Ngaio Marsh - Grave Mistake

“The forrum? What forrum would that be, sir?”

“The Will. From a stationer’s shop?”

“Na, na,” he said, “I ken naething o’ that.”

“And, while we’re on the subject, did she ask you to bring things in for her? When you visited her?”

It appeared that he had from time to time fetched things from Quintern to Greengages. She would make a list and he would give it to Mrs. Jim. “Clamjampherie,” mostly, he thought, things from her dressing-table. Sometimes, he believed, garments. Mrs. Jim would put them in a small case so that he wasn’t embarrassed by impedimenta unbecoming to a man. Mrs. Foster would repack the case with things to be laundered. Alleyn gathered that the strictest decorum was observed. If he was present at these exercises he would withdraw to the window. He was at some pains to make this clear, arranging his mouth in a prim expression as he did so.

A picture emerged from these recollections of an odd, a rather cosy, relationship, enjoyable, one would think, for both parties. Plans had been laid, pontifications exchanged. There had been, probably, exclamatory speculation as to what the world was coming to, consultations over nurserymen’s catalogues, strolls round the rose-garden and conservatory. Bruce sustained an air of rather stuffy condescension in letting fall an occasional reference to these observances and still he gave, as Mrs. Jim in her own fashion had given, an impression of listening for somebody or something.

Behind him in the side wall was a ramshackle closed door leading, evidently, into the main stables. Alleyn saw that it had gaps between the planks and had dragged its course through loose soil on what was left of the floor.

He made as if to go and then looking at Bruce’s preparations asked if this was in fact to be the proposed mushroom bed. He said it was.

“It was the last request she made,” he said. “And I prefer to carry it out.” He expanded a little on the techniques of mushroom culture and then said, not too pointedly, if that was all he could do for Alleyn he’d better get on with it and reached for his long-handled shovel.

“There was one other thing,” Alleyn said. “I almost forgot. You did actually go over to Greengages on the day of her death, didn’t you?”

“I did so. But I never saw her,” he said and described how he had waited in the hall with his lilies and how Prunella—“the wee lassie,” he predictably called her — had come down and told him her mother was very tired and not seeing anybody that evening. He had left the lilies at the desk and the receptionist lady had said they would be attended to. So he had returned home by bus.

“With Mr. Claude Carter?” asked Alleyn.

Bruce became very still. His hands tightened on the shovel. He stared hard at Alleya, made as if to speak and changed his mind. Alleyn waited.

“I wasna aware, just,” Bruce said at last, “that you had spoken to that gentleman.”

“Nor have I. Miss Preston mentioned that he arrived with you at Greengages.”

He thought that over. “He arrived. That is so,” said Bruce, “but he did not depart with me.” He raised his voice. “I wish it to be clearly understood,” he said. “I have no perrsonal relationship with that gentleman.” And then very quietly and with an air of deep resentment: “He attached himself to me. He wurrumed the information out of me as to her whereabouts. It was an indecent performance and one that I cannot condone.”

He turned his head fractionally toward the closed door. “And that is the total sum of what I have to say in the matter,” he almost shouted.

“You’ve been very helpful. I don’t think I need pester you any more: thank you for co-operating.”

“There’s no call for thanks: I’m a law-abiding man,” Bruce said, “and I canna thole mysteries. Guid day to you, sir.”

“This is a lovely old building,” Alleyn said, “I’m interested in Georgian domestic architecture. Do you mind if I have a look round?”

Without waiting for an answer he passed Bruce and the closed door, dragged it open and came face-to-face with Claude Carter.

“Oh, hullo,” said Claude. “I thought I heard voices.”

i

The room was empty and smelt of rats with perhaps an undertone of long-vanished fodder. There was a tumbledown fireplace in one corner and in another a litter of objects that looked as if they had lain there for a century: empty tins, a sack that had rotted, letting out a trickle of cement, a bricklayer’s trowel, rusted and handleless, a heap of empty manure bags. The only window was shuttered. Claude was a dim figure.

He said: “I was looking for Bruce. The gardener. I’m afraid I don’t know—?”

The manner was almost convincing, almost easy, almost that of a son of the house. Alleyn thought the voice was probably pitched a little above its normal level but it sounded quite natural. For somebody who had been caught red-eared in the act of eavesdropping, Claude displayed considerable aplomb.

Alleyn shut the door behind him. Bruce Gardener, already plying his long-handled shovel, didn’t look up.

“And I was hoping to see you,” said Alleyn. “Mr. Carter, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. You have the advantage of me.”

“Superintendent Alleyn.”

After a considerable pause, Claude said: “Oh. What can I do for you, Superintendent?”

As soon as Alleyn told him he seemed to relax. He answered all the questions readily: yes, he had spoken to Miss Preston and Prue Foster but had not been allowed to visit his stepmother. He had gone for a stroll in the grounds, had missed the return bus and had walked into the village and picked up a later one there.

“A completely wasted afternoon,” he complained. “And I must say I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about the reception I got. Particularly in the light of what happened. After all, she was my stepmother.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“When? I don’t know when. Three — four years ago.”

“Before you went to Australia?”

He shot a sidelong look at Alleyn. “That’s right,” he said and after a pause: “You seem to be very well informed of my movements, Superintendent.”

“I know you returned as a member of the ship’s complement in the Poseidon .”

After a much longer pause, Claude said, “Oh, yes?”

“Shall we move outside and get a little more light and air on the subject?” Alleyn suggested.

Claude opened a door that gave directly on the yard. As they walked into the sunshine a clock in the stable turret told eleven very sweetly. The open front of the lean-to faced the yard. Bruce, shovelling vigorously, was in full view, an exemplar of ostentatious nonintervention. Claude stared resentfully at his stern and walked to the far end of the yard. Alleyn followed him.

“How long,” he asked cheerfully, “had you been in that dark and rather smelly apartment?”

“How long ? I don’t know. No time at all really. Why?”

“I don’t want to waste my breath and your time repeating myself, if you’ve already heard about the Will. And I think you must have heard it because, as I came up, the adjoining door in there was dragged shut.”

Claude gave a rather shrill titter. “You are quick, aren’t you?” he said. He lowered his voice. “As I said,” he confided, “I was looking for that gardener-man in there. As a matter of fact I thought he might be in the other room and then when you came in and began talking it was jolly awkward. I didn’t want to intrude so I–I mean I — you know — it’s difficult to explain—”

“You’re making a brave shot at it, though, aren’t you? Your sense of delicacy prompted you to remove into the next room, shut that same openwork door and remain close by it throughout our conversation. Is that it?”