by Ngaio Marsh
Alleyn, catching sight of Fox’s scandalized countenance, didn’t answer, and Thomas, rather pink in the face, hurried on. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘the rest of us pooh-poohed the notion; quite howled it down, in fact. “The very idea,” Fenella, for instance, said, “of Mrs Alleyn writing anonymous letters is just so bloody silly that we needn’t discuss it,” which led directly into another row, because Pauline made the suggestion and Fenella and Paul are engaged against her wish. It ended by my nephew Cedric, who is now the head of the family, saying that he thought the letter sounded like Pauline herself. He mentioned that a favourite phrase of Pauline’s is: “I have reason to believe.” Milly, Cedric’s mother, you know, laughed rather pointedly, so naturally there was another row.’
‘Last night,’ Alleyn said, ‘you told me you had made a discovery at Ancreton. What was it?’
‘Oh, yes. I was coming to that some time. Now, actually, because it happened after lunch. I really don’t care at all for this part of the story. Indeed, I quite forgot myself, and said I would not go back to Ancreton until I was assured of not having to get involved in any more goings on.’
‘I’m afraid—’ Alleyn began, but Thomas at once interrupted him. ‘You don’t follow? Well, of course you wouldn’t, would you, because I haven’t told you? Still, I suppose I’d better.’
Alleyn waited without comment.
‘Well,’ said Thomas at last. ‘Here, after all, we go.’
‘All yesterday morning,’ Thomas said, ‘after reading the letters, the battle, as you might put it, raged. Nobody really on anybody else’s side except Paul and Fenella and Jenetta wanting to burn the letters and Pauline and Desdemona thinking there was something in it and we ought to keep them. And by lunch-time, you may depend on it, feeling ran very high indeed. And then, you know—’
Here Thomas paused and stared meditatively at a spot on the wall somewhere behind Fox’s head. He had this odd trick of stopping short in his narratives. It was as if a gramophone needle was abruptly and unreasonably lifted from the disc. It was impossible to discover whether Thomas was suddenly bereft of the right word or smitten by the intervention of a new train of thought, or whether he had merely forgotten what he was talking about. Apart from a slight glazing of his eyes, his facial expression remained uncannily fixed.
‘And then,’ Alleyn prompted after a long pause.
‘Because, when you come to think of it,’ Thomas’s voice began, ‘it’s the last thing one expects to find in the cheese-dish. It was New Zealand cheese, of course. Papa was fortunate in his friends.’
‘What,’ Alleyn asked temperately, ‘is the last thing, Fox, that one would expect to find in the cheese-dish?’
Before Fox could reply Thomas began again.
‘It’s an old piece of Devonport. Rather nice, really. Blue, with white swans sailing round it. Very large. In times of plenty we used to have a whole Stilton in it, but now, of course, only a tiny packet. Rather ridiculous, really, but it meant there was plenty of room.’
‘For what?’
‘It was Cedric who lifted the lid and discovered it. He gave one of his little screams, but beyond feeling rather irritated, I dare say nobody paid much attention. Then he brought it over to the table—did I forget to say it’s always left on the sideboard?—and dropped it in front of Pauline, who is in a very nervous condition anyway, and nearly shrieked the place down.’
‘Dropped the cheese-dish? Or the cheese?’
‘The cheese? Good heavens,’ cried the scandalized Thomas, ‘what an idea! The book, to be sure.’
‘What book?’ Alleyn said automatically.
‘The book, you know. The one out of the glass thing in the drawing-room.’
‘Oh,’ said Alleyn after a pause. ‘That book. On embalming?’
‘And arsenic and all the rest of it. Too awkward and beastly, because, you know, Papa, by special arrangement, was. It upset everybody frightfully. In such very bad taste, everybody thought, and, of course, the cry of “Panty” went up immediately on all sides, and there was Pauline practically in a dead faint for the second time in three days.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes, and then Milly remembered seeing Sonia look at the book, and Sonia said she had never seen it before, and then Cedric read out some rather beastly bits about arsenic, and everybody began to remember how Barker couldn’t find the rat poison when it was wanted for Bracegirdle. Then Pauline and Desdemona looked at each other in such a meaning sort of way that Sonia became quite frantic with rage, and said she’d leave Ancreton there and then, only she couldn’t, because there wasn’t a train, so she went out in the rain and the governess-cart, and is now in bed with bronchitis, to which she is subject.’
‘Still at Ancreton?’
‘Yes, still there. Quite,’ said Thomas. His expression became dazed, and he went off into another of his silences.
‘And that,’ Alleyn said, ‘is, of course, the discovery you mentioned on the telephone?’
‘That? Discovery? What discovery? Oh, no!’ cried Thomas. ‘I see what you mean. Oh, no, indeed, that was nothing compared to what we found afterwards in her room!’
‘What did you find, Mr Ancred, and in whose room?’
‘Sonia’s,’ said Thomas. ‘Arsenic.’
‘It was Cedric and the girls’ idea,’ Thomas said. ‘After Sonia had gone out in the governess-cart they talked and talked. Nobody quite liked to say outright that perhaps Sonia had put rat poison in Papa’s hot drink, but even Milly remarked that Sonia had recently got into the way of making it. Papa said she made it better than any of the servants or even than Milly herself. She used to take it in and leave it at his bedside. Cedric remembered seeing Sonia with the Thermos flask in her hands. He passed her in the passage on his way to bed that very night.
‘It was at about this stage,’ Thomas continued, ‘that somebody—I’ve forgotten quite whom—said that they thought Sonia’s room ought to be searched. Jenetta and Fenella and Paul jibbed at this, but Dessy and Cedric and Pauline were as keen as mustard. I had promised to lend Caroline Able a book so I went away rather gladly. Caroline Able teaches the Difficult Children, including Panty, and she is very worried because of Panty not going bald enough. So it might have been an hour later that I went back to our part of the house. And there was Cedric lying in wait for me. Well, he’s the head of the house now, so I suppose I mustn’t be beastly about him. All mysterious and whispering, he was.
‘ “Ssh,” he said. “Come upstairs.”
‘He wouldn’t say anything more. I felt awfully bored with all this, but I followed him up.’
‘To Miss Orrincourt’s room?’ Alleyn suggested as Thomas’s eyes had glazed again.
‘That’s it. How did you guess? And there were Pauline and Milly and Dessy. I must tell you,’ said Thomas delicately, ‘that Sonia has a little sort of suite of rooms near Papa’s for convenience. It wasn’t called anything, because Papa had run out of famous actresses’ names. So he had a new label done with “Orrincourt” on it, and that really infuriated everybody, because Sonia, whatever anybody may care to say to the contrary, is a very naughty actress. Well, not an actress at all, really. Absolutely dire, you might say.’
‘You found your sisters and Mrs Henry Ancred in these rooms?’
‘Yes. I must tell you that Sonia’s suite is in a tower. Like the tower your wife had, only Sonia’s tower is higher, because the architect who build Ancreton believed in quaintness. So Sonia has got a bedroom on top and then a bathroom, and at the bottom a boudoir. The bedroom’s particularly quaint, with a little door and steps up into the pepper-pot roof which makes a box-room. They are milling about in this box-room and Dessy had found the rat poison in one of Sonia’s boxes. It’s a preparation of arsenic. It says so on the label. Well!’
‘What have you done with it?’
‘So awkward!’ said Thomas crossly. ‘They made me take it. To keep, they said, in case of evidence being needed. Cedric was very particular about it, having
read detective books, and he wrapped it up in one of my handkerchiefs. So I’ve got it in my rooms here in London if you really want to see it.’
‘We’ll take possession of it, I think,’ said Alleyn with a glance at Fox. Fox made a slight affirmative rumble. ‘If it’s convenient, Mr Ancred,’ Alleyn went on, ‘Fox or I will drop you at your rooms and collect this tin.’
‘I hope I can find it,’ Thomas said gloomily.
‘Find it?’
‘One does mislay things so. Only the other day—’ Thomas fell into one of his trances and this time Alleyn waited for something to break through. ‘I was just thinking, you know,’ Thomas began rather loudly. ‘There we all were in her room and I looked out of the window. It was raining. And away down below, like something out of a Noah’s Ark, was the governess-cart creeping up the drive, and Sonia, in her fur coat, flapping the reins, I suppose, in the way she has. And when you come to think of it, there, according to Pauline and Dessy and Cedric and Milly, went Papa’s murderess.’
‘But not according to you?’ said Alleyn. He was putting away the eight anonymous letters. Fox had risen, and now stared down at their visitor as if Thomas was some large unopened parcel left by mistake in the room.
‘To me?’ Thomas repeated, opening his eyes very wide. ‘I don’t know. How should I? But you wouldn’t believe how uncomfortable it makes one feel.’
To enter Thomas’s room was to walk into a sort of cross between a wastepaper basket and a workshop. Its principal feature was a large round table entirely covered with stacks of paper, paints, photographs, models for stage sets, designs for costumes, and books. In the window was an apparently unused desk. On the walls were portraits of distinguished players, chief among them Sir Henry himself.
‘Sit down,’ invited Thomas, sweeping sheafs of papers from two chairs on to the floor. ‘I’ll just think where—’ He began to walk round his table, staring rather vacantly at it. ‘I came in with my suitcase, of course, and then, you know, the telephone rang. It was much later than that when I wanted to find the letters, and I had put them carefully away because of showing them to you. And I found them. So I must have unpacked. And I can remember thinking: “It’s poison, and I’d better be careful of my handkerchief in case—” ’
He walked suddenly to a wall cupboard and opened it. A great quantity of papers instantly fell out. Thomas stared indignantly at them. ‘I distinctly remember,’ he said, turning to Alleyn and Fox with his mouth slightly open. ‘I distinctly remember saying to myself—’ But this sentence was also fated to remain unfinished, for Thomas pounced unexpectedly upon some fragment from the cupboard. ‘I’ve been looking for that all over the place,’ he said. ‘It’s most important. A cheque, in fact.’
He sat on the floor and began scuffling absently among the papers. Alleyn, who for some minutes had been inspecting the chaos that reigned upon the table, lifted a pile of drawings and discovered a white bundle. He loosened the knot at the top and a stained tin was disclosed. It bore a bright red label with the legend: ‘Rat-X-it! Poison,’ and, in slightly smaller print, the antidote for arsenical poisoning.
‘Here it is, Mr Ancred,’ said Alleyn.
‘What?’ asked Thomas. He glanced up. ‘Oh, that,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d put it on the table.’
Fox came forward with a bag. Alleyn, muttering something about futile gestures, lifted the tin by the handkerchief. ‘You don’t mind,’ he said to Thomas, ‘if we take charge of this? We’ll give you a receipt for it.’
‘Oh, will you?’ asked Thomas mildly. ‘Thanks awfully.’ He watched them stow away the tin, and then, seeing that they were about to go, scrambled to his feet. ‘You must have a drink,’ he said. ‘There’s a bottle of Papa’s whisky—I think.’
Alleyn and Fox managed to head him off a further search. He sat down, and listened with an air of helplessness to Alleyn’s parting exposition.
‘Now, Mr Ancred,’ Alleyn said, ‘I think I ought to make as clear as possible the usual procedure following the sort of information you have brought to us. Before any definite step can be taken, the police make what are known as “further inquiries.” They do this as inconspicuously as possible, since neither their original informant, nor they, enjoy the public exploration of a mare’s nest. If these inquiries seem to point to a suspicion of ill practice, the police then get permission from the Home Secretary for the next step to be taken. You know what that is, I expect?’
‘I say,’ said Thomas, ‘that would be beastly, wouldn’t it?’ A sudden thought seemed to strike him. ‘I say,’ he repeated, ‘would I have to be there?’
‘We’d probably ask for formal identification by a member of his family.’
‘Oh, Lor’!’ Thomas whispered dismally. He pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. A gleam of consolation appeared to visit him.
‘I say,’ he said, ‘it’s a good job after all, isn’t it, that the Nation didn’t plump for the Abbey?’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alleyn at Ancreton
‘IN OUR GAME,’ said Fox as they drove back to the Yard, ‘you get some funny glimpses into what you might call human nature. I dare say I’ve said that before, but it’s a fact.’
‘I believe you,’ said Alleyn.
‘Look at this chap we’ve just left,’ Fox continued with an air of controversy. ‘Vague! And yet he must be good at his job, wouldn’t you say, sir?’
‘Indisputably.’
‘There! Good at his job, and yet to meet him you’d say he’d lose his play, and his actors, and his way to the theatre. In view of which,’ Fox summed up, ‘I ask myself if this chap’s as muddle-headed as he lets on.’
‘A pose, you think, do you, Fox?’
‘You never know with some jokers,’ Fox muttered, and, wiping his great hand over his face, seemed by that gesture to dispose of Thomas Ancred’s vagaries. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘it’ll be a matter of seeing the doctor, won’t it?’
‘I’m afraid so. I’ve looked out trains. There’s one in an hour. Get us there by midday. We may have to spend the night in Ancreton village. We can pick up our emergency bags at the Yard. I’ll talk to the AC and telephone Troy. What a hell of a thing to turn up.’
‘It doesn’t look as if we’ll be able to let it alone, do you reckon, Mr Alleyn?’
‘I still have hopes. As it stands, there’s not a case in Thomas’s story to hang a dead dog on. They lose a tin of rat poison and find it in a garret. Somebody reads a book about embalming, and thinks up an elaborate theme based on an arbitrary supposition. Counsel could play skittles with it—as it stands.’
‘Suppose we did get an order for exhumation. Suppose they found arsenic in the body. With this embalming business it’d seem as if it would prove nothing.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Alleyn, ‘I rather think, Fox, that if they did find arsenic in the body it would prove everything.’
Fox turned slowly and looked at him. ‘I don’t get that one, Mr Alleyn,’ he said.
‘I’m not at all sure that I’m right. We’ll have to look it up. Here we are. I’ll explain on the way down to this accursed village. Come on.’
He saw his Assistant Commissioner, who, with the air of a connoisseur, discussed the propriety of an investigator handling a case in which his wife might be called as a witness. ‘Of course, my dear Rory, if by any chance the thing should come into court and your wife be subpoenaed, we would have to reconsider our position. We’ve no precedent, so far as I know. But for the time being I imagine it’s more reasonable for you to discuss it with her than for anybody else to do so—Fox, for instance. Now, you go down to this place, talk to the indigenous GP and come back and tell us what you think about it. Tiresome, if it comes to anything. Good luck.’
As they left, Alleyn took from his desk the second volume of a work on medical jurisprudence. It dealt principally with poisons. In the train he commended certain passages to Fox’s notice. He watched his old friend put on his spectacles, raise his eye
brows, and develop the slightly catarrhal breathing that invariably accompanied his reading.
‘Yes,’ said Fox, removing his spectacles as the train drew into Ancreton Halt, ‘that’s different, of course.’
Doctor Herbert Withers was a short, tolerably plump man, with little of the air of wellbeing normally associated with plumpness. He came out into his hall as they arrived, admitting from some inner room the sound of a racing broadcast. After a glance at Alleyn’s professional card he took them to his consulting-room, and sat at his desk with a movement whose briskness seemed to overlie a controlled fatigue.
‘What’s the trouble?’ he asked.
It was the conventional opening. Alleyn thought it had slipped involuntarily from Dr Withers’s lips.
