Ngaio Marsh - Died in the Wool

“Good,” said Alleyn, “what about Markins, Captain Grace? Let’s have it.”

“It goes back some way,” said Douglas. “It goes back, to be exact, to the last wool sale held in this country, which was early in 1939.”

“…So Aunt Floss jockeyed poor old Arthur into scraping acquaintance with this Jap. Kurata Kan his name was. They brought him up here for the week-end. I’ve heard that he took a great interest in everything, grinning like a monkey and asking questions. He’d got a wizard of a camera, a German one, and told them photography was his hobby. Landscape mostly, he said, but he liked doing groups of objects too. He took a photograph in the Pass. He was keen on flying. Uncle Arthur told me he must have spent a whole heap of money on private trips while he was here, taking his camera with him. He bought photographs too, particularly infra-red aerial affairs. He got the names of the photographers from the newspaper offices. We found that out afterwards, though apparently he didn’t make any secret of it at the time. It seems he was bloody quaint in his ways and talked liked something out of the movies. Flossie fell for it like an avalanche. ‘My dear little Mr. Kan.’ She was frightfully bucked because he gave top price for her wool clip. The Japs always bought second-rate stuff and anyway it’s very unusual for merino wool to fetch top price. I consider the whole thing was damn’ fishy. When she went to England they kept up a correspondence. Flossie had always said the Japs would weigh in on our side when war came. ‘Mr. Kurata Kan tells me all sorts of things.’ By God, there’s this to say for the totalitarian countries — they wouldn’t have had gentlemen like Mr. Kurata Kan hanging about for long. I’ll hand that to them. They know how to keep the rats out of their houses.” Douglas laughed shortly.

“But not the bats out of their belfries,” said Fabian. “Please don’t deviate into Herrenvolk-lore , Douglas.”

“This Kan lived for half the year in Australia,” Douglas continued. “Remember that. Flossie got back here in ’40 bringing Ursy and Fabian with her. Before she went Home she used to run this place on a cook and two housemaids, but the maids had gone and this time she couldn’t raise the sight of a help. Mrs. Duck was looking after Uncle Arthur single-handed. She said she couldn’t carry on like that. Ursy did what she could but she wasn’t used to housework, and anyway it didn’t suit Flossie.”

“Ursy seemed to me to wield a very pretty mop,” said Fabian.

“Of course she did, but it was damned hard work scrubbing and so on and Auntie Floss knew it.”

“I didn’t mind,” said Ursy.

“Anyway, when I got back after Greece I found the marvellous Markins running the show. And where d’you think he’d blown in from? From Sydney with a letter from Mr. Kurata Kan. Can you beat that?”

“A reference, do you mean?”

“Yes. He hadn’t actually been with these precious Kans. He says he was valet to an English artillery officer who’d picked him up in America. He says he was friendly with the Kans’ servants. He says that when his employer left Australia he applied to Kan for a job. But the Kans were winging their way to Japan. Markins said he’d like to try his luck in New Zealand, and Kan remembered Flossie moaning about the servant problem in this country. Hence, the letter. That’s Kan’s story. The whole thing looks damned fishy to me. Markins, an efficient well-trained servant, could have taken a job anywhere. Beyond the fact that he was born British but has an American passport we know nothing about him. He gave the name of his American employers but doesn’t know their present address.”

“I think I should tell you,” said Alleyn, “that the American employers have been traced for us and verify the story.”

This produced an impression. Fabian said: “Not Understood, or the Modest Detective! I take back some of my remarks about him. Only some,” he added. “I still maintain that, taking him by and large, our Mr. Jackson is almost certifiable.”

“It makes no difference,” Douglas said. “It proves nothing. My case rests on pretty firm ground as I think you’ll agree, sir, when you’ve heard it.”

“Do remember, Douglas,” Fabian murmured, “that Mr. Alleyn has seen the files.”

“I realize that, but God knows what sort of a hash they’ve made of it. Now I don’t want to be unnecessarily hard on the dead,” said Douglas loudly. Fabian grimaced and muttered to himself. “But I look at it this way. It’s my duty to give an honest opinion and I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say that Aunt Floss liked to know about things. Not to mince matters, she was a very inquisitive woman, and what’s more she enjoyed showing people that she was in on everything.”

“I know what you’re going to say next,” said Ursula brightly, “and I disagree with every word of it.”

“My dear girl, you’re talking through your hat. Look here, sir. When I got back from Greece and was marched out of the army and came here, I found Fabian doing a certain type of work. I needn’t be more explicit than that,” said Douglas portentously and raised his eyebrows.

“You’re superb, Douglas,” said Fabian. “Of course you needn’t. Do remember that Mr. Alleyn is the man who knows all.”

“Be quiet, Losse,” said Alleyn unexpectedly. Fabian opened his mouth and shut it again. “You’re a mosquito,” Alleyn added mildly.

“I really am sorry,” said Fabian. “I know.”

“Shall I go on?” asked Douglas huffily.

“Please do.”

“Fabian told me about his work. He called it, for security reasons, the egg-beater. Fabian’s idea. I prefer simply the X Adjustment.”

“I see,” said Alleyn. “The X Adjustment.” Fabian grinned.

“And he asked me if I’d like to have a look at his notes and drawings and so on. As a gunner I was, of course, interested. I satisfied myself there was something in it. I’d taken my electrical engineering degree before I joined up and was rather keen on the magnetic-fuse idea. I need go no further at the moment,” said Douglas with another significant glance.

Alleyn thought, “He really is superb,” and nodded solemnly.

“Of course,” Douglas continued, “Auntie Floss had to be told something. I mean we wanted a room and certain facilities and so on. She advanced us the cash for our gear. There’s no electrical supply this side of the plateau. We built a windmill and got a small dynamo. Later on she was going to have the house wired, but at the moment we’ve only got the juice in the workroom. She paid for all that. We began to spend more and more time on it. And later on, when we were ready to show something to somebody in the right quarter, she was damned useful. She’d talk anybody into anything, would Flossie, and she got hold of a Certain Authority at Army Headquarters and arranged for us to go up north and see him. He sent a report Home and things began to look up. We’ve now had a very encouraging answer from— However! I need not go into that.”

“Quite,” said Alleyn. Fabian suddenly offered him a cigar which he refused.

“Well, as I say, she was very helpful in many ways but she did gimlet rather and she used to talk jolly indiscreetly at meal times.”

“You should have heard her,” said Fabian. “ ‘Now what do my two inventors think?’ And then, you know, she’d pull an arch face and, for all the world like one of the weird sisters in Macbeth , she’d lay her rather choppy finger on her lips and say: ‘But we mustn’t be indiscreet, must we?’ ”

Alleyn glanced up at the picture. The spare, wiry woman stared down at him with the blank inscrutability of all Academy portraits. He was visited by a strange notion. If the painted finger should be raised to those lips that seemed to be strained with such difficulty over projecting teeth! If she could give him a secret signal: “Speak now. Ask this question. Be silent here, they are approaching a matter of importance.”