by Ngaio Marsh
Jeremy now spoke rapidly and directly to Alleyn.
‘I’ve got a maggot about historic treasures going out of their native setting. I’d give back the Elgin Marbles to Athens tomorrow if I could. I started on the copy; first of all just for the hell of it. I even thought I might pull Peregrine’s leg with it when it was done or try it out on the expert at the Vic and Alb. I was lucky in the hunt for silks and for gold and silver wire and all. The real stuff. I did it almost under your silly great beak, Perry. You nearly caught me at it lots of times. I’d no intention, then, absolutely none, of trying substitution.’
‘What did you mean to do with it ultimately? Apart from legpulling,’ said Alleyn.
Jeremy blushed to the roots of his betraying hair. ‘I rather thought,’ he said, ‘of giving it to Destiny Meade.’
Peregrine made a slight moaning sound.
‘And what made you change your mind?’
‘As you’ve guessed, I imagine, it was on the morning the original was brought here and they asked me to see it housed. I’d brought my copy with me. I thought I might just try my joke experiment. So I grabbed my chance and did a little sleight-of-hand. It was terribly easy: nobody, not even you, noticed. I was going to display the whole thing and if nobody spotted the fake, take the original out of my pocket, do my funny man ha-ha ever-been-had stuff, re-switch the gloves and give Destiny the copy. I thought it’d be rather diverting to have you and the expert and everybody doting and on-going and the cameramen milling round and Marcus striking wonderful attitudes: all at my fake. You know?’
Peregrine said: ‘Very quaint and inventive. You ought to go into business with Harry Grove.’
‘Well, then I heard all the chat about whether the cache was really safe and what you, Mr Alleyn, said to Winty about the lock and how you guessed the combination. I thought: but this is terrifying. It’s asking for trouble. There’ll be another Goya’s “Duke” but this time it’ll go for keeps. I felt sure Winty wouldn’t get round to changing the combination. And then – absolutely on the spur of the moment – it was some kind of compulsive behaviour I suppose – I decided not to tell about my fake. I decided to leave it on show in the theatre and to take charge of the original myself. It’s in a safe-deposit and very carefully packed. I promise you, I was going to replace it as soon as the exhibits were to be removed. I knew I’d be put in charge again and I could easily reverse the former procedure and switch back the genuine article. And then: then – there was the abominable bombshell.’
‘And I suppose,’ Peregrine observed, ‘I now understand your extraordinary behaviour on Friday.’
‘You may suppose so. On Friday,’ Jeremy turned to Alleyn, ‘Peregrine informed me that Conducis had sold or as good as sold, to a private collector in USA.’
Jeremy got up and walked distractedly about the office. Alleyn rested his chin in his hand, Fox looked over the top of his spectacles and Peregrine ran his hands through his hair.
‘You must have been out of your wits,’ he said.
‘Put it like that if you want to. You don’t need to tell me what I’ve done. Virtually, I’ve stolen the glove.’
‘Virtually?’ Alleyn repeated. ‘There’s no “virtually” about it. That is precisely what you’ve done. If I understand you, you now decided to keep the real glove and let the collector spend a fortune on a fake.’
Jeremy threw up his hands: ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t decided anything.’
‘You don’t know what you proposed to do with young Hamnet Shakespeare’s glove?’
‘Exactly. If this thing hadn’t happened to Jobbins and the boy and I’d been responsible for handing over the treasure: I don’t know, now, what I’d have done. I’d have brought Hamnet’s glove with me, I think. But whether I’d have replaced it – I expect I would but – I just do not know.’
‘Did you seriously consider any other line of action? Suppose you hadn’t replaced the real glove – what then? You’d have stuck to it? Hoarded it for the rest of your life?’
‘NO!’ Jeremy shouted. ‘No! Not that, I wouldn’t have done that. I’d have waited to see what happened, I think, and then – and then…’
‘You realize that if the purchaser had your copy, good as it is, examined by an expert it would be spotted in no time?’
Jeremy actually grinned. ‘And I wonder what the Great God Conducis would have done about that one,’ he said. ‘Return the money or brazen it out that he sold in good faith on the highest authority?’
‘What you would have done is more to the point.’
‘I tell you, I don’t know. Would I let it ride? See what happened? Do a kidnap sort of thing perhaps? Phoney voice on the telephone saying if he swore to give it to the Nation it would be returned? Then Conducis could do what he liked about it.’
‘Swear, collect and sell,’ Peregrine said. ‘You must be demented.’
‘Where is this safe-deposit?’ Alleyn asked. Jeremy told him. Not far from their flat in Blackfriars.
‘Tell me,’ Alleyn went on, ‘how am I to know you’ve been speaking the truth? After all you’ve only handed us this rigmarole after I’d discovered the fake. How am I to know you didn’t mean to flog the glove on the freak black market? Do you know there is such a market in historic treasures?’
Jeremy said loudly: ‘Yes, I do. Perfectly well.’
‘For God’s sake, Jer, shut up. Shut up.’
‘No, I won’t. Why should I? I’m not the only one in the company to hear of Mrs Constantia Guzman.’
‘Mrs Constantia Guzman?’ Alleyn repeated.
‘She’s a slightly mad millionairess with a flair for antiquities.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes. Harry Grove knows all about her. So,’ added Jeremy defiantly, ‘do Marco and Charlie Random.’
‘What is the Guzman story?’
‘According to Harry,’ Jeremy began in a high voice and with what sounded like insecure irony, ‘she entertained Marco very lavishly when he had that phenomenal season in New York three years ago. Harry was in the company. It appears that Mrs Guzman, who is fiftyfive, as ugly as sin and terrifying, fell madly in love with Marco. Literally – madly in love. She’s got a famous collection of pictures and objets d’art. Well, she threw a fabulous party – fabulous even for her – and when it was all over she kept Marco back. As a sort of woo she took him into a private room and showed him a collection of treasures that she said nobody else has ever seen.’ Jeremy stopped short. The corner of Alleyn’s mouth twitched and his right eyebrow rose. Fox cleared his throat. Peregrine said wearily, ‘Ah, my God.’
‘I mean,’ Jeremy said with dignity, ‘precisely and literally what I say. Behind locked doors Mrs Guzman showed to Marcus Knight jewels, snuff-boxes, rare books, Fabergé trinkets: all as hot as hell. Every one a historic collector’s item. And the whole shooting-match, she confided, bought on a sort of underground international black market. Lots of them had at some time been stolen. She had agents all over Europe and the Far East. She kept all these things simply to gloat over in secret and she told Marco she had shown them to him because she wanted to feel she was in his power. And with that she set upon him in no mean style. She carried the weight and he made his escape, or so he says, by the narrowest of margins and in a cold sweat. He got on quite well with Harry in those days. One evening when he’d had one or two drinks, he told Harry all about this adventure.’
‘And how did you hear of it?’
Peregrine ejaculated: ‘I remember! When I told the company about the glove!’
‘That’s right. Harry said Mrs Constantia Guzman ought to know of it. He said it with one of his glances – perhaps they should be called “mocking” – at Marcus who turned purple. Harry and Charlie Random and I had drinks in the pub that evening and he told us the Guzman yarn. I must say he was frightfully funny doing an imitation of Mrs Guzman saying: “But I vish to be at your bercy. I log to be in your power. Ach, if you vould only betray be. Ach, but you have so beautiful
a botty”.’
Peregrine made an exasperated noise.
‘Yes,’ said Jeremy. ‘Well-knowing your views on theatre gossip, I didn’t relay the story to you.’
‘Have other people in the company heard it?’ Alleyn asked.
Jeremy said: ‘Oh, yes. I imagine so.’
Peregrine said: ‘No doubt, Harry has told Destiny,’ and Jeremy looked miserable. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘At a party.’
Alleyn said: ‘You will be required to go to your safe-deposit with two CID officers, uplift the glove and hand it over to them. You will be asked to sign a full statement as to your activities. Whether a charge will be laid I can’t at the moment tell you. Your ongoings, in my opinion, fall little short of lunacy. Technically, on your own showing, you’re a thief.’
Jeremy, now so white that his freckles looked like brown confetti, turned on Peregrine and stammered: ‘I’ve been so bloody miserable. It was a kind of diversion. I’ve been so filthily unhappy.’
He made for the door. Fox, a big man who moved quickly, was there before him. ‘Just a minute, sir, if you don’t mind,’ he said mildly.
Alleyn said: ‘All right, Fox. Mr Jones: will you go now to the safedeposit? Two of our men will meet you there, take possession of the glove and ask you to return with them to the Yard. For the moment, that’s all that’ll happen. Good-day to you.’
Jeremy went out quickly. They heard him cross the foyer and run downstairs.
‘Wait a moment, will you, Jay?’ Alleyn said. ‘Fox, lay that on, please.’
Fox went to the telephone and established a sub-fusc conversation with the Yard.
‘That young booby’s a close friend of yours, I gather,’ Alleyn said.
‘Yes, he is. Mr Alleyn, I realize I’ve no hope of getting anywhere with this but if I may just say one thing – ’
‘Of course, why not?’
‘Well,’ Peregrine said, rather surprised, ‘thank you. Well, it’s two things actually. First: from what Jeremy’s told you, there isn’t any motive whatever for him to burgle the safe last night. Is there?’
‘If everything he has said is true – no. If he has only admitted what we were bound to find out and distorted the rest, it’s not difficult to imagine a motive. Motives, however, are a secondary consideration in police work. At the moment, we want a workable assemblage of cogent facts. What’s your second observation?’
‘Not very compelling, I’m afraid, in the light of what you’ve just said. He is, as you’ve noticed, my closest friend and I must therefore be supposed to be prejudiced. But I do, all the same, want to put it on record that he’s one of the most non-violent men you could wish to meet. Impulsive. Hot-tempered in a sort of sudden redheaded way. Vulnerable. But essentially gentle. Essentially incapable of the kind of thing that was perpetrated in this theatre last night. I know this of Jeremy, as well as I know it of myself. I’m sorry,’ Peregrine said rather grandly. ‘I realize that kind of reasoning won’t make a dent in a police investigation. But if you like to question anyone else who’s acquainted with the fool, I’m sure you’ll get the same reaction.’
‘Speaking as a brutal and hide-bound policeman,’ Alleyn said cheerfully, ‘I’m much obliged to you. It isn’t always the disinterested witness who offers the soundest observations and I’m glad to have your account of Jeremy Jones.’
Peregrine stared at him. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said.
‘What for? Before we press on, though, I wonder if you’d feel inclined to comment on the Knight-Meade-Bracey-Grove situation. What’s it all about? A character actress scorned and a leading gent slighted? A leading lady beguiled and a second juvenile in the ascendant? Or what?’
‘I wonder you bother to ask me since you’ve got it off so pat,’ said Peregrine tartly.
‘And a brilliant young designer in thrall with no prospect of delight?’
‘Yes. Very well.’
‘All right,’ Alleyn said. ‘Let him be for the moment. Have you any idea who the US customer for the treasure might be?’
‘No. It wasn’t for publication. Or so I understood from Greenslade.’
‘Not Mrs Constantia Guzman by any chance?’
‘Good God, I don’t know,’ Peregrine said. ‘I’ve no notion. Mr Conducis may not so much as know her. Not that that would signify.’
‘I think he does, however. She was one of his guests in the Kalliope at the time of the disaster. One of the few to escape if I remember rightly.’
‘Wait a bit. There’s something. Wait a bit.’
‘With pleasure.’
‘No, but it’s just I’ve remembered – it might not be of the smallest significance – but I have remembered one incident, during rehearsals when Conducis came in to tell me we could use the theatre for publicity. Harry walked in here while we were talking. He was as bright as a button, as usual, and not at all disconcerted. He greeted Mr Conducis like a long lost uncle, asked him if he’d been yachting lately and said something like: remember him to Mrs G. Of course there are a thousand and one Mrs G.’s but when you mentioned the yacht –’
‘Yes, indeed. How did Conducis take this?’
‘Like he takes everything. Dead pan.’
‘Any idea what the obligation was that Grove seems to have laid upon him?’
‘Not a notion.’
‘Blackmail by any chance, would you think?’
‘Ah, no! And Conducis is not a queer in my opinion if that’s what you’re working up to. Nor, good lord, is Harry! And nor, I’m quite sure, is Harry a blackmailer. He’s a rum customer and he’s a bloody nuisance in a company. Like a wasp. But I don’t believe he’s a bad lot. Not really.’
‘Why?’
Peregrine thought for a moment. ‘I suppose,’ he said at last, with an air of surprise, ‘that it must be because, to me, he really is funny. When he plays up in the theatre I become furious and go for him like a pick-pocket and then he says something outrageous that catches me on the hop and makes me want to laugh.’ He looked from Alleyn to Fox. ‘Has either of you,’ Peregrine asked, ‘ever brought a clown like Harry to book for murder?’
Alleyn and Fox appeared severally to take glimpses into their professional pasts.
‘I can’t recall,’ Fox said, cautiously, ‘ever finding much fun in a convicted homicide, can you, Mr Alleyn?’
‘Not really,’ Alleyn agreed, ‘but I hardly think the presence or absence of the Comic Muse can be regarded as an acid test.’
Peregrine, for the first time, looked amused.
‘Did you,’ Alleyn said, ‘know that Mr Grove is distantly related to Mr Conducis?’
‘I did NOT,’ Peregrine shouted. ‘Who told you this?’
‘He did.’
‘You amaze me. It must be a tarradiddle. Though, of course,’ Peregrine said, after a long pause, ‘it would account for everything. Or would it?’
‘Everything?’
‘The mailed fist of management. The recommendation for him to be cast.’
‘Ah, yes. What’s Grove’s background, by the way?’
‘He refers to himself as an Old Borstalian but I don’t for a moment suppose it’s true. He’s a bit of an inverted snob, is Harry.’
‘Very much so, I’m sure.’
‘I rather think he started in the RAF and then drifted on and off the boards until he got a big break in Cellar Stairs. He was out of a shop, he once told me, for so long that he got jobs as a lorry-driver, a steward and a waiter in a strip-tease joint. He said he took more in tips than he ever made speaking lines.’
‘When was that?’
‘Just before his break, he said. About six years ago. He signed off one job and before signing on for another took a trip round the agents and landed star-billing in Cellar Stairs. Such is theatre.’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘Is that all?’ Peregrine asked after a silence.
‘I’m going to ask you to do something else for me. I know you’ve got the change of casting and internal affairs on your
hands but as soon as you can manage it I wonder if you’d take an hour to think back over your encounters with Mr Conducis and your adventures of last night, and note down everything you can remember. And any other item, by the way, that you may have overlooked in the excitement.’
‘Do you really think Conducis has got anything to do with last night?’
‘I’ve no idea. He occurs. He’ll have to be found irrelevant before we may ignore him. Will you do this?’
‘I must say it’s distasteful.’
‘So,’ said Alleyn, ‘is Jobbins’s corpse.’
‘Whatever happened,’ Peregrine said, looking sick, ‘and whoever overturned the bronze dolphin, I don’t believe it was deliberate, cold-blooded murder. I believe he saw Jobbins coming at him and overturned the pedestal in a sort of blind attempt to stop him. That’s what I think and my God,’ Peregrine said, ‘I must say I do not welcome an invitation to have any part in hunting him down: whoever it was, the boy or anyone else.’
‘All right. And if it wasn’t the boy, what about the boy? How do you fit him in as a useful buffer between your distaste and the protection of the common man? How do you think the boy came to be dropped over the circle? And believe me he was dropped. He escaped, by a-hundred-to-one chance, being spilt like an egg over the stalls. Yes,’ Alleyn said, watching Peregrine, ‘that’s a remark in bad taste, isn’t it? Murder’s a crime in bad taste. You’ve seen it, now. You ought to know.’ He waited for a moment and then said, ‘That was cheating and I apologize.’
Peregrine said: ‘You needn’t be so bloody upright. It’s nauseating.’
‘All right. Go away and vomit. But if you have second thoughts, sit down and write out every damn’ thing you remember of Conducis and all the rest of it. And now, if you want to go – go. Get the hell out of it.’
