Tied Up in Tinsel ra-27

by Ngaio Marsh

  As he returned, the library door at the far end of the corridor opened and Mr. Smith came out. He checked for a moment on seeing Alleyn, and then made an arresting gesture with the palm of his hand as if he were on point duty.

  Alleyn waited for him by the double doors into the hall. Mr. Smith took him by the elbow and piloted him through. The hall was lit by two dying fires and a single standard lamp below the gallery and near the foot of the right-hand stairway.

  “You’re up late,” Alleyn said.

  “What about yourself?” he rejoined. “Matter of fact, I thought I’d like a word with you if that’s in order. ’Illy’s gone up to bed. How about a nightcap?”

  “Thanks very much, but no. Don’t let me stop you, though.”

  “I won’t bother. I’ve had my lot and there’s still my barley water to come. Though after that little how-d’ye-do the other night the mere idea tends to turn me up in advance.”

  “There’s been no more soap?”

  “I should bloody well hope not,” said Mr. Smith.

  He walked up to the nearest hearth and kicked its smouldering logs together. “Spare a moment?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “If I was to ask you what’s your opinion of this turn-up,” he said. “I suppose I’d get what they call a dusty answer, would’n I?”

  “In the sense that I haven’t yet formed an opinion, I suppose you would.”

  “You telling me you don’t know what to think?”

  “Pretty much. I’m collecting.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “You’ve been a collector and a very successful one, haven’t you, Mr. Smith?”

  “What of it?”

  “There must have been times in your early days, when you had a mass of objects in stock on which you couldn’t put a knowledgeable value. Some of them might be rubbish and some might be important. In all the clutter of a job lot there might be one or two authentic pieces. But in those days I daresay you couldn’t for the life of you tell which was which.”

  “All right. All right. You’ve made your point, chum.”

  “Rather pompously, I’m afraid.”

  “I wouldn’t say so. But I tell you what. I pretty soon learned in my trade to take a shine on the buyer and seller even when I only had an instinct for good stuff. And I always had that, I always had a flare. You ask ’Illy. Even then I could pick if I was having a stroke pulled on me.”

  Alleyn had taken out his pipe and was filling it. “Is that what you want to tell me, Mr. Smith?” he asked. “Do you think someone’s pulling a stroke on me?”

  “I don’t say that. They may be, but I don’t say so. No, my idea is that it must come in handy in your job to know what sort of characters you’re dealing with. Right?”

  “Are you offering,” Alleyn said lightly, “to give me a breakdown on the inhabitants of Halberds?”

  “That’s your definition, not mine. All right, I’m thinking of personalities. Like I said. Character. I’d of thought in your line, character would be a big consideration.”

  Alleyn fished out a glowing clinker with the fire-tongs. “It depends,” he said, lighting his pipe. “We deal in hard, bumpy facts and they can be stumbling blocks in the path of apparent character. People, to coin a bromide, can be amazingly contradictory.” He looked at Mr. Smith. “All the same, if you’re going to give me an expert’s opinion on—” he waved his hand “— on the collection here assembled, I’ll be very interested.”

  There was no immediate answer. Alleyn looked at Mr. Smith and wondered if he were to define his impression in one word, what that word would be. “Sharp”? “Cagey”? “Inscrutable”? In the bald head with streaks of black hair trained across it, the small bright eyes and compressed lips, he found a predatory character. A hard man. But was that hindsight? What would he have made of Mr. Smith if he’d known nothing about him?

  “I assure you,” he repeated, “I’ll be very interested,” and sat down in one of two great porter’s chairs that flanked the fireplace.

  Mr. Smith stared at him pretty fixedly. He took out his cigar case, helped himself, and sat in the other chair. To anyone coming into the hall and seeing them, they would have looked like subjects for a Christmas Annual illustration called “The Cronies.”

  Mr. Smith cut his cigar, removed the band, employed a gold lighter, emitted smoke, and contemplated it. “For a start,” he said. “I was fond of Alf Moult.”

  It was a curious little story of an odd acquaintanceship. Mr. Smith knew Moult when Hilary was a young man living with the Forresters in Hans Place. The old feud had long ago died out and Mr. Smith made regular visits to luncheon on Sundays. Sometimes he would arrive early before the Forresters had returned from church, and Moult would show him into the Colonel’s study. At first Moult was very standoffish, having a profound mistrust of persons of his own class who had hauled themselves up by their bootstraps. Gradually, however, this prejudice was watered down if never entirely obliterated, and an alliance was formed: grudging, Alleyn gathered, on Moult’s part but cordial on Mr. Smith’s. He became somebody with whom Moult could gossip. And gossip he did, though never about the Colonel, to whom he was perfectly devoted.

  He would talk darkly about unnamed persons who exploited the Colonel, about tradesmen’s perfidy and the beastliness of female servants of whom he was palpably jealous.

  “By and large,” said Mr. Smith, “he was a jealous kind of bloke.” And waited for comment.

  “Did he object to the adopted nephew under that heading?”

  “To ’Illy? Well — kind of sniffy on personal lines, like he made work about the place and was late for meals. That style of thing.”

  “He didn’t resent him?”

  Mr. Smith said quickly, “No more than he did anybody else that interfered with routine. He was a caution on routine, was Alf. ’Course he knew I wouldn’t —” He hesitated.

  “Wouldn’t?” Alleyn prompted.

  “Wouldn’t listen to anything against the boy,” said Mr. Smith shortly.

  “How about Miss Tottenham? How did she fit in with Moult’s temperament?”

  “The glamour girl? I’m talking about twenty years ago. She was — what? — three? I never see ’er, but they talked about ’er. She was being brought up by some posh family what was down on its uppers and needed the cash. Proper class lot. Alf used to rave about ’er and I will say the result bears ’im out.” The unelevating shadow of a leer slipped over Mr. Smith’s face and slid away again. “Bit of all right,” he said.

  “Has Moult ever expressed an opinion about the engagement?”

  “He’s human. Or was, which ever it is, poor bloke. He made out ’Illy was a very, very lucky man. Raved about ’er, Alf did, like I said, and wouldn’t hear a word to the contrary. That was because the Colonel took an interest in ’er and nothing the Colonel did was wrong in Alf’s book. And it seems ’er old pot was killed saving the Colonel’s life, which would make ’im a bleedin’ ’ero. So there you were.”

  “You approve of the engagement?”

  “It’s not official yet, is it? Oh, yes. ’Illy’s a good picker. You know. In the trade or out of it. Knows a nice piece when ’e sees one. She may be pushing the spoilt beauty bit now but he knows the answers to that one and no error. Oh, yes,” Mr. Smith repeated, quizzing the top of his cigar. “I know about the Bill-Tasman image. Funny. Vague. Eccentric. Comes in nice and handy that lot, more ways than one. But ’e won’t stand for any funny business, don’t worry, in work or pleasure. She’ll ’ave to be a good girl and I reckon she knows it.”

  Alleyn waited for a moment and then said: “I see no reason why I shouldn’t tell you this. There’s a theory in circulation that Moult was responsible for the practical jokes, if they can be so called.”

  Mr. Smith became vociferous. “Don’t give me that one, chum,” he said. “That’s just silly, that is. Alf Moult put soap in my barley water? Not on your nelly. Him and me was pals, wasn’t we? Right?
Well, then: arst yourself.”

  “He didn’t like the staff here, did he?”

  “ ’Course ’e didn’t. Thought they was shockers and so they are. That lot! But that’s not to say ’e’d try to put their pot on, writing silly messages and playing daft tricks. Alf Moult! Do me a favour!”

  “You may not have heard,” Alleyn said, “of all the other incidents. A booby-trap, in the Mervyn manner, set for my wife.”

  “Hullo-ullo! I thought there was something there.”

  “Did you? There was a much nastier performance this evening. After Nigel went his rounds and before Colonel Forrester went to bed, somebody wedged the window in their room. The strain of trying to open it brought on an attack.”

  “There you are! Poor old Colonel. Another turn! And that wasn’t done by Alf Moult, was it!”

  “Who would you think was responsible?”

  “Nigel. Simple.”

  “No. Not Nigel, Mr. Smith. Nigel shut the window when I was in the room and then ran downstairs bellowing about his own troubles.”

  “Came back, then.”

  “I don’t think so. There’s too narrow a margin in time. Of course we’ll want to know who was in that part of the house just then. And if anyone can —”

  “ ‘Help the police,’ ” Mr. Smith nastily suggested, “ ‘in the execution of their duty.’ ”

  “Quite so.”

  “I can’t. I was in the library with ’Illy.”

  “All the evening?”

  “All the evening.”

  “I see.”

  “Look! This carry-on — notes and soap and booby-traps — brainless, innit? Nobody at home where it come from. Right? So where’s the type that fits—? Only one in this establishment and he’s the one with the opportunity? Never mind the wedge. That may be different. It’s obvious.”

  “Nigel?”

  “That’s right! Must be. Mr. Flippin’ Nigel. In and out of the princely apart-e-mongs all day. Dropping notes and mixing soapy nightcaps.”

  “We’ll find out about the wedge.”

  “You will?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Here! You think you know who done it? Don’t you? Well — do you?”

  “I’ve got an idea.”

  “Innit marvellous?” said Mr. Smith. “Blimey, innit blinkin’ marvellous!”

  “Mr. Smith,” Alleyn said, “tell me something. Why do you go to such pains to preserve your original turn of speech? If it is your original style. Or is it — I hope you’ll excuse this — a sort of embellishment? To show us there’s no nonsense about Bert Smith? Do forgive me — it’s nothing whatever to do with the matter in hand. I’ve no right to ask you, but it puzzles me.”

  “Look,” said Mr. Smith, “you’re a peculiar kind of copper, aren’t you? What’s your game. What are you on about? Christ, you’re peculiar!”

  “There! You are offended. I’m sorry.”

  “Who says I’m offended? I never said so, did I? All right, all right, Professor ’Iggins, you got it second time. Put it like this. I see plenty of fakes in our business, don’t I? Junk tarted up to look like class? And I see plenty of characters who’ve got to the top same way as I did: from the bottom. But with them it’s putting on the class. Talking posh. Plums in their gullets. Deceiving nobody but themselves. ‘Educated privately’ in Who’s Who and coming a gutser when they loose their cool and forget themselves. Not for mine. I’m me. Born Deptford, Ejjercation, where I could pick it up. Out of the gutter mostly. Me.” He waited for a moment and then, with an indescribably sly glance at Alleyn, said ruefully, “Trouble is, I’ve lost touch. I’m not contemp’ry. I’m mixing with the wrong sort and it’s a kind of struggle to keep the old flag flying, if you can understand. P’raps I’m what they call an inverted snob. Right?”

  “Yes,” Alleyn said. “That may be it. It’s an understandable foible. And we all have our affectations, don’t we?”

  “It’s not a bloody affectation,” Mr. Smith shouted and then with another of his terribly prescient glances: “And it works,” he said. “It rings the bell, don’ it? They tell you George V took a shiner to Jimmy Thomas, don’t they? Why? Because he was Jimmy Thomas and no beg yer pardons. If ’e forgot ’imself and left an aitch in, ’e went back and dropped it. Fact!” Mr. Smith stood up and yawned like a chasm. “Well, if you’ve finished putting the screws on me,” he said, “I think I’ll toddle. I intended going back tomorrow, but if this weather keeps up I might alter me plans. So long as the telephone lines are in business, so am I.”

  He moved to the foot of the stairs and looked back at Alleyn. “Save you the trouble of keeping obbo on me, if I stay put. Right?”

  “Were you ever in the Force, Mr. Smith?”

  “Me! A copper! Do me a favour!” said Mr. Smith and went chuckling up to bed.

  Alone, Alleyn stood for a minute or two, staring at the moribund fire and listening to the night sounds of a great house. The outer doors were shut and barred and the curtains closed. The voice of the storm was transmitted only through vague soughing noises, distant rattling of shutters and an ambiguous mumbling that broke out intermittently in the chimneys. There were characteristic creaks and percussion-like cracks from the old woodwork and, a long way off, a sudden banging that Alleyn took to be a bout of indigestion in Hilary’s central-heating system. Then a passage of quiet.

  He was accustomed and conditioned to irregular hours, frustrations, changes of plan and lack of sleep, but it did seem an unconscionable time since he landed in England that morning. Troy would be sound asleep, he expected, when he went upstairs.

  Some change in the background of small noises caught his attention. A footfall in the gallery upstairs? What? He listened. Nothing. The gallery was in darkness but he remembered there was a time-button at the foot of each stairway and a number of switches controlling the lights in the hall. He moved away from the fireplace and towards the standard lamp near the right-hand flight of stairs and just under the gallery.

  He paused, looking to see where the lamp could be switched off. He reached out his left arm towards it.

  A totally unexpected blow can bring about a momentary dislocation of time. Alleyn, for a split second, was a boy of sixteen, hit on the right upper arm by the edge of a cricket bat. His brother George, having lost his temper, had taken a swipe at him. The blunted thump was as familiar as it was shocking.

  With his right hand clapped to his arm, he looked down and saw at his feet, shards of pale green porcelain gaily patterned.

  His arm, from being numb, began to hurt abominably. He thought, no, not broken, that would be too much, and found that with an effort he could close and open his hand and then, very painfully, slightly flex his elbow. He peered at the shards scattered round his feet and recognized the remains of the vase that stood on a little table in the gallery: a big and, he was sure, extremely valuable vase. No joy for Bill-Tasman, thought Alleyn.

  The pain was settling into a sort of rhythm, horrid but endurable. He tried supporting his forearm inside his jacket as if in a sling. That would do for the present. He moved to the foot of the stairs. Something bolted down them, brushed past him, and shot into the shadows under the gallery. He heard a feline exclamation, a scratching and a thud. That was the green baize door, he thought.

  A second later, from somewhere distant and above him, a woman screamed. He switched on the gallery lights and ran upstairs. His arm pounded with every step.

  Cressida came galloping full tilt and flung herself at him. She grabbed his arms and he gave a yelp of pain.

  “No!” Cressida babbled. “No! I can’t stand it. I won’t take it! I hate it. No, no, no!”

  “For the love of Mike!” he said. “What is it? Pull yourself together.”

  “Cats! They’re doing it on purpose. They want to get rid of me.”

  He held her off with his right hand and felt her shake as if gripped by a rigor. She laughed and cried and clung to him most desperately.

  “On my bed,” s
he gabbled. “It was on my bed. I woke up and touched it. By my face. They know! They hate me! You’ve got to help.”

  He managed agonizingly to get hold of her wrists with both his hands and thought, “Well, no bones broken, I suppose, if I can do this.”

  “All right,” he said. “Pipe down. It’s gone. It’s bolted. Now, please. No!” he added as she made a sort of abortive dive at his chest. “There isn’t time and it hurts. I’m sorry but you’d better just sit on the step and get hold of yourself. Good. That’s right. Now, please stay there.”

  She crouched on the top step. She was clad in a short, diaphanous nightgown and looked like a pin-up girl adapted to some kind of sick comedy.

  “I’m cold,” she chattered.

  The check system on the stair lights cut out and they were in near darkness. Alleyn swore and groped for a wall-switch. At the same moment, like a well-timed cue in a French farce, the doors at the far ends of the gallery opened simultaneously, admitting a flood of light. Out came Troy, on the left hand, and Hilary on the right. A row of wall-lamps sprang to life.

  “What in the name of Heaven—” Hilary began but Alleyn cut him short. “Cover her up,” he said, indicating Cressida. “She’s cold.”

  “Cressida! Darling! But what with?” Hilary cried. He sat beside his fiancée on the top step and made an ineffectual attempt to enclose her within the folds of his own dressing gown. Troy ran back into the guest-room corridor and returned with an eiderdown counterpane. Voices and the closure of doors could be heard. Alleyn was briefly reminded of the arousing of the guests at Forres.

  Mr. Smith and Mrs. Forrester arrived in that order, the former in trousers, shirt, braces and stocking feet, the latter in her sensible dressing gown and a woollen cap rather like a baby’s.

  “Hilary!” she said on a rising note. “Your uncle and I are getting very tired of this sort of thing. It’s bad for your uncle. You will put a stop to it.”

  “Auntie Bed, I assure you —”

  “Missus!” said Mr. Smith, “you’re dead right. I’m with you all the way. Now! What about it, ’Illy?”