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

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      ‘Here are Miss Hewson and Mrs Tretheway, to help you.’

      Their faces swam towards her and steadied.

      Everything had steadied. The passengers stared at her with the greatest concern. Six faces behind Dr Natouche and Mrs Tretheway: Miss Hewson with the look of a startled bun, her brother with his hearing-aid and slanted head, Mr Lazenby’s black glasses, Mr Pollock’s ophthalmic stare, like close-ups in a suspense film. And beyond them the Skipper at the wheel.

      ‘Feeling better, honey?’ asked Miss Hewson, and then: ‘Don’t look that way, dear. What is it? What’s happened?’

      ‘She’s frightened,’ said Mrs Tretheway.

      ‘Oh God, God, God!’ Troy said and her voice sounded in her own ears like that of a stranger. ‘Oh God, I’ve remembered.’

      She turned and clung to Dr Natouche, ‘They must stop,’ she stammered. ‘Stop. Make them stop. It’s Hazel Rickerby-Carrick. There. Back there. In The River.’

      They broke into commotion. Caley Bard shouted: ‘You heard what she said. Skipper!’

      The Zodiac stopped.

      Caley Bard knelt beside her. ‘All right, my dear!’ he said. ‘We’ve stopped. Don’t be frightened. Don’t worry. We’ll attend to it.’ And to Dr Natouche: ‘Can’t we take her down?’

      ‘I think so. Mrs Alleyn, if we help you, do you think you can manage the stairs? It will be best. We will take it very steadily.’

      ‘I’m all right,’ Troy said. ‘Please don’t worry. I’m perfectly all right. It’s not me. Didn’t you hear what I said? Back there – in The River.’

      ‘Yes, yes. The Captain is attending to it!’

      ‘Attending to it!’ An ungainly laugh bubbled in Troy’s throat. ‘To that! I should hope so! Look, don’t fuss about me. I’m all right.’

      But when they helped her to her feet she was very shaky. Dr Natouche went backwards before her down the companion-way and Caley Bard came behind. The two women followed making horrified comments.

      In the passage her knees gave way. Dr Natouche carried her into her cabin and put her on her bunk as deftly as if she was a child. The others crowded in the doorway.

      ‘I’m all right,’ she kept repeating. ‘It’s ridiculous, all this. No – please.’

      He covered her with the cherry-red blanket and said to Mrs Tretheway: ‘A hot-water bottle and tea would not be amiss.’

      The ladies bustled away in confusion. He stooped his great body over Troy: ‘You’re shocked, Mrs Alleyn. I hope you will let me advise you.’

      Troy began to tell them what she had seen. She took a firm hold of herself and spoke lucidly and slowly as if they were stupid men.

      ‘You must tell the police,’ Troy said. ‘At once. At once.’

      Caley Bard said: ‘Yes, of course. I’m sure the Skipper will know what to do.’

      ‘Tell him. It mustn’t be – lost – it mustn’t be –’ she clenched her hands under the blanket. ‘Superintendent Tillottson at Tollardwark. Tell the Skipper.’

      ‘I’ll tell him,’ Dr Natouche offered and Caley Bard said: ‘There now! Don’t fuss. And do, like a good girl, stop bossing.’

      Troy caught the familiar bantering tone and was comforted by it. She and Bard exchanged pallid grins.

      ‘I’ll be off,’ he said.

      Dr Natouche said: ‘And I. I may be wanted. I think you should stay where you are, Mrs Alleyn.’

      He had moved away when Troy, to her own astonishment, heard herself say. ‘Dr Natouche!’ and when he turned with his calmly polite air, ‘I – I should like to consult you, please, when you are free. Professionally.’

      ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘In the meantime these ladies will take care of you.’

      They did. They ministered with hot-water bottles and with scalding tea. Troy only now realized that she was shivering like a puppy.

      Miss Hewson was full of consolatory phrases and horrified speculation.

      ‘Gee,’ she gabbled, ‘isn’t this just awful? That poor girl and all of us asleep in our beds. What do you figure, Mrs Tretheway? She was kind of sudden in her reflexes wasn’t she? Now, could it add up this way? She was upset by this news about her girlfriend and she got up and dressed and packed her grip and wrote her little note on the newspaper and lit off for for wherever she fixed to meet up with her friends and in the dark she –’

      Miss Hewson stopped as if jerked to a halt by her listeners’ incredulity.

      ‘Well – gee – well, maybe not,’ she said. ‘OK, OK. Maybe not.’

      Mrs. Tretheway said: ‘I don’t fancy we do any good by wondering. Not till they know more. Whatever way it turns out, and it looks to me to be a proper mess, it’ll bring nothing but worry to us in the Zodiac: I know that much.’

      She took the empty cup from Troy. ‘You’d best be left quiet,’ she said. ‘We’ll look in and see how you prosper.’

      When they had gone Troy lay still and listened. The shivering had stopped. She felt at once drowsy, and horrified that she should be so.

      By looking up slantways through her open porthole she could see a tree top. It remained where it was for the most part, only sliding out of its place and returning as the Zodiac moved with The River. She heard footfalls overhead and subdued voices and after an undefined interval, a police siren. It came nearer and stopped. More and heavier steps on deck. More and newer voices, very subdued. This continued for some time. She half-dozed, half-woke.

      She was roused by something outside that jarred against the port wall of the Zodiac and by the clunk of oars in their rowlocks and the dip and drip of the blades.

      ‘Easy as you go, then,’ said a voice very close at hand. ‘Shove off a bit.’ The top of a helmet moved across the porthole. ‘That’s right. Just a wee bit over. Hold her at that, now. Careful now.’

      Superintendent Tillottson. On the job.

      Troy knew with terrible accuracy what was being done on the other side of the cabin wall. She was transfixed in her own vision and hag-ridden by a sick idea that there was some obligation upon her to stand on her bunk and look down into nightmare. She knew this idea was a fantasy but she was deadly afraid that she would obey its compulsion.

      ‘All right. Give way and easy. Easy as you go.’

      ‘I can’t.’

      ‘What? What?’

      ‘It’s foul of something.’

      ‘Here. Hold on.’

      ‘Look СКАЧАТЬ