by Ngaio Marsh
“I wouldn’t press it if I didn’t think it might be relevant.”
“How can it be of the slightest interest?”
“A green dress? If she had it two years ago? Think.”
She was on her feet with a quick controlled movement.
“But that’s nonsense! You mean — Wally?”
“Yes. I do. The Green Lady.”
“But — most people have always thought he imagined her! And even if he didn’t — there are lots of green dresses in the summertime.”
“Of course. What I’m trying to find out is whether this was one of them. Is there nothing that would call to mind when you gave it to her?”
She waited for a moment, looking down at her hands.
“Nothing. It was over a year ago, I’m sure.” She turned aside. “Even if I could remember, which I can’t, I don’t think I should want to tell you. It can’t have any bearing on this ghastly business — how could it? — and, suppose you’re right, it’s private to Dulcie Carstairs.”
“Perhaps she’d remember.”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t for a moment believe she would think of playing a — a fantastic trick like that. It’s not like her. She was never the Green Lady.”
“I haven’t suggested she was, you know.” Alleyn walked over to her. She lifted her head and looked at him. Her face was ashen.
“Come,” he said, “don’t let us fence any more. You were the Green Lady, weren’t you?”
VII
The Yard
He wondered if she would deny it and what he could say if she did. Very little. His assumption had been based largely on a hunch, and he liked to tell himself that he didn’t believe in hunches. He knew that she was deeply shocked. Her white face and the movement of her hands gave her away completely; but she was, as Miss Emily had remarked, a woman of character.
She said: “I have been very stupid. I suppose I should congratulate you. What gave you the idea?”
“I happened to notice your expression when that monstrous girl walked out from behind the boulder. You looked angry. But, more than that, I’ve been told Wally sticks to it that his Green Lady was tall and very beautiful. Naturally, I thought of you.”
A door slammed upstairs. Someone, a man, cleared his throat raucously.
She twisted her hands into his. Her face was a mask of terror. “Mr. Alleyn, promise me — for God’s sake promise me you won’t speak about this to my husband. It won’t help you to discuss it with him. I swear it won’t. You don’t know what would happen if you did.”
“Does he not know?”
She tried to speak, but only looked at him in terror.
“He does know?”
“’It makes no difference. He would be — he would be angry — that you knew.”
“Why should he mind so much? You said what you said, I expect, impulsively. And it worked. Next morning the boy’s hands were clean. You couldn’t undo your little miracle.”
“No, no, no, you don’t understand. It’s not that. It’s — O God, he’s coming down. O God, how can I make you? What shall I do? Please, please.”
“If it’s possible I shall say nothing.” He held her hands firmly for a moment until they stopped writhing in his. “Don’t be frightened,” he said and let her go. “He’d better not see you like this. Where does that door lead to? The kitchen?” He opened it. “There you are. Quickly.”
In a moment she was gone.
Major Barrimore came heavily downstairs. He yawned, crossed the little hall and went into the old Private Taproom. The slide between it and the parlour was still there. Alleyn heard the clink of glass. A midafternoon drinker, he thought, and wondered if the habit was long-established. He picked up his suitcase, went quietly into the hall, and out at the front door. He then noisily returned.
“Anyone at home?” he called.
After an interval, the door of the Private opened and Barrimore came out, dabbing at his mouth with a freshly laundered handkerchief and an unsteady hand. He was, as usual, impeccably turned-out. His face was puffy and empurpled, and his manner sombre.
“Hullo,” he said. “You.”
“I’m on my way to sign in,” Alleyn said cheerfully. “Can you spare me a few minutes? Routine, as usual. One’s never done with it.”
Barrimore stared dully at him and then opened the door of the parlour. “In here,” he said.
Margaret Barrimore had left the faintest recollection of her scent behind her, but this was soon lost in the Major’s blended aura of Scotch-cigar-and-hair-lotion.
“Well,” he said. “What’s it this time? Made any arrests?”
“Not yet.”
“Everybody nattering about the boy, I s’pose. You’d think they’d all got their knife into the poor kid.”
“You don’t agree?”
“I don’t. He’s too damn’ simple, f’one thing. No harm in him, f’r ’nother. You get to know ’bout chap’s character in a regiment. Always pick the bad ’uns. He’s not.”
“Have you any theories, yourself?”
The Major, predictably, said: “No names, no pack-drill.”
“Quite. But I’d be glad of your opinion.”
“You wouldn’t, old boy. You’d hate it.”
Now, Alleyn thought, this is it. I know what this is going to be. “I?” he said. “Why?”
“Heard what they’re saying in the village?”
“No. What are they saying?”
“I don’t necessarily agree, you know. Still: they hated each other’s guts, those two. Face it.”
“Which two?”
“The females. Beg pardon: the ladies. Miss P. and Miss C. And she was there, old boy. Can’t get away from it. She was on the spot. Hanging up her bloody notice.”
“How do you know?” Alleyn said and was delighted to speak savagely.
“Here! Steady! Steady, the Buffs!”
“The path has been closed. No one has been allowed near the enclosure. How do you know Miss Pride was there? How do you know she hung up her notice?”
“By God, sir—”
“I’ll tell you. You were there yourself.”
The blood had run into patches in the Major’s jowls.
“You must be mad,” he said.
“You were on the path. You took shelter behind an outcrop of stone, by the last bend. After Miss Pride had left and returned to the hotel, you came out and went to the enclosure.”
He was taking chances again, but, looking at that outfaced blinking man, he knew he was justified.
“You read the notice, lost your temper and threw it into the mud. The important thing is that you were there. If you want to deny it you are, of course, at perfect liberty to do so.”
Barrimore drew his brows together and went through a parody of brushing his moustache. He then said: “Mind if I get a drink?”
“You’d better not, but I can’t stop you.”
“You’re perfectly right,” said the Major. He went out. Alleyn heard him go into the Private, and pushed back the slide. The Major was pouring himself a Scotch. He saw Alleyn and said: “Can I persuade you? No. S’pose not. Not the drill.”
“’Come back,” Alleyn said.
He swallowed his whisky neat and returned.
“Better,” he said. “Needed it.” He sat down. “There’s a reasonable explanation,” he said.
“Good. Let’s have it.”
“I followed her.”
“Who? Miss Pride?”
“That’s right. Now, look at it this way: I wake. Boiled owl. Want a drink of water. Very well. I get up. Raining cassandogs. All v’y fine. Look outer th’window. Cassandogs. And there she is with her bloody great brolly, falling herself in, down below. Left wheel and into the path. What’s a man going to do? Coupler aspirins and into some togs. Trench coat. Hat. Boots. See what I mean? You can’t trust her an inch…Where was I?”
“Following Miss Pride along the path to the enclosure.”
“Certainly. She
’d gained on me. All right. Strategy of indirect approach. Keep under cover. Which I did. Just like you said, old boy. Perfectly correct. Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes.” He leered at Alleyn.
“Do you mean that you confronted her?”
“Me! No, thank you!”
“You mean you kept under cover until she’d gone past you on her way back to the hotel?”
“What I said. Or did I?”
“Then you went to the enclosure?”
“Nasherally.”
“You read the notice and threw it aside?”
“ ’Course.”
“And then? What did you do?”
“Came back.”
“Did you see Wally Trehern?”
The Major stared. “I did not.”
“Did you meet anyone?”
A vein started out on Barrimore’s forehead. Suddenly, he looked venomous.
“Not a soul,” he said loudly.
“Did you see anyone?”
“No!”
“You met Miss Cost. You must have done so. She was on the path a few minutes after Miss Pride got back. You either met her at the enclosure itself, or on the path. Which was it?”
“I didn’t see her. I didn’t meet her.”
“Will you sign a statement to that effect?”
“I’ll be damned if I do.” Whether through shock or by an astonishing effort of will, he had apparently got himself under control. “I’ll see you in hell first,” he said.
“And that’s your last word?”
“Not quite.” He got up and confronted Alleyn, staring into his face. “If there’s any more of this,” he said, “I’ll ring up the Yard and tell your O.C. you’re a prejudiced and therefore an untrustworthy officer. I’ll have you court-martialled, by God! Or whatever they do in your show.”
“I really think you’d better not,” Alleyn said mildly.
“No? I’ll tell them what’s no more than the case: you’re suppressing evidence against an old woman who seems to be a very particular friend. No accounting for taste.”
“’Major Barrimore,” Alleyn said, “you will not persuade me to knock your tongue down your throat, but you’d do yourself less harm if you bit it off.”
“I know what I’m talking about. You can’t get away from it. Ever since she came here she’s had her knife into poor old Cost. Accusing her of writing letters. Chucking stones. Telephone messages. Planting ornaments.”
“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Miss Pride was wrong there, wasn’t she? Miss Cost didn’t put the Green Lady in Miss Pride’s room. You did.”
Barrimore’s jaw dropped.
“Well,” Alleyn said. “Do you deny it? I shouldn’t, if I were you. It’s smothered in your fingerprints and so’s the paper round its neck.”
“You’re lying. You’re bluffing.”
“If you prefer to think so. There’s been a conspiracy between you against Miss Pride, hasn’t there? You and Miss Cost, with the Treherns in the background? You were trying to scare her off. Miss Cost started it with threatening messages pieced together from the local paper. You liked the idea and carried on with the word Death cut out of your Racing Supplement and stuck round the neck of the image. You didn’t have to ask Miss Cost for one. They’re for sale in your pub.”
“Get the hell out of here. Get out.”
Alleyn picked up his suitcase. “That’s all for the present. I shall ask you to repeat this conversation before a witness. In the meantime, I suggest that you keep off the whisky and think about the amount of damage you’ve done to yourself. If you change your mind about any of your statements I’m prepared to listen to you. You will see to it, if you please, that Miss Pride is treated with perfect civility during the few hours she is most unfortunately obliged to remain here as your guest.”
He had got as far as the door when the Major said: “Hold on. Wait a bit.”
“Well?”
“Daresay I went too far. Not myself. Fellah shouldn’t lose his temper, should he? What?”
“On the contrary,” said Alleyn, “the exhibition was remarkably instructive.” And went out.
And after all that, he thought, I suppose I should grandly cancel my room and throw myself on Coombe’s hospitality again. I won’t, though. It’s too damned easy and it’s probably exactly what Barrimore hopes I’ll do.
He collected his key at the office and went up to his room. It was now a quarter past three. Miss Emily would still be having her siesta. In an hour and forty-five minutes Detective Inspector Fox, Detective Sergeant Bailey and Detective Sergeant Thompson would arrive. Curtis, the pathologist, would be driving to Dunlowman under his own steam. Coombe had arranged for Dr. Mayne to meet him there. The nearest mortuary was at Dunlowman. Alleyn would be damned glad to see them all.
He unpacked his suitcase and began to write his notes on hotel paper. It was the first time he’d ever embarked on a case without his regulation kit, and he felt uncomfortable and amateurish. He began to wonder if, after all, he should hand it over to Fox or somebody else. Triumph for the gallant Major! he thought.
For a minute or two he indulged in what he knew to be fantasy. Was it, in the smallest degree, remotely possible that Miss Emily, inflamed by Miss Cost’s activities, could have seen her approaching, bolted into the enclosure, hidden behind the boulder and, under a sudden access of exasperation, hurled a rock at Miss Cost’s umbrella? It was not. But supposing for a moment that it was? What would Miss Emily then have done? Watched Miss Cost as she drowned in the pool; as her hair streamed out over the fall; as her dress inflated and deflated in the eddying stream? Taken another bit of rock and scraped out her own footprints, and walked back to the Boy-and-Lobster? And, where, all that time, was the Major? What became of his admission that he tore down the notice and threw it away? Suppose there was an arrest and a trial and defending counsel used Miss Emily as a counterblast? Could her innocence be established? Only, as things stood, by the careful presentation of the Major’s evidence; and the Major thought, or pretended to think, she was guilty. And, in any case, the Major was a chronic alcoholic.
He got up and moved restlessly about the room. A silly, innocuous print of anemones in a mug had been hung above the bed. He could have wrenched it down and chucked it, with as much fury as had presumably inspired the Major, into the wastepaper basket.
There must have been an encounter between Barrimore and Miss Cost. He had seen Miss Emily pass and repass, had come out of concealment and gone to the enclosure. By that time Miss Cost was approaching. Why, when he saw her, should he again take cover, and where? No: they must have met. What, then, did they say to each other in the pouring rain? Did she tell him she was going to retrieve the necklace? Or did he, having seen her approaching, let himself into the enclosure and hide behind the boulder? But why? And where, all this time, was Wally? Dr. Mayne and Miss Emily had both seen him, soon after half past seven. He had shouted at Miss Emily and then ducked out of sight. The whole damned case seemed to be littered with people that continually dodged in and out of concealment. What about Trehern? Out and about in the landscape with the rest of them? Inciting his son to throw rocks at a supposed Miss Emily? Dr. Mayne had not noticed him, but that proved nothing.
Next, and he faced this conundrum with distaste, what about Mrs. Barrimore, alias the Green Lady? Did she fit in anywhere or had he merely stumbled down an odd, irrelevant byway? But why was she so frightened at the thought of her husband being told of her masquerade? The Green Lady episode had brought Barrimore nothing but material gain. Wouldn’t he simply have ordered her to shut up about it and, if anything, relished the whole story? She had seemed to suggest that the fact of Alleyn himself being aware of it would be the infuriating factor. And why had she been so distressed when she was alone in the garden? At that stage there was no question of discovery of her identity with the Green Lady.
Finally, of course, was Miss Cost murdered, as it were, in her own person, or because she was mistaken for Miss Emily?
The answer to that one must depend largely upon motive, and motive is one of the secondary elements in police investigation. The old tag jog-trotted through his mind: Quis? Quid? Ubi? Quibus? auxilis? Cur? Quomodo? Quando? Which might be rendered: “Who did the deed? What was it? Where was it done? With what? Why was it done? And how done? When was it done?” The lot!
He completed his notes and read them through. The times were pretty well established; the weapon; the method; the state of the body. The place — no measurements yet, beyond the rough ones he and Coombe had made on the spot. Bailey would attend to all that. The place? He had described it in detail. The boulder? Between the boulder and the hill behind it was a little depression, screened by bracken and soft with grass. A “good spot for courting couples,” as Coombe had remarked, “when it wasn’t raining.” The ledge…
He was still poring over his notes when the telephone rang. Mr. Nankivell, the Mayor of Portcarrow, would like to see him.
“Ask him to come up,” Alleyn said, and put his notes in the drawer of the desk.
Mr. Nankivell was in a fine taking on. His manner suggested a bothering confusion of civic dignity, awareness of Alleyn’s reputation and furtive curiosity. There was another element, too. As the interview developed, so did his air of being someone who has information to impart and can’t quite make up his mind to divulge it. Mr. Nankivell, for all his opéra bouffe façade, struck Alleyn as being a pretty shrewd fellow.
“This horrible affair,” he said, “has taken place at a very regrettable juncture, Superintendent Alleyn. This, sir, is the height of our season. Portcarrow is in the public eye. It has become a desirable resort. We’ll have the press down upon us and the type of information they’ll put out will not conduce to the general benefit of our community. A lot of damaging clap-trap is what we may expect from those chaps and we may as well face up to it.”
“When does the local paper come out?”
“Tuesday,” said the Mayor gloomily. “But they’ve got their system. Thick as thieves with London — agents, as you might say. They’ll have handed it on.”