Ngaio Marsh - Clutch of Constables

Miss Hewson was full of consolatory phrases and horrified speculation.

“Gee,” she gabbled, “isn’t this just awful? That poor girl and all of us asleep in our beds. What do you figure, Mrs Tretheway? She was kind of sudden in her reflexes wasn’t she? Now, could it add up this way? She was upset by this news about her girl-friend and she got up and dressed and packed her grip and wrote her little note on the newspaper and lit off for—for wherever she fixed to meet up with her friends and in the dark she—”

Miss Hewson stopped as if jerked to a halt by her listeners’ incredulity.

“Well—gee—well, maybe not,” she said. “O.K., O.K. Maybe not.”

Mrs. Tretheway said: “I don’t fancy we do any good by wondering. Not till they know more. Whatever way it turns out, and it looks to me to be a proper mess, it’ll bring nothing but worry to us in the Zodiac : I know that much.”

She took the empty cup from Troy. “You’d best be left quiet,” she said. “We’ll look in and see how you prosper.”

When they had gone Troy lay still and listened. The shivering had stopped. She felt at once drowsy, and horrified that she should be so.

By looking up slantways through her open porthole she could see a tree top. It remained where it was for the most part, only sliding out of its place and returning as the Zodiac moved with The River. She heard footfalls overhead and subdued voices and after an undefined interval, a police siren. It came nearer and stopped. More and heavier steps on deck. More and newer voices, very subdued. This continued for some time. She half-dozed, half-woke.

She was roused by something outside that jarred against the port wall of the Zodiac and by the clunk of oars in their row-locks and the dip and drip of the blades.

“Easy as you go, then,” said a voice very close at hand. “Shove off a bit.” The top of a helmet moved across the port-hole. “That’s right. Just a wee bit over. Hold her at that, now. Careful now.”

Superintendent Tillottson. On the job.

Troy knew with terrible accuracy what was being done on the other side of the cabin wall. She was transfixed in her own vision and hag-ridden by a sick idea that there was some obligation upon her to stand on her bunk and look down into nightmare. She knew this idea was a fantasy but she was deadly afraid that she would obey its compulsion.

“All right. Give way and easy. Easy as you go.”

“I can’t.”

“What? What ?”

“It’s foul of something.”

“Here. Hold on.”

“Look there, Super. Look.”

“All right, all right. Hold steady again and I’ll see.”

“What is it, then?”

“A line. Cord. Round the waist and made fast to something.”

“Will we cut it?”

“Wait while I try a wee haul. Hold steady , I said. Now then.”

An interval with heavy breathing.

“Coming up. Here she comes.”

“ Suitcase ?”

“That’s right. Now. Bear a hand to ship it. It’s bloody heavy. God, don’t do that, man. We don’t want any more disfigurement.”

A splash and then a thud.

“Fair enough. Now, you can give way. Signal the ambulance, Sarge. Handsomely, now.”

The rhythmic clunk, dip and drip: receding.

Troy thought with horror: “They’re towing her. It’s Our Mutual Friend again. Through the detergent foam. They’ll lift her out, dripping foam, and put her on a stretcher and into an ambulance and drive her away. There’ll be an autopsy and an inquest and I’ll have to say what I saw and, please God, Rory will be back.”

The Zodiac trembled. Trees and blue sky with a wisp of cloud, moved across the porthole. For a minute or so they were under way and then she felt the slight familiar shock when the craft came up to her mooring.

Miss Hewson opened the door and looked in. She held a little bottle rather coyly between thumb and forefinger and put her head on one side like her brother.

“Wide awake?” she said. “I guess so. Now, look what I’ve brought!”

She tiptoed the one short pace between the door and the bunk and stooped. Her face really was like a bun, Troy thought, with currants for eyes and holes for nostrils and a bit of candy-peel for a mouth. She shrank back a little from Miss Hewson’s face.

“I just knew how you’d be. All keyed-up like nobody’s business. And I brought you my Trankwitones. You needn’t feel any hesitation about using them, dear. They’re recommended by pretty well every darn’ doctor in the States and they just act—”

The voice droned on. Miss Hewson was pouring water into Troy’s glass.

“Miss Hewson, you’re terribly kind but I don’t need anything like that. Really. I’m perfectly all right now and very much ashamed of myself.”

“Now, listen dear—”

“No, truly. Thank you very much but I’d rather not.”

“You know something? Mama’s going to get real tough with baby—”

“But, Miss Hewson, I promise you I don’t want—”

“May I come in?” said Dr Natouche. Miss Hewson turned sharply and for a moment they faced each other.

“I think,” he said, and it was the first time Troy had heard him speak to her, “that Mrs Alleyn is in no need of sedation, Miss Hewson.”

“Well, I’m surely not aiming — I just thought if she could get a little sleep — I—”

“That was very kind but there is no necessity for sedation.”

“Well—I certainly wouldn’t want to—”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t. If I may just have a word with my patient.”

“Your patient! Pardon me. I was not aware — well, pardon me, Doctor,” said Miss Hewson with a spurt of venom in her voice and slammed the door on her exit.

Troy said hurriedly: “I want to talk to you. It’s about what we discussed before. About Miss Rickerby-Carrick. Dr Natouche, have you seen—”

“Yes,” he said. “They asked me to make an examination—a very superficial examination, of course.”

“I could hear them: outside there. I could hear what they found. She’s been murdered, hasn’t she? Hasn’t she?”

He leant over the bunk and shut the port-hole. He drew up the little stool and sat on it, leaning towards her. “I think,” he said as softly as his huge voice permitted, “we should be careful.” His fingers closed professionally on Troy’s wrist.

“You could lock the door,” she said.

“So I could.” He did so and turned back to her.

“Until the autopsy,” he murmured, “it will be impossible to say whether she was drowned or not. Externally, in most respects, it would appear that she was. It can be argued, and no doubt it will be argued, that she committed suicide by weighting her suitcase and tying it to herself and perhaps throwing herself into The River from the weir bridge.”

“If that was so, what becomes of the telephone call and the telegram from Carlisle?”

“I cannot think of any answer consistent with suicide.”

“Murder, then?”

“It would seem so.”

“I am going to tell you something. It’s complicated and a bit nebulous but I want to tell you. First of all — my cabin. You know it was booked—”

“To somebody called Andropulos? I saw the paragraph in the paper. I did not speak of it as I thought it would be unpleasant for you.”

“Did any of the others?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“I’ll make this as quick and as clear as I can — It has to do with a case of my husband’s. There’s a man called Foljambe—”

A crisp knock on her door and Superintendent Tillottson’s voice: “Mrs Alleyn? Tillottson here. May I come in.”

Troy and Dr Natouche stared at each other. She whispered: “He’ll have to,” and called out: “Come in, Mr Tillottson.” At the same time Dr Natouche opened the door.