Read Online Singing in the Shrouds by Ngaio Marsh - Free Book Online Page B

recommended? By an American psychiatrist, I think you said.”
    Mr. Merryman muttered huffily, “I don’t recollect.”
    Alleyn asked, “Not, by any chance,
The Show of Violence,
by Frederic Wertham?”
    Father Jourdain turned to him with unconcealed relief. “Ah!” he said. “You’re an addict, too, and a learned one, evidently.”
    “Not I. The merest amateur. Why, by the way, is everybody so fascinated by crimes of violence?” He looked at Father Jourdain. “What do you think, sir?”
    Father Jourdain hesitated and Mr. Merryman cut in.
    “I am persuaded,” he said, “that people read about murder as an alternative to committing it.”
    “A safety valve?” Alleyn suggested.
    “A conversion. The so-called antisocial urge is fed into a socially acceptable channel; we thus commit our crimes of violence at a safe remove. We are all,” Mr. Merryman said tranquilly folding his hands over his stomach, “savages at heart.” He seemed to have recovered his good humour.
    “Do you agree?” Alleyn asked Father Jourdain.
    “I fancy,” he rejoined, “that Mr. Merryman is talking about something I call original sin. If he is, I do of course agree.”
    An accidental silence had fallen on the little assembly. Into this silence with raised voice, as a stone into a pool, Alleyn dropped his next remark.
    “Take, for instance, this strangler — the man who ‘says it with’—what are they? Roses? What, do you suppose, is behind all that?”
    The silence continued for perhaps five seconds.
    Miss Abbott said, “Not roses. Hyacinths. Flowers of several kinds.”
    She had lifted her gaze from her book and fixed it on Mrs. Dillington-Blick. “Hot-house flowers,” she said. “It being winter. The first time it was snowdrops, I believe.”
    “And the second,” Mr. Merryman said, “hyacinths.”
    Aubyn Dale cleared his throat.
    “Ah, yes!” Alleyn said. “I remember now. Hyacinths.”
    “Isn’t it awful?” Mrs. Cuddly gloated.
    “Shocking,” Mr. Cuddy agreed. “Hyacinths! Fancy!”
    Mr. McAngus said gently, “Poor things.”
    Mr. Merryman with the falsely innocent air of a child that knows it’s being naughty asked loudly, “Hasn’t there been something on television about these flowers? Something rather ludicrous? Of what can I be thinking?”
    Everybody avoided looking at Aubyn Dale, but not even Father Jourdain found anything to say.
    It was at this juncture that Dennis staggered into the room with a vast basket of flowers which he set down on the central table.
    “Hyacinths!” Mrs. Cuddy shrilly pointed out. “What a coincidence!”
    It was one of those naïve arrangements which can give nothing but pleasure to the person who receives them unless, of course, that person is allergic to scented flowers. The hyacinths were rooted and blooming in a mossy bed. They trembled slightly with the motion of the ship, shook out their incongruous fragrance and filled the smoking-room with reminiscences of the more expensive kinds of shops, restaurants, and women.
    Dennis fell back a pace to admire them.
    “Thank you, Dennis,” Mrs. Dillington-Blick said.
    “It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Dillington-Blick,” he rejoined. “Aren’t they gorgeous?”
    He retired behind the bar. The passengers stared at the growing flowers and the flowers, quivering, laid upon them a further burden of sweetness.
    Mrs. Dillington-Blick explained hurriedly, “There isn’t room for all one’s flowers in one’s cabin. I thought we’d enjoy them together.”
    Alleyn said, “But what a charming gesture.” And was barely supported by a dilatory murmur.
    Brigid agreed quickly, “Isn’t it? Thank you so much, they’re quite lovely.”
    Tim Makepiece murmured, “What nice manners you’ve got, Grandmama.”
    “I do hope,” Mrs. Dillington-Blick said, “that nobody finds the scent too much. Me, I simply wallow in it.”
    She turned to Aubyn Dale. He rejoined, “But of course. You’re so wonderfully exotic.” Mr. Merryman