II
‘I’ve been talking,’ Mr Fox remarked, ‘to a Press photographer and the servants.’
‘And I.’ Alleyn said sourly, ‘have been eavesdropping on a pair of lovers. How low can you get? Next stop, with Polonius behind the arras in a bedroom.’
‘All for their good, I dare say,’ Fox observed comfortably.
‘There is that. Fox, that blasted playwright is holding out on us. And on his girl for a matter of that. But I’m damned if I like him as a suspect.’
‘He seems,’ Fox considered, ‘a very pleasant young fellow.’
‘What the devil happened between him and Mary Bellamy when he came back? He won’t tell his girl. He merely says the interview ended in Miss Bellamy laughing. We’ve got the reports from those two intensely prejudiced women who both agree he looked ghastly. All right. He goes out. There’s this crash Florence talked about. Florence goes down to the half-landing and Ninn hears a spray being used. Templeton comes out from the drawing-room to the foot of the stairs. He calls up to Florence to tell her mistress they’re waiting for her. Florence goes up to the room and finds her mistress in her death throes. Dakers returns two hours after the death, comes up to this room, writes a letter and tries to go away. End of information. Next step: confront him with the letter?’
‘Your reconstruction of it?’
‘Oh,’ Alleyn said. ‘I fancy I can lay my hands on the original.’
Fox looked at him with placid approval and said nothing.
‘What did you get from your Press photographer? And which photographer?’ Alleyn asked.
‘He was hanging about in the street and said he’d something to tell me. Put-up job to get inside, of course, but I thought I’d see what it was. He took a picture of deceased with Mr Dakers in the background at twenty to eight by the hall clock. He saw them go upstairs together. Gives us an approximate time for the demise for what it’s worth.’
‘About ten minutes later. What did you extract from the servants?’
‘Not a great deal. It seems the deceased wasn’t all that popular with the staff except Florence, who was hers, as the cook put it, body and soul. Gracefield held out on me for a bit, but he’s taken quite a liking to you, sir, and I built on that with good results.’
‘What the hell have you been saying?’
‘Well, Mr Alleyn, you know as well as I do what snobs these high-class servants are.’
Alleyn didn’t pursue the subject.
‘There was a dust-up,’ Fox continued, ‘this morning with Miss Cavendish and Mr Saracen. Gracefield happened to overhear it.’ He repeated Gracefield’s account, which had been detailed and accurate.
‘According to Anelida Lee this row was revived in the conservatory,’ Alleyn muttered. ‘What were they doing here this morning?’
‘Mr Saracen had come to do the flowers, about which Gracefield spoke very sarcastically, and Miss Cavendish had brought the deceased that bottle of scent.’
‘What! ‘Alleyn ejaculated. ‘Not the muck on her dressing-table? Not “Unguarded”? This morning?’
‘That’s right.’
Alleyn slapped his hand down on Richard’s desk and got up. ‘My God, what an ass I’ve been!’ he said and then, sharply: ‘Who opened it?’
‘She did. In the dining-room.’
‘And used it? Then?’
‘Had a bit of a dab, Gracefield said. He happened to be glancing through the serving-hatch at the time.’
‘What became of it after that?’
‘Florence took charge of it. I’m afraid,’ Fox said, ‘I’m not with you, Mr Alleyn, in respect of the scent.’
‘My dear old boy, think! Think of the bottle.’
‘Very big,’ Fox said judiciously.
‘Exactly. Very big. Well, then – ?’
‘Yes. Ah, yes,’ Fox said, and then: ‘Well, I’ll be staggered!’
‘And so you jolly well should. This could blow the whole damn’ case wide open again.’
‘Will I fetch them?’
‘Do. And call on Florence, wherever she is. Get the whole story, Fox. Tactfully, as usual. Find out when the scent was decanted into the spray and when she used it. Watch the reactions, won’t you? And see if there’s anything in the Plumtree stories: about Richard Dakers’s parentage and Florence being threatened with the sack.’
Fox looked at his watch. ‘Ten o’clock,’ he said. ‘She may have gone to bed.’
‘That’ll be a treat for you. Leave me your notes. Away you go.’
While Fox was on this errand, Alleyn made a plot, according to information, of the whereabouts of Charles Templeton, the four guests, the servants and Richard Dakers up to the time when he himself arrived on the scene. Fox’s spadework had been exhaustive, as usual, and a pretty complicated pattern emerged. Alleyn lifted an eyebrow over the result. How many of them had told the whole truth? Which of them had told a cardinal lie? He put a query against one name and was shaking his head over it when Fox returned.
‘Bailey’s finished with them,’ Fox said, and placed on Richard’s desk the scent spray, the empty ‘Unguarded’ bottle and the tin of Slaypest.
‘What’d he find in the way of dabs?’
‘Plenty. All sorts, but none that you wouldn’t expect. He’s identified the deceased’s. Florence says she and Mr Templeton and Colonel Warrender all handled the exhibits during the day. She says the deceased got the colonel to operate the spray on her, just before the party. Florence had filled it from the bottle.’
‘And how much was left in the bottle?’
‘She thinks it was about a quarter full. She was in bed,’ Fox added in a melancholy tone.
‘That would tally,’ Alleyn muttered. ‘No sign of the bottle being knocked over and spilling, is there?’
‘None.’
Alleyn began to tap the Slaypest tin with his pencil.
‘About half-full. Anyone know when it was first used?’
‘Florence reckons a week ago. Mr Templeton didn’t like her using it and tried to get Florence to make away with it.’
‘Why didn’t she?’
‘No chance according to her. She went into a great taking-on and asked me if I was accusing her of murder.’
‘Did she get the sack, this morning?’
‘When I asked her she went up like a rocket bomb, the story being that Mrs Plumtree has taken against her and let out something that was told in confidence.’
Alleyn put his head in his hands. ‘Oh, Lord!’ he said.
‘You meet that kind of thing,’ Mr Fox observed, ‘in middle-aged ladies. Florence says that when Miss Bellamy or Mrs Templeton was out of humour, she would make out she was going to sack Florence, but there was nothing in it. She says she only told Mrs Plumtree as a joke. I kind of nudged in a remark about Mr Dakers’s parentage, but she wasn’t having any of that. She turned around and accused me of having a dirty mind and in the next breath had another go at Mrs Plumtree. All the same,’ Mr Fox added primly, ‘I reckon there’s something in it. I reckon so from her manner. She appears to be very jealous of anybody who was near the deceased and that takes in Mr Templeton, Mr Dakers, Mrs Plumtree and the colonel.’
‘Good old Florrie,’ Alleyn said absentmindedly.
‘You know, sir,’ Fox continued heavily. ‘I’ve been thinking about the order of events. Take the latter part of the afternoon. Say, from when the colonel used the scent spray on deceased. What happened after that, now?’
‘According to himself he went downstairs and had a quick one with Mrs Templeton in the presence of the servants while Templeton and Dakers were closeted in the study. All this up to the time when the first guests began to come in. It looks good enough, but it’s not cast iron.’
‘Whereas,’ Fox continued, ‘Florence and Mrs Plumtree were upstairs. Either of them could have gone into Mrs Templeton’s room, and got up to the odd bit of hanky-panky, couldn’t they, now?’
‘The story is that they were together in their parlour until they
went downstairs to the party. They’re at daggers-drawn. Do you think that if one of them had popped out of the parlour, the other would feel disposed to keep mum about it?’
‘Ah. There is that, of course. But it might have been forgotten.’
‘Come off it, Foxkin.’
‘The same goes for Mr Templeton and Mr Dakers. They’ve said, independently of each other, that they were together in the study. I don’t know how you feel about that one, Mr Alleyn, but I’m inclined to accept it.’
‘So am I. Entirely.’
‘If we do accept all this, we’ve got to take it that the job was fixed after the guests began to arrive. Now, up to the row in the conservatory the three gentlemen were all in the reception rooms. The colonel was in attendance on the deceased. Mr Templeton was also with her receiving the guests and Mr Dakers was on the look out for his young lady.’
‘What’s more, there was a Press photographer near the foot of the stairs, a cinematographer half-way up, and a subsidiary bar at the foot of the back stairs with a caterer’s man on duty throughout. He saw Florence and Ninn and nobody else go up. What’s that leave us in the way of a roaring-hot suspect?’
‘It means,’ Fox said, ‘either that one of those two women fixed it then …’
‘But when? You mean before they met on the landing and tried to listen in on the famous scene?’
‘I suppose I do. Yes. While the photograph was being taken.’
‘Yes?’
‘Alternatively someone else went up before that.’
‘Again, when? It would have to be after the cinema unit moved away and before Mrs Templeton left the conservatory and came out into the hall where she was photographed with Dakers glowering in the background. And it would have to be before she took him upstairs.’
‘Which restricts you to the entrance with the birthday cake and the speeches. I reckon someone could have slipped upstairs then.’
‘The general attention being focused on the speakers and the stairs being clear? Yes. I agree with you. So far. But, see here, Fox; this expert didn’t do the trick as simply as that. I’m inclined to think there was one more visit at least, more likely that there were two more, one before and one after the death. Tidying up, you know. If I’m right, there was a certain amount of tidying up.’
‘My God,’ Fox began with unwonted heat, ‘what are you getting at, Mr Alleyn? It’s tough enough as it is, d’you want to make it more difficult? What’s the idea?’
‘If it’s any good it’s going to make it easier. Much easier.’
Alleyn stood up.
‘You know, Br’er Fox,’ he said, ‘I can see only one explanation that really fits. Take a look at what’s offering. Suicide? Leave her party, go up to her bedroom and spray herself to death? They all scout the notion and so do I. Accident? We’ve had it: the objection being the inappropriateness of the moment for her to horticult and the nature of the stains. Homicide? All right. What’s the jury asked to believe? That she stood stockstill while her murderer pumped a deluge of Slaypest into her face at long and then at short range? Defending Counsel can’t keep a straight face over that one. But if, by any giddy chance, I’m on the right track, there’s an answer that still admits homicide. Now, listen, while I check over and see if you can spot a weakness.’
Mr Fox listened placidly to a succinct argument, his gaze resting thoughtfully the while on the tin, the bottle, and the scent spray.
‘Yes,’ he said when Alleyn had finished ‘Yes. It adds up, Mr Alleyn. It fits. The only catch that I can see rests in the little difficulty of our having next-to-nothing to substantiate the theory.’
Alleyn pointed a long finger at the exhibits. ‘We’ve got those,’ he said, ‘and it’ll go damn’ hard if we don’t rake up something else in the next half-hour.’
‘Motive?’
‘Motive unknown. It may declare itself. Opportunity’s our bird, Fox. Opportunity, my boy.’
‘What’s the next step?’
‘I rather fancy shock tactics. They’re all cooped up in the dining-room, aren’t they?’
‘All except Mr Templeton. He’s still in the study. When I looked in they were having supper. He’d ordered it for them. Cold partridge,’ Mr Fox said rather wistfully. ‘A bit of a waste, really, as they didn’t seem to have much appetite.’
‘We’ll see if we can stimulate it,’ Alleyn said grimly, ‘with these,’ and waved his hand at the three exhibits.
III
Pinky Cavendish pushed her plate away and addressed herself firmly to her companions.
‘I feel,’ she said, ‘completely unreal. It’s not an agreeable sensation.’ She looked round the table. ‘Is there any reason why we don’t say what’s in all our minds? Here we sit, pretending to eat: every man-jack of us pea-green with worry but cutting the whole thing dead. I can’t do with it. Not for another second. I’m a loquacious woman and I want to talk.’
‘Pinky,’ Timon Gantry said. ‘Your sense of timing! Never quite successfully co-ordinated, dear, is it?’
‘But, actually,’ Bertie Saracen plaintively objected, ‘I do so feel Pinky’s dead right. I mean we are all devastated and for my part, at least, terrified but there’s no real future, is there, in maintaining a charnel-house decorum? It can’t improve anything, or can it? And it’s so excessively wearing. Dicky, dear, you won’t misunderstand me, will you? The hearts, I promise you, are utterly in their right place which, speaking for myself, is in the boots.’
Richard, who had been talking in an undertone to Anelida, looked up. ‘Why not talk,’ he said, ‘if you can raise something that remotely resembles normal conversation.’
Warrender darted a glance at him. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Entirely agree.’ But Richard wouldn’t look at Warrender.
‘Even abnormal conversation,’ Pinky said, ‘would be preferable to strangulated silence.’
Bertie, with an air of relief, said: ‘Well, then, everybody, let’s face it. We’re not being herded together in a’ – he swallowed – ‘in a communal cell just out of constabular whimsy. Now are we?’
‘No, Bertie,’ Pinky said, ‘we are not’
‘Under hawk-like supervision,’ Bertie added, ‘if Sergeant Philpott doesn’t mind my mentioning it.’
PC Philpott, from his post at the far end of the room, said: ‘Not at all, sir,’ and surreptitiously groped for his notebook.
‘Thank you,’ Bertie said warmly. Gracefield and a maid came in and cleared the table in a deathly silence. When they had gone Bertie broke out again. ‘My God,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it as clear as daylight that every one of us, except Anelida, is under suspicion for something none of us likes to mention?’
‘I do,’ Pinky said. ‘I’m all for mentioning it and indeed if I don’t mention it I believe I’ll go off like a geyser.’
‘No, you won’t, dear,’ Gantry firmly intervened. He was sitting next to Pinky and looked down upon her with a crane-like tilt of his head. ‘You’ll behave beautifully and not start any free-associating nonsense. This is not the time for it.’
‘Timmy, darling, I’m sorry as sorry but I’m moved to defy you,’ Pinky announced with a great show of spirit. ‘In the theatre – never. Outside it and under threat of being accused of murder – yes. There!‘ she ejaculated. ‘I’ve said it! Murder. And aren’t you all relieved?’
Bertie Saracen said at once: ‘Bless you, darling. Immeasurably.’
Timon Gantry and Colonel Warrender simultaneously looked at the back of Philpott’s head and then exchanged glances: two men, Anelida felt, of authority at the mercy of an uncontrollable situation.
‘Very well, then,’ Pinky continued. ‘The police think Mary was murdered and presumably they think one of us murdered her. It sounds monstrous but it appears to be true. The point is, does anyone here agree with them?’
‘I don’t,’ Bertie said. He glanced at the serving-hatch and lowered his voice. ‘After all,’ he said uncomfortably, ‘we’re not the only ones.’
 
; ‘If you mean the servants …’ Richard said angrily.
‘I don’t mean anybody in particular,’ Bertie protested in a great hurry.
‘– it’s quite unthinkable.’
‘To my mind,’ Pinky said, ‘the whole thing’s out of this world. I don’t and can’t and won’t believe it of anybody in the house.’
‘Heah, heah,’ Warrender ejaculated lending a preposterously hearty note to the conversation. ‘Ridiculous idea,’ he continued loudly. ‘Alleyn’s behaving altogether too damn’ high-handedly.’ He looked at Richard, hesitated and with an obvious effort said: ‘Don’t you agree?’
Without turning his head, Richard said: ‘He knows his own business, I imagine.’
There was a rather deadly little silence broken by Timon Gantry.
‘For my part,’ Gantry said, ‘I feel the whole handling of the situation is so atrociously hard on Charles Templeton.’
A guilty look came into their faces, Anelida noticed: as if they were ashamed of forgetting Charles. They made sympathetic noises and were embarrassed.
‘What I resent,’ Pinky said suddenly, ‘is being left in the dark. What happened? Why the mystery? Why not accident? All we’ve been told is that poor Mary died of a dose of pest killer. It’s hideous and tragic and we’re all shocked beyond words, but if we’re being kept here under suspicion’ – she brought her clenched fist down on the table – ‘we’ve a right to know why!’
She had raised her not inconsiderable voice to full projection point. None of them had heard the door from the hall open.
‘Every right,’ Alleyn said, coming forward. ‘And I’m sorry that the explanation has been so long delayed.’
The men had half-risen but he lifted his hand and they sat back again. Anelida, for all her anxiety, had time to reflect that he was possessed of an effortless authority before which even Gantry, famous for this quality, became merely one of a controllable group. The attentive silence that descended upon them was of exactly the same kind as that which Gantry himself commanded at rehearsals. Even Colonel Warrender, though he raised his eyebrows, folded his arms and looked uncommonly portentous, found nothing to say.