False Scent

by Ngaio Marsh

  ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘God bless my soul!’ Alleyn exclaimed. ‘Do consider. Suppose it was murder – for all I know you might have done it. You can’t expect me to make you a present of what may turn out to be the police case against you.’

  ‘I think you must be dotty,’ said Colonel Warrender profoundly.

  ‘Dotty or sane, I must get on with my job. Inspector Fox and I propose to have a word with those wretched people we’ve cooped up over the way. Would you rather return to Mr Templeton, sir?’

  ‘My God, no!’ he ejaculated with some force and then looked hideously discomfited.

  ‘Why not?’ Alleyn asked coolly. ‘Have you had a row with him?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid it’s a case of returning to him or staying with me.’

  ‘I … God dammit, I’ll stick to you.’

  ‘Right. Here we go, then.’

  Bertie, Pinky and Timon Gantry seemed hardly to have moved since he last saw them. Bertie was asleep in his chair and resembled an overdressed baby. Pinky had been crying. Gantry now was reading ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. He laid it aside and rose to his feet.

  ‘I don’t want to be awkward,’ Gantry said, ‘but I take leave to ask why the hell we’re being mewed up in this interminable and intolerable fashion.’

  He used what was known in the theatre as The Terrifying Tone. He moved towards Alleyn who was almost his own height.

  ‘This room,’ Bertie faintly complained as he opened his eyes, ‘would appear to be inhabited by angry giants.’

  ‘You’re being mewed up,’ Alleyn said with some evidence of toughness, ‘because of death. Death, for your information, with what are known as unexplained features. I don’t know how much longer you’ll be here. If you’re hungry, we shall arrange for food to be sent in. If you’re stuffy you may walk in the garden. If you want to talk, you may use the telephone and the usual offices are last on the right at the far end of the hall.’

  There was an appreciable pause.

  ‘And the worst of it is, Timmy, angel,’ Bertie said, ‘you can’t tell him the casting’s gone wrong and you’ll let him know if he’s wanted.’

  Pinky was staring at Alleyn. ‘I never,’ she muttered, ‘could have thought to see the day.’

  There can be no dictator whose discomfiture will not bring some slight degree of pleasure to his most ardent disciples. Bertie and Pinky, involuntarily, had given this reaction. There was a suggestion of repressed glee.

  Gantry gave them the sort of look he would have thrown at an inattentive actor. They made their faces blank.

  He drew in his breath. ‘So be it,’ he said. ‘One submits. Naturally. Perhaps one would prefer to know a little more, but elucidation is evidently not an ingredient of the Yardly mystique.’

  From his ramrod station inside the door, Warrender said: ‘Foul play. What it amounts to. They’re suggesting foul play.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ cried Pinky and Bertie in unison. They turned sheet-white and began to talk at the tops of their voices. Fox took out his notebook.

  Alleyn raised his hand and they petered out. ‘It doesn’t,’ he said crossly, ‘amount to anything of the sort. The situation is precisely as I have tried to define it. There are unexplained discrepancies. They may add up to accident, suicide or homicide and I know no better than any one of you what the answer will be. And now, if you please, we will try to arrive at a few possibly unimportant facts.’

  To his surprise he found himself supported.

  Timon Gantry said: ‘We’re being emotional and tedious. Pay no attention. Your facts?’

  Alleyn said patiently: ‘Without any overtones or suggestions of criminal intention, I would rather like to trace exactly the movements of the group of people who were in conversation with Miss Bellamy during the last ten minutes or so of her life. You have all heard, ad nauseam, I dare say, of police routine. This is an example of it. I know you were all with her in the conservatory. I know each one of you, before the climax of her party, came out into the hall with the intention, Colonel Warrender tells me, of saying goodbye to two comparative strangers who for some reason that has not yet been divulged were leaving just before this climax. Among you was Mr Richard Dakers, Miss Bellamy’s ward. Mr Dakers left the house on the heels of those two guests. His reason for doing so may well be personal and, from my point of view, completely uninteresting. But I’ve got to clear him up. Now then. Any of you know why they left and why he left?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Gantry said promptly. ‘He’s catched with Anelida Lee. No doubt he wanted to see more of her.’

  ‘At that juncture? All right!’ Alleyn added quickly. ‘We leave that one, do we? We take it that there was nothing remarkable about Octavius Browne and his niece sweeping out of the party, do we, and that it was the most natural thing in the world for Miss Bellamy’s ward to turn his back on her and follow them? Do we? Or do we?’

  ‘Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord!’ Bertie wavered. ‘The way you put things.’

  Pinky said: ‘I did hear the uncle remind her that they had to leave early.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Had any of you met them before?’

  Silence.

  ‘None of you? Why did you all feel it necessary to go into the hall to say goodbye to them?’

  Pinky and Bertie looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes and Warrender cleared his throat. Gantry appeared to come to a decision.

  ‘I don’t usually discuss this sort of thing outside the theatre,’ he said, ‘but under the circumstances I suppose I’d better tell you. I’ve decided to hear Miss Lee read the leading role in’ – he hesitated fractionally – ‘in a new play.’

  ‘Really? Wonderful luck for her,’ Alleyn said. ‘What play?’

  ‘Oops!’ Bertie said involuntarily.

  ‘It’s called Husbandry in Heaven.’

  ‘By – ?’

  Warrender barked: ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Not that I know,’ Alleyn murmured. ‘Why should it? Let’s find out.’

  Pinky said boldly: ‘I don’t see a bit why it should matter. We all heard about it.’

  ‘Did you?’ Alleyn asked. ‘When? At the party?’

  She blushed scarlet. ‘Yes. It was mentioned there.’

  ‘In the conservatory?’

  Bertie said in a hurry, ‘Mentioned. Just mentioned.’

  ‘And we haven’t had the author’s name yet, have we?’

  Pinky said: ‘It’s a new play by Dicky Dakers, isn’t it, Timmy?’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ Gantry agreed and refrained with some difficulty, Alleyn thought, from casting his eyes up to heaven. ‘In the hall I had a word with her about reading the part for me,’ he said.

  ‘Right. And,’ Alleyn pursued, ‘might that not explain why Dakers also wanted to have a further word with Miss Lee?’

  They agreed feverishly.

  ‘Strange,’ he continued, ‘that this explanation didn’t occur to any of you.’

  Bertie laughed musically. ‘Weren’t we sillies?’ he asked. ‘Fancy!’

  ‘Perhaps you all hurtled into the hall in order to offer your congratulations to Miss Lee?’

  ‘That’s right!’ Bertie cried, opening his eyes very wide, ‘So we did! And anyway,’ he added, ‘I wanted the loo. That was really why I came out. Anything else was purely incidental. I’d forgotten.’

  ‘Well,’ Alleyn remarked, ‘since you’re all so bad at remembering your motives, I suppose I’d better go on cooking them up for you.’

  Pinky Cavendish made a quick expostulatory movement with her hands. ‘Yes?’ Alleyn asked her. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing. Not really. Only – I wish you wouldn’t make one feel shabby,’ Pinky said.

  ‘Do I? I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘Look!’ she said. ‘We’re all of us shocked and horrified about Mary. She was our friend: a great friend. No, Timmy, please let me. She was tricky and tempe
ramental and exacting and she said and did things that we’d rather forget about now. The important thing to remember is that one way or another, at one time or another, we’ve all loved her. You couldn’t help it,’ Pinky said, ‘or I couldn’t. Perhaps I should only speak for myself.’

  Alleyn asked gently: ‘Are you trying to tell me that you are protecting her memory?’

  ‘You might put it like that,’ Pinky said.

  ‘Nonsense, dear,’ Gantry said impatiently. ‘It doesn’t arise.’

  Alleyn decided to dig a little further.

  ‘The farewells being accomplished,’ he said, ‘and the two guests departed, what did you all do? Miss Cavendish?’

  ‘Oh, dear! What did I do? I know! I tried to nip upstairs but the camera men were all over the bottom steps so I returned to the party.’

  ‘Mr Saracen?’

  ‘The gents. Downstairs. Last, as you’ve observed, on the right. Then I beetled back, bright as a button, for the speeches.’

  ‘Mr Gantry?’

  ‘I returned to the drawing-room, heard the speeches, and helped Templeton clear the way for the’ – he jibbed for a moment – ‘for what would have been the last scene. The opening of the presents.’

  ‘Colonel Warrender?’

  Warrender was staring at some part of the wall above Alleyn’s head. ‘Went back,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To the party.’

  ‘Oo!’ Bertie said.

  ‘Yes, Mr Saracen?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Bertie said hurriedly. ‘Pay no attention.’

  Alleyn looked round at them all. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘hasn’t Richard Dakers, up till now, written his plays exclusively for Miss Bellamy? Light comedies? Husbandry in Heaven doesn’t suggest a light comedy.’

  He knew by their silence that he had struck home. Pinky’s face alone would have told him as much. It was already too late when Warrender said defensively: ‘No need to put all his eggs in one basket, isn’t it?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Gantry agreed.

  ‘Did Miss Bellamy hold this view?’

  ‘I still fail to understand …’ Warrender began, but Bertie Saracen cried out in a sort of rage:

  ‘I really don’t see, I don’t for the life of me see why we should fiddle and fuss and fabricate! Honestly! It’s all very well to be nice about poor Mary’s memory and Dicky’s dilemma and everybody madly loving everybody else, but sooner or later Mr Alleyn’s going to find out and then we’ll all look peculiar and I for one won’t and I’m sorry, Timmy, but I’m going to spill beans and unbag cats galore and announce in a ringing headtone that Mary minded like hell and that she made a scene in the conservatory and insulted the girl and Dicky left in a rage and why not, because suppose somebody did do something frightful to Mary, it couldn’t be Dicky because Dicky flounced out of the house while Mary was still fighting fit and cutting her cake. And one other thing. I don’t know why Colonel Warrender should go all cagey and everything but he didn’t go straight back to the party. He went out. At the front door. I saw him on my way back from the loo. Now then!’

  He had got to his feet and stood there, blinking, but defiant.

  Gantry said: ‘Oh, well!’ and flung up his hands.

  Pinky said: ‘I’m on Bertie’s side.’

  But Warrender, purple in the face, advanced upon Bertie.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ Bertie shouted angrily.

  ‘You little rat!’ Warrender said, and seized his arm.

  Bertie gave an involuntary giggle. ‘That’s what she called me,’ he said.

  ‘Take,’ Warrender continued between his teeth, ‘that damned impertinent grin off your face and hold your tongue, sir, or by God I’ll give you something to make you.’

  He grasped Bertie with his left hand. He had actually drawn back his right and Alleyn had moved in, when a voice from the door said: ‘Will somebody be good enough to tell me what goes on in this house?’

  Warrender lowered his hand and let Bertie go, Gantry uttered a short oath and Pinky, a stifled ejaculation. Alleyn turned.

  A young man with a white face and distracted air confronted him in the doorway.

  ‘Thank God!’ Bertie cried. ‘Dicky!’

  CHAPTER 5

  Questions of Adherence

  The most noticeable thing about Richard Dakers was his agitation. He was pale, his face was drawn and his hands were unsteady. During the complete silence that followed Bertie’s ejaculation, Richard stood where he was, his gaze fixed with extraordinary concentration upon Colonel Warrender. Warrender, in his turn, looked at him with, as far as his soldierly blueprint of a face could express anything, the same kind of startled attention. In a crazy sort of way, each might have been the reflection of the other.

  Warrender said: ‘Can I have a word with you, old boy? Shall we – ?’

  ‘No!’ Richard said quickly, and then: ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand. What’s that damned bobby doing in the hall? What’s happened? Where’s everybody? Where’s Mary?’

  Alleyn said: ‘One moment,’ and went to him. ‘You’re Mr Richard Dakers, aren’t you? I’m from Scotland Yard – Alleyn.… At the moment I’m in charge of a police inquiry here. Shall we find somewhere where 1 can tell you why?’

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ Warrender said.

  ‘I think not,’ Alleyn rejoined and opened the door.

  ‘Come along,’ he said and looked at the others. ‘You will stay here, if you please.’

  Richard put his hand to his head. ‘Yes. All right. But – why?’ Perhaps out of force of habit he turned to Timon Gantry. ‘Timmy?’ he said. ‘What is this?’

  Gantry said: ‘We must accept authority, Dicky. Go with him.’

  Richard stared at him in amazement and walked out of the room, followed by Alleyn, and Fox.

  ‘In here, shall we?’ Alleyn suggested and led the way into the deserted drawing-room.

  There, he told Richard, as briefly as possible and without emphasis, what had happened. Richard listened distractedly, making no interruption but once or twice wiping his hand over his face as if a cobweb lay across it. When Alleyn had finished he said haltingly: ‘Mary? It’s happened to Mary? How can I possibly believe it?’

  ‘It is hard, isn’t it?’

  ‘But – how ? How did it happen? With the plant spray?’

  ‘It seems so.’

  ‘But she’s used it over and over again. For a long time. Why did it happen now?’ He had the air, often observable in people who have suffered a shock, of picking over the surface of the matter and distractedly examining the first thing he came upon. ‘Why now?’ he repeated and appeared scarcely to attend to the answer.

  ‘That’s one of the things we’ve got to find out.’

  ‘Of course,’ Richard said, more, it seemed, to himself than to Alleyn, ‘it is dangerous. We were always telling her.’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘But – I don’t see – she went to her room just after the speeches and –’

  ‘Did she? How do you know?’

  Richard said quickly: ‘Why, because …’ And then, if possible, turned whiter than he had been before. He looked desperately at Alleyn, seemed to hover on the edge of an outburst and then said: ‘She must have. You say she was found there.’

  ‘Yes. She was found there.’

  ‘But why? Why would she use the plant spray at that moment? It sounds so crazy.’

  ‘I know. Very strange.’

  Richard beat his hands together. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I can’t get hold of myself. I’m sorry.’

  Looking at him, Alleyn knew that he was in that particular state of emotional unbalance when he would be most vulnerable to pressure. He was a nice-looking chap, Alleyn thought. It was a sensitive face and yet, obscurely, it reminded him of one much less sensitive. But whose?’

  He said: ‘You yourself have noticed two aspects of this tragic business that are difficult to explain. Because of them and because of normal police procedure I have to check as fully as
possible the circumstances surrounding the event.’

  ‘Do you?’ Richard asked vaguely and then seemed to pull himself together. ‘Yes. Very well. What circumstances?’

  ‘I’m told you left the house before the birthday speeches. Is that right?’

  Unlike the others, Richard appeared to feel no resentment or suspicion. ‘I?’ he said. ‘Oh, yes, I think I did. I don’t think they’d started. The cake had just been taken in.’

  ‘Why did you leave, Mr Dakers?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to Anelida,’ he said at once, and then:

  ‘Sorry. You wouldn’t know. Anelida Lee. She lives next door and …’ He stopped.

  ‘I do know that Miss Lee left early with her uncle. But it must have been a very important discussion, mustn’t it? To take you away at that juncture?’

  ‘Yes. It was. To me. It was private,’ Richard added. ‘A private matter.’

  ‘A long discussion?’

  ‘It didn’t happen.’

  ‘Not?’

  ‘She wasn’t – available.’ He produced a palpable understatement. ‘She wasn’t – feeling well.’

  ‘You saw her uncle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was it about her part in your play – Husbandry in Heaven, isn’t it? – that you wanted to talk to her?’

  Richard stared at him and for the first time seemed to take alarm. ‘Who told you about that?’ he demanded.

  ‘Timon Gantry.’

  ‘He did!’ Richard ejaculated and then, as if nothing could compete with the one overriding shock, added perfunctorily: ‘How extraordinary.’ But he was watching Alleyn now with a new awareness. ‘It was partly to do with that,’ he muttered.

  Alleyn decided to fire point blank. ‘Was Miss Bellamy displeased with the plans for this new play?’ he asked. Richard’s hands made a sharp involuntary movement which was at once checked. His voice shook.

  ‘I told you this was a private matter,’ he said. ‘It is entirely private.’

  ‘I’m afraid there is very little room for privacy in a police inquiry.’

  Richard surprised him by suddenly crying out: ‘You think she did it herself! She didn’t! I can’t believe it! Never!’