by Ngaio Marsh
‘What do you want with other people’s brains, I should like to know,’ she said. Her eyes, screwed in between swags of flesh, glittered at him.
Alleyn embarked on a careful tarradiddle. ‘We begin to wonder,’ he said, ‘if Cartarette’s murderer may have been lying doggo in the vicinity for some time before the assault.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t see him.’
‘I mean really doggo. And as far as we know, which is not as far as we’d like, there’s no telling exactly where the hiding place could have been. We think it might have been somewhere that commanded, at any rate, a partial view of the bridge and the willow grove. We also think that it may have overlooked your sketching hollow.’
‘You’ve discovered where that is, have you?’
‘Simplicity itself, I promise you. You used an easel and a sketching stool.’
‘And with my weight to sustain,’ she said, rocking, to his dismay, backwards and forwards on the shooting-stick, ‘the latter, no doubt, left its mark.’
‘The thing is,’ Alleyn said, ‘we think this person in hiding may have waited until he saw you go before coming out of cover. Did you stay down in your hollow all the time?’
‘No, I had a look at my sketch several times from a distance. Anaemic beast it turned out, in the end.’
‘Where exactly did you stand when you looked at it?’
‘On the rise between the hollow and the bridge. You can’t have gone over your ground properly or you’d have found that out for yourself.’
‘Should I? Why?’ Alleyn asked, and mentally touched wood.
‘Because, my good Roderick, I used this shooting-stick and drove it so far into the ground that I was able to walk away and leave it, which I did repeatedly.’
‘Did you leave it there when you went home?’
‘Certainly. As a landmark for the boy when he came to collect my things. I dumped them beside it.’
‘Lady Lacklander,’ Alleyn said, ‘I want to reconstruct the crucial bit of the landscape as it was after you left it. Will you lend us your shooting-stick and your sketching gear for an hour or so? We’ll take the greatest care of them.’
‘I don’t know what you’re up to,’ she said, ‘and I suppose I may as well make up my mind that I won’t find out. Here you are.’
She heaved herself up and, sure enough, the disc and spike of her shooting-stick had been rammed down so hard into the path that both were embedded and the shooting-stick stood up of its own accord.
Alleyn desired above all things to release it with the most delicate care, perhaps dig it up, turf and all, and let the soil dry and fall away. But there was no chance of that; Lady Lacklander turned and with a single powerful wrench tore the shooting-stick from its bondage.
‘There you are,’ she said indifferently, and gave it to him. ‘The sketching gear is up at the house. Come and get it?’
Alleyn thanked her and said that they would. He carried the shooting-stick by its middle and they all three went up to the house. George Lacklander was in the hall. His manner had changed overnight and he now spoke with the muted solemnity with which men of his type approach a sickroom or a church service. He made a further reference to his activities as a Justice of the Peace, but otherwise was huffily reserved.
‘Well, George,’ his mother said, and bestowed a peculiar smirk upon him. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll let me out on bail, but no doubt you’ll be allowed to visit me.’
‘Really, Mama!’
‘Roderick is demanding my sketching gear on what appears to me to be a sadly trumped-up excuse. He has not yet, however, administered what I understand to be the Usual Warning.’
‘Really, Mama!’ George repeated with a miserable titter.
‘Come along, Rory,’ Lady Lacklander continued and led Alleyn out of the hall into a cloakroom where umbrellas, an assortment of goloshes, boots and shoes and a variety of rackets and clubs were assembled. ‘I keep them here to be handy,’ she said, ‘for garden peeps. I’m better at herbaceous borders than anything else, which just about places my prowess as a watercolourist, as, no doubt, your wife would tell you.’
‘She’s not an aesthetic snob,’ Alleyn said mildly.
‘She’s a damn’ good painter, however,’ Lady Lacklander continued. ‘There you are. Help yourself.’
He lifted a canvas haversack to which were strapped an easel and an artist’s umbrella. ‘Did you use the umbrella?’ he asked.
‘William, the boy, put it up. I didn’t want it, the sun was gone from the valley. I left it, standing but shut, when I came home.’
‘We’ll see if it showed above the hollow.’
‘Roderick,’ said Lady Lacklander suddenly, ‘what exactly were the injuries?’
‘Hasn’t your grandson told you?’
‘If he had I wouldn’t ask you.’
‘They were cranial.’
‘You needn’t be in a hurry to return the things. I’m not in the mood.’
‘It’s very kind of you to lend them.’
‘Kettle will tell me,’ said Lady Lacklander, ‘all about it!’
‘Of course she will,’ he agreed cheerfully, ‘much better than I can.’
‘What persuaded you to leave the Service for this unlovely trade?’
‘It’s a long time ago,’ Alleyn said; ‘but I seem to remember that it had something to do with a liking for facts –’
‘Which should never be confused with the truth.’
‘I still think they are the raw material of the truth. I mustn’t keep you any longer. Thank you so much for helping us,’ Alleyn said, and stood aside to let her pass.
He and Fox were aware of her great bulk, motionless on the steps, as they made their way back to the Home Coppice. Alleyn carried the shooting-stick by its middle and Fox the sketching gear. ‘And I don’t mind betting,’ Alleyn said, ‘that from the rear we look as self-conscious as a brace of snowballs in hell.’
When they were out of sight in the trees they examined their booty.
Alleyn laid the shooting-stick on a bank and squatted beside it.
‘The disc,’ he said, ‘screws on above the ferrule, leaving a two-inch spike. Soft earth all over it and forced up under the collar of the disc which obviously hasn’t been disengaged for weeks! All to the good. If it’s the weapon, it may have been washed in the Chyne and wiped, and it has of course been subsequently rammed down in soft earth, but it hasn’t been taken apart. There’s a good chance of a blood-trace under the collar. We must let Curtis have this at once. Now let’s have a look at her kit.’
‘Which we didn’t really want, did we?’
‘You never know. It’s a radial easel with spiked legs and it’s a jointed gamp with a spiked foot. Lots of spikes available, but the shooting-stick fits the picture best. Now for the interior. Here we are,’ Alleyn said, unbuckling the straps and peering inside. ‘Large watercolour box. Several mounted boards of not-surface paper. Case of brushes. Pencils. Bunjy. Water jar. Sponge. Paint rag. Paint rag,’ he repeated softly, and bent over the kit sniffing. He drew a length of stained cotton rag out of the kit. It was blotched with patches of watery colour and with one dark brownish-reddish stain that was broken by a number of folds as if the rag had been twisted about some object.
Alleyn looked up at his colleague.
‘Smell, Fox,’ he said.
Fox squatted behind him and sniffed stertorously.
‘Fish,’ he said.
III
Before returning they visited the second tee and looked down on the valley from the Nunspardon side. They commanded a view of the far end of the bridge and the reaches of the Chyne above it. As from the other side of the valley, the willow grove, the lower reaches and the Nunspardon end of the bridge were hidden by intervening trees through which they could see part of the hollow where Lady Lacklander had worked at her sketch.
‘So you see,’ Alleyn pointed out, ‘it was from here that Mrs Cartarette an
d that ass George Lacklander saw Mr Phinn poaching under the bridge and it was from down there in the hollow that Lady Lacklander glanced up and saw them.’ He turned and looked back at a clump of trees on the golf course. ‘And I don’t mind betting,’ he added, ‘that all this chat about teaching her to play golf is the cover-story for a pompous slap-and-tickle.’
‘Do you reckon, Mr Alleyn?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. There’s Oliphant at the bridge,’ Alleyn said, waving his hand. ‘We’ll get him to take this stuff straight to Curtis who’ll be in Chyning by now. He’s starting his PM at eleven. Dr Lacklander’s arranged for him to use the hospital mortuary. I want a report as soon as we can get it, on the rag and the shooting-stick.’
‘Will the young doctor attend the autopsy, do you think?’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised. I think our next move had better be a routine check up on Commander Syce.’
‘That’s the chap Miss Kettle mentioned, with lumbago, who lives in the middle house,’ Fox observed. ‘I wonder would he have seen anything.’
‘Depends on the position of his bed.’
‘It’s a nasty thing, lumbago,’ Fox mused.
They handed over Lady Lacklander’s property to Sergeant Oliphant with an explanatory note for Dr Curtis and instructions to search the valley for the whole or part of the missing trout. They then climbed the River Path to Uplands.
They passed through the Hammer Farm spinney and entered that of Commander Syce. Here they encountered a small notice nailed to a tree. It was freshly painted and bore in neatly executed letters the legend: ‘Beware of Archery.’
‘Look at that!’ Fox said. ‘And we’ve forgotten our green tights.’
‘It may be a warning to Nurse Kettle,’ Alleyn said.
‘I don’t get you, sir?’
‘Not to flirt with the Commander when she beats up his lumbago.’
‘Very far-fetched,’ Fox said stiffly.
As they emerged from Commander Syce’s spinney into his garden they heard a twang followed by a peculiar whining sound and the ‘tuck’ of a penetrating blow.
‘What the hell’s that!’ Fox ejaculated. ‘It sounded like the flight of an arrow.’
‘Which is not surprising,’ Alleyn rejoined, ‘as that is what it was.’
He nodded at a tree not far from where they stood and there, astonishing and incongruous, was embedded an arrow prettily flighted in red, and implanted in the centre of a neatly and freshly carved heart. It still quivered very slightly. ‘We can’t say we weren’t warned,’ Alleyn pointed out.
‘Very careless!’ Fox said crossly.
Alleyn pulled out the arrow and looked closely at it. ‘Deadly if they hit the right spot. I hope you’ve noticed the heart. It would appear that Commander Syce has recovered from his lumbago and fallen into love’s sickness. Come on.’
They emerged from the spinney to discover Commander Syce himself some fifty yards away, bow in hand, quiver at thigh, scarlet-faced and irresolute.
‘Look here!’ he shouted. ‘Damn’ sorry and all that, but great grief, how was I to know and, damn it all, what about the notice?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Alleyn rejoined. ‘We’re here at our own risk.’
He and Fox approached Syce who, unlike Lady Lacklander, evidently found the interval between the first hail and, as it were, boarding distance, extremely embarrassing. As they plodded up the hill he looked anywhere but at them and when, finally, Alleyn introduced himself and Fox, he shied away from them like an unbroken colt.
‘We are,’ Alleyn explained, ‘police officers.’
‘Good lord!’
‘I suppose you’ve heard of last night’s tragedy?’
‘What tragedy?’
‘Colonel Cartarette.’
‘Cartarette?’
‘He has been murdered.’
‘Great grief!’
‘We’re calling on his neighbours in case …’
‘What time?’
‘About nine o’clock, we think.’
‘How d’you know it’s murder?’
‘By the nature of the injuries, which are particularly savage ones, to the head.’
‘Who found him?’
‘The District Nurse. Nurse Kettle.’
Commander Syce turned scarlet. ‘Why didn’t she get me?’ he said.
‘Would you expect her to?’
‘No.’
‘Well, then …’
‘I say, come in, won’t you? No good nattering out here, what!’ shouted Commander Syce.
They followed him into his desolate drawing-room and noted the improvized bed, now tidily made up and a table set out with an orderly array of drawing-materials and watercolours. A large picture-map in the early stages of composition was pinned to a drawing-board. Alleyn saw that its subject was Swevenings and that a number of lively figures had already been sketched in.
‘That’s very pleasant,’ Alleyn said, looking at it.
Commander Syce made a complicated and terrified noise and interposed himself between the picture-map and their gaze. He muttered something about doing it for a friend.
‘Isn’t she lucky?’ Alleyn remarked lightly. Commander Syce turned, if anything, deeper scarlet and Inspector Fox looked depressed.
Alleyn said he was sure Commander Syce would understand that as a matter of routine the police were calling upon Cartarette’s neighbours. ‘Simply,’ he said, ‘to try and get a background. When one is casting about in a case like this …’
‘Haven’t you got the fellah?’
‘No. But we hope that by talking to those of the Colonel’s neighbours who were anywhere near …’
‘I wasn’t. Nowhere near.’
Alleyn said with a scarcely perceptible modulation of tone: ‘Then you know where he was found?’
‘’Course I do. You say nine o’clock. Miss … ah … the … ah … the lady who you tell me found him, left here at five to nine, and I saw her go down into the valley. If she found him at nine he must have been in the perishing valley, mustn’t he? I watched her go down.’
‘From where?’
‘From up here. The window. She told me she was going down the valley.’
‘You were on your feet, then? Not completely prostrate with lumbago?’
Commander Syce began to look wretchedly uncomfortable. ‘I struggled up, don’t you know,’ he said.
‘And this morning you’ve quite recovered?’
‘It comes and goes.’
‘Very tricky,’ said Alleyn. He still had the arrow in his hand and now held it up. ‘Do you often loose these things off into your spinney?’ he asked.
Commander Syce muttered something about a change from target shooting.
‘I’ve often thought I’d like to have a shot at archery,’
Alleyn lied amiably. ‘One of the more blameless sports. Tell me, what weight of bow do you use?’
‘A sixty-pound pull.’
‘Really! What’s the longest – is clout the word? – that can be shot with a sixty pounder?’
‘Two hundred and forty yards.’
‘Is that twelve score? “A’ would have clapped i’ the clout at twelve score?” ‘
‘That’s right,’ Commander Syce agreed, and shot what might have been an appreciative glance at Alleyn.
‘Quite a length. However, I mustn’t keep you gossiping about archery. What I really want to ask you is this. I understand that you’ve known Colonel Cartarette a great many years?’
‘Off and on. Neighbours. Damn’ nice fellah.’
‘Exactly. And I believe that when Cartarette was in the Far East, you ran up against him. At Hong Kong, was it?’ Alleyn improvized hopefully.
‘Singapore.’
‘Oh, yes. The reason why I’m asking you is this. From the character of the crime and the apparently complete absence of motive, here, we are wondering if it can possibly be a back kick from his work out in the East.’
‘Wouldn’t know.’
‘Last time would be four years ago. I was still on the active list. My ship was based on Singapore and he looked me up when we were in port. I was axed six months later.’
‘Did you see much of them out there?’
‘Them?’
‘The Cartarettes.’
Commander Syce glared at Alleyn. ‘He wasn’t married,’ he said, ‘then.’
‘So you didn’t meet the second Mrs Cartarette until you came back here, I suppose?’
Commander Syce thrust his hands into his pockets and walked over to the window. ‘I had met her, yes,’ he mumbled. ‘Out there.’
‘Before they married?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you bring them together?’ Alleyn asked lightly, and he saw the muscles in the back of Syce’s neck stiffen under the reddened skin.
‘I introduced them, as it happens,’ Syce said loudly without turning his head.
‘That’s always rather amusing. Or I find it so, being,’ Alleyn said, looking fixedly at Fox, ‘an incorrigible matchmaker.’
‘Good God, nothing like that!’ Syce shouted. ‘Last thing I intended. Good God, no!’
He spoke with extraordinary vehemence and seemed to be moved equally by astonishment, shame and indignation. Alleyn wondered why on earth he himself didn’t get the snub he had certainly invited and decided it was because Syce was too embarrassed to administer one. He tried to get something more about Syce’s encounters with Cartarette in Singapore but was unsuccessful. He noticed the unsteady hands, moist skin and patchy colour, and the bewildered unhappy look in the very blue eyes. ‘Alcoholic, poor devil,’ he thought.
‘It’s no good asking me anything,’ Syce abruptly announced. ‘Nobody tells me anything. I don’t go anywhere. I’m no good to anybody.’
‘We’re only looking for a background, and I hoped you might be able to provide a piece of it. Miss Kettle was saying last night how close the Swevenings people are to each other; it all sounded quite feudal. Even Sir Harold Lacklander had young Phinn as his secretary. What did you say?’
