Clutch of Constables

Chapter 7 – Routine

“And so,” Alleyn said, “we set up the appropriate routine and went to work in the usual way. Tillottson was under-staffed—the familiar story—but he was able to let us have half a dozen uniformed men. He and the Super at Longminster—Mr Bonney—did all they could to co-operate. But once we’d caught that whiff of the Jampot it became essentially our job with strong European and American connections.

“We did a big line with Interpol and the appropriate countries but although they were dead keen they weren’t all that much of a help. Throughout his lamentable career the Jampot had only made one blunder: and that, as far as we could ferret it out, was because an associate at the Bolivian end of his drug racket had grassed. The associate was found dead by quick attack from behind on the carotids: the method that Foljambe had certainly employed in Paris and was later to employ upon the wretched Andropulos. But for reasons about which the Bolivian police were uncommonly cagey, the Jampot was not accused by them of murder but of smuggling. Bribery is a little word we are not supposed to use when in communication with our brothers in anti-crime.

“It’s worth noticing that whereas other big-shots in his world employ their staffs of salaried killers the Jampot believes in the do-it-yourself kit and is unique in this as in many other respects.

“Apart from routine field-work the immediate task, as I saw it, was to lay out the bits of information as provided by my wife and try to discover which fitted and which were extraneous. I suggest that you treat yourselves to the same exercise.”

The man in the second row could almost be seen to lay back his ears.

“We found nothing to help us on deck,” continued Alleyn. “Her mattress had been deflated and stowed away and so had her blankets and the deck had been hosed down in the normal course of routine.

“But the tow-path and adjacent terrain turned up a show of colour. At the Crossdyke end, and you’ll remember it was during the night at Crossdyke that the murdered woman disappeared, Mr Fox’s party found on the riverbank at the site of the Zodiac’s moorings, a number of indentations, made either by a woman’s cuban heel or those of the kind of ‘gear’ boots currently fashionable in Carnaby Street. They overlapped and their general type and characteristics suggested that the wearer had moved forwards with ease and then backwards under a heavy load. Here’s a blow-up of Detective-Sergeant Thompson’s photographs.

“There had either been some attempt to flatten these marks or else a heavy object had been dragged across them at right angles to the river-bank.

“The tow-path was too hard to offer anything useful, and the path from there up to the road was tar-sealed and provided nothing. Nor did a muddy track along the waterfront. If the heels had gone that way we would certainly have picked them up so the main road must have been the route. Mr Fox, who is probably the most meticulous clue-hound in the Force, had a long hard look at the road. Here are some blown-up shots of what he found. Footprints. A patch of oil on the verge under a hedgerow not far from the moorings. Accompanying tyre marks suggest that a motor-bike had been parked there for some time. He found identical tracks on the road above Ramsdyke. At Crossdyke on an overhanging hawthorn twig—look at this close-up—there was a scrap of a dark blue synthetic material corresponding in colour and type with deceased’s pyjamas.

“Right. Question now arose: if deceased came this way was she alive or dead at the time of transit? Yes, Carmichael?”

The man in the second row passed his paddle of a hand over the back of his sandy head.

“Sir,” he said. “It would appear from the character of the footprints, the marks on the bank, the evidence at the braeside and the wee wispies of cloth, that the leddy was at the least of it, unconscious and carried from the craft to the bike. Further than that, sir, I would not care to venture.”

The rest of the class stirred irritably.

“By and large,” Alleyn said, “you would be right. To continue—”

-1-

Alleyn and Troy returned together to the Zodiac. They found Dr Natouche reading on deck and the other passengers distantly visible in a seated group on the far hillside above the ford.

Natouche glanced up for a moment at Troy. She walked towards him and he stood up.

“Rory,” Troy said, “you’ve not heard how good Dr Natouche has been. He gave me a lovely lunch at Longminster and he was as kind as could be when I passed out this afternoon.”

Alleyn said: “We’re lucky, on all counts, to have you on board.”

“I have been privileged,” he replied with his little bow.

“I’ve told him,” Troy said, “how uneasy you were when she disappeared and how we talked it over.”

“It was not, of course, that I feared that any violence would be done to her. There was no reason to suppose that. It was because I thought her disturbed.”

“To the point,” Alleyn said, “where she might do violence upon herself?”

Dr Natouche folded his hands and looked at them. “No,” he said. “Not specifically. But she was, I thought, in a very unstable condition: a condition that is not incompatible with suicidal intention.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “I see. Oh dear.”

“You find something wrong, Mr Alleyn?”

“No, no. Not wrong. It’s just that I seem to hear you giving that opinion in the witness box.”

“For the defence?” he asked calmly.

“For the defence.”

“Well,” said Dr Natouche, “I daresay I should be obliged to qualify it under cross-examination. While I am about it, may I give you another opinion? I think your wife would be better away from the Zodiac. She has had a most unpleasant shock, she is subject to migraine and I think she is finding the prospect of staying in the ship a little hard to face.”

“No, no,” Troy said. “Not at all. Not now.”

“You mean not now your husband is here. Of course. But I think he will be very much occupied. You must forgive me for my persistence but—why not a room at the inn in Ramsdyke? Or even in Norminster? It is not far.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Alleyn said, “but there are difficulties. If my wife is given leave—”

“Some of us may also demand it? If you will allow me I’ll suggest that she should go immediately and I’ll say that as her medical adviser, I insisted.”

“Rory — would it be easier? It would, wouldn’t it? For you? For both of us?”

“Yes, darling, it would.”

“Well, then?”

She saw Alleyn give Natouche one utterly noncommittal look of which the doctor appeared to be perfectly unaware. “I think you are right,” Alleyn said. “I have been in two minds about it but I think you are right. How far is it by road to Norminster?”

“Six miles and three-eighths,” Natouche said.

“How very well-informed!”

“Dr Natouche is a map-maker,” Troy. said. “You must see what he’s doing.”

“Love to,” Alleyn agreed politely. “Where did you stay in Norminster, Troy? The Percy, was it?”

“Yes.”

“All right?”

“Perfectly.”

“I’ll ring it up from the lockhouse. If they’ve got a room I’ll send for a taxi. We’ll obey doctor’s orders.”

“All right. But—”

“What?”

“I’ll feel as if I’m ratting. So will they.”

“Let them.”

“All right.”

“Would you go down and pack, then?”

“Yes. All right.” They could say nothing to each other, Troy thought, but “all right”.

She went down to her cabin.

Natouche said: “I hope you didn’t mind my making this suggestion. Your wife commands an unusual degree of self-discipline, I think, but she really has had as much as she should be asked to take. I may say that some of the passengers would not be inclined to make matters any easier for her if she stayed.”

“No?”

“They are, I think, a little suspicious of the lost fur.”

“I can’t blame them,” Alleyn said dryly.

“Perhaps,” Natouche continued, “I should say this. If you find, as I think you will, that Miss Rickerby-Carrick was murdered I fully realise that I come into the field of suspects. Of course I do. I only mention this in case you should think that I try to put myself in an exclusive position by speaking as a doctor in respect of your wife.”

“Do you suppose,” Alleyn asked carefully, “that any of the others think it may be a case of homicide?”

“They do not confide in me, but I should undoubtedly think so. Yes.”

“And they suspect that they will come into the field of inquiry?”

“They would be extremely stupid if they did not expect to do so,” he said. “And by and large I don’t find they are stupid people. Although at least three of them will certainly begin to suspect me of killing Miss Rickerby-Carrick.”

“Why?”

“Briefly: because I am an Ethiopian and they would prefer that I, rather than a white member of the company, should be found guilty.”

Alleyn listened to the huge voice, looked at the impassive face and wondered if this was a manifestation of inverted racialism or of sober judgment.

“I hope you’re mistaken,” he said.

“And so, of course, do I,” said Dr Natouche.

“By the way, Troy tells me you found a scrap of material on deck.”

“Ah, yes. You would like to see it? It’s here.”

He took out his pocket-book and extracted an envelope. “Shall I show you where it was?” he asked.

“Please.”

They went to the after end of the deck.

“The mattress was inflated,” Natouche explained, “and lying where it had been when she used it. Mrs Alleyn noticed this fragment. It was caught under the edge of the pillow pocket. You will see that it is stained, presumably with river water. It seemed to me that Miss Rickerby-Carrick had probably taken her diary with her when she came up here to bed and that this piece of the cover, if it is that, became detached. The book was of course, saturated. I noted the cloth of its cover was torn when Lazenby rescued it. Your wife thought we should keep the fragment.”

“Yes, she told me. Thank you. I must get on with my unlovely job. I am very much obliged to you, Dr Natouche, for having taken care of Troy.”

“Please! I was most honoured that she placed a little confidence in me. I think,” he added, “that I shall stroll up to the wapentake. If you’ll excuse me.”

Alleyn watched him take an easy stride from the gunwale of the Zodiac to the grassy bank and noticed the perfect coordination of movement and the suggestion of unusual strength. Alleyn was visited by an odd notion: “Suppose,” he thought, “he just went on. Suppose he became an Ethiopian in a canary-coloured sweater striding over historic English fens and out of our field of inquiry. Ah well, he’s extremely conspicuous, after all.”

He looked downstream towards the weir and could see Fox and the local sergeant moving about the tow-path. Fox stooped over a wayside patch of bramble and presently righted himself with an air that Alleyn even at that distance, recognised as one of mild satisfaction. He turned, saw Alleyn and raised a hand, thumb up.

Alleyn went ashore, telephoned The Percy Hotel at Norminster, booked a room and ordered a taxi for Troy. When he returned to the Zodiac he found it deserted except for Troy who had packed her bags and was waiting for him in her cabin.

Half an hour later he put her in her taxi and she drove away from Ramsdyke. Her fellow-passengers, except for Dr Natouche, were sitting round an outdoor table at the pub. The Hewsons, Mr Lazenby and Mr Pollock had their heads together. Caley Bard slouched back dejectedly in his chair and gazed into a beer pot.

She asked the driver to stop and got out. As she approached the men stood up, Caley Bard at once, the others rather mulishly.

Troy said: “I’ve been kicked out. Rory thinks I’ll be an embarrassment to the Force if I stay and I think he’s got something so I’m going to Norminster.”

Nobody spoke.

“I would rather have stayed,” she said, “but I do see the point and I hope very much that all of you do, too. Wives are not meant to muscle-in on police routine.”

Caley Bard put his arm across her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Of course we do,” he said. “Don’t be a donkey. Off you go to Norminster and good riddance.”

“Well!” Troy said, “that is handsome of you.”

Mr Lazenby said: “This is the course I suggested, if you remember, Mrs Alleyn. I said I thought you would be well advised to leave the Zodiac.”

“So you did,” Troy agreed.

“For your sake, you know. For your sake.”

“For whatever reason, you were right.”

Pollock said something under his breath to Mr Hewson who received it with a wry grin that Troy found rather more disagreeable than a shouted insult would have been. Miss Hewson laughed.

“Well,” Troy said. “We’ll all meet, I suppose. At the inquest. I just felt I’d like to explain. Good-bye.”

She went back to the taxi. Caley Bard caught her up. “I don’t know if your old man thinks this is a case of murder,” he said, “but you can take it from me I’d cheerfully lay that lot out. For God’s sake don’t let it hurt you. It’s not worth a second thought.”

“No,” Troy said. “Of course not. Good-bye.”

The car drove through the Constable landscape up the hill. When they got to the crest they found a policeman on duty at the entry to the main road. Troy looked back. There, down below, was The River with the Zodiac at her moorings. Fox had moved from the weir and Alleyn and Tillottson had met him. They seemed to examine something that Fox held in his hand. As if he felt her gaze upon him, Alleyn lifted his head and, across the Constable picture, they looked at each other and waved their hands.

Above The River on the far side was the wapentake and alone in its hollow like a resident deity sat a figure in a yellow sweater with a black face and hands.

It would be getting dark soon and the passengers would stroll back to the ship. For the last time they would go to bed in their cabins. The River and trees and fields would send up their night-time voices and scents and the countryside after its quiet habit, move into night. The seasonal mist which the Skipper had told them was called locally, The Creeper, had increased and already The River looked like a stream of hot water threading the low country.

How strange, Troy thought, as they drove away that she should so sharply regret leaving The River. For a moment she entertained a notion that because of the violence that threaded its history there was something unremarkable, even appropriate, in the latest affront to The River. Poor Hazel Rickerby-Carrick, she thought, has joined a long line of drowned faces and tumbled limbs: Plantagenets and Frenchmen, Lancastrians and Yorkists, cropped, wigged and ringleted heads: bloated and desecrated bodies. They had drenched the fields and fed The River. The landscape had drawn them into itself and perhaps grown richer for them.

“I shall come back to the waterways,” Troy thought. She and Alleyn and their son and his best girl might hire a longboat and cruise, not here, not between Tollardwark and Ramsdyke, but farther south or west where there was no detergent on the face of the waters. But it was extremely odd all the same, that she should want to do so.

-2-

While Fox and Tillottson stooped over footprints on the bank at Crossdyke and Sergeants Bailey and Thompson sped north-wards, Alleyn explored the contents of Miss Rickerby-Carrick’s cabin.

The passengers were still up at the pub and if Dr Natouche had returned he had not come below. The Tretheways were sitting in a family huddle near the bar. Out in the darkling landscape the Creeper rose stealthily and police constables patrolled the exits from Ramsdyke into the main roads and the tow-path near the Zodiac.

The cabin, of course, had been swept out and the berth stripped of its bed-clothes. The Hewsons had made use of it not only for their purchases but for their camera equipment and some of their luggage.

Alleyn found that their cameras—they had three—were loaded with partially used film. They were expensive models, one of them being equipped with a phenomenally powerful lens of the sort used by geologists when recording rock-faces.

Their booty from Tollardwark was bestowed along the floor, most of it in a beer carton; the prints and scraps had been re-rolled, pretty roughly, into a bundle tied up with the original string.

The painting of Ramsdyke Lock was laid between sheets of newspaper in an empty suitcase.

He took it out and put it on the bunk.

Troy and Caley Bard had made a fairly thorough job of their cleaning and oiling but there were still some signs of dirt caught under the edge of brush strokes, but not, he thought, incorporated in the paint. It was a glowing picture and as Troy had said, it was well-painted. Alleyn was not an expert in picture forgery but he knew that the processes were refined, elaborate and highly scientific, involving in the case of seventeenth-century reproductions the use of specially manufactured pigments, of phenolformaldehyde and an essential oil, of baking and of old paintings scraped down to the ground layer. With nineteenth-century forgeries these techniques might not be necessary. Alleyn knew that extremely indifferent forgeries had deceived the widows and close associates of celebrated painters and even tolerable authorities. He had heard talk of “studio sweepings” and arguments that not every casual, unsigned authentic sketch bore the over-all painterly “signature” of the master. One much-practised trick, of course, was to paint the forgery over an old work. An X-ray would show if this had been done.

Outside, presenting itself for comparison, was the subject of the picture: Ramsdyke Lock, the pond, the ford, the winding lane, the hazy distance. Nothing could be handier, he thought, and he did in fact compare them.

He made an interesting discovery.

The trees in the picture were in the right places, they were elms, they enclosed the middle-distance just as the real elms did in the now darkling landscape outside. Undoubtedly, it was a picture of Ramsdyke Lock.

But they were not precisely the same elms.

The masses of foliage, painted with all the acute observation of Constable’s school, were of a different relationship, one to another. Would this merely go to show that, when the picture was painted the trees were a great deal smaller? No, he thought not. These were smaller but the major branches sprang from their trunks at different intervals. But might not this be a deliberate alteration made by the artist for reasons of composition? He remembered Troy saying that the painter has as much right to prune or transplant a tree as the clot who had planted it in the wrong place.

All the same…

Voices and footfalls on the upper-deck announced the return of the passengers. Alleyn restored the painting to its suitcase and the suitcase to its position against the wall. He opened the cabin door, shut his working-kit, took out his pocket-lens, squatted at the head of the bunk and waited.

Not for long. The passengers came below: Mr Lazenby first. He paused, looked in and fluted: “Busy, Superintendent?”

“Routine, sir.”

“Ah! Routine!” Lazenby playfully echoed. “That’s what you folk always say, isn’t it, Superintendent? Routine!”

“I sometimes think it’s all we ever do, Mr Lazenby.”

“Really? Well, I suppose I mustn’t ask what it’s all about. Poor girl. Poor girl. She was not a happy girl, Mr Alleyn.”

“No?”

“Emotionally unstable. A type that we parsons are all too familiar with, you know. Starved of true, worthwhile relationships, I suspect, and at a difficult, a trying time of life. Poor girl.”

“Do I take it, you believe this to be a case of suicide, Mr Lazenby?”

“I have grave misgivings that it may be so.”

“And the messages received after her death?”

“I don’t profess to have any profound knowledge of these matters, Superintendent, but as a parson, they do come my way. These poor souls can behave very strangely, you know. She might even have arranged the messages, hoping to create a storm of interest in herself.”

“That’s a very interesting suggestion, sir.”

“I throw it out,” Mr Lazenby said with a modest gesture, “for what it’s worth. I mustn’t be curious,” he added, “but—you hope to find some—er help—in here? Out of, as it were, Routine?”

“We’d be glad to know whether or not she returned to her cabin during the night,” Alleyn said. “But, to tell you the truth, there’s nothing to show, either way.”

“Well,” said Mr Lazenby, “good on you, anyhow. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Alleyn said, and when Mr Lazenby had gone, whistled, almost inaudibly, the tune of “Yes, we have no bananas”, which for some reason seemed to express his mood.

He was disturbed, almost immediately, by the arrival of the Hewsons and Mr Pollock.

Miss Hewson came first. She checked in the open doorway and looked, as far as an inexpressive face allowed her to do so, absolutely furious. Alleyn rose.

“Pardon me. I had gotten an impression that this stateroom had been allocated to our personal use,” said Miss Hewson.

Alleyn said he was sure she would find that nothing had been disturbed.

Mr Hewson, looking over his sister’s shoulder like a gaunt familiar spirit said he guessed that wasn’t the point and Mr Pollock, obscured, could be heard to say something about search-warrants.

Alleyn repeated his story. Without committing himself in so many words he contrived to suggest that his mind was running along the lines of suicide as indicated by Mr Lazenby. He sensed an easing off in antagonism among his hearers. The time had come for what Troy was in the habit of referring to as his unbridled comehithery, which was unfair of Troy. He talked about the Hewsons’ find and said his wife had told him it might well prove to be an important Constable.

He said, untruthfully, that he had had no police experience in the realms of art-forgery. He believed, he said, and he had, in fact, been told by a top man, that it was most important for the canvas to be untouched until the experts looked at it. He wasn’t sure that his wife and Mr Bard hadn’t been naughty to oil the surface.

He would love to see the picture. He said if he could afford it he would be a collector. He had the mania. He gushed.

As soon as he broached the matter of the picture Alleyn was quite sure that the Hewsons did not want him to see it. They listened to him and eyed him and said next to nothing. Mr Pollock, still in the background, hung off and on and could be heard to mutter.

Finally, Alleyn fired point-blank. “Do show me your ‘Constable’,” he said. “I’m longing to see it.”

Miss Hewson with every appearance of the deepest reluctance seemed to be about to move into the cabin when her brother suddenly ejaculated—

“Now, isn’t this just too bad! Sis, what do you know!”

From the glance she shot at him, Alleyn would have thought that she hadn’t the remotest idea what he was driving at. She said nothing.

Mr Hewson turned to Alleyn with a very wide smile.

“Just too bad,” he repeated. “Just one of those darn’ things! It sure would’ve been a privilege to have your opinion, Superintendent, but you know what? We packaged up that problem picture and mailed it right back to our London address not more’n half an hour before we quit Crossdyke.”

“Did you really? I am disappointed,” said Alleyn.

-3-

“Funny way to carry on,” said Tillottson.

“So funny that I’ve taken it upon myself to lock the cabin door, keep the key and make sure there is not a duplicate. And if the Hewsons don’t fancy that one they can lump it. What’s more I’m going to rouse up Mr Jno. Bagg, licensed dealer of Tollardwark. I think you’d better come, too, Bert,” said Alleyn who had arrived at Mr Tillottson’s first name by way of Fox.

“Him! Why?”

“I’ll explain on the way. Warn them at the lock, will you, Bert, to hold anything from the Zodiac that’s handed in for posting. After all, they could pick that lock. And tell your chaps to watch like lynxes for anything to go overboard. It’s too big,” he added, “for them to shove it down the loo and if they dropped it out of a porthole I think it’d float. But tell your chaps to watch. We’ll take your car, shall we?”

They left the mist-shrouded Zodiac and drove up the lane through the Constable landscape. When they reached the intersection a policeman on a motor-cycle saluted.

“My chap,” Tillottson said.

“Yes. I’m still uneasy, though. You’re sure this specimen can’t break for the open country and lie doggo?”

“I’ve got three chaps on the intersections and two down at the lock. No one’ll get off that boat tonight: I’ll guarantee it.”

“I suppose not. All right. Press on,” Alleyn said.

The evening had begun to close in when they reached Tollardwark and Ferry Lane. They left their car in the Market Square and followed Troy’s route downhill to the premises of Jno. Bagg.

“Pretty tumbledown dump,” Tillottson said. “But he’s honest enough as dealers go. Not a local man. Southerner. Previous owner died and this chap Jo Bagg, bought the show as it stood. We’ve nothing against him in Records. He’s a rum character, though, is Jo Bagg.”

The premises consisted of a cottage, a lean-to and a yard, which was partly sheltered by a sort of ramshackle cloister pieced together from scrap iron and linoleum. The yard gate was locked. Through it Alleyn saw copious disjecta membra of Mr Bagg’s operations. A shop window in the cottage wall dingily faced the lane. It was into this window that Troy had found the Hewsons peering last Monday night.

Tillottson said. “He’ll be in bed as like as not. They go to bed early in these parts.”

“Stir him up,” Alleyn rejoined and jerked at a cord that dangled from a hole near the door. A bell jangled inside. No response. “Up you get,” Alleyn muttered and jerked again. Tillottson banged on the door.

“If you lads don’t want to be given in charge,” bawled a voice within, “you better ’op it. Go on. Get out of it. I’ll murder you one of these nights, see if I don’t.”

“It’s me, Jo,” Tillottson shouted through the keyhole. “Tillottson. Police. Spare us a moment, will you?”

“Who?”

“Tillottson: Toll’ark Police.”

Silence. A light was turned on somewhere behind the dirty window. They heard shuffling steps and the elaborate unchaining and unbolting of the door which was finally dragged open with a screech to reveal a small, dirty man wearing pyjamas and an unspeakable overcoat.

“What’s it all about?” he complained. “I’m going to bed. What’s the idea?”

“We won’t keep you, Jo. If we can just come in for half a sec.”

He muttered and stood aside. “In there, then,” he said and dragged and banged the door shut. “In the shop.”

They walked into what passed for a shop: a low room crammed to its ceiling and so ill-lit that nothing came out into the open or declared itself in its character of table, hat-rack or mouldering chair. Rather, everything lurked in menacing anonymity and it really was going too far in the macabre for Jno. Bagg to suspend a doll from one of the rafters by a cord round its broken neck.

“This,” said Mr Tillottson, “is Superintendent Alleyn of the CID, Jo. He wonders if you can help him.”

“‘Ere,” said Mr Bagg, “that’s a type of remark I never expected to have thrown at me on me own premises. Help the police. We all know what that one leads to.”

“No, you don’t, Jo. Listen, Jo—”

Alleyn intervened. “Mr Bagg,” he said, “you can take my word for it there is no question of anything being held against you in any way whatever. I’ll come to the point at once. We are anxious to trace the origin of a picture which was sold by you yesterday to an American lady and her brother. We have reason to believe—”

“Don’t you start making out I’m a fence. Don’t you come at that one, mister. Me! A fence—!”

“I don’t for one moment suggest you’re anything of the sort. Do pay attention like a good chap. I have reason to believe that this picture may have been dumped on your premises and I want to find out if that could be so.”

“Dumped! You joking?”

“Not at all. Now, listen. The picture, as you will remember, was in a bundle of old prints and scraps and the lady found it when she opened the door of a cupboard in your yard. The bundle was rolled up and tied with string and very dirty. It looked as if it hadn’t been touched for donkey’s years. You told the lady you didn’t know you had it and you sold it to her unexamined for ten bob and nobody’s complaining or blaming you or suspecting you of anything.”

“Are you telling me,” Mr Bagg said with a change of manner, “that she struck it lucky? Is that the lay?”

“It may be a valuable painting and it may be a forgery.”

“I’ll be damned!”

“Now, all I want to know, and I hope you’ll see your way to telling me, is whether, on thinking it over, you can remember seeing the roll of prints in that cupboard before yesterday.”

“What I meantersay, no. No, I can’t. No.”

“Had you never opened the cupboard, or sideboard is it, since you bought it?”

“No. I can’t say fairer than that, mister, can I? No. Not me, I never.”

“May I look at it?” He grumbled a little but finally led them out to his yard where the very dregs of his collection mouldered. The sideboard was a vast Edwardian piece executed in pitchpine with the cupboard in the middle. Alleyn tried the door which had warped and only opened to a hard wrench and a screech that compared favourably with that of the front door.

“She was nosey,” Mr Bagg offered. “Had to open everything she saw. Had a job with that one. Still nothing would do—nosey.”

“And there it was.”

“That’s correct, mister. There it was. And there it wasn’t if you can understand, three days before.”

“ What?”

“Which I won’t deceive you, mister. While my old woman was looking over the stock out here, Monday, she opened that cupboard and she mentions the same to me when them two Yanks had gone and she says it wasn’t there then.”

“Why couldn’t you tell us at once, Jo?” Mr Tillottson asked more in resignation than in anger.

“You arst, you know you did, or this gentleman which is all one, arst if I never opened the cupboard and I answered truthfully that I never. Now then!”

“All right, Jo, all right. That’s all we wanted to know.”

“Not quite,” Alleyn said. “I wonder, Mr Bagg, if you’ve any idea of how the bundle could have got there. Have you anybody working for you? A boy?”

“Boy! Don’t mention Boy to me. Runaway knockers and ringers, the lot of them. I wouldn’t have Boys on me property, not if they paid me.”

“Is the gate from this yard to the road unlocked during the day?”

“Yes, it is unlocked. To oblige.”

“Have many people been in over the last two days, would you say?”

Not many, it appeared. His customers, as a general rule came into the shop. All the stuff in the yard was of a size or worthlessness that made it unpilferable. It was evident that anybody with a mind to it could wander round the yard without Mr Bagg being aware of their presence. Under persuasion he recalled one or two locals who had drifted in and bought nothing.

Alleyn delicately suggested that perhaps Mrs Bagg—?

“Mrs Bagg,” said Mr Bagg, “is in bed and asleep which game to rouse her, I am not. No more would you be if you knew how she can shape up.”

“But if your wife—”

“Wife? Do me a favour! She’s my mum.”

“Oh.”

As if to confirm the general trend of thought a female voice like a saw screamed from inside the cottage that its owner wanted to know what the hell Mr Bagg thought he was doing creating a nuisance in the middle of the night.

“There you are,” he said. “Now, see what you done.” He approached a window at the rear of the cottage and tapped on it. “It’s me,” he mumbled. “It’s not the middle of the night, Mum, it’s early. It’s Mr Tillottson of the Police, Mum, and a gentleman friend. They was inquiring about them Yanks what bought that stuff.”

“I can’t hear you. Police! Did you say Police? ’Ere! Come round ’ere this instant-moment, Jo Bagg, and explain yerself: Police.”

“I better go,” he said and re-entered the cottage.

“The old lady,” Mr Tillottson said, “is a wee bit difficult.”

“So it would seem.”

“They make out she’s nearly a hundred.”

“But she’s got the stamina?”

“My oath!”

The Baggs were in conversation beyond the window but at a subdued level and nothing could be made of it. When Mr Bagg re-emerged he spoke in a whisper.

“Do me a favour, gents,” he whispered. “Move away.”

They withdrew into the shop and from thence to the front door.

“She’s deaf,” Mr Bagg said, “but there are times when you wouldn’t credit it. She don’t know anything about nothing but she worked it out that if this picture you mention is a valuable antique it’s been taken off us by false pretences and we ought to get it back.”

“Oh.”

“That’s the view she takes. And so,” Mr Bagg added loyally, “do I. Now!”

“I dare say you do,” Mr Tillottson readily conceded. “Very natural. And she’s no ideas about how it got there?”

“No more nor the Holy Saints in Heaven, and she’s a Catholic,” Mr Bagg said unexpectedly.

“Well, we’ll bid you good night, Jo. Unless Mr Alleyn has anything further?”

“Not at the moment, thank you. Mr Bagg.”

Mr Bagg wrenched open the front door to the inevitable screech which was at once echoed from the back bedroom.

“You ask them Police,” screamed old Mrs Bagg, “why they don’t do something about them motor-biking Beasts instead of making night hijjus on their own accounts.”

“What motor-biking beasts?” Alleyn suddenly yelled into the darkness.

“You know. And if you don’t you ought to. Back-firing up and down the streets at all hours and hanging round up to no good. Jo! Show them out and get to bed.”

“Yes, Mum.”

“And another thing,” invisibly screamed Mrs Bagg. “What was them two Americans doing nosey-parkering about the place last week was a month back, taking photers and never letting on they was the same as before.”

Alleyn set himself to bawl again and thought better of it. “What does she mean?” he asked Mr Bagg.

“You don’t have to notice,” he said. “But it’s correct, all right. They been here before, see, taking photographs and Mum recognised them. She wouldn’t have made nothink of it only for suspecting they done us.”

“When were they here? Where did they stay?”

“In the spring. May. Late April: I wouldn’t know. But it was them all right. They made out, when I says weren’t they here before, they was that taken with the place they come back for more.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“Don’t be funny,” Mr Bagg said. “Course I’m sure. This way, for Gawd’s sake.”

They went out. Mr Bagg had re-addressed himself to the door when Alleyn said: “Can you tell us anything about these motor-cyclists?”

“Them? Couple of mods. Staying up at the Star in Chantry Street. Tearing about the country all hours and disturbing people. Tuesday evening Mum ’eard something in our yard and caught the chap nosing round. Looking for old chain he said, but she didn’t fancy him. She took against him very strong, did Mum, and anyway we ain’t got no old chain. Chain!”

“Why,” began Mr Tillottson on a note of anguish, “didn’t you mention—”

“I never give it a thought. You can’t think of everything.”

“Nor you can,” Alleyn hurriedly intervened. “But now you have thought, can you tell us what drew Mrs Bagg’s attention to the chap in the yard?”

“Like I said, she ’eard something.”

“What, though?”

“Some sort of screech. I ’eard it too.”

“You did!”

“But I was engaged with a customer,” Mr Bagg said majestically, “in my shop.”

“Could the screech have been made by the door in the sideboard?” Mr Bagg peered into Alleyn’s face as if into that of an oracle.

“Mister,” he said, “it not only could but it did.” He took thought and burst into protestation.

“Look,” he said. “I want an explanation. If I been done I want to know how I been done. If I been in possession of a valuable article and sold this article for a gift without being fully informed I want to get it back, fair and proper. Now.”

They left him discontentedly pursuing this thought but not loudly enough to arouse the curiosity of old Mrs Bagg. The door shrieked and slammed and they heard the bolts shoot home on the inside.

“Star Inn,” Alleyn said as they got in the car but when they reached the inn it was to find that the motor-bicyclists had paid their bill the previous evening and set off for an unknown destination. They had registered as Mr and Mrs John Smith.

-4-

The motor-bicycle had been parked in a dampish yard behind the pub and the tyre-tracks were easy enough to pick up. Alleyn took measurements, made a sketch of the prints and had them covered, pending the arrival of Bailey and Thompson. He thought that when they examined Fox’s find under the hedgerow above Crossdyke they would find an exact correspondence. An outside man at the Star remembered the make of vehicle—Route-Rocket—but nobody could give the number.

Alleyn telephoned Troy at The Percy Arms in Norminster and asked her if by any chance she could recall it.

She sat on the edge of her bed with the receiver at her ear and tried to summon up her draughtsman’s memory of the scene on the quay at Norminster last Monday morning. Miss Rickerby-Carrick squatted on her suitcase, writing. Caley Bard and Dr Natouche were down by The River. Pollock limped off in a sulk. The Bishop’s car was in the lane with Lazenby inside. The two riders lounged against their machine, their oiled heads and black leather gear softly glistening in the sun. She had wanted to draw them, booted legs, easy, indolent pose, gum-chewing faces, gloved hands. And the machine. She screwed her memory to the sticking point, waited and then heard her own voice.

“I think,” said her voice, “it was XKL-460.”

“Now, there!” Alleyn exclaimed. “See what a girl I’ve got! Thank you, my love, and good night.” He hung up. “All right,” he said. “We set up a general call. They’ll be God knows where by now but they’ve got to be somewhere and by God we’ll fetch them in.”

He, Fox and Tillottson were in the superintendent’s office at the Tollardwark police-station where, on Monday night, Troy had first encountered Mr Tillottson. The sergeant set up the call. In a matter of minutes all divisions throughout the country and all police personnel were alerted for a Route-Rocket, XKL-460, black, with either one or two riders, mod-types, leather clothes, dark, long hair, calf-boots. Retain for questioning and report in.

“And by now,” Fox observed, “they’ve repainted their bike, cut their hair and gone into rompers.”

“Always the little sunbeam,” Alleyn muttered, absently. He had covered a table in the office with newspaper and now very carefully they laid upon it an old-fashioned hide suitcase, saturated with river-water, blotched, disreputable, with one end of its handle detached from its ring. A length of cord had been firmly knotted through both rings.

“We opened it,” Tillottson said, “and checked the contents as they lay. We left them for a doing-over and re-closed the lot. You can see what happened. The other end of the cord was secured round her waist. The slack had been passed two or three times under the handle and round the case. When the handle came away at one end the slack paid out and instead of being anchored on the river bed, the body rose to the surface but remained fastened to the weighted case. As it was when we recovered it.”

“Yes,” Alleyn agreed. “You can see where the turns of rope bit into the leather.”

Fox, who was bent over the cord, said: “Clothes-line. Did they pinch it or had they got it?” and sighed heavily. “We’ll inquire,” he said.

“They might have had it,” Tillottson said. “In their kit, you know. Easily they might. Or what-say,” he added, brightening, “they picked it up in Jo’s yard? How’s that?”

“That might or might not argue premeditation,” Alleyn said. “For the moment it can wait. We’d better take another look inside.”

The case was unlocked but fastened with strong old-fashioned hasps and a strap. The saturated leather was slimy to the touch. He opened and laid back the lid.

A jumble of clothes that had been stuffed into the case. Three pairs of shoes which spoke with dreadful eloquence of the feet that had distorted them. A seedy comb and hairbrush with straggles of grey hairs still engaged in them.

“And the whole lot stowed away in a hurry and not by her. No hope of prints, he’s a damn’ sight too fly for that, but we’ll have to try. Hallo, what’s here?”

Five stones of varying sizes. A half brick. Two handfuls of gravel. Underneath all these, a sponge-bag containing a half-empty bottle of aspirins (Troy’s, thought Alleyn), a tooth brush and a tube of paste and, in a state of disintegration, Hazel Rickerby-Carrick’s “self-propelling confessional.”

“The diary,” Alleyn said. “And to misuse a nastily appropriate line: ‘lift it up tenderly, treat it with care’. You never know—it may turn out to be a guide-book.”