Surfeit of Lampreys

by Ngaio Marsh

  “Go and have a word with her. Use your charm. And in the meantime, Fox, I’ll deal with Master Henry.”

  So Fox went off to the kitchen and the constable fetched Henry. Alleyn came straight to the point with Henry, asking him whether his uncle had promised to lend his father a sum of money. Henry instantly said that he had.

  “So the financial crisis was over?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did none of you tell me of this before?”

  “Why should we?” asked Henry coolly. “It didn’t arise.”

  “The question of the guilt or innocence of every single one of you arises,” said Alleyn. “As you no doubt realize, Lady Katherine has told us of your financial difficulties. Lord Charles has told us that there is a bailiff in the flat. People do not murder a man who is on the point of rescuing them from bankruptcy.”

  “Well,” said Henry, “we didn’t murder Uncle G.”

  “Who, in your opinion, did murder him?”

  “I’ve no opinion about it.”

  “You don’t share your mother’s conviction of Lady Wutherwood’s homicidal insanity?”

  “Does my mother feel convinced about that?”

  “She told me so.” Henry said nothing.

  “In plain words,” said Alleyn, “do you think Lady Wutherwood is insane and killed her husband?”

  “I don’t see how one can possibly know,” said Henry slowly. “I think she’s mad.”

  “That’s an honest speech,” said Alleyn unexpectedly. Henry looked up, quickly. “I think she’s mad, too,” Alleyn said, “but like you I don’t know if she killed her husband. I wonder if we hesitate for the same reason. It seems strange to me that a woman who murdered her husband should demand his body.”

  “I know,” said Henry quickly, “but if she’s mad—”

  “There’s always that, of course. But to me it doesn’t quite fit. Nor to you, I think?”

  “To me,” said Henry impatiently, “nothing fits. The whole thing’s a nightmare. I know none of us did it and that’s all I do know. I can’t think either of their servants are murderers. Giggle’s been with them since he was a kid. He’s a mild, stupid man and plays trains with Mike. Tinkerton is objectionable on the general grounds that she’s got a face like a dead flounder and smells of hair combings. Perhaps she killed him.”

  “We’d get on a good deal faster, of course,” Alleyn murmured, “if everybody spoke the flat truth.”

  “Really? Don’t you think we’re telling the truth?”

  “Hardly any of you except your brother Michael. Of course we have to be polite and make sympathetic, gullible noises but when all’s said and done it’s little but a hollow mockery. You’ll give yourselves away in time, and that’s the best we can hope for.”

  “Do you often talk like this to your suspects? It seems very un-Yardlike to me,” said Henry lightly.

  “We vary our tune a bit. Why didn’t you go straight to the drawing-room with your brothers?”

  Henry jumped, seemed to pull himself together, and said: “I didn’t at first see what you meant. Hustling tactics, I perceive. I went to the hall door to see if they’d gone.”

  “Anybody in the hall?”

  Henry shook his head.

  “Or the landing?”

  “No.”

  “Or the passage?”

  “No.”

  “How long were you about it?”

  “Not long enough to find a meat skewer and kill my uncle.”

  “Where was the meat skewer?”

  “I don’t know,” said Henry. “We had it in our charade. I suppose it was either in—”

  “Yes?”

  “It must have been in the hall with all the other stuff.”

  “You were going to say in the drawing-room or in the hall?”

  “Was I?” said Henry.

  “Well,” said Alleyn amiably, “I’m only asking. Were you?”

  “Yes, but I stopped because I realized it couldn’t have been in the drawing-room. If any one had taken it from there we should have seen them.”

  “I see by my notes,” said Alleyn, “that Lord Charles was alone in the drawing-room for some time.”

  “Then,” said Henry stolidly, “he would have seen anybody who came in and took the skewer.”

  “Did you happen to look at the hall table on this visit?”

  “Yes, I did. I looked to see if his hat and coat were gone. Of course they were. He was in the lift, I suppose, by then.”

  Alleyn clasped his hands together on the table and seemed to contemplate them. Then he raised his head and looked at Henry. “Can you remember seeing anything on the table?”

  “I remember very well that there was nothing on it but a vase of flowers.”

  “Nothing? You are positive?”

  “Quite. I remember the look of the table very clearly. It reflected the light from the window. Some one must have given the vase a knock because there was some water lying on the table. It’s rather a favourite of my father’s and I remember thinking that the water ought to be mopped up. I gave it a wipe with my handkerchief, but it wasn’t very successful. I didn’t do anything more about it. I was afraid that Aunt V. might come out of cover and I’d had a bellyful of Aunt V. I went into the drawing-room. But there was nothing on the table.”

  “Would you swear to that? I mean, take a legal oath?”

  “Yes,” said Henry, “I would.”

  “What did you talk about when you went into the drawing-room?”

  For the first time during the interview Henry seemed to be disconcerted. His eyes went blank. He repeated: “Talk about?” on a note that held an overtone of helplessness.

  “Yes. What did you say to your father and your brothers or they to you?”

  “I don’t remember. I—oh, yes, I asked if the Gabriels had gone.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. I don’t think anybody said anything.”

  “And yet,” said Alleyn, “you must have all been feeling most elated.”

  “We—yes. Yes, of course, we were.”

  “Everything all right again. Lord Wutherwood had promised to see you out of the wood. Crisis averted.”

  “Yes. Oh, rather. It was wonderful,” said Henry.

  “And yet you all sat there saying nothing except to ask if the benefactor was out of the way. Your younger sister tells me that she and Lady Friede, who went into Flat 26 at this stage of the proceedings, also had nothing to say. A curious reaction.”

  “Perhaps our hearts,” said Henry, recovering his poise, “were too full for words.”

  “Perhaps they were,” said Alleyn. “I think that’s all. Thank you so much.”

  Looking rather startled, Henry got up and moved to the door. Here he paused and after a moment’s hesitation returned to Alleyn.

  “We didn’t do it, sir,” he said. “Honestly. None of us. We are not at all a homicidal family.”

  “I’m glad of that,” said Alleyn tranquilly.

  Henry stared at him and then shrugged his shoulders. “Not an impressive effort on my part, I see,” he said.

  “Have you been honest with us?”

  Henry didn’t answer. His face was quite colourless. “Well, good night,” he said and, on some obscure impulse, held out his hand.

  Fox had not returned. Alleyn looked at his watch. Almost midnight. They’d done not so badly in four hours. He added another column to a tabulated record of everybody’s movements from the time of Lord Wutherwood’s first yell up to the return of the lift. P.C. Gibson, at the door, coughed.

  “All right,” said Alleyn without looking up. “We’ll get going again in a moment. Been following the statements?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what do you think about it?” asked Alleyn, scowling at his notes.

  “Well, sir, I seem to think there’s a good deal in the old lady myself.”

  “Yes, Gibson, and so will everybody else. But why, why, why does she want the body? C
an you tell me that, Gibson?”

  “Because she’s mad, sir?” Gibson ventured.

  “It won’t cover everything. She screamed the roof off when the injury was discovered. She wouldn’t go and see him when he was dying. If she killed him why, mad or sane, should she want to take him home? The funeral could have been arranged to leave from the house with all the trappings and the suits of woe, if that’s what she’s after. It maybe, and yet—and yet—it doesn’t seem to me like the inconsistency of a homicidal lunatic, but lord knows I’m no alienist. I don’t think I’ve got the dowager right, somehow, and that’s a fact. All right, Gibson. My compliments to his lordship and I’d be glad if he’d see me. The others may go to bed, of course.”

  “Yes, sir. Martin asked me to mention, sir, that Mr. Bathgate has arrived and is with the family. He’s been asking if he could see you.”

  “So they did ring him up,” Alleyn muttered. “Incredible! I’d better see him now, Gibson, before you give the message to Lord Charles.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Nigel lost no time in making his appearance. Alleyn heard him hurrying along the passage and in a moment he burst into the dining-room.

  “Look here, Alleyn,” Nigel cried, “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “Talk away,” said Alleyn, “but not at the top of your voice and not, if you’ve any mercy, at great length. I’m on duty.”

  “I can’t help it if…” Nigel broke off and looked at Gibson. “It’s—I’d like to see you alone.”

  Alleyn nodded good-humouredly at Gibson, who went out.

  “Now what is it?” Alleyn asked. “Have you come to tell me I mustn’t speak to your friends as if there’s been a murder in their flat?”

  “I’ve come to tell you it’s utterly out of the question that any of them should be implicated. I’ve come to save them, if possible, from opening their mouths and putting their feet in them. See here, Alleyn, I’ve known the Lampreys all my life. Known them well. They’re as mad as May flies but there’s not a vicious impulse in the make-up of a single one of them. Oh hell, I’m not going about this in the right way! I got such a damned jolt when they told me what was up that I’m all anyhow. Let me explain the Lampreys.”

  “Two of their friends have already explained them, this evening,” said Alleyn. “Their descriptions tallied fairly well. Boiled down to a few unsympathetic adjectives they came to this: ‘Charming. Irresponsible. Unscrupulous about money. Good-natured. Lazy. Amusing. Enormously popular.’ Do you agree?”

  “Nobody knows better than you,” said Nigel, “that people can not be boiled down into a few adjectives.”

  “I entirely agree. So what do you suggest we do about it?”

  “If I could make you understand the Lampreys! God knows what they’ve been saying to you! I can see that in spite of the shock it’s given them they’re beginning to look at this business as a sort of macabre parlour game with themselves on one side and you on the other. They’re hopeless. They’ll try to diddle you merely to see if they can get away with it. Can you understand that?”

  “No,” Alleyn said. “If they’re making false statements for the sheer fun of the thing, I’ve completely misjudged them.”

  “But, Alleyn—”

  “See here, Bathgate, you’d much better stay out of this. We had the same difficulty when we first met. The Frantock case is almost seven years old now, isn’t it? Do you remember how hot you were about our work over that case? Because the people involved were friends of yours? It’s the same thing over again. My dear old Bathgate, it’s only fun being friends with a policeman when you’re not also friends with his suspects.”

  “Then,” said Nigel turning very pale, “do you suspect one of them?”

  “They were in the flat, together with some eight other persons of whom there are also possible murderers. We’ve only been four hours on the damned case and haven’t had much of a chance to thin out names. I tell you quite honestly, we’ve only got the faintest glimmering so far.”

  “I’d risk everything I’ve got in the world on the Lampreys being out of it.”

  “Would you? Then you’ve nothing to worry about.”

  “I know. But I’m so deadly afraid of what they may take it into their heads to say. They’re such lunatics.”

  “So far, beyond a few superficial flourishes they haven’t behaved like lunatics. They’ve behaved with an air of irresponsibility, but considering that they’re working under police supervision they’ve managed to keep their misrepresentations pretty consistent. They’ve displayed a surprising virtuosity. They’re nobody’s fools.”

  “Alleyn,” said Nigel, “will you let me stand by? I’m not pretending I’m any good at this sort of thing. ‘Oh God, you’re only Watson’ is my cry. But I—I would like to—to sort of look out for the Lampreys.”

  “I don’t think I’d advise you to do it. I tell you we don’t know—”

  “And I tell you I’m prepared to risk it. I’m only asking to do what I’ve so often done before. I’ll cover the case for my paper. They’ve actually given me carte blanche for that. Did you ever hear of such a thing? Frid said it was a nice scoop for me. And so, of course, it is,” added Nigel honestly. “Better me than one of the others, after all.”

  “You may stay if you think it advisable, of course. But suppose that as things fall out we find ourselves being drawn to—”

  “I know what you’re going to say and I’m convinced it’s entirely out of the question.”

  “Then you’re in?”

  “I’m in.”

  “All right,” said Alleyn. “Gibson!” The door opened. “I’m ready for Lord Charles, if he can come.”

  Alleyn had grown accustomed to Lord Charles’s walk. It recalled vividly a year out of his own past. From 1919 to 1920 Alleyn’s youthful and speculative gaze had followed tail-coated figures hurrying with discretion through the labyrinths of diplomatic corridors. These figures had moved with the very gait of Lord Charles Lamprey and Alleyn wondered if at any time he had been among them. He came into the dining-room with this well-remembered air, taking out his eye-glass as he moved to the table. There was a kind of amateurish gravity about him, linked to an expression of guarded courtesy. He was one of those blond men at whose age it is difficult to guess. Somewhere, Alleyn thought, between forty-five and fifty.

  “You will be glad to hear, sir,” said Alleyn, “that we have nearly finished for to-night.”

  “Oh yes,” said Lord Charles. “Splendid. Hullo, Nigel. Still with us? That’s good.”

  “He’s asked for an unofficial watching-brief,” Alleyn explained. “Subject, of course, to your approval.”

  “Do you mind, Charles?” asked Nigel. “As you know, I’m Alleyn’s Watson. Of course, you’ll tell me if you’d rather I made myself scarce.”

  “No, no,” said Lord Charles, “do stay. It was our suggestion. I’m afraid, Alleyn, that by this time you must have decided that we are a fantastically unconventional family.”

  The old story, thought Alleyn. It seemed to him that the Lampreys showed great industry in underlining their eccentricity.

  He said: “I think it was a very sensible suggestion, sir. Bathgate is remarkably well equipped as a liaison officer between the press, yourselves, and the police.” This remark met with a silence. Nigel fidgeted and Lord Charles looked blank. Alleyn said: “As far as your own movements are concerned we’ve got a complete statement. You didn’t leave the drawing-room from the time Lord Wutherwood arrived until the lift returned after the injury was inflicted?”

  “No. I was there all the time.”

  “Yes. Well, now, I think I must ask you for some account of your conversation with Lord Wutherwood after the others left you alone together.”

  Lord Charles rested his right arm on the table, letting his hand hang from the wrist. His left hand was thrust into his trousers pocket. He looked a little as though he sat for a modish portrait. “Well, Alleyn,” he began, “from what my Aunt Kit t
ells me and from what I have already told you and Mr. Fox, I expect you will have guessed why my brother called to-day. I was in a desperate financial case and I appealed to my brother for help. This was the subject of our conversation. My appalling children tell me they overheard us. No doubt they have given you a highly coloured account.”

  “I should like to have your own account, sir.”

  “Would you? Well, I told Gabriel how things were and he—ah—he read me a pretty stiff lecture. I fully deserved it. I don’t know how it is but I have never been able to manage very well. I think I may plead that I’ve had extraordinarily bad luck. A little while ago things seemed to be most promising. I ventured into business with a very able partner but unfortunately, poor fellow, he became mentally deranged and—ah—was foolish enough to shoot himself.”

  “Sir David Stein?”

  “Yes, it was,” said Lord Charles, opening his eyes very wide. “Did you know him?”

  “I remember the case, sir.”

  “Oh. Ah yes, I suppose you would. Very sad and, for me, quite disastrous.”

  “You explained all this to Lord Wutherwood?”

  “Oh, yes. And of course he scolded away about it. Indeed, we quite blazed at each other. It’s always been like that. Gabriel would give me hell and we would both get rather angry with each other and then, poor old boy, he would come to the rescue.”

  “Did he come to the rescue this time?”

  “He didn’t write a cheque there and then,” said Lord Charles. “That was not his way, you know. I expect he wanted me to have a night to think over my wigging and feel properly ashamed of myself.”

  “Did he promise to do so?” There was a fraction of a pause.

  “Yes,” said Lord Charles.

  Alleyn’s pencil whispered across his note-book. He turned a page, flattened it, and looked up. Neither Lord Charles nor Nigel had stirred but now Nigel cleared his throat and took out a cigarette case.

  “He promised,” said Alleyn, “quite definitely, in so many words, to pay up your debts?”