“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.”