by Ngaio Marsh
‘We’ll put the experts on to this,’ he said, ‘but I’m prepared to take a sporting chance on the result, Br’er Fox. Are you?’
‘I’d give it a go, Mr Alleyn.’
‘See if you can find Florence, will you? I’ll take a flying jump while you’re at it.’
Fox went out. Alleyn put his copy of the message on the desk and looked at it.
The correct method of deciphering and completing a blotting-paper impression is by measurement, calculation and elimination but occasionally, for persons with a knack, the missing letters start up vividly in the mind and the scientific method is thus accurately anticipated. When he was on his game, Alleyn possessed this knack and he now made use of it. Without allowing himself any second thoughts he wrote rapidly within the copy and stared with disfavour at the result. He then opened Richard Dakers’s dispatch-case and found it contained a typescript of a play, Husbandry in Heaven. He flipped the pages over and came across some alterations in green ink and in the same hand as the letter.
‘Miss Florence Johnson,’ said Fox opening the door and standing aside with something of the air of a large sporting dog retrieving a bird. Florence, looking not unlike an apprehensive fowl, came in.
Alleyn saw an unshapely little woman, with a pallid, tear-stained face and hair so remorselessly dyed that it might have been a raven wig. She wore that particular air of disillusionment that is associated with the Cockney and she reeked of backstage.
‘The superintendent,’ Fox told her, ‘just wants to hear the whole story like you told it to me. Nothing to worry about.’
‘Of course not,’ Alleyn said. ‘Come and sit down. We won’t keep you long.’
Florence looked as if she might prefer to stand, but compromised by sitting on the edge of the chair Fox had pushed forward.
‘This has been a sad business for you,’ Alleyn said.
‘That’s right,’ Florence said woodenly.
‘And I’m sure you must want to have the whole thing cleared up as soon and as quietly as possible.’
‘Clear enough, isn’t it? She’s dead. You can’t have it much clearer than that.’
‘You can’t indeed. But you see it’s our job to find out why.’
‘Short of seeing it happen you wouldn’t get much nearer, would you? If you can read, that is.’
‘You mean the tin of Slaypest?’
‘Well, it wasn’t perfume,’ Florence said impertinently. ‘They put that in bottles.’ She shot a glance at Alleyn and seemed to undergo a slight change of temper. Her lips trembled and she compressed them. ‘It wasn’t all that pleasant,’ she said. ‘Seeing what I seen. Finding her like that. You’d think I might be let alone.’
‘So you will be if you behave like a sensible girl. You’ve been with her a long time, haven’t you?’
‘Thirty years, near enough.’
‘You must have got along very well to have stayed together all that time.’
Florence didn’t answer and he waited. At last she said: ‘I knew her ways.’
‘And you were fond of her?’
‘She was all right. Others might have their own ideas. I know ’er. Inside out. She’d talk to me like she wouldn’t to others. She was all right.’
It was, Alleyn thought, after its fashion, a tribute.
He said: ‘Florence, I’m going to be very frank indeed with you. Suppose it wasn’t an accident. You’d want to know, wouldn’t you?’
‘It’s no good you thinking she did it deliberate. She never! Not she. Wouldn’t.’
‘I didn’t mean suicide.’
Florence watched him for a moment. Her mouth, casually but emphatically painted, narrowed into a scarlet thread.
‘If you mean murder,’ she said flatly, ‘that’s different.’
‘You’d want to know,’ he repeated. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
The tip of her tongue showed for a moment in the corner of her mouth. ‘That’s right,’ she said.
‘So do we. Now, Inspector Fox has already asked you about this but never mind: I’m asking you again. I want you to tell me in as much detail as you can remember just what happened from the time when Miss Bellamy dressed for her party up to the time you entered her room and found her – as you did find her. Let’s start with the preparations, shall we?’
She was a difficult subject. She seemed to be filled with some kind of resentment and everything had to be dragged out of her. After luncheon, it appeared, Miss Bellamy rested. At half-past four Florence went in to her. She seemed to be ‘much as usual.’
‘She hadn’t been upset by anything during the day?’
‘Nothing,’ Florence muttered, after a further silence, ‘to matter.’
‘I only ask,’ Alleyn said, ‘because there’s a bottle of sal volatile left out in the bathroom. Did you give her sal volatile at any stage?’
‘This morning.’
‘What was the matter, this morning? Was she faint?’
Florence said: ‘Over excited.’
‘About what?’
‘I couldn’t say,’ Florence said, and shut her mouth like a trap.
‘Very well,’ he said patiently. ‘Let’s get on with the preparation for the party. Did you give her a facial treatment of some kind?’
She stared at him. ‘That’s correct,’ she said. ‘A mask.’
‘What did she talk about, Florence?’
‘Nothing. You don’t with that stuff over your face. Can’t.’
‘And then?’
‘She made up and dressed. The two gentlemen came in and I went out.’
‘That would be Mr Templeton and – who?’
‘The colonel.’
‘Did either of them bring her Parma violets?’
She stared at him. ‘Vi’lets? Them? No. She didn’t like vi’lets.’
‘There’s a bunch on her dressing-table.’
‘I never noticed,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything about vi’lets. There wasn’t any when I left the room.’
‘And you saw her again – when?’
‘At the party.’
‘Well, let’s hear about it.’
For a second or two he thought she was going to keep mum. She had the least eloquent face he had ever seen. But she began to speak as if somebody had switched her on. She said that from the time she left her mistress and during the early part of the cocktail party she had been with Mrs Plumtree in their little sitting-room. When the gong sounded they went down to take their places in the procession. After the speeches were over Old Ninn had dropped her awful brick about candles. Florence recounted the incident with detachment, merely observing that Old Ninn was, in fact, very old and sometimes forgot herself. ‘Fifty candles,’ Florence said grimly. ‘What a remark to pass!’ It was the only piece of comment, so far, that she had proffered. She had realized, Alleyn gathered, that her mistress had been upset and thinking she might be wanted had gone into the hall. She heard her mistress speak for a moment to Mr Templeton, something about him asking her not to use her scent. Up to here Florence’s statement had been about as emotional as a grocery list, but at this point she appeared to boggle. She looked sideways at Alleyn, seemed to lose her bearings and came to a stop.
Alleyn said: ‘That’s all perfectly clear so far. Then did Miss Bellamy and the nanny – Mrs Plumtree, isn’t it? – go upstairs together?’
Florence, blankly staring, said: ‘No.’
‘They didn’t? What happened exactly?’
Ninn, it appeared, had gone first.
‘Why? What delayed Miss Bellamy?’
‘A photographer come butting in.’
‘He took a photograph of her, did he?’
‘That’s right. By the front door.’
‘Alone?’
‘He came in. The chap wanted him in too.’
‘Who?’
Her hands ground together in her lap. After waiting for a moment he asked: ‘Don’t you want to answer that one?’
‘I want to know,’ Florence
burst out, ‘if it’s murder. If it’s murder I don’t care who it was, I want to see ’er righted. Never mind who! You can be mistaken in people, as I often told her. Them you think nearest and dearest are likely as not the ones that you didn’t ought to trust. What I told her. Often and often.’
How vindictive, Alleyn wondered, was Florence? Of what character, precisely, was her relationship with her mistress? She was looking at him now, guardedly but with a kind of arrogance. ‘What I want to know,’ she repeated, ‘is it murder? Is it that?’
He said: ‘I believe it may be.’
She muttered: ‘You ought to know: being trained to it. They tell you the coppers always know.’
From what background had Florence emerged nearly thirty years ago into Miss Bellamy’s dressing-room? She was speaking now like a Bermondsey girl. Fly and wary. Her voice, hitherto negative and respectable, had ripened into strong Cockney.
Alleyn decided to take a long shot. He said: ‘I expect you know Mr Richard Dakers very well, don’t you?’
‘Hardly help meself, could I?’
‘No, indeed. He was more like a son than a ward to her, I dare say.’
Florence stared at him out of two eyes that closely resembled, and were about as eloquent as, boot-buttons.
‘Acted like it,’ she said. ‘If getting nothing but the best goes for anything. And taking it as if it was ’is right.’
‘Well,’ Alleyn said lightly, ‘he’s repaid her with two very successful plays, hasn’t he?’
‘Them! What’d they have been without her? See another actress in the lead! Oh, dear! What a change! She made them: he couldn’t have touched it on ’is own. She’d have breathed life into a corpse,’ Florence said, and then looked sick.
Alleyn said: ‘Mr Dakers left the house before the speeches, I understand?’
‘He did. What a way to behave!’
‘But he came back, didn’t he?’
‘He’s back now,’ she said quickly. ‘You seen ’im, didn’t you?’ Gracefield, evidently, had talked.
‘I don’t mean now. I mean between the time he first left before the speeches and the time when he returned about half an hour ago. Wasn’t there another visit in between?’
‘That’s right,’ she said under her breath.
‘Before the birthday speech?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Take the moment we’re discussing. Mrs Plumtree had gone upstairs, Miss Bellamy was in the hall. You had come out to see if she needed you.’ He waited for a moment and then took his gamble. ‘Did he walk in at the front door? At that moment?’
He thought she was going to say ‘No’: she seemed to be struggling with some kind of doubt. Then she nodded.
‘Did he speak to Miss Bellamy?’ She nodded again.
‘What about, do you know?’
‘I didn’t catch. I was at the other end of the hall.’
‘What happened then?’
‘They were photographed and then they went upstairs.’
‘And you?’
‘I went up. By the back stairs,’ said Florence.
‘Where to?’
‘I went along to the landing.’
‘And did you go in to her?’
‘Mrs Plumtree was on the landing,’ Florence said abruptly. Alleyn waited. ‘They was talking inside – him and The Lady. So I didn’t disturb her.’
‘And you could hear them talking?’
She said angrily: ‘What say we could? We weren’t snooping, if that’s what you mean. We didn’t hear a word. She laughed – once.’
‘And then?’
‘He came out and went downstairs.’
‘And did you go in to Miss Bellamy?’
‘No,’ Florence said loudly.
‘Why not?’
‘I didn’t reckon she’d want me.’
‘But why?’
‘I didn’t reckon she would.’
‘Had you,’ he asked without emphasis, ‘had a row of some sort with Miss Bellamy?’
She went very white. ‘What are you getting at?’ she demanded and then: ‘I told you. I understood her. Better than anyone.’
‘And there’d been no trouble between you?’
‘No!’ she said loudly.
He decided not to press this point. ‘So what did you do?’ he asked. ‘You and Mrs Plumtree?’
‘Stayed where we was. Until …’
‘Yes?’
‘Until we heard something.’
‘What was that?’
‘Inside her room. Something. Kind of a crash.’
‘What was it, do you think?’
‘I wouldn’t know. I was going in to see, whether or no, when I heard Mr Templeton in the hall. Calling. I go down to the half-landing,’ Florence continued, changing her tense for the narrative-present. ‘He calls up, they’re waiting for her. So I go back to fetch her. And …’ For the first time her voice trembled. ‘And I walk in.’
‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘Before we go on, Florence, will you tell me this? Did Mr Richard at this time seem at all upset?’
‘That’s right,’ she said, again with the air of defiance.
‘When he arrived?’ She nodded. ‘I see. And when he came out of Miss Bellamy’s room?’
And now there was no mistaking Florence’s tone. It was one of pure hatred.
‘ ’Im? ’E looked ghasterly. ’E looked,’ said Florence, ‘like death.’
III
As if, by this one outburst, she had bestowed upon herself some kind of emotional blood-letting, Florence returned to her earlier manner – cagey, grudging, implicitly resentful. Alleyn could get no more from her about Richard Dakers’s behaviour. When he suggested, obliquely, that perhaps Old Ninn might be more forthcoming, Florence let fall a solitary remark. ‘Her!’ she said. ‘You won’t get her to talk. Not about him!’ and refused to elaborate.
He had learned to recognize the point at which persistence defeats its own end. He took her on to the time where she entered the bedroom and discovered her mistress. Here, Florence exhibited a characteristic attitude towards scenes of violence. It was, he thought, as if she recognized in her own fashion their epic value and was determined to do justice to the current example.
When she went into the room, Mary Bellamy was on her knees, her hands to her throat and her eyes starting. She had tried to speak but had succeeded only in making a terrible retching noise. Florence had attempted to raise her, to ask her what had happened, but her mistress, threshing about on the floor, had been as unresponsive to these ministrations as an animal in torment. Florence had thought she heard the word ‘doctor.’ Quite beside herself, she had rushed out of the room and downstairs. ‘Queer,’ she said. That was what she had felt. ‘Queer.’ It was ‘queer’ that at such a moment she should concern herself with Miss Bellamy’s nonappearance at her party. It was ‘queer’ that a hackneyed theatre phrase should occur to her in such a crisis but it had and she remembered using it: ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’ though, of course, she knew, really, that Dr Harkness was one of the guests. On the subject of Dr Harkness she was violent.
‘Him! Nice lot of help he give, I don’t think I Silly with what he’d taken and knew it. Couldn’t make up his mind where he was or what he was wanted for till the colonel shoved ice down his neck. Even then he was stupid-like and ’ad to be pushed upstairs. For all we know,’ Florence said, ‘ ’e might of saved ’er. For all we know! But when ’e got there it was over and in my opinion ’e’s got it on ’is conscience for the rest of ’is days. And that’s no error. Dr Harkness!’
Alleyn asked her to describe, in detail, the state of the room when she first went into it. She remembered nothing but her mistress and when he pressed her to try, he thought she merely drew on what she saw after she returned.
He said: ‘We’ve almost finished but there’s one question I must ask you. Do you know of anyone who had cause to wish for her death?’
She thought this over, warily. ‘ There’s plenty,�
�� she said, ‘that was jealous of her and there’s some that acted treacherous. Some that called themselves friends.’
‘In the profession?’ Alleyn ventured.
‘Ah! Miss Kate Cavendish who’d never have got farther than Brighton Pier in the off-season without The Lady hadn’t looked after ’er! Mr Albert Smith, pardon the slip, I should of said Saracen. But for her ’e’d of stuck behind ’is counter in the Manchester department. Look what she done for them and how do they pay ’er back? Only this morning!’
‘What happened this morning?’
‘Sauce and treachery was what happened.’
‘That doesn’t really answer my question, does it?’
She stood up. ‘It’s all the answer you’ll get. You know your own business best, I suppose. But if she’s been murdered, there’s only one that had the chance. Why waste your time?’
‘Only one?’ Alleyn said. ‘Do you really think so?’
For the first time she looked frightened but her answer was unexpected. ‘I don’t want what I’ve said to go no further,’ she said with a look at Fox, who had been quietly taking notes. ‘I don’t fancy being quoted, particularly in some quarters. There’s some that’d turn very nasty if they knew what I said.’
‘Old Ninn?’ Alleyn suggested. ‘For one?’
‘Smart,’ Florence said with spirit, ‘aren’t you? All right. Her for one. She’s got her fancy like I had mine. Only mine,’ Florence said, and her voice was desolate, ‘mine’s gone where it won’t come back, and that’s the difference.’ A spasm of something that might have been hatred crossed her face and she cried out with violence: ‘I’ll never forgive her! Never. I’ll be even with her no matter what comes out of it, see if I’m not. Clara Plumtree!’
‘But what did she do?’
He thought she was going to jib, but suddenly it all came out. It had happened, she said, after the tragedy. Charles Templeton had been taken to his dressing-room and Ninn had appeared on the landing while Florence was taking him a hot bottle. Florence herself had been too agitated to tell her what had happened in any detail. She had given Mr Templeton the bottle and left him. He was terribly distressed and wanted to be left alone. She had returned to the landing and seen Dr Harkness and Timon Gantry come out of the bedroom and speak to Mrs Plumtree who had then gone into the dressing-room. Florence herself had been consumed with a single overwhelming desire.
