by Ngaio Marsh
“Of course,” said Mr. Rattisbon, greatly flustered, “by all means.”
Alleyn placed the papers between two clean sheets and returned them to their drawer.
That done, he rose, and Mr. Rattisbon at once became very lively. He escorted Alleyn to the door, shook hands and uttered a string of valedictory phrases. “Quite so, quite so,” he gabbled. “Disquieting. Trust no foundation but nevertheless disquieting. Always depend upon your discretion. Extraordinary. In many ways, I fear, an unpredictable family. No doubt if counsel is required… Well, good-bye. Thank yer. Kindly remember me to Mrs. Alleyn. Thank yer.”
But as Alleyn moved, Mr. Rattisbon laid a claw on his arm. “I shall always remember him that night,” he said. “He stopped me as I reached the door and I turned and saw him, sitting upright in bed with his gown spread about him. He was a fine-looking old fellow. I was quite arrested by his appearance. He made an unaccountable remark, too, I recollect. He said: ‘I expect to be very well attended, in future, Rattisbon. Opposition to my marriage may not be as strong in some quarters as you anticipate. Good night.’ That was all. It was, of course, the last time I ever saw him.”
iv
The Hon. Mrs. Claude Ancred had a small house in Chelsea. As a dwelling-place it presented a startling antithesis to Ancreton. Here all was lightness and simplicity. Alleyn was shown into a white drawing-room, modern in treatment, its end wall one huge window overlooking the river: The curtains were pale yellow, powdered with silver stars, and this colour, with accents of clear cerise, appeared throughout the room. There were three pictures — a Matisse, a Christopher Wood, and, to his pleasure, an Agatha Troy. “So you still stick around, do you?” he said, winking at it, and at that moment Jenetta Ancred came in.
An intelligent-looking woman, he thought. She greeted him as if he was a normal visitor, and, with a glance at the painting, said: “You see that we’ve got a friend in common,” and began to talk to him about Troy and their meeting at Ancreton.
He noticed that her manner was faintly and recurrently ironic. Nothing, she seemed to say, must be insisted upon or underlined. Nothing really matters very much. Over-statement is stupid and uncomfortable. This impression was conveyed by the crispness of her voice, its avoidance of stresses, and by her eyes and lips, which constantly erected little smiling barriers that half-discredited the frankness of her conversation. She talked intelligently about painting, but always with an air of self-deprecation. He had a notion she was warding off the interview for which he had asked.
At last he said: “You’ve guessed, of course, why I wanted you to let me come?”
“Thomas came in last night and told me he’d seen you and that you’d gone down to Ancreton. This is an extremely unpleasant development, isn’t it?”
“I’d very much like to hear your views.”
“Mine?” she said, with an air of distaste. “They can’t possibly be of the smallest help, I’m afraid. I’m always a complete onlooker at Ancreton. And please don’t tell me the onlooker sees most of the game. In this instance she sees as little as possible.”
“Well,” said Alleyn cheerfully, “what does she think?”
She waited for a moment, looking past him to the great window. “I think,” she murmured, “that it’s almost certain to be a tarradiddle. The whole story.”
“Convince us of that,” Alleyn said, “and we’re your slaves for ever in the C.I.D.”
“No, but really. They’re so absurd, you know, my in-laws. I’m very attracted to them, but you can’t imagine how absurd they can be.” Her voice died away. After a moment’s reflection she said: “But Mrs. Alleyn saw them. She must have told you.”
“A little.”
“At one time it was fifth columnists. Pauline suspected such a nice little Austrian doctor who’s since taken a very important job at a big clinic. At that time he was helping with the children. She said something told her. And then it was poor Miss Able who was supposed to be undermining her influence with Panty. I wonder if, having left the stage, Pauline’s obliged to find some channel for her histrionic instincts. They all do it. Naturally, they resented Miss Orrincourt, and resentment and suspicion are inseparable with the Ancreds.”
“What did you think of Miss Orrincourt?”
“I? She’s too lovely, isn’t she? In her way, quite flawless.”
“Apart from her beauty?”
“There didn’t seem to be anything else. Except a very robust vulgarity.”
“But does she really think as objectively as all that?” Alleyn wondered. “Her daughter stood to lose a good deal through Sonia Orrincourt. Could she have achieved such complete detachment?” He said: “You were there, weren’t you, when the book on embalming appeared in the cheese-dish?”
She made a slight grimace. “Oh, yes.”
“Have you any idea who could have put it there?”
“I’m afraid I rather suspected Cedric. Though why… For no reason except that I can’t believe any of the others would do it. It was quite horrible.”
“And the anonymous letters?”
“I feel it must have been the same person. I can’t imagine how any of the Ancreds — After all they’re not — However.”
She had a trick of letting her voice fade out as if she had lost faith in the virtue of her sentences. Alleyn felt that she pushed the suggestion of murder away from her, with both hands, not so much for its dreadfulness as for its offence against taste.
“You think, then,” he said, “that their suspicion of Miss Orrincourt is unfounded and that Sir Henry died naturally?”
“That’s it. I’m quite sure it’s all a make-up. They think it’s true. They’ve just got one of their ‘things’ about it.”
“That explanation doesn’t quite cover the discovery of a tin of rat-bane in her suitcase, does it?”
“Then there must be some other explanation.”
“The only one that occurs to me,” Alleyn said, “is that the tin was deliberately planted, and if you accept that you accept something equally serious: an attempt to place suspicion of murder upon an innocent person. That in itself constitutes—”
“No, no,” she cried out. “No, you don’t understand the Ancreds. They plunge into fantasies of their own making, without thinking of the consequences. This wretched tin must have been put in the suitcase by a maid or have got there by some other freakish accident. It may have been in the attic for years. None of their alarms ever means anything. Mr. Alleyn, may I implore you to dismiss the whole thing as nonsense? Dangerous and idiotic nonsense, but, believe me, utter nonsense.”
She had leant forward, and her hands were pressed together. There was a vehemence and an intensity in her manner that had not appeared before.
“If it’s nonsense,” he said, “it’s malevolent nonsense.”
“Stupid,” she insisted, “spiteful, too, perhaps, but only childishly so.”
“I shall be very glad if it turns out to be no more.”
“Yes, but you don’t think it will.”
“I’m wide open to conviction,” he said lightly.
“If I could convince you!”
“You can at least help by filling in some of the gaps. For instance, can you tell me anything about the party in the drawing-room when you all returned from the little theatre? What happened?”
Instead of answering him directly she said, with a return to her earlier manner, “Please forgive me for being so insistent. It’s silly to try and ram one’s convictions down other people’s throats. They merely feel that one protests too much. But, you see, I know my Ancreds.”
“And I’m learning mine. About the aftermath of the Birthday Party?”
“Well, two of our visitors, the rector and a local squire, said good night in the hall. Very thankfully, poor darlings, I’m sure. Miss Orrincourt had already gone up. Mrs. Alleyn had stayed behind in the theatre with Paul and Fenella. The rest of us went into the drawing-room and there the usual family arguments started, this time on
the subject of that abominable disfigurement of the portrait. Paul and Fenella came in and told us that no damage had been done. Naturally, they were very angry. I may tell you that my daughter, who has not quite grown out of the hero-worship state-of-affairs, admires your wife enormously. These two children planned what they fondly imagined to be a piece of detective work. Did Mrs. Alleyn tell you?”
Troy had told Alleyn, but he listened again to the tale of the paint-brush and finger-prints. She dwelt at some length on this, inviting his laughter, making, he thought, a little too much of a slight incident. When he asked her for further details of the discussion in the drawing-room she became vague. They had talked about Sir Henry’s fury, about his indiscretions at dinner. Mr. Rattisbon had been sent for by Sir Henry. “It was just one more of the interminable emotional parties,” she said. “Everyone, except Cedric and Milly, terrifically hurt and grand because of the Will he told us about at dinner.”
“Every one? Your daughter and Mr. Paul Ancred too?”
She said much too lightly: “My poor Fen does go in a little for the Ancred temperament, but not, I’m glad to say, to excess. Paul, thank goodness, seems to have escaped it, which is such a very good thing, as it appears he’s to be my son-in-law.”
“Would you say that during this discussion any of them displayed singular vindictiveness against Miss Orrincourt?”
“They were all perfectly livid about her. Except Cedric. But they’re lividly angry with somebody or another a dozen times a month. It means nothing.”
“Mrs. Ancred,” Alleyn said, “if you’ve been suddenly done out of a very pretty fortune your anger isn’t altogether meaningless. You yourself must surely have resented a little your daughter’s position.”
“No,” she said quickly. “I knew, as soon as she told me of her engagement to Paul, that her grandfather would disapprove, Marriage between cousins was one of his bugbears. I knew he’d take it out of them both. He was a vindictive old man. And Fen hadn’t bothered to hide her dislike of Miss Orrincourt. She’d said…” She stopped short. He saw her hands move convulsively.
“Yes?”
“She was perfectly frank. The association offended her taste. That was all.”
“What are her views of all this business — the letters and so on?”
“She agrees with me.”
“That the whole story is simply a flight of fancy on the part of the more imaginative members of the family?”
“Yes.”
“I should like to see her if I may?”
The silence that fell between them was momentary, a brief check in the even flow of their voices, but he found it illuminating. It was as if she winced from an expected hurt, and poised herself to counter it. She leant forward, and with an air of great frankness made a direct appeal.
“Mr. Alleyn,” she said, “I’m going to ask a favour. Please let Fenella off. She’s highly strung and sensitive. Really sensitive. It’s not the rather bogus Ancred sensibility. All the unhappy wrangling over her engagement and the shock of her grandfather’s death and then — this horrid and really dreadful business: it’s fussed her rather badly. She overheard me speaking to you when you rang up for this talk and even that upset her. I’ve sent them both out. Please, will you be very understanding and let her off?”
He hesitated, wondering how to frame his refusal, and if her anxiety was based on some much graver reason than the one she gave him.
“Believe me,” she said, “Fenella can be of no help to you.”
Before he could reply Fenella herself walked in, followed by Paul.
“I’m sorry, Mummy,” she said rapidly and in a high voice. “I know you didn’t want me to come. I had to. There’s something Mr. Alleyn doesn’t know, and I’ve got to tell him.”
CHAPTER XVI
Positively the Last Appearance of Sir Henry Ancred
i
Afterwards, when he told Troy about Fenella’s entrance, Alleyn said the thing that struck him most at the time was Jenetta Ancred’s command of savoir-faire. Obviously this was a development she had not foreseen and one which filled her with dismay. Yet her quiet assurance never wavered, nor did she neglect the tinge of irony that was implicit in her good manners.
She said: “Darling, how dramatic and alarming. This is my girl, Fenella, Mr. Alleyn. And this is my nephew, Paul Ancred.”
“I’m sorry to burst in,” said Fenella. “How do you do? Please may we talk to you?” She held out her hand.
“Not just at this moment,” said her mother. ”Mr. Alleyn and I really are rather busy. Do you mind, darling?”
Fenella’s grip on his hand had been urgent and nervous. She had whispered: “Please.” Alleyn said: “May we just hear what this is about, Mrs. Ancred?”
“Mummy, it’s important. Really.”
“Paul,” said her mother, “can’t you manage this firebrand of yours?”
“I think it’s important too, Aunt Jen.”
“My dearest children, I honestly don’t think you know—”
“But Aunt Jen, we do. We’ve talked it over quite coldbloodedly. We know that what we’ve got to say may bring a lot of publicity and scandal on the family,” said Paul with something very like relish. “We don’t enjoy the prospect, but we think any other course would be dishonest.”
“We accept the protection of the law,” said Fenella rather loudly. “It’d be illogical and dishonest to try and circumvent justice to save the family face. We know we’re up against something pretty horrible. We accept the responsibility, don’t we, Paul?”
“Yes,” said Paul. “We don’t like it, but we do it.”
“Oh,” Jenetta cried out vehemently, “for pity’s sake don’t be so heroic! Ancreds, Ancreds, both of you!”
“Mummy, we’re not. You don’t even know what we’re going to say. This isn’t a matter of theatre; it’s a matter of principle, and, if you like, of sacrifice.”
“And you both see yourselves being sacrificial and high-principled. Mr. Alleyn,” Jenetta said, and it was as if she added: “After all, we speak the same language, you and I. I do most earnestly beg you to take whatever these ridiculous children have to say with a colossal pinch of salt.”
“Mummy, it’s important.”
“Then,” said Alleyn, “let’s have it.”
She gave in, as he had expected, lightly and with grace. “Well, then, if we must be instructed… Do at least sit down, both of you, and let poor Mr. Alleyn sit down too.”
Fenella obeyed, with the charm of movement that was characteristic of all the female Ancreds. She was, as Troy had told him, a vivid girl. Her mother’s spareness was joined in Fenella with the spectacular Ancred beauty and lent it delicacy. “Nevertheless,” Alleyn thought, “she can make an entrance with the best of them.”
“Paul and I,” she began at once, speaking very rapidly, “have talked and talked about it. Ever since those letters came. We said at first that we wouldn’t have anything to do with it. We thought people who wrote that kind of letter were beyond everything, and it made us feel perfectly beastly to think there was anyone in the house who could do such a thing. We were absolutely certain that what the letter said was an odious, malicious lie.”
“Which is precisely,” her mother said without emphasis, “what I have been telling Mr. Alleyn. I really do think, darling—”
“Yes, but that’s not all,” Fenella interrupted vehemently. “You can’t just shrug your shoulders and say it’s horrid. If you don’t mind my saying so, Mummy dear, that’s your generation all over. It’s muddled thinking. In its way it’s the kind of attitude that leads to wars. That’s what Paul and I think anyway. Don’t we, Paul?”
Paul, with a red determined face, said: “What Fen means, I think, Aunt Jenetta, is that one can’t just say ‘Jolly bad form and all ballyhoo,’ and let it go at that. Because of the implications. If Sonia Orrincourt didn’t poison Grandfather, there’s somebody in the house who’s trying to get her hanged for something she didn’t do, an
d that’s as much as to say there’s somebody in the house who’s as good as a murderer.” He turned to Alleyn: “Isn’t that right, sir?”
“Not necessarily right,” Alleyn said. “A false accusation may be made in good faith.”
“Not,” Fenella objected, “by the kind of person who writes anonymous letters. And anyway, even if it was in good faith, we know it’s a false accusation, and the realistic thing to do is to say so and, and…” She stumbled, shook her head angrily and ended with childish lameness, “and jolly well make them admit it and pay the penalty.”
“Let’s take things in their order?” Alleyn suggested. “You say you know the suggestion made in the letters is untrue. How do you know this?”
Fenella glanced at Paul with an air of achievement and then turned to Alleyn and eagerly poured out her story.
“It was that evening when she and Mrs. Alleyn drove down to the chemist’s and brought back the children’s medicine. Cedric and Paul and Aunt Pauline were dining out, I’d got a cold and cried off. I’d been doing the drawing-room flowers for Aunt Milly and I was tidying up in a sink-room where the vases are kept. It’s down some steps off the passage from the hall to the library. Grandfather had had some orchids sent for Sonia and she came to get them. I must say she looked lovely. Sort of sparkling, with furs pulled up round her face. She swept in and asked in that ghastly voice for what she called her bokay, and when she saw it was a spray of absolutely heavenly orchids she said: ‘Quite small, isn’t it! Not reely much like flowers, are they?’ Everything she’d done and everything she meant at Ancreton seemed to sort of ooze out of her and everything I felt about her suddenly boiled over in me. I’d got a cold and was feeling pretty ghastly, anyway. I absolutely blazed. I said some pretty frightful things about even a common little gold-digger having the decency to be grateful. I said I thought her presence in the house was an insult to all of us, and I supposed that when she’d bamboozled Grandfather into marrying her she’d amuse herself with her frightful boy-friends until he was obliging enough to die and leave her his money. Yes, Mummy, I know it was awful, but it just steamed out of me and I couldn’t stop it.”