by Ngaio Marsh
“Sumiloff has done it,” said Nigel, bending down to fasten his shoe, “he should be there now.”
“Good enough! Waiter! Can I have my bill?”
A few minutes later he went away, passing Angela who, with an ill-concealed air of triumph, had appeared in the entrance. She waved to Nigel, wound her way through the tables and sank into the chair the waiter drew out for her.
“Eureka!” said Angela, slapping her handbag down on the table and patting it triumphantly.
“What have you got in there?” asked Nigel quietly.
“I’ve been to Tunbridge B.”
“Angela, what do you mean? Even you couldn’t drive to Tunbridge and back in two hours.”
“Order me some of that delicious-looking lager those people are drinking and I’ll reveal everything,” said Angela.
“Beer?” said Nigel in surprise.
“Why not? I adore it. Oceans and oceans of beer,” said Angela extravagantly. “And now let me tell you what happened. Oh, Nigel,” she continued with a complete change of tone. “I do hate being a spy. If it wasn’t for Rosamund I’d never, never have meddled. But I know Rosamund didn’t do it and—and she’s had such a hard row to hoe. Were you fond of Charles, Nigel?”
“I don’t know,” said Nigel soberly. “I’ve had an awful shock. I’ve kept on saying to myself ‘poor old Charles,’ but do you know, the only thing I can be certain of is that I didn’t really know him. I only accepted him. He was my cousin and all my life I have seen a lot of him. But I didn’t know him at all.”
“Rosamund did. She loved him and it was a terribly unhappy love. Charles behaved very badly. Rosamund has got a ghastly temper, you know. When she was at Newnham she got into no end of a row for—for attacking another undergraduate. There was a terrific scandal. It had started by a lot of them ragging Rosamund about Charles and some other girl, and she flew into a white-hot rage and picked up a knife—yes, a knife—they actually had to hold her back.”
“Good Lord!”
“Do you realize that in the dossier Mr. Alleyn is making about us all he will have included every shred of our past histories that can have any bearing at all on this case? Be sure there have been exhaustive inquiries into Rosamund’s record at Newnham. I know she didn’t kill Charles, and if it means stealing Marjorie Wilde’s letters to prove it—well, anyway I’ve got them.”
“Letters? You go so fast I can’t possibly follow you. Have you stolen some letters?”
“Yes. I guessed, and I’m sure Mr. Alleyn did too, that the parcel Marjorie wanted Sandilands to destroy was a bundle of letters. The ‘Tunbridge B.’ did puzzle me for a second, but I soon dropped to it. Arthur is very fond of collecting old boxes and I suddenly remembered him giving Marjorie a funny Victorian casket made out of inlaid wood. Do you know what antique dealers call those caskets?”
“Indeed I don’t.”
“Tunbridge boxes. I thought of it at once and in the taxi made up my mind what I should say. Masters, their butler, let me in and I told him that I had come up to London unexpectedly and was dining out and would he mind if I tidied up in Marjorie’s room. The other servants were all out and I was quite undisturbed there. It took me ten minutes to find the box—it was at the back of the top shelf in her wardrobe. Nigel, I—I picked the lock with nail file. It was quite easy, I didn’t even break it. I felt like dirt, but I’ve got the letters. I left my leather coat there and Masters said if I came back quite late he would still be up as Mrs. Masters was returning from Uxbridge by the last bus. So I’ll let Mr. Alleyn see them and I hope he will say, ‘Put them back.’ Oh, Lord, I do feel a swine!”
“I don’t think you need, my dear.”
“You’re being nice because you like me. Oh, I found out about Sandilands. She was to stay in Dulwich with an ancient aunt, but the aunt’s dead, suddenly, and Sandilands has gone to Ealing in a pique. Masters said would I tell Madam because he believed as how there was an arrangement for Madam to write to Sandilands at Dulwich about some garments she was making for Madam. So that fixed that. It was quite easy and Masters was so agonized with suppressed curiosity about ‘the unfortunate ’appenings’ as he called them, that I really believe he would have let me pocket family portraits without uttering. I don’t know why the letters should save Rosamund and I don’t know if they are going to involve Marjorie in a scandal, but I’ve done it.”
“Personally I don’t believe the Wildes or Rosamund Grant have anything to do with the murder. I think Tokareff is the man.”
“What about Mary, the pretty tweeny?”
“Well, she was the last to see him alive and she is pretty and Charles—well, anyway, it was an idea. But still I’m really all for the Russian element. Listen.”
Nigel related his adventures and Angela was satisfactorily impressed.
“And I actually passed,” she ejaculated, “a plainclothes man as I came in. And the police are behind closed shutters in a deserted shop fitted with a telephone and I am to ring them up if Alleyn doesn’t arrive at midnight. How involved!”
“They are afraid to set a more exact watch on Alleyn’s house as the Russians are sure to be on the lookout and might suspect something. If Alleyn is there he will probably slip away by a window or—I don’t know. Anyway, them’s orders.”
“What’s the time now?”
“Quarter to eleven.”
“Heavens! And we can’t even dance. Why didn’t Mr. Alleyn give us notice of this trip? I could have pleased your eye with my best wisp of tulle. What shall we talk about, Nigel?”
“I should like to talk about love at first sight.”
“Nigel! How entrancing! Have you views on it, or do you rather feel that with such a long wait the only thing is a mild flirtation?”
“No. I have views. But if you are going to make them sound idiotic I’ll keep them to myself.”
“I’m sorry,” said Angela, in a small voice. “What shall I do?”
“Give me your hand to kiss. They will only think I’m a foreign gent and I’m so longing to do it.”
Her hand felt cool and rather hard, but his lips persuaded it to be gentle.
“I’ve got palpitations,” said Nigel suddenly, “it’s very uncomfortable.”
An imperceptible pink mist seemed to have gathered round the table. Angela and Nigel and the beer and the table floated about in the pink mist for half an hour while the band bounced them gently up and down on a delicious tune.
“Excuse me, please, sir, but are you Mr. Bathgate?” said a waiter suddenly.
“Yes—why?” said Nigel, blinking at him.
“There is a telephone message, sir.”
A piece of paper on a salver appeared under Nigel’s nose. He took it and read. The pink mist dissolved, and Nigel sat staring at a dozen words. “Mr. Alleyn hopes Mr. Bathgate will join Mr. Sumiloff early as possible.”
“Er—thank you, no answer,” said Nigel confusedly.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Meeting Adjourned
SUMILOFF’S ARMS were beginning to ache and his legs were agonized with pins and needles. With somewhat unnecessary precaution they had strapped his wrists and ankles to the chair. The three other Russians were sitting over the empty grate talking intermittently and scarcely glancing at him. Yansen, the Scandinavian, was less detached. He leant across the table where only a little while before Nigel and Angela had tasted Alleyn’s port. Yansen was staring at Sumiloff and had just finished telling him all over again exactly what they proposed to do.
Vassily came into the room. His face was masked with a curious thick pallor. His look at Sumiloff suggested some sort of repressed compassion. He spoke swiftly in Russian and then for Yansen’s benefit in English.
“The man outside says Mr. Bathgate is coming now,” he said.
“We shall receive him,” said Yansen. He turned to the others. “Are you ready there?” he said. “It is quite simple. Vassily had better not open the door; if he were to do so it would make an awkwardness.” T
he others nodded and rose to their feet.
Nigel was in fact turning into the cul-de-sac at that moment. He could not imagine what had necessitated this unexpected move of Alleyn’s. Was he to walk into the meeting as if by accident? Was he merely to ask Vassily if a Mr. Sumiloff was there, or should he give Vassily the password and pretend, unconvincingly, that he was a member of this musical comedy society?
He looked fixedly at the shop opposite Alleyn’s house. Was the eye of the Yard observing him from behind those blind shutters? Would he find Alleyn already in possession?
He rang the bell and waited. The man who opened the door obviously was not Vassily. He was younger and taller, but the glare of light behind him prevented Nigel from seeing his face.
“Krasinski,” said Nigel self-consciously.
“That’s all right, Mr. Bathgate,” replied the man cheerfully. “Come right in.”
“Well, really!” said Nigel and he walked in. The man shut the door carefully and turned to the light.
“You!” exclaimed Nigel.
“Yes, Mr. Bathgate. I was glad to find you at the Hungaria. You told me just what I wanted to know. Will you come along in, sir?”
Nigel followed him to the dining-room. At the door the man stood aside and Nigel, still very bewildered, went in. Sumiloff was sitting in the wooden chair with his wrists and ankles tied up. Three other men stood at the far end of the table and Vassily was behind them.
The man who had been at the Hungaria locked the door and joined the others.
“Sumiloff,” said Nigel, “what does all this mean?”
“You see for yourself,” said Sumiloff.
“Mr. Sumiloff has been a bit indiscreet,” remarked the tall man, “and so, if you’ll excuse me, have you, sir.”
“But,” stammered Nigel, “is Sumiloff one of the society, then?”
“On the contrary. I am not Inspector-Detective Boys, Mr. Bathgate, but Erik Yansen. Allow me to present my comrades. We are all armed and you are covered, Mr. Bathgate.”
While they were binding him to the other armchair, Nigel’s predominant thought was what a fool Angela would think him. And what a triple damnable fool Alleyn would think him, he reflected, as a leather strap bit into his ankle. He looked at Sumiloff.
“How has it happened?” he asked.
“Yansen saw us together in Regent Street. It is my fault. It was criminally careless; we should never have gone so far together. He recognized me and, being already suspicious, followed you to the Hungaria.”
“Quite correct,” said Yansen. “And since our Comrade Vassily had told us how puzzled Mr. Alleyn is with the doctor’s song, I ventured to mention it. Your face encouraged me to proceed, Mr. Bathgate.”
“Inspector-Detective Alleyn,” said Nigel, “has told me my face is eloquent.”
“So when I arrived there, we arranged to send you a little message.”
“It’s all beautifully clear now, thank you,” said Nigel.
“Before the arrival of Comrade Yansen, however,” said Sumiloff suddenly, “I was able to collect an appreciable amount of information. Tokareff did not murder your cousin, Mr. Bathgate.”
Vassily exclaimed abruptly in Russian and was answered peremptorily by one of his compatriots.
“It would have been big glory for him if he had killed zis man,” added the Russian heavily.
“Nonsense,” said Sumiloff loudly.
The Russian who had spoken walked across the room and hit Sumiloff across the mouth.
“Svinya!” said Sumiloff disinterestedly. “He is upset because I do not know where Alleyn is. Look at the room.”
It had begun to dawn on Nigel that the house was in a chaotic state of disruption. The curtains had been dragged aside, the furniture pulled out from the walls, a desk had been opened and the great open fireplace was littered with papers. He remembered noticing the same sort of disorder in the hall.
“They have been down into the cellars and up into the attic too,” said Sumiloff. “Now they do not know what to do with us.”
“Listen to me,” said Yansen forcibly. “One of you or both of you can tell us what Alleyn is doing. Give us some line on where he is. It is ridiculous to refuse, to oblige us to use force.”
He stood over Nigel.
“Where is Alleyn?” he said.
“I have no idea,” said Nigel. “It is the truth—I do not know.”
“When and where did you arrange to meet him after—this?”
“I made no arrangements.”
“Lying pig,” whispered Yansen vehemently. He slapped Nigel’s face, knocking the back of his head against the chair. The Russians began talking together.
“What are you saying?” demanded Yansen.
“Shall I interpret?” offered Sumiloff sweetly.
“Niet! No!” said the tallest of the three. “I can myself make it all right in English. I say give them some torments to talk. There is no time for waiting. It is not safe. Then afterwards what to do with them? I think better to kill them bose, but then for dispose the bodies? It is difficult. But first make them spik.”
The clock in the little hall cleared its throat and struck twelve. Angela would ring up now, the police were just across the street. There was no need to get the wind up. Vassily suddenly burst out crying. The embarrassing tears of an old man. The Russians apparently cursed him and the one who could speak English came over to Sumiloff, fingering the lapel of his coat. They spoke together in Russian.
“Bathgate,” said Sumiloff quietly, “they are going to run a pin up my nails. And yours too. It is rather an infantile form of torture and not at all up to the traditions of the brotherhood. But it hurts.”
He ended with a quick intake of his breath. Nigel heard himself cursing. Yansen and one of the Russians bent over him. Nigel remembered a remark of Arthur Wilde’s: “It should be possible so to divorce the mind from the body that one could look on at one’s own physical pain with the same analytical detachment one directs towards the agony of another person.”
A sickening and disgusting pain violated his fingers. His whole body jerked and the straps cut his flesh. “I shall not be able to bear this,” he thought. Vassily was sobbing loudly. The four men stood over Sumiloff and Nigel. Nigel shut his eyes.
“Now,” said Yansen, “you will tell us—where is Alleyn?”
“Immediately behind you,” said Alleyn. A sort of blare of amazement lit up inside Nigel’s brain. Close to his ear someone was blowing an ear-splitting whistle. The noise corresponded precisely with the pain in his finger-tip. He opened his eyes. A black minstrel with a revolver squatted, straddle-legged, over the dead fire.
“No funny business,” said this apparition. “You’re covered all round, you know. Put ’em up, my poppets.”
The room was full of men—policemen and men in dark suits. Nigel was unbound, but he still sat in his armchair staring at a black-faced Alleyn who talked busily to Sumiloff.
“I knew it was possible to get up that chimney,” he said, “they had a photo of it in The Ideal Home, and they said, ‘lovely old-world chimney, untouched since the days when the master-sweep sent his boy up to the roof.’ ‘Untouched’ is the word, witness my face. I’m no boy and it was a damn tight squeeze and hellish hot too. Got your men, Boys? Right you are—take ’em off.”
“How about the old chap?” asked a burly gentleman whom Nigel rightly took to be the true Inspector Boys.
“Vassily? No. He’s an old fool, but he’s not under arrest. I’ll be along at the station when I’ve cleaned up.”
“Roight oh, sir,” said Inspector Boys richly. “Come along please, gentlemen.” In a few minutes the front door slammed.
“Vassily,” said Alleyn, “no more brotherhoods for you. Get some iodine, tidy up, produce drinks, run a hot bath, and get the Hungaria on the telephone.”
Nigel could scarcely believe only an hour had elapsed since he had left Angela. She was looking very worried and seemed immensely pleased and relieved at
his arrival. She fussed over his finger, appeared horror-stricken at his narrative and made him feel a hero instead of the fool he knew he had been. They ate some bacon, Nigel paid the bill and, being much in love with Angela, thought the drive back to Frantock all too short.
Bunce, P.C., held them up at the gates and they fed him with a few morsels of news. Frantock was in darkness and the hall with its dying fire eerily reminiscent of Sunday’s tragedy. Nigel kissed Angela gently as she stood with her lighted candle at the head of the stairs.
“With Tokareff off the list,” she said suddenly, “it narrows matters down a bit. Nigel, do you think Mr. Alleyn means it when he says he no longer suspects—us?”
“Goodness, darling, what a thought to go to bed with! Why, of course—anything else is unthinkable. Would he trust us as he has done, otherwise?”
“It seems to me,” said Angela, “that he trusts nobody. What am I to do with these letters?”
“Give them to me. I’ll show them to him tomorrow and perhaps we can go up to London after the inquest and return them ‘unbeknownst.’ ”
“Yes, perhaps,” said Angela. “Thank you very much, Nigel dear, but if you don’t mind I’ll keep them till then myself.” She kissed him suddenly, whispered “goodnight” and went away.
Nigel undressed and slipped into bed. The throbbing pain in his finger kept him awake for a little while, but at last, amidst a crowd of grotesque faces mouthing in the semblance of Sumiloff, Vassily, Yansen, and the three Comrades, he fell backwards into a fast car and with a nervous leap of his pulses drove down through whirling night into nothingness.
The inquest was held in Little Frantock at eleven o’clock the next morning. It took very much shorter time and was altogether less formidable than any of the house-party had anticipated. Nigel had, of course, already been informed of the nature of Rankin’s will. Charles had left the bulk of his property to Nigel himself, together with his house and furniture, but there were several legacies, including a sum of three thousand pounds to Arthur Wilde and a bequest of books, pictures, and objets d’art to Sir Hubert Handesley. The terms of the will were brought up at the inquest and Nigel felt that he looked exactly like a murderer, but otherwise came remarkably little into the picture. The coroner spent some time over Mary the ’tweenmaid’s evidence, and put a good many questions to Arthur Wilde, these two having been the last to speak to Rankin. A great deal of time was spent over the Russian element. Alleyn gave a brief, colourless account of the meeting of the Comrades and emphasized the point that he had clearly overheard them all state definitely that Tokareff had had no hand in the murder. Sumiloff was called and supported Alleyn on this point. A remarkably plain and dowdy little lawyer “watched” the proceedings on behalf of Doctor Tokareff. The treasonable and theatrical goings-on of the brotherhood caused a considerable sensation.