Ngaio Marsh - Grave Mistake

Verity sat down abruptly. “What can you mean?” she said.

Alleyn told her.

“I have always,” Mr. Markos said, “regarded stories of coincidence in a dubious light. My invariable instinct is to discredit them.”

“Is it?” said Verity. “I always believe them and find them boring. I am prepared to acknowledge, since everyone tells me so, that life is littered with coincidences. I don’t mind. But this,” she said to Alleyn, “is something else again. This takes a hell of a lot of acceptance.”

“Is that perhaps because of what has happened? If Mrs. Foster hadn’t died and if one day in the course of conversation it had emerged that her Maurice Carter had been Bruce Gardener’s Captain Carter, what would have been the reaction?”

“I can tell you what Syb’s reaction would have been. She’d have made a big tra-la about it and said she’d always sensed there was ‘something.’ ”

“And you?”

Verity thought it over. “Yes,” she said. “You’re right. I’d have said: fancy! Extraordinary coincidence, but wouldn’t have thought much more about it.”

“If one may ask?” said Mr. Markos, already asking. “How did you find out? You or whoever it was?”

“I recognized him in an old photograph of the regiment. Not at first. I was shamefully slow. He hadn’t got a beard in those days but he had got his squint”

“Was he embarrassed?” Verity asked. “When you mentioned it, I mean?”

“I wouldn’t have said so. Flabbergasted is the word that springs to mind. From there he passed quickly to the ‘what a coincidence’ bit and then into the realms of misty Scottish sentiment on ‘who would have thought it’ and ‘had I but known’ lines.”

“I can imagine.”

“Your Edinburgh Castle guide would have been brassy in comparison.”

“Castle?” asked Mr. Markos. “Edinburgh?”

Verity explained.

“What’s he doing now?” Mr. Markos sharply demanded. “Still cultivating mushrooms? Next door, by yet another coincidence”—he tapped the plan—“to the point marked X.”

“When we left him he was going to the church.”

“To the church ! Why?”

Verity said: “I know why.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Oh,” said Verity, “this is all getting too much. Like a Jacobean play. He’s digging Sybil’s grave.”

“Why?” asked Mr. Markos.

“Because Jim Jobbin has got lumbago.”

“Who is — no,” Mr. Markos corrected himself, “it doesn’t matter. My dear Alleyn, forgive me if I’m tiresome, but doesn’t all this throw a very dubious light upon the jobbing Gardener?”

“If it does he’s not the only one.”

“No? No, of course. I am forgetting the egregious Claude. By the way — I’m sorry, but you may slap me back if I’m insufferable — where does all this information come from?”

“In no small part,” said Alleyn, “from Mrs. Jim Jobbin.”

Mr. Markos flung up his hands. “These Jobbins!” he lamented and turned to Verity. “Come to my rescue. Who are the Jobbins?”

“Mrs. Jim helps you out once a week at Mardling. Her husband digs drains and mows lawns. I daresay he mows yours if the truth were known.”

“Odd job Jobbins, in fact,” said Alleyn and Verity giggled.

“Gideon would know,” his father said. “He looks after that sort of thing. In any case, it doesn’t matter. Unless — I suppose she’s — to be perfectly cold-blooded about it — trustworthy?”

“She’s a long-standing friend,” said Verity, “and the salt of the earth. I’d sooner suspect the Vicar’s wife of hanky-panky than Mrs. Jim.”

“Well, of course, my very dear Verity” (damn’, thought Verity, I wish he wouldn’t) “that disposes of her, no doubt.” He turned to Alleyn. “So the field is, after all, not extensive. Far too few suspects for a good read.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alleyn rejoined. “You may have overlooked a candidate.”

In the pause that followed a blackbird somewhere in Verity’s garden made a brief statement and traffic on the London motorway four miles distant established itself as a vague rumour.

Mr. Markos said: “Ah, yes. Of course. But I hadn’t overlooked him. You’re talking about my acquaintance, Dr. Basil Schramm.”

“Only because I was going to ring up and ask if I might have a word with you about him. I think you introduced him to the Upper Quintern scene, didn’t you?”

“Well — fleetingly, I suppose I did.”

Verity said: “Would you excuse me? I’ve got a telephone call I must make and I must see about the flowers.”

“Are you being diplomatic?” Mr. Markos asked archly.

“I don’t even know how,” she said and left them not, she hoped, too hurriedly. The two men sat down.

“I’ll come straight to the point, shall I?” Alleyn said. “Can you and if so, will you, tell me anything of Dr. Schramm’s history? Where he qualified, for instance? Why he changed his name? Anything?”

“Are you checking his own account of himself? Or hasn’t he given a satisfactory one? You won’t answer that, of course, and very properly not.”

“I don’t in the least mind answering. I haven’t asked him.”

“As yet?”

“That’s right. As yet.”

“Well,” said Mr. Markos, airily waving his hand, “I’m afraid I’m not much use to you. I know next to nothing of his background except that he took his degree somewhere in Switzerland. I had no idea he’d changed his name, still less why. We met when crossing the Atlantic in the Q.E . Two and subsequently in New York at a cocktail party given at the St. Regis by fellow passengers. Later on that same evening at his suggestion we dined together and afterwards visited some remarkable clubs to which he had the entrée. The entertainment was curious. That was the last time I saw him until he rang me up at Mardling on his way to Greengages. On the spur of the moment I asked him to dinner. I have not seen him since then.”

“Did he ever talk about his professional activities — I mean whether he had a practise in New York or was attached to a hospital or clinic or what have you?”

“Not in any detail. In the ship going over he was the life and soul of a party that revolved round an acquaintance of mine — the Princess Palevsky. I rather gathered that he acquired her and two American ladies of considerable renown as — patients. I imagine,” said Mr. Markos smoothly, “that he is the happy possessor of a certain expertise in that direction. And, really, my dear Alleyn, that is the full extent of my acquaintance with Basil Schramm.”

“What do you think of him?” said Alleyn abruptly.

“ Think of him? What can I say? And what exactly do you mean?”

“Did you form an opinion of his character, for instance? Nice chap? Lightweight? Man of integrity?”

“He is quite entertaining. A lightweight, certainly, but good value as a mixer and with considerable charm. I would trust him,” said Mr. Markos, “no further than I could toss a grand piano. A concert grand.”

“Where women are concerned?”

“Particularly where women are concerned.”

“I see,” said Alleyn cheerfully and got up. “I must go,” he said, “I’m running late. By the way, is Miss Foster at Quintern Place now, do you happen to know?”

“Prunella? No. She and Gideon went up to London this morning. They’ll be back for dinner. She’s staying with us.”

“Ah yes. I must go. Would you apologize for me to Miss Preston?”

“I’ll do that. Sorry not to have been more informative.‘’

“Oh,” Alleyn said, “the visit has not been unproductive. Goodbye to you.”

Fox was in the car in the lane. When he saw Alleyn he started up his engine.