Ngaio Marsh - Grave Mistake

“Did he say what he meant to do with it?”

“Na, na. Not a wurrred to that effect.”

“Sure?”

“Aye, I’m sure,” said Bruce, indifferently.

“Oh, well,” Alleyn said after a pause and looked at Fox.

“You can’t win all the time,” said Fox.

Bruce shook himself like a wet dog. “I’ll not deny this has been a shock to me,” he said. “It’s given me an unco awkward feeling. As if,” he added opening his eyes very wide and producing a flight of fancy that seemed to surprise him, “as if time, in a manner of speaking, had got itself mixed. That’s a gey weird notion, to be sure.”

“Tell me, Gardener. Are you a Scot by birth?”

“Me? Na, na, I’m naething of the sort, sir. Naething of the sort. But I’ve worked since I was a laddie, in Scotland and under Scots instruction. I enlisted in Scotland. I served in a Scots regiment and I daresay you’ve noticed I’ve picked up a trick or two of the speech.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “I had noticed.

“Aye,” said Bruce complacently. “I daresay I’d pass for one in a crowd and proud to do it.” As if to put a signature to his affirmation he gave Alleyn a look that he would have undoubtedly described as “canny.”

“I ken well enough,” he said, “that I must feature on your short list if it’s with homicide that you’re concerning yourself, Superintendent. For the simple reason the deceased left me twenty-five thousand pounds, et cetera. That’s correct, is it not?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “That’s correct.”

“I didna reckon to be contradicted and I can only hope it won’t be long before you eliminate me from the file. In the meantime I can do what any guiltless man can do under the circumstances: tell the truth and hope I’m believed. For I have told you the truth, Chief Superintendent. I have indeed.”

“By and large, Bruce,” said Alleyn, “I believe you have.”

“There’s no ‘by’ and there’s no ‘large’ in it,” he said seriously, “and I don’t doubt you’ll come to acknowledge the fact.”

“I hope to,” Alleyn said cheerfully. “With that end in view tell me what you think of Dr. Schramm? You’ve met him, haven’t you?”

Bruce stared at him. He turned red and looked wary. “I canna see what my opinion of the doctor would have to do wi’ the matter in hand,” he said.

“You prefer not to give it?”

“I didna say so. I make no secret of what I think of the doctor. I think he’s not to be trusted.”

“Really? Why?”

“Leave it at that. Call it instinct. I canna thole the man and that’s the long and the short of it.”

He looked at his wrist-watch, a Big Ben of its species, glanced at the sun and said he ought to be getting down to the churchyard.

“At St. Crispin’s?”

“Aye. Did ye no’ hear? Jim Jobbin has the lumbago on him and I’m digging the grave. It’s entirely appropriate that I should do so.”

“Yes?”

“Aye, ’tis. I’ve done her digging up here and she’d have been well content I’d do it down there in the finish. The difference being we canna have our bit crack over the matter. So if you’ve no further requirements of me, sir, I’ll bid you good-day and get on with it.”

“Can we give you a lift?”

“I’m much obliged, sir, but I have my ain auld car. Mrs. Jim has left a piece and a bottle ready and I’ll take them with me. If its a long job and it may be that, I’ll get a bite of supper at my sister’s. She has a wee piece up Stile Lane, overlooking the kirk. When would the deceased be brought for burying, can you tell me that?”

“This evening. After dark, very likely.”

“And rest in the kirk overnight?”

“Yes.”

“Ou aye,” said Bruce on an indrawn breath. “That’s a very decent arrangement. Aweel, I’ve a long job ahead of me.”

“Thank you for your help.”

Alleyn went to the yard door of the empty room. He opened it and looked in. Nothing had changed.

“Is this part of the flat that was to be built for you?” he called out

“Aye, that was the idea,” said Bruce.

“Does Mr. Carter take an interest in it?”

“Ach, he’s always peering and prying. You’d think,” said Bruce distastefully, “it was him that’s the lawful heir.”

“Would you so,” said Alleyn absently. “Come along, Fox.”

They left Bruce pulling his shirt over his head in an easy workmanlike manner. He threw his jacket across his shoulder, took up his shovel and marched off,

“In his way,” said Fox, “a remarkable chap.”

iii

Verity, to her surprise, was entertaining Nikolas Markos to luncheon. He had rung her up the day before and asked her to “take pity” on him.

“If you would prefer it,” he had said, “I will drive you somewhere else, all the way to the Ritz if you like, and you shall be my guest. But I did wonder, rather wistfully, if we might have an egg under your lime trees. Our enchanting Prue is staying with us and I suddenly discover myself to be elderly. Worse: she, dear child, is taking pains with me.”

“You mean?”

“She laughs a little too kindly at my dated jokes. She remembers not to forget I’m there. She includes me, with scarcely an effort, in their conversations. She’s even taken to bestowing the odd butterfly kiss on the top of my head. I might as well be bald,” said Mr. Markos bitterly.

“I’ll undertake not to do that, at least. But I’m not much of a cook.”

“My dear, my adorable lady, I said Egg and I meant Egg. I am,” said Mr. Markos, “your slave forever and if you will allow me will endorse the declaration with what used to be called a bottle of The Widow. Perhaps, at this juncture I should warn you that I shall also present you with a problem. A demain and a thousand thanks.”

“He gets away with it,” Verity thought, “but only just. And if he says eggs, eggs he shall have. On creamed spinach. And my standby: iced sorrel soup first and the Stilton afterwards.”

And as it was a lovely day they did have lunch under the limes. Mr. Markos, good as his word, had brought a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and the slightly elevated atmosphere that Verity associated with him was quickly established. She could believe that he enjoyed himself as fully as he professed to do but he was as much of an exotic in her not very tidy English garden as frangipani. His hair luxuriant but disciplined, his richly curved, clever mouth and large, black eyes, his clothes that, while they avoided extravagance were inescapably very, very expensive — all these factors reminded Verity of Sybil Foster’s strictures.

“The difference is,” she thought, “that I don’t mind him being like this. What’s more I don’t think Syb would have minded either if he’d taken a bit more notice of her.”

When they had arrived at the coffee stage and he at his Turkish cigarette, he said: “I would choose, of course, to hear you talk about your work and this house and lovely garden. I should like you to confide in me and perhaps a little to confide in you myself.” He spread his hands. “What am I saying! How ridiculous! Of course I am about to confide in you; that is my whole intention, after all. I think you are accustomed to confidences: they are poured into your lap and you are discreet and never pass them on. Am I right?”

“Well,” said Verity, who was not much of a hand at talking about herself and didn’t enjoy it, “I don’t know so much about that.” And she thought how Alleyn, though without any Markosian floridity, had also introduced confidences. “Ratsy too,” she remembered, and thought irrelevantly that she had become quite a one for gentlemen callers over the last fortnight.