But there was nobody; nor had there been—the sand was unmarked. He recollected that it should not be altogether unmarked—there should be prints of her own progress down to the sea. Well, he would have to make sure that no alarm was given until the tide had covered all—so in fact his artistic work of the past ten minutes would have been wasted. Never mind; there was time enough. He walked along through the ripples to the line of rocks and picked his way up through them, back to the car.
She was jammed in pretty tight; it took further time getting her out without inflicting scratches and bruises. But he had her at last and staggered with her, slipping and stumbling, back through rocky ways. Slipping and stumbling, carrying his murdered wife in his arms: with the moonlight brilliant, patching with silver the rippled black-treacle of the sea, the great rocks throwing nightmare shadows on the unscuffed sand. His arms ached and his back was nearly breaking, his damaged hand throbbed and bled through its bandages. He was almost physically sick with the strain of it by the time he reached the water’s edge.
Along this coastline, nothing was simple: the bay was broken across by a row of rocks, at this moment of the tide’s in-coming, already six inches below the water level. He splashed with his burden to a place upon the sea-ward side and there laid the body down—not for all the hounds of hell could he, as once he had proposed to himself, have flung her down or even let her fall; but knelt and turned her softly out of his arms, and let her lie; let her lie there in the shallow water, face down in a cleft of the rocks, with the dark sea lapping over her, soaking her, salting her, weighting down the black woollen bathing dress with the damp drift of the sand, smearing with it her dead face and arms and hands: submerging her, soaking her, silting her up as though all the time for those past hours, she had been lying there. He had put on the tan jacket against the night chill and was now content to lean back against the rock and recover something of his strength before he must lift her once again, dripping now with sand and sea water, and carry her back to the shore. Something of his strength: and something also of his courage. ‘Stop thumping!’ he said to his racing heart, and ‘Be still!’ he said to his churning stomach and fogged, sick, swirling brain. ‘Pull yourself together: it’s all over, it’s finished now.’
And it was all over, and finished. Nothing now could go wrong: there was no false move he could make. He had but to lift her up, go back to the bay with her, lay her down somewhere above the high-water mark and drive like a mad thing into Hartling—for they had no telephone at home—with the news. The very first informed eye to see her would recognise that she had long been dead.
Meanwhile, gasping, leaning back, spent, against the rock, while the little ripples washed their evidence over his wife’s dead body, face down in the sand at his feet—he forced himself to run through the whole thing in his mind, just to make sure. Black costume, white cap, all correct: Mrs. Butcher had seen her leave the house in them; the beach-robe would logically be up there somewhere on the dry sand. The bucket of sea-water had been emptied out and rinsed; and who would look for signs of a drowning under a clump of rhododendron bushes at their gate? His own hands and arms were free from scratches and the jacket had kept her unmarked by the struggle before death: anything after death might surely be accounted for by two hours of submersion, abraded by the rocks and the sand. He had examined the boot of the car to see that it held no signs of the rough journey to the bay; with every moment the tide was creeping up over such marks as he had made while he carried her down through the rocks. There was nothing to fear: nothing—even signs of agitation on his part would be accounted for by his natural distress. His wife had been seen to leave the house alive and well, he had been in Mrs. Butcher’s company for the following hour and a half; examination would prove that Elsa had been dead during most of that time. And if all else failed, if accident ever came to be doubted—still there was the scapegoat lover who could never clear himself of suspicion because in fact he had no existence. ‘All right,’ he said, grimly muttering to the still body lying at his feet, ‘a failure I may be and you’ve told me it, often enough. But not this time, my dear: not this time!’
And, sick with the effort of it, yet still resolutely strong, he picked her up and gathered her to him and, holding her in his arms, the white cap cradled against his shoulder like a lover with his lass, stepped out from behind the rock and to the beach.
Someone was there now. A small thin figure standing uncertainly at the top of the bay, looking out across the sea. And he saw that it was Mrs. Butcher. Well, all the better—just exactly what he needed. Curiosity alert, she would have gone home, thought it all over, crept back to do a bit of Peeping Tom and see what it was all about….And could now be a first-hand witness of the tragedy. He stood there, holding the lolling body cradled in his arms; and put on a face of grief and desperation as he waited for her advance.