Clutch of Constables ra-25

by Ngaio Marsh

  “Along this path, Mr Fox again found a thread or two of dark blue synthetic caught on a bramble. Here’s the photograph. And I may tell you that a close search of the pyjamas revealed a triangular gap that matched the fragment from Crossdyke. Classic stuff.

  “The path is bordered on one side by a very old wall from which a number of bricks had worked loose.

  “Now for the weir bridge. Nearly three days had passed between the night she disappeared and our work on it. A pretty dense film of detergent had been blown back and it was a particularly awkward job to examine it without destroying any evidence there might be. However. There was a notice warning people that it was dangerous to use the bridge and the lock-keeper said he didn’t think anyone had been on it for at least a week.

  “Mr. Fox found some evidence of recent gloved hand-holds on the rail. No prints were obtainable. For a distance of about twelve feet from the bank the actual footway looked to be less thickly encrusted than the remaining stretch of the bridge. Mr Fox reckoned that there was a sort of family resemblance between the appearance of the bridge and the drag over the heel prints on the bank at Crossdyke. Here are Thompson’s blow-ups for comparison. You can see how bad, from our point of view, the conditions were on the bridge.

  “Now, out of all this, what sort of picture do you begin to get. Yes? All right, Carmichael?”

  Carmichael rose, fixed Alleyn with his blue stare and delivered.

  “To re-cap, sir,” Carmichael began ominously. “As a wur-r-r—king hypothesis, it could be argued that the bawdy of the deceased had been passed from the deck of the vessel into the possession of the persons who received it and that it had maybe been drawped and dragged in the process, sir, thus pairtially obleeterating the heel prints. Furthermore it could be reasonably deduced, sir, that the bawdy was transported by means of the motor-bike to Ramsdyke where it was conveyed by hand to the weir bridge, dragged some twelve feet along it and consigned to the watter.”

  He stopped, cleared his throat and raised his hand: “As a rider to the above, sir, and proceeding out of it, “ he said. ”A suitcase, being the personal property of deceased, and packed with her effects, was removed from her cabin and transferred by the means already detailed, with the bawdy, to the said weir and there, weighted with stones and gravel and a half-brick, attached to the bawdy by the cord produced. The bawdy and the suitcase were then as detailed consigned to the watter.”

  He resumed his seat and gave Alleyn a modest smile.

  “Yes, Carmichael, yes,” Alleyn said, “and what about the post-mortem marks of the cord?”

  Carmichael rose again.

  “For want of an alternative,” he said with the utmost complacency, “I would assume as a wurrking premiss, sir, that the deed bawdy was lashed to the person of the cyclist thus rendering the spurious appearance of a pillion-rider.”

  “Revolting as the picture you conjure up may be,” Alleyn said. “I’m afraid you’re right, Carmichael.”

  “Shall we say deed right, sir?” Carmichael suggested with an odiously pawky grin.

  “We shall do nothing of the sort, Carmichael. Sit down.”

  -1-

  “It’s a horrid picture that begins to emerge, isn’t it?” Alleyn said as he eased the diary out of the sponge-bag and laid it with elaborate care on a folded towel. “The body is lashed to the cyclist’s back and over it is dragged the dull magenta gown, hiding the cord. The arms are pulled round his waist and the wrists tied. The head, one must suppose, lolls forward on the rider’s shoulder.

  “And if anyone was abroad in the night on the road from Crossdyke to Ramsdyke they might have seen an antic show: a man on a Route-Rocket with what seemed to be either a very affectionate or a very drunken rider on his pillion: a rider whose head lolled and jerked preposterously and who seemed to be glued to his back.”

  “What about the suitcase?” asked Tillottson.

  “Made fast. It’s not weighted at this stage. The stones were collected at the weir.”

  “Roadside heap,” Fox put in. “Loose brick. Shingle. We’ve got all that.”

  “Exactly, Br’er Fox. Fish out a sponge from my bag, would you?”

  Fox did so. Alleyn pressed it over the surfaces of the diary, mopping up the water that seeped out. “It’s when he gets to Ramsdyke,” he went on, “that the cyclist’s toughest job begins. Presumably he’s single-handed. He has to dismount, carry his burden, a ghastly pick-a-back, presumably, down to the weir. He unlooses and dumps it, returns for the case, puts in the stones and shingle, humps the case to the body, adds a loose half-brick, ties the body to the case and pushes both of them far enough along the footbridge to topple them into the weir.”

  “Do I,” Fox blandly inquired, “hear the little word conjecture?”

  “If you do you can shut up about it. But you don’t hear it all that clearly, old boy. Find me another theory that fits the facts and I’ll eat the dust.”

  “I won’t give you the satisfaction, Mr Alleyn.”

  “Find something to slide under the diary, will you? I want to turn it over. A stiff card will do. Good. Here we go. Now, the sponge again. Yes. Well, from here, the sinister cyclist and his moll begin to set-up their disappearing act. All we know is that they had paid their bill at the Star and that they lit off some time that night or early next morning. Presumably with a fabulous Fabergé bibelot representing the Signs of the Zodiac in their possession.”

  “Hi!” Tillottson ejaculated. “D’you reckon?”

  “This really is conjecture,” Alleyn said. “But I don’t mind betting we do not find the damned jewel on board the Zodiac.”

  “River bed? Swept of the body, like?”

  “I don’t see him leaving it on the body, you know.”

  “I suppose not. No.”

  “It may have been the motive,” Fox said. “If it’s all that fabulous.”

  “Or it may have been a particularly lush extra: a kind of bonus in the general scheme of awards.”

  Tillottson said: “You don’t lean to the notion that this cyclist character—”

  “Call him Smith,” Fox suggested sourly. “I’ll bet nobody else ever has.”

  “This Smith, then. You don’t fancy he did the killing?”

  “No,” Alleyn said. “I don’t. I think she was killed on board the Zodiac. I think the body was handed over to Smith together with the suitcase and probably the Fabergé jewel. Now, dare we take a look inside this diary.”

  It had deteriorated since poor Hazel Rickerby-Carrick had examined it after its first immersion. The block of pages had parted company with the spine and had broken into sections. The binding was pulpy and the paper softened.

  “Should we dry it out first?” Fox asked.

  “I’ll try one gingerly fiddle. Got a broadish knife in the station?”

  Tillottson produced a bread knife. With infinite caution Alleyn introduced it into the diary at the place where the condition of the edges suggested a division between the much used and still unused sections. He followed the knife blade up with a wider piece of card and finally turned the top section back.

  Blotched, mottled, in places blistered and in others torn, it was still for the most part legible.

  “Waterproof ink,” Alleyn said. “God bless the self-propelling pencil.”

  And like the writer, when she sat in her cabin on the last day of her life, Alleyn read the final entry in her diary.

  “I’m at it again. Trying too hard, as usual—”

  And like her, having read it, he turned the page and drew a blank.

  -2-

  “So there it is,” Alleyn said. “She writes that she returned from compline at St Crispin-in-the-Fields to the motor-vessel Zodiac. She doesn’t say by what road but as Troy followed the same procedure and returned by Ferry Lane and did not encounter her, it may be that she took a different route.”

  “She could,” Tillottson said. “Easily. Weyland Street, it’d have to be.”

  “All right. She wa
s wearing rubber-sole shoes. At some stage in her return trip she retired into a dark shop-entry to remove a pebble or something from one of her sneakers. From this position, she overheard a conversation between two or more — from the context I would think more—people that, quote, ‘froze’ and ‘riveted’ her. One of the voices; it was a whisper, she failed to identify. The other—or others—she no doubt revealed on the subsequent page which has been torn out of the diary. Now. My wife has told me that after Lazenby rescued the diary she thought she saw, for a fractional moment, paper with writing on it, clutched in his left hand. That evening at Crossdyke, Miss Rickerby-Carrick, who was in a state of violent excitement, intimated that she wanted urgently to confide in Troy, to ask her advice. No doubt she would have done so—but Troy got a migraine and instead of exploring Crossdyke went early to bed. Miss R-C. joined the others and inspected the ruins and was shown how to catch butterflies by Caley Bard. Troy, who was feeling better, saw this episode through her porthole.

  “She also saw Miss Rickerby-Carrick peel off from the main party, run down the hill and excitedly latch on to Dr. Natouche who was walking down the lane. She seemed to show him something that she held in the palm of her hand. Troy couldn’t see what it was.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Fox.

  “Dr Natouche has subsequently told Troy that she asked him about some sort of tranquilliser pill she’d been given by Miss Hewson. He did not, I think, actually say that she showed him this pill when they were in the lane: Troy simply supposes that was what it was.”

  “Might it,” Tillottson ventured, “have been this what you call it—furbished jewel?”

  “Fah-ber-zhay,” murmured Mr Fox who spoke French. “And she wore that round her neck on a cord, Bert.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” Alleyn said, leaving it, “that night she disappeared and in my opinion, that night, very late, she was murdered.

  “The next day, Natouche told Troy he was concerned about Miss Rickerby-Carrick. He didn’t say in so many words that he thought she might commit suicide but Troy got the impression that he did in fact fear it.

  “I’ll round up the rest of the bits and pieces gleaned by my wife, most of which, but I think not all, you have already heard, Tillottson.”

  “Er — well — yerse.”

  “Here they are, piecemeal. Pollock started life as a commercial artist and changed to real estate. He does a beautiful job of lettering when told exactly what’s wanted.

  “Natouche makes pretty maps.

  “Miss Hewson was shown the Fabergé bibelot by its owner.

  “Miss Hewson seems to be very keen on handing out pills.

  “The Hewsons were disproportionately annoyed when they heard that the return visit to Tollardwark would be on early-closing day. They hired a car from Longminster to do their shop-crawl in Tollardwark and on that trip bought their stuff at Jo Bagg’s in Ferry Lane.

  “In their loot was an oil painting, purporting to be a signed Constable. Hewson said they’d posted it on to their address in London but I saw it in one of their suitcases.

  “The cyclists watched the Zodiac sail from Norminster and re-appeared that evening at Ramsdyke. Troy thought she heard them—but says of course she might be wrong—during the night in Tollardwark.

  “Mrs Bagg complains about cyclists hanging round their yard on Tuesday. A screech, as of the cupboard door, attracted her attention.

  “The Baggs say the roll of prints was not in the cupboard a few days before the Hewsons found it there.

  “Lazenby is a one-eyed man and conceals the condition. Troy, who can give no valid reason, thinks he’s not a parson, an opinion that evidently is not shared by the Bishop of Norminster who had him to stay and sent him in the episcopal car to the Zodiac. He says he’s an Australian. We send his prints and a description to the Australian police. We also send the Hewsons’ over to the FBI in New York.”

  Fox made a note of it.

  “The Hewsons,” Alleyn continued, “are expensively equipped photographers.

  “Pollock irritates Caley Bard. Miss Rickerby-Carrick irritates everybody. Caley Bard irritates the Hewsons, Pollock, and possibly, Lazenby.

  “Pollock and the Hewsons are racially prejudiced against Natouche. Bard and Lazenby are not.

  “A preliminary examination of the body in question supports the theory that she was killed by an attack from behind on the carotids.

  “Andropulos would have been a passenger in the Zodiac if Foljambe hadn’t killed him—by sudden and violent pressure from behind on the carotids.”

  Alleyn broke off, stared absently at the diary, waited for a moment and then said: “Some of these items are certainly of the first importance, others may be of none at all. Taken as a whole do you think they point to any one general conclusion?”

  “Yes,” Fox said. “I do. I certainly do.”

  “What?” Tillottson asked.

  “Conspiracy.”

  “I agree with you,” said Alleyn. “Between whom?”

  “You mean—what’s the gang?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah. Now.” Fox dragged his great palm across his mouth. “Why don’t we say it?” he asked.

  “Say what? That the real question is not only one of conspiracy but of who’s running the show? And more particularly: is it the Jampot?”

  “That’s right. That’s it. Cherchez,” said Mr Fox with his customary care, “le Folichon. Où,” he added, “le Pot à Confiture, which is what they’re beginning to call him in the Sûreté.

  “You made your mark, evidently, in Paris.”

  “Not so’s you’d notice,” Fox said heavily. “But let it pass. Yes, Mr Alleyn. I reckon it’s the Jampot on this job.”

  “Why,” Tillottson asked, “are you so sure, Teddy?”

  “Well, take a look at it, Bert. Take a look at the lot Mr Alleyn’s just handed us. Three items point to it, you know, now don’t they?”

  Yerse,” Mr Tillottson concurred after a long pause. ”I get you. Yerse.”

  Alleyn was bent over the diary. His long forefinger touched the rag of paper that was the remnant of the last entry. He slipped his nail under it and disclosed another and then another torn marginal strip still caught in the binding. “Three pages gone,” he said, “and it’s not unreasonable to suppose they would have told us what she overheard from her dark entry in Tollardwark. Wrenched out in a hurry, and, I suppose, either burnt or thrown overboard. The latter almost certainly. They were wet and pulpy. Torn out whether purposely or accidentally, and into The River with them.”

  “That’ll be the story,” Fox agreed heavily. “And the inference is — by Lazenby.”

  “If Troy’s right. She’s not certain.”

  Mr Tillottson who had been in a hard, abstracted stare since his last utterance now said: “So it’s a field of five — six if you count the Skipper and that’d be plain ridiculous. I’ve known Jim Tretheway these five years, decent wee man.”

  “He’s not all that wee,” Fox said mildly.

  “The Doctor, Mr Bard, Mr Hewson, the Reverend and Pollock. And if you’re right one of them’s the toughest proposition in what they call the international crime world. You wouldn’t credit it, though, would you? Here!” Mr Tillottson said, struck by a new thought. “You wouldn’t entertain the idea of the whole boiling being in cahoots, would you? If so: why? Why go river-cruising if they’re a pack of villains in a great big international racket. Not for kicks you’d think, now, would you?”

  “Of the lot that remains on board, excluding the Tretheways,” Alleyn said, “I incline to think there’s only one non-villain. I’ll give you my reasons, such as they are, and I fully admit they wouldn’t take first prize in the inescapable logic stakes. But still. Here they are.”

  His colleagues listened in massive silence. Fox sighed heavily when he had finished. “And that,” he said, “followed out, leaves us with only one guess for the identity of the Jampot. Or does it?”

  “I
think it does. If, if, if and it’s a hell of a big if.”

  “I’ll back it,” Fox said. “What’s our next bit of toil?”

  “We don’t wait for the report on the p.m. I think, Br’er Fox, we cut in and use our search-warrant. What’s the time? Five past nine. If they’ve gone to bed it’s just too bad. Back to Ramsdyke Lock with us. Did you pick up a bit of nosh, by the way?”

  Pickle and beef sandwiches and a couple of half-pints.”

  “We’ll sink them on the trip. Hark bloody forrard away.”

  -3-

  If events do, as some would have us believe, stamp an intangible print upon their surroundings, this phenomenon is not instantaneous. Murder doesn’t scream instantly from the walls of a room that may be drenched in blood. Clean the room up and it is just a room again. If violence of behaviour or of emotion does, in fact, project itself upon its immediate surroundings, like light upon photographic film, the process seems to be cumulative rather than immediate. It may be a long time after the event that people begin to think: this is an unhappy house. Or room. Or place. Or craft.

  The saloon in that most pleasant of water-wanderers, the Zodiac, wore its usual after-dark aspect. Its cherry-coloured window-curtains were drawn and its lamps were lit. It was cosy. The more so, perhaps, because the river mist known as the Creeper had now shut the craft off from her surroundings.

  The six remaining passengers occupied themselves in much the same way as they had done before Hazel Rickerby-Carrick disappeared in the night. The Hewsons, Mr Lazenby and Mr Pollock played Scrabble. Caley Bard read. Dr Natouche, a little removed, as always, put some finishing touches to his map of the The River. Behind the bar, Mrs Tretheway read a magazine. The Skipper was ashore and the boy Tom was in bed.

  Troy’s Zodiac picture with its vivid impersonations of the passengers was now framed and had replaced its begetter above the bar. There they all were, preposterously masquerading as Heavenly bodies, skipping round Mr Pollock’s impeccable lettering.

  The Hunt of the Heavenly Host begins

  With the Ram, the Bull and the Heavenly Twins.