Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 7: Off With His Head, Singing in the Shrouds, False Scent. Ngaio Marsh
with his ribbons up he was quite a person. That’s how it was with those boys; wasn’t it? They lived high, wide and dangerous and they were everybody’s heroes. Then he was demobilized and came back here. You know what county people are like: it takes a flying bomb to put a dent in their class-consciousness, and then it’s only temporary. They began to say how ghastly the RAF slang was and to ask each other if it didn’t rock you a bit when you saw them out of uniform. It’s quite true that Simon bounded sky high and used an incomprehensible and irritating jargon and that some of his waistcoats were positively terrifying. All the same.’
‘I know,’ Alleyn said.
‘I felt rather sorry for him. Neither fish, nor flesh, nor stock-broker’s tudor. That was why I asked him to come into the Sword Wednesday show. Our old Hobby was killed in the raids. He was old Begg from Yowford, a relation of Simon’s. There’ve been Beggs for Hobbies for a very long time.’
‘So this Begg has done it – how many times?’
‘About nine. Ever since the war.’
‘What’s he been up to all that time?’
‘He’s led rather a raffish kind of life for the last nine years. Constantly changing his job. Gambling pretty high, I fancy. Hanging round the pubs. Then, about three years ago his father died and he bought a garage up at Yowford. It’s not doing too well, I fancy. He’s said to be very much in the red. The boys would have got good backing from one of the big companies if they could have persuaded the Guiser to let them turn Copse Forge into a filling-station. It’s at a cross-roads and they’re putting a main road through before long, more’s the pity. They were very keen on the idea and wanted Simon to go in with them. But the Guiser wouldn’t hear of it.’
‘They may get it – now,’ Alleyn said without emphasis. ‘And Simon may climb out of the red.’
‘He’s scarcely going to murder William Andersen,’ Dr Otterly pointed out acidly, ‘on the off-chance of the five sons putting up five petrol pumps. Apart from the undoubted fact that, wherever Begg himself may have got to last night, the Guiser certainly didn’t leave the stage after he walked on to it and I defy you to perform a decapitation when you’re trussed up in “Crack’s” harness. Besides, I like Begg, ghastly as he is, I like him.’
‘All right. I know. I didn’t say a thing.’
‘You are not, I hope,’ Dr Otterly angrily continued, ‘putting on that damned superior-sleuth act: “You have the facts, my dear whatever-the stooge’s-name-is.”’
‘Not I.’
‘Well, you’ve got some damned theory up your sleeve, haven’t you?’
‘I’m ashamed of it.’
‘Ashamed?’
‘Utterly, Otterly.’
‘Ah, hell!’ Dr Otterly said in disgust.
‘Come with us to Begg’s garage. Keep on listening. If anything doesn’t tally with what you remember, don’t say a word unless I tip you the wink. All right? Here we go.’
III
In spite of the thaw, the afternoon had grown deadly cold. Yowford lane dripped greyly between its hedgerows and was choked with mud and slush. About a mile along it they came upon Simmy-Dick’s Service Station in a disheartened-looking shack with Begg’s car standing outside it. Alleyn pulled up at the first pump and sounded his horn.
Simon came out, buttoning up a suit of white overalls with a large monogram on the pocket: sad witness, Alleyn suspected, to a grandiloquent beginning. When he saw Alleyn he grinned sourly and raised his eyebrows.
‘Hallo,’ Alleyn said. ‘Four, please.’
‘Four what? Coals of fire?’ Simon said, and moved round to the petrol tank.
It was an unexpected opening and made things a good deal easier for Alleyn. He got out of the car and joined Simon.
‘Why coals of fire?’ he asked.
‘After me being a rude boy this morning.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘It’s just that I know what a clot Ernie can make of himself,’ Simon said, and thrust the nose of the hosepipe into the tank. ‘Four, you said?’
‘Four. And this is a professional call, by the way.’
‘I’m not all that dumb,’ Simon grunted.
Alleyn waited until the petrol had gone in and then paid for it. Simon tossed the change up and caught it neatly before handing it over. ‘Why not come inside?’ he suggested. ‘It’s bloody cold out here, isn’t it?’
He led the way into a choked-up cubby-hole that served as his office. Fox and Dr Otterly followed Alleyn and edged in sideways.
‘How’s the Doc!’ Simon said. ‘Doing a Watson?’
‘I’m beginning to think so,’ said Dr Otterly. Simon laughed shortly.
‘Well,’ Alleyn began cheerfully, ‘how’s the racing news?’
‘Box of birds,’ Simon said.
‘Teutonic Dancer do any good for herself?’
Simon looked sharply at Fox. ‘Who’s the genned-up type?’ he said. ‘You?’
“That’s right, Mr Begg. I heard you on the telephone.’
‘I see.’ He took out his cigarettes, frowned over lighting one and then looked up with a grin. ‘I can’t keep it to myself,’ he said. ‘It’s the craziest thing. Came in at 27 to 1. Everything else must have fallen down.’
‘I hope you had something on.’
‘A wee flutter,’ Simon said and again the corners of his mouth twitched. ‘It was a dicey do but was it worth it! How’s the Doc?’ he repeated, again aware of Dr Otterly.
‘Quite well, thank you. How’s the garage proprietor?’ Dr Otterly countered chillily.
‘Box of birds.’
As this didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere, Alleyn invited Simon to give them his account of the Five Sons.
He started off in a very business-like way, much, Alleyn thought as he must have given his reports in his bomber pilot days. The delayed entrance, the arrival of the Guiser, ‘steamed-up’ and roaring at them all. The rapid change of clothes and the entrance. He described how he began the show with his pursuit of the girls.
‘Funny! Some of them just about give you the go-ahead signal. I could see them through the hole in the neck. All giggles and girlishness. Half windy, too. They reckon it’s lucky or something.’
‘Did Miss Campion react like that?’
‘The fair Camilla? I wouldn’t have minded if she had. I made a very determined attempt, but not a chance. She crash-landed in the arms of another bod. Ralphy Stayne. Lucky type!’
He grinned cheerfully round. ‘But, still!’ he said. It was a sort of summing up. One could imagine him saying it under almost any circumstances.
Alleyn asked him what he did after he’d finished his act and before the first Morris began. He said he went up to the back archway and had a bit of a breather.
‘And during the Morris?’
‘I just sort of bummed around on my own.’
‘With the Betty?’
‘I think so. I don’t remember exactly. I’m not sort of officially “on” in that scene.’
‘But