by Ngaio Marsh
“Of course. We’d never forgive you if you put her off her stroke. I say, this is a rum go, isn’t it?”
“Not ’alf,” said Alleyn. “It’s a damned ugly go by the sound of it.”
“Awful. Your wife’s upstairs.”
“I’ll find her.”
He ran to his dressing-room and found his wife on her knees before a small suit-case.
“Pyjamas, dressing-gown, shaving-things,” Troy muttered. “I suppose you’ll be there tonight won’t you? What’ll you do for all those things in the case bag? Squirts and bottles and powders and stuff for making casts?”
“My darling oddity, I can’t think. At least I’ve got a camera and I’ve rung up the chemist at Chipping. Miss Wynne was in the shop. He’s going to give her some stuff for me — iodine and whatnot. Can you lend me a soft brush, darling? One of the sort you use for water colour. And scissors? And some bits of charcoal? For the rest, I’ll have to trust to Fox and Co. getting through by train. They’re looking out a route, now. It’ll be detecting in the raw, won’t it? Case for the resourceful officer.”
“I’m a rotten packer,” said Troy, “but I think that’s all you’ll want.”
“My dear,” said her husband who was at the writing-table, helping himself to several sheets of notepaper and some envelopes, “almost you qualify for the role of clever little wife.”
“You go to the devil,” said Mrs. Alleyn amiably.
He squatted down beside her, looked through the contents of the suit-case, refrained from improving on the pack and from saying that he did not think it likely he would need his pyjamas. “Admirable,” he said. “Now I’d better swathe myself in sweaters and topcoats. Give me a kiss and say you’re sorry I’m going out on a beastly case.”
“Did you ever see such a change in anyone as appears in the somewhat precious Mandrake?” asked Troy, hunting in his wardrobe.
“It takes murder to mould a man.”
“Do you think the statement he’s written is dependable?”
“As regards fact, yes, I should say so. As regards his interpretation of fact, I fancy it wanders a bit. For a symbolic expressionist, he seems to have remained very firmly wedded to a convention. But perhaps that’s the secret of two-dimensional poetic drama. I wouldn’t know. Is that a car?”
“Yes.”
“Then I must be off.” He kissed his wife, who was absently scrubbing at her painty nose with the collar of her smock. She looked at him, scowling a little.
“This is the worst sort of luck,” said Alleyn. ”It was being such a good holiday.”
“I hate these cases,” said Troy.
“Not more than I do, bless you.”
“For a different reason.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said quickly. “I know.”
“No, you don’t, Rory. Not squeamishness, nowadays— exactly. I wish Br’er Fox was with you.”
She went downstairs with him and saw him go off with Mandrake, his hat pulled down over his right eye, the collar of his heavy raincoat turned up, his camera slung over his shoulder and his suit-case in his hand.
“He looks as if he was off on a winter sports holiday,” said Dinah. “I don’t mean to be particularly callous, but there’s no denying a murder is rather exciting.”
“Dinah!” said her father automatically.
They heard the car start up the lane.
Chapter XII
Recapitulation
Alleyn sat in the back seat and read through Mandrake’s notes. He was parted from Mr. Bewling by a large luncheon basket provided by Dinah Copeland. “We’ll open it,” said Chloris Wynne, “at our first breakdown. If The Others overheard me saying that, I daresay they won’t let us have a breakdown, so that they can collar the lunch.”
“What can you mean?” asked Mandrake.
“Don’t you know about The Others?” said Chloris in a sprightly manner. “They’re the ones that leave nails and broken glass on the road. They hide things when you’re in a hurry. They’ve only got one arm and one leg each, you know. So they take single gloves and stockings, and they’re frightfully keen on keys and unanswered letters.”
“My God, are you being whimsical?” Mandrake demanded, and Alleyn thought he recognized that particular shade of caressing rudeness which is the courtship note among members of the advanced intelligentsia. He was not mistaken. Miss Wynne made a small preening movement.
“Don’t pretend you’re not interested in The Others,” she said. “I bet they take the top of your fountain-pen often enough.” She turned her beautifully arranged head to look at Alleyn. “Bleached,” he thought automatically, “but I daresay she’s quite a nice creature.”
“Do they ever get into Scotland Yard, Mr. Alleyn?” she asked.
“Do they not? They are the authors of most anonymous letters, I fancy.”
“There!” she cried. “Mr. Alleyn doesn’t think I’m whimsical.” He saw, with some misgivings, that Mandrake had removed his left hand from the driving-wheel, and reflected, not for the first time, that affairs of sentiment will flourish under the most unpropitious circumstances. “But she’s rattled all the same,” he thought. “This brightness is all my eye. I wonder how well she knew the young man who is dead.” His reflections were interrupted by James Bewling, who cleared his throat portentously.
“Axcuse me, sir,” said James. “I bin thinking.”
“Indeed?” said Mandrake, apprehensively. “What’s the matter, James?”
“I bin thinking,” repeated James: “Being this-yurr is a lethal matter, and being this gentleman is going into the thick of it with his eyes only half-open like a kitten, and being he’ll be burning in his official heart and soul to be axing you this axing you that, I bin thinking it might be agreeable if I left the party along the Ogg’s Corner.”
“Whatever do you mean, James?” asked Chloris. “You can’t just walk out into a snowdrift from motives of delicacy.”
“It’s not so bad as that, Miss. My wold aunty, Miss Fancy Bewling, bides in cottage along the Ogg’s Corner. Her’s ninety-one yurrs of age and so cantankerous an old masterpiece as ever you see. Reckon her’ll be pleased as Punch to blow me up at her leisure until Mr. Blandish and his chaps comes along, when I’ll get a lift and direct ’em best way to Highfold.”
“Well, James,” said Mandrake, “it’s not a bad idea. We’ll be all right. I know the way and we’ve ploughed a sort of path for ourselves. What do you think, Mr. Alleyn?”
“If there’s any danger of Blandish missing his way,” said Alleyn, “I’d be very glad to think you were there, Bewling.”
“Good enough, sir. Then put me down if you please, souls, at next turning but one. Don’t miss thicky little twiddling lane up to Pen Gidding, Mr. Mandrake, sir, and be bold to rush ’er up when she skiddles.”
So they dropped him by his aunt’s cottage, and it seemed to Alleyn that Miss Wynne watched him go with some regret. She said that Mandrake might despise James, but that she considered he had shown extraordinary tact and forbearance. “He must have been dying to know more about the disaster,” she said, “but he never so much as asked a leading question.”
“We talked pretty freely without him having to bother,” Mandrake pointed out. “However, I agree it was nice of James. Is there anything you want to ask us, Alleyn? By dint of terrific concentration I can manage to keep the car on its tracks and my mind more or less on the conversation.”
Alleyn took Mandrake’s notes from his pocket and at the rustle of paper he saw Chloris turn her head sharply. Something about the set of Mandrake’s shoulders suggested that he too was suddenly alert.
“If I may,” said Alleyn, “I should like to go over these notes with you. It’s fortunate for me that you decided to make this very clear and well-ordered summary. I’m sure it gives the skeleton of events as completely as possible, and that is invaluable. But I should like, with your help, to clothe the bones in a semblance of flesh.”
This was spoken in what Troy
called “the official manner,” and it was the first Chloris and Mandrake had heard of this manner. Neither of them answered, and Alleyn knew that with one short speech he had established an atmosphere of uneasy expectation. He was right. Until this moment Chloris and Mandrake had wished above all things for the assurance that Alleyn would take charge. Now that, with a certain crispness and a marked change of manner, he had actually done so, each of them felt an icy touch of apprehension. They had set in motion a process which they were unable to stop. They were not yet nervous for themselves but instinctively they moved a little nearer to each other. They had called in the Yard.
“First of all,” said Alleyn, “I should like to go over the notes, putting them into my own words to make quite sure I’ve got hold of the right ends of all the sticks. Will you stop me if I’m wrong? The death of this young man, William Compline, occurred at about ten minutes past ten yesterday evening. He was sitting in a room which communicates with a library, a small sitting-room, and a hall. Just before the discovery of his body, the library was occupied by his host, Mr. Jonathan Royal, by Lady Hersey Amblington, by Miss Chloris Wynne, by Mr. Aubrey Mandrake, and by Mr. Nicholas Compline. The small sitting-room had been occupied by Dr. Francis Hart; but, on his own statement and that of the footman Thomas, it appears that Dr. Hart left the sitting-room — you call it a ‘boudoir,’ I see — at the same time that Thomas came into the hall with a grog tray which he took into the library. That was some minutes after Nicholas Compline had left his brother and joined the party in the libarary, and quite definitely before you all heard the wireless turned on in the smoking-room. The wireless was turned on after the drinks came in. You agreed you would like to hear it, and Nicholas Compline opened the door and called out to his brother. A screen hid William but Nicholas heard someone cross the room and a moment later the wireless struck up ‘Boomps-a-Daisy.’ ”
“That’s it,” said Chloris. “Nick left the door open.”
“Yes. You endured the dance music and in a minute or so the news came on the air. At about this moment Mr. Royal went out to reassure himself that Dr. Hart was not in the ‘boudoir.’ He states that he did not enter the ‘boudoir,’ but saw there was no light under the door. He visited a cloak-room and, having met no one in the hall, returned before the news ended.”
“Yes.”
“All right. Well now, I understand that the wireless had been in use not long before. It’s not likely, then, that the music was delayed by any warming-up process?”
“No,” said Chloris. “I thought of that but it seems that the radio had been switched on all the time and wouldn’t need to warm up. As soon as Bill turned the volume control it’d come up.
“As soon as the volume control was turned, at all events,” said Alleyn, “and it must have been turned.”
“By William,” said Mandrake, “or his murderer. Exactly.”
“And you see,” Chloris added, “we asked for it and it was at once turned on. By Somebody.”
“Yes. We now come to the curious episode of the dancing footman. The music follows Thomas’ re-entry into the hall when he saw Dr. Hart on the stairs. Therefore, it seems, Dr. Hart did not turn up the volume control. Now it appears that Thomas, arrested by the strains of a composition known as ‘Boomps-a-Daisy,’ was moved to dance. As long as the music continued, Thomas, a solitary figure in the hall, capered, clapped his hands, slapped his knees and stuck out his stern in a rhythmic sequence. When the music stopped, so did Thomas. He left the hall as the news bulletin began. Then we have Mr. Royal’s short excursion; and lastly, some minutes later, Lady Hersey Amblington, carrying a tumbler, walked from the library into the smoking-room, re-appeared in the doorway, returned into the smoking-room and switched off the radio. She then called out to her cousin, Mr. Royal, who joined her. Finally she came back to the library and summoned you, Mr. Mandrake. You went into the smoking-room and found William Compline there, dead. It was somewhere about this time that you trod on a drawing-pin which stuck in the sole of your shoe.”
“Yes.”
“The instrument used by the assailant,” said Alleyn with a private grimace over the police-court phrase, “seems to have been a Maori mere which was one of a collection of weapons hanging on the smoking-room wall. Which wall?”
“What? Oh, on the right from the library door. There’s a red leather screen inside the door and this unspeakable club was just beyond it.”
“I see you’ve given me a very useful sketch-plan. Would you mark the position on the wall? I’ll put a cross and you shall tell me if it’s in the right place.”
Chloris took the paper and showed it to Mandrake, who slowed down, glanced at it, nodded, and accelerated. James Bewling had got hold of a set of chains in Chipping, and the wheels bit well into their old tracks.
“Right,” said Alleyn. “During this time, two members of the party were upstairs. They were Mrs. Compline and Madame Lisse, who you tell me is actually Mrs. Francis Hart.” He paused. Neither Chloris nor Mandrake spoke.
“That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Chloris, “that’s it.”
“As far as we know,” said Mandrake unwillingly.
“As far as we know,” Alleyn agreed. “At all events we know that neither of them could have come downstairs while Thomas was there. If it was anybody other than William Compline who turned up the wireless, this person must have entered the room after Nicholas Compline left it and remained there until after Thomas left the hall. If, on the other hand, it was William himself who turned up the wireless, his murderer must have entered the room after Thomas left the hall, and made his get-away before Lady Hersey went in with the drink.”
“Avoiding Jonathan Royal,” added Mandrake. “Don’t forget he crossed the hall twice.”
“Oh,” said Alleyn vaguely, “I hadn’t forgotten that. Now before we leave these, the crucial periods as I see them, I pause to remind myself that the communicating door between the smoking-room and the ‘boudoir’ was locked on the smoking-room side.”
“Yes,” said Mandrake. “I ought to have said, I think, that there is nowhere in the smoking-room where anybody could hide. The screen’s no good because of the door into the library. I think I’m right in saying the murderer must have come in by the hall door.”
“It looks like it,” Alleyn agreed. “Avoiding the dancing footman and Mr. Royal.”
“Somebody could hide in the hall,” said Chloris suddenly. “We’d thought of that.”
“There’s still the dancing footman. He defines the periods when it would have been possible for the murderer to enter or leave the smoking-room.”
“Yes,” agreed Mandrake. “Thomas continued his antics until the music stopped, and that leaves a margin of a few minutes before Lady Hersey entered the room. The ‘boudoir’ is no good, because the door was still locked. I know that.”
“Then,” said Chloris slowly, “doesn’t it look as if the crucial time is the time when the murderer left the room? Because, whether he worked the wireless or not, he could only have got away after Thomas had left the hall.”
“Top marks for deduction, Miss Wynne,” said Alleyn.
“It’s a grim notion,” said Mandrake suddenly, “to think of us all sitting there calling for the news. If it was Hart, imagine him having to pull himself together and turn up the wireless!”
“Don’t,” said Chloris.
Alleyn had, with some difficulty in the jolting car, made a series of marginal notes. He now glanced up and found Chloris leaning her arm along the front seat and looking at him.
“I’d like to get Lady Hersey’s movements fixed in my head,” he said. “She went into the smoking-room with the drink, disappeared round the screen, returned to the doorway, said something you couldn’t hear, disappeared again, and called out to Mr. Royal, who then joined her. Finally she re-entered the library and asked you, Mandrake, to go to your host.”
“That’s it.” Mandrake changed down and crawled the car over its own s
kid marks. Chloris drew in her breath audibly. “It’s all right,” he said. “No trouble this time.” But Alleyn, who had been watching her, knew that it was not their progress that had scared her. She looked quickly at him and away again. “Lady Hersey,” she said, “is an old friend of the Complines. She’s terribly nice and she’s been absolutely marvellous since it happened. She was helping Dr. Hart with Mrs. Compline. She couldn’t be more sorry and upset about it all.”
These somewhat conventional phrases were shot out at nobody in particular and were followed by an odd little pause.
“Ah,” Alleyn murmured, “those are the sort of touches that help to clothe the bare bones of a case. We’ll collect some more, I hope, as we go along. I’m working backwards through your notes, Mandrake, and arrive at the booby-trap. A heavy brass Buddha, of all disagreeable objects, is perched on the top of a door, so that when the door is opened it is bound to fall on the person who pushes the door. The room is Nicholas Compline’s and it is upon his arm the Buddha falls. This trap was set, you say, during a visit Compline paid to Madame Lisse. You’ve worked out a time check on two clocks; the grandfather clock at the top of the stairs and the drawing-room clock which agrees with it. On this reckoning it appears that the trap was set some time between half-past seven, which struck as Nicholas Compline left his room, and a minute or so past twenty to eight, when you heard him cry out as the Buddha struck his arm. You suggest that you have found alibis during this period for everybody but Dr. Hart, who was in the bathroom. Lady Hersey gives Mrs. Compline her alibi, Mr. Royal gives you yours, Mandrake. Can you return the gesture?”
“I can say that I think he arrived in the drawing-room some little time before the crash.”
“Ten minutes before?”
“I feel sure it must have been. I — we were talking. Yes, it must have been at least ten minutes.”
“There’s no way by which you could come a little nearer to it? For example, did he light a cigarette when he came into the room?”