Surfeit of Lampreys

by Ngaio Marsh

  “I’m afraid I would, do you know,” said Henry. “Taxi!”

  A cruising taxi drew up at once but before they could get in there was another flash and this time Roberta saw the camera.

  Henry bundled her in and slammed the doors, keeping his face turned from the window. “Damn!” he said. “I’d forgotten about Nigel’s low friends.” And he yelled the address through to the driver.

  “Lord Rune,” said Roberta’s thoughts. “Henry is Lord Rune. The Earl of Rune. Press-men lie in wait for him with cameras. Everything is very odd.”

  She was awakened by Henry giving her a little pat on the back. “Aren’t you the clever one?” he said.

  “Am I?” asked Roberta. “How?”

  “Tipping us the wink about what you’d told Alleyn.”

  “Do you think that policeman noticed?”

  “Not he. You know I didn’t exactly enjoy lying to Alleyn.”

  “I hated it. And, Henry, I don’t think he believes it— about your Uncle G. promising the money.”

  “ ’More do I. Oh well, we could but try.” He put his arm round Roberta. “Brave old Robin Grey,” said Henry. “Going into the witch’s den. What have we done to deserve you?”

  “Nothing,” said Robin with spirit. “Without the word of a lie you’re a hopeless crew.”

  “Do you remember a conversation we had years ago on the slope of Little Mount Silver?”

  “Yes.”

  “So do I. And here I am still without a job. I daresay it would have been a good thing if Uncle G. had lived to chortle at our bankruptcy. It would take a major disaster to cure us. Perhaps when the war comes it will do the trick. Kill, as they say, or cure.”

  “I expect you’ll manage to slope through a war in the same old way. But don’t you call this a major disaster?”

  “I suppose so. But you know, Robin, somehow or another, although I feel very bothered and frightened, I don’t, inside myself, think that any of us are bound for the dock.”

  “Oh don’t. How can you gossip away about it!”

  “It’s not affectation. I ought to be in a panic but I’m not. Not really.”

  The taxi carried them into Hyde Park Corner. Roberta looked up through the window and saw the four heroic horses snorting soundlessly against a night sky, grandiloquently unaware of the less florid postures of some bronze artillerymen down below.

  “We shan’t be long now,” said Henry. “I can’t tell you how frightful this house is. Uncle G.’s idea of the amenities was a mixture of elephantine ornament and incredible hardship. The servants are not allowed to use electricity once the gentry are in bed so they creep about by candlelight. It’s true, I promise you. The house was done up by my grandfather on the occasion of his marriage and since then has merely amassed a continuous stream of hideous objets d’art.”

  “I read somewhere that Victorian things are fashionable again.”

  “So they are, but with a difference. And anyway I think it’s a stupid fashion. Sometimes,” said Henry, “I wonder if there is such a thing as beauty.”

  “Isn’t it supposed to exist only in the eye of the beholder?”

  “I won’t take that. There are eyes and eyes. Fashion addles any true conception of beauty. There’s something inherently vulgar in fashion.”

  “And yet,” said Roberta, “if Frid dressed herself up like a belle of 1929 you wouldn’t much care to be seen with her.”

  “She’d only be putting her fashion back eleven years.”

  “Well, what do you want? Nudism? Or bags tied round the middle?”

  “You are unanswerable,” said Henry. “All the same…” and he expounded his ideas of fashion, giving Roberta cause to marvel at his detachment.

  The taxi bucketed along Park Lane and presently turned into a decorous side-street where the noise of London was muffled and the rows of great, uniform houses seemed fast asleep.

  “Here we are,” Henry said. “I think I’ve enough to pay the taxi. How much is it? Ah yes, I can just do it with the tip. So that’s all hotsy-totsy. Come on.”

  As Henry rang the front doorbell, Roberta heard a clock chime and strike a single great note.

  “One o’clock,” she said. “Where is it striking?”

  “I expect it was Big Ben. You hear him all over the place at night-time.”

  “I’ve only heard him on the air before.”

  “You’re in London now.”

  “I know. I keep saying so to myself.”

  “It’s a damn shame you should be landed in our particular soup. Here comes somebody.”

  The great door swung inwards. With the feeling that an ominous fairy tale was unfolding, Roberta saw a very old woman dressed in black satin and carrying a lighted candle in a silver candlestick. She stood against a dim background of stuffed bears, marble groups, gigantic pictures and a wide staircase that ascended into blackness. Henry said: “Good morning, Moffatt,” to this woman and added, “I expect Tinkerton has explained that Miss Grey and I have come to stay with her ladyship.” The woman answered: “Yes, Mr. Henry. Yes, my lord.” And like all the portresses of elfland she added: “You are expected.”

  They followed her, crossing a deep carpet and ascending the stairs. They climbed two flights up to a muffled landing. The air was both cold and stuffy. Moffatt whispered an apology for her candle. A detective had arrived and insisted that the light should not be turned off at the switchboard but at least they could keep his poor lordship’s rule and not go using the lights before, as Moffatt said with relish, he was scarcely cold. Great shadows marched and stooped across unseen walls as Moffatt walked ahead with her candle. There was no sound but the stealthy whisper of her satin hem. Sometimes, as she held the candle before her, she was a black figure with a golden rim, but sometimes she turned to light them, and then her shadow sprang up beyond her. They came at last to a doorway which Moffatt opened. With a murmured apology she went in before them. Roberta, pausing on the threshold, saw a dim reflection of Moffatt in a dark looking-glass. Branched candlesticks stood on an immense dressing-table. Moffatt lit the candles and looked at Roberta, who on this hint entered her new bedroom. Henry followed.

  “If there is anything you require, Miss?” suggested Moffatt. “Perhaps I may unpack for you? We only keep two maids when the family is not in residence and they are both in bed.”

  Roberta said that she would unpack for herself and Moffatt and the candle and Henry went away.

  The bedroom had a very high ceiling with a central plaster ornament. The walls were covered with a heavily patterned paper and hung at intervals with thick curtains. Enormous pieces of furniture stood about the room, perpetuating some Victorian cabinetmaker’s illegitimate passion for mahogany and low relief. But the bed was a distinguished four-poster with fine carvings, a faded French canopy, and brocaded curtains where gold threads shone among rose-coloured flowers. The carpet was deep and covered with vegetable conceits. Upon the walls Roberta found four steel engravings and one colour print of a child with a kitten. There was a great charm in this print, so artlessly did the beribboned child simper over the blue bow of the tiny animal. Beside her bed Roberta found a Bible, a novel by Marie Corelli, and a tin of thick, dry biscuits. She unpacked her suitcase and, too timid to hunt down back passages for a bathroom, washed in cold water provided by a garlanded ewer. There was a tap at the door. Henry came in wearing his dressing-gown.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t it frightful? I’m over the way so if you want anything you’ve only to cross the passage. There’s nobody else on this side. Aunt V. is across the landing in a terrible suite. Good night, Robin.”

  “Good night, Henry.”

  “You interrupted me,” said Henry. “I was going to add, ‘my darling.’ ”

  He winked solemnly and went out.

  A wind got up during the small hours. It hunted desolately about London, its course deflected by sleeping buildings. It moaned about Pleasaun
ce Court Mansions, shaking the skylight of the lift well. The policeman on duty there stared upwards and wished the black, rattling panes would turn grey for the dawn. It blew the curtains of Patch’s windows across her face, giving her another nightmare and causing her to make horrid noises in her throat. The rest of the family, hearing Patch, turned fretfully in their beds and listened for the thud of Nanny’s feet as she stumped down the passage. Gathering strength in the open places of Hyde Park, the wind howled across Park Lane and whistled up Brummell Street so that the old chimney-cowls in No. 24 swung round with a groan and Roberta heard a voice in the chimney moaning “Rune—Rune—Rune.” Out at Hammersmith the wind ruffled the black waters of the Thames and the blameless dreams of Lady Katherine Lobe. Indeed the only actor in the Pleasaunce Court case who was not disturbed by that night wind was the late Lord Wutherwood who lay in a morgue awaiting his tryst with Dr. Curtis.

  “Wind getting up,” said Fox in the Chief Inspector’s room at Scotland Yard. “Shouldn’t be surprised if we had rain before dawn.” He pulled a completed sheet and two carbons from his typewriter, added them tidily to the stacked papers on his desk, and took out his pipe.

  “What’s the time?” asked Alleyn.

  “Five-and-thirty past two, sir.”

  “We’ve about finished, haven’t we, Fox?”

  “I think so, sir. I’ve just got out the typescript of your report.”

  Alleyn crumpled a sheet of paper and threw it at Nigel Bathgate, who was asleep in an office chair. “Wake up, Bathgate. The end’s in view.”

  “What? Hullo, are we going home? Is that the report? May I see it?” asked Nigel.

  “If you like. Give him a carbon, Fox. We’ll all have a brood over the beastly thing.” And for twenty minutes they read and smoked in a silence broken by the rustle of papers and occasional gusts that shook the window frames.

  “That covers it, I think,” said Alleyn at last. He looked at Nigel, who with the nervous, half-irritated concentration of a press-man was still reading the report.

  “Yes,” said Fox heavily, “as far as the family goes it’s all pretty plain sailing. Their truthful statements seem to hang together and so, if you can put it that way, do their untruthful statements.”

  Nigel looked up. “Are you so positive,” he said, “that some of their statements are not true?”

  “Certainly,” Alleyn said. “The story of Wutherwood promising to pay up is without doubt a tarradiddle. Roberta Grey tipped the wink to Lord Charles and Master Henry. Martin, the constable on duty, heard her do it. She said: ‘You must feel glad he was so generous, after all. It’ll be nice to remember that.’ You’ll find it in the report. I said she was a courageous little liar, didn’t I?”

  “Is it the only lie she handed in?” asked Fox deeply.

  “I’m sure it is. She made a brave shot at it but she had her ears laid back for the effort. I should say she was by habit an unusually truthful little party. I’ll stake my pension she hadn’t the remotest notion of the significance of her one really startling bit of information. She was absolutely sure of herself, too. Repeated it twice, and signed a statement to the same effect.”

  “Here, wait a bit,” Nigel ejaculated and hastily turned back the pages of his report.

  “If she’s right,” said Fox, “it plays bobs-a-dying with the whole blooming case.”

  “It may make it a good deal simpler. Is that commissionaire fellow all right, Fox? Dependable?”

  “I should say so. He noticed the eccentric old lady— Lady Katherine Lobe—all right. She walked down but he didn’t miss her. And he didn’t miss that chap Giggle or Miss Tinkerton either. Passed the time of day with them as they went out. And, by the way, you’ll notice he confirms Tinkerton’s story that she got downstairs just after Giggle.”

  “Miserable female,” Alleyn muttered. “There’s a liar if you like! Still, the commissionaire seems sound enough.”

  “Rather an observant sort of chap I should say,” Fox agreed. “They get a knack of noticing people at that job.”

  “And he says the lift was not used between the time the Wutherwoods went up and what I feel sure Bathgate’s paper will call the fatal trip?”

  “That’s right. He says he can’t be mistaken. He always has a look to see who comes down or goes up because it’s his job to keep that IN-and-OUT affair up to date. After the Wutherwoods went up to the flat the lift didn’t return. He says the people on the first floor never use it. The second floor’s away on a holiday and the third is unlet. The lift is really only used by the Lampreys just now.”

  “Ah, well,” said Alleyn. “It’s a line of country. We’ll have to follow it up.”

  “What is?” Nigel demanded. “What are you talking about?” He pored over the report for a minute and then said: “Here! Are you thinking of those two servants? Giggle and Tinkerton?”

  “Have you read that report carefully?”

  “Yes, I have. I know what you mean. Young Michael says Wutherwood yelled out for his wife after Giggle went downstairs. Suppose that was a blind? Suppose Giggle came back and did the job?”

  “Passing Tinkerton on his way up and probably running into Lady Charles as she came through the landing? Remember Lady Charles came out of 26 and went to the drawing-room in the other flat.”

  “Then whoever the murderer was, he took the risk of meeting her.”

  “The murderer,” said Alleyn, “took great risks but I’m inclined to think that was not one of them.”

  “For God’s sake, Alleyn, what do you mean by that?”

  “I told you it would be better if you kept out of it. I can’t discuss the case fully with you. It wouldn’t be fair to any of us. If we find ourselves drawn away from the Lampreys you’d burst to tell them so. If we find ourselves drawn towards one of them—what then? Your position would be intolerable. Better keep out.”

  “No,” said Nigel. “I’ll stick. What about this Tinkerton who’s a liar?”

  “She’s almost the only member of the crowd of whom I am certain. She didn’t kill Wutherwood. It’s actually a physical impossibility.”

  “Then,” said Nigel, “in my mind there’s only one answer. It must be the dowager. Homicidal lunacy. She must have taken the skewer when Imogen went into the dining-room to ask for a twin to work the lift.”

  “The skewer had gone by then. Vide Michael.”

  “Well, if he’s right, she took it before that and did the trick while she was supposed to be in the lavatory.”

  “Yes,” said Alleyn, “that’s arguable. But see what Roberta Grey says.”

  “Oh, damn Roberta Grey. What do you mean, Roberta Grey?”

  “If you want to see a thing as a whole,” said Alleyn, “get it down as a sort of table. Take Lord Wutherwood’s movements from the time he left the drawing-room until the lift returned, not forgetting the two yells he gave for his wife. Then look at the statement and correlate all the other people’s moves with his. You’ll find that after Wutherwood called the second time the landing was deserted until Lady Charles went from 26 to the drawing-room. During that period, according to statements, Lord Charles and his three eldest sons were in the drawing-room, Lady Charles and her daughters in her bedroom, Lady Wutherwood and Lady Katherine in the two lavatories, Giggle on his way downstairs, Tinkerton following him, Baskett in the servants’ hall, Roberta Grey in the dining-room, Michael in Flat 26, and Nanny in her bedroom. The other servants and the bum were in the kitchen, and during that same period Lady Katherine Lobe went downstairs and into the street.”

  “And that’s the crucial time?”

  “It’s unlikely that he yelled for his wife in what they all agree was his normal voice after he’d got a skewer in his brain.”

  “Can you cut that period down a bit further?”

  “Lady Katherine told me that she slipped away after Lady Charles crossed the landing. That means that she herself was on the landing and making for the stairs. She looked at the lift but could see nobody inside
. With those doors you can’t see anybody who is sitting down. Wutherwood must have been in the lift then but his murderer, unless he sat beside the victim, was not there. Nor, of course, was he on the landing. A moment later Stephen Lamprey came out to work the lift.”

  Nigel dabbed his finger on the carbon copy.

  “And when Stephen went out on the landing his aunt was there—alone.”

  “That is what he gave in his statement,” said Alleyn without emphasis.

  “Have you any reason to doubt this statement?”

  “At the moment, none.”

  “Very well, then. She had been alone on the landing.”

  “I thought your argument was that she did it before that, in which case why did she stay on the landing?”

  “I’m only showing that she had opportunities.”

  “All right.”

  “Alleyn,” said Nigel, “please tell me. Do you think she did it?”

  “There you go, you see,” said Alleyn wearily. “Stick to your press-manship, my boy. Go away and write a front-page story and let me see it before you hand it over to your evening screecher. Come on. We’ll go home to our unfortunate wives and Fox to his blameless pallet.”

  They parted on the Embankment. Nigel hailed a taxi; Fox, his head bent sideways, his hand to his bowler and his overcoat flapping about his formidable legs, tacked off into the wind, making for his lodgings in Victoria. Alleyn crossed the Embankment and leaning on the parapet looked down into the black shadows of Westminster Pier. The river slapped against wet stones and Alleyn felt a thin touch of spray on his face. He stood for so long that a constable on night duty paused and finally marched down upon his superior, flashing his torch into Alleyn’s face.

  “It’s all right,” said Alleyn. “I’m not yet tired of life.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir, I’m sure. Mr. Alleyn isn’t it? Didn’t recognize you for a minute. It’s a thick night.”