Scales of Justice

CHAPTER IX Chyning

The next observation was made by Mark Lacklander.

“I hope you’ll let me speak, Grandmama,” he said. “And Father,” he added, obviously as a polite afterthought. “Although, I must confess, most of the virtue has already gone from what I have to say.”

“Then why, my dear boy, say it?”

“Well, Gar, it’s really, you know, a matter of principle. Rose and I are agreed on it. We’ve kept quiet under your orders, but we both have felt, haven’t we, Rose, that by far the best thing is to be completely frank with Mr. Alleyn. Any other course, as you’ve seen for yourself, just won’t do.”

“I have not changed my mind, Mark. Wait, a little.”

“0, yes,” Kitty said eagerly. “I do think so, honestly. Wait. I’m sure,” she added, “it’s what he would have said. Maurie, I mean.” Her face quivered unexpectedly and she fumbled for her handkerchief.

Rose made one of those involuntary movements that are so much more graphic than words, and Alleyn, whom for the moment they all completely disregarded, wondered how the Colonel had enjoyed being called Maurie.

George, with a rebellious glance at his mother, said, “Exactly what I mean. Wait.”

“By all means, wait,” Alleyn interjected, and stood up. They all jumped slightly. “I expect,” he suggested to Lady Lacklander, “you would like, before taking any further steps, to consult with Mr. Phinn. As a matter of fact, I think it highly probable that he will suggest it himself.” Alleyn looked very straight at Lady Lacklander. “I suggest,” he said, “that you consider just exactly what is at stake in this matter. When a capital crime is committed, you know, all sorts of long-buried secrets are apt to be discovered. It’s one of those things about homicide.” She made no kind of response to this, and, after a moment, he went on, “Perhaps when you have all come to a decision, you will be kind enough to let me know. They’ll always take a message at the Boy and Donkey. And now, if I may, I’ll get on with my job.”

He bowed to Lady Lacklander and was about to move off when Mark said, “I’ll see you to your car, sir. Coming, Rose?”

Rose seemed to hesitate, but she went off with him, entirely, Alleyn sensed, against the wishes of the remaining three.

Mark and Rose conducted him round the east wing of the great house to the open platform in front of it. Here Fox waited in the police car. A sports model with a doctor’s sticker and a more domestic car, which Alleyn took to be the Cartarettes’, waited side by side. The young footman, William, emerged with a suitcase. Alleyn watched him deliver this to Fox and return to the house.

“There goes our dirty washing,” Mark said, and then looked uncomfortable.

Alleyn said, “But you carried a tennis racket, didn’t you, and Sir George, I suppose, a golf bag? May we have them too?”

Mark said, “Yes, I see. Yes. All right, I’ll get them.”

He ran up the steps and disappeared. Alleyn turned to Rose. She stared at the doorway through which Mark had gone, and it was as if some kind of threat had overtaken her.

“I’m so frightened,” she said. “I don’t know why, but I’m so frightened.”

“Of what?” Alleyn asked gently.

“I don’t know. One of those things, I suppose. I’ve never felt it before. It’s as if my father was the only person that I ever really knew. And now he’s gone; someone’s murdered him, and I feel as if I didn’t properly understand anyone at all.”

Mark came back with a bag of clubs and a tennis racket in a press.

“This is it,” he said.

“You didn’t have it in one of those waterproof-cover things?”

“What? Oh, yes, actually, I did.”

“May I have that too, please?”

Mark made a second trip to get it and was away rather longer. “I wasn’t sure which was the one,” he said, “but I think this is right.”

Alleyn put it with the bag and racket in the car.

Mark had caught Rose’s hand in his. She hung back a little. “Mr. Alleyn,” Mark said, “Rose and I are in the hell of a spot over this. Aren’t we, darling? We’re engaged, by the way.”

“You amaze me,” Alleyn said.

“Well, we are. And, of course, wherever it’s humanly possible, I’m going to see that Rose is not harried and fussed. She’s had a very severe shock and…”

“No, don’t,” Rose said. “Please, Mark, don’t.”

Mark gazed at her, seemed to lose the thread of his subject, and then collected himself.

“It’s just this,” he said. “I feel strongly that as far as you and our two families are concerned, everything ought to be perfectly straightforward. We’re under promise not to mention this and that, and so we can’t, but we are both very worried about the way things are going. I mean, in respect of Octavius Phinn. You see, sir, we happen to know that poor old Occy Phinn had every possible reason not to commit this crime. Every possible reason. And if,” Mark said, “you’ve guessed, as I rather think you may have, what I’m driving at, I can’t help it.”

“And you agree with all this, Miss Cartarette?” Alleyn asked.

Rose held herself a little aloof now. Tear-stained and obviously exhausted, she seemed to pull herself together and shape her answer with care and difficulty.

“Mr. Alleyn, my father would have been appalled if he could have known that because he and Octavius had a row over the trout, poor Occy might be thought to — to have a motive. They’d had rows over trout for years. It was a kind of joke — nothing. And — whatever else they had to say to each other, and as you know, there was something else, it would have made Octavius much more friendly. I promise you. You see, I know my father had gone to see Octavius.”

Alleyn said quickly, “You mean he went to his house? Yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes. I was with him before he went and he said he was going there.”

“Did he say why? I think you spoke of some publishing business.”

“Yes. He — he had something he wanted to show Occy.”

“What was that, can you tell us?”

“I can’t tell you,” Rose said looking wretchedly unhappy. “I do know, actually, but it’s private. But I’m sure he went to Occy’s because I saw him take the envelope out of the desk and put it in his pocket—” she put her hand to her eyes— “but,” she said, “where is it, then?”

Alleyn said, “Where exactly was the envelope? In which drawer of his desk?”

“I think the bottom one on the left. He kept it locked, usually.”

“I see. Thank you. And, of course, Mr. Phinn was not at home?”

“No. I suppose, finding him not at home, Daddy followed him down to the stream. Of course, I mustn’t tell you what his errand was, but if ever,” Rose said in a trembling voice, “if ever there was an errand of — well, of mercy — Daddy’s was one, yesterday afternoon.”

Rose had an unworldly face with a sort of Pre-Raphaelitish beauty: very unmodish in its sorrow and very touching.

Alleyn said gently, “I know. Don’t worry. I can promise we won’t blunder.”

“How kind you are,” she said. Mark muttered indistinguishably.

As Alleyn turned away towards the police car, her voice halted him. “It must be somebody mad,” she said. “Nobody who wasn’t mad could possibly do it. Not possibly. There’s somebody demented that did it for no reason at all.” She extended her hand towards him a little way, the palm turned up in a gesture of uncertainty and appeal. “Don’t you think so?” she said.

Alleyn said, “I think you are very shocked and bewildered, as well you might be. Did you sleep last night?”

“Not much. I am sorry, Mark, but I didn’t take the thing you gave me. I felt I mustn’t. I had to wake for him. The house felt as if he was looking for me.”

“I think it might be a good idea,” Alleyn said to Mark, “if you drove Miss Cartarette to Hammer Farm, where perhaps she will be kind enough to hunt up her own and Mrs. Cartarette’s garments of yesterday. Everything, please, shoes, stockings and all. And treat them, please, like eggshell china.”

Mark said, “As important as that?”

“The safety of several innocent persons may depend upon them.”

“I’ll take care,” Mark said.

“Good. We’ll follow you and collect them.”

“Fair enough,” Mark said. He smiled at Rose. “And when that’s done,” he said, “I’m going to bring you back to Nunspardon and put my professional foot down about nembutal. Kitty’ll drive herself home. Come on.”

Alleyn saw Rose make a small gesture of protest. “I think perhaps I’ll stay at Hammer, Mark.”

“No, you won’t, darling.”

“I can’t leave Kitty like that.”

“She’ll understand. Anyway, we’ll be back here before she leaves. Come on.”

Rose turned as if to appeal to Alleyn and then seemed to give up. Mark took her by the elbow and led her away.

Alleyn watched them get into the sports car and shoot off down a long drive. He shook his head slightly and let himself into the front seat beside Fox.

“Follow them, Br’er Fox,” he said. “But sedately. There’s no hurry. We’re going to Hammer Farm.”

On the way he outlined the general shape of his visit to Nunspardon.

“It’s clear enough, wouldn’t you agree,” he ended, “what has happened about the memoirs. Take the facts as we know them. The leakage of information at Zlomce was of such importance that Sir Harold Lacklander couldn’t, in what is evidently an exhaustive autobiography, ignore it. At the time of the catastrophe we learnt in the Special Branch from Lacklander himself that after confessing his treachery, young Phinn, as a result of his wigging, committed suicide. We know Lacklander died with young Phinn’s name on his lips, at the same time showing the greatest anxiety about the memoirs. We know that Cartarette was entrusted with the publication. We know Cartarette took an envelope from the drawer that was subsequently broken open and went to see old Phinn on what Miss Cartarette describes as an errand of mercy. When he didn’t find him at home, he followed him into the valley. Finally, we know that after they fell out over the poaching, they had a further discussion about which, although she admits she heard it, Lady Lacklander will tell us nothing. Now, my dear Br’er Fox, why should the Lacklanders or Mr. Phinn or the Cartarettes be so uncommonly touchy about all this? I don’t know what you think, but I can find only one answer.”

Fox turned the car sedately into the Hammer Farm drive and nodded his head.

“Seems pretty obvious when you put it like that, Mr. Alleyn, I must say. But is there sufficient motive for murder in it?”

“Who the hell’s going to say what’s a sufficient motive for murder? And anyway, it may be one of a bunch of motives. Probably is. Stick to ubi, quibus, auxiliis, quomodo and quando, Foxkin; let cur look after itself, and blow me down if quis won’t walk in when you’re least expecting it.”

“So you always tell us, sir,” said Fox.

“All right, all right; I grow to a dotage and repeat myself. There’s the lovelorn C.P.’s car. We wait here while they hunt up the garments of the two ladies. Mrs. Cartarette’s will be brand-new extra-loud tweeds smelling of Schiaparelli and, presumably, of fish.”

“Must be a bit lonely,” Fox mused.

“Who?”

“Mrs. Cartarette. An outsider, you might say, dumped down in a little place where they’ve known each other’s pedigrees since the time they were all using bows and arrows. Bit lonely. More she tries to fit in, I daresay, the less they seem to take to her. More polite they get, the more uncomfortable they make her feel.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said, “true enough. You’ve shoved your great fat finger into the middle of one of those uncomfortable minor tragedies that the Lacklanders of this world prefer to cut dead. And I’ll tell you something else, Fox. Of the whole crowd of them, not excluding your girl-friend, there isn’t one that wouldn’t feel a kind of relief if she turned out to have murdered her husband.”

Fox looked startled. “One, surely?” he ejaculated.

“No,” Alleyn insisted with a sort of violence that was very rare with him. “Not one. Not one. For all of them she’s the intruder, the disturber, the outsider. The very effort some of them have tried to make on her behalf has added to their secret resentment. I bet you. How did you get on in Chyning?”

“I saw Dr. Curtis. He’s fixed up very comfortably in the hospital mortuary and was well on with the P.M. Nothing new cropped up about the injuries. He says he thinks it’s true enough about the fish scales and will watch out for them and do the microscope job with all the exhibits. The Yard’s going to look up the late Sir Harold’s will and check Commander Syce’s activities in Singapore. They say it won’t take long if the Navy List gives them a line on anybody in the Service who was there at the time and has a shore job now. If they strike it lucky, they may call us back in a couple of hours. I said the Boy and Donkey and the Chyning station to be sure of catching us.”

“Good,” Alleyn said without much show of interest. “Hullo, listen who’s coming! Here we go.”

He was out of the car before Fox could reply and with an abrupt change of speed began to stroll down the drive. His pipe was in his hands and he busied himself with filling it. The object of this unexpected pantomime now pedalled into Mr. Fox’s ken: the village postman.

Alleyn, stuffing his pipe, waited until the postman was abreast with him.

“Good morning,” said Alleyn.

“Morning, sir,” said the postman, braking his bicycle.

“I’ll take them, shall I?” Alleyn suggested.

The postman steadied himself with one foot on the ground. “Well, ta,” he said and with a vague suggestion of condolence added, “Save the disturbance, like, won’t it, sir? Only one, anyway.” He fetched a long envelope from his bag and held it out. “For the deceased,” he said in a special voice. “Terrible sad, if I may pass the remark.”

“Indeed, yes,” Alleyn said, taking, with a sense of rising excitement, the long, and to him familiar, envelope.

“Terrible thing to happen in the Vale,” the postman continued. “What I mean, the crime, and the Colonel that highly respected and never a word that wasn’t kindness itself. Everybody’s that upset and that sorry for the ladies. Poor Miss Rose, now! Well, it’s terrible.”

The postman, genuinely distressed and at the same time consumed with a countryman’s inquisitiveness, looked sideways at Alleyn. “You’d be a relative, I daresay, sir.”

“How very kind of you,” Alleyn said, blandly ignoring this assumption. “I’ll tell them you sent your sympathy, shall I?”

“Ta,” said the postman. “And whoever done it; what I mean, I’m sure I hope they get ’em. I hear it’s reckoned to be a job for the Yard and altogether beyond the scope of Bert Oliphant, which won’t surprise us in the Vale, although the man’s active enough when it comes to after hours at the Boy and Donkey. Well, I’ll be getting along.”

When he had gone, Alleyn returned to Fox.

“Look what I’ve got,” he said.

Fox contemplated the long envelope and, when Alleyn showed him the reverse side, read the printed legend on the flap: “From Brierley and Bentwood, St. Peter’s Place, London, W. 1.”

“Publishers?” said Fox.

“Yes. We’ve got to know what this is, Fox. The flap’s very sketchily gummed down. A little tweak and — how easy it would be. Justifiable enough, too, I suppose. However, we’ll go the other way round. Here comes Miss Cartarette.”

She came out, followed by Mark carrying a suitcase, a tennis racket in a press and a very new golf bag and clubs.

“Here you are, sir,” Mark said. “We had to fish the clothes out of the dry cleaner’s box, but they’re all present and correct. Rose said you might want her racket, which is absurd, but this is it.”

“Thank you,” Alleyn said, and Fox relieved Mark of his load and put it in the police car. Alleyn showed Rose the envelope.

He said, “This has come for your father. I’m afraid we may have to ask for all his recent correspondence and certainly for anything that comes now. They will, of course, be returned and, unless used in evidence, will be treated as strictly confidential. I’m so sorry, but that’s how it is. If you wish, you may refuse to let me have this one without an official order.”

He was holding it out with the typed superscription uppermost. Rose looked at it without interest.

Mark said, “Look, darling, I think perhaps you shouldn’t—”

“Please take it,” she said to Alleyn. “It’s a pamphlet, I should think.”

Alleyn thanked her and watched her go off with Mark in his car.

“Shame to take the money,” said Fox.

Alleyn said, “I hope, if he knows, the Colonel doesn’t think too badly of me.”

He opened the envelope, drew out the enclosure and unfolded it.

“And I’ll give you two guesses, Br’er Fox,” Alleyn said as he refolded the letter and returned it to its envelope, “what constitutes the delicate and important matter of Chapter 7.”

When Mark had turned in at the Nunspardon Lodge gates, Rose asked him to stop somewhere on the drive.

“It’s no use going on,” she said. “There’s something I’ve got to say. Please stop.”

“Of course.” Mark pulled into an open space alongside the drive. He stopped his engine and turned to look at her. “Now,” he said, “tell me.”

“Mark, he doesn’t think it was a tramp.”

“Alleyn?”

“Yes. He thinks it was — one of us. I know he does.”

“What exactly, darling, do you mean by ‘one of us’?”

Rose made a little faint circling movement of her hand.

“Someone that knew him. A neighbour. Or one of his own family.”

“You can’t tell. Honestly. Alleyn’s got to do his stuff. He’s got to clear the decks.”

“He doesn’t think it was a tramp,” Rose repeated. Her voice, exhausted and drained of its colour, rose a little. “He thinks it was one of us.”

Mark said after a long pause, “Well, suppose — and I don’t for a moment admit it — suppose at this stage he does wonder about all of us. After all—”

“Yes,” Rose said, “after all, he has cause, hasn’t he?”

“What do you mean?”

“You see what’s happening to us? You’re pretending to misunderstand. It’s clear enough he’s found out about Chapter 7.”

She saw the colour drain out of his face and cried out, “O! What am I doing to us both!”

“Nothing as yet,” Mark said. “Let’s get this straight. You think Alleyn suspects that one of us — me or my father or, I suppose, my grandmother — may have killed your father because he was going to publish the amended version of my grandfather’s memoirs. That it?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Well, you may be right. Alleyn may have some such idea. What I want to know now is this: You yourself, Rose — do you — can it be possible that you, too—? No,” he said, “not now. I won’t ask you now when you’re so badly shocked. We’ll wait.”

“We can’t wait. I can’t go on like this. I can’t come back to Nunspardon and pretend the only thing that matters is for me to take a nembutal and go to sleep.”

“Rose, look at me. No, please. Look at me.”

He took her face between his hands and turned towards him.

“My God,” he said, “you’re afraid of me.”

She did not try to free herself. Her tears ran down between his fingers. “No,” she cried, “no, it’s not true. I can’t be afraid of you; I love you.”

“Are you sure? Are you sure that somewhere in the back of your mind you’re not remembering that your father stood between us and that I was jealous of your love for him? And that his death has made you an heiress? Because it has, hasn’t it? And that the publication of the memoirs would have set my family against our marriage and brought disrepute upon my name? Are you sure you don’t suspect me, Rose?”

“Not you. I promise. Not you.”

“Then — who? Gar? My father? Darling, can you see how fantastic it sounds when one says it aloud?”

“I know it sounds fantastic,” Rose said in despair. “It’s fantastic that anyone should want to hurt my father, but all the same, somebody has killed him. I’ve got to learn to get used to that. Last night somebody killed my father.”

She pulled his hands away from her face. “You must admit,” she said, “that takes a bit of getting used to.”

Mark said, “What am I to do about this!”

“Nothing; you can’t do anything; that’s what’s so awful, isn’t it? You want me to turn to you and find my comfort in you, don’t you, Mark? And I want it, too. I long for it. And then, you see, I can’t. I can’t, because there’s no knowing who killed my father.”

There was a long silence. At last she heard Mark’s voice. “I didn’t want to say this, Rose, but now I’m afraid I’ve got to. There are, after all, other people. If my grandmother and my father and I fall under suspicion— O, yes, and Occy Phinn— isn’t there somebody else who can’t be entirely disregarded?”

Rose said, “You mean Kitty, don’t you?”

“I do. Yes — equally with us.”

“Don’t!” Rose cried out. “Don’t! I won’t listen.”

“You’ve got to. We can’t stop now. Do you suppose I enjoy reminding myself — or you — that my father—”

“No! No, Mark! Please!” Rose said and burst into tears.

Sometimes there exists in people who are attached to each other a kind of ratio between the degree of attraction and the potential for irritation. Strangely, it is often the unhappiness of one that arouses an equal degree of irascibility in the other. The tear-blotted face, the obstinate misery, the knowledge that the distress is genuine and the feeling of incompetence it induces, all combine to exasperate and infirme.

Rose thought she recognized signs of this exasperation in Mark. His look darkened and he had moved away from her. “I can’t help it, Mark,” she stammered.

She heard his expostulations and reiterated arguments. She thought she could hear, too, a note of suppressed irritation in his voice. He kept saying that the whole thing had better be threshed out between them. “Let’s face it,” he said on a rising note. “Kitty’s there, isn’t she? And what about Geoffrey Syce or Nurse Kettle? We needn’t concentrate exclusively on the Lacklanders, need we?” Rose turned away. Leaning her arm on the ledge of the open window and her face on her arm, she broke down completely.

“Ah, hell!” Mark shouted. He pushed open the door, got out and began to walk angrily to and fro.

It was upon this situation that Kitty appeared, driving herself home from Nunspardon. When she saw Mark’s car, she pulled up. Rose made a desperate effort to collect herself. After a moment’s hesitation, Kitty got out of her car and came over to Rose. Mark shoved his hands into his pockets and moved away.

“I don’t want to butt in,” Kitty said, “but can I do anything? I mean, just say — I’ll get out if I’m no use.”

Rose looked up at her and for the first time saw in her stepmother’s face the signs of havoc that Kitty had been at pains to repair. For the first time it occurred to Rose that there are more ways than one of meeting sorrow, and for the first time she felt a sense of fellowship for Kitty.

“How kind of you,” she said. “I’m glad you stopped.”

“That’s all right. I was sort of wondering,” Kitty went on, with an unwonted air of hesitation; “I daresay you’d rather sort of move out. Say if you would. I’m not talking about what you said about the future but of now. I mean, I daresay Mark’s suggested you stay up at Nunspardon. Do, if you’d like to. I mean, I’ll be O.K.”

It had never occurred to Rose that Kitty might be lonely if she herself went to Nunspardon. A stream of confused recollections and ideas flooded her thoughts. She reminded herself again that Kitty would now be quite desperately hard-up and that she had a responsibility towards her. She wondered if her stepmother’s flirtations with Mark’s father had not been induced by a sense of exclusion. She looked into the careworn, over-painted face and thought, “After all, we both belonged to him.”

Kitty said awkwardly, “Well, anyway, I’ll push off.”

Suddenly Rose wanted to say, “I’ll come back with you, Kitty. Let’s go home.” She fumbled with the handle of the door, but before she could speak or make a move, she was aware of Mark. He had come back to the car and had moved round to her side and was speaking to Kitty.

“That’s what I’ve been telling her,” he said. “In fact, as her doctor, those are my orders. She’s coming to Nunspardon. I’m glad you support me.”

Kitty gave him the look that she bestowed quite automatically on any presentable male. “Well, anyway, she’s in good hands,” she said. She gave them a little wave of her own hand and returned to her car.

With a feeling of desolation and remorse Rose watched her drive away.

On the way to Chyning, Alleyn propounded his theory on Chapter 7.

“Bear in mind,” he said, “the character of Colonel Cartarette as it emerges from the welter of talk. With the exception of Danberry-Phinn, they are all agreed, aren’t they, that Cartarette was a nice chap with uncommonly high standards and a rather tender conscience. All right. For the last time let us remind ourselves that, just before he died, old Lacklander was very much bothered by something to do with Cartarette and the memoirs and that he died with the name Vic on his lips. All right. Whenever the memoirs and/or young Viccy Phinn are mentioned, everybody behaves as if they’re concealing the fact that they are about to have kittens. Fair enough. Phinn and Lady Lacklander both agree that there was further discussion, after the row, between Phinn and the Colonel. Lady Lacklander flatly refuses to divulge the subject-matter, and Phinn says if she won’t, neither will he. The Colonel left his house with the intention of calling upon Phinn, with whom he had been on bad terms for a long time. Now put all those bits together, remembering the circumstances of young Phinn’s death, George Lacklander’s virtual admission that the memoirs exonerated young Phinn, Rose Cartarette’s statement that her father’s visit to old Phinn was an errand of mercy, and the contents of the publisher’s letter. Put ’em together and what do you get?”

“Chapter 7 was the bit that exonerated young Phinn. Colonel Cartarette was given the responsibility of including it in this book. He couldn’t decide one way or the other and took it to Mr. Phinn,” Fox speculated, “to see which way he felt about it. Mr. Phinn was out fishing and the Colonel followed him up. After their dust-up the Colonel — now what does the Colonel do?”

“In effect,” Alleyn said, “the Colonel says, ‘All right, you unconscionable old poacher. All right. Look what I’d come to do for you?’ And he tells him about Chapter 7. And since we didn’t find Chapter 7 on the Colonel, we conclude that he gave it there and then to Mr. Phinn. This inference is strongly supported by the fact that I saw an envelope with a wad of typescript inside, addressed in the Colonel’s hand to Mr. Phinn, on Mr. Phinn’s desk. So what, my old Foxkin, are we to conclude?”

“About Chapter 7?”

“About Chapter 7.”

“You tell me,” said Fox with a stately smile.

Alleyn told him.

“Well, sir,” Fox said, “it’s possible. It’s as good a motive as any for the Lacklanders to do away with the Colonel.”

“Except that if we’re right in our unblushing conjectures, Fox, Lady Lacklander overheard the Colonel give Chapter 7 to Mr. Phinn; in which case, if any of the Lacklanders were after blood, Mr. Phinn’s would be the more logical blood to tap.”

“Lady Lacklander may not have heard much of what they said.”

“In which case, why is she so cagey about it all now, and what did she and the Colonel talk about afterwards?”

“Ah, blast!” said Fox in disgust. “Well, then, it may be that the memoirs and Chapter 7 and Who-Stole-the-Secret-Document-in-Zlomce haven’t got anything to do with the case.”

“My feeling is that they do belong but are not of the first importance.”

“Well, Mr. Alleyn, holding the view you do hold, it’s the only explanation that fits.”

“Quite so. And I tell you what, Fox, motive, as usual, is a secondary consideration. And here is Chyning and a petrol pump and here (hold on to your hat, Fox; down, down, little flutterer) is the Jolly Kettle filling up a newly painted car which I’ll swear she calls by a pet name. If you can control yourself, we’ll pull in for some petrol. Good morning, Miss Kettle.”

“The top of the morning to you, Chief,” said Nurse Kettle turning a beaming face upon them. She slapped the back of her car as if it were a rump. “Having her elevenses,” she said. “First time we’ve met for a fortnight on account she’s been having her face lifted. And how are you?”

“Bearing up,” Alleyn said, getting out of the car. “Inspector Fox is turning rather short-tempered.”

Fox ignored him. “Very nice little car, Miss Kettle,” he said.

“Araminta? She’s a good steady girl on the whole,” said Nurse Kettle, remorselessly jolly. “I’m just taking her out to see a case of lumbago.”

“Commander Syce?” Alleyn ventured.

“That’s right.”

“He is completely recovered.”

“You don’t say,” Nurse Kettle rejoined, looking rather disconcerted. “And him tied up in knots last evening. Fancy!”

“He was a cot case, I understand, when you left him round about eight o’clock last night.”

“Very sorry for ourselves we were, yes.”

“And yet,” Alleyn said, “Mr. Phinn declares that at a quarter past eight Commander Syce was loosing off arrows from his sixty-pound bow.”

Nurse Kettle was scarlet to the roots of her mouse-coloured hair. Alleyn heard his colleague struggling with some subterranean expression of sympathy.

“Well, fancy!” Nurse Kettle was saying in a high voice. “There’s ’bago for you! Now you see it, now you don’t.” And she illustrated this aphorism with sharp snaps of her finger and thumb.

Fox said in an unnatural voice, “Are you sure, Miss Kettle, that the Commander wasn’t having you on? Excuse the suggestion.”

Nurse Kettle threw him a glance that might perhaps be best described as uneasily roguish.

“And why not?” she asked. “Maybe he was. But not for the reason you mere men suppose.”

She got into her car with alacrity and sounded her horn. “Home, John, and don’t spare the horses,” she cried waggishly and drove away in what was evidently an agony of self-consciousness.

“Unless you can develop a deep-seated and obstinate malady, Br’er Fox,” Alleyn said, “you haven’t got a hope.”

“A thoroughly nice woman,” Fox said and added ambiguously, “What a pity!”

They got their petrol and drove on to the police station.

Here Sergeant Oliphant awaited them with two messages from Scotland Yard.

“Nice work,” Alleyn said. “Damn’ quick.”

He read aloud the first message. “Information re trout scales checked with Natural History Museum, Royal Piscatorial Society, Institute for Preservation of British Trout Streams, and D.R. S. K. K. Solomon, expert and leading authority. All confirm that microscopically your two trout cannot exhibit precisely the same characteristics in scales. Cartarette regarded an authority.”

“Fine!” said Inspector Fox. “Fair enough!”

Alleyn took up the second slip of paper. “Report,” he read, “on the late Sir Harold Lacklander’s will.” He read to himself for a minute, then looked up. “Couldn’t be simpler,” he said. “With the exception of the usual group of legacies to dependents the whole lot goes to the widow and to the son, upon whom most of it’s entailed.”

“What Miss Kettle told us.”

“Exactly. Now for the third. Here we are. Report on Commander Geoffrey Syce, R.N., retired. Singapore, March 1, 195- to April 9, 195-. Serving in H. M. S. — , based on Singapore.

Shore duty. Activities, apart from duties: At first, noticeably quiet tastes and habits. Accepted usual invitations but spent considerable time alone, sketching. Later, cohabited with a so-called Miss Kitty de Vere, whom he is believed to have met at a taxi-dance. Can follow up history of de Vere if required. Have ascertained that Syce rented apartment occupied by de Vere, who subsequently met and married Colonel Maurice Cartarette, to whom she is believed to have been introduced by Syce. Sources—”

There followed a number of names, obtained from the Navy List, and a note to say that H. M. S. — being now in port, it had been possible to obtain information through the appropriate sources at the “urgent and important” level.

Alleyn dropped the chit on Oliphant’s desk.

“Poor Cartarette,” he said with a change of voice, “and, if you like, poor Syce.”

“Or, from the other point of view,” Fox said, “poor Kitty.”

Before they returned to Swevenings, Alleyn and Fox visited Dr. Curtis in the Chyning Hospital mortuary. It was a very small mortuary attached to a sort of pocket-hospital, and there was a ghastly cosiness in the close proximity of the mall to the now irrevocably and dreadfully necrotic Colonel. Curtis, who liked to be thorough in his work, was making an extremely exhaustive autopsy and had not yet completed it. He was able to confirm that there had been an initial blow, followed, it seemed, rather than preceded by, a puncture, but that neither the blow nor the puncture quite accounted for some of the multiple injuries, which were the result, he thought, of pressure. Contrecoup, he said, was present in a very marked degree. He would not entirely dismiss Commander Syce’s arrows nor Lady Lacklander’s umbrella spike, but he thought her shooting-stick the most likely of the sharp instruments produced. The examination of the shooting-stick for blood traces might bring them nearer to a settlement of this point. The paint-rag, undoubtedly, was stained with blood, which had not yet been classified. It smelt quite strongly of fish. Alleyn handed over the rest of his treasure-trove.

“As soon as you can,” he said, “do, like a good chap, get on to the fishy side of the business. Find me scales of both trout on one person’s article, and only on one person’s, and the rest will follow as the night the day.”

“You treat me,” Curtis said without malice, “like a tympanist in a jazz band perpetually dodging from one instrument to another. I’ll finish my P.M., blast you, and Willy Roskill can muck about with your damned scales.” Sir William Roskill was an eminent Home Office analyst.

“I’ll ring him up now,” Alleyn said.

“It’s all right; I’ve rung him. He’s on his way. As soon as we know anything, we’ll ring the station. What’s biting you about this case, Rory?” Dr. Curtis asked. “You’re always slinging off at the ‘expeditions’ officer and raising your cry of festina lente. Why the fuss and hurry? The man was only killed last night.”

“It’s a pig of a case,” Alleyn said, “and on second thoughts I’ll keep the other arrow — the bloody one. If it is blood. What the hell can I carry it in? I don’t want him to—” He looked at the collection of objects they had brought with them. “That’ll do,” he said. He slung George Lacklander’s golf bag over his shoulder, wrapped up the tip of Syce’s arrow and dropped it in.

“A pig of a case,” he repeated; “I hate its guts.”

“Why this more than another?”

But Alleyn did not answer. He was looking at the personal effects of the persons under consideration. They were laid out in neat groups along a shelf opposite the dissecting table, almost as if they were component parts of the autopsy. First came the two fish: the Old ’Un, 4 pounds of cold, defeated splendour, and beside it on a plate the bones and rags of the Colonel’s catch. Then the belongings of the men who had caught them: the Colonel’s and Mr. Phinn’s clothes, boots, fishing gear and hat. Kitty’s loud new tweed skirt and twin set. Sir George’s plus fours, stockings and shoes. Mark’s and Rose’s tennis clothes. Lady Lacklander’s tent-like garments, her sketching kit and a pair of ancient but beautifully made brogues. Alleyn stopped, stretched out a hand and lifted one of these brogues.

“Size about four,” he said. “They were hand-made by the best bootmaker in London in the days when Lady Lacklander still played golf. Here’s her name sewn in. They’ve been cleaned, but the soles are still dampish and—” He turned the shoe over and was looking at the heel. It carried miniature spikes. Alleyn looked at Fox, who, without a word, brought from the end of the shelf a kitchen plate on which were laid out, as if for some starvation-diet, the remains of the Colonel’s fish. The flap of skin with its fragment of an impression was carefully spread out. They waited in silence.

“It’ll fit all right,” Alleyn said. “Do your stuff, of course, but it’s going to fit. And the better it fits, the less I’m going to like it.”

And with this illogical observation he went out of the mortuary.

“What is biting him?” Dr. Curtis asked Fox.

“Ask yourself, Doctor,” Fox said. “It’s one of the kind that he’s never got, as you might say, used to.”

“Like that, is it?” Dr. Curtis, for the moment unmindful of his own terrible explicit job, muttered, “I often wonder why on earth he entered the Service.”

“I’ve never liked to enquire,” Fox said in his plain way, “but I’m sure I’m very glad he did. Well, I’ll leave you with your corpse.”

“…seeing you,” Dr. Curtis said absently, and Fox rejoined his principal. They returned to the police station, where Alleyn had a word with Sergeant Oliphant. “We’ll leave you here, Oliphant,” Alleyn said. “Sir William Roskill will probably go straight to the hospital, but as soon as there’s anything to report, he or Dr. Curtis will ring you up. Here’s a list of people I’m going to see. If I’m not at one of these places, I’ll be at another. See about applying for a warrant; we may be making an arrest before nightfall.”

“ ’T, ’t, ’t,” Sergeant Oliphant clicked. “Reely? In what name, sir? Same as you thought?”

Alleyn pointed his forefinger at a name on the list he had given the sergeant, who stared at it for some seconds, his face perfectly wooden.

“It’s not positive,” Alleyn said, “but you’d better warn your tame J.P. about the warrant in case we need it in a hurry. We’ll get along with the job now. Put a call through to Brierley and Bentwood, will you, Oliphant? Here’s the number. Ask for Mr. Timothy Bentwood and give my name.”

He listened while Sergeant Oliphant put the call through and noticed abstractedly that he did this in a quiet and business-like manner.

Alleyn said, “If Bentwood will play, this should mean the clearing-up of Chapter 7.”

Fox raised a massive finger and they both listened to Oliphant.

“O, yerse?” Oliphant was saying. “Yerse? Will you hold the line, sir, while I enquire?”

“What is it?” Alleyn demanded sharply.

Oliphant placed the palm of his vast hand over the mouthpiece. “Mr. Bentwood, sir,” he said, “is in hospital. Would you wish to speak to his secretary?”

“Damnation, blast and bloody hell!” Alleyn said. “No, I wouldn’t. Thank you, Oliphant. Come on, Fox. That little game’s gone cold. We’d better get moving. Oliphant, if we can spare the time, we’ll get something to eat at the Boy and Donkey, but on the way, we’ll make at least one call.” His finger again hovered over the list. The sergeant followed its indication.

“At Uplands?” he said. “Commander Syce?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Have everything laid on, and if you get a signal from me, come at once with suitable assistance. It’ll mean an arrest. Come on, Fox.”

He was very quiet on the way back over Watt’s Hill.

As they turned the summit and approached Jacob’s Cottage, they saw Mr. Phinn leaning over his gate with a kitten on his shoulder.

Alleyn said, “It might as well be now as later. Let’s stop.”

Fox pulled up by the gate and Alleyn got out. He walked over to the gate and Mr. Phinn blinked at him.

“Dear me, Chief Inspector,” he said, taking the kitten from his neck and caressing it, “how very recurrent you are. Quite decimalite, to coin an adjective.”

“It’s our job, you know,” Alleyn said mildly. “You’ll find we do tend to crop up.”

Mr. Phinn blinked and gave a singular little laugh. “Am I to conclude, then, that I am the subject of your interest? Or are you on your way to fresh fields of surmise and conjecture? Nunspardon, for instance. Do you perhaps envisage my Lady Brobdignagia, the Dowager Tun, the Mammoth Matriarch, stealing a tip-toe through the daisies? Or George aflame with his newly acquired dignities, thundering through the willow grove in plus fours? Or have the injuries a clinical character? Do we suspect the young Aesculapius with scalpel or probe? You are thinking I am a person of execrable taste, but the truth is there are other candidates for infamy. Perhaps we should look nearer at hand. At our elderly and intemperate merryman of the shaft and quiver. Or at the interesting and mysterious widow with the dubious antecedents? Really, how very footling, if you will forgive me, it all sounds, doesn’t it? What can I do for you?”

Alleyn looked at the pallid face and restless eyes. “Mr. Phinn,” he said, “will you let me have your copy of Chapter 7?”

The kitten screamed, opening its mouth and showing its tongue. Mr. Phinn relaxed his fingers, kissed it and put it down.

“Forgive me, my atom,” he said. “Run to Mother.” He opened the gate. “Shall we go in?” he suggested, and they followed him into a garden dotted about with rustic furniture of an offensive design.

“Of course,” Alleyn said, “you can refuse. I shall then have to use some other form of approach.”

“If you imagine,” Mr. Phinn said, wetting his lips, “that as far as I am concerned this Chapter 7, which I am to suppose you have seen on my desk but not read, is in any way incriminating, you are entirely mistaken. It constitutes, for me, what may perhaps be described as a contra-motive.”

“So I had supposed,” Alleyn said. “But don’t you think you had better let me see it?”

There was a long silence. “Without the consent of Lady Lacklander,” Mr. Phinn said, “never. Not for all the sleuths in Christendom.”

“Well,” Alleyn said, “that’s all very correct, I daresay. Would you suggest, for the sake of argument, that Chapter 7 constitutes a sort of confession on the part of the author? Does Sir Harold Lacklander, for instance, perhaps admit that he was virtually responsible for the leakage of information that tragic time in Zlomce?”

Mr. Phinn said breathlessly, “Pray, what inspires this gush of unbridled empiricism?”

“It’s not altogether that,” Alleyn rejoined with perfect good-humour. “As I think I told you this morning, I have some knowledge of the Zlomce affair. You tell us that the new version of Chapter 7 constitutes for you a contra-motive. If this is so, if, for instance, it provides exoneration, can you do anything but welcome its publication?”

Mr. Phinn said nothing.

“I think I must tell you,” Alleyn went on, “that I shall ask the prospective publishers for the full story of Chapter 7.”

“They have not been informed—”

“On the contrary, unknown to Colonel Cartarette, they were informed by the author.”

“Indeed?” said Mr. Phinn, trembling slightly. “If they profess any vestige of professional rectitude, they will refuse to divulge the content.”

“As you do?”

“As I do. I shall refuse any information in this affair, no matter what pressure is put upon me, Inspector Alleyn.”

Mr. Phinn had already turned aside when his garden gate creaked and Alleyn said quietly, “Good morning once again, Lady Lacklander.”

Mr. Phinn spun round with an inarticulate ejaculation.

She stood blinking in the sun, huge, without expression and very slightly tremulous.

“Roderick,” said Lady Lacklander, “I have come to confess.”