Ngaio Marsh - Dead Water

“Exactly, Br’er Fox. As for the galloping Major: he swims round in an alcoholic trance. Never completely drunk. Hardly ever sober. And reputed, incredibly enough, to have had a brief fling with Miss Cost at about the same time as Wally’s warts vanished. He is thought to have proved fickle and to have aroused her classic fury. She also set her bonnet, unsuccessfully it seems, at the Doctor, the Rector and the Mayor. Barrimore’s got a most beautiful and alluring wife, who is said to be bullied by him. She showed signs of acute distress after she heard the news. She’s the original Green Lady. It’s all in the notes: you can have a nice cozy read any time you fancy.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s Wally’s cottage. We are about to climb Wally’s Way — and that is Wally’s mama, another alcoholic, by the by, leering over the back fence. His father is ferryman at high tide and general showman in between. The whole boiling of them — the Barrimores, the Parson, the Doctor, the Major, the Treherns, Miss Cost herself, with pretty well everybody else in the community — stood to lose by Miss Pride’s operations. Apart from arousing the cornered fury of a hunted male, it’s difficult to discover a motive for Miss Cost’s murder… Good evening, Mrs. Trehern!” Alleyn shouted and lifted his hat.

“Yoo-hoo!” Mrs. Trehern wildly returned, clinging to her back fence. “Lock ’er up. Bloody murderess.”

“Who’s she mean?” asked Fox.

“Miss Pride.”

“Bless my soul! Quelle galère !” Fox added, cautiously.

“You must meet Miss Pride, Br’er Fox. She’s a top authority on French as she should be spoke.”

“Ah!” said Fox. “To be properly taught from the word go! That’s the thing. What does she think of the gramophone method?”

“Not much.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Fox with a heavy sigh.

Mrs. Trehern gave a screech, not unlike one of her son’s, and tacked into the cottage. Alleyn went over to the fence and looked into the back garden. The clothesline had been removed.

They climbed up Wally’s Way to the enclosure. One of Coombe’s men was standing a little way along the hotel path.

Alleyn said to Bailey: “The whole area was trampled over when the rain came down. From below, up to the boulder, it’s thick broken bracken and you won’t get results, I’m afraid. On the shelf above the pool where the deceased was crouched, leaning forward, you’ll find her prints superimposed over others. Above that, behind the boulder, is the area where our man, woman or child is thought to have hidden. There’s a clear indication of the place where the rock was prized up, and signs that some effort was made to scrape out the footprints. All this, on top of the mess left by the crowd. And to add to your joy, Superintendent Coombe and Dr. Mayne were up there this morning. Their prints ought to be fairly easy to cut out. The Super was wearing his regulation issue and the Doctor’s are ripple-soled. Thompson, give us a complete coverage, will you? And we’ll need casts, Bailey. Better take them as soon as possible.” He looked up at the sky. Heavy clouds were rolling in from the northwest and a fresh wind had sprung up. The sea was no longer calm. “Anyone notice the forecast?”

“Yes,” said Fox. “Gales and heavy rain before morning.”

“Damn.”

He produced Coombe’s key for the wire cage over the slot machine, which had been locked.

“Notice this, Br’er Fox, would you? It was installed at Miss Cost’s insistence to baffle courting couples after dark, and not often used. I think it might be instructive. Only Coombe and the Boy-and-Lobster had keys. You can get out of the enclosure by the other gate, which is on a spring and is self-locking on the inside. You could go in by this turnstile and, if you used a length of string, pull the padlock, on the slack of its chain, round to the netting, and lock yourself in.”

“Any reason to think it’s been done?”

“Only this: there’s a fragment of frayed string caught in the groove of the wire. Get a shot of it, Thompson, will you, before we take possession?”

Thompson set up his camera. Alleyn unlocked the cage. He gave each of the others a disk and, in turn, they let themselves in. The shelf and the area above it, round the boulder, had been covered with tarpaulins. “Laid on by Coombe’s chaps,” Alleyn said. “He’s done a good job, never mind his great boots.” He stood there for a moment and watched the movement of the welling pool, the sliding lip of water, its glassy fall and perpetual disappearance. Its voices, consulting together, filled the air with their colloquy.

“Well,” Alleyn said. “Here you are, Bailey. We’ll leave you to it. I’d better have a word with the local P.C.s. Here are my notes, Fox. Have a look at them for what they’re worth.”

Mr. Fox drew out his spectacle case and seated himself in the lee of the hillside. Bailey, a man of few words, at once began to work, and in a minute or two Thompson joined him. Alleyn returned to the gates and let himself out. He stood with his back to the enclosure where Miss Emily had hung her notice. He looked down Wally’s Way to the spot where Wally himself had waved and shouted at her and, beyond that, to the back of the Treherns’ cottage and the jetty in Fisherman’s Bay. He was very still for a moment. Then he called to Fox, who joined him.

“Do you see what I see?” he asked.

Fox placidly related what he saw.

“Thank you,” Alleyn said. “Bear it in mind, Br’er Fox, when you digest those notes. I’m going along to that blasted outcrop.” He did so, and on his way was met by the constable on duty. The wind was now very strong and much colder. Clouds, inky dark and blown ragged at their edges, drove swiftly in from the sea which had turned steely and was whipped into broken corrugations. The pleasure boats, all heading inshore, danced and bucketted as they came. Portcarrow front was deserted, and a procession of cars crawled up the road to the downlands. The hotel launch was discharging a load of people, for whom a bus waited by the village jetty. There goes the Major’s drink check, thought Alleyn.

“Evening,” he said to the constable. “This doesn’t look too promising, does it? What are we in for?”

“A dirty spell, sir, by all tokens. When she bears in sudden and hard like this from the nor’west there’s only one way of it. Rain, high seas and a gale.”

“Keep the trippers off, at least. Have you had much trouble?”

“A lot of foolish inquiries, sir, and swarms of they nippers from down-along.”

“Where’s your mate? Round the point there?”

“Yes, sir. Nobody’s come past the point, though there was plenty that tried. Sick ones and all.”

“Anyone you knew?”

“Two of the maids from the Boy-and-Lobster, sir, giggling and screeching after their silly fashion. The Major came. One of his visitors had dropped a ring, they reckoned, behind that rock, and he wanted to search for it. Us two chaps took a look but it warn’t thereabouts. We kept off the ground, sir. So did he, though not best pleased to be said by us.”

“Good for you. Sergeant Bailey will deal with it in a minute, and we’ll get some pictures. Did Major Barrimore leave any prints, did you notice?”

“So he did, then, and us reckons they’m the dead spit-identicals for the ones that’s there already.”

“You use your eyes, I see, in this Division. What’s your name?”

“Carey, sir.”

“I’ll come along with you.”

They went to the outcrop, where Carey’s mate, P.C. Pomeroy, kept a chilly watch. Alleyn was shown the Major’s footprints where he had pushed forward to the soft verge. He measured them and made a detailed comparison with those behind the outcrop.