Ngaio Marsh - Death in a White Tie

“Do you think the cloak and hat may still be hidden away in — well, in the guilty party’s house?”

“No, blast it. I think he got rid of them yesterday before we had covered the first phase of investigation.”

“By post?”

“Well, can you think of a better method? In London? We’ve decided the river’s barred because of the tide. We’ve advertised the damn thing well enough — they haven’t been shoved down anyone’s area. We’ve searched all the way along the Embankment. The men are still at it but I don’t think they’ll find them. The murderer wouldn’t have time to do anything very elaborate in the way of hiding them and anyway, if we’re right, it’s off his beat.”

“Where would he send them?” ruminated Fox.

“Put yourself in his place. What address would you put on an incriminating parcel?”

“Care of Private Hoo Flung Dung, forty-second battalion, Chop Suey, Mah Jongg, Manchuria, to wait till called for,” suggested Fox irritably.

“Something like that,” said Alleyn. “Something very like that, Brer Fox.”

They drove in silence for the rest of the way to Barbicon-Bramley.

Miss Harris’s natal village proved to be small and rather self-consciously picturesque. There was a preponderance of ye olde-ness about the few shops and a good deal of pseudo-Tudor half-timbering on the outlying houses. They stopped at the post office and Alleyn asked to be directed to the Reverend Mr Walter Harris’s house.

“I understand he is not the rector but his brother.”

“Oo, yes,” agreed the post office lady rattling her basket cuffs and flashing a smile. “That will be the old gentleman. Quayte an aydentity in the district. First to the left into Oakapple Lane and straight on to the end. ‘The Thatch.’ It’s ever so unmistakable. The last residence on the left, standing back in its own grounds.”

“Thank you so much,” said Alleyn.

They found ‘The Thatch’ as she had predicted, without any difficulty. The grounds of its own in which it stood back were an eighth of an acre of charming cottage garden. Alleyn and Fox had only got half-way up the cobbled path when they came upon two rumps up-ended behind a tall border of rosemary and lavender. The first was clad in patched trousers of clerical grey, the second in the navy blue decency of a serge skirt. Fragrant herbs hid the rest of these two gardeners from view.

“Good afternoon, sir,” said Alleyn, removing his hat.

With a slow upheaving movement, the Reverend and Mrs Walter Harris became wholly vertical and turned about.

“Oh!” they said gently. “Good afternoon.”

They were very old indeed and had the strange marital likeness that so often comes upon a man and woman who have worked together all their lives. Their faces, though they differed in conformation, echoed each other in expression. They both had mild grey eyes surrounded by a network of kindly lines; they were both weather-beaten, and each of their mouths in repose, curved into a doubtful smile. Upon Mrs Harris’s hair rather than her head was a wide garden hat with quite a large rent in the crown through which straggled a straight grey lock or two. Her husband also wore well over his nose a garden hat, an ancient panama with a faded green ribbon. His long crêpey neck was encircled by a low clerical collar, but instead of the usual grey jacket an incredibly faded All Souls blazer hung from his sharp shoulder-blades. He now tilted his head backwards in order to look at Alleyn under his hat-brim and through his glasses which were clipped half-way down his nose.

Alleyn said: “I’m so sorry to bother you, sir.”

“No matter,” said Mr Harris, “no matter.” His voice had the authentic parsonic ring.

“There’s nothing more maddening than to be interrupted when you’ve settled down to a good afternoon’s gardening,” Alleyn added.

“Twitch!” said Mr Harris violently.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Twitch! It’s the bane of my existence. It springs up like veritable dragon’s teeth and I assure you it’s a great deal more difficult to extract. Three wheelbarrow loads since last Thursday forenoon.”

“Walter,” said his wife, “these gentlemen want to speak to you.”

“We won’t keep you more than a few minutes, sir,” said Alleyn.

“Yes, dear. Where shall I take them?”

“Into your den,” said Mrs Harris, as if her husband was a carnivorous ravager.

“Certainly, certainly. Come along. Come along,” said Mr Harris in the patient voice of vicarage hospitality. “Come along.”

He took them through a french window into a little faded red room where old dim photographs of young men in cassocks hung beside old dim photographs of famous cathedrals. The shelves were full of dusty volumes of sermons and the works of Mrs Humphry Ward, Charles Kingsley, Charlotte M. Yonge, Dickens and Sir Walter Scott. Between a commentary and an Imitation of Christ was a copy of The Martyrdom of Man , truculently solid. For Mr Harris had once been an earnest undergraduate and had faced things. It was a shabby, friendly old room.

“Sit down, sit down,” said Mr Harris.

He hurriedly gathered up from the chairs, parish magazines, Church Times and seed catalogues. With his arms full of these papers, he wandered vaguely about his den.

Alleyn and Fox sat down on the horsehair chairs.

“That’s right,” said Mr Harris. He incontinently dropped all his papers on the floor and sat down.

“Now, what can I have the pleasure—? Um?”

“First, sir, I must tell you we are police officers.”

“Dear me,” said Mr Harris, “not young Hockley again, I hope. Are you sure it’s not my brother you want? The rector of Barbicon-Bramley? He’s been very interested in the case and he told me that if the poor lad was not charged he could find a post for him with some kind souls who are prepared to overlook—”

“No, sir,” interrupted Alleyn gently, “it’s you we want to see.”

“But I’m retired,” said Mr Harris opening his eyes very wide. “I’m quite retired, you know.”

“I am going to ask you to go back to the days when you were rector of Falconbridge.”

“Of Falconbridge!” Mr Harris beamed at them. “Now this is really the greatest pleasure. You come from dear old Falconbridge! Let me see, I don’t recollect either of your faces though, of course, I have been retired now for fifteen years and I’m afraid my memory is not what it used to be. Now tell me your names.”

“Mr Harris, we don’t come from Falconbridge, we are from Scotland Yard. My name is Alleyn and this is Inspector Fox.”

“How do you do? I hope nothing has gone wrong in the dear old village,” ejaculated Mr Harris anxiously. He suddenly remembered his panama hat and snatched it from his head revealing a shining pink pate with an aura of astonished white fluff.

“No, no,” said Alleyn hastily. “At least, not recently.” He darted a venomous glance at Fox who was grinning broadly. “We are investigating a case, sir, and are anxious to trace a letter which we believe to have been lost in Falconbridge between seventeen and eighteen years ago.”

“A letter! Dear me, I’m afraid if it was addressed to me there is very little hope of recovery. Only this morning I found I had mislaid a most important letter from a very dear old friend, Canon Worsley of All Saints, Chipton. It’s a most extraordinary thing where that letter has gone. I distinctly remember that I put it in the pocket of this jacket and—”

He thrust his hands in the side pockets of his blazer and pulled out a collection of string, seed-packets, pencils and pieces of paper.

“Why, there it is!” he exclaimed, staring at an envelope that had fallen to the floor. “There, after all, it is! I am ASTOUNDED.”