Final Curtain

CHAPTER XI Alleyn at Ancreton

i

In our game,” said Fox as they drove back to the Yard, “you get some funny glimpses into what you might call human nature. I dare say I’ve said that before, but it’s a fact.”

“I believe you,” said Alleyn.

“Look at this chap we’ve just left,” Fox continued with an air of controversy. “Vague! And yet he must be good at his job, wouldn’t you say, sir?”

“Indisputably.”

“There! Good at his job, and yet to meet him you’d say he’d lose his play, and his actors, and his way to the theatre. In view of which,” Fox summed up, “I ask myself if this chap’s as muddleheaded as he lets on.”

“A pose, you think, do you, Fox?”

“You never know with some jokers,” Fox muttered, and, wiping his great hand over his face, seemed by that gesture to dispose of Thomas Ancred’s vagaries. “I suppose,” he said, “it’ll be a matter of seeing the doctor, won’t it?”

“I’m afraid so. I’ve looked out trains. There’s one in an hour. Get us there by midday. We may have to spend the night in Ancreton village. We can pick up our emergency bags at the Yard. I’ll talk to the A.C. and telephone Troy. What a hell of a thing to turn up.”

“It doesn’t look as if we’ll be able to let it alone, do you reckon, Mr. Alleyn?”

“I still have hopes. As it stands, there’s not a case in Thomas’s story to hang a dead dog on. They lose a tin of rat poison and find it in a garret. Somebody reads a book about embalming, and thinks up an elaborate theme based on an arbitrary supposition. Counsel could play skittles with it — as it stands.”

“Suppose we did get an order for exhumation. Suppose they found arsenic in the body. With this embalming business it’d seem as if it would prove nothing.”

“On the contrary,” said Alleyn, “I rather think, Fox, that if they did find arsenic in the body it would prove everything.”

Fox turned slowly and looked at him. “I don’t get that one, Mr. Alleyn,” he said.

“I’m not at all sure that I’m right. We’ll have to look it up. Here we are. I’ll explain on the way down to this accursed village. Come on.”

He saw his Assistant Commissioner, who, with the air of a connoisseur, discussed the propriety of an investigator handling a case in which his wife might be called as a witness. “Of course, my dear Rory, if by any chance the thing should come into court and your wife be subpoenaed, we would have to reconsider our position. We’ve no precedent, so far as I know. But for the time being I imagine it’s more reasonable for you to discuss it with her than for anybody else to do so — Fox, for instance. Now, you go down to this place, talk to the indigenous G.P., and come back and tell us what you think about it. Tiresome, if it comes to anything. Good luck.”

As they left, Alleyn took from his desk the second volume of a work on medical jurisprudence. It dealt principally with poisons. In the train he commended certain passages to Fox’s notice. He watched his old friend put on his spectacles, raise his eyebrows, and develop the slightly catarrhal breathing that invariably accompanied his reading.

“Yes,” said Fox, removing his spectacles as the train drew into Ancreton Halt, “that’s different, of course.”

ii

Doctor Herbert Withers was a short, tolerably plump man, with little of the air of wellbeing normally associated with plumpness. He came out into his hall as they arrived, admitting from some inner room the sound of a racing broadcast. After a glance at Alleyn’s professional card he took them to his consulting-room, and sat at his desk with a movement whose briskness seemed to overlie a controlled fatigue.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked.

It was the conventional opening. Alleyn thought it had slipped involuntarily from Dr. Withers’s lips.

“We hope there’s no trouble,” he said. “Would you mind if I asked you to clear up a few points about Sir Henry Ancred’s death?”

The mechanical attentiveness of Dr. Withers’s glance sharpened. He made an abrupt movement and looked from Alleyn to Fox.

“Certainly,” he said, “if there’s any necessity. But why?” He still held Alleyn’s card in his hand and he glanced at it again. “You don’t mean to say—” he began, and stopped short. “Well, what are these few points?”

“I think I’d better tell you exactly what’s happened,” Alleyn said. He took a copy of the anonymous letter from his pocket and handed it to Dr. Withers. “Mr. Thomas Ancred brought eight of these to us this morning,” he said.

“Damn disgusting piffle,” said Dr. Withers and handed it back.

“I hope so. But when we’re shown these wretched things we have to do something about them.”

“Well?”

“You signed the death certificate, Dr. Withers, and—”

“And I shouldn’t have done so if I hadn’t been perfectly satisfied as to the cause.”

“Exactly. Now will you, like a good chap, help us to dispose of these letters by giving us, in non-scientific words, the cause of Sir Henry’s death?”

Dr. Withers fretted a little, but at last went to his files and pulled out a card.

“There you are,” he said. “That’s the last of his cards. I made routine calls at Ancreton. It covers about six weeks.”

Alleyn looked at it. It bore the usual list of dates with appropriate notes. Much of it was illegible and almost all obscure to the lay mind. The final note, however, was flatly lucid. It read: “Deceased. Between twelve-thirty and two a.m., Nov. 25th.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “Thank you. Now will you translate some of this?”

“He suffered,” said Dr. Withers angrily, “from gastric ulcers and degeneration of the heart. He was exceedingly indiscriminate in his diet. He’d eaten a disastrous meal, had drunk champagne, and had flown into one of his rages. From the look of the room, I diagnosed a severe gastric attack followed by heart failure. I may add that if I had heard about the manner in which he’d spent the evening I should have expected some such development.”

“You’d have expected him to die?”

“That would be an extremely unprofessional prognostication. I would have anticipated grave trouble,” said Dr. Withers stuffily.

“Was he in the habit of playing up with his diet?”

“He was. Not continuously, but in bouts.”

“Yet survived?”

“The not unusual tale of ‘once too often’.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn, looking down at the card. “Would you mind describing the room and the body?”

“Would you, in your turn, Chief Inspector, mind telling me if you have any reason for this interview beyond these utterly preposterous anonymous letters?”

“Some of the family suspect arsenical poisoning.”

“Oh, my God and the little starfish!” Dr. Withers shouted and shook his fists above his head. “That bloody family!”

He appeared to wrestle obscurely with his feelings. “I’m sorry about that,” he said at last, “inexcusable outburst. I’ve been busy lately and worried, and there you are. The Ancreds, collectively, have tried me rather high. Why, may one ask, do they suspect arsenical poisoning?”

“It’s a long story,” said Alleyn carefully, “and it involves a tin of rat poison. May I add also, very unprofessionally, that I shall be enormously glad if you can tell me that the condition of the room and the body precludes the smallest likelihood of arsenical poisoning?”

“I can’t tell you anything of the sort. Why? (a) Because the room had been cleaned up when I got there. And (b) because the evidence as described to me, and the appearance of the body, were entirely consistent with a severe gastric attack, and therefore not inconsistent with arsenical poisoning.”

“Damn!” Alleyn grunted. “I thought it’d be like that.”

“How the hell could the old fool have got at any rat poison? Will you tell me that?” He jabbed his finger at Alleyn.

“They don’t think,” Alleyn explained, “that he got at it. They think it was introduced to him.”

The well-kept hand closed so strongly that the knuckles whitened. For a moment he held it clenched, and then, as if to cancel this gesture, opened the palm and examined his fingernails.

“That,” he said, “is implicit in the letter, of course. Even that I can believe of the Ancreds. Who is supposed to have murdered Sir Henry? Am I, by any pleasant chance?”

“Not that I know,” said Alleyn comfortably. Fox cleared his throat and added primly: “What an idea!”

“Are they going to press for an exhumation? Or are you?”

“Not without more reason than we’ve got at the moment,” Alleyn said. “You didn’t hold a post-mortem?”

“One doesn’t hold a P.M. on a patient who was liable to go off in precisely this fashion at any moment.”

“True enough. Dr. Withers, may I make our position quite clear? We’ve had a queer set of circumstances placed before us and we’ve got to take stock of them. Contrary to popular belief, the police do not, in such cases, burn to get a pile of evidence that points unavoidably to exhumation. If the whole thing turns out to be so much nonsense they are, as a general rule, delighted to write it off. Give us a sound argument against arsenical poisoning and we’ll be extremely grateful to you.”

Dr. Withers waved his hands. “I can’t give you, at a moment’s notice, absolute proof that he didn’t get arsenic. You couldn’t do it for ninety-nine deaths out of a hundred, when there was gastric trouble with vomiting and purging and no analysis was taken of anything. As a matter of fact—”

“Yes?” Alleyn prompted as he paused.

“As a matter of fact, I dare say if there’d been anything left I might have done an analysis simply as a routine measure and to satisfy a somewhat pedantic medical conscience. But the whole place had been washed up.”

“By whose orders?”

“My dear man, by Barker’s orders or Mrs. Kentish’s, or Mrs. Henry Ancred’s, or whoever happened to think of it. They didn’t like to move him. Couldn’t very well. Rigor was pretty well established, which gave me, by the way, a lead about the time of his death. When I saw him later in the day they’d fixed him up, of course, and a nice time Mrs. Ancred must have had of it with all of them milling about the house in an advanced condition of hysteria and Mrs. Kentish ‘insisting on taking a hand in the laying-out’.”

“Good Lord!”

“Oh, they’re like that. Well, as I was saying, there he was when they found him, hunched up on the bed, and the room in a pretty nauseating state. When I got there, two of those old housemaids were waddling off with their buckets and the whole place stank of carbolic. They’d even managed to change the bedclothes. I didn’t get there, by the way, for an hour after they telephoned. Confinement.”

“About the children’s ringworm—” Alleyn began.

“You know about them, do you! Yes. Worrying business. Glad to say young Panty’s cleared up at last.”

“I understand,” Alleyn said pleasantly, “that you are bold in your use of drugs.”

There was a long silence. “And how, may I ask,” said Dr. Withers very quietly, “did you hear details of my treatment?”

“Why, from Thomas Ancred,” said Alleyn, and watched the colour return to Dr. Withers’s face. “Why not?”

“I dislike gossip about my patients. As a matter of fact I wondered if you’d been talking to our local pharmacist. I’m not at all pleased with him at the moment, however.”

“Do you remember the evening the children were dosed— Monday, the nineteenth, I think it was?”

Dr. Withers stared at him. “Now, why—?” he began, and seemed to change his mind. “I do,” he said. “Why?”

“Simply because that evening a practical joke was played on Sir Henry and the child Panty has been accused of it. It’s too elaborate a story to bother you about, but I’d like to know if she was capable of it. In the physical sense. Mentally, it seems, she certainly is.”

“What time?”

“During dinner. She would have visited the drawing-room.”

“Out of the question. I arrived at seven-thirty — Wait a moment.” He searched his filing cabinet and pulled out another card. “Here! I superintended the weighing and dosing of these kids and noted the time. Panty got her quota at eight and was put to bed. I stayed on in the ante-room to their dormitory during the rest of the business and talked to Miss Able. I left her my visiting list for the next twenty-four hours so that she could get me quickly if anything cropped up. It was after nine when I left and this wretched kid certainly hadn’t budged. I had a look at the lot of them. She was asleep with a normal pulse and so on.”

“That settles Panty, then,” Alleyn muttered.

“Look here, has this any bearing on the other business?”

“I’m not sure. It’s a preposterous story. If you’ve the time and inclination to listen I’ll tell it to you.”

“I’ve got,” said Dr. Withers, glancing at his watch, “twenty-three minutes. Case in half an hour, and I want to hear the racing results before I go out.”

“I shan’t be more than ten minutes.”

“Go ahead, then. I should be glad to hear any story, however fantastic, that can connect a practical joke on Monday the nineteenth with the death of Sir Henry Ancred from gastroenteritis after midnight on Saturday the twenty-fourth.”

Alleyn related all the stories of the practical jokes. Dr. Withers punctuated this recital with occasional sounds of incredulity or irritation. When Alleyn reached the incident of the flying cow he interrupted him.

“The child Panty,” he said, “is capable of every iniquity, but, as I have pointed out, she could not have perpetrated this offence with the blown-up bladder, nor could she have painted the flying cow on Mrs. — ” He stopped short. “Is this lady—?” he began.

“My wife, as it happens,” said Alleyn, “but let it pass.”

“Good Lord! Unusual that, isn’t it?”

“Both unusual and bothering in this context. You were saying?”

“That the child was too seedy that night for it to be conceivable. And you tell me Miss Able (sensible girl that) vouches for her anyway.”

“Yes.”

“All right. Well, some other fool, the egregious Cedric in all likelihood, performed these idiocies. I fail to see how they can possibly be linked up with Sir Henry’s death.”

“You have not,” Alleyn said, “heard of the incident of the book on embalming in the cheese-dish.”

Dr. Withers’s mouth opened slightly, but he made no comment, and Alleyn continued his narrative. “You see,” he added, “this final trick does bear a sort of family likeness to the others, and, considering the subject matter of the book, and the fact that Sir Henry was embalmed—”

“Quite so. Because the damned book talks about arsenic they jump to this imbecile conclusion—”

“Fortified, we must remember, by the discovery of a tin of arsenical rat poison in Miss Orrincourt’s luggage.”

“Planted there by the practical joker,” cried Dr. Withers. “I bet you. Planted!”

“That’s a possibility,” Alleyn agreed, “that we can’t overlook.”

Fox suddenly said: “Quite so.”

“Well,” said Dr. Withers, “I’m damned if I know what to say. No medical man enjoys the suggestion that he’s been careless or made a mistake, and this would be a very awkward mistake. Mind, I don’t for a split second believe there’s a fragment of truth in the tale, but if the whole boiling of Ancreds are going to talk arsenic — Here! Have you seen the embalmers?”

“Not yet. We shall do so, of course.”

“I don’t know anything about embalming,” Dr. Withers muttered. “This fossil book may not amount to a row of beans.”

“Taylor,” said Alleyn, “has a note on it. He says that in such manipulations of a body, antiseptic substances are used (commonly arsenic), and might prevent detection of poison as the cause of death.”

“So, if we have an exhumation, where are we? Precisely nowhere.”

“I’m not sure of my ground,” said Alleyn, “but I fancy that an exhumation should definitely show whether or not Sir Henry Ancred was poisoned. I’ll explain.”

iii

Fox and Alleyn lunched at the Ancreton Arms, on jugged hare, well cooked, and a tankard each of the local draught beer. It was a pleasant enough little pub, and the landlady, on Alleyn’s inquiry, said she could, if requested, put them up for the night.

“I’m not at all sure we shan’t be taking her at her word,” said Alleyn as they walked out into the village street. It was thinly bright with winter sunshine, and contained, beside the pub and Dr Withers’s house, a post office shop, a chapel, a draper’s, a stationer’s, a meeting-hall, a chemist-cum-fancy-goods shop, and a row of cottages. Over the brow of intervening hills, the gothic windows, multiple towers and indefatigably varied chimney-pots of Ancreton Manor glinted against their background of conifers, and brooded, with an air of grand seigneury, faintly bogus, over the little village.

“And here,” said Alleyn, pausing at the chemist’s window, “is Mr. Juniper’s pharmacy. That’s a pleasant name, Fox. E. M. Juniper. This is where Troy and Miss Orrincourt came in their governess-cart on a nasty evening. Let’s call on Mr. Juniper, shall we?”

But he seemed to be in no hurry to go in, and began to mutter to himself before the side window. “A tidy window, Fox. I like the old-fashioned coloured bottles, don’t you? Writing paper, you see, and combs and ink (that brand went off the market in the war) cheek-by-jowl with cough-lozenges and trusses in their modest boxes. Even some children’s card games. Happy Families. That’s how Troy drew the Ancreds. Let’s give them a pack. Mr. Juniper the chemist’s window. Come on.”

He led the way in. The shop was divided into two sections. One counter was devoted to fancy goods, and one, severe and isolated, to Mr. Juniper’s professional activities. Alleyn rang a little bell, a door opened, and Mr. Juniper, fresh and rosy in his white coat, came out, together with the cleanly smell of drugs.

“Yes, sir?” Mr. Juniper inquired, placing himself behind his professional counter.

“Good morning,” said Alleyn. “I wonder if by any chance you’ve got anything to amuse a small girl who’s on the sick list?”

Mr. Juniper removed to the fancy-goods department. “Happy Families? Bubble-blowing?” he suggested.

“Actually,” Alleyn lied pleasantry, “I’ve been told I must bring back some form of practical joke. Designed, I’m afraid, for Dr. Withers.”

“Really! T’t. Ha-ha!” said Mr. Juniper. “Well, now. I’m afraid we haven’t anything much in that line. There were some dummy ink-spots, but I’m afraid — No. I know exactly the type of thing you mean, mind, but I’m just afraid—”

“Somebody said something about a thing you blow up and sit on,” Alleyn murmured vaguely. “It sounded disgusting.”

“Ah! The Raspberry?”

“That’s it.”

Mr. Juniper shook his head sadly and made a gesture of resignation.

“I thought,” said Alleyn, “I saw a box in your window that looked—”

“Empty!” Mr. Juniper sighed. “The customer didn’t require the box, so I’m afraid I’ve just left it there. Now isn’t that a pity,” Mr. Juniper lamented. “Only last week, or would it be a fortnight ago, I sold the last of that little line to a customer for exactly the same purpose. A sick little girl. Yes. One would almost think,” he hazarded, “that the same little lady—”

“I expect so. Patricia Kentish,” said Alleyn.

“Ah, quite so. So the customer said! Up at the Manor. Quite a little tinker,” said Mr. Juniper. “Well, sir, I think you’ll find that Miss Pant — Miss Pat — has already got a Raspberry.”

“In that case,” said Alleyn, “I’ll take a Happy Families. You want some toothpaste, don’t you, Fox?”

“Happy Families,” said Mr. Juniper, snatching a packet from the shelf. “Dentifrice! Any particular make, sir?”

“For a plate,” said Fox stolidly.

“For the denture. Quite,” said Mr. Juniper, and darted into the professional side of his shop.

“I wouldn’t mind betting,” said Alleyn cheerfully to Fox, “that it was Sonia Orrincourt who got in first with that thing.”

“Ah,” said Fox. Mr. Juniper smiled archly. “Well, now,” he said, “I oughtn’t to give the young lady away, ought I? Professional secrets. Ha-ha! ”

“Ha-ha!” Alleyn agreed, putting Happy Families in his pocket. “Thank you, Mr. Juniper.”

“Thank you, sir. All well up at the Manor, I hope? Great loss, that. Loss to the Nation, you might say. Little trouble with the children clearing up, I hope?”

“On its way. Lovely afternoon, isn’t it? Good-bye.”

“I didn’t want any toothpaste,” said Fox, as they continued up the street.

“I didn’t see why I should make all the purchases and you were looking rather too portentous. Put it down to expenses. It was worth it.”

“I don’t say it wasn’t that,” Fox agreed. “Now, sir, if this woman Orrincourt took the Raspberry, I suppose we look to her for all the other pranks, don’t we?”

“I hardly think so, Fox. Not all. We know, at least, that this ghastly kid tied a notice to the tail of her Aunt Millamant’s coat. She’s got a reputation for practical jokes. On the other hand, she definitely, it seems, did not perpetrate the Raspberry and the flying cow, and my wife is convinced she’s innocent of the spectacles, the painted stair rail and the rude writing on Sir Henry’s looking-glass. As for the book in the cheese-dish, I don’t think either Panty or Miss Orrincourt is guilty of that flight of fancy.”

“So that if you count out the little girl for anything that matters, we’ve got Miss Orrincourt and another.”

“That’s the cry.”

“And this other is trying to fix something on Miss Orrincourt in the way of arsenic and the old gentleman?”

“It’s a reasonable thesis, but Lord knows.”

“Where are we going, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Are you good for a two-mile walk? I think we’ll call on the Ancreds.”

iv

“It isn’t,” said Alleyn as they toiled up the second flight of terraces, “as if we can hope to keep ourselves dark, supposing that were advisable. Thomas will have rung up his family and told them that we have at least taken notice. We may as well announce ourselves and see what we can see. More especially, this wretched old fellow’s bedroom.”

“By this time,” said Fox sourly, “they’ll probably have had it repapered.”

“I wonder if Paul Kentish is handy with electrical gadgets. I’ll wager Cedric Ancred isn’t.”

“What’s that?” Fox demanded.

“What’s what?”

“I can hear something. A child crying, isn’t it, sir?”

They had reached the second terrace. At each end of this terrace, between the potato-field and the woods, were shrubberies and young copses. From the bushes on their left hand came a thin intermittent wailing; very dolorous. They paused uncertainly, staring at each other. The wailing stopped, and into the silence welled the accustomed sounds of the countryside — the wintry chittering of birds and the faint click of naked branches.

“Would it be some kind of bird, should you say?” Fox speculated.

“No bird!” Alleyn began and stopped short. “There it is again.” It was a thin piping sound, waving and irregular and the effect of it was peculiarly distressing. Without further speculation they set off across the rough and still frost-encrusted ground. As they drew nearer to it the sound became, not articulate, but more complex, and presently, when they had drawn quite close, developed a new character. “It’s mixed up,” Fox whispered, “with a kind of singing.”

“For ever and ever,” the thin voice repeated, and drifted off again into its former desolate wail. As they brushed against the first low bushes it ceased, and there followed a wary silence disrupted by harsh sobbing.

Between the bushes and the copse they came upon a little girl in a white cap, sitting by a newly-turned mound of earth. A child’s spade was beside her. Stuck irregularly in the mound of earth were a few heads of geraniums. A piece of paper threaded on a twig stood crookedly at the head of the mound. The little girl’s hands were earthy, and she had knuckled her eyes so that black streaks ran down her face. She crouched there scowling at them, rather like an animal that flattens itself near the ground, unable to obey its own instinct for flight.

“Hallo,” said Alleyn, “this is a bad job!” And unable to think of a more satisfactory opening, he heard himself repeating Dr. Withers’s phrase. “What’s the trouble?” he asked.

The little girl was convulsed, briefly, by a sob. Alleyn squatted beside her and examined the writing on the paper. It had been executed in large shaky capitals.

“Was Carabbas,” Alleyn ventured, “your own cat?”

Panty glared at him and slowly shook her head.

Alleyn said quickly: “How stupid of me; he was your grandfather’s cat, wasn’t he?”

“He loved me,” said Panty on a high note. “Better than he loved Noddy. He loved me better than he loved anybody. I was his friend.” Her voice rose piercingly like the whistle of a small engine. “And I didn’t,” she screamed, “I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t give him the ringworms. I hate my Auntie Milly. I wish she was dead. I wish they were all dead. I’ll kill my Auntie Milly.” She beat on the ground with her fists, and, catching sight of Fox, screamed at him: “Get out of here, will you? This is my place.”

Fox stepped back hastily.

“I’ve heard,” said Alleyn, cautiously, “about Carabbas and about you. You paint pictures, don’t you? Have you painted any more pictures lately?”

“I don’t want to paint any more pictures,” said Panty.

“That’s a pity, because we rather thought of sending you a box of paints for yourself from London.”

Panty sobbed dryly. “Who did?” she said.

“Troy Alleyn,” said Alleyn. “Mrs. Alleyn, you know. She’s my wife.”

“If I painted a picture of my Auntie Milly,” said Panty, “I’d give her pig’s whiskers, and she’d look like Judas Iscariot. They said my cat Carabbas had the ringworms, and they said I’d given them to him, and they’re all, all liars. He hadn’t, and I didn’t. It was only his poor fur coming out.”

With the abandon which Troy had witnessed in the little theatre, Panty flung herself face forward on the ground and kicked. Tentatively Alleyn bent over her, and after a moment’s hesitation picked her up. For a moment or two she fought violently, but suddenly, with an air of desolation, let her arms fall and hung limply in his hands.

“Never mind, Panty,” Alleyn muttered helplessly. “Here, let’s mop up your face.” He felt in his pocket and his fingers closed round a hard object. “Look here,” he said. “Look what I’ve got,” and pulled out a small packet. “Do you ever play Happy Families?” he said. He pushed the box of cards into her hands and not very successfully mopped her face with his handkerchief. “Let’s move on,” he said to Fox.

He carried the now inert Panty across to the third flight of steps. Here she began to wriggle, and he put her down.

“I want to play Happy Families,” said Panty thickly. “Here,” she added. She squatted down, and, still interrupting herself from time to time with a hiccuping sob, opened her pack of picture cards, and with filthy fingers began to deal them into three heaps.

“Sit down, Fox,” said Alleyn. “You’re going to play Happy Families.”

Fox sat uneasily on the second step.

Panty was a slow dealer, principally because she examined the face of each card before she put it down.

“Do you know the rules?” Alleyn asked Fox.

“I can’t say I do,” he replied, putting on his spectacles. “Would it be anything like euchre?”

“Not much, but you’ll pick it up. The object is to collect a family. Would you be good enough,” he said, turning to Panty, “to oblige me with Mrs. Snips the Tailor’s Wife?”

“You didn’t say ‘Please,’ so it’s my turn,” said Panty. “Give me Mr. Snips, the Tailor, and Master Snips and Miss Snips, please.”

“Damn,” said Alleyn. “Here you are,” and handed over the cards, each with its cut of an antic who might have walked out of a Victorian volume of Punch.

Panty pushed these cards underneath her and sat on them. Her bloomers, true to her legend, were conspicuous; “Now,” she said, turning a bleary glance on Fox, “you give me—”

“Don’t I get a turn?” asked Fox.

“Not unless she goes wrong,” said Alleyn. “You’ll learn.”

“Give me,” said Panty, “Master Grit, the Grocer’s Son.”

“Doesn’t she have to say ‘please’?”

“Please,” yelled Panty. “I said ‘please’. Please.”

Fox handed over the card.

“And Mrs. Grit,” Panty went on.

“It beats me,” said Fox, “how she knows.”

“She knows,” said Alleyn, “because she looked.”

Panty laughed raucously. “And you give me Mr. Bull, the Butcher,” she demanded, turning on Alleyn. “Please.”

“Not at home,” said Alleyn triumphantly. “And now, you see, Fox, it’s my turn.”

“The game seems crook to me,” said Fox, gloomily.

“Master Bun,” Panty remarked presently, “is azzakerly like my Uncle Thomas.” Alleyn, in imagination, changed the grotesque faces on all the cards to those of the Ancreds as Troy had drawn them in her notebook. “So he is,” he said. “And now I know you’ve got him. Please give me Master Ancred, the Actor’s Son.” This sally afforded Panty exquisite amusement. With primitive guffaws she began to demand cards under the names of her immediate relations and to the utter confusion of the game.

“There now,” said Alleyn at last, in a voice that struck him as being odiously complacent. “That was a lovely game. Suppose you take us up to see the — ah—”

“The Happy Family,” Fox prompted in a wooden voice.

“Certainly,” said Alleyn.

“Why?” Panty demanded.

“That’s what we’ve come for.”

Panty stood squarely facing him. Upon her stained face there grew, almost furtively, a strange expression. It was compounded, he thought, of the look of a normal child about to impart a secret and of something less familiar, more disquieting.

“Here!” she said. “I want to tell you something. Not him. You.”

She drew Alleyn away, and with a sidelong glance pulled him down until she could hook her arm about his neck. He waited, feeling her breath uncomfortably in his ear.

“What is it?”

The whispering was disembodied but unexpectedly clear. “We’ve got,” it said, “a murderer in our family.”

When he drew back and looked at her she was smiling nervously.