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Updated: June 9, 2025
He was conscious of a most uncharitable wish that Lisle would come to grief at one of the fences and break his neck. In many ways, this would be a vast relief. "Would anybody like to make it a sporting match?" Crestwick asked. "The bay's my fancy; I'm ready to back it." Bella tried to catch his eye, but he disregarded this. She, however, saw Lisle glance at Batley and noticed the latter's smile.
"It's your friend Batley who's leading him on to ruin; I'm making no comments on your conduct in standing by and watching, as if you approved of it." The man grew hot with anger. "Thank you for your consideration." His tone changed to a sneer. "I suppose you couldn't be expected to realize that the attitude you're adopting is inexcusable?"
"Now," he said, "I don't want to be offensive; but there are two people connected with this affair who must be spared any unnecessary suffering. That's a fact you had better recognize." "I hardly think you do me justice," returned Batley, looking amused. "It's perfectly plain that there's a mystery behind these recent events; one that has some relation to George Gladwyne's death.
"Was it only an animus against Batley that prompted you?" she asked. "No," he admitted candidly; "I wanted to get young Crestwick out of his clutches. I'm not sure he's worth troubling about, but I'm sorry for his sister. As I've said before, there's something fine in the way she sticks to him."
He had been badly frightened for a moment or two. If Batley, who had good reasons for distrusting him, had accepted his account of his cousin's death, it was most unlikely that it had excited suspicion in the mind of anybody else. Crestwick, however, must be left to his fate. It was, though he failed to recognize this, an eventful decision that Gladwyne made. "As you will," he answered, rising.
Nasmyth was fishing near the camp and Lisle was busy with a canoe near by. "Where are the rest? How have they got on?" Lisle asked. "I think Batley went back to the last reach with Carew's rod," Crestwick answered. "I met Gladwyne and one of the packers on the low range back yonder; they'd only got a blue grouse." "I could have done with the man here," said Lisle. "Which way were they heading?"
Nasmyth leaped in knee-deep, with Crestwick behind him, and gripping the loosely-hanging arm of the body Batley was supporting, he asked hoarsely: "Who is it?" "Lisle!" was the breathless answer. "Help me to get him out!" They dragged him up the beach and let him sink down. He lay upon the shingle, silent and inert. "Make a fire, Jim!" commanded Batley. "Lift his shoulder a bit, Nasmyth!
The straps, when Lisle let them down, reached several feet from the top, and Batley bade Nasmyth and Crestwick ascend. They managed it with assistance from Lisle, who seized them from above. Then Batley called up to them. "I'm going to test the tackle. Give me a hand up as soon as I'm over the bulge!"
Once or twice he glanced longingly at the garments spread out round the fire, but when he felt them they were still too wet to put on. After a while Crestwick relieved him, and when he awakened dawn was breaking across the black ridges and the rushing river. Batley had left his place, and Crestwick began to stride up and down the beach, presumably to warm himself.
Marple was mollified, and he fell in with Batley's suggestion that they should try a game. In the meanwhile, Crestwick looked around at his companion as they went down the corridor. "I believe I owe you some thanks," he admitted. "I like the way you headed off Batley I think he meant to turn savage at first and I wouldn't have been willing to draw in Gladwyne, as you did.
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