Ngaio Marsh - Singing in the Shrouds

“But there have only been two.”

“There was an attempt on January fifth. It was not publicized.”

“Indeed! The fifth, the fifteenth and the twenty-fifth. Why, then, ten days have already passed since the last crime. If you are right (and the interval after all may be a coincidence) the danger is acute.”

“On the contrary, if there’s anything in the ten-day theory, Mrs. Dillington-Blick at the moment is in no danger.”

“But—” Father Jourdain stared at him. “Do you mean there’s been another of these crimes? Since we sailed? Why then—?”

“About half an hour before you sailed and about two hundred yards away from the ship. On the night of the fourth. He was punctual almost to the minute.”

“Dear God!” said Father Jourdain.

“At the moment, of course, none of the passengers except the classic one knows about this, and unless anybody takes the trouble to cable the news to Las Palmas they won’t hear about it there.”

“The fourteenth,” Father Jourdain muttered. “You think we may be safe until the fourteenth.”

“One simply hopes so. All the same, shall we take the air before we turn in? I think we might.” Alleyn opened the doors. Father Jourdain moved towards them.

“It occurs to me,” he said, “that you may think me a busybody. It’s not that. It is, quite simply, that I have a nose for evil and a duty to prevent, if I can, the commission of sin. I am a spiritual policeman, in fact. You may feel that I’m talking professional nonsense.”

“I respect the point of view,” Alleyn said. For a moment they looked at each other. “And, sir, I am disposed to trust you.”

“That, at least, is a step forward,” said Father Jourdain. “Shall we leave it like that until you have checked my alibis?”

“If you’re content to do so.”

“I haven’t much choice,” Father Jourdain observed. He added, after a moment, “And at any rate it does appear that we have an interval. Until February the fourteenth?”

“Only if the time theory is correct. It may not be correct.”

“I suppose — a psychiatrist—?”

“Dr. Makepiece, for instance. He’s one. I’m thinking of consulting him.”

“But—”

“Yes?”

“He had no alibi. He said so.”

“They tell us,” Alleyn said, “that the guilty man in a case of this sort never says he has no alibi. They say he always produces an alibi. Of some sort. Shall we go out?”

They went out on deck. A light breeze still held but it was no longer cold. The ship, ploughing through the dark, throbbed with her own life and with small orderly noises and yet was compact of a larger quietude. As they moved along the starboard side of the well-deck a bell sounded in four groups of two.

“Midnight,” Alleyn said. Sailors passed them, quiet-footed. Mrs. Dillington-Blick and Aubyn Dale appeared on the far side of the hatch, making for the passengers’ quarters. They called out good-night and disappeared.

Father Jourdain peered at his watch. “And this afternoon we arrive at Las Palmas,” he said.

Las Palmas is known to tourists for its walkie-talkie dolls. They stare out of almost every shop window, and sit in rows in the street bazaars near the wharves. They vary in size, cost and condition. Some have their garments cynically nailed to their bodies and others wear hand-sewn dresses of elaborate design. Some are bald under their bonnets, others have high Spanish wigs of real hair crowned with real lace mantillas. The most expensive of all are adorned with necklaces, bracelets and even rings, and have masses of wonderful petticoats under their flowered and braided skirts. They can be as tall as a child or as short as a woman’s hand.

Two things the dolls have in common. If you hold any one of them by the arm it may be induced to jerk its legs to and fro in a parody of walking, and as it walks it also jerks its head from side to side and from within its body it squeaks, “Ma-ma.” They all squeak in the same way with voices that are shockingly like those of infants. Nearly everybody who goes to Las Palmas remembers either some little girl who would like a walkie-talkie doll or, however misguidedly, some grown woman who might possibly be amused by one.

The company placed an open car at the disposal of Captain Bannerman and in it he put Mrs. Dillington-Blick, looking like a piece of Turkish delight. They drove about Las Palmas, stopping at shops where the driver had a profitable understanding with the proprietor. Mrs. Dillington-Blick bought herself a black lace near-mantilla with a good deal of metal in it, a comb to support it, some Portuguese jewellery, and a fan. Captain Bannerman bought her a lot of artificial magnolias because they didn’t see any real ones. He felt proud because all the Las Palmanians obviously admired her very much indeed. They came to a shop where a wonderful dress was displayed, a full Spanish dress made of black lace and caught up to display a foam of scarlet petticoats underneath. The driver kissed his fingers over and over again and intimated that if Mrs. Dillington-Blick were to put it on she would look like the queen of heaven. Mrs. Dillington-Blick examined it with her head on one side.

“Do you know,” she said, “allowing for a little Latin exaggeration, I’m inclined to agree with him.”

Tim Makepiece and Brigid came along the street and joined them. Brigid said, “ Do try it on. You’d look absolutely marvelous. Do. For fun.”

“Shall I? Come in with me, then. Make me keep my head.”

The captain said he would go to his agents’ offices, where he had business to do, and return in twenty minutes. Tim, who very much wanted to buy some roses for Brigid, also said he’d come back. Greatly excited, the two ladies entered the shop.

The stifling afternoon wore into evening. Dusk was rapidly succeeded by night, palm trees rattled in an enervated breeze, and at nine o’clock by arrangement, Captain Bannerman and Mrs. Dillington-Blick were to meet Aubyn Dale at the grandest hotel in Las Palmas for dinner.

Mrs. Dillington-Blick had been driven back to the ship, where she changed into the wonderful Spanish dress, which of course she had bought. She was excitedly assisted by Brigid. “What did I tell you!” Brigid shouted triumphantly. “You ought to be sitting in a box looking at a play by Lope de Vega with smashing caballeros all round you. It’s a riot.” Mrs. Dillington-Blick, who had never heard of Lope de Vega, half smiled, opened her eyes very wide, turned and turned again to watch the effect in her looking-glass and said, “Not bad. Really, it’s not bad,” and pinned one of the captain’s artificial magnolias in her décolletage. She gave Brigid the brilliant look of a woman who knows she is successful.

“All the same,” she murmured, “I can’t help rather wishing it was the G.B. who was taking me out.”

“The G.B.?”

“My dear, the Gorgeous Brute. Glamorous Broderick, if you like. I dropped hints like thunderbolts but no luck, alas.”

“Never mind,” Brigid said, “you’ll have a terrific success, anyway. I promise you.”

She ran off to effect her own change. It was when she fastened one of Tim Makepiece’s red roses in her dress that it suddenly occurred to Brigid she hadn’t thought of her troubles for at least six hours. After all, it was rather fun to be dining out in a foreign city on a strange island with a pleasant young man.

It all turned out superbly, an enchanted evening suspended like a dream between the strange intervals of a sea voyage. The streets they drove through and the food they ate, the music they danced to, the flowers, the extremely romantic lighting and the exotic people were all, Brigid told Tim, “out of this world.” They sat at their table on the edge of the dance floor, talked very fast about the things that interested them, and were delighted to find how much they liked each other.