by Ngaio Marsh
“Thank you very much indeed, Elsie.”
She went away in high feather.
“Just as well she didn’t look at the book, Mr. Ogden,” said Alleyn dryly. “Which was it? Petronius?”
“Ah, hell!” said Mr. Ogden.
“Well, Fox, we must go our ways.” Alleyn wandered over to the shelves. “M. de Ravigne certainly left his mark,” he said. “The stuff ran some way along. What was it?”
“A highball.”
“Ah, well,” said Alleyn, “we’ll have to find out what Mr. Garnette did with the Curiosities.”
‘By God,” began Mr. Ogden violently, “if Garnette—” He stopped short. “I ain’t saying a thing,” he added darkly.
“Come along, Fox,” said Alleyn. “We’ve kept Mr. Ogden too long already. I must present Elsie with the wherewithal for a new bonnet. She skipped away before I could do it. I’ll find her on the way down.”
They said good-bye. Elsie was hovering in the little hall. Alleyn winked at Fox who went on ahead. Alleyn joined him in the car five minutes later.
“Very talkative girl that,” said Fox dryly.
“She is. In addition to being swamped with thanks I’ve heard all about her sister’s miscarriage, the mystery of the drawing room poker (it seems Elsie suspects someone of chewing at the tip), her young man who is a terror for crime stories, how Mr. Ogden broke a Fyrexo pot and why Elsie likes policemen. She remembers the day Claude came for the books. She put them in his attaché-case for him. Ogden was out, as he said. Elsie says there were six, which is rum, as she spoke of five before that. What’s the time?”
“Five-thirty.”
“I made an appointment with young Pringle for six. I expect he’ll be in. Look here, Fox, I’ll drop you at Knocklatchers Row. If Garnette is in, ask him what he did with the book that night at Ogden’s. Go easy with him. It would be lovely to hear the truth for once from those perfect lips. He’ll swear he left it behind him, of course, but try and get some means of checking up on it. Then, if you’ve time, look up the unspeakable Claude. Ask him how many books he collected from Ogden for Garnette. He’ll probably say he’s forgotten, but ask him. Oh, and ask Garnette if he examined them when they came in. Will you do all that Fox?”
“Right-oh, sir. What’s your view now? Things are a bit more shipshape, aren’t they?”
“They are, Fox, they are. It’s closing in. I’ve little doubt in my own mind now. Have you?”
“No. It looks as if you’re right.”
“We haven’t got enough for an arrest, of course. Still, the cable from Australia may bring forth fruits, and I’ll have to get in touch with Madame de Barsac. You were quite right. She’s in a nursing home. The telegram was from her housekeeper. I hope to heaven Cara Quayne’s letter has survived. I’ll ring up the Sûreté tonight. Old Sapineau is by way of being a pal of mine. Perhaps he can do something tactful for me. Here we are at Knocklatchers Row. In you go, Fox. It’s better I should see Pringle alone. I’ve got to convince him we know he came to this church on Sunday afternoon without giving away the source of information. I’ll have to bluff, and I can do that better without your eye on me. It may come to taking an extreme measure. Watkins and Bailey are meeting me there. I’ll be back at the Yard some time this evening. What a life, ye screeching kittens, what a life!”
Alleyn drove on to Lower Sloane Street, where he was joined by Detective-Sergeants Bailey and Watkins.
“Stay down opposite the door,” said Alleyn, “and try not to look like sleuths, there’s good fellows. If you see me come to the window, wander quietly upstairs. Hope it won’t be necessary.”
He went upstairs to the flat, where he found Maurice Pringle.
Maurice looked a pretty good specimen of a wreck. His face was the colour of wet cement, there were pockets of green plasticine under his eyes, and he had the general appearance of having spent the day on an unmade bed. Alleyn dealt roundly with him.
“Good evening, Mr. Pringle. You’re looking ill.”
“I’m feeling bloody if it’s of any interest,” said Maurice. “Sit down, won’t you?”
“Thank you.” Alleyn sat down and proceeded to look calmly and fixedly at Maurice.
“Well, what’s the matter?” demanded Maurice. “I suppose you haven’t come here to memorise my face, have you?”
“Partly,” said Alleyn coolly.
“What the devil do you mean? See here, Inspector Alleyn, if that’s your name, I’m about fed up with your methods. You’re one of the new gentlemen-police, aren’t you?”
“No,” said Alleyn.
“Well, what the hell are you?”
“Just police.”
“I’d be obliged,” said Maurice loftily, “if you’d get your business done as quickly as possible. I’m busy.”
“So am I, rather,” said Alleyn. “I should be delighted to get it over. May I be brief, Mr. Pringle?”
“As brief as you like.”
“Right. Who supplies you with heroin?”
“None of your cursed business. You’ve no right to ask questions of that sort. I’ll damn’ well report you.”
“Very good,” said Alleyn.
Maurice flung himself down in his chair, bit his nails and glowered.
“I wish to God I hadn’t told you,” he said.
“Your behaviour and your looks told me long before you did,” rejoined Alleyn.
Maurice suddenly flung his hands up to his face.
“If my manner is discourteous I must apologise,” Alleyn went on, “but this is a serious matter. You have deliberately lied to me. Please let me go on. You informed me that you spent Sunday afternoon with Miss Jenkins in Yeoman’s Row. That was a lie. You were seen in Knocklatchers Row on Sunday afternoon. You went into the House of the Sacred Flame. Am I right?”
“I won’t answer.”
“If you persist in this course I shall arrest you.”
“On what charge?”
“On the charge of receiving prohibited drugs.”
“You can’t prove it.”
“Will you risk that?”
“Yes.”
“Do you hold to your statement that you did not go to the House of the Sacred Flame on Sunday afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Are you protecting yourself—or someone else?”
Silence.
“Mr. Pringle,” said Alleyn gently, “if you are placed under arrest what will you do about your heroin then?”
“Damn your eyes!” said Maurice.
“I am now going to search your flat. Here is my warrant. Unless, of course, you prefer to show me how much dope you have on the premises?”
Maurice stared at him in silence. Suddenly his face twisted like a miserable child’s.
“Why can’t you leave me alone? I only want to be left alone! I’m not interfering with anyone else. It doesn’t matter to anyone else what I do.”
“Not to Miss Jenkins?” asked Alleyn.
“Oh, God, they haven’t sent you here to preach, have they?”
“Look here,” said Alleyn, “you won’t believe me, but I don’t particularly want to search your flat or to arrest you. I came here hoping that you’d give me a certain amount of help. You went to Knocklatchers Row on Sunday afternoon. I think you went into Garnette’s rooms. There you must either have overheard a discussion between Miss Quayne and another individual, or had a discussion with her yourself. For some reason you kept all this a secret. From our point of view that looks remarkably fishy. We must know what happened in Garnette’s rooms between two-thirty and three on Sunday afternoon. If you persist in your refusal I shall arrest you on a minor charge, and I warn you that you’ll be in a very unpleasant position.”
“What do you want to know?”
“To whom did Miss Quayne say: ‘I shall tell Father Garnette what you have done?’ ”
“You know she said that?”
“Yes. Was it to you?”
“No.”
“Was
it to M. de Ravigne?”
“I won’t tell you. It wasn’t to me.”
“Had you gone there to get heroin?”
“I won’t tell you.”
Alleyn walked over to the window and looked down into the street.
“Does Mr. Garnette supply you with heroin?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Maurice suddenly. “Garnette didn’t kill Cara Quayne.”
“How do you know that, Mr. Pringle?”
“Never you mind. I do know.”
“I am afraid that sort of statement would not be welcomed by learned counsel on either side.”
“It’s all you’ll get from me.”
“—and if you happened to be in the dock, the information would be superfluous.”
“I didn’t kill her. You can’t arrest me for that. I tell you before God I didn’t kill her.”
“You may be an accessory before the fact. I’m not bluffing, Mr. Pringle. For the last time will you tell me who supplies you with heroin?”
“No.”
“Oh, come in, you two,” said Alleyn disgustedly. Bailey and Watkins came in, their hats in their hands.
Alleyn was rather particular on points of etiquette.
“Just look around, will you,” he said.
The look-round consisted of a very painstaking search of the flat. It lasted for an hour, but in the first ten minutes they found a little white packet that Alleyn commandeered. No written matter of any importance was discovered. A hypodermic syringe was their second find. Alleyn himself took six cigarettes and added them to the collection. Throughout the search Maurice remained seated by the electric radiator. He smoked continually, and maintained a sulky silence. Alleyn looked at him occasionally with something like pity in his eyes.
When it was all over he sent the two Yard men out into the landing, walked over to where Maurice sat by the heater, and stood there looking down at him.
“I’m going to tell you what I think is at the back of your obstinacy,” he said. “I wish I could say I thought you were doing the stupid but noble protection game. I don’t believe you are. Very few people go in for that sort of heroism. I think self, self-indulgence if you like, is at the back of your stupid and very churlish behaviour. I’m going to make a guess, a reprehensible thing for any criminal investigator to do. I guess that on Sunday afternoon you went to Garnette’s flat to get the packet of heroin we found in your boot-box. I think that Garnette is a receiver and disperser of such drugs, and that you knew he had this packet in his bedroom. I think you went in at the back door, through into the bedroom. While you were there someone came into the sitting-room from the hall. You were not sure who this person was, so you kept quiet, not moving for fear they should hear you and look in at the connecting door. While you stood still, listening, this unknown person came quite close to the door. You heard a faint metallic click and you knew the key had been turned in the lock of the safe. Then there was an interruption. Someone else had come into the sitting room. It was Cara Quayne. There followed a dialogue between Cara Quayne and the other person. I shall emulate the thrilling example of learned Counsel and call this other person X. Cara Quayne began to make things very awkward for X. She wanted to know about her bonds. I think perhaps she wanted to add to them on the occasion of her initiation as Chosen Vessel. It was all very difficult because the bonds were not there. X tried a line of pacifying reasonable talk, but she wasn’t having any. She was very excited and most upset. X had a certain amount of difficulty in keeping her quiet. At last she said loudly: ‘I shall tell Father Garnette what you have done,’ and a second later you heard the rattle of curtain rings and the slam of the outer door. She had gone. Now your actions after this are not perfectly clear to me. What I think, however, is this: You behaved in rather a curious manner. You did not go in to the sitting room, strike an attitude in the doorway, and say: ‘X, all is discovered,’ or: ‘X, X, can I believe my ears?’ No. You tiptoed out of the bedroom and through the back door which you did not lock and which remained unlocked all through the evening. Then you scuttled back here and proceeded to make a beast of yourself with the contents of the little white packet. Now why did you do this? Either because X was a person who had a very strong hold of some sort over you, or else because X was someone to whom you were deeply attached. There is of course, a third—damn it, why can’t one say a third alternative?—a third explanation. You may have drugged yourself into such a pitiable condition that you hadn’t the nerve to tackle a white louse, much less X.”
“God!” said Maurice Pringle. “I’ll tackle you if there’s much more of this.”
“There’s very little more. You asked me to be brief. You had to take Miss Jenkins into your confidence over this because you wanted her to tell us you’d been in her flat all the afternoon. Now if you refuse to tell me who X is you’re going to force me to do something very nasty about Miss Jenkins. She’s a secondary accessory after the fact. With you, of course. You’re going to force me to arrest you on the dope game. If you persist in your silence after your arrest you will be the direct cause of fixing the suspicion of homicide on the man who you say is innocent. There will be no more heroin. I should imagine your condition is pathological. You should go into a home and be scientifically treated. How you’ll stand up to being under lock and key in a police station is best known to yourself. Well, there you are. Is it to be a wholesale sacrifice of yourself, Miss Jenkins and—possibly—an innocent person? Or are you going to clear away the sacrificial smoke at present obscuring the features of Mr. or Madam X?”
Alleyn stopped abruptly, made a curious self-deprecatory grimace, and lit a cigarette. In the silence that followed, Maurice stared at him piteously. His fingers trembled on the arms of the chair. He seemed scarcely to think. Suddenly his face twisted and with the shamefaced abandon of a small boy he turned and buried his eyes in the cushions.
After a moment Alleyn stretched out a thin hand and touched him.
“It’s best,” he said. “I’m not altogether inhuman, and believe me, in every way, it’s best.”
He could not hear the answer.
“Do you agree?” asked Alleyn gently.
Without raising his head Maurice spoke again.
“—want to think—tomorrow—give me time.”
Alleyn thought for a moment.
“Very well,” he said at last, “I’ll give you till tomorrow. But don’t commit suicide. It would be so very unprincipled, and we should have to arrest Miss Jenkins for perjury or something, and hang Mr. Garnette. Perhaps I’d better leave someone here. You are a nuisance, aren’t you? Good evening.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Maurice Speaks
ON A STORMY EVENING of December last year, five days after the murder of Cara Quayne, Nigel Bathgate stood at the window of his flat in Chester Terrace and looked across the street into Knocklatchers Row. It was blowing a gale and the rain made diagonal streamers of tinsel against the wet black of the houses. The sign of the Sacred Flame swung crazily out and back. A faint light shone from the concealed entry and ran in a gleaming streak down the margin of a policeman’s cape. The policeman had just arrived, relieving a man who had been on duty there all the afternoon. As Nigel looked down through the rain Miss Wade’s umbrella appeared from the direction of Westbourne Street. He knew it was Miss Wade’s umbrella because of its colour, a dejected sap-green, and because Miss Wade’s goloshes and parts of herself were revealed as she struggled against the wind. The goloshes turned in at Knocklatchers Row just as a taxi came up from the opposite direction. It stopped at the House of the Sacred Flame. Mr. Ogden got out, paid his fare, threw away his cigar and, nodding to the policeman, disappeared down the entry. Then Maurice Pringle came down Chester Terrace, the collar of his mackintosh turned up and the brim of his hat pulled down over his eyes. Another taxi followed Mr. Ogden’s. It overtook and passed Maurice Pringle and a man who came from the same direction as Maurice. There was an interval, and then Lionel and C
laude appeared under one umbrella. Then two more taxis and at last a closed car that whisked round the corner and drew up stylishly under the Sign of the Sacred Flame. Two men got out of this car. The first was large and solid, the second tall with a good figure, and a certain air of being well-dressed.
When Nigel saw this last figure he turned from the window, picked up his hat and umbrella, and went out into the rain.
In Chester Terrace the wind blew as violently as it had done on the night of the murder. The whole scene was a repetition so exact that Nigel had a curious sensation of suspended time, as though everything that had happened since Sunday evening was happening still. Even as he lowered his umbrella to meet the veering wind, Cara Quayne raised the cup to her lips, Garnette drank brandy and rectified spirit in the room behind the altar, his face veiled by the smoke of Maurice Pringle’s cigarette. De Ravigne stood with the book in his hand, and Ogden stared at him with his mouth open. Mrs. Candour, Miss Wade and the two acolytes nodded like mandarins in the background, and the doorkeeper repeated incessantly: “I’m afraid you’re too late. May I draw your attention to our regulations?”
“It would be fun to write it all up on those lines,” thought Nigel, “but not precisely what the Press-lord ordered.”
This reflection brought him to the entry and the end of his fancies.
The torch in the wire frame was unlit. A large constable stood in the doorkeeper’s place and beside him were Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn and Detective-Inspector Fox.
“They’re all in, sir,” said the constable.
“Ah,” answered Alleyn. “We’ll give them a minute to get comfortably settled and then we shall gatecrash.”
“Good evening,” said Nigel.
“Hullo. Here’s Public Benefactor No. 1. Well, Bathgate, your information was correct and we’re all much obliged. How did you find out?”
