Kitabı oxu: «Clutch of Constables»

CHAPTER 1
Apply Within

‘There was nothing fancy about the Jampot,’ Alleyn said. ‘The word “Jobs” is entirely appropriate to his activities. He planned carefully, left as little as possible to chance, took a satisfaction in his work and accepted, without dwelling upon them, the occupational hazards which it involved. Retention or abolishment of capital punishment made no difference at all to his professional behaviour: I daresay he looks upon the murders that he did in fact perform, as tiresome and regrettable necessities.

‘His talents were appropriate to his employment. They included manual dexterity, a passion for accuracy, a really exceptional intelligence of mathematical precision and a useful imagination offset by a complete blank where nervous anxiety might be expected. Above all he was a superb mimic. Mimics are born not made. From his childhood the Jampot showed an uncanny talent in reflecting not only the mannerisms, speech habits and social behaviour of an extraordinary diversity of persons but of knowing, apparently by instinct, how they would react to given circumstances. Small wonder,’ Alleyn said, ‘that he led us up the garden path for so long. He was a masterpiece.’

He looked round his audience. Six rows of sharp-cropped heads. Were the dumb-looking ones as dumb as their wrinkled foreheads, lacklustre eyes and slackish mouths seemed to suggest? Was the forward-leaning one in the second row, who had come up from the uniformed branch with an outstanding report, as good as his promise? Protectors of the people, Alleyn thought. If only the people would recognize them as such. He went on.

‘I’ve chosen the Jampot for your consideration,’ he said, ‘because he’s a kind of bonus in crime. He combines in himself the ingredients that you find singly in other homicides and hands you the lot in a mixed grill. His real name, believe it or not, is Foljambe.’

The forward-leaning, sandy-coloured recruit gave a laugh which he stifled. Several of his companions grinned doubtfully and wiped their mouths. Two looked startled and the rest uneasy.

‘At all events,’ Alleyn said, ‘that’s what he says it is and as he hasn’t got any other name, Foljambe let the Jampot be.

‘He was born in Johannesburg, received a good education and is said to have read medicine for two years but would appear to have been from birth what used to be known as a “wrong-un”. His nickname was given him by his South African associates in crime and has been adopted by the police on both sides of the Atlantic. In Paris, I understand he is known as Le Folichon or “the frisky bloke”.

‘I’d like to pick up his story at the time of his highly ingenious escape from gaol which took place on the 7th May the year before last in Bolivia …’

One or two of his hearers wrote this down. He was giving an address by invitation to a ten-week course at the Police College.

‘By an outlandish coincidence,’ Alleyn said and his deep voice took on the note of continuous narrative, ‘I was personally involved in this affair: by personally, I mean, as a private individual as well as a policeman. It so happened that my wife –’

I

‘– above all it must be said of this most distinguished exhibition, that while in scope it is retrospective it is by no means definitive. The painter, one feels, above all her contemporaries, will continue to explore and penetrate: for her own and our sustained enjoyment.’

The painter in question muttered: ‘O Lord, O Lord,’ and laid aside the morning paper as stealthily as if she had stolen it. She left the dining-room, paid her bill, arranged to pick up her luggage in time to catch the London train and went for a stroll.

Her hotel was not far from the river. Summer sunshine defined alike ranks of unbudgingly Victorian mercantile buildings broken at irregular intervals by vast up-ended waffle-irons. Gothic spires, and a ham-fisted Town Hall poked up through the early mist. She turned her back on them and made downhill for the river.

As she drew near to it the character of the streets changed. They grew narrower and were cobbled. She passed a rope-walk and a shop called ‘Rutherfords, Riverview Chandlers’, a bakery smelling of new bread, a pawnbroker’s and a second-hand machine-parts shop. The river itself now glinted through gaps in the buildings and at the end of passages. When she finally came within full view of it she thought it beautiful. Not picturesque or grandiloquent but alive and positive, curving in and out of the city with historical authority. It was, she thought, a thing in its own right and the streets and wharves that attended upon it belonged to it and to themselves. ‘Wharf Lane’ she read, and took her way down it to the front. Rivercraft of all kinds were moored along the foreshore.

Half-way down the lane she came upon the offices of The Pleasure Craft and Riverage Company. In their window were faded notices of sailing dates and various kinds of cruises. While she was reading these a man in shirt sleeves, looking larger than life in the confined space, edged his way towards the window and attached to its surface with sticky paper, a freshly-written card.

He caught sight of her, gave her a tentative smile and backed out of the window.

She read the card.

‘M.V. Zodiac. Last minute cancellation.

A single-berth cabin is available for

this day’s sailing. Apply within.’

Placed about the window were photographs of M.V. Zodiac in transit and of the places she visited. In the background hung a map of the river and the canals that articulated with it: Ramsdyke. Bullsdyke. Crossdyke. A five day cruise from Norminster to Longminster and back was offered. Passengers slept and ate on board. The countryside, said a pamphlet that lay on the floor, was rich in historical associations. Someone with a taste for fanciful phrases had added: ‘For Five Days you Step out of Time.’

She had had a gruelling summer, working for her one-man show and was due in a few weeks to see it launched in Paris and afterwards New York. Her husband was in America and her son was taking a course at Grenoble. She thought of the long train journey south, the gritty arrival, the summer stifle of London and the empty stuffy house. It seemed to her, afterwards, that she behaved like a child in a fairytale. She opened the door and as she did so she heard something say within her head: ‘For five days I step out of time.’

II

‘There is,’ wrote Miss Rickerby-Carrick, ‘no bottom, none, to my unquenchable infamy.’

She glanced absently at the tip of her propelling pencil and, in falsetto, cleared her throat.

‘For instance,’ she wrote, ‘let us examine my philanthropy. Or rather, since I have no distaste for colloquialism, my dogoodery. No!’ she exclaimed aloud, ‘That won’t wash. That is a vile phrase, Dogoodery is a vile phrase.’ She paused again, greatly put out by the suspicion that these observations were not entirely original. She stared about her and caught the eye of a thin lady in dark blue linen who, like herself, sat on her own suitcase.

‘“Dogoodery”,’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick repeated. ‘Is that a facetious word? Do you find it so?’

‘Well – it depends, I suppose, on the context.’

‘You look startled.’

‘Do I?’ said Troy Alleyn, looking startled indeed. ‘Sorry. I was a thousand miles away.’

‘I wish I were. Or no,’ amended Miss Rickerby-Carrick. ‘Wrong again. Correction. I wish I were a thousand miles away from me. From myself. No kidding,’ she added. ‘To try out another colloquialism.’

She wrote again in her book.

Her companion looked attentively at her and might have been said, after her own fashion, also to make notes. She saw a figure, not exactly of fun, but of confusion. There was no co-ordination. The claret-coloured suit, the disheartened jumper, above all the knitted jockey-cap, all looked to have been thrown at their wearer and fortuitously to have stuck. She had a strange trick with her mouth, letting it fly apart over her teeth and turn up at the corners so that she seemed to grin when in fact she did nothing of the sort. The hand that clutched her propelling pencil was arthritic.

Overhead, clouds bowled slowly across a midsummer sky. A light wind fiddled with the river and one or two small boats bumped at their moorings. The pleasure craft Zodiac had not appeared but was due at noon.

‘My name,’ said Miss Rickerby-Carrick, ‘is Rickerby-Carrick. Hazel. “Spinster of this parish”. What’s yours?’

‘Alleyn.’

‘Mrs?’

‘Yes.’ After a moment’s hesitation Troy, since it was obviously expected of her, uncomfortably added her first name. ‘Agatha,’ she mumbled.

‘Agatharallen,’ said Miss Rickerby-Carrick sharply. ‘That’s funny. I thought you must be K. G. Z. Andropulos, Cabin 7.’

‘The cabin was taken by somebody called Andropulos, I believe, but the booking was cancelled at the last moment. This morning, in fact. I happened to be here on – on business and I saw it advertised in the Company’s window, so I took it,’ said Troy, ‘on impulse.’

‘Just like that. Fancy.’ A longish pause followed. ‘So we’re ship-mates? “Water-wanderers?”’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick concluded, quoting the brochure.

‘In the Zodiac? Yes,’ Troy agreed and hoped she sounded friendly enough. Miss Rickerby-Carrick crinkled her eyes and stripped her teeth. ‘Jolly good show,’ she said. She gazed at Troy for some time and then returned to her writing. An affluent-looking car drove half-way down the cobbled passage. Its uniformed driver got out, walked to the quay, looked superciliously at nothing in particular, returned, spoke through the rear window to an indistinguishable occupant and resumed his place at the wheel.

‘When I examine in depth the motives by which I am activated,’ wrote Miss Rickerby-Carrick in her book. ‘I am appalled. For instance. I have a reputation, within my circle (admittedly a limited one) for niceness, for kindness, for charity. I adore my reputation. People come to me in their trouble. They cast themselves upon my bosom and weep. I love it. I’m awfully good at being good. I think to myself that they must all tell each other how good I am. “Hay Rickerby-Carrick,” I know they say, “She’s so good.” And so I am. I am. I put myself out in order to keep up my reputation. I make sacrifices. I am unselfish in buses, upstanding in tubes and I relinquish my places in queues. I visit the aged, I comfort the bereaved and if they don’t like it they can lump it. I am filled with amazement when I think about my niceness. O misery, misery, misery me,’ she wrote with enormous relish.

Two drops fell upon her open notebook. She gave a loud, succulent and complacent sniff.

Troy thought: ‘Will she go on like this for five days? Is she dotty? O God, has she got a cold!’

‘Sorry,’ said Miss Rickerby-Carrick. ‘I’ve god a bid of cold. Dur,’ she added making a catarrhal clicking sound and allowing her mouth to fall slightly open. Troy began to wonder if there was a good train to London before evening.

‘You wonder,’ said Miss Rickerby-Carrick in a thick voice, ‘why I sit on my suitcase and write. I have lately taken to a diary. My self-propelling confessional, I call it.’

‘Do you?’ Troy said helplessly.

Down the cobbled lane walked a pleasant-looking man in an ancient knickerbocker suit of Donegal tweed and a cloth cap. He carried, beside a rucksack, a square box on a shoulder-strap and a canvas-covered object that might, Troy thought, almost be a grossly misshapen tennis racquet. He took off his cap when he saw the ladies and kept it off. He was of a sandy complexion with a not unattractive cast in one of his blue eyes, a freckled countenance and a tentative smile.

‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘We must be fellow-travellers.’

Troy agreed. Miss Rickerby-Carrick, blurred about the eyes and nose, nodded, smiled and sniffed. She was an industrious nodder.

‘No signs of the Zodiac as yet,’ said the newcomer. ‘Dear me,’ he added, ‘that’s a pit-fall of a joke isn’t it? We shall all be making it as punctually as the tides, I daresay.’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick after a moment’s thought, was consumed with laughter. He looked briefly at her and attentively at Troy. ‘My name’s Caley Bard,’ he said.

‘I’m Troy Alleyn and this is Miss Rickerby-Carrick.’

‘You said you were Agatha,’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick pointed out. ‘You said Agatharallen,’ and Troy felt herself blushing.

‘So I am,’ she muttered, ‘the other’s just a sort of a joke – my husband –’ her voice died away. She was now extremely conscious of Mr Bard’s scrutiny and particularly aware of its dwelling speculatively on the veteran paintbox at her feet. All he said, however, was, ‘Dear me,’ in a donnish tone. When she looked her apprehension he tipped her a wink. This was disconcerting.

She was relieved by the arrival on an apocalyptic motorbicycle of a young man and his girl. The noonday sun pricked at their metal studs and turned the surface of their leather suits and calf-high boots into toffee. From under crash helmets, hair, veiled in oil and dust, fell unevenly to their shoulders. Their machine belched past the stationary chauffeur-driven car and came to a halt. They put their booted feet to the ground and lounged, chewing, against their bicycle. ‘There is nothing,’ Troy thought, ‘as insolent as a gum-chewing face,’ and at the same time she itched to make a sharp, black drawing of the riders.

‘Do you suppose –?’ she ventured in a low voice.

‘I hardly think water-wandering would present a very alluring prospect,’ Mr Bard rejoined.

‘In any case, they have no luggage.’

‘They may not need any. They may bed down as they are.’

‘Oh, do you think so? All those steel knobs.’

‘There is that, of course,’ Mr Bard agreed.

The young people lit cigarettes, inhaled deeply, stared at nothing and exhaled vapour. They had not spoken.

Miss Rickerby-Carrick gazed raptly at them and then wrote in her book.

‘– “two of our Young Independents”,’ she noted. ‘Is it to gladiators that one should compare them? Would they like it if one did? Would I be able to get on with them? Would they like me? Would they find me sympatica or is it sympatico? Alas, there I go again. Incorrigible, hopeless old Me!’

She stabbed down an ejaculation mark, clicked off her pencil with an air of quizzical finality, and said to Troy: ‘How did you get here? I came by bus: from good old Brummers.’

‘I drove,’ Mr Bard said. ‘From London and put up at a pub. Got here last night.’

‘I did too,’ said Troy. ‘But I came by train.’

‘There’s a London train that connects this morning,’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick observed. ‘Arrives 11.45.’

‘I know. But I – there was – I had an engagement,’ Troy mumbled.

‘Such as going to the pictures?’ Mr Bard airily suggested to nobody in particular. ‘Something of that sort?’ Troy looked at him but he was staring absently at the river. ‘I went to the pictures,’ he said. ‘But not last night. This morning. Lovely.’

‘The pictures!’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick exclaimed. ‘This morning! Do you mean the cinema?’

But before Mr Bard could explain himself if indeed he intended to do so, two taxis, one after the other, came down the cobbled lane and discharged their passengers.

‘There! The London train must be in,’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick observed with an air of triumph.

The first to alight was an undistinguished man of about forty. Under a belted raincoat he wore a pinstriped suit which, revealed, would surely prove abominable. His shirt was mauve and his tie a brightish pink. His hair was cut short back-and-sides. He had a knobbly face and pale eyes. As he approached, carrying his fibre suitcase and wearing a jaunty air, Troy noticed that he limped, swinging a built-up boot. ‘Morning all,’ he said. ‘Lovely day, innit?’

Troy and Mr Bard agreed and Miss Rickerby-Carrick repeated: ‘Lovely! Lovely!’ on an ecstatic note.

‘Pollock’s the name,’ said the new arrival, easily. ‘Stan.’ They murmured.

Mr Bard introduced himself and the ladies. Mr Pollock responded with sideway wags of his head.

‘That’s the ticket,’ he said. ‘No deception practised.’

Miss Rickerby-Carrick said: ‘Isn’t this going to be fun,’ in a wildish tone that modulated into one of astonishment. Her gaze had shifted to the passenger from the second taxi who, with his back to the group, was settling his fare. He was exceedingly tall and very well-dressed at High Establishment level. Indeed his hat, houndstooth checked overcoat and impeccable brogues were in such a grand conservative style that it surprised – it almost shocked – Troy to observe that he seemed to be wearing black gloves like a Dickensian undertaker. Some yards distant, his bell-like voice rang out enormously. ‘Thank you. Good morning to you. Good morning.’

He lifted his suitcase and turned. His hat tilted a little forward: the brim shadowed his face but could not be seen to do so as the face itself was darker than a shadow: the latest arrival was a coloured man.

Miss Rickerby-Carrick gave out an ejaculation. Mr Bard after the briefest glance continued talking to Troy. Mr Pollock stared, faintly whistled and then turned aside with a shuttered face. The motorcyclists for some private reason broke into ungentle laughter.

The newcomer advanced, lifted his hat generally and moved through the group to the wharf’s edge where he stood looking upstream towards the bend in the river: an incongruous but impressive and elegant figure against a broken background of rivercraft, sliding water and buildings advertising themselves in a confusion of signs.

Troy said quickly: ‘That makes five of us, doesn’t it? Three more to come.’

‘One of whom occupies that very affluent-looking car, no doubt,’ said Mr Bard. ‘I tried to peer in as I came past but an open newspaper defeated me.’

‘Male or female, did you gather?’

‘Oh the former, the former. A large manicured hand. The chauffeur is one of the stony kind. Now what is your guess? We have a choice of two from our passenger list, haven’t we? Which do you think?’ He just indicated the figure down by the river. ‘Dr Natouche? Mr J. de B. Lazenby? Which is which?’

‘I plump for J. de B. L. in the car,’ Troy said. ‘It sounds so magnificent.’

‘Do you? No: my fancy lies in the contrary field. I put Dr Natouche in the car. A specialist in some esoteric upper reaches of the more impenetrable branches of medicine. An astronomical consulting fee. And I fetch our friend on the wharf from Barbados. He owns a string of hotels and is called Jasper de Brabazon Lazenby. Shall we have a bet on it?’

‘Well,’ Troy said, ‘propose your bet.’

‘If I win you have a drink with me before luncheon. If you win, I pay for the drinks.’

‘Now then!’ Troy exclaimed.

Mr Bard gave a little inward laugh.

‘We shall see,’ he said. ‘I think that I might –’ He smiled at Troy and without completing his sentence walked down to the quay.

‘Are you,’ Troy could just hear him say, ‘joining us? I’m sure you must be.’

‘In the Zodiac?’ the great voice replied. ‘Yes. I am a passenger.’

‘Shall we introduce ourselves?’

The others all strained to hear the exchange of names.

‘Natouche.’

‘Dr Natouche?’

‘Quite so.’

Mr Bard sketched the very vaguest and least of bows in Troy’s direction.

‘I’m Caley Bard,’ he said.

‘Ah. I too have seen the passenger list. Good morning, sir.’

‘Do,’ said Caley Bard, ‘come and meet the others. We have been getting to know each other.’

‘Thank you. If you wish.’

They turned together. Mr Bard was a tall man but Dr Natouche diminished him. Behind them the river, crinkled by a breeze and dappled with discs of sunlight, played tricks with the two approaching figures. It exaggerated their size, rimmed them in a pulsing nimbus and distorted their movement. As they drew nearer, the pale man and the dark, Troy, bemused by this dazzle, thought: ‘There is no reason in the wide world why I should feel apprehensive. It will be all right unless Mr Pollock is bloody-minded or the Rickerby-Carrick hideously effusive. It must be all right.’ She glanced up the lane and there were the cyclists, stock-still except for their jaws: staring, staring.

She held out her hand to Dr Natouche who was formal and bowed slightly over it. His head, uncovered, showed grey close-cut fuzz above the temples. His skin was not perfectly black but warmly dark with grape-coloured shadows. The bone structure of his face was exquisite.

‘Mrs Alleyn,’ said Dr Natouche.

Miss Rickerby-Carrick was, as Troy had feared she would be, excessive. She shook Dr Natouche’s hand up and down and laughed madly: ‘Oh – ho – ho,’ she laughed, ‘how perfectly splendid.’

Mr Pollock kept his hands in his pockets and limped aside thus avoiding an introduction.

Since there seemed to be nothing else to talk about Troy hurriedly asked Dr Natouche if he had come by the London train. He said he had driven up from Liverpool, added a few generalities, gave her a smile and a slight inclination of his head, returned to the river and walked for some little distance along the wharves.

‘Innit marvellous?’ Mr Pollock asked of nobody in particular. ‘They don’t tell you so you can’t complain.’

‘They?’ wondered Miss Rickerby-Carrick. ‘Tell you? I don’t understand?’

‘When you book in.’ He jerked his head towards Dr Natouche. ‘What to expect.’

‘Oh, but you mustn’t!’ she whispered. ‘You mustn’t feel like that. Truly.’

‘Meant to be class, this carry-on? Right? That’s what they tell you. Right? First class. Luxury accommodation. Not my idea of it. Not with that type of company. If I’d known one of that lot was included I wouldn’t have come at it. Straight, I wouldn’t.’

‘How very odd of you,’ said Mr Bard lightly.

‘That’s your opinion,’ Mr Pollock angrily rejoined. He turned towards Troy, hoping perhaps for an ally. ‘I reckon it’s an insult to the ladies,’ he said.

‘Oh, go along with you,’ Troy returned as good-naturedly as she could manage, ‘it’s nothing of the sort. Is it, Miss Rickerby-Carrick?’

‘Oh no. No. Indeed, no.’

‘I know what I’m talking about,’ Mr Pollock loudly asserted. Troy looked nervously at the distant figure on the riverage. ‘I own property. Once that sort settles in a district – look – it’s a slum. Easy as that.’

‘Mr Pollock, this man is a doctor,’ Troy said.

‘You’re joking? Doctor? Of what?’

‘Of medicine,’ Mr Bard said. ‘You should consult your passenger list, my dear fellow. He’s an MD.’

‘You can tell people you’re anything,’ Mr Pollock darkly declared. ‘Anything. I could tell them I was a bloody earl. Pardon the French, I’m sure.’ He glared at Troy who was giggling. The shadow of a grin crept into his expression. ‘Not that they’d credit it,’ he added. ‘But still.’

The young man on the motorcycle sounded a derisive call on his siren. ‘Taa t’–ta ta ta. Ta-Taa.’ He and his girlfriend were looking towards the bend in the river.

A rivercraft had come into view. She was painted a dazzling white. A scarlet and green houseflag was mounted at her bows and the red ensign at her stern. Sunlight splashed her brass-work, red curtains glowed behind her saloon windows. As she drew towards her moorings her name could be seen, painted in gold letters along her bows.

M.V. Zodiac.

The clock in a church tower above the river struck twelve.

‘Here she is,’ Mr Bard said. ‘Dead on time.’

III

The Zodiac berthed and was made fast very smartly by a lad of about fifteen. Her skipper left the wheelhouse and said goodbye to his passengers who could be heard to thank him, saying they wished the voyage had been longer. They passed through the waiting group. A woman, catching Troy’s eye said: ‘You’re going to love it.’ And a man remarked to his wife: ‘Well, back to earth, worse luck,’ with what seemed almost excessive regret after a five day jaunt.

When they had all gone the new passengers moved down to the Zodiac and were greeted by the skipper. He was a pleasant-looking fellow, very neat in his white duck shirt and dark blue trousers and tie. He wore the orthodox peaked cap.