False Scent

by Ngaio Marsh

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well – that’s all. That’s how it was.’

  Alleyn waited. Richard drove his hands through his hair.

  ‘All right!’ he cried out. ‘All right! I’ll tell you. I suppose I’ve got to, haven’t I? She accused me of ingratitude and disloyalty. I said I considered I owed her no more than I had already paid. I wouldn’t have said that if she hadn’t insulted Anelida. Then she came quite close to me and – it was horrible – I could see a nerve jumping under her cheek. She kept repeating that I owed her everything – everything, and that I’d insulted her by going behind her back. Then I said she’d no right to assume a controlling interest in either my friendships or my work. She said she had every right. And then it all came out. Everything. It happened because of our anger. We were both very angry. When she’d told me, she laughed as if she’d scored with the line of climax in a big scene. If she hadn’t done that I might have felt some kind of compassion or remorse or something. I didn’t. I felt cheated and sick and empty. I went downstairs and out into the streets and walked about trying to find an appropriate emotion. There was nothing but a sort of faint disgust.’ He moved away and then turned on Alleyn. ‘But I didn’t murder my’ – he caught his breath – ‘my brand-new mother. I’m not, it appears, that kind of bastard.’

  Warrender said: ‘For God’s sake, Dicky!’

  ‘Just for the record,’ Richard said, ‘were there two people called Dakers? A young married couple, killed in a car on the Riviera? Australians, I’ve always been given to understand.’

  ‘It’s – it’s a family name. My mother was a Dakers.’

  ‘I see,’ Richard said. ‘I just wondered. It didn’t occur to you to marry her, evidently.’ He stopped short and a look of horror crossed his face. ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’ he cried out. ‘Forgive me, Maurice, it wasn’t I who said that.’

  ‘My dear chap, of course I wanted to marry her. She wouldn’t have it! She was at the beginning of her career. What could I give her? A serving ensign on a very limited allowance. She – naturally – she wasn’t prepared to throw up her career and follow the drum.’

  ‘And – Charles?’

  ‘He was in a different position. Altogether.’

  ‘Rich? Able to keep her in the style to which she would like to become accustomed?’

  ‘There’s no need,’ Warrender muttered, ‘to put it like that.’

  ‘Poor Charles!’ Richard said and then suddenly: ‘Did he know?’

  Warrender turned a painful crimson. ‘No.’ he said. ‘It was – it was all over by then.’

  ‘Did he believe in the Dakers story?’

  ‘I think,’ Warrender said after a pause, ‘he believed everything Mary told him.’

  ‘Poor Charles!’ Richard repeated, and then turned on Alleyn. ‘He’s not going to be told? Not now! It’d kill him. There’s no need – is there?’

  ‘None,’ Alleyn said, ‘that I can see.’

  ‘And you!’ Richard demanded of Warrender.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Dicky!’

  ‘No, Naturally. Not you.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘I remember,’ Richard said at last, ‘that she once told me it was you who brought them together. What ambivalent roles you both contrived to play. Restoration Comedy at its most elaborate.’

  Evidently they had forgotten Alleyn. For the first time they looked fully at each other.

  ‘Funny,’ Richard said. ‘I have wondered if Charles was my father. Some pre-marital indiscretion, I thought it might have been. I fancied I saw a likeness – the family one, of course. You and Charles are rather alike, aren’t you? I must say I never quite believed in the Dakers. But why did it never occur to me that she was my mother? It really was very clever of her to put herself so magnificently out of bounds.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Warrender exclaimed, ‘what to say to you. There’s nothing I can say.’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘It need make no difference. To your work. Or to your marrying.’

  ‘I really don’t know how Anelida will feel about it. Unless …’ He turned, as if suddenly aware of him, to Alleyn. ‘Unless, of course Mr Alleyn is going to arrest me for matricide, which will settle everything very neatly, won’t it?’

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ Alleyn said, ‘depend upon it. Suppose you set about clearing yourself if you can. Can you?’

  ‘How the hell do I know? What am I supposed to have done?’

  ‘It’s more a matter of finding out what you couldn’t have done. Where did you lunch? Here?’

  ‘No. At the Garrick. It was a business luncheon.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘I went to my flat and did some work. I’d got a typist in.’

  ‘Until when?’

  ‘Just before six. I was waiting for a long-distance call from Edinburgh. I kept looking at the time because I was running late. I was meant to be here at six to organize the drinks. At last I fixed it up for the call to be transferred to this number. As it was I ran late and Mary – and she was coming downstairs. The call came through at a quarter to seven just as I arrived.’

  ‘Where did you take it?’

  ‘Here in the study. Charles was there. He looked ill and I was worried about him. He didn’t seem to want to talk. I kept getting cut off. It was important, and I had to wait. She – wasn’t very pleased about that. The first people were arriving when I’d finished.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Went into the drawing-room with Charles and did my stuff.’

  ‘Had you brought her some Parma violets?’

  ‘I? No. She hated violets.’

  ‘Did you see them in her room?’

  ‘I didn’t go up to her room. I’ve told you – I was here in the study.’

  ‘When had you last been in her room?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘Did you visit it between then and the final time when you returned from the Pegasus and this disturbing scene took place?’

  ‘I’ve told you. How could I? I …’ His voice changed. ‘I was with Anelida until she left and I followed her into the Pegasus.’

  ‘Well,’ Alleyn said after a pause, ‘if all this is provable, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be, you’re in the clear.’

  Warrender gave a sharp ejaculation and turned quickly, but Richard said flatly: ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘If our reading of the facts is the true one, this crime was to all intents and purposes committed between the time (somewhere about six o’clock) when Mrs Templeton was sprayed with scent by Colonel Warrender and the time fixed by a Press photographer at twenty-five minutes to eight when she returned to her room with you. She never left her room and died in it a few minutes after you had gone.’

  Richard flinched at the last phrase but seemed to have paid little attention to the earlier part. For the first time, he was looking at his father who had turned his back to them.

  ‘Colonel Warrender,’ Alleyn said, ‘why did you go to the Pegasus?’

  Without moving he said: ‘Does it matter? I wanted to get things straight. With the gel.’

  ‘But you didn’t see her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Maurice,’ Richard said abruptly.

  Colonel Warrender faced him.

  ‘I call you that still,’ Richard went on. ‘I suppose it’s not becoming but I can’t manage anything else. There are all sorts of adjustments to be arranged, aren’t there? I know I’m not making this easy for either of us. You see one doesn’t know how one’s meant to behave. But I hope in time to do better: you’ll have to give me time.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Warrender said unevenly.

  He made a slight movement as if to hold out his hand, glanced at Alleyn and withdrew it.

  ‘I think,’ Alleyn said, ‘that I should get on with my job. I’ll let you know when we need you.’

  And he went out, leaving them helplessly together.

 
In the hall he encountered Fox.

  ‘Peculiar party in there,’ he said. ‘Boy meets father. Both heavily embarrassed. They manage these things better in France. What goes on at your end of the table?’

  ‘I came out to tell you, sir. Mr Templeton’s come over very poorly again, and Dr Harkness thinks he’s had about as much as he can take. He’s lying down in the drawing-room, but as soon as he can manage it the doctor wants to get him into bed. The idea is to make one up in his study and save the stairs. I thought the best thing would be to let those two – Florence and Mrs Plumtree – fix it up. The doctor’ll help him when the time comes.’

  ‘Yes. All right. What a hell of a party this is, by and large. All right. But they’ll have to bung the mixed-up playwright and his custom-built poppa out of it. Where? Into mama-deceased’s boudoir, I suppose. Or they can rejoin that Goon show round the dining-room table. I don’t know. Nobody tells me a thing. What else?’

  ‘None of them will own up to knowing anything about the Parma violets. They all say she had no time for violets.’

  ‘Blast and stink! Then who the devil put them on her dressing-table? The caterer in a fit of frustrated passion? Why the devil should we be stuck with a bunch of Parma violets wilting on our plates.’

  Like Scheherazade, Fox discreetly fell silent.

  ‘Pardon me, sir, but did I hear you mention violets?’

  It was Gracefield, wan in the countenance, who had emerged from the far end of the hall.

  ‘You did indeed,’ Alleyn said warmly.

  ‘If it is of any assistance, sir, a bunch of violets was brought in immediately prior to the reception. I admitted the gentleman myself, sir, and he subsequently presented them to madam on the first floor landing.’

  ‘You took his name, I hope, Gracefield?’

  ‘Quite so, sir. It was the elderly gentleman from the bookshop. The name is Octavius Browne.’

  III

  ‘And what the merry hell,’ Alleyn ejaculated when Gracefield had withdrawn, ‘did Octavius think he was up to, prancing about with violets at that hour of the day? Damnation, I’ll have to find out, and Marchant’s due any minute. Come on.’

  They went out at the front door. Light still glowed behind the curtains at the Pegasus.

  ‘You hold the fort here, Fox, for five minutes. Let them get Templeton settled down in the study and, if Marchant turns up, keep him till I’m back. Don’t put him in with that horde of extroverts in the dining-room. Save him up. What a go!’

  He rang the bell and Octavius opened the door.

  ‘You again!’ he said. ‘How late! I thought you were Anelida.’

  ‘Well, I’m not and I’m sorry it’s late but you’ll have to let me in.’

  ‘Very well,’ Octavius said, standing aside. ‘What’s up, now?’

  ‘Why,’ Alleyn asked, as soon as the door was shut, ‘did you take violets to Mrs Templeton?’

  Octavius blushed. ‘A man with a handcart,’ he said, ‘went past the window. They came from the Channel Islands.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn where they came from. It’s where they went to that matters. When did the cart go past?’

  Octavius, disconcerted and rather huffy, was bustled into telling his story. Anelida had sent him downstairs while she got ready for the party. He was fretful because they’d been asked for half-past six and it was now twenty-five to seven and he didn’t believe her story of the need to arrive late. He saw the handcart with the Parma violets and remembered that in his youth these flowers had been considered appropriate adjuncts to ladies of the theatre. So he went out and bought some. He then, Alleyn gathered, felt shy about presenting them in front of Anelida. The door of Miss Bellamy’s house was open. The butler was discernible in the hall. Octavius mounted the steps. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘one preferred to give her the opportunity of attaching them in advance if she chose to do so.’

  He was in the act of handing them over to Gracefield when he heard a commotion on the first landing and a moment later Miss Bellamy shouted out at the top of her voice: ‘Which only shows how wrong you were. You can get out whenever you like, my friend, and the sooner the better.’

  For a moment Octavius was extremely flustered, imagining that he himself was thus addressed but the next second she appeared above him on the stairs. She stopped short and gazed down at him in astonishment. ‘A vision,’ Octavius said. ‘Rose-coloured or more accurately, geranium, but with the air, I must confess, of a Fury.’

  This impression, however, was almost at once dissipated. Miss Bellamy seemed to hesitate, Gracefield murmured an explanation which Octavius himself elaborated. ‘And then, you know,’ he said, ‘suddenly she was all graciousness. Overwhelmingly so. She’ – he blushed again – ‘asked me to come up and I went. I presented my little votive offering. And then, in point of fact, she invited me into her room: a pleasing and Gallic informality. I was not unmoved by it. She laid the flowers on her dressing-table and told me she had just given an old bore the sack. Those were her words. I gathered that it was somebody who had been in her service for a long period. What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing. Go on. You interest me strangely.’

  ‘Do I? Well. At that juncture there were sounds of voices downstairs – the door, naturally, remained open – and she said, “Wait a moment, will you?” And left me.’

  ‘Well?’ Alleyn said after a pause.

  ‘Well, I did wait. Nothing happened. I bethought me of Nelly, who would surely be ready by now. Rightly or wrongly,’ Octavius said, with a sidelong look at Alleyn,

  ‘I felt that Nelly would be not entirely in sympathy with my impulsive little sortie and I was therefore concerned to return before I could be missed. So I went downstairs and there she was, speaking to Colonel Warrender in the drawing-room. They paid no attention to me. I don’t think they saw me. Warrender, I thought, looked very much put out. There seemed nothing to do but go away. So I went. A curious and not unintriguing experience.’

  ‘Thank you, Octavius,’ Alleyn said, staring thoughtfully at him. ‘Thank you very much. And now I, too, must leave you. Goodnight.’

  As he went out he heard Octavius saying rather fretfully that he supposed he might as well go to bed.

  A very grand car had drawn up beside Miss Bellamy’s house and Mr Montague Marchant was climbing out of it. His blond head gleamed, his overcoat was impeccable and his face exceedingly pale.

  ‘Wait,’ he said to his chauffeur.

  Alleyn introduced himself. The anticipated remark was punctually delivered.

  ‘This is a terrible business,’ said Mr Marchant.

  ‘Very bad,’ Alleyn said. ‘Shall we go in?’

  Fox was in the hall.

  ‘I just don’t quite understand,’ Marchant said, ‘why I’ve been sent for. Naturally, we – her management – want to give every assistance but at the same time …’ He waved his pearly gloves.

  Alleyn said: ‘It’s very simple. There are one or two purely business matters to be settled and it looks as if you are our sole authority.’

  ‘I should have thought …’

  ‘Of course you would,’ Alleyn rejoined. ‘But there is some need for immediate action. Miss Bellamy has been murdered.’

  Marchant unsteadily passed his hand over the back of his head. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said.

  ‘You may as well, because it happens to be true. Would you like to take your coat off? No? Then, shall we go in?’

  Fox said: ‘We’ve moved into the drawing-room, sir, it being more comfortable. The doctor is with Mr Templeton but will be coming in later.’

  ‘Where’s Florence?’

  ‘She helped Mrs Plumtree with the bed making and they’re both waiting in the boudoir in case required.’

  ‘Right. In here, if you will, Mr Marchant. I’ll just have a look at the patient and then I’ll join you.’

  He opened the door. After a moment’s hesitation, Marchant went through and Fox followed him.

  Alleyn we
nt to the study, tapped on the door and went in.

  Charles was in bed, looking very drawn and anxious. Dr Harkness sat in a chair at a little distance, watching him. When he saw Alleyn he said: ‘We can’t have any further upsets.’

  ‘I know,’ Alleyn rejoined and walked over to the bed. ‘I’ve only come in to inquire,’ he said.

  Charles whispered: ‘I’m sorry about this. I’m all right. I could have carried on.’

  ‘There’s no need. We can manage.’

  ‘There you are, Charles,’ Harkness said. ‘Stop fussing.’

  ‘But I want to know, Harkness! How can I stop fussing! My God, what a thing to say! I want to know what they’re thinking and saying. I’ve a right to know. Alleyn, for God’s sake tell me. You don’t suspect – anyone close to her, do you? I can stand anything but that. Not – not the boy?’

  ‘As things stand,’ Alleyn said, ‘there’s no case against him.’

  ‘Ah!’ Charles sighed and closed his eyes. ‘Thank God for that.’ He moved restlessly and his breath came short.

  ‘It’s all these allusions and hints and evasions …’ he began excitedly. ‘Why can’t I be told things! Why not? Do you suspect me! Do you? Then for Christ’s sake let’s have it and be done with it.’

  Harkness came over to the bed. ‘This won’t do at all,’ he said, and to Alleyn: ‘Out.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Alleyn said, and went out. He heard Charles panting: ‘But I want to talk to him,’ and Harkness trying to reassure him.

  When Marchant went into the drawing-room Timon Gantry, Colonel Warrender, Pinky Cavendish and Bertie Saracen were sitting disconsolately in armchairs before a freshly tended fire. Richard and Anelida were together at some remove from the others and PC Philpott attended discreedy in the background. When Marchant came in, Pinky and Bertie made a little dash at him and Richard stood up. Marchant kissed Pinky with ritual solemnity, squeezed Bertie’s arm, nodded at Gantry, and advanced upon Richard with soft extended hand.

  ‘Dear boy!’ he said. ‘What can one say! Oh, my dear Dicky!’

  Richard appeared to permit, rather than return, a long pressure of his hand. Marchant added a manly grip of his shoulder and moved on to acknowledge, more briefly, Anelida and Colonel Warrender. His prestige was unmistakable. He said any number of highly appropriate things. They listened to him dolefully and appeared to be relieved when at last Alleyn came in.