Final Curtain

by Ngaio Marsh

  Miss Caroline Able detached herself from a distant group and came towards him.

  ‘We’re rather noisy in here,’ she said crisply. ‘Shall we go to my office? Miss Watson, will you carry on?’

  ‘Certainly, Miss Able,’ said an older lady, rising from behind a mass of children.

  ‘Come along, then,’ said Caroline Able.

  Her office was near at hand and was hung with charts and diagrams. She seated herself behind an orderly desk, upon which he at once noticed a pile of essays written on paper with yellow lines and ruled margin.

  ‘I suppose you know what all this is about,’ he said.

  Miss Able replied cheerfully that she thought she did. ‘I see,’ she said frankly, ‘quite a lot of Thomas Ancred and he’s told me about all the trouble. It’s been a pretty balanced account, as a matter of fact. He’s fairly well adjusted, and has been able to deal with it quite satisfactorily so far.’

  Alleyn understood this to be a professional opinion on Thomas, and wondered if a courtship had developed and if it was conducted on these lines. Miss Able was pretty. She had a clear skin, large eyes and good teeth. She also had an intimidating air of utter sanity.

  ‘I’d like to know,’ he said, ‘what you think about it all.’

  ‘It’s impossible to give an opinion that’s worth much,’ she replied, ‘without a pretty thorough analysis of one if not all of them. Obviously the relationship with their father was unsatisfactory. I should have liked to know about his marriage. One suspected, of course, that there was a fear of impotency, not altogether sublimated. The daughters’ violent antagonism to his proposed second marriage suggests a rather bad father-fixation.’

  ‘Does it? But it wasn’t a particularly suitable alliance from—from the ordinary point of view, was it?’

  ‘If the relationship with the father,’ Miss Able said firmly, ‘had been properly adjusted, the children should not have been profoundly disturbed.’

  ‘Not even,’ Alleyn ventured, ‘by the prospect of Miss O. as a mother-in-law and principal beneficiary in the Will?’

  ‘Those may have been the reasons advanced to explain their antagonism. They may represent an attempt to rationalize a basic and essentially sexual repulsion.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’

  ‘But, as I said before,’ she added, with a candid laugh, ‘one shouldn’t pronounce on mere observation. Deep analysis might lead to a much more complex state of affairs.’

  ‘You know,’ Alleyn said, taking out his pipe and nursing it in his palm, ‘you and I, Miss Able, represent two aspects of investigation. Your professional training teaches you that behaviour is a sort of code or cryptogram disguising the pathological truth from the uninformed, but revealing it to the expert. Mine teaches me to regard behaviour as something infinitely variable after the fact and often at complete loggerheads with the fact. A policeman watches behaviour, of course, but his deductions would seem completely superficial to you.’ He opened his hand. ‘I see a man turning a dead pipe about in his hand and I think that, perhaps unconsciously, he’s longing to smoke it. May he?’

  ‘Do,’ said Miss Able. ‘It’s a good illustration. I see a man caressing his pipe and I recognize a very familiar piece of fetishism.’

  ‘Well, don’t tell me what it is,’ Alleyn said hurriedly.

  Miss Able gave a short professional laugh.

  ‘Now, look here,’ he said, ‘how do you account for these anonymous letters we’re all so tired of? What sort of being perpetrated them and why?’

  ‘They probably represent an attempt to make an effect and are done by someone whose normal creative impulses have taken the wrong turning. The desire to be mysterious and omnipotent may be an additional factor. In Patricia’s case for instance—’

  ‘Patricia? Oh, I see. That’s Panty, of course.’

  ‘We don’t use her nickname over here. We don’t think it a good idea. We think nicknames can have a very definite effect, particularly when they are of a rather humiliating character.’

  ‘I see. Well, then, in Patricia’s case?’

  ‘She formed the habit of perpetrating rather silly jokes on people. This was an attempt to command attention. She used to let her performances remain anonymous. Now she usually brags about them. That, of course, is a good sign.’

  ‘It’s an indication, at least, that she’s not the author of the more recent practical jokes on her grandfather.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Or the author of the anonymous letters.’

  ‘That, I should have thought,’ said Miss Able patiently, ‘was perfectly obvious.’

  ‘Who do you think is responsible for the letters?’

  ‘I’ve told you, I can’t make snap decisions or guesses.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just unbend far enough to have one little potshot?’ he said persuasively. Miss Able opened her mouth, shut it again, looked at him with somewhat diminished composure and finally blushed. ‘Come!’ he thought, ‘she hasn’t analysed herself into an iceberg, at least.’ And he said aloud: ‘Without prejudice, now, who among the grown-ups would you back as the letter-writer?’ He leant forward, smiling at her, and thought: ‘Troy would grin if she saw this exhibition.’ As Miss Able still hesitated, he repeated: ‘Come on; who would you back?’

  ‘You’re very silly,’ Miss Able said, and her manner, if not coy, was at least very much less impersonal.

  ‘Would you say,’ Alleyn went on, ‘that the person who wrote them is by any chance the practical joker?’

  ‘Quite possible.’

  He reached a long arm over the desk and touched the top sheet of the exercises. ‘They were written,’ he said, ‘on this paper.’

  Her face was crimson. With a curious and unexpected gesture she covered the paper with her hands. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.

  ‘Will you let me look at it?’ He drew the sheet out from under her hands and held it to the light. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Rather an unusual type with a margin. It’s the same watermark.’

  ‘He didn’t do it.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Tom,’ she said, and the diminutive cast a new light upon Thomas. ‘He’s incapable of it.’

  ‘Good,’ Alleyn said. ‘Then why bring him up?’

  ‘Patricia,’ said Miss Able, turning a deeper red, ‘must have taken some of this exercise paper over to the other side. Or…’ She paused, frowning.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Her mother comes over here a great deal. Too often, I sometimes think. She’s not very wise with children.’

  ‘Where is the paper kept?’

  ‘In that cupboard. The top one. Out of reach of the children.’

  ‘Do you keep it locked?’

  She turned on him quickly. ‘You’re not going to suggest that I would write anonymous letters? I?’

  ‘But you do keep it locked, don’t you?’ said Alleyn.

  ‘Certainly. I haven’t denied that.’

  ‘And the key?’

  ‘On my ring and in my pocket.’

  ‘Has the cupboard been left open at all? Or the keys left out of your pocket?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘The paper comes from a village shop, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it does. Any one could buy it.’

  ‘So they could,’ he agreed cheerfully, ‘and we can find out if they have. There’s no need, you see, to fly into a huff with me.’

  ‘I do not,’ said Miss Able mulishly, ‘fly into huffs.’

  ‘Splendid! Now look here. About this medicine your kids had. I want to trace its travels. Not inside the wretched kids, but en route to them.’

  ‘I really don’t see why—’

  ‘Of course you don’t and I’ll tell you. A bottle of medicine for Sir Henry came up at the same time and its history is therefore bound up with theirs. Now, as the pudding said to the shop assistant, can you help me, Moddom?’

  This laborious pun was not immediately absorbed by Miss Able. She looked at him with won
der but finally produced a tolerably indulgent smile.

  ‘I suppose I can. Miss Orrincourt and Mrs Alleyn…’

  Here came the now familiar pause and its inevitable explanation. ‘Fancy!’ said Miss Able. ‘I know,’ said Alleyn, ‘about the medicine?’

  ‘I was really very annoyed with Miss Orrincourt. It seems that she asked Mrs Alleyn to drive the trap round to the stables and she herself brought in the medicine. Instead of leaving it in the hall, or as you would think she might have done, bringing it in here to me, she simply dumped the whole lot in the flower-room. It seems that Sir Henry had given her some flowers out of the conservatory and she’d left them there. She’s abnormally egocentric, of course. I waited and waited, and finally, at about seven o’clock, went over to the other side to ask about it. Mrs Ancred and I hunted everywhere. Finally, it was Fenella who told us where they were.’

  ‘Was Sir Henry’s medicine with theirs?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Mrs Ancred sent it up at once.’

  ‘Were the bottles alike?’

  ‘We made no mistake, if that’s what you’re wondering. They were the same sort of bottles, but ours was much larger and they were both clearly labelled. Ours had the instructions attached. Unnecessarily, as it turned out, because Dr Withers came up himself that evening and he weighed the children again and measured out their doses himself. It was odd, because he’d left it that I should give the medicine and I could have managed perfectly well; but evidently,’ said Miss Able with a short laugh, ‘he’d decided I was not to be trusted.’

  ‘It’s a fault on the right side, I suppose,’ Alleyn said vaguely. ‘They have to be careful.’

  Miss Able looked unconvinced. ‘No doubt,’ she said. ‘But I still can’t understand why he wanted to come up to Ancreton, when he was supposed to be so busy. And after all that fuss, we’ve had to go back to the ointment.’

  ‘By the way,’ Alleyn asked, ‘did you happen to see the cat Carabbas before it died?’

  Instantly she was away on her professional hobby-horse. He listened to an exposition on Panty’s fondness for the cat, and the strange deductions which Miss Able drew, with perfect virtuosity, from this not unusual relationship.

  ‘At this stage of her development, it was really a bad disturbance when the link was broken.’

  ‘But,’ Alleyn ventured, ‘if the cat had ringworm…’

  ‘It wasn’t ringworm,’ said Miss Able firmly. ‘I ought to know. It might have been mange.’

  Upon that pronouncement he left her, apparently in two minds about himself. She shook hands with an air of finality, but when he reached the door he thought he heard an indeterminate sound, and turned to find her looking anxiously at him.

  ‘Is there anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s only that I’m worried about Tom Ancred. They’re dragging him in and making him do all their dirty work. He’s quite different. He’s too good for them. I’m afraid this will upset him.’

  And then with a rather strenuous resumption of her professional manner: ‘Psychologically, I mean,’ said Miss Able.

  ‘I quite understand,’ said Alleyn, and left her.

  He found Fox waiting for him on the second terrace. Fox was sitting on the steps with his greatcoat drawn closely round him and his spectacles on his nose. He was reading from the manual on poisons which Alleyn had lent him in the train. By his side were two suitcases. One of these Alleyn recognized as Miss Orrincourt’s. The other, he presumed, was Isabel’s. Near by was a boot-box tied up with string. As Alleyn bent over Fox he noticed an unpleasant smell.

  ‘Carabbas?’ he asked, edging the box away with his foot.

  Fox nodded. ‘I’ve been asking myself,’ he said, and placed a square finger under a line of print. Alleyn read over his shoulder. ‘Arsenic. Symptoms. Manifested as progressive cachexia and loss of flesh; falling out of hair…’

  Fox glanced up and jerked a thumb at the boot-box.

  ‘Falling out of hair,’ he said. ‘Wait till you’ve had a look at Carabbas deceased.’

  ‘You know, Fox,’ Alleyn said as they walked back to the village, ‘if Thomas Ancred can stand having his lightest cares implacably laid at the door of some infantile impropriety, he and Miss Able will probably get along together very nicely. Obviously, she’s in love with him, or should I say that obviously she finds herself adjusted to a condition of rationalized eroticism in relation to poor old Thomas?’

  ‘Courting, do you reckon?’

  ‘I think so. Fox, I think we’ve had Ancreton for the moment, but I’m going to ask you to stay behind and warn the parson about an exhumation. Return to Katzenjammer Castle in the morning and ask the inmates if they’ve any objection to having their prints taken. They won’t have any if they’re not completely dotty. Bailey can come down by the morning train and work round the house for the stuff we want there. Get him to check prints on any relevant surfaces. It’ll all be utterly useless no doubt, but it had better be done. I’ll go back to the Yard. I want to learn Messrs Mortimer and Loame’s recipe for tasteful embalming. As soon as we get the exhumation order through we’ll come down and meet you here. There’s a train this evening. Let’s have a meal at the pub and then I’ll catch it. I was going to see Dr Withers again, but I fancy that particular interview had better wait. I want to get the medicine bottle and poor old Carabbas up to London.’

  ‘What’s the betting, Mr Alleyn? Arsenic in the medicine or not?’

  ‘I’m betting not.’

  ‘Routine job. It’ll be a nuisance if they don’t find anything, though. Not a hope with the Thermos.’

  ‘No, damn it.’

  They walked in silence. Frost tingled in the dusk and hardened the ground under their feet. A pleasant smell of burning wood laced the air and from Ancreton woods came the sound of wings.

  ‘What a job!’ Alleyn said suddenly.

  ‘Ours, sir?’

  ‘Yes, ours. Walking down a country lane with a dead cat in a boot-box and working out procedure for disentombing the body of an old man.’

  ‘Somebody’s got to do it.’

  ‘Certainly. But the details are unlovely.’

  ‘Not much doubt about it, sir, is there? Homicide?’

  ‘Not much doubt, old thing. No.’

  ‘Well,’ said Fox, after a pause, ‘as it stands, the evidence all points one way. It’s not one of those funny affairs where you have to clear up half a dozen suspects.’

  ‘But why kill him? She knew the Will was in her favour. She wanted to be Lady Ancred. She knew he wasn’t likely to live much longer. Why incur the appalling risk when all she had to do was marry him and wait?’

  ‘He was always changing his Will. Perhaps she thought he might do it again.’

  ‘She seems to have had him pretty well where she wanted him.’

  ‘Might she be all that keen on the present baronet?’

  ‘Not she,’ said Alleyn. ‘Not she.’

  ‘Hard to imagine, I must say. Suppose, though, that Miss O. is not the party we’ll be after, and suppose we know the old gentleman was done away with. Who’s left? Not Sir Cedric, because he knew about the second Will.’

  ‘Unless,’ said Alleyn, ‘he gambled on marrying the heiress.’

  ‘By gum, yes, there’s that, but what a gamble! With that fortune she could have hoped for better, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘She could hardly hope for worse, in my opinion.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Fox reasoned, ‘suppose we count those two out. Look at the rest of the field.’

  ‘I do so without enthusiasm. They all thought the Will announced at the Birthday Dinner was valid. Desdemona, Millamant, Dr Withers and the servants expected to do moderately well; Thomas’s expectations were handsome. The Kentish family, and the Claude Ancreds got damn all. In the “haves” the only motive is cupidity, in the “have-nots,” revenge.’

  ‘Opportunity?’ Fox speculated.

  ‘If an analysis of the medicine bottle proves negative, we’re left with the
Thermos flask, now sterilized, and as far as we can see, Miss O. Unless you entertain a notion of delayed action with Barker inserting arsenic in the crayfish.’

  ‘You will have your joke, Mr Alleyn.’

  ‘You should have heard me trifling with Miss Able,’ Alleyn grunted. ‘That was pretty ghastly, if you like.’

  ‘And the exhumation’s on,’ Fox ruminated after another long silence. ‘When?’

  ‘As soon as we’ve got the order and Dr Curtis can manage it. By the way, Ancreton Church is above the village over there. We’ll have a look at the churchyard while the light still holds.’

  And presently they climbed a gentle lane, now deep in shadow, and pushed open a lych-gate into the churchyard of St Stephen’s, Ancreton.

  It was pleasant after the dubious grandeurs of the manor house to encircle this church, tranquil, ancient, and steadfastly built. Their feet crunched loudly on the gravelled path, and from the hedges came a faint stir of sleepy birds. The grass was well kept. When they came upon a quiet company of headstones and crosses they found that the mounds and plots before them were also carefully tended. It was possible in the fading light to read inscriptions. ‘Susan Gascoigne of this parish. Here rests one who in her life rested not in well-doing.’ ‘To the Memory of Miles Chitty Bream who for fifty years tended this churchyard and now sleeps with those he faithfully served.’ Presently they came upon Ancred graves. ‘Henry Gaisbrook Ancreton Ancred, fourth baronet, and Margaret Mirabel, his wife.’ ‘Percival Gaisbrook Ancred,’ and many others, decently and properly bestowed. But such plain harbourage was not for the later generations, and towering over this sober company of stone rose a marble tomb topped by three angels. Here, immortalized in gold inscriptions, rested Sir Henry’s predecessor, his wife, his son Henry Irving Ancred, and himself. The tomb, Alleyn read, had been erected by Sir Henry. It had a teak and iron door, emblazoned in the Ancred arms, and with a great keyhole.