Death in a White Tie

by Ngaio Marsh

  ‘Yes,’ said Donald. ‘I rang again and he didn’t answer. I—I couldn’t think clearly at all. I felt stone cold in the pit of my stomach. It was simply ghastly to find myself cut dead like that. Why shouldn’t he answer me, why? Why hadn’t he sent the book? Only this morning we’d been together in his flat, perfectly friendly. Until the news came—after that I didn’t listen to anything Wits said. As soon as I knew Uncle Bunch had been murdered I couldn’t think of anything else. I wasn’t dressed when the papers came. Mother had known for hours but, the telephone being disconnected then, she couldn’t get hold of me. I hadn’t told her my address. Wits kept talking. I didn’t listen. And then, when I did get home, you were there, getting at me, getting at me. And then my mother crying, and the flowers, and everything. And on top of it all this business of Wits not wanting to speak to me. I couldn’t think. I just had to see Bridget.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bridget, ‘he had to see me. But you’re muddling things, Donald. We ought to keep them in their right order. Mr Alleyn, we’ve got as far as this afternoon. Well, Donald got so rattled about the telephone and the missing book that in spite of what Wits had said, he felt he had to see him. So after dinner he took a taxi to Wits’s flat and he could see a light under the blind, so he knew Wits was in. Donald still had his own latch-key so he went straight in and up to the flat. Now you go on, Donald.’

  Donald finished his whisky and soda and with unsteady fingers lit a fresh cigarette. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you. When I walked into the sitting-room he was lying on the divan bed. I stood in the middle of the room looking at him. He didn’t move, and he didn’t speak at all loudly. He called me a foul name and told me to get out. I said I wanted to know why he’d behaved as he did. He just lay there and looked at me. I said something about you, sir—I don’t know what—and in a split second he was on his feet. I thought he was going to start a fight. He asked me what the bloody hell I’d said to you about him. I said I’d avoided speaking about him as much as possible. But he began to ask all sorts of questions. God, he did look ugly. You often read about the veins swelling with rage in people’s faces. They did in his. He sat on the edge of the table swinging one foot and his face got sort of dark.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alleyn. ‘I can see Captain Withers. Go on.’

  ‘He said—’ Donald caught his breath. Alleyn saw his fingers tighten round Bridget’s. ‘He said that unless I kept my head and held my tongue he’d begin to talk himself. He said that after all I had quarrelled with Uncle Bunch and I had been in debt and I was Uncle Bunch’s heir. He said if he was in this thing up to his knees I was in it up to my neck. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and pointed his flat finger at my neck. Then he told me to remember, if I didn’t want to commit suicide, that when he left Marsdon House he went to his car and drove to the Matador. I was to say that I’d seen him drive off with his partner.’

  ‘Did you see this?’

  ‘No. I left after him. I did think I saw him walking ahead of me towards his car. It was parked in Belgrave Road.’

  ‘Why, do you suppose, did Withers take this extraordinary attitude when you saw him tonight?’

  ‘He thought I’d given him away to you. He told me so.’

  ‘About Leatherhead?’

  ‘Yes. You said something about—about—’

  ‘Fleecing lambs,’ said Bridget.

  ‘Yes. So I did,’ admitted Alleyn cheerfully.

  ‘He thought I’d lost my nerve and talked too much.’

  ‘And now you are prepared to talk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’ve told you—’ Bridget began.

  ‘Yes, I know. You’ve told me that you persuaded Donald to come to me because you thought it better for him to explain his association with Withers. But I rather think there’s something more behind it than that. Would I be wrong, Donald, if I said that you were at least encouraged to take this decision by the fear that Withers himself might get in first and suggest that you had killed your uncle?’

  Bridget cried out: ‘No! No! How can you be so cruel? How can you think that of Donald! Donald!’

  But Donald looked steadily at Alleyn and when he spoke again it was gravely and with a certain dignity that became him very well.

  He said: ‘Don’t, Bridget. It’s perfectly natural Mr Alleyn should think that I’m afraid of Wits accusing me. I am afraid of it. I didn’t kill Uncle Bunch. I think I was fonder of him than anyone else in the world except you, Bridgie. But I had quarrelled with him. I wish to God I hadn’t. I didn’t kill him. The reason I’m quite ready now to answer any questions about Wits, even if it means implicating myself—’ He stopped and took a deep breath.

  ‘Yes?’ asked Alleyn.

  ‘—is that after seeing Wits this evening I believe he murdered my uncle.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Motive?’ asked Alleyn at last.

  ‘He thought he had a big enough hold over me to get control of the money.’

  ‘Proof?’

  ‘I’ve none. Only the way he spoke tonight. He’s afraid I believe he’d murder anyone if he’d enough incentive.’

  ‘That’s not proof, nor anything like it.’

  ‘No. It seemed good enough,’ said Donald, ‘to bring me here when I might have kept quiet.’

  The telephone rang. Alleyn went over to the desk and answered it.

  ‘Hullo?’

  ‘Roderick, is that you?’

  ‘Yes. Who is it, please?’

  ‘Evelyn Carrados.’

  Alleyn looked across to the fireplace. He saw Bridget bend forward swiftly and kiss Donald.

  ‘Hullo!’ he said. ‘Anything the matter?’

  ‘Roderick, I’m so worried. I don’t know what to do. Bridgie has gone out without saying a word to anyone. I’ve rung up as many people as I dared and I haven’t an inkling where she is. I’m so terrified she’s done something wild and foolish. I thought she might be with Donald Potter and I wondered if you could tell me his telephone number. Thank Heaven Herbert is out at a regimental dinner, at Tunbridge. I’m distraught with anxiety.’

  ‘It’s all right, Evelyn,’ said Alleyn. ‘Bridget’s here with me.’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘Yes. She wanted to talk to me. She’s quite all right. I’ll bring her back—’

  ‘Is Donald Potter there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But why? What have they done it for? Roderick, I want to see you. I’ll come and get Bridget, may I?’

  ‘Yes, do,’ said Alleyn and gave her his address.

  He hung up the receiver and turned to find Bridget and Donald looking very startled.

  ‘Donna!’ whispered Bridget. ‘Oh, golly!’

  ‘Had I better go?’ asked Donald.

  ‘I think perhaps you’d better,’ said Alleyn.

  ‘If Bridgie’s going to be hauled over the coals I’d rather stay.’

  ‘No, darling,’ said Bridget, ‘it will be better not, honestly. As long as Bart doesn’t find out I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Your mother won’t be here for ten minutes,’ said Alleyn. ‘Look here, Donald, I want a full account of this gambling business at Leatherhead. If I put you in another room will you write one for me? It will save us a great deal of time and trouble. It must be as clear as possible with no trimmings and as many dates as you can conjure up. It will, I hope, lead to Captain Withers’s conviction.’

  Donald looked uncomfortable.

  ‘It seems rather a ghastly sort of thing to do. I mean—’

  ‘Good heavens, you have just told me you think the man’s a murderer and you apparently know he’s a blackguard. He’s used you as a cat’s-paw and I understand his idea has been to swindle you out of your money!’

  ‘All right,’ said Donald. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Alleyn took him into the dining-room and settled him there with pen and paper.

  ‘I’ll come in later on and see what sort of fist
you’ve made of it. There will have to be witnesses to your signature.’

  ‘Shall I be had up as an accomplice?’

  ‘I hardly think so. How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-one in August. It’s not that I mind for myself. At least it would be pretty bloody, wouldn’t it? But I’ve said I’ll go through with it.’

  ‘So you have. Don’t make too big a sainted martyr of yourself,’ said Alleyn good-naturedly. Donald looked up at him and suddenly the ghost of Lord Robert’s twinkle came into his eyes.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I won’t.’

  Alleyn returned to Bridget and found her sitting on the hearth-rug. She looked very frightened.

  ‘Does Bart know?’

  ‘No, but your mother’s been very worried.’

  ‘Well, that’s not all me. Bart’s nearly driving her dotty. I can’t tell you what he’s like. Honestly it would never astonish me if Bart had an apoplectic fit and went crazy.’

  ‘Dear me,’ said Alleyn.

  ‘No, honestly. I don’t know what he told you when you interviewed him but I suppose you saw through the famous Carrados pose, didn’t you? Of course you did. But you may not have realized what a temper he’s got. I didn’t for a long time. I mean not until I was about fifteen.’

  ‘Two years ago?’ asked Alleyn with a smile. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘It was simply frightful. Donna had been ill and she was sleeping very badly. Bart was asked if he’d mind going into his dressing-room. I didn’t realize then, but I do now, that that was what annoyed him. He always gets the huff when Donna’s ill. He takes it as a sort of personal insult and being a beastly old Victorian Turk the dressing-room idea absolutely put the tin cupola on it. Are you shocked?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said Alleyn cautiously. ‘Anyway, go on.’

  ‘Well, you’re not. And so he went into his dressing-room. And then Donna got really ill and I said we must have Sir Daniel because she was so ill and he’s an angel. And Bart rang him up. Well, I wanted to get hold of Sir Daniel first to tell him about Donna before Bart did. So I went downstairs into Bart’s study because I told the butler to show Sir Daniel in there. Bart was up with Donna telling her how “seedy” he felt, and it didn’t matter, she wasn’t to notice. And then Sir Dan came in and was angelic and I told him about Donna. Did you notice in the study there’s a French escritoire thing on a table?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, Sir Dan adores old things and he saw it and raved about it and said it was a beautiful piece and told me when it was made and how they used sometimes to put little secret drawers in them and you just touch a screw and they fly out. He said it was a museum piece and asked me if I didn’t think some of the vanished ladies might come back and open the secret drawer with ghostly fingers. So I thought I’d like to see, and when Sir Dan had gone up to Donna I tried prodding the screws with a pencil and at last a little drawer did fly out triangularly, sort of. There was a letter in it. I didn’t touch it, naturally, but while I was looking at the drawer, Bart must have come in. What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Alleyn. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I can’t tell you what he was like. He went absolutely stark ravers, honestly. He took hold of my arm and twisted it so much I screamed before I could stop myself. And then he turned as white as the washing and called me a little bastard. I believed he’d have actually hit me if Sir Dan hadn’t come down. I think Sir Dan had heard me yell and he must have guessed what had happened because he had one glance at my arm—I had short sleeves—and then he said in a lovely dangerous sort of voice: “Are you producing another patient for me, Carrados?” Bart banged the little drawer shut, began to splutter and try to get up some sort of explanation. Sir Daniel just looked at him through his glasses—the ones with the black ribbon. Bart tried to pretend I’d slipped on the polished floor and he’d caught me by the arm. Sir Daniel said: “Very curious indeed,” and went on looking at my arm. He gave me a prescription for some stuff to put on it and was frightfully nice to me, and didn’t ask questions, but just ignored Bart. It made me absolutely crawl with shame to hear Bart trying to do his simple-soldier stuff and sort of ingratiate himself with Sir Dan. And when he’d gone Bart apologized to me and said he was really terribly nervy and ill and had never recovered from the war, which was pretty good as he spent it in Tunbridge Wells. That was the worst of all, having to hear him apologize. He said there was a letter from his mother in the drawer and it was very sacred. Of course I felt simply lousy. He’s never forgiven me and I’ve never forgotten. My private belief is there was something about his miserable past in that drawer.’

  Bridget’s voice at last stopped. Alleyn, who had sat in his chair, was silent for so long that at last she turned from the fire and looked into his face.

  ‘It’s a queer story, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Very queer, indeed,’ said Alleyn. ‘Have you ever told anyone else about it?’

  ‘No. Well, only Donald.’ She wriggled across the hearthrug. ‘It’s funny,’ she said. ‘I suppose I ought to be frightened of you, but I’m not. Why’s Donna coming?’

  ‘She wants to collect you, and see me,’ said Alleyn absently.

  ‘Everybody wants to see you.’ She clasped her hands over her knees. ‘Don’t they?’ insisted Bridget.

  ‘For no very flattering reason, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Well, I think you’re really rather a lamb,’ said Bridget.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Alleyn, ‘do you think anyone else knows the secret of that French writing-case?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. You’d never know unless somebody showed you.’

  ‘None of the servants?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Bart slammed the drawer shut as soon as Sir Daniel came in.’

  ‘Has Sir Daniel ever been alone in that room?’

  ‘Sir Dan? Good heavens, you don’t think my angelic Sir Dan had anything to do with Bart’s beastly letter?’

  ‘I simply want to clear things up.’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact I don’t think he’s been in the study before or since and he was never alone there that day. When Sir Dan comes, the servants always show him straight upstairs. Bart hates his room to be used for visitors.’

  ‘Has Dimitri, the catering man, ever been alone in that room?’

  ‘Why—I don’t know. Yes, now you come to mention it he did interview Donna there, about a month before our ball-dance. I went down first and he was alone in the room.’

  ‘When was this? Can you remember the date?’

  ‘Let me see. I’ll try. Yes. Yes, I can. It was on the tenth of May. We were going to Newmarket and Dimitri came early in the morning because of that.’

  ‘Would you swear he was alone in the room?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I would. But, please, what does it mean?’

  ‘See here,’ said Alleyn. ‘I want you to forget all about this. Don’t speak of it to anyone, not even to Donald. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I want your promise.’

  ‘All right, I promise.’

  ‘Solemnly?’

  ‘Solemnly.’

  The front-door bell rang.

  ‘Here’s your mother,’ said Alleyn.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Dance is Wound Up

  WHEN ALLEYN OPENED the door to Evelyn Carrados, he saw her as a dark still figure against the lighted street. Her face was completely shadowed and it was impossible for him to glean anything from it. So that when she walked into the sitting-room he was not prepared for her extraordinary pallor, her haunted eyes and the drawn nervousness of her mouth. He remembered that she had gone to her room before she missed Bridget, and he realized with compassion that she had removed her complexion and neglected to replace it. Perhaps Bridget felt something of the same compassion, for she uttered a little cry and ran to her mother. Lady Carrados, using that painful gesture of all distracted mothers, held Bridget in her arms. Her thin hands were extraordinarily ex
pressive.

  ‘Darling,’ she murmured. With a sort of hurried intensity she kissed Bridget’s hair. ‘How could you frighten me like this, Bridgie, how could you?’

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t know. Donna, don’t. It’s all right, really it is. It was only about Donald. I didn’t want to worry you. I’m so sorry, dear Donna.’ Lady Carrados gently disengaged herself and turned to Alleyn.

  ‘Come and sit down, Evelyn,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. I would have brought your daughter home, but she had some interesting news and I thought you would trust her with me for half an hour.’

  ‘Yes, Roderick, of course. If only I had known. Where’s Donald? I thought he was here.’

  ‘He’s in the next room. Shall we send Bridget to join him for a minute or two?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Don’t interrupt him,’ said Alleyn as Bridget went out.

  ‘All right.’

  The door closed behind her.

  Alleyn said: ‘Do you ever drink brandy, Evelyn?’

  ‘Never, why?’

  ‘You’re going to do so now. You’re quite done up. Warm your hands at my fire while I get it for you.’

  He actually persuaded her to drink a little brandy, and laughed at her convulsive shudder.

  ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘there’s no need for you to fuss about Bridget. She’s been, on the whole, a very sensible young person and her only fault is in giving a commonplace visit the air of a secret elopement.’

  ‘My nerves have gone, I think. I began to imagine all sorts of horrible things. I even wondered if she suspected Donald of this crime.’

  ‘She is, on the contrary, absolutely assured of Donald’s innocence.’

  ‘Then why did she do this?’

  ‘I’d better tell you the whole story. The truth is, Evelyn, they were longing for each other’s bright eyes. Bridget wanted to convince me of Donald’s innocence. She also wanted him to tell me this and that about a third person who doesn’t matter at the moment. They met, most reprehensibly, at the Matador.’

  ‘The Matador! Roderick, how naughty of them! It just simply isn’t done by débutantes. No, really that was very naughty.’