“What sort of news, Captain Searle?”
He brought a large white handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose. “Well, Mrs. de Winter, it’s not very pleasant for me to tell you either. The last thing I want to do is to cause distress or pain to you and your husband. We’re all very fond of Mr. de Winter in Kerrith, you know, and the family has always done a lot of good. It’s hard on him and hard on you that we can’t let the past lie quiet. But I don’t see how we can under the circumstances.” He paused, and put his handkerchief back in his pocket. He lowered his voice, although we were alone in the room.
“We sent the diver down to inspect the ship’s bottom,” he said, “and while he was down there he made a discovery. It appears he found the hole in the ship’s bottom and was working round to the other side to see what further damage there was when he came across the hull of a little sailing boat, lying on her side, quite intact and not broken up at all. He’s a local man, of course, and he recognized the boat at once. It was the little boat belonging to the late Mrs. de Winter.”
My first feeling was one of thankfulness that Maxim was not there to hear. This fresh blow coming swiftly upon my masquerade of the night before was ironic, and rather horrible.
“I’m so sorry,” I said slowly, “it’s not the sort of thing one expected would happen. Is it necessary to tell Mr. de Winter? Couldn’t the boat be left there, as it is? It’s not doing any harm, is it?”
“It would be left, Mrs. de Winter, in the ordinary way. I’m the last man in the world to want to disturb it. And I’d give anything, as I said before, to spare Mr. de Winter’s feelings. But that wasn’t all, Mrs. de Winter. My man poked round the little boat and he made another, more important discovery. The cabin door was tightly closed, it was not stove in, and the portlights were closed too. He broke one of the ports with a stone from the sea bed, and looked into the cabin. It was full of water, the sea must have come through some hole in the bottom, there seemed no damage elsewhere. And then he got the fright of his life, Mrs. de Winter.”
Captain Searle paused, he looked over his shoulder as though one of the servants might hear him. “There was a body in there, lying on the cabin floor,” he said quietly. “It was dissolved of course, there was no flesh on it. But it was a body all right. He saw the head and the limbs. He came up to the surface then and reported it direct to me. And now you understand, Mrs. de Winter, why I’ve got to see your husband.”
I stared at him, bewildered at first, then shocked, then rather sick.
“She was supposed to be sailing alone?” I whispered, “there must have been someone with her then, all the time, and no one ever knew?”
“It looks like it,” said the harbormaster.
“Who could it have been?” I said. “Surely relatives would know if anyone had been missing? There was so much about it at the time, it was all in the papers. Why should one of them be in the cabin and Mrs. de Winter herself be picked up many miles away, months afterwards?”
Captain Searle shook his head. “I can’t tell any more than you,” he said. “All we know is that the body is there, and it has got to be reported. There’ll be publicity, I’m afraid, Mrs. de Winter. I don’t know how we’re going to avoid it. It’s very hard on you and Mr. de Winter. Here you are, settled down quietly, wanting to be happy, and this has to happen.”
I knew now the reason for my sense of foreboding. It was not the stranded ship that was sinister, nor the crying gulls, nor the thin black funnel pointing to the shore. It was the stillness of the black water, and the unknown things that lay beneath. It was the diver going down into those cool quiet depths and stumbling upon Rebecca’s boat, and Rebecca’s dead companion. He had touched the boat, had looked into the cabin, and all the while I sat on the cliffs and had not known.
“If only we did not have to tell him,” I said. “If only we could keep the whole thing from him.”
“You know I would if it were possible, Mrs. de Winter,” said the harbormaster, “but my personal feelings have to go, in a matter like this. I’ve got to do my duty. I’ve got to report that body.” He broke off short as the door opened, and Maxim came into the room.
“Hullo,” he said, “what’s happening? I didn’t know you were here, Captain Searle? Is anything the matter?”
I could not stand it any longer. I went out of the room like the coward I was and shut the door behind me. I had not even glanced at Maxim’s face. I had the vague impression that he looked tired, untidy, hatless.