Clutch of Constables by Ngaio Marsh Page B

was in the act of disappearing round a corner near the church where, moving backwards through a lychgate, was Miss Rickerby-Carrick. It struck Troy that the whole set had an air of commedia dell’arte about them and that the Market Square might be their painted backdrop. She was again plagued by the vague feeling that somewhere, somehow a masquerade of sorts was being acted out and that she was involved in it. “The people of the
Zodiac
,” she thought, ”all moving in their courses and I with them, but for the life of me I don’t know where we’re going.”
    She suspected that Caley Bard had thought it would be pleasant if they explored Tollardwark together and she was not surprised to see him across the square, turning, with a disconsolate air, into the Northumberland Arms. She would have enjoyed his company, other things being equal. She had almost completed her walk round the Market Square and wondered which of the few passers-by she should accost when she came to the last of the entrances into the square and looking down it, she saw the familiar blue lamp.
    The door swung-to behind her, shutting out the voices of the bells, and she was in another world smelling of linoleum, disinfectant and uniforms. The Sergeant on duty said at once: “Mrs Alleyn would it be? I thought so. The Superintendent’s expecting you, Mrs Alleyn. I’ll just:—oh, here you are, sir. Mrs Alleyn.”
    He was the predictable large, hard-muscled man just beginning to run to overweight, with extremely bright eyes and a sort of occupational joviality about him.
    He shook Troy warmly by the hand. “Tillottson,” he said. “Nice to meet you, Mrs Alleyn,” and took her into his office.
    “Very pleased,” said Superintendent Tillottson, “to meet Roderick Alleyn’s good lady. His textbook’s known as the Scourge of the Service in these parts and I wouldn’t mind if you passed that on to him.”
    He laughed very heartily at this joke, placed the palms of his hands on his desk and said: “Yes. Well now, I’ve been talking to Mr Fox at Head Office, Mrs Alleyn, and he suggested it might be quite an idea if we had a little chat. So, if it’s not putting you to too much trouble—”
    He led Troy, very adroitly, through the past eight hours and she was surprised that he should be so particular as to details. Evidently he was aware of this reaction because when she had finished he said he supposed she would like to know what it was all about and proceeded to give her a neat report.
    “This character, this K. G. Z. Andropulos, was mixed up in quite a bit of trouble: trouble to the Yard, Mrs Alleyn, before and after the Yard got alongside him. He was, as you may have supposed, of Greek origin and he’s been involved in quite a number of lines: a bit of drug-running here, a bit of receiving there, some interest in the antique lay, a picture-dealing business in Cyprus Street, Soho, above which he lived in the flat where his body was found yesterday evening. He wasn’t what you’d call a key-figure but he became useful to the Yard by turning informer from spite, having fallen out with a much bigger man than himself. A very big man indeed in the international underworld, as people like to call it, a character called Foljambe and known as the Jampot, in whom we are very, very interested.”
    “I’ve heard about
him
,” Troy said. “From Rory.”
    “I’ll be bound. Now, it’s a guinea to a gooseberry, to our way of thinking, that this leading character—this Jampot—is behind the business in Cyprus Street and therefore the Department is more than ordinarily concerned to get to the bottom of it and anything that connects with Andropulos, however slightly, has to be followed up.”
    “Even to Cabin 7 in the rivercraft
Zodiac
?”
    “That’s right. We’d like to know, d’you see, Mrs Alleyn, just why this chap Andropulos took the freakish notion to book himself in and when he did it. And, very particularly, we’d like to know whether