by Ngaio Marsh
Troy said: “She knew you minded about things like that.”
“Of course I do. I’m the last of the howling snobs. But — Moult? Moult! Her papa!”
“She didn’t know,” Alleyn said, “about Moult.”
Hilary pounced: “When did she find out?” he snapped. “Or did she? Has she — has she — confessed?”
“She’s said enough,” Alleyn said sparsely. And as Hilary stared at him: “She knew that documents relating to her parentage were in the uniform case. The Colonel told her so when he said that you should know of her background. When she thought that the Colonel was downstairs in the cloakroom waiting for her and when everybody else had assembled for the tree, she tried to break into the case with the dressing-room poker. Moult, who had been showing himself to the Colonel in his robe and wig, returned to the dressing-room and caught her in the act. Climax. He’d taken a lot to drink, he was excited and he told her. The bells had started up downstairs, he looked out of the window for Vincent, and she hit him with the poker.”
“Unpremeditated, then,” Hilary said quickly. “Not planned? A kind of reflex thing? Yes?”
“You may say so.”
“At least one may be glad of that. And no designs upon poorest Uncle Flea. Thank Heaven for that.”
Alleyn said nothing. There would not, he believed, be cause to produce the evidence of the wedge in the Colonel’s window-sash nor of the concealment of his tablets.
“The defence,” he said, “will probably seek to have the charge reduced to one of manslaughter.”
“How long—?”
“Difficult to say. She may get off”
Hilary looked alarmed.
“But not altogether, I fancy,” said Alleyn.
“You might almost say,” Hilary ventured after a pause, “that my poor creatures, Vincent and Co., collaborated.”
“In a way, I suppose you might.”
“Yes,” Hilary said in a hurry, “but it’s one thing to staff one’s house with — er ‘oncers’ — but quite another to—” He stopped short and turned rather pink.
“I think we should be off, Rory,” said Troy.
Hilary was effusive in thanks, ejaculations about his portrait, apologies and expressions of goodwill.
As they drove away in the thin sunshine he stood, manorially, on the steps of the great porch. Mervyn and Blore, having assisted with the luggage, were in the offing. At the last moment Hilary was joined by Mr. Smith and the Forresters. Troy waved to them.
“We might be going away from a jolly weekend party,” she said.
“Do you know,” her husband asked, “what Hilary very nearly said?”
“What?”
“That when she comes out she’ll qualify for a job at Halberds. Not quite the one envisaged. Parlourmaid perhaps. With perks.”
“Rory!”
“I bet you anything you like,” said Alleyn.
The End
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