Ngaio Marsh - Clutch of Constables

“There is,” Alleyn said, “a vacant cabin, of course. Now.”

“That’s right.”

“I tell you what, Fox. We’ll have a word with the Skipper and take it over. We’ll search and we’ll need a warrant.”

“I picked one up on my way from the beak at Tollardwark. He didn’t altogether see it but changed his mind when I talked about the Foljambe connection.”

“As well he might. One of us could doss down in the cabin for the night if there’s any chance of a bit of kip which is not likely. It’d be a safety measure.”

“You,” said Fox, “if it suits. I’ve dumped a homicide bag at the Ramsdyke Arms.”

“Tillottson kept his head and had the cabin locked. He says it’s full of junk. We’ll get the key off him. Look who’s here.”

It was Troy, coming into the field from Dyke Way by the top gate. Alleyn thought: “I wonder how rare it is for a man’s heart to behave as mine does at the unexpected sight of his wife.”

Fox said: “I’ll nip along to the pub, shall I, and settle for my room and bring back your kit and something to eat. Then you can relieve Tillottson and start on the cabin. Will I ring the Yard and get the boys sent up?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Yes. Better do that. Thank you, Br’er Fox.” By “the boys” Mr Fox meant Sergeants Bailey and Thompson, finger-print and photograph experts, who normally worked with Alleyn.

“We’ll need a patrol,” Alleyn said, “along the river from Tollard Lock to where she was found and we’ll have to make a complete and no doubt fruitless search of the tow-path and surroundings. You’d better get on to that, Fox. Take the Sergeant with you. Particular attention to the moorings at Crossdyke and the area round Ramsdyke weir.”

“Right, I’ll be off, then.”

He started up the hill towards Troy looking, as always, exactly what he was. An incongruous figure was Mr Fox in that still medieval landscape. They met and spoke and Fox moved on to the gate.

Alleyn watched Troy come down the hill and went out of the wapentake to meet her.

“They’ve all gone ashore,” she said, “I think to talk about me. Except Dr Natouche who’s putting finishing touches to his map. They’re sitting in a huddle in the middle-distance of the view that inspired my original remark about Constables. I expect you must push on with routine mustn’t you? What haven’t I told you that you ought to know? Should I fill you in, as Miss Hewson would say, on some of the details?”

“Yes, darling, fill me in, do. I’ll ask questions, shall I? It might be quickest. And you add anything—anything at all—that you think might be, however remotely, to the point. Shall we go?”

“Fire ahead,” said Troy.

During this process Troy’s answers became more and more staccato and her face grew progressively whiter. Alleyn watched her with an attentiveness that she wondered if she dreaded and knew that she loved. She answered his final question and said in a voice that sounded shrilly in her own ears: “There. Now you know as much as I do. See.”

“What is it?” he asked. “Tell me.”

“She scratched on my door,” Troy said. “And when I opened it she’d gone away. She wanted to tell me something and I let Mr Lazenby rescue me because I had a migraine and because she was such a bore. She was unhappy and who can tell what might have been the outcome if I’d let her confide? Who can tell that ?”

“I think I can. I don’t believe—and I promise you this—I don’t believe it would have made the smallest difference to what happened to her. And I’ll promise you as well, that if it turns out otherwise I shall say so.”

“I can’t forgive myself.”

“Yes, you can. Is one never to run away from a bore for fear she’ll be murdered?”

“Oh Rory.”

“All right, darling. I know. And I tell you what—I’m glad you had your migraine and I’m bloody glad she didn’t talk to you. Now, then. Better?”

“A bit.”

“Good. One more question. That junk-shop in Tollardwark where you encountered the Hewsons. Did you notice the name of the street?”

“I think it was Ferry Lane.”

“You wouldn’t know the name of the shop?”

“No,” Troy said doubtfully. “It was so dark. I don’t think I saw. But—wait a bit—yes: on a very dilapidated little sign in Dr Natouche’s torchlight. ‘Jno. Bagg: Licensed Dealer’.”

“Good. And it was there they made their haul?”

“That’s right. They went back there from Longminster. Yesterday.”

“Do you think it might be a Constable?”

“I’ve no idea. It’s in his manner and it’s extremely well painted.”

“What was the general reaction to the find?”

“The Hewsons are going to show it to an expert. If it’s genuine I think they plan to come back and scour the district for more. I rather fancy Lazenby’s got the same idea.”

“And you’ve doubts about him being a parson?”

“Yes. I don’t know why.”

“No eye in the left socket?”

“It was only a glimpse but I think so. Rory—?”

“Yes?”

“The man who killed Andropulos — Foljambe — the Jampot. Do you know what he looks like?”

“Not really. We’ve got a photograph but Santa Claus isn’t more heavily bearded and his hair, which looks fairish, covers his ears. It was taken over two years ago and is not a credit to the Bolivian photographer. He had both his eyes then but we have heard indirectly that he received some sort of injury after he escaped and lay doggo with it for a time. One report was that it was facial and another that it wasn’t. There was a third rumour thought to have originated in the South that he’d undergone an operation to change his appearance but none of this stuff was dependable. We think it likely that there is some sort of physical abnormality.”

“Please tell me, Rory. Please . Do you think he’s on board?”

And because Alleyn didn’t at once protest, she said: “You do. Don’t you? Why?”

“Before I got here, I would have said there was no solid reason to suppose it. On your letters and on general circumstances. Now, I’m less sure.”

“Is it because of — have you seen…?”

“The body? Yes, it’s largely because of that.”

“Then — what—?”

“We’ll have to wait for the autopsy. I don’t think they’ll find she drowned, Troy. I think she was killed in precisely the same way as Andropulos was killed. And I think it was done by the Jampot.”

“And so,” Alleyn said, “we set up the appropriate routine and went to work in the usual way. Tillottson was under-staffed—the familiar story—but he was able to let us have half a dozen uniformed men. He and the Super at Longminster—Mr Bonney—did all they could to co-operate. But once we’d caught that whiff of the Jampot it became essentially our job with strong European and American connections.

“We did a big line with Interpol and the appropriate countries but although they were dead keen they weren’t all that much of a help. Throughout his lamentable career the Jampot had only made one blunder: and that, as far as we could ferret it out, was because an associate at the Bolivian end of his drug racket had grassed. The associate was found dead by quick attack from behind on the carotids: the method that Foljambe had certainly employed in Paris and was later to employ upon the wretched Andropulos. But for reasons about which the Bolivian police were uncommonly cagey, the Jampot was not accused by them of murder but of smuggling. Bribery is a little word we are not supposed to use when in communication with our brothers in anti-crime.