Overture to Death

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Alleyn Goes to Church

i

Miss Prentice came in looking, as Henry afterwards told Dinah, as much like an early Christian martyr as her clothes permitted. Alleyn, who had never been able to conquer his proclivity for first impressions, took an instant dislike to her.

The squire’s manner became nervously proprietary.

“Well, Eleanor,” he said, “here you are. We’re sorry to bring you down. May I introduce Mr. Alleyn? He’s looking into this business for us.”

Miss Prentice gave Alleyn a forbearing smile and a hand like a fish. She sat on the only uncomfortable chair in the room.

“I shall try not to bother you too long,” Alleyn began.

“It’s only,” said Miss Prentice, in a voice that suggested the presence of Miss Campanula’s body in the room, “it’s only that I hope to go to church at eleven.”

“It’s a few minutes after ten. I think you’ll have plenty of time.”

“I’ll drive you down,” said Henry.

“Thank you, dear, I think I should like to walk.”

“I’m going, anyway,” said Jocelyn.

Miss Prentice smiled at him. It was an approving, understanding sort of smile, and Alleyn thought it would have kept him away from church for the rest of his life.

“Well, Miss Prentice,” he said, “we are trying to see daylight through a mass of strange circumstances. There is no reason why you shouldn’t be told that Miss Campanula was shot by the automatic that is kept in a box in this room.”

“Oh, Jocelyn!” said Miss Prentice, “how terrible! You know, dear, we have said it wasn’t really quite advisable, haven’t we?”

“You needn’t go rubbing it in, Eleanor.”

“Why wasn’t it advisable,” asked Henry. “Had you foreseen, Cousin Eleanor, that somebody might pinch the Colt and rig it up in a piano as a lethal booby-trap?”

“Henry dear, please! We just said sometimes that perhaps it wasn’t very wise.”

“Are you employing the editorial or the real ‘we’?”

Alleyn said, “One minute, please. Before we go any further I think, as a matter of pure police routine, I would like to see your finger, Miss Prentice.”

“Oh, dear! It’s very painful. I’m afraid — ”

“If you would rather Dr. Templett unwrapped it— ”

“Oh, no. No.”

“If you will allow me, I think I can do a fairly presentable bandage.”

Miss Prentice raised her eyes to Alleyn’s and a very peculiar expression visited her face, a mixture of archness and submission. She advanced her swathed hand with an air of timidity. He undid the bandage very quickly and lightly and exposed the finger with a somewhat battered stall drawn over a closer bandage. He peeled off the stall and completely unwrapped the finger. It was inflamed, discoloured and swollen.

“A nasty casualty,” said Alleyn. “You should have it dressed again. Dr. Templett — ”

“I do not wish Dr. Templett to touch it.”

“But he could give you fresh bandages and a stall that has not been torn.”

“I have a first-aid box. Henry, would you mind, dear?”

Henry was despatched for the first-aid box. Alleyn redressed the finger very deftly. Miss Prentice watched him with a sort of eager concentration, never lowering her gaze from his face.

“How beautifully you manage,” she said.

“I hope it will serve. You should have a sling, I fancy. Do you want the old stall?”

She shook her head. He dropped it in his pocket and was startled when she uttered a little coy murmur of protestation for all the world as if he had taken her finger-stall from some motive of gallantry.

“You deserve a greater reward,” she said.

“Lummy!” thought Alleyn in considerable embarrassment. He said, “Miss Prentice, I am trying to get a sort of timetable of everybody’s movements from Friday afternoon until the time of the tragedy. Do you mind telling me where you were on Friday afternoon?”

“I was in church.”

“All the afternoon?”

“Oh, no,” said Eleanor, softly.

“Between what hours were you there, please?”

“I arrived at two.”

“Do you know when the service was over?”

“It was not a service,” said Miss Prentice with pale forbearance.

“You were there alone?”

“It was confession,” said Henry impatiently.

“Oh, I see.” Alleyn paused. “Was anybody else there besides yourself and — and your confessor?”

“No. I passed poor Idris on my way out.”

“When was that?”

“I think I remember the clock struck half-past two.”

“Good; And then?”

“I went home.”

“Directly?”

“I took the top lane.”

“The lane that comes out by the church?”

“Yes.”

“Did you pass the parish hall?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t go in?”

“No.”

“Was any one there, do you think?”

“The doors were shut,” said Miss Prentice. “I think the girls only went in for an hour.”

“Were the keys in their place of concealment on Friday?” asked Alleyn.

Miss Prentice instantly looked grieved and shocked. Henry grinned broadly and said, “There’s only one key. I don’t know if it was there on Friday. I think it was. Dinah would know about that. Some of the committee worked there on Friday, as Cousin Eleanor says, but none of us. They may have returned the key to the rectory. I only went halfway down.”

“At what part of the top lane on Friday afternoon did you meet Mr. Henry Jernigham and Miss Copeland, Miss Prentice?”

Alleyn heard her draw in her breath and saw her turn white. She looked reproachfully at Henry and said:

“I’m afraid I do not remember.”

“I do,” said Henry. “It was at the sharp bend above the foot-bridge. You came round the corner from below.”

She bent her head. Henry looked as if he dared her to speak.

“There’s something damned unpleasant about this,” thought Alleyn.

He said, “How long did you spend in conversation with the others before you went on to Pen Cuckoo?”

An unlovely red stained her cheeks.

“Not long.”

“About five minutes, I should think,” said Henry.

“And you arrived home, when?”

“I should think at about half-past three. I really don’t know.”

“Did you go out again on Friday, Miss Prentice?”

“No,” said Miss Prentice.

“You were about the house? I’m sorry to worry you like this, but you see I really do want to know exactly what everybody did on Friday.”

“I was in my room,” she said. “There are two little offices that Father Copeland has given us for use after confession.”

“Oh, I see,” said Alleyn, in some embarrassment.

ii

Alleyn waded on. Miss Prentice’s air of patient martyrdom increased with every question, but he managed to get a good deal of information from her. On Saturday, the day of the performance, she had spent the morning in the parish hall with all the other workers. She left when the others left, and, with Jocelyn and Henry, returned to Pen Cuckoo for lunch. She had not gone out again until the evening but had spent the afternoon in her sitting-room. She remembered waking the squire at tea-time. After tea she returned to her room.

“During yesterday morning you were all at the hall?” said Alleyn. “Who got there first?”

“Dinah Copeland, I should think,” said Jocelyn promptly. “She was there when we arrived. She was always the first.”

Alleyn made a note of it and went on, “Did any of you notice the position and appearance of the piano?”

They all looked very solemn at the mention of the piano.

“I think I did,” said Miss Prentice in a low voice. “It was as it was for the performance. The girls had evidently arranged the drapery and pot-plants on Friday. I looked at it rather particularly as I was — I was to play it.”

“Good Lord!” ejaculated the squire, “you were strumming on the damned thing. I remember now.”

“Jocelyn, dear, please! I did just touch the keys, I believe, with my right hand. Not my left,” said Miss Prentice with her most patient smile.

“This was yesterday morning, wasn’t it?” said Alleyn. “Now, please, Miss Prentice, try to remember. Did you use the soft pedal at all when you tried the piano?”

“Oh, dear, now I wonder. Let me see. I did sit down for a moment. I expect I did use the soft pedal. I always think soft playing is so much nicer. Yes, I should think almost without doubt I used the soft pedal.”

“Was anybody by the piano at the time?” asked Alleyn.

Miss Prentice turned a reproachful gaze on him.

“Idris,” she whispered. “Miss Campanula.”

“Here, wait a bit,” shouted Jocelyn. “I’ve remembered the whole thing. Eleanor, you sat down and strummed about with your right hand and she came up and asked you why you didn’t try with your left to see how it worked.”

“So she did,” said Henry, softly. “And so, of course, she would.”

“And you got up and went away,” said the squire. “Old Camp — well, Idris Campanula — gave a sort of laugh and dumped herself down and — ”

“And away went the Prelude!” cried Henry. “You’re quite right, Father. ‘Pom. Pom! POM!! And then down with the soft pedal. That’s it, sir,” he added, turning to Alleyn. “I watched her. I’ll swear it.”

“Right,” said Alleyn. “We’re getting on. This was yesterday morning. At what time?”

“Just before we packed up,” said Henry. “About midday.”

“And — I know I’ve been over this before, but it’s important — you all left together?”

“Yes,” said Henry. “We three drove off in the car. I remember that I heard Dinah slam the back door just as we started. They were all out by then.”

“And none of you returned until the evening? I see. When you arrived at a quarter to seven you found Miss Copeland there.”

“Yes,” said Jocelyn.

“Where was she?”

“On the stage with her father, putting flowers in vases.”

“Was the curtain down?”

“Yes.”

“What did you all do?”

“I went to my dressing-room,” said the squire.

“I stayed in the supper-room and talked to Dinah,” said Henry. “Her father was on the stage. After a minute or two I went to my dressing-room.”

“Here!” ejaculated Jocelyn, and glared at Miss Prentice.

“What, dear?”

“Those girls were giggling about in front of the hall: I wonder if any of them got up to any hanky-panky with the piano.”

“Oh, my dear Father!” said Henry.

“They were strictly forbidden to touch the instrument,” said Miss Prentice. “Ever since Cissie Drury did such damage.”

“How long was it before the others arrived? Dr. Templett and Mrs. Ross?” asked Alleyn.

“They didn’t get down until half-past seven,” said Henry. “Dinah was in a frightful stew and so were we all. She rang up Mrs. Ross’s cottage in the end. It took ages to get through. The hall telephone’s an extension from the rectory and we rang for a long time before anybody at the rectory answered and at last, when it was connected with Mrs. Ross’s house, there was no reply, so we knew she’d left.”

“She came with Dr. Templett?”

“Oh, yes,” murmured Miss Prentice.

“The telephone is in your dressing-room, isn’t it, Mr. Jernigham?”

“Mine and Henry’s. We shared. We were all there round the telephone.”

“Yes.” said Alleyn. He looked from one face to another. Into the quiet room there dropped the Sunday morning sound of chiming bells. Miss Prentice rose.

“Thank you so much,” said Alleyn. “I think I’ve got a general idea of the two days now. On Friday afternoon Miss Prentice went to church, Mr. Jernigham hunted, Mr. Henry Jernigham went for a walk. On her return from church, Miss Prentice met Mr. Henry Jernigham and Miss Copeland, who had themselves met by chance in the top lane. That was at about three. Mr. Henry Jernigham returned home by a circuitous route, Miss Prentice by the top lane. Miss Prentice went to her room. At five you had your rehearsal for words in this room, and everybody saw the automatic. You all three dined at home and remained at home. It was also on Friday afternoon that some helpers worked for about an hour at the hall, but apparently they had finished at two-thirty when Miss Prentice passed that way. On Saturday (yesterday) morning Dr. Templett and Mrs. Ross called here for the tie. You all went down to the hall and you, sir, drove to Great Chipping. You all returned for lunch. By this time the piano was in position with the drapery and aspidistras on top. In the afternoon Mr. Henry Jernigham walked up Cloudyfold and back. As far as we know, only Dr. Templett and Mrs. Ross visited the hall yesterday afternoon. At a quarter to seven you all arrived there for the performance.”

“Masterly, sir,” said Henry.

“Oh, I’ve written it all down,” said Alleyn. “My memory’s hopeless.”

“What about your music, Miss Prentice? When did you put it on the piano?”

“Oh, on Saturday morning, of course.”

“I see. You had it here until then?”

“Oh, no,” said Miss Prentice. “Not here, you know.”

“Then, where?”

“In the hall, naturally.”

“It lives in the hall?”

“Oh, no,” she said, opening her eyes very wide, “why should it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. When did you take it to the hall?”

“On Thursday night for the dress-rehearsal. Of course.”

“I see. You played for the dress-rehearsal?”

“Oh, no.”

“For the love of heaven!” ejaculated Jocelyn. “Why the dickens can’t you come to the point, Eleanor. She wanted to play on Thursday night but her finger was like a bad sausage,” he explained to Alleyn.

Miss Prentice gave Alleyn her martyred smile, shook her head slightly at the bandaged finger, and looked restlessly at the clock.

“H’m,” she said unhappily.

“Well,” said Alleyn. “The music was in the hall from Thursday onwards and you put it in the rack yesterday morning. And none of you went into the hall before the show last night. Good.”

Miss Prentice said, “Well — I think I shall just— Jocelyn, dear, that’s the first bell, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry,” said Alleyn, “but I should like, if I may, to have a word with you, Miss Prentice. Perhaps you will let me drive you down. Or if not — ”

“Oh,” said Miss Prentice, looking very flurried, “thank you. I think I should prefer — I’m afraid I really can’t — ”

“Cousin Eleanor,” said Henry, “I will drive you down, father will drive you down, or Mr. Alleyn will drive you down. You might even drive yourself down. It is only twenty-five to eleven now and it doesn’t take more than ten minutes to walk down, so you can easily spare Mr. Alleyn a quarter of an hour.”

“I’m afraid I do fuss rather, don’t I, but you see I like to have a few quiet moments before — ”

“Now, look here, Eleanor,” said the squire warmly, “this is an investigation into murder. Good Lord, it’s your best friend that’s been killed, my dear girl, and when we’re right in the thick of it, damme, you want to go scuttling off to church.”

“Jocelyn!”

“Come on, Father,” said Henry. “We’ll leave Mr. Alleyn a fair field.”

iii

“—you see,” said Alleyn, “I don’t think you quite realise your own position. Hadn’t it occurred to you that you were the intended victim?”

“It is such a dreadful thought,” said Miss Prentice.

“I know it is, but you’ve got to face it. There’s a murderer abroad in your land and as far as one can see his first coup hasn’t come off. It’s been a fantastic and horrible failure. For your own, if not for the public’s good, you must realise this. Surely you want to help us.”

“I believe,” said Miss Prentice, “that our greatest succour lies in prayer.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said slowly, “I can appreciate that. But my job is to ask questions, and I do ask you, most earnestly, if you believe that you have a bitter enemy among this small group of people.”

“I cannot believe it of any one.”

Alleyn looked at her with something very like despair. She had refused to sit down after they were alone, but fidgeted about in the centre of the room, looked repeatedly down the Vale, and was thrown into a fever of impatience by the call of the church bells.

A towering determined figure, he stood between Eleanor and the window, and concentrated his will on her. He thought of his mind as a pin-pointed weapon and he drove it into hers.

“Miss Prentice. Please look at me.”

Her glance wavered. Her pale eyes travelled reluctantly to his. Deliberately silent until he felt he had got her whole attention, he held her gaze with his own. Then he spoke. “I may not try to force information from you. You are a free agent. But think for a moment of the position. You have escaped death by an accident. If you had persisted in playing last night you would have been shot dead. I am going to repeat a list of names to you. If there is anything between any one of these persons and yourself which, if I knew of it, might help me to see light, ask yourself if you should not tell me of it. These are the names:

“Mr. Jocelyn Jernigham?

“His son, Henry Jernigham?

“The rector, Mr. Copeland?”

“No!” she cried, “no! Never! Never!”

“His daughter, Dinah Copeland?

“Mrs. Ross?”

He saw the pale eyes narrow a little.

“Dr. Templett?”

She stared at him like a mesmerised rabbit.

“Well, Miss Prentice, what of Mrs. Ross and Dr. Templett?”

“I can accuse nobody. Please let me go.”

“Have you ever had a difference with Mrs. Ross?”

“I hardly speak to Mrs. Ross.”

“Or with Dr. Templett?”

“I prefer not to discuss Dr. Templett,” she said breathlessly.

“At least,” said Alleyn, “he saved your life. He dissuaded you from playing.”

“I believe God saw fit to use him as an unworthy instrument.”

Alleyn opened his mouth to speak and thought better of it. At last he said, “In your own interest, tell me this. Has Mrs. Ross cause to regard you as her enemy?”

She wetted her lips and answered him with astounding vigour:

“I have thought only as every decent creature who sees her must think. Before she could silence the voice of reproach she would have to murder a dozen Christian souls.”

“Of whom Miss Campanula was one?”

She stared at him vacantly and then he saw she had understood him.

“That’s why he wouldn’t let me play,” she whispered.

iv

On his way back, Alleyn turned off the Vale road and drove up past the church to the hall. Seven cars were drawn up outside St. Giles and he noticed a stream of villagers turning in at the lych-gate.

“Full house, this morning,” thought Alleyn grimly. And suddenly he pulled up by the hall, got out, and walked back to the church.

“The devil takes a holiday,” he thought, and joined in with the stream.

He managed to elude the solicitations of a sidesman and slip into a seat facing the aisle in the back row where he sat with his long hands clasped round his knee. His head looked remotely austere in the cold light from the open doors.

Winton St. Giles is a beautiful church and Alleyn, overcoming that first depression inseparable from the ecclesiastical smell, and the sight of so many people with decorous faces, found pleasure in the tranquil solidity of stone shaped into the expression of devotion. The single bell stopped. The organ rumbled vaguely for three minutes, the congregation stood, and Mr. Copeland followed his choir into church.

Like everybody else who saw him for the first time, Alleyn was startled by the rector’s looks. The service was a choral Eucharist and he wore a cope, a magnificent vestment that shone like a blazon in the candle light. His silver hair, the incredible perfection of his features, his extreme pallor, and great height, made Alleyn think of an actor admirably suited for the performance of priestly parts. But when the time came for the short sermon, he found evidence of a simple and unaffected mind with no great originality. It was an unpretentious sermon touched with sincerity. The rector spoke of prayers for the dead and told his listeners that there was nothing in the teaching of their church that forbade such prayers. He invited them to petition God for the peace of all souls departed in haste or by violence, and he commended meditation and a searching of their own hearts lest they should harbour anger or resentment.

As the service went on, Alleyn, looking down the aisle, saw a dark girl with so strong a resemblance to the rector that he knew she must be Dinah Copeland. Her eyes were fixed on her father and in them Alleyn read anxiety and affection.

Miss Prentice was easily found, for she sat next the aisle in the front row. She rose and fell like a ping-pong ball on a water jet, sinking in solitary genuflexions and crossing herself like a sort of minor soloist. The squire sat beside her. The back of his neck wore an expression of indignation and discomfort, being both scarlet and rigid. Much nearer to Alleyn, and also next the aisle, sat a woman whom he recognised as probably the most fashionable figure in the congregation. Detectives are trained to know about clothes and Alleyn knew hers were impeccable. She wore them like a Frenchwoman. He could only see the thin curve of her cheek and an immaculate wing of straw-coloured hair, but presently, as if aware of his gaze, she turned her head and he saw her face. It was thinnish and alert, beautifully made-up, hard, but with a look of amused composure. The pale eyes looked into his and widened. She paused with unmistakable deliberation for a split second, and then turned away. Her luxuriously gloved hand went to her hair.

“That was once known as the glad eye,” thought Alleyn.

Under cover of a hymn he slipped out of church.

v

He crossed the lane to the hall. Sergeant Roper was on duty at the gate and came smartly to attention.

“Well, Roper, how long have you been here?”

“I relieved Constable Fife an hour ago, sir. The super sent him along soon after you left. About seven-thirty, sir.”

“Anybody been about?”

“Boys,” said Roper, “hanging round like wasps and as bold as brass with that young Biggins talking that uppish you’d have thought he was as good as the murderer, letting on as he was as full of inside knowledge as the Lord Himself, not meaning it in the way of blasphemy. I subdued him, however, and his mother bore him off to church. Mr. Bathgate took a photograph of the building, and asked me to say, sir, that he’d look back in a minute or two in case you were here.”

“I dare say,” granted Alleyn.

“And the doctor came along, too, in a proper taking on. Seems he left one of his knives for slashing open the body in the hall last night, and he wanted to fetch her out for to lay bare the youngest Cain’s toe. I went in with the doctor but she was nowhere to be found, no not even in the pockets of his suit which seemed a strange casual spot for a naked blade, no doubt so deadly sharp as ’twould penetrate the very guts of a man in a flash. Doctor was proper put about by the loss and made off without another word.”

“I see. Any one else?”

“Not a living soul,” said Roper. “I reckon rector will have brought this matter up in his sermon, sir. The man couldn’t well avoid it, seeing it’s his job to put a holy construction on the face of disaster.”

“He did just touch on it,” Alleyn admitted.

“A ticklish affair and you may be sure one that he didn’t greatly relish, being a timid sort of chap.”

“I think I’ll have a look round the outside of the hall, Roper.”

“Very good, sir.”

Alleyn wandered round the hall on the lane side, his eyes on the gravelled path. Roper looked after him wistfully until he disappeared at the back. He came to the rear door, saw nothing of interest, and turned to the outhouses. Here, in a narrow gap between two walls, he found a nail where he supposed the key had hung yesterday. He continued his search round the far side of the building and came at last to a window, where he stopped.

He remembered that they had shut this window last night before they left the hall. It was evidently the only one that was ever opened. The others were firmly sealed in accumulated grime. Alleyn looked at the wall underneath it. The surface of the weathered stone was grazed in many places, and on the ground he discovered freshly detached chips. Between the gravelled path and the side of the building was a narrow strip of grass. This bore a rectangular impress that the night’s heavy rain had softened but not obliterated. Within the margin of the impress he found traces of several large footprints and two smaller ones. Alleyn returned to a sort of lumbershed at the back and fetched an old box. The edges at the open end bore traces of damp earth. He took it to the impression and found that it fitted exactly. It also covered the lower grazes on the wall. He examined the box minutely, peering into the joints and cracks in the rough wood. Presently he began to whistle. He took a pair of tweezers from his pocket, and along the edge, from a crack where the. wood had split, he pulled out a minute red scrap of some spongy substance. He found two more shreds caught in the rough surface of the wood, and on a projecting nail. He put them in an envelope and sealed it. Then he replaced the box. He measured the height from the box to the window-sill.

“Good-morning,” said a voice behind him. “You must be a detective.”

Alleyn glanced up and saw Nigel Bathgate leaning over the stone fence that separated the parish hall grounds from a path on the far side.

“What a fascinating life yours must be,” continued Nigel.

Alleyn did not reply. Inadvertently he released the catch on the steel tape. It flew back into the container.

“Pop goes the weasel,” said Nigel.

“Hold your tongue,” said Alleyn, mildly, “and come here.”

Nigel vaulted over the wall.

“Take this tape for me. Don’t touch the box if you can help it.”

“It would be pleasant to know why.”

“Five-foot-three from the box to the sill,” said Alleyn. “Too far for Georgie, and in any case we know he didn’t. That’s funny.”

“Screamingly.”

“Go to the next window, Bathgate, and raise yourself by the sill. If you can.”

“Only if you tell me why.”

“I will in a minute. Please be quick. I want to get this over before the hosts of the godly are upon us. Can you do it?”

“Listen, Chief. This is your lucky day. Look at these biceps. Three months ago I was puny like you. By taking my self-raising course — ”

Nigel reached up to the window sill, gave a prodigious heave, and cracked the crown of his head smartly on the sill.

“Great strength rings the bell,” said Alleyn. “Now try and get a foothold.”

“Blast and damn you!” said Nigel, scraping at the wall with his shoes.

“That will do. I’m going into the hall. When I call out, I want you to repeat this performance. You needn’t crack your head again.”

Alleyn went into the hall, forced open the second window two inches, and went over to the piano.

“Now!”

The shape of Nigel’s head and shoulders rose up behind the clouded glass. His collar and tie appeared in the gap. Alleyn had a fleeting impression of his face.

“All right.”

Nigel disappeared and Alleyn rejoined him.

“Are we playing Peep Bo or what?” asked Nigel sourly.

“Something of the sort. I saw you all right. Yes,” continued Alleyn, examining the wall. “The lady used the box. We will preserve the box. Dear me.”

“At least you might say I can come down.”

“I’m so sorry. Of course. And your head?”

“Bloody.”

“But unbowed, I feel sure. Now I’ll explain.”