Vintage Murder

by Ngaio Marsh

  I am feeling much better, so you need not put on your scolding air over my police activities. It is so amusing to be unofficial and yet in the game. I feel I may give surmise and conjecture free rein.

  Do write me a line when you’ve time.

  Yours ever,

  RODERICK ALLEYN.

  Alleyn sealed and addressed his letter and glanced at the lounge clock. Ten o’clock. Perhaps he had better take another look at Master Gordon Palmer who, at nine o’clock, appeared to be sunk in the very depths of sottish slumber. Alleyn took the lift to the second floor. The unwavering stare of the lift-boy told him that his identity was no longer a secret. He went to Gordon’s room, tapped on the door and walked in.

  Gordon was awake but in bed. He looked very unattractive and rather ill.

  “Good morning,” said Alleyn. ‘Feeling poorly?”

  “I feel like death,” said Gordon. He glanced nervously at the chief inspector, moistened his lips and then said rather sheepishly: “I say, I’m sorry about last night. Can I have my key back? I want to get up.”

  “I unlocked your door an hour ago,” said Alleyn. “Haven’t you noticed?”

  “As a matter of fact my head is so frightful I haven’t moved yet.”

  “I suppose you drank yourself to sleep?”

  Gordon was silent.

  “How old are you?” asked Alleyn.

  “Seventeen.”

  “Good God!” exclaimed Alleyn involuntarily. “What do you suppose you’ll look like when you’ve grown up? An enfeebled old dotard. However, it’s your affair.”

  Gordon attempted to smile.

  “And yet,” continued Alleyn, raising one eyebrow and screwing up his face, “you don’t look altogether vicious. You’re pimply, of course, and your skin’s a nauseating colour—that’s late hours and alcohol—but if you gave your stomach and your lungs and your nerves a sporting chance you might improve enormously.”

  “Thanks, very much.”

  “Rude, you think? I’m twenty-five years older than you. Old gentlemen of forty-two are allowed to be impertinent. Especially when they are policemen. Do you want to get into trouble with the police, by the way?”

  “I’m not longing to,” said Gordon, with a faint suggestion of humour.

  “Then why, in Heaven’s name, did you bolt? You have permanently changed the silhouette of Detective-Sergeant Cass. He now presents the contour of a pouter-pigeon.”

  “Oh no, does he? How superb!”

  “How superb!” imitated Alleyn. “The new inflexion. How superb for you, my lad, if you’re clapped into durance vile.”

  Gordon looked nervous.

  “Come on,” continued Alleyn. “Why did you bolt. Was it funk?”

  “Oh, rather. I was terrified,” said Gordon lightly.

  “Of what? Of your position in regard to Courtney Broadhead? Were you afraid the police would press you to re-state your theory?”

  “It’s not my theory.”

  “We came to that conclusion. Liversidge filled you up with that tarradiddle, didn’t he? Yes, I thought so. Were you afraid we’d find that out?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. So you postponed the evil hour by running away?”

  “It was pretty bloody waiting in that room. Hour after hour. It was cold.”

  His eyes dilated. Suddenly he looked like a frightened schoolboy.

  “I’ve never seen anyone—dead—before,” said Gordon.

  Alleyn looked at him thoughtfully.

  “Yes,” he said at last “it was pretty foul, wasn’t it? Given you the horrors?”

  Gordon nodded. “A bit.”

  “That’s bad luck,” said Alleyn. “It’ll wear off in time. I don’t want to nag, you know, but alcohol’s no good at all. Makes it worse. So you eluded Mr. Cass because you’d got the jim-jams while you were waiting in the wardrobe-room?”

  “It was so quiet. And outside there—on the stage—getting cold and stiff—”

  “God bless my soul!” exclaimed Alleyn. “They took him away long before that, you silly fellow. Now tell me, what did Liversidge say to you when you left the scene of the disaster?”

  “Frankie?”

  “Yes. In the dressing-room passage, before you went to the wardrobe-room?”

  “He—he—I think he said something about—did I remember what we’d said.”

  “What did he mean?”

  “About Courtney and the money.”

  “Now think carefully and answer me truthfully. It’s important. Who first made the suggestion that Broadhead might have taken that money—you or Mr. Liversidge?”

  “He did, of course,” said Gordon at once.

  “Ah, yes,” said Alleyn.

  He sat down on the end of the bed and again he contemplated Gordon. It seemed to him that after all the boy was not so intolerably sophisticated. “His sophistication is no more than a spurious glaze over his half-baked adolescence,” thought Alleyn. “Under the stress of this affair it has already begun to crack. Perhaps he may even read detective stories.” And suddenly he asked Gordon:

  “Are you at all interested in my sort of job?”

  “I was, rather, in the abstract,” said Gordon.

  “I’m puzzled by your reactions to this affair. Last night, you know, you were so very alert and cock-a-hoop. Your attack on Broadhead! It was most determined.”

  “I hadn’t had time to think. It didn’t seem real then. None of it seemed real. Just rather exciting.”

  “I know. Perhaps you are one of the people that ricochet from a shock, as a bullet does from an impenetrable surface. You fly off at an uncalculated angle, but do not at once lose speed.”

  “Perhaps I am,” agreed Gordon, cheered by the delicious promise of self-analysis. “Yes, I think I am like that. I—”

  “It’s a very common reaction,” said Alleyn. “Let us see how the theory may be applied to your case. A man was murdered almost under your nose, and instead of screaming like Miss Gaynes, or being sick like Mr. Mason, you found yourself sailing along in a sort of unreal state of stimulation. You felt rather intoxicated and into your mind, with startling insistence, came a little sequence of ideas about Courtney Broadhead. You thought of your discussion with Mr. Liversidge and—an additional fillip—he actually reminded you of it in the passage. Still sailing along, you were seized with the idea of bringing off one of those startling coups, which, unfortunately for us, occur more often in fiction than in police investigations. You would confront Broadhead with his infamy and surprise him into betraying himself. It’s a typical piece of adolescent behaviourism. Very interesting in its way. A projection of the king-of-the-castle phantasy—I forget the psycho-analytical description.”

  He paused. Gordon, very red in the face, was silent.

  “Well,” continued Alleyn, “when that little affair was over you began to lose speed and come to earth. You had time to think. You tell me that as the others went out, one by one, until only you and Mr. Weston were left under Packer’s eye, you began to get the jim-jams. You got them so badly that when we sent for you, you bolted. I can’t help wondering if there was some additional cause for this—if perhaps you had remembered something that seemed to throw a new light on this crime.”

  Still watching the boy, Alleyn thought: “Really, he changes colour like a chameleon. If he goes any whiter he’ll faint.”

  “What do you mean?” said Gordon.

  “I see I am right. You did remember something. Will you tell me what it was?”

  “I don’t even know what you are talking about.”

  “Don’t you? It doesn’t seem very difficult. Well, I had better leave it for the moment and ask a few routine questions. Let me see, you came round from the front of the house to the stage as soon as the show was over?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you walk straight on to the stage and remain there?”

  “Yes.”

  “You did not go to any of the dressing-rooms?”

 
“No. I wanted to go to Carolyn’s room but Ted Gascoigne was stupid about it so I didn’t.”

  “Right. After the disaster, when I suggested that you should wait somewhere with your cousin until the police arrived, did you both keep together?”

  “We went to the wardrobe-room. Geoff took me there.”

  “Right. Now about this tiki. What were you going to say about that when I questioned Miss Dacres in the wardrobe-room?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Shall I make another guess? When I asked Miss Dacres where the tiki was, she put her hand up to her dress with that quick, almost involuntary gesture a woman uses when she has something hidden in what used to be called her bodice. You saw that gesture, and a moment afterwards you made an exclamation and then refused to explain it. That was because you remembered that during the supper-party you saw Miss Dacres slip the tiki under the bodice of her dress.”

  “How do you know? I—I wasn’t sure. I only thought—”

  “A moment afterwards, she looked in her bag and then said she did not remember handling the tiki after she had put it down on the table.”

  “There’s nothing in that,” said Gordon hotly. “She’d simply forgotten. That’s not surprising after what happened. She wasn’t trying to tell lies, if that’s what you mean. She’d forgotten, I tell you. Why, I only happened to remember because of her hand—”

  “I merely wanted to be sure that you’d seen her do it.”

  “Well, if I did, what of it?”

  “Nothing at all. And now I shall leave you to arise and greet the latter half of the morning. I suggest two aspirins, some black coffee and a brisk walk to the police station where Inspector Wade will be delighted to receive your apologies for your offensive behaviour. I forget what the penalty is for running away from the police in the execution of their duty. Something with a little boiling oil in it, perhaps. I suppose you loathe The Mikado?”

  “Look here, sir, what’ll they do to me?”

  “If you tell them, nicely, what you’ve just told me, I shall try and stay their wrath. Otherwise—”

  Alleyn made a portentous grimace and walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Change of Scene

  WHEN ALLEYN RETURNED to the lounge he found Wade there, waiting for him. They retired to Alleyn’s room where he related the gist of his conversation with Gordon.

  “I’ve told him to give you the whole story himself.”

  “I still don’t see why he cleared out on us,” said Wade.

  “I fancy it was partly because he’d worked himself up into a blue funk over the whole business. His nerves are in a lamentable state, silly little creature. And I do think, Wade, that he’s in a devil of a twit over this business of the tiki.”

  “Yee-es? And why’s that, sir?”

  Alleyn hesitated for a moment. A curious look of reluctance came into his face. When he spoke his voice was unusually harsh.

  “Why? Because he caught Carolyn Dacres lying. Last night when I asked her about the tiki her hand went to her breast. She fingered her dress, expecting to feel the hard little tiki underneath. Then she said she had not handled it since it was left on the table. She looked in her bag. The only honest thing she did was involuntary—that movement of her hand. I’ve told you young Palmer started to speak, and stopped dead. This morning I trapped him into as good as admitting he’d seen her put the tiki into her dress.”

  “But why did he stop? He couldn’t have known where we found it, could he?”

  “No. The young booby’s head over ears in calf-love with her. He sensed the lie, as I did, and wouldn’t give her away.”

  “I reckon I’ll talk to Miss Carolyn Dacres-Meyer before I do another thing. This looks like something, sir. And she could have gone up there. She could have done it all right.”

  “Yes. Wade, at the risk of making an intolerable nuisance of myself, I’m going to ask a favour of you. Will you allow me to speak to her first? I—I’ve a perfectly legitimate reason for wanting to do this. At least,” said Alleyn with a wry smile, “I think it’s legitimate. It’s just possible she may feel less on the defensive with me. You see—I know her.”

  “You go to it, sir,” said Wade, with a violent heartiness that may possibly have concealed a feeling of chagrin. “You do just as you please, and we’ll be more than satisfied. That’ll be quite O.K. As you say, you’ll get a lot more out of her than we would, seeing she looks on you as a friend.”

  “Thank you,” said Alleyn. He looked rather sick.

  “I’ll get back to the station, sir. Let young Palmer come to me—better than seeing him here. The super will be calling in shortly, I fancy.”

  “Have a drink before you go,” suggested Alleyn.

  “Now, sir, I was just going to suggest, if you’d give me the pleasure—”

  They went down to the bar and had drinks with each other.

  Wade departed, and Alleyn, avoiding the unwavering stare with which everybody in the hotel followed his movements, buried himself behind a newspaper until the arrival of Superintendent Nixon. Nixon turned out to be a pleasant and dignified officer with a nice sense of humour. He was cordial without finding any necessity to indulge in Wade’s exuberant manifestations of friendliness. Alleyn liked him very much and saw that Nixon really welcomed his suggestions, and wished for his co-operation. They discussed the case fully and Nixon stayed until eleven-thirty when he exclaimed at the length of his visit, invited Alleyn to make full use of the local station and its officials, and accepted an invitation to dine the following evening.

  When he had gone Alleyn, with the air of facing an unpleasant task, returned to the writing-desk. There were now nine people in the lounge, all ensconced behind newspapers. Six of them frankly folded their journals and turned their gaze on Alleyn. Two peered round the corners of their papers at him. The last, an old lady, lowered her paper until it masked the bottom part of her face like a yashmak, and glared at him unwinkingly over the top. Alleyn himself stared at a blank sheet of paper for minutes. At last he wrote quickly:

  “Will you give me the pleasure of driving you out into the country for an hour or so? It will be an improvement on the hotel, I think.” [He paused, frowning, and then added:] “I hope my job will not make this suggestion intolerable.

  RODERICK ALLEYN.

  He was about to ring for someone to take this note to Carolyn’s room, when he became aware of a sense of release. A rustling and stirring among the nine bold starers informed him of the arrival of a new attraction and, glancing through the glass partition, he saw Hambledon coming downstairs. He went to meet him.

  “Hullo, Alleyn. Good morning. I suppose you’ve been up for hours.”

  “Not so many hours.”

  “Any of our people down yet?”

  “I haven’t seen them.”

  “Gone to earth,” muttered Hambledon, “like rabbits. But they’ll have to come to light soon. Mason called us for noon at the theatre.”

  “I don’t think you’ll get in there, do you know,” said Alleyn.

  “Why? Oh—the police. I see. Well, I suppose it’ll be somewhere in the hotel.”

  The lift came down and Mason got out of it. “’Morning, Hailey. ’Morning, Mr. Alleyn.”

  “Hullo, George. Where are we meeting?’

  “The people, here, have lent us the smoking-room. My God, Hailey, they’re locking us out of our own theatre. Do you know that? Locking us out!”

  They gazed palely at each other.

  “First time in thirty years experience it’s ever happened to me,” said Mason. “My God, what would Alf have thought! Locked out of our own house. It makes you feel awful, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s all pretty awful, George.”

  “Did you sleep?”

  “Not remarkably well. Did you?”

  “Damn’ queer thing, but it’s the first night for months that I haven’t been racked by dyspepsia—first time for months—and I lay there without a gurgle, thin
king about Alf at night.” Mason stared solemnly at both of them. “That’s what you call irony,” he said.

  “How will you let everybody know about the call for twelve?” asked Hambledon.

  “I’ve got hold of Ted and he’s doing it.”

  “Do you want Carolyn?”

  “Have you seen her? How is she?”

  “I haven’t seen her.”

  Mason looked surprised.

  “Well run up now, like a good fellow, Hailey, and tell her not to bother about this call if she doesn’t feel up to it.”

  “All right,” said Hambledon.

  “Would you mind giving her this note?” asked Alleyn, suddenly. “It’s just a suggestion that if she’d like to get away from the pub for a bit of fresh air—she’ll explain. Thank you so much.”

  “Yes—certainly.” Hambledon looked sharply at Alleyn and then made for the lift.

  “This is a difficult situation for you, Mr. Mason,” said Alleyn.

  “Difficult! It’s a bit more than difficult. We don’t know what’s to happen. Here we are with the tour booked up—the advance is down in Wellington and has put all the stuff out. We’re due to open there in six days and God knows if the police will let us go, and if they do God knows if Carolyn will be able to play. And without her—!”

  “Who’s her understudy?”

  “Gaynes. I ask you! Flop! The Australian kid would have to take Gaynes’s bits. Of course if Carolyn does play—”

  “But, after this! She’s had a terrible shock.”

  “It’s different in the business,” said Mason. “Always has been. The show must go on. Doesn’t mean we’re callous but—well Alf would have felt the same. The show must go on. It’s always been like that.”

  “I suppose it has. But surely—”

  “I’ve seen people go on who would have been sent off to hospital in any other business. Fact I was born off-stage twenty minutes after my mother took her last call. It was a costume piece, of course—crinolines. It’s a funny old game, ours.”