Overture to Death

  “I understand, sir,” said Fox, looking hard at Henry. “Perhaps if I could just have a word with Miss Prentice.”

  “Oh, Lord!” said Henry ruefully. “Look here, Mr. Fox, you’ll find her pretty rum. You’ll think we specialize in eccentric spinsters in this part of the world, but I promise you I think the shock of this business has pushed her off at the deep-end. She seems to think the murderer’s made a mess of the first attempt, and sooner or later will have another go at her.”

  “That’s not unnatural, is it, sir? Perhaps the lady would feel more comfortable with police protection.”

  “I pity the protector,” said Henry. “Well, I suppose I’d better see if she’ll come down.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind, sir,” said Fox comfortably.

  In some trepidation, Henry mounted the stairs and tapped on Miss Prentice’s door. There was no answer. He tapped again. The door opened suddenly and Miss Prentice was revealed with her fingers to her lips, like some mysterious bucktoothed sybil.

  “What’s happened!” she whispered.

  “Nothing’s happened, Cousin Eleanor. It’s simply one of the men from Scotland Yard with a rather childish question to ask you.”

  “Is that woman there? I won’t meet that woman.”

  “Mrs. Ross has gone.”

  “Henry, is that true?”

  “Of course it’s true.”

  “Now I’ve made you angry again. You’re very unkind to me, Henry.”

  “My dear Cousin Eleanor!”

  Her hand moved restlessly across the bosom of her dress.

  “Yes, you are. So unkind. And I’m so fond of you. It’s only for your own good. You’re young and strong and handsome. All the Jernighams are very strong and beautiful. Don’t listen to women like that, Henry. Don’t listen to any woman. They’ll do you harm. Except dear Dinah.”

  “Will you come down and speak to Inspector Fox?”

  “It’s not a trap to make me meet that woman? Why is it a different man? Fox? Where’s the other man? He was a gentleman. So tall! Taller than Father Copeland.”

  He saw with astonishment that the movement of her hand traced a definite pattern on her bosom. She was crossing herself.

  “This man is perfectly harmless,” said Henry. “Do come.”

  “Very well. My head’s splitting. I suppose I must come.”

  “That’s better,” said Henry. He added awkwardly: “Cousin Eleanor, your dress is undone.”

  “Oh!” She blushed crimson and, to his horror, laughed shrilly and turned aside her head. Her fingers fumbled with the fastening of her dress. Then she shrank past him and, with a kind of coquettishness in her gait, hurried downstairs.

  Henry followed with a sinking heart and escorted her to the study. His father had returned and stood before the fire. Jocelyn glared uncomfortably at Miss Prentice.

  “Hullo, Eleanor, here you are. This is Inspector Fox.”

  Miss Prentice offered her hand and, as soon as Fox touched it, snatched it away. Her eyes were downcast, her hands pleated a fold in her dress. Fox looked calmly at her.

  “I’m sorry to trouble you, Miss Prentice. I only wanted to ask if you opened one of the hall windows as you left at noon on Saturday.”

  “Oh, yes,” she whispered. “Was that the unpardonable sin?”

  “I beg your pardon, miss?”

  “Did I let it in?”

  “Let what in, Miss Prentice?”

  “You know. But I only opened it the least little bit. A tiny crack. Of course it can make itself very small, can’t it?”

  Fox adjusted his spectacles and made a note. “You did open the window?” he said.

  “You shouldn’t keep on asking. You know I did.”

  “Mss Prentice, did you find anything in the teapot you were to use on the stage?”

  “Is that where it hid?”

  “Where what hid?”

  “The unpardonable sin. You know. The thing she did!”

  “You’re talking nonsense, Eleanor,” said Jocelyn. He got behind her and made violent grimaces at Fox.

  “I’m sorry if I irritate you, Jocelyn.”

  “You don’t know anything about an onion that a small boy put in the teapot, Miss Prentice?”

  She opened her eyes very wide and shaped her mouth like an O. Then she slowly shook her head. Once started, she seemed unable to leave off shaking her head, but went on and on until the movement lost all meaning.

  “Well,” said Fox, “I think that’s all I need trouble you about, thank you, Miss Prentice.”

  “Henry,” said Jocelyn. “See your cousin upstairs.”

  She went without another word. Henry hurried after her. Jocelyn turned to Fox.

  “See how it is!” he said. “The shock sent her out of her mind. There are no two ways about it. See for yourself. Have to get a specialist. Better not believe a word she says.”

  “She’s never been like this before, sir?”

  “Good God, no.”

  “That’s very distressing, sir, isn’t it? The chief inspector asked me to speak to you, sir, about this evening. He thinks it would be a good idea to see, at the same time, all the people who were in the play, and he wonders if you would be good enough to send your party down to the hall.”

  “I must say I don’t quite see—As a matter of fact I’ve asked the Copelands for dinner to talk things over.”

  “That will fit in very nicely, then, won’t it, sir? You can come on to the hall.”

  “Yes, but I don’t see what good it’ll do.”

  “The chief inspector will explain, when he comes, sir. He asked me to say he’d be very much obliged if you would give the lead in this little matter. In view of your position in the county, sir, he thought you would prefer to come before the others. You’ve two cars, haven’t you, sir?”

  “I suppose I’d better.” Jocelyn stared very hard at a portrait of his actress-ancestress and said, “Have you got any idea who it is?”

  “I couldn’t say what the chief intends just at the moment, sir,” answered Fox so blandly that the evasion sounded exactly like a direct answer. “No doubt he will report to you himself, sir. Would nine o’clock suit you at the hall, Mr. Jernigham?’

  “What? Oh yes. Yes, certainly.”

  “I’m much obliged, sir. I’ll say good-afternoon.”

  “Good-afternoon,” said Jocelyn restlessly.

  “This is Miss Bruce,” said the supervisor. “She was on duty on Friday night, but I doubt if she’ll be able to help you.”

  Fox looked placidly at Miss Bruce and noted that she seemed a bright young person.

  He said, “Well, Miss Bruce, we’ll be very pleased if you can put us right in this little matter. I understand you were on duty as an operator at ten o’clock on Friday evening.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Yes. Now the call we’re interested in came through somewhere round about 10.30. It was to the rectory, Winton St. Giles. It’s a party line with the old manual telephones and a long extension. Not many of those left, are there?”

  “They’ll be gone by this time next year,” said the supervisor.

  “Is that a fact?” said Fox comfortably. “Well, well. Now, Miss Bruce, can you help us?”

  “I don’t remember any calls on the rectory phone on Friday night,” said Miss Bruce. “Chipping 10, the number is. I’m in the Y.P.F.C., so I know. We always have to ring a long time there, because the old housemaid Mary’s a bit deaf, and Miss Dinah’s room’s away upstairs, and the rector never answers until he’s fetched. It’s a line that’s used a lot, of course.”

  “It would be.”

  “Yes. Friday was Reading Circle night, and they’re usually over at the hall, so everybody knows not to ring up on Friday, see, because they won’t be in. Actually, last Friday it was at the rectory because of the play; but people wouldn’t know that, see. They’d think: ‘Well, Friday. It’s no use ringing on Friday.’ ”

  “So you’re sure nobody rang
?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m sure of it. I’d swear to it if that’s what’s wanted.”

  “If the extension was used you wouldn’t know, I suppose?”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  “No,” agreed Fox. “Well, thank you very much, miss. I’m greatly obliged. Good-afternoon.”

  “Pleasure, I’m sure,” said Miss Bruce. “Ta-ta.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Final Vignettes

  THE EXPRESS FROM London roared into Great Chipping station. Alleyn, who had been reading the future in the murky window pane, rose hurriedly, and put on his overcoat.

  Fox was on the platform.

  “Well, Brer Fox?” said Alleyn when they reached the Biggins’s Ford.

  “Well, sir, the Yard car’s arrived. They’re to drive up quietly after we’ve all assembled. Alison can come into the supper-room with his two men and I’ll wait inside the front door.”

  “That’ll be all right. I’d better give you all a cue to stand by, as Miss Copeland would say. Let’s see. I’ll ask Miss Prentice if she’s feeling the draught. We’ll sit on the stage round that table so there’ll probably be a hell of a draught. How did you get on at Pen Cuckoo?”

  “She was there.”

  “Not?”

  “Ross or Rosen. You had a lucky strike there, Mr. Alleyn. Fancy her being Claude Smith’s girl. We were on the Quantock case at that time, weren’t we?”

  “We weren’t at the Yard, anyway. I’ve never seen her before this.”

  “Nor’ve I. Well, she was there. Something up—between him and her—I should say.”

  “Between who and her, Mr. Fox?” asked Nigel. “You’re very dark and cryptic this evening.”

  “Between Jernigham senior and Mrs. Ross, Mr. Bathgate. When I arrived he was looking peculiar, and Mr. Henry seemed as if he thought something was up. She was cool enough, but I’d say the other lady was a case for expert opinion.”

  “Miss Prentice?” murmured Alleyn.

  “That’s right, sir. Young Jernigham went and fetched her. She owned up to opening the window as sweet as you please, and then began to talk a lot of nonsense about letting in the unpardonable sin. I took it all down, but you’d be surprised how silly it was.”

  “The unpardonable sin? Which one’s that, I wonder?”

  “Nobody owned to the onion,” said Fox gloomily.

  “I think onions, in any form, the unpardonable sin,” said Nigel.

  “I reckon you’re right about the onion, Mr. Alleyn.”

  “I think so, Fox. After all, on finding onions in teapots, why not exclaim on the circumstance? Why not say, ‘Georgie Biggins for a certainty,’ and raise hell?”

  “That’s right, sir. Well, from the way they shaped up to the question, you’d say none of them had ever smelt one. Mr. Jernigham’s talking about getting a doctor in. Do you know what? I think he’s sweet on her. On Rosen, I mean.”

  Fox changed into second gear for Chipping Rise and said, “The telephone’s right. I told you that when I rang up, didn’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’ve seen the four girls who helped Gladys Wright. Three of them are ready to swear on oath that nobody came down into the hall from the stage, and the fourth is certain nobody did, but wouldn’t swear, as she went into the porch for a minute. I’ve re-checked the movements of all the people behind the scenes. Mr. Copeland sat facing the footlights from the time he got there until he went in to Mr. Jernigham’s room, when they tried to telephone to Mrs. Ross. He went back to the stage and didn’t leave it again until they all crowded round Miss Prentice.”

  “I think it’s good enough, Fox.”

  “I think so, too. This Chief Constable business is awkward, isn’t it, Mr. Alleyn?”

  “It is, indeed. I know of no precedent. Oh, well, we’ll see what the preliminary interview does. You arranged that?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s all right: Did you dine on the train?”

  “Yes, Fox. The usual dead fish and so on. Mr. Bathgate wants to know who did the murder.”

  “I do know,” said Nigel in the back seat, “but I won’t let on.”

  “D’you want to stop at the pub, Mr. Alleyn?

  “No. Let’s get it over, Brer Fox, let’s get it over.”

  At Henry’s suggestion, they had invited Dinah and the rector to dinner.

  “You may as well take Dinah and me for granted, father. We’re not going to give each other up, you know.”

  “I still think—however!”

  And Henry, watching his father, knew that the afternoon visit of Miss Campanula’s lawyers to the rectory, was Vale property. Jocelyn boggled and tittered inarticulate noises; but already, Henry thought, his father was putting a new roof on Winton. It would be better not to speak, thought Henry, of his telephone conversation with Dinah after Fox had gone. For Dinah had told Henry that her father felt he could not accept the fortune left him by Idris Campanula.

  Henry said, “I don’t suppose you suspect either the rector or Dinah, do you, even though they do get the money? They don’t suspect us. Cousin Eleanor, who suspects God knows who, is in her room and won’t appear until dinner.”

  “She ought not to be alone.”

  “One of the maids is with her. She’s quietened down again and is quite normally long-suffering and martyred.”

  Jocelyn looked nervously at Henry.

  “What do you think’s the matter with her?”

  “Gone ravers,” said Henry cheerfully.

  The Copelands accepted the invitation to dinner. Sherry was served in the library, but Henry managed to get Dinah into the study, where he had made up a large fire and had secretly placed an enormous bowl of yellow chrysanthemums.

  “Darling Dinah,” said Henry, “there are at least fifty things of the most terrific importance to say to you, and when I look at you I can’t think of one of them. May I kiss you? We’re almost publicly betrothed, aren’t we?”

  “Are we? You’ve never really asked for my hand.”

  “Miss Copeland—may I call you Dinah?—be mine. Be mine.”

  “I may not deny, Mr. Jernigham, that my sensibilities; nay, since I will not dissemble, my affections are touched by this declaration. I cannot hear you unmoved.”

  Henry kissed her and muttered in her ear that he loved her very much.

  “All the same,” said Dinah, “I do wonder why Mr. Alleyn wants us to go down to the hall to-night. I don’t want to go. The place gives me the absolute horrors.”

  “Me too Dinah, I made such a fool of myself last night.”

  He told her how he had heard the three chords of the “Prelude” as he came through the storm.

  “I would have died of it,” said Dinah. “Henry, why do they want us to-night? Are they—are they going to arrest someone?”

  “Who?” asked Henry.

  They stared solemnly at each other.

  “Who indeed,” said Dinah.

  “I tell you, Copeland, I’m pretty hard hit,” said the squire, giving himself a whisky-and-soda. “It’s so beastly uncomfortable. Have some more sherry? Nonsense, it’ll do you good. You’re not looking particularly happy yourself.”

  “It’s the most dreadful thing that has ever happened to any of us,” said the rector. “How’s Miss Prentice?”

  “That’s partly what I want to talk about. I ought to warn you—”

  The rector listened with a steadily blanching face to Jocelyn’s account of Miss Prentice.

  “Poor soul,” he said, “poor soul.”

  “Yes, I know, but it’s damned inconvenient. I’m sorry, rector, but it—well, it’s—it’s—Oh, God!”

  “Would you like to tell me?” asked the rector, and if he spoke at all wearily Jocelyn did not notice it.

  “No,” said Jocelyn, “no. There’s nothing to tell. I’m simply rather worried. What d’you suppose is the meaning of this meeting to-night?”

  The rector looked curiously at him.

&nbs
p; “I thought you probably knew. Your position, I mean—”

  “As the weapon happens to be my property, I felt it better to keep right out of the picture. Technically, I’m a suspect.”

  “Yes. Dear me, yes.” The rector sipped his sherry. “So are we all, of course.”

  “I wonder,” said the squire, “what Alleyn is up to.”

  “You don’t think he’s going to—to arrest anybody?”

  They stared at each other.

  “Dinner is served, sir,” said Taylor.

  “Good-night, dear,” said Dr. Templett to his wife. “I expect you’ll be asleep when I get home. I’m glad it’s been a good day.”

  “It’s been a splendid day,” said the steadfastly gallant voice. “Good-night, my dear.”

  Templett shut the door softly. The telephone pealed in his dressing-room at the end of the landing. The hospital was to ring before eight. He went to his dressing-room and lifted the receiver.

  “Hullo?’

  “Is that you, Billy?

  He sat frozen, the receiver still at his ear.

  “Billy? Hullo? Hullo?”

  “Well?” said Dr. Templett.

  “Then you are alive,” said the voice.

  “I haven’t been arrested, after all.”

  “Nor, strangely enough, have I, in spite of the fact that I’ve been to Alleyn and taken the whole responsibility of the letter—”

  “Selia! Not on the telephone!”

  “I don’t much care what happens to me now. You’ve let me down. Nothing else matters.”

  “What do you mean? No, don’t tell me! It’s not true.”

  “Very well. Good-bye, Billy.”

  “Wait! Have you been told to parade at the hall this evening?”

  “Yes. Have you?”

  “Yes.” Dr. Templett brushed his hand across his eyes. He muttered hurriedly: “I’ll call for you.”

  “What?”

  “If you like I’ll drive you there.”

  ‘I’ve got my own car. You needn’t bother.”

  “I’ll pick you up at nine.”

  “And drop me a few minutes later, I suppose?”