How had it happened? she had asked herself again and again. How could her father, an experienced yachtsman, have lost all control like that? No one would ever know, she supposed, shuddering as she recalled her father's bloated body washed up at Sheerness.People had been kind, of course. Her father's friends, his business acquaintances, all had offered her their sympathy and condolences. After all, she was alone in the world now. Her mother had died eight years ago, and although she and her father had never been really close, she being away at school most of the time, she would miss him terribly.Gradually, though, she had had to assert some interest in her own position. They had not been rich, but then again, they had by no means been poor, and it had come as a great surprise to her to learn that her father had taken out a huge personal insurance policy only weeks before his death. Naturally, this had aroused some suspicion at the inquest, but her father's solicitors had assured the Coroner that he was not in monetary difficulties.
