Ngaio Marsh - Clutch of Constables

The painting of Ramsdyke Lock was laid between sheets of newspaper in an empty suitcase.

He took it out and put it on the bunk.

Troy and Caley Bard had made a fairly thorough job of their cleaning and oiling but there were still some signs of dirt caught under the edge of brush strokes, but not, he thought, incorporated in the paint. It was a glowing picture and as Troy had said, it was well-painted. Alleyn was not an expert in picture forgery but he knew that the processes were refined, elaborate and highly scientific, involving in the case of seventeenth-century reproductions the use of specially manufactured pigments, of phenolformaldehyde and an essential oil, of baking and of old paintings scraped down to the ground layer. With nineteenth-century forgeries these techniques might not be necessary. Alleyn knew that extremely indifferent forgeries had deceived the widows and close associates of celebrated painters and even tolerable authorities. He had heard talk of “studio sweepings” and arguments that not every casual, unsigned authentic sketch bore the over-all painterly “signature” of the master. One much-practised trick, of course, was to paint the forgery over an old work. An X-ray would show if this had been done.

Outside, presenting itself for comparison, was the subject of the picture: Ramsdyke Lock, the pond, the ford, the winding lane, the hazy distance. Nothing could be handier, he thought, and he did in fact compare them.

He made an interesting discovery.

The trees in the picture were in the right places, they were elms, they enclosed the middle-distance just as the real elms did in the now darkling landscape outside. Undoubtedly, it was a picture of Ramsdyke Lock.

But they were not precisely the same elms.

The masses of foliage, painted with all the acute observation of Constable’s school, were of a different relationship, one to another. Would this merely go to show that, when the picture was painted the trees were a great deal smaller? No, he thought not. These were smaller but the major branches sprang from their trunks at different intervals. But might not this be a deliberate alteration made by the artist for reasons of composition? He remembered Troy saying that the painter has as much right to prune or transplant a tree as the clot who had planted it in the wrong place.

All the same…

Voices and footfalls on the upper-deck announced the return of the passengers. Alleyn restored the painting to its suitcase and the suitcase to its position against the wall. He opened the cabin door, shut his working-kit, took out his pocket-lens, squatted at the head of the bunk and waited.

Not for long. The passengers came below: Mr Lazenby first. He paused, looked in and fluted: “Busy, Superintendent?”

“Routine, sir.”

“Ah! Routine!” Lazenby playfully echoed. “That’s what you folk always say, isn’t it, Superintendent? Routine!”

“I sometimes think it’s all we ever do, Mr Lazenby.”

“Really? Well, I suppose I mustn’t ask what it’s all about. Poor girl. Poor girl. She was not a happy girl, Mr Alleyn.”

“No?”

“Emotionally unstable. A type that we parsons are all too familiar with, you know. Starved of true, worthwhile relationships, I suspect, and at a difficult, a trying time of life. Poor girl.”

“Do I take it, you believe this to be a case of suicide, Mr Lazenby?”

“I have grave misgivings that it may be so.”

“And the messages received after her death?”

“I don’t profess to have any profound knowledge of these matters, Superintendent, but as a parson, they do come my way. These poor souls can behave very strangely, you know. She might even have arranged the messages, hoping to create a storm of interest in herself.”

“That’s a very interesting suggestion, sir.”

“I throw it out,” Mr Lazenby said with a modest gesture, “for what it’s worth. I mustn’t be curious,” he added, “but—you hope to find some—er help—in here? Out of, as it were, Routine?”

“We’d be glad to know whether or not she returned to her cabin during the night,” Alleyn said. “But, to tell you the truth, there’s nothing to show, either way.”

“Well,” said Mr Lazenby, “good on you, anyhow. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Alleyn said, and when Mr Lazenby had gone, whistled, almost inaudibly, the tune of “Yes, we have no bananas”, which for some reason seemed to express his mood.

He was disturbed, almost immediately, by the arrival of the Hewsons and Mr Pollock.

Miss Hewson came first. She checked in the open doorway and looked, as far as an inexpressive face allowed her to do so, absolutely furious. Alleyn rose.

“Pardon me. I had gotten an impression that this stateroom had been allocated to our personal use,” said Miss Hewson.

Alleyn said he was sure she would find that nothing had been disturbed.

Mr Hewson, looking over his sister’s shoulder like a gaunt familiar spirit said he guessed that wasn’t the point and Mr Pollock, obscured, could be heard to say something about search-warrants.

Alleyn repeated his story. Without committing himself in so many words he contrived to suggest that his mind was running along the lines of suicide as indicated by Mr Lazenby. He sensed an easing off in antagonism among his hearers. The time had come for what Troy was in the habit of referring to as his unbridled comehithery, which was unfair of Troy. He talked about the Hewsons’ find and said his wife had told him it might well prove to be an important Constable.

He said, untruthfully, that he had had no police experience in the realms of art-forgery. He believed, he said, and he had, in fact, been told by a top man, that it was most important for the canvas to be untouched until the experts looked at it. He wasn’t sure that his wife and Mr Bard hadn’t been naughty to oil the surface.

He would love to see the picture. He said if he could afford it he would be a collector. He had the mania. He gushed.

As soon as he broached the matter of the picture Alleyn was quite sure that the Hewsons did not want him to see it. They listened to him and eyed him and said next to nothing. Mr Pollock, still in the background, hung off and on and could be heard to mutter.

Finally, Alleyn fired point-blank. “Do show me your ‘Constable’,” he said. “I’m longing to see it.”

Miss Hewson with every appearance of the deepest reluctance seemed to be about to move into the cabin when her brother suddenly ejaculated—

“Now, isn’t this just too bad! Sis, what do you know!”

From the glance she shot at him, Alleyn would have thought that she hadn’t the remotest idea what he was driving at. She said nothing.

Mr Hewson turned to Alleyn with a very wide smile.

“Just too bad,” he repeated. “Just one of those darn’ things! It sure would’ve been a privilege to have your opinion, Superintendent, but you know what? We packaged up that problem picture and mailed it right back to our London address not more’n half an hour before we quit Crossdyke.”

“Did you really? I am disappointed,” said Alleyn.

-3-

“Funny way to carry on,” said Tillottson.

“So funny that I’ve taken it upon myself to lock the cabin door, keep the key and make sure there is not a duplicate. And if the Hewsons don’t fancy that one they can lump it. What’s more I’m going to rouse up Mr Jno. Bagg, licensed dealer of Tollardwark. I think you’d better come, too, Bert,” said Alleyn who had arrived at Mr Tillottson’s first name by way of Fox.

“Him! Why?”

“I’ll explain on the way. Warn them at the lock, will you, Bert, to hold anything from the Zodiac that’s handed in for posting. After all, they could pick that lock. And tell your chaps to watch like lynxes for anything to go overboard. It’s too big,” he added, “for them to shove it down the loo and if they dropped it out of a porthole I think it’d float. But tell your chaps to watch. We’ll take your car, shall we?”