Ngaio Marsh - Dead Water

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Barrimore said. She whispered something, and he turned on his heel and left her. He was scarlet in the face.

“Miss Cost,” Mayne said, “you’d better go home. You’re overwrought, and I’m sorry if I—”

“You will be sorry,” she said. “All of you. Mark my words.”

He hesitated for a moment. She made an uncouth and ridiculous gesture, and he, too, left her.

Miss Emily was motionless under her umbrella. Miss Cost made for her, stumbling on the muddy slope.

“Wicked, wicked woman,” Miss Cost said. “You will be punished.”

“My poor creature—” Miss Emily began, but Miss Cost screamed at her, turned aside and floundered toward the gates. She passed through them into Wally’s Way, and after a precipitous descent was lost among those of her adherents who were clustered around the jetty.

Jenny and Patrick had set off after the others, but now, on looking back, saw Miss Emily alone in the downpour. At Jenny’s suggestion they returned, and she approached Miss Emily.

“Miss Pride,” she said, “let’s go back. Come with us. You’ll be drenched.”

“Thank you, dear child, I have my umbrella,” said Miss Emily. She was still staring across the spring at Superintendent Coombe’s late companion, who now advanced towards her. “Please don’t wait for me,” she said. “I have an escort.”

Jenny hesitated. “I insist,” said Miss Emily impatiently. Patrick took Jenny’s arm. “Come on,” he said. “We’re not needed.” They hunched their shoulders and ran like hares.

Alleyn crossed the enclosure. “Good evening, Miss Emily,” he said. “Shall we go?”

On the way to the Boy-and-Lobster he held her umbrella over her. “I am sufficiently protected by my waterproof and overshoes,” she said. “The forecast was for rain. Pray, let us share the umbrella.” She took his arm. The footpath was now deserted.

They hardly spoke. Rain drummed down on the umbrella in a pentateuchal deluge. Earth and sea were loud with its onslaught and the hillside smelled of devouring grass and soil. Miss Emily, in her galoshes, was insecure. Alleyn closed his hand round her thin old arm and was filled with a sort of infuriated pity.

The entrance to the hotel was deserted except for the man on duty, who stared curiously at them. Miss Emily drew her key from her reticule. “I prefer,” she said loudly, “to retain possession. Will you come up? I have a so-called suite.”

She left Alleyn in her sitting-room with injunctions to turn on the heater and dry himself while she retired to change.

He looked about him. The plastic Green Lady, still wearing its infamous legend round its neck, had been placed defiantly in a glass-fronted wall cupboard. He looked closely at it without touching it. A stack of London telephone directories stood near the instrument on the writing desk.

Miss Emily called from her bedroom: “You will find cognac and soda-water in the small cupboard. Help yourself, I beg you. And me: cognac, simplement .” She sounded quite gay. Alleyn poured two double brandies.

“Don’t wait for me,” Miss Emily shouted. “Drink at once. Remove and dry your shoes. Have you engaged the heater?”

He did everything she commanded and felt that he was putting himself at a disadvantage.

When Miss Emily reappeared, having changed her skirt, shoes and stockings, she looked both complacent and stimulated. It occurred to Alleyn that she got a sort of respectable kick out of entertaining him so dashingly in her suite. She sat in an armchair and juantily accepted her brandy.

“First of all, you must understand that I am extremely angry with you,” she said. She was almost coquettish. “Ah-ah-ah! And now you have the self-conscious air?” She shook her finger at him.

“I may look sheepish,” he rejoined, “but I assure you I’m in a devil of a temper. You are outrageous, Miss Emily.”

“When did you leave and how is your dear Troy?”

“At seven o’clock this morning and my dear Troy is furious.”

“Ah, no!” She leaned forward and tapped his hand. “You should not have come, my friend. I am perfectly able to look after myself. It was kind but it was not necessary.”

“What were you going to say to that crowd if you hadn’t been cut off by a cloudburst? No, don’t tell me. I know. You must be mad, Miss Emily.”

“On the contrary, I assure you. And why have you come, Rodrigue? As you see, I have taken no harm.”

“I want to know, among other matters, the full story of that object over there. The obscene woman with the label.”

Miss Emily gave him a lively account of it

“And where, precisely, was it planted?”

“Behind one of the London telephone directories, which had been placed on its edge, supported by the others.”

“And you knocked the book over while you were speaking to me?”

“That is correct. Revealing the figurine.”

He was silent for some time. “And you were frightened,” Alleyn said at last.

“It was a shock. I may have been disconcerted. It was too childish a trick to alarm me for more than a moment.”

“Do you mind if I take possession of this object?”

“Not at all.”

“Has anybody but you touched it, do you know?”

“I think not. Excepting of course, the culprit.”

He wrapped it carefully, first in a sheet of writing-paper from the desk and then in his handkerchief. He put it in his pocket.

“Well,” he said. “Let’s see what we can make of all this nonsense.”

He took her through the events of the last five days and found her account tallied with Superintendent Coombe’s.

When she had finished he got up and stood over her.

“Now look,” he said. “None of these events can be dismissed as childish. The stones might have caused a serious injury. The trip wire almost certainly would have done so. The first threats that you got in London have been followed up. You’ve had two other warnings — the figurine and the telephone call. They will be followed up, too. Coombe tells me you suspect Miss Cost. Why?”

“I recognized her voice. You know my ear for the speaking voice, I think.”

“Yes.”

“On Monday, I interviewed her in her shop. She was in an extremity of anger. This brought on an attack of asthma and that in its turn added to her chagrin.”

Alleyn asked her if she thought Miss Cost had dogged her to the steps, stormed up the hill and thrown stones at her, asthma notwithstanding.

“No,” said Miss Emily coolly. “I think that unfortunate child threw the stones. I encountered him after I had left the shop and again outside the hotel. I have no doubt he did it — possibly at his father’s instigation, who was incited in the first instance, I daresay, by that ass Cost. The woman is a fool and a fanatic. She is also, I think, a little mad. You saw how she comported herself after that fiasco.”

“Yes, I did. All right. Now, I want your solemn promise that on no condition will you leave your rooms again this evening. You are to dine and breakfast up here. I shall call for you at ten o’clock and I shall drive you back to London or, if you prefer it, put you on the train. There are no two ways about it, Miss Emily. That is what you will do.”

“I will not be cowed by these threats. I will not .”

“Then I shall be obliged to take you into protective custody and you won’t much fancy that, I promise you,” Alleyn said and hoped it sounded convincing.

Miss Emily’s eyes filled with angry tears.

“Rodrigue — to me? To your old institutrice ?”

“Yes, Miss Emily.” He bent down and gave her a kiss: the first he had ever ventured upon. “To my old institutrice ,” he said. “I shall set a great strapping policewoman over you, and if that doesn’t answer, I shall lock you up, Miss Emily.”