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Ngaio Marsh
Scales of Justice
For Stella
CONTENTS
11. Between Hammer and Nunspardon
| Nurse Kettle | ||
| Mr Octavius Danberry-Phinn | Of Jacob’s Cottage | |
| Commander Syce | ||
| Colonel Cartarette | Of Hammer Farm | |
| Rose Cartarette | His daughter | |
| Kitty Cartarette | His wife | |
| Sir Harold Lacklander Bt. | Of Nunspardon | |
| Lady Lacklander | His wife | |
| George Lacklander | Their son | |
| Dr Mark Lacklander | George’s son | |
| Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn |
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| Detective-Inspector Fox | Of the CID New Scotland Yard | |
| Detective-Sergeants Bailey and Thompson | ||
| Dr Curtis | Pathologist | |
| Sergeant Oliphant |
|
Of the Chyning Constabulary |
| PC Gripper | ||
| Sir James Punston | Chief Constable of Barfordshire |
Nurse Kettle pushed her bicycle to the top of Watt’s Hill and there paused. Sweating lightly, she looked down on the village of Swevenings. Smoke rose in cosy plumes from one or two chimneys; roofs cuddled into surrounding greenery. The Chyne, a trout stream, meandered through meadow and coppice and slid blamelessly under two bridges. It was a circumspect landscape. Not a faux-pas, architectural or horticultural, marred the seemliness of the prospect.
‘Really,’ Nurse Kettle thought with satisfaction, ‘it is as pretty as a picture.’ And she remembered all the pretty pictures Lady Lacklander had made in irresolute watercolour, some from this very spot. She was reminded, too, of those illustrated maps that one finds in the Underground, with houses, trees and occupational figures amusingly dotted about them. Seen from above, like this, Swevenings resembled such a map. Nurse Kettle looked down at the orderly pattern of field, hedge, stream, and land, and fancifully imposed upon it the curling labels and carefully