Ngaio Marsh - Clutch of Constables

“I agree. Playing it by ear, they were, I don’t mind betting.”

“All right, then. Why? People only go on in that style because they’ve got something to hide. What would they have to hide about this picture? I can only think of one answer. What about you, Mr Alleyn?”

“That it’s a racket and they’re in on it.”

“Just so. The thing’s a forgery and they know it. From that it’s a short step to supposing Jo Bagg never had it. The Hewsons brought it with them and planted it in the cupboard when the Baggs weren’t looking.”

“I don’t think so, Br’er Fox. Not from the account Bagg gave of the sale.”

“No? I wasn’t there, of course, when he gave it,” Fox admitted.

“How do you like the possibility of the motor-cyclists planting it? They were hanging about Bagg’s yard on Tuesday and the screech of the cupboard door seems to have drawn old Mrs B.’s baleful attention to them.”

“Could be. Could well be. Come to that, they might be salting the district with carefully planted forgeries.”

“They might, at that. Look at these, Fox.”

Alleyn had drawn out of a pocket in Miss Hewson’s dressing-case, a folder of colour photographs and film. He laid the prints out on the lid of the suitcase. Three of them were of Ramsdyke Lock. He put the painting on the deck beside them.

“Same thing,” Fox said.

“Yes. Taken from precisely the same spot and by the look of the trees, in spring. Presumably on the previous visit that old Mrs Bagg went on about. But look. There’s that difference we noticed.”

“The trees. Yes. Yes. In the painting they’re smaller and—well—different.”

“Very thorough. Wouldn’t do, you see, to have them is they are now. They had to go back to the Constable era. I wouldn’t mind betting,” Alleyn said. “That those trees have been copied from an actual Constable or a reproduction of one.”

“Who by?”

Alleyn didn’t reply at once. He restored the photographs to the dressing-case and after another long look at the picture, rolled it carefully and tied it up. “We’ll take possession of this,” he said, “and thus justify the Hewsons’ worst forebodings. I’ll write a receipt. Everything in order here? We’ll move on, Br’er Fox, to the other locked cabin: I simply can’t wait to call, in his absence, on Mr Pollock.”

-4-

Thompson and Bailey had arrived. They went quietly round the cabins collecting prints from tooth glasses and were then to move to the sites of the motor-bicycle traces. Tillottson was in his station in Tollardwark hoping for news of the cyclists and, optimistically, for reports from America and Australia to come through London. Meanwhile the appropriate department was setting up an exhaustive check on the deceased and on the two passengers, Natouche and Caley Bard, who lived in England. Caley had given a London address and his occupation as: “Crammer of ill-digested raw-material into the maws of unwilling adolescents.” In other words, he was a free-lance coach to a tutorial firm of considerable repute.

Troy was in bed and asleep at the Percy Arms in Norminster and Alleyn and Fox had completed their search of the cabins.

“A poor, thin time we’ve had of it,” Alleyn said. “Except for that one small thing.”

“The Pollock exhibit?”

“That’s right.”

In Mr Pollock’s cabin they had found in the breast pocket of his deplorable suit a plastic wallet containing a print of the Hewson photograph of Ramsdyke Lock and several envelopes displaying trial sketches for the words with which he had subsequently embellished Troy’s picture. He had evidently taken a lot of trouble over them, interrupting himself from time to time to doodle. It was his doodling that Alleyn had found interesting.

“Very neat, very detailed, very meticulous,” he had muttered. “Not the doodles of a non-draughtsman. No. I wonder what the psychiatric experts have to say under this heading. Someone ought to write a monograph: ‘Doodling and the Unconscious’ or: ‘How to—’.” And he had broken off in the middle of the sentence to stare at the last of Mr Pollock’s trial efforts. He held it out to Fox to examine.

“The Crab is Followed—” Mr Pollock had printed and then repeated, with slight changes, several of the letters. But down one side of the envelope he had made a really elaborate doodle.

It was a drawing of a tree, for all the world twin to the elm that overhung the village pond in Miss Hewson’s oil painting.

“Very careless,” Alleyn had said as he put it in his pocket. “I’m surprised at him.”

When they returned to the saloon they found the Hewsons, and Mr Pollock and Mr Lazenby, still up and still playing Scrabble. Caley Bard and Dr Natouche were reading. Mrs Tretheway had gone to bed.

Bailey and Thompson passed through, carrying their gear. The passengers watched them in silence.

When they had gone Alleyn said: “We’ve done our stuff down there and the cabins are all yours. I’m very sorry if we’ve kept you up too late. Here are the keys.” He laid them on the table. ”And here,” he said, holding up the rolled canvas, “is your picture, Miss Hewson. We would like to take charge of it for a short time, if you please. I’ll give you this receipt. I assure you the canvas will come to no harm.”

Miss Hewson had turned, as Fox liked to say, as white as a turnip and really her skin did have something of the aspect of that unlovely root. She looked from Alleyn to her brother and then wildly round the group of passengers as if appealing against some terrible decision. She rose to her feet, pulled at her underlip with uncertain fingers and had actually made a curious little whining sound when her brother said: “Take it easy, Sis. You don’t have to act this way. It’s O.K.: take it easy.”

Mr Hewson had very large, pale hands. Alleyn saw his left hand clench and his right hand close round his sister’s forearm. She gave a short cry of pain, sank back in her chair and shot what seemed to be a look of terror at her brother.

“My sister’s a super-sensitive girl, Superintendent,” Mr Hewson said. “She gets nervous very, very easy.”

“I hope there is no occasion for her to do so now,” Alleyn said. “I understand this is not your first visit to this district, Mr Hewson. You were here in the spring, weren’t you?”

Dr Natouche lowered his book and for the first time seemed to listen to what was being said; Caley Bard gave an exclamation of surprise. Miss Hewson mouthed inaudibly and fingered her arm and Mr Lazenby said, “Really? Is that so? Your second visit to The River? I didn’t realise,” as if they were all making polite conversation.

“That is so,” Mr Hewson said. “A flying visit. We were captivated and settled to return.”

“When did you book your passages in the Zodiac ?” Alleyn asked.

A silence, broken at last by Mr Hewson.

“Pardon me, I should have put that a little differently, I guess. We made our reservations before we left the States. I should have said we were enchanted to learn when we got here that the Zodiac cruise would cover this same territory.”

“On your previous visit, did you take many photographs?”

“Some. Yes, sir: quite some.”

“Including several shots here at Ramsdyke, of exactly the same subject as the one in this picture?”

Mr Hewson said: “Maybe. I wouldn’t remember off hand. We certainly do get around to taking plenty of pictures.”

“Have you seen this particular photograph, Mr Pollock?”

Mr Pollock lounged back in his seat, put his hands in his trouser pockets and assumed a look of cagey impertinence with which Alleyn was very familiar.

“Couldn’t say, I’m sure,” he said.