by Ngaio Marsh
“He said that?”
“Yes, sir. Nothing else, sir. Just that.”
“It’s a quotation from his part.”
Trevor’s eyes were closed and he breathed evenly. The sister brushed back his curls.
“He’s asleep,” the doctor said. “We must let him waken in his own time. He’ll probably be normal when he does.”
“Except for the blackout period?”
“Quite.”
Ten minutes slipped by in near silence.
“Mum,” Trevor said. “Hey, Mum.”
He opened his eyes and stared at Alleyn. “What’s up?” he asked and then saw Grantley’s tunic. “That’s a rozzer,” he said. “I haven’t done a thing.”
“You’re all right,” said the doctor. “You had a nasty fall and we’re looking after you.”
“Oh,” Trevor said profoundly and shut his eyes.
“Gawd, he’s off again,” Grantley whispered, distractedly. “Innit marvellous.”
“Now then,” Fox said austerely.
“Pardon, Mr. Fox.”
Alleyn said, “May he be spoken to?”
“He shouldn’t be worried. If it’s important—”
“It could hardly be more so.”
“Nosey Super,” Trevor said, and Alleyn turned back to find himself being stared at.
“That’s right,” he said. “We’ve met before.”
“Yeah. Where though?”
“In The Dolphin. Upstairs in the circle.”
“Yeah,” Trevor said, wanly tough. A look of doubt came into his eyes. He frowned. “In the circle,” he repeated uneasily.
“Things happen up there in the circle, don’t they?”
Complacency and still that look of uncertainty.
“Yon can say that again,” said Trevor. “All over the house.”
“Slash?”
“Yeah. Slash,” he agreed and grinned.
“You had old Jobbins guessing?”
“And that’s no error.”
“What did you do?”
Trevor stretched his mouth and produced a wailing sound: “Wheeeee.”
“Make like spooks,” he said. “See?”
“Anything else?”
There was a longish pause. Grantley lifted his head. Somewhere beyond the screens a trolley jingled down the ward.
“Ping.”
“That must have rocked them.” Alleyn said.
“ ’Can say that again. What a turn-up! Oh, dear!”
“How did you do it? Just like that? With your mouth?”
The house-surgeon stirred restively. The sister gave a starched little cough.
“Do you mind,” Trevor said. “My mum plays the old steely,” he added, and then, with a puzzled look: “Hey! Was that when I got knocked out or something! Was it?”
“That was a bit later. You had a fall. Can you remember where you went after you banged the stage-door?”
“No,” he said impatiently. He sighed and shut his eyes. “Do me a favour and pack it up, will you?” he said and went to sleep again.
“I’m afraid that’s it,” said the house-surgeon.
Alleyn said : “May I have a word with you?”
“Oh, certainly. Yes, of course. Carry on, Sister, will you? He’s quite all right”
Alleyn said, “Stick it out, Grantley.”
The house-surgeon led him into an office at the entrance to the ward. He was a young man and, although he observed a markedly professional attitude, he was clearly intrigued by the situation.
“Look here,” Alleyn said, “I want you to give me your cold-blooded, considered opinion. You tell me the boy is unlikely to remember what happened just before he went overboard. I gather he may recall events up to within a few minutes of the fall?”
“He may, yes. The length of the ‘lost’ period can vary.”
“Did you think he was on the edge of remembering a little further just now?”
“One can’t say. One got the impression that he hadn’t the energy to try and remember.”
“Do you think that if he were faced with the person whom he saw attacking the caretaker, he would recognize him and remember what he saw?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a specialist in amnesia or the after-effects of cranial injury. You should ask someone who is.” The doctor hesitated and then said slowly: “You mean would the shock of seeing the assailant stimulate the boy’s memory?”
“Not of the assault upon himself but of the earlier assault upon Jobbins which may be on the fringe of his recollection—which may lie just this side of the blackout.”
“I can’t give you an answer to that one.”
“Will you move the boy into a separate room—say tomorrow—and allow him to see three—perhaps four—visitors: one after another? For five minutes each.”
“No. I’m sorry. Not yet.”
“Look,” Alleyn said, “can it really do any harm? Really?”
“I have not the authority.”
“Who has?”
The house-surgeon breathed an Olympian name.
“Is he in the hospital? Now?”
The house-surgeon looked at his watch.
“There’s been a board meeting. He may be in his room.”
“I’ll beard him there. Where is it?”
“Yes, but look here—”
“God bless my soul,” Alleyn ejaculated. “I’ll rant as well as he. Lead me to him.”
“Ten past four,” Alleyn said, checking with Big Ben. “Let’s do a bit of stocktaking.” They had returned to the car.
“You got it fixed up for this show with the boy, Mr. Alleyn?”
“Oh, yes. The great panjandrum turned out to be very mild and a former acquaintance. An instance, I’m afraid, of Harry Grove’s detested old-boymanship. I must say I see Harry’s point. We went to the ward and he inspected young Trevor who was awake, as bright as a button, extremely full of himself and demanding a nice dinner. The expert decided in our favour. We may arrange the visits for tomorrow at noon. Out of visiting hours. We’ll get Peregrine Jay to call the actors and arrange the timetable. I don’t want us to come into it at this juncture. We’ll just occur at the event. Jay is to tell them the truth: that the boy can’t remember what happened and that it’s hoped the encounters with the rest of the cast may set up some chain of association that could lead to a recovery of memory.”
“One of them won’t fancy that idea.”
“No. But it wouldn’t do to refuse.”
“The nerve might crack. There might be a bolt. With that sort of temperament,” Fox said, “you can’t tell what may happen. Still, we’re well provided.”
“If anybody’s nerve cracks it won’t be Miss Destiny Meade’s. What did you make of that scene in her flat, Fox?”
“Well: to begin with, the lady was very much put out by my being there. In my view, Mr. Alleyn, she didn’t fancy police protection within the meaning of the code to anything like the extent that she fancied it coming in a personal way from yourself. Talk about the go-ahead signal! It was hung out like the week’s wash,” said Mr. Fox.
“Control yourself, Fox.”
“Now, on what she said we only missed Mr. Knight by seconds. She makes out he rang up and abused her to such an extent that she decided to call you and that he walked in while she was still talking to you.”
“Yes. And they went bang off into a roaring row which culminated in him handing her a tuppenny one to the jaw after which he flung out and we, within a couple of minutes minced in.”
“No thought in her mind, it appears,” Fox suggested, “of ringing Mr. Grove up to come and protect her. Only you.”
“I daresay she’s doing that very thing at this moment. I must say, I hope he knows how to cope with her.”
“Only one thing to do with that type of lady,” Fox said, “and I don’t mean a tuppenny one on the jaw. He’ll cope.”
“We’ll be talking to Conducis in half an hour, Fox, and it’s going to be tricky.
”
“I should damn well think so,” Fox warmly agreed. “What with orchids and her just seeing him quietly from time to time. Hi!” he ejaculated. “Would Mr. Grove know about Mr. Conducis and would Mr. Conducis know about Mr. Grove?”
“Who is, remember, his distant relation. Search me, Fox. The thing at the moment seems to be that Knight knows about them both and acts accordingly. Big stuff.”
“How a gang like this hangs together beats me. You’d think the resignations’d be falling in like autumn leaves. What they always tell you, I suppose,” Fox said. “The Show Must Go On.”
“And it happens to be a highly successful show with fat parts and much prestige. But I should think that even they won’t be able to sustain the racket indefinitely at this pitch.”
“Why are we going to see Mr. Conducis, I ask myself. How do we shape up to him? Does he matter, as far as the case is concerned?”
“In so far as he was in the theatre and knows the combination, yes.”
“I suppose so.”
“I thought him an exceedingly rum personage, Fox. A cold fish and yet a far from insensitive fish. No indication of any background other than wealth, or of any particular race. He carries a British passport. He inherited one fortune and made Lord knows how many more, each about a hundred per cent fatter than the last. He’s spent most of his time abroad and a lot of it in the Kalliope, until she was cut in half in a heavy fog under his feet. That was six years ago. What did you make of Jay’s account of the menu card?”
“Rather surprising if he’s right. Rather a coincidence, two of our names cropping up in that direction.”
“We can check the passenger list with the records; But if s not really a coincidence. People in Conducis’s world tend to move about expensively in a tight group. There was, of course, an inquiry after the disaster and Conducis was reported to be unable to appear. He was in a nursing home on the Cote d’Azur suffering from exhaustion, exposure and severe shock.”
“Bluff?”
“Perhaps. He certainly is a rum ’un and no mistake. Jay’s account of his behaviour that morning—by George,” Alleyn said suddenly. “Hell’s boots and gaiters!”
“What’s all this, now?” Fox asked placidly.
“So much hokum I daresay, but listen, all the same.”
Fox listened.
“Well,” he said. “You always say don’t conjecture but personally, Mr. Alleyn, when you get one of your hunches in this sort of way I reckon it’s safe to go nap on it. Not that this one really gets us any nearer an arrest.”
“I wonder if you’re right about that. I wonder.”
They talked for another five minutes, going over Peregrine’s notes, and then Alleyn looked at his watch and said they must be off. When they were halfway to Park Lane he said: “You went over all the properties in the theatre, didn’t you? No musical instruments?”
“None.”
“He might have had Will singing ‘Take, oh take those lips away’ to the Dark Lady. Accompanying himself on a lute. But he didn’t.”
“Perhaps Mr. Knight can’t sing.”
“You may be right at that”
They drove into Park Lane and turned into Drury Place.
“I’m going,” Alleyn said, “to cling to Peregrine Jay’s notes as Mr. Conducis was reported to have clung to his raft.”
“I still don’t know exactly what line we take,” Fox objected.
“We let him dictate it,” Alleyn rejoined. “At first. Come on.”
Mawson admitted them to that so arrogantly unobtrusive interior, and a pale young man advanced to meet them. Alleyn remembered him from his former visit. The secretary.
“Mr. Alleyn. And — er?”
“Inspector Fox.”
“Yes. How do you do? Mr. Conducis is in the library. He’s been very much distressed by this business. Awfully upset. Particularly about the boy. We’ve sent flowers and all that nonsense, of course, and we’re in touch with the theatre people. Mr. Conducis is most anxious that everything possible should be done. Well — shall we? You’ll find him, perhaps, rather nervous, Mr. Alleyn. He has been so very distressed.”
They walked soundlessly to the library door. A clock mellifluously struck five.
“Here is Superintendent Alleyn, sir, and Inspector Fox.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Mr. Conducis was standing at the far end of the library. He had been looking out of the window, it seemed. In the evening light the long room resembled an interior by some defunct academician: Orchardson, perhaps, or the Hon. John Collier. The details were of an undated excellence but the general effect was strangely Edwardian and so was Mr. Conducis. He might have been a deliberately understated monument to Affluence.
As he moved towards them Alleyn wondered if Mr. Conducis was ill or if his pallor was brought about by some refraction of light from the apple-green walls. He wore a gardenia in his coat and an edge of crimson silk showed above his breast pocket.
“Good evening,” he said. “I am pleased that you were able to come. Glad to see you again.”
He offered his hand. Large and white, it withdrew itself—it almost snatched itself away—from contact.
Mawson came in with a drinks tray, put it down, hovered, was glanced at and withdrew.
“You will have a drink,” Mr. Conducis stated.
“Thank you, but no,” Àlleyn said. “Not on duty, I’m afraid. This won’t stop you from having one, of course.”
“I am an abstainer,” said Mr. Conducis. “Shall we sit down?”
They did so. The crimson leather chairs received them like sultans.
Alleyn said, “You sent word you wanted to see us, sir, but we would in any case have asked for an interview. Perhaps the best way of tackling this unhappy business will be for us to hear any questions that it may have occurred to you to ask. We will then, if you please, continue the conversation on what I can only call routine investigation lines.”
Mr. Conducis raised his clasped hands to his mourn and glanced briefly over them at Alleyn. He then lowered his gaze to his fingers. Alleyn thought: “I suppose that’s how he looks when he’s manipulating his gargantuan undertakings.”
Mr. Conducis said, “I am concerned with this affair. The theatre is my property and the enterprise is under my control. I have financed it. The glove and documents are mine. I trust, therefore, that I am entitled to a detailed statement upon the case as it appears to your Department. Or rather, since you are in charge of the investigation, as it appears to you.”
This was said with an air of absolute authority. Alleyn was conscious, abruptly, of the extraordinary force that resided in Mr. Conducis.
He said very amiably: “We are not authorized, I’m afraid, to make detailed statements on demand—not even to entrepreneurs of businesses and owners of property, especially where a fatality has occurred on that property and a crime of violence may be suspected. On the other hand, I will, as I have suggested, be glad to consider any questions you like to put to me.”
And he thought: he’s like a lizard or a chameleon or whatever the animal is that blinks slowly. It’s what people mean when they talk about hooded eyes.”
Mr. Conducis did not argue or protest. For all the reaction he gave, he might not have heard what Alleyn said.
“In your opinion,” he said, “were the fatality and the injury to the boy caused by an act of violence?”
“Yes.”
“Both by the same hand?”
“Yes.”
“Have you formed an opinion on why it was done?”
“We have arrived at a working hypothesis.”
“What is it?”
“I can go so far as to say that I think both were defensive actions.”
“By a person caught in the act of robbery?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Do you think you know who this person is?”
“I am almost sure that I do. I am not positive.”
“Who?”
Mr. Conducis looked fully at him, if the fact that those extraordinarily blank eyes were focussed on his face could justify this assertion.
“You said you wished to see me. Why?”
“For several reasons. The first concerns your property: the glove and the documents. As you know they have been recovered, but I think you should also know by what means.”
He told the story of Jeremy Jones and the substitution and he could have sworn that as he did so the sweet comfort of a reprieve flooded through Conducis. The thick white hands relaxed. He gave an almost inaudible but long sigh.
“Have you arrested him?”
“No. We have, of course, uplifted the glove. It is in a safe at the Yard with the documents.”
“I cannot believe, Superintendent Alleyn, that you give any credence to his story.”
“I am inclined to believe it.”
Then in my opinion you are either incredibly stupid or needlessly evasive. In either case, incompetent.”
This attack surprised Alleyn. He had not expected his slow-blinking opponent to dart his tongue so soon. As if sensing his reaction Mr. Conducis recrossed his legs and said: “I am too severe. I beg your pardon. Let me explain myself. Can you not see that Jones’s story was an impromptu invention? He did not substitute the faked glove for the real glove six months ago. He substituted it last night and was discovered in the act. He killed Jobbins, was seen by the boy and tried to kill him. He left the copy behind—no doubt if he had not been interrupted he would have put it in the safe—and he took the real glove to the safe-deposit.”
“First packing it with most elaborate care in an insulated box with four wrappings, all sealed.”
“Done in the night. Before Jay got home.”
“We can check, you know, with the safe-deposit people. He says he had a witness when he deposited the glove six months ago.”
“A witness to a dummy package, no doubt”
“If you consider,” Alleyn said, “I’m sure you will come to the conclusion that this theory won’t answer. It really won’t, you know.”
“Why not?”
“Do you want me to spell it out, sir? If, as he states, he transposed the gloves six months ago and intended to maintain the deception, he had no need to do anything further. If the theft was a last-minute notion, he could perfectly well have effected the transposition today or tomorrow, when he performed his authorized job of removing the treasure from the safe. There was no need for him to sneak back into the theatre at dead of night and risk discovery. Why on earth, six months ago, should he go through an elaborate hocus-pocus of renting a safe-deposit and lodging a fake parcel in it?”
