by Ngaio Marsh
‘Thank you, sir,’ said the foreman pointedly.
‘Now then, let’s have a look at this lamp,’ Alleyn suggested. Using the ladder, they retrieved it from its bed in the ditch, about two feet above the place where the body had lain. It was smothered in mud but unbroken. The men pointed out an iron stanchion from which it had been suspended. This was uprooted and lying near the edge of the drain.
‘The lamp was lit when you knocked off yesterday, was it?’
‘Same as the others and they was still burning, see, when we come on the job this morning.’
Alleyn murmured: ‘Look at this, Fox.’ He turned the lamp towards Fox who peered into it.
‘Been turned right down,’ he said under his breath. ‘Hard down.’
‘Take charge of it, will you?’
Alleyn rejoined the men. ‘One more point,’ he said. ‘How did you leave the drain-pipe yesterday evening? Was it laid out in that gap, end to end with the others?’
‘That’s right,’ they said.
‘Immediately above the place where the body was found?’
‘That’s correct, sir.’
The foreman looked at his mates and then burst out again with some violence. ‘And if anyone tries to tell you it could be moved be accident you can tell him he ought to get his head read. Them pipes is main sewer pipes. It takes a crane to shift them, the way we’ve left them, and only a lever will roll them in. Now! Try it out on one of the others if you don’t believe me. Try it. That’s all.’
‘I believe you very readily,’ Alleyn said. ‘And I think that’s all we need bother you about at the moment. We’ll get out a written record of everything you’ve told us and ask you to call at the station and look it over. If it’s in order, we’ll want you to sign it. If it’s not, you’ll no doubt help us by putting it right. You’ve acted very properly throughout as I’m sure Mr Williams and Sergeant Raikes will be the first to agree.’
‘There you are,’ Williams said. ‘No complaints.’
Huffily reassured, the men retired.
‘The first thing I’d like to know, Bob,’ Alleyn said, ‘is what the devil’s been going on round this dump? Look at it. You’d think the whole village had been holding May Day revels over it. Women in evening shoes, women in brogues. Men in heavy shoes, men in light shoes, and the whole damn’ mess overtrodden, of course, by working boots. Most of it went on before the event, all of it except the boots, I fancy, but what the hell was it about?’
‘Some sort of daft party,’ Williams said. ‘Cavorting through the village, they were. We’ve had complaints. It was up at the big house, Baynesholme Manor.’
‘One of Lady Bantling’s little frolics,’ Dr Elekton observed dryly. ‘It seems to have ended in a dog-fight. I was called out at two thirty to bandage her husband’s hand. They’d broken up by then.’
‘Can you be talking about Desirée, Lady Bantling?’
‘That’s the lady. The main object of the party was a treasure hunt, I understand.’
‘A hideous curse on it,’ Alleyn said heartily. ‘We’ve about as much hope of disentangling anything useful in the way of footprints as you’d get in a wine press. How long did it go on?’
‘The noise abated before I went to bed,’ Dr Elekton said, ‘which was at twelve. As I’ve mentioned, I was dragged out again.’
‘Well, at least we’ll be able to find out if the planks and lantern were untouched until then. In the meantime we’d better go through the hilarious farce of keeping our own boots off the area under investigation. What’s this? Wait a jiffy.’
He was standing near the end of one of the drain-pipes. It lay across a slight depression that looked as if it had been scooped out. From this he drew a piece of blue letter-paper. Williams looked over his shoulder.
‘Poetry,’ Williams said disgustedly.
The two lines had been amateurishly typed. Alleyn read them aloud.
‘If you don’t know what to do
Think it over in the loo.’
‘Elegant, I must say!’ Dr Elekton ejaculated.
‘That’ll be a clue, no doubt,’ Fox said, and Alleyn gave it to him.
‘I wish the rest of the job was as explicit,’ he remarked.
‘What,’ Williams asked, ‘do you make of it, Alleyn? Any chance of accident?’
‘What do you think yourself?’
‘I’d say, none.’
‘And so would I. Take a look at it. The planks had been dragged forward until the ends were only just supported by the lip of the bank. There’s one print, the deceased’s by the look of it, on the original traces of the planks before they were moved. It suggests that he came through the gate, where the path is hard and hasn’t taken an impression. I think he had his torch in his left hand. He stepped on the trace and then on the planks which gave under him. I should say he pitched forward as he fell, dropping his torch, and one of the planks pitched back, striking him in the face. That’s guesswork, but I think Elekton, that when he’s cleaned up, you’ll find the nose is broken. As he was face down in the mud, the plank seems a possible explanation. All right. The lantern was suspended from an iron stanchion. The stanchion had been driven into the earth at an angle and overhung the edge between the displaced drain-pipe and its neighbour. And, by the way, it seems to have been jammed in twice: there’s a second hole nearby. The lantern would be out of reach for him and he couldn’t have grabbed it. How big is the dog?’
‘What’s that?’ Williams asked, startled.
‘Prints that have escaped the boots of the drain-layers, suggest a large dog.’
‘Pixie,’ said Sergeant Raikes who had been silent for a considerable time.
‘Oh!’ said Superintendent Williams disgustedly. ‘Her.’
‘It’s a dirty great mongrel of a thing, Mr Alleyn,’ Raikes offered. ‘The deceased gentleman called it a boxer. He was in the habit of bringing it out here before he went to bed, which was at one o’clock, regular as clockwork. It’s a noisy brute. There have been,’ Raikes added, sounding a leitmotiv, ‘complaints about Pixie.’
‘Pixie,’ Alleyn said, ‘must be an athletic girl. She jumped the ditch. There are prints if you can sort them out. But have a look at Cartell’s right hand, Elekton, would you?’
Dr Elekton did so. ‘There’s a certain amount of contusion,’ he said, ‘with ridges. And at the edges of the palm, well-defined grooves.’
‘How about a leather leash, jerked tight?’
‘It might well be.’
‘Now the stanchion, Fox.’
Fox leaned over from his position on the hard surface of the lane. He carefully lifted and removed the stanchion. Handling it as if it was some fragile objet d’art, he said: ‘There are traces, Mr Alleyn. Lateral rubbings. Something dragged tight and then pulled away might be the answer.’
‘So it’s at least possible that as Cartell dropped, Pixie jumped the drain. The lead jerked. Pixie got entangled with the stanchion, pulled it loose, freed herself from it and from the hand that had led her, and made off. The lantern fell in the drain. Might be. Where is Pixie, does anyone know?’
‘Shall I inquire at the house?’ Raikes asked.
‘It can wait. All this is the most shameless conjecture, really.’
‘To me,’ Williams said, considering it, ‘it seems likely enough.’
‘It’ll do to go on with. But it doesn’t explain,’ Alleyn said, ‘why the wick in the lantern’s been turned hard off, does it?’
‘Is that a fact!’ Raikes remarked, primly.
‘This stanchion,’ said Williams, who had been looking at it. ‘Have you noticed the lower point? You’d expect it to come out of the soil clean or else dirty all round. But it’s dirty on one side and sort of scraped clean on the other.’
‘You’ll go far in the glorious profession of your choice.’
‘Come off it!’ said Williams, who had done part of his training with Alleyn.
‘Look at the ground where that great walloping pipe was laid out.
That, at least, is not entirely obliterated by boots. See the scars in the earth on this side? Slanting hole with a scooped depression on the near side.’
‘What of them?’
‘Try it, Fox.’
Fox, who was holding the stanchion by its top, laid the pointed end delicately in one of the scars. ‘Fits,’ he said. ‘There’s your lever, I reckon.’
‘If so the mud on one side was scraped off on the pipe. Wrap it up and lay it by. The flash and dabs boys will be here any moment now. We’ll have to take casts, Br’er Fox.’
Dr Elekton said: ‘What’s all this about the stanchion?’
‘We’re wondering if it was used as a lever for the drain-pipe. We’re not very likely to find anything on the pipe itself after the rough handling it’s been given, but it’s worth trying.’
He walked to the end of the drain, returned on the far side to the solitary pipe and squatted beside it. Presently he said: ‘There are marks – scrapings – same distance apart, at a guess. I think we’ll find they fill the bill.’
When he rejoined the others, he stood for a moment and surveyed the scene. A capful of wind blew down Green Lane, snatched at a corner of the tarpaulin and caused it to ripple very slightly as if Mr Cartell had stirred. Fox attended to it, tucking it under, with a macabre suggestion of cosiness.
Alleyn said: ‘If ever it behoved us to keep open minds about a case it behoves us to do so over this one. My reading so far, may be worth damn all, but such as it is I’ll make you a present of it. On the surface appearance, it looks to me as though this was a premeditated job and was carried out with the minimum of fancy work. Some time before Cartell tried to cross it, the plank bridge was pulled towards the road side of the drain until the farther ends rested on the extreme edge. The person who did this, then put out the light in the lantern and hid: very likely by lying down on the hard surface alongside one of the pipes. The victim came out with his dog on a leash. He stepped on the bridge which collapsed. He was struck in the face by a plank and stunned. The leash bit into his right hand before it was jerked free. The dog jumped the drain, possibly got itself mixed up with the iron stanchion and, if so, probably dislodged the lantern which fell into the drain. The concealed person came back, used the stanchion as a lever and rolled the drain-pipe into the drain. It fell fourteen feet on his victim and killed him. Ha – hallo! What’s that!’
He leaned forward, peering into the ditch: ‘This looks like something,’ he sighed. ‘Down, I fear, into the depths I go.’
‘I will, sir,’ Fox offered.
‘You keep your great boots out of this,’ Alleyn rejoined cheerfully.
He placed the foot of the steel ladder near the place where the body was found and climbed down it. The drain sweated dank water and smelt sour and disgusting. From where he stood, on the bottom rung, he pulled out his flashlight.
From above they saw him stoop and reach under the plank that rested against the wall.
When he came up he carried something wrapped in his handkerchief. He knelt and laid his improvised parcel on the ground.
‘Look at this,’ he said, and they gathered about him.
He unfolded his handkerchief.
On it lay a gold case, very beautifully worked. It had a jewelled clasp and was smeared with slime.
‘His?’ Williams said.
‘– or somebody else’s? I wonder.’
They stared at it in silence. Alleyn was about to wrap it again when they were startled by a loud, shocking and long-drawn-out howl.
About fifty yards away, sitting in the middle of the lane in an extremely dishevelled condition, with a leash dangling from her collar, was a half-bred boxer bitch, howling lamentably.
‘Pixie,’ said Raikes.
II
They met with difficulty when they tried to catch Pixie. If addressed, she writhed subserviently, threshed her tail, and whined. If approached, she sprang aside, ran a short distance in a craven manner, sat down again and began alternately to bark and howl.
The five men whistled, stalked, ran and cursed, all to no avail. ‘She’ll rouse the whole bloody village at this rate,’ Superintendent Williams lamented and indeed several persons had collected beyond the cars at the road barrier.
Alleyn and Dr Elekton tried a scissors movement, Raikes and Williams an ill-conceived form of indirect strategy. Fox made himself hot and cross in a laughable attempt to jump upon Pixie’s lead and all had come to nothing before they were aware of the presence of a small, exceedingly pale man in an alpaca jacket on the far side of Mr Period’s gate. It was Alfred Belt.
How long he had been there it was impossible to say. He was standing quite still with his well-kept hands on the top of the gate and his gaze directed respectfully at Alleyn.
‘If you will allow me, sir,’ he said. ‘I think I may be able to secure the dog.’
‘For God’s sake do,’ Alleyn rejoined.
Alfred whistled. Pixie with a travesty of canine archness cocked her head on one side. ‘Here, girl,’ Alfred said disgustedly. ‘Meat.’ She loped round the top end of the drain and ran along the fence towards him. ‘You bitch,’ he said dispassionately as she fawned upon him.
Superintendent Williams, red with his exertions, formally introduced Alfred across the drain. Alfred said: ‘Good morning, sir. Mr Period has asked me to present his compliments and to say that if there is anything you require he hopes you will call upon him.’
‘Thank you,’ Alleyn rejoined. ‘I was going to. In about five minutes. Will you tell him?’
‘Certainly, sir,’ Alfred said and withdrew.
Alleyn said to Williams: ‘When the flash and dabs lot turn up, ask them to cover the whole job, will you, Bob? Everything. I’ll be in the house if I’m wanted. You know the story and can handle this end of it better than I. I’d be glad if you’d stay in.’
It was by virtue of such gestures as this that Alleyn maintained what are known as ‘good relations’ with the county forces. Williams said: ‘Be pleased to,’ and filled out his jacket.
Dr Elekton said: ‘What about the body?’
‘Could you arrange for it to be taken to the nearest mortuary? Sir James Curtis will do the PM and will be hoping to see you. He’ll be here by midday.’
‘I’ve laid on the ambulance. The mortuary’s at Rimble.’
‘Good. Either Fox or I will look you up at the station at noon. There’s one other thing. What do you make of that?’ He walked a few paces up the lane and pointed to a large damp patch on the surface. ‘There was no rain last night and it’s nothing to do with the digging. Looks rather as if a car with a leaky radiator had stood there. Might even have been filled up and overflowed. Damn’ this hard surface. Yes, look. There’s a bit of oil there too where the sump might well have dripped. Ah, well it may not amount to a row of beans. Ready, Fox? Let’s go in through the side gate, shall we?’
They fetched a circuitous course round the drain and entered Mr Period’s garden by the side gate. Near the house, Alleyn noticed a stand-pipe with a detached hose coiled up beside it and a nearby watering-can from which the rose had been removed.
‘Take a look at this, Br’er Fox,’ he said and indicated a series of indentations about the size of a sixpence leading to and from the stand-pipe.
‘Yes,’ Fox said. ‘And the can’s been moved and replaced.’
‘That’s right. And who, in this predominantly male household, gardens in stiletto heels? Ah, well! Come on.’
They walked round the house to the front door where Alfred formally admitted them.
‘Mr Period is in the library, sir,’ he said. ‘May I take your coat?’
Fox, who, being an innocent snob, always enjoyed the treatment accorded to his senior officer on these occasions, placidly removed his own coat.
‘What,’ Alleyn asked Alfred, ‘have you done with the dog?’
‘Shut her up, sir, in the wood-shed. She ought never to have been let loose.’
‘Quite so. Will you let me
have her leash?’
‘Sir?’
‘The lead. Inspector Fox will pick it up. Will you, Fox? And join us in the library?’
Alfred inclined his head, straightened his arms, turned his closed hands outward from the wrists and preceded Alleyn to the library door.
‘Mr Roderick Alleyn, sir,’ he announced.
It was perhaps typical of him that he omitted the rank and inserted the Christian name. ‘Because, after all, Mrs M.,’ he expounded later on to his colleague, ‘whatever opinions you and I may form on the subject, class is class and to be treated as such. In the Force he may be, and with distinction. Of it, he is not.’
Mrs Mitchell put this detestable point of view rather more grossly. ‘The brother’s a baronet,’ she said. ‘And childless, at that. I read it in the News of the World. “The Handsome Super”, it was called. Fancy!’
Meanwhile Alleyn was closeted with Mr Pyke Period, who in a different key, piped the identical tune.
‘My dear Alleyn,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you. If anything could lessen the appalling nature of this calamity it would be the assurance that we are in your hands.’ There followed, inevitably, the news that Mr Period was acquainted with Alleyn’s brother and was also an ardent admirer of Alleyn’s wife’s paintings. ‘She won’t remember an old backwater buster like me,’ he said, wanly arch, ‘but I have had the pleasure of meeting her.’
All this was said hurriedly and with an air of great anxiety. Alleyn wondered if Mr Period’s hand was normally as tremulous as it was this morning or his speech as breathless and uneven. As soon as Alleyn decently could do so, he got the conversation on a more formal basis.
He asked Mr Period how long Mr Cartell had been sharing the house and learned that it was seven weeks. Before that Mr Cartell had lived in London where he had been the senior partner of an extremely grand and vintage firm of solicitors, from which position he had retired upon his withdrawal into the country. The family, Mr Period said, came originally from Gloucestershire – Bloodstone Parva, in the Cotswolds. Having got as far as this he pulled himself up short and, unaccountably, showed great uneasiness.