Dead Water ra-23

by Ngaio Marsh

  “Trehern,” Alleyn said, “what are you going to make of this? Mrs. Tretheway’s baby was born at 7:30, and Dr. Mayne left in his launch about ten minutes later. You’re a full half-hour out in your times.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Well?” Alleyn said. “Any comment?”

  He broke into a stream of oaths and disjointed expostulations. Did they call him a liar? Nobody called Jim Trehern a liar and got away with it. If they weren’t going to believe him, why did they ask? There was talk against him in the bay. Jealousy seemed to be implied. His anger modulated through resentfulness and fear into his familiar occupational whine. Finally he said that a man could make mistakes, couldn’t he? When Alleyn asked if he meant that he’d mistaken the time, Trehern said he didn’t want his words taken out of his mouth and used against him.

  He could scarcely have made a more dubious showing. He was observed briefly by his spouse, who emerged from the house, stood blinking in the back doorway, and was peremptorily ordered back by her husband. Inside the cottage, actors could be heard, galloping about on horses and shouting “C’m on, let’s go!” to each other. Wally, Alleyn supposed, was enjoying television.

  Trehera suddenly bawled out: “You, boy! Wal! Come yurr! Come out of it when you’re bid!”

  Wally shambled onto the back porch, saw Alleyn and smiled widely.

  “Come on!” his father said. Wally began to whimper, but came on to the shed. His father took him by the arm.

  “Now, then. Tell the truth and shame the devil. You been chucking rocks?”

  “No. No, I bean’t.”

  “No, and better not. Speak up and tell these yurr gents. Swear if you hope you won’t get half-skinned for a liar as you never chucked no rocks at nobody.”

  “I never chucked no rocks, only stones,” Wally said, trembling. “Like you said to.”

  “That’ll do!” his father said ferociously. “Get in.” Wally bolted.

  Alleyn said: “You’d better watch your step with that boy. Do you thrash him?”

  “Never raise a hand to him, mister. Just a manner of speaking. He don’t understand nothing different. Never had no mother-love, poor kid. I have to pour out sufficient for both and a heavy job it is.”

  “You may find yourself describing it to the welfare officer, one of these days.”

  “Them bastards!”

  “Now, look here, Trehern, you heard what the boy said. ‘No rocks, only stones like you said to.’ Hadn’t you better make the best of that statement and admit he threw stones at Miss Pride and you knew it? Think it out.”

  Trehern made a half-turn, knocked his boot against an old tin and kicked it savagely to the far end of the yard. This, apparently, made up his mind for him.

  “If I say he done it in one of his foolish turns, meaning no harm and acting the goat — all right — I don’t deny it and I don’t excuse it. But I do deny, and will, and you won’t shift me an inch, he never heaved no rock at Elspeth Cost. I’ll take my Bible oath on it and may I be struck dead if I lie.”

  “How can you be so sure? Miss Pride saw the boy in the lane at about twenty to eight. So did Dr. Mayne. You weren’t there. Or were you?”

  “I was not. By God, I was not. And I’ll lay anyone cold that says different. And how can I be so sure?” He advanced upon Alleyn and thrust his face towards him. His unshaven jowls glittered with raindrops. “I’ll tell you flat how I can be so sure. That boy never told a lie in his life, mister. He’m too simple. Ax anybody. Ax his teacher. Ax Parson, Ax his mates. He’m a truth-speaking lad, por little sod, and for better or worse, the truth’s all you’ll ever get out of our Wal.”

  Alleyn heard Jenny Williams’s voice: He’s an extraordinarily truthful little boy. He never tells lies — never.

  He looked at Trehern and said: “All right. We’ll let it go at that, for the moment. Good evening to you.”

  As they walked round the side of the house Trehern shouted after them: “What about the female of the speeches? Pride? Pride has to take a fall, don’t she?”

  There was a wild scream of laughter from Mrs. Trehern and a door banged.

  “That will do to go on with,” Alleyn said to Fox and aped Wally’s serial: “C’m on. Let’s go!”

  VIII

  The Shop

  They found Bailey and Thompson outside, locked in their mackintoshes with an air of being used to it and with their gear stowed inside waterproof covers. Rain cascaded from their hat brims.

  “We’ll go back to the pub,” Alleyn said.

  The Tretheways’ cottage was across the lane from the Treherns’. Alleyn knocked at the back door and was invited in by the proud father: an enormous grinning fellow. The latest addition was screaming very lustily in the bedroom. The father apologized for this drawback to conversation.

  “ ’Er be a lil’ maid, ’er be,” he said, “and letting fly with ’er vocal power according.”

  They stood by the kitchen window, which looked across the lane toward the spring. Seeing this, Alleyn asked him if he’d happened to notice Wally in the lane at about the time the baby was born or soon after, and was given the reasonable answer that Mr. Tretheway’s attention was on other matters. The baby had indeed been born at 7:30, and Dr. Mayne had in fact left very soon afterwards.

  Alleyn congratulated Tretheway, shook his hand, rejoined his colleagues and told them what he’d gleaned.

  “So, why does Trehern say he saw the doctor leave about five past eight?” Fox asked. “There’s usually only one reason for that sort of lie, isn’t there? Trying to rig the time so that you look as if you couldn’t have been on the spot. That’s the normal caper.”

  “So it is, then,” Alleyn agreed with a reasonable imitation of the local voice. “But there are loose ends here. Or are there?”

  “Well, yes,” Fox said. “In a way.”

  “Bailey — what did you get? Any fisherman’s boots superimposed on the general mess? Or boy’s boots? I couldn’t find any.”

  “Nothing like that, Mr. Alleyn. But, as you said yourself, this flat slice of stone’s been used to cut out recent prints. We’ve picked up enough to settle that point,” Bailey said grudgingly. “Not much else. The only nice jobs are the ones left after this morning’s rain by a set of regulation tens, and another of brogues or gentleman’s country shoes, size nine and a half, ripple soles and in good repair.”

  “I know. The Super, and the Doctor.”

  “That’s right, sir, from what you’ve mentioned.”

  “What about the stuff near the outcrop and behind it?”

  “What you thought, Mr. Alleyn. They match. Handsewn, officer’s type. Ten and a half, but custom made. Worn but well kept.”

  “In a sense you might be describing the owner. Did you tell Carey he could go off duty?”

  “Yes sir. There seemed no call for him to stay. We’ve got all the casts and photographs we want. I used salt in the plaster, seeing how the weather was shaping. It was O.K. Nice results.”

  “Good. It’s getting rougher. Look at that sea.”

  In the channel between Island and village, the tide now rolled and broke in a confusion of foam and jetting spray. Out at sea there were whitecaps everywhere. The horizon was dark and broken. The causeway was lashed by breakers that struck, rose, fell across it and withdrew, leaving it momentarily exposed and blackly glinting in what remained of the daylight. The hotel launch bucketted and rolled at the jetty. A man in oilskins was mounting extra fenders. Above the general roar of sea and rain, the thud of the launch’s starboard side against the legs of the jetty could be clearly heard.

  Light shone dimly behind the windows of Miss Cost’s Gifte Shoppe.

  “P.C. Pender’s locked up in there with Miss Cissy Pollock on the switchboard,” Alleyn muttered. “I’ll just have a word with him.” He tapped on the door. After a moment, it was opened a crack and Pender said: “Bean’t no manner of use pesterin—” and then saw Alleyn. “Beg pardon, sir, I’m sure,” he said. “Thoug
ht you was one of they damned kids come back.” He flung open the door. Alleyn called to Fox and the others and they went in.

  The shop smelt fustily of cardboard, wool and gum. In the postal section, Miss Cissy Pollock bulged at a switchboard: all eyes and teeth when she saw the visitors.

  Pender said that a call had come through for Alleyn from Dunlowman. “Sir James Curtis, it were, sir,” he said with reverence. Curtis was the Home Office pathologist. “Wishful to speak with you. I intercepted the call, sir, and informed the station and the Boy-and-Lobster.”

  “Where was he?”

  “Dunlowman mortuary, sir, along with the body and the Doctor. I’ve got the number.”

  “Aw, dear!” Miss Pollock exclaimed. “Bean’t it shocking though!” She had removed her headphones.

  Alleyn asked if she could put him through. She engaged to do so and directed him to an instrument in a cubbyhole.

  The mortuary attendant answered and said Sir James was just leaving but he’d try to catch him. He could be heard pounding off down a concrete passage. In a minute or two the great man spoke.

  “Hullo, Rory, where the devil have you been? I’ve done this job for you. Want the report?”

  “Please.”

  It was straightforward enough. Death by drowning, following insensibility caused by a blow on the head. The piece of rock was undoubtedly the instrument. Contents of stomach, Sir James briskly continued, showed that she’d had a cup of tea and a biscuit about an hour and three quarters before she died. On Dr. Mayne’s evidence he would agree that she had probably been dead about an hour when Alleyn found her. Sir James had another case more or less on the way back to London and would like to get off before he himself was drowned. Would Alleyn let him know about the inquest? Dr. Mayne would tell him anything else he wanted to hear and was now on his way back to Portcarrow. “I’m told you’re on an island,” said Sir James, merrily. “You’ll be likely to stay there if the weather report’s to be trusted. What book will you choose if you can only have one?”

  “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies,” said Alleyn and hung up.

  He told Pender that he and Fox would return after dinner and asked him what he himself would do for a meal. Pender said that there was a cut loaf and some butter and ham in Miss Cost’s refrigerator, and would it be going too far if he and Cissy made sandwiches? There was also some cheese and pickle. They could, he said, be replaced.

  “You can’t beat a cheese and pickle sandwich,” Fox observed, “if the cheese is tasty.”

  Alleyn said that under the circumstances he felt Pender might proceed on the lines indicated, and left him looking relieved.

  They climbed the hotel steps, staggering against the gale, and entered the Boy-and-Lobster. It was now five minutes to eight.

  Alleyn asked the reception clerk if he could find rooms for his three colleagues and learned that the guests had dwindled to thirty. All incoming trains and buses had been met at Dunlowman and intending visitors told about the situation. Accommodation had been organized with various establishments over a distance of fifteen miles, and, in view of the weather forecast and the closing of the spring, most of the travellers had elected, as the clerk put it, to stay away. “We can be cut off,” he said, “if it’s really bad. It doesn’t often happen, but if this goes on it might.” The guests in residence had all come by car and were now at dinner.

  Alleyn left the others to collect their suitcases and arranged to meet them in the dining-room. He went to his own room, effected a quick change and called on Miss Emily, who was four doors away.

  She was finishing her dinner, sitting bolt upright peeling grapes. A flash of red wine was before her and a book was at her elbow with a knife laid across to keep it open. She was perfectly composed.

  “I’ve only looked in for a moment,” he said. “We’re running late. How are you, Miss Emily? Bored to sobs, I’m afraid.”

  “Good evening, Rodrigue. No, I am not unduly bored though I have missed taking my walk.”

  “It’s no weather for walking, I assure you. How are they treating you?”

  “This morning the chambermaid’s manner was equivocal and at luncheon I found the waiter impertinent. Tonight, however, there is a marked change. It appears that I am, or was, suspected of murder,” said Miss Emily.

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Before taking my siesta I ventured out on the balcony. There was a group of children on the steps leading to the hotel. When they saw me they began to chant. I will not trouble you with the words. The intention was inescapable.”

  “Little animals.”

  “Oh, perfectly. It was of no moment.”

  There was a tap on the door and a waiter came in.

  “Thank you,” said Miss Emily. “You may clear.”

  Alleyn watched the man for a moment and then said: “I’d like a word with you, if you please.”

  “With me, sir?”

  “Yes. I am a superintendent of Scotland Yard, in charge of investigations into the death of Miss Elspeth Cost. I think perhaps the staff of the hotel should be informed that this lady is associated with me in the case and may be regarded as an expert. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir. Certainly, sir. I’m sure I hope Madam has no complaints, sir.”

  “I hope so, too. She hasn’t made any, but I shall do so if any more idiotic nonsense is circulated. You may say so to anybody that is interested.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said the waiter and withdrew.

  “Chose remarquable!” said Miss Emily. “So now, it appears I am a detectrice.”

  “It’ll be all over the hotel in five minutes and Portcarrow will have it by morning…About your transport to Dunlowman—”

  “Do not trouble yourself. The young man — Patrick — has offered to drive us,” Miss Emily said with an air of amusement.

  “I see. It may be pretty rough going, across to the village, if this weather persists.”

  “No matter.”

  “Before I go, would you mind very much if we went over one incident? The few minutes, round about twenty to eight, when you hung your notice by the spring?”

  “Certainly,” Miss Emily said. She repeated her story, she had seen Wally down on the road. He had whooped, chanted, waved his arms and afterwards disappeared. She had seen nobody else, and had returned to the hotel with her umbrella between herself and the prospect.

  “Yes,” he said. “I know. I just wanted to hear it again. Thank you, Miss Emily. You don’t ask me how the case progresses, I notice.”

  “You would tell me, no doubt, if you wished to do so.”

  “Well,” he said. “’I always think it’s unlucky to talk at this stage. But it does progress.”

  “Good. Go and have your dinner. If you are not too fatigued I should be glad if you would call upon me later in the evening.”

  “When do you retire?”

  “Not early. I find I am restless,” said Miss Emily. They fell silent. The wind made a sudden onslaught on her windows. “Perhaps it is the storm,” she said.

  “I’ll see if there’s a light under your door. Au revoir, then, Miss Emily.”

  “Au revoir, my dear Rodrigue. Enjoy, if that is not too extravagant a word, your dinner. The dressed crab is not bad. The filet mignon, on the other hand, is contemptible.”

  She waved her hand and he left her.

  Fox, Bailey and Thompson were already in the dining-room, Alleyn had been given a table to himself. As there was not room at theirs, he took it, but joined them for a minute or two before he did so.

  Everyone else had gone except Jenny and Patrick, who sat at the family table, nursing balloon glasses. They had an air of subdued celebration and as often as they looked at each other, broke into smiles. When Jenny saw Alleyn, she waggled her fingers at him.

  Alleyn said: “Afraid it’s a case of pressing on, chaps. We’ll meet in the hall, afterwards, and go down to the shop. Have you ordered drinks?”

  “Not so far, Mr. Alley
n.”

  “Well, have them with me. What shall it be? Waiter!”

  They settled for beer, Alleyn went to his own table and was fawned upon by Miss Emily’s waiter. Jenny and Patrick passed by, and Jenny paused to say: “We’re going to try and whip up a bit of joie de vivre in the lounge — as they do in ships. Patrick’s thought up a guessing game. Come and help.”

  “I’d love to,” Alleyn said, “but I’m on a guessing game of my own, bad luck to it.” He looked at Patrick. “I hear you’ve offered to do the driving tomorrow. Very civil of you. Miss Emily’s looking forward to it.”

  “It’s going to be a rough crossing if this keeps up.”

  “I know.”

  “Will she mind?”

  “Not she. At the age of sixty, she was a queen pin in the Résistance and hasn’t noticed the passage of time. Get her to tell you how she dressed up a couple of kiwis as nuns.”

  “Honestly!” Jenny exclaimed.

  “It’s quite a story.”

  The waiter came up to say that Dr. Mayne had arrived and was asking for Alleyn.

  “Right,” Alleyn said. “I’ll come.”

  “In the writing-room, sir.”

  It was a small deserted place off the entrance hall. Dr. Mayne had removed his mackintosh and hung it over the back of a chair. He was shaking the rain off his hat when Alleyn came in. “What a night!” he said. “I thought I wouldn’t make it.”

  “How did you cross?”

  “In my launch. Damned if I know how she’ll take it going back. The causeway’s impossible. Sir James thought you’d like to see me, and I had to come over, anyway, to a patient.”

  Alleyn said: “I’m glad to see you. Not so much about the p.m.: Curtis made that clear enough. I wanted to check up one or two points. Have a drink, won’t you?”

  “I certainly will. Thank you.”

  Alleyn found a bell-push. “I hope you won’t mind if I don’t join you,” he said. “I’ve had my allowance and I’ve got a night’s work ahead of me.”