Death in a White Tie

by Ngaio Marsh

  ‘You looked savage.’

  ‘I feel it when I think of Bunchy.’

  ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘The hunt is up,’ said Alleyn. ‘Have you ever read in the crime books about the relentless detective who swears he’ll get his man if it takes him the rest of his life? That’s me, Troy, and I always thought it rather a bogus idea. It is bogus in a way, too. The real heroes of criminal investigation are Detective-Constables X, Y and Z—the men in the ranks who follow up all the dreary threads of routine without any personal feeling or interest, who swear no full round oaths, but who, nevertheless, do get their men in the end; and with a bit of luck and the infinite capacity for taking pains. Detective-Constables X, Y and Z are going to be kept damned busy until this gentleman is laid by the heels. I can promise them that.’

  ‘I don’t feel like that,’ said Troy. ‘I mean, I don’t feel anything in particular about this murderer except that I think he must be mad. I know he should be found but I can’t feel savage about him. It’s simply Bunchy who did no harm in this world; no harm at all, lying dead and lonely. I must go now, and see what I can do for Mildred. Has Donald come in?’

  ‘Not yet. Do you know where he is staying?’

  ‘He wouldn’t tell Mildred because he thought she would tell Bunchy, and he wanted to be independent. She’s got the telephone number. I’ve seen it written on the memorandum in her room. I suppose you heard about the difference?’

  ‘Yes, from Mildred. It was his debts, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Mildred has always spoilt Donald. He’s not a bad child really. He will be terribly upset.’

  Alleyn looked at the photograph.

  ‘Did you see him at the dance?’

  ‘Yes. He danced a lot with Bridgie O’Brien.’

  ‘Did he stay until the end, do you know?’

  ‘I didn’t stay till the end myself. Mildred and I left at half-past one. She dropped me at my club. Bunchy—Bunchy—was seeing us home, but he came and asked us if we’d mind going without him. He said he was feeling gay.’

  ‘Did you see much of him, please?’

  ‘I danced three tunes with him. He was very gay.’

  ‘Troy, did you notice anything? Anything at all?’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Did there seem to be any hint of something behind his gaiety? As if, do you know, he was thinking in the back of his head?’

  Troy sat on the edge of the desk and pulled off her cap. The morning sun came through the window and dappled her short dark hair with blue lights. It caught the fine angle of her jaw and her cheek-bone. It shone into her eyes, making her screw them up as she did when she painted. She drew off her green gloves and Alleyn watched her thin intelligent hands slide out of their sheaths and lie delicately in the fur of her green jacket. He wondered if he would ever recover from the love of her.

  He said: ‘Tell me everything that happened last night while you were with Bunchy. Look back into your memory before it loses its edge and see if there is anything there that seemed a little out of the ordinary. Anything, no matter how insignificant.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Troy. ‘There was nothing when we danced except—yes. We collided once with another couple. It was a Mrs Halcut-Hackett. Do you know her?’

  ‘Yes. Well?’

  ‘It’s a tiny thing, but you say that doesn’t matter. She was dancing with a tall coarse-looking man. Bunchy apologized before he saw who they were. He danced very bouncily, you know, and always apologized when there were collisions. Then we swung round and he saw them. I felt his hand tighten suddenly and I looked over his shoulder at them. The man’s red face had gone quite pale and Mrs Halcut-Hackett looked very odd. Frightened. I asked Bunchy who the man was and he said: “Feller called Withers,” in a queer frozen little voice. I said: “Don’t you like him?” and he said: “Not much, m’dear,” and then began to talk about something else.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alleyn. ‘That’s interesting. Anything more?’

  ‘Later on, Bunchy and I went to chaperones’ corner. You know, the end of the ballroom where they all sit. Your mother was there. Mrs Halcut-Hackett came up with her husband and then the girl she’s bringing out arrived with that old ass Carrados. The girl had a toothache, she said, but I’m afraid the wretched child was really not having a great success. There’s something so blasted cruel and barbaric about this season game,’ said Troy vigorously.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Your mother noticed it. We said something to each other. Well, General Halcut-Hackett said he’d take the girl home and Bunchy offered to take Mrs Halcut-Hackett home later on. The General thanked him but she looked extraordinarily put out and seemed to me to avoid answering. I got the impression that she hated the idea. There was one other thing just about then. Wait a second! Bunchy started a conversation about punctuality with old Lucy Lorrimer. You know?’

  ‘Lord, yes. She’s a friend of my mama’s. Dotty.’

  ‘That’s her. She twitted Bunchy about being late or something and Mrs Halcut-Hackett suddenly said in a loud, high voice that she knew all about Bunchy’s punctual habits and could vouch for them. It sounds nothing, but for some extraordinary reason it made everybody feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘Can you remember exactly what she said?’

  Troy ran her fingers through her hair and scowled thoughtfully.

  ‘No, not exactly. It was just that she knew he always kept appointments. Your mother might remember. I went away to dance soon after that. Evelyn Carrados was there but—’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘You’ll think I’m inventing vague mysteries but I thought she seemed very upset, too. Nothing to do with Bunchy. She looked ill. I heard someone say afterwards that she nearly fainted in the supper-room. She looked rather as if she might when I saw her. I noticed her hands were tense. I’ve often thought I’d like to paint Evelyn’s hands. They’re beautiful. I watched them last night. She kept clutching a great fat bag in her lap. Bunchy sat between her and your mother and he gave each of them a little pat—you know Bunchy’s way. His hand touched Evelyn’s bag and she started as if he’d hurt her and her fingers tightened. I can see them now, white, with highlights on the knuckles, dug into the gold stuff of the bag. I thought again I’d like to paint them and call the thing: “Hands of a frightened woman.” And then later on—but look here,’ said Troy, ‘I’m simply maundering.’

  ‘God bless your good painter’s eyes, you’re not. Go on.’

  ‘Well, some time after supper when I’d danced again with Bunchy, I sat out with him in the ballroom. We were talking away and he was telling me one of his little stories, a ridiculous one about Lucy Lorrimer sending a wreath to a wedding and a toasting-fork to a funeral, when he suddenly stopped dead and stared over my shoulder. I turned and saw he was looking at Evelyn Carrados. There was nothing much to stare at. She still looked shaken, but that was all. Dimitri, the catering man you know, was giving her back that bag. I suppose she’d left it somewhere. What’s the matter?’

  Alleyn had made a little exclamation.

  He said: ‘That great fat bag you had noticed earlier in the evening?’

  ‘Yes. But it wasn’t so fat this time,’ said Troy quickly. ‘Now I think of it, it was quite limp and flat. You see, I was looking at her hands again. I remember thinking subconsciously that it seemed such a large bag for a ball-dress. Mildred came up and we left soon after that. I’m afraid that’s all.’

  ‘Afraid? Troy, you don’t know what an important person you are.’

  ‘Don’t I?’

  She looked at him with an air of bewildered friendliness and at once his whole face was lit by his fierce awareness of her. Troy’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. She reached out her hand and touched him.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Alleyn drew back. He struck one hand against the palm of the other and said violently:

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t be kind! What is this intole
rable love that forces me to do the very things I wish with all my soul to avoid? Yes, Troy, please go now.’

  Troy went without another word.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Report from Mr Fox

  ALLEYN WALKED about the room swearing under his breath. He was found at this employment by Detective-Inspector Fox, who arrived looking solid and respectable.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ said Fox.

  ‘Hullo, Fox. Sit down. I’ve found the will. Everything goes to his sister and her son. The boy’s in debt and has quarrelled with his uncle. He’s living away from home but will be in any moment. I’ve found Lord Robert’s notes on the blackmail case. He told me when he rang up at one o’clock this morning that he’d call here first to get out of his boiled shirt and collect the notes. There they are. Look at ’em.’

  Fox put on his spectacles and took the little notebook in his enormous fist. He read solemnly with his head thrown back a little and his eyebrows raised.

  ‘Yes,’ he said when he had finished. ‘Well now, Mr Alleyn, that’s quite an interesting little bit of evidence, isn’t it? It puts this Mr Dimitri in what you might call a very unfavourable light. We can get him for blackmail on this information if the lady doesn’t let us down. This Mrs Halcut-Hackett, I mean.’

  ‘You notice Lord Robert thought she suspected him himself of taking the bag at the concert.’

  ‘Yes. That’s awkward. You might say it gives her a motive for the murder.’

  ‘If you can conceive of Mrs Halcut-Hackett, who is what the drapers call a queenly woman, dressing up as a man during the ball, accosting Lord Robert in the street, getting him to give her a lift, knocking him out, smothering him, and striding home in the light of dawn in somebody’s trousers.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Fox. ‘I can’t. She might have an accomplice.’

  ‘So she might.’

  ‘Still, I must say Dimitri looks likelier,’ Fox plodded on thoughtfully. ‘If he found out Lord Robert had a line on him. But how would he find out?’

  ‘See here,’ said Alleyn. ‘I want you to listen while I go over that telephone call. I was working late at the Yard on the Temple case. I would have gone north today, as you know, if this hadn’t happened. At one o’clock Lord Robert rang me up from a room at Marsdon House. He told me he had proof positive that Dimitri was our man. Then he said he’d come round to the Yard. And then—’ Alleyn shut his eyes and screwed his face sideways. ‘I want to get his exact words,’ he said. ‘I’m my own witness here. Wait, now, wait. Yes. He said: “I’ll come round to the Yard. Upon my soul, it’s worse than murder. Might as well mix his damn brews with poison,” and then, Fox, he added this phrase: “And he’s working with—” He never finished it. He broke off and said: “Hallo, I didn’t hear you come in.” I asked if anyone was there and he said yes and pretended he’d rung up about lost property. He must have done that because he realized this new arrival had overheard him mention the Yard. See here, Fox, we’ve got to get the man or woman who overheard that call.’

  ‘If it was Dimitri,’ began Fox.

  ‘Yes, I know. If it was Dimitri! And yet, somehow, he sounded as if he was speaking to a friend. “Hallo, I didn’t hear you come in.” Might well have been. But we’ve got to get at it, Fox.’

  ‘“And he’s working with—”’ quoted Fox. ‘What do you reckon he was going to say? Name an accomplice?’

  ‘No. He was too old a hand to use names on the telephone. It might have been “with somebody else,” or it might have been “with devilish ingenuity.” I wish to God we knew. And now what have you done?’

  Fox unhooked his glasses.

  ‘Following your instructions,’ he said, ‘I went to Marsdon House. I got there at eight o’clock. I found two of our chaps in charge, and got a report from them. They arrived there at four-twenty, a quarter of an hour after the taxi got to the Yard and five minutes after you rang up. Dimitri had left the house, but our chaps, having the office from you, sir, telephoned him at his flat to make sure he was there and sent a plain-clothes man round to watch it. He’s being relieved at ten o’clock by that new chap, Carewe. I thought he might take it on. He’s a bit too fanciful for my liking. Well, to go back to Marsdon House. They took statements from the men Dimitri had left to clear up the house, sent them away, and remained in charge until I got there at eight. We’ve located the room where Lord Robert rang you up. The telephone was left switched through there for the whole evening. We’ve sealed it up. I’ve got a guest list. Bit of luck, that. We found it in the buffet. Names and addresses all typed out, very methodical. It’s a carbon copy. I suppose Lady Carrados’s secretary must have done it. I found out from Dimitri’s men some of the people who had left early. The men’s cloakroom attendant was still there and could remember about twenty of them. He managed to recollect most of the men who were the last to go. I started off on them. Rang them up and asked if they noticed Lord Robert Gospell. Several of them remembered him standing in the hall at the very end. Most of the people left in parties and we were able to check up on these at once. We found that Dimitri was in the hall at this time. I called in at his flat just now before I came here. You’ll notice he’s a witness of some importance as well as, on the strength of what you’ve told me, a prime suspect. I’ve got a list, very likely incomplete, of the guests who left alone about the same time as Lord Robert. Here it is. A bit rough. I’ve put it together from notes on my way here.’

  Fox took out a fat notebook, opened it and handed it to Alleyn, who read:

  ‘Mrs Halcut-Hackett. Seen leaving alone by footman at door, Dimitri, and linkman, who offered to call a taxi for her. She refused and walked away. Lord Robert had not left. Dimitri says he thinks Lord Robert came downstairs about this time.

  ‘Captain Maurice Withers. Seen leaving alone by Dimitri, footman and by several members of a party whom he passed on the steps outside the house. Refused a lift. Footman thinks Capt. W. left after Mrs H-H. Impression confirmed by Dimitri. Lord Robert at foot of stairs.

  ‘Mr Donald Potter. Seen saying good-bye to Miss O’Brien by Dimitri and by two servants near door into buffet at foot of stairs. Dimitri noticed him meet Lord Robert, appear to avoid him, and go away hurriedly.

  ‘Sir Daniel Davidson. Seen leaving alone immediately after this by Dimitri and two of the servants.

  ‘Miss Violet Harris. Secretary to Lady Carrados, seen leaving alone by cloakroom attendant standing at door, to whom she said good night. Unnoticed by anyone else.

  ‘Mr Trelawney-Caper. Young gentleman who had lost Mr Percy Percival. Asked repeatedly for him. Handed a ten-shilling note to footman who remembers him. Described by footman as being “nicely decorated but not drunk.”

  ‘Lord Robert Gospell. Both footmen and a linkman saw him go. One footman places his departure immediately after Sir Daniel Davidson’s. The other says it was some minutes later. The cloakroom attendant says it was about two minutes after Miss Harris and five after Sir D.D.’

  Alleyn looked up.

  ‘Where was Dimitri, then?’ he asked. ‘He seems to have faded out.’

  ‘I asked him,’ said Fox. ‘He said he went into the buffet about the time Sir Daniel left and was kept there for some time. The buffet’s at the foot of the stairs.’

  ‘Any confirmation of that?’

  ‘One of his men remembers him there but can’t say exactly when or for how long. He was talking to Sir Herbert Carrados.’

  ‘To Carrados? I see. How did Dimitri shape when you saw him?’

  ‘Well,’ said Fox slowly, ‘he’s a pretty cool customer, isn’t he? Foreign, half-Italian, half-Greek, but that’s hardly noticeable in his speech. He answered everything very smoothly and kept saying it was all very regrettable.’

  ‘I trust he’ll find it even more so,’ said Alleyn and returned to the notebook.

  ‘The rest,’ said Fox, ‘left after Lord Robert and as far as we can make out, some time after. There are only three names and I don’t fancy they’ll amount to
much, but I thought we’d better have them.’

  ‘When did the Carrados party go? Last of all, of course?’

  ‘Yes. Sir Herbert and Lady Carrados were at the head of the stairs on the ballroom landing saying good-bye most of this time, but Sir Herbert must have come down to the buffet if it’s right that Dimitri talked to him there. I’ve left Sir Herbert to you, Mr Alleyn. From what I hear of him he’ll need handling.’

  ‘Extraordinarily kind of you,’ said Alleyn grimly. ‘Is there any exit from the buffet other than the one into the hall?’

  ‘Yes, there is. A door that gives on to the back stairs down to the basement.’

  ‘So it’s conceivable that Dimitri might have gone out into the street that way?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Fox. ‘It’s possible, all right. And come back.’

  ‘He would have been away at least forty minutes,’ said Alleyn, ‘if he’s our man. If, if, if! Would he be able to get hold of a topper? The murderer wore one. What would he say to Bunchy to persuade him to give him a lift? “I want to talk to you about blackmail?” Well—that might work.’

  ‘For all we know,’ said Fox, ‘it may not have been any of the guests or Dimitri.’

  ‘True enough. For all we know. All the same, Fox, it looks as if it was. It’s not easy to fit an outsider into what facts we’ve got. Try. An unknown in full evening dress wearing an overcoat and a top-hat stands outside Marsdon House waiting for Lord Robert to come out and on the off-chance of getting a lift. He doesn’t know when Lord Robert will leave, so he has to hang about for three hours. He doesn’t know if he’ll get a chance to speak to Lord Robert, whether Lord Robert will leave in a party or alone, in a private car or a taxi. He doesn’t know a heavy mist is going to crawl over London at one o’clock.’

  ‘He might have just happened to come up,’ said Fox and added immediately: ‘All right, all right, sir. I won’t press it. We’ve got plenty to go on from inside and it’s a bit far-fetched, I will allow.’

  ‘The whole thing’s too damn far-fetched, in my opinion,’ said Alleyn. ‘We’re up against a murder that was very nearly unpremeditated.’