Died in the Wool ra-13

by Ngaio Marsh

  “He’s not in the least fancy,” said Alleyn. “He’s going to see you and the boy home in about ten minutes. In the meantime I want you all to wait in the drawing-room.”

  “What d’you mean, see us home?”

  “In case there are any more murders and you’re littered about the place without alibis.” He nodded to Markins, who opened the door. “You might ask Miss Harmc to come in,” Alleyn said, and they went away.

  “I wanted to see you by yourself,” said Ursula. “I never have, you know.”

  “I’m afraid there’ll be no marked improvement,” said Alleyn.

  “Well, I rather like you,” she said, “and so does Fab. Of course I’m terribly pleased that the murderer didn’t kill you, and so will Fab be when he’s better, but I must say I do wish he could have missed altogether and not caught my poor boyfriend on his already very tricky head.”

  “It may all turn out for the best,” Alleyn said.

  “I don’t quite see how. Fabian will almost certainly consider himself well below C3 as a marrying man and turn me down flat.”

  “You’ll have to insist.”

  “Well, so I will if I can, but it’s a poor prospect. I wanted to ask you. Was he at all peculiar while he was unconscious? Did he want to go swarming up the walls or anything?”

  Alleyn hesitated before answering this startlingly accurate description. “I see he did,” said Ursula quickly. “Then it did get to the old spot. I’d hoped not. Because, you know, he was hit behind the ear when he was climbing up into the boat at Dunkirk and this is at the back of his head.”

  “Perhaps it’s just because he was unconscious.”

  “Perhaps,” she said doubtfully. “Did he talk about dropping into the sea, and did he do the sort of gallant young leader number for the men who were with him? ‘Come on, you chaps. Excelsibloodyor.’ ”

  “Exactly that.”

  “Isn’t it difficult!” Ursula said gloomily. “I had a frightful set-to with him in the ship. Up the companion-way like greased lightning and then all for shinning up the rigging only fortunately there was no rigging very handy. But to do him justice I must say he didn’t fight me. Although concussed I supposed he knew a lady when he saw one and remained the little gent.”

  “Does he ever call you ‘funny old thing’?”

  “Never. That’s not at all his line. Why?”

  “He called somebody that when he was talking.”

  “You perhaps?”

  “Positively not. He merely hit me.”

  “Well, it would be a man.”

  “Are you at all interested in the shearing process?”

  Ursula stared at him. “Me?” she said. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you ever help in the shed? Pick up fleeces or anything?”

  “Good heavens, no. Women don’t, though I suppose we’ll have to if the war goes on much longer. Why?”

  “Then you couldn’t tell me anything about sorting?”

  “Of course not. Ask Douglas or Fab or Tommy Johns. Or why not Ben Wilson? It’s frightfully technical.”

  “Yes. Do you suppose Fabian tried to climb anything when he blacked-out on the night of the search?”

  “I’m quite sure he did,” said Ursula soberly.

  “You are? Why?”

  “I had a good look at him, you know. You remember I guessed he’d had another go. The palms of his hands were stained as if he’d held on to things like branches. I sent his white trousers to the wash. They had green lines on them.”

  “You’re a very good sensible girl,” said Alleyn warmly, “and if you want to marry him, you shall.”

  “I don’t see what you can do about it, but it’s nice of you all the same. Why are you so excited about Fabian climbing the tree?”

  “Because if he did he had a view of the lay-out.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Yes. Scarcely evidence, I’m afraid. The only way to get that would be to knock him neatly over the head in the witness-box and I don’t suppose you’d allow that. He’ll have forgotten all about his blackouts, as usual, when he cornes round. It seems that when they happen he is at once aware of the previous experiences and returns in memory to them.”

  “Isn’t it rum?” said Ursula.

  “Very. I think you may go to bed now. Here is the key of Losse’s room. You may open the door and look at him if you like. If he wakes, whisper some pacific reassurance and come away.”

  “I suppose I couldn’t sit with him for a bit?”

  “It’s half-past ten. I thought it was to be an early night.”

  “I’d like to. I’d be as still as a mouse.”

  “Very well. I’ll leave the key in your charge. What did you decide about a doctor?”

  “We’re going to nip up when the Bureau opens.”

  “Very sensible. Good night to you.”

  “Good night,” said Ursula. She took hold of his coat lapels. “You’re terribly attractive,” she said, “and you’re a darling because you don’t think it was us. Any of us. I’m sorry he hit you.” She kissed him and walked soberly out of the room.

  “A baggage!” Alleyn said to himself, meditatively stroking the side of his face. “A very notable baggage.”

  Markins came in. “That’s the lot, sir,” he said. “Unless you want me to wake up Mrs. Aceworthy and Mrs. Duck.”

  “They can wait till the morning. Send the others to bed, Markins. Escort the Johns brace to their cottage and then join me in the wool-shed.”

  “So you are going.”

  “I’m afraid so. We can’t wait, now. I’ve told Captain Grace.”

  “And he told us. ’Strewth, he’s a beauty, that young fellow. ‘Officially,’ he says, ‘Mr. Alleyn’s going to bed. Between ourselves, he’s not letting the grass grow under his feet. You needn’t say I said so, but he’s going up to the wool-shed to work on the scene of the crime!’ Could you beat it? Goes and lets it out.”

  “He was under orders to do so.”

  Markins looked thoughtfully at his superior. “Inviting them to come and have another pop at you, sir? Is that the lay? Taking a risk aren’t you?”

  “You go and do your stuff. Make sure nobody sees you go into the wool-shed. I shan’t be long.”

  “Very good, sir.” Markins went out but reopened the door and put his head round it.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Alleyn,” he said, wrinkling up his face, “but it’s nice to be working with someone — after all these years on me pat — especially you.”

  “I’m delighted to have you, Markins,” said Alleyn, and when the little man had gone, he thought: “He’s not old Fox, but he’s somebody. He’s a nice little bloke.”

  He heard the others come out of the drawing-room. Douglas called out importantly: “Good night, Tommy; good night, Cliff. Report to me first thing in the morning, remember. You too, Markins.”

  “Certainly sir,” said Markins, briskly. “I’ll lock up, sir.”

  “Right.”

  Alleyn went into the hall. Douglas and Terence were lighting their candles. The two Johnses and Markins were in the back passage.

  “Captain Grace,” Alleyn said not too loudly, “is there such a thing as a paraffin heater on the premises? Sorry to be a nuisance, but I’d be glad of one — for my room.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Douglas. “I quite understand, sir. There’s one somewhere about, isn’t there, Markins?”

  “I’ll get it out for Mr. Alleyn, sir, and take it up?”

  “No. Just leave it in the hall here, will you? When you come back.”

  Alleyn looked at Douglas who instantly winked at him. Terence Lynne stood at the foot of the stairs, shielding her candle with her hand. She was an impressive figure in her ruby-red gown. The flame glowed through her thin fingers, turning them blood red. Her face, lit from below, took on the strangely dramatic air induced by upward-thrown shadows. Her eyes, sunk in black rings above the brilliant points of her cheek-bones, seemed to fix their gaze
on Alleyn. She turned stiffly and began to mount the stairs, a dark figure. The glow of her candle died out on the landing.

  Alleyn lit one of the candles. “Don’t wait for me,” he said to Douglas, “I want to see that Markins comes in. I’ll lock my door. Don’t forget to batter on it at four-thirty, will you?”

  “Not I, sir.” Douglas jerked his head complacently. “I think they’re quite satisfied that you’re spending the night in the shed,” he whispered. “Markins and Tommy and Co.. Rather amusing.”

  “Very,” said Alleyn dryly, “but please remember that Miss Lynne and Miss Harme are both included in the deception.”

  “Oh — er, yes. Yes. All right.”

  “It’s important.”

  “Quite.”

  “Thanks very much, Grace,” said Alleyn. “See you, alas, at four-thirty.”

  Douglas lowered his voice: “Sleep well, sir,” he chuckled.

  “Thank you. I’ve a job of writing to do first.”

  “And don’t forget to lock your door.”

  “No, no. I’ll come up quietly in a moment.”

  “Good night, Mr. Alleyn.”

  “Good night.”

  “I’m sorry,” Douglas muttered, “that I didn’t take it better in there. Bad show.”

  “Not a bit. Good night.”

  Alleyn waited until he heard a door bang distantly upstairs and then went up to his room. He brought two sweaters and a cardigan out of his wardrobe, put them all on, and then wedged himself into a tweed jacket. The candle he had used the previous night was burned down to less than a quarter of an inch. “Good for twenty minutes,” he thought and lit it. He heard Douglas come along the passage to the landing, go into the bathroom, emerge, and tap on Terence Lynne’s door. “Damn the fellow!” thought Alleyn. “Are we never to be rid of his amatory gambits?” He heard Douglas say: “Are you all right, Terry?… Sure? Promise? Good night again, then, bless you.” He creaked away down the passage. Here, it seemed, he ran into Ursula Harme emerging from Fabian’s room. Alleyn watched the encounter through the crack between the hinges of his open door. Ursula whispered and nodded, Douglas whispered and smiled. He patted her on the head. She put her hand lightly on his and came tiptoe with her candle past Alleyn’s door to her own room. Douglas went into his and in a minute or two all was quiet. Alleyn put his torch in one pocket and Arthur Rubrick’s diary in the other. He then went quietly downstairs. A paraffin heater was set out in the hall. He left it behind him with regret and once more went out into the cold. It was now five minutes to eleven.

  Alleyn shone his torch on Markins. Sitting on a heap of empty bales with one pulled about his shoulders, he looked like some chilly Kobold. Alleyn squatted beside him and switched off his torch.

  “It’ll be nice when we can converse in a normal manner with no more stage whispers,” he muttered.

  “I’ve been thinking things over, sir. I take it your idea is to lay a trap for our joker. Whoever he is — say ‘he’ for argument’s sake — he thinks the Captain’s let the cat out of the bag about you coming up here and that you’d be off guard and wide-open to another welt on the napper? I’m to lie low, cut in at the last moment, and catch him hot.”

  “Just a second,” said Alleyn. He pulled off his shoes and thudded to the press. “We’ve got to stow ourselves away.”

  “Both of us?”

  “Yes. It may be soon and it may be a hellish long wait. You’ll get in the wool press. Into that half. The one with the door. Be ready to open the front a crack for a view. I’m going to lie alongside it. I’ll get you to cover me with these foul sacks. It sounds idiotic but I think it’s going to work. Don’t disturb the sacks that Mr. Losse was lying on. Now, then.”

  Alleyn, remembering Cliff’s narrative, spread three empty sacks on the floor behind the press. He lay on them with Arthur Rubrick’s diary open under his chin. Markins dropped several more packs over him. “I’ll put my torch on,” Alleyn whispered. “Can you see any light?”

  “Wait a bit, sir.” A further weight fell across Alleyn’s shoulders and head. “O.K., now, sir.” Alleyn stretched himself like a cat and relaxed his muscles systematically until his body lay slack and resistless on its hard bed. It was abominably stuffy and there was some danger of the dusty hessian inducing a sneeze. If his nose began to tickle he’d have to plug it. Close beside him the press creaked. Markins’ foot rapped against the side. He thudded down into his nest.

  “Any good?” Alleyn whispered.

  “I’m tying a bit of string to the side,” said a tiny voice. “I can let it open then.”

  “Good. Don’t move unless I do.”

  After a silence of perhaps a minute, Alleyn said: “Markins?”

  “Sir?”

  “Shall I tell you my bet for our visitor?”

  “If you please.”

  Alleyn told him. He heard Markins give a thin ghost of a whistle. “Fancy!” he whispered.

  Alleyn turned his torch on the open pages of Arthur Rubrick’s diary. On closer inspection it proved to be a well-made, expensively bound affair, with his initials stamped on the cover. On the fly-leaf was an enormous inscription: “Arthur with fondest love from Florence, Christmas 1941.”

  Alleyn read with some difficulty. The book was no more than five inches from his nose, and Rubrick had written a tiny and delicate script. His curiously formal style appeared in the first line and continued for many pages without interruption or any excursions into modernity. It was in this style or one more antique, Alleyn supposed, that he had written his essays.

  December 28th, 1941 [Alleyn read]. I cannot but think it a curious circumstance that I should devote these pages, the gift of my wife, to a purpose I have long had in mind, but have been too lanquid or too idle to pursue. Like an unstudious urchin I am beguiled by the smoothness of paper and the invitation of pale blue lines, to accomplish a task to which a common ledger or exercise book could not beguile me. In short, I intend to keep a journal. In my judgement there is but one virtue in such a practice: the writer must consider himself free; nay, rather, bound to set down impartially those thoughts, hopes, and secret burdens of the heart which, at all other times, he may not disclose. This, then, I propose to do and I believe those persons who study the ailments of the mind would applaud my intention as salutary and wise.

  Alleyn paused in his stuffy confinement and listened for a moment. He heard only the sound of his pulse and when he moved his head the scratch of hessian against his shoulders.

  … That I had been mistaken in my choice was too soon apparent. We had not been married a year before I wondered at the impulse that had led me into such an unhappy union and it seemed to me that some other than I had acted so precipitately. Let me be just. The qualities that had invoked the admiration I so rashly mistook for affection were real. All those qualities, indeed, which I am lacking are hers in abundance: energy, intelligence, determination and, above all, vitality…

  A rat scuttled in the rafters.

  “Markins?”

  “Sir?”

  “Remember, no move until you get your cue.”

  “Quite so, sir.”

  Alleyn turned a page.

  … Is it not a strange circumstance that admiration should go hand in hand with faded love? Those qualities for which I most applaud her have most often diminished, indeed prevented altogether, my affection. Yet I believed my indifference to be caused, not so much by a fault in her or in myself, as by the natural and unhappy consequence of my declining health. Had I been more robust, I thought, I would, in turn, have responded more easily to her energy. In this belief I might have well continued for the remainder of our life together, had not Terence Lynne come upon me in my solitude.

  Alleyn rested his hand upon the open book and called to his mind the photograph of Arthur Rubrick. “Poor devil!” he thought. “What bad luck!” He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes past eleven. The candle in his bedroom would soon gutter and go out.

  … It is over a fortnight
now since I engaged to keep this journal. How can I describe my emotions during this time? “I attempt from love’s sickness to fly,” and (how true): “I cannot raise forces enough to rebel,” Is it not pitiful that a man of my age and sad health should fall a victim of this other distemper? Indeed, I am now become an antic, a classical figure of fun, old Sir Ague who languishes upon a pretty wench. At least she is ignorant of my dotage and, in her divine kindness, finds nothing but gratitude in me.

  Alleyn thought: “If, after all, the diary gives no inkling, I shall think myself a toad for having read it.”

  January 10th. Florence came to me to-day with a tale of espionage at which I am greatly disquieted, the more so that her suspicions are at war with her inclining. I cannot, I will not believe what my judgement tells me is possible. Her very astuteness (I have never known her at fault in appraisement of character), and her great distress, combine to persuade me of that which I cannot bring myself to set down in detail. I am the more uneasy that she is determined to engage herself in the affair. I have entreated her to leave it in the hands of authority and can only hope that she will pursue this course and that they will be removed from Mount Moon and placed under a more careful guard as indeed would sort well with their work. I am pledged to say nothing of this and, truth to tell, am glad to be so confined. My health is so poor a thing nowadays that I have no stomach for responsibility and would be rid, if I might, of all emotions, yet am not so, but rather the more engaged. Yet I must ponder the case and find myself, upon consideration, woefully persuaded. Circumstance, fact, and his views and character all point to it.

  Alleyn read this passage through again. Markins, inside the press, gave a hollow little cough and shifted his position.

  January 13th. I cannot yet believe in my good fortune. My emotion is rather one of humility and wonder than of exaltation. I cannot but think I have made too much of her singular kindness, yet when I recollect, as I do continually, her sweetness and her agitation, I must believe she loves me. It is very strange, for what a poor thing I am, creeping about with my heart my enemy: her equal in nothing but my devotion and even in that confused and uncertain. I mistrust Florence. She interpreted very shrewdly the scene she interrupted and I fear she may conclude it to be the latest of many; she cannot believe it to be, as in fact it is, the first of its kind… Her strange and most unwelcome attentiveness, the watch she keeps upon me, her removal of Terence; these are signs that cannot be misread.