Free Scales of Justice by Ngaio Marsh Page A

back his head and howled again.
    “O, do be quiet!” Nurse Kettle ejaculated. She replaced the hat and stood up, knocking her head against a branch. The birds that spent the night in the willows stirred again and some of them flew out with a sharp whirring sound. The Chyne gurgled and plopped and somewhere up in Nunspardon woods an owl hooted. “He has been murdered,” thought Nurse Kettle.
    Through her mind hurtled all the axioms of police procedure as laid down in her chosen form of escape-literature. One must, she recollected, not touch the body, and she had touched it. One must send at once for the police, but she had nobody to send. She thought there was also something about not leaving the body, yet to telephone or to fetch Mr. Oliphant, the police-sergeant at Chyning, she would have to leave the body, and while she was away, the spaniel, she supposed, would sit beside it and howl. It was now quite darkish and the moon not yet up. She could see, however, not far from the Colonel’s hands, the glint of a trout’s scales in the grass and of a knife blade nearby. His rod was laid out on the lip of the bank, less than a pace from where he lay. None of these things, of course, must be disturbed. Suddenly Nurse Kettle thought of Commander Syce, whose Christian name she had discovered was Geoffrey, and wished with all her heart that he was at hand to advise her. The discovery in herself of this impulse astonished her and, in a sort of flurry, she swapped Geoffrey Syce for Mark Lacklander. “I’ll find the doctor,” she thought.
    She patted Skip. He whimpered and scratched at her knees with his paws. “Don’t howl, doggy,” she said in a trembling voice. “Good boy! Don’t howl.” She took up her bag and turned away.
    As she made her way out of the willow grove, she wondered for the first time about the identity of the being who had reduced Colonel Cartarette to the status of a broken waxwork. A twig snapped. “Suppose,” she thought, “he’s still about! Help, what a notion!” And as she hurried back along the path to Bottom Bridge, she tried not to think of the dense shadows and dark hollows that lay about her. Up on Watt’s Hill the three houses — Jacob’s Cottage, Uplands and Hammer — all had lighted windows and drawn blinds. They looked very far off to Nurse Kettle.
    She crossed Bottom Bridge and climbed the zigzag path that skirted the golf course, coming finally to the Nunspardon Home Spinney. Only now did she remember that her flash-lamp was in her bag. She got it out and found that she was breathless. “Too quick up the hill,” she thought. “Keep your shirt on, Kettle.” River Path proper ran past the spinney to the main road, but a by-path led up through the trees into the grounds of Nunspardon. This she took and presently came out into the open gardens with the impressive Georgian façade straight ahead of her.
    The footman who answered the front door bell was well enough known to her. “Yes, it’s me again, William,” she said. “Is the doctor at home?”
    “He came in about an hour ago, miss.”
    “I want to see him. It’s urgent.”
    “The family’s in the library, miss. I’ll ascertain…”
    “Don’t bother,” said Nurse Kettle. “Or, yes. Ascertain if you like, but I’ll be hard on your heels. Ask him if he’ll come out here and speak to me.”
    He looked dubiously at her, but something in her face must have impressed him. He crossed the great hall and opened the library door. He left it open and Nurse Kettle heard him say, “Miss Kettle to see Dr. Lacklander, my lady.”
    “Me?” said Mark’s voice. “O Lord! All right, I’ll come.”
    “Bring her in here,” Lady Lacklander’s voice commanded. “Talk to her in here, Mark. I want to see Kettle.” Hearing this, Nurse Kettle, without waiting to be summoned, walked quickly into the library. The three Lacklanders had turned in their chairs. George and Mark got up. Mark looked sharply at her and came quickly