Death in Ecstasy

by Ngaio Marsh

  “Not in that way. I wouldn’t have definitely missed it. But in another way I seem to remember not seeing it, if you get me. It’s a red book. Seems like I remember not seeing a red book. That sounds crazy, I guess.”

  “On the contrary, this is all extremely interesting,” said Alleyn.

  “Yeah? Well, here’s hoping it doesn’t interest you in Sam J. Ogden. Maybe Raveenje will recall me showing him the book. Or maybe one of the rest will. That,” added Mr. Ogden with a naïve smile, ‘is just why I thought I’d better come clean.”

  “Do you incline to think somebody took the book that evening, Mr. Ogden?”

  “What the hell? I haven’t a notion when it was lifted.”

  ‘Have any of the Initiates been to see you since then?”

  “Sure, they have. I gave a little lunch last Wednesday for Cara and Raveenje and Garnette and Dagmar. Lemme see. Maurice and Janey were around last Sunday. That was the night Dr. Kasbek came in. I haven’t had Claude and Lionel come in again. Those two queens give me a pain.”

  “Now look here, Mr. Ogden, you’ve got your own ideas on the subject, haven’t you? You practically stated, just now, that you believed Mr. Garnette had taken those bonds.”

  Mr. Ogden looked extremely uncomfortable.

  “Didn’t you?” pressed Alleyn.

  “I’m not saying a thing.”

  “Very well,” said Alleyn shortly, “I can’t do anything against that.”

  Ogden gave him a sidelong but not unattractive grin. “Seems like the British police is kinda helpless,” he said.

  “Seems like it,” agreed Alleyn dryly. “How many of you are in this thing with Garnette?”

  “What the hell? In what thing?”

  He broke off, got to his feet, and stood glaring down at Alleyn, his face white and his eyes very angry.

  “See here,” he said. “Just what do you mean? I’m not muscling in on any homicide rackets. I’ve told you a straight story about that book and I’m sticking to it. If you don’t believe me—find out.”

  “Mr. Ogden, I fully believe your story. But there are more rackets than one, you know.”

  “Yeah? Just what are you aiming to insinuate?”

  “Merely that I have far too high an opinion of your intelligence to suppose that you would allow yourself to become as enamoured of transcendental mumbo-jumbo as you would have me believe.”

  “Are you telling me the spiritual dope we hand out here is phoney?”

  “I’m saying that you aren’t so hypnotised by it that you’ve lost your business man’s acumen.”

  Mr. Ogden looked very hard at the inspector and a slow grin began to dawn on his face.

  “And I’m saying,” Alleyn continued, “that you don’t float anything with big fat cheques unless you’re going to get a more tangible return for your money than a dose of over-proof spiritual uplift.”

  “Maybe,” said Mr. Ogden with a fat chuckle.

  “In short, Mr. Ogden, I want to know how you stand as regards the finance of this affair. I’ve got to find out how everybody stands. It’s not good mincing matters. All of the Initiates come under suspicion of this crime; yourself as much as anyone. Believe me, you cannot afford to keep back any information when there’s a capital charge in the offing.”

  “Just when did you get your big idea that I’m interested financially?”

  “I got it the first time I saw you. I know that there are, if you will forgive me for saying so, many hardheaded Americans who can be taken in by highly-coloured religious sects. I told myself you might be one of them, but somehow I didn’t think you were. You seemed to me to be too shrewd. Your attitude towards Mr. Garnette, when the theft of the bonds was discovered, confirmed my opinion. Of course, if you prefer not to tell me how matters stand, we can ferret round and find out. Mr. Garnette is now so alarmed he will no doubt be ready to give me his version.”

  “Like hell he will, the dirty what’s it,” said Mr. Ogden indignantly. “See here, Chief, you win this deal, hands down. Bar one point. Until today I was putting my O.K. stamp on the doctrine of the Sacred Flame. I’ve never backed a phony deal in my life and I’m not starting in now. No, sir. The Sacred Flame and Jasper Garnette looked like clean peppy uplift to me. When Garnette and me met up on that trip, he outlined his scheme and he slipped me the line of talk. He told me it’d need capital. Well, I heard him address the passengers and the way he had those society dames asking if he’d accept ten dollars as a favour for the Seamen’s Fund got me thinking. Before we landed I’d figured it out. I floated the concern on a percentage basis and Garnette couldn’t have done it without me. We were in cahoots, and now, the dirty so-and-so, he’s pulled out those bonds on me.”

  “Are there any other shareholders?”

  “M. de Raveenje put five hundred pounds into it. All he could find. The slump hit him up some. Say, I reckon he’ll want to know the how-so about those bonds. He’s white all through, and he saw Cara way up among the gods.”

  “Did you,” asked Alleyn, “have a written agreement?”

  “Certainly we did. Drawn up by a lawyer. Each of us has got a copy. Want to see it, Chief?”

  “Yes, we’d better have a look at it. I wonder where Mr. Garnette keeps his.”

  “Most likely at his bank. He’s a wise coon!”

  “You are convinced Garnette took the bonds?”

  “I wish to God I wasn’t,” said Mr. Ogden unexpectedly. “I—I kind of reverenced that guy. Me! Maybe I’ll learn sense—next year.”

  “Did you keep books?”

  “Yes, sir. I did the books and Raveenje and Garnette could see them any time. Raveenje has got them home right now.”

  “How did it work?”

  “Like any regular company. I’m the biggest shareholder—I put up the most dollars. Garnette is paid a salary and he draws twenty per cent of the profits. That was square enough.”

  “Do you know Mr. Garnette is a fellow-countryman of yours?”

  Mr. Ogden looked as if he might be a sign for an inn called The Incredulous Man. “Forget it,” he said briefly. “Him! No, sir! We certainly breed one brand of polecat, but it ain’t called Garnette. Look at his line of talk! Where do you get that stuff, anyway?”

  “You might say,” said Alleyn with a glance at Fox, “that the gentleman told me himself.”

  “Then he piled up one more lie on to his total.”

  “Ah, well,” sighed Alleyn, “I think that’s all for the moment, Mr. Ogden.”

  “Good! But listen, Chief, I don’t want to get in wrong over the financial side of this joint. Get this. I put up the dollars. I saw it as a commercial proposition and I blanked it. I’ve run my department straight and I’ve had no more’n my fair share. Same goes for Reveenje. He’s on the level all right. I look at it this way. This temple has brought colour and interest into folks’ lives, I’d thought it was something more than that, day-before-yesterday, when Garnette looked like a regular guy. But even if Garnette’s synthetic, and he certainly is, it’s been a great little party.” He paused and then repeated as though it was a manufacturer’s slogan: “It has brought colour and interest into otherwise drab and grey lives.”

  “Together with hysteria and heroin, Mr. Ogden.”

  Nigel, who had managed to make unostentatious shorthand notes throughout this interview, now watched Ogden eagerly. Would this shot go home? He decided that the American’s astonishment bore the unmistakable stamp of sincerity.

  “What the sweltering hell d’you mean?” asked Ogden. “Heroin? Snow? Who’s doping in this crowd? By heck!” he added after a moment’s pause, “is that what’s wrong with young Pringle? Who’s started it?”

  “To the best of my belief, Mr. Garnette.”

  The American swore, heartily, solidly, and with lurid emphasis. Alleyn listened, politely, Fox with a dispassionate air of expert criticism.

  “By God,” ended Mr. Ogden. “I wish to—I’d never touched this—concern. Never no more! It’s taken a murde
r to put me wise, but never more. Say, listen, Chief, as God’s my witness I never—Aw, what’s the use?”

  “It’s all right,” said Alleyn quietly. “We have been told you were not mixed up in it.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Pringle told me. Don’t worry about it too much, Mr. Ogden. We’re not going to pull you in for drug-running.”

  Ogden looked nervously from Fox to Alleyn.

  “Not for drug-running,” he said. “I’m not raving about the way you said it.”

  “Now look here,” said Alleyn, “don’t you go making things more difficult by getting the wind up. I can’t go round like a child in a nursery game saying: ‘It isn’t you! It isn’t you!’ until I get to the ‘he.’ I can only repeat my well-worn slogan the innocent are safe as long as they stick to the truth.”

  “I hope to hell you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right. It’ll all come out what the Australians call ‘jakealoo.’ Have any of the Initiates ever been to Australia, do you know?”

  “I don’t know, Chief. I haven’t.”

  “They have a strong way of putting things there. But I wander. Don’t worry, Mr. Ogden.”

  “That damned book! If only I knew when it went.”

  “Never mind about the book. I think I can guess when it went and who took it.”

  “Well, ain’t you the clam’s cuticle!” said Mr. Ogden.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Contribution from Miss Wade

  AFTER MR. OGDEN had gone Alleyn thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and stood staring at Fox.

  “What are we to make of all this, Fox?” he asked, “What do you make of it? You’re looking very blank and innocent, and that means you’ve got hold of an idea.”

  “Not to say an idea, sir. I wouldn’t go so far as that, I’ve been trying to string up a sequence as you might say.”

  “May we hear it? I’ve got to such a state I hardly know which of these creatures is which.”

  “Now then, sir,” said Fox good-humouredly, “you know we won’t believe that. Well, this is as far as I’ve got. We know Miss Quayne went out yesterday afternoon. We know she came here between two-thirty and three. We know she got some sort of a shock while she was here. We know the bonds were stolen, but we don’t know when. We know she was murdered last night.”

  “True, every word of it.”

  “Starting from there,” continued Fox in his slow way, “I’ve wondered. I’ve wondered whether she discovered the theft yesterday afternoon and whether the thief knew she discovered it. She used the word ‘discovery’ in her note. Now if Garnette pinched the bonds she didn’t know it was him or she wouldn’t have left that note for him. That’s if the note was meant for him, and I don’t see how it could be otherwise. Well, say the safe was open when she got here, and for some reason she wanted to see the bonds and found they were gone. She perhaps hung round waiting for him until the people began to come in for the afternoon show—the chauffeur chap said they did—and then came away leaving the note. I don’t quite like this,” continued Fox. “It’s got some awkward patches on it. Why did she put the bonds away all tidily? Would the safe be unlocked?”

  “She might,” said Alleyn, “have met somebody who said something to upset her. Something about—”

  “I say,” interrupted Nigel. “Suppose she met somebody who said they suspected Garnette of foul play and she wanted to warn Garnette against them? How’s that?”

  “Not a bad idea, sir,” said Fox. “Not a bad idea at all. Garnette got wind of it and thought he’d polish the lady off before she had time to alter the Will.”

  “But how did he get wind of it?” objected Alleyn. “Not through the note. He never read it. And if she wanted to warn him, why should she alter her Will?”

  “That’s so,” sighed Fox. “By the way, sir, what are the terms of the Will? Has she left him a fair sum?”

  Alleyn told him and Fox looked intensely gratified.

  “Ten thousand. And twenty-one thousand for the Church. That’s motive enough if you like.”

  “How much further did you get with your wondering, Brer Fox? Had you fitted in the two scraps of paper we found in the fireplace?”

  “Can’t say I did, sir. Somebody warning the Reverend about something, and it seems to refer to Mrs. Candour, as Mr. Bathgate pointed out. Judging from their position in the grate they were part of a letter thrown there some time during the evening, or at any rate some time yesterday.”

  “Certainly, but I don’t agree about Mrs. Candour. I’ve got the thing here. Take another look at it.”

  Alleyn produced the two scraps of paper.

  “I thought at the time,” he said slowly, “that they were written by Miss Quayne’s old nurse.”

  “Good Lord!” ejaculated Fox. “How d’ you get that out of it?”

  “Yes,” said Nigel, “how the devil did you? He wouldn’t tell me, Inspector Fox.”

  “Pretty good, isn’t it?” said Alleyn complacently. “Not so good, however, when the first glory wears off. It’s written in green pencil and there was a green pencil on Miss Quayne’s desk. The M—S is the remains of ‘Miss’ and the CA the beginnings of ‘Cara.’ That’s the top of an R, not an N. The old girl wrote to Garnette warning him off. I fancy it read something like this: ‘Sir: This is to warn you that if you [something or another] with Miss Cara, I am determined to give you in charge. There’s a law in England to save women from men like you.’ Something like that.”

  “Yes,” said Fox, “that fits.”

  “She made that trip here last night to see if the letter had borne any fruit and watched the show from Garnette’s room. Don’t be cross, Fox! I haven’t had time to tell you before. I’ll let you see the notes of my interview with Nannie Hebborn. The old lady came clean and was very helpful. But that disposes of the note. Garnette must have chucked it in the grate some time yesterday. Now, Fox, what about the book?”

  “I reckon Garnette hears Ogden showing it to M. de Ravigne at the party and pinched it,” said Fox. “After all, sir, his prints are on the top of the book and on the wrappings of the parcel. He might have missed wiping them off that part of the book.”

  “What about that little drip Claude?” demanded Nigel. “You heard Ogden say he was out when he came for the books. And you remember Claude said that a week before he saw the Curiosities here he had put the other books at the back of the shelf. He looked mighty uncomfortable over that. Of course that was when we brought them back from Ogden’s. Suppose he pinched it and didn’t want to say so?”

  “That’s got to be considered too,” said Alleyn. “I think the stray prints on the top of the leaves are possibly Claude’s, and not Garnette’s. Bailey hasn’t had much success with them.”

  “You think Mr. Wheatley took the book?” said Fox.

  “But,” said Nigel, flushed with triumph, “it hadn’t got a brown paper cover on, so if Claude took it he did so deliberately.’’

  “Don’t overdo it, Bathgate,” said Alleyn kindly. “This is the pace that kills!”

  “Garnette told him to take it,” continued Nigel. “Depend upon it, Garnette told him to take it.”

  “He’d never do that Mr. Bathgate,” objected Fox. ‘Not if he meant to make use of it. No, I still think Garnette pinched the book himself.”

  “Here we go round the mulberry bush for about the millionth time,” said Alleyn wearily, “and why the devil we’re hanging about this beastly place is more than I can tell. Let’s get back to the Yard, Fox. There’s an unconscionable lot of drudgery ahead. Have they tackled the fingerprint game?”

  “They’re at it now,” said Fox, as they all walked down the aisle. “And by the way, sir, we’ve checked Dr. Kasbek’s story. He seems to be all right.”

  “Good. I rang New York early this morning. They were very polite and will try to find us something about Garnette and Ogden. They can check up Ogden through the address on that letter we found on him. Come on.”

&nb
sp; But they were not quite finished with the House of the Sacred Flame. In the closed entry, watched over by an enormous constable, was Miss Wade.

  “Oh, officer,” said Miss Wade. She peered up at Alleyn and pitched her voice in a genteel falsetto. “I would like to speak to you for a moment.”

  “Certainly,” said Alleyn politely. “I’ll see you in the car, Fox.”

  Nigel and Fox walked on, and the constable, with massive tact, withdrew to the outer end of the alley.

  “What can I do for you, Miss Wade?” asked Alleyn.

  “It is a little matter that has rather troubled me. I am afraid I cannot keep pace with all the dreadful things that have happened since yesterday afternoon. Dear Janey says someone has stolen the money that dear Cara so generously gave to the temple. When did they do this?”

  “We don’t know, unfortunately. The bonds were deposited in the safe last month. They had disappeared last night.”

  “Were they stolen yesterday afternoon?”

  “Why do you ask that, Miss Wade?” said Alleyn quickly.

  “I only thought that perhaps that was what poor Cara meant when she said she would tell Father Garnette about it.”

  Alleyn gazed at Miss Wade rather as though she had suddenly produced a rabbit from somewhere behind her back teeth.

  “Would you mind saying that again?” he asked.

  Miss Wade repeated her last remark in a somewhat louder voice but with perfect equanimity.

  “When,” said Alleyn, “did Miss Quayne say this, and to whom?”

  “Yesterday afternoon, to be sure. When else?”

  “When else, of course,” repeated Alleyn with some difficulty. “How do you know she said it, if I may ask?”

  “Really, officer! Because I overheard her. Naturally.”

  “Naturally. In the—the temple?”

  “In the temple. Naturally, in the temple.”

  “Naturally.’’

  “It quite upset my meditation. I had come down early before the Neophytes’ instruction to make my preparation for the evening ceremony. I had chosen the word ‘bliss’ and had just reached the Outer Portal of the Soul when this interruption occurred. It was provoking. I wished, afterwards, that I had chosen a back pew instead of my Initiate’s throne.”