False Scent

by Ngaio Marsh

  ‘I think,’ Alleyn said, ‘that we will make this a round-the-table discussion.’ He sat in the vacant chair at the end of the table. ‘It gives one,’ he explained, with a smile at Pinky Cavendish, ‘a spurious air of importance. We shall need five more chairs, Philpott.’

  PC Philpott placed them. Nobody spoke.

  Fox came in from the hall bringing Florence and Old Ninn in his wake. Old Ninn was attired in a red flannel gown. Florence had evidently redressed herself rather sketchily and covered the deficiencies with an alpaca overall. Her hair was trapped in a tortuous system of tin curlers.

  ‘Please sit down,’ Alleyn said. ‘I’m sorry about dragging you in again. It won’t, I hope, be for long.’

  Florence and Ninn, both looking angry and extremely reluctant and each cutting the other dead, sat on opposite sides of the table, leaving empty chairs between themselves and their nearest neighbours.

  ‘Where’s Dr Harkness, Fox?’

  ‘Back in the conservatory, I believe, sir. We thought it better not to rouse him.’

  ‘I’m afraid we must do so now.’

  Curtains had been drawn across the conservatory wall. Fox disappeared behind them. Stertorous, unlovely and protesting noises were heard and presently he reappeared with Dr Harkness, now bloated with sleep and very tousled.

  ‘Oh, torment!’ he said in a thick voice. ‘Oh, hideous condition!’

  ‘Would you,’ Alleyn asked, ‘be very kind and see if you think Mr Templeton is up to joining us? If there’s any doubt about it we won’t disturb him. He’s in the study.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Dr Harkness, trying to flatten his hair with both hands. ‘Never, never, never, any of you, chase up four whiskies with three glasses of champagne. Don’t do it!’ he added furiously as if somebody had shown signs of taking this action. He went out.

  ‘We’ll wait,’ Alleyn said composedly, ‘for Mr Templeton,’ and arranged his papers.

  Warrender cleared his throat. ‘Don’t like the look of sawbones,’ he said.

  ‘Poor pet,’ Bertie sighed. ‘And yet I almost wish I were in his boots. A pitiable but not unenviable condition.’

  ‘Bad show!’ Warrender said. ‘Fellar’s on duty.’

  ‘Are you true?’ Gantry asked suddenly, gazing at Warrender with a kind of devotion.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  Gantry clasped his hands and said ecstatically: ‘One would never dare! Never! And yet people say one’s productions tend towards caricature! You shall give them the lie in their teeth, Colonel. In your own person you shall refute them.’

  ‘I’m damned if I know what you’re talking about, Gantry, but if you’re trying to be abusive …’

  ‘ “No abuse,” ’ Alleyn quoted unexpectedly. He was reading his notes. ‘ “No abuse in the world: no, faith, boys, none.” ’

  They stared at him. Gantry, thrown off his stride, looked round the table as if calling attention to Alleyn’s eccentricity.

  Pinky, greatly disconcerted, had opened her mouth to reply but was prevented by the appearance of Charles Templeton. He had come in with Dr Harkness. He was a bad colour, seemed somehow to have shrunk and walked like the old man he actually was. But his manner was contained and he smiled faintly at them.

  Alleyn got up and went to him. ‘He’s all right,’ Dr Harkness said. ‘He’ll do. Won’t you, Charles?’

  ‘I’ll do,’ Charles repeated. ‘Much better.’

  ‘Would you rather sit in a more comfortable chair?’ Alleyn suggested. ‘As you see, we are making free with your dining-room table.’

  ‘Of course. I hope you’ve got everything you want. I’ll join you.’

  He took the nearest chair. Richard had got up and now, gripping Charles’s shoulders, leant over him. Charles turned his head and looked up at him. During that moment, Alleyn thought, he saw a resemblance.

  Richard said: ‘Are you well enough for all this?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Perfectly.’

  Richard returned to his place, Dr Harkness and Fox took the two remaining seats, and the table was full.

  Alleyn clasped his hands over his papers, said: ‘Well, now,’ and wishing, not for the first time, that he could find some other introductory formula, addressed himself to his uneasy audience.

  Anelida thought: ‘Here we all sit like a committee meeting and the chairman thinks one of us is a murderer.’ Richard, very straight in his chair, looked at the table. When she stirred a little he reached for her hand, gripped it and let it go.

  Alleyn was talking.

  ‘… I would like to emphasize that until the pathologist’s report comes in, there can be no certainty, but in the meantime I think we must try to arrive at a complete pattern of events. There are a number of points still to be settled and to that end I have kept you so long and asked you to come here. Fox?’

  Fox had brought a small case with him. He now opened it, produced the empty scent bottle and laid it on the table.

  ‘“Unguarded,”’ Alleyn said and turned to Pinky. ‘Your birthday present, wasn’t it?’

  Pinky said angrily: ‘What have you done with the scent? Sorry,’ she added. ‘It doesn’t matter, of course. It’s only that – well, it was full this morning.’

  ‘When you gave it to Miss Bellamy? In this room?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Alleyn turned to Florence. ‘Can you help us?’

  ‘I filled her spray from it,’ Florence said mulishly.

  ‘That wouldn’t account for the lot, Florry,’ Pinky pointed out.

  ‘Was the spray empty?’ Alleyn asked.

  ‘Just about. She didn’t mind mixing them.’

  ‘And how much was left in the bottle?’

  ‘He asked me all this,’ Florence said, jerking her head at Fox.

  ‘And now I do.’

  ‘About that much,’ she muttered, holding her thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

  ‘About a quarter. And the spray was full?’

  She nodded.

  Fox, with the expertise of a conjuror, produced the scent spray and placed it by the bottle.

  ‘And only about “that much,” ‘Alleyn pointed out, ‘is now in the spray. So we’ve got pretty well three-quarters of this large bottle of scent to account for, haven’t we?’

  ‘I fail utterly,’ Warrender began, ‘to see what you think you’re driving at.’

  ‘Perhaps you can help. I understand, sir, that you actually used this thing earlier in the day.’

  ‘Not on myself, God damn it!’ Warrender ejaculated and then shot an uneasy glance at Charles Templeton.

  Gantry gave a snort of delight.

  ‘On Miss Bellamy?’ Alleyn suggested.

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘And did you happen to notice how much was left?’

  ‘It was over three-quarters full. What!’ Warrender demanded, appealing to Charles.

  ‘I didn’t notice,’ he said, and put his hand over his eyes.

  ‘Do you mind telling me, sir, how you came to do this?’

  ‘Not a bit: why should I?’ Warrender rejoined, and with every appearance of exquisite discomfort added: ‘She asked me to. Didn’t she, Charles?’

  He nodded.

  Alleyn pressed for more detail and got an awkward account of the scene with a grudging confirmation from Florence and a leaden one from Charles.

  ‘Did you use a great deal of the scent?’ he asked.

  ‘Fair amount. She asked me to,’ Warrender angrily repeated.

  Charles shuddered and Alleyn said: ‘It’s very strong, isn’t it? Even the empty bottle seems to fill the room if one takes the stopper out.’

  ‘Don’t!’ Charles exclaimed. But Alleyn had already removed it. The smell, ponderable, sweet and improper, was disturbingly strong.

  ‘Extraordinary!’ Gantry ejaculated. ‘She only wore it for an afternoon and yet – the association.’

  ‘Will you be quiet, sir!’ Warrender shouted. ‘My God, what sort of a cad do you call
yourself? Can’t you see …’ He made a jerky, ineloquent gesture.

  Alleyn replaced the stopper.

  ‘Did you, do you think,’ he asked Warrender, ‘use so much that the spray could then accommodate what was left in the bottle?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’

  ‘No,’ said Florence.

  ‘And even if it was filled up again, the spray itself now only contains about that same amount. Which means, to insist on the point, that somehow or another three-quarters of the whole amount of scent has disappeared.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Pinky said bluntly. ‘Unless it was spilt.’

  ‘No,’ said Florence again. Alleyn turned to her.

  ‘And the spray and bottle were on the dressing-table when you found Miss Bellamy?’

  ‘Must of been. I didn’t stop,’ Florence said bitterly, ‘to tidy up the dressing-table.’

  ‘And the tin of Slaypest was on the floor?’

  Fox placed the tin beside the other exhibits and they looked at it with horror.

  ‘Yes?’ Alleyn asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Warrender, Harkness and Gantry together and Charles suddenly beat with his hand on the table.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he said violently. ‘My God, must we have all this!’

  ‘I’m very sorry, sir, but I’m afraid we must.’

  ‘Look here,’ Gantry demanded, ‘are you suggesting that – what the hell are you suggesting?’

  ‘I suggest nothing. I simply want to try and clear up a rather odd state of affairs. Can anybody offer an explanation?’

  ‘She herself – Mary – must have done something about it. Knocked it over perhaps.’

  ‘Which?’ Alleyn asked politely. ‘The bottle or the spray?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gantry said irritably. ‘How should I? The spray, I suppose. And then filled it up.’

  ‘There’s no sign of a spill, as Florence has pointed out.’

  ‘I know!’ Bertie Saracen began. ‘You think it was used as a sort of blind to – to …’

  ‘To what, Mr Saracen?’

  ‘Ah, no,’ Bertie said in a hurry. ‘I – thought – no, I was muddling. I don’t know.’

  ‘I think I do,’ Pinky said, and turned very white.

  ‘Yes?’ Alleyn said.

  ‘I won’t go on. I can’t. It’s not clear enough. Please.’

  She looked Alleyn straight in the eyes. ‘Mr Alleyn,’ Pinky said. ‘If you prod and insist you’ll winkle out all sorts of odd bits of information about – about arguments and rows. Inside the theatre and out. Mostly inside. Like a good many other actresses, Mary did throw the odd temperament. She threw one,’ Pinky went on against an almost palpable surge of consternation among her listeners, ‘for a matter of that, this morning.’

  ‘Pinky!’ Gantry warned her on a rising note.

  ‘Timmy, why not? I dare say Mr Alleyn already knows,’ she said wearily.

  ‘How very wise you are,’ Alleyn exclaimed. ‘Thank you for it. Yes, we do know, in a piecemeal sort of way, as you’ve suggested, that there were ructions. We have winkled them out. We know, for instance, that there was a difference of opinion, on professional grounds, here in this room. This morning. We know it was resurrected with other controversial matters during the party. We know that you and Mr Saracen were involved and when I say that, I’m quite sure you’re both much too sensible to suppose I’m suggesting anything more. Fox and I speak only of facts. We’ll be nothing but grateful if you can help us discard as many as possible of the awkward load of facts that we’ve managed to accumulate.’

  ‘All this,’ Gantry said, ‘sounds mighty fine. We’re on foreign ground, Pinky, and may well make fools of ourselves. You watch your step, my girl.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, and still looking full at Alleyn: ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘First of all, what your particular row was about.’

  She said: ‘All right with you, Bertie?’

  ‘Oh, Christmas!’ he said. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘You’re a fool, Bertie,’ Timon Gantry said angrily.

  ‘These things can’t be controlled. You don’t know where you’ll fetch up.’

  ‘But then you see, Timmy, dear, I never do,’ Bertie rejoined with a sad little giggle.

  Gantry rounded on Pinky Cavendish. ‘You might care to remember that other people are involved.’

  ‘I don’t forget, Timmy, I promise you.’ She turned to Alleyn. ‘This morning’s row,’ she said, ‘was because I told Mary I was going to play the lead in a new play. She felt I was deserting her. Later on, during the party when we were all’ – she indicated the conservatory – ‘in there, she brought it up again.’

  ‘And was still very angry?’

  Pinky looked unhappily at Charles. ‘It was pretty hot while it lasted. Those sorts of dusts-up always were, with Mary.’

  ‘You were involved, Mr Saracen?’

  ‘Not ’alf!’ Bertie said and explained why.

  ‘And you, Mr Gantry?’

  ‘Very well – yes. In so far as I am to produce the comedy.’

  ‘But you copped it both ways, Timmy,’ Bertie pointed out with some relish. ‘You were involved in the other one, too. About Dicky’s “different” play and Anelida being asked to do the lead. She was angrier about that than anything. She was livid.’

  ‘Mr Alleyn knows,’ Anelida said, and they looked uneasily at her.

  ‘Never mind, dear,’ Gantry said rather bossily. ‘None of this need concern you. Don’t get involved.’

  ‘She is involved,’ Richard said, looking at her. ‘With me. Permanently, I hope.’

  ‘Really?’ Pinky cried out in her warmest voice and beamed at Anelida. ‘How lovely! Bertie! Timmy! Isn’t that lovely! Dicky, darling! Anelida!’

  They made enthusiastic noises. It was impossible, Anelida found, not to be moved by their friendliness but it struck her as quite extraordinary that they could switch so readily to this congratulatory vein. She caught a look of – what? Surprise? Resignation? in Alleyn’s eye and was astounded when he gave her the faintest shadow of a wink.

  ‘Delightful though it is to refresh ourselves with this news,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I must bring you back to the matter in hand. How did the row in the conservatory arise?’

  Pinky and Bertie gave him a look in which astonishment mingled with reproach.

  Richard said quickly: ‘Mary came into the conservatory while we were discussing the casting of my play, Husbandry in Heaven. I should have told her – warned her. I didn’t and she felt I hadn’t been frank about it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I shall have to ask you exactly what she said.’

  He saw at once that Pinky, Saracen and Gantry were going to refuse. They looked quickly at one another and Gantry said rather off-handedly: ‘I imagine none of us remembers in any detail. When Mary threw a temperament she said all sorts of things that everybody knew she didn’t mean.’

  ‘Did she, for instance, make threats of any sort?’

  Gantry stood up. ‘For the last time,’ he said, ‘I warn you all that you’re asking for every sort of trouble if you let yourselves be led into making ill-considered statements about matters that are entirely beside the point. For the last time I suggest that you consider your obligations to your profession and your careers. Keep your tongues behind your teeth or, by God, you’ll regret it.’

  Bertle, looking frightened, said to Pinky: ‘He’s right, you know. Or isn’t he?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she agreed unhappily. ‘There is a limit – I suppose. All the same …’

  ‘If ever you’ve trusted yourself to my direction,’ Gantry said, ‘you’ll do so now.’

  ‘All right.’ She looked at Alleyn. ‘Sorry.’

  Alleyn said: ‘Then I must ask Colonel Warrender and Mr Templeton. Did Miss Bellamy utter threats of any sort?’

  Warrender said: ‘In my opinion, Charles, this may be a case for a solicitor. One doesn’t know what tur
n things may take. Meantime, wait and see, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very well,’ Charles said. ‘Very well.’

  ‘Mr Dakers?’ Alleyn asked.

  ‘I’m bound by the general decision,’ Richard said and Anelida, after a troubled look at him, added reluctantly:

  ‘And I by yours.’

  ‘In that case,’ Alleyn said, ‘there’s only one thing to be done. We must appeal to the sole remaining witness.’

  ‘Who the hell’s that!’ Warrender barked out.

  ‘Will you see if you can get him, Fox? Mr Montague Marchant,’ said Alleyn.

  IV

  On Pinky and Bertie’s part little attempt was made to disguise their consternation. It was obvious that they desired, more than anything else, an opportunity to consult together. Gantry, however, merely folded his arms, lay back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. He might have been waiting to rise in protest at a conference of Actors’ Equity. Warrender, for his part, resembled a senior member at a club committee meeting. Charles fetched a heavy sigh and rested his head on his hand.

  Fox went out of the room. As he opened the door into the hall a grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs was striking eleven. It provoked an involuntary ejaculation from the persons Alleyn had brought together round the table. Several of them glanced in despair at their watches.

  ‘In the meantime,’ Alleyn said, ‘shall we try to clear up the position of Mr Richard Dakers?’

  Anelida’s heart suddenly thudded against her ribs as if drawing attention to its disregarded sovereignty. She had time to think: ‘I’m involved, almost without warning, in a monstrous situation. I’m committed, absolutely, to a man of whom I know next to nothing. It’s a kind of dedication and I’m not prepared for it.’ She turned to look at Richard and, at once, knew that her allegiance, active or helpless, was irrevocable. ‘So this,’ Anelida thought in astonishment, ‘is what it’s like to be in love.’

  Alleyn, aware of the immediate reactions, saw Old Ninn’s hands move convulsively in her lap. He saw Florence look at her with a flash of something that might have been triumph and he saw the colour fade unevenly from Warrender’s heavy face.

  He went over the ground again up to the time of Richard’s final return to the house.