Overture to Death ra-8

by Ngaio Marsh

  Duck Cottage stands in a bend of the road before it actually reaches Cloudyfold Village. It is a typical Dorset cottage, plain fronted, well proportioned, cold-grey and weather-worn. Mrs. Ross had smartened it up. The window sashes and sills and the front door were painted vermilion, and a vermilion tub with a Noah’s Ark tree stood on each side of the entrance which led straight off the road.

  Alleyn gave a double rap on the shiny brass knocker.

  The door was opened by a maid, all cherry-red and muslin. Mrs. Ross was at home. The maid took Alleyn’s card away with her and returned to usher them in.

  Alleyn had to stoop his head under the low doorway, and the ceilings were not much higher. They walked through a tiny ante-room, down some uneven steps and into Mrs. Ross’s parlour. She was not there. It was a charming parlour looking out on a small formal garden. There were old prints on the walls, one or two respectable pieces of furniture, a deep carpet, some very comfortable chairs, and a general air of chintz, sparkle and femininity. It was a delicate little room. Alleyn looked at a bookcase filled with modern novels. He noticed one or two works by authors whose sole distinction had been conferred by the censor, and at three popular collections of famous criminal cases. They all had startling wrappers and photographic illustrations. Within their covers one would find the cases of Brown and Kennedy, Bywaters, Seddon, and Stinie Morrison. Their style would be characterized by a certain arch taciturnity. Alleyn grinned to himself and took one of them from the shelf. He let it fall open in his hands and a discourse on dactylography faced him. The groove between the pages was filled with cigarette ash. A photograph of prints developed and enlarged from a letter illustrated the written matter. A woman’s voice sounded. Alleyn returned the book to its place. The door opened and Mrs. Ross came in.

  She was the lady Alleyn had noticed in church. This did not surprise him much, but it made him feel wary. She greeted him with a sensible good-humoured air, shook hands and them gave him a slanting smile.

  “This is Mr. Bathgate,” said Alleyn. He noticed that Nigel’s fingers had flown to his tie.

  She settled them by the fire with the prettiest air in the world, and he saw her glance at the little cupid clock on the mantlepiece.

  “I do think all this is too ghastly,” she said. “That poor wretched old creature! How anybody could!”

  “It’s a bad business,” said Alleyn.

  She offered them cigarettes. Alleyn refused and Nigel, rather unwillingly, followed suit. Mrs. Ross took one and leaned towards Alleyn for a light.

  “Chanel, Numéro Cinq,” thought Alleyn.

  “I’ve never been ‘investigated’ before,” said Mrs. Ross. “Dear me, that sounds rather peculiar, doesn’t it? I don’t mean what you mean.”

  She chuckled. Nigel uttered rather a flirtatious laugh, caught Alleyn’s eye and was silent.

  Alleyn said, “I shan’t bother you for long, I hope. We’ve got to try and find out where everybody was from about midday on Friday up to the moment of the disaster.”

  “Heavens!” said Mrs. Ross. “I’ll never be able to remember that; and if I do, it’s sure to sound too incriminating for words.”

  “I hope not,” said Alleyn sedately. “We’ve got a certain amount of it already. On Friday you went to a short five o’clock rehearsal at Pen Cuckoo, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Apart from that, I was at home all day.”

  “And Friday evening?”

  “Still at home. We aren’t very gay in Cloudyfold, Mr. Alleyn. I think I’ve dined out twice since I came here. The county is simply rushing me, as you see.”

  “On Saturday evening I suppose you joined the others at the hall?”

  “Yes. I carted down one or two things they wanted for the stage. We towed them in a trailer behind Dr. Templett’s Morris.”

  “Did you go straight to the hall?”

  “No. We called at Pen Cuckoo. I’d quite forgotten that. I didn’t get out of the car.”

  “Dr. Templett went into the study?”

  “He went into the house,” she said lightly. “I don’t know which room.”

  “He didn’t return by the french window?”

  “I don’t remember.” She paused and then added: “The squire, Mr. Jernigham, came and talked to me. I didn’t notice Dr. Templett until he was actually at the car window.”

  “Ah, yes. You came back here for lunch?”

  “Yes.”

  “And in the afternoon?”

  “Saturday afternoon. That’s only yesterday, isn’t it? Heavens, it seems a lifetime! Oh, I took the supper down to the hall.”

  “At what time?”

  “I think it was about half-past three when I got there.”

  “Was the hall empty?”

  “Yes. No, it wasn’t. Dr. Templett was there. He arrived just after I did. He’d brought down his clothes.”

  “How long did you stay there, Mrs. Ross?”

  “I don’t know. Not long. It might have been half an hour.”

  “And Dr. Templett?”

  “He left before I did. I was putting out sandwiches.”

  “And cutting up onions?”

  “Onions! Good Lord, why should I do that? No, thank you. I’m sick at the sight of one, and I have got some respect for my hands.”

  They were luxurious little hands. She held them to the fire.

  “I’m sorry,” said Alleyn. “There was an onion in the supper-room.”

  “I don’t know how it got there. The supper-room was all scrubbed out on Friday.”

  “It’s no matter. Did you look at the piano on Saturday afternoon?”

  “No, I don’t think so. The curtain was down, so I suppose if anything had been out of order I shouldn’t have noticed. I didn’t go to the front of the hall. The one key opens both doors.”

  “And only Dr. Templett came in?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could any one have come unnoticed into the front of the hall while you were in the supper-room?”

  “I suppose they might have. No. No, of course they couldn’t. We had the key and the front door was locked.”

  “Did Dr. Templett go into the auditorium at all?”

  “Only to shut the window.”

  “Which window was open?”

  “It’s rather odd,” she said quickly. “I’m sure I shut it in the morning.”

  iii

  “It’s the window on the side away from the lane, nearest the front,” continued Mrs. Ross after a pause. “I remember that, just as we were leaving, I pulled it down in case the rain blew in. That was at midday.”

  “Were you the last to leave at noon?”

  “No. Well, we all left together; but I think Dr. Templett and I actually walked out first. The Copelands always leave by the back door.”

  “So presumably someone reopened the window?”

  “Presumably.”

  “Were you on the stage when Dr. Templett shut the window?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “We — I tidied it up and arranged one or two ornaments I’d brought.”

  “Dr. Templett helped you?”

  “He — well, he looked on.”

  “And all this time the window was open?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Yes, of course it was.”

  “Did you tell him you thought you had shut it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t think somebody pushed it open from outside?”

  “No,” she said positively. “We were certain they didn’t. The curtain was up. We’d have seen.”

  “I thought you said the curtain was down.”

  “Oh, how stupid of me. It was up when we got there, but we let it down. It was supposed to be down. I wanted to try the effect of a lamp I’d taken.”

  “Did you lower the curtain before or after you noticed the window?”

  “I don’t remember. Oh. Yes, please, I think it was afterwards.”

  She leaned forward and loo
ked at Nigel, who had been making notes.

  “It’s simply petrifying to see all this going down,” she said to him. “Do I read it over and sign it?”

  “It would have to go into long-hand first,” said Nigel.

  “Do let me see.”

  He gave her his notes.

  “They look exactly like journalists’ copy,” said Mrs. Ross.

  “That’s our cunning,” said Nigel boldly, but rather red in the face.

  She laughed and gave them back to him.

  “Mr. Alleyn thinks we’re terribly flippant, I can see,” she said. “Don’t you, inspector?”

  “No,” said Alleyn. “I regard Bathgate as a zealous and serious-minded young officer.”

  Nigel tried to look zealous and serious-minded. He was a little shaken.

  “You mustn’t forget that telegram, Bathgate,” added Alleyn. “I think you’d better go into Cloudyfold and send it. You can pick me up on the way back. Mrs. Ross will excuse you.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Nigel and left.

  “What a very charming young man,” said Mrs. Ross, with her air of casual intimacy. “Are all your officers as Eton and Oxford as that?”

  “Not quite all,” rejoined Alleyn.

  What a curious trick she had of widening her eyes! The pupils actually seemed to dilate. It was as if she was aware of something, recognised it, and gave just that one brief sign. Alleyn read into it a kind of polite wantonness. “She proclaims herself,” he thought, “by that trick. She is a woman with a strong, determined appetite.” He knew very well that, for all her impersonal manner, she had made small practised signals to him, and he wondered if he should let her see he had recognized these signals.

  He leaned forward in his chair and looked deliberately into her eyes.

  “There are two more questions,” he said.

  “Two more? Well?”

  “Do you know whose automatic it was that shot Miss Campanula between the eyes and through the brain?”

  She sat quite still. The corners of her thin mouth drooped a little. Her short blackened lashes veiled her light eyes.

  “It was Jocelyn Jernigham’s, wasn’t it?” she said.

  “Yes. The same Colt that Mr. Henry Jernigham showed you on Friday evening.”

  “That’s awful,” she said and looked squarely at him. “Does it mean that you suspect one of us?”

  “By itself, it doesn’t amount to so much. But it was his automatic that killed her.”

  “He’d never do it,” she said contemptuously.

  “Did you put a box outside one of the hall windows at any time after 2.30 on Friday?” asked Alleyn.

  “No. Why?”

  “It’s of no importance.”

  Alleyn put his hand in the breast pocket of his coat and took out his note-book.

  “Heavens!” said Selia Ross. “What next?”

  His long fingers drew out a folded paper. That trick with her eyes must after all be unconscious. She looked slantways at the paper and the lines of block capitals, painstakingly executed by Inspector Fox. She took it from Alleyn, raising her eyebrows, and handed it back.

  “Can you tell me anything about this?” asked Alleyn.

  “No.”

  “I think perhaps I should tell you we regard it as an important piece of evidence.”

  “I’ve never seen it before. Where did you find it?”

  “It just cropped up,” said Alleyn.

  Somebody had come into the adjoining room. There came the sound of stumbling feet on the uneven steps. The door burst open. Alleyn thought, “Blast Bathgate!” and glanced up furiously.

  It was Dr. Templett.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Statement From Templett

  i

  “Selia?” said Dr. Templett, and stopped short.

  The paper dangled from Alleyn’s fingers.

  “Hullo, chief inspector,” said Templett breathlessly. “I thought I might find you here. I’ve just done the P.M.”

  “Yes?” said Alleyn. “Anything unexpected?”

  “Nothing.”

  Alleyn held out the paper.

  “Isn’t this your letter?”

  Templett stood absolutely still. He then shook his head, but the gesture seemed to repudiate the implication rather than the statement.

  “Were you not looking for it this morning in the breast pocket of your coat?”

  “Is it yours, Billy?” she said. “Who’s been writing comic letters to you?”

  The skin of his face seemed to tighten. Two sharp little chords sprang up from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. He turned to the fire and stooped as if to warm his hands. They trembled violently and he thrust them into his pockets. His face was quite without colour, but the firelight dyed it crimson.

  Alleyn waited.

  Mrs. Ross lit a cigarette.

  “I think I’d like to speak to Mr. Alleyn alone,” said Templett.

  “Can you come back to Chipping with me?” asked Alleyn.

  “What? Yes. Yes, I’ll do that.”

  Alleyn turned to Mrs. Ross and bowed.

  “Good-evening, Mrs. Ross.”

  “Is it so late? Good-bye. Billy, is anything wrong?”

  Alleyn saw him look at her with a sort of wonder. He shook his head and walked out. Alleyn followed him.

  Nigel was sitting in the Biggins’s car. Alleyn signalled quickly to him and followed Templett to his Morris.

  “I’ll come with you, if I may,” said Alleyn.

  Templett nodded. They got in. Templett turned the car and accelerated violently. Cloudyfold Rise leapt at them. They crossed the hill-top in two minutes. It was already dusk and the houses down in the Vale were lit. A cold mist hung about the hills.

  “God damn it,” said Dr. Templett, “you needn’t watch me like that! I’m not going to take cyanide.”

  “Of course not.”

  As they skidded round Pen Cuckoo corner, Templett said, “I didn’t do it.”

  “All right.”

  At the church lane turning the car skated twenty yards on the greasy road, and fetched up sideways. Alleyn held his peace and trod on imaginary brakes. They started off again more reasonably, but entered Chipping at forty miles an hour.

  “Will you stop outside the Jernigham Arms for a minute?” asked Alleyn.

  Templett did not slow down until they were within two hundred yards of the inn. They shot across the road and stopped with screaming brakes. The pot-boy came running out.

  “Is Mr. Fox there? Ask him to come out, will you?” called Alleyn cheerfully. “And when Mr. Bathgate arrives, send him on to the police station at Great Chipping. Ask him to bring my case with him.”

  Fox came out, bare-headed.

  “Pop in at the back, Brer Fox,” said Alleyn. “We’re going into Great Chipping. Dr. Templett will take us.”

  “Good-evening, doctor,” said Fox, and got in.

  Dr. Templett put in his clutch and was off before the door shut. Alleyn’s arm hung over the back of the seat. He twiddled his long fingers eloquently.

  They reached the outskirts of Great Chipping in ten minutes, and here Templett seemed to come to his senses. He drove reasonably enough through the narrow provincial streets and pulled up at the police station.

  Blandish was there. A constable showed them into his office and stood inside the door.

  “Good-evening, gentlemen,” said the superintendent, who seemed to be in superb form. “Some good news for me, I hope? Glad to say we’re getting on quite nicely with our little job, Mr. Alleyn. I wouldn’t be surprised if we won’t be able to give the City a bit of very sound information by to-morrow. The bird’s flown to Bermondsey, and we ought to be able to pull him in. Very gratifying. Well, now, sit down, all of you. Smith! The chair by the door.”

  He bustled hospitably, caught sight of Templett’s face and was abruptly silent.

  “I’ll make a statement,” said Templett.

  “I think perhaps I should warn
you—” said Alleyn.

  “I know all that. I’ll make a statement.”

  Fox moved up to the table. Superintendent Blandish, very startled and solemn, shoved across a pad of paper.

  ii

  “On Friday afternoon,” said Dr. Templett, “on my return from hunting, an anonymous letter came into my possession. I believe the police now have this letter. Inspector Alleyn has shown it to me. I attached very little importance to it. I do not know who wrote it. I put it in my pocket-book in the inside breast pocket of my coat. I intended to destroy it. At five o’clock on Friday I attended a rehearsal at Pen Cuckoo. On my return home I was immediately called out on a difficult case. I did not get back until late night. I forgot all about the letter. Yesterday, Saturday, wearing the same suit, I left my house at about 8.30, having only just got up. I collected some furniture from Duck Cottage, called at Pen Cuckoo, went on to the hall, where I left the furniture. She was with me. The rest of Saturday was spent on my rounds. I was unusually busy. They gave me some lunch at the cottage hospital. In the afternoon I called at the hall. I was there for about half an hour. I did not go near the piano and I didn’t remember the letter. I was not alone at the hall at any time. I arrived there for the evening performance at half-past seven, or possibly later. I went straight to my dressing-room and changed, hanging up my coat on the wall. Henry Jernigham came in and helped me. After the tragedy I did not change until I got home. At no time did I remember the letter. The next time I saw it, was this afternoon when Inspector Alleyn showed it to me. That’s all.”

  Fox looked up.

  Blandish said, “Make a full transcript of Inspector Fox’s notes, Smith.”

  Smith went out with the notes.

  Alleyn said, “Before we go any further, Dr. Templett, I think I should tell you that the letter I showed you was a copy of the original and made on identical paper. The original is in our possession and it is in my bag. Fox, do you mind seeing if Bathgate has arrived?”

  Fox went out and in a minute returned with Alleyn’s case.

  “Have you,” Alleyn asked Templett, “as far as your memory serves, given us the whole truth in the statement you have just made?”

  “I’ve given you everything that’s relevant.”