Free Clutch of Constables by Ngaio Marsh Page A

home.”
    She looked welcoming indeed, with her riding lights and glowing red-curtained windows. “Lovely!” Troy said light-heartedly. Dr Natouche’s arm contracted very slightly and then relaxed and withdrew, closely observed by the Hewsons. Mr Hewson handed the ladies aboard and accompanied them down to the saloon which was deserted.
    Miss Hewson carefully lowering her voice said cosily: “Now, dear, I hope you were not too much embarrassed: we couldn’t do one thing, could we, Earl?” She may have seen a look of astonishment in Troy’s face. “Of course,” she added, “we don’t just know how you Britishers feel—”
    “I don’t feel anything,” Troy said inaccurately. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “Well!” Mr Hewson said, “You don’t aim to tell us, Mrs Alleyn, that there’s no distinction made in Britain? Now, only last week I was reading—”
    “I’m sure you were, Mr Hewson, but honestly, we don’t all behave like that. Or believe like that. Really.”
    “Is that so?” he said. “Is—that so? You wait awhile, Mrs Alleyn. You wait until you’ve a comparable problem. You haven’t seen anything yet. Not a thing.”
    “I guess we’ll just leave it, dear,” Miss Hewson said. “Am I looking forward to my bed! Boy, oh boy!”
    “We’ll say good night then, Mrs Alleyn,” Mr Hewson said rather stiffly. “It’s a privilege to make your acquaintance.”
    Troy found herself saying good night with much more effusiveness than she normally displayed and this, she supposed, was because she wanted everything to be pleasant in the
Zodiac
. The Hewsons seemed to cheer up very much at these signs of cordiality and went to bed saying that it took all sorts to make a world.
    Troy waited for a moment and then climbed the little companionway and looked over the half-door.
    Dr Natouche stood at the after-end of the deck looking, it appeared, at the silhouette of Tollardwark against the night-sky. He has a gift, Troy thought, for isolating himself in space.
    “Good night, Dr Natouche,” she said, quietly.
    “Good night. Good night, Mrs Alleyn,” he returned, speaking as low as his enormous voice permitted. It was as if he played softly on a drum.
    Troy wrote a letter to her husband which she would post before they left Tollard Lock in the morning and it was almost midnight when she had finished it.
    What a long, long day, she thought as she climbed into her bed.
     
    -4-
    She fell asleep within half a minute and was fathoms deep when noises lugged her to the surface. On the way up she dreamed of sawmills, of road-drills and of dentists. As she awoke her dream persisted: the rhythmic hullabaloo was close at hand, behind her head, coming in at her porthole—everywhere. Her cabin was suffused in moonlight reflected off the river. It looked like a sanctuary for peace itself but on the other side of the wall Miss Rickerby-Carrick in Cabin 8 snored with a virtuosity that exceeded anything Troy had ever heard before. The pandemonium she released no more resembled normal snoring than the “1812 Overture” resembles the “Harmonious Blacksmith.” It was monstrous. It was insupportable.
    Troy lay in a sort of incredulous panic, half-giggling, half-appalled as whistles succeeded snorts, and plosives followed upon whistles. A door on the far side of the passage angrily banged. She thought it was Caley Bard’s. Then Mr Hewson, in Cabin 6 on Troy’s left, thudded out of bed, crossed the passage to his sister’s room and knocked.
    “Sis! Hey Sis!” Troy heard him wail. “For Pete’s sake! Sis!” Troy reached out and opened her own door a crack.
    Evidently, Miss Hewson was awake. Brother and sister consulted piteously together in the passage. Troy heard Miss Hewson say: “O.K., dear. O.K. Go right ahead. Rouse her up. But don’t bring me into it.”
    Another door, No 5, Troy thought, had been opened and the admonitory sound: “Ssh!” was sharply projected into the passage. The same door was