by Ngaio Marsh
Praying that Mrs Nicholls was engaged in further activities in the vestry, Alleyn slipped out to the car and took a small phial from his homicide kit. Back at the font and hearing Mrs Nicholls, who was an insecure mezzo, distantly proclaiming that she ploughed the fields and scattered, he let fall a drop from the phial on the relevant spot. The result was not as conclusive as the laboratory test would have been but he would have taken long odds that the addition had been made at a different time from the main entry. Trusting that if anybody looked at this page they would conclude that some sentimentalist had let fall a tear over the infant in question, Alleyn shut the register.
The rector’s wife returned without her apron and with her hat adjusted. ‘Any luck?’ she asked.
‘Thank you,’ Alleyn said. ‘Yes, I think so. I find these old registers quite fascinating. The same names recurring through the years: it gives one such a feeling of continuity: the quiet life of the countryside. You seem to have had a steady progression of Pykes.’
‘One of the oldest families, they were,’ said the rector’s wife. ‘Great people in their day by all accounts.’
‘Have they disappeared?’
‘Oh, yes. A long time ago. I think their manor house was burnt down in Victorian times and I suppose they moved away. At all events the family died out. There’s a Mr Period over at Little Codling, who I believe was related, but I’ve been told he’s the last. Rather sad.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Alleyn said.
He thanked her again and said he was sorry to have bothered her.
‘No bother to me,’ she said. ‘As a matter of fact we had someone else in, searching the register, a few weeks ago. A lawyer I think he was. Something to do with a client, I dare say.’
‘Really? I wonder,’ Alleyn improvised, ‘if it was my cousin.’ He summoned the memory of Mr Cartell, dreadfully blurred with mud. ‘Elderly? Slight? Baldish, with a big nose? Rather pedantic old chap?’
‘I believe he was. Yes, that exactly describes him. Fancy!’
‘He’s stolen a march on me,’ Alleyn said. ‘We’re amusing ourselves hunting up the family curiosities.’ He put something in the church maintenance box and took his leave. As he left the church a deafening rumpus in the lane announced the approach of an antique motor-car. It slowed down. The driver looked with great interest at Alleyn and the police car. He then accelerated and rattled off down the lane. It was Mr Copper in the Bloodbath.
II
‘If there’s one thing I fancy more than another, Mrs Mitchell,’ said Inspector Fox laying down his knife and fork, ‘it’s a cut of cold lamb, potato salad and a taste of cucumber relish. If I may say so, your cucumber relish is something particular. I’m very much obliged to you. Delicious.’
‘Welcome, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Mitchell. ‘I’ve got a nephew in the Force, Mr Fox, and from what he says it’s the irregular meals that tells in the end. Worse than the feet even, my nephew says, and his are a treat, believe you me. Soft corns! Well! Like red-hot coals, my nephew says.’
Alfred cleared his throat. ‘Occupational disabilities!’ he generalized. ‘They happen to the best of us, Mrs M.’
‘That’s right. Look at my varicose veins. I don’t mean literally,’ Mrs Mitchell added with a jolly laugh, in which Fox joined.
‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘I mustn’t stay here gossiping all the afternoon or I’ll have the superintendent on my tracks.’
‘Here we are, acting as pleasant as you please,’ Mrs Mitchell observed, ‘and all the while there’s this wicked business hanging over our heads. You know? In a way I can’t credit it.’
‘Naturally enough, Mrs M.,’ Alfred pointed out. ‘Following as we do, the even tenor of our ways, the concept of violence is not easily assimilated. Mr Fox appreciates the point of view I feel sure.’
‘Very understandable. I suppose,’ Fox suggested, ‘you might say the household has ticked over as comfortably as possible ever since the two gentlemen decided to join forces.’
There was a brief silence broken by Mrs Mitchell. ‘In a manner of speaking, you might,’ she concluded, ‘although there have been – well –’
‘Exterior influences,’ Alfred said remotely.
‘Well, exactly, Mr Belt.’
‘Such as?’ Fox suggested.
‘Since you ask me, Mr Fox, such as the dog and the arrangement. And the connections,’ Mrs Mitchell added.
‘Miss Mary Ralston, for instance?’
‘You took the words out of my mouth.’
‘We mustn’t,’ Alfred intervened, ‘give too strong an impression, Mrs M.’
‘Well, I dare say we mustn’t, but you have to face up to it. The dog is an animal of disgusting habits and that young lady’s been nothing but a menace ever since the arrangement was agreed upon. You’ve said it yourself, Mr Belt, over and over again.’
‘A bit wild, I take it,’ Fox ventured.
‘Blood,’ Mrs Mitchell said sombrely, ‘will tell. Out of an orphanage and why there, who knows?’
‘As Mr Cartell himself realized,’ Alfred said. ‘I heard him make the observation last evening though he didn’t frame it in those particular terms.’
‘Last evening? Really? Cigarette, Mrs Mitchell?’
‘Thank you, Mr Fox.’ Alfred and Mrs Mitchell exchanged a glance. A bell rang.
‘Excuse me,’ Alfred said. ‘The study.’ He went out. Fox, gazing benignly upon Mrs Mitchell, wondered if he detected a certain easing-up in her manner.
‘Mr Belt,’ she said, ‘is very much put about by all this. He don’t show his feelings, but you can tell.’
‘Very natural,’ Fox said. ‘So Mr Cartell didn’t find himself altogether comfortable about Miss Ralston?’ he hinted.
‘It couldn’t be expected he should take to her. A girl of that type calling him uncle, and all. As for our gentleman – well!’
‘I can imagine,’ Fox said cosily. ‘Asking for trouble.’ He beamed at her. ‘So there were words?’ he said. ‘Well, bound to be, when you look at the situation but, I dare say, they didn’t amount to much, the deceased gentleman being of such an easy-going nature, from all accounts.’
‘I’m sure I don’t know who gave you that idea, Inspector,’ Mrs Mitchell said. ‘I’d never have called him that, never. Real old bachelor and a lawyer into the bargain. Speak no ill, of course, but speak as you find, all the same. Take last evening. There was all this trouble over our gentleman’s cigarette-case.’
Fox allowed her to tell him at great length about the cigarette-case.
‘– so,’ Mrs Mitchell said after some minutes, ‘Mr Cartell goes over to the other house and by all accounts (though that Trudi, being a foreigner, can’t make herself as clear as we would have wished) tackles Miss Moppett and as good as threatens her with the police. Hand back the case and give up her fancy-boy, or else. Accordin’ to Trudi who dropped in last evening.’
Fox made clucky noises. Alfred returned to fetch his cap. ‘Bloody dog’s loose again,’ he said angrily. ‘Bit through her lead. Now, I’m told I’ve got to find her because of complaints in the village.’
‘What will he do with her,’ Mrs Mitchell wondered.
‘I know what I’d do with her,’ Alfred said viciously. ‘I’d gas her. Well, if I don’t see you again, Mr Fox –’
Fox remarked that he had no doubt that they would meet.
When Alfred had gone Mrs Mitchell said: ‘Mr Belt feels strongly on the subject. I don’t like to think of destroying the dog, I must say. I wonder if my sister would like her for the kiddies. Of course, with her out of the way and the other matter settled, it will seem more like old times.’ She covered her mouth with her hand. ‘That sounds terrible. Don’t take me up wrong, Mr Fox, but we was all very comfortably situated before and therefore sorry to contemplate making a change.’
‘Were you thinking of it? Giving notice?’
‘Mr Belt was. Definitely. Though reluctant to do so, being he’s stayed all his working life with our gentleman. How
ever, he spoke to Mr Period on the subject and the outcome was promising.’
Mrs Mitchell enlarged upon this theme at some length. ‘Which was a relief to all concerned,’ she ended, ‘seeing we are in other respects well situated, and the social background all that you could fancy. Tonight, for instance, there’s the church social which we both attend regular and will in spite of everything. But after what passed between him and Mr Cartell over the missing article, nothing else could be expected. Mr Belt,’ Mrs Mitchell added, ‘is a man who doesn’t forget. Not a thing of that sort. During the war,’ she added obscurely, ‘he was in the signalling.’
The back-door bell rang and Mrs Mitchell attended it. Fox could hear, but not distinguish, a conversation in which a male voice played the predominant part. He strolled to an advantageous position in time to hear Mrs Mitchell say: ‘Fancy! I wonder why,’ and to see a man in a shabby suit who said: ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Well, I’ll be on my way.’
Fox returned to his chair and Mrs Mitchell re-entered.
‘Mr Copper from the garage,’ she said. ‘To inquire about the church social. He saw your superintendent coming out of Ribblethorpe church. I wonder why.’
Fox said Superintendent Alleyn was very interested in old buildings, and with the inner calm that characterized all his proceedings, took his leave and went to the Little Codling constabulary. Here he found Superintendent Williams with his wife’s vacuum cleaner. ‘Not the Yard job,’ Williams said cheerfully, ‘but it’s got a baby nozzle and should do.’
They gave Leonard Leiss’s dinner-suit and overcoat a very thorough going-over, extracting soil from the excavations and enough of Mr Period’s Turkish cigarette tobacco to satisfy, as Fox put it, a blind juryman in a total eclipse.
They paid particular attention to Leonard’s wash-leather gloves which were, as Nicola had suggested, on the dainty side.
‘Soiled,’ Williams pointed out, ‘but he didn’t lift any planks with those on his hands.’ Fox wrote up his notes and in a reminiscent mood, drank several cups of strong tea with the superintendent and Sergeant Raikes who was then dispatched to return the garments to their owner.
At five o’clock Alleyn arrived in the police car and they all drove to the mortuary at Rimble. It was behind the police station and had rambling roses trained up its concrete walls. Here they found Sir James Curtis, the Home Office pathologist, far enough on with his autopsy on Harold Cartell’s body to be able to confirm Alleyn’s tentative diagnosis. The cranial injuries were consistent with a blow from the plank. The remaining multiple injuries were caused by the drain-pipe falling on the body and ramming it into the mud. The actual cause of death had been suffocation. Dr Elekton was about to leave and they all stood looking down at what was left of Mr Cartell. The face was now cleaned. A knowledgeable, faintly supercilious, expression lay about the mouth and brows.
In an adjoining shed, Williams had found temporary storage for the planks, the lantern and the crowbar. Here, Detective-Sergeants Thompson and Bailey were to be found, having taken further and more extensive photographs.
‘I’m a bit of a camera-fiend myself and they’ve been using my dark-room,’ said Williams. ‘We’re getting the workmen to bring the drain-pipe along in their crane-truck. Raikes’ll come back with them and keep an eye on it, but these chaps of yours tell me they got what they wanted on the spot.’
Alleyn made the appropriate compliments which were genuine indeed. Williams was the sort of colleague that visiting superintendents yearn after and Alleyn told him so.
Bailey, a man of few words, great devotion and mulish disposition, indicated the two foot-planks which had been laid across packing cases, underside up.
‘Hairs,’ he said. ‘Three. Consistent with deceased’s.’
‘Good.’
‘There’s another thing.’ Bailey jerked his finger at a piece of microphotographic film and a print laid out under glass on an improvised bench. ‘The print brings it up. Still wet, but you can make it out. Just.’
The planks were muddy where they had dug into the walls of the ditch, but at the edges and ten inches from the ends the microphotograph showed confused traces. Alleyn spent some time over them.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Gloved hands. I don’t mind betting. Big, heavy gloves.’ He looked up at Bailey. ‘It’s a rough under-surface. If you can find as much leather as would go in the eye of a needle we’re not home and dry but we may be in sight. Which way were they carried here?’
‘Underside up,’ Bailey said.
‘Right. Well, you can but try.’
‘I have, Mr Alleyn. Can again.’
‘Do,’ said Alleyn. He was going over the under-surface of the planks with his lens. ‘Tweezers,’ he said.
Bailey put a pair in his hand and fetched a sheet of paper.
‘Have a go at these,’ Alleyn said and dropped two minute specks on the paper. ‘They may be damn’ all but it looks as if they might have rubbed off the seam of a heavy glove. Not wash-leather by the way. Strong hide – and – look here.’
He had found another fragment. ‘String,’ he said. ‘Heavy leather and string.’
‘You got to have the eyes for it,’ Detective-Sergeant Thompson said to nobody in particular.
During the brief silence that followed this pronouncement, the unmistakable racket of a souped-up engine made itself heard.
‘That,’ Mr Fox observed, ‘sounds like young Mr Leiss’s sports-car.’
‘Stopping,’ Williams observed.
‘Come on, Fox,’ Alleyn said. They went out to the gate. It was indeed Mr Leiss’s sports-car but Mr Leiss was not at the wheel. The car screamed to a halt, leaving a trail of water from its radiator. Moppett, wearing a leather coat and jeans, leaned out of the driving window.
With allowances for her make-up which contrived to look both dirty and extreme, Alleyn would have thought she was pale. Her manner was less assured than it had been: indeed, she seemed to be in something of an emotional predicament.
‘Oh, good,’ she said. ‘They told me you might be here. Sorry to bother you.’
‘Not at all,’ Alleyn said. Moppett’s fingers, over-fleshed, sketchily nail-painted and stained with nicotine, moved restlessly on the driving wheel.
‘It’s like this,’ she said. ‘The local cop’s just brought Lenny’s things back: the overcoat and dinner-suit.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes. Well, the thing is, his gloves are missing.’
Alleyn glanced at Fox.
‘I beg your pardon, Miss Ralston,’ Fox said, ‘but I saw to the parcel myself. The gloves were returned. Cream wash-leather, size seven.’
‘I don’t mean those,’ Moppett said. ‘I mean his driving gloves. They’re heavy leather ones with string backs. I ought to know. I gave them to him.’
III
‘Suppose,’ Alleyn suggested, ‘you park your car and we get this sorted out.’
‘I don’t want to go in there,’ Moppett said with a sidelong look at the mortuary. ‘That’s the dead-place, isn’t it?’
‘We’ll use the station,’ Alleyn said, and to that small yellow-wood office she was taken. The window was open. From a neighbouring garden came an insistent chatteration of bird-song and the smell of earth and violets. Fox shut a side door that led into the yard. Moppett sat down.
‘Mind if I smoke?’ she said.
Alleyn gave her a cigarette. She kept her hands in her pockets while he lit it. She then began to talk rapidly in a voice that was pitched above its natural level.
‘I can’t be long. Lennie thinks I’m dropping the car at the garage. It’s sprung a leak,’ she added unnecessarily, ‘in the waterworks. He’d be livid if he knew I was here. He’s livid, anyway, about the gloves. He swears they were in his overcoat pocket.’
Alleyn said: ‘They were not there when we collected the coat. Did he have them last night, do you know?’
‘He didn’t wear them. He wore his other ones. He’s jolly fussy about his gloves,’ said M
oppett. ‘I tell him Freud would have had something to say about it. And now I suppose I’ll get the rocket.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, because of yesterday afternoon. When we were at Baynesholme. We changed cars,’ Moppett said without herself changing colour, ‘and I collected his overcoat from the car he decided not to buy. He says the gloves were in the pocket of the coat.’
‘What did you do with the coat?’
‘That’s just what I can’t remember. We drove home to dine and change for the party and our things were still in the car. His overcoat and mine. I suppose I bunged the lot out while he went off to buy cigarettes.’
‘You don’t remember where you put the overcoat?’
‘I should think I just dumped the lot. I usually do.’
‘Mr Leiss’s coat was in his wardrobe this morning.’
‘That’s right. Trudi put it there, I expect. She’s got a letch for Lennie, that girl. Perhaps she pinched his gloves. And now I come to think of it,’ Moppett said, ‘I wouldn’t mind betting she did.’
‘Did you at any time wear the gloves yourself?’
After a longish silence Moppett said: ‘That’s funny. Lennie says I did. He says I pulled them on during the drive from London yesterday morning. I don’t remember. I might or I might not. If I did I just don’t know where I left them.’
‘Did he wear his overcoat when you returned to Baynesholme for the party?’
‘No,’ Moppett said quickly. ‘No, he didn’t. It was rather warm.’ She got to her feet. ‘I ought to be going back,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to tell Lennie I came, do you? He’s a bit tricky about that sort of thing.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘Well – you know.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’
She watched him for a second or two: then, literally, she bared her teeth at him. It was exactly as if she had at the same time laid back her ears. ‘You’re lying,’ she said. ‘I know. You’ve found them and you’re sticking to them. I know the sort of things you do.’