Hand in Glove (10 page)

“Elegant, I must say!” Dr. Elkington ejaculated.

“That’ll be a clue, no doubt,” Fox said and Alleyn gave it to him.

“I wish the rest of the job were as explicit,” he remarked.

“What,” Williams asked, “do you make of it, Alleyn? Any chance of accident?”

“What do you think yourself?”

“I’d say, none.”

“And so would I. Take a look at it. The planks had been dragged forward until the ends were only just supported by the lip of the bank. There’s one print, the deceased’s by the look of it, on the original traces of the planks before they were moved. It suggests that he came through the gate, where the path is hard and hasn’t taken an impression. I think he had his torch in his left hand. He stepped on the trace and then on the planks, which gave under him. I should say he pitched forward as he fell, dropping his torch, and one of the planks pitched back, striking him in the face. That’s guesswork, but I think, Elkington, that when he’s cleaned up you’ll find the nose is broken. As he was face down in the mud, the plank seems a possible explanation. All right. The lantern was suspended from an iron stanchion. The stanchion had been driven into the earth at an angle and overhung the edge between the displaced drainpipe and its neighbour. And, by the way, it seems to have been jammed in twice: there’s a second hole nearby. The lantern would be out of reach for him and he couldn’t have grabbed at it. How big is the dog?”

“What’s that?” Williams asked, startled.

“Prints that have escaped the boots of the drainlayers suggest a large dog.”

“Pixie,” said Sergeant Noakes, who had been silent for a considerable time.

“Oh!” said Superintendent Williams disgustedly. “Her.”

“It’s a dirty great mongrel of a thing, Mr. Alleyn,” Noakes offered. “The deceased gentleman called it a boxer. He was in the habit of bringing it out here before he went to bed, which was at one o’clock, regular as clockwork. It’s a noisy brute. There have been,” Noakes added, sounding a
leitmotif
, “complaints about Pixie.”

“Pixie,” Alleyn said, “must be an athletic girl. She jumped the ditch. There
are
prints if you can sort them out. But have a look at Cartell’s right hand, Elkington, would you?”

Dr. Elkington did so. “There’s a certain amount of contusion,” he said, “with ridges. And at the edges of the palm, well-defined grooves.”

“How about a leather leash, jerked tight?”

“It might well be.”

“Now the stanchion, Fox.”

Fox leant over from his position on the hard surface of the lane. He carefully lifted and removed the stanchion. Handling it as if it were some fragile
objet d’art
, he said: “There are traces, Mr. Alleyn. Lateral rubbings. Something dragged tight and then pulled away might be the answer.”

“So it’s at least possible that as Cartell dropped, Pixie jumped the drain. The lead jerked. Pixie entangled herself with the stanchion, pulled it loose, freed herself from it and from the hand that had led her, and made off. The lantern fell in the drain. Might be. Where
is
Pixie, does anyone know?”

“Shall I inquire at the house?” Noakes asked.

“It can wait. All this is the most shameless conjecture, really.”

“To me,” Williams said, considering it, “it seems likely enough.”

“It’ll do to go on with. But it doesn’t explain,” Alleyn said, “why the wick in the lantern’s been turned hard off, does it?”

“Is that a fact!” Noakes remarked, primly.

“This stanchion…” said Williams, who had been looking at it. “Have you noticed the lower point? You’d expect it to come out of the soil clean, or else dirty all round. But it’s dirty on one side and sort of scraped clean on the other.”

“You’ll go far in the glorious profession of your choice.”

“Come off it!” said Williams, who had done part of his training with Alleyn.

“Look at the ground where that great walloping pipe was laid out. That at least is not entirely obliterated by boots. See the scars in the earth on this side? Slanting holes with a scooped depression on the near side.”

“What of them?”

“Try it, Fox.”

Fox, who was holding the stanchion by its top, laid the pointed end delicately in one of the scars. “Fits,” he said. “There’s your lever, I reckon.”

“If so, the mud on one side was scraped off on the pipe. Wrap it up and lay it by. The flash-and-dabs boys will be here any moment now. We’ll have to take casts, Br’er Fox.”

Dr. Elkington said: “What’s all this about the stanchion?”

“We’re wondering if it was used as a lever for the drainpipe. We’re not very likely to find anything on the pipe itself, after the rough handling it’s been given, but it’s worth trying.”

He walked to the end of the drain, returned on the far side to the solitary pipe and squatted, beside it. Presently he said: “There
are
marks — scrapings — same distance apart, at a guess. I think we’ll find they fill the bill.”

When he had rejoined the others, he stood for a moment and surveyed the scene. A capful of wind blew down Green Lane, snatched at a corner of the tarpaulin and caused it to ripple very slightly, as if Mr. Cartell had stirred. Fox attended to it, tucking it under, with a macabre suggestion of coziness.

Alleyn said: “If ever it behooved us to keep open minds about a case it behooves us to do so over this one. My reading, so far, may be worth damn’-all, but such as it is I’ll make you a present of it…

“On the surface appearance it looks to me as though this was a premeditated job and was carried out with the minimum of fancywork. Some time before Cartell tried to cross it, the plank bridge was pulled towards the road side of the drain until the further ends rested on the extreme edge. The person who did this then put out the light in the lantern, and hid: very likely by lying down on the hard surface alongside one of the pipes. The victim came out with his dog on a leash. He stepped on the bridge, which collapsed. He was struck in the face by a plank and stunned. The leash bit into his right hand before it was jerked free. The dog jumped the drain, possibly got itself mixed up with the iron stanchion and, if so, probably dislodged the lantern, which fell into the drain. The concealed person came back, used the stanchion as a lever and rolled the drainpipe into the drain. It fell fourteen feet on his victim and killed him. He — Hullo! What’s that?”

He leant forward, peering into the ditch: “This looks like something,” he sighed. “Down, I fear, into the depths I go.”

“I will, sir.” Fox offered.

“You keep your great boots out of this,” Alleyn rejoined cheerfully.

He placed the foot of the steel ladder near the place vhere the body was found and climbed down it. The drain sweated dank water and smelt sour and disgusting. From where he stood, on the bottom rung, he pulled out his flashlight.

From above they saw him stoop and reach under the plank that rested against the wall.

When he came up he carried something wrapped in his handkerchief. He knelt and laid his improvised parcel on the ground.

“Look at this,” he said and they gathered about him.

He unfolded his handkerchief.

On it lay a gold case, very beautifully worked. It had a jewelled clasp and was smeared with slime.

“His?” Williams said.

“Or somebody else’s?…I wonder.”

They stared at it in silence. Alleyn was about to wrap it again when they were startled by a loud, shocking and long-drawn-out howl.

About fifty yards away, sitting in the middle of the lane in an extremely dishevelled condition, with a leash dangling from her collar, was a half-bred boxer bitch, howling lamentably.

“Pixie,” said Noakes.

They met with difficulty trying to catch Pixie. If addressed she writhed subserviently, threshed her tail, and whined. If approached she sprang aside, ran a short distance in a craven manner, sat down again, and began alternately to bark and howl.

The five men whistled, stalked, ran and cursed, all to no avail. “She’ll rouse the whole bloody village at this rate,” Superintendent Williams lamented, and indeed several persons had collected beyond the cars at the road barrier.

Alleyn and Dr. Elkington tried a scissors movement, Noakes and Williams an ill-conceived form of indirect strategy. Fox made himself hot and cross in a laughable attempt to jump upon Pixie’s lead and all had come to nothing before they were aware of the presence of a small, exceedingly pale man in an alpaca jacket on the far side of Mr. Period’s gate. It was Alfred Belt.

How long he had been there it was impossible to say. He was standing quite still with his well-kept hands on the top of the gate and his gaze directed respectfully at Alleyn.

“If you will allow me, sir,” he said. “I think I may be able to secure the dog.”

“For God’s sake do,” Alleyn rejoined.

Alfred whistled. Pixie, with a travesty of canine archness, cocked her head on one side. “Here, girl,” Alfred said disgustedly. “Meat.” She loped round the top end of the drain and ran along the fence towards him. “You bitch,” he said dispassionately as she fawned upon him.

Superintendent Williams, red with his exertions, formally introduced Alfred across the drain. Alfred said: “Good morning, sir. Mr. Period has asked me to present his compliments and to say that if there is anything you require he hopes you will call upon him.”

“Thank you,” Alleyn rejoined. “I was going to. In about five minutes. Will you tell him?”

“Certainly, sir,” Alfred said and withdrew.

Alleyn said to Williams: “When the flash-and-dabs lot turn up, ask them to cover the whole job, will you, Bob? Everything. I’ll be in the house if I’m wanted. You know the story and can handle this end of it better than I. I’d be glad if you’d stay in.”

It was by virtue of such gestures as these that Alleyn maintained what are known as “good relations” with the county forces. Williams said: “Be pleased to,” and filled out his jacket.

Dr. Elkington said: “What about the body?”

“Could you arrange for it to be taken to the nearest mortuary? Sir James Curtis will do the p.m. and will be hoping to see you. He’ll be here by midday.”

“I’ve laid on the ambulance. The mortuary’s at Rimble.”

“Good. Either Fox or I will look you up at the Station at noon. There’s one other thing. What do you make of that?” He walked a few paces up the lane and pointed to a large damp patch on the surface. “There was no rain last night and it’s nothing to do with the digging. Looks rather as if a car with a leaky radiator had stood there. Might even have been filled up and overflowed. Damn this hard surface. Yes, look. There’s a bit of oil there, too, where the sump might well have dripped. Ah, well, it may not amount to a row of beans. Ready, Fox? Let’s go in through the side gate, shall we?”

They fetched a circuitous course round the drain and entered Mr. Period’s garden by the side gate. Near the house, Alleyn noticed a standpipe with a detached hose coiled up beside it and a nearby watering can from which the rose had been removed.

“Take a look at this, Br’er Fox,” he said and indicated a series of indentations about the size of sixpence leading to and from the standpipe.

“Yes,” Fox said. “And the can’s been moved and replaced.”

“That’s right. And who, in this predominantly male household, gardens in stiletto heels? Ah, well! Come on.”

They walked round the house to the front door, where Alfred formally admitted them.

“Mr. Period is in the library, sir,” he said. “May I take your coat?”

Fox, who, being an innocent snob, always enjoyed the treatment accorded to his senior officer on these occasions, placidly removed his own coat.

“What,” Alleyn asked Alfred, “have you done with the dog?”

“Shut her up, sir, in the woodshed. She ought never to have been let loose.”

“Quite so. Will you let me have her leash?”

“Sir?”

“The lead. Inspector Fox will pick it up. Will you, Fox? And join us in the library?”

Alfred inclined his head, straightened his arms, turned his closed hands outward from the wrists and preceded Alleyn to the library door.

“Mr. Roderick Alleyn, sir,” he announced.

It was perhaps typical of him that he omitted the rank and inserted the Christian name. “Because, after all, Mrs. M,” he expounded later on to his colleague, “whatever opinions you and I may form on the subject, class is class and to be treated as such.
In
the Force he may be, and with distinction.
Of
it, he is not.”

Mrs. Mitchell put this detestable point of view rather more grossly. “The brother’s a baronet,” she said. “And childless, at that. I read it in the
News of the World
. ‘The Handsome Super,’ it was called. Fancy!”

Meanwhile Alleyn was closeted with Mr. Pyke Period, who, in a different key, piped the identical tune.

“My dear Alleyn,” he said. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you. If anything could lessen the appalling nature of this calamity it would be the assurance that we are in your hands.” There followed, inevitably, the news that Mr. Period was acquainted with Alleyn’s brother and was also an ardent admirer of Alleyn’s wife’s paintings. “She won’t remember an old backwater buster like me,” he said, wanly arch, “but I have had the pleasure of meeting her.”

All this was said hurriedly and with an air of great anxiety. Alleyn wondered if Mr. Period’s hand was normally as tremulous as it was this morning or his speech as breathless and uneven. As soon as Alleyn decently could, he got the conversation on a more formal basis.

He asked Mr. Period how long Mr. Cartell had been sharing the house, and learned that it was seven weeks. Before that Mr. Cartell had lived in London, where he had been the senior partner of an extremely grand and vintage firm of solicitors, from which position he had retired upon his withdrawal into the country. The family, Mr. Period said, came originally from Gloucestershire — Bloodstone Parva, in the Cotswolds. Having got as far as this he pulled himself up short and, unaccountably, showed great uneasiness.