Dead Water ra-23

by Ngaio Marsh

  “Come in,” Alleyn said. “She may, mayn’t she, Miss Emily?”

  “By all means. Come in, Jennifer.”

  Jenny gave Alleyn a look. He said: “We’ve been discussing appropriate action to be taken by Miss Emily,” and told her what he had arranged.

  Jenny said: “Can’t the hotel take her today?” And then hurried on: “Wouldn’t you like to be shot of the Island as soon as possible, Miss Pride? It’s been a horrid business, hasn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid they’ve nothing until tomorrow,” Alleyn said.

  “Well then, wouldn’t London be better, after all? It’s so anticlimaxy to gird up one’s loins and then un-gird them. Miss Pride, if you’d at all like me to, I’d love to go with you for the train journey.”

  “You are extremely kind, dear child. Will you excuse me for a moment. I have left my handkerchief in my bedroom, I think.”

  Jenny, about to fetch it, caught Alleyn’s eye and stopped short. Alleyn opened the door for Miss Emily and shut it again.

  He said quickly: “What’s happened? Talk?”

  “She mustn’t go out. Can’t we get her away? Yes. Talk. Beastly, unheard-of, filthy talk. She mustn’t know. God!” said Jenny. “How I hate people!”

  “She’s staying indoors all day.”

  “Has she any idea what they’ll be saying?”

  “I don’t know. She’s upset. She’s gone in there to blow her nose and pull herself together. Look. Would you go with her to Dunlowman? It’ll only be a few days. As a job?”

  “Yes, of course. Job be blowed.”

  “Well, as her guest. She wouldn’t hear of anything else.”

  “All right. If she wants me. She might easily not.”

  “Go out on a pretense message for me and come back in five minutes. I’ll fix it.”

  “O.K.”

  “You’re a darling, Miss Williams.”

  Jenny pulled a grimace and went out.

  When Miss Emily returned she was in complete control of herself. Alleyn said Jenny had gone down to leave a note for him at the office. He said he’d had an idea. Jenny, he understood from Miss Emily herself, was hard up and had to take holiday jobs to enable her to stay in England. Why not offer her one as companion for as long as the stay in Dunlowman lasted?”

  “She would not wish it. She is the guest of the Barrimores and the young man is greatly attached.”

  “I think she feels she’d like to get away,” Alleyn lied. “She said as much to me.”

  “In that case,” Miss Emily hesitated. “In that case I–I shall make the suggestion. Tactfully, of course. I confess it — it would be a comfort.” And she added firmly: “I am feeling old.”

  It was the most devastating remark he had ever heard from Miss Emily.

  VI

  Green Lady

  When he arrived downstairs it was to find Major Barrimore and the office clerk dealing with a group of disgruntled visitors who were relinquishing their rooms. The Major appeared to hang on to his professional aplomb with some difficulty. Alleyn waited and had time to read a notice that was prominently displayed and announced the temporary closing of the spring owing to unforeseen circumstances.

  Major Barrimore made his final bow, stared balefully after the last guest and saw Alleyn. He spread his hands. “My God!” he said.

  “I’m very sorry.”

  “Bloody people!” said the Major in unconscious agreement with Jenny. “God, how I hate bloody people.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “They’ll all go! The lot! They’ll cackle away among themselves and want their money back and change their minds and jibber and jabber; and in the bloody upshot, they’ll xxxx-off. The whole bloody boiling of them. And the next thing: a new draft! Waltzing in and waltzing out again. What the xxxxxx.” His language grew more fanciful; he sweated extremely. A lady with a cross face swept out of the lounge and up the stairs. He bowed to her distractedly. “That’s right, madam,” he whispered after her. “That’s the drill. Talk to your husband and pack your bags and take your chronic eczema to hell out of it.” He smiled dreadfully at Alleyn. “And what can I do for you?” he demanded.

  “I hardly dare ask you for a room.”

  “You can have the whole xxxx pub. Bring the whole xxxx Yard.”

  Alleyn offered what words of comfort he could muster. Major Barrimore received them with a moody sneer, but presently became calmer. “I’m not blaming you,” he said. “You’re doing your duty. Fine service, the police. Always said so. Thought of it myself when I left my regiment. Took on this damned poodlefaking instead. Well, there you are.”

  He booked Alleyn in, and even accepted, with gloomy resignation, the news that Miss Emily would like to delay her departure for another night.

  As Alleyn was about to go he said: “Could you sell me a good cigar? I’ve left mine behind and I can’t make do with a pipe.”

  “Certainly. What do you smoke?”

  “Las Casas, if you have them.”

  “No can do. At least — Well, as a matter of fact, I do get them in for myself, old boy. I’m a bit short. Look here — let you have three, if you like. Show there’s no ill feeling, but not a word to the troops. If you want more, these things are smokeable.”

  Alleyn said: “Very nice of you but I’m not going to cut you short. Let me have one Las Casas and I’ll take a box of these others.”

  He bought the cigars.

  The Major had moved to the flap end of the counter. Alleyn dropped his change and picked it up. The boots, he thought, looked very much as if they’d fit. They were wet round the welts and flecked with mud.

  He took his leave of the Major.

  When he got outside the hotel he compared the cigar band with the one he had picked up and found them to be identical.

  Coombe was waiting for him. Alleyn said: “We’d better get the path cordoned off as soon as possible. Where’s Pender?”

  “At the spring. Your chaps are on their way. Just made the one good train. They should be here by five. I’ve laid on cars at Dunlowman. And I’ve raised another couple of men. They’re to report here. What’s the idea, cordoning the top path?”

  “It’s that outcrop,” Alleyn said and told him about the Major’s cigars. “Of course,” he said, “there may be a guest who smokes his own Las Casas and who went out in a downpour at the crack of dawn to hide behind a rock, but it doesn’t seem likely. We may have to take casts and get hold of his boots.”

  “The Major! I see!”

  “It may well turn out to be just one of those damn’ fool things. He says he got up late.”

  “It’d fit. In a way, it’d fit.”

  “At this stage,” Alleyn said. “Nothing fits. We collect. That’s all.”

  “Well, I know that,” Coombe said quickly. He had just been warned against the axiomatic sin of forming a theory too soon. “Here are these chaps, now,” he said.

  Two policemen were approaching the jetty.

  Alleyn said: “Look, Coombe. I think our next step had better be the boy. Dr. Mayne saw him and so did Miss Pride. Could you set your men to patrol the path and then join me at Trehern’s cottage?”

  “There may be a mob of visitors there. It’s a big attraction.”

  “Hell! Hold on. Wait a bit, would you?”

  Alleyn had seen Jenny Williams coming out of the old pubroom. She wore an orange-coloured bathing dress and a short white coat and looked as if she had twice her fair share of sunshine.

  He joined her. “It’s all fixed with Miss Emily,” she said. “I’m a lady’s companion as from tomorrow morning. In the meantime, Patrick and I are thinking of a bathe.”

  “I don’t know what we’d have done without you. And loath as I am to put anything between you and the English Channel, I have got another favour to ask.”

  “Now, what is all this?”

  “You know young Trehern, don’t you? You taught him? Do you get on well with him?”

  “He didn’t remember me a
t first. I think he does now. They’ve done their best to turn him into a horror but — yes — I can’t help having a — I suppose it’s a sort of compassion,” said Jenny.

  “I expect it is,” Alleyn agreed. He told her he was going to see Wally and that he’d heard she understood the boy and got more response from him than most people. Would she come down to the cottage and help with the interview?

  Jenny looked very straight at him and said: “Not if it means you want me to get Wally to say something that may harm him.”

  Alleyn said: “I don’t know what he will say. I don’t in the least know whether he is in any way involved in Miss Cost’s death. Suppose he was. Suppose he killed her, believing her to be Miss Emily. Would you want him to be left alone to attack the next old lady who happened to annoy him? Think.”

  She asked him, as Miss Emily had asked him, what would be done with Wally if he was found to be guilty. He gave her the same answer: nothing very dreadful. Wally might be sent to an appropriate institution. It would be a matter for authorized psychiatrists. “And they do have successes in these days, you know. On the other hand, Wally may have nothing whatever to do with the case. But I must find out. Murder,” Alleyn said abruptly, “is always abominable. It’s hideous and outlandish. Even when the impulse is understandable and the motive overpowering, it is still a terrible, unique offense. As the law stands, its method of dealing with homicides is, as I think, open to the gravest criticism. But for all that, the destruction of a human being remains what it is: the last outrage.”

  He was to wonder, after the case had ended, why on earth he had spoken as he did.

  Jenny stared out, looking at nothing. “You must be an unusual kind of cop,” she said. And then: “O.K. I’ll tell Patrick and put on a skirt. I won’t be long.”

  The extra constables had arrived and were being briefed by Coombe. They were to patrol the path and stop people climbing about the hills above the enclosure. One of them would be stationed near the outcrop.

  Jenny reappeared wearing a white skirt over her bathing dress.

  “Patrick,” she said, “is in a slight sulk. I asked him to pick me up at the cottage.”

  “My fault, of course. I’m sorry.”

  “He’ll get over it,” she said cheerfully.

  They went down the hotel steps. Jenny moved ahead. She walked very quickly past Miss Cost’s shop, not looking at it. A group of visitors stared in at the window. The door was open and there were customers inside.

  Coombe said: “The girl that helps is carrying on.”

  “Yes. All right. Has she been told not to destroy anything — papers — rubbish— anything?”

  “Well, yes. I mean, I said: Just serve the customers and attend to the telephone calls. It’s a substation for the Island. One of the last in the country.”

  “I think the shop would be better shut, Coombe. We can’t assume anything at this stage. We’ll have to go through her papers. I suppose the calls can’t be operated through the central station?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Who is this assistant?”

  “Cissy Pollock. She was that green girl affair in the show. Pretty dim type, is Cissy.”

  “Friendly with Miss Cost?”

  “Thick as thieves, both being hell-bent on the Festival.”

  “Look. Could you wait until the shop clears and then lock up? We’ll have to put somebody on the board or simply tell the subscribers that the Island service is out of order.”

  “The Major’ll go mad. Couldn’t we shut the shop and leave Cissy on the switchboard?”

  “I honestly don’t think we should. It’s probably a completely barren precaution, but at this stage—”

  “ ‘We must not,’ ” Coombe said, “ ‘allow ourselves to form a hard-and-fast theory to the prejudice of routine investigation.’ I know. But I wouldn’t mind taking a bet on it that Miss Cost’s got nothing to do with this case.”

  “Except in so far as she happens to be the body?”

  “You know what I mean. All right: she fixed the earlier jobs. All right: she may have got at that kid and set him on to Miss Pride. In a way, you might say she organized her own murder.”

  “Yes,” Alleyn said. “You might indeed. It may well be that she did.” He glanced at his colleague. “Look,” he said. “Pender will be coming back this way any time now, won’t he? I suggest you put him in the shop just to see Miss Cissy Thing doesn’t exceed her duty? He can keep observation in the background and leave you free to lend a hand in developments at Wally’s joint or whatever it’s called. I’ll be damned glad of your company.”

  “All right,” Coombe said. “If you say so.”

  “This,” Alleyn thought, “is going to be tricky.”

  “Come on,” he said and put his hand on Coombe’s shoulder. “It’s a hell of a bind, but, as the gallant Major would say, it is the drill.”

  “That’s right,” said Superintendent Coombe. “I know that. See you later, then.”

  Alleyn left him at the shop.

  Jenny was waiting down by the seafront. They turned left, walked around the arm of the bay, and arrived at the group of fishermen’s dwellings. Boats pulled up on the foreshore, a ramshackle jetty and the cottages themselves, tucked into the hillside, all fell, predictably, into a conventional arrangement.

  “In a moment,” said Jenny, “you will be confronted by Wally’s cottage, but not as I remember it. It used to be squalid and dirty and it stank to high heaven. Mrs. Trehern is far gone in gin and Trehern, as you know, is unspeakable. But somehow or another the exhibit has been evolved: very largely through the efforts of Miss Cost egged on — well—”

  “By whom? By Major Barrimore?”

  “Not entirely,” Jenny said quickly. “By the Mayor, who is called Mr. Nankivell, and by his Councillors and anybody in Portcarrow who is meant to be civic-minded. And principally, I’m afraid, by Mrs. Fanny Winterbottom and her financial advisors. Or so Patrick says. So, of course, does your Miss Emily. It’s all kept up by the estate. There’s a guild or something that looks after the garden and supervises the interior. Miss Emily calls the whole thing ‘complètement en toc.’ There you are,” said Jenny as they came face-to-face with their destination. “That’s Wally’s cottage, that is.”

  It was, indeed, dauntingly pretty. Hollyhocks, daisies, foxgloves and antirrhinums flanked a cobbled path. Honeysuckle framed the door. Fishing nets of astonishing cleanliness festooned the fence. Beside the gate, in gothic lettering, hung a legend: wally’s cottage. admission 1-. westcountry cream-teas. ices.

  “There’s an annex at the back,” explained Jenny. “The teas are run by a neighbour, Mrs. Trehern not being up to it. The Golden Record’s in the parlour with the other exhibits.”

  “The Golden Record?”

  “Of cures,” said Jenny shortly.

  “Will Wally be on tap?”

  “I should think so. And his papa, unless he’s ferrying. There are not nearly as many visitors as I’d expected. Oh!” exclaimed Jenny stopping short. “I suppose — will that be because of what’s happened? Yes, of course it will.”

  “We’ll go in,” Alleyn said, producing the entrance money.

  Trehern was at the receipt of custom.

  He leered ingratiatingly at Jenny and gave Alleyn a glance in which truculence, subservience and fear were unattractively mingled. Wally stood behind his father. When Alleyn looked at him he grinned and held out his hands.

  Jenny said: “Good morning, Mr. Trehern. I’ve brought Mr. Alleyn to have a look around. Hullo, Wally.”

  Wally moved towards her: “You come and see me,” he said. “You come to school. One day soon.” He took her hand and nodded at her.

  “Look at that, now!” Trehern ejaculated. “You was always the favourite, miss. Nobody to touch Miss Williams for our por little chap, is there, then, Wal?”

  There were three visitors in the parlour. They moved from one exhibit to another, listened, and looked furtively at Jenny.
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br />   Alleyn asked Wally if he ever went fishing. He shook his head contemptuously and, with that repetitive, so obviously conditioned gesture, again exhibited his hands. A trained animal, Alleyn thought with distaste. He moved away and opened the Golden Record which was everything that might be expected of it: like a visitors’ book at a restaurant in which satisfied clients are invited to record their approval. He noted the dates when cures were said to have been effected and moved on.

  The tourists left with an air of having had their money’s worth by a narrow margin.

  Alleyn said: “Mr. Trehern, I am a police officer and have been asked to take charge of investigations into the death of Miss Elspeth Cost. I’d like to have a few words with Wally, if I may. Nothing to upset him. We just wondered if he could help us.”

  Trehern opened and shut his hands as if he felt for some object to hold on by. “I don’t rightly know about that,” he said. “My little lad bean’t like other little lads, mister. He’m powerful easy put out. Lives in a world of his own, and not to be looked to if it’s straightout facts that’s required. No hand at facts, be you, Wal? Tell you the truth, I doubt he’s took in this terrible business of Miss Cost.”

  “She’m dead,” Wally shouted. “She’m stoned dead.” And he gave one of his odd cries. Trehern looked very put out.

  “Poor Miss Cost,” Jenny said gently.

  “Poor Miss Cost,” Wally repeatedly cheerfully. Struck by some association of ideas he suddenly recited: “Be not froightened sayed the loidy, Ended now is all your woe,” and stopped as incontinently as he had begun.

  Alleyn said, “Ah! That’s your piece you said yesterday, isn’t it?” He clapped Wally on the shoulder. “Hullo, young fellow, you’ve been out in the rain! You’re as wet as a shag. That’s the way to get rheumatism.”

  Trehern glowered upon his son. “Where you been?” he asked.

  “Nowheres.”

  “You been mucking round they boats. Can’t keep him away from they boats,” he said ingratiatingly. “Real fisherman’s lad, our Wal. Bean’t you, Wal?”

  “I dunno,” Wally said nervously.