by Ngaio Marsh
“These letters,” said Fox, tapping them with a stubby forefinger, “were all written before they came down here. They’ve evidently been engaged in a manner of speaking for about a month.”
“Very possibly.”
“Well,” said Fox, “there’s nothing in these letters of Mr. Pilgrim’s to contradict any ideas we may have about Garcia, is there?”
“Nothing. What about Pilgrim’s clothes?”
“Nothing there. Two overcoats, five suits, two pairs of odd trousers and an odd jacket. Nothing much in the pockets. His week-end suit-case hasn’t been unpacked. He took a dinner suit, a tweed suit, pyjamas, dressing-gown, and toilet things.”
“Any aspirin?”
“No.”
“I fancy I found his bottle in one of Miss Seacliff’s pockets. Come on. Let’s get on with it.”
They got on with it. Presently Bailey said: “Here’s one from Garcia.”
“Let me see, will you?”
Like the note to Sonia, this was written in pencil on an odd scrap of paper. It was not dated or addressed, and the envelope was missing.
Dear Valmai,
I hear you’re going to Troy’s this term. So am I. I’m broke. I haven’t got the price of the fare down, and I want one or two things — paints, mostly. I’m going to paint for a bit. I took the liberty of going into Gibson’s, and getting a few things on your account. I told old Gibson it would be all right, and he’d seen me in the shop with you, so it was. Do you think Basil Pilgrim would lend me a fiver? Or would you? I’ll be O.K. when Troy gets back, and I’ve got a good commission, so the money’s all right. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll ask Pilgrim. I can’t think of anyone else. Is it true you’re going to hitch up with Pilgrim? You’d much better try a spot of free love with me.—G.
“Cool,” said Fox.
“Does this bloke live on women?” asked Bailey.
“He lives on anyone that will provide the needful, I’d say,” grunted Fox.
“That’s about it,” said Alleyn. “We’ll keep this and any other Garcia letters we find, Fox. Well, that’s all, isn’t it? Either of you got any more tender missives? All right then, we’ll pack up. Fox, you might tell them all they may turn in now. My compliments and so on. Miss Troy has gone to her room. The others, I suppose, will still be in the dining-room. Come on, Bathgate.”
A few minutes later they all met in the hall. Tatler’s End House was quiet at last. The fires had died down in all the grates, the rooms had grown cold. Up and down the passages the silence was broken only by the secret sounds made by an old house at night, small expanding noises, furtive little creaks, and an occasional slow whisper as though the house sighed at the iniquity of living men. Alleyn had a last look round and spoke to the local man who was to remain on duty in the hall. Bailey opened the door and Fox turned out the last of the lights. Nigel, huddled in an overcoat, stowed his copy away in a pocket and lit a cigarette. Alleyn stood at the foot of the stairs, his face raised, as if he listened for something.
“Right, sir?” asked Fox.
“Coming,” said Alleyn. “Good night.”
“Good night, sir,” said the local man.
“By the way — where’s the garage?”
“Round the house to the right, sir.”
“Thank you. Good night.”
The front door slammed behind them.
“Blast that fellow!” said Alleyn. “Why the devil must he wake the entire household?”
It was a still, cold night, with no moon. The gravel crunched loudly under their feet.
“I’m just going to have a look at the garage,” said Alleyn. “I’ve got the key from a nail in the lobby. I won’t be long. Give me my case, Bailey. Bathgate — you drive on.”
He switched on his torch and followed the drive round the house to an old stable-yard. The four loose-boxes had been converted into garages, and his key fitted all of them. He found an Austin, and a smart super charged sports car—“Pilgrim’s,” thought Alleyn — and in the last garage a small motor caravan. Alleyn muttered when he saw this. He examined the tyre-treads, measured the distance between the wheels and took the height from the ground to the rear doorstep. He opened the door and climbed in. He found a small lamp on a battery in the ceiling, and switched it on. It was not an elaborate interior, but it was well planned. There were two bunks, a folding table, a cupboard and plenty of lockers. He looked into the lockers and found painting gear and one or two canvases. He took one out. “Troy’s,” he said. He began to look very closely at the board floor. On the doorstep he found two dark indentations. They were shiny and looked as though they had been made by small wheels carrying a heavy load. The door opened outwards. Its inner surface had been recently scored across. Alleyn looked through a lens at the scratches. The paint had frilled up a little and the marks were clean. The floor itself bore traces of the shiny tracks, but here they were much fainter. He looked at the petrol gauge and found it registered only two gallons. He returned to the floor and crawled over it with his torch. At last he came upon a few traces of a greenish-grey substance. These he scraped off delicately and put in a small tin. He went into the driver’s cabin, taking an insufflator with him, and tested the wheel. It showed no clear prints. On the floor of the cabin Alleyn found several Player’s cigarette-butts. These he collected and examined carefully. The ray from his torch showed him a tiny white object that had dropped into the gear-change slot. He fished it out with a pair of tweezers. It was the remains of yet another cigarette and had got jammed and stuck to the inside of the slot. A fragment of red paper was mixed with the flattened wad of tobacco strands. One of Troy’s, perhaps. An old one. He had returned to the door with his insufflator, when a deep voice said:
“Have they remembered your hot-water bottle, sir, and what time would you wish to be called?”
“Fox!” said Alleyn, “I am sorry. Have I been very long?”
“Oh no, sir. Bert Bailey’s in his beauty sleep in the back of our car, and Mr. Bathgate has gone off in his to her ladyship’s. Mr. Bathgate asked me to tell you, sir, that he proposed to make the telephone wires burn while the going was good.”
“I’d like to see him try. Fox, we’ll seal up this caravan and then we really will go home. Look here, you send Bailey back to London and stay the night with us. My mother will be delighted. I’ll lend you some pyjamas, and we’ll snatch a few hours’ sleep and start early in the morning. Do come.”
“Well, sir, that’s very kind of you. I’d be very pleased.”
“Splendid!”
Alleyn sealed the caravan door with tape, and then the door of the garage. He put the key in his pocket.
“No little jaunts for them to-morrow,” he said coolly. “Come along, Fox. Golly, it’s cold.”
They saw Bailey, arranged to meet him at the Yard in the morning, and drove back to Danes Lodge.
“Well have a drink before we turn in,” said Alleyn softly, when they were indoors. “In here.”
Fox tiptoed after him towards Lady Alleyn’s boudoir. At the door they paused and looked at each other. A low murmur of voices came from the room beyond.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Alleyn, and walked in. A large fire crackled in the open fireplace. Nigel sat before it cross-legged on the heathrug. Curled up in a wing-backed chair was Lady Alleyn. She wore a blue dressing-gown and a lace cap and her feet were tucked under her.
“Ma’am!” said Alleyn.
“Hullo, darling! Mr. Bathgate’s been telling me all about your case. It’s wonderfully interesting, and we have already solved it in three separate ways.”
She looked round the corner of her chair and saw Fox.
“This is disgraceful,” said Alleyn. “A scene of license and depravity. May I introduce Mr. Fox, and will you give him a bed?”
“Of course I will. This is perfectly delightful. How do you do, Mr. Fox?”
Fox made his best bow and took the small, thin hand in his enormous fist.
“How d�
��you do, my lady?” he said gravely. “It’s very kind of you.”
“Roderick, bring up some chairs, darling, and get yourselves drinks. Mr. Bathgate is drinking whisky, and I am drinking port. It’s not a bit kind of me, Mr. Fox. I have hoped so much that we might meet. Do you know, you look exactly as I have always thought you would look, and that is very flattering to me and to you. Roderick has told me so much about you. You’ve worked together on very many cases, haven’t you?”
“A good many, my lady,” said Fox. He sat down and contemplated Lady Alleyn placidly. “It’s been a very pleasant association for me. Very pleasant. We’re all glad to see Mr. Alleyn back.”
“Whisky and soda, Fox?” said Alleyn. “Mamma, what will happen to your bright eyes if you swill port at one a.m.? Bathgate?”
“I’ve got one, thank you. Alleyn, your mother is quite convinced that Garcia is not the murderer.”
“No,” said Lady Alleyn. “I don’t say he isn’t the murderer, but I don’t think he’s the man you’re after.”
“That’s a bit baffling of you,” said Alleyn. “How d’you mean?”
“I think he’s been made a cat’s-paw by somebody. Probably that very disagreeable young man with a beard. From what Mr. Bathgate tells me— ”
“I should be interested to know what Bathgate has told you.”
“Don’t be acid, darling. He’s given me a perfectly splendid acount of the whole thing — as lucid as Lucy Lorrimer,” said Lady Alleyn.
“Who’s Lucy Lorrimer?” asked Nigel.
“She’s a prehistoric peep. Old Lord Banff’s eldest girl she was, and never known to finish a sentence. She always got lost in the thickets of secondary thoughts that sprang up round her simplest remarks, so everybody used to say ‘as lucid as Lucy Lorrimer.’ No, but really, Roderick, Mr. Bathgate was as clear as glass over the whole affair. I am absolutely au fait, and I feel convinced that Garcia has been a cat’s-paw. He sounds so unattractive, poor fellow.”
“Homicides are inclined to be unattractive, darling,” said Alleyn.
“What about Mr. Smith? George Joseph? You can’t say that of him with all those wives. The thing that makes me so cross with Mr. Smith,” continued Lady Alleyn, turning to Fox, “is his monotony. Always in the bath and always a pound of tomatoes. In and out of season, one supposes.”
“If we consider Mr. Malmsley, Lady Alleyn,” said Fox with perfect gravity, “his only motive, as far as we know, would be vanity.”
“And a very good motive too, Mr. Fox. Mr. Bathgate tells me Malmsley is an extremely affected and conceited young man. No doubt this poor murdered child threatened him with exposure. No doubt she said she would make a laughing-stock of him by telling everybody that he cribbed his illustration from Pol de Limbourge. I must say, Roderick, he showed exquisite taste. It is the most charming little picture imaginable. Do you remember we saw it at Chantilly?”
“I do, but I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t at first spot it when I looked at his drawing.”
“That was rather slow of you, darling. Too gay and charming for words. Well, Mr. Fox, suppose this young Malmsley deliberately stayed behind on Friday, deliberately gave Garcia opium, deliberately egged him on to set the trap, and then came away, hoping that Garcia would do it. How about that?”
“You put it very neatly indeed, my lady,” said Fox, looking at Lady Alleyn with serious approval. “May I relieve you of your glass?”
“Thank you. Well now, Roderick, what about Basil Pilgrim?”
“What about him, little mum?”
“Of course, he might easily be unbalanced. Robert Pilgrim is as mad as a March hare, and I think that unfortunate wife of his was a cousin of sorts, so there you are. And she simply set to work and had baby after baby after baby — all gels, poor thing — until she had this boy Basil, and died of exhaustion. Not a very good beginning. And Robert turned into a Primitive Methodist in the middle of it all, and used to ask everybody the most ill-judged questions about their private lives. I remember quite well when this boy was born, Roderick, your father said Robert’s methods had been too primitive for Alberta. Her name was Alberta. Do you think the boy could have had anything to do with this affair?”
“Has Bathgate told you all about our interview with Pilgrim?” asked Alleyn.
“He was in the middle of it when you came in. What sort of boy has he grown into? Not like Robert, I hope?”
“Not very. He’s most violently in love.”
“With this Seacliff gel. What kind of gel is she, Roderick? Modern and hard? Mr. Bathgate says beautiful.”
“She’s very good-looking and a bit of a huntress?”
“At all murderish, do you imagine?”
“Darling, I don’t know. Do you realise you ought to be in bed, and that you’ve led Bathgate into the father and mother of a row for talking out of school?”
“Mr. Bathgate knows I’m as safe as the Roman Wall, don’t you, Mr. Bathgate?”
“I’m so much in love with you, Lady Alleyn,” said Nigel, “that I wouldn’t care if you were the soul of indiscretion. I should still open my heart to you.”
“There now, Roderick,” said his mother, “isn’t that charming? I think perhaps I will go to bed.”
Ten minutes later, Alleyn tapped on his mother’s door. The familiar, high-pitched voice called: “Come in, darling,” and he found Lady Alleyn sitting bolt upright in her bed, a book in her hand, and spectacles on her nose.
“You look like a miniature owl,” said Alleyn and sat on the bed.
“Are they tucked away comfortably?”
“They are. Both besotted with adoration of you.”
“Darling! Did I show off?”
“Shamelessly.”
“I do like your Mr. Fox, Roderick.”
“Isn’t he splendid? Mum— ”
“Yes, darling?”
“This is a tricky business.”
“I suppose so. How is she?”
“Who?”
“Don’t be affected, Roderick.”
“We had two minor rows and one major one. I forgot my manners.”
“You shouldn’t do that. I don’t know, though. Perhaps you should. Who do you think committed this horrible crime, my dear?”
“Garcia.”
“Because he was drugged?”
“I don’t know. You won’t say anything about— ”
“Now, Roderick!”
“I know you won’t.”
“Did you give her my invitation?”
“Unfortunately we were not on them terms. I’ll be up betimes in the morning.”
“Give me a kiss, Rory. Bless you, dear. Good night.”
“Good night, little mum.”
CHAPTER XIV
Evidence from a Twig
Alleyn and Fox were back at Tatler’s End House at seven o’clock in the thin chilly light of dawn. A thread of smoke rose from one of the chimneys. The ground was hard and the naked trees, fast, fast asleep, stretched their lovely arms against an iron sky. The air was cold and smelt of rain. The two men went straight to the studio, where they found a local constable, wrapped in his overcoat, and very glad to see them.
“How long have you been here?” asked Alleyn.
“Since ten o’clock last night, sir. I’ll be relieved fairly soon — eight o’clock with any luck.”
“You can go off now. We’ll be here until then. Tell Superintendent Blackman I said it was all right.”
“Thank you very much, sir. I think I’ll go straight home. Unless— ”
“Yes?”
“Well, sir, if you’re going to work here, I’d like to look on — if it’s not a liberty, sir.”
“Stay, by all means. What’s your name?”
“Sligo, sir.”
“Right. Keep your counsel about our business. No need to tell you that. Come along.”
Alleyn led them to the studio window. He released the blind and opened the window. The ledge outside was rimy with frost.
&nbs
p; “Last night,” said Alleyn, “we noticed certain marks on this window-sill. Look first of all at the top of the stool here. You see four marks — indentations in the surface?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re going to measure them.”
Alleyn produced a thin steel tape and measured the distance between the indentations. Fox wrote the figures in his note-book.
“Now the window-sill. You see these marks?” He pointed to two lateral marks, shiny and well defined, like shallow grooves. Alleyn measured the distance between them and found that it corresponded exactly with the previous figure. The width of the marks, the depth, and the appearance were the same as those on the stool.
“Garcia had his model on a small wheeled platform,” said Alleyn. “Now, Malmsley told us that Garcia proposed to wheel the model into the case and then put the whole thing on board whatever vehicle called to collect it. I think he changed his mind. I think he put the empty crate in the vehicle, drew the stool up to the sill, and wheeled the model over the sill into the crate, and aboard the caravan which was backed up to the window in the lane outside.”
“The caravan, sir?” asked Sligo. “Was it a caravan?”
“Lock this place up and come along outside. You can get over the sill, but don’t touch those two marks just yet. Jump well out to the side and away from the tyre-tracks.”
In the lane Alleyn showed them the traces left by the wheels. They had been frozen hard.
“Bailey has taken casts of these, but I want you to note them carefully. You see at once that the driver of the van or whatever it was did a good deal of skirmishing about. If there were any footprints within twelve feet of the window, they’ve been obliterated. Farther out are the traces of the mortuary van, blast it. The caravan tracks overlap, and there are four sets of them. But if you look carefully, you can pick out the last impression on top of all the others. That’s when the van was finally driven away. The next set, overlaid by these, represents the final effort to get in close to the window. Damn! it’s beginning to rain. This will be our last chance in the lane, so let’s make the most of it. Observe the tread, Sligo. There, you see, is the clear impression of a patch. I’ll measure the distance between the wheels and the width of the tyres. There a little oil has dripped on the road. The van or whatever it is has been recently greased. It was backed in and the brakes jammed on suddenly, but not quite suddenly enough. The outer edge of the window-sill has had a knock. The front wheels were turned after the vehicle had stopped. There are the marks. From them we get the approximate length of the wheel-base. Out in the middle of the lane they disappear under the tracks of more recent traffic. Now look at the branches of that elm. They reach across the lane almost to our side, and are very low. I wonder the county councillors have not lopped them down. Do you see that one or two twigs have been snapped off? There’s been no wind, and the breaks are quite recent. See here!”