Ngaio Marsh - Last Ditch

“It’s half-past eleven,” said Alleyn. “Have a drink.”

Fox looked surprised. “Really?” he said. “This is unusual, Mr. Alleyn. Well, since you’ve suggested it I’ll take a light ale.”

Alleyn joined with him. They sat on the hotel balcony and looked not toward France but westward across the Golfe to the Atlantic. They saw that battlements of cloud had built up on the horizon.

“What does that mean?” wondered Troy, who had come out to join them. “Is that the weather quarter?”

“There’s no wind to speak of,” Alleyn said.

“Very sultry,” said Fox. “Humid.”

“The cloud’s massing while you look at it,” Troy said. “Swelling up over the edge of the ocean as fast as fast can be.”

“Perhaps it’s getting ready for Mr. Harkness’s service. Flashes of lightning,” said Alleyn, “an enormous beard lolloping over the top of the biggest cloud, and a gigantic hand chucking thunderbolts. Very alarming.”

“They say it’s the season on the island for that class of weather,” Fox observed.

“And in Saint Pierre-des-Roches judging by Rick’s experience.”

“Oppressive,” sighed Fox.

The western sky slowly darkened. By the time they had finished work on the file, cloud overhung the Channel and threatened the island. After luncheon it almost filled the heavens and was so low that the church spire on the hill above Montjoy looked as if it would prick it and bring down a deluge. But still it didn’t rain. Alleyn and Troy walked to the hospital and Fox paid a routine visit to the police station.

By teatime the afternoon had so darkened that it might have been evening.

At five o’clock Julia rang up, asking Troy if they would like to be collected for what she persisted in calling “Cuth’s party.” Troy explained that she would not be attending it and that Alleyn and Fox had a car. Jasper shouted greetings down the telephone. They both seemed to be in the best of spirits. Even Carlotta joined in the fun.

Troy said to Alleyn: “You’d say they rejoiced over the bolting of egregious Louis.”

“They’ve good cause to.”

“Is he in deep trouble, RoryT

“Might well be. We don’t really know and it’s even money that we’ll never find out.”

The telephone rang again and Alleyn answered it. He held the receiver away from his ear and Troy could hear the most remarkable noises coming through, as of a voice being violently tuned in and out on a loudspeaker. Every now and then words would belch out in a roar: “Retribution” was one and “Judgment” another. Alleyn listened with his face screwed up.

“I’m coming,” he said when he got the chance. “We are all coming. It has been arranged.”

“Jones!” the voice boomed, “ Jones !”

“That may be a bit difficult, but I think so.”

Expostulations rent the air.

“This is too much,” Alleyn said to Troy. He laid the receiver down and let it perform. When an opportunity presented itself he snatched it up and said: “Mr. Harkness, I am coming to your service. In the meantime, goodbye,” and hung up.

“Was that really Mr. Harkness?” asked Troy, “or was it an elemental on the rampage?”

“The former. Wait a jiffy.”

He called the office and said there seemed to be a lunatic on the line and would they be kind enough to cut him off if he rang again.

“How can he possibly hold a service?” Troy asked.

“He’s hell-bent on it. Whether he’s in a purely alcoholic frenzy or whether he really has taken leave of his senses or whether in fact he has something of moment to reveal is impossible to say.”

“But what’s he want ?”

“He wants a full house. He wants Ferrant and Jones, particularly.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s going to tell us who killed his niece.”

“For crying out loud!” said Troy.

“That,” said Alleyn, “is exactly what he intends to do?”

The service was to be at six o’clock. Alleyn and Fox left Montjoy at a quarter to the hour under a pall of cloud and absolute stillness. Local sounds had become isolated and clearly defined: voices, a car engine starting up, desultory footfalls. And still it did not rain.

After a minute or two on the road a police van overtook them and sailed ahead.

“Plank,” said Alleyn, “with his boys in blue and their charges. Only they’re not in blue.”

“I suppose it’s OK,” Fox said rather apprehensively.

“It’d better be,” said Alleyn.

As they passed L’Espérance, the Pharamond’s largest car could be seen coming down the drive. And on the avenue to Leathers they passed little groups of pedestrians and fell in behind a procession of three cars.

“Looks like capacity all right,” said Fox.

Two more cars were parked in front of the house and the police van was in the stable yard. Out in the horse paddock the sorrel mare flung up her head and stared at them. The loose-boxes were empty.

“Is he looking after all this himself?” Fox wondered. “You’d hardly fancy he was up to it, would you?”

Mr. Blacker, the vet, got out of one of the cars and came to meet them.

“This is a rum go and no mistake,” he said. “I got a most peculiar letter from Cuth. Insisting I come. Not my sort of Sunday afternoon at all. Apparently he’s been canvassing the district. Are you chaps mixed up in it, or what?”

Alleyn was spared the necessity of answering by the arrival of the Pharamonds.

They collected around Alleyn and Fox, gaily chattering as if they had met in the foyer of the Paris Opéra. Julia and Carlotta wore black linen suits with white lawn blouses, exquisite tributes to Mrs. Ferrant’s art as a blanchisseuse de fin .

“Shall we go in?” Julia asked as if the bells had rung for Curtain-Up. “We mustn’t miss anything, must we?” She laid her gloved hand on Alleyn’s arm. “The baskets!” she said. “Should we take them in or leave them in the car?”

“ Baskets !”

“You must remember! ‘Ladies a Basket.’ Carlotta and I have brought langouste and mayonnaise sandwiches. Do you think — suitable?”

“I’m not sure if the basket arises this time.”

“We must wait and see. If unsuitable we shall wolf them up when we get home. As a kind of hors d’oeuvre. You’re dining, aren’t you? You and Troy? And Mr. Fox, of course ?”

“Julia,” Alleyn said, “Fox and I are policemen and we’re on duty and however delicious your langouste sandwiches I doubt if we can accept your kind invitation. And now, like a dear creature, go and assemble your party in the front stalls and don’t blame me for what you are about to receive. It’s through there on your right.”

“Oh dear!” said Julia. “Yes. I see. Sorry.”

He watched them go off and then looked into the police van. Plank and Moss were in the front, Cribbage and a very young constable in the back with Ferrant and Syd Jones attached to them. The police were in civilian dress.

Alleyn said: “Wait until everyone else has gone in and then sit at the back. OK? If there aren’t any seats left, stand.”

“Yes, sir,” said Plank.

“Where are your other chaps?”

“They went in, Mr. Alleyn. As far front as possible. And there’s an extra copper from the mainland like you said. Outside the back door.”

“How are your two treasures in there?”

“Ferrant’s a right monkey, Mr. Alleyn. Very uncooperative. He doesn’t talk except to Jones and then it’s only the odd curse. The doctor came in to see Jones before we left and gave him a reduced fix. The doctor’s here.”

“Good.”

“He says Mr. Harkness called him in to give him something to steady him up but he reckons he’d already taken something on his own account.”