Singing in the Shrouds

by Ngaio Marsh

  ‘I am so very sorry,’ said Mr McAngus, holding his head. ‘I hope you’re not hurt.’

  ‘I am hurt. That is my hat, sir, and those are my glasses. Broken.’

  ‘I do trust you have a second pair.’

  ‘The existence of a second pair does not reduce the value of the first which is, I see at a glance, irrevocably shattered,’ said Mr Merryman. He flung down Mr McAngus’s hyacinth and returned to his chair.

  The others still crowded about Mrs Dillington-Blick. As they all stood there, so close together that the smell of wine on their breath mingled with Mrs Dillington-Blick’s heavy scent, there was, Alleyn thought, a classic touch, a kind of ghastly neatness in the situation if indeed one of them was the murderer they all so eagerly discussed.

  Presently Jemima and Tim moved away and then Father Jourdain walked aft and leant on the rails. Mrs Cuddy announced that she was going to bed and took Mr Cuddy’s arm. The whole thing, she said, had given her quite a turn. Her husband seemed reluctant to follow her but on Mrs Dillington-Blick and Aubyn Dale going indoors the whole party broke up and disappeared severally through doors or into shadows.

  Captain Bannerman came up to Alleyn. ‘How about that one?’ he said. ‘Upsets your little game a bit, doesn’t it?’ and loudly belched. ‘Pardon me,’ he added. ‘It’s the fancy muck we had for dinner.’

  ‘Eight of them don’t know where it happened and they don’t know exactly when,’ Alleyn pointed out. ‘The ninth knows everything anyway. It doesn’t matter all that much.’

  ‘It matters damn’ all seeing the whole idea’s an error.’ The Captain made a wide gesture. ‘Well—look at them. I ask you. Look at the way they behave and everything.’

  ‘How do you expect him to behave? Go about in a black sombrero making loud animal noises? Heath had very nice manners. Still, you may be right. By the way, Father Jourdain and Makepiece seem to be in the clear. And you, sir. I thought you’d like to know. The Yard’s been checking alibis.’

  ‘Ta,’ said the Captain gloomily and began to count on his fingers. ‘That leaves Cuddy, Merryman, Dale and that funny old bastard what’s-’is-name.’

  ‘McAngus.’

  ‘That’s right. Well, I ask you! I’m turning in,’ added the Captain. ‘I’m a wee bit plastered. She’s a wonderful woman though. Goodni’.’

  ‘Goodnight, sir.’

  The Captain moved away, paused and came back.

  ‘I had a signal from the Company,’ he said. ‘They don’t want any kind of publicity and in my opinion they’re right. They reckon it’s all my eye. They don’t want the passengers upset for nothing and n’more do I. You might ’member that.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘At sea—Master’s orders.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Ver’ well.’ The Captain made a vague gesture and climbed carefully up the companionway to the bridge.

  Alleyn walked aft to where Father Jourdain, still leaning on the taffrail, his hands loosely folded, stared out into the night.

  ‘I’ve been wondering,’ Alleyn said, ‘if you played Horatio’s part just now.’

  ‘I? Horatio?’

  ‘Observing with the very comment of your soul.’

  ‘Oh, that! If that’s to be my role! I did, certainly, watch the men.’

  ‘So did I. How about it?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Unless you count Mr Merryman keeping his hat over his face or his flying into a temper.’

  ‘Or Mr Cuddy’s overt excitement.’

  ‘Or Mr McAngus’s queer little trick of dancing backwards and forwards. No!’ Father Jourdain exclaimed strongly. ‘No! I can’t believe it of any of them. And yet—’

  ‘Do you still smell evil?’

  ‘I begin to ask myself if I merely imagine it.’

  ‘As well you may,’ Alleyn agreed. ‘I ask myself continually if we’re building a complete fantasy round the fragment of paper clutched in that wretched girl’s hand. But then—You see, you all had your embarkation notices when you came aboard. Or so it seems. Could one of the lost ones—yours, for instance, have blown through the porthole to the dock and into her hand? No. The portholes were all shut as they always are when the ship’s tied up. Let’s take a turn, shall we?’

  They walked together down the well-deck on the port side. When they reached the little verandah aft of the engine house they stopped while Alleyn lit his pipe. The night was still very warm but they had run into a stiff breeze and the ship was alive with it. There was a high thrumming sound in the shrouds.

  ‘Someone singing,’ Alleyn said.

  ‘Isn’t it the wind in those ropes? Shrouds, don’t they call them? I wonder why.’

  ‘No. Listen. It’s clearer now.’

  ‘So it is. Someone singing.’

  It was a high rather sweet voice and seemed to come from the direction of the passengers’ quarters.

  ‘ “The Broken Doll,” ’ Alleyn said.

  ‘A strangely old-fashioned choice.’

  ‘ “You’ll be sorry some day You left behind a Broken Doll.” ’

  The thin commonplace tune evaporated.

  ‘It’s stopped, now,’ said Alleyn.

  ‘Yes. Should these women be warned, then?’ Father Jourdain asked as they continued their walk. ‘Before the deadline approaches?’

  ‘The Shipping Company is all against it and so’s the Captain. My bosses tell me, as far as possible to respect their wishes. They think the women should be protected without knowing it, which is all bloody fine for them. Makepiece, by the way, seems OK. We’ll tell him, I think. He’ll be delighted to protect Miss Carmichael.’

  Like the Captain, Father Jourdain said: ‘That leaves Dale, Merryman, Cuddy and McAngus.’ But unlike the Captain he added: ‘I suppose it’s possible. I suppose so.’ He put his hand on Alleyn’s arm. ‘You’ll think I’m ridiculously inconsistent: it’s only that I’ve remembered—’ He stopped for a moment, and his fingers closed over Alleyn’s coatsleeve.

  ‘Yes?’ Alleyn said.

  ‘You see, I’m a priest: an Anglo-Catholic priest. I hear confessions. It’s a humbling and an astonishing duty. One never stops being dumbfounded at the unexpectedness of sin.’

  Alleyn said: ‘I suppose in a way the same observation might apply to my job.’

  They walked on in silence, rounded the end of the hatch and returned to the port side. The lights in the lounge were out and great pools of shadow lay about the deck.

  ‘It’s an awful thing to say,’ Father Jourdain observed abruptly, ‘but do you know, for a moment I almost found myself wishing that rather than go in such frightful uncertainty, we knew, positively, that this murderer was on board.’ He turned aside to sit on the hatch. The hatch-coaming cast a very deep shadow along the deck. He seemed to wade into it as if it were a ditch.

  ‘Ma-ma!’

  The voice squeaked horridly from under his feet. He gave a stifled ejaculation and lurched against the hatch.

  ‘Good Heavens, what have I done!’ cried Father Jourdain.

  ‘By the sound of it,’ Alleyn said, ‘I should say you’ve trodden on Esmeralda.’

  He stooped. His hands encountered lace, a hard dead surface and something else. ‘Don’t move,’ he said. ‘Just a moment.’

  He carried a pencil-thin flashlamp in his pocket. The beam darted out like a replica in miniature of PC Moir’s torch.

  ‘Have I broken it?’ asked Father Jourdain, anxiously.

  ‘It was already broken. Look.’

  It was indeed broken. The head had been twisted so far and with such violence that Esmeralda now grinned over her left shoulder at a quite impossible angle. The black lace mantilla was wound tightly round the neck and lying on the rigid bosom was a litter of emerald beads and a single crushed hyacinth.

  ‘You’ve got your wish,’ Alleyn said. ‘He’s on board, all right.’

  IV

  Captain Bannerman pushed his fingers through his sandy hair and rose from his sitting-roo
m table.

  ‘It’s half past two,’ he said, ‘and for any good the stuff I drank last night does me, I might as well have not taken it. I need a dram and I advise you gentlemen to join me.’

  He dumped a bottle of whisky and four glasses on the table and was careful not to touch a large object that lay there, covered with a newspaper. ‘Neat?’ he asked. ‘Water? Or soda?’

  Alleyn and Father Jourdain had soda and Tim Makepiece water. The Captain took his neat.

  ‘You know,’ Tim said. ‘I can’t get myself geared to this situation. Really, it’s jolly nearly impossible to believe it.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said the Captain. ‘The doll was a joke. A damn’ nasty, spiteful kind of joke, mind. But a joke. I’ll be sugared if I think I’ve shipped a Jack the Ripper. Now!’

  ‘No, no,’ Father Jourdain murmured. ‘I’m afraid I can’t agree. Alleyn?’

  Alleyn said: ‘I suppose the joke idea’s just possible. Given the kind of person and all the talk about these cases and the parallel circumstances.’

  ‘There you are!’ Captain Bannerman said triumphantly. ‘And if you ask me, we haven’t got far to look for the kind of chap. Dale’s a great card for practical jokes. Always at it on his own confession. Bet you what you like—’

  ‘No, no!’ Father Jourdain protested, ‘I can’t agree. He’d never perpetrate such an unlovely trick. No.’

  Alleyn said: ‘I can’t agree either. In my opinion: literally it’s no joke.’

  Tim said slowly: ‘I suppose you all noticed that—well that Mr McAngus was wearing a hyacinth in his coat.’

  Father Jourdain and the Captain exclaimed but Alleyn said: ‘And that he dropped it when he clashed heads with Mr Merryman. And that Mr Merryman picked it up and threw it down on the deck.’

  ‘Ah!’ said the Captain triumphantly. ‘There you are! What’s the good of that!’

  ‘Where,’ Tim asked, ‘did she leave the doll?’

  ‘On the hatch. She put it there when she got her cable and evidently forgot to take it indoors. It was just above the spot where we found it which was about three feet away from the place where Merryman threw down the hyacinth: everything was nice and handy.’ He turned to Tim. ‘You and Miss Carmichael were the first to leave the general group. I think you walked over to the starboard side, didn’t you?’

  Tim, pink in the face, nodded.

  ‘Er—yes.’

  ‘Do you mind telling me exactly where?’

  ‘Er—no. No. Naturally not. It was—where was it? Well, it was sort of a bit farther along than the doorway into the passengers’ quarters. There’s a seat.’

  ‘And you were there, would you say—for how long?’

  ‘Well—er—’

  ‘Until after the group of passengers on deck had dispersed?’

  ‘O, lord, yes! Yes.’

  ‘Did you notice whether any of them went in or, more importantly, came out again, by that doorway?’

  ‘Er—no. No.’

  ‘Gentlemen of your vintage,’ Alieyn said mildly, ‘from the point of view of evidence are no damn’ good until you fall in love and then you’re no damn’ good.’

  ‘Well, I must say!’

  ‘Never mind. I think I know how they dispersed. Mr Merryman, whose cabin is the first on the left of the passage on the starboard side and has windows looking aft and to that side went in at the passengers’ doorway near you. He was followed by Mr McAngus who has the cabin opposite his across the passage. The others all moved away in the opposite direction and presumably went in by the equivalent passengers’ entrance on the port side, with the exception of Mrs Dillington-Blick and Aubyn Dale who used the glass doors into the lounge. Captain Bannerman and I had a short conversation and he returned to the bridge. Father Jourdain and I then walked to the after end or back or rear or whatever you call it of the deck where there’s a verandah and where we could see nothing. It must have been at that moment somebody returned and garrotted Esmeralda.’

  ‘How d’you remember all that?’ Captain Bannerman demanded.

  ‘God bless my soul, I’m on duty.’ Alieyn turned to Father Jourdain. ‘The job must have been finished before we walked back along the starboard side.’

  ‘Must it?’

  ‘Don’t you remember? We heard someone singing: “A Broken Doll.” ’

  Father Jourdain passed his hand across his eyes. ‘This is, it really is, quite beastly.’

  ‘It appears that he always sings when he’s finished.’

  Tim said suddenly: ‘We heard it. Jemima and I. It wasn’t far off. On the other side. We thought it was a sailor but actually it sounded rather like a choirboy.’

  ‘Oh, please!’ Father Jourdain ejaculated and at once added, ‘Sorry. Silly remark.’

  ‘Here!’ the Captain interposed, jabbing a square finger at the newspaper-covered form on the table. ‘Can’t you do any of this funny business with fingerprints? What about them?’

  Alieyn said he’d try, of course, but he didn’t expect there’d be any that mattered as their man was believed to wear gloves. He very gingerly removed the newspaper and there, shockingly large, smirking, with her detached head looking over her shoulder, was Esmeralda. In any case, Alleyn pointed out, the mantilla had been wound so tightly round the neck that any fingerprints would be obliterated.

  ‘It’s a right-handed job, I think,’ he said. ‘But as we’ve no left-handed passengers that doesn’t cast a blinding light on anything.’ He eased away the black lace, exposing part of the pink plastic neck. ‘He tried the necklace first but he never has any luck with beads. They break. You can see the dents in the paint.’

  He dropped the newspaper over the doll and looked at Tim Makepiece.

  ‘This sort of thing’s up your street, isn’t it?’

  Tim said: ‘If it wasn’t for the immediacy of the problem it’d be damned interesting. It still is. It looks like a classic. The repetition, the time factor—by the way the doll’s out of step in that respect, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘Dead out. It’s six days too soon. Would you say that made the time theory look pretty sick?’

  ‘On the face of it—no, I don’t think I would; although one shouldn’t make those sorts of pronouncements. But I’d think the doll being inanimate might be—well, a kind of extra.’

  ‘A jeu d’esprit?’

  ‘Yes. Like a Donald Campbell amusing himself with a toy speedboat. It wouldn’t interfere with the normal programme. That’d be my guess. But if one could only get him to talk.’

  ‘You can try and get all of ’em to talk,’ said Captain Bannerman sardonically. ‘No harm in trying.’

  ‘It’s a question, isn’t it,’ Alleyn said, ‘of what we are going to do about it. It seems to me there are three courses open to us. A: We can make the whole situation known to everybody in the ship and hold a routine inquiry, but I’m afraid that won’t get us much further. I could ask if there were alibis for the other occasions, of course, but our man would certainly produce one and there would be no immediate means of checking it. We know, by the way, that Cuddy hasn’t got one for the other occasion.’

  ‘Do we?’ said the Captain woodenly.

  ‘Yes. He went for a walk after leaving his silver-wedding bouquet at a hospital.’

  ‘My God!’ Tim said softly.

  ‘On the other hand an inquiry would mean that my man is fully warned and at the cost of whatever anguish to himself goes to earth until the end of the voyage. So I don’t make an arrest and at the other side of the world more girls are killed by strangulation. B: We can warn the women privately and I give you two guesses as to what sort of privacy we might hope to preserve after warning Mrs Cuddy. C: We can take such of your senior officers as you think fit, into our confidence, form ourselves into a sort of vigilance committee and try by observation and undercover inquiry to get more information before taking action.’

  ‘Which is the only course I’m prepared to sanction,’ said Captain Bannerman. ‘And th
at’s flat.’

  Alleyn looked thoughtfully at him. ‘Then it’s just as well,’ he said, ‘that at the moment it appears to be the only one that’s at all practicable.’

  ‘That makes four suspects to watch,’ Tim said after a pause.

  ‘Four?’ Alleyn said. ‘Everybody says four. You may all be right, of course. I’m almost inclined to reduce the field, tentatively, you know, very tentatively. It seems to me that at least one of your four is in the clear.’

  They stared at him. ‘Are we to know which?’ Father Jourdain asked.

  Alleyn told him.

  ‘Dear me!’ he said. ‘How excessively stupid of me. But of course.’

  ‘And then, for two of the others,’ Alleyn said apologetically, ‘there are certain indications: nothing like certainties, you might object, and yet I’m inclined to accept them as working hypotheses.’

  ‘But look here!’ Tim said, ‘that would mean—’

  He was interrupted by Captain Bannerman. ‘Do you mean to sit there,’ he roared out, ‘and tell us you think you know who done—damnation!—who did it?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Not nearly enough, but I fancy so.’

  After a long pause Father Jourdain said: ‘Well—again, are we to know which? And why?’

  Alleyn waited for a moment. He glanced at the Captain’s face, scarlet with incredulity, and then at the other two: dubious, perhaps a little resentful.

  ‘I think perhaps better not,’ he said.

  V

  When at last he went to bed, Alleyn was unable to sleep. He listened to the comfortable pulse of the ship’s progress and seemed to hear beyond it a thin whistle of a voice lamenting a broken doll. If he closed his eyes it was to find Captain Bannerman’s face, blown with obstinacy, stupid and intractable, and Esmeralda, smirking over her shoulder. And even as he told himself that this must be the beginning of a dream, he was awake again. He searched for some exercise to discipline his thoughts and remembered Miss Abbott’s plainsong chant. Suppose Mr Merryman had ordered him to do it into English verse?