Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 9: Clutch of Constables, When in Rome, Tied Up in Tinsel. Ngaio Marsh

but you can’t, can you, keep an open mind about that one? Because if she was killed by some unknown thug, who on earth sent the telegram from Carlisle?’

      ‘We’ll have to get you in the Force, Mrs Alleyn. I can see that,’ he joked uneasily.

      ‘I know I’m being a bore.’

      ‘Not at all.’

      ‘But you see,’ Troy couldn’t resist adding, ‘it’s because of all those silly little things I told you about at the police stations. They don’t sound quite so foolish, now. Or do they?’

      ‘Er – no. No. You may be quite sure, Mrs Alleyn, that we won’t neglect any detail, however small.’

      ‘Of course. I know.’

      ‘I might just mention, Mrs Alleyn, that since we had our last chat we’ve re-checked on the whereabouts of the passengers over last weekend. They’re OK. The Hewson couple were in Stratford-upon-Avon. Mr Pollock did stay in Birmingham. Dr Natouche was in Liverpool, and –’

      ‘But – that’s all before the cruise began!’

      ‘Yerse,’ he said and seemed to be in two minds what to say next. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘as far as it goes, there it is,’ and left it at that.

      ‘Please, Mr Tillottson, there’s only one more thing. Had she – did you find anything round her neck. A cord or tape with a sort of little bundle on it. Sewn up, I fancy, in chamois leather?’

      ‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘Nothing like that. Did she wear something of that nature?’

      ‘Yes,’ Troy said. ‘She did. It was – I know this sounds fantastic but it’s what she told me – it was an extremely valuable Fabergé jewel representing the Signs of the Zodiac and given to her grandfather who was a surgeon, by, believe it or not, the Czar of Russia. She told me she never took it off. Except one supposes when she –’ Troy stopped short.

      ‘Did she talk about it to anyone else, Mrs Alleyn?’

      ‘I understood she’d told Miss Hewson about it.’

      ‘There you are! The foolishness of some ladies.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘Well, now,’ he said. This is interesting. This is quite interesting, Mrs Alleyn.’

      ‘You’re thinking of motive.’

      ‘We have to think of everything,’ he sighed portentously. ‘Everything.’

      ‘I suppose,’ Troy said, ‘you’ve looked in her suitcase.’

      She thought how preposterous it was that she should be asking the question and said to herself: ‘If it wasn’t for Rory, he’d have slapped me back long ago.’

      He said: ‘That would be routine procedure, wouldn’t it, Mrs Alleyn?’

      ‘You were alongside this cabin when you – when you – were in that boat. The porthole was open. I heard about the suitcase.’

      He glanced with something like irritation at the porthole.

      ‘There’s nothing of the nature of the object you describe in the suitcase,’ he said and stood up with an air of finality. ‘I expect you’ll appreciate, Mrs Alleyn, that we’ll ask for signed statements from all the personnel in this craft.’

      ‘Yes, of course.’

      ‘I’ve suggested they assemble in the saloon upstairs for a preliminary interview. You’re feeling quite yourself again –?’

      ‘Quite, thank you.’

      ‘That’s fine. In about five minutes, then?’

      ‘Certainly.’

      When he had gone, softly closing the door behind him, Troy tidied herself up. The face that looked out of her glass was pretty white and her hand was not perfectly steady but she was all right. She straightened the red blanket and turned to the washbasin. The tumbler had been half-filled with water and placed on the shelf. Beside it were two capsules.

      Trankwitones, no doubt.

      Persistent woman: Miss Hewson.

      Never in her life, Troy thought, had she felt lonelier. Never had she wished more heartily for her husband’s return.

      She believed she knew now for certain, what had happened to Hazel Rickerby-Carrick. She had been murdered and her murderer was aboard the Zodiac.

      ‘But,’ she thought, ‘it may stop there. She told Miss Hewson about the jewel and Miss Hewson may well have told – who? Her brother almost certainly and perhaps Mr Pollock with whom they seem to be pretty thick. Or the Tretheways? For the matter of that, every man and woman of us may know about the thing and the ones like Dr Natouche and Caley Bard and me may simply have used discretion and held their tongues.

      ‘And then it might follow that some single one of us,’ she thought, ‘tried to steal the jewel when she was asleep on deck and she woke and would have screamed and given him – or her – away and so she got her quietus. But after that –? Here’s a nightmarish sort of thing – after that how did poor Hazel get to Ramsdyke weir seven miles or more upstream?’

      She remembered that Miss Rickerby-Carrick had been presented with some of Miss Hewson’s Trankwitones and that Dr Natouche had said they were unknown to him.

      Now. Was there any reason to suppose that the case didn’t stop there but reached out all round itself like a spider to draw in Andropulos and behind Andropulos, the shadowy figure of Foljambe? The Jampot? The ultra-clever one?

      Was it too fantastic, now, to think the Jampot might be on board? And if he was? Well, Troy thought, she couldn’t for the life of her name her fancy. Figures, recalled by a professional memory, swam before her mind’s eye, each in its way outlandish – black patch, deaf ear, club foot and with a sort of mental giggle she thought: ‘If it’s Caley I’ve been kissed by a triple murderer and Rory can put that on his needles and knit it.’

      At this point Mrs Tretheway’s little bell that she rang for mealtimes, tinkled incisively. Troy opened the door and heard Tillottson’s paddy voice and a general stir as of an arrival. While she listened, trying to interpret these sounds, the cabin door on her left opened and Mr Lazenby came out. He turned and stood on her threshold and they were face-to-face. Even as close to him as she was now Troy could make nothing of the eyes behind the dark glasses and this circumstance lent his face an obviously sinister look as if he were a character out of an early Hitchcock film.

      ‘You are better?’ he asked. ‘I was about to inquire, I’m afraid you were very much upset and distressed. As indeed we all are. Oh, terribly distressed. Poor soul! Poor quaint, kindly soul! It’s hard to believe she’s gone.’

      ‘I don’t find it so,’ Troy snapped.

      She saw his lips settle in a rather sharp line. There was a further subdued commotion somewhere on deck. Troy listened for a second. A new voice sounded and her heart began to thud against her ribs.

      ‘If a poor parson may make a suggestion, Mrs Alleyn,’ Mr Lazenby said and seemed to peer at her. ‘I think perhaps you should leave the Zodiac. You have had a great shock. You look –’ The bell rang again. He turned his head sharply and the spectacles moved. For a fraction of a second Troy caught a glimpse of the left eye-socket behind its dark window. There was no eye in it.

      And then she heard a very deep voice at the head of the companion-way.

      Without thought or conscious effort she was past Mr Lazenby, out of the cabin, up the stairs and into her husband’s arms.

       III

      Of course it was an extraordinary situation. She could think: ‘how extraordinary’ even while her delight in his return sang so loudly it was enough to deafen her to anything