Ngaio Marsh - Hand in Glove

He spent a long time over this additional entry, using a strong pocket lens. He would have been very glad to remove the page and give it the full laboratory treatment. As it was he could see that a fine-pointed steel nib had been used and he noted that such another nib was rusting in the pen on the desk which also carried an old-fashioned inkpot. The writing was in a copperplate style, without character and rather laborious.

Praying that Mrs. Nicholls was engaged in further activities in the vestry, Alleyn slipped out to the car and took a small phial from his homicide kit. Back at the font — and hearing Mrs. Nicholls, who was an insecure mezzo, distantly proclaiming that she ploughed the fields and scattered — he let fall a drop from the phial on the relevant spot. The result was not as conclusive as the laboratory test would have been, but he would have taken long odds that the addition had been made at a different time from the main entry. Trusting that if anybody looked at this page they would conclude that some sentimentalist had let fall a tear over the infant in question, Alleyn shut the register.

The Rector’s wife returned without her apron and with her hat adjusted. “Any luck?” she asked.

“Thank you,” Alleyn said. “Yes, I think so. I find these old registers quite fascinating. The same names recurring through the years — it gives one such a feeling of continuity: the quiet life of the countryside. You seem to have had a steady progression of Pykes.”

“One of the oldest families, they were,” said the Rector’s wife. “Great people in their day by all accounts.”

“Have they disappeared?”

“Oh, yes. A long time ago. I think their manor house was burnt down in Victorian times and I suppose they moved away. At all events the family died out. There’s a Mr. Period over at Little Codling, who I believe was related, but I’ve been told he’s the last. Rather sad.”

“Yes, indeed,” Alleyn said.

He thanked her again and said he was sorry to have bothered her.

“No bother to me,” she said. “As a matter of fact we had someone else in, searching the register, a few weeks ago. A lawyer I think he was. Something to do with a client, I daresay.”

“Really? I wonder,” Alleyn improvised, “if it was my cousin.” He summoned the memory of Mr. Cartell, dreadfully blurred with mud. “Elderly? Slight? Baldish with a big nose? Rather pedantic old chap?”

“I believe he was. Yes, that exactly describes him. Fancy!”

“He’s stolen a march on me,” Alleyn said. “We’re amusing ourselves hunting up the family curiosities.” He put something in the church maintenance box and took his leave. As he left the church a deafening rumpus in the lane announced the approach of an antique motor car. It slowed down. The driver looked with great interest at Alleyn and the police car. He then accelerated and rattled off down the lane. It was Mr. Copper in the Bloodbath.

“If there’s one thing I fancy more than another, Mrs. Mitchell,” said Inspector Fox, laying down his knife and fork, “it’s a cut of cold lamb, potato salad and a taste of cucumber relish. If I may say so, your cucumber relish is something particular. I’m very much obliged to you. Delicious.”

“Welcome, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Mitchell. “I’ve got a nephew in the Force, Mr. Fox, and from what he says it’s the irregular meals that tells in the end. Worse than the feet, even, my nephew says; and his are a treat, believe you me. Soft corns! Well! Like red-hot coals, my nephew says.”

Alfred cleared his throat. “Occupational disabilities!” he generalized. “They happen to the best of us, Mrs. M.”

“That’s right. Look at my varicose veins. I don’t mean literally,” Mrs. Mitchell added with a jolly laugh, in which Fox joined.

“Well, now,” he said. “I mustn’t stay here gossiping all the afternoon or I’ll have the Superintendent on my tracks.”

“Here we are, acting as pleasant as you please,” Mrs. Mitchell observed, “and all the while there’s this wicked business hanging over our heads. You know? In a way I can’t credit it.”

“Naturally enough, Mrs. M.,” Alfred pointed out. “Following, as we do, the even tenor of our ways, the concept of violence is not easily assimilated. Mr. Fox appreciates the point of view, I feel sure.”

“Very understandable.…I suppose,” Fox suggested, “you might say the household had ticked over as comfortably as possible ever since the two gentlemen decided to join forces.”

There was a brief silence broken by Mrs. Mitchell. “In a manner of speaking, you might,” she concluded, “although there have been — well …”

“Exterior influences,” Alfred said, remotely.

“Well, exactly, Mr. Belt.”

“Such as?” Fox suggested.

“Since you ask me, Mr. Fox, such as the dog and the Arrangement. And the connections,” Mrs. Mitchell added.

“Miss Mary Ralston, for instance?”

“You took the words out of my mouth.”

“We mustn’t,” Alfred intervened, “give too strong an impression, Mrs. M.”

“Well, I daresay we mustn’t, but you have to face up to it. The dog is an animal of disgusting habits, and that young lady’s been nothing but a menace ever since the Arrangement was agreed upon. You’ve said it yourself, Mr. Belt, over and over again.”

“A bit wild, I take it,” Fox ventured.

“Blood,” Mrs. Mitchell said sombrely, “will tell. Out of an Orphanage — and why there, who knows?”

“As Mr. Cartell himself realized,” Alfred said. “I heard him make the observation last evening, though he didn’t frame it in those particular terms.”

“Last evening? Really? Cigarette, Mrs. Mitchell?”

“Thank you, Mr. Fox.” Alfred and Mrs. Mitchell exchanged a glance. A bell rang.

“Excuse me,” Alfred said. “The study.” He went out. Fox, gazing benignly upon Mrs. Mitchell, wondered if he detected a certain easing~up in her manner.

“Mr. Belt,” she said, “is very much put about by all this. He don’t show his feelings, but you can tell.”

“Very natural,” Fox said. “So Mr. Cartell didn’t find himself altogether comfortable about Miss Ralston?” he hinted.

“It couldn’t be expected he should take to her. A girl of that type calling him ‘Uncle,’ and all. As for our gentleman — well!”

“I can imagine,” Fox said, cozily. “Asking for trouble.” He beamed at her. “So there were words?” he said. “Well, bound to be, when you look at the situation, but I daresay they didn’t amount to much, the deceased gentleman being of such an easy-going nature, from all accounts.”

“I’m sure I don’t know who gave you that idea, Inspector,” Mrs. Mitchell ejaculated. “I’d never have called him that, never. Real old bachelor and a lawyer into the bargain. Speak no ill, of course, but speak as you find all the same. Take last evening. There was all this trouble over our gentleman’s cigarette case.”

Fox allowed her to tell him at great length about the cigarette case.

“…So,” Mrs. Mitchell said after some minutes, “Mr. Cartell goes over to the other house, and by all accounts (though that Trudi, being a foreigner, can’t make herself as clear as we would have wished) tackles Miss Moppett and as good as threatens her with the police. Hand back the case and give up her fancyboy Or Else. Accordin’ to Trudi, who dropped in last evening.”

Fox made clucky noises. Alfred returned to fetch his cap.

“Bloody dog’s loose again,” he said angrily. “Bit through her lead. Now, I’m told I’ve got to find her because of complaints in the village.”

“What will he do with her?” Mrs. Mitchell wondered.

“I know what I’d do with her,” Alfred said viciously. “I’d gas her. Well, if I don’t see you again, Mr. Fox…”