Tied Up in Tinsel ra-27

by Ngaio Marsh

  Alleyn said, “Try one of the slippers from Moult’s room: see what comes of that.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  Alleyn explained. Wrayburn stared at him. “I see,” he said. “Yes, I see.”

  The slipper was fetched and introduced to the dog Buck, who made a dutiful response. He was then taken to the porch and courtyard where he nosed to and fro, swinging his tail but obviously at a loss. The second dog, Mack, was equally disinterested. When taken to the cloakroom, however, they both produced positive and energetic reactions over the main area, but ignored the fellow of the fur-lined boot and the floor under the makeup bench.

  “Well,” Wrayburn said, “we know he was in here, don’t we? Not only when he was being got up for the party but earlier when he was fixing the room for the Colonel. Still — it looks as if you’re right, by gum it does. What next?”

  “I’m afraid we’ll have to tackle that mess that was once a conservatory, Jack. How’s the search over the grounds going?”

  “As badly as could be expected under these conditions. The chaps are doing their best but — if he’s lying out in that lot they could miss him over and over again. Didn’t this bunch of homicides have a go at the conservatory wreckage?”

  “So we’re told. With forks and spades. Thundering over the terrain like a herd of dinosaurs, I daresay. I think we must have a go. After all we can’t rule out the possibility that he was hit on the head and stunned.”

  “And wandered away? And collapsed?”

  “You name it. Hold on while I get my mackintosh.”

  “You’ll need gum boots.”

  “See if there are any stray pairs in the other cloakroom, will you? I won’t be long.”

  When Alleyn had collected his mackintosh and a futile hat from his dressing-room, he called on his wife.

  He was surprised and not overdelighted to find Cressida Tottenham there, clothed in a sea-green garment that stuck to her like a limpet where it was most explicit and elsewhere erupted in superfluous frills.

  “Look who’s here!” Cressida said, raising her arm to a vertical position and flapping her hand. “My Favourite Man! Hullo, Heart-throb!”

  “Hullo, Liar,” he mildly returned.

  “Rory!” Troy protested.

  “Sorry.”

  “Manners, Jungle Cat,” said Cressida. “Not that I object. It all ties in with the groovy image. The ruder they are, the nearer your undoing.”

  Troy burst out laughing. “Do you often,” she asked, “make these frontal attacks?”

  “Darling: only when aroused by a Gorgeous Brute. Do you mind?”

  “Not a bit.”

  Alleyn said, “Gorgeous brute or not, I’m on the wing, Troy.”

  “So I see.”

  “Think nothing of it if you notice a commotion under your windows.”

  “Right.”

  “We’ve been brushing our hair,” Cressida offered, “and emptying our bosoms. Ever so cosy.”

  “Have you, indeed. By the way, Miss Tottenham, while I think of it: what did you wear on your feet when you made Moult up in the cloakroom?”

  “On my feet?” she asked and showed him one of them in a bejewelled slipper. “I wore golden open-toed sandals, Mr. Alleyn, and golden toenails to go with my handsome gold dress.”

  “Chilly,” he remarked.

  “My dear — arctic! So much so, I may tell you, that I thrust my ten little pigs into Uncle Flea’s fur-lined trotters.”

  “Damn!”

  “Really? But why?” She reflected for a moment. “My dear!” Cressida repeated, making eyes at Troy. “It’s the smell! Isn’t it? Those wolfish dogs! I’ve mucked up poor Mr. Moult’s footwork for them. Admit!”

  “Presumably you swapped for the performance?”

  “But, of course. And I’m sure his feet will have triumphed over mine or does my skin scent beat him to the post?”

  Ignoring this, Alleyn made for the door and then stopped short. “I almost forgot,” he said. “When did you come upstairs?”

  Cressida blew out her cheeks and pushed up the tip of her nose with one finger. The effect was of an extremely cheeky Zephyr.

  “Come on,” Alleyn said. “When? How long ago?”

  “Well. Now. When did I?”

  “You came in here ten minutes ago, if it’s any guide,” Troy said. “I’d just wound my watch.”

  “And you’d been in your room,” Alleyn said. “How long?” He glanced at her. “Long enough anyway to change your clothes.”

  “Which is no slight matter,” Cressida said. “Say twenty minutes. It was getting a bit of a drag in the library. Hilly’s lost his cool over the sleuthing scene and Uncle Bert Smith doesn’t exactly send one. So I came up.”

  “Did you meet anybody on the way?”

  “I certainly did. I met that ass Nigel at the head of the stairs, bellowing away about sin. I suppose you’ve heard how he pushed a sexy note under my door. About me being a sinful lady?”

  “You feel certain he wrote it?”

  “Who else would?” Cressida reasoned. “Whatever they might think? It’s his theme song, isn’t it — the sinful lady bit?”

  “Very much so. When did you go down to dinner?”

  “I don’t know. Last, as usual, I expect.”

  “Did you at any stage meet anybody going into or coming out of the Forresters’ rooms?”

  Cressida helplessly flapped her arms. “Yes,” she said. “Nigel again. Coming out. He’d been doing his turning down the bed lot. This time he only shrank back against the wall as if I had infective hepatitis.”

  “Thank you,” Alleyn said. “I must be off.” He looked at his wife.

  “All right?” he asked.

  “All right.”

  When he had gone Cressida said, “Let’s face it, darling. I’m wasting my powder.”

  Eight — Moult

  Before he went out into the night, Alleyn visited the study and found it deserted. He turned on all the lights, opened the window curtains, and left, locking the door behind him and putting the key in his pocket. He listened for a moment or two outside the library door and heard the drone of two male voices topped by Mr. Smith’s characteristic short bark of laughter. Then he joined Wrayburn, who waited in the great porch with four of his men and the two handlers with their dogs. They moved out into the open courtyard.

  “Rain’s lifted,” Wraybuni shouted. It had spun itself into a thin, stinging drive. The noise out-of-doors was immense: a roar without definition as if all the trees at Halberds had been given voices with which to send themselves frantic. A confused sound of water mingled with this. There were whistles and occasional clashes as of metal objects that had been blown out of their places and clattered about wildly on their own account.

  Nigel’s monument was dissolving into oblivion. The recumbent figure, still recognizable, was horridly mutilated.

  They rounded the front of the east wing, and turned right into the full venom of the wind.

  The library windows were curtained and emitted only thin blades of light, and the breakfast-room was in darkness. But from the study a flood of lamplight caught the sapling fir, lashing itself to and fro distractedly, and the heaps of indeterminate rubble that surrounded it. Broken glass, cleaned by the rain, refracted the light confusedly.

  Their faces were whipped by the wind, intermittent shafts of rain, and pieces of blown litter. The men had powerful search-lamps and played them over the area. They met at the discarded Christmas tree from which tatters of golden tinsel madly streamed. They searched the great heaps of rubble and patches of nettle and docks. They found, all over the place, evidence of Hilary’s men with their forks and shovels and trampling boots. They explored the sapling fir and remained, focussed on it, while Alleyn with his back to the wind peered up into the branches. He saw, as he had already seen from the dressing-room window, that the tender ones were bent into uncouth positions. He actually found, in a patch of loamy earth beneath the study window, prints
of Hilary’s smart shoes where he had climbed over the sill to retrieve the poker.

  He took a light, moved up to the tree, and searched its inward parts. After a minute or two he called to one of the men and asked him to hold the light steady as it was. He had to yell into the man’s ear, so boisterous was the roar of the wind.

  The man took the light and Alleyn began to climb the tree. He kept as close as he could to the trunk where the young boughs were strongest. Wet pine needles brushed his face. Cascades of snow fell about his neck and shoulders. Branches slapped at him and he felt resin sticking to his hands. As he climbed, the tree swayed, he with it, and the light moved. He shifted round the trunk and hauled himself upward.

  Suddenly an oblong sliver of fresh light appeared below and to his right. There was Hilary Bill-Tasman’s face, upturned and staring at Alleyn. He had come to the library window.

  Cursing, Alleyn grasped the now slender trunk with his left hand, leant outward, and looked up. Dislodged snow fell into his face.

  There it was. He reached up with his right hand, touched it, made a final effort and secured it. His fingers were so cold that he could scarcely feel sure of his capture. He put it in his mouth, and slithering, swaying and scrambling, came down to earth.

  He moved round until the tree was between him and the library window and warmed his hands at the lamp. Wrayburn, standing close by, said something Alleyn could not catch and jerked his thumb in the direction of the library. Alleyn nodded, groped in his mouth and extracted a slender strip of metallic gold. He opened his mackintosh and tucked it away in the breast pocket of his jacket.

  “Come indoors,” he signalled.

  They had moved away and were heading back to the front of the house when they were caught in the beams of two lights. Above the general racket and clamour they heard themselves hailed.

  The lights jerked, swayed and intensified as they approached. The men behind them suddenly plunged into the group. Alleyn shone his torch into their excited faces.

  “What’s up?” Wrayburn shouted. “Here? What’s all the excitement?”

  “We’ve found ’im, Mr. Wrayburn, we’ve seen ’im! We’ve got ’im.”

  “Where?”

  “Laying on the hillside, up yonder. I left my mate to see to ’im.”

  “Which hillside?” Alleyn bawled.

  “Acrost there, sir. On the way to the Vale road.”

  “Come on, then,” said Wrayburn excitedly.

  The whole party set off along the cinder path that Troy so often had taken on her afternoon walks.

  They had not gone far before they saw a stationary light and a recumbent figure clearly visible spread-eagled and face down in the snow. Someone was stooping over it. As they drew near the stooping figure rose and began to kick the recumbent one.

  “My God!” Wrayburn roared out, “what’s he doing! My God! Is he mad! Stop him.”

  He turned to Alleyn and found him doubled up.

  The man on the hillside, caught in his own torchlight, gave two or three more tentative kicks to the prostrate form and then, with an obvious effort, administered a brief and mighty punt that sent it careering into the gale. It gesticulated wildly and disintegrated. Wisps of rank, wet straw were blown into their faces.

  Hilary would have to find another scarecrow.

  A further ill-tempered, protracted and exhaustive search turned out to be useless, and at five minutes past twelve they returned to the house.

  The rest of the search party had come in with nothing to report. They all piled up a shining heap of wet gear and lamps in the porch, left the two dogs in the unfurnished east-wing cloakroom, and in their stockinged feet entered the hall. The overefficient central heating of Halberds received them like a Turkish bath.

  Hilary, under a hard drive of hospitality, came fussing out from the direction of the library. He was full of commiseration and gazed anxiously into one frozen face after another, constantly turning to Alleyn as if to call witness to his own distress.

  “Into the dining-room! Everybody. Do do do do,” cried Hilary, dodging about like a sheepdog. And, rather sheepishly, the search party allowed itself to be mustered.

  The dining-room table displayed a cold collation that would have done honour to Dingley Dell. On a side table was ranked an assembly of bottles: whisky, rum, brandy, Alleyn saw, and a steaming kettle. If Hilary had known how, Alleyn felt, he would have set about brewing a punch bowl. As it was, he implored Wrayburn to superintend the drinks and set himself to piling up a wild selection of cold meats on plates.

  None of the servants appeared at this feast.

  Mr. Smith came in, however, and looked on with his customary air of sardonic amusement and sharp appraisal. Particularly, Alleyn thought, did Mr. Smith observe his adopted nephew. What did he make of Hilary and his antics? Was there a kind of ironic affection, an exasperation at Hilary’s mannerisms and — surely? — an underlying anxiety? Hilary made a particularly effusive foray upon Wrayburn and a group of disconcerted subordinates, who stopped chewing and stared at their socks. Mr. Smith caught Alleyn’s eye and winked.

  The dining-room became redolent of exotic smells.

  Presently Wrayburn made his way to Alleyn.

  “Will it be all right, now,” he asked, “if I get these chaps moving? The stream’s coming down very fresh and we don’t want to be marooned, do we?”

  “Of course you don’t. I hope my lot get through all right.”

  “When do you expect them?”

  “I should think by daylight. They’re driving through the night. They’ll look in at the station.”

  “If they’re short on waders,” said Wrayburn, “we can fix them up. They may need them.” He cleared his throat and addressed his troops: “Well, now. Chaps.”

  Hilary was effusive in farewells, and at one moment seemed to totter on the brink of a speech but caught sight of Mr. Smith and refrained.

  Alleyn saw the men off. He thanked them for their work and told them he’d have been very happy to have carried on with their help and might even be obliged to call on them again though he was sure they hoped not. They made embarrassed but gratified noises, and he watched them climb into their shining gear and file off in the direction of the vans that had brought them.

  Wrayburn lingered. “Well,” he said. “So long, then. Been quite a pleasure.”

  “Of a sort?”

  “Well—”

  “I’ll keep in touch.”

  “Hope things work out,” Wrayburn said. “I used to think at one time of getting out of the uniformed branch but — I dunno — it didn’t pan out that way. But I’ve enjoyed this opportunity. Know what I mean?”

  “I think so.”

  “Look. Before I go. Do you mind telling me what it was you fished out of that tree?”

  “Of course I don’t mind, Jack. There just hasn’t been the opportunity.”

  Alleyn reached into his breast pocket and produced, between finger and thumb, the golden strand. Wrayburn peered at it. “We saw it from the dressing room window,” Alleyn said.

  “Metallic,” Wrayburn said. “But not tinsel. Now what would that be? A bit of some ornamental stuff blown off the Christmas tree into the fir?”

  “It was on the wrong side of the fir for that. It looks more like a shred of dress material to me.”

  “It may have been there for some time.”

  “Yes, of course. What does it remind you of?”

  “By gum!” Wrayburn said. “Yes — by gum. Here! Are you going to look?”

  “Care to keep your troops waiting?”

  “What do you think!”

  “Come on, then.”

  They unlocked the cloakroom door and went in. Again the smell of makeup, the wig on its improvised stand, the fur-topped boot, the marks on the carpet, the cardboard carton with the poker inside and, on its coat hanger against the wall, the golden lamé robe of the Druid.

  Alleyn turned it on its coat hanger and once again displayed the wet and frayed
back of the collar. He held his shred of material against it.

  “Might be,” he said. “It’s so small one can’t say. It’s a laboratory job. But could be.”

  He began to explore the robe, inch by inch. He hunted back and front and then turned it inside out.

  “It’s damp, of course, and wet at the bottom edge. As one would expect, from galloping about in the open courtyard. The hem’s come unstitched here and ravelled out. Zips right down the back. Hullo! The collar’s come slightly adrift. Frayed. Might be. Could be.”

  “Yes, but — look, it’d be ridiculous. It doesn’t add up. Not by any reckoning. The thing’s here. In the cloakroom. When he was knocked off, if he was knocked off, he wasn’t wearing it. He couldn’t have been. Unless,” said Wrayburn, “it was taken off his body and returned to this room, but that’s absurd. What a muck it’d be in!”

  “Yes,” Alleyn agreed absently. “It would, wouldn’t it?”

  He had stooped down and was peering under the makeup bench. He pulled out a cardboard box that had been used for rubbish and put it on the bench.

  “Absorbent tissues,” he said, exploring the contents. “A chunk of rag. Wrapping paper and — hullo, what’s this.”

  Very gingerly he lifted out two pads of cotton wool about the shape of a medium-sized mushroom.

  “Wet,” he said and bent over them. “No smell. Pulled off that roll there by the powder box. But what for? What the devil for?”

  “Clean off the makeup?” Wrayburn hazarded.

  “They’re not discoloured. Only wettish. Odd!”

  “I’d better not keep those chaps waiting,” Wrayburn said wistfully. “It’s been a pleasure, by and large. Made a change. Back to routine, now. Good luck, anyway.”

  They shook hands and he left. Alleyn cut himself a sample of gold lamé from the hem of the robe.

  He had a final look round and then locked the cloakroom. Reminded by this action of the study, he crossed the hall into the east-wing corridor, unlocked the door, and turned out the lights.