Ngaio Marsh - Clutch of Constables

“What about the suitcase?” asked Tillottson.

“Made fast. It’s not weighted at this stage. The stones were collected at the weir.”

“Roadside heap,” Fox put in. “Loose brick. Shingle. We’ve got all that.”

“Exactly, Br’er Fox. Fish out a sponge from my bag, would you?”

Fox did so. Alleyn pressed it over the surfaces of the diary, mopping up the water that seeped out. “It’s when he gets to Ramsdyke,” he went on, “that the cyclist’s toughest job begins. Presumably he’s single-handed. He has to dismount, carry his burden, a ghastly pick-a-back, presumably, down to the weir. He unlooses and dumps it, returns for the case, puts in the stones and shingle, humps the case to the body, adds a loose half-brick, ties the body to the case and pushes both of them far enough along the footbridge to topple them into the weir.”

“Do I,” Fox blandly inquired, “hear the little word conjecture?”

“If you do you can shut up about it. But you don’t hear it all that clearly, old boy. Find me another theory that fits the facts and I’ll eat the dust.”

“I won’t give you the satisfaction, Mr Alleyn.”

“Find something to slide under the diary, will you? I want to turn it over. A stiff card will do. Good. Here we go. Now, the sponge again. Yes. Well, from here, the sinister cyclist and his moll begin to set-up their disappearing act. All we know is that they had paid their bill at the Star and that they lit off some time that night or early next morning. Presumably with a fabulous Fabergé bibelot representing the Signs of the Zodiac in their possession.”

“Hi!” Tillottson ejaculated. “D’you reckon?”

“This really is conjecture,” Alleyn said. “But I don’t mind betting we do not find the damned jewel on board the Zodiac .”

“River bed? Swept of the body, like?”

“I don’t see him leaving it on the body, you know.”

“I suppose not. No.”

“It may have been the motive,” Fox said. “If it’s all that fabulous.”

“Or it may have been a particularly lush extra: a kind of bonus in the general scheme of awards.”

Tillottson said: “You don’t lean to the notion that this cyclist character—”

“Call him Smith,” Fox suggested sourly. “I’ll bet nobody else ever has.”

“This Smith, then. You don’t fancy he did the killing?”

“No,” Alleyn said. “I don’t. I think she was killed on board the Zodiac . I think the body was handed over to Smith together with the suitcase and probably the Fabergé jewel. Now, dare we take a look inside this diary.”

It had deteriorated since poor Hazel Rickerby-Carrick had examined it after its first immersion. The block of pages had parted company with the spine and had broken into sections. The binding was pulpy and the paper softened.

“Should we dry it out first?” Fox asked.

“I’ll try one gingerly fiddle. Got a broadish knife in the station?”

Tillottson produced a bread knife. With infinite caution Alleyn introduced it into the diary at the place where the condition of the edges suggested a division between the much used and still unused sections. He followed the knife blade up with a wider piece of card and finally turned the top section back.

Blotched, mottled, in places blistered and in others torn, it was still for the most part legible.

“Waterproof ink,” Alleyn said. “God bless the self-propelling pencil.”

And like the writer, when she sat in her cabin on the last day of her life, Alleyn read the final entry in her diary.

“ I’m at it again. Trying too hard, as usual —”

And like her, having read it, he turned the page and drew a blank.

-2-

“So there it is,” Alleyn said. “She writes that she returned from compline at St Crispin-in-the-Fields to the motor-vessel Zodiac . She doesn’t say by what road but as Troy followed the same procedure and returned by Ferry Lane and did not encounter her, it may be that she took a different route.”

“She could,” Tillottson said. “Easily. Weyland Street, it’d have to be.”

“All right. She was wearing rubber-sole shoes. At some stage in her return trip she retired into a dark shop-entry to remove a pebble or something from one of her sneakers. From this position, she overheard a conversation between two or more — from the context I would think more—people that, quote, ‘froze’ and ‘riveted’ her. One of the voices; it was a whisper, she failed to identify. The other—or others—she no doubt revealed on the subsequent page which has been torn out of the diary. Now. My wife has told me that after Lazenby rescued the diary she thought she saw, for a fractional moment, paper with writing on it, clutched in his left hand. That evening at Crossdyke, Miss Rickerby-Carrick, who was in a state of violent excitement, intimated that she wanted urgently to confide in Troy, to ask her advice. No doubt she would have done so—but Troy got a migraine and instead of exploring Crossdyke went early to bed. Miss R-C. joined the others and inspected the ruins and was shown how to catch butterflies by Caley Bard. Troy, who was feeling better, saw this episode through her porthole.

“She also saw Miss Rickerby-Carrick peel off from the main party, run down the hill and excitedly latch on to Dr. Natouche who was walking down the lane. She seemed to show him something that she held in the palm of her hand. Troy couldn’t see what it was.”

“That’s interesting,” said Fox.

“Dr Natouche has subsequently told Troy that she asked him about some sort of tranquilliser pill she’d been given by Miss Hewson. He did not, I think, actually say that she showed him this pill when they were in the lane: Troy simply supposes that was what it was.”

“Might it,” Tillottson ventured, “have been this what you call it—furbished jewel?”

“Fah-ber-zhay,” murmured Mr Fox who spoke French. “And she wore that round her neck on a cord, Bert.”

“Yes.”

“Well,” Alleyn said, leaving it, “that night she disappeared and in my opinion, that night, very late, she was murdered.

“The next day, Natouche told Troy he was concerned about Miss Rickerby-Carrick. He didn’t say in so many words that he thought she might commit suicide but Troy got the impression that he did in fact fear it.

“I’ll round up the rest of the bits and pieces gleaned by my wife, most of which, but I think not all, you have already heard, Tillottson.”

“Er — well — yerse.”

“Here they are, piecemeal. Pollock started life as a commercial artist and changed to real estate. He does a beautiful job of lettering when told exactly what’s wanted.

“Natouche makes pretty maps.

“Miss Hewson was shown the Fabergé bibelot by its owner.

“Miss Hewson seems to be very keen on handing out pills.

“The Hewsons were disproportionately annoyed when they heard that the return visit to Tollardwark would be on early-closing day. They hired a car from Longminster to do their shop-crawl in Tollardwark and on that trip bought their stuff at Jo Bagg’s in Ferry Lane.

“In their loot was an oil painting, purporting to be a signed Constable. Hewson said they’d posted it on to their address in London but I saw it in one of their suitcases.

“The cyclists watched the Zodiac sail from Norminster and re-appeared that evening at Ramsdyke. Troy thought she heard them—but says of course she might be wrong—during the night in Tollardwark.

“Mrs Bagg complains about cyclists hanging round their yard on Tuesday. A screech, as of the cupboard door, attracted her attention.

“The Baggs say the roll of prints was not in the cupboard a few days before the Hewsons found it there.