Malice in Wonderland

by Nicholas Blake

  “Oh, no, Mr. Strangeways, I’m sure that’s quite impossible. Why, I’d never even met any of them before——” The girl stopped suddenly. “Not as you’d say, met.”

  “Yes?” Nigel murmured encouragingly.

  “Well, I did see them once—Captain Wise and Miss Jones, that is. My uncle took me to a restaurant in Soho for dinner, a few months ago. They were dining there. I didn’t know who they were, of course; but I happened to notice them because Mr. Leyman was sitting at the next table, and leaning across to chat with them. He’s connected with holiday camps, too—Mr. Leyman, I mean. I knew that, because he came into our office one day—I work for an architect’s firm—and this Mr. Leyman had come to look over some plans.”

  “That all sounds harmless enough. Captain Wise could scarcely have a grievance against you for dining in the same restaurant.”

  Miss Arnold reddened in confusion. “Well, no, he couldn’t, except—I do hate hinting scandal——”

  “Never mind. You never know what may come in useful for this investigation. Did you mention to either of them that you’d seen them before, when you arrived at the camp? When did you come, by the way?”

  “Last Saturday. That’s just it, Mr. Strangeways. Miss Jones was standing on the terrace, and I just remarked that I’d seen her and Captain Wise at this Soho restaurant, and what a nice little place it was, ever so select, I mean, and the best French cooking, of course, my uncle being a real epicure as he always says—and she got quite snooty. Well, I mean, I wasn’t trying to hint anything, I’m not a person to talk scandal, and besides it had never even entered my head: but Miss Jones gave me a look and said that Captain Wise was her employer and it was quite a common thing for employers and secretaries to have a meal together if there was sort of overtime to be done. Well, those weren’t her exact words, of course, but it was what she meant. Warning me off the grass. Sort of humorously, she said it, but I thought there must be a bit more behind it than——”

  “You thought she thought you were hinting at an affair between her and Captain Wise?”

  “Yes, Mr. Strangeways. But I’m sure I never meant to do anything of the sort.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t. No doubt, in a place like this, they have to be very careful there’s no trace of scandal about the management, and that’s what led her to misunderstand your meaning. Well, I’m glad we’ve cleared that up. Shall I ask your friend, Janice, to help you pack?”

  This gave him an excuse to question Janice Mears at once; but the girl assured him that she had not talked to anyone in the camp about Miss Arnold’s blood-poisoning of two years ago, her friend being sensitive on the subject. This avenue of inquiry appeared, therefore, to peter out. Even if imagination could stretch so far as to suppose that Captain Wise and Miss Jones would adopt so roundabout a method as the Mad Hatter’s tricks to silence Miss Arnold over their own liaison, it was now proved that they could not have known of her idiosyncrasy for wild parsley or her tendency to blood-poisoning.

  Nigel wished he had not sent off the snapshot of the mysterious “Mr. Charles Black.” Phyllis Arnold might have recognised in him the Mr. Leyman who was “connected with holiday camps,” and had been talking to Captain Wise in the Soho restaurant. Or she might not, he reflected ruefully; the odds were a thousand to one against it. Still, any straw when you’re drowning. Nigel scribbled a note to his uncle, asking whether the photo by any chance was that of a Mr. Leyman, connected with holiday camps. Captain Wise and Miss Jones had declared that they did not recognise the subject of the photo, but they might have had some private reason for that.

  A firm believer in shock tactics, if sparingly employed, Nigel went up to the manager’s office, smiled abstractedly upon him and Miss Jones, and said without preamble:

  “This Mr. Leyman—is he a business rival of yourself?”

  The effect of his question was notable indeed. Captain Wise stiffened, opened his mouth, but no words emerged. Nigel fancied that the pair had exercised superhuman self-control in not glancing at each other; their eyes were too studiously fixed upon his own. At last, when the silence had become almost intolerable, Miss Jones said:

  “We’d better tell him, Mortimer.”

  “Esmeralda, have you gone mad?” Captain Wise’s voice was stormy, but it was Miss Jones who seemed to control the elements of the situation.

  “Have you been hearing some scandal about Captain Wise and myself?” she asked coolly enough, her red lips turned down at the corners in half-humorous resignation.

  “Yes.” Nigel outlined his conversation with the saxophonist and Miss Arnold, stressing that the latter had had no intention to offend.

  “Answering your first question, Mr. Leyman is behind Beale and other holiday camps, so he’s certainly a business rival,” the girl continued. “The reason your question struck us all of a heap for a moment is that—well, he’s one of the men I told you about who tried to take advantage of the helpless orphan when my father died. As you’ve probably guessed, Mortimer and I are very fond of each other. Our friendship dates from a certain occasion when he arrived rather opportunely in a room where Mr. Leyman was pursuing his advantage.”

  “I see. Was Leyman vindictive about it? Would he, for instance, organise the funny business that’s been going on here, just to get his own back on you?”

  “Well, I don’t really think——” began Captain Wise, who had recovered his balance.

  “Of course you don’t! No, Mr. Strangeways, you can put that out of your head. Leyman was quite affable when we ran into him in that restaurant. He’s a bit light-fingered with the dames, but there’s no real vice in him. He’d not bear malice. And he’s certainly got quite enough on his hands in the ordinary way of business to keep him from organising a campaign to discredit us here. If he’d wanted to ruin Mortimer and myself, he’s quite powerful enough to do it by more orthodox business methods—you know, a word in the ear of one of our own directors after a good dinner.”

  “I may take it, then, that he’s still not the gentleman in the snapshot I showed you?”

  “You may.” Miss Jones’s eyes twinkled. “Wouldn’t poor Tubby Leyman’s ears burn if he knew how hard Mr. Strangeways was trying to incriminate him!”

  “Yes. Well now,” said Captain Wise, the efficient organiser again, his intonation suggesting that further levity on such sacred subjects as Big Business Men was undesirable, “if there’s nothing more at the moment, Strangeways——?”

  XIV

  “WHAT DO YOU think of the detective?” asked Sally. “Very quiet, isn’t he? Funny, the way he looks at you—as if he was working out to three places of decimals, and then taking away the number he first thought of.”

  “‘Looking at you’? D’you mean looking at me, or just at people?”

  “People, of course, silly. You’re not the only pebble on the beach.”

  “I wonder. He suspects me of being the Mad Hatter, I’m sure. Sometimes I begin to suspect myself.”

  “Don’t talk daft, Paul. Just because a silly old bit of wire is found under your chalet——”

  “How did you know that?” Paul asked sharply.

  “Why, you told me. Didn’t you? It must have been Daddy, then. Anyway, I’ll tell Mr. Smart-Alec Strangeways you couldn’t have put those animals in the people’s beds. I know you couldn’t.”

  “How d’you know that?”

  Sally pointed to the bottom of the boat, where a dead mackerel lay.

  “You wouldn’t cut a piece off that fish for fresh bait, not even when you were sure it was dead. You hate touching dead things, don’t you?” she said triumphantly.

  “You’re getting quite bright. Yes, I do. But it’s no good,” Paul added despondently: “that’s not what a detective would call evidence.”

  “More fool him. I believe he would listen to me, anyhow. He’s nice. I’m getting rather to like high-brows.”

  Paul, rowing mechanically, did not rise to this, one way or the other. He stared over Sally’s brig
ht hair at the distant headland.

  “Who are you staring at? I suppose Miss Jones is on the cliff, watching you with a jealous eye.”

  “Don’t be absurd. I’ve just got my eye fixed on a mark, so that I can row straight.”

  “You do take everything so seriously, don’t you, my pet?”

  “I don’t take Miss Jones seriously.”

  Sally averted her head, and began twitching at the line she held over the stern. In a tone of marked cheerfulness, she cried:

  “Row faster! The fish won’t take the bait if you drag along like a wet Sunday.”

  Paul drove in the oars more vigorously, and the boat moved faster through the sea, which slapped its bows and chuckled beneath the keel. Westward, the cliffs were losing their identity in uniform shadow, while to the east they held the light of the declining sun in a tranquil embrace, cliff and sunlight melting together and transmuted into a relief of delicate, chased gold.

  Looking over his right shoulder, Paul could see the beach, the landslide, the top of the Wonderland building above, the glass at one end of the “Captain’s bridge” glowing like a fire-opal. There was something baleful about that glow. Fancifully, he compared it with the wicked flame from a plague-pit. Wonderland had been infected: the disease was breaking out everywhere: and the carrier——? Shuddering, he looked away. The sea, at least, was clean. Its clean salt lay on his lips and on Sally’s golden arms. As long as they stayed out at sea, they were safe, free from the general defilement.

  Obeying a perverse, obscure impulse, he drove in his left oar and headed the boat for the land.

  “Oh, don’t let’s go in yet! It’s lovely out here.”

  “It’s getting on for dinner-time. There’s hardly anyone left on the beach.”

  “Who cares? We’ll stay out all night and catch fish by moonlight. And bathe. I’ve always wanted to bathe naked in the moonlight. It’s romantic.”

  “We’d die of cold.”

  “And next morning they’d find two poor, pale corpses, side by side on the sand. That’d be romantic, too.”

  “Not for the corpses.”

  “Stop! I’ve got a fish!”

  Slowly she pulled in the line. The spinner shot up through the water towards them, like a sportive trick of light. There was nothing on the hook but a piece of seaweed. Paul began to row again.

  “You might wait till I’ve caught one more fish. Just a little one.”

  “No. We’re late.”

  “I don’t believe you want to stay out all night with me.”

  “If I did, Strangeways would think we’d run away. Tantamount to a confession of guilt.”

  “Oh, damn Strangeways. I know you didn’t do it, so what does it matter?”

  “Supposing I don’t know, though?”

  “What it really is—you want to get away from me. This stupid girl, throwing herself at my head … Isn’t it?”

  “Well, you said it. I didn’t.”

  Sally’s face went white. She tried to coil up the line, but it seemed to have got into impossible tangles. A childish desolation came over her. She would have liked to weep salt tears all over the salty, dripping line.

  In silence, they pulled the boat on to the beach. Albert Morley, who had been watching them, helped to drag it above high-water mark. As soon as this was done Paul set off up the cliff path alone.

  “Did you have successful fishing, Miss Sally?” said Albert awkwardly, perceiving that something was wrong. He couldn’t have known, though, how appalling the phrase would sound to her. She took the mackerel out of the boat, said, “Just this,” and stumbling down to the edge of the sea flung the fish far out.

  “Oh, but that was quite a nice fish,” he protested.

  “And I’d like to throw myself after it!” she exclaimed.

  “Well, Miss Sally,” said Albert, after an awkward pause, “there are more fish in the sea than ever came out of it.”

  “Oh God!”—Sally was half laughing, half crying—“I’m not setting up a fishmonger’s shop, am I? You sounded as if—I’m sorry, Albert, I didn’t mean to break out at you. Let’s go back.”

  “Yes. I mustn’t be late to-night.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m taking a little part in the show after dinner.”

  “Are you? That’s splendid.” Sally did not mean her intonation to be that of a grown-up commending a child’s achievement. Nor, apparently, did Albert Morley take it as such. Stumbling among the boulders at the foot of the cliff-path, blushing a little and bobbing his head, but resolute of countenance, he said:

  “Has that young man—I mean, is he responsible for—has he hurt you? Because if he has——”

  “Oh, no. We’re just both a bit upset. You see, he thinks he is suspected of being the Mad Hatter.”

  Mr. Morley nearly fell off the narrow cliff-path. “Oh but, bless my soul, surely that’s impossible! He was most kind to me, most—from the first moment we met.”

  “I know it’s impossible. But—well, the detective found a clue which rather points to him. And he’s behaving so queerly himself. Why can’t he tell me what’s wrong? It makes me so miserable.”

  “Pride, Miss Sally. Pride. Depend upon it, that’s what’s behind it. It always is, with young people. I remember when I was your age——” Albert Morley sighed dramatically, tripped over a root and fell flat on his face. Fate, it seemed, would never allow him to be anything but the comic relief. No sooner was he on the point of establishing himself as a tragic, or at least a romantic figure—victim of some youthful, heart-breaking disaster, than Fate interposed a root before his feet. Even in his disasters, Fate decreed, he must remain a figure of fun.

  “There you are,” he remarked characteristically as Sally helped him up. “Pride goeth before a fall. There was I, just giving you some lofty advice, and down I came. Still, remember, my dear, pride doesn’t pay any dividends.”

  “It’s not me who’s proud,” she said desolately, recollecting too vividly how she had cast aside all pride in the boat, and how brutally Paul had wounded her as a result.

  “Perhaps he thinks he oughtn’t to say anything to you while he’s suspected of these outrages,” suggested Mr. Morley, an anxious half-smile on his chubby face.…

  It was there again, three hours later, in the concert hall where the male visitors were giving a short vaudeville programme assisted by some members of the staff. Albert Morley was dressed for the occasion, too. He was dressed, to be exact, in knickerbockers, Norfolk coat, Eton collar and school cap: his chubby, rubicund cheeks had been turned into caricatures of themselves with grease-paint; and he was sitting upon Edward Wise’s knee, in the character of a ventriloquist’s doll.

  The audience, easily enough pleased by any turn, were in paroxysms of laughter at this one. For Teddy was an excellent showman as well as a good ventriloquist, and the topical dialogue—behind which Nigel seemed to detect the quick wit of Esmeralda Jones—would have been enough to satisfy a more exacting audience. Yet Albert Morley was, in one sense at least, the clou of the performance. His absurd appearance, as though like the celebrated parent in Vice Versa he had indeed suddenly been transformed into his schoolboy self; the pert, adenoidal voice which Teddy Wise put into his mouth; but, above all, the comically anxious concentration with which he strove to make his lips follow the course of the words that Teddy gave him—this it was that brought the house down. Nigel realised what the woman had meant when she told him about the baiting of Albert Morley. Teddy was, undoubtedly, making fun of the little man as well as through him: and the audience were laughing, with the rather frightening, cumulative unkindness of a crowd, as much at Albert himself as at the part he played.

  “Now don’t you be cheeky, or I’ll tell the Mad Hatter of you,” said Teddy.

  “Ow, teacher, I’ll be good!” piped Albert, bouncing animatedly on Teddy’s knee. “Tell you a riddle, mister. What’s the difference between you and the Mad Hatter?”

  “What’s the difference between
me and the Mad Hatter? Quite a lot, I hope. Let’s see now, let’s see——”

  “Give it up, cock? I’ll tell yer. He’s nuts and you’re to be Queen of the May, you handsome thing!”

  Teddy turned the puppet Albert across his knee, and began to spank him soundly as the curtain fell.

  Nigel, going out to smoke a cigarette, was presently joined by Mr. Thistlethwaite. An expression of strong intellectual excitement was upon the tailor’s face, but he launched into speech with the unhurried dignity of a liner gliding down a slipway.

  “On a beautiful night like this, sir,” he opened,” it seems almost a desecration to introduce the sordid topic of criminality.”

  “It does indeed.”

  Mr. Thistlethwaite inclined his head to Nigel, gave the night a look of dignified apology, and continued.

  “We are in deep waters, I fancy, sir. Very deep waters. I have been giving some attention to this matter of the hermit, Old Ishmael, and my reasoning has forced me to a certain conclusion.”

  Mr. Thistlethwaite lowered his voice on the last phrase, for Paul Perry was approaching.

  “Three heads might be better than two,” suggested Nigel.

  “As you will, sir. Mr. Perry, I was just about to tell Mr. Strangeways of my conclusions concerning the recluse.”

  “Oh yes?” Paul’s voice concealed curiosity beneath a sceptical negligence.

  “Briefly stated, they are this—the recluse,” hissed Mr. Thistlethwaite, “is a spy!”

  “Did he tell you that?” asked Paul irreverently.

  “Please, Mr. Perry, please.”

  “Pray continue. This is really very interesting.” Nigel’s voice was perfectly serious.

  “Let us take a turn in the direction of the bowling-green. Perambulation, sir, if I may so put it, is the best aperitif for thought. Our young friend’s scepticism, though natural, is ill judged: for he himself held in his own hands the first link of the evidence.”

  “You refer, no doubt, to the aerial photographs?”