Ngaio Marsh - Singing in the Shrouds

Alleyn asked him if he would extend this theory to include a general classification. Did Mr. Merryman, for instance, consider that there was such a thing as a criminal type of face? “I’ve read somewhere, I fancy, that the police say there isn’t,” he ventured. Mr. Merryman rejoined tartly that for once the police had achieved a glimpse of the obvious. “If you ask me whether there are facial types indicative of brutality and low intelligence I must answer yes. But the sort of person we have been considering”—he held up his book—” need not be exhibited in the countenance. The fact that he is possessed by his own particular devil is not written across his face that all who run may read.”

“That’s an expression that Father Jourdain used in the same context,” Alleyn said. “He considers this man must be possessed of a devil.”

“Indeed?” Mr. Merryman remarked. “That is of course the accepted view of the Church. Does he postulate the cloven hoof and toasting-fork?”

“I have no idea.”

A shadow fell across the deck and there was Miss Abbott.

“I believe,” she said, “in a personal devil. Firmly.”

She stood above them, her back to the setting sun, her face dark and miserable. Alleyn began to get up from his deck-chair, but she stopped him with a brusque movement of her hand. She jerked herself up on the hatch, where she sat bolt upright, her large feet in tennis shoes dangling awkwardly.

“How else,” she demanded, “can you explain the cruelities? God permits the devil to torment us for His own inscrutable purposes.”

“Dear me!” observed Mr. Merryman, quite mildly for him. “We find ourselves in a positive hive of orthodoxy, do we not?”

“You’re a churchman,” Miss Abbott said, “aren’t you? You came to Mass. Why do you laugh at the devil?”

Mr. Merryman contemplated her over his spectacles and after a long pause said, “My dear Miss Abbott, if you can persuade me of his existence I assure you I shall not treat the Evil One as a laughing matter. Far from it.”

“ I’m no good,” she said impatiently. “Talk to Father Jourdain. He’s full of knowledge and wisdom and will meet you on your own ground. I suppose you think it very uncouth of me to butt in and shove my faith down your throats, but when—” She set her dark jaw and went on with a kind of obstinacy, “When I hear people laugh at the devil it raises him in me. I know him.”

The others found nothing to say to her. She passed her hand heavily across her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t usually throw my weight about like this. It must be the heat.”

Aubyn Dale came along the deck, spectacular in sharkskin shorts, crimson pullover, and a pair of exotic espadrilles he had bought in Las Palmas. He wore enormous sunglasses and his hair was handsomely ruffled.

“I’m going to have a dip,” he said. “Just time before dinner and the water’s absolutely superb. Madame won’t hear of it, though. Any takers here?”

Mr. Merryman merely stared at him. Alleyn said he’d think about it. Miss Abbott got down from the hatch and walked away. Dale looked after her and wagged his head. “Poor soul!” he said. “I couldn’t be sorrier for her. Honestly, life’s hell for some women, isn’t it?”

He looked at the other two men. Mr. Merryman ostentatiously picked up his book and Alleyn made a non-committal noise. “I see a lot of that sort of thing,” Dale went on, “in my fantastic job. The Lonely Legion, I call them. Only to myself, of course.”

“Quite,” Alleyn murmured.

“Well, let’s face it. What the hell is there for them to do — looking like that? Religion? Exploring Central Africa? Or — ask yourself. I dunno,” said Dale, whimsically philosophical. “One of those things.”

He pulled out his pipe, shook his head over it, said, “Ah, well!” and meeting perhaps with less response than he had expected, walked off, trolling a stylish catch.

Mr. Merryman said something quite unprintable into his book and Alleyn went in search of Mrs. Dillington-Blick.

He found her, still reclining on the verandah and fanning herself, enormous but delectable. Alleyn caught himself wondering what Henry Moore would have made of her. She welcomed him with enthusiasm and a helpless flapping gesture to show how hot she was. But her white dress was uncreased. A lace handkerchief protruded crisply from her décolletage and her hair was perfectly in order.

“You look as cool as a cucumber,” Alleyn said and sat down on Aubyn Dale’s footrest. “What an enchanting dress.”

She made comic eyes at him. “My dear!” she said.

“But then all your clothes are enchanting. You dress quite beautifully, don’t you?”

“How sweet of you to think so,” she cried delightedly.

“Ah!” Alleyn said, leaning towards her. “You don’t know how big a compliment you’re being paid. I’m extremely critical of women’s clothes.”

“ Are you, indeed. And what do you like about mine, may I ask?”

“I like them because they are clever enough to express the charm of their wearer,” Alleyn said with a mental reservation to tell that one to Troy.

“Now, I do call that a perfect remark! In future I shall dress ’specially for you. There now!” promised Mrs. Dillington-Blick.

“Will you? Then I must think about what I should like you to wear. Tonight, for instance. Shall I choose that wonderful Spanish dress you bought in Las Palmas. May I?”

There was quite a long pause during which she looked sideways at him. “I think perhaps that’d be a little too much, don’t you?” she said at last. “Sunday night, remember.”

“Well, then, tomorrow?”

“Do you know,” she said, “I’ve gone off that dress. You’ll think me a frightful silly-billy, but all the rather murky business with poor sweet Mr. McAngus’s doll has sort of set me against it. Isn’t it queer?”

“ Oh !” Alleyn exclaimed with a great show of disappointment. “ What a pity! And what a waste!”

“I know. All the same, that’s how it is. I just see Esmeralda looking so like those murdered girls and all I want to do with my lovely, lovely dress is drop it overboard.”

“You haven’t done that!”

Mrs. Dillington-Blick gave a little giggle. “No,” she said. “I haven’t done that.”

“Or given it away?”

“Brigid would swim in it and I can’t quite see Miss Abbott or Mrs. Cuddy going al flamenco, can you?”

Dale came by on his way to the bathing pool, now wearing Palm Beach trunks and looking like a piece of superb publicity for a luxury liner. “ You’re a couple of slackers,” he said heartily and shinned nimbly down to the lower deck.

“I shall go and change,” sighed Mrs. Dillington-Blick.

“But not into the Spanish dress?”

“I’m afraid not. Sorry to disappoint you.” She held out her luxurious little hands and Alleyn dutifully hauled her up. “It’s too sad,” he said, “to think we are never to see it.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t be absolutely sure of that,” she said and giggled again. “I may change my mind and get inspired all over again.”

“To dance by the light of the moon?”

She stood quite still for a few seconds and then gave him her most ravishing smile. “You never know, do you?” said Mrs. Dillington-Blick.

Alleyn watched her stroll along the deck and go through the doors into the lounge.

“…and I expect you will agree,” he wrote to his wife that evening, “that in a subsidiary sort of way, this was a thoroughly disquieting bit of information.” >

Steaming down the west coast of Africa, Cape Farewell ran into the sort of weather that is apt to sap the resources of people who are not accustomed to it. The air through which she moved was of the land — enervated and loaded with vague impurities. A thin greyness that resembled dust rather than cloud obscured the sun but scarcely modified its potency. Mr. Merryman got a “touch” of it and looked as if he was running a temperature but refused to do anything about it. Dysentery broke out among the crew and also afflicted Mr. Cuddy, who endlessly consulted Tim and, with unattractive candour, anybody else who would listen to him.