by Ngaio Marsh
‘On the face of it, Wally Trehern. Inspired by his father, I daresay. It’s Miss Pride’s contention and I think she may well be right.’
‘I think so, too. Does it tie up with the general pattern of behaviour – from your point of view?’
‘Oh yes. Very characteristic. He gets over-excited and wildish. Sometimes this sort of behaviour is followed up by an attack of petit mal. Not always, but it’s quite often the pattern.’
‘Can’t anything be done for the boy?’
‘Not much, I’m afraid. When they start these attacks in early childhood. it’s a poorish prospect. He should lead a quiet, regular life. It may well be that his home background and all the nonsense of producing him as a showpiece, is bad for him. I’m not at all sure,’ Dr Maine said, ‘that I shouldn’t have taken his case up with the childwelfare people but there’s been no marked deterioration and I’ve hesitated. Now, well – now, one wonders.’
‘One wonders – what exactly?’
‘A, if he shouldn’t, in any case, be removed to a suitable institution and B, whether he’s responsible for heaving that rock at Miss Cost.’
‘If he did heave it, it must have been about half an hour after you saw him doing his stuff on Wally’s Way.’
‘I know. Sir James puts the death at about eight o’clock, give and take twenty minutes. I wish I’d watched the boy more closely but of course there was no reason to do so. I was swinging the launch round.’
‘And it was about seven-forty, wasn’t it?’
‘About that, yes. Within a couple of minutes, I should say.’
‘You didn’t happen to notice Miss Pride? She was in the offing too, and saw Wally.’
‘Was she, by George! No, I didn’t see her. The top of the wheelhouse would cut off my view, I fancy.’
‘What exactly was Wally doing? Sorry to nag on about it, but Miss Pride may have missed some little pointer. We need one badly enough, Lord knows.’
‘He was jumping about with his back towards me. He waved his arms and did a sort of throwing gesture. Now that you tell me Miss Pride was up by the gates, I should think his antics were directed at her. I seem to remember that the last thing I saw him do was to take a run uphill. But it was all quite momentary, you know.’
‘His father says Wally was in the house at five past eight.’
Dr Maine considered this. ‘It would still be possible,’ he said. ‘There’s time, isn’t there?’
‘On the face of it – yes. Trehern also says that at five past eight or soon afterwards, he saw you leave in your launch.’
‘Does he, indeed! He lies like a flat-fish,’ said Dr Maine. He looked thoughtfully at Alleyn. ‘Now, I wonder just why,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder.’
‘So do I, I assure you.’ They stared meditatively at each other. Alleyn said: ‘Who do you think was the original Green Lady?’
Dr Maine was normally of a sallow complexion but now a painful red blotted his lean face and transfigured it. ‘I have never considered the matter,’ he said. ‘I have no idea. It’s always been supposed that he imagined the whole thing.’
‘It was Mrs Barrimore.’
‘You can have no imaginable reason for thinking so,’ he said angrily.
‘I’ve the best possible reason,’ said Alleyn. ‘Believe me. Every possible reason.’
‘Do you mean that Mrs Barrimore herself told you this?’
‘Virtually, yes. I am not,’ Alleyn said, ‘trying to equivocate. I asked her and she said she supposed she must congratulate me.’
Dr Maine put his glass down and walked about the room with his hands in his pockets. Alleyn thought he was giving himself time. Presently he said: ‘I can’t for the life of me, make out why you concern yourself with this. Surely it’s quite beside the point.’
‘I do so because I don’t understand it. Or am not sure that I understand it. If it turns out to be irrelevant I shall make no more of it. What I don’t understand, to be precise, is why Mrs Barrimore should be so distressed at the discovery.’
‘But, good God, man, of course she’s distressed! Look here. Suppose – I admit nothing – but suppose she came across that wretched kid, blubbing his eyes out because he’d been baited about his warts. Suppose she saw him trying to wash them off and on the spur of the moment, remembering the history of wart-cures, she made him believe they would clear up if he thought they would. Very well. The boy goes home and they do. Before we know – she knows – where she is, the whole thing blows up into a highly publicized nine-days-wonder. She can’t make up her mind to disabuse the boy or disillusion the people that follow him. It gets out of hand. The longer she hesitates, the harder it gets.’
‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘I know. That all makes sense and is perfectly understandable.’
‘Very well, then!’ he said impatiently.
‘She was overwhelmingly anxious that I shouldn’t tell her husband.’
‘I daresay,’ Dr Maine said shortly. ‘He’s not a suitable subject for confidences.’
‘Did she tell you? All right,’ Alleyn said answering the extremely dark look Dr Maine gave him. ‘I know I’m being impertinent. I’ve got to be.’
‘I am her doctor. She consulted me about it. I advised her to say nothing.’
‘Yes?’
‘The thing was working. Off and on, as always happens in these emotional – these faith-cures, if you like – there are authentic cases. With people whose troubles had a nervous connotation, the publicizing of this perfectly innocent deception would have been harmful.’
‘Asthma, for one?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Miss Cost, for instance?’
‘If you like.’
‘Was Miss Cost a patient of yours?’
‘She was. She had moles that needed attention; she came into my nursing home and I removed them. About a year ago, it would be.’
‘I wish you’d tell me what she was like.’
‘Look here, Alleyn, I really do not see that the accident of my being called out to examine the body requires me to disregard my professional obligations. I do not discuss my patients alive or dead, with any layman.’
Alleyn said mildly: ‘His Worship the Mayor seems to think she was a near-nymphomaniac.’
Dr Maine snorted.
‘Well, was she?’
‘All right. All right. She was a bloody nuisance, like many another frustrated spinster. Will that do?’
‘Nicely, thank you. Do you imagine she ever suspected the truth about the Green Lady?’
‘I have not the remotest idea but I should think it most unlikely. She, of all people! Look at that damn’ farce of a show yesterday. Look at her shop! Green Ladies by the gross. If you want my opinion on the case which I don’t suppose you do –’
‘On the contrary I was going to ask for it.’
‘Then, I think the boy did it, and I hope that, for his sake, it will go no further than finding that he’s irresponsible and chucked the rock aimlessly or at least with no idea of the actual damage it would do. He can then be removed from his parents, who are no good to him anyway, and given proper care and attention. If I’m asked for an opinion at the inquest that will be it.’
‘Tidy. Straightforward. Obvious.’
‘And you don’t believe it?’
‘I would like to believe it,’ said Alleyn.
‘I need hardly say I’d be interested to know your objections.’
‘You may say they’re more or less mechanical. No,’ Alleyn said correcting himself. ‘That’s not quite it, either. We’ll just have to press on and see how we go. And press on I must, by the same token. My chaps’ll be waiting for me.’
‘You’re going out?’
‘Yes. Routine, you know. Routine.’
‘You’ll be half-drowned.’
‘It’s not far. Only to the shop. By the way, did you know we’re moving Miss Pride in the morning? She’s going to the Manor Park Hotel outside Dunlowman.’
‘But why? Isn’t she comf
ortable here?’
‘It’s not particularly comfortable to be suspected of homicide.’
‘But – oh, good lord!’ he exclaimed disgustedly.
‘The village louts shout doggerel at her and the servants have been unpleasant. I don’t want her to be subjected to any more Portcarrow humour in the form of practical jokes.’
‘There’s no chance of that, surely. Or don’t you think Miss Cost inspired that lot?’
‘I think she inspired them, all right, but they might be continued in her permanent absence; the habit having been formed and Miss Pride’s unpopularity having increased.’
‘Absolute idiocy!’ he said angrily.
‘I think, as a matter of fact, I’ve probably stopped the rot but it’s better for her to get away from the place.’
‘You know, I very much doubt if the channel will be negotiable in the morning. This looks like being the worst storm we’ve had for years. In any case it’ll be devilishly awkward getting her aboard the launch. We don’t want a broken leg.’
‘Of course not. We’ll simply have to wait and see what the day brings forth. If you’re going to visit her, you might warn her about the possibility, will you?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
They were silent for a moment. A sudden onslaught of the gale beat against The Boy-and-Lobster and screamed in the chimney. ‘Well, good night,’ Alleyn said.
He had got as far as the door when Dr Maine said: ‘There is one thing you perhaps ought to know about Elspeth Cost.’
‘Yes?’
‘She lived in a world of fantasy. Again, with women of her temperament, condition and age, it’s a not unusual state of affairs, but with her its manifestations were extreme.’
‘Was she in consequence a liar?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘It follows on the condition. You may say she couldn’t help it.’
‘Thank you for telling me,’ Alleyn said.
‘It may not arise.’
‘You never know. Good night, then, Maine.’
II
When they were outside and the hotel doors had shut behind them, they were engulfed in a world of turbulence: a complex uproar into which they moved, leaning forward, with their heads down. They slipped on concrete steps, bumped into each other and then hung on by an iron rail and moved down crabwise towards the sea. Below them, riding-lights on the hotel launch tipped, rose, sank and shuddered. A single street lamp near the jetty was struck across by continuous diagonals of rain. On the far side, black masses heaved and broke against the front, obscured and revealed dimly-lit windows and flung their crests high above the glittering terrace. As the three men came to the foot of the steps they were stung and lashed by driven spume.
Miss Cost’s shop window glowed faintly beyond the rain. When they reached it they had to bang on the door and yell at Pender before he heard them above the general clamour. It opened a crack. ‘Easy on, souls,’ Pender shouted, ‘or she’ll blow in.’ He admitted them, one by one, with his shoulder to the door.
The interior fug had become enriched by a paraffin heater that reeked in Miss Cissy Pollock’s corner and by Pender who breathed out pickled onions. Miss Pollock, herself a little bleary-eyed now, but ever-smiling, still presided at the switchboard.
‘Wicked night,’ Pender observed bolting the door.
‘You must be pretty well fed up, both of you,’ Alleyn said.
‘No, sir, no. We be tolerably clever, thank you. Cissy showed me how her switchboard works. A simple enough matter to the male intelligence, it turned out to be, and I took a turn at it while she had a nap. She come back like a lion refreshed and I followed her example. Matter of fact, sir, I was still dozing when you hammered at the door, wasn’t I, Ciss? She can’t hear with they contraptions on her head. A simple pattern of a female, she is, sir, as you’ll find out for yourself, if you see fit to interrogate her, but rather pleased than otherwise to remain.’ He beamed upon Miss Pollock who giggled.
Fox gravely contemplated Sergeant Pender. He was a stickler for procedure.
Alleyn introduced Pender to his colleagues. They took off their coats and hats and he laid down a plan of action. They were to make a systematic examination of the premises.
‘We’re not looking for anything specific,’ he said. ‘I’d like to find out how she stood, financially. Correspondence, if any. It would be lovely if she kept a diary and if there’s a dump of old newspapers, they’ll have to be gone over carefully. Look for any cuts. Bailey, you’d better pick up a decent set of prints if you can find them. Cashbox – tooth-glass – she had false teeth – take your pick. Thompson, will you handle the shelves in here? You might work the back premises and the bedroom, Fox. I’ll start on the parlour.’
He approached Cissy Pollock who removed her headphones and simpered.
‘You must have known Miss Cost very well,’ he began. ‘How long have you been here with her, Miss Pollock?’
A matter of a year and up, it appeared. Ever since the shop was made a post office. Miss Cost had sold her former establishment at Dunlowman and had converted a cottage into the premises as they now stood. She had arranged for a wholesale firm to provide the Green Ladies, which she herself painted, and for a regional printer to reproduce the rhyme-sheets. Cissy talked quite readily of these activities and Miss Cost emerged from her narrative as an experienced businesswoman. ‘She were proper sharp,’ Cissy said appreciatively. When Alleyn spoke of yesterday’s Festival she relapsed briefly into giggles but this seemed to be a token manifestation, obligatory upon the star-performer. Miss Cost had inaugurated a Drama Circle of which the Festival had been the first-fruit and Cissy herself, the leading light. He edged cautiously towards the less public aspects of Miss Cost’s life and character. Had she many close friends? None that Cissy knew of though she did send Christmas cards. She hardly got any herself, outside local ones.
‘So you were her best friend, then?’
‘Aw well,’ said Cissy and shuffled her feet.
‘What about gentlemen friends?’
This produced a renewed attack of giggles. After a great deal of trouble he elicited the now familiar story of advance and frustration. Miss Cost had warned Cissy repeatedly of the gentlemen and had evidently dropped a good many dark hints about improper overtures made to herself. Cissy was not pretty and was no longer very young. He thought that, between them, they had probably indulged in continuous fantasy and the idea rather appalled him. On Major Barrimore’s name being introduced in a roundabout fashion, she became uncomfortable and said, under pressure, that Miss Cost was proper set against him, and that he’d treated her bad. She would say nothing more under this heading. She remembered Miss Cost’s visit to the hospital. It appeared that she had tried the Spring for her moles but without success. Alleyn ventured to ask if Miss Cost liked Dr Maine. Cissy, with a sudden burst of candour, said she fair worshipped him.
‘Ah!’ said Sergeant Pender who had listened to all this with the liveliest attention. ‘So, she did then, and hunted the poor chap merciless, didn’t she, Ciss?’
‘Aw, you do be awful, George Pender,’ said Cissy, with spirit.
‘Couldn’t help herself, no doubt, and not to be blamed for it,’ he conceded.
Alleyn again asked Cissy if Miss Cost had any close women friends. Mrs Carstairs? Or Mrs Barrimore, for instance?
Cissy made a prim face that was also, in some indefinable way, furtive. ‘She weren’t terrible struck on Mrs Barrimore,’ she said. ‘She didn’t hold with her.’
‘Oh? Why was that, do you suppose?’
‘She reckoned she were sly,’ said Cissy and was not to be drawn any further.
‘Did Miss Cost keep a diary, do you know?’ Alleyn asked, and as Cissy looked blank, he added: ‘A book. A record of day-to-day happenings?’
Cissy said Miss Cost was always writing in a book of an evening but kept it away careful-like, she didn’t know where. Asked if she had noticed any change in Miss Cost’s behaviour over the last three w
eeks, Cissy gaped at Alleyn for a second or two and then said Miss Cost had been kind of funny.
‘In what way, funny?’
‘Laughing,’ said Cissy. ‘She took fits to laugh, suddenlike. I never see nothing to make her.’
‘As if she was – what? Amused? Excited?’
‘Axcited. Powerful pleased too. Sly-like.’
‘Did you happen to notice if she sent any letters to London?’
Miss Cost had on several occasions put her own letters in the mailbag but Cissy hadn’t got a look at them. Evidently, Alleyn decided, Miss Cost’s manner had intrigued her assistant. It was on these occasions that Miss Cost laughed.
At this juncture, Cissy was required at the switchboard. Alleyn asked Pender to follow him into the back room. He shut the door and said he thought the time had come for Miss Pollock to return to her home. She lived on the Island, it appeared, in one of the Fisherman’s Bay cottages. Alleyn suggested that Pender had better see her to her door as the storm was so bad. They could be shown how to work the switchboard during his absence.
When they had gone, Alleyn retired to the parlour and began operations upon Miss Cost’s desk which, on first inspection, appeared to be a monument to the dimmest kind of disorder. Bills, dockets, trade-leaflets and business communications were jumbled together in ill-running drawers and overcrowded pigeon-holes. He sorted them into heaps and secured them with rubber bands.
He called out to Fox, who was in the kitchen: ‘As far as I can make out she was doing very nicely indeed, thank you. There’s a crack-pot sort of day-book. No outstanding debts and an extremely healthy bank statement. We’ll get at her financial position through the income-tax people, of course. What’ve you got?’
‘Nothing to rave about,’ Fox said.
‘Newspapers?’
‘Not yet. It’s a coal range, though.’
‘Damn.’
They worked on in silence. Bailey reported a good set of impressions from a tumbler by the bed and Thompson, relieved of the switchboard, photographed them. Fox put on his mackintosh and retired with a torch to an outhouse, admitting, briefly, the cold and uproar of the storm. After an interval he returned, bland with success, and bearing a coal-grimed, wet, crumpled and scorched fragment of newsprint.
