by Ngaio Marsh
“When?”
“It was the first night. We went up to our rooms. I remember I drew back because I did not wish to accompany Nicholas Compline, who walked a little ahead with his brother. Mr. Royal drew my attention to this Buddha. He asked me if I knew anything of Oriental art. As an excuse to delay, I feigned an interest. I reached out my hands and touched it. Compline made some remark on the obesity of the Buddha. It was an insult to me. Whenever he could insult me he did so. So I have touched it.”
“Coming back to last night. Will you describe your movements from the time you entered the green ‘boudoir’ until the time you went upstairs for the last time?”
Hart did this and his description tallied with Mandrake’s note. “I felt I could not dine with them. They suspected me. It was an intolerable situation. I spoke to Mr. Royal and he suggested that I remain in that room. When, as I have told you, I finally left it, it was the first time. I went straight to my room. The footman saw me.”
“Had you been into the smoking-room at any time yesterday?”
“I do not think so. That insufferable machine was there. In the morning he had driven me crazy with it. First one horrible noise, then another, and all of them distorted. I cannot endure radio. I have a radio-phobia. I did not go into the room at all yesterday.”
“But you have been there at some time?”
“Oh, yes. The first night we played this Charter game in that room.”
“Will you describe the room to me?”
“Describe it? But you have seen it? Why should I?”
“I should like you to do so if you will.”
Hart stared at Alleyn as if he were insane and began a laborious catalogue. “First, then, if you must have it, there is this detestable radio close to the ‘boudoir’ door. When I think of the room I think of the radio by which it is made hideous. There are English leather chairs. There is a red leather screen. There are pictures, English sportings, I think. And photographs, very old and faded. There is such a photograph above the mantelpiece of an old fellow with a fish. He wears an absurd costume. There is also hanging on the wall a fishing-rod. Surely this is a great waste of time, Inspector.”
“Are you a fisherman?”
“Gott im Himmel, of what importance is it whether I fish or do not fish! I do not fish. I know nothing of fishing.” Hart stared irritably at Alleyn and then added: “If I lose my temper you will forgive me. I have heard of the efficiency of Scotland Yard. No doubt there is some reason which I do not follow for these questions of interior decoration and fishing. I can tell you little more of the room. I did not particularly observe this room.”
“The colour of the walls?”
“A light colour. A neutral colour. Almost white.”
“And the carpet?”
“I cannot tell you — dark. Green, I think. Dark green. There are, of course, three doors. The one into the ‘boudoir’ was locked by Nicholas Compline after I requested that he should not use that machine of hell.”
“What else did you see on the walls?”
“What else? Ah, the weapons, of course. Mr. Royal drew our attention to the weapons, I remember, Friday night. It was before dinner. Some of the men were in the room. He described the travels of his father in the Antipodes where he collected some of them. He showed me…”
“Yes, Dr. Hart?”
Hart paused with his mouth open and then turned away. “I have just remembered,” he muttered. “He took down the stone club from the wall, saying it was — I forget — a Polynesian or New Zealand native weapon. He gave it to me to examine. I was interested. I — examined the weapon.”
“Both the mere and the Buddha?” said Alleyn, without particular stress. “I see.”
It was twenty to four when Alleyn finished with Dr. Hart. Hart made another examination of his patient. He said her condition was “less satisfactory.” Her temperature had risen and her respiration was more markedly abnormal. Alleyn would have been glad to escape from the rhythm of deep and then shallow breaths, broken by terrible intervals of silence. Hersey Amblington returned, Hart said he thought that Nicholas should be warned of the change in his mother, and she went to fetch him. Obviously Hart expected Alleyn to go. He had told him there was no possibility of Mrs. Compline regaining consciousness before she died, but Alleyn did not feel justified in acting upon this assurance. He remained, standing in shadow at the far end of the room, and Hart paid no more attention to him. The rain drove in sighing gusts against the closed windows and found its way in through the open ones, so that Alleyn felt its touch upon his face. A vast desolation filled the room and still there came from the bed that sequence of deep breath, shallow breath, interval; and then again, deep breath, shallow breath.
The door opened and Hersey Amblington came in with Nicholas.
Alleyn saw a tall young man in uniform who carried his left arm in a sling. He noticed the lint-coloured hair, the blankly good-looking face with its blond moustache and faintly etched lines of dissipation, and he wondered if normally it held any trace of colour. He watched Nicholas walk slowly towards the bed, his gaze fixed, his right hand plucking at his tie. Hersey moved forward a chair and, without a word, Nicholas sat beside his mother. Hersey stooped over the bed and presently Alleyn saw that she had drawn Mrs. Compline’s hand from under the sheets and laid it close beside Nicholas. It was so flaccid it seemed already dead. Nicholas laid his own hand over it and at the touch broke down completely, burying his face beside their joined hands and weeping bitterly. For several minutes Alleyn stood in the shadow, hearing the wind and rain, the sound of distorted breathing, and the heavy sobs of Nicholas Compline. Then there was a lessening of sound. Hart moved to the head of the bed, looked at Hersey, and nodded. She had laid her hand on Nicholas’ shoulder but, before he raised his head, Alleyn had slipped out of the room.
It was darkish now in the passage and he almost collided with Jonathan Royal, who must have been standing close to the door. Jonathan had his finger to his lips. As they faced each other there, they heard Nicholas, beyond that closed door, scream out: “Don’t touch her, you—! Keep your hands off her. If it hadn’t been for you she’d never have done it.”
“My God!” said Jonathan in a whisper. “What now? What’s he doing to her?”
“Nothing that can hurt her,” said Alleyn.
Chapter XI
Interrogation
At five o’clock the telephone in the library rang out. Alleyn, who was there, answered it. It was a police call from London for himself, and he took it with the greatest satisfaction. The Yard reported that Detective-Inspector Fox, together with a surgeon, a fingerprint expert and a photographer, had left London at three o’clock and would reach Penfelton by way of a branch line, at seven-thirty. The Chipping constabulary had arranged for a car to bring them on to Highfold.
“I’m damn’ glad to hear it,” said Alleyn warmly. “I’m here with a couple bodies and seven lunatics. D’you know of what’s happened to the Chipping people?”
“They got stuck somewhere, sir, and had to walk back. We’d have reported before, but the line’s only just fixed.”
“The whole thing’s damn’ silly,” said Alleyn. “We might be marooned in Antarctica. Anyway, thank Heaven for Fox and Co. Good-bye.”
He hung up the receiver, drove his hands through his hair, and returned to Mandrake’s notes. As a postscript, Mandrake had added a sort of tabulated summary —
If the Murderer mistook William for Nicholas
If the Murderer recognized William
Motive
Opp. 1st attempt
Opp. 2nd attempt
Opp. 3rd attempt
Motive
Reason for other attempts
Dr. Hart
Yes
Yes
Yes
Booby-trap?
Yes
Made against Nicholas
Nicholas Compline
---
---
---
-
--
None
None
Jonathan Royal
None
Possibly
Improbable
Yes?
None
None
Lady Hersey
None
Yes
Yes?
Yes
None
None
Mrs. C.
None
Yes
No
Yes
?
None
Aubrey Mandrake
None
Yes!
No
No
None
None
Madame Lisse
None
Yes
No
Yes
?
None
Chloris Wynne
None
No
Yes
No
None
None
Alleyn shook his head over the last name. “Industrious Mr. Mandrake! But he’s not to be trusted there,” he thought. “We have a young woman who has been jilted by Nicholas, who attracted her. As soon as she engages herself to William, who does not attract her, Nicholas begins to make amorous antics at her all over again. A wicked young woman might wish to get rid of William. A desperate young woman might wish to get rid of Nicholas. And is it quite impossible that Miss Wynne darted down to the pond before making her official arrival with Jonathan? Perhaps it is. I’ll have to go down to that pond.” He lit a cigarette and stared dolefully at the row of “Yeses” against Hart. “All jolly fine, but how the devil did he rig a booby-trap that neither Nicholas nor William noticed? No, it’s not a bad effort on Master Mandrake’s part. But I fancy he’s made one error. Now, I wonder.” And taking up his pen he put a heavy cross against one of Mandrake’s entries. He wandered disconsolately about the library, and finally, with a grimace, let himself into the smoking-room. He went straight to the radio, passing behind the shrouded figure in the chair. This time he did not draw back the curtains from the windows but turned up the lights and used his torch. The wireless cabinet stood on a low stool. Alleyn’s torch-light crawled over the front surface and finally came to rest on the bakelite volume control which he examined through his lens. He found several extremely faint lines inside the screw-hole. There were also faint scratches across the surface outside the hole, making tracks in a film of dust.
The stillness of the room was interrupted by a small murmur of satisfaction. Alleyn got out his pair of tweezers, introduced them delicately into the hole in the volume control. Screwing his face into an excruciating grimace he manipulated his tweezers and finally drew them out. He squatted on the carpet quite close to the motionless folds of white linen. These followed so closely the frozen posture of the figure they concealed that an onlooker might have been visited by the horrid notion that William imitated Alleyn and, under his shroud, conducted a secret scrutiny of the carpet. Allen had laid an envelope on the carpet and on its surface he dropped the minute fragment he had taken in his tweezers. It was scarcely larger than an eyelash. He peered at it through his glass.
“Scarlet. Feather, I think. And a tiny scrap of green,” said Alleyn. And whistling soundlessly he sealed his find up in the envelope.
Next he peered into the crevice between the large and small tuning controls. “Not so much as a speck of dust,” he muttered, “although there’s plenty in the screw-hole. There’s the actual shaft which rotates, of course. It’s reminiscent of a pulley.” He found one or two scratches on the surface of the tuning control. It was just possible through the lens to see that each of these marks had a sharp beginning and a gentler tail, suggesting that some very fine pointed object had struck the surface smartly and fallen away. Alleyn re-examined the carpet. Directly below the wall where the mere had hung, he found one or two marks that he had missed on his first examination. They occurred beneath the small desk that stood under the weapons. Here the pile of the carpet was protected and thick. Across its surface, running roughly parallel with the wall, were a series of marks which, when he examined them through his glass, looked like the traces of some sharp object that had torn across the surface of the pile. In one place he found a little tuft of carpet that had become detached. He photographed this area, fenced it in with chairs, and returned to the library.
Here he found a young footman with a tea-tray.
“Is that for me?” Alleyn asked.
“Yes, sir. I was to ask if there was anything further you required, sir.”
“Nothing, at the moment, thank you. Are you Thomas?”
“Yes, sir,” said Thomas with a nervous simper.
“I’d like a word with you.” Alleyn poured out a cup of tea. “Still keen on ‘Boomps-a-Daisy’?”
Thomas did not answer and Alleyn glanced up at him.
“Never want to hear it again s’long as I live, sir.” said Thomas ardently.
“You needn’t regret your burst of good spirits, you know. It may be very valuable.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Thomas, “but I don’t want to be mixed up in nothing unpleasant, sir. I’ve put my name down, sir, and I’m waiting to be called up. I don’t want to go into the army, sir, with an unpleasantness hanging over me, like.”
Alleyn was only too familiar with this attitude of mind and was careful to reassure Thomas.
“There ought to be no unpleasantness about furthering the cause of justice, and that’s what I hope you may be able to do. I only want you to repeat an assurance you have already given Mr. Royal and Mr. Mandrake. I’m going to put it this way, and I hope you’ll agree that it couldn’t be put more candidly. Would you be prepared to swear that between the time you passed through the hall to the library and the time when you left off dancing, Dr. Hart could not have entered the smoking-room?”
“Yes, sir, I would.”
“You’ve thought it over carefully, I expect, since Mr. Royal spoke to you last night.”
“I have indeed, sir. I have been over and over it in my brain till I can’t seem to think of anything else. But it’s the same every time, sir. Dr. Hart was crossing the hall when I took the tray in, and I wasn’t above a few seconds setting it down, and when I come out, sir, he was half-way up the stairs.”
“Was there a good light on the stairs?”
“Enough to see him, sir.”
“You couldn’t have mistaken somebody else for Dr. Hart?”
“No sir, not a chance, if you’ll excuse me. I saw him quite distinct, sir, walking up with his hands behind his back. He turned the corner and I noticed his face looking sort of — well it’s difficult to describe.”
“Try,” said Alleyn.
“Well, sir, as if he was very worried. Well, kind of frantic, sir. Haunted almost,” added Thomas with an air of surprising himself. “I noticed it particular, sir, because it was just the same as he looked when he was walking in the garden yesterday morning.”
Alleyn’s cup was half-way to his lips. He set it down carefully.
“Did you see Dr. Hart in the garden yesterday morning? Whereabouts?”
“Behind that bathing-shed — I mean that pavilion, sir. We’d heard about the bet Mr. William Compline had on with his brother, sir, and I’m afraid I just nipped out to see the fun, sir. One of the maids kind of kidded me on, if you’ll excuse the expression, sir.”
“I’ll excuse it,” said Alleyn. “Go on, Thomas. Tell me exactly what you did see.”
“Well, sir, I knew Mr. Caper wouldn’t be all that pleased if he knew, so I went out by the east wing door and walked round to the front of the house by a path in the lower gardens. It comes out a little way down the drive, sir.”
“Yes.”
“I dodged across the drive, sir, and up through the trees towards the terrace. I was just above the pavilion, sir, and I looked down and there was the doctor gentleman, with his hands behind his back, walking towards the rear of the pavilion. I’d seen him go
out by the front door before I left, sir. Mr. Royal saw him off.”
“Did you continue to watch him?”
“No, sir, not for long. You see, while I was looking at him, I heard a splash and a great to-do and I ran on to where I could see the pond and there was Mr. Nicholas throwing in one of them floating birds and yelling for help and Mr. Mandrake half drowning in the pond and Mr. William running down the steps, with the young lady and Mr. Royal just crossing the terrace. But the Doctor must have come along as quick as he could, sir, because he got there, just as they hauled Mr. Mandrake out.”
“Did you see anyone else on the terrace? A lady?”
“No, sir.” Thomas waited for a moment and then said: “Will there be anything further, sir?”
“I fancy not, Thomas. I’ll get that down in writing and ask you to sign it. It’lll do very nicely indeed, to go on with.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Thomas primly, and withdrew.
“Dr. Hart,” Alleyn muttered after a long cogitation: “Opportunity for first attempt!” He altered the entry in Mandrake’s tables and rang the bell. It was answered by Caper, a condescension that Alleyn imagined must have been prompted by curiosity. He divided butlers into two classes, the human and the inhuman. Caper, he thought, looked human.
“You rang, sir?” said Caper.
“To send a message to Mr. Nicholas Compline. I don’t want to worry him too much, but I should like to see him if he’s free.”
“I’ll make enquiries, sir,” said Caper. Inhuman butlers, Alleyn reflected, always, “ascertained.”
“Thank you. Before you go, I’d like your opinion on the footman.”
“On Thomas, sir?”
“Yes. I expect he’s told you all about his interviews with Mr. Royal.”
“He has mentioned them, sir.”
“What’s your opinion of him?”
Caper drew down his upper lip, placed Alleyn’s cup and saucer on the tray, and appeared to deliberate. “He’s not cut out for service, sir,” he said finally. “In a manner of speaking he’s too high-spirited.”
“Ah,” Alleyn murmured, “you’ve heard about ‘Boomps-a-Daisy.’ ”
“I have, sir. I was horrified. But it’s not that alone, not by any means. He’s always up to something. There’s no harm in the lad, sir. He’s a nice open truthful lad, but not suitable. He’ll do better in the army.”
