Surfeit of Lampreys

by Ngaio Marsh

  “Frid, darling!” her mother expostulated.

  “Well, Mummy darling, it is just that. Shall I ring Nigel up, Mr. Alleyn?”

  Alleyn stared at her. “It’s not a matter for us to decide, you know,” he said at last. “He might serve to keep his fellow scavengers at bay. I may say that you will be creating a precedent if—if you actually invite a press-man to your house when…” His voice petered out. He drove his fingers through his hair.

  “Yes, I know,” said Lady Charles with an air of sympathy. “We no doubt seem a very unbalanced family, poor Mr. Alleyn, but you will find that there is generally a sort of method in our madness. After all, as Frid points out, it would be a help to Nigel Bathgate who works desperately hard at his odious job and, as you point out, it may save us from masses of avid, red-faced reporters asking us difficult questions about Gabriel and poor Violet. Ring him up, Frid.”

  Frid went to the telephone and a uniformed constable came in from the hall and stood inside the door. With the mental sensations usually associated with the gesture of throwing up one’s hands and casting one’s eyes towards heaven, Alleyn joined Fox in the hall. He drew Fox onto the landing and shut the door behind them.

  “And what the hell,” he asked, “have you been telling that collection of certifiable grotesques about me?”

  “About you, Mr. Alleyn? Me?”

  “Yes, you. Sitting there, with them clustered round your great fat knees as if it were a bed-time story. Who do you think you are? Oie-Luk-Oie the Dream God, or what?”

  “Well, sir,” said Fox placidly, “they asked me such awkward questions about this case that one way and the other I was quite glad to switch off onto some of the old ones. I said nothing but what was to your credit. They think you’re wonderful.”

  “Like hell they do!” muttered Alleyn. “Where’s that doctor?”

  “In with the dowager. I strolled along the passage but I couldn’t pick anything up. She seems to be shedding tears.”

  “I wish to high heaven he’d give her a corpse-reviver and let her loose on us. I’ll go along and wait for him. I’ve told that P. C. to note down anything they said.”

  “I hope he’ll keep his wits about him,” said Fox. “He’ll need ’em.”

  “He’s rather a bright young man,” said Alleyn. “I think he’ll be all right. I’ll tell you one thing about the Lampreys, Br’er Fox. They’re only mad nor nor’-west and then not so that you’d notice. They can tell a hawk from a handsaw, I promise you, or from a silver-plated meat skewer, if it comes to that. Get along to the dining-room. I’ll catch the doctor as he comes out and I’ll join you later.”

  But as Alleyn crossed the landing he heard a muffled thump somewhere beneath him. He moved to the stair-head and looked down. Somebody was mounting the stairs, slowly, laboriously. He heard this person cross the landing of the flat beneath. He caught sight of a pancakelike hat, a pair of drooping shoulders, an uneven skirt. This new arrival assisted herself upstairs with her umbrella. That was the origin of the thumping sound. He heard breathing and another faint, sibilant noise. She appeared to be whispering to herself. A sentence of Henry’s came into Alleyn’s memory. He coughed. The toiling figure, now quite close, paid no attention. Alleyn coughed stertorously but to no effect. He moved so that his shadow fell across the stairs. The pancake hat tilted backwards, revealing a few strands of grey hair and a flushed elderly face wearing an expression of exhausted inquiry.

  “Oh,” she whispered, “I didn’t see—The lift doesn’t seem to—Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought for a moment you were one of my nephews.”

  Alleyn, remembering her name and praying no Lampreys would hear him and come out, said loudly “I’m so sorry if I startled you, Lady Katherine.”

  “Not a bit. But I’m afraid I don’t quite—I’ve got such a very bad memory.”

  “We haven’t met before,” shouted Alleyn. “I wondered if I might have a word with you.” He saw that she hadn’t heard him and in desperation groped for one of his official cards. Feeling ridiculous, he offered it to her. Lady Katherine peered at it, uttered a little cry of alarm and gazed at Alleyn with an expression of horror.

  “Not the police!” she wailed. “It hasn’t come to that? Not already!”

  Alleyn wondered distractedly if there was anywhere at all in the flat where he could yell in privacy into the ear of this lady. He decided that the best place would be in the disconnected lift with the doors shut. By a series of inviting gestures he managed to lure her in. She sank onto the narrow seat. He had time to reflect that Bailey and Thompson had finished their investigation of the lift. He leant against the doors and contemplated his witness. She was a little like a sheep, and a rapid association of ideas led him instantly to the White Queen. He bent towards her and she blinked apprehensively.

  “I didn’t realize,” he said loudly, “that you knew this had happened.”

  “What?”

  “You know all about the accident?”

  “About what?”

  “This tragedy,” shouted Alleyn.

  “Yes, indeed. Too distressing! My poor nephew.”

  “I’m afraid it had proved to be serious.”

  “He told me all about it this afternoon.”

  “What!” Alleyn ejaculated.

  “All about it, poor fellow.”

  “Who did, Lady Katherine? Who told you?”

  She shook her head at him. “Very sad,” she said.

  “Lady Katherine, who told you what?”

  “Why, my nephew, Lord Charles Lamprey, to be sure. Who else? I do hope—” she peered again at the card—“I do hope, Mr. Alleyn, that the police will not be too severe. I’m sure he regrets it very deeply.”

  Alleyn swallowed noisily “Lady Katherine, what did he tell you?”

  “About Gabriel and himself. My nephew Wutherwood and my nephew Charles. I was so terrified that it would come to this.”

  “To what?”

  “Even now,” said Lady Katherine, “after this has happened, I still hope that Gabriel may soften.”

  Across Alleyn’s thoughts ran a horrible phrase: “Gabriel shall grow hard and Gabriel shall grow soft.” He pulled himself together, reassorted Lady Katherine’s series of remarks and thought he began to see daylight.

  “Of course,” he said, “you left before—I mean when you left, Lord Wutherwood was still living.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I’m afraid,” roared Alleyn, changing his course again, “I have bad news for you.”

  “Very bad news,” agreed Lady Katherine with one of those half-knowledgeable phrases by which the deaf bewilder us. “Very bad indeed.”

  Alleyn threw all delicacy overboard. He placed his face on a level with Lady Katherine’s and shouted, “He’s dead.”

  Lady Katherine turned very pale and clasped her hands together. “No, no!” she whispered. “You didn’t say—dead? Did you? I don’t hear very well and I thought—Please tell me. It wasn’t that?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But—Oh, how terrible. And such a grave sin if—Did he lay hands upon himself? Oh, poor Charlie! Poor Immy! And poor children!”

  “Good God!” cried Alleyn. “Not Lord Charles! Lord Wutherwood. Lord Wutherwood is dead.”

  He saw the colour return in patches to her large, soft cheeks.

  “Gabriel?” she said quite loudly. “Gabriel is dead?” Alleyn nodded violently. For perhaps thirty seconds she said nothing and then on a sort of sigh she whispered astoundingly: “Then I needn’t have taken all this trouble.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Conversation Piece

  ROBERTA HAD THOUGHT that when the two Scotland Yard officials went to the dining-room they would all be able to relax a little, and talk to each other in a normal fashion. It seemed to Roberta that since the appearance of Alleyn and Fox neither herself nor the Lampreys had been real persons. She was conscious, perhaps for the first time in her life, of making a deliberate and strenuous re
fusal to examine her own thoughts. Near the surface of her mind there waited, with the ominous insistence of images in a nightmare, a sequence of ideas and conjectures; and as, even during the experience of a nightmare, the dreamer may sometimes fight down his own images, so Roberta fought down the rising terrors of her thoughts, thrust them into the background, covered them with other thoughts less menacing to the love that six years ago she had so queerly dedicated to each one of the Lampreys. It seemed to her that the Lampreys themselves had completely withdrawn from her and that, without having had an opportunity to consult in private, they had nevertheless come to some understanding among themselves. She had hoped that when at last she was alone with them they would draw her towards them and, by an exhibition of the devastating frankness that so many of their friends mistook for a sign of flattering confidence, would let her join the common front they were to present to the police…But it appeared that they were not to be alone. Alleyn and Fox left a large policeman behind them and, more than anything else that had happened during that incredible evening, the sight of this stolid figure with scrubbed face and shining buttons, standing inside the drawing-room door, sent an icy thrill of panic through Roberta. Apparently the Lampreys were not so affected. Obeying a murmur from his mother, Colin offered the constable an arm-chair and asked him if he would like to move nearer to the fire at the opposite end of the room. With a glance at the man’s note-book, Colin turned on a table lamp at his elbow. At this astonishing anticipation of his activities the constable turned a deep crimson, put away his note-book and hurriedly took it out again. Colin begged him to take the chair and in some confusion he finally sat down.

  Colin rejoined his family at the other end of the room.

  “Eh bien,” said Frid, “maintenant, nous parlerons comme si le monsieur n’était pas là.”

  “Frid!” cried her mother. “Attention!” Frid peered down the length of the room and, raising her voice, said to the constable: “I do hope you won’t mind us trying to talk in French. You see, we have got one or two things to discuss and as they are sort of rather private it will be less embarrassing for all of us, won’t it? I mean, you won’t feel that we are too odiously rude, will you?”

  The policeman rose, cleared his throat and said: “No, Miss,” and, as though he ardently desired a ruling on the point, cast an anguished look at the door. After a moment’s hesitation he again took the arm-chair offered by Colin, and now all the Lampreys could see of him was the top of his head, which was red.

  “That’s all right, then, Mummy,” said Frid. “Alors. À propos des jumeaux…”

  Roberta’s heart sank. Charlot and Lord Charles, she knew, spoke French with some fluency. Frid had been to a finishing school in Paris. Henry and the twins had attended the university at Grenoble and had spent most of their holidays with friends on the Côte d’Azur. Even Patch and Mike, in the New Zealand days, had made life hideous for a sweating Frenchwoman who had followed the Lampreys to England and was still sporadically employed during the holidays. Roberta, on the contrary, had merely taken French at school and knew from bitter experience that when the Lampreys spoke in that language their conversation resembled a continuous rattle of fricatives and plosives, maddeningly leavened with occasional words that Roberta could understand. They were at it now. Lord Charles seemed to expostulate, Henry to argue. The twins were comparatively silent and looked mulish. Once, in answer to a prolonged harangue from Frid, Colin said: “Laisse-tu donc tranquille, Frid. In fact, shut up.”

  Henry said: “This is fun for Robin, I must say.”

  “Darling Robin,” said Charlot, “you don’t mind, do you?”

  “Of course I don’t. And I have followed a bit.”

  “Taisez-vous, donc!” commanded Frid dramatically. “Écoutez!”

  “What’s the matter?” asked Henry testily.

  “Listen, all of you.”

  As though from a distant part of the flat came the sound of a deep voice.

  “It’s Mr. Alleyn,” said Frid. “What’s he yelling like that for?”

  “Perhaps he’s flown into a black rage,” suggested Patch.

  “Perhaps he’s arresting Nanny or someone,” said Stephen.

  “I must say I don’t see why he should roar at her, even if he is. And anyway,” added Frid, “he doesn’t sound like that. He sounds as if he’s yelling to some one downstairs.”

  “Or to some one deaf,” Stephen amended.

  “Good heavens,” cried Charlot, “can it be Aunt Kit?”

  “Really, Immy!” said Lord Charles. “Why on earth should Aunt Kit come back here at this hour?”

  “Everything is so odd that I don’t consider the return of Aunt Kit at midnight would be at all surprising.”

  “It isn’t midnight,” said Patch.

  “Mr. Alleyn is growing fainter,” observed Colin. “He must be going downstairs and roaring as he goes.”

  “Perhaps,” suggested Patch, “he’s sitting in the lift and shouting to find out si nous avons parlé vrai, au sujet de mon oncle.’

  “Patch, darling!” lamented Charlot, “your accent. Honestly!”

  “Well, I suppose we can’t go and find out,” said Frid with a glance at the back of the constable’s head.

  “Good God,” ejaculated Lord Charles. “It is Aunt Kit.” Through the door into the drawing-room came Lady Katherine Lobe.

  “Immy darling,” she whispered, as she embraced Charlot. “So terrible but in a way such a dispensation. His ways are indeed mysterious and no doubt, He has chosen this instrument. Charlie, my dear!”

  “Aunt Kit, where have you been?”

  “To Hampstead. By tube and bus. I should have returned sooner but most unfortunately I caught the wrong bus and then again Mr. Nathan took such a long time. And all for nothing as it turns out. Though even now with the death duties—”

  “Whom did you go to see at Hampstead?”

  “A Mr. Isadore Z. Nathan, Charlie. I thought I should find him in his shop but of course when I left here it was after closing hours. But I found his private address in the telephone book and luckily he was at home. Such an amazing house, Immy. Enormous pictures and a great deal of velvet. But Mr. Nathan was charming.”

  “You can’t mean Uncle Izzy from the pop-shop round the corner!” Frid ejaculated.

  “What, darling?”

  “Not the pawnbroker in Admiral Street, Aunt Kit?”

  “Yes. You see, Charlie, I had often thought of doing it for my lame ducks, because it did seem rather extravagant and useless to pay all those large premiums when I am not well off, but as they were family things and almost the only family things that I had, I always imagined that Mama would not have approved, so I didn’t. But this was quite different because you are the family and it gave me the very greatest pleasure, darling. I couldn’t be more pleased. Now, perhaps, you will feel you would like to redeem them, though, for the time being—”

  “Aunt Kit,” said Lord Charles hastily, “you’re not talking about the Indian pearls?”

  “What, dear?”

  “Not Great Aunt Caroline’s pearls?”

  “It’s such luck that I always wear them.” Lady Katherine fumbled in her reticule and produced a slip of paper over which she closed Lord Charles’s nerveless fingers. “There, Charlie, my dear. And I’m so glad. I’m sure Mr. Nathan is perfectly all right. He took a very long time examining them and you see I knew their value because of the insurance and I drove quite a shrewd bargain with him. I asked him to make the cheque out to you because—”

  Charlot, rather belatedly, interrupted Lady Katherine with a loud patter of French. Lady Katherine peered towards the far end of the room uttered a whispered ejaculation, and sank into the nearest chair. Lord Charles stared through his glass at the cheque, seemed to try to speak to his aunt, made a small helpless gesture and turned to his wife.

  “Darling Aunt Kit,” began Charlot and stopped short. “C’est trop…” She stopped again. “I simply cannot go on yelling French
,” said Charlot. She glanced at the top of the policeman’s head, went to the desk near Roberta, drew out a sheet of paper, and took up her pen.

  “Surely,” said Lady Katherine, “he can’t dream of thinking of you…” She turned with an air of tragedy to her nephew. “It’s too impossible,” she whispered. “He seemed to be a gentleman.”

  “Give her this,” said Charlot. Into Roberta’s hand she thrust a sheet of paper on which she had written in block capitals: “DARLING, DID YOU TELL HIM WE ASKED GABRIEL FOR TWO THOUSAND?”

  In obedience to signals from the rest of the family, Roberta displayed this communication to them before handing it to Lady Katherine, who instantly began to fumble for her glasses. These secured and slung across her nose, she read Charlot’s message, her lips forming the words, her hands trembling. She laid the paper on her knees and, looking piteously from one to the other of the Lampreys, she whispered: “I didn’t tell him how much.”

  Frid groaned. There was a short silence. Roberta watched Lady Katherine’s hand, swollen a little with arthritis and still trembling very much, grope in her bag for a handkerchief. Suddenly Henry walked over to his aunt and stooped to kiss her.

  “Dear Aunt Kit,” said Henry gently. “You are so kind.”

  It was perhaps at this moment that Roberta first realized that she was in love with Henry.

  It is not easy to thank a deaf person for a large sum of money when every word of thanks may compromise the speaker in the ears of an attentive policeman. The Lampreys pulled themselves together and made a pretty good job of it. Lady Katherine seemed to have some difficulty in hearing French though she whispered away at it herself with great fluency. The conversation was therefore conducted along bilingual lines, the Lampreys’ less dangerous remarks being made in English, though Roberta thought there seemed to be very little point in disguising the deplorable state of Lord Charles’s finances if Lady Katherine had already told Alleyn about the object of the interview with her brother, and if Inspector Fox knew about Mr. Grumball.

  After a few minutes there was a tap on the far door, which the constable opened. Fox’s voice was heard in a brief mumble and in a moment he came in.