Singing in the shrouds by Ngaio Marsh

Author:Ngaio Marsh [Marsh, Ngaio]
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Police Procedural, Crime & mystery, Mystery
ISBN: 9780006159582
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Published: 1989-08-01T11:23:57.754000+00:00

"None in the wide world," Alleyn rejoined politely.

Mrs. Cuddy said, "Yes, but all the same it's funny about the flower, isn't it, dear?"

"That's right, dear. Funny."

"Being a hyacinth and all. Such a coincidence."

"That's right," smiled Mr. Cuddy. "Funny."

Mr. Merryman, who was still fretfully drying his hands on his handkerchief, suddenly cried out in anguish.

"I was mad enough to suppose," Mr. Merryman lamented, "that in undertaking this voyage I would escape, however briefly, from the egregious, the remorseless ambiguities of the lower-school urchin. Funny! Funny! Will you be so kind, my good Cuddy, as to enlighten us? In what respect do you consider droll, entertaining or amusing the discovery of a wilted hyacinth upon the bosom of this disarticulate puppet? For my part," Mr. Merryman added with some violence, "I find the obvious correlation altogether beastly. And the inescapable conclusion that I myself was, hypothetically at least, responsible for its presence adds to my distaste. Funny!" Mr. Merryman concluded in a fury and flung up his hands.

The Cuddys eyed him with dawning resentment. Mr. McAngus said brightly, "But of course. I'd quite forgotten. It was my hyacinth. You took it, do you recollect? When we had our little collision? And threw it down."

"I did not 'take' it."

"Accidentally, of course. I meant accidentally." Mr. McAngus bent over the doll. His reddish knotted fingers manipulated the neck. "I'm sure she can be mended," he said.

Mrs. Dillington-Blick said in a constrained voice, "Do you know--I hope you'll forgive me, Mr. McAngus, and I expect I'm being dreadfully silly--but do you know I don't somehow think I feel quite the same about Esmeralda. I don't believe I want her mended, or at any rate not for me. Perhaps we could think of some little girl--you may have a niece." Her voice faded into an apologetic murmur.

With a kind of social readiness that consorted very ill with the look in his eyes, Mr. McAngus said, "But, of course, I quite understand." His hands were still closed round the neck of the doll. He looked at them, seemed to recollect himself, and turned aside. "I quite understand," he repeated, and helped himself to a herbal cigarette.

Mrs. Cuddy, relentless as a Greek chorus, said, "All the same it does seem funny." Mr. Merryman gave a strangulated cry, but she went on greedily, "the way we were all talking about those murders. You know. And then the way Mrs. Blick got that cable from her gentleman-friend about the girl being murdered who brought the flowers. And the way hyacinths keep turning up. You'd almost think it was intentional, really you would." She stared in her unwinking fashion at Mrs. Dillington-Blick. "I don't wonder you feel funny about it with the doll being dressed like you. You know. It might almost be you, lying there, mightn't it, Mrs. Blick?"

Miss Abbott struck her big hands together. "For God's sake!" she ejaculated. "Do we have to listen to all this? Can't someone take that thing away!"

"Of course," Alleyn said and dropped the newspaper over the doll.

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