by Ngaio Marsh
‘So I have, then. Dozens. And each more objectionable than the last. The stuff that’s being circulated already by parties that ought to know better! Now, I understand, sir, and I hope you’ll overlook my mentioning it, that Miss Pride is personally known to you.’
With a sick feeling of weariness Alleyn said: ‘Yes. She’s an old friend.’ And before Mr Nankivell could go any further he added: ‘I’m aware of the sort of thing that is being said about Miss Pride. I can assure you that, as the case has developed, it is clearly impossible that she could have been involved.’
‘Is that so? Is that the case?’ said Mr Nankivell. ‘Glad to hear it, I’m sure.’ He did not seem profoundly relieved, however. ‘And then,’ he said, ‘there’s another view. There’s a notion that the one lady was took for the other! Now, there’s a very upsetting kind of a fancy to get hold of. When you think of the feeling there’s been and them that’s subscribed to it.’
‘Yourself among them?’ Alleyn said lightly. ‘Ridiculous, when you put it like that, isn’t it?’
‘I should danged well hope it is ridiculous,’ he said violently and at once produced his own alibi. ‘Little though I ever thought to be put in the way of making such a demeaning statement,’ he added angrily. ‘However. Being a Sunday, Mrs Nankivell and I did not raise up until nine o’clock and was brought our cup of tea at eight by the girl that does for us. The first I hear of this ghastly affair is at ten-thirty when Mrs Nankivell and I attended chapel and then it was no more than a lot of chatter about an accident and George Pender, looking very big, by all accounts, and saying he’d nothing to add to the information. When we come out it’s all over the village. I should of been informed at the outset but I wasn’t. Very bad.’
Alleyn did his best to calm him.
‘I’m very grateful to you for calling,’ he said. ‘I was going to ring up and ask if you could spare me a moment this afternoon but I wouldn’t have dreamt of suggesting you took the trouble to come over. I really must apologize.’
‘No need, I’m sure,’ said Mr Nankivell, mollified.
‘Now, I wonder, if, in confidence, Mr Mayor, you can help me at all. You see, I know nothing about Miss Cost and it’s always a great help to get some sort of background. For instance, what was she like? She was, I take it, about forty to forty-five years old and, of course, unmarried. Can you add anything to that? A man in your position is usually a very sound judge of character, I’ve always found.’
‘Ah!’ said the Mayor, smoothing the back of his head. ‘It’s an advantage, of course. Something that grows on you with experience, you might say.’
‘Exactly. Handling people and getting to know them. Now, between two mere males, how would you sum up Miss Elspeth Cost?’
Mr Nankivell raised his brows and stared upon vacancy. A slow, knowing smile developed. He wiped it away with his fingers but it crept back.
‘A proper old maiden, to be sure,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘Not that she was what you’d call ancient: forty-five, as you rightly judged and a tricksy time of life for females, which is a well-established phenomenon, I believe.’
‘Yes, indeed. You don’t know,’ Alleyn said cautiously, ‘what may turn up.’
‘God’s truth, if you never utter another word,’ said Mr Nankivell with surprising fervour. He eased back in his chair, caught Alleyn’s eye and chuckled. ‘The trouble I’ve had along of that lady’s crankiness,’ he confided, ‘you’d never credit.’
Alleyn said ‘Tch!’
‘Ah! With some it takes the form of religious activities. Others go all out for dumb animals. Mrs Nankivell herself, although a very level-headed lady, worked it off in cats which have in the course of nature simmered down to two. Neuters, both. But with Miss Cost, not to put too fine a point on it, with Miss Cost, it was a matter of her female urges.’
‘Sex?’
‘She spotted it everywhere,’ Mr Nankivell exclaimed. ‘Up hill and down dell, particularly the latter. Did I know what went on in the bay of an evening? Was I aware of the opportunities afforded by open dinghies? Didn’t we ought to install more lights along the front? And when it came to the hills round about the Spring she was a tiger. Alf Coombe got it. The Rector got it, the doctor got it and I came in for it, hot and strong, continuous. She was a masterpiece.’
Alleyn ventured a sympathetic laugh.
‘You may say so, but beyond a joke nevertheless. And that’s not the whole story. The truth of the matter is, and I tell you this, sir, in the strictest confidence, the silly female was – dear me, how can I put it? – she was chewed-up by the very fury she come down so hard upon. Now, that’s a fact and well-known to all and sundry. She was a manhunter, was poor Elspeth Cost. In her quiet, mousy sort of fashion, she raged to and fro seeking whom she might devour. Which was not many.’
‘Any success?’
The Mayor, to Alleyn’s infinite regret, pulled himself up. ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘That’d be talking. That’d be exceeding, sir.’
‘I can assure you that if it has no bearing on the case, I shall forget it. I’m sure, Mr Mayor, you would prefer me to discuss these, quite possibly irrelevant matters with you, rather than make widespread inquiries through the village. We both know, don’t we, that local gossip can be disastrously unreliable?’
Mr Nankivell thought this over. ‘True as fate,’ he said at last. ‘Though I’m in no position myself to speak as to facts and don’t fancy giving an impression that may mislead you. I don’t fancy that, at all.’
This seemed to Alleyn to be an honest scruple and he said warmly: ‘I think I can promise you that I shan’t jump to conclusions.’
The Mayor looked at him. ‘Very good,’ he said. He appeared to be struck with a sudden thought. ‘I can tell you this much,’ he continued with a short laugh. ‘The Rector handled her with ease, being well-versed in middle-aged maidens. And she had no luck with me and the doctor. Hot after him, she was, and drawing attention and scorn upon herself right and left. But we kept her at bay, poor wretch, and in the end she whipped round against us with as mighty a fury as she’d let loose on the pursuit. Very spiteful. Same with the Major.’
‘What!’ Alleyn ejaculated. ‘Major Barrimore!’
Mr Nankivell looked extremely embarrassed. ‘That remark,’ he said, ‘slipped out. All gossip, I daresay, and better forgotten, the whole lot of it. Put about by the Ladies’ Guild upon which Mrs Nankivell sits, ex officio, and, as she herself remarked, not to be depended upon.’
‘But what is it that the Ladies’ Guild alleges? That Miss Cost set her bonnet at Major Barrimore and he repelled her advances?’
‘Not azackly,’ said the Mayor. His manner strangely suggested a proper reticence undermined by an urge to communicate something that would startle his hearer.
‘Come on, Mr Mayor,’ Alleyn said. ‘Let’s have it, whatever it is. Otherwise you’ll get me jumping to a most improper conclusion.’
‘Go on, then,’ invited Mr Nankivell, with hardihood, ‘Jump!’
‘You’re not going to tell me that Miss Cost is supposed to have had an affair with Major Barrimore?’
‘Aren’t I? I am, then. And a proper, high-powered, blazing set to at that. While it lasted,’ said Mr Nankivell.
III
Having taken his final hurdle, Mr Nankivell galloped freely down the straight. The informant, it appeared, was Miss Cissy Pollock, yesterday’s Green Lady and Miss Cost’s assistant and confidante. To her, Miss Cost was supposed to have opened her heart. Miss Pollock, in her turn, had retailed the story, under a vow of strictest secrecy, to the girlfriend of her bosom whose mother, a close associate of Mrs Nankivell, was an unbridled gossip. You might as well, the Mayor said, have handed the whole lot over to the Town Crier and have done with it. The affair was reputed to have been of short duration and to have taken place at the time of Miss Cost’s first visit to the Island. There was dark talk of an equivocal nature about visits paid by Major Barrimore’ to an unsp
ecified rival in Dunlowman. He was, Mr Nankivell remarked, a fullblooded man.
With the memory of Miss Cost’s face, as Alleyn had seen it that morning made hideous by death, this unlovely story took on a grotesque and appalling character. Mr Nankivell himself seemed to sense something of this reaction: he became uneasy and Alleyn had to assure him, all over again, that it was most unlikely that the matter would turn out to be relevant and that supposing it was, Mr Nankivell’s name would not appear as everything he had said came under the heading of hearsay and would be inadmissible as evidence. This comforted him and he took his leave with the air of a man who, however, distasteful the task, has done his duty.
When he had gone, Alleyn got his notes out again and added a fairly lengthy paragraph. He then lit his pipe and walked over to the window.
It looked down on the causeway, the landing jetty and the roof of Miss Cost’s shop. Across the channel, in the village, trippers still dappled the foreshore. There were several boats out in the calm waters and among them, pulling towards the Island, he saw Patrick’s dinghy with Jenny Williams in the stern. She sat bolt upright and seemed to be looking anywhere but at her companion. He was rowing with exaggerated vigour, head down and shoulders hunched. Even at that distance, he looked as if he was in a temper. As they approached the jetty, Jenny turned towards him and evidently spoke. He lifted his head, seemed to stare at her and then back-paddled into a clear patch of water and half-shipped his oars. The tide was going out and carried them very slowly towards the point of Fisherman’s Bay. They were talking now. Jenny made a quick repressed gesture and shook her head.
‘Lovers’ quarrel,’ Alleyn thought. ‘Damned awkward in a boat. He won’t get anywhere, I daresay.’
‘You won’t get anywhere,’ Jenny was saying in a grand voice, ‘by sulking.’
‘I am not sulking.’
‘Then you’re giving a superb imitation of it. As the day’s been such a failure why don’t we pull in and bring it to an inglorious conclusion?’
‘All right,’ he said but made no effort to do so.
‘Patrick.’
‘What?’
‘Couldn’t you just mention what’s upset your applecart? It’d be better than huffing and puffing behind a thundercloud.’
‘You’re not so marvellously forthcoming yourself.’
‘Well, what am I meant to do? Crash down on my knees in the bilge water and apologize for I don’t know what?’
‘You do know what.’
‘O lord!’ Jenny pushed her fingers through her dazzling hair, looked at him and began to giggle. ‘Isn’t this silly?’ she said.
The shadow of a grin lurked about Patrick’s mouth and was suppressed. ‘Extremely silly,’ he said. ‘I apologize for being a figure of fun.’
‘Look,’ Jenny said. ‘Which is it? Me going off with Mr Alleyn to see Wally? Me being late for our date? Or me going to Dunlowman with Miss Emily tomorrow? Or the lot? Come on.’
‘You’re at perfect liberty to take stewed tea and filthy cream buns with anybody you like for as long as you like. It was evidently all very private and confidential and far be me from it – I mean it from me – to muscle in where I’m not wanted.’
‘But I told you. He asked me not to talk about it.’
Patrick inclined, huffily. ‘So I understand,’ he said.
‘Patrick! I’m sorry, but I do find that I respect Mr Alleyn. I’m anti a lot of things that I suppose you might say he seems to stand for, although I’m not so sure, even, of that. He strikes me as being – well – far from reactionary,’ said young Jenny.
‘I’m sure he’s a paragon of enlightenment.’
She wondered how it would go if she said: ‘Let’s face it, you’re jealous,’ and very wisely decided against any such gambit. She looked at Patrick: at his shock of black hair, at his arms and the split in his open shirt where the sunburn stopped and at his intelligent, pig-headed face. She thought: ‘He’s a stranger and yet he’s so very familiar.’ She leant forward and put her hand on his bony knee.
‘Don’t be unhappy,’ she said. ‘What is it?’
‘Good God!’ he said. ‘Can you put it out of your mind so easily! It’s Miss Cost, with her skull cracked. It’s Miss Cost, face down in our wonderful Spring. It’s your pin-up detective, inching his way into our lives. Do you suppose I enjoy the prospect of – ’ He stopped short. ‘I happen,’ he said, ‘to be rather attached to my mother.’
Jenny said quickly: ‘Patrick – yes, of course you are. But –’
‘You must know damned well what I mean.’
‘All right. But surely it’s beside the point. Mr Alleyn can’t think –’
‘Can’t he?’ His eyes slid away from her. ‘She was a poisonous woman,’ he said.
A silence fell between them and suddenly Jenny shivered: unexpectedly as if some invisible hand had shaken her.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said irritably. ‘Are you cold?’
He looked at her miserably and doubtfully.
Jenny thought: ‘I don’t know him. I’m lost.’ And at once was caught up in a wave of compassion.
‘Don’t let’s go on snarling,’ she said. ‘Let’s go home and sort ourselves out. It’s clouded over and I’m getting rather cold.’
He said: ‘I don’t blame you for wanting to get away from this mess. What a party to have let you in for! It’s better you should go to Dunlowman.’
‘Now that,’ said Jenny, ‘is really unfair and you know it, darling.’
He glowered at her. ‘You don’t say that as a rule. Everyone says “darling” but you don’t.’
‘That’s right. I’m saying it now for a change. Darling.’
He covered her hand with his. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I am really sorry. Darling Jenny.’
From his bedroom window Alleyn watched and thought: ‘He’ll lose his oar.’
It slipped through the rowlock. Patrick became active with the other oar. The dinghy bobbed and turned about. They both reached dangerously overboard. Through the open window Alleyn faintly caught the sound of their laughter.
‘That’s done the trick,’ he thought. The telephone rang and he answered it.
‘Fox here, sir,’ said a familiar placid voice. ‘Speaking from Portcarrow station.’
‘You sound like the breath of spring.’
‘I didn’t quite catch what you said.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Have you brought my homicide kit?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then come, Birdie, come.’
Mr Fox replaced the receiver and said to Superintendent Coombe and the Yard party: ‘We’re to go over. He’s worried.’
‘He sounded as if he was acting the goat or something,’ said Coombe.
‘That’s right,’ said Fox. ‘Worried. Come on, you chaps.’
Detective-Sergeants Bailey and Thompson, carrying their kit, accompanied him to the Island. Coombe showed them the way, saw them off and returned to his office.
They walked in single file over the causeway. Alleyn saw them from his window, picked up his raincoat and went down the steps to meet them. They had attracted a considerable amount of attention.
‘Quite a picturesque spot,’ said Mr Fox. ‘Popular, too, by the looks of it. What’s the story, Mr Alleyn?’
‘I’ll tell you on the way, Br’er Fox.’
They had their suitcases with them. Alleyn gave a likely-looking boy five shillings to take them up to the hotel. Numbers of small boys had collected and were shaping up to accompany them. ‘Move along,’ said Mr Fox majestically. ‘Shove along, now. Right away. Clear out of it.’
They backed off.
‘You’m Yard men, be’ant you, mister?’said the largest of the boys.
‘That’s right,’ Alleyn said. ‘Push off or we’ll be after you.’
They broke into peals of derisive but gratified laughter and scattered. One of them started a sort of chant but the others told him to shut up.
Alleyn took his o
wn kit from Fox and suggested that they all walked round the arm of Fisherman’s Bay and up by Wally’s route to the enclosure. On the way he gave them a résumé of the case.
‘Complicated,’ Mr Fox remarked when Alleyn had finished. ‘Quite a puzzle.’
‘And that’s throwing roses at it.’
‘Which do you favour, Mr Alleyn? Mistaken identity or dead on the target?’
‘I don’t want to influence you – not that I flatter myself I can – at the outset. The popular theory with Coombe is the first. To support it this wretched boy says he saw Miss Pride arrive, leave and return. She herself saw him. Down on the road we’re coming to in a minute. So did Dr Maine. Now the second figure, of course, must have been Miss Cost not Miss Pride. But between the departure of Miss Pride and the arrival of Miss Cost, Barrimore went to the gates and chucked away the notice. Who replaced it? The murderer? Presumably. And when did Wally let himself into the enclosure? If he did? It must have been before Miss Cost appeared or she would have seen him. So we’ve got to suppose that for some reason Wally did go in and did hide behind the boulder, after Miss Pride had left, and avoiding Barrimore who didn’t see him. I don’t like it. It may be remotely possible but I don’t like it. And I’m certain he wouldn’t replace the notice. He hasn’t got the gumption. Anyway the timetable barely allows all this.’
‘He’d hardly mistake the deceased for Miss Pride, silly and all as he may be, if he got anything like a fair look at her.’
‘Exactly, Br’er Fox. As for the galloping Major: he swims round in an alcoholic trance. Never completely drunk. Hardly ever sober. And reputed, incredibly enough, to have had a brief fling with Miss Cost at about the same time as Wally’s warts vanished. He is thought to have proved fickle and to have aroused her classic fury. She also set her bonnet, unsuccessfully, it seems, at the doctor, the Rector and the Mayor. Barrimore’s got a most beautiful and alluring wife who is said to be bullied by him. She showed signs of acute distress after she heard the news. She’s the original Green Lady. It’s all in the notes: you can have a nice cosy read any time you fancy.’
