“Now, what is all this?”
“You know young Trehern, don’t you? You taught him? Do you get on well with him?”
“He didn’t remember me at first. I think he does now. They’ve done their best to turn him into a horror but — yes — I can’t help having a — I suppose it’s a sort of compassion,” said Jenny.
“I expect it is,” Alleyn agreed. He told her he was going to see Wally and that he’d heard she understood the boy and got more response from him than most people. Would she come down to the cottage and help with the interview?
Jenny looked very straight at him and said: “Not if it means you want me to get Wally to say something that may harm him.”
Alleyn said: “I don’t know what he will say. I don’t in the least know whether he is in any way involved in Miss Cost’s death. Suppose he was. Suppose he killed her, believing her to be Miss Emily. Would you want him to be left alone to attack the next old lady who happened to annoy him? Think.”
She asked him, as Miss Emily had asked him, what would be done with Wally if he was found to be guilty. He gave her the same answer: nothing very dreadful. Wally might be sent to an appropriate institution. It would be a matter for authorized psychiatrists. “And they do have successes in these days, you know. On the other hand, Wally may have nothing whatever to do with the case. But I must find out. Murder,” Alleyn said abruptly, “is always abominable. It’s hideous and outlandish. Even when the impulse is understandable and the motive overpowering, it is still a terrible, unique offense. As the law stands, its method of dealing with homicides is, as I think, open to the gravest criticism. But for all that, the destruction of a human being remains what it is: the last outrage.”
He was to wonder, after the case had ended, why on earth he had spoken as he did.
Jenny stared out, looking at nothing. “You must be an unusual kind of cop,” she said. And then: “O.K. I’ll tell Patrick and put on a skirt. I won’t be long.”
The extra constables had arrived and were being briefed by Coombe. They were to patrol the path and stop people climbing about the hills above the enclosure. One of them would be stationed near the outcrop.
Jenny reappeared wearing a white skirt over her bathing dress.
“Patrick,” she said, “is in a slight sulk. I asked him to pick me up at the cottage.”
“My fault, of course. I’m sorry.”
“He’ll get over it,” she said cheerfully.
They went down the hotel steps. Jenny moved ahead. She walked very quickly past Miss Cost’s shop, not looking at it. A group of visitors stared in at the window. The door was open and there were customers inside.
Coombe said: “The girl that helps is carrying on.”
“Yes. All right. Has she been told not to destroy anything — papers — rubbish— anything?”
“Well, yes. I mean, I said: Just serve the customers and attend to the telephone calls. It’s a substation for the Island. One of the last in the country.”
“I think the shop would be better shut, Coombe. We can’t assume anything at this stage. We’ll have to go through her papers. I suppose the calls can’t be operated through the central station?”
“Not a chance.”
“Who is this assistant?”
“Cissy Pollock. She was that green girl affair in the show. Pretty dim type, is Cissy.”
“Friendly with Miss Cost?”
“Thick as thieves, both being hell-bent on the Festival.”
“Look. Could you wait until the shop clears and then lock up? We’ll have to put somebody on the board or simply tell the subscribers that the Island service is out of order.”
“The Major’ll go mad. Couldn’t we shut the shop and leave Cissy on the switchboard?”
“I honestly don’t think we should. It’s probably a completely barren precaution, but at this stage—”
“ ‘We must not,’ ” Coombe said, “ ‘allow ourselves to form a hard-and-fast theory to the prejudice of routine investigation.’ I know. But I wouldn’t mind taking a bet on it that Miss Cost’s got nothing to do with this case.”
“Except in so far as she happens to be the body?”
“You know what I mean. All right: she fixed the earlier jobs. All right: she may have got at that kid and set him on to Miss Pride. In a way, you might say she organized her own murder.”
“Yes,” Alleyn said. “You might indeed. It may well be that she did.” He glanced at his colleague. “Look,” he said. “Pender will be coming back this way any time now, won’t he? I suggest you put him in the shop just to see Miss Cissy Thing doesn’t exceed her duty? He can keep observation in the background and leave you free to lend a hand in developments at Wally’s joint or whatever it’s called. I’ll be damned glad of your company.”
“All right,” Coombe said. “If you say so.”
“This,” Alleyn thought, “is going to be tricky.”
“Come on,” he said and put his hand on Coombe’s shoulder. “It’s a hell of a bind, but, as the gallant Major would say, it is the drill.”
“That’s right,” said Superintendent Coombe. “I know that. See you later, then.”
Alleyn left him at the shop.
Jenny was waiting down by the seafront. They turned left, walked around the arm of the bay, and arrived at the group of fishermen’s dwellings. Boats pulled up on the foreshore, a ramshackle jetty and the cottages themselves, tucked into the hillside, all fell, predictably, into a conventional arrangement.
“In a moment,” said Jenny, “you will be confronted by Wally’s cottage, but not as I remember it. It used to be squalid and dirty and it stank to high heaven. Mrs. Trehern is far gone in gin and Trehern, as you know, is unspeakable. But somehow or another the exhibit has been evolved: very largely through the efforts of Miss Cost egged on — well—”
“By whom? By Major Barrimore?”
“Not entirely,” Jenny said quickly. “By the Mayor, who is called Mr. Nankivell, and by his Councillors and anybody in Portcarrow who is meant to be civic-minded. And principally, I’m afraid, by Mrs. Fanny Winterbottom and her financial advisors. Or so Patrick says. So, of course, does your Miss Emily. It’s all kept up by the estate. There’s a guild or something that looks after the garden and supervises the interior. Miss Emily calls the whole thing ‘complètement en toc.’ There you are,” said Jenny as they came face-to-face with their destination. “That’s Wally’s cottage, that is.”
It was, indeed, dauntingly pretty. Hollyhocks, daisies, foxgloves and antirrhinums flanked a cobbled path. Honeysuckle framed the door. Fishing nets of astonishing cleanliness festooned the fence. Beside the gate, in gothic lettering, hung a legend: wally’s cottage. admission 1-. westcountry cream-teas. ices.
“There’s an annex at the back,” explained Jenny. “The teas are run by a neighbour, Mrs. Trehern not being up to it. The Golden Record’s in the parlour with the other exhibits.”
“The Golden Record?”
“Of cures,” said Jenny shortly.
“Will Wally be on tap?”
“I should think so. And his papa, unless he’s ferrying. There are not nearly as many visitors as I’d expected. Oh!” exclaimed Jenny stopping short. “I suppose — will that be because of what’s happened? Yes, of course it will.”
“We’ll go in,” Alleyn said, producing the entrance money.
Trehern was at the receipt of custom.
He leered ingratiatingly at Jenny and gave Alleyn a glance in which truculence, subservience and fear were unattractively mingled. Wally stood behind his father. When Alleyn looked at him he grinned and held out his hands.
Jenny said: “Good morning, Mr. Trehern. I’ve brought Mr. Alleyn to have a look around. Hullo, Wally.”