Death Among the Sunbathers (12 page)

‘As a substitute, yes,' he would say, ‘but it's not violet rays themselves that count, it's the fresh air as well, the wholeness of the air vibrant with the wholeness of the light of the sun.'

It had to be admitted, though the ribald youth of the neighbourhood were fond of joking about procuring an aeroplane and flying low over the Grange some sunny day, that Mr Bryan and his colleague, Miss James, who had special charge of this department
in puris naturalibus
, took every possible care that it was all carried out with the most perfect decorum.

For those of the other sex who wished for the same treatment there had been erected an enclosure at the foot of the grounds, cut off from them by the swimming pond formed by the damming up of the Leade, the little stream from which the village took its name and that flowed through this corner of the Grange property. Originally this was meant for a fish pond, but it had been easy to transform it into a first-class swimming pool where Mr Bryan always strongly urged his sun bathers to complete their regime by a dip when season and weather permitted – and even when they didn't.

‘I don't know which is the best,' he would say, ‘sun bathing or open air water bathing, but when you combine the two – perfection.'

And one of his favourite plans, to be carried out when funds permitted, was to add a constant stream of salt to the water the extra benefit of sea bathing might be secured.

Another favourite project of his was to erect two covered swimming baths, one for men and one for women, where sun-ray lamps could be installed, and swimmers could bask
in puris naturalibus
in an artificial sun all the year round, instead of having to wait on the fitful appearance of that luminary so fickle and doubtful in our northern land. But here again was a project that had to attend upon a doubtful future, when money might be more abundant, for the published accounts of the establishment showed that so far it had been run at an actual loss – that is, the capital employed had not only so far returned no interest but had actually shrunk considerably.

In addition to the open-air enclosure for the masculine devotees of the
in puris naturalibus
cult, a large barn standing within it had been arranged for their use with two big sun-ray lamps so that they might not be too dependent on the weather. The whole of this part was under the supervision of a Mr Zack Dodd, a huge figure of a man who once had been a heavy-weight professional boxer, who was understood to have invested a good share of his savings in the establishment, and who was notoriously on bad terms with Mr Bryan, with whom he had more than once been heard quarrelling fiercely. Indeed Mr Bryan made no secret of his desire to pay Dodd out, as Dodd made no secret of his ardent wish to get his capital back. The only difficulty in the way apparently was that the money was not available. Not that all that prevented Mr Dodd from being almost as fervent and voluble a believer in the treatment and the virtues of sunshine on the bare skin as Mr Bryan himself.

‘If only I had known before about this here treatment,' he was fond of saying, ‘a course of it would have made me champion of the world instead of only runner-up.'

In point of fact he had never been even runner-up, but that is a detail.

Miss James, on the other hand, was inclined to be rather cynical about the treatment, though her fine physique, for she was a tall, strong, well-made woman, though a little on the thin side, seemed to suggest that at any rate it did her no harm. She took her sun bathing treatment regularly, however, but it was understood that that was a condition of her employment. As a paid servant, not a partner like Zack Dodd, she had to obey.

Mr Esmond Bryan himself, the director, was a thin, busy little man, very quick and active in his movements, burned almost black from constant exposure to sun rays, natural and artificial, but with a mass of snow-white hair that swept down to his shoulders and of which the whiteness was the only sign that testified to the seventy odd years he admitted. Indeed, he had found people so apt to be incredulous of the age he claimed that finally, in half humorous protest, he had framed a copy of his birth certificate and hung it on the wall in his office.

‘That is what sun and air have done for me,' he would say as he talked and walked with a vigour and vivacity that would not have disgraced a man who had reached but half the allotted span.

No one had ever seen him except in his present costume of wide shorts, sandals that left the top of his feet bare, a shirt cut low at the neck so as to expose throat and neck, and with sleeves that reached only half-way to the elbows. A single woollen undergarment was all else he wore; and winter and summer his costume was always the same, except that the woollen undergarment might be a little thicker in December than in June. Even when snow was on the ground he could be seen going about in the same dress, his legs bare from the middle of the thighs downwards, the snow melting on the tops of his bare feet of which the sandals protected only the soles. It was thus attired then that he went to meet Mitchell and Ferris when the next morning he was told that the police officers were waiting to interview him.

It was therefore this odd little scarecrow of a man in his sandals and his shirt open at the neck; his shorts flapping about his thin legs from which it seemed perpetual sunshine, natural or artificial, had melted all but skin and bone; his little sharp eyes alight with the fires of fanaticism; whom the two burly police officials saw come out of the house towards where they waited just outside, watching with interested eyes the beautifully kept lawn, whereon already, for though the hour was early it was an exceptionally fine day, various devotees of the sunshine cult were enjoying their little occasional, and chancy, dose of genuine sunshine.

He had already been made acquainted with their errand, and indeed the day before had been visited by another officer, Inspector Gibbons, whose report Mitchell had read over more than once. And to that report it seemed Mr Bryan had nothing fresh to add. Though he remembered Jo Frankland's visit well enough, since a journalistic visit has always its importance, he was sure no detail of the least interest concerning it had gone unrecorded.

‘Not that I paid any special attention or thought much of it at the time,' he said; ‘I never dreamed of course such a tragedy was going to happen, and journalists often come here now that our great movement is attracting more and more attention and getting more and more into the papers. One of my projects for the future is to establish a paper devoted solely to our great cause. There's only one thing now that hampers us in spreading our glorious gospel of sunshine.'

‘The weather?' suggested Mitchell mildly.

‘The uncertainty of the weather,' admitted Bryan, shaking his head with an air of gentle reproach, ‘is a difficulty, a great difficulty. But what I meant was money, that's what we need to carry on the work.'

‘Need money for most things,' agreed Mitchell, ‘getting born's about the only thing that doesn't cost us anything. From what you told Mr Gibbons there's no chance of your being able to tell us the exact time Miss Frankland got here or exactly when she left.'

Mr Bryan shook his head.

‘I made some inquiries,' he said, ‘but I don't think we could get any nearer than I said before – she arrived early in the afternoon and left just before dark. Of course, if we had had any idea of what was going to happen... but in any case we've no system of recording when our members come or go. They suit themselves, they're welcome to stay as long as they please.'

‘Must have been quite a long visit she made,' Mitchell remarked.

‘I left her free to go where she liked and spend her time just as she liked,' Bryan explained. ‘Of course, there's the enclosure reserved for male bathers
in puris naturalibus
.'

‘What's that?' asked Ferris, as Mitchell paused to make an entry in his note-book. ‘Some of these new patent bath salts or what?'

‘I asked Owen that,' Mitchell remarked. ‘One of our young men,' he explained to Bryan, ‘we got him special from Oxford to heighten the tone of the force, same being necessary now we run in as many dukes and their like for road hogging as we do burglars and their like for other offences. Owen says it means being dressed all over the way a woman's top half is dressed when she's all togged up in her very best evening frock.'

‘Oh!' said Ferris, considering this. ‘Oh!' he said again.

‘I think, Mr Owen should be told,' said Bryan sternly, ‘that this knowledge of the classics is incomplete and reflects no credit on the University.
In puris naturalibus
means without any artificial impediment to keep from the body the health-giving rays of the sun. It means that you should bathe in sun and air as you bathe in hot water in your bath at home.'

‘Well, why not?' agreed Ferris, a good deal struck by the force of this argument.

‘Quite so,' agreed Mitchell in his turn. ‘By the way, you have two members – a Mr Hunter and a Mr Keene, haven't you? You know them?'

Mr Bryan knew them both, though only as members. He had called on Mr Keene at his place of business in Deal Street, Piccadilly, and from that call had sprung Mr Keene's membership of the society. He did not know how Mr Hunter had come to join; probably he had read of the activities of the society, or else had been recommended to join by someone. No doubt Mr Hunter could tell them which it was. Mr Bryan could not say if either Keene or Hunter or both or neither had been there to sun bathe on the day of the tragedy. They had no system at all of recording the visits of members. Members were welcome to come as often and stay as long as they wished. They could bring friends, too, though in that case they were expected to pay a small fee. There were occasionally cases of what Mr Bryan, chuckling over what he evidently considered a good joke, called ‘sun crashing', but though that was frowned upon officially, no special precautions were taken against it. One trusted to the honour of the members, and besides the ‘sun crasher' of today was generally the member of to-morrow. But it was certainly quite possible for a stranger to roam about the grounds unquestioned, or even to enter the canteen, or for that matter the offices on the first floor.

‘Or my private apartments, as far as that goes; they communicate with the office through our committee room,' observed Mr Bryan, though looking rather puzzled. ‘Only why should they? There's nothing to steal, and we've certainly missed nothing. Everything of any value is kept in the safe, and that can only be opened when Zack Dodd and myself are both present; we both have keys.'

‘Who is Mr Dodd?' asked Mitchell.

‘Zachary Dodd? Oh, he's my partner,' answered Bryan with a faint scowl that seemed to suggest he would have liked to make another answer. ‘He is in charge of the gentlemen's department –
in puris naturalibus
– as Miss James is of the ladies' section.'

‘Another partner?' asked Mitchell.

‘No, but a most trusted helper,' answered Mr Bryan, losing his scowl at once; ‘most trusted and most useful.'

He added, as Mitchell made a note of the two names, that though he knew no more of the two members mentioned, Messrs Hunter and Keene, than of any other of the numerous adherents of the cult he preached, yet he had noticed that they were friendly, and though they seldom arrived together, yet always seemed to be mutually aware of each other's presence and to prefer to lie side by side as they basked in the rays of the artificial or the natural sun.

‘The fact is,' confessed Mr Bryan with a melancholy shake of the head, ‘I'm afraid both smoke – I have to allow it,' he confessed deprecatingly, ‘it's almost as harmful as drinking tea, I'm not sure if it isn't even worse than coffee, but people will do it, and at first one has to go slowly. But in time we'll root tobacco out.' He straightened himself up, he looked ready to rush headlong then and there into the fray. ‘It will be the last evil to be overcome,' he announced.

‘Well, if it's to be the last,' murmured Mitchell, somewhat comforted by the thought that this promised it a sufficiently long life, ‘though I daresay my missus would rather tea got the last run.'

‘Tea?' exclaimed Bryan, catching at the word, ‘poison – but we make a most delicious, attractive, health-giving beverage from scraped carrot and potato peelings. Miss Frankland herself admitted when she tasted it that she thought it unparalleled – absolutely unparalleled, so much so indeed that she said she would like to try it on a literary friend of hers, a critic, I gathered. I think she said he had reviewed a volume of essays she had. published recently. I asked her,' he explained, ‘to have some refreshment with me after she had seen all she wished to see – one always tries to be civil to the Press; very powerful, the Press.'

‘They are indeed,' admitted Mitchell, ‘for what the Press says to-day, the public said the day before yesterday. Then the public knows it was right all the time. After Miss Frankland had her – er – refreshment with you, you walked with her to the car park, I think, but I gather you didn't actually see her go.'

‘No,' admitted Bryan, ‘our talk had been so interesting – I felt confident she would join us before long, and of course being connected with the Press I felt she might be useful to the Cause – I had quite forgotten to notice the time till I suddenly remembered I had to call up Lord Carripore, and that unless I did so at once I should probably be too late for that day.'

‘Anything important?' Mitchell asked.

‘Oh, just a business proposition I had to put before him,' Bryan explained. ‘So I asked Miss Frankland to excuse me – we were almost at the car park – and I hurried back to the house. The car park attendant was there to help her if necessary.'

Mitchell asked a few more questions, but admitted that the report made by Inspector Gibbons seemed to have covered all essential points. Then he asked if he and Ferris, as they were there, could have a look round the place, and Mr Bryan appeared quite charmed, and seemed to think he was on the point of enrolling two new members. At great length he expatiated on the advantages, bodily and mental, to be secured by sun bathing, and Mitchell, who could usually talk as fast and long as any man, listened in silence and apparent interest. Nor did he challenge the assertion when Mr Bryan declared triumphantly that no one ever believed him at first when he gave his age as seventy.