Last Ditch

Last Ditch
Ngaio Marsh

A classic Ngaio Marsh novelYoung Rickie Alleyn had come to the Channel Islands to try to write, but village life was tedious – until he saw the stablehand in the ditch. Dead, it seemed, from an unlucky jump.It might have ended there had Rickie not noticed some strange and puzzling things. But Rickie’s father, Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn, had been discreetly summoned to the scene, and when Rickie disappeared, it was the last straw…

NGAIO MARSH

Last Ditch

Copyright (#ulink_695c13d4-96c4-54f7-8fb4-d6b65bd84b53)

HARPER

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1977

Copyright © Ngaio Marsh Ltd 1977

Ngaio Marsh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007328789

EBook Edition © JANUARY 2010 ISBN: 9780007344833

Version: 2014-12-02

Dedication (#ulink_4f511440-b284-5724-bda9-724322edccca)

For the family at Walnut Tree Farm

Contents

Copyright (#u12940b0f-c9d6-59c3-930a-94ece4bb3312)

Title Page (#u66a554fc-04ec-50fb-9170-780fbcac9483)

Dedication (#u995e8931-3e33-5b23-bf26-ac3b0cb54684)

Cast of Characters (#u2364d205-c03d-558b-ae9f-ca1b990182d2)

1 Deep Cove (#ua4330d62-b7d5-5308-98ba-c569f99d8116)

2 Syd Jones’s Pad And Montjoy (#uf8992a0f-758b-50fe-be4f-2ae3824a1ff4)

3 The Gap (#u96a3cf62-d41d-563b-ae7e-98c3bb072407)

4 Intermission (#litres_trial_promo)

5 Intermezzo With Storm (#litres_trial_promo)

6 Morning at the Cove (#litres_trial_promo)

7 Syd’s Pad Again (#litres_trial_promo)

8 Night Watches (#litres_trial_promo)

9 Storm Over (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Cast of Characters (#ulink_bc49b465-7c58-5980-8984-e2821b0fe37d)

CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_edce5930-3b3c-5da6-8bf9-e80a70f0020d)

Deep Cove (#ulink_edce5930-3b3c-5da6-8bf9-e80a70f0020d)

With all their easy-going behaviour there was, nevertheless, something rarified about the Pharamonds. Or so, on his first encounter with them, did it seem to Ricky Alleyn.

Even before they came into their drawing-room, he had begun to collect this impression of its owners. It was a large, eccentric and attractive room with lemon-coloured walls, polished floor and exquisite, grubby Chinese rugs. The two dominant pictures, facing each other at opposite ends of the room, were of an irritable gentleman in uniform and a lavishly-bosomed impatient lady, brandishing an implacable fan. Elsewhere he saw, with surprise, several unframed sketches, drawing-pinned to the walls, one of them being of a free, if not lewd, character.

He had blinked his way round these incompatibles and had turned to the windows and the vastness of sky and sea beyond them when Jasper Pharamond came quickly in.

‘Ricky Alleyn!’ he stated. ‘How pleasant. We’re all delighted.’

He took Ricky’s hand, gaily tossed it away and waved him into a chair. ‘You’re like both your parents,’ he observed. ‘Clever of you.’

Ricky, feeling inadequate, said his parents sent their best remembrances and had talked a great deal about the voyage they had taken with the Pharamonds as fellow passengers.

‘They were so nice to us,’ Jasper said. ‘You can’t think. VIPs as they were, and all.’

‘They don’t feel much like VIPs.’

‘Which is one of the reasons one likes them, of course. But do tell me, exactly why have you come to the island, and is the lodging Julia found endurable?’

Feeling himself blush, Ricky said he hoped he had come to work through the Long Vacation and his accommodation with a family in the village was just what he had hoped for and that he was very much obliged to Mrs Pharamond for finding it.