Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 10: Last Ditch, Black As He’s Painted, Grave Mistake

‘That’s right. He had a pretty lurid past in that respect. Between you and me and the gatepost.’

‘Really?’

‘As a young man. Ran a sort of guerrilla group. When we were still here. Never brought to book but it’s common knowledge. He’s turned respectable of late years.’

His wife made her entrance: fully clothed, coiffured and regrettably made-up.

‘Time for dinkies?’ she asked. ‘Super! Give me one, darling: kick-sticks.’

Alleyn thought: She’s already given herself one or more. This is excessively distasteful.

‘In a minute,’ said her husband, ‘sit down, Chris.’

She did, with an insecure suggestion of gaiety.

‘What have you two been gossiping about?’ she asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ Alleyn said, ‘to bother you at an inopportune time and when you’re not feeling well, but there is one question I’d like to ask you, Mrs Cockburn-Montfort.’

‘Me? Is there? What?’

‘Why did you fire off that Luger and then throw it in the pond?’

She gaped at him, emitted a strange whining sound that, incongruously enough, reminded him of Mrs Chubb. Before she could speak her husband said: ‘Shut up, Chris. I’ll handle it. I mean that. Shut up.’

He turned on Alleyn. The glass in his hand was unsteady but, Alleyn thought, he was in pretty good command of himself. One of those heavy drinkers who are seldom really drunk. He’d had a shock but he was equal to it.

He said: ‘My wife will not answer any questions until we have consulted our solicitor. What you suggest is obviously unwarranted and quite ridiculous. And ’stremely ’fensive. You haven’t heard the last of this, whatever-your-rank-is Alleyn.’

‘I’m afraid you’re right, there,’ Alleyn said. ‘And nor have you, perhaps. Good evening to you. I’ll show myself out.’

IV

‘And the odd thing about that little episode, Br’er Fox, is this: my bit of personal bugging on the Cockburn-Montfort telephone exchange copped Miss Xenoclea Sanskrit – Xenny for short – in an apparently motiveless lie. The gallant Colonel said: “He –” meaning me – “may call on you” and instead of saying: “He has called on me,” she merely growled “Why?” Uncandid behaviour from a comrade, don’t you think?’

‘If,’ said Fox carefully, ‘this little lot, meaning the Colonel and his lady, the Sanskrit combination, the Sheridan gentleman and this chap Chubb, are all tied up in some hate-the-blacks club and if, as seems possible, seeing most of them were at the party, and seeing the way the lady carried on, they’re mixed up in the fatality –’ He drew breath.

‘I can’t wait,’ Alleyn said.

‘I was only going to say it wouldn’t, given all these circumstances, be anything out of the way if they got round to looking sideways at each other,’ He sighed heavily. ‘On the other hand,’ he said, ‘and I must say on the face of it this is the view I’m inclined to favour, we may have a perfectly straightforward job. The man with the spear used the spear and what else took place round about in the dark has little or no bearing on the matter.’

‘How about Mrs C-M and her Luger in the ladies’ loo?’

‘Blast!’ said Fox.

‘The whole thing’s so bloody untidy,’ Alleyn grumbled

‘I wouldn’t mind going over the headings,’ Fox confessed.

‘Plough ahead and much good may it do you.’

‘A.’ said Fox, massively checking it off with finger and thumb. ‘A. The occurrence. Ambassador killed by spear. Spearsman stationed at rear in handy position. Says he was clobbered and his spear taken off him. Says he’s innocent. B. Chubb. Ex-commando. Also at rear. Member of this secret society or whatever it is. Suggestion that he’s a black-hater. Says he was clobbered by black waiter. C. Mrs C-M. Fires shot, probably blank, from ladies’ conveniences. Why? To draw attention? To get the President on his feet, so’s he could be speared? By whom? This is the nitty-gritty one.’ said Fox. ‘If the club’s an anti-black show would they collaborate with the spearsman or the waiter? The answer is: unlikely. Very unlikely. Where does this take us?’

‘Hold on to your hats, boys.’

‘To Chubb,’ said Fox. ‘It takes us to Chubb. Well, doesn’t it? Chubb, set up by the club, clobbers the spearsman, and does the job on the Ambassador and afterwards says the waiter clobbered him and held him down.’

‘But the waiter maintains that he stumbled in the dark and accidentally grabbed Chubb. If Chubb was the spearsman, what are we to make of this?’

‘Mightn’t it be the case, though? Mightn’t he have stumbled and momentarily clung to Chubb?’

‘Before or after Chubb clobbered the spearsman and grabbed the spear?’

Fox began to look disconcerted, ‘I don’t like it much,’ he confessed. ‘Still, after a fashion it fits. After a fashion it does.’

‘It’s a brave show, Br’er Fox, and does you credit. Carry on.’

‘I don’t know that I’ve all that much more to offer. This Sanskrit couple, now. At least there’s a CRO on him. Fraud, fortune-telling and hard drugs, I think you mentioned. Big importer into Ng’ombwana until the present government turned him out. They’re members of this club, if Mr Whipplestone’s right when he says he saw them wearing the medallion.’

‘Not only that,’ Alleyn said. He opened a drawer in his desk and produced his black pottery cat. ‘Take a look at this,’ he said and exhibited the base. It bore, as a trademark, a wavy X. ‘That’s on the reverse of the medallions, too,’ he said. ‘X for Xenoclea, I suppose. Xenny not only wears a medallion, she makes ’em in her little kiln, fat witch that she is.’

‘You’re building up quite a case, Mr Alleyn, aren’t you? But against whom? And for what?’

‘You tell me. But whatever turns up in the ambassadorial department, I’ll kick myself all round the Capricorns if I don’t get something on the Sanskrits. What rot they talk when they teach us we should never get involved. Of course we get involved: we merely learn not to show it.’

‘Oh, come now! You never do, Mr Alleyn.’

‘Don’t I? All right, Foxkin, I’m talking through my hat. But I’ve taken a scunner on la belle Xenny and Big Brother and I’ll have to watch it. Look, let’s get the CRO file and have a look for ourselves. Fred Gibson wasn’t all that interested at that stage. One of his henchmen looked it up for him. There was nothing there that directly concerned security and he may not have given me all the details.’

So they called on the Criminal Records Office for the entry under Sanskrit.

Alleyn said, ‘Just as Fred quoted it. Fraudulent practices. Fortune-telling. Suspected drug peddling. All in the past before he made his pile as an importer of fancy goods in Ng’ombwana. And he did, apparently, make a tidy pile before he was forced to sell out to a Ng’ombwanan interest.’

‘That was recently?’

‘Quite recently. I actually happened to catch sight of him standing outside the erstwhile premises when I was over there. He doesn’t seem to have lost face – and God knows he’s got plenty to lose – or he wouldn’t have been asked to the party.’

‘Wouldn’t you say it was a bit funny their being invited, anyway?’

‘Yes,’ Alleyn agreed thoughtfully. ‘Yes. I think I would.’

‘Would you reckon this pottery business of the sister’s was a money-spinner?’

‘Not on a big scale.’

‘Was she involved in any of the former charges?’

‘She hasn’t got a CRO. Wait a bit though. There’s a cross reference. “See McGuigan, O.” Fetch us down the Macs.’ The sergeant on duty obliged.