Clutch of Constables (25 page)

“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.”

“And that,” Alleyn said, laying down his file, “was virtually the end of the Jampot. He is now, together with his chums, serving a life sentence and good behaviour is not likely to release him in the foreseeable future. I understand he finds it particularly irksome not to be able to lepidopterise on Dartmoor where, as we know from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, there are butterflies. Or perhaps none of you has read The Hound of the Baskervilles. All right, Carmichael, I dare say you have.

“A little time before Foljambe arrived in England the real Caley Bard, who is a gifted amateur of the net and killing-bottle, had advertised in The Times for a fellow-lepidopterist who would share expenses on a butterfly hunt in South America. Foljambe’s agents in England—Messrs. Dinky Dickson alias the Reverend Mr Lazenby and Stanley Pollock—noted this circumstance. Further discreet inquiries satisfied them that Mr Bard had left for a protracted visit to South America, that he was something of a recluse and had private means fortified by occasional coaching in mathematics for tutorial organisations. So it was decided that the mantle of Lepidoptery should descend upon the Jampot’s shoulders. Lepidoptery was his hobby as a schoolboy and he knew enough to pass muster with a casual enthusiast. If, by an outlandish chance, he had encountered an expert or an acquaintance of his original he would have exclaimed: ”Me? oh, no, not that Caley Bard. I wish I were!” or words to that effect. The only thing they hadn’t anticipated was that the real Caley Bard should return, two months before his time, having picked up an unpleasant bug in the country beyond La Paz.

“So that when, at my suggestion, one of our chaps called at the address they found the house occupied by an extremely irate little man whom they promptly flew by helicopter to Tollardwark for what I am obliged to call a confrontation.

“There was, of course, no doubt about his identity and guilt, once we had established alibis for the others in the Andropulos business. However, he did make a mistake. He talked about Miss Rickerby-Carrick’s bit of Fabergé before he should have known it was anything of the sort. A rare thing, though, for him to slip up. He’s a brilliant villain.

“He presented himself to my wife in exactly the light best calculated to produce a tolerant and amused acceptance. She was not likely, as he realised, to succumb to his well-tested but, to a man, inexplicable charms but she found him companionable and entertaining. I am told that a swivel-eye is, to many people, sexually alluring. The Jampot’s swivel-eye was the result of a punch-up, or a jab-up, with a rival gang in Santa Cruz. He subsequently underwent a bit of very efficient plastic surgery. Lazenby—Dickson to you—had lost his eye, by the way, in the Second World War where he was an Australian army chaplain until they found him out. He was born in the West Indies, went to a European mission-school and had in fact been ordained and unfrocked. He had no difficulty at all in passing himself off to the Bishop of Norminster who was very cross about it.

“That, more or less, is it. I’ll be glad to answer questions.” Carmichael’s instant boots had already scraped the floor when Alleyn caught the eye of a quiet-looking type in the back row.

“Yes?” he said. “Something?”

“Sir. I would like to ask, sir, if the missing pages from the diary ever came to hand?”

“No. We searched, of course, but it was a hopeless job. Lazenby probably reduced them to pulp and put them down the lavatory.”

“Sir. Having read them when he sat on the bank, sir, and torn them out as a consequence?”

“That’s it. Before the trial he ratted in the hope of reducing his sentence and will live in terror of the Jampot for the rest of his days. He told us the missing pages contained an account of the conversation Miss Rickerby-Carrick overheard in Tollardwark. Between—”

Carmichael’s boots became agitated.

“—between,” Alleyn loudly went on, “Foljambe, Lazenby and Pollock. About—All right, Carmichael, all right. You tell us.”

“About your leddy-wife maybe,” Carmichael said, “sir. And maybe they touched on the matter of the planted picture, sir. And their liaison with cyclists, and so on and so forth.”

“Perhaps. But according to the wretched Lazenby it was mostly about Andropulos. When Miss Rickerby-Carrick tried to confide in my wife, she was very agitated. She kept saying ‘And—And—’ and ‘Oh God. Wait’. I think—we shall never know, of course—she was trying to remember his name. Lazenby intervened as the Jampot did when Pollock became altogether too interested in my wife’s drawing and altogether too ready to assist. The Jampot let it appear that he resented Pollock’s over-familiarity. So he did, but not for reasons of gallantry.”

Carmichael resumed his seat.

“Any more? Yes?” It was the same man in the back row.

“I was wondering, sir, exactly what did happen on the night in question. At Crossdyke, sir?”

“The autopsy showed Miss Rickerby-Carrick had taken a pretty massive barbiturate. One of Miss Hewson’s pills no doubt. She slept on deck at the after-end behind a heap of chairs covered by a tarpaulin. Foljambe’s cabin, No. 1, was next to the companionway. When all was quiet he went up through the saloon to the deck and, because she knew too much, killed her, took the Fabergé jewel and handed it and the body over to the cyclist — his name by the way is Smith — who had been ordered to wait ashore for it and was given his instructions. My wife remembered that, at sometime in the night, she had heard the motor-bike engine. Yes?”

A man in the third row said, “Sir: Did they all know, sir? About the murder, sir. Except the doctor?”

“According to Lazenby (I’ll still call him that) not beforehand. When Lazenby told Foljambe about the diary Foljambe merely said he would deal with the situation and ordered Lazenby to keep his mouth shut, which he did. No doubt in the sequel they all knew or guessed. But he was not a confiding type, even with his closest associates.”

“And—the way they carried on, sir. Bickering and all that among themselves. Was that a put-up show, then, sir?”

“Ah!” Alleyn said. “That’s what my wife asked me the next night in Norminster.”

-1-

“It was all a put-up job, then?” Troy asked. “The way Caley — he — I still think of him as that — the way he blazed away at Pollock and the way those three seemed to dislike and fight shy of him and abuse him — well — the whole interrelationship as it was displayed to us? All an act?”

“My love, yes.”

“But, Hewson’s distress over his sister—” she turned to Dr Natouche. ”You said he was distressed, didn’t you?”

“I thought so, certainly.”

“He was distressed all right and he was deadly frightened into the bargain,” Alleyn grunted and after a moment he said: “You were among counterfeiters, darling, and very expert hands at that. Do fill up your glass, Natouche.”

“Thank you. I suppose,” Dr Natouche said, “they looked upon me as a sort of windfall. They could all combine to throw suspicion upon me. Bard was particularly adroit. I must apologise, by the way, for losing my temper. It was when he lied about my going below during the uproar. He knew perfectly well that I went below. We ran into each other at the stairhead. When he lied I behaved like the savage they all thought me.” He turned to Troy. “I am glad you did not see it,” he said.

Alleyn remembered the uplifted ebony arms, the curved hands and the naked fury of the face and he thought Troy might have seen an element in Dr Natouche’s rage that he would never suspect her of finding.

In some sort echoing, as she often did, Alleyn’s thoughts about her, she said to Dr Natouche. “You must say at once—you will, please, won’t you?—if it’s an unwelcome suggestion, but some day, when you can spare the time, will you let me paint you?”

“If you look closely,” he said with an air of astonishment, “you may be able to see that I am blushing.”

They finished their dinner and talked for a time and then Troy and Alleyn walked with Dr Natouche to the garage where he had left his car. The inquest was over and he was driving back to Liverpool that night. By a sort of tacit consent they did not discuss the sequel.

It was a sultry night and very still with a hint of thunder in the air. But there was no mist. They came to the top of Wharf Lane and looked down at The River. There was the
Zodiac
, quietly riding at her moorings with her cherry-coloured curtains glowing companionably. And there, on the right, were the offices of The Pleasure Craft and Riverage Company. Troy fancied she could make out a card stuck to the window and crossed the lane to see.

“They’ve forgotten to take it down,” she said and the men read it.

The End