Ngaio Marsh - Clutch of Constables

“I can’t hear you. Police! Did you say Police? ’Ere! Come round ’ere this instant-moment, Jo Bagg, and explain yerself: Police .”

“I better go,” he said and re-entered the cottage.

“The old lady,” Mr Tillottson said, “is a wee bit difficult.”

“So it would seem.”

“They make out she’s nearly a hundred.”

“But she’s got the stamina?”

“My oath!”

The Baggs were in conversation beyond the window but at a subdued level and nothing could be made of it. When Mr Bagg re-emerged he spoke in a whisper.

“Do me a favour, gents,” he whispered. “Move away.”

They withdrew into the shop and from thence to the front door.

“She’s deaf,” Mr Bagg said, “but there are times when you wouldn’t credit it. She don’t know anything about nothing but she worked it out that if this picture you mention is a valuable antique it’s been taken off us by false pretences and we ought to get it back.”

“Oh.”

“That’s the view she takes. And so,” Mr Bagg added loyally, “do I. Now!”

“I dare say you do,” Mr Tillottson readily conceded. “Very natural. And she’s no ideas about how it got there?”

“No more nor the Holy Saints in Heaven, and she’s a Catholic,” Mr Bagg said unexpectedly.

“Well, we’ll bid you good night, Jo. Unless Mr Alleyn has anything further?”

“Not at the moment, thank you. Mr Bagg.”

Mr Bagg wrenched open the front door to the inevitable screech which was at once echoed from the back bedroom.

“You ask them Police,” screamed old Mrs Bagg, “why they don’t do something about them motor-biking Beasts instead of making night hijjus on their own accounts.”

“What motor-biking beasts?” Alleyn suddenly yelled into the darkness.

“You know. And if you don’t you ought to. Back-firing up and down the streets at all hours and hanging round up to no good. Jo! Show them out and get to bed.”

“Yes, Mum.”

“And another thing,” invisibly screamed Mrs Bagg. “What was them two Americans doing nosey-parkering about the place last week was a month back, taking photers and never letting on they was the same as before.”

Alleyn set himself to bawl again and thought better of it. “What does she mean?” he asked Mr Bagg.

“You don’t have to notice,” he said. “But it’s correct, all right. They been here before, see, taking photographs and Mum recognised them. She wouldn’t have made nothink of it only for suspecting they done us.”

“When were they here? Where did they stay?”

“In the spring. May. Late April: I wouldn’t know. But it was them all right. They made out, when I says weren’t they here before, they was that taken with the place they come back for more.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“Don’t be funny,” Mr Bagg said. “Course I’m sure. This way, for Gawd’s sake.”

They went out. Mr Bagg had re-addressed himself to the door when Alleyn said: “Can you tell us anything about these motor-cyclists?”

“Them? Couple of mods. Staying up at the Star in Chantry Street. Tearing about the country all hours and disturbing people. Tuesday evening Mum ’eard something in our yard and caught the chap nosing round. Looking for old chain he said, but she didn’t fancy him. She took against him very strong, did Mum, and anyway we ain’t got no old chain. Chain !”

“Why,” began Mr Tillottson on a note of anguish, “didn’t you mention—”

“I never give it a thought. You can’t think of everything.”

“Nor you can,” Alleyn hurriedly intervened. “But now you have thought, can you tell us what drew Mrs Bagg’s attention to the chap in the yard?”

“Like I said, she ’eard something.”

“What, though?”

“Some sort of screech. I ’eard it too.”

“You did!”

“But I was engaged with a customer,” Mr Bagg said majestically, “in my shop.”

“Could the screech have been made by the door in the sideboard?” Mr Bagg peered into Alleyn’s face as if into that of an oracle.

“Mister,” he said, “it not only could but it did.” He took thought and burst into protestation.

“Look,” he said. “I want an explanation. If I been done I want to know how I been done. If I been in possession of a valuable article and sold this article for a gift without being fully informed I want to get it back, fair and proper. Now.”

They left him discontentedly pursuing this thought but not loudly enough to arouse the curiosity of old Mrs Bagg. The door shrieked and slammed and they heard the bolts shoot home on the inside.

“Star Inn,” Alleyn said as they got in the car but when they reached the inn it was to find that the motor-bicyclists had paid their bill the previous evening and set off for an unknown destination. They had registered as Mr and Mrs John Smith.

-4-

The motor-bicycle had been parked in a dampish yard behind the pub and the tyre-tracks were easy enough to pick up. Alleyn took measurements, made a sketch of the prints and had them covered, pending the arrival of Bailey and Thompson. He thought that when they examined Fox’s find under the hedgerow above Crossdyke they would find an exact correspondence. An outside man at the Star remembered the make of vehicle—Route-Rocket—but nobody could give the number.

Alleyn telephoned Troy at The Percy Arms in Norminster and asked her if by any chance she could recall it.

She sat on the edge of her bed with the receiver at her ear and tried to summon up her draughtsman’s memory of the scene on the quay at Norminster last Monday morning. Miss Rickerby-Carrick squatted on her suitcase, writing. Caley Bard and Dr Natouche were down by The River. Pollock limped off in a sulk. The Bishop’s car was in the lane with Lazenby inside. The two riders lounged against their machine, their oiled heads and black leather gear softly glistening in the sun. She had wanted to draw them, booted legs, easy, indolent pose, gum-chewing faces, gloved hands. And the machine. She screwed her memory to the sticking point, waited and then heard her own voice.

“I think,” said her voice, “it was XKL-460.”

“Now, there!” Alleyn exclaimed. “See what a girl I’ve got! Thank you, my love, and good night.” He hung up. “All right,” he said. “We set up a general call. They’ll be God knows where by now but they’ve got to be somewhere and by God we’ll fetch them in.”

He, Fox and Tillottson were in the superintendent’s office at the Tollardwark police-station where, on Monday night, Troy had first encountered Mr Tillottson. The sergeant set up the call. In a matter of minutes all divisions throughout the country and all police personnel were alerted for a Route-Rocket, XKL-460, black, with either one or two riders, mod-types, leather clothes, dark, long hair, calf-boots. Retain for questioning and report in.

“And by now,” Fox observed, “they’ve repainted their bike, cut their hair and gone into rompers.”

“Always the little sunbeam,” Alleyn muttered, absently. He had covered a table in the office with newspaper and now very carefully they laid upon it an old-fashioned hide suitcase, saturated with river-water, blotched, disreputable, with one end of its handle detached from its ring. A length of cord had been firmly knotted through both rings.

“We opened it,” Tillottson said, “and checked the contents as they lay. We left them for a doing-over and re-closed the lot. You can see what happened. The other end of the cord was secured round her waist. The slack had been passed two or three times under the handle and round the case. When the handle came away at one end the slack paid out and instead of being anchored on the river bed, the body rose to the surface but remained fastened to the weighted case. As it was when we recovered it.”