Clutch of Constables ra-25

by Ngaio Marsh

  The young man yawned widely, displaying the wad of gum on his tongue. He stretched his arms. The girl gave a scarey giggle and clapped her hand over her mouth.

  “You’ve been so busy,” Alleyn said, “on your northern jaunt that you can’t have heard the news. The body has been found and the woman was murdered. I shall now repeat the usual warning which you’ve already had from Superintendent Tillottson. At the moment you are being held for theft.”

  The young man, now very white about the side whiskers, heard the usual warning with a sneer that seemed to have come unstuck. The girl watched him.

  “Any statement?”

  For the first time the young man spoke. His voice was strongly Cockney. “You can contact Mr C. D. E. Struthers,” he said. “I’m not talking.”

  Mr C. D. E. Struthers was an extremely adroit London solicitor whose practice was confined, profitably, to top-level experts in mayhem.

  “Really?” Alleyn said. “And who’s going to pay for that?”

  “Mention my name.”

  “If I knew it, I would be delighted to do so. Good evening to you.”

  When the couple had swaggered unconvincingly to the cells Tillottson said: “ ‘Smith’ they may be, but not for my money.”

  “Ah,” Fox agreed. “They’d have done the virtuous indignation stuff if they were.”

  “Well, Smith or Montmorency,” Alleyn said, “we’d better let them talk to Mr C. D. E. Struthers. He may wish them on to one of his legal brethren in the North or he may come up here himself. It’s a matter of prestige.”

  “How d’you mean? Prestige?” asked Tillottson.

  “The other name for it is Foljambe. Get your Sergeant here to trace the licence will you, Bert? And a description to Records. And Dabs.”

  “Yes, O.K. I’ll see to it.”

  But before he could do so the Sergeant himself appeared looking perturbed.

  “Call for you, sir,” he said to Alleyn. “PC Cape on duty at Ramsdyke Lock. Very urgent.”

  “What the hell’s this,” Alleyn said. But when he heard the voice, he guessed.

  “I’m reporting at once, sir,” gabbled PC Cape. “I’m very sorry, sir, but there’s been a slip-up, sir. In the fog, sir.”

  “Who?”

  “The lady, sir. The American lady.”

  “What do you mean — slip-up?”

  “She’s gone, sir.”

  -2-

  Six minutes with their siren wailing brought them back to Ramsdyke. Tillottson kept up an uninterrupted flow of anathemas against his PC Cape. Alleyn and Fox said little, knowing that nothing they could offer would solace him. There was still no fog to speak of on the main road but when they turned off into the lane above Ramsdyke Lock they looked down on a vague uniform pallor of the sort that fills the valleys in a Japanese landscape. Their fog-lamps isolated them in a moving confinement that closed as they descended.

  “A likely night for it,” Tillottson kept repeating. “My Gawd, a likely night.”

  He was driving his own car with Alleyn and Fox as passengers. The London CID car followed with a driver, a local constable and Sergeants Thompson and Bailey who had been pressed in as an emergency measure.

  Sirens could be heard without definition as to place or distance. Road blocks and search parties from Longminster, Norminster and Crossdyke were being established about the landscape.

  With that dramatic suddenness created by fog, a constable flashing an amber torchlight stood in their path.

  “Well?” Tillottson said, leaning out of the window.

  “This is as far as you can drive, sir.”

  “Where’s Cape?”

  “T’other side, sir.”

  They got out. Close on their left hand the fog-masked weir kept up its anonymous thunder. They followed the constable along the tow-path to the flight of steps that led up to the main bridge.

  “All right,” Tillottson said. “Get back to your point.”

  As they groped their way over the bridge a car crept past them filled with revellers engaged in doleful song.

  The constable stepped into its path and waved his torch.

  “Hullo—’ullo—’ullo,” shouted the driver. “Anything wrong, Officer?”

  “Just a minute, if you please, sir.”

  “Our Breath is as the Breath of Spring,” someone in the back seat sang dismally.

  “May I see your licence, sir?”

  When this formality was completed Alleyn and Tillottson moved in. Had they, Alleyn asked, seen a solitary woman? They replied merrily that they’d had no such luck and emitted wolf-like whistles. Alleyn said: “If we weren’t so busy we’d have something to say to you. As it is, will you pull yourselves together, proceed on your silly journey, stop if you see a solitary woman, and address her decently. If she’s got a strong American accent, offer her a lift, behave yourselves and drive her to the nearest police stop or police station, whichever comes first. Do you understand?”

  “Er — yes. Righty — jolly-ho. Fair enough,” said the driver, taken aback as much by Alleyn’s manner and voice as by what he said. The passengers had become very quiet.

  “Repeat it, if you please.”

  He did.

  “Thank you. Drive carefully. We’ve got your number. Good night.”

  They crawled away.

  Bailey and Thompson and their driver loomed up and the whole party inched along until they found the top of a flight of steps going down to the lock.

  “What can have got into her?” Fox mused, not for the first time.

  “Fear,” said Alleyn. “She was terrified. She’s tried to do a bolt. And succeeded, blast it. The Skipper must have delayed—hallo, here we are. That’s the roof of the lockhouse down there. Come on and for God’s sake don’t let’s have any falling into the lock. Easy as we go, now.”

  They felt their way down the steps to the tow-path.

  “Cape!” Tillottson shouted in a terrible voice.

  “Here, sir.”

  He was wretchedly waiting where he had been told to wait: between the lock and the lockhouse. The fog down here was dense indeed and they were upon him almost before they saw him. He seemed to be standing to attention and expecting the worst.

  “Ever heard of a Misconduct Form?” Tillottson ominously began.

  “Sir.”

  “Superintendent Alleyn’s got something to say to you.”

  “Sir.”

  Alleyn said: “What happened, Cape?”

  There had, he said, been a commotion on board the Zodiac. He couldn’t see anything much because of the Creeper but he heard the Skipper’s voice asking what was wrong and a woman taking on a fair treat, shrieking: “Let me go. Let me go.” He went down to the moorings and called out: “What seems to be wrong there?” but as far as he could make out the happening was on the far side. And then one of the gentlemen on board came round the deck and asked PC Cape where he was and said he’d better come on board and get things under control like. He could hardly see a thing except that there was a gap between the edge and the gunwale. He couldn’t see the gentleman either but said he had a very loud voice.

  “Go on.”

  The loud voice said he could jump for it and as he could just make out enough for that he did jump and came aboard in a flounder and nearly lost his helmet. Alleyn gathered that a sort of blind search had set in under circumstances of the greatest possible confusion. Cape had proceeded with outstretched arms doing a breast stroke action, to the starboard side which was the farthest removed from the tow-path. He had bumped into a number of persons and had loudly demanded that everybody should keep calm.

  A strange disordered mélée now took place in the greatest possible confusion. Presently it occurred to Cape that the woman’s voice could no longer be heard. He had got alongside the Skipper and they had, between them, rounded up the passengers and herded them into the saloon where after a good deal of milling about and counting of heads, Miss Hewson’s head was found to be missing.
/>   By this time the policemen on the pub side of the river had become alerted and started to cross the bridge.

  Cape and the Skipper went through the cabins and searched the craft. All available lights were switched on but were not much help on deck where the fog was now of the pea-soup variety.

  Caley Bard and Dr Natouche bore a hand and the Skipper had evidently behaved very sensibly. When it was certain that Miss Hewson was not in the Zodiac, Cape got himself ashore and blew his whistle. He and his colleague now met, poked uselessly about in the fog and settled that while Cape got through to Tollardwark his mate should alert by walkie-talkie the other men on duty in the vicinity.

  Alleyn said: “Very well. Where’s the Zodiac?”

  “The boat, sir?” Cape ejaculated. “I beg pardon, sir?”

  “Where’s the bloody lock, for pity’s sake.”

  “The lock, sir?”

  “Find the lockhouse and stay by it, all of you.”

  Alleyn inched along the tow-path. A lighted window loomed up on his left. The lockhouse. He faced right, stood still, listened and peered down into a blanket.

  “Hallo? Zodiac?” he said very quietly.

  “Hallo,” said a muted voice below his feet.

  “Skipper?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Show a light, can you?”

  A yellow globe swam into being far below.

  “You did it, then? You and Tom?”

  “And the Lock himself. Talk about stable-doors! It was a job in this muck but here we are.”

  “All present?”

  “Except for her.”

  “Sure?”

  “Dead sure.”

  “No idea, of course, which way she went?”

  “No idea.

  “And Mrs Tretheway’s sleeping at the lockhouse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. You’re very quiet down there.”

  “They’ve gone to bed. I waited for it.”

  “Do they know where they are?”

  “Not when I saw them. They will.”

  “They could scramble up and out, of course.”

  “They’re in their cabins and they can’t get ashore from there. Have to come up on deck and young Tom and I are keeping watch.”

  “Splendid. Stay put till you hear from us, won’t you?”

  “Don’t make it too long,” the voice murmured.

  “Do our best. Good night.”

  Alleyn returned to the lockhouse. He and the other six men were admitted by the keeper and crowded into the parlour.

  “Well,” Alleyn said. “Search we must. Any chance of this lifting?”

  Not before dawn, most likely, said the lock-keeper but you never knew. If a wind got up, she’d shift.

  “It’s essentially a river mist, isn’t it?” Alleyn said. “Miss Hewson may still be milling round in it or lying doggo. If she managed to get above it she’ll be on the move. All we can do is follow the usual procedure.” He looked at the Tollardwark constable. “You’d better keep within hailing distance of Mr Tillottson, Mr Fox and me. You’ve got radar and we haven’t. We’re going to find our way up to the wapentake. Br’er Fox, would you work out to my right. Bert, if you’d keep going beyond that and take the driver out on your own right wing. Bailey and Thompson, you take the left wing. Near the roadside hedge if you could see it. She may be anywhere: under the hedge in the Wapentake Pot or a quarter of a mile away. As little noise and talk as possible. The rest of this unspeakable terrain we leave to the men already alerted.”

  He looked at the wretched Cape.

  “Oh, yes. You,” he said. “You move up the hill on my left.” And to the two remaining men: “And you watch the Zodiac. She’s in the lock and the lock’s at its lowest. Nobody can leap ashore in seconds but that doesn’t say they can’t make it.”

  Tillottson said: “The Zodiac? In the lock?”

  “Yes,” Alleyn said. He looked at the keeper who was grinning. “By arrangement. Like it or lump it with any luck and a good watch they’re there till we want them. Come on.”

  -3-

  Seven hours ago he and Fox had climbed this hill and Troy, a little later, had come to them in the wapentake. Four days ago Troy and the other passengers had met there and Troy had sat in the Wapentake Pot and talked with Dr Natouche.

  Alleyn tried to recall the lie of the land. This was the first grassy slope under his feet, now, and ahead of him must be the tufted embankment below the wapentake field. He had begun to think he must have veered and now walked parallel with the embankment when it rose at his feet. He climbed it and could hear the others breathe and the soft thud of their feet. They used torches to show their whereabouts. The insignificant yellow discs floated and bobbed, giving an occasional glimpse of a leg or coat or a few inches of earth and grass.

  The ascent felt steeper and more uneven under these blind-fold conditions than it had in the afternoon. They had only climbed a few paces when, suddenly and inconsequently there was less mist. It drifted and eddied and thinned out and now they waded rather than swam through it and appeared to each other as familiar phantoms.

  “Clearing,” Fox murmured.

  Alleyn sniffed. “Rum!” he said, “I seem to smell dust.”

  The hillside was before them, living its own life under the stars. A blackness vaguely defined the wapentake itself. Alleyn moved his torchlight slowly across to his right and gave a stifled exclamation.

  “Come in on this, all of you,” he said.

  Their lights met at a dishevelment of earth, gravel and pieces of half-buried timber.

  “It’s that old digging,” Fox exclaimed. “I said it wasn’t safe. It’s caved in.”

  “Come in, all of you.”

  The seven men collected round him and used their torch-lights. The crazy structure had collapsed. A fang of broken timber stuck out of the rubble and the edge of an old door that had supported an overhanging roof of earth now showed beneath a landslide of earth and gravel.

  Alleyn said: “And there’s still a smell of dust in the air. Don’t go nearer, any of you. Stay where you are. Give me all the light you can raise. Here.”

  Their lights concentrated round his on a patch of ground near his feet and came to a halt again at the edge of the rubble.

  “Bailey,” Alleyn said.

  Bailey and he knelt together, their heads bowed devotedly over slurs, indentations and flattened grass.

  “Here’s a good one. A patch of bare soil. Take a look at this,” Alleyn said. Bailey took a long hard look.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “She was wearing them and there’s another pair in her cabin.”

  “American type, low-heeled walking jobs.”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Good Gawd!” Tillottson loudly exclaimed. “She went in there to hide and—Good Gawd!”

  But Alleyn and Bailey paid no attention to Tillottson and Fox said: “Wait on, Bert.”

  The wapentake field had turned towards a rising moon and was illuminated. The mist had now retired upon its source and wound like a cottonwool snake between the river banks. The landscape had changed and lightened.

  Alleyn had thrown off his overcoat and was working at the rubble with his gloved hands.

  “Bear a hand,” he said. “We’re too late but bear a hand.”

  The other men joined him. They mounted their torches where they shone on the rubble and went hard to work.

  “Very painstaking,” Alleyn grunted. “But not quite painstaking enough. Something—a stone, a bit of broken wood from the rubble—something—has been scuffed over the ground. Prints of the woman’s shoes have been left. Right up to where the rubble has lapped over them and pointing towards the excavation. But the surrounding patches of soil have been scuffed. We are meant to think what you thought, Bert.”

  Superintendent Tillottson peered sideways at PC Cape as if longing for a better view.

  “You hear that?” he said. “You understand what’s been said? You kno
w what you’ve allowed to be done, you disgusting chap?”

  Alleyn said: “All right, Cape, you’ll have to take what’s coming, won’t you?”

  He squatted back on his heels. “This is no good,” he said and turned to the two constables: “Go down to the lockhouse and get spades. There’s not a hope, now, but we’ve got to act as if there was. And bring something — pieces of wood — galvanised iron — anything to cover these prints. Quick as you can. Thompson, have you got a flash? All right. Go ahead.”

  Sergeant Thompson moved in with the hand-held camera he used in emergencies. His light flashed intermittently. The wretched Cape and his opposite number thundered downhill.

  “We’d better continue to go through the motions,” Alleyn said: “As I recollect there were two props. One may have been used to knock away the other. He’d have a second or two to jump clear. Or there may have been a spare timber lying around.”

  Fox said: “What’s the form, Mr Alleyn? About that lot down there in the lock? There’s nobody missing?” He jerked his head at the rubble. ”Apart from her?”

  “The Skipper says not but we’ll have to see them. Look Bert, will you go down there? Ring your local police surgeon. My compliments and he’ll be needed again, with the ambulance and the usual equipment. Give him the story and tell him it’s suspected homicide. Then get yourself aboard the Zodiac. We won’t raise her until we’ve checked and then only when we can muster a closer guard. We’ve got a tough little clutch of villains down there and the big double-barrel himself.”

  “I’ll go, then. And if they are all there?”

  “Call off the general search and bring the men in to Ramsdyke.”

  “See you in a wee while, then,” Tillottson said.

  Bailey and Thompson went back to the car to fetch their heavy gear and Alleyn and Fox were left together: a tall elegant figure and a large thickset one incongruously moonlit in the wapentake field and scraping like dogs with their forepaws at gravelly rubble.