Clutch of Constables

‘I’m Troy Alleyn and this is Miss Rickerby-Carrick.’

‘You said you were Agatha,’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick pointed out. ‘You said Agatharallen,’ and Troy felt herself blushing.

‘So I am,’ she muttered, ‘the other’s just a sort of a joke – my husband –’ her voice died away. She was now extremely conscious of Mr Bard’s scrutiny and particularly aware of its dwelling speculatively on the veteran paintbox at her feet. All he said, however, was, ‘Dear me,’ in a donnish tone. When she looked her apprehension he tipped her a wink. This was disconcerting.

She was relieved by the arrival on an apocalyptic motorbicycle of a young man and his girl. The noonday sun pricked at their metal studs and turned the surface of their leather suits and calf-high boots into toffee. From under crash helmets, hair, veiled in oil and dust, fell unevenly to their shoulders. Their machine belched past the stationary chauffeur-driven car and came to a halt. They put their booted feet to the ground and lounged, chewing, against their bicycle. ‘There is nothing,’ Troy thought, ‘as insolent as a gum-chewing face,’ and at the same time she itched to make a sharp, black drawing of the riders.

‘Do you suppose –?’ she ventured in a low voice.

‘I hardly think water-wandering would present a very alluring prospect,’ Mr Bard rejoined.

‘In any case, they have no luggage.’

‘They may not need any. They may bed down as they are.’

‘Oh, do you think so? All those steel knobs.’

‘There is that, of course,’ Mr Bard agreed.

The young people lit cigarettes, inhaled deeply, stared at nothing and exhaled vapour. They had not spoken.

Miss Rickerby-Carrick gazed raptly at them and then wrote in her book.

‘– “two of our Young Independents”,’ she noted. ‘Is it to gladiators that one should compare them? Would they like it if one did? Would I be able to get on with them? Would they like me? Would they find me sympatica or is it sympatico? Alas, there I go again. Incorrigible, hopeless old Me!’

She stabbed down an ejaculation mark, clicked off her pencil with an air of quizzical finality, and said to Troy: ‘How did you get here? I came by bus: from good old Brummers.’

‘I drove,’ Mr Bard said. ‘From London and put up at a pub. Got here last night.’

‘I did too,’ said Troy. ‘But I came by train.’

‘There’s a London train that connects this morning,’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick observed. ‘Arrives 11.45.’

‘I know. But I – there was – I had an engagement,’ Troy mumbled.

‘Such as going to the pictures?’ Mr Bard airily suggested to nobody in particular. ‘Something of that sort?’ Troy looked at him but he was staring absently at the river. ‘I went to the pictures,’ he said. ‘But not last night. This morning. Lovely.’

‘The pictures!’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick exclaimed. ‘This morning! Do you mean the cinema?’

But before Mr Bard could explain himself if indeed he intended to do so, two taxis, one after the other, came down the cobbled lane and discharged their passengers.

‘There! The London train must be in,’ Miss Rickerby-Carrick observed with an air of triumph.

The first to alight was an undistinguished man of about forty. Under a belted raincoat he wore a pinstriped suit which, revealed, would surely prove abominable. His shirt was mauve and his tie a brightish pink. His hair was cut short back-and-sides. He had a knobbly face and pale eyes. As he approached, carrying his fibre suitcase and wearing a jaunty air, Troy noticed that he limped, swinging a built-up boot. ‘Morning all,’ he said. ‘Lovely day, innit?’

Troy and Mr Bard agreed and Miss Rickerby-Carrick repeated: ‘Lovely! Lovely!’ on an ecstatic note.

‘Pollock’s the name,’ said the new arrival, easily. ‘Stan.’ They murmured.

Mr Bard introduced himself and the ladies. Mr Pollock responded with sideway wags of his head.

‘That’s the ticket,’ he said. ‘No deception practised.’

Miss Rickerby-Carrick said: ‘Isn’t this going to be fun,’ in a wildish tone that modulated into one of astonishment. Her gaze had shifted to the passenger from the second taxi who, with his back to the group, was settling his fare. He was exceedingly tall and very well-dressed at High Establishment level. Indeed his hat, houndstooth checked overcoat and impeccable brogues were in such a grand conservative style that it surprised – it almost shocked – Troy to observe that he seemed to be wearing black gloves like a Dickensian undertaker. Some yards distant, his bell-like voice rang out enormously. ‘Thank you. Good morning to you. Good morning.’

He lifted his suitcase and turned. His hat tilted a little forward: the brim shadowed his face but could not be seen to do so as the face itself was darker than a shadow: the latest arrival was a coloured man.

Miss Rickerby-Carrick gave out an ejaculation. Mr Bard after the briefest glance continued talking to Troy. Mr Pollock stared, faintly whistled and then turned aside with a shuttered face. The motorcyclists for some private reason broke into ungentle laughter.

The newcomer advanced, lifted his hat generally and moved through the group to the wharf’s edge where he stood looking upstream towards the bend in the river: an incongruous but impressive and elegant figure against a broken background of rivercraft, sliding water and buildings advertising themselves in a confusion of signs.

Troy said quickly: ‘That makes five of us, doesn’t it? Three more to come.’

‘One of whom occupies that very affluent-looking car, no doubt,’ said Mr Bard. ‘I tried to peer in as I came past but an open newspaper defeated me.’

‘Male or female, did you gather?’

‘Oh the former, the former. A large manicured hand. The chauffeur is one of the stony kind. Now what is your guess? We have a choice of two from our passenger list, haven’t we? Which do you think?’ He just indicated the figure down by the river. ‘Dr Natouche? Mr J. de B. Lazenby? Which is which?’

‘I plump for J. de B. L. in the car,’ Troy said. ‘It sounds so magnificent.’

‘Do you? No: my fancy lies in the contrary field. I put Dr Natouche in the car. A specialist in some esoteric upper reaches of the more impenetrable branches of medicine. An astronomical consulting fee. And I fetch our friend on the wharf from Barbados. He owns a string of hotels and is called Jasper de Brabazon Lazenby. Shall we have a bet on it?’

‘Well,’ Troy said, ‘propose your bet.’

‘If I win you have a drink with me before luncheon. If you win, I pay for the drinks.’

‘Now then!’ Troy exclaimed.

Mr Bard gave a little inward laugh.

‘We shall see,’ he said. ‘I think that I might –’ He smiled at Troy and without completing his sentence walked down to the quay.

‘Are you,’ Troy could just hear him say, ‘joining us? I’m sure you must be.’

‘In the Zodiac?’ the great voice replied. ‘Yes. I am a passenger.’

‘Shall we introduce ourselves?’

The others all strained to hear the exchange of names.

‘Natouche.’

‘Dr Natouche?’

‘Quite so.’

Mr Bard sketched the very vaguest and least of bows in Troy’s direction.