by Ngaio Marsh
“They are all there,” he said; “it’s nearly tea-time.”
“Then come upstairs after me and walk slowly to your own door. If you see anyone approaching, come through the bathroom into Wilde’s dressing-room and warn me. I shall be in Mrs. Wilde’s room.”
He went out swiftly, and Nigel followed in time to see him running, cat-like, upstairs. By the time Nigel reached the landing the Inspector had disappeared.
Nigel walked to his own door and paused, taking his cigarette case out and groping in his pocket for matches. His heart was beating thickly. Had he been standing there hours or seconds when he heard a light footstep coming from the long corridor? He struck a match as Florence appeared, strolled through his own door, and then darted swiftly into the bathroom.
“Alleyn!” he whispered urgently. “Alleyn!” Then he stopped short, flabbergasted.
Arthur Wilde was washing his hands at the basin.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Confession?
NIGEL WAS SO GREATLY TAKEN ABACK that some seconds elapsed before he realized that Wilde was equally disconcerted. His face was extremely pale, and he stood very still, his hands plunged incongruously in the soapy water.
“I—I’m sorry,” stammered Nigel at last. “I thought you were Alleyn.”
Wilde achieved a wan smile. “Alleyn?” he said. “Yes, so I gathered, Bathgate. Will you tell me, did you think Alleyn was here or—in my wife’s room?”
Nigel was silent.
“I wish you could see your way to answering me,” said Wilde very quietly. He took a towel from the rack and began to dry his hands. Suddenly he dropped the towel on the floor and whispered, “My God, this is a terrible business.”
“Terrible!” echoed Nigel helplessly.
“Bathgate,” said Wilde in a sudden gust of passion, “you must tell me—did you expect to find the Inspector here or behind that dressing-room door in Marjorie’s room? Answer me.”
The door from the bathroom into the dressing-room was wide open, but the one beyond it was shut. Nigel looked involuntarily towards this door.
“I assure you—” he began.
“You are a bad liar, Bathgate,” said a voice from beyond. The door was opened, and Alleyn walked through.
“You were quite right, Mr. Wilde,” he said. “I have been carrying out a little investigation in your wife’s room. I have done so in all your rooms, you know. It is essential.”
“You had already been through everything,” said Wilde. “Why must you torture us like this? My wife has nothing—nothing to conceal. How could she have killed Rankin, and in that way? She has a horror of knives, an inhibition against them. Everyone knows that she can’t touch a knife or a blade of any sort. Why, even on the night of this crime—Bathgate, you remember!—she got into a fever at the very sight of that filthy dagger. It’s impossible, I tell you, it’s impossible!”
“Mr. Wilde, that is all I am trying to prove, that it is impossible.”
Something like a sob escaped the little man.
“Steady, Wilde,” said Nigel sheepishly.
“Will you hold your tongue, sir!” shouted the archaeologist. Involuntarily, Nigel had a swift mental picture of him turning on an unruly or impertinent student. “I must ask you to forgive me, Bathgate,” he added immediately. “I am not myself, indeed I am not.”
“Of course you are not,” said Nigel quickly; “and remember Mrs. Wilde has an alibi, a perfect alibi surely. Florence, Angela’s maid, and I myself both know she was in her room. Don’t we, Alleyn?” He turned desperately to the detective. Alleyn did not answer.
There was a rather ghastly silence. Then abruptly:
“I think tea is waiting, Mr. Wilde,” said the Inspector. “Bathgate, may I have a word with you downstairs before I go?”
Nigel followed him to the door, and they were about to go out when an exclamation from Wilde arrested them.
“Stop!”
They both turned.
Wilde was standing in the middle of the room, his hands were pressed tightly together, his face, raised a little, was yet in shadow since the window was behind him. He spoke slowly.
“Inspector Alleyn,” he said, “I have decided to confess. I killed Rankin. I hoped that the necessity for this admission would not arise. But I can’t bear the strain any longer—and now—my wife! I killed him.”
Alleyn said nothing. He and Wilde were looking fixedly at each other. Nigel had never seen a face so devoid of expression as the detective’s.
“Well?” Wilde’s voice was hysterical. “Aren’t you going to give me the usual warning? The customary cliché! Anything in evidence against me?”
Nigel suddenly heard himself speaking, “…it’s impossible—impossible,” he was saying. “You were in your bath, there in that bath, I spoke to you, I know you were there. Good God, Wilde, you can’t do this, you can’t tell us…When—how did you do it?” He stopped, appalled by the inadequacy of his own words. At last Alleyn spoke.
“Yes,” he said gently; “when did you do it, Mr. Wilde?”
“Before I came upstairs. When I was alone with him.”
“What about Mary, the under-housemaid, who saw him alive after you had gone?”
“She—she made a mistake—she has forgotten. I was still there.”
“Then how did you manage to talk through this door to Mr. Bathgate here?”
Wilde did not answer.
“You tell me,” said Alleyn, turning to Nigel, “that you were talking to each other continuously before and while the lights were out?”
“Yes.”
“Yet, Mr. Wilde, you turned the lights out, and then took the trouble to sound the gong and thus warn the entire household you had committed murder.”
“It was the game. I—I didn’t mean to kill him, I didn’t realize—”
“You mean that while you were busily talking to Mr. Bathgate upstairs, you were also in the hall where, under the nose of a housemaid who did not happen to notice, you struck Mr. Rankin in fun with an exceedingly sharp dagger which you had previously had leisure to examine?”
Silence.
“Well, Mr. Wilde?” said Alleyn compassionately.
“Don’t you believe me?” cried Wilde.
“Frankly, no.” Alleyn opened the door. “But you have been playing an extremely dangerous game. I shall be in the study for a minute or two, Bathgate.”
He went out, shutting the door behind him. Wilde walked to the window and leant across the ledge. Suddenly he bent his head and buried his face in his arm. Nigel thought he had never before seen so tragic a figure.
“Look here,” he said swiftly, “you’ve been letting your nerves get the better of you. I am certain no one suspects your wife. Alleyn himself knows it is impossible. We three, you, she and I, are on the face of it exempt. You’ve told a brave lie, but a damn silly one. Pull yourself together and forget it.” He touched Wilde lightly on the shoulder and left him.
Alleyn was waiting for him downstairs.
“I plucked up my courage and asked Miss Angela if we three might have tea together in here,” said the Inspector. “She is bringing it in herself, as I thought it unnecessary to bother the servants.”
“Really?” Nigel wondered what was afoot now. “What an extraordinary incident that was just now.”
“Very.”
“I suppose it is not unusual for highly strung people to do that sort of thing—I did it myself.”
“So you did, but Wilde had a better reason, poor devil.”
“I admired him for it.”
“So did I, enormously.”
“Of course, his wife is innocent?”
Alleyn did not answer.
“Look at her alibi,” said Nigel.
“Yes,” said Alleyn, “I’m looking at it. It’s a lovely alibi, isn’t it?”
Angela came in with the tea.
“Well, Mr. Alleyn,” she said, setting the tray on a stool before the fire, “what are you up to now?”
“Sit d
own, Miss Angela,” invited Alleyn, “and give us some tea, if you please. Very strong and no milk for me. Do you know anyone called Sandilands?”
Angela paused, cup in hand.
“Sandilands? N-no. I don’t think so. Wait a moment, though. Is that strong enough?”
“Thank you so much. Perfect.”
“Sandilands?” repeated Angela meditatively. “Yes, now I do. Where have I met—?”
“Was it at—?” began Nigel.
“Take your tea and be tacit,” advised Alleyn curtly. Nigel glared at him and was silent.
“I’ve got it,” said Angela. “There’s an old Miss Sandilands, a sewing maid. She sometimes does work for Marjorie.”
“That’s the one,” said Alleyn brightly; “she worked for them at Tunbridge, didn’t she?”
“At Tunbridge? The Wildes were never at Tunbridge.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Wilde stays there—visits there—takes a cure there? I may have got muddled.”
“I never heard of it,” said Angela decisively. “Marjorie is not at all like Tunbridge.”
“Oh well, never mind,” rejoined the Inspector. “Has Miss Grant told you where she was while you were bathing on Sunday evening?” Angela looked gravely at him, and then turned to Nigel.
“Oh, Nigel,” she said, “what is he thinking?”
“Search me,” said Nigel gloomily.
“Please, Miss Angela?” said Alleyn.
“She hasn’t told me. But—oh, am I right to go on?”
“Indeed, indeed you are.”
“Then—I believe…I think I know where she went.”
“Yes?”
“To Charles’ room!”
“What makes you think that?”
“The morning afterwards you asked me to have his room locked and to give you the key. I went to do it myself. Rosamund has a pair of bath slippers, mules, you know—”
“Yes, yes, with green fluffy stuff, marabout or something above the instep.”
“Yes,” agreed the astonished Angela. “Well, the key was on the inside so I had to enter the room to get it. I saw a wisp of the green fluff on the carpet.”
“Madam!” said Alleyn triumphantly, “you are superb. And you picked up your bit of green fluff and—? You didn’t throw it away?”
“I didn’t, but I will if you’re going to use it against Rosamund.”
“Here! Oi! No blackmailing, please. You kept it because you thought it might save her. That it?”
“Yes.”
“Well. Hang on to it. Now tell me this. What was the relationship between Rankin and Miss Grant?”
“I can’t discuss anything of that sort,” said Angela coldly.
“My dear child, this is no time for coming over all county with me. I quite appreciate your scruples, but they are not worth much when they are used to screen a murderer or to cast suspicion on an innocent person. I shouldn’t ask you unless I had to. Let me tell you what I think. There was an understanding between Rankin and Miss Grant. He wanted her to marry him. She had refused because of his relationship with another woman. Am I right?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“Was she fond of him?”
“That was what I wanted to know. Was she jealous?”
“No, no! Not jealous, but she—she felt it very deeply indeed.”
Alleyn opened his note-book again, and drew out a fragment of blotting paper and passed it to Angela. “Take your handglass and look at that,” he said.
Angela obeyed him, and then passed the blotting paper and mirror to Nigel. He read without difficulty.
October 10th: Dear Joyce, I’m so sorry to muddle your pl…”
“Whose writing is that?” asked Alleyn.
“It is Rosamund’s,” said Angela.
“It was written after seven-thirty on Saturday night at the desk in the elbow of the drawing-room,” commented the Inspector, looking at Nigel. “At seven-thirty the excellent Ethel had tidied the desk and put out fresh blotting paper. On Sunday morning, noticing the stains on this sheet, she turned it under, putting a clean sheet on top.”
“So you imagine—?” Nigel began.
“I do not imagine; detectives aren’t allowed to imagine. They note probabilities. I am firmly of the opinion that Miss Grant overheard, with you, the duologue between Mrs. Wilde and Rankin. It was she who turned out the lights and nipped out ahead of you on your leaving the drawing-room.”
“I’m quite at sea,” complained Angela.
Nigel told her briefly of the conversation he had overheard from the gun-room. Angela was silent for a few minutes. Then she turned to Alleyn.
“There is one factor in this case,” she began in a quaintly pedantic manner, “that puzzles me above all others.”
“Will my learned friend propound?” asked Alleyn solemnly.
“I am about to do so. Why, oh why, did the murderer sound the gong? I can understand his turning out the lights. He knew that in doing so, by the rules of the murder game, he ensured himself a clear two minutes to get away. But why, oh why, did he bang the gong?”
“To keep up the illusion of the game?” Nigel speculated.
“It seems so incredible somehow—to make a proclamatory gesture like that. Darkness he would welcome, yes, but to start that clamour—it sounds so—so psychologically unsound.”
“My learned friend’s point is well urged,” said Alleyn. “But I put it to her that the murderer or murderess did not sound the gong.”
“Then,” said Nigel and Angela together, “who did?”
“Rankin.”
“What!” they shouted.
“Rankin sounded the gong.”
“What the devil do you mean?” ejaculated Nigel.
“I’m not going to give all my tricks away, and this is such a very simple one that you ought to have seen it yourselves.” Nigel and Angela merely stared blankly at each other.
“Well, we don’t,” said Nigel flatly.
“Later perhaps it may dawn,” commented the detective. “In the meantime, how about a run up to London tonight?”
“To London—what for?”
“I hear that you, Miss Angela, are the fastest thing known off the dirt track, and when I use the expression ‘the fastest thing’ I use it literally, not colloquially. Will you, without explaining your movements to anyone, drive this young ornament of the Press up to London in the Bentley and do a job of work for me? I will talk to your uncle about it for you.”
“Now—tonight?” said Angela.
“It is getting dark. I think you may start in half an hour. You must be back here when it gets light tomorrow morning, but I hope you may return long before dawn. On second thoughts I think I shall accompany you.”
He looked, apparently in some amusement, at the not conspicuously delighted faces of the other two.
“I shall sleep in the back seat,” he added vaguely. “I’ve had too many late nights.”
“Will you come, Nigel?” Angela asked.
“Of course I will,” said Nigel. “What are we to do when we get there?”
“If you will give me the pleasure of dining with me, both of you, I will explain myself then. Now, just one more question: you heard Mr. Rankin’s story of how he became possessed of the knife with which he was killed. Can either of you remember anything, anything at all, that Rankin said which would serve to describe the man who gave it to him?”
“What did Charles say, Nigel?” asked Angela after a pause.
Alleyn crossed to the windows and stood by the drawn curtains. He looked singularly alert.
“He told us,” said Nigel thoughtfully, “that a Russian whom he met in Switzerland gave it to him. He said it had been sent to him. It was sent in return for some service Charles did this Russian.”
“And that was—?” Alleyn moved back into the room.
“I think he said something about pulling him out of a crevasse.”
“That all?”
“I can’t remember anything else, c
an you, Angela?”
“I’m trying to think,” murmured Angela.
“Did you gather that they had become friends? Did Rankin describe the man?”
“No,” said Nigel.
“No-no, but he said something else,” Angela asserted.
“What could it have been? Think now. Was it something about the accident that led to this incident? Were either of them injured? What!” Angela had uttered a short exclamation.
“That’s it! The Russian lost two of his fingers with frost-bite.”
“The devil he did!” ejaculated Alleyn. “The devil he did!”
“Is that relevant?” asked Nigel.
“It is extremely important,” said Alleyn very loudly. “It links up the Russian evidence very prettily. Let me just explain precisely what I mean by the Russian evidence.” While he was speaking the detective had risen and was standing facing the other two with his back to the curtained windows. The lamp light fell strongly on his dark head and broad shoulders. “Let me tell you,” he said emphatically, “that on Saturday night a Pole was murdered in Soho. He was identified by his left hand.” Alleyn slowly raised his own left arm under the lamp and spread the thumb, index and little fingers of the hand. The two middle fingers he doubled over the palm.
For perhaps two seconds Nigel and Angela sat staring at him in silence. Then they realized that he was whispering urgently, his hand still raised.
“Bathgate!” he was murmuring, “Tokareff is outside watching us. In one minute I shall turn and make for the French window. Follow me and help me collar him. You, Miss Angela, go out of the door as if nothing had happened, speak to no one. Wrap yourself up quickly in the first coat you can find and wait for us in the Bentley.” Then aloud, and lowering his arm as Angela left the room, he added, “and now we are alone, Bathgate, let me tell you exactly what I know of these Russians—”
He had whirled round and was at the French windows before Nigel had got to his feet. The curtain was torn aside violently; Alleyn wrenched at the door.
“Blast!” he said. “Come on!”
There was a crash of splintered glass, a cold wind filled the warm room, Alleyn disappeared with Nigel close on his heels.
CHAPTER TWELVE