Overture to Death

by Ngaio Marsh

  “She seems to have been a very outspoken lady, doesn’t she?” asked Fox.

  “She does. That’s a nasty jab in the eye for her dear friend, Eleanor Prentice,” said Alleyn.

  “Well, now,” said Nigel briskly, “do you think either of these two have murdered her? You always say, Alleyn, that money is the prime motive.”

  “I don’t say so in this instance,” Alleyn said. “It may be, but I don’t think it is. Well, there we are, Fox, we must get hold of the Waterworths and Mr. Biggs, before they read about it in the papers.”

  “I’ve rung them up, Mr. Alleyn. The parlourmaid knew Mr. Waterworth senior’s private address.”

  “Excellent, Fox. Anything else?”

  “There’s the chauffeur, Gibson. I think you might like to talk to him.”

  “All right. Produce Gibson.”

  Fox went out and returned with Miss Campanula’s chauffeur. He wore his plum-coloured breeches and shining gaiters and had the air of having just crammed himself into his tunic.

  “This is Gibson, sir,” said Fox. “I think the chief inspector would like to hear about this little incident on Friday afternoon, Mr. Gibson.”

  “Good-morning,” said Alleyn. “What’s the incident?”

  “It concerns deceased’s visit to church at two-thirty, sir,” Fox explained. “It seems that she called at the hall on her way down.”

  “Really?” said Alleyn.

  “Not to say called, sir,” said Gibson. “Not in a manner of speaking, seeing she didn’t go in.”

  “Let’s hear about it?”

  “She used to go regular, you see, sir, to the confessing affair. About every three weeks. Well, Friday, she orders the car and we go down, getting there a bit early. She says, drive on to the hall, so I did and she got out and went to the front door. She’d been in a good mood all the morning. Pleased at going down to church and all, but soon as I saw her rattling the front door I knew one of her tantrums was coming on. As I was explaining to Mr. Fox, sir, she was a lady that was given to tantrums.”

  “Yes.”

  “I watched her. Rattle, rattle, rattle! And then I heard her shouting, ‘Who’s in there! Let me in!’ I thought I could hear the piano, too. Off she goes round to the back. I turned the car. When I looked out again she had come round the other side, the one away from the lane. Her face was red, and, Gawd help us, I thought, here we go, and sure enough she starts yelling out for me to come. ‘There’s someone in there behaving very suspicious,’ she says. ‘Take a look through that open window.’ I hauled myself up and there wasn’t a blooming thing to be seen. ‘Where’s the piano?’ Well, I told her. The piano was there right enough down on the floor by the stage. I knew she was going to tell me to go to the rectory for the key, when I see Miss Prentice coming out of the church. So I drew her attention to Miss Prentice and she was off like a scalded cat, across the lane and down to the church. I followed along slow, it’s only a couple of chain or so, and pulled up outside the church.”

  “What about the box?”

  “Pardon, sir?”

  “Didn’t you get a box out of the shed at the back of the hall for Miss Campanula to stand on in order to look through the window?”

  “No, sir. No.”

  Nigel grinned and whistled softly.

  “All right,” said Alleyn. “It’s no matter. Anything else?”

  “No, sir. Miss Prentice come out looking very upset, passed me, and went up the lane. I reckon she was going home by Top Lane.”

  “Miss Prentice looked upset?”

  “She did so, sir. It’s my belief Mr. Copeland had sent her off with a flea in her ear, if you’ll excuse the liberty.”

  “Did you watch her go? Look after her, I mean?”

  “No, sir, I didn’t like, seeing she was looking so queer.”

  “D’you mean she was crying?”

  “She wasn’t actually that way, sir. Not shedding tears or anything, but she looked queer. Upset, very down in the mouth.”

  “You don’t know if she went to the hall?”

  “No, sir, I can’t say. I did have a look in the driving mirror and I saw her cross the road as soon as she’d gone a few steps, but she’d do that, anyway, sir, very likely.”

  “Gibson, can you remember exactly how the piano looked? Describe it for me as accurately as you possibly can.”

  Gibson scraped his jaw with his mechanic’s hand.

  “Down on the floor where it was in the evening, sir. Stool in front of it. No music on it. Er—let’s see now. It wasn’t quite the same. No, that’s right. It was kind of different.”

  Alleyn waited.

  “I got it,” said Gibson loudly. “Yes, by gum, I got it.”

  “Yes?”

  “Those pot plants was on the edge of the stage and the top of the piano was open.”

  “Ah,” said Alleyn, “I hoped so.”

  “What’s the inner significance of all that?” demanded Nigel when Gibson had gone. “What about this box? Is it the one you had under the window?”

  “It is.” Alleyn spoke to Fox. “At some time since Gibson hauled himself up to look in at the window, somebody has put an open box there and stood on it. It’s left a deep rectangular scar overlapping one of Gibson’s prints. I found the box in the outhouse. It wasn’t young Georgie. He used the door, and anyway the window would have been above his eye-level. The only footprints are Miss C’s and some big ones, no doubt Gibson’s. They trod on the turf. The box expert must have come later, perhaps on Saturday, and only stood on the gravel. We’ll try the box for prints, but I don’t think we’ll do any good. When I heard Gibson’s story I expected we would find that Miss Campanula had used it. Evidently not. It’s a tedious business but we’ll have to clear it up. Have you said much to the maids?”

  “It looks as if deceased was a proper tartar,” said Fox. “I’ve heard enough to come to the conclusion. Mary, the parlourmaid, you saw just now, sir, seems to have acted as a kind of lady’s-maid as well. Miss Campanula had a very open way with Mary when she was in the mood. Surprising some of the things she used to tell her.”

  “For instance, Brer Fox?”

  “Well, Mr. Alleyn, to Mary’s way of thinking, Miss C. was a bit queer on the subject of Mr. Copeland. Potty on him is the way Mary puts it. She says that about the time the rector walks through the village of a morning, deceased used to go and hang about under one pretext or another until she could meet him.”

  “Oh Lord!” said Alleyn distastefully.

  “Yes, it’s kind of pitiful, sir, isn’t it? Mary says she’d dress herself up, very particularly, walk up to Chipping, and go into the little shop. She’d keep the woman there talking, while she bought some trifle or another, and all the time she’d be looking through the glass door. If the rector showed up, Miss Campanula would be off like lightening. She was a very uncertain tempered lady, and when things went wrong she used to scare the servants by the wild way she talked, saying she’d do something violent, and so on.”

  “This is getting positively Russian,” said Alleyn, “and remarkably depressing. Go on.”

  “It wasn’t so bad till Miss Prentice came. She had it her own way in the parish till then. But Miss Prentice seems to have put her in the shade, as you might say. Miss Prentice beat her to all the top places. She’s president of this Y.P.F.C. affair and Miss C. was only secretary. Same sort of thing with the Girl Guides.”

  “She’s never a Girl Guide!” Alleyn ejaculated.

  “Seems like it, and she beat Miss C. hands down, teaching the kids knots and camp cookery. Got herself decorated with badges and so on. Started at the bottom and swotted it all up. The local girls didn’t fancy it much, but she kind of got round them; and when Lady Appleby gave up the Commissioner’s job Miss Prentice got it. Same sort of thing at the Women’s Circle and all the other local affairs. Miss P. was too smart for Miss C. They were as thick as thieves; but Mary says sometimes Miss C. would come back from a Friendly meeting or something of the so
rt, and the things she’d say about Miss Prentice were surprising.”

  “Oh, Lord!”

  “She’d threaten suicide and all the rest of it. Mary knew all about the will. Deceased often talked about it, and as short time back as last Thursday, when they had their dress rehearsal, she said it’d serve Miss Prentice right if she cut her out, but she was too charitable to do that, only she hoped if she did go first the money would be like scalding water on Miss Prentice’s conscience. On Friday, Mary says, she had one of her good days. Went off to confession and came back very pleased. Same thing after the five o’clock affair at Pen Cuckoo, and in the evening she went to some Reading Circle or other at the rectory. She was in high feather when she left, but she didn’t get back until eleven—very much later than usual. Gibson says she didn’t speak on the way back, and Mary says when she came in she had a scarf pulled round her face and her coat collar turned up and—”

  “It wasn’t her,” said Nigel. “Miss Prentice had disguised herself in Miss C’s clothes in order to have a look at the will.”

  “Will you be quiet, Bathgate. Go on, Fox.”

  “Mary followed her to her room; but she said she didn’t want her, and Mary swears she was crying. She heard her go to bed. Mary took in her first tea first thing yesterday morning, and she says Miss Campanula looked shocking. Like an Aunt Sally that had been left out in the rain, was the way Mary put it.”

  “Graphic! Well?”

  “Well, she spent yesterday morning at the hall with the others, but when she came back she wrote a note to the lawyers and gave it to Gibson to post; but she stayed in all yesterday afternoon.”

  “I knew you had something else up your sleeve,” said Alleyn. “Where’s the blotting paper?”

  Fox smiled blandly.

  “It’s all right, as it turns out, sir. Here it is.”

  He took a sheet of blotting paper from the writing-table and handed it to Alleyn. It was a clean sheet with only four lines of writing. Alleyn held it up to an atrocious mirror and read:

  De S

  K dly dn our presentative to ee

  me at our arliest on enience

  ours faithfully

  RIS C MP NULA

  “Going to alter her will,” said Nigel over Alleyn’s shoulder.

  “Incubus!” said Alleyn. “Miserable parasite! I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right. Anything else, Fox?”

  “Nothing else, sir. She seemed much as usual when she went down to the performance. She left here at seven. Not being wanted till the second act, she didn’t need to be so early.”

  “And they know of nobody, beyond the lawyers, whom she should inform?”

  “Nobody, Mr. Alleyn.”

  “We’ll have some lunch and then visit the rectory. Come on.”

  When they returned to the Jernigham Arms they found that the representative of the Chipping Courier had been all too zealous. A crowd of young men wearing flannel trousers and tweed coats greeted Nigel with a sort of wary and suspicious cordiality, and edged round Alleyn. He gave them a concise account of the piano and its internal arrangements, said nothing at all about the water-pistol, told them the murder appeared to be motiveless, and besought them not to follow him about wherever he went.

  “It embarrasses me and it’s no use to you. I’ll see that you get photographs of the piano.”

  “Who’s the owner of the Colt, chief inspector?” asked a pert young man wearing enormous glasses.

  “It’s a local weapon, thought to have been stolen,” said Alleyn. “If there’s anything more from the police, gentlemen, you shall hear of it. You’ve got enough in the setting of the thing to do your screaming worst. Off you go and do it. Be little Pooh Bahs. No corroborative details required. The narrative is adequately unconvincing, and I understand artistic verisimilitude is not your cup of tea.”

  “Try us,” suggested the young man.

  “Pas si bête,” said Alleyn, “I want my lunch.”

  “When are you going to be married, Mr. Alleyn?”

  “Whenever I get a chance. Good-morning to you.” He left them to badger Nigel.

  Alleyn and Fox finished their lunch in ten minutes, left the inn by the back door, and were off in Biggins’s car before Nigel had exhausted his flow of profanity. Alleyn left Fox in the village. He was to seek out Friendly Young People, garner more local gossip, and attend the post-mortem. Alleyn turned up the Vale Road, and in five minutes arrived at the rectory.

  Like most clerical households on Sunday, the rectory had a semi-public look about it. The front door was wide open. On a hall table Alleyn saw a neat stack of children’s hymn-books. A beretta lay beside them. In a room some way down the hall they heard a female voice.

  “Very well, Mr. Copeland. Now the day is over.”

  “I think so,” said the rector’s voice.

  “Through the night of doubt and sorrow,” added the lady brightly.

  “Do they like that?”

  “Aw, they love it, Mr. Copeland.”

  “Very well,” said the rector wearily. “Thank you, Miss Wright.”

  A large village maiden came out into the hall. She gathered the hymn-books into a straw bag and bustled out, not neglecting to look pretty sharply at Alleyn.

  Alleyn rang the bell again, and presently an elderly maid appeared.

  “May I see Mr. Copeland?”

  “I’ll just see, sir. What name, please?”

  “Alleyn. I’m from Scotland Yard.”

  “Oh! Oh, yes, sir. Will you come this way, please?” He followed her through the hall. She opened a door and said:

  “Please, sir, the police.”

  He walked in.

  Mr. Copeland looked as if he had sprung to his feet. At his side was the girl whom Alleyn had recognised as his daughter. They were indeed very much alike, and at this moment their faces spoke of the same mood: they looked startled and alarmed.

  Mr. Copeland, in his long cassock, moved forward and shook hands.

  “I’m so sorry to worry you like this, sir,” said Alter. “It’s the worst possible day to badger the clergy, I know; but, unfortunately, we can’t delay things.”

  “No, no,” said the rector, “we are only too anxious. This is my daughter. I’m afraid I don’t—”

  “Alleyn, sir.”

  “Oh, yes. Yes. Do sit down. Dinah, dear?”

  “Please don’t go, Miss Copeland,” said Alleyn. “I hope you may be able to help us.”

  Evidently they had been sitting with the village maiden in front of the open fireplace. The chairs, drawn up in a semi-circle, were comfortably shabby.

  The fire, freshly mended with enormous logs, crackled companionably and lent warmth to the faded apple-green walls, the worn beams, the rector’s agreeable prints, and a pot of bronze chrysanthemums from the Pen Cuckoo glasshouses.

  They sat down, Dinah primly in the centre chair, Alleyn and the rector on either side of her.

  Something of Alleyn’s appreciation of this room may have appeared in his face. His hand went to his jacket pocket and was hurriedly withdrawn.

  “Do smoke your pipe,” said Dinah quickly.

  “That was very well observed,” said Alleyn. “I’m sure you will be able to help us. May I, really?”

  “Please.”

  “It’s very irregular,” said Alleyn; “but I think I might, you know.”

  And as he lit his pipe he was visited by a strange thought. It came into his mind that he stood on the threshold of a new friendship, that he would return to this old room and again sit before the fire. He thought of the woman he loved, and it seemed to him that she would be there, too, at this future time, and that she would be happy. “An odd notion!” he thought, and dismissed it.

  The rector was speaking: “—Terribly distressed. It is appalling to think that among the people one knows so well there should have been one heart that nursed such dreadful anger against a fellow-creature.”

  “Yes,” said Alleyn. “The impulse to kill, I suppose,
is dormant in most people; but when it finds expression we are so shockingly astonished. I have noticed that very often. The reaction after murder is nearly always one of profound astonishment.”

  “To me,” said Dinah, “the most horrible thing about this business is the grotesque side of it. It’s like an appalling joke.”

  “You’ve heard the way of it, then?”

  “I don’t suppose there’s a soul within twenty miles who hasn’t,” said Dinah.

  “Ah,” said Alleyn. “The industrious Roper.’

  He lit his pipe and, looking over his thin hands at them, said, “Before I forget, did either of you put a box outside one of the hall windows late on Friday or some time on Saturday?”

  “No.”

  “No.”

  “I see. It’s no matter.”

  The rector said, “Perhaps I shouldn’t ask, but have you any idea at all of who—?”

  “None,” said Align. “At the moment, none. There are so many things to be cleared up before the case can begin to make a pattern. One of them concerns the key of the hall. Where was it on Friday?”

  “On a nail between an outhouse and the main building,” said Dinah.

  “I thought that was only on Saturday.”

  “No. I left it there on Friday for the Friendly Circle members who worked in the lunch hour. They moved the furniture and swept up, and things. When they left at two o’clock they hung the key on the nail.”

  “But Miss Campanula tried to get in at about half-past two and couldn’t.”

  “I don’t think Miss Campanula knew about the key. I told the girls, and I think I said something about it at the dress rehearsal in case the others wanted to get in, but I’m pretty sure Miss Campanula had gone by then.

  “We’ve never hung it there before.”

  “Did you go to the hall on Friday?”

  “Yes,” said Dinah. “I went in the lunch hour to supervise the work. I came away before they had quite finished, and returned here.”