Ngaio Marsh - Dead Water

“You think not?”

“If it was my Wal, I’ll have the hide off of him.”

“I shouldn’t go in for any more violence if I were you, Mr. Trehern. And Wally didn’t rig the trip wire. It was done by a man who knows how to use his hands, and it was done with a length of your clothesline which you’ve tried to conceal. Will you make a statement about that? You are not compelled to do so. You must use your own judgment.”

“A statement! And be took down in writing? Not such a damned fool. Lookie-yurr! What’s these silly larks to do with Elspeth Cost? It’s her that’s laying cold, bean’t it? Not t’other old besom.”

“Of course,” Alleyn said, swallowing the epithet. After all, he’d thrown one or two, himself, at Miss Emily. “So you don’t think,” he said, “that Miss Cost was mistaken for Miss Pride?”

“I do not, mister. Contrariwise. I reckon one female done in on t’other.”

“What were you doing at half past seven this morning?”

“Asleep in my bed.”

“When did you wake?”

“How do I know when I woke? Hold on, though.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, b’God!” Trehern said slowly. “Give a chap time to think, will you? I disremembered but it’s come back, like. I heered the lad, banging and hooting about the place. Woke me up, did young Wal, and I hollered out to him to shut his noise. He takes them fits of screeching. Por lil’ chap,” Trehern added with a belated show of parental concern. “Gawd knows why, but he does. I look at the clock and it’s five past eight. I rouse up my old woman, which is a masterpiece of a job, she being a mortal heavy slumberer, and tell ’er to wet a pot of tea. Nothing come of it. She sunk back in her beastly oblivyan. So I uprose myself and put the kettle on and took a look at the weather, which were mucky.”

“Was Wally still in the house?”

“So ’e were, then, singing to hisself after his simple fashion and setting in a corner.”

“Did you see anybody about when you looked out of doors?”

Trehern peered sidelong at him. He waited for a moment and then said: “I seed the Doctor. In ’is launch. Putting out across the gap to go home, he was, having seen Bessy Tretheway over the way, yurr, come to light with another in this sinful vale of tears.”

“Is your clock right?”

“Good as gold,” he said quickly. “Can’t go wrong.”

“Can I see it?”

He looked as if he might refuse; but in the end, he lurched into the house, followed by Fox, and returned to the shed with a battered alarm clock. Alleyn checked it by his watch.

“Six minutes slow,” he said.

Trehern burst out angrily: “I don’t have no call for clocks! I’m a seafaring chap and read the time of day off of the face of nature. Sky and tides is good enough for me, and my mates in the bay’ll bear me out. Six minutes fast or six minutes slow by thikky clock’s no matter to me. I looked outer my winder and it wur dead water, and dead water come when I said it come, and if that there por female was sent to make the best of ’erself before ’er Maker when I looked outer my winder, she died at dead water and that’s an end of it.”

“Trehern,” Alleyn said, “what are you going to make of this? Mrs. Tretheway’s baby was born at 7:30, and Dr. Mayne left in his launch about ten minutes later. You’re a full half-hour out in your times.”

There was a long silence.

“Well?” Alleyn said. “Any comment?”

He broke into a stream of oaths and disjointed expostulations. Did they call him a liar? Nobody called Jim Trehern a liar and got away with it. If they weren’t going to believe him, why did they ask? There was talk against him in the bay. Jealousy seemed to be implied. His anger modulated through resentfulness and fear into his familiar occupational whine. Finally he said that a man could make mistakes, couldn’t he? When Alleyn asked if he meant that he’d mistaken the time, Trehern said he didn’t want his words taken out of his mouth and used against him.

He could scarcely have made a more dubious showing. He was observed briefly by his spouse, who emerged from the house, stood blinking in the back doorway, and was peremptorily ordered back by her husband. Inside the cottage, actors could be heard, galloping about on horses and shouting “ C’m on, let’s go !” to each other. Wally, Alleyn supposed, was enjoying television.

Trehera suddenly bawled out: “You, boy! Wal! Come yurr! Come out of it when you’re bid!”

Wally shambled onto the back porch, saw Alleyn and smiled widely.

“Come on!” his father said. Wally began to whimper, but came on to the shed. His father took him by the arm.

“Now, then. Tell the truth and shame the devil. You been chucking rocks?”

“No. No, I bean’t.”

“No, and better not. Speak up and tell these yurr gents. Swear if you hope you won’t get half-skinned for a liar as you never chucked no rocks at nobody.”

“I never chucked no rocks, only stones,” Wally said, trembling. “Like you said to.”

“That’ll do!” his father said ferociously. “Get in.” Wally bolted.

Alleyn said: “You’d better watch your step with that boy. Do you thrash him?”

“Never raise a hand to him, mister. Just a manner of speaking. He don’t understand nothing different. Never had no mother-love, poor kid. I have to pour out sufficient for both and a heavy job it is.”

“You may find yourself describing it to the welfare officer, one of these days.”

“Them bastards!”

“Now, look here, Trehern, you heard what the boy said. ‘No rocks, only stones like you said to.’ Hadn’t you better make the best of that statement and admit he threw stones at Miss Pride and you knew it? Think it out.”

Trehern made a half-turn, knocked his boot against an old tin and kicked it savagely to the far end of the yard. This, apparently, made up his mind for him.

“If I say he done it in one of his foolish turns, meaning no harm and acting the goat — all right — I don’t deny it and I don’t excuse it. But I do deny, and will, and you won’t shift me an inch, he never heaved no rock at Elspeth Cost. I’ll take my Bible oath on it and may I be struck dead if I lie.”

“How can you be so sure? Miss Pride saw the boy in the lane at about twenty to eight. So did Dr. Mayne. You weren’t there. Or were you?”

“I was not. By God, I was not . And I’ll lay anyone cold that says different. And how can I be so sure?” He advanced upon Alleyn and thrust his face towards him. His unshaven jowls glittered with raindrops. “I’ll tell you flat how I can be so sure. That boy never told a lie in his life, mister. He’m too simple. Ax anybody. Ax his teacher. Ax Parson, Ax his mates. He’m a truth-speaking lad, por little sod, and for better or worse, the truth’s all you’ll ever get out of our Wal.”

Alleyn heard Jenny Williams’s voice: He’s an extraordinarily truthful little boy. He never tells lies — never .

He looked at Trehern and said: “All right. We’ll let it go at that, for the moment. Good evening to you.”

As they walked round the side of the house Trehern shouted after them: “What about the female of the speeches? Pride? Pride has to take a fall, don’t she?”

There was a wild scream of laughter from Mrs. Trehern and a door banged.

“That will do to go on with,” Alleyn said to Fox and aped Wally’s serial: “ C’m on. Let’s go !”

They found Bailey and Thompson outside, locked in their mackintoshes with an air of being used to it and with their gear stowed inside waterproof covers. Rain cascaded from their hat brims.