Vintage Murder

Chapter XVII CHANGE OF SCENE

When Alleyn returned to the lounge he found Wade there, waiting for him. They retired to Alleyn’s room where he related the gist of his conversation with Gordon.

“I’ve told him to give you the whole story himself.”

“I still don’t see why he cleared out on us,” said Wade.

“I fancy it was partly because he’d worked himself up into a blue funk over the whole business. His nerves are in a lamentable state, silly little creature. And I do think, Wade, that he’s in a devil of a twit over this business of the tiki.”

“Yee-es? And why’s that, sir?”

Alleyn hesitated for a moment. A curious look of reluctance came into his face. When he spoke his voice was unusually harsh.

“Why? Because he caught Carolyn Dacres lying. Last night when I asked her about the tiki her hand went to her breast. She fingered her dress, expecting to feel the hard little tiki underneath. Then she said she had not handled it since it was left on the table. She looked in her bag. The only honest thing she did was involuntary — that movement of her hand. I’ve told you young Palmer started to speak, and stopped dead. This morning I trapped him into as good as admitting he’d seen her put the tiki into her dress.”

“But why did he stop? He couldn’t have known where we found it, could he?”

“No. The young booby’s head over ears in calf-love with her. He sensed the lie, as I did, and wouldn’t give her away.”

“I reckon I’ll talk to Miss Carolyn Dacres-Meyer before I do another thing. This looks like something, sir. And she could have gone up there. She could have done it all right.”

“Yes. Wade, at the risk of making an intolerable nuisance of myself, I’m going to ask a favour of you. Will you allow me to speak to her first? I–I’ve a perfectly legitimate reason for wanting to do this. At least,” said Alleyn with a wry smile, “I think it’s legitimate. It’s just possible she may feel less on the defensive with me. You see — I know her.”

“You go to it, sir,” said Wade, with a violent heartiness that may possibly have concealed a feeling of chagrin. “You do just as you please, and we’ll be more than satisfied. That’ll be quite O.K. As you say, you’ll get a lot more out of her than we would, seeing she looks on you as a friend.”

“Thank you,” said Alleyn. He looked rather sick.

“I’ll get back to the station, sir. Let young Palmer come to me — better than seeing him here. The super will be calling in shortly, I fancy.”

“Have a drink before you go,” suggested Alleyn.

“Now, sir, I was just going to suggest, if you’d give me the pleasure—”

They went down to the bar and had drinks with each other.

Wade departed, and Alleyn, avoiding the unwavering stare with which everybody in the hotel followed his movements, buried himself behind a newspaper until the arrival of Superintendent Nixon. Nixon turned out to be a pleasant and. dignified officer with a nice sense of humour. He was cordial without finding any necessity to indulge in Wade’s exuberant manifestations of friendliness. Alleyn liked him very much and saw that Nixon really welcomed his suggestions, and wished for his co-operation. They discussed the case fully and Nixon stayed until eleven-thirty when he exclaimed at the length of his visit, invited Alleyn to make full use of the local station and its officials, and accepted an invitation to dine the following evening.

When he had gone Alleyn, with the air of facing an unpleasant task, returned to the writing-desk. There were now nine people in the lounge, all ensconced behind newspapers. Six of them frankly folded their journals and turned their gaze on Alleyn. Two peered round the corners of their papers at him. The last, an old lady, lowered her paper until it masked the bottom part of her face like a yashmak, and glared at him unwinkingly over the top. Alleyn himself stared at a blank sheet of paper for minutes. At last he wrote quickly:

He was about to ring for someone to take this note to Carolyn’s room, when he became aware of a sense of release. A rustling and stirring among the nine bold starers informed him of the arrival of a new attraction and, glancing through the glass partition, he saw Hambledon coming downstairs. He went to meet him.

“Hullo, Alleyn. Good morning. I suppose you’ve been up for hours.”

“Not so many hours.”

“Any of our people down yet?”

“I haven’t seen them.”

“Gone to earth,” muttered Hambledon, “like rabbits. But they’ll have to come to light soon. Mason called us for noon at the theatre.”

“I don’t think you’ll get in there, do you know,” said Alleyn.

“Why? Oh — the police. I see. Well, I suppose it’ll be somewhere in the hotel.”

The lift came down and Mason got out of it

“ ’Morning, Hailey. ’Morning Mr. Alleyn.”

“Hullo, George. Where are we meeting?”

“The people, here, have lent us the smoking-room. My God, Hailey, they’re locking us out of our own theatre. Do you know that? Locking us out!”

They gazed palely at each other.

“First time in thirty years experience it’s ever happened to me,” said Mason. “My God, what would Alf have thought! Locked out of our own house. It makes you feel awful, doesn’t it?”

“It’s all pretty awful, George.”

“Did you sleep?”

“Not remarkably well. Did you?”

“Damn’ queer thing, but it’s the first night for months that I haven’t been racked by dyspepsia — first time for months — and I lay there without a gurgle, thinking about Alf at night.” Mason stared solemnly at both of them. “That’s what you call irony,” he said.

“How will you let everybody know about the call for twelve?” asked Hambledon.

“I’ve got hold of Ted and he’s doing it.”

“Do you want Carolyn?”

“Have you seen her? How is she?”

“I haven’t seen her.”

Mason looked surprised.

“Well run up now, like a good fellow, Hailey, and tell her not to bother about this call if she doesn’t feel up to it.”

“All right,” said Hambledon.

“Would you mind giving her this note?” asked Alleyn, suddenly. “It’s just a suggestion that if she’d like to get away from the pub for a bit of fresh air — she’ll explain. Thank you so much.”

“Yes — certainly.” Hambledon looked sharply at Alleyn and then made for the lift.

“This is a difficult situation for you, Mr. Mason,” said Alleyn.

“Difficult! It’s a bit more than difficult. We don’t know what’s to happen. Here we are with the tour booked up — the advance is down in Wellington and has put all the stuff out. We’re due to open there in six days and God knows if the police will let us go, and if they do God knows if Carolyn will be able to play. And without her—!”

“Who’s her understudy.”

“Gaynes. I ask you! Flop! The Australian kid would have to take Gaynes’s bits. Of course if Carolyn does play—”

“But, after this! She’s had a terrible shock.”

“It’s different in the business,” said Mason. “Always has been. The show must go on. Doesn’t mean we’re callous but — well Alf would have felt the same. The show must go on. It’s always been like that.”

“I suppose it has. But surely—”

“I’ve seen people go on who would have been sent off to hospital in any other business. Fact. I was born off-stage twenty minutes after my mother took her last call. It was a costume piece, of course — crinolines. It’s a funny old game, ours.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. Suddenly he was aware of a kind of nostalgia, a feeling of intense sympathy and kinship with the stage. “A drab enough story to have aroused it,” he thought. “A theme that has been thrashed to death in every back-stage plot from Pagliacci downwards. The show must go on!”

“Of course,” Mason was saying, “Carolyn may feel differently. I’m not sure about it myself. The public might not like it. Besides suppose it’s — one of us. Everybody would be wondering which of the cast is a bloody murderer. That’s so, isn’t it?”

“I suppose there would be a certain amount of conjecture.”

“Not the sort of advertisement the Firm wants,” said Mason moodily. “Undignified.”

To this magnificent illustration of a meiosis, Alleyn could only reply: “Quite so.”

Mason muttered on, unhappily: “It’s damn’ difficult and expensive whichever way you look at it. And there’s the funeral. I suppose that will be tomorrow. And the inquest. The papers will be full of us. Publicity! Poor old Alf! He was always a genius on the publicity side. My God, it’s rum, isn’t it? Oh well — see you later. You’re going to give these fellows a hand, aren’t you? Funny, you being a detective. I hear Alf knew all about it. My God, Alleyn, I hope you get him.”

“I hope we shall. Will you have a drink?”

“Me? With my stomach it’d be dynamite. Thanks, all the same. See you later.”

He wandered off, disconsolately.

Alleyn remained in the hall. In a minute or two Hailey Hambledon came down in the lift and joined him.

“Carolyn says she would like to go out. I’m to thank you and say she will be down in ten minutes.”

“I’ll order the car at once. She won’t want to wait down here.”

“With all these rubbernecks? Heavens, no!”

Alleyn went into the telephone-box and rang up the garage. The car would be sent round at once. When he came out Hambledon was waiting for him.

“It’s extraordinarily nice of you, Alleyn, to do this for her.”

“It is a very great pleasure.”

“She’s so much upset,” continued Hambledon. He lowered his voice and glanced at the reception clerk who was leaning out of his window and affecting an anxious concern in the activities of the hall porter. The porter was engaged in a close inspection of the carpet within a six-foot radius from Alleyn and Hambledon. He had the air of a person who is looking for a lost jewel of great worth.

“Porter,” said Alleyn.

“Sir?”

“Here is half a crown. Will you be so good as to go out into the street and watch for a car which should arrive for me at any moment? You can continue your treasure hunt when I have gone.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the porter in some confusion, and retired through the revolving doors. Alleyn gazed placidly at the reception clerk who turned away with an abstracted air and picked his teeth.

“Come over here,” suggested Alleyn to Hambledon.

“The occupants of the lounge can gaze their full but they can’t hear you. You were saying—?”

“I am sure the shock has been much greater than she realises. As a matter of fact I can’t help feeling she would do better to spend the day in bed.”

“Thinking?”

“She’ll do that wherever she is. I’m very worried about her, Alleyn. She’s altogether too bright and brave — it’s not natural. Look here — you won’t talk to her about Alf, will you? Keep right off this tragedy if you can. She’s in no state to discuss it with anybody. Last night those damn’ fellows kept her at it for God knows how long. I know that you, as a Yard man, are anxious to learn what you can, and I hope with all my heart that you get the swine; but — don’t worry Carolyn again just yet. She gets quite hysterical at the mention of it. I know I can depend on you?”

“Oh,” said Alleyn vaguely, “I’m very dependable. Here is Miss Dacres.”

Carolyn stepped out of the lift.

She wore a black dress that he had seen before and a black hat with a brim that came down over her face which, as usual, was beautifully made-up. But underneath the make-up he suspected she was very pale, and there was a darkness about her eyes. Carolyn looked a little older, and Alleyn felt a sudden stab of compassion. “That won’t do,” he thought, and started forward to greet her. He was aware that the old lady with the journalistic yashmak had boldly advanced to the plate-glass partition, and that three of the other occupants of the lounge were making hurriedly for the hall.

“Good morning,” said Carolyn. “This is very nice of you.”

“Come out to the car,” said Alleyn. “It is very nice of you.”

He and Hambledon walked out on either side of her. The porter, who had been deep in conversation with the mechanic from the garage, flew to open the door of the car. A number of people seemed to be hanging about on the footpath.

“Thank you,” said Alleyn to the mechanic. “I’m driving myself. Come back at about three, will you? Here you are, Miss Dacres.”

“You’re in a great hurry, both of you,” said Carolyn, as Hambledon slammed the door. Then she saw the little knot of loiterers on the footpath. “I see,” she whispered.

“Good-bye, my dear,” said Hambledon. “Have a lovely drive.”

“Good-bye, Hailey.”

The car shot forward.

“I suppose the paper is full of it,” said Carolyn.

“Not absolutely full. They don’t seem to go in for the nauseating front-page stuff in this country.”

“Wait till the evening papers come out before you’re sure of that.”

“Even they,” said Alleyn, “will probably show a comparative sense of decency. I thought we might drive up to where those mountains begin. They say it’s a good road and I got the people in the hotel to put some lunch in the car.”

“You felt sure I would come?” asked Carolyn.

“Oh, no,” said Alleyn lightly. “I only hoped you would. I’ve been a fair distance along this road already. It’s an uphill grade all the way, though you wouldn’t think it, and when we get to the hills it’s rather exciting.”

“You needn’t bother to make conversation.”

“Needn’t I? I rather fancy myself as a conversationalist. It’s part of my job.”

“In that case,” said Carolyn loudly, “you had better go on. You see, dear Mr. Alleyn, I do realise this is just a rather expensive and delicate approach to an interrogation.”

“I thought you would.”

“And I must say I do think it’s quite charming of you to take so much trouble over the setting. Those mountains are grand, aren’t they? So very up-stage and magnificent.”

“You should have seen them at 6 a.m.”

“Now you are being a Ruth Draper. They couldn’t have been any lovelier than they are at this moment, even with these depressing little bungalows in the foreground.”

“Yes, they were. They were so lovely I couldn’t look at them for more than a minute.”

“ ‘Mine eyes dazzle’?”

“Something like that. Why don’t you do some of those old things. The Maid’s Tragedy.”

“Too hopelessly frank and straightforward for the Lord Chamberlain, and not safe enough for the box-office. I did think once of Millament, but Pooh said—” She stopped for a second. “Alfie thought it wouldn’t go.”

“Pity,” said Alleyn.

They drove on in silence for a few minutes. The tram-line ended and the town began to thin out into scattered groups of houses.

“Here’s the last of the suburbs,” said Alleyn. “There are one or two small townships and then we are in the country.”

“And at what stage,” asked Carolyn, “do we begin the real business of the day? Shall you break down my reserve with precipitous roads, and shake my composure with hairpin bends? And then draw up at the edge of a chasm and snap out a question, before I have time to recover my wits?”

“But why should I do any of these things? I can’t believe that my few childish inquiries will prove at all embarrassing. Why should they?”

“I thought all detectives made it their business to dig up one’s disreputable past and fling it in one’s face.”

“Is your past so disreputable?”

“There you go, you see.”

Alleyn smiled, and again there was a long silence. Alleyn thought Hambledon had been right when he said that Carolyn was too brave to be true. There was a determined and painful brightness about her, her voice was pitched a tone too high, her conversation sounded brittle, and her silences were intensely uncomfortable. “I’ll have to wait,” thought Alleyn.

“Actually,” said Carolyn suddenly, “my past is quite presentable. Not at all the sort of thing that most people imagine about the actress gay. It began in a parsonage, went on in a stock drama company, then repertory, then London. I went through the mill, you know. All sorts of queer little touring companies where one had to give a hand with the props, help on the stage, almost bring the curtain down on one’s own lines.”

“Help on the stage? You don’t mean you had to lug that scenery about?”

“Yes, I do. I could run up a box-set as well as most people. Flick the toggle-cords over the hooks, drop the back-cloth — everything. Oh, but how lovely that is! How lovely!”

They had now left all the houses behind them. The road wound upwards through round green hills whose firm margins cut across each other like the curve of a simple design. As Carolyn spoke, they turned a corner, and from behind this sequence of rounded greens rose the mountain, cold and intractable against a brilliant sky. They travelled fast, and the road turned continually, so that the hills and the mountain seemed to march solemnly about in a rhythm too large to be comprehensible. Presently Alleyn and Carolyn came to a narrow bridge and a pleasant little hinterland through which hurried a stream in a wide and stony bed.

“I thought we might stop here,” said Alleyn.

“I should like to do that.”

He drove along a rough track that led down to the river-bed, and stopped in the shadow of thick white flowering manuka shrubs, honey-scented.

They got out of the car and instead of the stuffiness of leather and petrol they found a smooth freshness of air with a tang of snow in it. Carolyn, an incongruous figure in her smart dress, stood with her face raised.

“It smells clean.”

The flat stones were hot in the sun, and a heat-haze wavered above the river-bed. The air was alive with the voice of the stream. They walked over the stones, over springy lichen, and patches of dry grass, to the border of the creek where the grass was greener. Here there were scattered prickly shrubs and sprawling bushes, that farther upstream led into a patch of dark trees.

“It must have been forested at one time,” said Alleyn. “There are burnt tree stumps all over these hills.”

And from the trees came the voice of a solitary bird, a slow cadence, deeper than any they had ever heard, ringing, remote and cool, above the sound of water. Carolyn stopped to listen. Suddenly Alleyn realised that she was deeply moved and that her eyes had filled with tears.

“I’ll go back for the luncheon basket,” he said, “if you’ll find a place for us to sit. Here’s the rug.”

When he turned back he saw that she had gone farther up the river-bed and was sitting in shade, close to the stream. She sat very still and it was impossible to guess at her mood from her posture. As he walked towards her, he wondered of what she thought. He saw her hands move up and pull off the black London hat. In a moment she turned her head and waved to him. When he reached her side he saw that she had been crying.

“Well,” said Alleyn, “how do you feel about lunch? They’ve given me a billy to make the authentic brew of tea — I thought you would insist on that, but if you’re not tourist-minded, there’s some sort of white wine. Anyway we’ll make a fire because it smells pleasant. Will you unpack the lunch while I attempt to do my great open spaces stuff with sticks and at least three boxes of matches?”

She could not answer, and he knew that at last the sprightly, vague, delightfully artificial Carolyn had failed her, and that she was left alone with herself and with him.

He turned away, but her voice recalled him.

“You won’t believe it,” she was saying. “Nobody will believe it — but I was so fond of my Alfie-pooh.”