by Ngaio Marsh
Presently a key turned in the entrance door to the flat, and whoever it was who came in must have taken off their shoes, because only the faintest sound, a kind of sensation of movement, told him someone was coming, step by stealthy step, along the passage. Then he heard the handle of the door turn and from under the edge of the valance, in the dim light reflected from the street lamps, he saw the door itself swing slowly open. In the shadow beyond a darker shadow moved forward. The faintest rustle told him that someone had come into the room. Another rustle and the scaly sound of curtain rings. The light from the street was blotted out. When the silence had become intolerable, the telephone above him rang out again shrilly. The bell pealed on and on. The bed above him sank down and touched his shoulders stealthily. The noise of the telephone changed into a stupidly coarse clatter. Something had been pressed down over it. Alleyn counted twenty more double rings before it stopped.
Nigel over in Chester Terrace had hung up his receiver and gone to dine with Gardener.
A faint sigh of relief sounded above Alleyn's head. He could have echoed it with heartfelt enthusiasm when the bed rustled again and the weight on his shoulders was lifted. Next came the sound of chair legs, dragging a little on the carpet, and coming down finally across the room. The wardrobe door creaked. A pause, followed by furtive scrabblings. Then a metallic click. Alleyn cleared his throat.
"You'll simply have to turn up the light, Miss Vaughan," he said.
She didn't scream, but he knew how near she came to it by the desperate little gasp she gave. Then she whispered bravely:
"Who is it?"
"The Law," said Alleyn grandly.
"You!"
"Yes. Do turn the light on. There's no reason at all why you shouldn't. The switch is just inside the door." He sneezed violently. "Bless you, Mr. Alleyn," he said piously.
The room was flooded with pink light. Alleyn had thrust his head and shoulders out from the end of the bed.
She stood with one hand still on the switch. In the other she carried the little iron-bound box. Her eyes were dilated like those of a terrified child. She looked fantastically beautiful.
Alleyn wriggled out and stood up.
"I think bed dust is quite the beastliest kind of dust there is," he complained.
Her fingers slid away from the door handle. Her figure slackened. As she pitched forward he caught her. The box fell with a clatter to the floor.
"No, no," he said. "This won't do. You're not a woman who faints when she meets a reverse. You, with your iron nerve. You haven't fainted. Your heart beats steadily."
"Yours, on the contrary," she whispered, "is hammering violently."
He put her on her feet and held her elbows.
"Sit down," he said curtly.
She pulled herself away, and sat in the arm-chair he lugged forward.
"All the same," said Miss Vaughan, "you did give me a fright." She looked at him very steadily. "What a fool I've been. Such an obvious trap."
"I was surprised that it caught you. When I saw you in the taxi, I knew I had succeeded, and then a little later, when you rang—I thought Surbonadier would have given you a latch-key."
"I had meant to return it."
"Really? I must say, I can't think where the attraction lay. Evidently you are a bad selector."
"Not always."
"Perhaps not always."
"After all, you have nothing against me. Why shouldn't I come here? You yourself suggested it."
"At nine, with me. What were you looking for in that box?"
"My letters," she said quickly. "I wanted to destroy them."
"They are not there."
"Then like Ophelia I was the more deceived."
"You weren't deceived," he said bitterly.
"Mr. Alleyn—give me my letters. If I give you my word, my solemn word, that they had nothing whatever to do with his death—"
"I've read them."
She turned very white.
"All of them?"
"Yes. Even yesterday's note."
"What are you going to do—arrest me? You are alone here."
"I do not think you would struggle and make a scene. I can't picture myself dragging you, dishevelled and breathless, into the street, and blowing a fanfare on my police whistle while you lacerated my face with your nails."
"No, that would be too undignified."
She began to weep, not noisily or with ugly distortions of her face, but beautifully. Her eyes flooded and then overflowed. She held her handkerchief over them for a moment.
"I'm cold," she said.
He took the eiderdown cover off the bed and gave it to her. It slipped out of her hands and she looked at him helplessly. He put it round her, tucking it into the chair. Suddenly she seized the collar of his coat.
"Look at me!" said Stephanie Vaughan. "Look at me. Do I look like a murderess?"
He took her wrists and tried to pull them down, but she clung to his coat.
"I promise you I didn't mean what I said in that letter. I wanted to frighten him. He threatened me. I only wanted to frighten him."
He wrenched her hands away, and straightened himself.
"You've hurt me," she said.
"You obliged me to. We'd better not prolong this business."
"At least let me explain myself. If, after you've heard me, you still think I'm guilty, I'll go with you without another word."
"I must warn you—"
"I know. But I must speak. Sit down for five minutes and listen to me. I won't bolt. Lock the door, if you like."
"Very well."
He locked the door and pocketed the key. Then he sat on the end of the bed, and waited.
"I've known Arthur Surbonadier for six years," she said at last. "I went to Cambridge to take part in a charity show that was being got up by some of the undergraduates. They engaged me to play Desdemona. I was a novice, then, and very young. Arthur was good-looking in those days and he always had a charm for women. I don't expect you to understand that. He introduced me to Felix, but I hardly remembered Felix when we met again. He had never forgotten me, he says. Arthur was attracted to me. He introduced me to Jacob Saint, and through that I got a real start in my profession. We were both given parts in a Saint show that was produced at the end of the year. He was passionately in love with me. That doesn't begin to express it. He was completely and utterly absorbed as though, apart from me, he had no reality. I was fascinated and—and so it happened. He asked me over and over again to marry him, but I didn't want to get married, and I soon knew he was a rotter. He told me about all sorts of things he had done. He had a fantastic hatred of his uncle, and once, at Cambridge, he wrote an article that attributed all sorts of things to Saint. There was a case about it—I expect you remember—but Saint never thought Arthur had done it, because Arthur was so dependent on him. He told me all about that and his own vices. He still attracted me. Then I met Felix and——" She made a little gesture with her hands, a gesture that he might have recognised as one of her stage tricks.
"From that time onwards, I wanted to break off my relationship with Arthur. He terrified me, and he threatened to tell Felix about—all sorts of things." She paused, and a different note came into her voice. "Felix," she said, "was a different type. He belongs to another caste. In a funny sort of way he's intolerant. But—he's dreadfully honourable. If Arthur had told him! I was terrified. I began to write those letters, at the time I went to New York, but when I got back Arthur still dominated me. Yesterday—it seems years ago—he came to see me, and there was a scene. I thought I would try to frighten him and, after he left, I wrote that note."
"In which you said: 'If you don't promise to-night to let me go I'll put you out of it altogether.' "
"My God, I meant I'd tell Saint what he'd done—how he'd written that article!"
"He's been blackmailing Saint for years. Surely you knew that?"
She looked as if she were thunderstruck.
"Did you know?" asked Alleyn.<
br />
"No. He never told me that."
"I see," said Alleyn.
She looked piteously at him. She was rubbing her wrists where he had gripped them. As if on an impulse, she held out her hand.
"Can't you believe me—and pity me?" she whispered.
A silence fell between them. For some seconds neither moved or spoke, and then he was beside her, her hand held close between both of his. He raised it, her fingers threaded through his own. He had bent his head and stood in what seemed to be a posture of profound meditation.
"You've won," he said at last.
She leant forward and touched her face against his fingers, and then, with her free hand, she pulled aside the eiderdown quilt and let it slide to the floor.
"Last night I thought you were going to kiss my hand," she said.
"To-night—" He kissed it deliberately. In the silence that followed they heard someone come at a brisk walk down the narrow street. The sound of footsteps seemed to bring her back to earth. She drew her hand away and stood up.
"I congratulate you," she said.
"On what?"
"On your intelligence. You would have made a bad gaffe if you had arrested me. Will you let me go away now?"
"If you must."
"Indeed I must. Tell me—what made you first suspect me?"
"Your cosmetic was on the cartridges."
She turned away to the window and looked into the street.
"But how extraordinary," she said quietly. "That bottle was overturned on my table. Arthur himself knocked it over." She seemed to ponder this for a moment and then she said quickly: "That means whoever did it was in my room?"
"Yes. Your room was empty just before it happened. You were talking to Gardener next door."
"No, no. That's all wrong. At least he may have gone in there. No, he didn't. He was on the stage by that time. Arthur knocked the bottle over. He was splashed with the stuff. When he put the cartridges in the drawer, there was some on his hands. Probably there was still some more of it on his thumb when he loaded the revolver. He realised it was all up with him, and he wanted Felix accused of murder. Or me. He may have deliberately used my wet-white. It would have been like him."
"Would it? You poor child!"
"Yes. Oh, I know that's it. "
"I wonder if you can be right," said Alleyn.
"I'm sure I am."
"I'll approach it again from that angle," he said, but he scarcely seemed aware of what he said. He looked at her hungrily, as though he would never be satisfied with looking.
"I must go now. May I take—the letters—or must they come out?"
"You may have them."
He went into the next room and got the letters. When he came back with them she looked them through carefully.
"But there's one missing," she said.
"I don't think so."
"Indeed, there is. Are you sure you didn't drop it?"
"Those are all we found."
She looked distractedly round the room.
"I must find it," she insisted. "It must be somewhere here. He threatened to show that one, in particular, to Felix."
"We sifted everything. He must have burnt it."
"No, no. I'm sure he didn't. Please let me look. I know where he kept all his things." She hunted frantically through all the rooms. Once she stopped and looked at him.
"You wouldn't—?"
"I have held back none of your letters, on my word of honour."
"Forgive me," she said, and fell to hunting again. At last she confessed herself defeated.
"If it's found you shall have it," Alleyn assured her. She thanked him, but was clearly not satisfied. At last he persuaded her to stop hunting.
"I'll telephone for a taxi," he said.
"No, don't do that. I'll walk to the corner and get one. I'd rather."
"I'll come with you. I've just got to lock up."
"No. We'll say good night now," she laughed. "I can't be seen out with you—you're too compromising."
"Nous avons changé tout cela."
"You think so, do you, inspector? Good night."
"Good night, Stephanie. If I weren't a policeman—"
"Yes?"
"Give me that key, madam."
"Oh! The key of the flat. Where did I put it? Now that's lost."
"Is it on the chain?"
He pulled at the chain round her neck, found the key, which had been hidden under her dress, and slipped it off. This brought them closer together, and he saw she was trembling.
"You are quite done up," he said. "Shan't I come with you? Give me that pleasure."
"No, please. Good night again."
He touched her hand.
"Good night."
She took a step towards him, looked into his eyes, and smiled. In a moment he had her close-held in his arms.
"What's this?" he said roughly. "I know you're everything I most deplore—and yet—look at this. Shall I kiss you?"
"Why not?"
"Every reason why not."
"How strangely you look at me. As if you were examining my face inch by inch."
He released her suddenly.
"Please go," he said.
In a moment she had gone. He leaned from the window and watched her come out on the pavement below. She turned towards South Eaton Place. A few seconds later, a man came out of an alley-way by the flat, paused to light a cigarette, and then strolled off in the same direction.
Alleyn closed the window carefully and put out the light. In walking to the door he stubbed his toe on the little iron-bound box which was still lying where she had dropped it. He stooped down and opened it. A look of intense relief lightened his face. He picked it up and went out of the flat.
Left to itself the telephone rang again, insistently.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Inquest
ABOUT TEN MINUTES AFTER Alleyn got back to his own flat that night, Nigel's call came through.
"Got you at last," he said.
"Did you ring up at Surbonadier's flat about twenty minutes after you left it?" asked Alleyn.
"Yes. How did you know?"
"I heard you."
"Well, why the deuce didn't you answer?"
"I was under the bed."
"What? This telephone's very bad."
"Never mind. What's the matter?"
"I've been to see Felix. He asked me to. You were right."
"Well, not over the telephone. Come to the Yard at nine to -mor row."
"All right," said Nigel. "Good night."
"Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest," said Alleyn wearily, and went to bed.
Next morning Nigel arrived at Scotland Yard with his copy and his messenger boy.
"This is becoming a habit," said Alleyn. He censored the story and the remains were dispatched to Fleet Street.
"Now," said Nigel, "listen!"
He told his story of Gardener's confession, and of the anonymous letter, which he produced. Alleyn listened attentively and examined the paper very carefully.
"I'm glad he decided to tell you this," he said. "Do you think he would repeat it and sign a statement to the same effect?"
"I think so. As far as I could gather, after he had got over the first shock of having killed Surbonadier, he began to think you'd suspect him of malice aforethought. Later on, after I'd heard Miss Vaughan ask him not to repeat whatever it was, he felt it was she who was in danger and that he must tell you everything he knew that would be likely to draw your suspicions away from her. He realises that what he has said definitely implicates Saint, and may implicate himself. He's not at all sure Saint did it. He's inclined to think it's suicide."
"So is our Mr. Saint—very much inclined," said Alleyn grimly. He pressed the bell on his desk.
"Ask Inspector Fox to come in," he said to the constable who answered it.
He examined the paper again in silence, until the inspector arrived.
"Glad tidings, Fox," said Alleyn.
"Our little murderer has come all over literary. He's writing letters. One begins to see a glim."
"Does one?" asked Nigel.
"But certainly. Fox, this letter arrived at Mr. Gardener's flat, by district messenger, at about eight-thirty last night. There's the envelope. The district messenger offices will have to be combed out. Have it tested for prints. You'll find Gardener and an 'unknown.' I've a pretty good idea who the unknown is."
"May I ask who?" Fox ventured eagerly.
"A man who, in all honesty, I think I may say we have never, in the course of our speculation, suspected of this crime; a man who, by his apparent eagerness to help the police, by his frequent suggestions, as well as by his singular charm of manner, has succeeded so far in escaping even our casual attention. And that man's name is—"
"You can search me, sir."
"Nigel Bathgate."
"You fatuous old bag of tripe!" shouted Nigel furiously. And then when he saw Fox's scandalised face: "I beg your pardon, inspector. Like Mr. Saint, I don't always appreciate your comedy. It is true, Inspector Fox," he added with quiet dignity, "that my fingerprints will be on that paper; but not all over it. Only at one edge, and then I remembered not to."
"You'll escape us this time, I'm afraid, sir," said Fox solemnly. He began to heave with subterranean chuckles. "Your face was a fair treat, Mr. Bathgate," he added.
"Well," said Alleyn, "having worked off my professional facetiousness, let's get down to it. In your list of properties offstage is there a typewriter?"
"There is. A Remington used in the first and last act."
"Where's it kept?"
"In the property-room, between whiles. I think they re-set the first act after the show, as a rule, so it would be on the stage when they all got down to the theatre, and in the property-room after the last act. We tested it for prints first just in case it might be in the picture. It showed Mr. Gardener's on the keys, and Props's prints at the sides, where he had carried it on."
