Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 10: Last Ditch, Black As He’s Painted, Grave Mistake. Ngaio Marsh

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СКАЧАТЬ was gone for some considerable time. At last he returned with a large, old-fashioned photograph album and an envelope full of press cuttings. He opened the connecting doors to the dining-room, laid his findings out on the table and displaced Lucy who affected a wayward interest in them.

      ‘I was a great hoarder in those days,’ he said. ‘Everything’s in order and dated. There should be no difficulty.’

      There was none. Alleyn examined the album which had the faded melancholy aspect of all such collections while Mr Whipplestone looked through the cuttings. When the latter applied to items in the former, they had been carefully pasted beside the appropriate photographs. It was Alleyn who first struck oil.

      ‘Here we are,’ he said. And there, meticulously dated and annotated in Mr Whipplestone’s neat hand, were three photographs and a yellowing page from the Ng’ombwana Times with the headline: ‘Gomez trial. Verdict. Scene in Court.’

      The photographs showed, respectively, a snapshot of a bewigged judge emerging from a dark interior, a crowd, mostly composed of black people, waiting outside a sunbaked court of justice, and an open car driven by a black chauffeur with two passengers in tropical kit, one of whom, a trim, decorous-looking person of about forty, was recognizable as Mr Whipplestone himself. ‘Going to the Trial.’ The press photographs were more explicit. There, unmistakably himself, in wig and gown, was the young Boomer. ‘Mr Bartholomew Opala, Counsel for the Prosecution.’ And there, already partially bald, dark, furious and snarling, a man handcuffed between two enormous black policemen and protected from a clearly menacing crowd of Ng’ombwanans. ‘After the Verdict. The Prisoner,’ said the caption, ‘Leaving the Court.’

      The letterpress carried an account of the trial with full journalistic appreciation of its dramatic highlights. There was also an editorial.

      ‘And that,’ Alleyn said, ‘is the self-same Sheridan in your basement flat.’

      ‘You would recognize him at once?’

      ‘Yes. I thought I’d seen him for the first time – and that dimly – tonight, but it turns out that it was my second glimpse. He was sitting outside the pub this afternoon when The Boomer called on Troy.’

      ‘No doubt,’ said Mr Whipplestone drily, ‘you will be seeing quite a lot more of him. I don’t like this, Alleyn.’

      ‘How do you think I enjoy it!’ said Alleyn, who was reading the press cutting. ‘The vows of vengeance,’ he said, ‘are quite Marlovian in their inventiveness, aren’t they?’

      ‘You should have heard them! And every one directed at your Boomer,’ said Mr Whipplestone. He bent over the album, ‘I don’t suppose I’ve looked at this,’ he said, ‘for over a decade. It was stowed away in a trunk with a lot of others in my old flat. Even so, I might have remembered, one would have thought.’

      ‘I expect he’s changed. After all – twenty years!’

      ‘He hasn’t changed all that much in looks and I can’t believe he’s changed at all in temperament.’

      ‘And you’ve no notion what became of him when he got out?’

      ‘None. Portuguese East, perhaps. Or South America. Or a change of name. Ultimately, by fair means or foul, a British passport.’

      ‘And finally whatever he does in the City?’

      ‘Imports coffee perhaps,’ sniffed Mr Whipplestone.

      ‘His English is non-committal?’

      ‘Oh, yes. No accent, unless you count a lisp which I suppose is a hangover. Let me give you a drink.’

      ‘Not another, thank you, Sam. I must keep my wits about me, such as they are.’ He hesitated for a moment and then said: ‘There’s one thing I think perhaps you should know. It’s about the Chubbs. But before I go any further I’m going to ask you, very seriously indeed, to give an undertaking not to let what I tell you make any difference any difference at all – to your normal manner with the Chubbs. If you’d rather not make a blind commitment like this, then I’ll keep my big mouth shut and no bones broken.’

      Mr Whipplestone said quietly: ‘Is it to their discredit?’

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