Vintage Murder

Chapter XIX CAROLYN MOVES CENTRE

Carolyn told her story as they sat by the sweet-smelling embers of the fire. The sun was bright on the river-bed, but it was still too early in the spring for the day to be unpleasantly hot. As she began to speak, a man came down the gully, followed by three panting sheep-dogs. The man’s old felt hat was tilted over his nose. His jacket was slung across his shoulder and his shirt was open at the neck. He carried a long stick and moved with a sort of loose-jointed ease, as though he had been walking for a long time but was not particularly tired. Against the white glare of the shingle his face and arms were vermilion. He gave them “good-day” with a sideways wag of his head. The dogs trotted past with an air of preoccupation, saliva dripping from their quivering tongues.

“I suppose,” thought Alleyn, “he imagines we are a courting pair and wonders if he has interrupted an amorous scene, instead of—”

“—so I was frightened.” Carolyn went on when the musterer was beyond earshot. “You see there had been another scene that morning — yesterday morning. I can’t believe it was only yesterday — my birthday. Hailey brought me my present. Something I said started him off again. We were alone in my sitting-room. Alfie had just gone out. He — he was all thrilled about his party and he kissed me before he went and was rather possessive. I think that upset Hailey. He was angry and then — violently demonstrative. He said he’d got to the end of his tether — all the old things over again only he was so — so vehement. I wish I was better at explaining myself — I am afraid to tell you exactly what he said because then you may not understand how I can be so certain, now, that Hailey is innocent. You will think I am only saying I know he is innocent because there is nothing else left for me to do.”

“Try me,” suggested Alleyn.

“I must try to explain myself first, my own thoughts from the time Hailey left me yesterday morning until after last night. The next thing to tell you is that, in a way, I knew about the champagne. My poor old boy!” Her voice shook for a moment and her lips parted in an uncertain smile. “He tried so hard to keep it a secret but he was bursting with mysterious hints. I knew there was some plan, and yesterday morning I went down to the theatre and walked in at the stage-door when they were in the middle of rehearsing the surprise. He and George, and Ted and Hailey, and some of the staff. That — that horrible thing — the champagne — you know — must have been hanging there, but out of sight, and they had the weights on the other end of the cord. There were two weights on it and Alfie said: ‘That’s pounds too much. Take one off.’ I couldn’t think what it was about and I just stood watching. They didn’t see me. Ted Gascoigne took one weight off and the other shot up. They just grabbed it in time. It was very funny — seeing them all rush at it. Alfie swore frightfully and I stayed to see, thinking I’d rag him about it afterwards. At last they found the right weight — a single big one. We use three in the first act, you know. The masts and funnels of the yacht are let down with the small ones and the big one is used as a guide for the bridge. They are painted different colours to distinguish them. When they are not in use they are left up above. I heard them say this while I watched. It sounds as though it was a long time but it was only a few moments, I think, before he — my husband — turned and saw me. I said: ‘What do you fellows think you are up to?’ and he became so mysterious, I guessed it was something to do with me. I didn’t let them see that I guessed — he would have been so disappointed.”

She paused, compressing her lips. She raised her hand and pressed the palm against her mouth.

“Take it easy,” said Alleyn.

“Yes. When I saw the cord fastened to the table, I guessed it was something to do with all this business with the weights. Then afterwards — afterwards! Mr. Alleyn, I think I went a little mad after it had happened. I could only see three things, and I saw them so horribly clearly, like the things one sees in nightmares. Hailey, angry and excited yesterday morning, Hailey, looking on while they fixed the weights, and — and what happened. That last picture. I sent him away from my dressing-room and then I got rid of Susie. I went out to the stage and I could hear Ted say over and over again: ‘There must have been some funny business.’ I think he was speaking to you. I thought I must see for myself there and then. In a way my mind was quite clear but it was a sort of delirious clarity. I went round to the back of the stage, took my shoes off, and climbed the ladder. When I reached the top platform I saw at once that the weight had been taken off the hook. I remembered how the smaller weight had shot up, and I thought: ‘If I put it on, it will look like an accident. It will look as if, in the hurry after the first act, they used the small weight instead of the large one.’ The stage down below was clear. I was just going to do it when I heard someone climbing the ladder on the prompt-side. That was just after Hailey had left the stage, and I thought it was Hailey. I stayed still but whoever it was—”

“Me,” said Alleyn,

“You? Oh, what a fool I was! I thought it was Hailey. You went away without getting off the ladder. Then I crept along the platform. I could see the stage. Ted had gone to meet the police — I heard him speak to them. No one was on the stage. I hooked on the small weight — I knew it would be ever so much lighter than even the empty bottle. Then I went down. Ted was still speaking to the detectives. They had gone on the stage and you were standing in the first entrance. I slipped round behind a flat into the dressing-room passage. When I got to my room, Hailey was there. He said he had been waiting there for me, and I told him I had been looking for him, and I sent him for Susie, and then for you.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “That all fits. Now will you tell me, please, what made you change your mind. Why are you now so certain that he is innocent?”

“Because — this is what you will find so strange — because of what he said to me last night when we got back to the hotel. He said: ‘Carolyn, someone has killed Alfred. There’s not a possibility of accident. Someone has altered the weights.’ We were both quiet for a moment and then he said: ‘Yesterday — this morning — if I had known he was going to die I would have thought of you and — what I might gain — and now — I can only think of him.’ As soon as he had spoken, it was as though my brain cleared. I cannot describe how it was. I simply knew that he was quite innocent. I was so ashamed that I had ever thought he might be anything else. He stayed a little while, talking quietly about Alfie and our early days together. When he went away he said”—for a moment the deep voice faltered. Then she made an impatient movement with her head. “He said: ‘You know I love you, Carolyn, but I am glad now that we did nothing to hurt him’.”

There was a long pause. Carolyn seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. She had become much more composed, and Alleyn thought that while she was alone she must have deliberately set in order the events that she had made up her mind to relate. He realised that physically, as well as emotionally, she was exhausted.

“Shall we go back?” he asked gently.

“First tell me: Can you — do you understand how certain I am of Hailey’s innocence? Does what I have said count at all?”

“Yes. It has impressed me very deeply. I am quite sure that you have told me what you believe to be the truth.”

“But you — what do you believe?”

“You must remember that I am a policeman. I attach a great deal of importance to what you have told me, but I would like very much to establish an alibi for the period before the supper-party.”

“For Hailey?”

“For Hambledon, certainly.”

He looked at her. “Has she got no thought at all for herself?” he wondered. “Can’t she see? Or is she, after all, very, very clever?”

“Hailey was in his dressing-room,” said Carolyn. “It is next to mine. I heard him send his dresser away. Wait! Wait! Let me think. Last night when that detective asked me questions I could only think about the other time. Wait! When he told Bob — that’s his dresser — that he could go, I said to Minna, my maid, that I could manage without her. She helped me off with my dress and then she went out, and she and Bob were talking in the passage. I called out to her to hurry and get ready, and she went off, I think to Susie’s room. Then — yes, I called out to Hailey through the wall and he answered. He answered.”

“What did you say?”

“Something about — what was it! — Yes. I said: ‘Hailey — I’ve just remembered. I’ve asked the Woods to the party and nobody knows. How awful!’ And he called back: ‘Not Woods — Forrest.’ I always call people by their wrong names, you see. Then I asked him to go and tell someone about the Forrests and he said he would as soon as he had taken off his make-up. He said he had got grease-paint on his collar and would have to put on a clean one. We had to shout to hear each other. Someone else will have heard. Who is on the other side of Hailey?”

“We’ll find out. Go on, please. After that?”

She held her head between her hands.

“After that? Wait. Bob was outside in the passage, whistling. I remember thinking: ‘It’s in the passage so it doesn’t matter’.”

“But — what do you mean?”

“It’s unlucky to whistle in the dressing-room. Bob stood there — he must have been just inside the doorway to the stage, because I heard him call out every now and then to the stage-hands. I remember thinking that he was evidently not going to bother about tidying himself for the party. He is a great ‘character’ and has been with us for years.”

“Yes, yes,” said Alleyn quickly. “Go on. Let me have the whole story — give me a clear picture of everything. You are all in your rooms, taking off the make-up. Bob is just outside your door, in the entrance from the stage to the passage. You hear him chaffing the stage-hands. How long was he there? Can you tell me that?”

She glanced at him in surprise.

“I don’t know. Why — yes — yes — oh!” Suddenly her whole face was flooded with a kind of tragic thankfulness.

“Listen — listen. Bob was still there when Hailey went out. I heard Hailey say something about why wasn’t he on stage with the party. Bob said: ‘I don’t like butting in, sir. Not my place,’ and I heard Hailey say: ‘Nonsense, you’re all invited. Come along with me, and we’ll make an entrance together.’ That was like Hailey — he’s always considerate with the staff, and nice to them. But Bob was shy and hung back. I heard him say he would wait for Minna. He stayed there. So, don’t you see, if Hailey had gone out before, and come back, Bob would have seen him, and when he did go he asked Bob to go with him. Don’t you see it means Hailey could not have thought of going up to the grid. Why didn’t I remember it before — oh, why didn’t I!”

“I wish very much that you had. Never mind. How much longer did Bob stay there?”

“I heard the others speak to him as they went past. I don’t know how many of them. That was before Hailey went out. But that doesn’t matter. It’s Hailey that matters — he would never have asked Bob to go with him if he meant to go up into the grid, and besides, I am sure it was too late then. If he had done it he would have gone out before, and Bob would have seen him.”

“Was Bob there when you went out?”

“I don’t think so. Hailey and George and — and Alfie came for me. We met in the passage.”

“Tell me,” said Alleyn, “why did you stay so long in your room?”

Something — the faintest shadow — of the old mischievous look, returned to Carolyn’s face. He was reminded of that night in the train when she had looked out of one eye at him.

“I wanted to come on last,” she said. “It was my party.”

“You deliberately delayed your entrance?”

“Of course I did. I remember wishing Bob would go. I heard Minna come along and they stood there talking. I wanted everybody—but everybody—to be on stage.” She stared thoughtfully at Alleyn. “It seems so incredible now, me waiting there to make a big entrance, but you see I am Carolyn Dacres. I don’t suppose you understand.”

“Yes, yes, I do,” cried Alleyn with sudden exasperation, “but can’t you see, you divine donkey, that I want to get your alibi established!”

“Mine?” She caught her breath and then said softly: “Yes, I do see. For a moment I had forgotten to be frightened about — me.”

“I hope that you will have no need to be frightened. I must see Bob, at once. Come on — get up. We’re going back.”

He stood up and held out his hands.

She gave him hers and rose lightly to her feet. They stood for a moment facing each other, hand-fasted as though they were lovers. Her fingers tightened round his. He thought:

“Damn! She is attractive.”

She said: “I hope for only one thing, Mr. Alleyn— that you will soon believe us innocent and then I shall be able to be sorrowful.”

“I understand that.”

“It is so strange. I keep thinking ‘Pooh will tell me how to get out of this fix!’ I only realise with my mind — not yet with my heart. Perhaps that sounds rather trite and affected but I can’t find other words.”

“Indeed, I understand.” She still held his hands.

“Somehow at these sorts of times, after one has had a great shock, I mean, one speaks one’s thoughts openly. I do feel, in the most strange way, that we are friends.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn.

She gave him a candid and gentle smile and withdrew her hands.

“Come along then. Let us return to — everything.”

He collected the rug and basket and they walked together to the car, the voice of the creek growing fainter as they drew away from it. The sun was near the edge of the warm hill and soon their little gully would slip into the shade of afternoon. Carolyn paused and looked back.

“It is a lovely place,” she said. “In spite of everything I shall think of it with pleasure. The painfulness of all this does not seem to have touched it at all.”

“No,” said Alleyn, “it is very remote. We were interlopers but vaguely welcome, don’t you think?”

“Yes. It is a friendly place, really.”

“Are you very tired?”

“I believe I am.”

“No sleep last night?”

“No.”

They got into the car which smelt of hot leather and petrol, and bumped over the rough up to the road.

On the way home they were both silent, Alleyn thinking to himself: “I really believe her. I believe her story. I believe she feels just what she said — a kind of friendliness for me, no more. Was she quite unaware that she attracted me so vividly for those few moments, or was she using her charm deliberately? Is she in love with Hambledon? Probably.”

With an effort he screwed his thoughts round to the case. If this story about Bob was true, and if Bob turned out to be an intelligent fellow, they should be able to check movements of the actors with much more accuracy than Alleyn had thought possible. As soon as he got back, he would look again at his plan of the theatre. He was practically certain that the passage was the only source of exit from the dressing-rooms to the stage, therefore anyone of the company who went from the dressing-rooms to the ladder, would have to go past Bob as he stood in the narrow entry. If Bob could only tell him exactly how long he had stood there!

They passed the musterer, riding a half-clipped, raky-looking horse at a lope along the rough grass at the roadside. The three panting sheep-dogs ran in the shade of the horse. The man again solemnly wagged his head at them and raised a hand as they passed. The folding hills marched about. A party of Maoris, grouped on a ramshackle veranda, grinned and waved. They overtook several cars and met several more. The settlements grew closer together, and at length they came over the brow of the last hill, and looked across the flat to Middleton.

“Last lap,” said Alleyn, breaking a long silence.

Carolyn did not answer. He turned to look at her. Her head was bent down and, as heavily as a mandarin’s, nodded with the motion of the car. She was sound asleep. At the next bend she swayed towards him. With an equivocal grimace he raised his left hand and tipped her head against his shoulder. She did not wake until the car drew up outside the hotel.