Ngaio Marsh - Scales of Justice

“The top of the morning to you, Chief,” said Nurse Kettle turning a beaming face upon them. She slapped the back of her car as if it were a rump. “Having her elevenses,” she said. “First time we’ve met for a fortnight on account she’s been having her face lifted. And how are you?”

“Bearing up,” Alleyn said, getting out of the car. “Inspector Fox is turning rather short-tempered.”

Fox ignored him. “Very nice little car, Miss Kettle,” he said.

“Araminta? She’s a good steady girl on the whole,” said Nurse Kettle, remorselessly jolly. “I’m just taking her out to see a case of lumbago.”

“Commander Syce?” Alleyn ventured.

“That’s right.”

“He is completely recovered.”

“You don’t say,” Nurse Kettle rejoined, looking rather disconcerted. “And him tied up in knots last evening. Fancy!”

“He was a cot case, I understand, when you left him round about eight o’clock last night.”

“ Very sorry for ourselves we were, yes.”

“And yet,” Alleyn said, “Mr. Phinn declares that at a quarter past eight Commander Syce was loosing off arrows from his sixty-pound bow.”

Nurse Kettle was scarlet to the roots of her mouse-coloured hair. Alleyn heard his colleague struggling with some subterranean expression of sympathy.

“Well, fancy!” Nurse Kettle was saying in a high voice. “There’s ’bago for you! Now you see it, now you don’t.” And she illustrated this aphorism with sharp snaps of her finger and thumb.

Fox said in an unnatural voice, “Are you sure, Miss Kettle, that the Commander wasn’t having you on? Excuse the suggestion.”

Nurse Kettle threw him a glance that might perhaps be best described as uneasily roguish.

“And why not?” she asked. “Maybe he was. But not for the reason you mere men suppose.”

She got into her car with alacrity and sounded her horn. “Home, John, and don’t spare the horses,” she cried waggishly and drove away in what was evidently an agony of self-consciousness.

“Unless you can develop a deep-seated and obstinate malady, Br’er Fox,” Alleyn said, “you haven’t got a hope.”

“A thoroughly nice woman,” Fox said and added ambiguously, “What a pity!”

They got their petrol and drove on to the police station.

Here Sergeant Oliphant awaited them with two messages from Scotland Yard.

“Nice work,” Alleyn said. “Damn’ quick.”

He read aloud the first message. “Information re trout scales checked with Natural History Museum, Royal Piscatorial Society, Institute for Preservation of British Trout Streams, and D.R. S. K. K. Solomon, expert and leading authority. All confirm that microscopically your two trout cannot exhibit precisely the same characteristics in scales. Cartarette regarded an authority.”

“Fine!” said Inspector Fox. “Fair enough!”

Alleyn took up the second slip of paper. “Report,” he read, “on the late Sir Harold Lacklander’s will.” He read to himself for a minute, then looked up. “Couldn’t be simpler,” he said. “With the exception of the usual group of legacies to dependents the whole lot goes to the widow and to the son, upon whom most of it’s entailed.”

“What Miss Kettle told us.”

“Exactly. Now for the third. Here we are. Report on Commander Geoffrey Syce, R.N., retired. Singapore, March 1, 195- to April 9, 195-. Serving in H. M. S. — , based on Singapore.

Shore duty. Activities, apart from duties: At first, noticeably quiet tastes and habits. Accepted usual invitations but spent considerable time alone, sketching. Later, cohabited with a so-called Miss Kitty de Vere, whom he is believed to have met at a taxi-dance. Can follow up history of de Vere if required. Have ascertained that Syce rented apartment occupied by de Vere, who subsequently met and married Colonel Maurice Cartarette, to whom she is believed to have been introduced by Syce. Sources—”

There followed a number of names, obtained from the Navy List, and a note to say that H. M. S. — being now in port, it had been possible to obtain information through the appropriate sources at the “urgent and important” level.

Alleyn dropped the chit on Oliphant’s desk.

“Poor Cartarette,” he said with a change of voice, “and, if you like, poor Syce.”

“Or, from the other point of view,” Fox said, “poor Kitty.”

Before they returned to Swevenings, Alleyn and Fox visited Dr. Curtis in the Chyning Hospital mortuary. It was a very small mortuary attached to a sort of pocket-hospital, and there was a ghastly cosiness in the close proximity of the mall to the now irrevocably and dreadfully necrotic Colonel. Curtis, who liked to be thorough in his work, was making an extremely exhaustive autopsy and had not yet completed it. He was able to confirm that there had been an initial blow, followed, it seemed, rather than preceded by, a puncture, but that neither the blow nor the puncture quite accounted for some of the multiple injuries, which were the result, he thought, of pressure. Contrecoup, he said, was present in a very marked degree. He would not entirely dismiss Commander Syce’s arrows nor Lady Lacklander’s umbrella spike, but he thought her shooting-stick the most likely of the sharp instruments produced. The examination of the shooting-stick for blood traces might bring them nearer to a settlement of this point. The paint-rag, undoubtedly, was stained with blood, which had not yet been classified. It smelt quite strongly of fish. Alleyn handed over the rest of his treasure-trove.

“As soon as you can,” he said, “do, like a good chap, get on to the fishy side of the business. Find me scales of both trout on one person’s article, and only on one person’s, and the rest will follow as the night the day.”

“You treat me,” Curtis said without malice, “like a tympanist in a jazz band perpetually dodging from one instrument to another. I’ll finish my P.M., blast you, and Willy Roskill can muck about with your damned scales.” Sir William Roskill was an eminent Home Office analyst.

“I’ll ring him up now,” Alleyn said.

“It’s all right; I’ve rung him. He’s on his way. As soon as we know anything, we’ll ring the station. What’s biting you about this case, Rory?” Dr. Curtis asked. “You’re always slinging off at the ‘expeditions’ officer and raising your cry of festina lente. Why the fuss and hurry? The man was only killed last night.”

“It’s a pig of a case,” Alleyn said, “and on second thoughts I’ll keep the other arrow — the bloody one. If it is blood. What the hell can I carry it in? I don’t want him to—” He looked at the collection of objects they had brought with them. “That’ll do,” he said. He slung George Lacklander’s golf bag over his shoulder, wrapped up the tip of Syce’s arrow and dropped it in.

“A pig of a case,” he repeated; “I hate its guts.”

“Why this more than another?”

But Alleyn did not answer. He was looking at the personal effects of the persons under consideration. They were laid out in neat groups along a shelf opposite the dissecting table, almost as if they were component parts of the autopsy. First came the two fish: the Old ’Un, 4 pounds of cold, defeated splendour, and beside it on a plate the bones and rags of the Colonel’s catch. Then the belongings of the men who had caught them: the Colonel’s and Mr. Phinn’s clothes, boots, fishing gear and hat. Kitty’s loud new tweed skirt and twin set. Sir George’s plus fours, stockings and shoes. Mark’s and Rose’s tennis clothes. Lady Lacklander’s tent-like garments, her sketching kit and a pair of ancient but beautifully made brogues. Alleyn stopped, stretched out a hand and lifted one of these brogues.