Ngaio Marsh - Tied Up in Tinsel

“Keeping obbo,” he thought and wondered if Fox and his lot were well on their way. He could have done with a radio link. They might arrive at precisely the wrong moment. Not that, ultimately, it would make any difference.

When did the staff get up at Halberds? Sixish? Was he completely, ludicrously at fault? Waiting, as so often on the job, for a non-event?

After all, his theory, if it could be called a theory, was based on a single tenuous thread of evidence. Guesswork, almost. And he could have proved it right or wrong as soon as it entered his head. But then — no confrontation, no surprise element.

He went over the whole field of information as he had received it piecemeal from Troy, from the guests, from Hilary and from the staff. As far as motive went, a clotted mess of non-sequiturs, he thought. But as far as procedure went: that was another story. And the evidence in hand? A collection of imbecile pranks that might be threats. A disappearance. A man in a wig. A hair of the wig and probably the blood of the man on a poker. A scrap of gold in a discarded Christmas tree. A silly attempt upon a padlock. A wedge in a window-sash. A broken vase of great price and his own left arm biceps now thrumming away like fun. Mr. Smith’s junk yard in his horse-and-barrow days could scarcely have offered a more heterogeneous collection, thought Alleyn.

He reversed his position, turned up the collar of his jacket, and continued to peer through the open louvre. Icy blades of air made his eyes stream.

Over years of that soul-destroying non-activity known to the Force as keeping obbo, when the facility for razor-sharp perception must cut through the drag of bodily discomfort and boredom, Alleyn had developed a technique of self-discipline. He hunted through his memory for odd bits from his favourite author that, in however cockeyed a fashion, could be said to refer to his job. As: “O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head / which have no correspondence with true sight.” And: “Mad slanderers by mad ears believed he.” And: “Hence, thou suborn’d informer,” which came in very handy when some unreliable snout let the police-side down.

This frivolous pastime had led indirectly to the memorizing of certain sonnets. Now, when, with his eyes streaming and his arm giving him hell, he had embarked upon “The expense of spirit in a waste of shame,” he saw, through his peephole, a faint light.

It came jouncing across the courtyard and darted like a moth about the catafalque of Nigel’s fancy.

“Here, after all, we go,” thought Alleyn.

For a split second the light shone directly into his eyes and made him feel ludicrously exposed. It darted away to its original object and then to a slowly oncoming group out of some genre picture that had become blackened almost to oblivion by time. Two figures bent against the wind dragging at an invisible load.

It was a sledge. The torchlight concentrated on the ground beside the catafalque and into this area gloved hands and heavy boots shoved and manoeuvred a large, flat-topped sledge.

Alleyn changed his position on the window-seat. He squatted. He slid up the fastening device on the shutters and held them against the wind almost together but leaving a gap for observation.

Three men. The wind still made a great to-do, howling about the courtyard, but he could catch the sound of their voices. The torch, apparently with some bother, was planted where it shone on the side of the packing case. A figure moved across in the field of light: a man with a long-handled shovel.

Two pairs of hands grasped the top of the packing case. A voice said: “Heave.”

Alleyn let go the shutters. They swung in the wind and banged open against the outside wall. He stepped over the sill and flashed his own light.

Into the faces of Kittiwee and Mervyn and, across the top of the packing case, Vincent.

“You’re early to work,” said Alleyn.

There was no answer and no human movement. It was as if the living men were held inanimate at the centre of a boisterous void.

Kittiwee’s alto voice was heard. “Vince,” it said, “asked us to give him a hand, like. To clear.”

Silence. “That’s right,” said Vincent at last.

Mervyn said: “It’s no good now. Sir. Ruined. By the storm.”

“Quite an eyesore,” said Kittiwee.

“Nigel’s not giving a hand?” Alleyn said.

“We didn’t want to upset him,” Mervyn explained. “He’s easy upset.”

They had to shout these ridiculous observations against the noise of the gale. Alleyn moved round the group until he gently collided with something he recognized as one of the pillars supporting the entrance porch. He remembered that when Wrayburn’s men collected their gear from the porch, one of them had switched on the converted lanterns that adorned the pillars.

Alleyn kept his torchlight on the men. They turned to follow his progress, screwing up their eyes and sticking close together. His hand reached out to the end pillar and groped round it. He backed away and felt for the wall of the house.

“Why,” he called out, “didn’t you wait for the light for this job?”

They all began to shout at once and very confusedly. Scraps of unlikely information were offered: Hilary’s dislike of litter, Nigel’s extreme sensitivity about the fate of his masterpiece. It petered out.

Vince said: “Come on. Get moving,” and the pairs of gloved hands returned to the packing case.

Alleyn had found a switch. Suddenly the porch and the courtyard were there to be seen: all lit up as they had been for Hilary’s party.

The drama of darkness, flashing lights and half-seen ambiguous figures was gone. Three heavily clad men stood round a packing case and glowered at a fourth man.

Alleyn said: “Before you take it away, I want to see inside that thing.”

“There’s nothing in it,” Kittiwee shrilly announced, and at the same time Vincent said, “It’s nailed up. You can’t.”

Mervyn said: “It’s just an old packing case, sir. The pianna come in it. It’s got a lot of rubbish inside thrown out for disposal.”

“Fair enough,” Alleyn said. “I want to look at it, if you please.”

He walked up to them. The three men crowded together in front of the case. “God!” he thought. “How irremediably pitiable and squalid.”

He saw that each of them was using the others, hopelessly, as some sort of protection for himself. They had a need to touch each other, to lose their separate identities, to congeal.

He said, “This is no good, you know. You’ll only harm yourselves if you take this line. I must see inside the case.”

Like a frightened child making a show of defiance, Kittiwee said, “We won’t let you. We’re three to one. You better watch out.”

Mervyn said, “Look, sir, don’t . It won’t do you any good. Don’t.”

And Vincent, visibly trembling: “You’re asking for trouble. You better not. You didn’t ought to take us on.” His voice skipped a register. “I’m warning you,” he squeaked. “See? I’m warning you.”

“Vince!” Kittiwee said. “Shut up.”

Alleyn walked up to them and in unison they bent their knees and hunched their shoulders in a travesty of squaring up to him.

“The very worst thing you could do,” he said, “would be to attack me. Think!”

“Oh Gawd!” Kittiwee said. “Oh Gawd, Gawd, Gawd.”

“Stand aside, now. And if you knock me over the head and try the same game with another job, you’ll come to worse grief. You must know that. Come, now.”

Vincent made an indeterminate gesture with his shovel. Alleyn took three steps forward and ducked. The shovel whistled over his head and was transfixed in the side of the packing case.

Vincent stared at him with his mouth open and his fingers at his lips. “My oath, you’re quick!” he said.