Ngaio Marsh - Scales of Justice

He riffled through the pages. The book had been published in 1929 and appeared to be a series of short and pleasantly written essays on the behaviour and eccentricities of freshwater fish. It contained an odd mixture of folkishness, natural history, mild flights of fancy and, apparently, a certain amount of scientific fact. It was illustrated, rather charmingly, with marginal drawings. Alleyn turned back to the title page and found that they were by Geoffrey Syce: another instance, he thought, of the way the people of Swevenings stick together, and he wondered if, twenty-six years ago, the Colonel in his regiment and the Commander in his ship had written to each other about the scaly breed and about how they should fashion their book. His eye fell on a page-heading, “No Two Alike,” and with astonishment he saw what at first he took to be a familiar enough kind of diagram: that of two magnified fingerprints, showing the essential dissimilarities. At first glance they might have been lifted from a manual on criminal investigation. When, however, he looked more closely, he found, written underneath: “Microphotographs. Fig. 1. Scale of Brown Trout. 6 years. 2½ lbs. Chyne River. Showing 4 years’ poor growth followed by 2 years’ vigorous growth. Fig. 2. Scale of Trout. 4 years. 1 lb. Chyne River. Note differences in circuli, winter bands and spawning marks.” With sharpened interest he began to read the accompanying letterpress:

It is not perhaps generally known [the Colonel had written] that the scales of no two trout are alike: I mean microscopically alike in the sense that no two sets of finger-prints correspond. It is amusing to reflect that in the watery world a rogue-trout may leave incriminating evidence behind him in the form of what might be called scales of justice.

For the margin Commander Syce had made a facetious picture of a roach with meerschaum and deerstalker hat examining through a lens the scales of a very tough-looking trout.

Alleyn had time to re-read the page. He turned back to the frontispiece — a drawing of the Colonel himself. Alleyn found in the face a dual suggestion of soldier and diplomat superimposed, he fancied, on something that was pure countryman. “A nice chap, he looks. I wonder if it would have amused him to know that he himself has put into my hands the prize piece of information received.”

He replaced the book and turned to the desk with its indescribable litter of pamphlets, brochures, unopened and opened letters, newspapers and magazines. Having inspected the surface, he began, gingerly, to disturb the top layer and in a moment or two had disclosed a letter addressed to “Octavius Phinn, Esq.” in the beautiful and unmistakable handwriting of Colonel Cartarette.

Alleyn had just had time enough to discover that it contained about thirty pages of typescript marked on the outside: “7,” when he heard Fox’s voice on the stairs. He turned away and placed himself in front of the portrait.

Mr. Phinn and Fox reappeared with the fishing gear.

“I have,” Alleyn said, “been enjoying this very charming portrait.”

“My wife.”

“Am I imagining — perhaps I am — a likeness to Dr. Mark Lacklander?”

“There was,” Mr. Phinn said shortly, “a distant connection. Here are my toys,”

He was evidently one of those anglers who cannot resist the call of the illustrated catalogue and the lure of the gadget. His creel, his gaff, his net, his case of flies and his superb rod were supplemented by every conceivable toy, all of them, Alleyn expected, extremely expensive. His canvas bag was slotted and pocketted to receive these mysteries, and Alleyn drew them out one after another to discover that they were all freshly cleaned and in wonderful order.

“With what fly,” he asked Mr. Phinn, “did you hook the Old ’Un? It must have been a Homeric struggle, surely?”

“Grant me the bridge,” Mr. Phinn shouted excitedly, “grant me that, and I’ll tell you.”

“Very well,” Alleyn conceded with a grin, “we’ll take the bridge in our stride. I concede it. Let’s have the story.”

Mr. Phinn went strongly into action. It appeared that, at the mention of his prowess, the emotions that had so lately seemed to grip him were completely forgotten. Fear, if he had known fear, paternal anguish, if he had in fact experienced it, and anger, if it was indeed anger that had occasionally moved him, were all abandoned for the absolute passion of the angler. He led them out of doors, exhibited his retrospective prowess in casting, led them in again and re-enacted in the strangest pantomime his battle with the Old ’Un: how he was played, with breath-taking reverses, up through the waters under the bridge and into Mr. Phinn’s indisputable preserves; how he was nearly lost, and what cunning he displayed, and how Mr. Phinn countered with even greater cunning of his own. Finally there was the great capitulation, the landing and the coup de grâce, this last being administered, as Mr. Phinn made clear in spirited pantomime, with a sort of angler’s cosh: a short, heavily leaded rod.

Alleyn took this instrument in his hand and balanced it. “What do you call the thing?” he asked.

“A priest,” Mr. Phinn said. “It is called a priest. I don’t know why.”

“Perhaps because of its valedictory function.” He laid it on the desk and placed Commander Syce’s arrow beside it. Mr. Phinn stared but said nothing.

“I really must return his arrow to Commander Syce,” Alleyn said absently. “I found it in the spinney, embedded in a tree trunk.”

He might have touched off a high-explosive. The colour flooded angrily into Mr. Phinn’s face and he began to shout of the infamies of Commander Syce and his archery. The death of Thomasina Twitchett’s mother at the hands of Commander Syce was furiously recalled. Syce, Mr. Phinn said, was a monster, an alcoholic sadist, possessed of a blood-lust. It was with malice aforethought that he had transfixed the dowager Twitchett. The plea of accident was ridiculous: the thing was an obsession. Syce would drink himself into a sagittal fury and fire arrows off madly into the landscape. Only last night, Mr. Phinn continued, when he himself was returning from the Chyne after what he now called his little mésentente with Colonel Cartarette, the Commander’s bow was twanging away on the archery lawn and Mr. Phinn had actually heard the “tuck” of an arrow in a tree trunk dangerously near to himself. The time was a quarter past eight. He remembered hearing his clock chime at the same time.

“I think you must be mistaken,” Alleyn put in mildly. “Nurse Kettle tells us that last evening Commander Syce was completely incapacitated by an acute attack of lumbago.”

Mr. Phinn shouted out a rude and derisive word. “A farrago of nonsense!” he continued. “Either she is his accomplice or his paramour or possibly,” he amended more charitably, “his dupe. I swear he was devilishly active last night. I swear it. I trembled lest my Thomasina, who had accompanied me to the Chyne, should share the fate of her mama. She did not join me on my return but had preferred to linger in the evening air. Indeed, the reason for my perhaps slightly dramatic entry into Hammer in the early hours of this morning was my hope of retrieving my errant Fur. The dreadful news with which you met me quite put her out of my head,” Mr. Phinn concluded and did not look as if he expected to be believed.

“I see,” Alleyn said and did not look as if he believed him. “Quite a chapter of accidents. Do you mind if we take possession of your fishing gear for a short time? Part of a routine check, you know.”

Mr. Phinn was at a loss for words. “But how quite extraordinary!” he at last exclaimed. “My fishing gear? Well, I suppose one must not refuse.”