Overture to Death

by Ngaio Marsh

  A uniformed constable had come in from the front door and stood waiting in the hall.

  “Excuse me,” said Blandish, and went down to him. There was a short rumbling conversation. Blandish turned and called to the squire.

  “Can you spare a moment, sir?”

  “Certainly,” said Jocelyn, and joined them.

  “Can you beat this, sir?” said Blandish, in an infuriated whisper. “We’ve had nothing better than a few old drunks and speed merchants in this place for the last six months or more, and now, to-night, there’s got to be a breaking and entering job at Moorton Park with five thousand pounds’ worth of her ladyship’s jewellery gone and Lord knows what else besides. Their butler rang up the station five minutes ago, and this chap’s come along on his motor bike and he says the whole place is upside down. Sir George and her ladyship and the party haven’t got back yet. It looks like the work of the gang that cleaned up a couple of jobs in Somerset a fortnight back. It’ll be a big thing to tackle. Now what am I to do, sir?”

  Jocelyn and Blandish stared at each other.

  “Well,” said Jocelyn at last, “you can’t be in two places at once.”

  “That’s right, sir,” said Blandish. “It goes against the grain when we’ve scarcely got started, but it looks as if it’ll have to be the Yard.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  C.I.D.

  FIVE HOURS AFTER Miss Campanula struck the third chord of the Prelude, put her foot on the soft pedal, and died, a police car arrived at the parish hall of Winton St. Giles. It had come from Scotland Yard. It contained Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, Detective-Inspector Fox, Detective-Sergeant Bailey, and Detective-Sergeant Thompson.

  Alleyn, looking up from his road map, saw a church spire against a frosty, moonlit hill, trees against stars, and nearer at hand the lighted windows of a stone building.

  “This looks like the hidden treasure,” he said to Thompson who was driving. “What’s the time?”

  “One o’clock, sir.”

  As if in confirmation a clock, outside in the night, chimed for the hour and tolled one.

  “Out we get,” said Alleyn.

  The upland air was cold after the stuffiness of the car. It smelt of dead leaves and frost. They walked up a gravelled path to the front door of the building. Fox flashed a torch on a brass plate.

  “Winton St. Giles Parish Hall. The Gift of Jocelyn Jernigham Esquire of Pen Cuckoo, 1805. To the Glory of God. In memory of his wife Prudence Jernigham who passed away on May 7th, 1801.”

  “This is the place, sir,” said Fox.

  “Sure enough,” said Alleyn, and rapped smartly on the door.

  It was opened by Sergeant Roper, bleary-eyed after a five hours’ vigil.

  “Yard,” said Alleyn.

  “Thank Gawd,” said Sergeant Roper.

  They walked in.

  “The super asked me to say, sir,” said Sergeant Roper, “that he was very sorry not to be here when you arrived, but seeing as how there’s been a first-class breaking and entering up to Moorton Park—”

  “That’s all right,” said Alleyn. “What’s it all about?”

  “Murder,” said Roper. “Will I show you?”

  “Do.”

  They walked up the centre aisle between rows of empty benches and chairs. The floor was littered with programmes.

  “I’ll just turn on the other lights, sir,” said Roper. “Deceased’s behind the screen?”

  He trudged up the steps to the stage. A switch clicked and Dinah’s foot- and proscenium-lights flooded the stage. Bailey and Thompson pulled the screen to one side.

  There was Miss Campanula with her face on the keyboard of the piano, waiting for the expert, the camera, and the pathologist.

  “Good Lord!” said Alleyn.

  Rachmaninoff’s (and Miss Campanula’s) Prelude was crushed between her face and the keys. A dark crimson patch had seeped out towards the margin of the music, but the title showed clearly. A hole had been blown through the centre. Without touching the music, Alleyn could see several pencilled reminders. After the last of the opening chords was an emphatic “S.P.” The left hand had been pinned down by the face but the right had fallen, and hung inconsequently at the end of a long purple arm. The face itself was hidden. They stared down at the back of the head. Its pitiful knot of grey hair, broken and loosened, hung over a dark hole. Weepers of stained hair stuck to the thin neck.

  “Through the back of the skull,” said Fox.

  “That’s the wound of exit,” said Alleyn. “We shall have to find the bullet.”

  Bailey turned away and began to search along the aisle.

  Alleyn shone his torch on the tucked silk front of the piano. There was a rent exactly in the centre, extending above and below the central hole made by the bullet. Inside the hole, but quite close to the surface, the light picked up a shining circle. Alleyn leaned forward, peering, and uttered a soft exclamation.

  “That’s the gun that did the job, sir,” said Roper. “Inside the piano.”

  “Has it been touched?”

  “No, sir, no. The super was in the audience and he took over immediately, did super. Except for doctor, not a soul’s been near.”

  “The doctor. Where is he?”

  “He’s gone home, sir. Dr. Templett it is, up to Chippingwood. He’s police surgeon. He was here when it happened. He said would I ring him up when you came and if you wanted him he’d be over. It’s only a couple of miles off.”

  “I think he’d better come. Ring him up now, will you?”

  When Roper had gone, Alleyn said, “This is a rum go, Fox.”

  “Very peculiar, Mr. Alleyn. How’s it been worked?”

  “We’ll take a look-see when we’ve got some pictures. Take every angle, Thompson.”

  Thompson had already begun to set up his paraphernalia. Soon the flashlight threw Miss Campanula into startling relief. For the second and last time she was photographed, seated at the instrument.

  Roper came back from the telephone and watched the experts with avid interest.

  “Funniest go you ever did see,” he said to Bailey, who had moved to the end of the aisle. “I was on the spot. The old lady sits down at the piano in her bold way and wades into it. Biff, bill, plonk, and before you know where you are the whole works go off like a packet of crackers and she’s lying there a corpse.”

  “Cuh!” said Bailey and stooped swiftly to the floor. “Here we are, sir,” he said. “Here’s the bullet.”

  “Got it? I’ll look at it in a minute.”

  Alleyn marked the position of the head and arm and squatted on the floor to run a chalk line round the feet.

  “Size eight,” he murmured. “The left foot looks as if it’s slipped on the soft pedal. Now, I wonder. Well, we’ll soon find out. Got gloves on, all of you? Good. Go carefully, I should, and keep away from the front. Will you, sergeant—what is your name, by the way?”

  “Roper, sir.”

  “Right. Will you clear the stuff off the top?”

  Roper shifted the aspidistras and began to unpin the bunting. Alleyn went up to the stage and squatted over the foot-lights like a sort of presiding deity.

  “Gently does it, the thing’s tottering. Look at that!” He pointed at the inside of the top lid, which was turned back.

  “Wood-rot. No wonder they wanted a new one. Good Lord!”

  “What, sir?”

  “Come and look at this, Fox.”

  Alleyn shone his torch in at the top. The light glinted on a steel barrel. He slipped in his gloved fingers. There was a sharp click.

  “I’ve just snicked over the safety-catch on a perfectly good automatic. Now, then.”

  Roper pulled away the bunting.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” said Fox.

  “Very fancy, isn’t it?” said Alleyn.

  “A bit too fancy for me, sir. How does it work?”

  “It’s a Colt. The butt’s jammed between the pegs, where the wires are made fast, an
d the front of the piano. The nozzle fits into a hole in this fretwork horror in front of the silk bib. The bib’s rotten with age and bulging. It could be tweaked in front of the nozzle. Anyway, the music would hide it. Of course the top was smothered in bunting and vegetables.”

  “But what pulled the trigger?”

  “Half a second. There’s a loop of string round the butt and over the trigger. The string goes on to an absurd little pulley in the back of the inner case. Then forward to another pulley on a front strut. Then it goes down.” He moved his torch. “Yes, now you can see. The other end of the string is fixed to the batten that’s part of the soft pedal action. When you use the pedal the batten goes backwards. Moves about two inches, I fancy. Quite enough to give a sharp jerk to the string. We’ll have some shots of this, Thompson. It’s a bit tricky. Can you manage?”

  “I think so, Mr. Alleyn.”

  “It looks like a practical joke,” said Fox.

  Alleyn looked up quickly.

  “Funny you should say that,” he said. “You spoke my thoughts. A small boy’s practical joke. The Heath Robinson touch with the string and pulleys is quite in character. I believe I even recognise those little pulleys, Fox. Notice how very firmly they’ve been anchored. My godson’s got their doubles in one of those building sets, an infernal dithering affair that’s supposed to improve the mind, and nearly sent me out of mine. ‘Twiddletoy,’ it’s called. Yes, and by George, Brer Fox, that’s the sort of cord they provide: thin green twine, very tough, like fishing line, and fits nicely into the groove of the pulley.”

  “D’you reckon some kid’s gone wild and rigged this for the old girl?” asked Fox.

  “A child with a Colt .32?”

  “Hardly. Still, he might have got hold of one.”

  Alleyn swore softly.

  “What’s up, sir?” asked Fox.

  “It’s the whole damn lay-out of the thing! It’s exactly like a contraption they give in the book of the words of these toys. ‘Fig. I. Signal.’ It’s no more like a signal than your nose. Less, if anything. But you build it on this principle. I made the thing for my godson. The cord goes up in three steps to pulleys that are fixed to a couple of uprights. At the bottom it’s tied to a little arm and at the top to a bigger one. When you push down the lower arm, the upper one waggles. I swear it inspired this job. You see how there’s just room for the pulley in the waist of the Colt at the back? They’re fiddling little brutes, those pulleys, as I know to my cost. Not much bigger than the end of a cigarette. Hole through the middle. Once you’ve threaded the twine it can’t slip out. It’s guarded by the curved lips of the groove. You see, the top one’s anchored to the wires above that strip of steel. The bottom one’s tied to a strut in the fretwork. All right, Thompson, your witness.”

  Thompson manoeuvred his camera.

  A car drew up outside the hall. A door slammed. “That’ll be the doctor, sir,” said Roper.

  “Ah, yes. Let him in, will you?”

  Dr. Templett came in. He had removed his make-up and his beard and had changed the striped trousers and morning coat proper to a French Ambassador, for a tweed suit and sweater.

  “Hullo,” he said. “Sorry if I kept you waiting. Car wouldn’t start.”

  “Dr. Templett?”

  “Yes, and you’re from Scotland Yard, aren’t you? Didn’t lose much time. This is a nasty business.”

  “Beastly,” said Alleyn. “I think we might move her now.”

  They brought a long table from the back of the hall and on it they laid Miss Campanula. She had been shot between the eyes.

  “Smell of eucalyptus,” said Alleyn.

  “She had a cold.”

  Dr. Templett examined the wounds while the others looked on. At last he straightened up, took a bottle of ether from his pocket, and used a little to clean his hands.

  “There’s a sheet in one of the dressing-rooms, Roper,” he said. Roper went off to get it.

  “What’ve you got there?” Templett asked Alleyn.

  Alleyn had found Miss Prentice’s Venetian Suite behind the piano. He turned it over in his hands. Like the Prelude, it was a very jaded affair. The red back of the cover had a discoloured circular patch in the centre. Alleyn touched it. It was damp. Roper returned with the sheet.

  “Can’t make her look very presentable, I’m afraid,” said Dr. Templett. “Rigor’s fairly well advanced in the jaw and neck. Rather quick after five hours. She fell at an odd angle. I didn’t do more than look at her. The exit wound showed clearly enough what had happened. Of course, I assured myself she was dead.”

  “Did you realise at once that it was a wound of exit?”

  “What? Yes. Well, after a second or two I did. Thought at first she’d been shot through the back of the bead and then I noticed characteristics of an exit wound, direction of the matted hair and so on. I bent down and tried to see the face. I could just see the blood. Then I noticed the hole in the music. The frilling round the edge of the hole showed clearly enough which way the bullet had come.”

  “Very sound observation,” said Alleyn. “You knew, then, what had happened?”

  “I was damn’ puzzled and still am. When we’d rigged up the screen I had another look and spotted the nozzle of the revolver or whatever it is, behind the silk trimmings. I told Blandish, the local superintendent, and he had a look too. How the devil was it done?”

  “A mechanical device that she worked herself.”

  “Not suicide?”

  “No, murder. You’ll see when we open the piano.”

  “Extraordinary business.”

  “Very,” agreed Alleyn. “Bailey, you might get along with your department now. When Thompson’s finished, you can go over the whole thing for prints and then dismantle it. In the meantime, I’d better produce my note-book and get a few hard facts.”

  They carried the table into a corner and put the screen round it. Roper came down with a sheet and covered the body.

  “Let’s sit down somewhere,” suggested Dr. Templett. “I want a pipe. It’s given me a shock, this business.”

  They sat in the front row of stalls. Alleyn raised an eyebrow at Fox who came and joined them. Roper stood in the offing. Dr. Templett filled his pipe, Alleyn and Fox opened their note-books.

  “To begin with,” said Alleyn, “who was this lady?”

  “Idris Campanula,” said Templett. “Spinster of this parish.”

  “Address?”

  “The Red House, Chipping. You passed it on your way up.”

  “Have the right people been told about this?”

  “Yes. The rector did that. Only the three maids. I don’t know about the next-of-kin. Somebody said it was a second cousin in Kenya. We’ll have to find that out. Look here, shall I tell you the story in my own words?”

  “I wish you would.”

  “I thought I’d find myself in the double rôle of police surgeon and eye-witness, so I tried to sort it out while I waited for your telephone call. Here goes. Idris Campanula was about fifty years of age. She came to the Red House as a child of twelve to live with her uncle, General Campanula, who adopted her on the death of her parents. He was an old bachelor and the girl was brought up by his acidulated sister, whom my father used to call one of the nastiest women he’d ever met. When Idris was about thirty, the general died, and his sister only survived him a couple of years. The house and money, a lot of money by the way, were left to Idris, who by that time was shaping pretty much like her aunt. Nil nisi and all that, but it’s a fact. She never had a chance. Starved and repressed and hung about with a mass of shibboleths and Victorian conversation. Well, here she’s stayed for the last twenty years, living on rich food, good works and local scandal. Upon my word, it’s incredible that she’s gone. Look here, I’m being too diffuse, aren’t I?”

  “Not a bit. You’re giving us a picture in the round which is what we like.”

  “Well, there she was until to-night. I don’t know if you’ve heard from Roper about the pl
ay.”

  “We haven’t had time,” said Alleyn, “but I hope to get volumes from him before dawn.”

  Roper looked gratified and drew nearer.

  “The play was got up by a group of local people.”

  “Of whom you were one,” said Alleyn.

  “Hullo!” Dr. Templett took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at Alleyn. “Now, did anyone tell you that, or is this the real stuff?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not even up to Form I at Hendon. There’s a trace of grease paint in your hair. I wish I could add that I have written a short monograph on grease paint.”

  Dr. Templett grinned.

  “I’ll lay you ten to one,” he said, “that you can’t deduce what sort of part I had.”

  Alleyn glanced sideways at him.

  “We are not allowed to show off,” he said, “but with Inspector Fox’s austere eye on me, I venture to have a pot shot. A character part, possibly a Frenchman, wearing a rimless eyeglass. Any good?”

  “Did we bet in shillings?”

  “It was no bet,” said Alleyn apologetically.

  “Well, let’s have the explanation,” said Templett. “I enjoy feeling a fool.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll feel rather a fool making it,” said Alleyn. “It’s very small beer indeed. In the words of all detective heroes, you only need to consider. You removed your make-up in a hurry. Spirit gum, on which I have not written a monograph, leaves its mark unless removed with care and alcohol. Your chin and upper lips show signs of having been plucked and there’s a very remote trace of black crêpe hairiness. Only on the tip of your chin and not on your cheeks. Ha! A black imperial. The foreign ambassadorial touch. A sticky reddish dint by the left eye suggests a rimless glass, fixed with more spirit gum. The remains of a heated line across the brow suggests a top hat. And, when you mentioned your part, you moved your shoulders very slightly. You were thinking subconsciously of your performance. Broken English. “’Ow you say?” with a shrug. That sort of thing. For heaven’s sake say I’m right.”

  “By gum!” said Sergeant Roper, devoutly.

  “Amen,” said Dr. Templett. “In the words of Mr. Holmes—”