Ngaio Marsh - Scales of Justice

He wondered how many more times he would have to approach these people through their gardens and from an uncomfortable distance. In a way, he was beginning to enjoy it. He felt certain that this time, if George Lacklander could have managed it, the waiting group would have been scattered by a vigorous gesture, George himself would have retired to some manly den and Alleyn, in the ripeness of time, would have been admitted by a footman.

As it was, all of them except Lady Lacklander made involuntary movements which were immediately checked. Kitty half rose as if to beat a retreat, looked disconsolately at George and sank back in her chair.

“They’ve been having a council of war,” thought Alleyn.

After a moment’s further hesitation Mark, with an air of coming to a decision, put his chin up, said loudly, “It’s Mr. Alleyn,” and came to meet him. As they approached each other, Alleyn saw Rose’s face, watchful and anxious, beyond Mark’s advancing figure, and his momentary relish for the scene evaporated.

“Good morning,” Alleyn said. “I’m sorry to reappear so soon and to make a further nuisance of myself. I won’t keep you long.”

“That’s all right,” Mark said pleasantly. “Who do you want to see?”

“Why, in point of fact, all of you, if I may. I’m lucky to find you in a group like this.”

Mark had fallen into step with him and together they approached the group.

“Well, Rory,” Lady Lacklander shouted as soon as he was within range, “you don’t give us much peace, do you? What do you want this time? The clothes off our backs?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said, “I’m afraid I do. More or less.”

“And what may that mean? More or less?”

“The clothes off your yesterday-evening backs, if you please.”

“Is this what my sporadic reading has led me to understand as ‘a matter of routine’?”

“In a way,” Alleyn said coolly, “yes. Yes, it is. Routine.”

“And who,” Kitty Cartarette asked in a careworn voice of nobody in particular, “said that a policeman’s lot is not a happy one?”

This remark was followed by a curious little gap. It was as if her audience had awarded Kitty a point for attempting, under the circumstances, her small joke but at the same time were unable to accept her air of uncertain intimacy, which apparently even George found embarrassing. He laughed uncomfortably. Lady Lacklander raised her eyebrows, and Mark scowled at his boots.

“Do you mean,” Lady Lacklander said, “the clothes that we were all wearing when Maurice Cartarette was murdered?”

“I do, yes.”

“Well,” she said, “you’re welcome to mine. What was I wearing yesterday, George?”

“Really, Mama, I’m afraid I don’t…”

“Nor do I. Mark?”

Mark grinned at her. “A green tent, I fancy, Gar darling, a solar topee and a pair of grandfather’s boots.”

“You’re perfectly right. My green Harris, it was. I’ll tell my maid, Roderick, and you shall have them.”

“Thank you.” Alleyn looked at George. “Your clothes and boots, please?”

“Ah, spiked shoes and stockings and plus fours,” George said loudly. “Very old-fogeyish. Ha-ha.”

“I think they’re jolly good,” Kitty said wearily. “On the right man.” George’s hand went to his moustache, but he didn’t look at Kitty. He seemed to be exquisitely uncomfortable. “I,” Kitty added, “wore a check shirt and a twin set. Madly county, you know,” she added, desperately attempting another joke, “on account we played golf.” She sounded near to tears.

“And your shoes?” Alleyn asked.

Kitty stuck out her feet. Her legs, Alleyn noted, were good. Her feet, which were tiny, were shod in lizard-skin shoes with immensely high heels. “Not so county,” Kitty said, with the ghost of a grin, “but the best I had.”

George, apparently in an agony of embarrassment, glanced at the shoes, at his mother and at the distant prospect of the Home Spinney.

Alleyn said, “If I may, I’ll borrow the clothes, gloves and stockings. We’ll pick them up at Hammer Farm on our way back to Chyning.”

Kitty accepted this. She was looking at Alleyn with the eye, however wan, of a woman who spots a genuine Dior in a bargain basement.

“I’ll hurry back,” she said, “and get them ready for you.”

“There’s no immediate hurry.”

Mark said, “I was wearing whites. I put brogues on for going home and carried my tennis shoes.”

“And your racket?”

“Yes.

“And, after Bottom Bridge, Lady Lacklander’s sketching gear and shooting-stick?”

“That’s right.”

“By the way,” Alleyn asked him, “had you gone straight to your tennis party from Nunspardon?”

“I looked in on a patient in the village.”

“And on the gardener’s child, didn’t you?” Kitty said. “They told me you’d lanced its gumboil.”

“Yes. An abscess, poor kid,” Mark said cheerfully.

“So you had your professional bag, too?” Alleyn suggested.

“It’s not very big.”

“Still, quite a load.”

“It was rather.”

“But Lady Lacklander had left it all tidily packed up, hadn’t she?”

“Well,” Mark said with a smile at his grandmother, “more or less.”

“Nonsense,” Lady Lacklander said; “there was no more or less about it. I’m a tidy woman and I left everything tidy.”

Mark opened his mouth and shut it again.

“Your paint-rag, for instance?” Alleyn said, and Mark glanced sharply at him.

“I overlooked the rag, certainly,” said Lady Lacklander rather grandly, “when I packed up. But I folded it neatly and tucked it under the strap of my haversack. Why have you put on that look, Mark?” she added crossly.

“Well, darling, when I got there, the rag, far from being neatly folded and stowed, was six yards away on a briar bush. I rescued it and put it into your haversack.”

They all looked at Alleyn as if they expected him to make some comment. He was silent, however, and after a considerable pause Lady Lacklander said, “Well, it couldn’t be of less significance, after all. Go indoors and ask them to get the clothes together. Fisher knows what I wore.”

“Ask about mine, old boy, will you?” said George, and Alleyn wondered how many households there were left in England where orders of this sort were still given.

Lady Lacklander turned to Rose. “And what about you, child?”

But Rose stared out with unseeing eyes that had filled again with tears. She dabbed at them with her handkerchief and frowned at herself.

“Rose?” Lady Lacklander said quietly.

Still frowning, Rose turned and looked at her. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“They want to know what clothes you wore, my dear.”

“Tennis things, I imagine,” Alleyn said.

Rose said, “Oh, yes. Of course. Tennis things.”

Kitty said, “It’s the day for the cleaner. I saw your tennis things in the box, didn’t I, Rose?”

“I—? Yes,” Rose said. “I’m sorry. Yes, I did put them in.”

“Shall we go and rescue them?” Mark asked.

Rose hesitated. He looked at her for a moment and then said in a level voice, “O.K. I’ll come back,” and went into the house. Rose turned away and stood at some distance from the group.

“It’s toughest for Rose,” Kitty said, unexpectedly compassionate, and then with a return to her own self-protective mannerisms she sipped her sherry. “I wish you joy of my skirt, Mr. Alleyn,” she added loudly. “You won’t find it very delicious.”

“No?” Alleyn said, “Why not?”

“It absolutely reeks of fish.”

Alleyn observed the undistinguished little face and wondered if his own was equally blank. He then, under the guise of bewilderment, looked at the others. He found that Lady Lacklander seemed about as agitated as a Buddha and that George was in process of becoming startled. Rose was still turned away.