Ngaio Marsh - Died in the Wool

“Whisky,” said Alleyn.

The cook laid hold of his coat lapels and peered very earnestly into his face. “You’re a pal,” he said. “I don’t mind if I do.”

“But I haven’t got any,” Alleyn said. “Have you?”

The cook shook his head mournfully and, having begun to shake it, seemed unable to leave off. His eyes filled with tears. His breath smelt of beer and of something that at the moment Alleyn was unable to place.

“It’s not so easily come by these days, is it?” Alleyn said.

“I ain’t seen a drop,” the cook whispered, “not since—” he wiped his mouth and gave Alleyn a look of extraordinary cunning—“not since you-know-when.”

“When was that?”

“Ah,” said the cook profoundly, “that’s telling.” He looked out of the corners of his eyes at Fabian, leered, and, with a ridiculously Victorian gesture, laid his finger alongside his nose. Albie Black burst into loud meaningless laughter. “Oh, dear!” he said and buried his head in his arms. Fabian moved behind the cook and pointed suggestively in the direction of the house.

“Haven’t they got some of the right stuff down there?” Alleyn suggested.

“Ah,” said the cook.

“How about it?”

The cook began to shake his head again.

Alleyn took a deep breath and fired point-blank. “How about young Cliff?” he suggested. “Any good?”

“Him!” said the cook and, with startling precision, uttered a stream of obscenities.

“What’s the matter with Cliff?” Alleyn asked.

“Ask him,” the cook said and looked indignantly at Albie Black. “They’re cobbers, them two — s.”

“You shut your face,” said Albie Black, suddenly furious. He broke into a storm of abuse to which the cook listened sadly. “You shut your face, or I’ll knock your bloody block off. Didn’t I tell you to forget it? Haven’t you got any sense?” He pointed a shaking finger at Alleyn. “Don’t you pick what he is? D’you want to land us both in the cooler?”

The cook sighed heavily. “I thought you said you’d got the fine work in with young Cliff,” he said. “You know. What you seen that night. I thought you’d fixed him. You know.”

“You come away,” said Albie in great alarm, “I’m not as sozzled as what you are and I’m telling you. You come away.”

“Wait a minute,” said Alleyn, but the cook had taken fright. “Change and decay in all around I see,” he said, and, rising with some difficulty, flung one arm about the neck of his friend. “See the hosts of Midian,” he shouted, waving the other arm at Alleyn. “How they prowl around. It’s a lousy life. Let’s have a little wee drink, Albie.”

“No, you don’t!” Alleyn began, but the cook turned until his face was pressed into the bosom of his friend and, by slow degrees, slid to the ground.

“Now see what you done,” said Albie Black.

The cook being insensible and, according to Fabian, certain to remain so for many hours, Alleyn suffered him to be removed and concentrated on Albert Black.

There had been a certain speciousness about the cook but Albert, he decided, was an abominable specimen. He disseminated meanness and low cunning. He was drunk enough to be truculent and sober enough to look after himself. The only method, Alleyn decided, was that of intimidation. He and Fabian withdrew with Albert into the annex.

“Have you ever been mixed up in a murder charge before?” Alleyn began with the nearest approach to police-station truculence of which he was capable.

“I’m not mixed up in one now,” said Albert, showing the whites of his eyes. “Choose your words.”

“You’re withholding information in a homicidal investigation, aren’t you? D’you know what that means?”

“Here!” said Albert. “You can’t swing that across me.”

“You’ll be lucky if you don’t get a pair of bracelets swung across you. Haven’t you been in trouble before?” Albert looked at him indignantly. “Come on, now,” Alleyn persisted. “How about a charge of theft?”

“Me?” said Albert. “Me, with a clean sheet all the years I bin ’ere! Accusing me of stealing! ’Ow dare yer?”

“What about Mr. Rubrick’s whisky? Come on, Black, you’d better make a clean breast of it.”

Albert looked at the piano. His dirty fingers pulled at his underlip. He moved closer to Alleyn and peered into his face. “It’s methylated spirits they stink of,” Alleyn thought.

“Got a fag on yer?” Albert said ingratiatingly and grasped him by the coat.

Alleyn freed himself, took out his case and offered it, open, to Albert.

“You’re a pal,” said Albert and took the case. He helped himself fumblingly to six cigarettes and put them in his pocket. He looked closely at the case. “Posh,” he said. “Not gold though, d’you reckon, Mr. Losse?”

Fabian took it away from him.

“Well,” Alleyn said. “How about this whisky?”

Albert jerked his head at the piano. “So he got chatty after all, did he?” he said. “The little bastard. O.K. That lets me out.” He again grasped Alleyn by the coat with one hand and with the other pointed behind him at the piano. “What a Pal,” he said. “Comes the holy Jo over a drop of Johnny Walker and the next night he’s fixing the big job.”

“What the hell are you talking about!” Fabian said violently.

“Can — you — tell — me,” Albert said, swaying and clinging to Alleyn, “how a little bastard like that can be playing the ruddy piano and at the same time run into me round the corner of the wool-shed? There’s a mystery for you if you like.”

Fabian took a step forward. “Be quiet, Losse,” said Alleyn.

“It’s a very funny thing,” Albert continued, “how a nindividual can be in two places at oncet. And he knew he oughtn’t to be there, the ruddy little twister. Because all the time I sees him by the wool-shed he keeps on thumping that blasted pianna. Now then!”

“Very strange,” said Alleyn.

“Isn’t it? I knew you’d say that.”

“Why haven’t you talked about this before?”

Albert freed himself, spat, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Bargain’s a bargain, isn’t it? Fair dos. Wait till I get me hands on the little twister. Put me away, has he? Good-oh! And what does he get? Anywhere else he’d swing for it.”

“Did you hear Mrs. Rubrick speaking in the wool-shed?”

“How could she speak when he’d fixed her? That was earlier: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen.’ Gawd, what a go!”

“Where was he?”

“Alleyn, for God’s sake—” Fabian began and Alleyn turned to him. “If you can’t be quiet, Losse, you’ll have to clear out. Now Black, where was Cliff?”

“Aren’t I telling you? Coming out of the shed.”

Alleyn looked through the annex window. He saw a rough track running downhill, past the yards, past a side road to the wool-shed, down to a narrow water race above the gate that Florence Rubrick came through when she left the lavender path and struck uphill to the wool-shed.

“Was it then that you asked him to say nothing about the previous night when he caught you stealing the whisky?” Alleyn held his breath. It was a long shot and almost in the dark.

“Not then,” said Albert.

“Did you speak to him?”

“Not then.”

“Had you already spoken about the whisky?”

“I’m not saying anything about that. I’m telling you what he done.”

“And I’m telling you what you did. That was the bargain, wasn’t it? He found you making away with the bottles. He ordered you off and was caught trying to put them back. He didn’t give you away. Later, when the murder came out and the police investigation started, you struck your bargain. If Cliff said nothing about the whisky, you’d say nothing about seeing him come out of the shed?”