Died in the Wool

by Ngaio Marsh

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It was Flossie’s.’

  ‘So the quarrel went deep?’

  ‘Yes. It’s lucky for young Cliff that he spent the crucial time screwing Bach out of that haggard old mass of wreckage in the outhouse. Everybody knew about the row and his bolt down-country afterwards. Your boyfriend, the Sub-Inspector, fastened on it like a limpet, but fortunately we could all swear to the continuous piano playing. Cliff’s all right.’

  ‘What’s the explanation of the whisky incident?’

  ‘I’ve not the slightest idea, but I’m perfectly certain he wasn’t pinching it. I’ve tried to get the story out of him, but he won’t come clean, blast him.’

  ‘Does he get on well with the other men?’

  ‘Not too badly. They were inclined at one time to look upon him as a freak. His schooling and tastes aroused their deepest suspicions, of course. In this country, young men are judged almost entirely on their ability to play games and do manual labour. However, Cliff set about his holiday jobs on the station with such energy that they overlooked his other unfortunate interests and even grew to encourage him in playing the piano in the evening. When he came home a good whole-hog Leftist, they were delighted, of course. They’re a good lot—most of them.’

  ‘Not all?’

  ‘The shearers’ cook is not much use. He only comes at shearing time. Mrs Johns looks after the regular hands at other times. Lots of the shearers wait until they’ve knocked up a good fat cheque and then go down-country and blue it all at the pub. That’s the usual routine and you won’t change it until you change the social condition of the shearer. But this expert keeps the stuff in his cookhouse and if we get through the shearing season without a bout of DTs we’re lucky. He’s a nasty affair is Cookie but he’s unavoidable. They don’t dislike him, oddly enough. The rouseabout, Albie Black, is rather thick with him. He used to be quite matey with young Cliff, too, but they had a break of some sort. Fortunately, I consider. Albie’s a hopeless sort of specimen. Now, if it’d been Albie who pinched the whisky, I shouldn’t have been the least surprised. Or Perce. The cook’s name is Percy Gould, commonly called Perce. All Christian names are abbreviated in this country.’

  ‘How did Mrs Rubrick get on with the men?’

  ‘She thought she was a riotous success with them. She adopted a pose of easy jocularity that set my teeth on edge. They took it, with a private grin, I fancy. She imagined she had converted them to a sort of antipodean feudal system. She couldn’t have been more mistaken, of course. I heard the wool-sorter, a perfectly splendid old boy he is, giving a very spirited imitation of her one evening. I’m glad the men were fifteen miles away from the wool-shed that night. The Sub-Inspector is a very class-conscious man. His suspicions would have gravitated naturally to the lower orders.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Alleyn cheerfully.

  ‘It’s not. He brightened up no end when Douglas started off on his Markins legend. Markins, being a servant, might so much more easily be a murderer than any of us gentry. God, it makes you sick!’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Alleyn, ‘have you any suspicions?’

  ‘None! I think it’s odds on a swagger had strayed up to the wool-shed and decided to doss down for the night. Flossie may have surprised him and had a row with him. In the heat of the argument, he may have lost his temper and gone for her. Then when he found what he’d done, he put on Tommy Johns’ overalls, disposed of his mistake in the first place that suggested itself to him, and made off down-country. She hated swaggers. Most stations give them their tucker and a doss-down for the night in exchange for a job of work, but not Flossie. That’s my idea. It’s the only explanation that seems reasonable. The only type that fits.’

  ‘One of the lower orders, in fact?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fabian, after a pause. ‘You got me there, didn’t you?’

  ‘It was a cheap score, I’m afraid. Your theory is reasonable enough, but no wandering tramp was seen about the district that day. I understand they stick to the road, and usually make themselves known at the homesteads.’

  ‘Not at Mount Moon with Flossie at home.’

  ‘Perhaps not. Still your swagger remains a figure that as far as the police investigations go, and they seem to have been painstaking and thorough, was seen by nobody, either before or after the night of the disappearance.’

  ‘I’ve no other contribution to offer, I’m afraid, and I’m keeping you up. Goodnight, sir. I’m still glad you came.’

  ‘I hope you’ll continue of that mind,’ said Alleyn. ‘Before you go, would you tell me how many of you played tennis on the night Mrs Rubrick disappeared?’

  ‘Now, this,’ said Fabian, with an air of gratification, ‘is the real stuff. Why should you want to know that, I wonder? Only Douglas and I played tennis.’

  ‘You wore rubber-soled shoes during the search, then?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘And the others? Can you remember?’

  ‘Pin heels. They always did in the evenings.’

  ‘When, actually, did Mrs Rubrick first say she was going to the wool-shed?’

  ‘Soon after we sat down. Might have been before. She was all arch about it. “What do you suppose your funny old Floosie’s going to do presently?” That kind of thing. Then she developed her theme: the party and whatnot.’

  ‘I see. Thank you very much. Goodnight.’

  Fabian had gone and Alleyn was alone in the silent room. He stood motionless, a tall thin shape, dark in the candlelight. Presently he moved to the desk and opened one of the locked cases. From this he took a small tuft of cotton-wool and dropped it on the carpet. Even by candlelight it was conspicuous, unavoidable, a white accent on a dark green ground. So must the tuft of wool have looked when Ursula, on the morning after Florence disappeared, caught it up in the carpet sweeper. Yet she hadn’t noticed it. Or had she merely forgotten it? They were all agreed that Flossie would never have suffered it to lie there. She had been up to her room after dinner and before the walk through the garden. Presumably, there had been no wool on her carpet then. Alleyn heard again Ursula Harme’s voice: ‘I don’t care what anybody says. Somebody was about on the landing at five minutes to three that morning.’

  Alleyn pulled out his pipe, sat down at the desk, and unlocked his dispatch case. Here were the police files. With a sigh he opened them out on the desk. The room grew hazy with tobacco smoke, the pages turned at intervals and the grandfather clock on the landing tolled twelve, half-past twelve and one o’clock.

  ‘…on February 19th 1942 at 2.45 p.m. I received instructions to proceed to the wool store of Riven Brothers at 68 Jernighan Avenue. I arrived there in company with PC Wetherbridge at 2.50 p.m. and was met by the storeman, Alfred Clark, and by Mr Samuel Joseph, buyer for Riven Brothers. I was shown a certain wool-pack and noted a strong odour resembling decomposition. I was shown a bale hook which was stained brownish-red. I noted that twisted about the hook there was a hank of hair, reddish-gold in colour. I noted that the pack in question had been partly slit. I instructed PC Wetherbridge to extend the slit and open up the pack. This was done in my presence and that of Alfred Clark. Samuel Joseph was not present, having taken sick for the time being, and retired to the outer premises. In the pack we located a body in an advanced state of decomposition. It was secured, in a sitting position, with the legs doubled up and fastened to the trunk with nineteen turns of cord subsequently identified as twine used for wool bales. The arms were doubled up and secured to the body by twenty-five turns of binder-twine passing round the arms and legs. The chin rested on the knees. The body rested upon a layer of fleece, hard packed and six inches in depth. The body was packed round with wool. Above the body the bale was packed hard with fleece up to the top. The bale measured 28 inches in width both ways, and four feet in height. The body was that of a woman of very slight build. I judged it to be about five feet and three inches in height. I left it as it was and proceeded to…’

  The pages turned slowly.<
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  ‘…the injury to the back of the head. According to medical evidence it might have been caused by a downward blow from the rear made by a blunt instrument. Three medical men agreed that the injury was consistent with such a blow from the branding iron found in the shearing-shed. A microscopic examination of this iron revealed stains subsequently proved by analysis to be human bloodstains. Post-mortem examination revealed that death had been caused by suffocation. The mouth and nostrils contained quantities of sheep’s wool. The injury to the skull would almost certainly have brought about unconsciousness. It is possible that the assailant, after striking the blow, suffocated the deceased while she was unconscious. The medical experts are agreed that death cannot be attributed to accidental causes or to self-inflicted injuries.’

  Here followed a detailed report from the police surgeon. Alleyn read on steadily. ‘…a triangular tear near the hem of the dress, corresponding in position to the outside left ankle bone, the apex of the tear being uppermost…subsequent investigation…nail in wall of wool-shed beside press…thread of material attached…lack of evidence after so long an interval.’

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ Alleyn sighed and turned a page.

  ‘…John Merrywether, wool-presser, deposed that on the evening of January 29th at knocking-off time, the press was full in both halves. It had been tramped but not pressed. He left it in this condition. The following morning it appeared to be in the same state. The two halves were ready for pressing as he had left them, the top in position on the bottom half. He pressed the wool, using the ratchet mechanism in the ordinary way. He noticed nothing that was unusual. The wool in the top half was compressed until it was packed down level with the top of the bottom half. The bale was then sewn up and branded. It was stacked alongside the other bales, and the same afternoon was removed with them and trucked down-country…

  ‘Sydney Barnes, lorry driver, deposed that on January 29th 1942 he collected the Mount Moon clip and trucked it downcountry…Alfred Clark, storeman…received the Mount Moon clip on February 3rd and stacked it to await assessment…James MacBride, government wool-assessor…February 9th…noticed smell but attributed it to dead rat…Slit all packs and pulled out tuft of wool near top…noticed nothing unusual…assessed with rest of clip…Samuel Joseph, buyer…’

  ‘And back we come, full circle,’ Alleyn sighed and refilled his pipe.

  ‘Subsequent investigations,’ said the files ominously. In their own language they boiled down, de-humanized and tidied up the long accounts he had listened to that evening. ‘It seems certain,’ said the files, twenty minutes later, ‘that the disposal of the body could not have been effected in under forty-five minutes. Tests have been made. The wool must have been removed from the press; the body bound up in the smallest possible compass, placed in the bottom half of the press, and packed round with wool. The fleeces must then have been replaced and tramped down both in the bottom and the top, and the top half replaced on the bottom half …Thomas Johns, working manager, deposed that on the next morning he found that his overalls had been split and were stained. He accused the “fleecies” of having interfered with his overalls. They denied having done so.’

  It was getting very cold. Alleyn hunted out a sweater and pulled it on. The house was utterly silent now. So must it have been when Ursula Harme awoke to find her dream continued in the sound of a footfall on the landing, and when Douglas Grace heard retreating steps in the passage outside his room. It would be nice, Alleyn thought wearily, to know if the nocturnal prowler was the same in each instance.

  He rose stiffly and moved to the large wardrobe whose doors were flush with the end wall of the room. He opened them and was confronted with his own clothes neatly arranged on hangers. The invaluable Markins again. It was here, at the back of the wardrobe, hidden under three folded rugs, that Flossie Rubrick’s suitcase had been found, ready packed for the journey north that she never took. Terence Lynne had discovered it, three days after the night in the garden. The purse with her travelling money and official passes had been in the drawer of the dressing-table. Had this been the errand of Ursula’s nocturnal prowler? To conceal the suitcase and the purse? And had the fragment of wool been dropped then? From a shoe that had tramped down the wool over Flossie Rubrick’s head?

  This, thought Alleyn, had been a neat and expeditious job. Not too fancy. A blow on the head, solid enough to stun, not savage enough to make a great mess. Suffocation, and then the answer to the one great problem, the disposal of the body. Very cool and bold. Risky, but well-conceived and justified by results. The most difficult part had been done by other people.

  And the inevitable speculation arose in his mind. What had been the thoughts of this murderer when the shearers went to work the next morning, when the moment came for the wool-presser to throw his weight on the ratchet-arm and force down the trampled wool from the top half of the press into the pack in the lower half? Could the murderer have been sure that, when the pack was sewn up and the press opened, there would be no bulges, no stains? And when the time came for a bale hook to be jabbed into the top corner of the pack and for it to be hauled and heaved into the waiting lorry? Its weight? She had been a tiny woman and very thin, but how much more did she weigh than her bulk in pressed wool?

  He turned back to the files.

  ‘The medical experts are of the opinion that the binding of the body was probably effected within six hours of death, as the onset of rigor mortis after that period would probably have rendered such a process impossible. They add, however, that in the circumstances, i.e., warm temperature, lack of violent exercise before death, the onset would be unlikely to be early.’

  ‘Cautious, as always,’ Alleyn thought. ‘Now then. Supposing he was a man. Did the murderer of Florence Rubrick, believing that he would be undisturbed, finish his appalling job while the members of the household were still up? The men were away, certainly, but what about the Johns family, and Markins and Albert Black? Might their curiosity not have been aroused by a light in the wool-shed windows? Or were they blacked out in 1942? Probably they were not, as Ursula Harme remarked that the shed was in darkness at five to nine, when she went in search of her guardian. This suggests that she expected to see lights.’ The files, he reflected, made no mention of this point. If the step that Ursula had heard was the murderer’s, had he returned, having finished his work, to hide away the suitcase and purse and thus preserve the illusion that Florence had gone north? Were the killing and the trussing up and the hiding away of the body done as a continuous operation, or was there an interval? She was killed some time after eight o’clock—nobody can give the exact time when she walked down the lavender path and turned left. It had been her intention to try her voice in the shearing-shed and return. She would have been anxious, surely, to know if the brooch were found. Would she have stayed longer than ten minutes or a quarter of an hour giving an imitation of an MP talking to herself in a deserted shed? Surely not. Surely, then, she was killed before, or quite soon after, the search party went indoors. It was five to nine when the brooch was found, and five to nine when, on his mother’s entrance in the outhouse, Cliff Johns stopped playing and went home with her. During the period after the people in the house went to bed and before the party returned from the dance at a quarter to two, the wool-shed would be completely deserted. The lorry itself had broken down at the gate, but the revellers would be heard long before they reached the shed. He would still have time to put out the lights, and, if necessary, hide. By that time, almost certainly, the body would have been in the bottom half of the press and probably the top half would be partially packed.

  ‘It boils down to this then,’ Alleyn thought. ‘If any of the five members of the search party committed this crime, he or she probably did so during the actual hunt for the brooch, since, if she’d been alive after then, Mrs Rubrick would almost certainly have returned to the house.’ But as, in the case of the searchers, this allowed only a margin of four minutes or so, the murderer, if one o
f that party, must have returned later to complete the arduous task of encasing the body with firmly packed wool and re-filling the press exactly as it was before the job was begun. The business of packing round the body would be particularly exacting. The wool must have been forced down into a layer solid enough, for all its thinness, to form a kind of wall and prevent the development of bulges on the surface of the pack.

  But suppose it was the murderer whom Ursula heard on the landing at five minutes to three. If his errand was to hide the suitcase and purse, whether he was an inmate of the house or not, he would almost certainly wait until he could be reasonably certain that the household was asleep.

  Alleyn himself was sleepy now, and tired. The stale chilliness of extreme exhaustion was creeping about his limbs. ‘It’s been a long day,’ he thought, ‘and I’m out of practice.’ He changed into pyjamas and washed vigorously in cold water. Then, for warmth’s sake, he got into bed, wearing his dressing-gown. His, candle, now a stump, guttered, spattered in its own wax, and went out. There was another on the desk, but Alleyn had a torch at his bedside and he did not stir. It was half-past two on a cold morning.

  ‘Can I allow myself a cat-nap’?’ he muttered, ‘or shall I write to Troy?’ Troy was his wife, thirteen thousand miles away, doing camouflage and pictorial surveys instead of portraits, at Bossicote in England. He said wistfully: ‘She’s very easy to think about.’ He considered the chilly journey from his bed to the writing-desk and had flung back the bed-clothes when, in a moment, he was completely still.

  No night wind sighed about the windows of Mount Moon, no mouse scuttled in the wainscotting. From somewhere far outside the house, by the men’s quarters, he supposed, a dog barked, once, very desolately. But the sound that had arrested Alleyn came from within the house. It was the measured creak made by the weight of someone moving up the old stairs. Then, very slow but vivid because of their slowness, sensed rather than heard, footfalls sounded on the landing. Alleyn counted eight of them, reached for his torch and waited for the brush of fingertips against his own door, and the decisive unmuffled click of the latch. His eyes had grown accustomed to the dark and he could make out a faint greyness which was the surface of his white-painted door. It shifted towards him, slowly at first, and remained ajar for some seconds. Then, incisively, candidly as it seemed, the door was pushed wide, and against the swimming blue of the landing he saw the shape of a man. His back was towards Alleyn. He shut the door delicately and turned. Alleyn switched on his torch. As if by trickery, a face appeared, its eyes screwed up in the unexpected light.