‘On reading them I put through a call to the Yard.’
I
Monday.
Tollardwark.
10.15 p.m.
‘… This will probably arrive with the letter I posted this morning at Ramsdyke. I’m writing in my cabin having returned from Tollardwark where we spend our first night and I’m going to try and set out the sequence of events as you would do it – economically but in detail. I’m almost certain that when they are looked at as a whole they will be seen to add up to nothing in particular.
‘Indeed, I only tell you about these silly little incidents, my darling, because I know you won’t make superior noises, and because in a cock-eyed sort of way I suppose they may be said to tie in with what you’re up to at the moment. I know, very well, that they may amount to nothing.
‘You remember the silly game people used to play: making up alphabetical rhymes of impending disaster? “T is for Tiger decidedly plumper. What’s that in his mouth? Oh it’s Agatha’s jumper.”
‘There are moments on this otherwise enchanting jaunt when your Agatha almost catches the sound of something champing in the jungle.
‘It really began tonight at Tollardwark –’
II
They had berthed on the outskirts of the little market town and after dinner the passengers explored it. Troy sensed frontal attacks from Miss Rickerby-Carrick and possibly Caley Bard so, having a plan of her own, she slipped away early. There was an office on the wharf with a telephone booth at the disposal of the passengers. As it was open and nobody seemed to be about, she went straight in.
There was one thing about that number, Troy thought, you did get through quickly. In seconds she was saying: ‘Is Inspector Fox in the office? Could I speak to him? It’s Mrs Roderick Alleyn,’ and almost immediately: ‘Br’er Fox? Troy Alleyn. Listen. I expect you all know, but in case you don’t: It’s about the Soho thing in this morning’s paper. The man was to have been a passenger in the –’ She got it out as tidily and succinctly as she could, but she had only given the briefest outline when he cut in.
‘Now, that’s very kind of you, Mrs Alleyn,’ the familiar paddy voice said. ‘That’s very interesting. I happen to be working on that job. And you’re speaking from Tollardwark? And you’ve got the vacant cabin? And you’re talking from a phone box? From where?… I see … Yes.’ A pause. ‘Yes. We heard yesterday from New York and he’s having a very pleasant time.’
‘What?’ Troy ejaculated. ‘Who? You mean Rory?’
‘That’s right, Mrs Alleyn. Very nice indeed to have heard from you. We’ll let you know, of course, if there’s any change of plan. I think it might be as well if you didn’t say very much at your end,’ Mr Fox blandly continued. ‘I expect I’m being unduly cautious, indeed I’m sure I am, but if you can do so without drawing attention to it, I wonder if you could drop in at our place in Tollardwark in about half an hour or so? It could be, if necessary, to ask if that fur you lost at your exhibition has been found. Very nice to hear from you. My godson well? Goodbye, then.’
Troy hung up abruptly and turned. Through the obscured-glass door panel which had a hole in one corner, she saw a distorted figure move quickly backwards. She came out and found Mr Lazenby standing by the outside entrance.
‘You’ve finished your call, Mrs Alleyn?’ he jovially asked. ‘Good-oh. I’ll just make mine then. Bishopscourt at Norminster. I spent the week there and this will let me off my bread-and-butter stint. You don’t know the Bishop, I suppose? Of Norminster? No? Wonderfully hospitable old boy. Gave the dim Aussie parson a memorable time. Car, chauffeur, the lot. Going to explore?’
Yes, Troy said, she thought she would explore. Mr Lazenby replied that he understood from the Bishop that the parish church was most interesting. And he went into the telephone booth.
Troy, strangely perturbed, walked up a narrow, cobbled street into the market square of Tollardwark.
She found it enchanting. It had none of the self-consciousness that settles upon too many carefully preserved places in the Home Counties, although, so the Zodiac brochure said, it had in fact been lovingly rescued from the clumsy botching of Victorian meddlers. But no care, added the brochure, could replace in their niches the delicate heads, hands, leaves and curlicues knocked off by Cromwell’s clean-living wreckers. But the fourteenth-century inn had been wakened from neglect, a monstrous weather-cock removed from the crest of the Eleanor Cross and Lady Godiva’s endowed church of St Crispin-in-the-Fields was in good heart. As if to prove this, it being practice-night for the bell-ringers, cascades of orderly rumpus were shaken out of the belfry as Troy crossed the square.
There were not many people about. She felt some hesitation in asking her way to the police station. She walked round the square and at intervals caught sight of her fellow-passengers. There, down a very dark alley were Mr and Miss Hewson, peering in at an unlit Tudor window in a darkened shop. Mr Pollock was in the act of disappearing round a corner near the church where, moving backwards through a lychgate, was Miss Rickerby-Carrick. It struck Troy that the whole set had an air of commedia dell’ arte about them and that the Market Square might be their painted backdrop. She was again plagued by the vague feeling that somewhere, somehow a masquerade of sorts was being acted out and that she was involved in it. ‘The people of the Zodiac,’ she thought, ‘all moving in their courses and I with them, but for the life of me I don’t know where we’re going.’
She suspected that Caley Bard had thought it would be pleasant if they explored Tollardwark together and she was not surprised to see him across the square, turning, with a disconsolate air, into the Northumberland Arms. She would have enjoyed his company, other things being equal. She had almost completed her walk round the Market Square and wondered which of the few passers-by she should accost when she came to the last of the entrances into the square and looking down it, she saw the familiar blue lamp.
The door swung-to behind her, shutting out the voices of the bells, and she was in another world smelling of linoleum, disinfectant and uniforms. The Sergeant on duty said at once: ‘Mrs Alleyn would it be? I thought so. The Superintendent’s expecting you, Mrs Alleyn. ‘I’ll just – oh, here you are, sir. Mrs Alleyn.’
He was the predictable large, hard-muscled man just beginning to run to overweight, with extremely bright eyes and a sort of occupational joviality about him.
He shook Troy warmly by the hand. ‘Tillottson,’ he said. ‘Nice to meet you, Mrs Alleyn,’ and took her into his office.
‘Very pleased,’ said Superintendent Tillottson, ‘to meet Roderick Alleyn’s good lady. His textbook’s known as the Scourge of the Service in these parts and I wouldn’t mind if you passed that on to him.’
He laughed very heartily at this joke, placed the palms of his hands on his desk and said: ‘Yes. Well now, I’ve been talking to Mr Fox at Head Office, Mrs Alleyn, and he suggested it might be quite an idea if we had a little chat. So, if it’s not putting you to too much trouble –’
He led Troy, very adroitly, through the past eight hours and she was surprised that he should be so particular as to details. Evidently he was aware of this reaction because when she had finished he said he supposed she would like to know what it was all about and proceeded to give her a neat report.
‘This character, this K.G.Z. Andropulos, was mixed up in quite a bit of trouble: trouble to the Yard, Mrs Alleyn,