Clutch of Constables

Chapter 9 – The Creeper

“I pause here,” Alleyn said, “to draw your attention to a matter of technique.

“You’ll have noticed that at this point I questioned the passengers in a group instead of following the more orthodox line of seeing them separately, taking notes and getting a signed statement. This was admittedly a risky thing to do and I didn’t take that risk without hesitation. You see, by now we were sure we had a case of conspiracy on our hands and I felt that, interviewed separately, they would have time to concoct some kind of consistent tarradiddle whereas, if we caught them all together and on the hop, they would have to improvise and in doing so might give themselves away. We felt certain they were under orders from Foljambe and that Foljambe was one of them, and Fox and I had a pretty good notion which. You will, I dare say, have a pretty good notion yourselves.”

Carmichael, in the second row, showed signs of becoming active.

“I won’t, however,” Alleyn said, “ask what they are. We’re not playing a guessing game, or are we? Well—never mind. I’ll press on.

“In due course, we came, as you will hear, to a point in the investigation where we could draw only one conclusion. The ‘alibis’, to call them so, for the earlier case would be established in that suspects of given names would be proved to be in given places at given times. The only conclusion, as I hope you will see as the case develops, could be that one of these suspects was operating under what might be called the double identity lay. This is, in fact, what Foljambe was doing. He had adopted, for purposes of the cruise, the identity of another and a living person whom he knew to be out of England. This meant that in the event of an inquiry the police would check this person’s background, see that it was impeccable, look up his address, find that he was away, make further inquiries and discover he could not possibly be fitted into the Foljambe file. And so turn elsewhere for a culprit. It is an extremely risky but not unusual gimmick and is only effective for a short time but the Jampot is a tip-and-run expert and had decided to give it a go. Bear this in mind as we go on.

“We come now to the point when the investigation went grievously, indeed tragically, wrong and it went wrong because a police officer neglected a fundamental rule. Police officers, like the rest of mankind, are vulnerable creatures and like the rest of mankind they sometimes slip up. In this case a simple, basic rule of procedure was ignored. The chap who ignored it was a middle-aged provincial P.C., not all that familiar with the type of job in hand and not as alert as he needed to be. He had his dim moment and the result was a death that could have been avoided. I don’t mind telling you it still, as people say, haunts me. There’s one such case at least in the lives of most investigating officers and sooner or later every man jack of you is liable to encounter it. Ours is a job, let’s face it, for which one has to grow an extra skin. In some of us, under constant irritation this becomes a rhinoceros hide. We are not a starry-eyed lot. But at the risk of getting right off the track — a most undesirable proceeding — I would like to say this. You won’t be any the worse at your job if you can keep your humanity. If you lose it altogether you’ll be, in my opinion, better out of the Force because with it you’ll have lost your sense of values and that’s a dire thing to befall any policeman.

“Sorry. I’ll push on. Following the signal about the motor-bike pair, Mr Fox and I returned in the Yard car to Tollardwark. But first of all I talked to the Skipper—”

-1-

“Now get this straight,” Alleyn said. “I’m not suggesting the boy’s implicated in any way whatever. I am suggesting that they’ve appealed to his imagination and to the instinct for rebellion that rumbles in any normal chap of Tom’s age. Now, after what’s happened, he’s scared. He knows something but he won’t talk. I’m not going to sit him down and grill him. I don’t want to and I haven’t time. If you can get him to tell you whether he saw or spoke to or knows anything about, this precious pair after he saw them on the bridge here at Ramsdyke on Monday afternoon: well, it may help us and it may not. We’ve caught them in possession of a valuable jewel which when last seen was slung round Miss Rickerby-Carrick’s neck. That’s the picture, Skipper, and as far as Tom’s concerned it’s over to you.”

“I told him. I told him to keep clear of that lot. If I thought it’d do any good I’d belt him.”

“Would you? He’s left school, hasn’t he? What does he do week in week out? Norminster to Longminster and back with a trick at the wheel if he’s in luck on the straight reaches? What did you do at his age, Skipper?”

“Me?” The Skipper shot a look at Alleyn. “I shipped cabin boy aboard a Singapore tramp. All right, I get the point. I’ll talk to him.”

Alleyn walked to the starboard side and looked at The River.

It almost seemed as if the field of detergent foam that had closed over Hazel Rickerby-Carrick had supernaturally climbed the weir, invested the upper reaches and closed in upon the Zodiac. “Is this what you call the Creeper?” Alleyn said.

“That’s right. You get her at this time of year. Very low-lying country from Norminster to Crossdyke.”

“Thick,” Fox said. “Fog, more like.”

“And will be more so before dawn. She’s making.”

“We’ll push on,” Alleyn said. “You know the drill, don’t you, Skipper? As soon as they’re all in bed put your craft in the lock and empty the lock. Give them a bit of time to settle. Watch for their lights to go out. It’s twenty to eleven. You won’t have long to wait.”

“It is O.K. with the Authority, isn’t it? I wouldn’t want—”

“Perfectly. It’s all fixed.”

“A man could scramble out of it, you know.”

“Yes, but only with a certain amount of trouble. It wouldn’t be so simple in this fog, whereas at her moorings it would be extremely easy to jump or, if necessary, swim. It’ll confine the escape area, in effect. You’ll be relieved as soon as possible after first light. We’re very much in your debt over this, Skipper. Thank you for helping. Good night.”

With Fox and the constable he went ashore. The Skipper removed the gangplank.

“Good night, then,” said the Skipper softly.

The Creeper had already begun to move about the tow-path and condense on a green hedge near the lockhouse. It was threading gently into the trees and making wraiths of those that could be seen. The night smelt dank. Small sounds were exaggerated and everything was damp to the touch.

“Damn,” Alleyn whispered. “We don’t want this. Where’s that chap—oh, there you are.”

The considerable bulk of Tillottson’s P.C. on duty, loomed out of a drift of mist.

“Sir,” said the shape.

“You know what you’ve got to do, don’t you? Nobody to leave the Zodiac.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where’s your nearest support?”

“T’other bank, sir.”

“And then?”

This side, up beyond Wapentake Pot at th’ crossroads. T’other side, sir, above pub at main road crossing.”

“Yes. Well, you’d better keep well down by the craft, with this mist rising. The Skipper’s putting her in the lock before long. If there’s an attempt you should be able to spot it. If anyone tries to come ashore, order them back and if they try to bolt, get them.”

“Sir.”

“Watch it, now.”

“Sir.”

“A dull-sounding chap,” Alleyn muttered.

They climbed up to the road and crossed the main bridge below the lock to the left bank. The formless voice of the weir obliterated other sounds. Blown flecks of detergent mingled with the rising mist.

“We’ll have a bloody tiresome drive back to Toll’ark, if this is the form. Where’s that car? And where—oh—here you are.”

Thompson and Bailey loomed up. They’d completed their job along the riverside and were told to come back to Tollardwark. The London police car gave a discreet hoot and turned on its fog lamps. They piled into it. Alleyn called up Tollardwark on the sound system and spoke to Tillottson. ”

“They won’t talk,” Tillottson said. “Not a peep out of them.”

“We’re on our way. I hope. Over and out.”

The local man gave them a lead on his motor-bike. When they reached the crest of the hill they found the mist had not risen to that level. The man at the crossroads flashed his torch, they turned into the main road and in eight minutes arrived once again at Tollardwark.

In the office where Troy had first encountered Mr Tillottson, he sat behind his desk with a telephone receiver at his ear and a note pad under his hand. He repeated everything that was said to him, partly, it seemed for accuracy’s sake and partly for Alleyn’s information.

“Ta,” he said and signalled to Alleyn, “Yes, ta. Mind repeating that? Description tallies with that of ‘Dinky Dickson’, con man 1964. Sus. drug contact Kings Cross, Sydney. Place of origin unknown but claims to be Australian. Believed to be—Here! What’s that? Oh! Oh, I get you! Unfrocked clergyman. Australian police got nothing on him since May ’67 when heavy sus. drug racket but no hard proof. Very plausible type. Ta. And the US lot? Two hundred and seven left-ear-deficients on FBI records. No Hewsons. Might be Deafy Ed Moran, big-time fix, heroin, Chicago, undercover picture-dealing. Expatriated Briton but speaks with strong US accent. Sister works with him; homely, middle-aged, usually known as Sis. No convictions since 1960 but heavy sus., Foljambe—here, wait a sec. This is important — heavy sus., Foljambe-accomplice. Message ends. Ta. What about Pollock, then? Anything come through? Pardon?”

Mr Tillottson’s pen hovered anxiously. “Pardon?” he repeated. “Oh. Wait a wee, till I get it down. One time commercial artist. No present known occupation but owns property, is in the money and living well. Nothing in Records? O.K? And the other two? Natouche and Bard? Nothing. What’s that? Yes, we’ve got that stuff about his practice in Liverpool. What? Laurenson and Busby, London? Tutorial Service? Spends his vacations chasing butterflies. Known to who? British Lepi — Oh. Given his name to what? Spell it out. L.A.P.A.Z.B.A.R.D.I.I. What’s that when it’s at home? A butterfly? Ta. Yes. Yes. Mr Alleyn’s come in. I’ll tell him, then. Thanks.”

Alleyn said: “Don’t hang up. Let me have a word.” He took the receiver. “Alleyn here,” he said. “Look, I heard all that but I’d like men to call immediately at all the addresses. Yes. Liverpool, too. Yes, I know. Yes, but nevertheless—right. And ring us back, will you? Yes.”

He hung up. “Well, Bert,” he said, “what have you got in your back parlour? Let’s take a look, shall we?”

“Better see this first, hadn’t you?”

Tillottson unlocked a wall safe and from it took an object like a miniature pudding tied up in chamois leather and attached to a cord. “I haven’t opened it, ” he said.

Alleyn opened it, cautiously. “Good God!” he said.

There it lay, on a police officer’s desk in an English market town: an exotic if ever there was one: a turquoise enamel ovoid, starred with diamonds and girt with twelve minuscule figures decked out in emeralds and rubies and pearls, all dancing in order round their jewelled firmament. Aries, Taurus, Gemini—. “The old gang,” Alleyn said. “It’s an Easter egg by Fabergé, Fox, and the gift of an Emperor. And now—what a descent!—we’ve got to try it for dabs.” He looked at Thompson and Bailey. “Job for you,” he said.

“Do you mean to say she charged about the place with this thing hung round her neck!” Fox exclaimed. “It must be worth a fortune. And it’s uncommonly pretty,” he added. “Uncommonly so.”

“That, unless we’re on the wrong track altogether, is what the Jampot thought. Go ahead, you two. Dabs and pictures.”

They were about to leave the room when the telephone rang. Tillottson answered it. “You’d better report to Mr Alleyn,” he said. “Hold on.” He held out the receiver. “p.m. result,” he said.

Alleyn listened. “Thank you,” he said. “What we expected.” He hung up. “She didn’t drown, Fox. Pressure on the carotids and vagus nerve. The mixture as before and straight from the Jampot. All right, Bert. Show us your captives.”

They were in the little charge-room, lounging back on a couple of office chairs and chewing gum. They were as Natouche had described them and their behaviour was completely predictable: the quarter sneer, the drooped eyelid, the hunched shoulder and the perpetual complacent chew. The girl, Alleyn thought, looking at her hands, was frightened: the man hid his hands in his pockets and betrayed nothing but his own insolence.

“They’ve been charged,” Tillottson said, “with theft. They won’t make a statement.”

Alleyn said to the young man: “I’m going to put questions to you. You’ve been taken into custody and found to be in possession of a jewel belonging to a lady into whose death we are inquiring. Driving licence?” He looked at Tillottson who slightly nodded. The young man, sketching boredom and impertinence in equal parts, raised his eyebrows, dipped his fingers into a pocket and threw a licence on the table. He opened his mouth, accelerated his chewing and resumed his former pose.

The licence was made out in the name of Albert Bernard Smith and seemed to be in order. It gave an address in Soho. “This will be checked. The night before last,” Alleyn said, “you were on the tow-path at Crossdyke alongside the Zodiac wearing those boots. You had parked your bicycle under a hedge on the left-hand side of the road above the lock. Later that night you were here at Ramsdyke. You arrived here, with a passenger. Not:” he looked at the girl, “this lady. You carried your passenger—a dead weight—” For two seconds the slightly prognathic jaw noticed by Dr Natouche, stopped champing. The girl suddenly re-crossed her legs.

“—a dead weight,” Alleyn repeated, “down to the weir. Her pyjamas caught on a briar. You did what you’d been instructed to do and then picked up your present companion and made off for Carlisle where you arrived yesterday in time to send a telegram to the Skipper of the Zodiac. It was signed Hay Rickerby-Carrick which is not much like Albert Bernard Smith. Having executed this commission you turned south and were picked up by the police at Pontefract.”

The young man yawned widely, displaying the wad of gum on his tongue. He stretched his arms. The girl gave a scarey giggle and clapped her hand over her mouth.

“You’ve been so busy,” Alleyn said, “on your northern jaunt that you can’t have heard the news. The body has been found and the woman was murdered. I shall now repeat the usual warning which you’ve already had from Superintendent Tillottson. At the moment you are being held for theft.”

The young man, now very white about the side whiskers, heard the usual warning with a sneer that seemed to have come unstuck. The girl watched him.

“Any statement?”

For the first time the young man spoke. His voice was strongly Cockney. “You can contact Mr C. D. E. Struthers,” he said. “I’m not talking.”

Mr C. D. E. Struthers was an extremely adroit London solicitor whose practice was confined, profitably, to top-level experts in mayhem.

“Really?” Alleyn said. “And who’s going to pay for that?”

“Mention my name.”

“If I knew it, I would be delighted to do so. Good evening to you.”

When the couple had swaggered unconvincingly to the cells Tillottson said: “ ‘Smith’ they may be, but not for my money.”

“Ah,” Fox agreed. “They’d have done the virtuous indignation stuff if they were.”

“Well, Smith or Montmorency,” Alleyn said, “we’d better let them talk to Mr C. D. E. Struthers. He may wish them on to one of his legal brethren in the North or he may come up here himself. It’s a matter of prestige.”

“How d’you mean? Prestige?” asked Tillottson.

“The other name for it is Foljambe. Get your Sergeant here to trace the licence will you, Bert? And a description to Records. And Dabs.”

“Yes, O.K. I’ll see to it.”

But before he could do so the Sergeant himself appeared looking perturbed.

“Call for you, sir,” he said to Alleyn. “PC Cape on duty at Ramsdyke Lock. Very urgent.”

“What the hell’s this,” Alleyn said. But when he heard the voice, he guessed.

“I’m reporting at once, sir,” gabbled PC Cape. “I’m very sorry, sir, but there’s been a slip-up, sir. In the fog, sir.”

“Who?”

“The lady, sir. The American lady.”

“What do you mean — slip-up?”

“She’s gone, sir.”

-2-

Six minutes with their siren wailing brought them back to Ramsdyke. Tillottson kept up an uninterrupted flow of anathemas against his PC Cape. Alleyn and Fox said little, knowing that nothing they could offer would solace him. There was still no fog to speak of on the main road but when they turned off into the lane above Ramsdyke Lock they looked down on a vague uniform pallor of the sort that fills the valleys in a Japanese landscape. Their fog-lamps isolated them in a moving confinement that closed as they descended.

“A likely night for it,” Tillottson kept repeating. “My Gawd, a likely night.”

He was driving his own car with Alleyn and Fox as passengers. The London CID car followed with a driver, a local constable and Sergeants Thompson and Bailey who had been pressed in as an emergency measure.

Sirens could be heard without definition as to place or distance. Road blocks and search parties from Longminster, Norminster and Crossdyke were being established about the landscape.

With that dramatic suddenness created by fog, a constable flashing an amber torchlight stood in their path.

“Well?” Tillottson said, leaning out of the window.

“This is as far as you can drive, sir.”

“Where’s Cape?”

“T’other side, sir.”

They got out. Close on their left hand the fog-masked weir kept up its anonymous thunder. They followed the constable along the tow-path to the flight of steps that led up to the main bridge.

“All right,” Tillottson said. “Get back to your point.”

As they groped their way over the bridge a car crept past them filled with revellers engaged in doleful song.

The constable stepped into its path and waved his torch.

“Hullo—’ullo—’ullo,” shouted the driver. “Anything wrong, Officer?”

“Just a minute, if you please, sir.”

“Our Breath is as the Breath of Spring,” someone in the back seat sang dismally.

“May I see your licence, sir?”

When this formality was completed Alleyn and Tillottson moved in. Had they, Alleyn asked, seen a solitary woman? They replied merrily that they’d had no such luck and emitted wolf-like whistles. Alleyn said: “If we weren’t so busy we’d have something to say to you. As it is, will you pull yourselves together, proceed on your silly journey, stop if you see a solitary woman, and address her decently. If she’s got a strong American accent, offer her a lift, behave yourselves and drive her to the nearest police stop or police station, whichever comes first. Do you understand?”

“Er — yes. Righty — jolly-ho. Fair enough,” said the driver, taken aback as much by Alleyn’s manner and voice as by what he said. The passengers had become very quiet.

“Repeat it, if you please.”

He did.

“Thank you. Drive carefully. We’ve got your number. Good night.”

They crawled away.

Bailey and Thompson and their driver loomed up and the whole party inched along until they found the top of a flight of steps going down to the lock.

“What can have got into her?” Fox mused, not for the first time.

“Fear,” said Alleyn. “She was terrified. She’s tried to do a bolt. And succeeded, blast it. The Skipper must have delayed—hallo, here we are. That’s the roof of the lockhouse down there. Come on and for God’s sake don’t let’s have any falling into the lock. Easy as we go, now.”

They felt their way down the steps to the tow-path.

“Cape!” Tillottson shouted in a terrible voice.

“Here, sir.”

He was wretchedly waiting where he had been told to wait: between the lock and the lockhouse. The fog down here was dense indeed and they were upon him almost before they saw him. He seemed to be standing to attention and expecting the worst.

“Ever heard of a Misconduct Form?” Tillottson ominously began.

“Sir.”

“Superintendent Alleyn’s got something to say to you.”

“Sir.”

Alleyn said: “What happened, Cape?”

There had, he said, been a commotion on board the Zodiac. He couldn’t see anything much because of the Creeper but he heard the Skipper’s voice asking what was wrong and a woman taking on a fair treat, shrieking: “Let me go. Let me go.” He went down to the moorings and called out: “What seems to be wrong there?” but as far as he could make out the happening was on the far side. And then one of the gentlemen on board came round the deck and asked PC Cape where he was and said he’d better come on board and get things under control like. He could hardly see a thing except that there was a gap between the edge and the gunwale. He couldn’t see the gentleman either but said he had a very loud voice.

“Go on.”

The loud voice said he could jump for it and as he could just make out enough for that he did jump and came aboard in a flounder and nearly lost his helmet. Alleyn gathered that a sort of blind search had set in under circumstances of the greatest possible confusion. Cape had proceeded with outstretched arms doing a breast stroke action, to the starboard side which was the farthest removed from the tow-path. He had bumped into a number of persons and had loudly demanded that everybody should keep calm.

A strange disordered mélée now took place in the greatest possible confusion. Presently it occurred to Cape that the woman’s voice could no longer be heard. He had got alongside the Skipper and they had, between them, rounded up the passengers and herded them into the saloon where after a good deal of milling about and counting of heads, Miss Hewson’s head was found to be missing.

By this time the policemen on the pub side of the river had become alerted and started to cross the bridge.

Cape and the Skipper went through the cabins and searched the craft. All available lights were switched on but were not much help on deck where the fog was now of the pea-soup variety.

Caley Bard and Dr Natouche bore a hand and the Skipper had evidently behaved very sensibly. When it was certain that Miss Hewson was not in the Zodiac, Cape got himself ashore and blew his whistle. He and his colleague now met, poked uselessly about in the fog and settled that while Cape got through to Tollardwark his mate should alert by walkie-talkie the other men on duty in the vicinity.

Alleyn said: “Very well. Where’s the Zodiac?”

“The boat, sir?” Cape ejaculated. “I beg pardon, sir?”

“Where’s the bloody lock, for pity’s sake.”

“The lock, sir?”

“Find the lockhouse and stay by it, all of you.”

Alleyn inched along the tow-path. A lighted window loomed up on his left. The lockhouse. He faced right, stood still, listened and peered down into a blanket.

“Hallo? Zodiac?” he said very quietly.

“Hallo,” said a muted voice below his feet.

“Skipper?”

“That’s right.”

“Show a light, can you?”

A yellow globe swam into being far below.

“You did it, then? You and Tom?”

“And the Lock himself. Talk about stable-doors! It was a job in this muck but here we are.”

“All present?”

“Except for her.”

“Sure?”

“Dead sure.”

“No idea, of course, which way she went?”

“No idea.

“And Mrs Tretheway’s sleeping at the lockhouse?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You’re very quiet down there.”

“They’ve gone to bed. I waited for it.”

“Do they know where they are?”

“Not when I saw them. They will.”

“They could scramble up and out, of course.”

“They’re in their cabins and they can’t get ashore from there. Have to come up on deck and young Tom and I are keeping watch.”

“Splendid. Stay put till you hear from us, won’t you?”

“Don’t make it too long,” the voice murmured.

“Do our best. Good night.”

Alleyn returned to the lockhouse. He and the other six men were admitted by the keeper and crowded into the parlour.

“Well,” Alleyn said. “Search we must. Any chance of this lifting?”

Not before dawn, most likely, said the lock-keeper but you never knew. If a wind got up, she’d shift.

“It’s essentially a river mist, isn’t it?” Alleyn said. “Miss Hewson may still be milling round in it or lying doggo. If she managed to get above it she’ll be on the move. All we can do is follow the usual procedure.” He looked at the Tollardwark constable. “You’d better keep within hailing distance of Mr Tillottson, Mr Fox and me. You’ve got radar and we haven’t. We’re going to find our way up to the wapentake. Br’er Fox, would you work out to my right. Bert, if you’d keep going beyond that and take the driver out on your own right wing. Bailey and Thompson, you take the left wing. Near the roadside hedge if you could see it. She may be anywhere: under the hedge in the Wapentake Pot or a quarter of a mile away. As little noise and talk as possible. The rest of this unspeakable terrain we leave to the men already alerted.”

He looked at the wretched Cape.

“Oh, yes. You,” he said. “You move up the hill on my left.” And to the two remaining men: “And you watch the Zodiac. She’s in the lock and the lock’s at its lowest. Nobody can leap ashore in seconds but that doesn’t say they can’t make it.”

Tillottson said: “The Zodiac? In the lock?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. He looked at the keeper who was grinning. “By arrangement. Like it or lump it with any luck and a good watch they’re there till we want them. Come on.”

-3-

Seven hours ago he and Fox had climbed this hill and Troy, a little later, had come to them in the wapentake. Four days ago Troy and the other passengers had met there and Troy had sat in the Wapentake Pot and talked with Dr Natouche.

Alleyn tried to recall the lie of the land. This was the first grassy slope under his feet, now, and ahead of him must be the tufted embankment below the wapentake field. He had begun to think he must have veered and now walked parallel with the embankment when it rose at his feet. He climbed it and could hear the others breathe and the soft thud of their feet. They used torches to show their whereabouts. The insignificant yellow discs floated and bobbed, giving an occasional glimpse of a leg or coat or a few inches of earth and grass.

The ascent felt steeper and more uneven under these blind-fold conditions than it had in the afternoon. They had only climbed a few paces when, suddenly and inconsequently there was less mist. It drifted and eddied and thinned out and now they waded rather than swam through it and appeared to each other as familiar phantoms.

“Clearing,” Fox murmured.

Alleyn sniffed. “Rum!” he said, “I seem to smell dust.”

The hillside was before them, living its own life under the stars. A blackness vaguely defined the wapentake itself. Alleyn moved his torchlight slowly across to his right and gave a stifled exclamation.

“Come in on this, all of you,” he said.

Their lights met at a dishevelment of earth, gravel and pieces of half-buried timber.

“It’s that old digging,” Fox exclaimed. “I said it wasn’t safe. It’s caved in.”

“Come in, all of you.”

The seven men collected round him and used their torch-lights. The crazy structure had collapsed. A fang of broken timber stuck out of the rubble and the edge of an old door that had supported an overhanging roof of earth now showed beneath a landslide of earth and gravel.

Alleyn said: “And there’s still a smell of dust in the air. Don’t go nearer, any of you. Stay where you are. Give me all the light you can raise. Here.”

Their lights concentrated round his on a patch of ground near his feet and came to a halt again at the edge of the rubble.

“Bailey,” Alleyn said.

Bailey and he knelt together, their heads bowed devotedly over slurs, indentations and flattened grass.

“Here’s a good one. A patch of bare soil. Take a look at this,” Alleyn said. Bailey took a long hard look.

“Fair enough,” he said. “She was wearing them and there’s another pair in her cabin.”

“American type, low-heeled walking jobs.”

“That’s right, sir.”

“Good Gawd!” Tillottson loudly exclaimed. “She went in there to hide and—Good Gawd!”

But Alleyn and Bailey paid no attention to Tillottson and Fox said: “Wait on, Bert.”

The wapentake field had turned towards a rising moon and was illuminated. The mist had now retired upon its source and wound like a cottonwool snake between the river banks. The landscape had changed and lightened.

Alleyn had thrown off his overcoat and was working at the rubble with his gloved hands.

“Bear a hand,” he said. “We’re too late but bear a hand.”

The other men joined him. They mounted their torches where they shone on the rubble and went hard to work.

“Very painstaking,” Alleyn grunted. “But not quite painstaking enough. Something—a stone, a bit of broken wood from the rubble—something—has been scuffed over the ground. Prints of the woman’s shoes have been left. Right up to where the rubble has lapped over them and pointing towards the excavation. But the surrounding patches of soil have been scuffed. We are meant to think what you thought, Bert.”

Superintendent Tillottson peered sideways at PC Cape as if longing for a better view.

“You hear that?” he said. “You understand what’s been said? You know what you’ve allowed to be done, you disgusting chap?”

Alleyn said: “All right, Cape, you’ll have to take what’s coming, won’t you?”

He squatted back on his heels. “This is no good,” he said and turned to the two constables: “Go down to the lockhouse and get spades. There’s not a hope, now, but we’ve got to act as if there was. And bring something — pieces of wood — galvanised iron — anything to cover these prints. Quick as you can. Thompson, have you got a flash? All right. Go ahead.”

Sergeant Thompson moved in with the hand-held camera he used in emergencies. His light flashed intermittently. The wretched Cape and his opposite number thundered downhill.

“We’d better continue to go through the motions,” Alleyn said: “As I recollect there were two props. One may have been used to knock away the other. He’d have a second or two to jump clear. Or there may have been a spare timber lying around.”

Fox said: “What’s the form, Mr Alleyn? About that lot down there in the lock? There’s nobody missing?” He jerked his head at the rubble. ”Apart from her?”

“The Skipper says not but we’ll have to see them. Look Bert, will you go down there? Ring your local police surgeon. My compliments and he’ll be needed again, with the ambulance and the usual equipment. Give him the story and tell him it’s suspected homicide. Then get yourself aboard the Zodiac. We won’t raise her until we’ve checked and then only when we can muster a closer guard. We’ve got a tough little clutch of villains down there and the big double-barrel himself.”

“I’ll go, then. And if they are all there?”

“Call off the general search and bring the men in to Ramsdyke.”

“See you in a wee while, then,” Tillottson said.

Bailey and Thompson went back to the car to fetch their heavy gear and Alleyn and Fox were left together: a tall elegant figure and a large thickset one incongruously moonlit in the wapentake field and scraping like dogs with their forepaws at gravelly rubble.

“This is quite a big case,” Fox remarked.

“You are the king of meiosis. Take an international triple murderer fresh from his latest kill, and pen him up with his associates in a pleasure craft at the bottom of a lock. Flavour with at least three innocent beings and leave to explode. And you call it quite a big case.”

“I suppose,” Fox said, disregarding this, “it was all done under—” He stopped short. “How do you work it out?” he said. “A put-up job, the whole thing? What?”

“She was blowing up for trouble when we had that last interview. She may have threatened to grass on them. Perhaps, the Jampot saw how she shaped up, and offered to get her away. Or—,” Alleyn panted as he shifted a largish boulder, “or she may simply have bolted. Whichever way it was, she raised a rumpus—screeching and on-going. When that ass Cape flung himself aboard, off she lit in the fog, pursued I don’t mind betting by the Jampot. In a matter of minutes they were over the embankment and into the pit. And that was it.”

“I like that one best.”

“It has a Foljambe smack about it, you think?”

“Suppose,” Fox said, “she’s not here. Suppose she and whoever-it-was came up here this afternoon and she poked into this excavation and came out again and it collapsed later?”

“No prints to suggest a return. And why did whoever-it-was try to obliterate his own prints?”

“There’s that, of course. And you make out that while the commotion in the Zodiac still continued he went straight back and was all present and correct when that silly chump Cape and the Skipper started counting heads in the saloon?”

“That’s it.” They worked for some time in silence.

“I don’t know,” Fox said presently. “I don’t somehow feel too certain she’s here.”

“Don’t you?” Alleyn said with a change of voice.

Fox let out an oath and drew back his hand.

From under a counterpane of soil that might have been withdrawn by a sleeping hand, a foot stuck up, rigid in its well-made American walking shoe.

The two constables came up the hill, swinging a lantern and carrying shovels. Bailey and Thompson returned with their gear. In a very little while they had uncovered Miss Hewson. Her print dress was up round her neck and contained her arms: Her body and legs clad in their sensible undergarments were shockingly displayed and so was her face: open eyes and open mouth filled with sandy soil and the cheekbones cut about with gravel.

“But not congested,” Fox said and added loudly: “That’s not a suffocated face. Is it?”

“Oh, no,” Alleyn said. “No. Did you expect it would be, Br’er Fox? It’s hopeless but we’ll try artificial respiration.”

One of the local men took off his helmet and knelt down.

“The old carotid job?” Fox mused.

“That’s what I expect. We’ll see what the doctor says.”

Fox made a movement of his head towards the hidden Zodiac.

“Not, of course—him?”

“No. No. And yet—After all, why not? Why not, indeed.” He thought for a moment. “Perhaps better not,” he said and turned to Bailey and Thompson. “The lot,” he said. “Get going.”

He and Fox moved to where the roof had originally overhung the excavation. Here they looked down on the whole subsidence. Tiny runnels of friable soil trickled and started at their foot-fall. They found no footprints or traces of obliteration.

Alleyn said: “I think you’d better take over here, Br’er Fox, if you will. Meet the doctor when he comes and when he’s finished bring him down to the lock.”

As he went down the hill Thompson’s flash-lamp blinked and blinked again.

The River was still misted but when Alleyn looked into the lock, there was the roof of the Zodiac’s wheel-house, her deck and the tarpaulin cover, the top of a helmet, shoulders, a stomach and a pair of regulation boots.

Light from the saloon shone on the wet walls of the lock. He could hear voices.

“Hallo,” he said. The constable looked up and saluted. He was the man who had been on duty by the pub.

“There’s a ladder at the lockhouse, sir,” he said.

“I’ll drop, thank you.”

He managed this feat and for what turned out to be the last time, met the Zodiac passengers in the Zodiac saloon.

-4-

They were in what Fox liked to call déshabillé and looking none the better for it with the exception of Dr Natouche who wore a dressing-gown of sombre grandeur, scarlet kid slippers and a scarf that bore witness as did none of his other garments, to an exotic taste for colour. He was, indeed, himself an exotic, sitting apart at a corner table, upright, black and without expression. Troy would have liked to paint him, Alleyn thought, as he was now. What a pity she couldn’t.

The Skipper also sat apart, looking watchful. Mr Tillottson was back at his former table and the passengers were in the semi-circular seat under the windows. Hewson at once began a heated protest. His sister! Where was his sister! What was the meaning of all this! Did Alleyn realise that he and his sister were American citizens and as such were entitled to protest to their Ambassador in London? Did he appreciate—

Alleyn let it run for a minute and then clamped down.

“I think,” he said, “that we do have a rough idea of the situation, Mr Hewson. We’re in touch with the Federal Bureau in New York. They’ve been very helpful.”

Hewson changed colour, opened his mouth and shut it again.

Alleyn said: “Do you really not know where your sister has gone?”

“I know,” he said, “she’s been real scared by you guys acting like you thought—” he stopped, got to his feet and looked from Tillottson to Alleyn. “Say, what is all this?” he said. “What’s with you guys? What’s happened to Sis?” He fumbled with his hearing aid and thrust his deaf ear towards Alleyn. “C’mon,” he said. “C’mon. Give, can’t you?”

Alleyn said clearly, “Something very bad, I’m afraid.”

“Like what? Hell, can’t you talk like it makes sense? What’s happened?” And then, it seemed with flat incredulity, he said: “Are you telling me she’s dead? Sis? Dead? Are you telling me that?”

Lazenby walked over to Hewson and put his arm across his shoulders: “Hold hard, old man,” he fluted. “Stick it out, boy. Steady. Steady.”

Hewson looked at him. “You make me sick,” he said. “Christ Almighty, you make me sick to my stomach.” He turned on Alleyn. “Where?” he said. “What was it? What happened?”

Alleyn told him where she had been found. He listened with his head slanted and his face screwed up as if he still had difficulty in hearing.

“Smothered,” he said. “Smothered, huh?”

Alleyn said nothing. There was an immense stillness in the saloon as if everybody waited for a climax.

“Why don’t you all say something?” Hewson suddenly demanded. “Sitting round like you were dumbbells. God damn you. Say something.”

“What can we say?” Caley Bard murmured. “There’s nothing we can say.”

“You,” Hewson said. And as if he had to find some object upon which to focus an undefined misery and resentment he leant forward and shook his finger at Caley Bard. “You sit around!” he stammered. “You act like nothing mattered! For Pete’s sake, what sort of a monster do you figure you are?”

“I’m sorry,” Caley said.

“Pardon me?” Hewson shouted angrily with his hand cupped round his ear. “What’s that? Pardon?”

“I’m sorry,” Caley shouted in return.

“Sorry? Sorry, hell! He says he’s sorry!”

Pollock intervened. “There you are,” he said. “That’s what happens. That’s the way our wonderful police get to work. Scare the daylights out of some poor woman so she scarpers and gets herself smothered in a gravel-pit. All in the day’s work.”

“In our opinion,” Alleyn said, “Miss Hewson was not smothered in the gravel-pit. She was buried there.”

“My dear Superintendent—” Lazenby ,exclaimed, “what do you mean by that? That’s a shocking statement.”

“We think that she was murdered in the same way as Miss Rickerby-Carrick was murdered on Tuesday night and a man called Andropulos was murdered last Saturday. And we think it highly probable that one of you is responsible.”

“Do you know,” Caley said, “I had a strong premonition you were going to say that. But why? Why should you suppose one of us—? I mean we’re a cross-section of middle-class people from four different countries of origin who have never met before. We none of us knew that unfortunate eccentric before she, to speak frankly, bored the pants off us in the Zodiac. With the exception of her brother we’d none of us ever set eyes on Miss Hewson. Earlier tonight, Alleyn, you seemed to be suggesting there was some kind of conspiracy at work among us. All this carry-on about people being overheard muttering together in a side street in Tollardwark. And then you started a line about Miss Rickerby-Carrick having been robbed of a Fabergé bibelot. And what’s the strength of the bit about Pollock and his doodles? I must, apologise,” Caley said with a change of tone. “I didn’t mean to address the meeting at such length, but really, Alleyn, when you coolly announce that one of us is a murderer it’s bloody frightening and I for one want to know what it’s all about.”

Alleyn waited for a little and then said: “Yes. Of course. I’m sure you do. Under ordinary conditions it wouldn’t be proper for me to tell you but in several ways this is an extra-ordinary case and I propose to be a damn’ sight more candid than I dare say I ought to be.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Caley said wryly.

Alleyn said, “Here goes, then. Conspiracy? Yes. We think there is a conspiracy at work in the Zodiac and we think all but one of the passengers is involved. Murder? Yes. We think one of you is a murderer and hope to prove it. His name? Foljambe, alias the Jampot. At present, however, known by the name of another person. And his record? International bad-lot with at least five homicides to his discredit.”

The silence that followed was broken by Pollock. “You must be barmy,” he said.

“Conspiracy,” Alleyn went on. “Briefly, it involves the painting by you, Mr Pollock, of extremely accomplished Constable forgeries. The general idea, we think, went something like this. You made the forgeries. Your young friends on the motor-bike, working under Foljambe’s orders, were to plant them about this countryside where Constable once painted. The general principle of ‘salting’ the non-existent mine. The first discovery by Mr and Miss Hewson (if that is their name) in Bagg’s yard was to be given exactly the right amount of publicity. If necessary the circumstances surrounding the lucky find would be authenticated by Bagg himself, by my wife and Miss Rickerby-Carrick and the only other unimplicated passenger. There was to be an immediate bogus hunt throughout the countryside by: a) Mr Lazenby better known in the Antipodes, we incline to believe, as Dinky Dickson: b) Mr and Miss Hewson or Ed and Sally-Lou Moran as the case may be, and c)—ineffable cheek—by you yourself, Mr Pollock, in hot pursuit of your own forgeries.”

“You got to be dreaming,” said Mr Pollock.

“The result of this treasure-hunt would be — surprise! surprise! — a tidy haul of ‘Constables’ and a general melting away of the conspirators to sell them in the highest market. The whole operation was, we believe, in the nature of a trial run, observed by the key figures and designed for expansion, with appropriate modifications, into world-wide operations.”

“All of this,” said Lazenby breathlessly, “is untrue. It is wickedly and scandalously untrue.”

“Meanwhile,” Alleyn continued, “the terrain would have been thoroughly explored for the subsequent disposal (or we don’t know anything about our Jampot), of hard drugs by means of what is laughingly known in the racket as aerial top-dressing. The collectors would be at large among a swarm of Constable-seekers and would be accepted by the locals, with however marked a degree of exasperation, as such.”

“How do you like this fella? Do we have to sit around and take this?” Mr Hewson asked of no one in particular.

“You haven’t got much choice, have you?” Caley Bard said. And to Alleyn: “Go on, please.”

“Almost from the first things went askew. I again draw your attention to Mr K. G. Z. Andropulos who was to be a passenger in Cabin 7. He was a bit of wreckage from Greece who had a picture-dealing shop in Soho which may have been intended as a dispersal point for some of the forgeries. He turned nark on Foljambe, madly tried a spot of blackmail, and was murdered, exactly in the same way as the women. By the Jampot himself, about thirty-eight hours before he embarked in the Zodiac.”

The three men broke into simultaneous ejaculations. Alleyn raised his hand. “We’ll come to alibis,” he said, “in due course. They have been checked.”

“All I can say,” Caley said, “is Thank God and perhaps I’m being premature, at that.”

“Yes, and perhaps you bloody well are,” Pollock burst out. “Sitting there, like Jacky. How do we know—”

“You don’t,” Caley said. “So shut up.” He turned to Alleyn. “But about this—about Miss Hewson. Why, to begin with, are you so sure there’s been foul play?”

Alleyn said: “We are waiting for an official medical opinion. In the meantime, since we have a doctor among us, I think I shall ask him to describe the post-mortem appearances of suffocation by earth and gravel. As opposed to those following an attack from behind involving abrupt and violent pressure on the carotid arteries.”

“Ah no!” Caley cried out. “Alleyn, I mean — surely!” He looked at Hewson who leant on the table, his face in his hands. “I mean,” Caley repeated. “I mean — well — there are decencies.”

“As far as possible,” Alleyn rejoined, “we try to observe them. Mr Hewson will be asked to identify. He may prefer to know, if he doesn’t know already, what to expect.”

“Know!” Hewson sobbed behind his fingers. “Know. My God, how should I know!”

“You all want to know, I gather, why we believe Miss Hewson was murdered. Our opinion rests to a considerable extent on post-mortem appearances. Dr Natouche?”

It was a long time since they had heard that voice. He had been there, sitting apart in his splendid gown and scarlet slippers. They had shot uneasy, resentful or curious glances at him but nobody had spoken to him and he had not uttered.

He said: “You have sent for your police consultant. It would be improper for me to give an opinion.”

“Even in the interest of justice?”

“It is not clear to me how justice would be served by my intervention.”

“If you consider for a moment, it may become clear.”

“I think not, Superintendent”

“Will you at least tell us if you would expect to find a difference between post-mortem appearances in these two cases?”

A long silence before Dr Natouche said: “Possibly.”

“In the case of an attack on the carotids you would expect to find external post-mortem marks on the areas attacked?”

“Superintendent, I have told you I prefer not to give an opinion. The external appearances from suffocation vary enormously. I have—” He waited for some seconds and then spoke very strongly. “I have never seen a case of death from a murderous assault on the carotids. My opinion would be valueless,” said Dr Natouche.

Pollock cried out shrilly: “You’d know how to do it, though, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you?”

Hewson lowered his hands and stared at Natouche.

“Any medical man,” Natouche said, “would know technically, what death by such means involved. I must decline to discuss it.”

“I don’t like this,” Lazenby said, turning his dark glasses on the doctor. “I don’t like this, at all. It’s not honest. It’s not a fair go. You’ve been asked a straight question, Doctor, and you refuse to give a straight answer.”

“On the contrary.”

“Well,” Alleyn said, “let’s take another look at the situation. Before she left the Zodiac, Miss Hewson was in distress. She was heard by the constable on duty at the lock to scream, to break into a hysterical demonstration and to cry out repeatedly: ‘Let me go. Let me go!’ Is that agreed?”

Hewson said: “Sure! Sure, she was hysterical. Sure, she wanted to escape. What sort of deal had she had for Christ’s sake! Police standing her up like she was involved in this phoney art racket. A corpse fished outa The River and everyone talking about homicide. Sure, she was scared. She was real scared. She was desperate. I didn’t want to leave her up here but she acted like crazy and said why couldn’t I let her alone. So I did. I left her right here in the saloon and I went to bed.”

“You were the last then, to go down?”

“Well — the Padre and Stan and I — we went together.”

“And Dr Natouche? Did he go down?

“No, sir. He went up on deck. He went up soon as Sis began to act nervous. Pretty queer it seemed to me: go out into that doggone fog but that’s what he did and that’s where he went.”

“I would like to get a clear picture, if ‘clear’ is the word, of where you all were and what happened after she was left here in the saloon.”

They all began to speak at once and incontinently stopped. Alleyn looked at Caley Bard.

“Let’s have your version,” he said.

“I wish you luck of it,” Caley rejoined. “For what it’s worth I’ll—well, I’ll have a stab. I’d gone to bed: at least I’d gone to my cabin and undressed and was having a look at some butterflies I caught on the cruise. I heard—” he looked at Lazenby, Hewson and Pollock “—these three come down and go to the loo and their cabins and so on. They all have to go past my door, I being in Cabin 1. They were talking in the passage, I remember. I didn’t notice what they said: I was spreading a specimen I picked up at Crossdyke. Subconsciously though, I suppose I must have recognised their voices.”

“Yes? ”

All of a sudden a hell of a rumpus broke loose, up topside. Sorry, Hewson, I might have put that better. I heard, in fact, Miss Hewson scream ‘Let me go’. Two or three times, I think. I heard a kind of thudding in the saloon here, above my head. And then, naturally, a general reaction.”

“What sort of general reaction?”

“Doors opening and slamming. Hewson calling out for his sister, Lazenby and Pollock shouting to each other and a stampede upstairs. I’m afraid,” Caley said with what could only be described as an arch glance out of his curious eyes, “I did not hurtle into the lists. Not then and there. You see, Alleyn, we had, to quote an extremist, supped rather full of horrors and, to be quite honest, my immediate reaction was to think: ‘Oh, no! Not again!’ Meaning it in a general sense, you understand.”

“So — what did you do?”

“In effect, listened to what seemed to be an increasing—hubbub, had a bit of an argument with what passes for my conscience and finally, I’m afraid more than reluctantly, went up topside myself.”

“Where you found?”

“Damn’ all that could be distinguished. Everybody milling about in the fog and asking everybody else what the hell they were doing and where was Miss Hewson.”

“Can you say how many persons you could distinguish?”

He thought for a moment. “Well — yes. I suppose — I got a general idea. But it couldn’t be less reliable. I heard these three men again — calling out to each other and I heard the Skipper warn people not to go overboard, I remember Lazenby called out that he thought we ought to leave Miss Hewson alone and that she would get over it best by herself. And Hewson said he couldn’t leave her. And Pollock, you were milling round asking what the police thought they were doing. So I yelled for the police — it seemed a reasonable thing to do — and a great bumbling copper landed on the deck like a whale.”

Nobody looked, now, at the motionless figure behind the corner table.

“Do I gather,” Alleyn said, “that at no stage did you hear Dr Natouche’s voice? Or hear him come down to his cabin?”

Caley was silent.

“I did, then,” Pollock said. “I heard him just before she began to call out ‘Let me go’. He was with her. He said something to her. I’ll swear to that. Gawd knows what he did.”

“Did anyone hear Dr Natouche after they heard Miss Hewson for the last time?”

As if they were giving responses in some disreputable litany, Pollock, Hewson and Lazenby loudly said “No.”

“Skipper?”

The Skipper laid his workaday hands out on his knees and frowned at them. “I can’t say I did. I was forrard in my cabin and in bed when it started up. I shifted into this rig and came along. They were on deck and someone was bawling for the police. Not her. A man. Mr Bard, if he says so. She’d gone. I never heard the doctor at any stage and I didn’t bump into him like I did the others.”

“Yeah, and do you know why, mate?” Pollock said. “Because he wasn’t there. Because he’d followed her and done bloody murder on her up the hill. Because he’s not a bloody doctor but a bloody murderer. Now!”

Alleyn moved to face Dr Natouche. Tillottson, who had been taking notes walked to the foot of the companionway. At the head of it the constable could be seen beyond the half-door.

Dr Natouche had risen.

“Do you want to make a statement?” Alleyn asked and knew that they all waited for the well-worn sequel. But already the enormous voice had begun.

“I am alone,” it said, “and must defend myself. When these men who accuse me had gone to their cabins I was, as Mr Hewson has said, on deck. The mist or fog was dense and I could see nothing but a few feet of deck and the glow of the lockhouse windows and that only very faintly. The night was oppressive and damp. I was about to go back when Miss Hewson came very quickly up the stairway, crying out and weeping and in a condition of advanced hysteria. She ran into me and would have fallen. I took her by the arms and tried to calm her. She became violent and screamed ‘Let me go’ several times. Since I frightened her — she was I believe allergic to people of my colour — I did let her go and she stumbled across the deck and was hidden by the fog. I thought she might injure herself. I drew nearer but she heard me and screamed again: ‘Let me go’. By that time these gentlemen were approaching. They came up on deck calling to her and plunging about in the fog. I waited unseen until I heard the Captain’s voice and then, since obviously there was nothing I could do, I went below and to bed. I remained in my cabin until the arrival of your colleagues.”

He waited for a moment. “That is all,” he said and sat down.

Alleyn had the impression, an obscene and grotesque one, of Lazenby, Pollock and Hewson running together and coagulating into a corporate blob of enormity. They did actually move towards each other. They stood close and watched Natouche.

Caley Bard said: “I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry but I can’t accept that. It’s just not true. It can’t be true.”

The group of three moved very slightly. Pollock gave a little hiss of satisfaction. Lazenby said: “Ah!” and Hewson: “Even he sees that,” as if Caley were an implacable enemy.

“Why can’t it be true?” Alleyn said.

Caley walked up to Natouche and looked steadily at him. “Because,” he said, “I never left the top of the companionway. I stood there, listening to the hullabaloo and not knowing what to do. I stayed there until after the Skipper arrived and after the constable came on board. He—” he moved his head at Natouche—“Well, look at him. The size of him. He never passed me or went down the companionway. Never. He wasn’t there.”

Natouche’s arms rose naked from the sleeves of his gown, his hands curled above his head and his teeth were bared. He looked like an effigy, carved from ebony. Before the curled hands could do their work, Alleyn and Tillottson grabbed him. They lurched against the bar. Troy’s Signs of the Zodiac fell from their firmament and Hewson screamed: “Get him! Get him! Get him!”

Above the uproar, voices shouted on deck. A rival commotion had broken out and even as Alleyn and Tillottson screwed the great arms behind the heavy back, somebody came tumbling-down the companionway, followed by Inspector Fox and two deeply perturbed constables.

He was a Dickensian little man: bald, bespectacled and irritated. He contemplated the outlandish scene with distaste and cried in a shrillish voice:

“Once and for all, I demand to know the meaning of this masquerade.”

Fox arrived at his side and, seeing his principal engaged in strenuous activity, lent his aid. Natouche no longer struggled. He looked at the men who had subdued him as if he himself was in the ascendant.

Alleyn moved away from him and confronted the little man. “May I have your name, sir,” he said.

“My name!” the little man ejaculated. “My name! Certainly you may have my name, sir. My name, sir, is Caley Bard.”