Ngaio Marsh - Dead Water

Alleyn said to Coombe: “I asked the porter to get on the line to Pender, and say you’d want him. I hope that was in order.”

“Thanks very much.”

“I suppose you’ll need a statement from me, won’t you?”

Coombe scraped his jaw. “Sounds silly, doesn’t it?” he said. “Well, yes, I suppose I will.” He had been looking sideways at Alleyn, off and on, for some time.

“Look,” he said abruptly. “There’s one thing that’s pretty obvious about this affair, isn’t there? Here’s a case where a Yard man with a top reputation is first on the scene and, you might say, starts up the investigation. Look at it what way you like, it’d be pretty silly if I just said ‘Thanks, chum’ and let it go at that. Wouldn’t it now? I don’t mind admitting I felt it was silly, just now, with you standing by, tactful as you please and leaving it all to me.”

“Absolute rot,” Alleyn said. “Come off it.”

“No, I mean it. And, anyway,” Coombe added on a different note, “I haven’t got the staff.” It was a familiar plaint.

“My dear chap,” Alleyn said, “I’m meant to be on what’s laughingly called a holiday. Take a statement, for pity’s sake, and let me off. I’ll remove Miss Pride and leave you with a fair field. You’ll do well. ‘Coombe’s Big Case’ ”… He knew, of course, that this would be no good.

“You’ll remove Miss Pride, eh?” said Coombe. “And what say Miss Pride’s the key figure still? You know what I’m driving at. It’s sticking out a mile. Say I’m hiding up there behind that boulder. Say I hear someone directly below and take a look-see. Say I see the top of an open umbrella and a pair of female feet, which is what I’ve been waiting for. Who do I reckon’s under that umbrella? Not Miss Elspeth Cost. Not her. Oh, dear me no!” said Coombe in a sort of gloomy triumph. “I say: ‘That’s the job,’ and I bloody well let fly! But I bring down the wrong bird. I get—”

“All right, all right,” Alleyn said, exasperated by the long buildup. “And you say: ‘Absurd mistake. Silly old me! I thought you were Miss Emily Pride.’ ”

The upshot, as he very well knew it would be, was an understanding that Coombe would get in touch with his Chief Constable, and then with the Yard.

Coombe insisted on telling Dr. Mayne that he hoped Alleyn would take charge of the case. The ambulance men arrived with Pender, and for the second time in twenty-four hours Miss Cost went in procession along Wally’s Way.

Alleyn and Coombe stayed behind to look over the territory again. Coombe had a spring tape in his pocket and they took preliminary measurements and decided to get the area covered in case of rain. He showed Alleyn where the trip wire had been laid: through dense bracken on the way up to the shelf.

Pender had caught a glint of it in the sunshine and had been sharp enough to investigate.

They completed their arrangements. The handbag, the string of beads and the umbrella to be dropped at the police station by Pender, who was then to return with extra help if he could get it. The piece of rock would be sent with the body to the nearest mortuary at Dunlowman. Alleyn wanted a pathologist’s report on it as a possible weapon.

When they were outside the gates, Alleyn drew Coombe’s attention to the new notice, tied securely to the wire netting.

“Did you see this?”

It had been printed by a London firm.

Warning

Notice is given that the owner of this property wishes to disassociate herself from any claims that have been made, in any manner whatsoever, for the curative properties of the spring. She gives further notice that the present enclosure is to be removed. Any proceedings of any nature whatsoever that are designed to publicize the above claims will be discontinued. The property will be restored, as far as possible, to conditions that obtained two years ago, and steps will be taken to maintain it in a decent and orderly condition.

(Signed) Emily Pride

“When the hell was this put up?” Coombe ejaculated. “It wasn’t here yesterday; there’d have been no end of a taking-on.”

“Perhaps this morning. It’s been rained on. More than that — it’s muddied. As if it had lain face-downwards on the ground Look. Glove marks. No fingerprints, though.”

“P’raps she dropped it.”

“Perhaps,” Alleyn said. “There’s another on display in the hotel letter-rack. It wasn’t there last night”

“Put them there herself? Miss Pride?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“There you are!” Coombe said excitedly. “She came along the footpath. Somebody spotted her, streaked up Wally’s Way, got in ahead and hid behind the boulder. She hung up her notice and went back to the pub. Miss Cost arrives by the other route, goes in, picks up her beads and Bob’s your uncle.”

“Is he, though?” Alleyn muttered, more to himself than to Coombe. “She promised me she wouldn’t leave the pub. I’ll have to talk to Miss Emily.” He looked at Coombe. “This is going to be tricky,” he said. “If your theory’s the right one, and at this stage it looks healthy enough, do we assume that the stone chucker, wire stretcher, composite letter writer, dumper of Green Lady and telephonist are one and the same person, and that this person is also the murderer of Miss Cost?”

“That’s what I reckon. I know you oughtn’t to get stuck on a theory. I know that. But unless we find something that cuts dead across it…”

“You’ll find that, all right,” Alleyn said. “Miss Pride, you may remember, is convinced that the ringer-up was Miss Cost.”

Coombe thought this over and then said, Well, all right, he knew that, but Miss Pride might be mistaken.

Alleyn said Miss Pride had as sharp a perception for the human voice as was possible for the human ear. “She’s an expert,” he said. “If I wanted an expert witness in phonetics, I’d put Miss Pride in the box.”

“Well, all right, if you tell me so. So where does that get us? Does she reckon Miss Cost was behind all the attacks?”

“I think so.”

“Conspiracy, like?”

“Sort of.”

Coombe stared ahead of him for a moment or two. “So where does that get us?” he repeated.

“For my part,” Alleyn said, “it gets me, rather quicker than I fancy, to Wally Trehern and his papa.”

Coombe said with some satisfaction that this, at any rate, made sense. If Wally had been gingered up to make the attacks, who more likely than Wally to mistake Miss Cost for Miss Pride and drop the rock on the umbrella?

“Could Wally rig a trip wire? You said it was a workman-like job.”

“His old man could,” said Coombe.

“Which certainly makes sense. What about this padlocked cage over the slot-machine? Is it ever used?”

Coombe made an exasperated noise. “That was her doing,” he said. “She used to make a great to-do about courting couples. Very hot, she used to get: always lodging complaints and saying we ought to do something about it. Disgusting. Desecration … and all that. Well, what could I do? Put Pender on the job all day and half the night, dodging about the rocks? It couldn’t be avoided, and I told her so. We put this cage over to pacify her.”

“Is it never locked?”

“It’s supposed to be operated by the hotel at eight o’clock, morning and evening. In the summer, that is. But a lot of their customers like to stroll along to the spring of a summer’s evening. Accordingly, it is not kept up very consistently.”

“We’d better get the key. I’ll fix it now,” Alleyn said and snapped the padlock. It was on a short length of chain: not long enough, he noticed, to admit a hand into the cage.