Death in a White Tie ra-7

by Ngaio Marsh

  “Nonsense,” said Troy.

  “I suppose so. Yes. The vanity of the male trying to find extraordinary reasons for a perfectly natural phenomenon. You don’t happen to love me. And why the devil should you?”

  “You don’t happen to understand,” said Troy shortly, “and why the devil should you.”

  She took a cigarette and tilted her face up for him to give her a light. A lock of her short dark hair had fallen across her forehead. Alleyn lit the cigarette, threw the match into the fire and tweaked the lock of hair.

  “Abominable woman,” he said abruptly. “I’m so glad you’ve come to see me.”

  “I tell you what,” said Troy more amiably. “I’ve always been frightened of the whole business. Love and so on.”

  “The physical side?”

  “Yes, that, but much more than that. The whole business. The breaking down of all one’s reserves. The mental as well as the physical intimacy.”

  “My mind to me a kingdom is.”

  “I feel it wouldn’t be,” said Troy.

  “I feel it rather terrifyingly still would be. Don’t you think that in the closest possible union there must always be moments when one feels oneself completely separate, completely alone? Surely it must be so, otherwise we would not be so astonished on the rare occasions when we read each other’s thoughts.”

  Troy looked at him with a sort of shy determination that made his heart turn over.

  “Do you read my thoughts?” she asked.

  “Not very clearly, Troy. I dare not wish I could.”

  “I do yours, sometimes. That is one of the things that sends my defences up.”

  “If you could read them now,” said Alleyn, “you might well be frightened.”

  Vassily came in with tea. He had, Alleyn saw at a glance, excitedly rushed out to his favourite delicatessen shop round the corner and purchased caviare. He had made a stack of buttered toast, he had cut up many lemons, and he had made tea in an enormous Stuart pot of Lady Alleyn’s which her son had merely borrowed to show to a collector. Vassily had also found time to put on his best coat. His face was wreathed in smiles of embarrassing significance. He whispered to himself as he set this extraordinary feast out on a low table in front of Troy.

  “Please, please,” said Vassily. “If there is anysink more, sir. Should I not perhaps —?”

  “No, no,” said Alleyn hastily, “that will do admirably.”

  “Caviare!” said Troy. “Oh, how glad I am — a heavenly tea.”

  Vassily broke into a loud laugh, excused and bowed himself out, and shut the doors behind him with the stealth of a soubrette in a French comedy.

  “You’ve transported the old fool,” said Alleyn.

  “What is he?”

  “A Russian carry-over from a former case of mine. He very nearly got himself arrested. Can you really eat caviare and drink Russian tea? He’s put some milk there.”

  “I don’t want milk and I shall eat any quantity of caviare,” said Troy.

  When they had finished and Vassily had taken away the tea things, Troy said: “I must go.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Oughtn’t you to be at Scotland Yard?”

  “They’ll ring me up if I’m wanted. I’m due there later on.”

  “We’ve never once mentioned Bunchy,” said Troy.

  “No.”

  “Shall you get an early night tonight?”

  “I don’t know, Troy.”

  Alleyn sat on the footstool by her chair. Troy looked down on his head propped between his long thin hands.

  “Don’t talk about the case if you’d rather not. I only wanted to let you know that if you’d like to, I’m here.”

  “You’re here. I’m trying to get used to it. Shall you ever come again, do you think? Do you know I swore to myself I would not utter one word of love this blessed afternoon? Well, perhaps we’d better talk about the case. I shall commit a heinous impropriety and tell you I may make an arrest this evening.”

  “You know who killed Bunchy?”

  “We believe we do. If tonight’s show goes the right way we shall be in a position to make the arrest.”

  He turned and looked into her face.

  “Ah,” he said, “my job again! Why does it revolt you so much?”

  Troy said: “It’s nothing reasonable — nothing I can attempt to justify. It’s simply that I’ve got an absolute horror of capital punishment. I don’t even know that I agree with the stock arguments against it. It’s just one of those nightmare things. Like claustrophobia. I used to adore the Ingoldsby Legends when I was a child. One day I came across the one about my Lord Tomnoddy and the hanging. It made the most extraordinary impression on me. I dreamt about it. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I used to turn the pages of the book, knowing that I would come to it, dreading it, and yet — I had to read it. I even made a drawing of it.”

  “That should have helped.”

  “I don’t think it did. I suppose most people, even the least imaginative, have got a bogey man in the back of their minds. That has always been mine. I’ve never spoken of it before. And so you see when you and I met in that other business and it ended in your arrest of someone I knew—” Her voice wavered. ”And then there was the trial and — the end—”

  With a nervous movement she touched his head.

  “It’s not you. And yet I mind so much that it is you.”

  Alleyn pulled her hand down against his lips.

  There was complete silence. Everything he had ever felt; every frisson, the most profound sorrow, the least annoyance, the greatest joy and the smallest pleasure had been but preparation for this moment when her hand melted against his lips. Presently he found himself leaning over her. He still held her hand like a talisman and he spoke against the palm.

  “This must be right. I swear it must be right. I can’t be feeling this alone. Troy?”

  “Not now,” Troy whispered. “No more, now. Please.”

  “Yes.”

  “Please.”

  He stooped, took her face between his hands, and kissed her hard on the mouth. He felt her come to life beneath his lips. Then he let her go.

  “And don’t think I shall ask you to forgive me,” he said. “You’ve no right to let this go by. You’re too damn particular by half, my girl. I’m your man and you know it.”

  They stared at each other.

  “That’s the stuff to give the troops,” Alleyn added. “The arrogant male.”

  “The arrogant turkey-cock,” said Troy shakily.

  “I know, I know. But at least you didn’t find it unendurable. Troy, for God’s sake can’t we be honest with each other? When I kissed you just then you seemed to meet me like a flame. Could I have imagined that?”

  “No.”

  “It was as if you shouted with your whole body that you loved me. How can I not be arrogant?”

  “How can I not be shaken?”

  When he saw that she was indeed greatly shaken an intolerable wave of compassion drowned his thoughts. He stammered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  Troy began to speak slowly.

  “Let me go away now. I want to think. I will try to be honest. I promise you I did not believe I loved you. It seemed to me that I couldn’t love you when I resented so much the feeling that you made some sort of demand whenever we met. I don’t understand physical love. I don’t know how much it means. I’m just plain frightened, and that’s a fact.”

  “You shall go. I’ll get a taxi. Wait a moment.”

  He ran out and got a taxi. When he returned she was standing in front of the fire holding her cap in her hand and looked rather small and lost. He brought her coat and dropped it lightly across her shoulders.

  “I’ve been very weak,” said Troy. “When I said I’d come I thought I would keep it all very peaceful and impersonal. You looked so worn and troubled and it was so easy just to do this. And now see what’s happened?”

  “The skies have opened and the st
ars have fallen. I feel as if I’d run the world in the last hour. And now you must leave me.”

  He took her to the taxi. Before he shut the door he said: “Your most devoted turkey-cock.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Alleyn Marshals the Protagonists

  The assistant Commissioner’s clock struck a quarter to nine as Alleyn walked into the room.

  “Hello, Rory.”

  “Good evening, sir.”

  “As you have no doubt observed with your trained eye, my secretary is not present. So you may come off the official rocks. Sit down and light your pipe.”

  “Thank you,” said Alleyn.

  “Feeling a bit shaky?”

  “A bit. I shall look such an egregious ass if they don’t come up to scratch.”

  “No doubt. It’s a big case, Chief Inspector.”

  “Don’t I know it, sir!”

  “Who comes first?”

  “Sir Herbert and Lady Carrados.”

  “Any of ’em arrived yet?”

  “All except Dimitri. Fox has dotted them about the place. His room, mine, the waiting-room and the charge-room. As soon as Dimitri arrives, Fox’ll come and report.”

  “Right. In the meantime, we’ll go over the plan of action again.”

  They went over the plan of action.

  “Well,” said the Assistant Commissioner, “it’s ticklish, but it may work. As I see it, everything depends on the way you handle them.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Alleyn grimly, “for those few reassuring words.”

  The Assistant Commissioner’s clock struck nine. Alleyn knocked out his pipe. There was a tap on the door and Fox came in.

  “We are all ready, sir,” he said.

  “All right, Mr Fox. Show them in.”

  Fox went out. Alleyn glanced at the two chairs under the central lamp, and then at the Assistant Commissioner sitting motionless in the green-shaded light from his desk. Alleyn himself stood before the mantelpiece.

  “Stage set,” said the quiet voice beyond the green lamp. “And now the curtain rises.”

  There was a brief silence, and then once more the door opened.

  “Sir Herbert and Lady Carrados, sir.”

  They came in. Alleyn moved forward, greeted them formally, and then introduced them to the Assistant Commissioner. Carrados’s manner as he shook hands was a remarkable mixture of the condescension of a viceroy and the fortitude of an early Christian martyr.

  The Assistant Commissioner was crisp with them.

  “Good evening, Lady Carrados. Good evening, Sir Herbert. In view of certain information he has received, Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn and I decided to invite you to come and see us. As the case is in Mr Alleyn’s hands, I shall leave it to him to conduct the conversation. Will you both sit down?”

  They sat. The light from the overhead lamp beat down on their faces, throwing strong shadows under the eyes and cheek-bones. The two heads turned in unison to Alleyn.

  Alleyn said: “Most of what I have to say is addressed to you, Sir Herbert.”

  “Indeed?” said Carrados. “Well, Alleyn, as I fancy I told you yesterday afternoon, I am only too anxious to help you to clear up the wretched business. As Lord Robert’s host on that fatal night—”

  “Yes, we quite realize that, sir. Your attitude encourages one to hope that you will understand, or at any rate excuse, my going over old ground, and also breaking into new. I am in a position to tell you that we have followed a very strange trail since yesterday — a trail that has led us to some remarkable conclusions.”

  Carrados turned his eyes, but not his head, towards his wife. He did not speak.

  “We have reason to believe,” Alleyn went on, “that the murder of Lord Robert Gospell is the outcome of blackmail. Did you speak, sir?”

  “No. No! I cannot see, I fail to understand—”

  “I’ll make myself clearer in a moment, I hope. Now, for reasons into which I need not go at the moment, the connection between this crime and blackmail leads us to one of two conclusions. Either Lord Robert was a blackmailer, and was killed by one of his victims, or possibly someone wishing to protect his victim—”

  “What makes you say that?” asked Carrados hoarsely. “It’s impossible!”

  “Impossible? Why, please?”

  “Because, Lord Robert, Lord Robert was not — it’s impossible to imagine — have you any proof that he was a blackmailer?”

  “The alternative is that Lord Robert had discovered the identity of the blackmailer, and was murdered before he could reveal it.”

  “You say this,” said Carrados, breathlessly, “but you give no proof.”

  “I ask you, sir, simply to accept my statement that rightly or wrongly we believe our case to rest on one or the other of those alternatives.”

  “I don’t pretend to be a detective, Alleyn, but—”

  “Just a minute, sir, if you don’t mind. I want you now to go back with me to a day nearly eighteen years ago, when you motored Lady Carrados down to a village called Falconbridge in Buckinghamshire. You were not married then.”

  “I frequently motored her into the country in those days.”

  “You will have no difficulty in remembering this occasion. It was the day on which Captain Paddy O’Brien met with his accident.”

  Alleyn waited. He saw the sweat round Carrados’s eyes shine in the strong lamplight.

  “Well?” said Carrados.

  “You do remember that day?” Alleyn asked.

  “But Herbert,” said Lady Carrados, “of course you do.”

  “I remember, yes. But I fail to see—”

  “Please, sir! I shall fire point-blank in a moment. You remember?”

  “Naturally.”

  “You remember that Captain O’Brien was taken first to the vicarage and from there, in an ambulance, to the hospital, where he died a few hours later?”

  “Yes.”

  “You remember that, after he died, your wife, as she is now, was very distressed because she believed that a certain letter which Captain O’Brien carried had been lost?”

  “I have no recollection of this.”

  “Let me help you. She said that he had probably carried it in his pocket, that it must have fallen out, that she was most anxious to recover it. Am I right, Lady Carrados?”

  “Yes — quite right.”

  Her voice was low, but perfectly steady. She was looking at Alleyn with an air of shocked bewilderment.

  “Did you ask Sir Herbert if he had enquired everywhere for this missing letter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember now, Sir Herbert?”

  “I think — I remember — something. It was all very distressing. I tried to be of some use; I think I may have been of some use.”

  “Did you succeed in finding the letter?”

  “I — don’t think so.”

  “Are you sure?”

  A little runnel of sweat trickled down each side of his nose into that fine moustache.

  “I am tolerably certain.”

  “Do you remember sitting in your car outside the hospital while Lady Carrados was with Captain O’Brien?”

  Carrados did not speak for a long time. Then he swung round in his chair, and addressed that silent figure in the green lamplight.

  “I can see no possible reason for this extraordinary procedure. It is most distressing for my wife, and I may say, sir, it strikes me as being damnably offensive and outside the duties of your office.”

  “I don’t think it is, Sir Herbert,” said the Assistant Commissioner. “I advise you to answer Mr Alleyn, you know.”

  “I may tell you,” Carrados began, “that I am an intimate friend of your chiefs. He shall hear about this.”

  “I expect so,” said the Assistant Commissioner. “Go on, Mr Alleyn.”

  “Lady Carrados,” said Alleyn, “did you, in point of fact, leave Sir Herbert in the car when you went into the hospital?”

  “Yes.”<
br />
  “Yes. Now, Sir Herbert, while you waited there, do you remember a schoolgirl of fifteen or so coming up on her bicycle?”

  “How the devil can I remember a schoolgirl on a bicycle eighteen years ago?”

  “Only because she gave you the letter that we have been discussing.”

  Evelyn Carrados uttered a stifled cry. She turned and looked at her husband, as though she saw him for the first time. He met her with what Alleyn thought one of the most extraordinary glances he had ever seen — accusation, abasement, even a sort of triumphant misery, were all expressed in it; it was the face of a mean martyr. “The mask of jealousy,” thought Alleyn. “There’s nothing more pitiable or more degrading. My God, if ever I—” He thrust the thought from him, and began again.

  “Sir Herbert, did you take that letter from the schoolgirl on the bicycle?”

  Still with a sort of smile on his mouth, Carrados turned to Alleyn.

  “I have no recollection of it,” he said.

  Alleyn nodded to Fox, who went out. He was away for perhaps two minutes. Nobody spoke. Lady Carrados had bent her head, and seemed to look with profound attention at her gloved hands, clasped tightly together in her lap. Carrados suddenly wiped his face with his palm, and then drew out his handkerchief. Fox came back.

  He ushered in Miss Harris.

  “Good evening, Miss Harris,” said Alleyn.

  “Good evening, Mr Alleyn. Good evening, Lady Carrados. Good evening, Sir Herbert. Good evening,” concluded Miss Harris with a collected glance at the Assistant Commissioner.

  “Miss Harris,” said Alleyn, “do you remember staying with your uncle, Mr Walter Harris, when he was vicar at Falconbridge? You were fifteen at the time I mean.”

  “Yes Mr Alleyn, certainly,” said Miss Harris.

  Carrados uttered some sort of oath. Lady Carrados said: “ But — what do you mean, Miss Harris?”