by Ngaio Marsh
He said, “This has come for your father. I’m afraid we may have to ask for all his recent correspondence and certainly for anything that comes now. They will, of course, be returned and, unless used in evidence, will be treated as strictly confidential. I’m so sorry, but that’s how it is. If you wish, you may refuse to let me have this one without an official order.”
He was holding it out with the typed superscription uppermost. Rose looked at it without interest.
Mark said, “Look, darling, I think perhaps you shouldn’t—”
“Please take it,” she said to Alleyn. “It’s a pamphlet, I should think.”
Alleyn thanked her and watched her go off with Mark in his car.
“Shame to take the money,” said Fox.
Alleyn said, “I hope, if he knows, the Colonel doesn’t think too badly of me.”
He opened the envelope, drew out the enclosure and unfolded it.
Colonel M. C. V. Cartarette, M.V.O., D.S.C.
Hammer Farm
Swevenings
Dear Sir:
The late Sir Harold Lacklander, three weeks before he died, called upon me for a discussion about his memoirs, which my firm is to publish. A difficulty had arisen in respect of Chapter 7, and Sir Harold informed me that he proposed to take your advice in this matter. He added that if he should not live to see the publication of his memoirs, he wished you, if you would accept the responsibility, to edit the work in toto. He asked me, in the event of his death, to communicate directly with you and with nobody else and stressed the point that your decision in every respect must be considered final.
We have had no further instructions or communications of any kind from Sir Harold Lacklander, and I now write, in accordance with his wishes, to ask if you have, in fact, accepted the responsibility of editing the memoirs, if you have received the manuscript, and if you have arrived at a decision in the delicate and important matter of Chapter 7.
I shall be most grateful for an early reply. Perhaps you would give me the pleasure of lunching with me when next you are in London. If you would be kind enough to let me know the appropriate date, I shall keep it free.
I am, my dear sir,
Yours truly,
Timothy Bentwood
“And I’ll give you two guesses, Br’er Fox,” Alleyn said as he refolded the letter and returned it to its envelope, “what constitutes the delicate and important matter of Chapter 7.”
When Mark had turned in at the Nunspardon Lodge gates, Rose asked him to stop somewhere on the drive.
“It’s no use going on,” she said. “There’s something I’ve got to say. Please stop.”
“Of course.” Mark pulled into an open space alongside the drive. He stopped his engine and turned to look at her. “Now,” he said, “tell me.”
“Mark, he doesn’t think it was a tramp.”
“Alleyn?”
“Yes. He thinks it was — one of us. I know he does.”
“What exactly, darling, do you mean by ‘one of us’?”
Rose made a little faint circling movement of her hand.
“Someone that knew him. A neighbour. Or one of his own family.”
“You can’t tell. Honestly. Alleyn’s got to do his stuff. He’s got to clear the decks.”
“He doesn’t think it was a tramp,” Rose repeated. Her voice, exhausted and drained of its colour, rose a little. “He thinks it was one of us.”
Mark said after a long pause, “Well, suppose — and I don’t for a moment admit it — suppose at this stage he does wonder about all of us. After all—”
“Yes,” Rose said, “after all, he has cause, hasn’t he?”
“What do you mean?”
“You see what’s happening to us? You’re pretending to misunderstand. It’s clear enough he’s found out about Chapter 7.”
She saw the colour drain out of his face and cried out, “O! What am I doing to us both!”
“Nothing as yet,” Mark said. “Let’s get this straight. You think Alleyn suspects that one of us — me or my father or, I suppose, my grandmother — may have killed your father because he was going to publish the amended version of my grandfather’s memoirs. That it?”
“Yes.”
“I see. Well, you may be right. Alleyn may have some such idea. What I want to know now is this: You yourself, Rose — do you — can it be possible that you, too—? No,” he said, “not now. I won’t ask you now when you’re so badly shocked. We’ll wait.”
“We can’t wait. I can’t go on like this. I can’t come back to Nunspardon and pretend the only thing that matters is for me to take a nembutal and go to sleep.”
“Rose, look at me. No, please. Look at me.”
He took her face between his hands and turned towards him.
“My God,” he said, “you’re afraid of me.”
She did not try to free herself. Her tears ran down between his fingers. “No,” she cried, “no, it’s not true. I can’t be afraid of you; I love you.”
“Are you sure? Are you sure that somewhere in the back of your mind you’re not remembering that your father stood between us and that I was jealous of your love for him? And that his death has made you an heiress? Because it has, hasn’t it? And that the publication of the memoirs would have set my family against our marriage and brought disrepute upon my name? Are you sure you don’t suspect me, Rose?”
“Not you. I promise. Not you.”
“Then — who? Gar? My father? Darling, can you see how fantastic it sounds when one says it aloud?”
“I know it sounds fantastic,” Rose said in despair. “It’s fantastic that anyone should want to hurt my father, but all the same, somebody has killed him. I’ve got to learn to get used to that. Last night somebody killed my father.”
She pulled his hands away from her face. “You must admit,” she said, “that takes a bit of getting used to.”
Mark said, “What am I to do about this!”
“Nothing; you can’t do anything; that’s what’s so awful, isn’t it? You want me to turn to you and find my comfort in you, don’t you, Mark? And I want it, too. I long for it. And then, you see, I can’t. I can’t, because there’s no knowing who killed my father.”
There was a long silence. At last she heard Mark’s voice. “I didn’t want to say this, Rose, but now I’m afraid I’ve got to. There are, after all, other people. If my grandmother and my father and I fall under suspicion— O, yes, and Occy Phinn— isn’t there somebody else who can’t be entirely disregarded?”
Rose said, “You mean Kitty, don’t you?”
“I do. Yes — equally with us.”
“Don’t!” Rose cried out. “Don’t! I won’t listen.”
“You’ve got to. We can’t stop now. Do you suppose I enjoy reminding myself — or you — that my father—”
“No! No, Mark! Please!” Rose said and burst into tears.
Sometimes there exists in people who are attached to each other a kind of ratio between the degree of attraction and the potential for irritation. Strangely, it is often the unhappiness of one that arouses an equal degree of irascibility in the other. The tear-blotted face, the obstinate misery, the knowledge that the distress is genuine and the feeling of incompetence it induces, all combine to exasperate and infirme.
Rose thought she recognized signs of this exasperation in Mark. His look darkened and he had moved away from her. “I can’t help it, Mark,” she stammered.
She heard his expostulations and reiterated arguments. She thought she could hear, too, a note of suppressed irritation in his voice. He kept saying that the whole thing had better be threshed out between them. “Let’s face it,” he said on a rising note. “Kitty’s there, isn’t she? And what about Geoffrey Syce or Nurse Kettle? We needn’t concentrate exclusively on the Lacklanders, need we?” Rose turned away. Leaning her arm on the ledge of the open window and her face on her arm, she broke down completely.
“Ah, hell!” Mark shouted. He pushed open the
door, got out and began to walk angrily to and fro.
It was upon this situation that Kitty appeared, driving herself home from Nunspardon. When she saw Mark’s car, she pulled up. Rose made a desperate effort to collect herself. After a moment’s hesitation, Kitty got out of her car and came over to Rose. Mark shoved his hands into his pockets and moved away.
“I don’t want to butt in,” Kitty said, “but can I do anything? I mean, just say — I’ll get out if I’m no use.”
Rose looked up at her and for the first time saw in her stepmother’s face the signs of havoc that Kitty had been at pains to repair. For the first time it occurred to Rose that there are more ways than one of meeting sorrow, and for the first time she felt a sense of fellowship for Kitty.
“How kind of you,” she said. “I’m glad you stopped.”
“That’s all right. I was sort of wondering,” Kitty went on, with an unwonted air of hesitation; “I daresay you’d rather sort of move out. Say if you would. I’m not talking about what you said about the future but of now. I mean, I daresay Mark’s suggested you stay up at Nunspardon. Do, if you’d like to. I mean, I’ll be O.K.”
It had never occurred to Rose that Kitty might be lonely if she herself went to Nunspardon. A stream of confused recollections and ideas flooded her thoughts. She reminded herself again that Kitty would now be quite desperately hard-up and that she had a responsibility towards her. She wondered if her stepmother’s flirtations with Mark’s father had not been induced by a sense of exclusion. She looked into the careworn, over-painted face and thought, “After all, we both belonged to him.”
Kitty said awkwardly, “Well, anyway, I’ll push off.”
Suddenly Rose wanted to say, “I’ll come back with you, Kitty. Let’s go home.” She fumbled with the handle of the door, but before she could speak or make a move, she was aware of Mark. He had come back to the car and had moved round to her side and was speaking to Kitty.
“That’s what I’ve been telling her,” he said. “In fact, as her doctor, those are my orders. She’s coming to Nunspardon. I’m glad you support me.”
Kitty gave him the look that she bestowed quite automatically on any presentable male. “Well, anyway, she’s in good hands,” she said. She gave them a little wave of her own hand and returned to her car.
With a feeling of desolation and remorse Rose watched her drive away.
On the way to Chyning, Alleyn propounded his theory on Chapter 7.
“Bear in mind,” he said, “the character of Colonel Cartarette as it emerges from the welter of talk. With the exception of Danberry-Phinn, they are all agreed, aren’t they, that Cartarette was a nice chap with uncommonly high standards and a rather tender conscience. All right. For the last time let us remind ourselves that, just before he died, old Lacklander was very much bothered by something to do with Cartarette and the memoirs and that he died with the name Vic on his lips. All right. Whenever the memoirs and/or young Viccy Phinn are mentioned, everybody behaves as if they’re concealing the fact that they are about to have kittens. Fair enough. Phinn and Lady Lacklander both agree that there was further discussion, after the row, between Phinn and the Colonel. Lady Lacklander flatly refuses to divulge the subject-matter, and Phinn says if she won’t, neither will he. The Colonel left his house with the intention of calling upon Phinn, with whom he had been on bad terms for a long time. Now put all those bits together, remembering the circumstances of young Phinn’s death, George Lacklander’s virtual admission that the memoirs exonerated young Phinn, Rose Cartarette’s statement that her father’s visit to old Phinn was an errand of mercy, and the contents of the publisher’s letter. Put ’em together and what do you get?”
“Chapter 7 was the bit that exonerated young Phinn. Colonel Cartarette was given the responsibility of including it in this book. He couldn’t decide one way or the other and took it to Mr. Phinn,” Fox speculated, “to see which way he felt about it. Mr. Phinn was out fishing and the Colonel followed him up. After their dust-up the Colonel — now what does the Colonel do?”
“In effect,” Alleyn said, “the Colonel says, ‘All right, you unconscionable old poacher. All right. Look what I’d come to do for you?’ And he tells him about Chapter 7. And since we didn’t find Chapter 7 on the Colonel, we conclude that he gave it there and then to Mr. Phinn. This inference is strongly supported by the fact that I saw an envelope with a wad of typescript inside, addressed in the Colonel’s hand to Mr. Phinn, on Mr. Phinn’s desk. So what, my old Foxkin, are we to conclude?”
“About Chapter 7?”
“About Chapter 7.”
“You tell me,” said Fox with a stately smile.
Alleyn told him.
“Well, sir,” Fox said, “it’s possible. It’s as good a motive as any for the Lacklanders to do away with the Colonel.”
“Except that if we’re right in our unblushing conjectures, Fox, Lady Lacklander overheard the Colonel give Chapter 7 to Mr. Phinn; in which case, if any of the Lacklanders were after blood, Mr. Phinn’s would be the more logical blood to tap.”
“Lady Lacklander may not have heard much of what they said.”
“In which case, why is she so cagey about it all now, and what did she and the Colonel talk about afterwards?”
“Ah, blast!” said Fox in disgust. “Well, then, it may be that the memoirs and Chapter 7 and Who-Stole-the-Secret-Document-in-Zlomce haven’t got anything to do with the case.”
“My feeling is that they do belong but are not of the first importance.”
“Well, Mr. Alleyn, holding the view you do hold, it’s the only explanation that fits.”
“Quite so. And I tell you what, Fox, motive, as usual, is a secondary consideration. And here is Chyning and a petrol pump and here (hold on to your hat, Fox; down, down, little flutterer) is the Jolly Kettle filling up a newly painted car which I’ll swear she calls by a pet name. If you can control yourself, we’ll pull in for some petrol. Good morning, Miss Kettle.”
“The top of the morning to you, Chief,” said Nurse Kettle turning a beaming face upon them. She slapped the back of her car as if it were a rump. “Having her elevenses,” she said. “First time we’ve met for a fortnight on account she’s been having her face lifted. And how are you?”
“Bearing up,” Alleyn said, getting out of the car. “Inspector Fox is turning rather short-tempered.”
Fox ignored him. “Very nice little car, Miss Kettle,” he said.
“Araminta? She’s a good steady girl on the whole,” said Nurse Kettle, remorselessly jolly. “I’m just taking her out to see a case of lumbago.”
“Commander Syce?” Alleyn ventured.
“That’s right.”
“He is completely recovered.”
“You don’t say,” Nurse Kettle rejoined, looking rather disconcerted. “And him tied up in knots last evening. Fancy!”
“He was a cot case, I understand, when you left him round about eight o’clock last night.”
“Very sorry for ourselves we were, yes.”
“And yet,” Alleyn said, “Mr. Phinn declares that at a quarter past eight Commander Syce was loosing off arrows from his sixty-pound bow.”
Nurse Kettle was scarlet to the roots of her mouse-coloured hair. Alleyn heard his colleague struggling with some subterranean expression of sympathy.
“Well, fancy!” Nurse Kettle was saying in a high voice. “There’s ’bago for you! Now you see it, now you don’t.” And she illustrated this aphorism with sharp snaps of her finger and thumb.
Fox said in an unnatural voice, “Are you sure, Miss Kettle, that the Commander wasn’t having you on? Excuse the suggestion.”
Nurse Kettle threw him a glance that might perhaps be best described as uneasily roguish.
“And why not?” she asked. “Maybe he was. But not for the reason you mere men suppose.”
She got into her car with alacrity and sounded her horn. “Home, John, and don’t spare the horses,” she cried waggishly and drove away i
n what was evidently an agony of self-consciousness.
“Unless you can develop a deep-seated and obstinate malady, Br’er Fox,” Alleyn said, “you haven’t got a hope.”
“A thoroughly nice woman,” Fox said and added ambiguously, “What a pity!”
They got their petrol and drove on to the police station.
Here Sergeant Oliphant awaited them with two messages from Scotland Yard.
“Nice work,” Alleyn said. “Damn’ quick.”
He read aloud the first message. “Information re trout scales checked with Natural History Museum, Royal Piscatorial Society, Institute for Preservation of British Trout Streams, and D.R. S. K. K. Solomon, expert and leading authority. All confirm that microscopically your two trout cannot exhibit precisely the same characteristics in scales. Cartarette regarded an authority.”
“Fine!” said Inspector Fox. “Fair enough!”
Alleyn took up the second slip of paper. “Report,” he read, “on the late Sir Harold Lacklander’s will.” He read to himself for a minute, then looked up. “Couldn’t be simpler,” he said. “With the exception of the usual group of legacies to dependents the whole lot goes to the widow and to the son, upon whom most of it’s entailed.”
“What Miss Kettle told us.”
“Exactly. Now for the third. Here we are. Report on Commander Geoffrey Syce, R.N., retired. Singapore, March 1, 195- to April 9, 195-. Serving in H. M. S. — , based on Singapore.
Shore duty. Activities, apart from duties: At first, noticeably quiet tastes and habits. Accepted usual invitations but spent considerable time alone, sketching. Later, cohabited with a so-called Miss Kitty de Vere, whom he is believed to have met at a taxi-dance. Can follow up history of de Vere if required. Have ascertained that Syce rented apartment occupied by de Vere, who subsequently met and married Colonel Maurice Cartarette, to whom she is believed to have been introduced by Syce. Sources—”
There followed a number of names, obtained from the Navy List, and a note to say that H. M. S. — being now in port, it had been possible to obtain information through the appropriate sources at the “urgent and important” level.