Ngaio Marsh - Scales of Justice

Mark was about to retire to the terrace when the door opened and his grandmother looked in. “Mark?” she said. He went quickly into the hall. “In the study,” Lady Lacklander said, and in a moment he was there with Rose sobbing bitterly in his arms.

“You need pay no attention to me,” Lady Lacklander said. “I am about to telephone New Scotland Yard. Your father tells me they have been called in, and I propose to send for Helena Alleyn’s boy.”

Mark, who was kissing Rose’s hair, left off abruptly to say, “Can you mean Chief Inspector Alleyn, Gar?”

“I don’t know what his rank is, but he used to be a nice boy twenty-five years ago before he left the Service to become a constable. Central? This is Hermione, Lady Lacklander. I want New Scotland Yard, London. The call is extremely urgent as it is concerned with murder. Yes, murder. You will oblige me by putting it through at once. Thank you.” She glanced at Mark. “In the circumstances,” she said, “I prefer to deal with a gent.”

Mark had drawn Rose to a chair and was kneeling beside her, gently wiping away her tears.

“Hullo!” Lady Lacklander said after an extremely short delay. “New Scotland Yard. This is Hermione, Lady Lacklander, speaking. I wish to speak to Mr. Roderick Alleyn. If he is not on your premises, you will no doubt know where he is to be found. I don’t know his rank…”

Her voice, aristocratic, cool, sure of itself, went steadily on. Mark dabbed at Rose’s eyes. His father, alone with Kitty in the drawing-room, muttered agitatedly, “…I’m sorry it’s hit you so hard, Kit.”

Kitty looked wanly at him. “I suppose it’s the shock,” she said, and added without rancour, “I’m not as tough as you all think.” He protested chaotically. “O,” she said quite gently, “I know what they’ll say about me. Not you, p’raps, but the others. They’ll say it’s cupboard-sorrow. ‘That’s what’s upsetting the widow,’ they’ll say. I’m the outsider, George.”

“Don’t, Kit. Kit, listen…” He began to plead with her. “There’s something I must ask you — if you’d just have a look for — you know — that thing — I mean — if it was found—”

She listened to him distractedly. “It’s awful,” George said. “I know it’s awful to talk like this now, Kitty, but all the same — all the same — with so much at stake. I know you’ll understand.” Kitty said, “Yes. All right. Yes. But let me think. ”

Nurse Kettle out on the terrace was disturbed by the spatter of a few giant rain drops.

“There’s going to be a storm,” she said to herself. “A summer storm.”

And since she would have been out of place in the drawing-room and in the study, she took shelter in the hall. She had no sooner done so than the storm broke in a downpour over the valley of the Chyne.

Alleyn and Fox had worked late, tidying up the last phase of a tedious case of embezzlement. At twelve minutes to ten they had finished. Alleyn shut the file with a slap of his hand.

“Dreary fellow,” he said. “I hope they give him the maximum. Damn’ good riddance. Come back with me and have a drink, Br’er Fox. I’m a grass-widower and hating it. Troy and Ricky are in the country. What do you say?”

Fox drew his hand across the lower part of his face. “Well, now, Mr. Alleyn, that sounds very pleasant,” he said. “I say yes and thank you.”

“Good.” Alleyn looked round the familiar walls of the Chief Inspector’s room at New Scotland Yard. “There are occasions,” he said, “when one suddenly sees one’s natural habitat as if for the first time. It is a terrifying sensation. Come on. Let’s go while the going’s good.”

They were half-way to the door when the telephone rang. Fox said, “Ah, hell!” without any particular animosity and went back to answer it.

“Chief Inspector’s room,” he said heavily. “Well, yes, he’s here. Just.” He listened for a moment, gazing blandly at his superior. “Say I’m dead,” Alleyn suggested moodily. Fox laid his great palm over the receiver. “They make out it’s a Lady Lacklander on call from somewhere called Swevenings,” he said.

“Lady Lacklander ? Good Lord! That’s old Sir Harold Lacklander’s widow,” Alleyn ejaculated. “What’s up with her, I wonder.”

“Chief Inspector Alleyn will take the call,” Fox said and held out the receiver.

Alleyn sat on his desk and put the receiver to his ear. An incisive elderly voice was saying “… I don’t know his rank and I don’t know whether he’s on your premises or not, but you’ll be good enough if you please to find Mr. Roderick Alleyn for me. It is Hermione, Lady Lacklander, speaking. Is that New Scotland Yard and have you heard me? I wish to speak to…”

Alleyn announced himself cautiously into the receiver. “Indeed!” the voice rejoined. “Why on earth couldn’t you say so in the first instance? Hermione Lacklander speaking. I won’t waste time reminding you about myself. You’re Helena Alleyn’s boy and I want an assurance from you. A friend of mine has just been murdered,” the voice continued, “and I hear the local police are calling in your people. I would greatly prefer you, personally, to take charge of the whole thing. That can be arranged, I imagine?”

Alleyn, controlling his astonishment, said, “I’m afraid only if the Assistant Commissioner happens to give me the job.”

“Who’s he?”

Alleyn told her.

“Put me through to him,” the voice commanded.

A second telephone began to ring. Fox answered it and in a moment held up a warning hand.

“Will you wait one second, Lady Lacklander?” Alleyn asked. Her voice, however, went incisively on, and he stifled it against his chest. “What the hell is it, Fox?” he asked irritably.

“Central office, sir. Orders for Swevenings. Homicide.”

“Blistered apes! Us?”

“Us,” said Fox stolidly.

Alleyn spoke into his own receiver. “Lady Lacklander? I am taking this case, it appears.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Lady Lacklander. “I suggest you look pretty sharp about it. Au revoir,” she added with unexpected modishness, and rang off.

Fox, in the meantime, had noted down instructions. “I’ll inform Mr. Alleyn,” he was saying. “Yes, very good, I’ll inform him. Thank you.” He hung up his receiver. “It’s a Colonel Cartarette,” he said. “We go to a place called Chyning in Barfordshire, where the local sergeant will meet us. Matter of two hours. Everything’s laid on down below.”

Alleyn had already collected his hat, coat and professional case. Fox followed his example. They went out together through the never-sleeping corridors.

It was a still, hot night. Sheet-lightning played fretfully over the East End. The air smelt of petrol and dust. “Why don’t we join the River Police?” Alleyn grumbled. “One long water carnival.”

A car waited for them with Detective-Sergeants Bailey and Thompson and their gear already on board. As they drove out of the Yard, Big Ben struck ten.

“That’s a remarkable woman, Fox,” Alleyn said. “She’s got a brain like a turbine and a body like a tun. My mother, who has her share of guts, was always terrified of Hermione Lacklander.”

“Is that so, Mr. Alleyn? Her husband died only the other day, didn’t he?”

“That’s right. A quarter of a century ago he was one of my great white chiefs in the D.S. Solemn chap… just missed being brilliant. She was a force to be reckoned with even then. What’s she doing in this party? What’s the story, by the way?”

“A Colonel Maurice Cartarette found dead with head injuries by a fishing-stream. The C.C. down there says they’re all tied up with the Royal Visit at Siminster and are understaffed, anyway, so they’ve called us in.”