Overture to Death ra-8

by Ngaio Marsh

  “One of those fragments of rubber,” he said, “was found on the point of a nail on the inside of the box. The others were caught behind projecting splinters also on the inside of the box.”

  He opened an envelope and from it he shook a torn surgical finger-stall.

  “The fragments of rubber,” he said, “correspond with the holes in this stall.”

  Miss Prentice electrified the company by clapping her hands with great violence.

  “Oh, inspector,” she cried shrilly, “how perfectly, perfectly wonderful you are!”

  iii

  Alleyn turned slowly and met her enraptured gaze. Her prominent eyes bulged, her mouth was open, and she nodded her head several times with an air of ecstasy.

  “Then you acknowledge,” he said, “that you put this box outside the window on Saturday afternoon?”

  “Of course!”

  “And that you stood on it in order to look through the window?”

  “Alas, yes!”

  “Miss Prentice, why did you do this?”

  “I was guided.”

  “Why did you not admit you recognised the box when Inspector Fox asked you about it?”

  With that unlovely air of girlishness she covered her face with her fingers.

  “I was afraid he would ask me what I saw.”

  “This is absolute nonsense!” said Templett angrily.

  “And why,” continued Alleyn, “did you tell me you were indoors all Saturday afternoon?”

  “I was afraid to say what I’d done.”

  “Afraid? Of whom?”

  She seemed to draw herself inwards to a point of venomous concentration. She stretched out her arm across the table. The finger pointed at Mrs. Ross.

  “Of her. She tried to murder me. She’s a murderess. I can prove it. I can prove it.”

  “No!” cried the squire. “No! Good God, Alleyn — ”

  “Is there any doubt in your mind, Mr. Alleyn,” said Mrs. Ross, “that this woman is mad?”

  “I can prove it,” repeated Miss Prentice.

  “How?” asked Alleyn. “Please let this finish, Mr. Jernigham. We shall see daylight soon.”

  “She knew I saw her. She tried to kill me because she was afraid.”

  “You hear that, Mrs. Ross? It is a serious accusation. Do you feel inclined to answer it? I must warn you, first, that Dr. Templett has made a statement about this incident.”

  She looked quickly at Templett.

  He said, “I thought you hadn’t considered me over the other business. I told the truth.”

  “You fool,” said Mrs. Ross. For the first time she looked really frightened. She raised her hands to her thin neck and touched it surreptitiously. Then she hid her hands in her lap.

  “I do not particularly want to repeat the gist of Dr. Templett’s statement,” said Alleyn.

  “Very well.” Her voice cracked, she took a breath and then said evenly, “Very well. I recognised Miss Prentice. I’ve nothing whatever to fear. One doesn’t kill old maids for eavesdropping.”

  “Mr. Jernigham,” said Alleyn, “did Mrs. Ross tell you of this incident this afternoon?”

  The squire was staring at Mrs. Ross as if she was a sort of Medusa. Without turning his eyes, he nodded.

  “She suggested that Miss Prentice had come down to the hall with the intention of putting the automatic in the piano?”

  “So she had. I’ll swear,” said Mrs. Ross.

  “Mr. Jernigham?”

  “Yes. Yes, she suggested that.”

  “She told you perhaps, that you could trust her?”

  “Oh, my God!” said the squire.

  “I arrived too late at this place,” said Mrs. Ross, “to be able to do anything to the piano.” She looked at Dinah. “You know that.”

  “Yes,” said Dinah.

  “It was soon after that,” said Miss Prentice abruptly, “that she began to set traps for me, you know. Then I saw it all in a flash. She must have seen me through a glass darkly, and because I witnessed the unpardonable sin she will destroy me. You understand, don’t you, because it is very important. She is in league with The Others, and it won’t be long before one of them catches me.”

  Templett said, “Alleyn, you must see. This has gone on long enough. It’s perfectly obvious what’s wrong here.”

  “We will go on, if you please,” said Alleyn. “Mr. Copeland, you told me that on Friday night you expected Miss Prentice at the rectory.”

  The rector, very pale, said, “Yes.”

  “She didn’t arrive?”

  “No. I told you. She telephoned.”

  “At what time?”

  “Not long after ten.”

  “From Pen Cuckoo?”

  “It was my hand, you know,” said Miss Prentice rapidly. “I wanted to rest my hand. It was so very naughty. The blood tramped up and down my arm. Thump, thump, thump. So I said I would stay at home.”

  “You rang up from Pen Cuckoo?”

  “I took the message, Mr. Alleyn,” said Dinah. “I told you.”

  “And what do you say, Miss Copeland, if I tell you that on Friday night the Pen Cuckoo telephone was out of order from 8.20 until the following morning?”

  “But — it couldn’t have been.”

  “I’m afraid it was.” He turned to Henry Jernigham. “You agree?”

  “Yes,” said Henry without raising his head.

  “You can thank The Others for that,” said Miss Prentice in a trembling voice.

  “The Others?”

  “The Others, yes. They are always doing those sort of tricks; and she’s the worst of the lot, that woman over there.”

  “Well, Miss Copeland?”

  “I took the message,” repeated Dinah. “Miss Prentice said she was at home and would remain at home.”

  “This contradiction,” said Alleyn, “takes us a step further. Mrs. Ross, on Friday night you drove down to Chipping by way of Church Lane?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have told me that you saw a light in this hall.”

  “Yes.”

  “You think it was in Mr. Jernigham’s dressing-room?”

  “Yes.”

  “The telephone is in that room, Miss Dinah, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” whispered Dinah. “Oh, yes.”

  Alleyn took a card from his pocket and scribbled on it. He handed it over to Henry.

  “Will you take Miss Dinah to the rectory?” he said. “In half an hour I want you to ring through to here on the extension. Show this card to the man at the door and he will let you out.”

  Henry looked fixedly at Alleyn.

  “Very well, sir.” he said. “Thank you.”

  Henry and Dinah went out.

  iv

  “Now,” said Alleyn, “we come to the final scene. I must tell you — though I dare say you have heard it all by now — that at 6.30 Miss Gladys Wright used the piano and pressed down the soft pedal. Nothing untoward happened. Since it is inconceivable that anybody could remove the pot plants and rig the automatic after 6.30, we know that the automatic must have been already in position. The safety-catch, which Mr. Henry Jernigham showed to all of you, and particularly to Mrs. Ross, accounts for Gladys Wright’s immunity. How, then, did the guilty person manage to release the safety-catch after Gladys Wright and her fellow-helpers were down in the front of the hall? I will show you how it could have been done.”

  He went down to the footlights.

  “You notice that the curtain falls on the far side of the improvised footlights and just catches on the top of the piano. Now, if you’ll look.”

  He stooped and pushed his hand under the curtain. The top of the piano, with its covering of green and yellow bunting, could just be seen.

  “This bunting is pinned down as it was on Saturday. It is stretched tight over the entire top of the piano. The lid is turned back, but of course that doesn’t show. The pot plants stand on the inside of the lid. I take out the centre drawing-pin at the back and slide my
hand under the bunting. I am hidden by the curtain, and the pot plants also serve as a mask for any slight movement that might appear from the front of the hall. My fingers have reached the space beyond the open lid. Inside the opening they encounter the cold, smooth surface of the Colt. Listen.”

  Above the sound of rain and wind they all heard a small click.

  “I have pushed over the safety-catch,” said Alleyn. “The automatic is now ready to shoot Miss Campanula between the eyes.”

  “Horrible,” said the rector violently..

  “There is one sequence of events about which we can be certain,” said Alleyn. “We know that the first person to arrive was Gladys Wright. We know that she entered the hall at 6.30, and was in front of the curtain down there with her companions until and after the audience came in. We know that it would have been impossible for anybody to come down from the stage into the front of the hall unnoticed. Miss Wright is ready to swear that nobody did this. We know that Miss Dinah Copeland arrived with her father soon after Gladys Wright, and was here behind the scenes. We know Mr. Copeland sat on the stage until he made his announcement to the audience, only leaving it for a moment to join the others at the telephone, and once again when he persuaded Miss Prentice not to play. Mr. Copeland, did you at any time see anybody stoop down to the curtains as I did just then?”

  “No. No! I am quite certain that I didn’t. You see, my chair faced the exact spot.”

  “Yes, therefore we know that unless Mr. Copeland is the guilty person, the safety-catch must have been released during one of his two absences. But Mr. Copeland believed, up to the last moment, that Miss Prentice was to be the pianist. We are satisfied that Mr. Copeland is not the guilty person.”

  The rector raised one of his large hands in a gesture that seemed to repudiate his immunity. The squire, Miss Prentice, Mrs. Ross and Templett kept their eyes fixed on Alleyn.

  “Knowing the only means by which the safety-catch might be released, it seems evident that Miss Prentice was not the intended victim. Miss Prentice, you are cold. Do you feel a draught?”

  Miss Prentice shook her head, but she trembled like a wet dog and looked not unlike one. There was a faint sound of movement behind the scenes. Alleyn went on:

  “When you were all crowded round her and she gave in and consented to allow Miss Campanula to play, it would have been easy enough to come up here and put the safety-catch on again. Why run the risk of being arrested for the murder of the wrong person?”

  Alleyn’s level voice halted for a moment. He leant forward, and when he spoke again it was with extreme deliberation:

  “No! The trap was set for Miss Campanula. It was set before Miss Prentice yielded her right to play, and it was set by someone who knew she would not play. The safety-catch was released at the only moment when the stage was empty. The moment when you were all crowded round the telephone. Then the murderer sat back and waited for the catastrophe to happen. Beyond the curtain at this moment someone is sitting at the piano. In a minute you will hear the opening chords of the “Prelude” as you heard them on Saturday night. If you listen closely you will hear the click of the trigger when the soft pedal goes down. That will represent the report of the automatic. Imagine this guilty person. Imagine someone whose hand stole under the curtain while the hall was crowded and set that trap. Imagine someone who sat, as we sit now, and waited for those three fatal chords.”

  Alleyn paused.

  As heavy as lead and as loud as ever the dead hand had struck them out, in the empty hall beyond the curtain, thumped the three chords of Miss Campanula’s “Prelude.”

  “Pom. Pom. POM!”

  And very slowly, in uneven jerks, the curtain began to rise.

  As it rose, so did Miss Prentice. She might have been pulled up by an invisible hand in her hair. Her mouth was wide open, but the only sound she made was a sort of retching groan. She did not take her eyes from the rising curtain, but she pointed her hand at the rector and waved it up and down.

  “It was for you,” screamed Miss Prentice. “I did it for you!”

  And Nigel, seated at the piano, saw Alleyn take her by the arm.

  “Eleanor Prentice, I arrest you — ”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Case Ends

  i

  Henry and Dinah sat by the fire in the rectory study and watched the clock.

  “Why does he want us to ring up?” said Dinah for perhaps the sixth time. “I don’t understand.”

  “I think I do. I think the telephoning’s only an excuse. He wanted us out of the way.”

  “But why?”

  Henry put his arm round her shoulders and pressed his cheek against her hair.

  “Oh, Dinah,” he said.

  “What, darling?”

  Dinah looked up. He sat on the arm of her chair and she had to move a little in his embrace before she could see his eyes.

  “Henry! What is it?”

  “I think we’re in for a bad spin.”

  “But — isn’t it Mrs. Ross?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Without removing her gaze from his face she took his hand.

  “I think it’s Eleanor,” said Henry.

  “Eleanor!”

  “It’s the only answer. Don’t you see that’s what Alleyn was driving at all the time?”

  “But she wanted to play. She made the most frightful scene over not playing.”

  “I know. But Templett said two days before that she’d never be able to do it. Don’t you see, she worked it so that we should find her crying and moaning, and insist on her giving up?”

  “Suppose we hadn’t insisted.”

  “She’d have left the safety-catch on or not used the soft pedal, or perhaps she’d have ‘discovered’ the automatic and accused Miss C. of putting it there. That would have made a glorious scene.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Can you believe it of any one else?”

  “Mrs. Ross,” said Dinah promptly.

  “No, darling. I rather think Mrs. Ross has merely tried to blackmail my papa. It is my cousin who is a murderess. Shall you enjoy a husband of whom every one will say: ‘Oh, yes, Henry Jernigham! Wasn’t he the Pen Cuckoo murderess’s nephew or son or something?’”

  “I shall love my husband and I shan’t hear what they say. Besides, you don’t know. You’re only guessing.”

  “I’m certain of it. There are all sorts of things that begin to fit in. Things that don’t fit any other way. Dinah, I know she’s the one.”

  “Anyway, my dear darling, she’s mad.”

  “I hope so,” said Henry. “God, it’s awful, isn’t it?”

  He sprang up and began to walk nervously up and down.

  “I can’t stand this much longer,” said Henry.

  “It’s time we rang up.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  But as he reached the door they heard voices in the hall.

  The rector came in, followed by Alleyn and the squire.

  “Dinah! Where’s Dinah?” cried the rector.

  “Here she is,” said Henry. “Father!”

  The squire turned a chalk-white face to his son.

  “Come here, old boy,” he said. “I want you.”

  “That chair,” said Alleyn quickly.

  Henry and Alleyn put the squire in the chair.

  “Brandy, Dinah,” said the rector. “He’s fainted.”

  “No, I haven’t,” said Jocelyn. “Henry, old boy, I’d better tell you — ”

  “I know,” said Henry. “It’s Eleanor.”

  Alleyn moved back to the door and watched them. He was now a detached figure. The arrest came like a wall of glass between himself and the little group that hovered round Jocelyn. He knew that most of his colleagues accepted these moments of isolation. Perhaps they were scarcely aware of them. But, for himself, he always felt a little like a sort of Mephistophelcs, who looked on at his own handiwork. He didn’t enjoy the sensation. It was the one moment
when his sense of detachment deserted him. Now, as they remembered him, he saw in the faces turned towards him the familiar guarded antagonism of herded animals.

  He said, “If Mr. Jernigham would like to see Miss Prentice, it shall be arranged. Superintendent Blandish will be in charge.”

  He bowed, and was going when Jocelyn said loudly:

  “Wait a minute.”

  “Yes, sir?” Alleyn moved quickly to the chair. The squire looked up at him.

  “I know you tried to prepare me for this,” he said. “You guessed that woman had told me. I couldn’t admit that until — until it was all up — I wouldn’t admit it. You understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m all to blazes. Think what to do in the morning. Just wanted to say I appreciate the way you’ve handled things. Considerate.”

  “I would have avoided the final scene, sir, if I had seen any other way.”

  “I know that. Mustn’t ask questions, of course.

  There are some things I don’t understand — Alleyn, you see she’s out of her mind?”

  “Dr. Templett, I’m sure, will advise you about an alienist, sir.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  The squire blinked up at him and then suddenly held out his hand.

  “Good-night.”

  “Good-night, sir.”

  Henry said, “I’ll come out with you.”

  As they walked to the door, Alleyn thought there were points about being a Jernigham of Pen Cuckoo.

  “It’s queer,” said Henry. “I suppose this must be a great shock to us; but at the moment I feel nothing at all. Nothing. I don’t realise that she’s— Where is she?”

  “The Yard car is on the way to Great Chipping. She’ll need things from Pen Cuckoo. We’ll let you know what they are.”

  Henry stopped dead at the rectory door. His voice turned to ice.

  “Is she frightened?”

  Alleyn remembered that face with the lips drawn back from the projecting teeth, the tearless bulging eyes, the hands that opened and closed as if they had let something fall.

  “I don’t think she is conscious of fear,” he said. “She was quite composed. She didn’t weep.”