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“I think so,” he said, looking from the iron to Fabian’s scalp. He shifted the lantern along the floor and, groping under the bales that covered Fabian, pulled out the skirts of his own overcoat, first on one side, then on the other. On the left-hand skirt he found a kind of scar, a longish mark with the rough tweed puckered about it. He took out his pocket lens. The surface of the tweed was burred and stained brown.
“And where the devil,” said Alleyn, addressing the branding iron, “am I going to stow you away?”
Still muffling his hand, he carried the iron farther along the shed, spread his handkerchief over it and dropped a sack across the whole. He stood in the dark, looking absently at the pool of light round Fabian’s head. It seemed a long way away, an isolated island, without animation, in a sea of dark. Alleyn’s gaze turned from it and wandered among the shadows, seeing, not them, but the fork in the track, where it branched off to the wool-shed, the frosty bank that overhung it, the scrubby bush that cast so black a shadow behind it.
“That’s fu
Alleyn’s skin jumped galvanically. He stood motionless, waiting.
“And what the devil are you up to? Ru
There was a movement inside the island of yellow light. The heap of bales shifted.
“Hurry! Hurry!” An arm was flung up. “All right when I’m up. Sleep,” said the voice, dragging on the word. “To die. To sleep. Go on, blast you. Up. Oh, dear. Oh, God,” it whispered very drearily. “So bloody tired.”
Alleyn began to move quietly towards Fabian.
“You would butt in,” Fabian chuckled. “You won’t be popular.” Alleyn stopped. “Fu
He sat up. Alleyn moved quickly to him and knelt down.
“It’s all right,” he said, “you can go to sleep now, you know.”
“Yes, but why run like that? Something must have happened up there.”
“Up where?”
“Well, you heard what she said. You will be unpopular. Where was it?”
“In the lavender walk,” Alleyn said. Fabian’s eyes were open, staring past Alleyn under scowling brows.
“Who found it?”
“Uncle Arthur.”
“Well, you must be pretty fit. I couldn’t… I’m so hellish tired. I swear I’ll drop off into the sea. It’s that damned piano. If only he’d shut up. Excelsibloodyor! Up!”
He fought Alleyn off, his eyes on the wall with its crossbeams. “Come on, chaps,” he said. “It’s easy. I’ll give you a lead.”
Alleyn tried to quieten him, but he became so frenzied that, to hold him, Alleyn himself would have been obliged to use violence, and indeed stood in some danger of being knocked out.
“I’m trying to help you, you goat,” Alleyn grumbled.
“Think I don’t know a Jerry, when I get one,” Fabian panted. “Not yet, Fritzy darling. I’m for Home.” He lashed out, caught Alleyn on the jaw, flung himself forward and, clawing at the beams on the wall, tried to climb it. Alleyn wrapped his arms round his knees. Without warning, Fabian collapsed. They fell together on the floor, Fabian uppermost.
“Thank God,” Alleyn thought, “his head didn’t get another rap,” and crawled out. Fabian lay still, breathing heavily. Alleyn, himself rather groggy, began to cover him up again.
“Oh, Ursy, you celestial imbecile,” Fabian said miserably and after a moment sighed deeply and, turning on his side, fell sound asleep.
“If this is amnesia,” Alleyn muttered, nursing his jaw, “yet there’s method in it.”
He went to the doorway and, pulling aside the sacking, looked out into the cold. His head buzzed. “Damn the fellow,” he thought irritably and then: “Not altogether, though. Do they hark back to a former bout? And is it evidence? Up the side of a ship. Up a gate. Up a companion-way. But up what in the vegetable garden?” He stared down at the dark bulk of the house. Beyond it, out to the right, a giant Lombardy poplar made a spear-like pattern against the stars. “That can’t be far from the marrow patch,” Alleyn thought. “He said his pants were dirty. He was under a tree. Oh, Lord, what’s the good of a pair of pants that were dirty over a year ago?”
The thrumming in his head cleared. He shivered violently. “I’ll catch the thick end of a cold before the night’s out,” he muttered and the next second had shrunk back into the shadow of the doorway.
The night was so quiet that the voice of the Moon River, boiling out of its gorge beyond a shoulder of the mountain, and sweeping south to a lake out on the plateau, moved like a vague rumour behind the silence and was felt in the eardrums rather than heard. Alleyn had been aware of it once or twice that night, and he heard it now as he listened for the nearer sound that had caught his attention. Down the main track, it had been, a tiny rustle, a slipping noise, followed by a faint thud. He remembered how he and Markins had skidded and fallen on the icy ground. He waited and heard a faint metallic clang. “That’s the fence,” he thought, “a moment, and whoever it is will come up the track. Now what?”
At that moment, above the men’s quarters, there was a rattle of chains. The Mount Moon dogs, plunging by their ke
“Hell and damnation!” said Alleyn violently. “Am I never to get a clear run!”
CHAPTER X
NIGHT PIECE
Tommy Johns and his son Cliff followed Markins through the sacking door and stood blinking in the lamplight. Tommy nodded morosely at Alleyn. “What’s the trouble?” he said.
“There it is.”
He moved forward. Cliff said loudly: “It’s Fabian.”
“Yes,” said Alleyn.
“What’s happened to him?” He turned to Markins. “Why didn’t you say it was Fabian? What’s wrong with you?”
“Orders,” said Markins and Tommy Johns looked sharply at Alleyn.
“Whose orders?” Cliff demanded. “Has he had another of his queer turns?” His voice rose shrilly. “Is he dead?”
“No,” said Alleyn. Cliff strode forward and knelt by Fabian.
“You keep clear of this,” said his father.
“I want to know what’s happened to him. I want to know if he’s been hurt.”
“He’s been hit over the head,” said Alleyn, “with the branding iron.”
Cliff cried out incoherently and his father put his hand on his shoulder.
“I don’t want you to say so when he’s conscious again,” Alleyn went on. “Remember that please, it’s important. He’s had a nasty shock and for the moment he’s to be left to put his own interpretation on it. Tell nobody.”
“The branding iron,” said Tommy Johns. “Is that so?” He looked across to the corner where the iron was usually kept. Cliff said quickly: “It wasn’t there. It was left over by the press.”
“Where is it now?” Johns demanded.
“Safely stowed,” said Alleyn.
“Who done it?”
In reply to this classic, Alleyn merely shook his head.
“I checked up on the men, sir,” said Markins. “They’re all in their bunks. Ben Wilson was awake and says nobody’s gone or come in for over an hour. Albie’s dead to the world. Soaked.”
“Right. Have you got a stretcher?”
“Yes, sir,” said Markins. “It’s the one Mrs. R. had for her first-aid classes.”
“Have you been down to the house?” Alleyn asked sharply.
“No. It was stowed away up above. Come on, Tommy.”
They had dumped a pile of grey blankets inside the door. Markins brought in the stretcher. The three men covered it, moved Fabian on to it, and laid the remaining blankets over him. Cliff, working the palms of his hands together, looked on unhappily.