Ngaio Marsh - Singing in the Shrouds

The missing portion of the embarkation notice had not been found.

A number of psychiatric authorities had been consulted and all agreed that the ten-day interval would probably be maintained and that the fourteenth of February, therefore, might be anticipated as a deadline. One of them added, however, that the subject’s homicidal urge might be exacerbated by an untoward event. Which meant, Inspector Fox supposed dryly, that he might cut up for trouble before the fourteenth, if a bit of what he fancied turned up in the meantime and did the trick.

Fox concluded the conversation by enquiring about the weather and on being told it was semi-tropical remarked that some people had all the luck. Alleyn had rejoined that if Fox considered a long voyage with a homicidal maniac (identity unknown and boning up for trouble) and at least two eminently suitable victims was a bit of luck, he’d be glad to swap jobs with him. On this note they rang off.

Alleyn had also received a cable from his wife which said,

LODGING PETITION FOR DESERTION DO YOU WANT ANYTHING SENT ANYWHERE LOVE DARLING TROY.

He put his papers away and went down to the well-deck. It was now twenty minutes past midnight but none of the passengers had gone to bed. The Cuddys were in the lounge telling Dennis, with whom they were on informal terms, about their adventures ashore. Mr. Merryman reclined in a deck-chair with his arms folded and his hat over his nose. Mr. McAngus and Father Jourdain leaned on the taffrail and stared down at the wharf below. The after-hatch was open and the winch that served it still in operation. The night was oppressively warm.

Alleyn strolled along the deck and looked down into the after-hatch, yawning black, and at the dramatically lit figures that worked it. The. rattle of the winch, the occasional voices and the pulse of the engines made a not unattractive accompaniment to the gigantic fishing operation. He had watched and listened for some minutes before he became aware of another and most unexpected sound. Quite close at hand was someone singing in Latin; an austere, strangely measured and sexless chant:

“ Procul recedant somnia

Et noctium phantasmata

Hostemque nostrum comprime

Ne polluantur corpora .”

Alleyn moved across the after end of the deck. In the little verandah, just visible in reflected light, sat Miss Abbott, singing. She stopped at once when she saw him. She had under her hands what appeared to be many sheets of paper; perhaps an immensely long letter.

“That was lovely,” Alleyn said, “I wish you hadn’t stopped. It was extraordinarily — what? — tranquil?”

She said, more it seemed to herself than to him, “Yes. Tranquil and devout. It’s music designed against devils.”

“What were you singing?”

She roused herself suddenly and became defensive. It seemed incredible that her speaking voice could be so harsh.

“A Vatican plainsong,” she said.

“What a fool I was to blunder in and stop you. Would it be — seventh century?”

“Six-fifty-five. Printed from manuscript in the Liber Gradualis, eighteen-eighty-three,” she barked and got up.

Alleyn said, “Don’t move. I’ll take myself off.”

“I’m going anyway.” She walked straight past him. Her eyes were dark with excitement. She strode along the deck to the lighted area where the others were congregated, sat in a deck-chair a little apart from them and began to read her letter.

After a minute or two Alleyn also returned and joined Mr. McAngus. “That was a charming gesture of yours this evening,” he said.

Mr. McAngus made a little tittering sound, “I was so lucky!” he said. “Such a happy coincidence, wasn’t it? And the resemblance, you know, is complete. I promised I’d find something and there it was. So very appropriate, I felt.” He hesitated for a moment and added rather wistfully. “I was invited to join their party, but of course I thought better to decline. She seemed quite delighted. At the doll, I mean. The doll delighted her.”

“I’m sure it did.”

“Yes,” Mr. McAngus said. “Yes.” His voice had trailed away into a murmur. He was no longer aware of Alleyn but looked past him and down towards the wharf.

It was now twenty past one. A taxi had come along the wharf. Out of it got Brigid Carmichael and Tim Makepiece, talking busily and obviously on the best possible terms with each other and the world at large. They came up the gangway smiling all over their faces. “Oh!” Brigid exclaimed to Alleyn. “Isn’t Las Palmas heaven? We have had such fun.”

But it was not at Brigid that Mr. McAngus stared so fixedly. An open car had followed the taxi and in it were Mrs. Dillington-Blick, the captain, and Aubyn Dale. They too were gay but with a more ponderable gaiety than Tim’s and Brigid’s. The men’s faces were darkish and their voices heavy. Mrs. Dillington-Blick still looked marvellous. Her smile, if not exactly irrepressible, was full of meaning, and if her eyes no longer actually sparkled they were still extremely expressive and the tiny pockets underneath them scarcely noticeable. The men helped her up the gangway. The captain went first. He carried the doll and held Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s elbow while Aubyn Dale put his hands on her waist and made a great business of assisting her from the rear. There were jokes and a lot of suppressed laughter.

When they arrived on deck the captain went up to the bridge and Mrs. Dillington-Blick held court. Mr. McAngus was made much of, Father Jourdain appealed to, and Alleyn given a great many sidelong glances. The doll was exhibited and the Cuddys came out to see it. Mrs. Cuddy said she supposed the dolls were produced with sweated labour, but Mr. Cuddy stared at Mrs. Dillington-Blick and said, with an odd inflection, that there were some things that couldn’t be copied. Alleyn was made to walk with the doll and Mrs. Dillington-Blick went behind, imitating its action, jerking her head and squeaking, “Ma-ma!”

Miss Abbott put down her letter and stared at Mrs. Dillington-Blick with a kind of hungry amazement.

“Mr. Merryman!” cried Mrs. Dillington-Blick. “Wake up! Let me introduce my twin sister Donna Esmeralda.”

Mr. Merryman removed his hat, gazed at the doll with distaste and then at its owner.

“The resemblance,” he said, “is too striking to arouse any emotion but one of profound misgiving.”

“Ma-ma!” squeaked Mrs. Dillington-Blick.

Dennis trotted out on deck, plumply smiling, and approached her. “A night-lettergram for you, Mrs. Dillington-Blick. It came after you’d gone ashore . I’ve been looking out for you. Oh, mercy!” he added, eyeing the doll. “Isn’t she twee !”

Mr. Merryman contemplated Dennis with something like horror and replaced his hat over his nose.

Mrs. Dillington-Blick gave a sharp ejaculation and fluttered her open night-lettergram.

“My dears!” she shouted. “You’ll never credit this! How too frightful and murky! My dears!”

“Darling!” Aubyn Dale exclaimed. “What?”

“It’s from a man, a friend of mine. You’ll never believe it. Listen!

“SENT MASSES OF HYACINTHS TO SHIP BUT SHOP INFORMS ME YOUNG FEMALE TAKING THEM LATEST VICTIM FLOWER MURDERER STOP CARD RETURNED BY POLICE STOP WHAT A THING STOP HAVE LOVELY TRIP TONY.”

Her fellow passengers were so excited by Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s news that they scarcely noticed their ship’s sailing. Cape Farewell separated herself from Las Palmas with an almost imperceptible gesture and moved away into the dark, taking up the rhythm of her voyage, while Mrs. Dillington-Blick held the stage.

They all gathered round her and Mr. Cuddy managed to get close enough to look sideways at the night-lettergram. Mr. Merryman, with an affectation of stretching his legs, strolled nearer, his head thrown back at an angle that enabled him to stare superciliously from under his hat brim at Mrs. Dillington-Blick. Even Miss Abbott leaned forward in her chair, grasping her crumpled letter, her large hands dangling between her knees. Captain Bannerman, who had come down from the bridge, looked much too knowing for Alleyn’s peace of mind, and repeatedly attempted to catch his eye. Alleyn avoided him, plunged into the melee and was himself loud in ejaculation and comment. There was much speculation as to where and when the girl who brought the flowers could have been murdered. Out of the general conversation Mrs. Cuddy’s voice rose shrilly, “And it was hyacinths again, too. Fancy! What a coincidence!”