Ngaio Marsh - Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh

“Thank you, sir.”

They went out, leaving a constable on duty. It was a cold morning. Mike looked up at the façade of the Jupiter. He could just make out the shape of the neon sign: i can find my way out by Anthony Gill .

When the telephone rang, Troy came in, sun-dazzled, from the cottage garden to answer it, hoping it would be a call from London.

“Oh,” said a strange voice uncertainly. “May I speak to Superintendent Alleyn, if you please?”

“I’m sorry. He’s away.”

“Oh, dear!” said the voice, crestfallen. “Er — would that be — am I speaking to Mrs. Alleyn?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Yes. Well, it’s Timothy Bates here, Mrs. Alleyn. You don’t know me,” the voice confessed wistfully, “but I had the pleasure several years ago of meeting your husband. In New Zealand. And he did say that if I ever came home I was to get in touch, and when I heard quite by accident that you were here—well, I was excited. But, alas, no good after all.”

“I am sorry,” Troy said. “He’ll be back, I hope, on Sunday night. Perhaps—”

“Will he! Come, that’s something! Because here I am at the Star and Garter, you see, and so—” The voice trailed away again.

“Yes, indeed. He’ll be delighted,” Troy said, hoping that he would.

“I’m a bookman,” the voice confided. “Old books, you know. He used to come into my shop. It was always such a pleasure.”

“But, of course!” Troy exclaimed. “I remember perfectly now. He’s often talked about it.”

“ Has he? Has he, really! Well, you see, Mrs. Alleyn, I’m here on business. Not to sell anything, please don’t think that, but on a voyage of discovery; almost, one might say, of detection, and I think it might amuse him. He has such an eye for the curious. Not,” the voice hurriedly amended, “in the trade sense. I mean curious in the sense of mysterious and unusual. But I mustn’t bore you.”

Troy assured him that he was not boring her and indeed it was true. The voice was so much colored by odd little overtones that she found herself quite drawn to its owner. “I know where you are,” he was saying. “Your house was pointed out to me.”

After that there was nothing to do but ask him to visit. He seemed to cheer up prodigiously. “May I? May I, really? Now?”

“Why not?” Troy said. “You’ll be here in five minutes.”

She heard a little crow of delight before he hung up the receiver.

He turned out to be exactly like his voice—a short, middle-aged, bespectacled man, rather untidily dressed. As he came up the path she saw that with both arms he clutched to his stomach an enormous Bible. He was thrown into a fever over the difficulty of removing his cap.

“How ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “Forgive me! One moment.”

He laid his burden tenderly on a garden seat. “There!” he cried. “Now! How do you do!”

Troy took him indoors and gave him a drink. He chose sherry and sat in the window seat with his Bible beside him. “You’ll wonder,” he said, “why I’ve appeared with this unusual piece of baggage. I do trust it arouses your curiosity.”

He went into a long excitable explanation. It appeared that the Bible was an old and rare one that he had picked up in a job lot of books in New Zealand. All this time he kept it under his square little hands as if it might open of its own accord and spoil his story.

“Because,” he said, “the really exciting thing to me is not its undoubted authenticity but—” He made a conspiratorial face at Troy and suddenly opened the Bible. “Look!” he invited.

He displayed the flyleaf. Troy saw that it was almost filled with entries in a minute, faded copperplate handwriting.

“The top,” Mr. Bates cried. “Top left-hand. Look at that .”

Troy read: “ Crabtree Farm at Little Copplestone in the County of Kent . Why, it comes from our village!”

“Ah, ha! So it does. Now, the entries, my dear Mrs. Alleyn. The entries.”

They were the recorded births and deaths of a family named Wagstaff, beginning in 1705 and ending in 1870 with the birth of William James Wagstaff. Here they broke off but were followed by three further entries, close together.

Stewart Shakespeare Hadet Died: Tuesday, 5th April, 1779. 2nd Samuel 1.10.

Naomi Balbus Hadet Died: Saturday, 13th August, 1779. Jeremiah 50.24.

Peter Rook Hadet Died: Monday, 12th September, 1779. Ezekiel 7.6.

Troy looked up to find Mr. Bates’s gaze fixed on her.

“And what,” Mr. Bates asked, “my dear Mrs. Alleyn, do you make of that ?”

“Well,” she said cautiously, “I know about Crabtree Farm. There’s the farm itself, owned by Mr. De’ath, and there’s Crabtree House, belonging to Miss Hart, and—yes, I fancy I’ve heard they both belonged originally to a family named Wagstaff.”

“You are perfectly right. Now! What about the Hadets? What about them ?”

“I’ve never heard of a family named Hadet in Little Copplestone. But—”

“Of course you haven’t. For the very good reason that there never have been any Hadets in Little Copplestone.”

“Perhaps in New Zealand, then?”

“The dates, my dear Mrs. Alleyn, the dates! New Zealand was not colonized in 1779. Look closer. Do you see the sequence of double dots—ditto marks—under the address? Meaning, of course, ‘also of Crabtree Farm at Little Copplestone in the County of Kent’.”

“I suppose so.”

“Of course you do. And how right you are. Now! You have noticed that throughout there are biblical references. For the Wagstaffs they are the usual pious offerings. You need not trouble yourself with them. But consult the text awarded to the three Hadets. Just you look them up! I’ve put markers.”

He threw himself back with an air of triumph and sipped his sherry. Troy turned over the heavy bulk of pages to the first marker. “Second of Samuel, one, ten,” Mr. Bates prompted, closing his eyes.

The verse had been faintly underlined.

“ So I stood upon him ,” Troy read, “ and slew him .”

“That’s Stewart Shakespeare Hadet’s valedictory,” said Mr. Bates. “Next!”

The next was at the 50th chapter of Jeremiah, verse 24: “ I have laid a snare for thee and thou are taken .”

Troy looked at Mr. Bates. His eyes were still closed and he was smiling faintly.

“That was Naomi Balbus Hadet,” he said. “Now for Peter Rook Hadet. Ezekiel, seven, six.”

The pages flopped back to the last marker.

“ An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold it is come. ”

Troy shut the Bible.

“How very unpleasant,” she said.

“And how very intriguing, don’t you think?” And when she didn’t answer, “Quite up your husband’s street, it seemed to me.”

“I’m afraid,” Troy said, “that even Rory’s investigations don’t go back to 1779.”

“What a pity!” Mr. Bates cried gaily.

“Do I gather that you conclude from all this that there was dirty work among the Hadets in 1779?”

“I don’t know, but I’m dying to find out. Dying to . Thank you, I should enjoy another glass. Delicious!”

He had settled down so cosily and seemed to be enjoying himself so much that Troy was constrained to ask him to stay to lunch.

“Miss Hart’s coming,” she said. “She’s the one who bought Crabtree House from the Wagstaffs. If there’s any gossip to be picked up in Copplestone, Miss Hart’s the one for it. She’s coming about a painting she wants me to donate to the Harvest Festival raffle.”