by Ngaio Marsh
“Damned if I see what you’re getting at!” George began, to the dismay, Alleyn felt sure, of everybody who heard him. “Damned if I see how you make out my father’s memoirs can have anything to do with Maurice Cartarette’s murder. Sorry, Kitty. I beg pardon, Rose. But I mean to say!”
Alleyn said, “It’s eighteen years since young Ludovic Danberry-Phinn committted suicide, and a war has intervened. Many people will have forgotten his story. One among those who have remembered it… his father… must dread above all things any revival.” He leant forward in his chair, and as if he had given some kind of order or exercised some mesmeric influence on his audience, each member of it imitated this movement. George Lacklander was still empurpled, the others had turned very pale, but one expression was common to them all: they looked, all of them, extremely surprised. In Kitty and George and perhaps in Lady Lacklander, Alleyn thought he sensed a kind of relief. He raised his hand. “Unless, of course,” he said, “it has come about that in reviving the tragedy through the memoirs, young Phinn’s name will be cleared.”
It was as if out of a cloth that had apparently been wrung dry an unexpected trickle was induced. George, who seemed to be the most vulnerable of the group, shouted, “You’ve no right to assume…” and got no further. Almost simultaneously Mark and Rose, with the occasional unanimity of lovers, said, “This won’t do…” and were checked by an imperative gesture from Lady Lacklander.
“Roderick,” Lady Lacklander demanded, “have you been talking to Octavious Phinn?”
“Yes,” Alleyn said. “I have come straight here from Jacob’s Cottage.”
“Wait a bit, Mama,” George blurted out. “Wait a bit! Octavius can’t have said anything. Otherwise, don’t you see, Alleyn wouldn’t try to find out from us.”
In the now really deathly silence that followed this speech, Lady Lacklander turned and blinked at her son.
“You ninny, George,” she said, “you unfathomable fool.”
And Alleyn thought he now knew the truth about Mr. Phinn, Colonel Cartarette and Sir Harold Lacklander’s memoirs.
CHAPTER IX
Chyning
The next observation was made by Mark Lacklander.
“I hope you’ll let me speak, Grandmama,” he said. “And Father,” he added, obviously as a polite afterthought. “Although, I must confess, most of the virtue has already gone from what I have to say.”
“Then why, my dear boy, say it?”
“Well, Gar, it’s really, you know, a matter of principle. Rose and I are agreed on it. We’ve kept quiet under your orders, but we both have felt, haven’t we, Rose, that by far the best thing is to be completely frank with Mr. Alleyn. Any other course, as you’ve seen for yourself, just won’t do.”
“I have not changed my mind, Mark. Wait, a little.”
“0, yes,” Kitty said eagerly. “I do think so, honestly. Wait. I’m sure,” she added, “it’s what he would have said. Maurie, I mean.” Her face quivered unexpectedly and she fumbled for her handkerchief.
Rose made one of those involuntary movements that are so much more graphic than words, and Alleyn, whom for the moment they all completely disregarded, wondered how the Colonel had enjoyed being called Maurie.
George, with a rebellious glance at his mother, said, “Exactly what I mean. Wait.”
“By all means, wait,” Alleyn interjected, and stood up. They all jumped slightly. “I expect,” he suggested to Lady Lacklander, “you would like, before taking any further steps, to consult with Mr. Phinn. As a matter of fact, I think it highly probable that he will suggest it himself.” Alleyn looked very straight at Lady Lacklander. “I suggest,” he said, “that you consider just exactly what is at stake in this matter. When a capital crime is committed, you know, all sorts of long-buried secrets are apt to be discovered. It’s one of those things about homicide.” She made no kind of response to this, and, after a moment, he went on, “Perhaps when you have all come to a decision, you will be kind enough to let me know. They’ll always take a message at the Boy and Donkey. And now, if I may, I’ll get on with my job.”
He bowed to Lady Lacklander and was about to move off when Mark said, “I’ll see you to your car, sir. Coming, Rose?”
Rose seemed to hesitate, but she went off with him, entirely, Alleyn sensed, against the wishes of the remaining three.
Mark and Rose conducted him round the east wing of the great house to the open platform in front of it. Here Fox waited in the police car. A sports model with a doctor’s sticker and a more domestic car, which Alleyn took to be the Cartarettes’, waited side by side. The young footman, William, emerged with a suitcase. Alleyn watched him deliver this to Fox and return to the house.
“There goes our dirty washing,” Mark said, and then looked uncomfortable.
Alleyn said, “But you carried a tennis racket, didn’t you, and Sir George, I suppose, a golf bag? May we have them too?”
Mark said, “Yes, I see. Yes. All right, I’ll get them.”
He ran up the steps and disappeared. Alleyn turned to Rose. She stared at the doorway through which Mark had gone, and it was as if some kind of threat had overtaken her.
“I’m so frightened,” she said. “I don’t know why, but I’m so frightened.”
“Of what?” Alleyn asked gently.
“I don’t know. One of those things, I suppose. I’ve never felt it before. It’s as if my father was the only person that I ever really knew. And now he’s gone; someone’s murdered him, and I feel as if I didn’t properly understand anyone at all.”
Mark came back with a bag of clubs and a tennis racket in a press.
“This is it,” he said.
“You didn’t have it in one of those waterproof-cover things?”
“What? Oh, yes, actually, I did.”
“May I have that too, please?”
Mark made a second trip to get it and was away rather longer. “I wasn’t sure which was the one,” he said, “but I think this is right.”
Alleyn put it with the bag and racket in the car.
Mark had caught Rose’s hand in his. She hung back a little. “Mr. Alleyn,” Mark said, “Rose and I are in the hell of a spot over this. Aren’t we, darling? We’re engaged, by the way.”
“You amaze me,” Alleyn said.
“Well, we are. And, of course, wherever it’s humanly possible, I’m going to see that Rose is not harried and fussed. She’s had a very severe shock and…”
“No, don’t,” Rose said. “Please, Mark, don’t.”
Mark gazed at her, seemed to lose the thread of his subject, and then collected himself.
“It’s just this,” he said. “I feel strongly that as far as you and our two families are concerned, everything ought to be perfectly straightforward. We’re under promise not to mention this and that, and so we can’t, but we are both very worried about the way things are going. I mean, in respect of Octavius Phinn. You see, sir, we happen to know that poor old Occy Phinn had every possible reason not to commit this crime. Every possible reason. And if,” Mark said, “you’ve guessed, as I rather think you may have, what I’m driving at, I can’t help it.”
“And you agree with all this, Miss Cartarette?” Alleyn asked.
Rose held herself a little aloof now. Tear-stained and obviously exhausted, she seemed to pull herself together and shape her answer with care and difficulty.
“Mr. Alleyn, my father would have been appalled if he could have known that because he and Octavius had a row over the trout, poor Occy might be thought to — to have a motive. They’d had rows over trout for years. It was a kind of joke — nothing. And — whatever else they had to say to each other, and as you know, there was something else, it would have made Octavius much more friendly. I promise you. You see, I know my father had gone to see Octavius.”
Alleyn said quickly, “You mean he went to his house? Yesterday afternoon?”
“Yes. I was with him before he went and he said he was going there.”
/> “Did he say why? I think you spoke of some publishing business.”
“Yes. He — he had something he wanted to show Occy.”
“What was that, can you tell us?”
“I can’t tell you,” Rose said looking wretchedly unhappy. “I do know, actually, but it’s private. But I’m sure he went to Occy’s because I saw him take the envelope out of the desk and put it in his pocket—” she put her hand to her eyes— “but,” she said, “where is it, then?”
Alleyn said, “Where exactly was the envelope? In which drawer of his desk?”
“I think the bottom one on the left. He kept it locked, usually.”
“I see. Thank you. And, of course, Mr. Phinn was not at home?”
“No. I suppose, finding him not at home, Daddy followed him down to the stream. Of course, I mustn’t tell you what his errand was, but if ever,” Rose said in a trembling voice, “if ever there was an errand of — well, of mercy — Daddy’s was one, yesterday afternoon.”
Rose had an unworldly face with a sort of Pre-Raphaelitish beauty: very unmodish in its sorrow and very touching.
Alleyn said gently, “I know. Don’t worry. I can promise we won’t blunder.”
“How kind you are,” she said. Mark muttered indistinguishably.
As Alleyn turned away towards the police car, her voice halted him. “It must be somebody mad,” she said. “Nobody who wasn’t mad could possibly do it. Not possibly. There’s somebody demented that did it for no reason at all.” She extended her hand towards him a little way, the palm turned up in a gesture of uncertainty and appeal. “Don’t you think so?” she said.
Alleyn said, “I think you are very shocked and bewildered, as well you might be. Did you sleep last night?”
“Not much. I am sorry, Mark, but I didn’t take the thing you gave me. I felt I mustn’t. I had to wake for him. The house felt as if he was looking for me.”
“I think it might be a good idea,” Alleyn said to Mark, “if you drove Miss Cartarette to Hammer Farm, where perhaps she will be kind enough to hunt up her own and Mrs. Cartarette’s garments of yesterday. Everything, please, shoes, stockings and all. And treat them, please, like eggshell china.”
Mark said, “As important as that?”
“The safety of several innocent persons may depend upon them.”
“I’ll take care,” Mark said.
“Good. We’ll follow you and collect them.”
“Fair enough,” Mark said. He smiled at Rose. “And when that’s done,” he said, “I’m going to bring you back to Nunspardon and put my professional foot down about nembutal. Kitty’ll drive herself home. Come on.”
Alleyn saw Rose make a small gesture of protest. “I think perhaps I’ll stay at Hammer, Mark.”
“No, you won’t, darling.”
“I can’t leave Kitty like that.”
“She’ll understand. Anyway, we’ll be back here before she leaves. Come on.”
Rose turned as if to appeal to Alleyn and then seemed to give up. Mark took her by the elbow and led her away.
Alleyn watched them get into the sports car and shoot off down a long drive. He shook his head slightly and let himself into the front seat beside Fox.
“Follow them, Br’er Fox,” he said. “But sedately. There’s no hurry. We’re going to Hammer Farm.”
On the way he outlined the general shape of his visit to Nunspardon.
“It’s clear enough, wouldn’t you agree,” he ended, “what has happened about the memoirs. Take the facts as we know them. The leakage of information at Zlomce was of such importance that Sir Harold Lacklander couldn’t, in what is evidently an exhaustive autobiography, ignore it. At the time of the catastrophe we learnt in the Special Branch from Lacklander himself that after confessing his treachery, young Phinn, as a result of his wigging, committed suicide. We know Lacklander died with young Phinn’s name on his lips, at the same time showing the greatest anxiety about the memoirs. We know that Cartarette was entrusted with the publication. We know Cartarette took an envelope from the drawer that was subsequently broken open and went to see old Phinn on what Miss Cartarette describes as an errand of mercy. When he didn’t find him at home, he followed him into the valley. Finally, we know that after they fell out over the poaching, they had a further discussion about which, although she admits she heard it, Lady Lacklander will tell us nothing. Now, my dear Br’er Fox, why should the Lacklanders or Mr. Phinn or the Cartarettes be so uncommonly touchy about all this? I don’t know what you think, but I can find only one answer.”
Fox turned the car sedately into the Hammer Farm drive and nodded his head.
“Seems pretty obvious when you put it like that, Mr. Alleyn, I must say. But is there sufficient motive for murder in it?”
“Who the hell’s going to say what’s a sufficient motive for murder? And anyway, it may be one of a bunch of motives. Probably is. Stick to ubi, quibus, auxiliis, quomodo and quando, Foxkin; let cur look after itself, and blow me down if quis won’t walk in when you’re least expecting it.”
“So you always tell us, sir,” said Fox.
“All right, all right; I grow to a dotage and repeat myself. There’s the lovelorn C.P.’s car. We wait here while they hunt up the garments of the two ladies. Mrs. Cartarette’s will be brand-new extra-loud tweeds smelling of Schiaparelli and, presumably, of fish.”
“Must be a bit lonely,” Fox mused.
“Who?”
“Mrs. Cartarette. An outsider, you might say, dumped down in a little place where they’ve known each other’s pedigrees since the time they were all using bows and arrows. Bit lonely. More she tries to fit in, I daresay, the less they seem to take to her. More polite they get, the more uncomfortable they make her feel.”
“Yes,” Alleyn said, “true enough. You’ve shoved your great fat finger into the middle of one of those uncomfortable minor tragedies that the Lacklanders of this world prefer to cut dead. And I’ll tell you something else, Fox. Of the whole crowd of them, not excluding your girl-friend, there isn’t one that wouldn’t feel a kind of relief if she turned out to have murdered her husband.”
Fox looked startled. “One, surely?” he ejaculated.
“No,” Alleyn insisted with a sort of violence that was very rare with him. “Not one. Not one. For all of them she’s the intruder, the disturber, the outsider. The very effort some of them have tried to make on her behalf has added to their secret resentment. I bet you. How did you get on in Chyning?”
“I saw Dr. Curtis. He’s fixed up very comfortably in the hospital mortuary and was well on with the P.M. Nothing new cropped up about the injuries. He says he thinks it’s true enough about the fish scales and will watch out for them and do the microscope job with all the exhibits. The Yard’s going to look up the late Sir Harold’s will and check Commander Syce’s activities in Singapore. They say it won’t take long if the Navy List gives them a line on anybody in the Service who was there at the time and has a shore job now. If they strike it lucky, they may call us back in a couple of hours. I said the Boy and Donkey and the Chyning station to be sure of catching us.”
“Good,” Alleyn said without much show of interest. “Hullo, listen who’s coming! Here we go.”
He was out of the car before Fox could reply and with an abrupt change of speed began to stroll down the drive. His pipe was in his hands and he busied himself with filling it. The object of this unexpected pantomime now pedalled into Mr. Fox’s ken: the village postman.
Alleyn, stuffing his pipe, waited until the postman was abreast with him.
“Good morning,” said Alleyn.
“Morning, sir,” said the postman, braking his bicycle.
“I’ll take them, shall I?” Alleyn suggested.
The postman steadied himself with one foot on the ground. “Well, ta,” he said and with a vague suggestion of condolence added, “Save the disturbance, like, won’t it, sir? Only one, anyway.” He fetched a long envelope from his bag and held it out. “
For the deceased,” he said in a special voice. “Terrible sad, if I may pass the remark.”
“Indeed, yes,” Alleyn said, taking, with a sense of rising excitement, the long, and to him familiar, envelope.
“Terrible thing to happen in the Vale,” the postman continued. “What I mean, the crime, and the Colonel that highly respected and never a word that wasn’t kindness itself. Everybody’s that upset and that sorry for the ladies. Poor Miss Rose, now! Well, it’s terrible.”
The postman, genuinely distressed and at the same time consumed with a countryman’s inquisitiveness, looked sideways at Alleyn. “You’d be a relative, I daresay, sir.”
“How very kind of you,” Alleyn said, blandly ignoring this assumption. “I’ll tell them you sent your sympathy, shall I?”
“Ta,” said the postman. “And whoever done it; what I mean, I’m sure I hope they get ’em. I hear it’s reckoned to be a job for the Yard and altogether beyond the scope of Bert Oliphant, which won’t surprise us in the Vale, although the man’s active enough when it comes to after hours at the Boy and Donkey. Well, I’ll be getting along.”
When he had gone, Alleyn returned to Fox.
“Look what I’ve got,” he said.
Fox contemplated the long envelope and, when Alleyn showed him the reverse side, read the printed legend on the flap: “From Brierley and Bentwood, St. Peter’s Place, London, W. 1.”
“Publishers?” said Fox.
“Yes. We’ve got to know what this is, Fox. The flap’s very sketchily gummed down. A little tweak and — how easy it would be. Justifiable enough, too, I suppose. However, we’ll go the other way round. Here comes Miss Cartarette.”
She came out, followed by Mark carrying a suitcase, a tennis racket in a press and a very new golf bag and clubs.
“Here you are, sir,” Mark said. “We had to fish the clothes out of the dry cleaner’s box, but they’re all present and correct. Rose said you might want her racket, which is absurd, but this is it.”
“Thank you,” Alleyn said, and Fox relieved Mark of his load and put it in the police car. Alleyn showed Rose the envelope.