Ngaio Marsh - Black As He Is Painted

They returned to their own anonymous car and were driven to the Capricorns. Here a discreet prowl brought them into touch with one of Gibson’s men, a plain-clothes sergeant, who had quite a lot to say for himself. The fishy brotherhood had not been idle. Over the last half-hour the Cockburn-Montforts had been glimpsed through their drawing-room window engaged in drinking and — or so it seemed — quarrelling in a desultory way between libations. Chubb had been followed, by a plain-clothes sergeant carrying artist’s impedimenta, to a chemist’s shop in Baronsgate, where he handed in a prescription and sat down, presumably waiting for it to be made up. Seeing him settle there, the sergeant returned to Capricorn Mews, where, having an aptitude in that direction, he followed a well-worn routine by sitting on a canvas stool and making a pencil sketch of the pig-pottery. He had quite a collection of sketches at home, some finished and prettily tinted and aquarelles, others of a rudimentary kind, having been cut short by an arrest or by an obligation to shift the area of investigation. For these occasions he wore jeans, a dirty jacket, and an excellent wig of the Little Lord Fauntleroy type. His name was Sergeant Jacks.

Mr. Sheridan, the Cockburn-Montforts and the Sanskrits had not appeared.

Fox parked the car in its overnight position under the plane trees in Capricorn Square, from where he could keep observation on No. 1, the Walk, and Alleyn took a stroll down the Mews. He paused behind the gifted sergeant and, after the manner of the idle snooper, watched him tinker with a tricky bit of perspective. He wondered what opulent magic Troy at that moment might be weaving, over in Chelsea.

“Anything doing?” he asked.

“Premises shut up, sir. But there’s movement. In the back of the shop. There’s a bit of a gap in the curtains and you can just get a squint. Not to see anything really. Nobody been in or out of the flat entrance.”

“I’ll be within range. No. 1, Capricorn Walk. Give me a shout if there’s anything. You could nip into that entry to call me up.”

“Yes, sir.”

Two youths from the garage strolled along and stared.

Alleyn said: “I wouldn’t have the patience, myself. Don’t put me in it,” he added. These were the remarks by bystanders that Troy said were most frequently heard. “Is it for sale?” he asked.

“Er,” said the disconcerted sergeant.

“I might come back and have another look,” Alleyn remarked, and left the two youths to gape.

He pulled his hat over his left eye, walked very quickly indeed across the end of Capricorn Place and on into the Walk. He had a word with Fox in the car under the plane trees and then crossed the street to No. 1, where Mr. Whipplestone, who had seen him coming, let him in.

“Sam,” Alleyn said. “Chubb did go to the chemist.”

“I’m extremely glad to hear it.”

“But it doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t call at the piggery, you know.”

“You think not?”

“If he suffers from migraine the stresses of the past forty-eight hours might well have brought it on.”

“I suppose so.”

“Is his wife in?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Whipplestone, looking extremely apprehensive.

“I want to speak to her.”

“Do you? That’s — that’s rather disturbing.”

“I’m sorry, Sam. It can’t be helped, I’m afraid.”

“Are you going to press for information about her husband?”

“Probably.”

“How very — distasteful.”

“Police work is, at times, precisely that.”

“I know. I’ve often wondered how you can.”

“Have you?”

“You strike me, always, as an exceptionally fastidious man.”

“I’m sorry to disenchant you.”

“And I’m sorry to have been tactless.”

“Sam,” Alleyn said gently, “one of the differences between police work and that of other and grander services is that we do our own dirty washing instead of farming it out at two or three removes.”

Mr. Whipplestone turned pink. “I deserved that,” he said.

“No, you didn’t. It was pompous and out of place.”

Lucy Lockett, who had been washing herself with the zeal of an occupational therapist, made one of her ambiguous remarks, placed her forepaw on Alleyn’s knee, and leapt neatly into his lap.

“Now then, baggage,” Alleyn said, scratching her head, “that sort of stuff never got a girl anywhere.”

“You don’t know,” Mr. Whipplestone said, “how flattered you ought to feel. The demonstration is unique.”

Alleyn handed his cat to him and stood up. “I’ll get it over,” he said. “Is she upstairs, do you know?”

“I think so.”

“It won’t take long, I hope.”

“If I — if I can help in any way—?”

“I’ll let you know,” said Alleyn.

He climbed the stairs and tapped on the door. When Mrs. Chubb opened it and saw him, she reacted precisely as she had on his former visit. There she stood, speechless with her fingers on her lips. When he asked to come in she moved aside with the predictable air of terrified reluctance. He went in and there was the enlarged photograph of the fresh-faced girl. The medallion, even, was, as before, missing from its place. He wondered if Chubb was wearing it.

“Mrs. Chubb,” he said, “I’m not going to keep you long and I hope I’m not going to frighten you. Yes, please, do sit down.”

Just as she did last time, she dropped into her chair and stared at him. He drew his up and leant forward.

“Since I saw you yesterday,” he said, “we have learnt a great deal more about the catastrophe at the Embassy and about the people closely and remotely concerned in it. I’m going to tell you what I believe to be your husband’s part.”

She moved her lips as if to say: “He never—” but was voiceless.

“All I want you to do is listen and then tell me if I’m right, partly right or wholly mistaken. I can’t force you to answer, as I expect you know, but I very much hope that you will.”

He waited for a moment and then said: “Well. Here it is. I believe that your husband, being a member of the group we talked about yesterday, agreed to act with them in an attack upon the President of Ng’ombwana. I think he agreed because of his hatred of blacks and of Ng’ombwanans in particular.” Alleyn looked for a moment at the smiling photograph. “It’s a hatred born of tragedy,” he said, “and it has rankled and deepened, I daresay, during the last five years.

“When it was known that your husband was to be one of the waiters in the pavilion, the plan was laid. He had been given detailed instructions about his duties by his employers. The group was given even more detailed information from an agent inside the Embassy. And Chubb’s orders were based on this information. He had been a commando and was very well suited indeed for the work in hand. Which was this. When the lights in the pavilion and the garden went out and after a shot was fixed in the house, he was to disarm and disable the spearman who was on guard behind the President, jump on a chair, and kill the President with the spear.”

She was shaking her head to and fro and making inexplicit movements with her hands.

“No?” Alleyn said. “Is that wrong? You didn’t know about it? Not beforehand? Not afterwards? But you knew something was planned, didn’t you? And you were frightened? And afterwards you knew it had gone wrong? Yes?”

She whispered. “He never. He never done it.”

“No. He was lucky. He was hoist — he got the treatment he was supposed to hand out. The other waiter put him out of action. And what happened after that was no business of Chubb’s.”

“You can’t hurt him. You can’t touch him.”

“That’s why I’ve come to see you, Mrs. Chubb. It may well be that we could, in fact, charge your husband with conspiracy. That means, with joining in a plan to do bodily harm. But our real concern is with the murder itself. If Chubb cuts loose from this group — and they’re a bad lot, Mrs. Chubb, a really bad lot — and gives me a straight answer to questions based on the account I’ve just given you, I think the police will be less inclined to press home attempted murder or charges of conspiracy. I don’t know if you’ll believe this, but I do beg you, very seriously indeed, if you have any influence over him, to get him to make a complete break, not to go to any more meetings, above all, not to take part in any further action against anybody — Ng’ombwanan, white or what-have-you. Tell him to cut loose, Mrs. Chubb. You tell him to cut loose. And at the same time not to do anything silly like making a bolt for it. That’d be about the worst thing he could do.”