Death in a White Tie

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Simple Soldier-man

Marsdon House had been put into a sort of cold-storage by the police. Dimitri’s men had done a certain amount of clearing up before Alleyn’s men arrived, but for the most part the great house seemed to be suffering from a severe form of carry-over. It smelt of stale cigarette butts. They were everywhere, bent double, stained red, stained brown, in ash-trays, fireplaces and waste-paper boxes; ground into the ballroom floor, dropped behind chairs, lurking in dirty cups and floating in a miserable state of disintegration among the stalks of dying flowers. Upstairs in the ladies’ dressing-room they lay in drifts of spilt powder, and in the green boudoir someone had allowed a cigarette to eat a charred track across the margin of a pie-crust table.

Alleyn and Fox stood in the green boudoir and looked at the telephone.

“There he sat,” said Alleyn, and once more he quoted: “ ‘The cakes-and-ale feller. Might as well mix his damn brews with poison. And he’s working with —’ Look, Fox, he must have sat in this chair, facing the door. He wouldn’t see anybody coming because of that very charming screen. Imagine our interloper sneaking through the door. He catches a word that arrests his attention, stops for a second and then, realising what Lord Robert is doing, comes round the screen. Lord Robert looks up: ‘Hullo, I didn’t see you,’ and knowing he has just mentioned the Yard, pitches his lost property story and rings off. I’ve left word at the Yard that every name on that guest list is to be traced and each guest asked as soon as possible if he or she butted in on that conversation. I’m using a lot of men on this case, but the AC’s behaving very prettily, thank the Lord. Get that PC, will you?”

The constable who had been left in charge reported that Detective-Sergeant Bailey had been all over the room for prints and had gone to the Yard before lunch.

“Is the telephone still switched through to this room?”

“I believe so, sir. Nothing’s been touched.”

“Fox, ring up the Yard and see if there’s anything new.”

While Fox was at the telephone Alleyn prowled about the room looking with something like despair at the evidence of so many visitors. It was useless to hope that anything conclusive would be deduced from Bailey’s efforts. They might find Lord Robert’s prints on the telephone but what was the good of that? If they could separate and classify every print that had been left in the room it would lead them exactly nowhere.

Fox turned away from the telephone.

“They’ve got through the list of guests, sir. Very smart work. Five men on five telephones. None of the guests admit to having overheard Lord Robert, and none of the servants.”

“That’s our line, then. Find the interloper. Somehow I thought it would come to that.” Alleyn wandered about the room. “Davidson was right; it’s a pleasant room.”

“The house belongs to an uncle of Lady Carrados, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, General Marsdon. He would appear to be a fellow of taste. The Greuze is charming. And these enamels. Where’s the offensive Cellini conversion, I wonder.” He bent over the pie-crust table. “Nothing like it here. That’s funny. Davidson said it was on this table, didn’t he? It’s neither here nor anywhere else in the room. Rum! Must have belonged to one of the guests. Nothing much in it. Still, we’d better check it. What a hellish bore! All through the guests again, unless we strike it lucky! François might have noticed it sometime when he was doing the ash-trays. Better ask him.”

He rang up François, who said he knew nothing of any stray cigarette-case. Alleyn sighed and took out his notes. Fox cruised solemnly about the top landing.

“Hi!” called Alleyn after ten minutes. “Hi! Fox!”

“Hullo, sir?”

“I’ve been trying to piece these people’s movements together. As far as I can see, it goes something like this. Now pay attention, because it’s very muddly and half the time I won’t know what I’m talking about. Some time during the supper interlude Lady Carrados left her bag in this room. François saw Dimitri collect it and go downstairs. Miss Troy, who was dancing with Bunchy, saw him return the bag to Lady Carrados in the ballroom. Miss Troy noticed it looked much emptier than before. We don’t know if there were any witnesses to the actual moment when she left the bag, but it doesn’t matter. Bunchy saw her receive it from Dimitri. At one o’clock he rang me up to say he had a strong line on the blackmailer and the crucial conversation took place. Now, according to François, there were four people who might have overheard this conversation. Withers, Donald Potter, Sir Herbert Carrados, and the colourless Miss Harris, who may or may not have been in the lavatory, but was certainly on this landing. Someone else may have come and gone while François was getting matches for the enraged Carrados. On Francois’s return he went into the telephone-room and found it empty. Sounds easier when you condense it. All right. Our job is to find out if anyone else could have come upstairs, listened to the telephone, and gone down again while François was in the servants’ quarters. Withers says he heard the telephone when he was in the other sitting-room. He also says Carrados was up here at that time so, liar though no doubt he is, it looks as if he spoke the truth about that. Come on, Fox, let’s prowl.”

The gallery was typical of most large, old-fashioned London houses. The room with the telephone was at the far end, next it was a lavatory. This turned out to be a Victorian affair with a small ante-room and a general air of varnish and gloom. The inner door was half-panelled with thick clouded glass which let through a little murky daylight. Beyond it was a bedroom that had been used as a ladies’ cloakroom and last, at the top of the stairs, the second sitting-out room. Beside the door of this room was another green baize door leading to servants’ quarters and back stairs. The other side of the gallery was open and looked over the great well of the house. Alleyn leant on the balustrade and stared down the steep perspective of twisting stairs into the hall two storeys below.

“A good vantage spot this,” he said. “We’ll go down, now.”

On the next landing was the ballroom. Nothing could have looked more desolate than the great empty floor, the chairs that wore that disconcerting air of talking to each other, the musicians’ platform, littered with cigarette butts and programmes. A fine dust lay over everything and the great room echoed to their footsteps. The walls sighed a little as though the air imprisoned behind them sought endlessly for escape. Alleyn and Fox hunted about but found nothing to help them and went down the great stairs to the hall.

“Here he stood,” said Alleyn, “at the foot of the left-hand flight of stairs. Dimitri is not far off. Sir Daniel came out of the cloakroom over there on the left. The group of noisy young people was nearer the front entrance. And through this door, next the men’s cloakroom, was the buffet. Let’s have a look at it. You’ve seen all this before, Brer Fox, but you must allow me to maunder on.”

They went into the buffet.

“It stinks like a pot-house, doesn’t it? Look at Dimitri’s neat boxes of empty champagne bottles under the tables. Gaiety at ten pounds a dozen. This is where Donald and Bridget came from in the penultimate scene and where Dimitri and Carrados spoke together just before Lord Robert left. And for how long afterwards? Look, Fox, here’s a Sherlock Holmes touch. A cigar stump lying by a long trace of its own ash. A damn good cigar and has been carefully smoked. Here’s the gentleman’s glass beside it and here, on the floor, is the broken band. A Corona-Corona.” Alleyn sniffed at the glass. “Brandy. Here’s the bottle, Courvoisier ’87. I’ll wager that wasn’t broadcast among the guests. More likely to have been kept for old Carrados. Fox, ring up Dimitri and find out if Sir Herbert drank brandy and smoked a cigar when he came in here after the party. And at the same time you might ask if we can see the Carrados family in about half an hour. Then we’ll have to go on to the Halcut-Hackett group. Their house is close by here, Halkin Street. We’ll have to come back. I want to see Carrados first. See if General and Mrs Halcut-Hackett will see us in about two hours, will you, Fox?”

Fox padded off to the telephone and Alleyn went through the second door of the buffet into a back passage. Here he found the butler’s pantry. Dimitri’s supper tray was still there. “He did himself very well,” thought Alleyn, noticing three or four little green-black pellets on a smeared plate. “Caviare. And here’s the wing of a bird picked clean. Champagne, too. Sleek Mr Dimitri, eating away like a well-fed cat behind the scenes.”

He rejoined Fox in the hall. “Mr Dimitri,” said Fox, “remembered giving Sir Herbert Carrados brandy from a special bottle reserved for him. He thought that Sir Herbert smoked a cigar while he took his brandy, but would not swear to it.”

“We’d better print the brandy-glass,” said Alleyn. ”I’ll get Bailey to attend to it and then, I think, they can clean up here. How did you get on?”

“All right, sir. The Halcut-Hacketts will see us any time later on this afternoon.”

“What about Carrados?”

“He came to the telephone,” said Fox. “He’ll see us if we go round now.”

“How did he sound? Bloody-minded?”

“If you like to put it that way, sir. He seemed to be sort of long-suffering, more than angry, I thought, and said something about hoping he knew his duty. He mentioned that he is a great personal friend of the chief commissioner.”

“Oh, Lord, Lord! Huff and grandeur! Uncertain, coy, and hard to please. Don’t I know it. Fox, we must continue to combine deference with a suggestion of high office. Out with the best butter and lay it on in slabs. Miserable old article, he is. Straighten your tie, harden your heart, and away we go.”

Sir Herbert and Lady Carrados lived in Green Street. A footman opened the door to Alleyn.

“Sir Herbert is not at home, sir. Would you care to leave a message?”

“He has an appointment with me,” said Alleyn pleasantly, “so I expect he is at home really. Here’s my card.”

“I beg pardon, sir,” said the footman, looking at Alleyn’s clothes, which were admirable. “I understood it was the police who were calling.”

“We are the police,” said Alleyn.

Fox, who had been dealing with their taxi, advanced. The footman’s eye lit on his bowler and boots.

“I beg pardon, sir,” he said, “will you come this way, please?”

He showed them into a library. Three past Carradoses, full length, in oils, stared coldly into space from the walls. The firelight wavered on a multitude of books uniformly bound, behind glass doors. Sir Herbert, in staff-officer’s uniform with shiny boots and wonderful breeches, appeared in a group taken at Tunbridge Wells, the centre of his wartime activities. Alleyn looked at it closely, but the handsome face was as expressionless as the tightly-breeched knees which were separated by gloved hands resting with embarrassing importance on the inside of the thighs. A dumb photograph. It was flanked by two illuminated addresses of which Sir Herbert was the subject. A magnificent cigar box stood on a side table. Alleyn opened it and noted that the cigars were the brothers of the one that had been smoked in the buffet. He gently closed the lid and turned to inspect a miniature French writing-cabinet.

Fox, completely at his ease, stood like a rock in the middle of the room. He appeared to be lost in a mild abstraction, but he could have gone away and described the library with the accuracy of an expert far-gone in Pelmanism.

The door opened and Carrados came in. Alleyn found himself unaccountably reminded of bereaved royalty. Sir Herbert limped rather more perceptibly than usual and employed a black stick. He paused, screwed his glass in his eye, and said:

“Mr Alleyn?”

Alleyn stepped forward and bowed.

“It is extremely kind of you to see us, sir,” he said.

“No, no,” said Carrados, “one must do one’s duty however hard one is hit. One has to keep a stiff upper lip. I was talking to your chief commissioner just now, Mr Alleyn. He happens to be a very old friend of mine — er — won’t you sit down both of you? Mr — er —?”

“This is Inspector Fox, sir.”

“Oh, yes,” said Carrados, extending his hand. “Do sit down, Fox. Yes—” he turned again to Alleyn when they were all seated. ”Your CO tells me you are a son of another old friend. I knew your mother very well years ago and she sees quite a lot of my wife, I believe. She was at Marsdon House last night.” He placed his hand over his eyes and repeated in an irritating whisper: “At Marsdon House. Ah, well!”

Alleyn said: “We are very sorry indeed, sir, to bother you after what has happened. This tragedy has been a great shock to you, I’m afraid.”

Carrados gave him an injured smile.

“Yes,” he said, “I cannot pretend that it has not. Lord Robert was one of our dearest friends. Not only have we a great sense of personal bereavement but I cannot help thinking that my hospitality has been cruelly abused.”

This reduction of homicide to terms of the social amenities left Alleyn speechless. Sir Herbert appeared to regard murder as a sort of inexcusable faux pas.

“I suppose,” he continued, “that you have come here armed with a list of questions. If that is so I am afraid you are doomed to disappointment. I am a simple soldier-man, Mr Alleyn, and this sort of thing is quite beyond my understanding. I may say that ever since this morning we have been pestered by a crew of insolent young pups from Fleet Street. I have been forced to ask Scotland Yard, where I believe my name is not unknown, if we had no redress from this sort of damnable persecution. I talked about it to your chief who, as I think I told you, is a personal friend of mine. He agrees with me that the behaviour of journalists nowadays is intolerable.”

“I am sorry you have been badgered,” said Alleyn. “I will be as quick as I can with our business. There are one or two questions, I’m afraid, but only one or two and none of them at all formidable.”

“I can assure you I am not in the least afraid of police investigation,” said Carrados with an injured laugh. His hand still covered his eyes.

“Of course not, sir. I wanted first of all to ask you if you spoke to Lord Robert last night. I mean something more than hail and farewell. I thought that if there was anything at all unusual in his manner it would not escape your notice as it would the notice of, I am afraid, the majority of people.”

Carrados looked slightly less huffy.

“I don’t pretend to be any more observant than the next fellow,” he said, “but as a soldier-man I’ve had to use my eyes a bit and I think if there’s anything wrong anywhere I’m not likely to miss it. Yes, I spoke to Lord Robert Gospell once or twice last night and I can assure you he was perfectly normal in every possible way. He was nice enough to tell me he thought our ball the most successful of the season. Perfectly normal.”

Alleyn leant forward and fixed Carrados with a reverent glare.

“Sir Herbert,” he said, “I’m going to do a very unconventional thing and I hope you won’t get me my dismissal as I’m sure you very easily could. I’m going to take you wholly into our confidence.”

It was pleasant to see the trappings of sorrow fall softly away from Carrados, and to watch his posture change from that of a stricken soldier-man to an exact replica of the Tunbridge Wells photograph. Up came his head. The knees were spread apart, the hands went involuntarily to the inside of the thighs. Only the gloves and breeches were lacking. A wise son of Empire sat confessed.

“It would not be the first time,” said Carrados modestly, “that confidence has been reposed in me.”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t. This is our difficulty. We have reason to believe that the key to this mystery lies in a single sentence spoken by Lord Robert on the telephone from Marsdon House. If we could get a true report of the conversation that Lord Robert held with an unknown person at one o’clock this morning I believe we would have gone a long way towards making an arrest.”

“Ah!” Carrados positively beamed. “This bears out my own theory, Mr Alleyn. It was an outside job. You see I am conversant with your phraseology. From the moment we heard of this tragedy I said to my wife that I was perfectly satisfied that none of our guests could be in any way implicated. A telephone message from outside! There you are!”

“I had half-hoped,” said Alleyn modestly, “that you might have heard about this call. I suppose it was stupid of me.”

“When was it?”

“At one o’clock. We’ve got so far.”

“At one o’clock. One o’clock. Let me see!” Carrados drew his heavy brows down over his foolish eyes and scowled importantly. “At the moment I must confess I cannot quite recall—”

“Most of your guests were still at supper, I think,” said Alleyn. “I’ve spoken to the servant on duty on the top landing and he fancies he can remember that you came upstairs round about that time.”

The purple veins in Sir Herbert’s red cheeks suddenly started up.

“By God, I should think the fellow did remember, confound his impudence. Certainly, I went on to the top landing and it was one o’clock. You are perfectly right, Mr Alleyn. I pay these damn caterers a fortune to organize the whole affair and I expect, not unreasonably I hope, a certain standard of efficiency. And what do I find? No matches! No matches in the sitting-out room at the head of the stairs and the damn place smothered in ash. A lighted cigarette burning the mantelpiece! It was underneath the clock. That’s how I remember the time. Just on one o’clock, as you say. I trust I’m a reasonable sort of fellow, Alleyn, but I don’t mind telling you I saw red. I went out on to the landing and I gave that fellow a dressing-down he won’t forget in a hurry. Sent him haring off downstairs with a flea in his ear. Damn, spoon-fed dago!”

“Were you on the landing all this time, sir?”

“Of course I wasn’t on the landing all the time! I was in and out of the blasted sitting-room, damn it. I went upstairs at, I suppose, about five to one, walked into this room and found it in the condition I’ve described. I would have looked at the other room, the one with the telephone, but I saw there was a couple sitting out in there. Behaving, I may say, more like a footman and a housemaid than the sort of people one is accustomed to receive as one’s guests. However! The man came sneaking out just as I was blasting this damned waiter-fellow. He hung about the landing. This fellow Withers, I mean. Don’t know if I gave you his name before. Then the lady came out and scuttled into the cloakroom. Yes, by God, sir, and Robert Gospell came upstairs and went into the telephone room.”

Carrados blew out his moustache triumphantly. “There you are!” he said. “Into the room to telephone.”

“Splendid, sir. Now may I just go over this to make sure I’ve got it right? You came out of the first sitting-room and spoke to the waiter. Captain Withers came out of the second room (the telephone-room) followed in a moment by Mrs Halcut-Hackett, who went into the cloakroom.”

“Here!” ejaculated Carrados, “I didn’t mention the lady’s name, Alleyn. By God, I hope I know my manners better than to use a lady’s name out of turn.”

Alleyn achieved an expression of gentlemanly cunning.

“I’m afraid, sir, I rather jumped to conclusions.”

“Really? D’you mean it’s common talk? An American, wasn’t she? Well, well, well, I’m sorry to hear that. Halcut-Hackett’s a very old friend of mine. I’m very sorry to hear that.”

Alleyn reflected acidly that Sir Herbert was enjoying himself thoroughly and hurried on.

“At this moment, just as you return to the sitting-room, having sent the waiter downstairs, and Mrs Halcut-Hackett dives into the cloakroom, Lord Robert comes upstairs. What does Withers do?”

“Sheers off and comes sloping into the sitting-room after me. I had to make conversation with the fellow. Young Potter was sulking about in there too. I hope I’ve got as much tolerance for the youngsters as any other old fogey, Alleyn, but I must confess I—”

He stopped and looked uncomfortable.

“Yes?” murmured Alleyn.

“I — it doesn’t matter. Stick to the point, eh? Withers, eh? Yes. Well now, I flatter myself, Alleyn, that I can get along with most people, but I freely confess I did not enjoy Withers’s company. Calls himself Captain. What was his regiment?”

“I don’t know at all. Could you, by any chance, hear Lord Robert from the other room?”

“No. No, I couldn’t. Now you mention it, I believe I heard the extension bell doing that damned dialling tinkle. The fact is I couldn’t stand any more of that confounded outsider’s conversation. I made my excuses and went downstairs.”

“Did you meet anybody coming up?”

“I don’t think so. Mrs Halcut-Hackett was going down ahead of me.”

“So while you were still in the sitting-room, sir, anybody might have come upstairs and gone into the room where Lord Robert sat telephoning?”

“I suppose so.”

“Mrs Halcut-Hackett might have gone in before you went downstairs. Captain Withers or Donald Potter might have done it afterwards?”

“Yes, by Gad, they might. If you want to get an account of this telephone conversation you might ask ’em. I don’t like to make the suggestion about one of my guests, but upon my soul I wouldn’t put it past Withers to listen to a private conversation. What’s young Potter doing, cottoning on to a cad twenty years his senior, I’d like to know? However! Anything more?”

“Yes, sir. Did you by any chance notice a Miss Harris while you were upstairs? The man said something—”

“Harris? D’you mean m’wife’s secretary? Yes, of course I saw her. She bolted into the lavatory when I came up. I didn’t see her come out.”

“I see. Perhaps I might have a word with her before I go.”

“Certainly, but you’ll find her a bit difficult. She’s a shy little thing — pity there aren’t more like her. Nowadays they don’t give a damn who sees them coming out of any door.”

Sir Herbert suddenly made up his mind he had said something amusing and broke into loud baying laughter in which Alleyn was careful to join.

“Poor little Harris,” Carrados said. “Well, well, well!”

“Now,” continued Alleyn when the laughter had died away, “about the end of the ball. We would like to trace Lord Robert’s movements, of course. I don’t know, sir, if you can give us any help at all.”

“Ah! Yes. Well, let me see. My wife and I stood on the ballroom gallery at the head of the stairs saying goodbye to our guests — those of them who were old-fashioned enough to think it necessary to thank their hosts. Some of the young cubs didn’t take the trouble, I may tell you. Lord Robert came, of course, and was perfectly charming. Let me see, now. He went downstairs, into the cloakroom and out again wearing that extraordinary cloak of his. I remember this because I came down and passed him. I went into the buffet.”

“Did you come out again before Lord Robert left?”

“No.” Carrados returned for a moment to the stricken soldier-man. “No. That was the last I shall ever see of Robert Gospell. Ah, well! I don’t mind admitting, Alleyn, that this thing has hit me pretty hard. Pretty hard! Still, we’ve got to bite on the bullet, haven’t we? What were we saying? Oh yes. I stayed in the buffet for some time. I don’t mind admitting I was about all in. I smoked a cigar and had a peg of brandy. I had a word with that fellow Dimitri and then I went home.”

“With Lady Carrados and Miss O’Brien?”

“What? No. No, I packed them off earlier in the other car. My wife was absolutely fagged out. I wanted to have a look round. Make sure everything was all right. I wouldn’t trust anybody else. These people are so damned careless, leaving lighted cigarettes all over the place. I satisfied myself everything was all right and then I went home. The chauffeur came back for me. Daresay you’d like to see him.”

“No, sir, thank you. I think we may take that as read.”

“I’ve no wish to be treated differently from anyone else, but that’s as you please, of course. Anything else?”

“If I might have a word with Lady Carrados, sir?”

“I don’t think my wife can give you any information, Alleyn. She’s absolutely prostrated by this business. Robert Gospell was a very great friend of hers and she’s taken it damn hard. Matter of fact, she’s not up.”

Alleyn paused.

“I am so sorry,” he said at last. “That’s most unfortunate. I wanted if possible to save her appearing at the inquest.”

“When is the inquest?”

“Tomorrow morning, sir.”

Carrados glared at him.

“She will certainly be too unwell for any such thing. I shall see that her doctor forbids it. And it is equally impossible for her to see you this afternoon. I know that if I were to disturb her, which I have no intention of doing as she is asleep in bed, she would refuse. That’s definite.”

The door opened and the footman came in.

“Her ladyship, sir, wishes me to say that if Mr Alleyn has a few minutes to spare she would be very pleased to see him.”

He waited, gently closing the door on an extremely uncomfortable silence.