Ngaio Marsh - Tied Up in Tinsel

“Lucky for you, I am,” Alleyn said. “You bloody fool, man! Why do you want to pile up trouble for yourself? Now stand away, the lot of you. Go on, stand back.”

“ Vincey !” Kittiwee said in scandalized tones. “You might of cut his head off!”

“I’m that upset.”

“Come on,” Mervyn ordered them. “Do like ’e says. It’s no good.”

They stood clear.

The case was not nailed up. It was hinged at the foot and fastened with hook-and-eye catches at the top. They were very stiff and Alleyn could use only one hand. He wrenched the shovel from its anchorage and saying, “Don’t you try that again,” dropped it to the ground at his feet.

He forced open the first two catches and the side gaped a little, putting a strain on the remaining one. He struck at it with the heel of his hand. It resisted and then flew up.

The side of the case fell against him. He stepped back and it crashed on the paved courtyard.

Moult, having laid against it, rolled over and turned his sightless gaze on Alleyn.

Moult, dead on the flagstones, seemed by his grotesque entry to inject a spasm of activity into his audience.

For a second or two after he rolled into view, the three servants were motionless. And then, without a word, they bolted. They ran out of the courtyard and were swallowed up by the night.

Alleyn had taken half-a-dozen steps after them when they returned as wildly as they had gone, running and waving their arms like characters in some kind of extravaganza. To make the resemblance more vivid, they were now bathed in light as if from an offstage spot. They turned to face it, made prohibitive gestures, shielded their eyes, and huddled together.

The field of light contracted and intensified as a police car moved into the courtyard and stopped. Vincent turned and ran straight into Alleyn’s arms. His companions dithered too long, made as if to bolt, and were taken by four large men who had quitted the car with remarkable expertise.

They were Detective-Sergeants Bailey and Thompson, fingerprint and photography experts, respectively; the driver, and Detective-Inspector Fox.

“Now then!” said Mr. Fox, the largest of the four men, “what’s all the hurry?”

Kittiwee burst into tears.

“All right, all right,” Alleyn said. “Pipe down, the lot of you. Where d’you think you’re going. Over the hill to the Vale? Good-morning, Fox.”

“ ’Morning, Mr. Alleyn. You’ve been busy.”

“As you see.”

“What do we do with this lot?”

“Well may you ask! They’ve been making a disgusting nuisance of themselves.”

“We never done a thing. We never touched him,” Kittiwee bawled. “It’s all a bloody misunderstanding.”

“Touched who?” Inspector Fox asked.

Alleyn, whose arm had been excruciatingly stirred up by Vincent, jerked his head towards the packing case. “Him,” he said.

“Well, well!” Fox observed. “A body, eh?”

“A body.”

“Would this be the missing individual?”

“It would.”

“Do we charge these chaps then?”

“We get them indoors, for Heaven’s sake,” said Alleyn crossly. “Bring them in. It’ll have to be through the window over there. I’ll go ahead and switch on the lights. They’d better be taken to their own quarters. And keep quiet , all of you. We don’t want to rouse the household. Cooke — what’s your name? — Kittiwee — for the love of decency — shut up .”

Fox said, “What about the remains?”

“One thing at a time. Before he’s moved, the Divisional Surgeon will have to take a look. Bailey — Thompson.”

“Sir?”

“You get cracking with this setup. As it lies. Dabs. Outside and inside the packing case. The sledge. All surfaces. And the body, of course. Complete job.” Alleyn walked to the body and stooped over it. It was rigid and all askew. It lay on its back, the head at a grotesque angle to the trunk. One arm was raised. The eyes and the mouth were open. Old, ugly scars on jaw and fattish cheek and across the upper lip, started out lividly.

“But the beard and moustache and wig would have covered those,” Alleyn thought. “There’s nothing in that.”

His hands were busy for a moment. He extracted an empty flat half-pint bottle from a jacket in the coat and sniffed at it. Whisky. From the waistcoat pocket he took a key. Finding nothing more, he then turned away from the body and contemplated Vincent and his associates.

“Are you lot coming quietly?” he asked. “You’ll be mad if you don’t.”

They made affirmative noises.

“Good. You,” Alleyn said to the driver of the police car, “come with us. You,” to Bailey and Thompson, “get on with it. I’ll call up the Div. Surgeon. When you’ve all finished wait for instructions. Where’s your second car, Fox?”

“Puncture. They’ll be here.”

“When they come,” Alleyn said to Bailey, “stick them along the entrances. We don’t want people barging out of the house before you’ve cleared up here. It’s getting on for six. Come on, Fox. Come on, you lot.”

Alleyn led the way through the library window, down the corridor, across the hall, through the green baize door, and into the servants’ common-room. Here they surprised the Boy in the act of lighting the fire. Alleyn sent him with his compliments to Mr. Blore, whom he would be pleased to see. “Is Nigel up?” he asked. The Boy, all eyes, nodded. Nigel, it appeared, was getting out early-morning tea trays in the servery.

“Tell him we’re using this room and don’t want to be disturbed for the moment. Got that? All right. Chuck some coal on the fire and then off you cut, there’s a good chap.”

When the boy had gone Alleyn rang up Wrayburn on the staff telephone, told him of the discovery, and asked him to lay on the Divisional Surgeon as soon as possible. He then returned to the common-room, where he nodded to the Yard car-driver, who took up a position in front of the door.

Mervyn, Kittiwee and Vincent stood in a wet, dismal and shivering group in the middle of the room. Kittiwee mopped his great dimpled face and every now and then, like a baby, caught his breath in a belated sob.

“Now then,” Alleyn said. “I suppose you three know what you’ve done, don’t you? You’ve tried to obstruct the police in the execution of their duty, which is an extremely serious offence.”

They broke into a concerted gabble.

“Pipe down,” he said. “Stop telling me you didn’t do him. Nobody’s said anything to the contrary. So far. You could be charged as accessories after the fact, if you know what that means.”

Mervyn, with some show of dignity, said: “Naturally.”

“All right. In the meantime I’m going to tell you what I think is the answer to your cockeyed behaviour. Get in front of the fire, for pity’s sake. I don’t want to talk to a set of castanets.”

They moved to the hearthrug. Pools formed round their boots, and presently they began to smell and steam. They were a strongly contrasted group: Kittiwee with his fat, as it were, gone soggy; Vincent, ferret-like with the weathered hide of his calling; and Mervyn, dark about the jaws, black-browed and white-faced. They looked at nobody. They waited.

Alleyn eased his throbbing arm a little further into his chest and sat on the edge of the table. Mr. Fox cleared his throat, retired into a sort of self-made obscurity, and produced a notebook.

“If I’ve got this all wrong,” Alleyn said, “the best thing you can do is to put me right, whatever the result. And I mean that. Really. You won’t believe me, but really . Best for yourselves on all counts. Now. Go back to the Christmas tree. The party. The end of the evening. At about midnight, you,” he looked at Vincent, “wheeled the dismantled tree in a barrow to the glasshouse wreckage under the east wing. You tipped it off under Colonel Forrester’s dressing-room window near a sapling fir. Right?”