Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 8: Death at the Dolphin, Hand in Glove, Dead Water. Ngaio Marsh

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СКАЧАТЬ said Superintendent Williams. ‘Had to use the gear on the truck.’

      ‘He was like this when you saw him, Doctor Elekton?’

      ‘Yes. There are multiple injuries to the skull. I haven’t made an extensive examination. My guess would be, it’s just about held together by the scalp.’

      ‘Can we have a word with the men?’

      Raikes motioned them to come forward and they did so with every sign of reluctance. One, the tallest, carried a piece of rag and he wiped his hands on it continually, as if he had been doing so, unconsciously, for some time.

      ‘Good morning,’ Alleyn said. ‘You’ve had an unpleasant job on your hands.’

      The tall man nodded. One of his mates said: ‘Terrible.’

      ‘I want you, if you will, to tell me exactly what happened. When did you find him?’

      Fox unobtrusively took out his note-book.

      ‘When we come on the job. Eight o’clock or near after.’

      ‘You saw him at once?’

      ‘Not to say there and then, sir,’ the tall man said. He was evidently the foreman. ‘We had a word or two. Nutting out the day’s work, like. Took off our coats. Farther along, back there, we was. You can see where the truck’s parked. There.’

      ‘Ah, yes. And then?’

      ‘Then we moved up. And I see the planks are missing that we laid across the drain for a bridge. And one of the pipes gone. So I says: “What the hell’s all this? Who’s been mucking round with them planks and the pipe?” That’s correct, isn’t it?’ He appealed to the others.

      ‘That’s right,’ they said.

      ‘It’s like I told you, Mr Raikes. We all told you.’

      ‘All right, Bill,’ Williams said easily. ‘The superintendent just wants to hear for himself.’

      ‘If you don’t mind,’ said Alleyn. ‘To get a clear idea, you know. It’s better at first hand.’

      The foreman said: ‘It’s not all that pleasant, though, is it? And us chaps have got our responsibility to think of. We left the job like we ought to: everything in order. Planks set. Lamps lit. Everything safe. Now look!’

      ‘Lamps? I saw some at the ends of the working. Was there one here?’

      ‘A-course there was. To show the planks. That’s the next thing we notice. It’s gone. Matter of fact they’re all laying in the drain now.’

      ‘So they are,’ Alleyn said. ‘It’s a thumping great drain you’re digging here, by the way. What is it, a relief outfall sewer or something?’

      This evidently made an impression. The foreman said that was exactly what it was and went into a professional exposition.

      ‘She’s deep,’ he said, ‘she’s as deep as you’ll come across anywhere. Fourteen-be-three she lays and very nasty soil to work, being wet and heavy. One in a thou’ fall. All right. Leaving an open job you take precautions. Lamp. Planks. Notice given. The lot. Which is what we done, and done careful and according. And this is what we find. All right. We see something’s wrong. All right. So I says: “And where’s the bloody lamp?” and I walk up to the edge and look down. And then I seen.’

      ‘Exactly what?’

      The foreman ground the rag between his hands. ‘First go off,’ he said, ‘I notice the pipe, laying down there with a lot of the soil, and then I notice an electric torch -it’s there now.’

      ‘It’s the deceased’s,’ Williams said. ‘His man recognized it, I thought best to leave it there.’

      ‘Good. And then?’ Alleyn asked the foreman.

      ‘Well, I noticed all this, like, and – it’s funny when you come to think of it – I’m just going to blow my top about this pipe, when I kind of realize I’ve been looking at something else. Sticking out, they was, at the end, half sunk in mud. His legs. It didn’t seem real. Like I said to the chaps: “Look, what’s that?” Daft! Because I seen clear enough what it was.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘So we get the truck and go down and clear the pipe and planks out of it. Had to use the crane. The planks are laying there now, where we left them. We slung the pipe up and off him and across to the far bank like. Then we seen more – all there was to see. Sunk, he was. Rammed down, you might say, by the weight. I knew, first go off, he was a goner. Well – the back of his head was enough. But –’ The foreman glared resentfully at Raikes. ‘I don’t give a b– what anyone tells me, you can’t leave a thing like that. You got to see if there’s anything to be done.’

      Raikes made a non-committal noise and looked at Alleyn.

      ‘I think you do, you know, Sergeant,’ Alleyn said and the foreman, gratified, continued:

      ‘So we got ’im out like you said, sir. It was a very nasty job, what with the depth and the wet and the state he was in. And once out – finish! Gone. No mistake about it. So we give the alarm in the house there and they take a fit of the horrors and fetch the doctor.’

      ‘Good,’ Alleyn said, ‘couldn’t be clearer. Now, look here. You can see pretty well where he was lying, although, of course, the impression has been trodden out a bit. Unavoidably. Now, the head was about there, I take it, so that he was not directly under the place where the planks had been laid, but at an angle to it. The feet beneath, the head out to the left. The left hand, now. Was it stretched out ahead of him? Like that? With the arm bent? Was the right arm extended – so?’

      The foreman and his mates received this with grudging approval. One of the mates said: ‘Dead right, innit?’ and the other: ‘Near enough.’ The foreman blew a faint appreciative whistle.

      ‘Well,’ Alleyn said, ‘he’s clutching a clod of mud and you can see where the fingers dragged down the side of the ditch, can’t you? All right. Was one plank – how? Half under him or what?’

      ‘That’s right, sir.’

      Superintendent Williams said: ‘You can see where the planks were placed all right, before they fell. Clear as mud, and mud’s the word in this outfit. The ends near the gate were only just balanced on the edge. Look at the marks where they scraped down the side. Bound to give way as soon as he put his weight on them.’

      The men broke into an angry expostulation. They’d never left them like that. They’d left them safe: overlapping the bank by a good six inches at each side; a firm bridge.

      ‘Yes,’ Alleyn said, ‘you can see that, Williams. There are the old marks. Trodden down but there, undoubtedly.’

      ‘Thank you, sir,’ said the foreman pointedly.

      ‘Now then, let’s have a look at this lamp,’ Alleyn suggested. Using the ladder, they retrieved it from its bed in the ditch, about two feet above the place where the body had lain. It was СКАЧАТЬ