Death And The Dancing Footman

Chapter XI Interrogation

At five o’clock the telephone in the library rang out. Alleyn, who was there, answered it. It was a police call from London for himself, and he took it with the greatest satisfaction. The Yard reported that Detective-Inspector Fox, together with a surgeon, a fingerprint expert and a photographer, had left London at three o’clock and would reach Penfelton by way of a branch line, at seven-thirty. The Chipping constabulary had arranged for a car to bring them on to Highfold.

“I’m damn’ glad to hear it,” said Alleyn warmly. “I’m here with a couple bodies and seven lunatics. D’you know of what’s happened to the Chipping people?”

“They got stuck somewhere, sir, and had to walk back. We’d have reported before, but the line’s only just fixed.”

“The whole thing’s damn’ silly,” said Alleyn. “We might be marooned in Antarctica. Anyway, thank Heaven for Fox and Co. Good-bye.”

He hung up the receiver, drove his hands through his hair, and returned to Mandrake’s notes. As a postscript, Mandrake had added a sort of tabulated summary —

Alleyn shook his head over the last name. “Industrious Mr. Mandrake! But he’s not to be trusted there,” he thought. “We have a young woman who has been jilted by Nicholas, who attracted her. As soon as she engages herself to William, who does not attract her, Nicholas begins to make amorous antics at her all over again. A wicked young woman might wish to get rid of William. A desperate young woman might wish to get rid of Nicholas. And is it quite impossible that Miss Wynne darted down to the pond before making her official arrival with Jonathan? Perhaps it is. I’ll have to go down to that pond.” He lit a cigarette and stared dolefully at the row of “Yeses” against Hart. “All jolly fine, but how the devil did he rig a booby-trap that neither Nicholas nor William noticed? No, it’s not a bad effort on Master Mandrake’s part. But I fancy he’s made one error. Now, I wonder.” And taking up his pen he put a heavy cross against one of Mandrake’s entries. He wandered disconsolately about the library, and finally, with a grimace, let himself into the smoking-room. He went straight to the radio, passing behind the shrouded figure in the chair. This time he did not draw back the curtains from the windows but turned up the lights and used his torch. The wireless cabinet stood on a low stool. Alleyn’s torch-light crawled over the front surface and finally came to rest on the bakelite volume control which he examined through his lens. He found several extremely faint lines inside the screw-hole. There were also faint scratches across the surface outside the hole, making tracks in a film of dust.

The stillness of the room was interrupted by a small murmur of satisfaction. Alleyn got out his pair of tweezers, introduced them delicately into the hole in the volume control. Screwing his face into an excruciating grimace he manipulated his tweezers and finally drew them out. He squatted on the carpet quite close to the motionless folds of white linen. These followed so closely the frozen posture of the figure they concealed that an onlooker might have been visited by the horrid notion that William imitated Alleyn and, under his shroud, conducted a secret scrutiny of the carpet. Allen had laid an envelope on the carpet and on its surface he dropped the minute fragment he had taken in his tweezers. It was scarcely larger than an eyelash. He peered at it through his glass.

“Scarlet. Feather, I think. And a tiny scrap of green,” said Alleyn. And whistling soundlessly he sealed his find up in the envelope.

Next he peered into the crevice between the large and small tuning controls. “Not so much as a speck of dust,” he muttered, “although there’s plenty in the screw-hole. There’s the actual shaft which rotates, of course. It’s reminiscent of a pulley.” He found one or two scratches on the surface of the tuning control. It was just possible through the lens to see that each of these marks had a sharp beginning and a gentler tail, suggesting that some very fine pointed object had struck the surface smartly and fallen away. Alleyn re-examined the carpet. Directly below the wall where the mere had hung, he found one or two marks that he had missed on his first examination. They occurred beneath the small desk that stood under the weapons. Here the pile of the carpet was protected and thick. Across its surface, running roughly parallel with the wall, were a series of marks which, when he examined them through his glass, looked like the traces of some sharp object that had torn across the surface of the pile. In one place he found a little tuft of carpet that had become detached. He photographed this area, fenced it in with chairs, and returned to the library.

Here he found a young footman with a tea-tray.

“Is that for me?” Alleyn asked.

“Yes, sir. I was to ask if there was anything further you required, sir.”

“Nothing, at the moment, thank you. Are you Thomas?”

“Yes, sir,” said Thomas with a nervous simper.

“I’d like a word with you.” Alleyn poured out a cup of tea. “Still keen on ‘Boomps-a-Daisy’?”

Thomas did not answer and Alleyn glanced up at him.

“Never want to hear it again s’long as I live, sir.” said Thomas ardently.

“You needn’t regret your burst of good spirits, you know. It may be very valuable.”

“Beg pardon, sir,” said Thomas, “but I don’t want to be mixed up in nothing unpleasant, sir. I’ve put my name down, sir, and I’m waiting to be called up. I don’t want to go into the army, sir, with an unpleasantness hanging over me, like.”

Alleyn was only too familiar with this attitude of mind and was careful to reassure Thomas.

“There ought to be no unpleasantness about furthering the cause of justice, and that’s what I hope you may be able to do. I only want you to repeat an assurance you have already given Mr. Royal and Mr. Mandrake. I’m going to put it this way, and I hope you’ll agree that it couldn’t be put more candidly. Would you be prepared to swear that between the time you passed through the hall to the library and the time when you left off dancing, Dr. Hart could not have entered the smoking-room?”

“Yes, sir, I would.”

“You’ve thought it over carefully, I expect, since Mr. Royal spoke to you last night.”

“I have indeed, sir. I have been over and over it in my brain till I can’t seem to think of anything else. But it’s the same every time, sir. Dr. Hart was crossing the hall when I took the tray in, and I wasn’t above a few seconds setting it down, and when I come out, sir, he was half-way up the stairs.”

“Was there a good light on the stairs?”

“Enough to see him, sir.”

“You couldn’t have mistaken somebody else for Dr. Hart?”

“No sir, not a chance, if you’ll excuse me. I saw him quite distinct, sir, walking up with his hands behind his back. He turned the corner and I noticed his face looking sort of — well it’s difficult to describe.”

“Try,” said Alleyn.

“Well, sir, as if he was very worried. Well, kind of frantic, sir. Haunted almost,” added Thomas with an air of surprising himself. “I noticed it particular, sir, because it was just the same as he looked when he was walking in the garden yesterday morning.”

Alleyn’s cup was half-way to his lips. He set it down carefully.

“Did you see Dr. Hart in the garden yesterday morning? Whereabouts?”

“Behind that bathing-shed — I mean that pavilion, sir. We’d heard about the bet Mr. William Compline had on with his brother, sir, and I’m afraid I just nipped out to see the fun, sir. One of the maids kind of kidded me on, if you’ll excuse the expression, sir.”

“I’ll excuse it,” said Alleyn. “Go on, Thomas. Tell me exactly what you did see.”

“Well, sir, I knew Mr. Caper wouldn’t be all that pleased if he knew, so I went out by the east wing door and walked round to the front of the house by a path in the lower gardens. It comes out a little way down the drive, sir.”

“Yes.”

“I dodged across the drive, sir, and up through the trees towards the terrace. I was just above the pavilion, sir, and I looked down and there was the doctor gentleman, with his hands behind his back, walking towards the rear of the pavilion. I’d seen him go out by the front door before I left, sir. Mr. Royal saw him off.”

“Did you continue to watch him?”

“No, sir, not for long. You see, while I was looking at him, I heard a splash and a great to-do and I ran on to where I could see the pond and there was Mr. Nicholas throwing in one of them floating birds and yelling for help and Mr. Mandrake half drowning in the pond and Mr. William running down the steps, with the young lady and Mr. Royal just crossing the terrace. But the Doctor must have come along as quick as he could, sir, because he got there, just as they hauled Mr. Mandrake out.”

“Did you see anyone else on the terrace? A lady?”

“No, sir.” Thomas waited for a moment and then said: “Will there be anything further, sir?”

“I fancy not, Thomas. I’ll get that down in writing and ask you to sign it. It’lll do very nicely indeed, to go on with.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Thomas primly, and withdrew.

“Dr. Hart,” Alleyn muttered after a long cogitation: “Opportunity for first attempt!” He altered the entry in Mandrake’s tables and rang the bell. It was answered by Caper, a condescension that Alleyn imagined must have been prompted by curiosity. He divided butlers into two classes, the human and the inhuman. Caper, he thought, looked human.

“You rang, sir?” said Caper.

“To send a message to Mr. Nicholas Compline. I don’t want to worry him too much, but I should like to see him if he’s free.”

“I’ll make enquiries, sir,” said Caper. Inhuman butlers, Alleyn reflected, always, “ascertained.”

“Thank you. Before you go, I’d like your opinion on the footman.”

“On Thomas, sir?”

“Yes. I expect he’s told you all about his interviews with Mr. Royal.”

“He has mentioned them, sir.”

“What’s your opinion of him?”

Caper drew down his upper lip, placed Alleyn’s cup and saucer on the tray, and appeared to deliberate. “He’s not cut out for service, sir,” he said finally. “In a manner of speaking he’s too high-spirited.”

“Ah,” Alleyn murmured, “you’ve heard about ‘Boomps-a-Daisy.’ ”

“I have, sir. I was horrified. But it’s not that alone, not by any means. He’s always up to something. There’s no harm in the lad, sir. He’s a nice open truthful lad, but not suitable. He’ll do better in the army.”

“Truthful?” Alleyn repeated.

“I should say exceptionally so, sir. Very observant and bright in his ways, too.”

“That’s a useful recommendation.”

“Will that be all, sir?”

“Not quite.” Alleyn waited for a moment and then looked directly at Caper. “You know why I’m here, of course.”

“Yes, sir.”

“There is no doubt whatever that Mr. William Compline has been murdered. This being so, it appears that his murderer is now at large in this house. I am sure that the members of Mr. Royal’s staff will want to give us all the help they can in a difficult and possibly even a dangerous situation.”

“I’m sure we’ll all do our duty by the master, sir,” said Caper, and if this were not a direct answer, Alleyn chose to regard it as one. He began, very delicately, to probe. He believed that the servants in a large household had a seventy-per-cent working knowledge of everything that happened on the other side of the green baize door. This uncanny awareness, he thought, was comparable to the secret communications of prisoners, and he sometimes wondered if it was engendered in the bad old days of domestic servitude. To tap this source of information is one of the arts of police investigation, and Alleyn, who did not care overmuch for the job, sighed for Inspector Fox, who had a great way with female domestics. Fox settled down comfortably and talked their own language, a difficult task and one which it was useless for Alleyn to attempt. Caper had placed him in Jonathan’s class and would distrust and despise any effort Alleyn made to get out of it. So he went warily to work, at first with poor results. Caper remembered speaking to Mr. Royal in the hall, before dinner on the previous evening. Mr. Royal ordered the wine for dinner and asked the time, as there was some question of letting the port settle after it was decanted. It was twenty-five minutes to eight. It would be about five minutes later that Caper heard, somewhere upstairs, a heavy thud, followed by a shout from Mr. Nicholas. Mr. Royal had gone to the big drawing-room when he left Caper. Alleyn tried for an account of the quarrel between Hart and Nicholas Compline on Friday night after dinner. Caper said he had heard nothing of it. Alleyn groped about, watching his man, and at last he found an opening. Caper, true to his class, disliked foreigners. Something in the turn of his voice, when Hart’s name was introduced, gave Alleyn his cue.

“I suppose,” Alleyn said, “Dr. Hart and Madame Lisse have often visited Highfold?”

“No, sir. Only once previously. We had a ball in aid of the Polish refugees, and they both attended. That was in December, sir.”

“Has Mr. Royal visited them?”

“I believe so, sir. I believe Mr. Royal dined with Mrs. Lisse, if that is the lady’s name, not long after the ball. I understand the Doctor was present on that occasion. Shortly afterwards he presented Mr. Royal with That Garment, sir.”

“The Tyrolese cape?”

“Exactly so, sir,” said Caper after closing his eyes for a second.

“It wouldn’t be right, then, to say that the entire party was well known to the staff?”

“No, sir. Her ladyship and Mrs. Compline and the two young gentlemen are old friends of Mr. Royal’s, and Mr. Mandrake has often visited.”

“He’s an old friend of Mr. Royal’s too, then?”

“I understand there is some business connection, sir,” said Caper, and a kind of quintessence of snobbery overlaid the qualification.

“Did it strike you that it was a curiously assorted party?” Alleyn ventured. “Mr. Royal tells me you’ve been with him since you were a boy. Frankly, Caper, have you ever known another week-end party quite like this one?”

“Frankly, sir,” said Caper, coming abruptly into the open, “I haven’t.” He paused for a moment and perhaps he read a friendly interest in Alleyn’s face. “I don’t mention the hall out of the hall as a rule, sir,” he said, “but, as you say, this is different. And I will say that Mrs. Pouting and myself never fancied them. Never.”

“Never fancied who, Caper?”

“The foreigners, sir. And what’s been seen since they came, hasn’t served to change our opinion.”

With a certain distaste, Alleyn recognized his opening and took it. “Well, Caper, what has been seen? Hadn’t you better tell me?”

Caper told him. There had been stories of Dr. Hart and Madame Lisse, stories that had percolated from Great Chipping. Caper digressed a little to throw out dark references to the Fifth Column and was led back gently to the burden of his song. There had been other stories, it seemed, of visits in the dead of night from Dr. Hart to Madame Lisse, and Mrs. Pouting had given it as her opinion that if they were not married they ought to be. From this it was an easy step to Nicholas. It was “common knowledge,” said Caper, that Mr. Nicholas was paying serious court to Madame Lisse. “If it had been the elder brother she’d have taken him, sir, and it’s the opinion of some that if poor Mr. William had come along first it would have been another story.” It was obvious that Nicholas passed the test of the servants’ hall. Caper said they were always very pleased to hear he was coming. The impression Alleyn had got from Mandrake and Chloris Wynne was of a vain, shallow fellow with a great deal of physical attraction for women. The impression he had got from his own brief glimpse of Nicholas was of a young man bewildered and dazed by a profound emotional shock. Jonathan, when he spoke coherently, had sketched a picture of a somewhat out-of-date rip. Caper managed to suggest a spirited grandee. Mr. William, he said, was the quiet one. Strange in his ways. But Mr. Nicholas was the same to everybody, always open-handed and pleasant. He was very well liked in the district. Alleyn led him back to Madame Lisse and soon discovered that Mrs. Pouting and Caper believed she was out to catch Nicholas. That, in Caper’s opinion, was the beginning of the trouble.

“If I may speak frankly, sir, we’d heard a good deal about it before Mrs. Lisse came. There was a lot of talk.”

“What did it all add up to?”

“Why, sir, that the lady was taken up with this Dr. Hart until she saw something a good deal better come along. Mrs. Pouting says—”

“Look here,” said Alleyn, “suppose you ask Mrs. Pouting to come in for a moment.”

Mrs. Pouring was fetched and proved to be a large capable lady with a good deal of jaw and not very much lip. With her entrance it became clear that the servants had determined that Madame Lisse and Dr. Hart, between them, were responsible for the whole tragedy. Alleyn recognized very characteristic forms on loyalty, prejudice and obstinacy. Jonathan and his intimate friends were not to be blown upon, they had been deceived and victimized by the foreigners. The remotest suggestion of Jonathan’s complicity was enough to set Mrs. Pouring off. She was very grand. Her manner as well as her skirts seemed to rustle, but Alleyn saw that she was big with a theory and meant to be delivered of it.

“Things have been going on,” said Mrs. Pouting, “which, if Mr. Royal had heard of them, would have stopped certain persons from remaining at Highfold. Under this very roof, they’ve been going on.”

“What sort of things?”

“I cannot bring myself…” Mrs. Pouring began, but Alleyn interrupted her. Would it not be better, he suggested, for her to tell him what she knew, here in private, than to have it dragged out piecemeal at an inquest? He would not use information that was irrelevant. Mrs. Pouting then said that there had been in-goings and out-comings from “Mrs. Lisse’s” room. The house-maids had made discoveries. Dr. Hart had been overheard accusing her of all sorts of things.

“What sorts of things?” Alleyn repeated, patiently.

“She’s a bad woman, sir. We’ve heard no good of her. She’s treated her ladyship disgracefully over her shop. She made trouble between Mr. Nicholas and his young lady. She’s out for money, sir, and she doesn’t care how she gets it. I’ve my own ideas about what’s at the bottom of it all.”

“You’d better tell me what these ideas are, Mrs. Pouting.”

Caper made an uncomfortable noise in his throat. Mrs. Pouting glanced at him and said: “Mr. Caper doesn’t altogether agree with me, I believe. Mr. Caper is inclined to blame him more than her, whereas I’m quite positive it’s her more than him.”

“What is?”

“If I may interrupt, sir,” said Caper, “I think it would be best for us to say outright what’s in our minds, sir.”

“So do I,” said Alleyn heartily.

“Thank you, sir. Yesterday evening after the accident with the brass figure, Dr. Hart came downstairs and sat in the small green room, the one that opens into the smoking-room, sir. It happened that Mrs. Pouting had gone into the smoking-room to see if everything was to rights there, the flower vases full of water and the fire made up and so on. The communicating door was not quite closed and—”

“I hope it will be clearly understood,” Mrs. Pouting struck in, “that I had not realized anybody was in the ‘boudoir.’ I was examining the radio for dust — the maids are not as thorough as I could wish — when quite suddenly, a few inches away as it seemed, I heard Dr. Hart’s voice. He said: ‘Let them say what they like, they can prove nothing.’ And Mrs. Lisse’s voice said: ‘Are you sure?’ I was very awkwardly placed,” continued Mrs. Pouting genteelly. “I scarcely knew what to do. They had evidently come close to the door. If I made my presence known they would think, perhaps, that I had heard more and — well, really, it was very difficult. While I hesitated, they began to speak again, but more quietly. I heard Mrs. Lisse say: ‘In that event I shall know what to do.’ He said: ‘Would you have the courage?’ and she said: ‘Where much is at stake, I would dare much.’ And then,” said Mrs. Pouting, no longer able to conceal her relish for dramatic values, “then, sir, he said almost admiringly, sir: ‘You devil, I believe you would.’ And she said: ‘It’s not “I would,” Francis, it’s “I will.” ’ Then they moved away from the door and I went out. But I repeat now what I said shortly afterwards to Mr. Caper: she sounded murderous.”

“Well,” said Alleyn after a pause, “that’s a very curious story, Mrs. Pouting.” He looked from one to the other of the two servants, who still kept up their air of contained deference. “What’s your interpretation of it?” he asked.

Mrs. Pouting did not reply, but she slightly cast up her eyes and her silence was ineffably expressive. Alleyn turned to Caper.

“Mrs. Pouting and I differ a little, sir,” said Caper, exactly as if they had enjoyed an amiable discussion on the rival merits of thick and thin soup. “Mrs. Pouting, I understand, considers that Dr. Hart and Mrs. Lisse are adventurers who were working together to entrap Mr. Nicholas Compline, but that Dr. Hart had become jealous and that they had fallen out. Mrs. Pouting considers that Mrs. Lisse took advantage of Dr. Hart’s two attempts on Mr. Nicholas to kill Mr. William and make it look as if Dr. Hart had done it, mistaking him for his brother. With a mercenary motive, sir.”

“Extremely Machiavellian!” said Alleyn. “What do you think?”

“Well, sir, I don’t know what to think but somehow I can’t fancy the lady actually struck the blow, sir.”

“That,” said Mrs. Pouting vigorously, “is because you’re a man, Mr. Caper. I hope I know vice when I see it,” she added.

“I’m sure you do, Mrs. Pouting,” said Alleyn absently. “Why not?”

Mrs. Pouting clasped her hands together and, by that simple gesture, turned herself into an anxious human creature. “Whether it’s both of them together or her alone,” she said, “they’re dangerous, sir. I know they’re dangerous. If they’d heard me telling you what I have told you…! But it’s not for myself, sir, but for Mr. Royal that I’m worried. He’s made no secret of what he thinks. He says openly that Dr. Hart— though why ‘Doctor,’ when he’s no more than a meddler with Heaven’s handiwork, I’m sure I don’t know — that Dr. Hart struck down Mr. William and that he’ll see him hanged for it, and there they both are, free to deal another blow.”

“Not quite,” said Alleyn. “Dr. Hart, at his own suggestion, is once more locked in his room. I said I’d see Mr. Compline next, Caper, but I’ve changed my mind. Will you find out if Madame Hart is disengaged?”

“Madame Hart!” they both said together.

“Ah, I forgot. You haven’t heard that they are man and wife.”

“His wife!” whispered Mrs. Pouting. “That proves I’m right. She wanted to be rid of him. She wanted to catch the heir to Penfelton. That’s why poor Mr. William was killed. And if the man is hanged for it, mark my words, Mr. Caper, she’ll marry Mr. Nicholas.”

And with this pronouncement, delivered with sibylline emphasis, Mrs. Pouting withdrew, sweeping Caper away in her train.

Alleyn noted down the conversation, pulled a grimace at the result and fell to thinking of former cases when the fantastic solution had turned out to be the correct one. “It’s the lef’t-and-right theory.” he thought. “A wishes to be rid of B and C. A murders B in such a fashion that C is arrested and hanged. Mrs. Pouting casts Madame for the role of A. A murderess on the grand scale. What do murderesses on the grand scale look like?”

The next moment he was on his feet. Madame Lisse had made her entrance.

Nobody had told Alleyn that she was a remarkably beautiful woman and for a brief moment he experienced the strange feeling of awed astonishment that extreme physical beauty may bring to the beholder. His first conscious thought was that she was lovely enough to stir up a limitless amount of trouble.

“You sent for me,” said Madame Lisse.

“I asked if I might see you,” said Alleyn. “Won’t you sit down?”

She sat down. The movement was like a lesson in deportment, deliberately executed and ending in stillness, her back held erect, her wrists crossed on her lap. “I wonder,” thought Alleyn, “if William ever wanted to paint her.” With every appearance of tranquillity, she waited for him to begin. He took out his note book and flattened it on his knee.

“First,” he said, “I think I should have your name in full.”

“Elise Lisse.”

“I mean,” said Alleyn, “your legal name, Madame. That should be Elise Hart, I understand.” And he thought: “Golly! That’s shaken her!” For a moment she looked furious. He saw the charming curve of her mouth harden and then compose itself. After a pause she said, very sedately: “My legal name. Yes, of course. I do not care to use it and it did not occur to me to give it. I am separated from my husband.”

“Ah, yes,‘ said Alleyn. ”Legally separated?”

“No,” she said placidly. “Not legally.”

“I hope you will forgive me if I ask you questions that may seem irrelevant and impertinent. You are under no obligation to answer them: I must make that quite clear and perhaps I should add that any questions which you refuse to answer will be noted.”

This uncompromising slice of the official manner seemed to have very little effect on Madame Lisse. She said: “Of course,” and leant a little towards him. He got a whiff of her scent and recognized it as an expensive one.

“You are separated from your husband, but one supposes, since you go to the same house-parties, that it is an amicable arrangement.”

There was a considerable pause before she answered: “Not precisely. I didn’t care for accepting the same invitation but did so before I knew he had been invited.”

“Were his feelings in the matter much the same as yours?”

“I can’t tell you,” said Madame Lisse. “I think not.”

“You mean that you have not discussed the matter with him?”

“I don’t enter into discussions with him if I can avoid doing so. I have tried as far as possible to avoid encounters.”

Alleyn watched her for a moment and then said: “Did you drive here, Madame Lisse?”

“Yes.”

“In your own car?”

“No. My — my husband drove me. Mr. Royal unfortunately made the suggestion, which I couldn’t very well refuse.”

“Could you not? I should have thought you might have found a way out.”

She surprised him by leaning still farther forward and putting her hand on the arm of his chair. It was a swift intimate gesture that brought her close to him.

“I see I must explain,” said Madame Lisse.

“Please do,” said Alleyn.

“I am a very unhappy woman, Mr. — I do not know your name.”

Alleyn told her his name and she managed to convey, with great delicacy, a suggestion of deference. “Mr. Alleyn. I didn’t know — I am so sorry. Of course I have read of your wonderful cases. I’m sure you will understand. It will be easy to explain to you, a relief, a great relief to me.” Her finger-tips brushed his sleeve. “There are more ways than one,” Alleyn thought, “of saying, ‘Dilly, dilly, dilly, come and be killed.’ ” But he did not answer Madame Lisse and in a moment she was launched. “I have been so terribly unhappy. You see, although I had decided I could no longer live with my husband, it wasn’t possible for either of us to leave Great Chipping. Of course it is a very large town, isn’t it? I hoped we would be able to avoid encounters but he has made it very difficult for me. You will understand what I mean. He is still devoted to me.”

She paused, gazing at him. The scene was beginning to develop in the best tradition of the French novel. If the situation had been less serious and she had been less beautiful, he might have found it more amusing, but he had a difficult job to do, and there are few men who are able to feel amusement at overwhelming beauty.

“He has haunted me,” she was saying. “I refused to see him but he lay in wait for me. He is insane. I believe him to be insane. He rang me up and implored that I should allow him to drive me to Highfold. I consented, hoping to bring him to reason. But all the way here, he begged me to return to him. I said that it was impossible and immediately he began to rave against Mr. Nicholas Compline. Nicholas Compline and I have seen a good deal of each other and he, my husband, became madly jealous of our friendship. I am a lonely woman, Mr. Alleyn, and Mr. Compline has been a kind and chivalrous friend to me. You do believe me, don’t you?” said Madame Lisse.

Alleyn said: “Is it true that some time ago you gave a dinner party to which you invited your husband and Mr. Royal, who, by the way, did not know Dr. Hart was your husband?”

He saw her eyes turn to flint but she scarcely hesitated: “It was my one attempt,” she said, “to try and establish friendly relations. I hoped that they would take pleasure in each other’s company.”

“By gum,” thought Alleyn, “you’ve got your nerve about you!”

“Madame,” he said, ‘I am going to ask you a very direct question. Who, do you think, committed this murder?”

She clasped her hands over the arm of his chair. “I had hoped,” she whispered, “that I might be spared that question.”

“It is my duty to ask it,” said Alleyn solemnly.

“I must refuse to answer. How can I answer? I loved him once.”

By this remarkable statement Alleyn learned that if, as Mrs. Pouting considered, Dr. and Madame Hart were joint adventurers, the lady displayed a most characteristic readiness to betray her partner when the necessity arose.

“You will understand,” he said, “that I must question each member of the party about his or her movements on three occasions. The first is the occasion when Mr. Mandrake was thrown into the bathing-pool. Where were you at that time, Madame Lisse?”

“In bed, in my room.”

“Was anybody else in your room?”

“I believe a maid came in with my breakfast. I remember it was a very little while after she left the room that I heard voices on the terrace beneath my window and not long after that, I was told of the accident.”

“Who told you, please?”

She waited for a moment, and then, very delicately, shrugged her shoulders.

“It was Mr. Compline,” she said. “You will think it strange that I permitted the visit, but I have adopted the English custom in such matters. He was agitated and felt that he must warn me.”

“Warn you?”

“Of this exhibition on the part of my husband.”

“Suppose,” said Alleyn, “that I told you I had convincing evidence that your husband was not responsible for this affair. What would you say?”

For the first time she looked frightened and for a moment she had no answer to give him. Her hands were clenched and her arms rigid. “I am afraid that I should not believe you,” she said. “It is horrible to have to say these things. I find it unbearable. But one must protect oneself, and other innocent persons.”

Alleyn was beginning to get a sort of enjoyment out of Madame Lisse.

“I am to understand,” he said, “that it was a very unusual event for Mr. Compline to pay you such an informal visit?”

“The circumstances were extraordinary.”

“Were they extraordinary when he again visited you at half-past seven that same evening?”

“Of course. I had asked him to come. I was most anxious to see him alone. By that time I was convinced that my husband meant to do him an injury. My husband had told me as much.” Perhaps Alleyn looked a little incredulous, for she said quickly: “It is quite true. He said that he had come to the end of his endurance and could not trust himself. I was terrified. I warned Mr. Compline and begged him to be careful. When he left me, I looked after him and I saw that horrible figure fall from the top of his door. His hand was almost on the door. I screamed out and at the same moment it struck his arm. It might have killed him.”

“No doubt,” said Alleyn, who had already taken possession of the Buddha. “Then you and Mr. Compline were together from the time he left his room and walked down the passage to yours, until he returned and received his injury?”

“Yes. He has told me he came straight to my room.”

“You were together,” Alleyn repeated slowly, “the whole time?”

Again he thought he had frightened her. Again there was an odd little pause before she said: “Yes, certainly. I never left my room until he went.”

“And did he?”

“He?” she said readily. “Oh no, he didn’t, of course. I had to send him away in the end.”

There was something here, Alleyn felt sure, that she had concealed from him, but he decided to leave it for the moment and went on to the time of the murder. Again Madame Lisse had been in her room. “I was in agony. I suffer from the migraine and this was a terrible attack, brought on, no doubt, by nervous suspense. I went to bed before dinner and remained there until I was told of the tragedy.”

“Who told you of the tragedy, Madame?”

“Nicholas Compline. He broke it to me after he had told his mother.”

“And what was your reaction?”

“I was horrified, of course.” She leant back again in her chair and it seemed to him that she marshalled a series of sentences she had previously rehearsed. “At first I thought it was a mistake, that he had meant to kill Nicholas, but then it dawned upon me that it was William’s threats to expose him that had driven him to do it. I realized that it had nothing to do with me, nothing at all. No other explanation is possible.”

“You believe that it was impossible that William could be mistaken for Nicholas?”

“Of course. They were not so alike. Even the backs of their heads. There was a small thin patch in William’s hair, just below the crown of his head.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn, watching her trembling lips. “There was.”

“Whereas Nicholas has thick hair, like honey. And the nape of William’s neck — it was—” She caught her breath and her voice seemed to die on her lips.

“You must have observed him very closely,” said Alleyn.