Ngaio Marsh - Clutch of Constables

“You don’t,” Caley said. “So shut up.” He turned to Alleyn. “But about this—about Miss Hewson. Why, to begin with, are you so sure there’s been foul play?”

Alleyn said: “We are waiting for an official medical opinion. In the meantime, since we have a doctor among us, I think I shall ask him to describe the post-mortem appearances of suffocation by earth and gravel. As opposed to those following an attack from behind involving abrupt and violent pressure on the carotid arteries.”

“Ah no !” Caley cried out. “Alleyn, I mean — surely !” He looked at Hewson who leant on the table, his face in his hands. “I mean,” Caley repeated. “I mean — well — there are decencies.”

“As far as possible,” Alleyn rejoined, “we try to observe them. Mr Hewson will be asked to identify. He may prefer to know, if he doesn’t know already, what to expect.”

“ Know !” Hewson sobbed behind his fingers. “ Know . My God, how should I know!”

“You all want to know, I gather, why we believe Miss Hewson was murdered. Our opinion rests to a considerable extent on post-mortem appearances. Dr Natouche?”

It was a long time since they had heard that voice. He had been there, sitting apart in his splendid gown and scarlet slippers. They had shot uneasy, resentful or curious glances at him but nobody had spoken to him and he had not uttered.

He said: “You have sent for your police consultant. It would be improper for me to give an opinion.”

“Even in the interest of justice?”

“It is not clear to me how justice would be served by my intervention.”

“If you consider for a moment, it may become clear.”

“I think not, Superintendent”

“Will you at least tell us if you would expect to find a difference between post-mortem appearances in these two cases?”

A long silence before Dr Natouche said: “Possibly.”

“In the case of an attack on the carotids you would expect to find external post-mortem marks on the areas attacked?”

“Superintendent, I have told you I prefer not to give an opinion. The external appearances from suffocation vary enormously. I have—” He waited for some seconds and then spoke very strongly. “I have never seen a case of death from a murderous assault on the carotids. My opinion would be valueless,” said Dr Natouche.

Pollock cried out shrilly: “You’d know how to do it, though, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you ?”

Hewson lowered his hands and stared at Natouche.

“Any medical man,” Natouche said, “would know technically, what death by such means involved. I must decline to discuss it.”

“I don’t like this,” Lazenby said, turning his dark glasses on the doctor. “I don’t like this, at all. It’s not honest. It’s not a fair go. You’ve been asked a straight question, Doctor, and you refuse to give a straight answer.”

“On the contrary.”

“Well,” Alleyn said, “let’s take another look at the situation. Before she left the Zodiac , Miss Hewson was in distress. She was heard by the constable on duty at the lock to scream, to break into a hysterical demonstration and to cry out repeatedly: ‘Let me go. Let me go!’ Is that agreed?”

Hewson said: “Sure! Sure, she was hysterical. Sure, she wanted to escape. What sort of deal had she had for Christ’s sake! Police standing her up like she was involved in this phoney art racket. A corpse fished outa The River and everyone talking about homicide. Sure, she was scared. She was real scared. She was desperate. I didn’t want to leave her up here but she acted like crazy and said why couldn’t I let her alone. So I did. I left her right here in the saloon and I went to bed.”

“You were the last then, to go down?”

“Well — the Padre and Stan and I — we went together.”

“And Dr Natouche? Did he go down?

“No, sir. He went up on deck. He went up soon as Sis began to act nervous. Pretty queer it seemed to me: go out into that doggone fog but that’s what he did and that’s where he went.”

“I would like to get a clear picture, if ‘clear’ is the word, of where you all were and what happened after she was left here in the saloon.”

They all began to speak at once and incontinently stopped. Alleyn looked at Caley Bard.

“Let’s have your version,” he said.

“I wish you luck of it,” Caley rejoined. “For what it’s worth I’ll—well, I’ll have a stab. I’d gone to bed: at least I’d gone to my cabin and undressed and was having a look at some butterflies I caught on the cruise. I heard—” he looked at Lazenby, Hewson and Pollock “—these three come down and go to the loo and their cabins and so on. They all have to go past my door, I being in Cabin 1. They were talking in the passage, I remember. I didn’t notice what they said: I was spreading a specimen I picked up at Crossdyke. Subconsciously though, I suppose I must have recognised their voices.”

“Yes? ”

All of a sudden a hell of a rumpus broke loose, up topside. Sorry, Hewson, I might have put that better. I heard, in fact, Miss Hewson scream ‘Let me go’. Two or three times, I think. I heard a kind of thudding in the saloon here, above my head. And then, naturally, a general reaction.”

“What sort of general reaction?”

“Doors opening and slamming. Hewson calling out for his sister, Lazenby and Pollock shouting to each other and a stampede upstairs. I’m afraid,” Caley said with what could only be described as an arch glance out of his curious eyes, “I did not hurtle into the lists. Not then and there. You see, Alleyn, we had, to quote an extremist, supped rather full of horrors and, to be quite honest, my immediate reaction was to think: ‘Oh, no ! Not again !’ Meaning it in a general sense, you understand.”

“So — what did you do?”

“In effect, listened to what seemed to be an increasing—hubbub, had a bit of an argument with what passes for my conscience and finally, I’m afraid more than reluctantly, went up topside myself.”

“Where you found?”

“Damn’ all that could be distinguished. Everybody milling about in the fog and asking everybody else what the hell they were doing and where was Miss Hewson.”

“Can you say how many persons you could distinguish?”

He thought for a moment. “Well — yes. I suppose — I got a general idea. But it couldn’t be less reliable. I heard these three men again — calling out to each other and I heard the Skipper warn people not to go overboard, I remember Lazenby called out that he thought we ought to leave Miss Hewson alone and that she would get over it best by herself. And Hewson said he couldn’t leave her. And Pollock, you were milling round asking what the police thought they were doing. So I yelled for the police — it seemed a reasonable thing to do — and a great bumbling copper landed on the deck like a whale.”

Nobody looked, now, at the motionless figure behind the corner table.

“Do I gather,” Alleyn said, “that at no stage did you hear Dr Natouche’s voice? Or hear him come down to his cabin?”

Caley was silent.

“I did, then,” Pollock said. “I heard him just before she began to call out ‘Let me go’. He was with her. He said something to her. I’ll swear to that. Gawd knows what he did .”

“Did anyone hear Dr Natouche after they heard Miss Hewson for the last time?”

As if they were giving responses in some disreputable litany, Pollock, Hewson and Lazenby loudly said “No.”

“Skipper?”

The Skipper laid his workaday hands out on his knees and frowned at them. “I can’t say I did. I was forrard in my cabin and in bed when it started up. I shifted into this rig and came along. They were on deck and someone was bawling for the police. Not her. A man. Mr Bard, if he says so. She’d gone. I never heard the doctor at any stage and I didn’t bump into him like I did the others.”