by Ngaio Marsh
‘Someone for you, sir. A Miss Williams. She says it’s urgent.’
Alleyn went to the telephone.
Jenny sounded as if it was very urgent indeed.
‘Mr Alleyn? Thank God! Please come up here, quickly. Please do. Miss Emily’s rooms. I can’t say anything else.’ Alleyn heard a muffled ejaculation. A man shouted distantly and a woman screamed. There was the faint but unmistakable crash of broken glass…‘Please come,’ said Jenny.
‘At once,’ Alleyn said. And to Fox: ‘Leave Pender on the board and you others follow as quick as you can. Room 35 to the right of the stairhead on the first floor.’
Before they had time to answer he was out of the shop and had plunged, head down, into the storm outside.
CHAPTER 9
Storm
It was not raining now but the night was filled with so vast an uproar that there was no room for any perception but that of noise: the clamour of wind and irregular thud and crash of a monstrous tide. It broke over the foreshore and made hissing assaults on the foot of the steps. Alleyn went up them at a sort of shambling run, bent double and feeling his way with his hands. When he reached the last flight and came into range of the hotel windows, his heart pounded like a ram and his throat was dry. He beat across the platform and went in by the main entrance. The night porter was reading behind his desk. He looked up in astonishment at Alleyn who had not waited to put on his mackintosh.
‘Did you get caught, sir?’
‘I took shelter,’ Alleyn said. ‘Good night.’
He made for the stairs and when he was out of sight, waited for a moment or two to recover his wind. Then he went up to the first floor.
The passage had the vacant look of all hotel corridors at night. A wireless blared invisibly. When he moved forward he realized the noise was coming from Miss Emily’s room. A brass band was playing ‘Colonel Bogey.’
He knocked on the door and was not answered. He opened it and went in.
It was as if a tableau had been organized for his benefit; as if he had been sent out of the room while the figures arranged themselves to their best effect. Miss Emily stood on the hearthrug very pale and
grand, with Jenny in support. Margaret Barrimore, with her hands to her mouth, was inside the door on his left. He had narrowly missed striking her with it when he came in. The three men had pride of place. Major Barrimore stood centre with his legs straddled and blood running from his nose into his gaping mouth. Dr Maine faced him and frowned at a cut across the knuckles of his own well-kept doctor’s hand. Patrick, dishevelled, stood between them, like a referee who had just stopped a fight. The wireless bellowed remorselessly. There was a scatter of broken glass in the fireplace.
They all turned their heads and looked at Alleyn. They might have been asking him to guess the word of their charade.
‘Can we switch that thing off?’ he asked.
Jenny did so. The silence was deafening.
‘I did it to drown the shouting,’ she said.
‘Miss Emily,’ Alleyn said. ‘Will you sit down?’ She did so.
‘It might be as well,’ he suggested, ‘if everyone did.’
Dr Maine made an impatient noise and walked over to the window. Barrimore sucked his moustache, tasted blood and got out his handkerchief. He was swaying on his feet. Alleyn pushed a chair under him and he collapsed on it. His eyes were out of focus and he reeked of whisky. Mrs Barrimore moved towards Dr Maine. Jenny sat on an arm of Miss Emily’s chair and Patrick on the edge of the table.
‘And now,’ Alleyn said, ‘what has happened?’
For a second or two nobody spoke and then Jenny said: ‘I asked you to come so I suppose I’d better explain.’
‘You better hold your tongue,’ Barrimore mumbled through his bloodied handkerchief.
‘That’ll do,’ said Patrick dangerously.
Alleyn said to Jenny, ‘Will you, then?’
‘If I can. All right. I’d come in to say good night to Miss Emily. Patrick was waiting for me downstairs, I think. Weren’t you?’
He nodded.
‘Miss Emily and I were talking. I was just going to say good night when – when Mrs Barrimore came in.’
‘Jenny – no! No!’ Margaret Barrimore whispered.
‘Don’t stop her,’ Miss Emily said quietly, ‘it’s better not to. I am sure of it.’
‘Patrick?’ Jenny appealed to him.
He hesitated, stared at his mother and then said, ‘You’d better go on, I think. Just the facts, Jenny.’
‘Very well. Mrs Barrimore was distressed and – I think – frightened. She didn’t say why. She looked ill. She asked if she could stay with us for a little while and Miss Emily said yes. We didn’t talk very much. Nothing that could matter.’
Margaret Barrimore said rapidly: ‘Miss Pride was extremely kind. I wasn’t feeling well. I haven’t been well lately. I had a giddy turn: I was near her room. That’s why I went in.’
Dr Maine said: ‘As Mrs Barrimore’s doctor I must insist that she’s not troubled by any questioning. It’s true that she is unwell.’ He jerked a chair forward and touched her arm. ‘Sit down, Margaret,’ he said gently and she obeyed him.
‘ “As Mrs Barrimore’s doctor”,’ her husband quoted and gave a whinnying laugh. ‘That’s wonderful! That’s a superb remark.’
‘Will you go on, please?’
‘OK. Yes. Well, that lasted quite a long time – just the three of us here. And then Dr Maine came in to see Miss Pride. He examined the cut on her neck and he told us it would probably be too rough for us to cross the channel tomorrow. He and Mrs Barrimore were saying good night when Major Barrimore came in.’
So far Jenny had spoken very steadily but she faltered now, and looked at Miss Emily. ‘It’s – it’s then that – that things began to happen. I –’
Miss Emily with perfect composure, said: ‘In effect, my dear Roderique, there was a scene. Major Barrimore made certain accusations. Dr Maine intervened. A climax was reached and blows were exchanged. I suggested, aside to Jenny, that she solicit your aid. The fracas continued. A glass was broken. Mrs Barrimore screamed and Mr Patrick arrived upon the scene. He was unsuccessful and, after a renewal of belligerency, Major Barrimore fell to the floor. The actual fighting came to a stop but the noise was considerable. It was at this juncture that the wireless was introduced. You entered shortly afterwards.’
‘Does everybody agree to this?’
There was no answer.
‘I take it that you do.’
Dr Maine said: ‘Will you also take it that whatever happened has not the remotest shade of bearing upon your case? It was an entirely private matter and should remain so.’ He looked at Patrick and, with disgust, at Major Barrimore. ‘I imagine you agree,’ he said.
‘Certainly,’ Patrick said shortly.
Alleyn produced his stock comment on this argument. ‘If it turns out that there’s no connection, I assure you I shall be glad to forget it. In the meantime, I’m afraid I must make certain.’
There was a tap at the door. He answered it. Fox, Bailey and Thompson had arrived. Alleyn asked Fox to come in and the others to wait.
‘Inspector Fox,’ he said, ‘is with me on this case.’
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ Fox said.
They observed him warily. Miss Emily said: ‘Good evening, Mr Fox. I have heard a great deal about you.’
‘Have you, ma’am?’ he rejoined. ‘Nothing to my discredit, I hope.’ And to Alleyn: ‘Sorry to interrupt, sir.’
Alleyn gave him a brief summary of the situation and returned to the matter in hand. ‘I’m afraid I must ask you to tell me what it was that triggered off this business,’ he said. ‘What were Major Barrimore’s accusations?’
Nobody answered. ‘Will you tell me, Miss Emily?’
Miss Emily said: ‘I cannot. I am sorry. I – I find myself unable to elaborate upon what I have already said.’ She looked at Alleyn in distress. ‘You must not ask me,’ she
said.
‘Never mind.’ He glanced at the others. ‘Am I to know?’ he asked and, after a moment, ‘Very well. Let us make a different approach. I shall tell you instead, what we have been doing. We have, as some of you know, been at Miss Cost’s shop. We have searched the shop and the living quarters behind it. I think I should tell you that we have found Miss Cost’s diary. It is a long, exhaustive, and in many places, relevant document. It may be put in evidence.’
Margaret Barrimore gave a low cry.
‘The final entry was made last night. In it she suggests that as a result of some undefined insult she is going to make public certain matters which are not specifically set out in that part of the diary but will not, I think, be difficult to arrive at when the whole document is reviewed. It may be that after she made this last entry, she wrote a letter to the Press. If so, it will be in the mailbag.’
‘Has it gone out yet?’ Patrick asked sharply.
‘I haven’t inquired,’ Alleyn said coolly.
‘It must be stopped.’
‘We don’t usually intercept Her Majesty’s mail.’
Barrimore said thickly: ‘You can bloody well intercept this one.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Dr Maine crisply.
‘By God, sir, I won’t take that from you. By God!’ Barrimore began, trying to get to his feet.
‘Sit down,’ Alleyn said. ‘Do you want to be taken in charge for assault? Pull yourself together.’
Barrimore sank back. He looked at his handkerchief, now drenched with blood. His face was bedabbled and his nose still ran with it. ‘Gimme ‘nother,’ he muttered.
‘A towel, perhaps,’ Miss Emily suggested. Jenny fetched one from the bathroom.
‘He’d better lie down,’ Dr Maine said impatiently.
‘I’ll be damned if I do,’ said the Major.
‘To continue,’ Alleyn said, ‘the facts that emerge from the diary and from the investigations are these. We now know the identity of the Green Lady. Miss Cost found it out for herself on 30th September of last year. She saw the impersonator repeating her initial performance for a concealed audience of one. She afterwards discovered who this other was. You will stay where you are, if you please, Major Barrimore. Miss Cost was unwilling to believe this evidence. She began, however, to spy upon the two persons involved. On 17th June of this year she took a photograph at the Spring.’
Dr Maine said: ‘I can’t allow this,’ and Patrick said: ‘No, for God’s sake!’
‘I would avoid it if I could,’ Alleyn said. ‘Mrs Barrimore, would you rather wait in the next room? Miss Williams will go with you, I’m sure.’
‘Yes, darling,’ Jenny said quickly. ‘Do.’
‘O no,’ she said. ‘Not now. Not now.’
‘It would be better,’ Patrick said.
‘It would be better, Margaret,’ Dr Maine repeated.
‘No.’
There was a brief silence. An emphatic gust of wind battered at the window. The lights flickered, dimmed and came up again. Alleyn’s hearers were momentarily united in a new uneasiness. When he spoke again, they shifted their attention back to him with an air of confusion.
‘Miss Cost,’ he was saying, ‘kept her secret to herself. It became, I think, an obsession. It’s clear from other passages in her diary that some time before this discovery, she had conceived an antagonism for Major Barrimore. The phrases she uses suggest that it arose from the reaction commonly attributed to a woman scorned.’
Margaret Barrimore turned her head and for the first time looked at her husband. Her expression, one of profound astonishment, was reflected in her son’s face and Dr Maine’s.
‘There is no doubt, I think,’ Alleyn said. ‘That during her first visit to the Island their relationship, however brief, had been of the sort to give rise to the later reaction.’
‘Is this true?’ Dr Maine demanded of Barrimore.
He had the towel clapped to his face. Over the top of it his eyes, prominent and dazed, narrowed as if he were smiling. He said nothing.
‘Miss Cost, as I said just now, kept her knowledge to herself. Later, it appears, she transferred her attention to Doctor Maine and was unsuccessful. It’s a painful and distressing story and I shan’t dwell on it except to say that up to yesterday’s tragedy we have the picture of a neurotic who has discovered that the man upon whom her fantasy is now concentrated, is deeply attached to the wife of the man with whom she herself had a brief affair that ended in humiliation. She also knows that this wife impersonated the Green Lady in the original episode. These elements are so bound up together, that if she makes mischief, as her demon urges her to do, she will be obliged to expose the truth about the Green Lady and that would be disastrous. Add to this, the proposal to end all publicity and official recognition of the Spring and you get some idea, perhaps, of the emotional turmoil that she suffered and that declares itself in this unhappy diary.’
‘You do, indeed,’ said Miss Emily abruptly and added: ‘One has much to answer for, I perceive. I have much to answer for. Go on.’
‘In opposing the new plans for the Spring, Miss Cost may have let off a head of emotional steam. She sent anonymous messages to Miss Pride. She was drawn into the companionship of the general front made against Miss Pride’s intentions. I think there is little doubt that she conspired with Trehern and egged-on ill feeling in the village. She had received attention. She had her Festival in hand. She was somebody. It was, I daresay, all rather exciting and gratifying. Wouldn’t you think so?’ he asked Dr Maine.
‘I’m not a psychiatrist,’ he said. ‘But, yes. You may be right.’
‘Now this was the picture,’ Alleyn went on, ‘up to the time of the Festival. But when she came to write the final entry in her diary, which was last night, something had happened: something that revived all her sense of injury and spite, something that led her to write: ‘Both – all of them – shall suffer. I’ll drag their names through the papers. Now. Tonight. I am determined. It is the end’.’
Another formidable onslaught roared down upon The Boy-and-Lobster and again the lights wavered and recovered.
‘She doesn’t say, and we can’t tell, positively, what inflamed her. I am inclined to think that it might be put down to aesthetic humiliation.’
‘What!’ Patrick ejaculated.
‘Yes. One has to remember that all the first-night agonies that beset a professional director are also visited upon the most ludicrously inefficient amateur. Miss Cost had produced a show and exposed it to an audience. However bad the show, she still had to undergo the classic ordeal. The reaction among some of the onlookers didn’t escape her notice.’
‘O dear!’ Jenny said. ‘O dear!’
‘But this is all speculation and a policeman is not allowed to speculate, ’ Alleyn said. ‘Let us get back to hard facts, if we can. Here are some of them. Miss Cost attended early service this morning and afterwards walked to the Spring to collect a necklace. It was in her hand when we found her. We know, positively, that she encountered and spoke to three people: Mrs Carstairs and Dr Maine before church; Major Barrimore afterwards.’
‘Suppose I deny that?’ Barrimore said thickly.
‘I can’t, of course, make any threats or offer any persuasion. You might, on consideration, think it wiser, after all, to agree that you met and tell me what passed between you. Major Barrimore,’ Alleyn explained generally, ‘has already admitted that he was spying upon Miss Pride who had gone to the enclosure to put up a notice which he afterwards removed.’
Miss Emily gave a sharp ejaculation.
‘It was later replaced.’ Alleyn turned to Barrimore and stood over him. ‘Shall I tell you what I think happened? I think hard words passed between you and Miss Cost and that she was stung into telling you her secret. I think you parted from her in a rage and that when you came back to the hotel this morning, you bullied your wife. You had better understand at once, that your wife has not told me this. Finally, I believe that Miss Cost may even have threat
ened to reveal your former relationship with herself. She suggests in her diary that she has some such intention. Now. Have you anything to say to all this?’
Patrick said: ‘You had better say nothing.’ He walked over to his mother and put his arm about her shoulders.
‘I didn’t do it,’ Barrimore said. ‘I didn’t kill her.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well. I shall move on,’ Alleyn said and spoke generally. ‘Among her papers we have found a typewritten list of dates. It is a carbon copy. The top copy is missing. Miss Cost had fallen into the habit of sending anonymous letters. As we know only too well, this habit grows by indulgence. It is possible, having regard for the dates in question, that this document has been brought to the notice of the person most likely to be disturbed by it. Possibly with a print of the photograph. Now, this individual has, in one crucial respect, given a false statement as to time and circumstance and because of that –’
There was a tap at the door. Fox opened it. A voice in the passage shouted: ‘I can’t wait quiet-like, mister. I got to see ‘im.’ It was Trehern.
Fox said: ‘Now then, what’s all this?’ And began to move out. Trehern plunged at him, head down and was taken in a half-nelson. Bailey appeared in the doorway. ‘You lay your hands off of me,’ Trehern whined. ‘You got nothing against me.’
‘Outside,’ said Fox.
Trehern struggling, looked wildly round the assembled company and fixed on Alleyn. ‘I got something to tell you, mister,’ he said. ‘I got something to put before all of you. I got to speak out.’
‘All right, Fox,’ Alleyn said and nodded to Bailey, who went out and shut the door. Fox relaxed his hold. ‘Well, Trehern, what is it?’
Trehern wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and blinked. ‘I been thinking,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘I been thinking things over. Ever since you come at me up to my house and acted like you done and made out what you made out which is not the case. I be’ant a quick-brained chap, mister, but the light has broke and I see me way clear, I got to speak and speak public.’
