Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 5: Died in the Wool, Final Curtain, Swing Brother Swing. Ngaio Marsh

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ incredulously.

      The men started shearing. Damp sheep were crammed under cover to dry off as the already dry sheep thinned out. Fabian and Douglas arrived, anxious about the weather. By this time almost everybody on the place was in an evil temper. One of the shearers, in running across the belly of a sheep, cut it badly, and Douglas, who happened to be standing by, trod in a pool of blood. ‘And did he go crook!’ Mr Wilson ruminated appreciatively.

      Arthur Rubrick arrived at this juncture, walking slowly and very short of breath. ‘And,’ said Mr Wilson, ‘the boss picked things was not too pleasant and asked Tommy Johns what was wrong. Tommy started moaning about nobody being any good on the place. They were standing near the sorting-table and I heard what was said.’

      ‘Can you remember it?’ Alleyn asked.

      ‘I can remember all right, but there was nothing in it.’

      ‘May I hear about it? I’m enormously grateful for all this, Mr Wilson.’

      ‘It didn’t amount to anything. Tommy’s a funny joker. He goes crook sometimes. He said the men were a lot of lazy bastards.’

      ‘Anything else?’

      ‘Young Cliff was in trouble about a bottle of booze. Mrs Rubrick had told him off a couple of nights before. Tommy didn’t like it. He was complaining about it.’

      ‘What did Mr Rubrick say?’

      ‘He wasn’t too good that morning. He was bad, you could see that. His face was a terrible colour. He was very quiet, and kept saying it was unfortunate. He seemed to think it was very very hot in the shed, and kept moving as if he’d like to clear out. His hands were shaky, too. He was bad, all right.’

      ‘How did it end?’

      ‘Young Doug came up – the Captain,’ Mr Wilson explained with a hint of irony. ‘He was in a bit of a mess. Bloody. It seemed to upset the boss and he said quite violent, “What the devil have you been doing?” and Doug didn’t like it and turned his back on him and walked out.’

      ‘Now, that’s an incident that we haven’t got in the files,’ Alleyn said.

      ‘I never mentioned it. This Sub-Inspector Jackson comes into my shed and throws his weight about, treating us from the word go as if we’re holding back on him. Very inconsiderate, he was. “I don’t want to know what you think. I want you to answer my questions.” All right. We answered his questions.’

      ‘Oh, well,’ said Alleyn pacifically.

      ‘We don’t want to hold back on it,’ Mr Wilson continued with warmth. ‘We were as much put out as any one else when we heard. It’s not very nice to think about. When they told Jack Merrywether – he’s the presser – what he must of done that morning, he vomited. All over my shearing-board before any one could take any steps about it. It was nearly a month afterwards but that made no difference to Jack.’

      ‘Quite,’ said Alleyn. ‘How did this visit of Mr Rubrick’s end?’

      ‘It finished up by the boss taking a bad turn. We helped him out into the open. You wasn’t about just then, Mr Losse, and he asked us not to say anything. He carried some kind of medicine on him that he sniffed up and it seemed to fix him. Tommy sent young Cliff for the station car and he drove the boss back to the house. He was very particular we shouldn’t mention it. Anxious to avoid trouble. He was a gentleman, was Mr Rubrick.’

      ‘Yes. Now, then, Mr Wilson, about the press. When you knocked off on the previous night it was full of wool, wasn’t it? The top half was on the bottom half and the wool had been tramped down but not pressed. Is that right?’

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘And that, to all intents and purposes, was what it looked like in the morning?’

      ‘So far as I noticed, but I did no more than glance at it, if that. Jack Merrywether never noticed anything.’

      ‘When did you finish shearing?’

      ‘Not till six that evening. We cleaned up the sheep that’d been brought in overnight and then there was a hold up. That was at eleven. The fresh ones we’d brought in hadn’t dried off. Then it come up sunny and we turned them out again. Everyone was snakey. Young Doug says the sheep are dry and I say they’re not and Tommy Johns says they’re not. The lorry turns up and Syd Barnes, he’s the driver, he has to shove in his oar and reckon they’re dry because he wants to get on with it and make the pub at the Pass before dark. So I tell the whole gang where they get off and by that time the sheep have dried and we start up again. Young Cliff was hanging round the shed doing nothing, and then he slopes off, and his father goes crook when he can’t find him. It was lovely.’

      The whistle tooted and the shed was at once active. Five plunging sheep were dragged in by their hind legs from the pens, machinery whirred, a raw-boned man moved over to the press, spat on his hands, and bore down on the ratchet lever. Mr Wilson pinched out his cigarette, nodded and walked back to the sorter’s table.

      Alleyn watched the presser complete his work. The bale was sewn up, removed, and shoved along the floor towards the double doors where he and Fabian still waited. This process was assisted by the use of a short hook which was caught into the corners of the bale. ‘The lorry backs in here,’ Fabian said, ‘and the packs are dumped on board. The floor’s the same height as the lorry, or a little higher. There’s no lifting. It’s the same sort of business in the wool store at the other end.’

      ‘Is that the same presser? Jack Merrywether?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Fabian, ‘that’s Jack. He who was so acutely inconvenienced by the absence of a vomitorium in the wool-shed.’

      ‘Is he apt to be sick again, do you imagine, if I put a few simple questions to him?’

      ‘Who can tell? What do you want to ask him?’

      ‘Whether he used one of those hooks when he shifted the crucial bale.’

      ‘Ticklish!’ Fabian said. ‘It makes even me a little queasy to think of it. Hi, Jack!’

      Merrywether’s reaction to his summons was disquieting. No sooner had Fabian spoken his introductory phrases than the presser turned pale and stared at Alleyn with an expression of panic.

      ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t of come back on this job if it hadn’t of been for the war. That’s how it affected me. I’d have turned it up only for the war and there being a shortage. “Look,” I said to Mr Johns and Ben Wilson, I said: “not if it’s the same outfit,” I said. “You don’t get me coming at the Mount Moon job if it’s the same press again,” I said. Then they told me it was a new press and I give in. I come to oblige. Not willing, though. I didn’t fancy it and I don’t yet. Call me soft if you like, but that’s how I am. If anybody starts asking me about you know what, it catches me smack in the belly. I feel shocking. I don’t reckon I’ll ever shake it off. Now!’

      Alleyn murmured sympathetically.

      ‘Look at it whatever way you like,’ Merrywether continued argumentatively, ‘and it’s still a fair cow. You think you’re mastering the sensation and then somebody comes along and starts asking you a lot of silly questions and you feel terrible again.’

      ‘As СКАЧАТЬ