by Ngaio Marsh
‘Very easily,’ Alleyn returned. ‘She was on the defensive and angry when I saw her, but I noticed something of the same quality myself. Toughness, naivety, and candour all rolled into one. Always very disarming. One meets it occasionally in pickpockets.’
‘But in a funny sort of way,’ Fenella said, ‘I felt that she was honest and had got standards. And much as I loathed the thought of her marriage to Grandfather, I felt sure that according to her lights she’d play fair. And most important of all, I felt that the title meant much more to her than the money. She was grateful and affectionate because he was going to give her the title, and never would she have done anything to prevent him doing so. While I was still gaping at her she took my arm, and believe it or not, we went upstairs together like a couple of schoolgirls. She asked me into her frightful rooms, and I actually sat on the bed while she drenched herself in pre-war scent, repainted her face and dressed for dinner. Then she came along to my room and sat on my bed while I changed. She never left off talking, and I suffered it all in a trance. It really was most peculiar. Down we went, together still, and there was Aunt Milly, howling for the kids’ and Grandfather’s medicine. We’d left it, of course, in the flower-room, and the queerest thing of all,’ Fenella slowly wound up, ‘was that, although I still took the gloomiest possible view of her relationship with Grandfather, I simply could not continue to loathe her guts. And, Mr Alleyn, I swear she never did anything to harm him. Do you believe me? Is all this as important as Paul and I think it is?’
Alleyn, who had been watching Jenetta Ancred’s hands relax and the colour return to her face, roused himself and said: ‘It may be of enormous importance. I think you may have tidied up a very messy corner.’
‘A messy corner,’ she repeated. ‘Do you mean—?’
‘Is there anything else?’
‘The next part really belongs to Paul. Go on, Paul.’
‘Darling,’ said Jenetta Ancred, and the two syllables, in her deepish voice, sounded like a reiterated warning. ‘Don’t you think you’ve made your point? Must we?’
‘Yes, Mummy, we must. Now then, Paul.’
Paul began rather stiffly and with a deprecatory air: ‘I’m afraid, sir, that all this is going to sound extremely obvious and perhaps a bit high-falutin, but Fen and I have talked it over pretty thoroughly and we’ve come to a definite conclusion. Of course it was obvious from the beginning that the letters meant Sonia Orrincourt. She was the only person who didn’t get one, and she’s the one who benefited most by Grandfather’s death. But those letters were written before they found the rat-bane in her suitcase, and, in fact, before there was a shred of evidence against her. So that if she’s innocent, and I agree with Fenella that she is, it means one of two things. Either the letter-writer knew something that he or she genuinely thought suspicious, and none of us did know anything of the sort; or, the letter was written out of pure spite, and not to mince matters, with the intention of getting her hanged. If that’s so, it seems to me that the tin of rat-bane was deliberately planted. And it seems to me—to Fen and me—that the same person put that book on embalming in the cheese-dish because he was afraid nobody would ever remember it, and was shoving it under our noses in the most startling form he could think of.’
He paused and glanced nervously at Alleyn, who said: ‘That sounds like perfectly sound reasoning to me.’
‘Well, then, sir,’ said Paul quickly, ‘I think you’ll agree that the next point is important. It’s about this same damn’ silly business with the book in the cheese-dish, and I may as well say at the outset it casts a pretty murky light on my cousin Cedric. In fact, if we’re right, we’ve got to face the responsibility of practically accusing Cedric of attempted murder.’
‘Paul!’
‘I’m sorry, Aunt Jen, but we’ve decided.’
‘If you’re right, and I’m sure you’re wrong, have you thought of the sequel? The newspapers. The beastliness. Have you thought of poor Milly, who dotes on the little wretch?’
‘We’re sorry,’ Paul repeated stubbornly.
‘You’re inhuman,’ cried his aunt and threw up her hands.
‘Well,’ said Alleyn peaceably, ‘let’s tackle this luncheon-party while we’re at it. What was everybody doing before the book on embalming made its appearance?’
This seemed to nonplus them. Fenella said impatiently: ‘Just sitting. Waiting for someone to break it up. Aunt Milly does hostess at Ancreton, but Aunt Pauline (Paul’s mother) rather feels she ought to when in residence. She—you don’t mind my mentioning it Paul, darling?—she huffs and puffs about it a bit, and makes a point of waiting for Aunt Milly to give the imperceptible signal to rise. I rather fancied Aunt Milly kept us sitting for pure devilment. Anyway, there we stuck.’
‘Sonia fidgeted,’ said Paul, ‘and sort of groaned.’
‘Aunt Dessy said she thought it would be nice if we could escape having luncheon dishes that looked like the village pond when the floods had subsided. That was maddening for Aunt Milly. She said with a short laugh that Dessy wasn’t obliged to stay on at Ancreton.’
‘And Dessy,’ Paul continued, ‘said that to her certain knowledge Milly and Pauline were holding back some tins of whitebait.’
‘Everybody began talking at once, and Sonia said: “Pardon me, but how does the chorus go?” Cedric tittered and got up and wandered to the sideboard.’
‘And this is our point, sir,’ Paul cut in with determination. ‘The cheese was found by my cousin Cedric. He went to the sideboard and came back with a book, and dropped it over my mother’s shoulder on to her plate. It gave her a shock as you can imagine.’
‘She gave a screech and fainted, actually,’ Fenella added.
‘My Mama,’ said Paul unhappily, ‘was a bit wrought up by the funeral and so on. She really fainted, Aunt Jen.’
‘My dear boy, I’m sure she did.’
‘It gave her a fright.’
‘Naturally,’ Alleyn murmured, ‘books on embalming don’t fall out of cheese-dishes every day in the week.’
‘We’d all,’ Paul went on, ‘just about had Cedric. Nobody paid any attention to the book itself. We merely suggested that it wasn’t amazingly funny to frighten people, and that anyway he stank.’
‘I was watching Cedric, then,’ Fenella said. ‘There was something queer about him. He never took his eyes off Sonia. And then, just as we were all herding Aunt Pauline out of the room, he gave one of his yelps and said he’d remembered something in the book. He ran to the door and began reading out of it about arsenic.’
‘And then somebody remembered that Sonia had been seen looking at the book.’
‘And I’ll swear,’ Fenella cut in, ‘she didn’t know what he was driving at. I don’t believe she ever really understood. Aunt Dessy did her stuff and wailed and said: “No, no, don’t go on! I can’t bear it!” and Cedric purred: “But, Dessy, my sweet, what have I said? Why shouldn’t darling Sonia read about her fiancé’s coming embalmment?” and Sonia burst into tears and said we were all plotting against her and rushed out of the room.’
‘The point is, sir, if Cedric hadn’t behaved as he did, nobody would have thought of connecting the book with the suggestion in the letters. You see?’
Alleyn said: ‘It’s a point.’
‘There’s something else,’ Paul added, again with that tinge of satisfaction in his voice. ‘Why did Cedric look in the cheese-dish?’
‘Presumably because he wanted some cheese?’
‘No!’ Paul said triumphantly. ‘That’s just where we’ve got him, sir. He never touches cheese. He detests it.’
‘So you see,’ said Fenella.
When Alleyn left, Paul showed him into the hall, and, after some hesitation, asked if he might walk with him a little way. They went together, head-down against a blustering wind, along Cheyne Walk. Ragged clouds scurried across the sky, and the sounds of river traffic were blown intermittently against their chilled ears. Paul, using his stick, limped along at a ro
und pace, and for some minutes in silence.
At last he said: ‘I suppose it’s true that you can’t escape your heredity.’ And as Alleyn turned his head to look at him, he went on slowly: ‘I meant to tell you that story quite differently. Without any build-up. Fen did, too. But somehow when we got going something happened to us. Perhaps it was Aunt Jen’s opposition. Or perhaps when there’s anything like a crisis we can’t escape a sense of audience. I heard myself doing the same sort of thing over there.’ He jerked his head vaguely towards the east. ‘The gay young officer rallying his men. It went down quite well with them, too, but it makes me feel pretty hot under the collar when I think about it now. And about the way we strutted our stuff back there at Aunt Jen’s.’
‘You made your points very neatly,’ said Alleyn.
‘A damn’ sight too neatly,’ Paul rejoined, grimly. ‘That’s why I did think I’d like to try and say without any flourishes that we do honestly believe that all this stuff about poison has simply been concocted by Cedric to try and upset the Will. And we think it would be a pretty poor show to let him get away with it. On all counts.’
Alleyn didn’t reply immediately, and Paul said, nervously: ‘I suppose it’d be quite out of order for me to ask whether you think we’re right.’
‘Ethically,’ said Alleyn, ‘yes. But I don’t think you realized the implications. Your aunt did.’
‘I know, Aunt Jen’s very fastidious. It’s the dirty linen in public that she hates.’
‘And with reason,’ said Alleyn.
‘Well, we’ll all have to lump it. But what I meant really was, were we right in our deductions?’
‘I ought to return an official and ambiguous answer to that,’ Alleyn said. ‘But I won’t. I may be wrong, but on the evidence that we’ve got up to date I should say your deductions were ingenious and almost entirely wrong.’
A sharp gust carried away the sound of his voice.
‘What?’ said Paul, distantly and without emphasis. ‘I didn’t quite hear—’
‘Wrong,’ Alleyn repeated, strongly. ‘As far as I can judge, you know, quite wrong.’
Paul stopped short, and, dipping his head to meet the wind, stared at Alleyn with an expression not of dismay, but of doubt, as if he still thought he must have misunderstood.
‘But I don’t see…we thought…it all hangs together—’
‘As an isolated group of facts, perhaps it does.’
They resumed their walk, and Alleyn heard him say fretfully: ‘I wish you’d explain.’ And after another pause he peered rather anxiously at Alleyn. ‘Perhaps it wouldn’t do, though,’ he added.
Alleyn thought for a moment, and then, taking Paul by the elbow, steered him into the shelter of a side street. ‘We can’t go on bawling at each other in a gale,’ he said, ‘but I don’t see that it can do any harm to explain this much. It’s quite possible that if all this dust had not been raised after your grandfather’s death, Miss Orrincourt might still have become Lady Ancred.’
Paul’s jaw dropped. ‘I don’t get that.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Good God,’ Paul roared out suddenly, ‘you can’t mean Cedric?’
‘Sir Cedric,’ said Alleyn, dryly, ‘is my authority. He tells me he has seriously considered marrying her.’
After a long silence Paul said slowly: ‘They’re as thick as thieves, of course. But I never guessed…No, it’d be too much…I’m sorry, sir, but you’re sure—?’
‘Unless he invented the story.’
‘To cover up his tracks,’ said Paul instantly.
‘Extremely elaborate and she could deny it. As a matter of fact her manner suggested some sort of understanding between them.’
Paul raised his clasped hands to his mouth and thoughtfully blew into them. ‘Suppose,’ he said, ‘he suspected her, and wanted to make sure?’
‘That would be an entirely different story.’
‘Is that your theory, sir?’
‘Theory?’ Alleyn repeated vaguely. ‘I haven’t got a theory. I haven’t sorted things out. Mustn’t keep you standing here in the cold.’ He held out his hand. Paul’s was like ice. ‘Goodbye,’ said Alleyn.
‘One minute, sir. Will you tell me this? I give you my word it’ll go no further. Was my Grandfather murdered?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Alleyn. ‘Yes. I’m afraid we may be sure of that. He was murdered.’ He walked down the street, leaving Paul, still blowing on his frozen knuckles, to stare after him.
The canvas walls were faintly luminous. They were laced to their poles with ropes and glowed in the darkness. Blobs of light from hurricane lanterns suspended within formed a globular pattern across the surface. One of these lanterns must have been touching the wall, for the village constable on duty outside could clearly make out shadows of wire and the precise source of light.
He glanced uneasily at the motionless figure of his companion, a police officer from London, wearing a short cape. ‘Bitter cold,’ he said.
‘That’s right.’
‘Be long, d’yew reckon?’
‘Can’t say.’
The constable would have enjoyed a walk. He was a moralist and a philosopher, well known in Ancreton for his pronouncements upon the conduct of politicians and for his independent views in the matter of religion. But his companion’s taciturnity, and the uncomfortable knowledge that anything he said would be audible on the other side of the canvas, put a damper on conversation. He stamped once or twice, finding reassurance in the crunch of gravel under his feet. There were noises within the enclosure: voices, soft thumps. At the far end and high above them, as if suspended in the night, and lit theatrically from below, knelt three angels. ‘Through the long night watches,’ the constable said to himself, ‘may Thine angels spread their white wings above me, watching round my head.’
Within the enclosure, but, close beside him, the voice of the Chief Inspector from the Yard said: ‘Are we ready, Curtis?’ His shadowy figure suddenly loomed up inside the canvas wall. ‘Quite ready,’ somebody else said. ‘Then if I may have the key, Mr Ancred?’ ‘Oh—oh—er—yes.’ That was poor Mr Thomas Ancred.
The constable listened, yet desired not to listen, to the next too-lucid train of sounds. He had heard them before, on the day of the funeral, when he came down early to have a look while his cousin, the sexton, got things fixed up. Very heavy lock. They’d had to give it a drop of oil. Seldom used. His flesh leapt on his bones as a screech rent the cold air. ‘Them ruddy hinges,’ he thought. The blobs of light were withdrawn and the voices with them. He could still hear them, however, though now they sounded hollow. Beyond the hedge a match flared up in the dark. That would be the driver of the long black car, of course, waiting in the lane. The constable wouldn’t have minded a pipe himself.
The Chief Inspector’s voice, reflected from stone walls, said distinctly: ‘Get those acetylene lamps going, Bailey.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ someone answered, so close to the constable that he jumped again. With a hissing noise, a new brilliance sprang up behind the canvas. Strange distorted shadows leapt among the trees about the cemetery.
Now came sounds to which he had looked forward with squeamish relish. A drag of wood on stone followed by the uneven scuffles of boots and heavy breathing. He cleared his throat and glanced stealthily at his companion.
The enclosure was again full of invisible men. ‘Straight down on the trestles. Right.’ The squeak of wood and then silence.
The constable drove his hands deep into his pockets and looked up at the three angels and at the shape of St Stephen’s spire against the stars. ‘Bats in that belfry,’ he thought. ‘Funny how a chap’ll say it, not thinking.’ An owl hooted up in Ancreton woods.
Beyond the canvas there was movement. A light voice said jerkily: ‘I think, if it doesn’t make any difference, I’d like to wait outside. I won’t go away. You can call me, you know.’
‘Yes, of course.’
A canvas flap was pulled aside, letting out a triangle of lig
ht on the grass. A man came out. He wore a heavy overcoat and muffler and his hat was pulled over his face, but the constable had recognized his voice and shifted uneasily.
‘Oh, it’s you, Bream,’ said Thomas Ancred.
‘Yes, Mr Thomas.’
‘Cold, isn’t it?’
