Death in a White Tie

by Ngaio Marsh

  It was at that moment that Lord Robert Gospell had come downstairs. Sir Daniel twisted the heavy signet ring on his little finger and still with closed eyes he peered back into his memory. Withers had seen Lord Robert. There was no doubt of that. Sir Daniel heard again that swift intake of breath and noticed the quick glance before the fellow unceremoniously shoved his way through the crowd and disappeared into the fog. Then Lord Robert’s nephew, young Donald Potter, came out of the buffet near the stairs. Bridget O’Brien was with him. They almost ran into Lord Robert, but when Donald saw his uncle he sheered off, said something to Bridget, and then went out by the front entrance. One more picture remained.

  Bunchy Gospell speaking to Dimitri at the foot of the stairs. This was the last thing Sir Daniel saw before he, too, went out into the fog.

  He supposed that those moments in the hall would be regarded by the police as highly significant. The papers said that the police wished to establish the identity of the second fare. Naturally, since he was obviously the murderer! The taxi-driver had described him as a well-dressed gentleman who, with Lord Robert, had entered the cab about two hundred yards up the street from Marsdon House. ‘Was it one of the guests?’ asked the paper. That meant the police would get statements from everyone who left the house about the same time as Lord Robert. The last thing in the world that Sir Daniel wanted was to appear as a principal witness at the inquest. That sort of publicity did a fashionable physician no good. His name in block capitals, as likely as not, across the front sheets of the penny press and before you knew where you were some fool would say: ‘Davidson? Wasn’t he mixed up in that murder case?’ He might even have to say he saw the Halcut-Hackett woman go out, with Withers in hot pursuit. Mrs Halcut-Hackett was one of his most lucrative patients. On the other hand, he would look extremely undignified if they found out that he was one of the last to leave and had not come forward to say so. It might even look suspicious. Sir Daniel swore picturesquely in French, reached for his telephone and dialled WHI1212.

  MYSTERY IN MAYFAIR

  Lord Robert Gospel suffocated in Taxi

  Who was the second fare?

  Colombo Dimitri in his smart flat in the Cromwell Road drew the attention of his confidential servant to the headlines.

  ‘What a tragedy,’ he said. ‘It may be bad for us at the beginning of the season. Nobody feels very gay after a murder. He was so popular, too. It is most unfortunate.’

  ‘Yes, monsieur,’ said the confidential servant.

  ‘I must have been almost the last person to speak with him,’ continued Dimitri, ‘unless, of course, this dastardly assassin addressed him. Lord Robert came to me in the hall and asked me if I had seen Mrs Halcut-Hackett. I told him I had just seen her go away. He thanked me and left. I, of course, remained in the hall. Several of the guests spoke to me after that, I recollect. And then, an hour later, when I had left, but my men were still busy, the police rang up. He was a charming personality. I am very, very sorry.’

  ‘Yes, monsieur.’

  ‘It would be a pleasant gesture for us to send flowers. Remind me of it. In the meantime, if you please, no gossip. I must instruct the staff on this point. I absolutely insist upon it. The affair must not be discussed.’

  ‘C’est entendu, monsieur.’

  ‘In respect of malicious tittle-tattle,’ said Dimitri virtuously, ‘our firm is in the well-known position of Caesar’s wife.’ He glanced at his servant’s face. It wore a puzzled expression. ‘She did not appear in gossip columns,’ explained Dimitri.

  MYSTERY OF UNKNOWN FARE

  ‘Bunchy’ Gospell dead

  Who was the Man in Dress Clothes?

  Miss Harris finished her cup of tea but her bread and butter remained untasted on her plate. She told herself she did not fancy it. Miss Harris was gravely upset. She had encountered a question to which she did not know the answer and she found herself unable to stuff it away in one of her pigeon-holes. The truth was Miss Harris’s heart was touched. She had seen Lord Robert several times in Lady Carrados’s house and last night Lord Robert had danced with her. When Lady Carrados asked Miss Harris if she would like to come to the ball she had never for a moment expected to dance at it. She had expected to spend a gratifying but exceedingly lonely night watching the fruits of her own labours. Her expectations had been realized until the moment when Lord Robert asked her to dance, and from then onwards Miss Harris had known a sort of respectable rapture. He had found her on the upper landing where she was sitting by herself outside the little green boudoir. She had just come out of the ‘Ladies’ and had had an embarrassing experience practically in the doorway. So she had sat on a chair on the landing to recover her poise and because there did not seem to be anywhere else much to go. Then she had pulled herself together and gone down to the ballroom. She was trying to look happy and not lost when Lord Robert came up and remembered his request that they should dance. And dance they did, round and round in the fast Viennese waltz, and Lord Robert had said he hadn’t enjoyed himself so much for ages. They had joined a group of dizzily ‘right’ people and one of them, Miss Agatha Troy the famous painter it was, had talked to her as if they had been introduced. And then, when the band played another fast Viennese waltz because they were fashionable, Miss Harris and Lord Robert had danced again and had afterwards taken champagne at the buffet. That had been quite late—not long before the ball ended. How charming he had been, making her laugh a great deal and feel like a human young woman of thirty and not a dependent young lady of no age at all.

  And now, here he was, murdered.

  Miss Harris was so upset that she could not eat her breakfast. She glanced automatically at her watch. Twelve o’clock. She was to be at Lady Carrados’s house by two in case she was needed. If she was quick she would have time to write an exciting letter home to the Buckinghamshire vicarage. The girlfriend with whom she shared the flatlet was still asleep. She was a night operator in a telephone exchange. But Miss Harris’s bosom could contain this dreadful news no longer. She rose, opened the bedroom door and said:

  ‘Smithy!’

  ‘Uh!’

  ‘Smithy, something awful has happened. Listen!’

  ‘Uh?’

  The girl has just brought in a paper. It’s about Lord Gospell. I mean Lord Robert Gospell. You know. I told you about him last night—’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ said Miss Smith. ‘Did you have to wake me up again to hear all about your social successes?’

  ‘No, but Smithy, listen! It’s simply frightful! He’s murdered.’

  Miss Smith sat up in bed looking like a sort of fabulous goddess in her mass of tin curling-pins.

  ‘My dear, he isn’t,’ said Miss Smith.

  ‘My dear, he is!’ said Miss Harris.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Troy and Alleyn

  WHEN ALLEYN had finished his examination of the study he sat at Lord Robert’s desk and telephoned to Marsdon House. He was answered by one of his own men.

  ‘Is Mr Fox there, Bailey?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He’s upstairs. I’ll just tell him.’

  Alleyn waited. Before him on the desk was a small, fat notebook and upon the opened page he read again in Lord Robert’s finicky writing the notes he had made on his case:

  Saturday, May 8th. Cocktail-party at Mrs H-H’s house in Halkin Street. Arrived 6.15. Mrs H-H distraite. Arranged to meet her June 3rd, Constance Street Hall. Saw Maurice Withers, ref. drug affair 1924. Bad lot. Seems thick with Mrs H-H. Shied off me. Mem. Tell Alleyn about W’s gambling hell at L.

  Thursday, June 3rd. Constance Street Hall. Recital by Sirmione Quartette. Arrived 2.15. Met Mrs H-H 2.30. Mrs H-H sat on left-hand end of blue sofa (occupant’s left). Sofa about 7 feet inside main entrance and 8 feet to right as you enter. Sofa placed at right angles to right-hand corner of room. Side entrance on right-hand wall about ten feet behind sofa. My position in chair behind left arm of sofa. At 3.35 immediately after interval observed Mrs H-H’s bag taken from left end of s
ofa where previously I watched her place it. She had left the room during interval and returned after bag had gone. Will swear that hand taking the bag was that of Dimitri of Shepherd Market Catering Company. Saw him there. Seat nearby. Little finger same length as next and markedly crooked. Withers was there. N.B. Think Mrs H-H suspects me of blackmail. R.G.

  Fox’s voice came through the receiver.

  ‘Hullo, sir?’

  ‘Hullo, Fox. Have you seen the room where he telephoned to me?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a room on the top landing. One of Dimitri’s waiters saw him go in. The room hasn’t been touched.’

  ‘Right. Anything else?’

  ‘Nothing much. The house is pretty well as it was when the guests left. You saw to that, sir.’

  ‘Is Dimitri there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Get him, Fox. I’ll see him at the Yard at twelve o’clock. That’ll do him for the moment. Tell Bailey to go all over the telephone room for prints. We’ve got to find out who interrupted that call to the Yard. And, Fox—’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Can you come round here? I’d like a word with you.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Alleyn, and hung up the receiver.

  He looked again at the document he had found in the central drawer of Lord Robert’s desk. It was his will. A very simple little will. After one or two legacies he left all his possessions and the life interest on £40,000 to his sister, Lady Mildred Potter, to revert to her son on her death and the remainder of his estate, £20,000, to that same son, his nephew, Donald Potter. The will was dated January 1st of that year.

  ‘His good deed for the New Year,’ thought Alleyn.

  He looked at the two photographs in leather frames that stood on Lord Robert’s desk. One was of Lady Mildred Potter in the presentation dress of her girlhood. Mildred had been rather pretty in those days. The other was of a young man of about twenty. Alleyn noted the short Gospell nose and wide-set eyes. The mouth was pleasant and weak, the chin one of those jutting affairs that look determined and are too often merely obstinate. It was rather an attractive face. Donald had written his name across the corner with the date, January 1st.

  ‘I hope to God,’ thought Alleyn, ‘that he can give a good account of himself.’

  ‘Good morning,’ said a voice from the doorway.

  He swung round in his chair and saw Agatha Troy. She was dressed in green and had a little velvet cap on her dark head and green gloves on her hands.

  ‘Troy!’

  ‘I came in to see if there was anything I could do for Mildred.’

  ‘You didn’t know I was here?’

  ‘Not till she told me. She asked me to see if you had everything you wanted.’

  ‘Everything I wanted,’ repeated Alleyn.

  ‘If you have,’ said Troy, ‘that’s all right. I won’t interrupt.’

  ‘Please,’ said Alleyn, ‘could you not go just for a second?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing. I mean, I’ve no excuse for asking you to stay, unless, if you will forgive me, the excuse of wanting to look at you and listen for a moment to your voice.’ He held up his hand. ‘No more than that. You liked Bunchy and so did I. He talked about you the last time I saw him.’

  ‘A few hours ago,’ said Troy. ‘I was dancing with him.’

  Alleyn moved to the tall windows … They looked out over the charming little garden to the Chelsea reaches of the Thames.

  ‘A few hours ago’—he repeated her words slowly—‘the river was breathing mist. The air was threaded with mist and as cold as the grave. That was before dawn broke. It was beginning to get light when I saw him. And look at it now. Not a cloud. The damned river’s positively sparkling in the sunlight. Come here, Troy.’

  She stood beside him.

  ‘Look down there into the street. Through the side window. At half-past three this morning the river mist lay like a pall along Cheyne Walk. If anybody was awake at that mongrel hour or abroad in the deserted streets they would have heard a taxi come along Cheyne Walk and stop outside this gate. If anybody in this house had had the curiosity to look out of one of the top windows they would have seen the door of the taxi open and a quaint figure in a cloak and wide-brimmed hat get out.’

  ‘What do you mean? He got out?’

  ‘The watcher would have seen this figure wave a gloved hand and heard him call to the driver in a shrill voice: ‘Sixty-three Jobbers Row, Queens Gate.’ He would have seen the taxi drive away into the mist—and then—what? What did the figure do? Did it run like a grotesque with flapping cloak towards the river to be swallowed up in vapour? Or did it walk off sedately into Chelsea? Did it wait for a moment, staring after the taxi? Did Bunchy’s murderer pull off his cloak, fold it and walk away with it over his arm? Did he hide his own tall hat under the cloak before he got out of the taxi, and afterwards change back into it? And where are Bunchy’s cloak and hat, Troy? Where are they?’

  ‘What did the taxi-driver say?’ asked Troy. ‘There’s nothing coherent in the papers. I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’ll tell you. Fox will be here soon. Before he comes I can allow myself a few minutes to unload my mind, if you’ll let me. I’ve done that before—once—haven’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ murmured Troy. ‘Once.’

  ‘There is nobody in the world who can listen as you can. I wish I had something better to tell you. Well, here it is. The taxi-driver brought Bunchy to the Yard at four o’clock this morning, saying he was murdered. This was his story. He picked Bunchy up at three-thirty some two hundred yards from the doors of Marsdon House. There was a shortage of taxis and we suppose Bunchy had walked so far, hoping to pick one up in a side street, when this fellow came along. The unnatural mist that hung over London last night was thick in Belgrave Square. As the taximan drove towards Bunchy he saw another figure in an overcoat and top-hat loom through the mist and stand beside him. They appeared to speak together. Bunchy held up his stick. The cabby knew him by sight and addressed him:

  ‘“Morning, m’lord. Two hundred Cheyne Walk?”

  ‘“Please,” said Bunchy.

  ‘The two men got into the taxi. The cabby never had a clear view of the second man. He had his back turned as the taxi approached and when it stopped he stood towards the rear in shadow. Before the door was slammed the cabby heard Bunchy say: “You can take him on.” The cabby drove to Cheyne Walk by way of Chesham Place, Cliveden Place, Lower Sloane Street and Chelsea Hospital and across Tite Street. He says it took about twelve minutes. He stopped here at Bunchy’s gate and in a few moments Lord Robert, as he supposed him to be, got out and slammed the door. A voice squeaked through a muffler: “Sixty-three Jobbers Row, Queens Gate,” and the cabby drove away. He arrived at Jobbers Row ten minutes later, waited for his fare to get out and at last got out himself and opened the door. He found Bunchy.’

  Alleyn waited for a moment, looked gravely at Troy’s white face. She said:

  ‘There was no doubt—’

  ‘None. The cabby is an obstinate, opinionated, cantankerous old oddity, but he’s no fool. He satisfied himself. He explained that he once drove an ambulance and knew certain things. He headed as fast as he could for the Yard. A sergeant saw him; saw everything; made sure it was—what it was, and got me. I made sure, too.’

  ‘What had been done to Bunchy?’

  ‘You want to know? Yes, of course you do. You’re too intelligent to nurse your sensibilities.’

  ‘Mildred will ask me about it. What happened?’

  ‘We think he was struck on the temple, stunned and then suffocated,’ said Alleyn, without emphasis. ‘We shall know more when the doctors have finished.’

  ‘Struck?’

  ‘Yes. With something that had a pretty sharp edge. About as sharp as the back of a thick knife-blade.’

  ‘Did he suffer?’

  ‘Not very much. Hardly at all. He wouldn’t know what happened.’

  ‘
His heart was weak,’ said Troy suddenly.

  ‘His heart? Are you sure of that?’

  ‘Mildred told me the other day. She tried to persuade him to see a specialist.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Alleyn, ‘if that made it easier—for both of them.’

  Troy said:

  ‘I haven’t seen you look like that before.’

  ‘What do you mean, Troy?’

  He turned to her a face so suddenly translated into gentleness that she could not answer him.

  ‘I—it’s gone now.’

  ‘When I look at you I suppose all other expression is lost in an effect of general besottedness.’

  ‘How can I answer that?’ said Troy.

  ‘Don’t. I’m sorry. What did you mean?’