Death in Ecstasy

  “Waiting for you.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything you can tell me that’s to the purpose.”

  Maurice was silent. Alleyn asked about the smell and heard about the incense. He read Maurice’s previous statement from his notebook.

  “What were you going to say when I came in?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Do you usually speak in half-phrases, Mr. Pringle?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “You said: ‘I’m going to tell them that—’ and then you know I walked in and you stopped.”

  Maurice snatched his left hand out of his pocket and bit at one of his fingers.

  “Come. What did you mean by retribution? What would Mrs. Candour have had so willingly from Miss Quayne? What had Mr. Garnette kept quiet? What were you going to tell them?”

  “I refuse to answer. It’s my affair.”

  “Very good. Fox!”

  “Sir?”

  “Will you tell Miss Jenkins that Mr. Pringle does not wish to make any statements at present and that I think she need not wait? See that she gets a taxi, will you? She’s a bit done up.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “What do you mean?” said Maurice angrily. “I’m taking her home.”

  Fox paused.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to stay a little longer,” said Alleyn.

  “My God, how I hate officials! Sadism at its worst.”

  “Off you go, Fox.”

  “Stay where you are,” said Maurice. “I’ll—what’s the damn’ phrase—I’ll talk.”

  Alleyn smiled and Fox blandly returned to his pew.

  “You are interested in psychoanalysis, Mr. Pringle?” asked Alleyn politely.

  “What’s that got to do with it?” rejoined Maurice, who seemed to have set himself some impossible standard of discourtesy. “I should have thought the British Police Force scarcely knew how to pronounce the word—judging by results.”

  “Someone must have told me about it,” said Alleyn vaguely.

  Maurice looked sharply at him and then turned red. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “This filthy show’s got me all jumpy.”

  “Well it might. I only asked you if you were interested in psychoanalysis because you used that password to the intelligentsia—‘sadism.’ I don’t suppose you know what it means. What are your views on crowd psychology?”

  “Look here, what the hell are you driving at?”

  “On the psychology of oratory, for instance? What do you think happens to people when they come under the sway of, shall we say, a magnetic preacher?”

  “What happens to them! My God, they are his slaves.”

  “Strong,” said Alleyn. “Would you describe this congregation as Mr. Garnette’s slaves?”

  “If you must know—yes. Yes. Yes. Yes!”

  “Yourself included?”

  The boy looked strangely at Alleyn as though he was bringing the inspector into focus. His lips trembled.

  “Look,” he said.

  Alleyn walked up to him, looked steadily in his face, and then murmured, so quietly that Nigel did not hear, a single word. Maurice nodded.

  “How did you guess?”

  “You told me to look. It’s your eyes, you know. Contracted pupils. Also, if you’ll forgive me, your bad manners.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “I suppose not. Is this Mr. Garnette’s doing?”

  “No. I mean somebody gets them for him. He—he gave me special cigarettes. Quite mild really. He said it helped one to become receptive.”

  “No doubt.”

  “And it does! It’s marvellous. Everything seems so clear. Only—only—”

  “It’s more than mild cigarettes now, I think.”

  “Don’t be so bloody superior. Oh, God, I’m sorry!”

  “Do the other Initiates employ this short cut to spiritual ecstasy?”

  “Janey doesn’t. Janey doesn’t know. Nor does Ogden. Don’t tell Janey.”

  “I won’t if I can help it. All the others?”

  “No. Cara Quayne had begun. The Candour does. She did before Father Garnette found her. Ogden and de Ravigne don’t. At least I’m not sure about de Ravigne. I want him to try. Everyone ought to try and you can always leave off.”

  “Can you?” said Alleyn.

  “Of course. I don’t mean to go on with it.”

  “Did you all meet here in Mr. Garnette’s rooms and smoke his cigarettes.”

  “At first. But lately those two—Mrs. Candour and Cara—came at separate times.” Maurice put his hand to his mouth and pulled shakily at his under lip. “And then—then Cara began to make her preparations for Chosen Vessel and she came alone.”

  “I see.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t see. You don’t know. Only I know.” He now spoke rapidly and with great vehemence as though driven by an intolerable urge. “It was one afternoon about three weeks ago when I came in to see him. No one in the church. So I went straight up here—past here—up to the door, his door. I spoke: ‘Are you there, Father?’ They couldn’t have heard. I went in—half in—they didn’t see me. Oh, God! Oh, God! Frigga and Odin. The Chosen Vessel!” He gave a screech of laughter and flung himself into one of the chairs. He buried his face in his arm and sobbed quite loudly with an utter lack of restraint.

  Inspector Fox strolled across the nave and stared with an air of calm appreciation at a small effigy of a most unprepossessing Nordic god. Nigel, acutely embarrassed, bent over his notebook. Detective-Sergeant Bailey emerged from his retreat, cast a glance of weary disparagement at Maurice, and went back again.

  “So that is what you meant by retribution,” said Alleyn. Pringle made a sort of shuddering movement, an eloquent assent.

  A little figure appeared out of the shadows at the end of the hall.

  “Have you quite finished, Inspector Alleyn?” asked Janey.

  She spoke so quietly that it took Nigel a second or two to realise how furiously angry she was.

  “I’ve quite finished,” said Alleyn gravely “You may both go home.”

  She bent over Pringle.

  “Maurice. Maurice darling, let’s go.”

  “Let me alone, Janey.”

  “Of course I won’t. I want you to take me home.”

  She spoke softly to him for a minute and then he got up. She took his arm. Alleyn stood aside.

  “I could murder you for this,” said Janey.

  “Oh, my child, don’t talk like that!” exclaimed Alleyn with so much feeling that Nigel stared.

  Janey looked again at the inspector. Perhaps she saw something in his dark face that made her change her mind.

  “All right, I won’t,” said Janey.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Temperament of M. de Ravigne

  AFTER MAURICE had been searched and sent home Nigel approached Alleyn with a certain air of imbecile fractiousness that he assumed whenever he wished to annoy the inspector.

  “Will somebody,” asked Nigel plaintively, “be good enough to explain that young man’s behaviour to me?”

  “What?” asked Alleyn absently.

  “I want to know your explanation for Pringleism. Why did Pringle ask you to look at him? Why did you look at him? What did you say to Pringle? And why did Pringle cry?”

  “Fox,” said Alleyn, “will you take Form One for this evening?”

  “Very good,” said Fox, returning from his god. “What is it you were inquiring about, Mr. Bathgate?”

  “Pringleism.’’

  “Meaning the young gentleman’s behaviour, sir? Well, it was rather unusual I must say. My idea is he takes something that isn’t good for him.”

  “What do you mean, Inspector Fox? Something dietetically antagonistic? Oysters and whisky?”

  “Heroin and hot air,” snapped Alleyn. “Oh, Mr. Garnette, Mr. Garnette, it shall go hard if I do not catch you bending.”

  “I say!” said Nigel. “D
o you think Garnette—”

  “Let us have the French gentleman, please, Bailey,” interrupted Alleyn.

  Monsieur de Ravigne emerged with an air of sardonic aloofness. He was a good-looking man, tall for a Frenchman and extremely well groomed. He saw Alleyn and walked quickly down towards him.

  “You wish to speak to me, Inspector Alleyn?”

  “If you please, M. de Ravigne. Will you sit down?”

  “After you, monsieur.”

  “No, no, monsieur, please?’

  They murmured and skirmished while Fox gazed at them in mild enchantment. At last they both sat down. M. de Ravigne crossed his legs and displayed an elegant foot.

  “And now, sir?” he inquired.

  “You are very obliging, monsieur. It is the merest formality. A few questions that we are obliged to ask in our official capacity. I am sure you understand.”

  “Perfectly. Let us discharge this business.”

  “Immediately. First, were you aware of any unusual or peculiar odour during the ceremony of the cup?”

  “You allude, of course, to the odour of prussic acid,” said M. de Ravigne.

  “Certainly. May I ask how you realise the poison used was a cyanide?”

  “I believe you yourself mentioned it, monsieur. If you did not it is no matter. I understood immediately that Cara was poisoned by cyanide. No other poison is so swift, and after she fell—” he broke off, became a little paler and then went on composedly “—after she fell, I bent over her and then—and then—I smelt it.”

  “I see. But not until then?”

  “Not until then—no. The odour of the incense—sweet almond the acolyte tells me—was overpowering and, strangely enough, similar.”

  De Ravigne turned stiffly towards Alleyn.

  “My Cara was murdered. That I know well. It is possible, Mr. Inspector, that this similarity is a little too strange?”

  “It is a point I shall remember, monsieur. You have used the expression ‘My Cara.’ Am I to understand that between you and Miss Quayne—”

  “But yes. I adored her. I asked her many times to do me the honour of becoming my wife. She was, unhappily, indifferent to me. She was devout, you understand, altogether dedicated to the religious life. I see you look fixedly at me, monsieur. You are thinking perhaps that I am too calm. You have the idea of the excitable Frenchman. I should wave my hands and weep and roll about my eyes and even have a hysteric, like that little animal of a Claude.”

  “No, Monsieur de Ravigne. Those were not my thoughts.”

  “N’importe,” murmured de Ravigne.

  “On n’est pas dupe de son coeur—” began Alleyn.

  “I see I misjudged you, M. l’Inspecteur. You have not the conventional idea of my countrymen. Also you speak with a charming and correct accent.”

  “You are too kind, monsieur. Has the possibility of suicide occurred to you?”

  “Why should she wish to die? She was beautiful and—loved.”

  “And not poor?”

  “I believe, not poor.”

  “Did you notice her movements when she held the cup?”

  “No. I did not watch,” said de Ravigne.

  “You are religious yourself, of course, or you would not be here?” remarked Alleyn after a pause.

  M. de Ravigne delicately moved his shoulders: “I am intrigued with this church and its ceremonial. Also the idea of one godhead embracing all gods appeals to my temperament. One must have a faith, I find. It is not in my temperament to be an atheist.”

  “When did you first attend the services?”

  “It must be—yes, I think about two years ago.”

  “And you became an Initiate—when?”

  “Three months ago, perhaps.”

  “Are you a subscriber to the organisation? We must ask these questions, as I am sure you understand.”

  “Certainly, monsieur, one must do one’s job. I subscribe a little, yes. Five shillings in the offertory always and at special times a pound. Fifty pounds when I first came. This temple was then recently established. I presented the goblet—an old one in my own family.”

  “A beautiful piece. Baroque at its best,” said Alleyn.

  “Yes. It has its history, that cup. Also I gave a statuette. In the shrine on your right, monsieur.”

  Alleyn looked at the wall and found M. de Ravigne’s statuette. It was cast in bronze with a curious plucked technique and represented a nebulous nude figure wearing a winged helmet from which there emerged other and still more nebulous forms.

  “Ah yes,” said Alleyn, “most interesting. Who is the artist?”

  “Myself in ecstasy, monsieur,” replied M. de Ravigne coolly.

  Alleyn glanced at his shrewd, dark face and murmured politely.

  “My temperament,” continued M. de Ravigne, “is artistic. I am, I fear, a dilettante. I model a little, comme çi, comme ça, I write a little, trifles of elegance. I collect. I am not rich, M. l’Inspecteur, but I amuse myself.”

  “A delightful existence. I envy you, monsieur. But, we must get back to business.”

  A dim bass rumble from the rear seemed to suggest that Inspector Fox had essayed: “Revenons á nos moutons,” and had got lost on the way.

  “I understand,” said Alleyn, “that Miss Quayne has no relations in England. There must be someone surely?”

  “On the contrary. She has told me that there are none. Cara was an only child and an orphan. She was educated abroad at a convent. Her guardians are both dead.”

  “You met her abroad perhaps?”

  “Yes. In France years ago at the house of a friend.”

  “Did Miss Quayne introduce you to this hall?”

  “No, monsieur. Alas, it was I who introduced her to the ceremonies.”

  “Returning to her connections, monsieur. Is there no one with whom we should get in touch?”

  “Her notary—her solicitor.”

  “Of course. Do you know who that is?”

  “I have heard. One moment. It is—tiens!—a name like Rats. No. Rattingtown. No.”

  “Not Rattisbon by any chance?”

  “That is it. You know him?”

  “Slightly. Where will the money go, Monsieur de Ravigne?” M. de Ravigne hitched up his shoulders, elevated his brows, protruded his eyes and pursed his lips.

  “I see,” said Alleyn.

  “This I do know,” conceded M. de Ravigne. “Much will go to this church. Five thousand pounds are reposed in the safe here in bearer bonds to await a further subscription. But there will be more for this church. Once Cara told me she had altered her Will for the purpose. It was then I heard the name of this Mr. Rats.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Alleyn politely. “To go to another aspect of the case, do you know anything of the procedure for preparing the cup?”

  “Nothing, monsieur. I am not interested in such affairs. To know the machinery of the service would damage my spiritual poise. Such is my temperament.”

  “You do not choose to look behind the scenes?”

  “Precisely. There must be certain arrangements. A flame does not make itself from nothing, one realises, but I do not wish to inquire into these matters. I enjoy the results.”

  “Quite so,” said Alleyn. “I think that will be all, monsieur. Thank you a thousand times for your courtesy.”

  “Not at all, monsieur! It is you who have displayed courtesy. If I can be of further use—it is perhaps a matter of some delicacy, but I assure you that anything I can do to help you—I shall not rest content until this animal is trapped. If there should be a question of expense—you understand?”

  “You are very good—”

  “Tout au contraire, monsieur.”

  “—but it is for information we ask. Do you object to our searching you, monsieur?”

  “I object very much, monsieur, but I submit.” Fox searched him and found nothing but money, a chequebook and a photograph.

  “Mon Dieu!” said de Ravigne. “Must you paw it over in
your large hands? Give it to me.”

  “Pardon, monsoor,” said Fox hastily, and gave it to him.

  “It is Cara Quayne,” said de Ravigne to Alleyn. “I am sorry if I was too hasty.”

  “I am sure Inspector Fox understands. Good night, M. de Ravigne.”

  “Good night, M. l’Inspecteur.”

  “Well,” said Fox when the Frenchman was gone. “Well, that was a fair treat, sir. As soon as you spoke to the gentleman in his own tongue he came along like a lamb. There’s the advantage of languages. It puts you on an equal footing, so to speak. I wonder you didn’t carry on the rest of the interview in French.”

  “Fox!” said Alleyn with the oddest look at him. “You make me feel a bloody fool sometimes.”

  “Me?” exclaimed Fox, looking blandly astonished.

  “Yes, you. Tell me, have you any comments to make on the Frenchman?”

  Fox wiped his enormous paw slowly down his face.

  “Well, no,” he said slowly, “except he seemed—well, sir, it’s a rum thing two of the gentlemen should offer money for the police investigations. An unheard-of idea. But of course they were both foreigners. As far as Mr. Ogden is concerned, well, we have heard of the word ‘racket,’ haven’t we?”

  “Exactly,” agreed Alleyn dryly. “I imagine his proposal is not unusual in the States.”

  “Ogden’s too good to be true,” interrupted Nigel. “You mark my words,” he added darkly, “he was trying to bribe you.”

  “Bribe us to do what, my dear Bathgate? To catch a murderer?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Nigel loftily.

  “And was M. de Ravigne also attempting to undermine the honour of the force?”

  “Oh,” said Nigel, “de Ravigne’s a Frenchman. He is no doubt over-emotionalised and—and—oh, go to the devil.”

  “It seems to me,’’ rumbled Fox, “that we ought to have a look at the little bottle in the cupboard—the one Mr. Wheatley talked about.”

  “I agree. We’ll move into Mr. Garnette’s ‘little dwelling.’ By the way, where is Mr. Garnette? Is he still in the vestry being searched?”

  As if in answer to Alleyn’s inquiry, the vestry door opened and the priest came out. He was now dressed in a long garment made of some heavy, dark-green material. The plain-clothes man who had escorted him into the vestry came to the door and stared after the priest with an air of disgusted bewilderment.