
    â€˜Don’t be a fool. She did it deliberately.’ Sutane’s voice was exasperated. ‘That’s where she came from.’ He snatched the torch and sent its beam flickering upward.
    Poyser swore because the unexpected sight startled him.
    â€˜The bridge …’ he said, staring up at the rose-hung arch. ‘Good God, didn’t you see her fall?’
    â€˜No, I keep telling you.’ Sutane sounded sulky. ‘I was blinding. Naturally I was looking at the road, not up in the air somewhere.’
    â€˜All the same, I should have thought the headlights would have caught her,’ the other man insisted, still staring up at the leafy span above him.
    In the faint light from the torch Campion saw his small face alive with worry and invention.
    â€˜That’s it,’ he said abruptly. ‘That’s what happened. I see it now. That’s what happened, Jimmy. She saw you coming and waved to you to stop. Probably she leant right over, imagining she was a fairy or a bumble-bee or something – it’s the sort of crazy idea she might have – and somehow or other she overbalanced and fell under your wheels before you could stop. That’s what happened. It’d make it much more simple if you’d seen her do it. You must have seen her up there.’
    â€˜But I didn’t, I tell you.’ Sutane was obstinate. ‘I was blinding with my eyes on the road and my mind on those damned invitations. Suddenly something plumped down just in front of me and I slammed on the brakes. There was a sort of jolt and I pulled up when I could and backed the bus down the road. Then I got out and went round to the back of the car and there she was.’
    â€˜Jimmy –’ Poyser’s voice was wheedling, ‘– it
must
have been an accident. Think of it, my dear chap, think of the situation. It
must
have been an accident. Chloe wouldn’t kill herself. Why should she? She was making a come-back in your show. She was a visitor in your house. She wouldn’t deliberately chuck herself under your car. That’s the kind of story newspaper-men dream about when they’re half tight. She was trying to attract your attention and fell over. That’s the obvious truth as I see it, and believe me it’s bad enough.’
    Sutane was silent. The vibrations of Poyser’s arguments still hung about in the darkness. He shuddered.
    â€˜It may have been so,’ he said with an unsuccessful attempt at conviction. ‘But I didn’t see her, Dick. On my oath I did not see her.’
    â€˜All right. But it was an accident. Do understand that.’
    â€˜Yes. Yes, I do.’
    Mr Campion asked if he might have his torch back, explaining that he wished to examine the bridge.
    â€˜Good idea.’ There was an element of conspiracy in the way Poyser thrust the pencil into his hand, and it occurred to Campion that the tactics of business-men were elephantine capers. He hoped devoutly that the affair would remain a country one and that the astute Mr Poyser would never be confronted by a Metropolitan detective.
    He scrambled up the bank again and, forcing his way through the shrubs, found the path without much difficulty. The bridge itself was a much more solid structure than it had appeared from the road. The parapets, although constructed of ‘rustic’