Free Scales of Justice by Ngaio Marsh Page B

towards her. Lady Lacklander said, “Kettle! What’s happened to
you
!”
    Nurse Kettle said, “Good evening, Lady Lacklander. Good evening, Sir George.” She put her hands behind her back and looked full at Mark. “May I speak to you, sir?” she said. “There’s been an accident.”
    “All right, Nurse,” Mark said. “To whom?”
    “To Colonel Cartarette, sir.”
    The expression of enquiry seemed to freeze on their faces. It was as if they retired behind newly assumed masks.
    “What sort of accident?” Mark said.
    He stood behind Nurse Kettle and his grandmother and father. She shaped the word “killed” with her lips and tongue.
    “Come out here,” he muttered and took her by the arm.
    “Not at all,” his grandmother said. She heaved herself out of her chair and bore down upon them. “Not at all, Mark. What has happened to Maurice Cartarette? Don’t keep things from me; I am probably in better trim to meet an emergency than anyone else in this house. What has happened to Maurice?”
    Mark, still holding Nurse Kettle by the arm, said, “Very well, Gar. Nurse Kettle will tell us what has happened.”
    “Let’s have it, then. And in case it’s as bad as you look, Kettle, I suggest we all sit down. What did you say, George?”
    Her son had made an indeterminate noise. He now said galvanically, “Yes, of course, Mama, by all means.”
    Mark pushed a chair forward for Nurse Kettle, and she took it thankfully. Her knees, she discovered, were wobbling.
    “Now, then, out with it,” said Lady Lacklander. “He’s dead, isn’t he, Kettle?”
    “Yes, Lady Lacklander.”
    “Where?” Sir George demanded. Nurse Kettle told him.
    “When,” Lady Lacklander said, “did you discover him?”
    “I’ve come straight up here, Lady Lacklander.”
    “But why here, Kettle? Why not to Uplands?”
    “I must break it to Kitty,” said Sir George.
    “I must go to Rose,” said Mark simultaneously.
    “Kettle,” said Lady Lacklander, “you used the word accident. What accident?”
    “He has been murdered, Lady Lacklander,” said Nurse Kettle.
    The thought that crossed her mind after she had made this announcement was that the three Lacklanders were, in their several generations, superficially very much alike but that whereas in Lady Lacklander and Mark the distance between the eyes and the width of mouth suggested a certain generosity, in Sir George they seemed merely to denote ’the naïve. Sir George’s jaw had dropped, and handsome though he undoubtedly was, he gaped unhandsomely. As none of them spoke, she added, “So I thought I’d better report to you, sir.”
    “Do you mean,” Sir George said loudly, “that he’s lying there in my bottom meadow, murdered?”
    “Yes, Sir George,” Nurse Kettle said, “I do.”
    “How?” Mark said.
    “Injuries to the head.”
    “You made quite sure, of course?”
    “Quite sure.”
    Mark looked at his father. “We must ring the Chief Constable,” he said. “Would you do that, Father? I’ll go down with Nurse Kettle. One of us had better stay there till the police come. If you can’t get the C.C., would you ring Sergeant Oliphant at Chyning?”
    Sir George’s hand went to his moustache. “I think,” he said, “you may take it, Mark, that I understand my responsibilities.”
    Lady Lacklander said, “Don’t be an ass, George. The boy’s quite right,” and her son, scarlet in the face, went off to the telephone. “Now,” Lady Lacklander continued, “what are we going to do about Rose and that wife of his?”
    “Gar…” Mark began, but his grandmother raised a fat glittering hand.
    “Yes, yes,” she said. “No doubt you want to break it to Rose, Mark, but in my opinion you will do better to let me see both of them first. I shall stay there until you appear. Order the car.”
    Mark rang the bell. “And you needn’t wait,” she added. “Take Miss Kettle with you.” It was characteristic of Lady Lacklander that she restricted her use of