Black Ship

by Carola Dunn

  The rain was belting down, blurring still further the already-indistinct traces of activity on the lawn. Daisy came down the steps towards him, fully dressed at last under her red umbrella, bringing him his conventional black one.

  “Darling, you’ll be soaked. Mackinnon’s on his way, and so’s that nice Dr. Ridgeway. And Mr. Crane rang back. He was a bit grumpy, but he said he’ll try to soothe the AC’s savage breast. No, that’s not what he actually said, but that’s what it amounted to. I’ve been thinking—”

  “Please don’t, Daisy! Besides, there’s no point in passing on your speculations to me. I can’t take the case. You must see that.”

  “Because of the neighbours? I wondered if interrogating them was going to be a problem. But you have to find a way to do it, or we won’t have any servants left.”

  “What?”

  “The only reason they aren’t quitting en masse is that they trust you to bag the murderer quickly. Yes, they all know. I made Elsie promise not to tell a soul, but one can’t expect something like this to remain a secret from the rest, not when they can see out of the windows that something’s going on. She swore, cross her heart and hope to die, that she wouldn’t talk to her sister about it.”

  Alec snorted. “Fat chance!”

  “There is a chance. She likes working next door to her sister, and I told her she wouldn’t be any longer if she breathed a word about police business.”

  “It sounds as if, one way or another, we’re doomed to lose all our servants.”

  “It’s no laughing matter, you wretch! Mrs. Dobson won’t desert us, come what may, but Mrs. Gilpin says if you aren’t put in charge, she’s not staying to see her babies murdered in their beds. Her babies, forsooth!”

  “Did I just hear you say ‘forsooth’?” Alec queried.

  “Yes, and it just goes to show how upset I am. If she really thought of them as her babies, she wouldn’t threaten to desert them. But I can tell you, if you’re not busy solving the murder, you’re going to be busy changing nappies!”

  “Calm down, love. Such things have happened before in your vicinity without your getting in such a state.”

  “It’s never happened right on my front doorstep before,” she wailed. “So close to the twins!”

  Alec would have put an arm around her to comfort her, but the umbrellas got in the way. “You know it’s up to the Super whether I get the case,” he pointed out. “But if Crane should be so ill-advised as to give it to me, we might have to move. The neighbours wouldn’t take kindly to being interrogated by a fellow resident of the Circle.”

  “Couldn’t you direct the investigation without actually seeing people yourself? You could stay at the Yard, or the local station, and tell your men what questions to ask. Mackinnon, Tom, Ernie Piper, and DC Ross, they’re all good detectives, I’ve heard you say so.”

  With a sigh, Alec conceded. “If Crane doesn’t absolutely forbid my having anything to do with it, I’ll pass on your suggestion.”

  “For pity’s sake, don’t tell him it’s mine.”

  “I shan’t. But if it works and I get stuck behind a desk for the rest of my natural, I’ll know whom to blame!”

  To his relief, she smiled. “I expect you’ll soon find out it was nothing to do with anyone in the Circle, so you’ll be able to take a more active part. You did say you didn’t recognise him, so it’s not one of the neighbours.”

  “Are you sure we met all of them at that party?”

  “No, not absolutely. Mrs. Jessup told me they had invited everyone, but I don’t suppose she’d have mentioned it if some sent their regrets. I’m glad the victim is too old to be her younger son.”

  “Daisy, I can’t swear to it. Death changes appearances. Don’t go telling them it’s not young Jessup, when one of them may have to identify the body.”

  “I shan’t, don’t worry. Here come your reinforcements.”

  She pointed down the hill and Alec turned, to see a cluster of men around PC Norris, some in uniform with waterproof capes, some in plainclothes macs. In turn, Norris pointed up the slope.

  “I’d better go down to them,” Alec said hastily, “before the whole troop troops up and destroys any clues there may be. Would you stay here just for a moment, till I can send a man around, just in case someone else tries to walk down this way?”

  “Of course, darling,” Daisy said to his retreating back.

  Shivering, she hoped he meant “just for a moment.” The rain was coming down harder than ever, with sideways gusts that splashed her legs, though the umbrella kept her upper half dry. Trousers! she thought longingly. Why couldn’t one of those fashion tyrants who dictated what women should wear design warm tweed trousers instead of slinky evening frocks that made most figures look terrible?

  She couldn’t even distract herself by watching what the men were up to, as she was supposed to look out for encroaching pedestrians.

  She turned her back on the garden just in time to see a man come out of the Jessups’ front door. Swathed in an overcoat, umbrella held low, he was unrecognisable, but presumably one of the Jessup men. Daisy wondered how to bar his way down the path without telling him more than she ought about what had happened.

  The problem didn’t arise. Somewhat to her surprise, he didn’t approach her, but hurried away down the pavement on the other side of the street. Perhaps he was late for work—no, she rather thought that as proprietors they usually didn’t go to the shop till half past nine or so, and it couldn’t be that yet. Of course, the weather was not exactly suitable for chatting outdoors. One of the household had no doubt observed from a window that no one was being allowed to cross the garden.

  Yet Daisy couldn’t help recalling the man she had twice before seen hurrying down those same steps, the American visitor. It couldn’t be him. Surely he would not have been invited to spend the night at the Jessups’? The very night when someone was murdered in the garden?

  EIGHT

  “Mr. Fletcher!” DS Mackinnon greeted Alec thankfully, raising his hat to reveal short-cropped red hair. “Good morning, sir. Ye’ve a body in the bushes, Mrs. Fletcher said. Those evergreens up there, it’d be?”

  “That’s right.” Alec curbed his irritation at Daisy’s immediate intrusion into the case. “You’d better have one of your uniform chaps go up to the top to take over from my wife and keep people out. I suggest you send him round by the street.”

  Mackinnon duly nodded to one of the men, who set off up the hill as directed, but his dismay was apparent. “Suggest, sir?”

  “This is your case, Sergeant. At least for the present.” Drawing the Scotsman off to one side, Alec explained the situation.

  “I see, sir. But I’ve never handled a murder case before. Not on my own.”

  “Your superintendent will probably put one of his DIs in charge.”

  “Yes, sir. But in the meantime, you’re here, sir, and you know what’s happened and what needs to be done. Can ye no stay and make suggestions?” he pleaded. “Or at least warn me if I’m missing something, or going wrong.”

  “Damn it, man, I should have been at the Yard half an hour ago!” But it was impossible now to have that report finished for the meeting with the AC, and Crane wasn’t expecting him. And he did want to know what had happened practically on his doorstep while he slept. And Mackinnon was regarding him hopefully, like a persistent Scottish terrier—a dripping-wet terrier. Clues were washing away. “All right, let’s get on with it.”

  “Thank you, sir! Dr. Ridgeway should be here any moment.”

  “I see you’ve brought photographic equipment.”

  “Yes, sir.” He turned back to the group. “This is DC Ardmore, sir. He’s pretty good with it.”

  “Going to be tricky under them bushes in the rain,” said Ardmore dispassionately.

  “Do what you can,” said Mackinnon. “But keep your big boots out of there till we’ve seen what else there may be to see.”

  Alec listened to his instructions to his m
en, giving a slight nod now and then when Mackinnon glanced at him for approval. The young Scot had the theory down pat. Whether he had that indefinable other sense, the ability to see beneath surface appearances, to spot the detail that didn’t quite fit, and to weave apparently unrelated facts into a coherent story, remained to be seen. Part of it could be developed with experience, but part was sheer instinct.

  He had shown definite promise on the previous occasions when he had worked with Alec. Running an investigation was another kettle of fish.

  He knew PC Norris’s name. That was a good sign, whether he was already acquainted or had checked to see who was the copper on the beat before coming out. Alec was not one of those detectives who considered the humble beat bobby a lesser breed. Without those flat-footed plodders to prevent countless crimes, the CID would be even more overworked than it already was.

  The second uniformed man Mackinnon had brought with him was sent to complete Norris’s round, so that Norris would be on the spot when the body was available for viewing. There was always the chance the local man might have noticed the victim earlier, alive, and be able to give some hint of a reason for his presence.

  Before starting up the path, Mackinnon turned to Alec and said, “I don’t suppose you could have taken a proper look without leaving traces, sir. You’ll point them out when we come to them?”

  “Of course.” He was pretty sure the circuitous routes he had taken had not obliterated anything of significance. The effects of the maid’s movements were less certain.

  The signs of something having been hauled across the grass were still visible, and Mackinnon spotted them at once.

  “You can see the troughs where his heels dragged,” he said. “They caught on some blades of grass and uprooted them. And these indentations could be the footprints of someone heavy, or pulling a heavy load, moving backwards, with his heels digging in. They’re nowhere near clear enough for identification, though, and there’s not much point looking for footprints on the paving in this weather.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Alec agreed. “It rained heavily during the night and everything was mushy by the time I came out this morning.”

  “Better take some snaps anyway, Ardmore. Warren, give him a hand.”

  As DC Ardmore started to erect his tripod and DC Warren put up the enormous umbrella he had been carrying over his arm, Mackinnon set off across the grass on one side of the trail. Alec went with him. They studied the marks as they walked. Alec agreed with Mackinnon’s analysis.

  “And look over there. The rain’s just about washed them out, but you can just about see several more sets of tracks converging on the spot—mine, my wife’s, the maid’s, and the dog’s. These are much clearer, fortunately.”

  They reached the shrubbery. A leather glove was visible, and a few inches of the sodden sleeve of a dark blue sharkskin jacket.

  “You won’t see much more under there without a torch,” said Alec.

  Mackinnon took an electric torch from the pocket of his mackintosh and switched it on. The light gleamed on the wet leaves framing the scene. “Looks as if a couple of branches have been hacked off with a pocketknife. Probably broke them getting him in and removed them so as not to draw attention. What do you think, sir?”

  “That was my conclusion. The branches are lying beside the body.”

  “But in the dark, he didn’t realise the hand was showing.”

  “He?”

  Grasping Alec’s meaning at once, Mackinnon looked back along the trail and said, “I hae my doots a woman could have carried anything so heavy.”

  “Possibly that’s why it was dragged. In these days of sportswomen, it doesn’t do to jump to conclusions. Even pre-War, there were plenty of farm women and market women capable of moving quite a weight, though neither is very likely in Hampstead.”

  “But sporting ladies are quite likely, tennis players and such. I’ll keep yon in mind, sir.”

  “I must apologise for any footprints I left beyond the edge of the grass, by the body. I stood—or rather, crouched—as far back as possible, but there’s not much room, I couldn’t see very well, and I had to make sure he was dead. I hope I haven’t mucked anything up.”

  Without comment, Mackinnon directed the beam at Alec’s wet, muddy shoes, then crouched and shone it into the bushes. “He looks pretty dead to me.” He prodded the hand with the torch. “Rigor well established. Dr. Ridgeway should be here by now.”

  Alec looked back. No doctor, but Ardmore was diligently photographing the lawn while Warren held the umbrella over him and his camera.

  Mackinnon inserted his upper body beneath the leaves, which released their burden of raindrops in a cascade onto his back. “One or two prints I’d say are yours, sir. The rest seems to have been deliberately smoothed. A hardened villain, would you say, sir?”

  “Or anyone who’s ever read detective fiction.”

  “Och, aye, nae doot.” He hesitated. “If I squeeze in to take a closer look at the deceased, sir, I’m bound to leave more footprints. I shan’t see anything you haven’t already found out, not to mention what the doctor will tell us. Could ye no tell me—”

  “I could, but how much are you going to learn if I spoon-feed you? I understand your reluctance, believe me. However, you chose to become a detective, and if you want to rise—”

  “I’ll go.” Mackinnon visibly braced himself and ducked into the shrubbery.

  His body blocked Alec’s view of what he was doing. Leaves rustled and a twig snapped underfoot.

  “Mud on the heels,” he observed. “Feels as if his clothes are pretty dry underneath him, for what that’s worth.”

  A voice came from behind Alec. “Done what I could, sir.” It was the photographer, tripod and attached camera in his hands, Warren at his heels with the umbrella held high and a flashpan under his arm. “The prints aren’t going to be any too clear, though.”

  “The impressions aren’t any too clear.” Alec eyed the pair. “I hope you’re going to be able to get your stuff in there.”

  “Not till the sergeant comes out, any road,” said Warren. “Then we’ll just have to see. It’ll be pretty close quarters.”

  Mackinnon backed out. He had taken off one glove and was eyeing his fingertips with distaste. “I couldn’t see anything amiss, sir,” he said, “but it feels as if the hair on the top of his head is matted with blood from a wound. That’s aboot all I can tell. Enough, with the removal of the body, to make it murder.”

  “To make it, at the very least, distinctly fishy,” said Alec.

  They stood back to let Ardmore and his assistant scuffle their way into the bushes. Entering last, the huge black umbrella completely blocked their view of what was going on.

  Minute examination of his finger having apparently revealed no bloodstains, Mackinnon put his glove back on. “I didn’t search his pockets, sir,” he said a trifle defensively. “It seemed best to leave everything undisturbed until it’s been photographed, since there’s no hurry over identifying the deceased.”

  “What makes you think that, Sergeant?”

  Mackinnon flushed. “Well, sir, if it was urgent, you’d have—”

  A muffled thump interrupted him, coincident with the brilliant flash of magnesium powder igniting, visible in spite of the umbrella.

  The umbrella went up in flames. Alec and Mackinnon stepped back as, along with the usual cloud of white powder, black, glowing fragments floated down.

  “I take it, Fletcher,” said the police surgeon, arriving at this inopportune moment, “that you won’t want a report in the autopsy on any superficial burns.”

  A fit of coughing overtook Alec as he breathed in the acrid fumes of burning silk. Before either he or Mackinnon had a chance to respond to Dr. Ridgeway’s quip, Ardmore’s voice issued from the bushes: “Said it was close, didn’t I? Good job everything’s wet, or the whole bloody lot’d’ve gone up in flames.”

  Still clutching the skeleton of the umbrella, Warren backed out, mutte
ring, “Cor, strike me pink! If it wasn’t wet, we wouldn’t’ve needed the bloody brolly, would we.”

  He turned, revealing a powder-whitened face with black crescents above his eyes.

  “Better take off your hat, laddie,” said Ridgeway, “the brim’s smouldering. I’ll put some ointment on your eyebrows. Where they were, that is.”

  Warren raised his hand towards his face and almost put out an eye with a spoke of the denuded umbrella frame. Mackinnon removed it from his shaking hand.

  “Sarge, I feel kind of funny.”

  “You look kind of funny,” said DC Ardmore unhelpfully. He, too, was coated in white powder, but his eyebrows appeared to be intact.

  “Shock,” Ridgeway diagnosed. “Sit down and put your head between your knees.”

  Warren dropped to the wet grass and the doctor took his pulse. “Not too bad. Does your face feel hot?”

  “Yes, Doc, like I got sunburn.”

  “Scorched. I’ll want to take a look at it, but you’ll have to wait till I’ve had a gander at our dead chum. Fletcher, can we get him out of this rain?”

  “He could take my umbrella and sit on one of those benches.” Seeing Ridgeway’s frown, he sighed and went on: “But I expect he’d better go up to my house, number six.” He pointed. “My housekeeper will take care of him.” Which Daisy would regard as a heaven-sent invitation to meddle, he thought gloomily.

  “Strewth, I think I’m going to be sick,” Warren mumbled.

  “Keep your head down till the feeling goes away,” advised Ridgeway. “Anything you want to tell me about the corpse, Fletcher?”

  “He’s not mine, Doctor; he’s the sergeant’s.”

  “Oh? Mackinnon, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well?”

  “I … uh …” He looked to Alec, who gave a slight shrug. “I don’t think so, sir. Go ahead. Would you like my torch?”

  “Hmm, yes, thanks.” Without further ado, Ridgeway dived into the shrubbery. For a few minutes, the only sound was the rustle of leaves; then his voice emerged. “He was bashed on the head, but I rather doubt that was the cause of death. Probably occurred very shortly before death, judging by the amount of blood. Are you getting this down, Mackinnon?”