Ngaio Marsh - Scales of Justice

It was as if out of a cloth that had apparently been wrung dry an unexpected trickle was induced. George, who seemed to be the most vulnerable of the group, shouted, “You’ve no right to assume…” and got no further. Almost simultaneously Mark and Rose, with the occasional unanimity of lovers, said, “This won’t do…” and were checked by an imperative gesture from Lady Lacklander.

“Roderick,” Lady Lacklander demanded, “have you been talking to Octavious Phinn?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “I have come straight here from Jacob’s Cottage.”

“Wait a bit, Mama,” George blurted out. “Wait a bit! Octavius can’t have said anything. Otherwise, don’t you see, Alleyn wouldn’t try to find out from us.”

In the now really deathly silence that followed this speech, Lady Lacklander turned and blinked at her son.

“You ninny, George,” she said, “you unfathomable fool.”

And Alleyn thought he now knew the truth about Mr. Phinn, Colonel Cartarette and Sir Harold Lacklander’s memoirs.

The next observation was made by Mark Lacklander.

“I hope you’ll let me speak, Grandmama,” he said. “And Father,” he added, obviously as a polite afterthought. “Although, I must confess, most of the virtue has already gone from what I have to say.”

“Then why, my dear boy, say it?”

“Well, Gar, it’s really, you know, a matter of principle. Rose and I are agreed on it. We’ve kept quiet under your orders, but we both have felt, haven’t we, Rose, that by far the best thing is to be completely frank with Mr. Alleyn. Any other course, as you’ve seen for yourself, just won’t do.”

“I have not changed my mind, Mark. Wait, a little.”

“0, yes, ” Kitty said eagerly. “I do think so, honestly. Wait. I’m sure,” she added, “it’s what he would have said. Maurie, I mean.” Her face quivered unexpectedly and she fumbled for her handkerchief.

Rose made one of those involuntary movements that are so much more graphic than words, and Alleyn, whom for the moment they all completely disregarded, wondered how the Colonel had enjoyed being called Maurie.

George, with a rebellious glance at his mother, said, “Exactly what I mean. Wait.”

“By all means, wait,” Alleyn interjected, and stood up. They all jumped slightly. “I expect,” he suggested to Lady Lacklander, “you would like, before taking any further steps, to consult with Mr. Phinn. As a matter of fact, I think it highly probable that he will suggest it himself.” Alleyn looked very straight at Lady Lacklander. “I suggest,” he said, “that you consider just exactly what is at stake in this matter. When a capital crime is committed, you know, all sorts of long-buried secrets are apt to be discovered. It’s one of those things about homicide.” She made no kind of response to this, and, after a moment, he went on, “Perhaps when you have all come to a decision, you will be kind enough to let me know. They’ll always take a message at the Boy and Donkey. And now, if I may, I’ll get on with my job.”

He bowed to Lady Lacklander and was about to move off when Mark said, “I’ll see you to your car, sir. Coming, Rose?”

Rose seemed to hesitate, but she went off with him, entirely, Alleyn sensed, against the wishes of the remaining three.

Mark and Rose conducted him round the east wing of the great house to the open platform in front of it. Here Fox waited in the police car. A sports model with a doctor’s sticker and a more domestic car, which Alleyn took to be the Cartarettes’, waited side by side. The young footman, William, emerged with a suitcase. Alleyn watched him deliver this to Fox and return to the house.

“There goes our dirty washing,” Mark said, and then looked uncomfortable.

Alleyn said, “But you carried a tennis racket, didn’t you, and Sir George, I suppose, a golf bag? May we have them too?”

Mark said, “Yes, I see. Yes. All right, I’ll get them.”

He ran up the steps and disappeared. Alleyn turned to Rose. She stared at the doorway through which Mark had gone, and it was as if some kind of threat had overtaken her.

“I’m so frightened,” she said. “I don’t know why, but I’m so frightened.”

“Of what?” Alleyn asked gently.

“I don’t know. One of those things, I suppose. I’ve never felt it before. It’s as if my father was the only person that I ever really knew. And now he’s gone; someone’s murdered him, and I feel as if I didn’t properly understand anyone at all.”

Mark came back with a bag of clubs and a tennis racket in a press.

“This is it,” he said.

“You didn’t have it in one of those waterproof-cover things?”

“What? Oh, yes, actually, I did.”

“May I have that too, please?”

Mark made a second trip to get it and was away rather longer. “I wasn’t sure which was the one,” he said, “but I think this is right.”

Alleyn put it with the bag and racket in the car.

Mark had caught Rose’s hand in his. She hung back a little. “Mr. Alleyn,” Mark said, “Rose and I are in the hell of a spot over this. Aren’t we, darling? We’re engaged, by the way.”

“You amaze me,” Alleyn said.

“Well, we are. And, of course, wherever it’s humanly possible, I’m going to see that Rose is not harried and fussed. She’s had a very severe shock and…”

“No, don’t,” Rose said. “Please, Mark, don’t.”

Mark gazed at her, seemed to lose the thread of his subject, and then collected himself.

“It’s just this,” he said. “I feel strongly that as far as you and our two families are concerned, everything ought to be perfectly straightforward. We’re under promise not to mention this and that, and so we can’t, but we are both very worried about the way things are going. I mean, in respect of Octavius Phinn. You see, sir, we happen to know that poor old Occy Phinn had every possible reason not to commit this crime. Every possible reason. And if,” Mark said, “you’ve guessed, as I rather think you may have, what I’m driving at, I can’t help it.”

“And you agree with all this, Miss Cartarette?” Alleyn asked.

Rose held herself a little aloof now. Tear-stained and obviously exhausted, she seemed to pull herself together and shape her answer with care and difficulty.

“Mr. Alleyn, my father would have been appalled if he could have known that because he and Octavius had a row over the trout, poor Occy might be thought to — to have a motive. They’d had rows over trout for years. It was a kind of joke — nothing. And — whatever else they had to say to each other, and as you know, there was something else, it would have made Octavius much more friendly. I promise you. You see, I know my father had gone to see Octavius.”

Alleyn said quickly, “You mean he went to his house? Yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes. I was with him before he went and he said he was going there.”

“Did he say why? I think you spoke of some publishing business.”

“Yes. He — he had something he wanted to show Occy.”

“What was that, can you tell us?”

“I can’t tell you,” Rose said looking wretchedly unhappy. “I do know, actually, but it’s private. But I’m sure he went to Occy’s because I saw him take the envelope out of the desk and put it in his pocket—” she put her hand to her eyes— “but,” she said, “where is it, then?”

Alleyn said, “Where exactly was the envelope? In which drawer of his desk?”

“I think the bottom one on the left. He kept it locked, usually.”

“I see. Thank you. And, of course, Mr. Phinn was not at home?”