Ngaio Marsh - Scales of Justice

“Yes, I see… And Mrs. Cartarette says she arrived here at about five past eight. Perhaps you played golf, roughly, for an hour. How many holes?”

“We didn’t go round the course. Mrs. Cartarette is learning. It was her first — ah — attempt. She asked me to give her a little coaching. We — ah — we only played a couple of holes. We spent the rest of the time practising some of her shots,” George said, haughtily.

“Ah, yes. And you parted company at about ten to eight. Where?”

“At the top of the river path,” he said and added, “as far as I remember.”

“From there would you see Lady Lacklander coming up towards you? She began her ascent at ten to eight.”

“I didn’t look down. I didn’t notice.”

“Then you won’t have noticed Colonel Cartarette either. Lady Lacklander says he was fishing in the willow grove at the time and that the willow grove is visible from the river path.”

“I didn’t look down. I… ah… I merely saw Mrs. Cartarette to the river path and went on through the Home Spinney to Nunspardon. My mother arrived a few minutes later. And now,” George said, “if you’ll excuse me, I really must drive my mama home. By the way, I do hope you’ll make use of us. I mean, you may need a headquarters and so on. Anything one can do.”

“How very kind,” Alleyn rejoined. “Yes, I think we may let you go now. Afraid I shall have to ask you to stay in Swevenings for the time being.”

He saw George’s jaw drop.

“Of course,” he added, “if you have important business elsewhere, it will be quite in order to come and tell me about it and we’ll see what can be done. I shall be at the Boy and Donkey.”

“Good God, my dear Alleyn…”

“Damn’ nuisance, I know,” Alleyn said, “but there you are. If they will turn on homicide in your bottom meadow. Goodnight to you.”

He circumnavigated George and returned to the drawing-room, where he found Rose, Mark and Kitty uneasily silent, Mr. Phinn biting his fingers, and Inspector Fox in brisk conversation with Nurse Kettle on the subject of learning French conversation by means of Gramophone records. “I don’t,” Mr. Fox was saying, “make the headway I’d like to.”

“I picked up more on a cycling tour in Brittany when I had to than I ever got out of my records.”

“That’s what they all tell me, but in our line what chance do you get?”

“You must get a holiday some time, for Heaven’s sake.”

“True,” Fox said, sighing. “That’s a fact. You do. But somehow I’ve never got round to spending it anywhere but Birchington. Excuse me, Miss Kettle, here’s the Chief.”

Alleyn gave Fox a look that both of them understood very well, and the latter rose blandly to his feet. Alleyn addressed himself to Kitty Cartarette.

“If I may,” he said, “I should like to have a very short talk with Miss Kettle. Is there perhaps another room we may use? I saw one, I think, as I came across the hall. A study perhaps.”

He had the feeling that Mrs. Cartarette was not overanxious for him to use the study. She hesitated, but Rose said, “Yes, of course. I’ll show you.”

Fox had gone to the French window and had made a majestical signal to the sergeant, who now came into the drawing-room.

“You all know Sergeant Oliphant, of course,” Alleyn said. “He will be in charge of the local arrangements, Mrs. Cartarette, and I thought perhaps you would like to have a word with him. I would be grateful if you would give him the names of your husband’s solicitor and bank and also of any relations who should be informed. Mr. Phinn, I will ask you to repeat the substance of your account to Sergeant Oliphant, who will take it down and get you to sign it if it is correct.”

Mr. Phinn blinked at him. “I cannot,” he said, with a show of spirit, “of course, be compelled.”

“Of course not. But I’m afraid we shall have to trouble all of you to give us signed statements, if you are willing to do so. If you do yours first, it will leave you free to go home. I hope,” Alleyn concluded, “that you will not find it too difficult without your glasses. And now, Miss Cartarette, may we indeed use the study?”

Rose led the way across the hall into the room where eight hours ago she had talked to her father about her love for Mark. Alleyn and Fox followed her. She waited for a moment and stared, as it seemed to Alleyn, with a kind of wonder at the familiar chairs and desk. Perhaps she saw a look of compassion in his face. She said, “He seems to be here, you know. The room can’t go on without him, one would think. This was his place more than anywhere else.” She faltered for a moment and then said, “Mr. Alleyn, he was such a darling, my father. He was as much like my child as my father, he depended on me so completely. I don’t know why I’m saying this to you.”

“It’s sometimes a good idea to say things like that to strangers. They make uncomplicated confidants.”

“Yes,” she said and her voice was surprised, “that’s quite true. I’m glad I told you.”

Alleyn saw that she suffered from the kind of nervous ricochet that often follows a severe shock. Under its impetus the guard that people normally set over their lightest remarks is lowered and they speak spontaneously of the most surprising matters, as now when Rose suddenly added, “Mark says he couldn’t have felt anything. I’m sure he’s not just saying that to comfort me, because being a doctor, he wouldn’t. So I suppose in a way it’s what people call a release. From everything.”

Alleyn asked quietly, “Was he worried about anything in particular?”

“Yes,” Rose said sombrely, “he was indeed. But I can’t tell you about that. It’s private, and even if it wasn’t, it couldn’t possibly be of any use.”

“You never know,” he said lightly.

“You do in this case.”

“When did you see him last?”

“This evening. I mean last evening, don’t I? He went out soon after seven. I think it was about ten past seven.”

“Where did he go?”

She hesitated and then said, “I believe to call on Mr. Phinn. He took his rod and told me he would go on down to the Chyne for the evening rise. He said he wouldn’t come in for dinner, and I asked for something to be left out for him.”

“Do you know why he called on Mr. Phinn?”

Rose waited for a long time and then said, “I think it had something to do with… with the publishing business.”

“The publishing business?”

She pushed a strand of hair back and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “ I don’t know who could do such a thing to him,” she said. Her voice was drained of all its colour. “She’s exhausted,” Alleyn thought and, against his inclination, decided to keep her a little longer.

“Can you tell me, very briefly, what sort of pattern his life has taken over the last twenty years?”

Rose sat on the arm of her father’s chair. Her right arm was hooked over its back and she smoothed and re-smoothed the place where his bald head had rested. She was quite calm and told Alleyn in a flat voice of the Colonel’s appointments as military attaché at various embassies, of his job at Whitehall during the war, of his appointment as military secretary to a post-war commission that had been set up in Hong Kong and finally, after his second marriage, of his retirement and absorption in a history he had planned to write of his own regiment. He was a great reader, it seemed, particularly of the Elizabethan dramatists, an interest that his daughter had ardently shared. His only recreation apart from his books had been fishing. Rose’s eyes, fatigued by tears, looked for a moment at a table against the wall where a tray of threads, scraps of feathers and a number of casts was set out.