Ngaio Marsh - Died in the Wool

“You don’t really believe it, though, do you?” Alleyn asked with a smile.

Markins muttered disconsolately: “No brains.”

“There’s one other point,” Alleyn said. “We’ve got to consider whether this attempt to forward documentary information was the be-all and end-all of the agent’s mission. If, having achieved this object, no more was expected of him, or if he was to forward other information as regards, for instance, Mrs. Rubrick’s counter-espionage activities, which is the sort of stuff that needs no documentary evidence. That perennial nuisance, the hidden radio transmitter, would meet the case.”

“Don’t I know it,” Markins grumbled. “And there’s a sizable range of mountains where it could be cached.”

“It’d have to be accessible, though. He would be under instruction to transmit his stuff every so often when an enemy craft would edge far enough into these waters to pick it up. The files say that under cover of the hunt for Mrs. Rubrick, an extensive search was made. They even brought up a radiolocator in a car and bumped up the river-bed with it. But of course you were in that party.”

“Yes,” said Markins, “I was in with the boys. They expected me to show them the works and what could I do? Tag on and look silly. Me, supposed to be the expert! It’s a hard world.”

“It’s a weary world,” said Alleyn, swallowing a yawn. “We’re both supposed to appear in less than four hours, with shining morning faces. I’m out of training, Markins, and you’re a working man. I think we’ll call it a night.”

Markins at once got up and, by standing attentively, his head inclined forward, seemed to reassume the character of a man-servant. “Shall I open the window, sir?” he asked.

“Do, there’s a good chap, and pull back the curtains. You’ve got a torch, haven’t you? I’ll put out the candle.”

“We’re not as fussy as that about the blackout, Mr. Alleyn. Not in these parts.”

The curtain rings jingled. A square, faintly luminous, appeared in the wall. Now the air of the plateau gained entry. Alleyn felt it cold on his face and in his eyes. He pinched out the candle and heard Markins tiptoe to the door.

“Markins,” said Alleyn’s voice, quiet in the dark.

“Sir?”

“There’s another solution. You’ve thought of it, of course?”

Quite a long silence followed this.

“He may talk highbrow,” Markins whispered, “but when you get to know him, he’s a nice young gentleman.”

The door creaked and Alleyn was alone. He composed himself for sleep.

Having left instructions with himself to wake at five, Alleyn did so and was aware of distant stirrings in the house. Outside in the dark a cock crew and the clamour of his voice echoed into nothingness. Beneath Alleyn’s window someone walked firmly along the terrace path and round the corner of the house. He carried a tin bucket that clanked with his stride and he whistled shrilly. From over in the direction of the men’s quarters all the Mount Moon sheep-dogs broke into a chorus, their voices sounding hollow and cold in the dawn air. There followed the ring of an axe, an abrupt burst of conversation and, presently, the smell of wood smoke, aromatic and pleasing. Beyond the still nighted windows there was only a faint promise of light, a vague thinning, but, as he watched, there appeared in the darkness a rosy horn, unearthly clear. It was the Cloud Piercer, far beyond the plateau, receiving the dawn.

Alleyn bathed and shaved by candlelight and, when he returned to his room, found visible outside his window the vague shapes of trees, patches of blanket mist above the swamp, and the road, lonely and bleached, reaching out across the plateau. Beneath his window the garden waited, straw-coloured, frosty and rigid. As he dressed, the sky grew clear behind the mountains and though the plateau was still dusky, they became articulate in remote sunlight.

Breakfast began in artificial light, but before it was over the lamp had grown wan and ineffectual. It was now full morning. The character of the house had changed. There was an air of preparation for the working day. Douglas and Fabian wore farm clothes — shapeless flannel trousers, faded sweaters pulled over dark shirts, old tweed jackets and heavy boots. Ursula was briskly smocked. Terence Lynne appeared, composed as ever, in a drill coat, woollen stockings and breeches — an English touch, this, Alleyn felt: alone of the four she seemed to be dressed deliberately for a high-country role. Mrs. Aceworthy, alternately dubious and arch, presided.

Douglas finished before the rest and, with a word to Fabian, went out, passing in front of the dining-room windows. Presently he appeared, far beyond the lawn in the ram paddock, a dog at his heels. Five merino rams at the far end of the paddock jerked up their heads and stared at him. Alleyn watched Douglas walk to a gate, open it, and wait. After a minute or two the rams began to cross the paddock towards him, heavily, not hurrying. He let them through the gate and they disappeared together, a portentous company.

“When you’re ready,” said Fabian, “shall we go over to the wool-shed?”

“If there’s anything you would like—” Mrs. Aceworthy said. “I mean, I’m sure we all want to be helpful — so dreadful — so many inquiries. One might almost feel — but of course this is quite different, I’m sure.” She drifted unhappily away.

“The Ace-pot’s a bit scattered this morning,” Ursula said. “You’ll tell us, won’t you, Mr. Alleyn, if there’s anything we can do?”

Alleyn thanked her and said there was nothing. He and Fabian went out of doors.

The sun had not yet reached Mount Moon. The air was cold and the ground crisp under their feet. From the direction of the yards came the authentic voice of the high-country, a dreamlike and conglomerate drone, the voice of a mob of sheep. Fabian led the way along the left-hand walk between clipped poplar hedges, already flame-coloured. They turned down the lavender path and through a gate, making a long stride over an icy little water race, and then walked uphill in the direction of the wool-shed and cottages.

The sound increased in volume. Individual bleatings, persistent and almost human, separated out from the multiple drone. A long galvanized-iron shed appeared, flanked with drafting yards beyond which lay a paddock so full of sheep that at a distance it looked like a shifting greyish lake. The sheep were driven up to the yards by men and dogs: the men yelled and the dogs barked remorselessly and without rhythm. A continual flood of sheep poured through a series of yards, each smaller than the last, into a narrow runway or race and was forced and harried towards a two-way gate which a short, monkey-faced man shoved now this way, now that, drafting them into separate pens. This progress was assisted by a youth outside the rails who continually ran towards the sheep waving his hat and crying out in a falsetto voice. At each of these sallies the sheep, harried from the rear by dogs, would dart past the youth towards the drafting gate. The acrid smell of greasy wool was strong on the cold air.

“That’s Tommy Johns,” said Fabian, jerking his head at the man at the drafting gate. “The boy’s young Cliff.”

He was rather a nice-looking lad, Alleyn thought. He had a well-shaped head and a thatch of light brown hair that overhung his forehead. His face was thin. There was an agreeable sharpness and delicacy in the bony structures of the eyes and cheek-bones. The mouth was obstinate. He still had a lean, gangling air about him, the last characteristic of adolescence. His hands were broad and nervous. His grey sweater and dirty flannel trousers had a schoolboyish look that contrasted strongly with the clothes of the other men. When he saw Fabian he gave him a sidelong grin and then with a whoop and a flourish ran again at the oncoming sheep. They streamed past him to the drafting gate and huddled together, clambering on each other’s backs.