Ngaio Marsh - Scales of Justice

There was a long silence. At last she heard Mark’s voice. “I didn’t want to say this, Rose, but now I’m afraid I’ve got to. There are, after all, other people. If my grandmother and my father and I fall under suspicion— O, yes, and Occy Phinn— isn’t there somebody else who can’t be entirely disregarded?”

Rose said, “You mean Kitty, don’t you?”

“I do. Yes — equally with us.”

“Don’t!” Rose cried out. “Don’t! I won’t listen.”

“You’ve got to. We can’t stop now. Do you suppose I enjoy reminding myself — or you — that my father—”

“No! No, Mark! Please!” Rose said and burst into tears.

Sometimes there exists in people who are attached to each other a kind of ratio between the degree of attraction and the potential for irritation. Strangely, it is often the unhappiness of one that arouses an equal degree of irascibility in the other. The tear-blotted face, the obstinate misery, the knowledge that the distress is genuine and the feeling of incompetence it induces, all combine to exasperate and infirme.

Rose thought she recognized signs of this exasperation in Mark. His look darkened and he had moved away from her. “I can’t help it, Mark,” she stammered.

She heard his expostulations and reiterated arguments. She thought she could hear, too, a note of suppressed irritation in his voice. He kept saying that the whole thing had better be threshed out between them. “Let’s face it,” he said on a rising note. “Kitty’s there, isn’t she? And what about Geoffrey Syce or Nurse Kettle? We needn’t concentrate exclusively on the Lacklanders, need we?” Rose turned away. Leaning her arm on the ledge of the open window and her face on her arm, she broke down completely.

“Ah, hell!” Mark shouted. He pushed open the door, got out and began to walk angrily to and fro.

It was upon this situation that Kitty appeared, driving herself home from Nunspardon. When she saw Mark’s car, she pulled up. Rose made a desperate effort to collect herself. After a moment’s hesitation, Kitty got out of her car and came over to Rose. Mark shoved his hands into his pockets and moved away.

“I don’t want to butt in,” Kitty said, “but can I do anything? I mean, just say — I’ll get out if I’m no use.”

Rose looked up at her and for the first time saw in her stepmother’s face the signs of havoc that Kitty had been at pains to repair. For the first time it occurred to Rose that there are more ways than one of meeting sorrow, and for the first time she felt a sense of fellowship for Kitty.

“How kind of you,” she said. “I’m glad you stopped.”

“That’s all right. I was sort of wondering,” Kitty went on, with an unwonted air of hesitation; “I daresay you’d rather sort of move out. Say if you would. I’m not talking about what you said about the future but of now. I mean, I daresay Mark’s suggested you stay up at Nunspardon. Do, if you’d like to. I mean, I’ll be O.K.”

It had never occurred to Rose that Kitty might be lonely if she herself went to Nunspardon. A stream of confused recollections and ideas flooded her thoughts. She reminded herself again that Kitty would now be quite desperately hard-up and that she had a responsibility towards her. She wondered if her stepmother’s flirtations with Mark’s father had not been induced by a sense of exclusion. She looked into the careworn, over-painted face and thought, “After all, we both belonged to him.”

Kitty said awkwardly, “Well, anyway, I’ll push off.”

Suddenly Rose wanted to say, “I’ll come back with you, Kitty. Let’s go home.” She fumbled with the handle of the door, but before she could speak or make a move, she was aware of Mark. He had come back to the car and had moved round to her side and was speaking to Kitty.

“That’s what I’ve been telling her,” he said. “In fact, as her doctor, those are my orders. She’s coming to Nunspardon. I’m glad you support me.”

Kitty gave him the look that she bestowed quite automatically on any presentable male. “Well, anyway, she’s in good hands,” she said. She gave them a little wave of her own hand and returned to her car.

With a feeling of desolation and remorse Rose watched her drive away.

On the way to Chyning, Alleyn propounded his theory on Chapter 7.

“Bear in mind,” he said, “the character of Colonel Cartarette as it emerges from the welter of talk. With the exception of Danberry-Phinn, they are all agreed, aren’t they, that Cartarette was a nice chap with uncommonly high standards and a rather tender conscience. All right. For the last time let us remind ourselves that, just before he died, old Lacklander was very much bothered by something to do with Cartarette and the memoirs and that he died with the name Vic on his lips. All right. Whenever the memoirs and/or young Viccy Phinn are mentioned, everybody behaves as if they’re concealing the fact that they are about to have kittens. Fair enough. Phinn and Lady Lacklander both agree that there was further discussion, after the row, between Phinn and the Colonel. Lady Lacklander flatly refuses to divulge the subject-matter, and Phinn says if she won’t, neither will he. The Colonel left his house with the intention of calling upon Phinn, with whom he had been on bad terms for a long time. Now put all those bits together, remembering the circumstances of young Phinn’s death, George Lacklander’s virtual admission that the memoirs exonerated young Phinn, Rose Cartarette’s statement that her father’s visit to old Phinn was an errand of mercy, and the contents of the publisher’s letter. Put ’em together and what do you get?”

“Chapter 7 was the bit that exonerated young Phinn. Colonel Cartarette was given the responsibility of including it in this book. He couldn’t decide one way or the other and took it to Mr. Phinn,” Fox speculated, “to see which way he felt about it. Mr. Phinn was out fishing and the Colonel followed him up. After their dust-up the Colonel — now what does the Colonel do?”

“In effect,” Alleyn said, “the Colonel says, ‘All right, you unconscionable old poacher. All right. Look what I’d come to do for you?’ And he tells him about Chapter 7. And since we didn’t find Chapter 7 on the Colonel, we conclude that he gave it there and then to Mr. Phinn. This inference is strongly supported by the fact that I saw an envelope with a wad of typescript inside, addressed in the Colonel’s hand to Mr. Phinn, on Mr. Phinn’s desk. So what, my old Foxkin, are we to conclude?”

“About Chapter 7?”

“About Chapter 7.”

“You tell me,” said Fox with a stately smile.

Alleyn told him.

“Well, sir,” Fox said, “it’s possible. It’s as good a motive as any for the Lacklanders to do away with the Colonel.”

“Except that if we’re right in our unblushing conjectures, Fox, Lady Lacklander overheard the Colonel give Chapter 7 to Mr. Phinn; in which case, if any of the Lacklanders were after blood, Mr. Phinn’s would be the more logical blood to tap.”

“Lady Lacklander may not have heard much of what they said.”

“In which case, why is she so cagey about it all now, and what did she and the Colonel talk about afterwards?”

“Ah, blast!” said Fox in disgust. “Well, then, it may be that the memoirs and Chapter 7 and Who-Stole-the-Secret-Document-in-Zlomce haven’t got anything to do with the case.”

“My feeling is that they do belong but are not of the first importance.”

“Well, Mr. Alleyn, holding the view you do hold, it’s the only explanation that fits.”

“Quite so. And I tell you what, Fox, motive, as usual, is a secondary consideration. And here is Chyning and a petrol pump and here (hold on to your hat, Fox; down, down, little flutterer) is the Jolly Kettle filling up a newly painted car which I’ll swear she calls by a pet name. If you can control yourself, we’ll pull in for some petrol. Good morning, Miss Kettle.”