Ngaio Marsh - Clutch of Constables

“Mr Bard is right. I did not tear them out. They came out.”

“Cometer pieces in ’is ’ands, like,” Caley explained.

“Very funny,” said Mr Pollock. “I don’t think.”

“I do not know,” Mr Lazenby announced with hauteur, “what I did with any pieces of pulpy paper that may or may not have come away in my hand. I remember nothing about it.”

“Did you read them?”

“That suggestion, Superintendent, is unworthy of you.”

Alleyn said: “Last Monday night on your way to the Zodiac you and Mr Pollock stopped near a dark entry in Weyland Street. What did you talk about?”

And now, he saw with satisfaction, they were unmistakably rattled. “They’re asking themselves,” he thought, “just how much I am bluffing. They know Troy couldn’t have told me about this one. They’re asking themselves where I could have picked it up and the only answer is the Rickerby-Carrick diary. I’ll stake my oath, Lazenby read whatever was on the missing pages and Pollock knows about it. What’s more they probably know the diary was in the suitcase and that we must have seen it. They’re dead scared we’ve found something which I wish to hell we had. If they’re as fly as I believe they are, there’s only one line for them to take and I hope they don’t take it.”

They took it, however. “I’m not making any more bloody statements,” Mr Pollock suddenly shouted, “till I’ve seen a lawyer and that’s my advice to all and sundry.”

“Dead right,” Mr Lazenby applauded. “Good on you.” And feeling perhaps that his style was inappropriate, he added, “We shall be absolutely within our rights to adopt this attitude. In my opinion it is entirely proper for us to do so.”

“Reverend Lazenby,” Mr Hewson said with fervour, “you said it. Boy, you certainly said it.”

Miss Hewson, who had been furtively dabbing at her eyes and nose gave a shatteringly profound sob.

“Ah, for Pete’s sake, Sis,” said Hewson.

“No! No! No!” she cried out on a note of real terror. “Don’t touch me. I’m not staying here. I’m going to my room. I’m going to bed.”

“Do,” Alleyn said politely. “Why not take one of your own pills?”

She caught her breath, stared at him and then blundered down the companionway to the lower deck.

“Poor girl,” said Mr Lazenby. “Poor dear girl.”

“There’s one other question,” Alleyn said. “In view of your decision of a moment ago you may not feel inclined to answer it. Unless—?” he smiled at Caley Bard.

“At the moment,” Caley said, “I’m not sending for my solicitor or taking vows of silence.”

“Good. Well, then, here it is. Miss Rickerby-Carrick wore on a cord round her neck, an extremely valuable jewel. She told Miss Hewson and my wife about it. It has not been found.”

“Washed off?” Caley suggested.

“Possible, of course. If necessary we’ll search the river-bed.”

Caley thought for a moment. “Look,” he then said. “She was a pretty scatty individual. I gather she was sleeping on deck or trying to sleep. She said she suffered from insomnia. My God, if she did it was fully orchestrated but that’s by the way. Suppose in the dead of night she was awake and suppose she took a hike along the tow-path in her navy pi-jams and her magenta gown with her bit of Fabergé tat around her neck? Grotesque it may sound but it would be entirely in character.”

“How,” Alleyn said, “do you know it was Fabergé, Mr Bard?”

“Because, for God’s sake, she told me. When we thundered about the Crossdyke ruins, butterfly hunting. I dare say she told everybody. She was scatty as a hen, poor wretch.”

“Well?”

“Well, and suppose she met an unsavoury character who grabbed the bauble and when she cut up rough, throttled her and shoved her in the river?”

“First collecting her suitcase from her cabin in the Zodiac ?”

“Damn!” said Caley. “You would bring that up, wouldn’t you.”

“All the same,” Alleyn said, turning to the group round the table, “we can’t overlook the possibility of interference of some sort from outside.”

“Like who?” Hewson demanded.

“Like, for instance, a motor-cyclist and his girl who seem to have rather haunted the course of the Zodiac . Do you all know who I mean?”

Silence.

“Oh really !” Caley exclaimed, “this is too much! Of course we all know who you mean. They’ve turned up from time to time like prologues to the omens coming on in an early Cocteau film.” He addressed his fellow-passengers. “We’ve seen them, we’ve remarked upon them, why the hell shouldn’t we say so?”

They stirred uneasily. Lazenby said: “You’re right, of course, Mr Bard. No reason at all. A couple of young mods—we used to call them bodgies in Aussie—with I dare say no harm in them. They seem to be cobbers of young Tom’s.”

“Have any of you ever spoken to them?”

Nobody answered.

“You better ask the coloured gentleman,” Hewson said and Alleyn thought he heard a note of fear in his voice.

“Dr Natouche has spoken to them, you think?”

“I don’t think. I know. The first day when we went through the lock here. They were on the bridge and he came down the road from this helluva whatsit in the hillside. These two hobos shouted something and he walked up to them and said something and they kinda laughed and kicked up their machine and roared off.”

“Where were you?”

“Me? Walking up the hill with the mob.”

Hewson shifted his position slightly and continued, with considerable finesse, to emphasise the already richly offensive tone of his behaviour. “Mrs Alleyn,” he said, “was in the whatsit with the deceased. She’d been there for quite some time before the deceased got there. So’d he. Natouche. Yes, sir. Quite some time.”

This was said so objectionably that Alleyn felt the short hair rise on the back of his scalp. Fox, who had performed his usual trick of making his bulk inconspicuous while he took notes, let out a slight exclamation and at once stifled it.

Hewson, after a look at Alleyn’s face said in a great hurry: “Don’t get me wrong. Take it easy. Hell, Superintendent, I didn’t mean a thing.”

Alleyn raised his eyebrows at Fox who soundlessly formed the word ‘Tom?” and went below. Alleyn climbed the companionway leading to the upper deck and looked over the half-door. Dr Natouche leant on the port taffrail. He was wreathed in mist. His hands were clasped and his head bent as if he stared at them.

“Dr Natouche, can I trouble you again for a moment?”

“Certainly. Shall I come down?”

“If you please.” When he had come down, blinking a little in the light, Alleyn, watching Pollock and the Hewsons and Lazenby, was reminded of Troy’s first letter. These passengers, she had written, eyed Natouche with something that seemed very like fear.

He asked Natouche what had passed between him and the motor-cyclists. He waited for a moment or two and then said the young man had asked him if he was a passenger in the Zodiac . He thought from his manner that the question was intended as a covert insult of some sort, Dr Natouche said tranquilly, but he had answered that he was and the girl had burst out laughing.

“I walked away,” he said, “and the young man gave one of those cries—I think they are known as catcalls. It was not an unusual incident.”

“Can you remember them clearly? They sound sufficiently objectionable to be remembered.”

“They were dressed in black leather. The man was rather older than one expected. They both had long, very dark hair falling from their helmets to their shoulders. The man’s hair was oily. He had a broad face, small, deep-set eyes and a slightly prognathic jaw. The girl was sallow. She had large eyes and an outbreak of acne on her chin.”