Death in a White Tie

CHAPTER NINETEEN The General

“Then your idea is,” said Fox as they headed again for Belgrave Square, ”that this chap in the WC was the murderer.”

“Yes, Fox, that is my idea. There’s no earthly reason why an innocent person should not admit to interrupting the telephone call and nobody has admitted to it. I’m afraid we’ll have to go again through the whole damn boiling, guests, servants and all, to make sure of our ground. And we’ll have to ask every man jack of ’em if they burst across the threshold of Miss Harris’s outer sanctuary. Every man jack. Thank the Lord there’s no need for the women, though from what I know of my niece Sarah we wouldn’t meet with many mantling cheeks and conscious looks among the débutantes. If nobody admits to the telephone incident, or to the sequel in the usual offices, then we can plot another joint in our pattern. We can say there is a strong probability that our man overheard Bunchy telephone to me, interrupted the sentence: ‘and he’s working with — ’ waited in the green sitting-room until Bunchy had gone and then blundered into the ante-room.”

“But why would he do that?” said Fox. “Did he think it was a man’s, or was he trying to avoid somebody? Or what?”

“It’s a curious picture, isn’t it? That dim figure seen through the thick glass. Even in her mortal shame Miss Harris noticed that he seemed to be agitated. The hands over the face, the body leaning for a moment against the door. And then suddenly he pulls himself together and goes out. He looked, said Miss Harris, as though he’d had a shock. He’d just intercepted a telephone call to the Yard from a man who apparently knew all there was to know about his blackmailing activities. He might well feel he must blunder through the first door he came to and have a moment alone to pull himself together.”

“Yes,” agreed Fox, “so he might. I’d like something a bit more definite to hinge it on, though.”

“And so, I promise you, would I. The detestable realms of conjecture! How I hate them.”

“Miss Harris didn’t get us any further with the business down in the hall.”

“The final departures? No, she didn’t. She simply bore out everything we’d already been told.”

“She’s an observant little lady, isn’t she?” said Fox.

“Yes, Fox, she’s no fool, for all her tender qualms. And now we have a delightful job ahead of us. We’ve got to try to bamboozle, cajole, or bully Mrs Halcut-Hackett into giving away her best young man. A charming occupation.”

“Will we be seeing the General, too? I suppose we’ll have to. I don’t think the other chaps will have tackled him. I told them not to touch any of our lot.”

“Quite right,” said Alleyn, with a sigh. “We shall be seeing the General. And here we are at Halkin Street. The Halcut-Hacketts of Halkin Street! An important collection of aspirates and rending consonants. The General first, I suppose.”

The General was expecting them. They walked through a hall which, though it had no tongue, yet it did speak of the most expensive and most fashionable house decorator in London. They were shown into a study smelling of leather and cigars and decorated with that pleasant sequence of prints of the Nightcap Steeplechase. Alleyn wondered if the General had stood with his cavalry sabre on the threshold of this room, daring the fashionable decorator to come on and see what he would get. Or possibly Mrs Halcut-Hackett, being an American, caused her husband’s study to be aggressively British. Alleyn and Fox waited for five minutes before they heard a very firm step and a loud cough. General Halcut-Hackett walked into the room.

“Hullo! Afternoon! What!” he shouted.

His face was terra-cotta, his moustache formidable, his eyes china blue. He was the original ramrod brass-hat, the subject of all army jokes kindly or malicious. It was impossible to believe his mind was as blank as his face would seem to confess. So true to type was he that he would have seemed unreal, a two-dimensional figure that had stepped from a coloured cartoon of a regimental dinner, had it not been for a certain air of solidity and a kind of childlike constancy that was rather appealing. Alleyn thought: “Now, he really is a simple soldier-man.”

“Sit down,” said General Halcut-Hackett. “Bad business! Damn blackguardly killer. Place is getting no better than Chicago. What are you fellows doing about it? What? Going to get the feller? What?”

“I hope so, sir,” said Alleyn.

“Hope so! By Gad, I should hope you hope so. Well, what can I do for you?”

“Answer one or two questions, if you will, sir.”

“Course I will. Bloody outrage. The country’s going to pieces in my opinion and this is only another proof of it. Men like Robert Gospell can’t take a cab without gettin’ the life choked out of them. What it amounts to. Well?”

“Well, sir, the first point is this. Did you walk into the green sitting-room on the top landing at one o’clock this morning while Lord Robert Gospell was using the telephone?”

“No. Never went near the place. Next!”

“What time did you leave Marsdon House?”

“Between twelve and one.”

“Early,” remarked Alleyn.

“My wife’s charge had toothache. Brought her home. Whole damn business had been too much for her. Poodle-faking and racketing! All people think of nowadays. Goin’ through her paces from morning till night. Enough to kill a horse.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “One wonders how they get through it.”

“Is your name Alleyn?”

“Yes, sir.”

“George Alleyn’s son, are you? You’re like him. He was in my regiment. I’m sixty-seven,” added General Halcut-Hackett with considerable force. “Sixty-seven. Why didn’t you go into your father’s regiment? Because you preferred this? What?”

“That’s it, sir. The next point is—”

“What? Get on with the job, eh? Quite right.”

“Did you return to Marsdon House?”

“Why the devil should I do that?”

“I thought perhaps your wife was—”

The General glared at the second print in the Nightcap series and said:

“M’wife preferred to stay on. Matter of fact, Robert Gospell offered to see her home.”

“He didn’t do so, however?”

“Damn it, sir, my wife is not a murderess.”

“Lord Robert might have crossed the square as escort to your wife, sir, and returned.”

“Well, he didn’t. She tells me they missed each other.”

“And you, sir. You saw your daughter in and then —”

“She’s not my daughter!” said the General with a good deal of emphasis. “She’s the daughter of some friend of my wife’s.” He glowered and then muttered half to himself: “Unheard of in my day, that sort of thing. Makes a woman look like a damn trainer. Girl’s no more than a miserable scared filly. Pah!”

Alleyn said: “Yes, sir. Well, then, you saw Miss—”

“Birnbaum. Rose Birnbaum, poor little devil. Call her Poppet.”

“ — Miss Birnbaum in and then—”

“Well?”

“Did you stay up?”

To Alleyn’s astonishment the General’s face turned from terra-cotta to purple, not, it seemed, with anger, but with embarrassment. He blew out his moustache several times, pouted like a baby, and blinked. At last he said:

“Upon my soul, I can’t see what the devil it matters whether I went to bed at twelve or one.”

“The question may sound impertinent,” said Alleyn. “If it does I’m sorry. But, as a matter of police routine, we want to establish alibis—”

“Alibis!” roared the General. “Alibis! Good God, sir, are you going to sit there and tell me I’m in need of an alibi? Hell blast it, sir—”

“But, General Halcut-Hackett,” said Alleyn quickly, while the empurpled General sucked in his breath, “every guest at Marsdon House is in need of an alibi.”

“Every guest! Every guest! But, damn it, sir, the man was murdered in a bloody cab, not a bloody ballroom. Some filthy bolshevistic fascist,” shouted the General, having a good deal of difficulty with this strange collection of sibilants. He slightly dislodged his upper plate but impatiently champed it back into position. “They’re all alike!” he added confusedly. “The whole damn boiling.”

Alleyn hunted for a suitable phrase in a language that General Halcut-Hackett would understand. He glanced at Fox who was staring solemnly at the General over the top of his spectacles.

“I’m sure you’ll realize, sir,” said Alleyn, “that we are simply obeying orders.”

“What?”

“That’s done it,” thought Alleyn.

“Orders! I can toe the line as well as the next fellow,” said the General, and Alleyn, remembering Carrados had used the same phrase, reflected that in this instance it was probably true. The General, he saw, was preparing to toe the line.

“I apologize,” said the General. “Lost me temper. Always doing it nowadays. Indigestion.”

“It’s enough to make anybody lose their temper, sir.”

“Well,” said the General, “you’ve kept yours. Come on, then.”

“It’s just a statement, sir, that you didn’t go out again after you got back here and, if possible, someone to support the statement.”

Once again the General looked strangely embarrassed.

“I can’t give you a witness,” he said. “Nobody saw me go to bed.”

“I see. Well then, sir, if you’ll just give me your word that you didn’t go out again.”

“But, damme, I did take a — take a — take a turn round the Square before I went to bed. Always do.”

“What time was this?”

“I don’t know.”

“You can’t give me an idea? Was it long after you got home?”

“Some time. I saw the child to her room and stirred up my wife’s maid to look after her. Then I came down here and got myself a drink. I read for a bit. I dare say I dozed for a bit. Couldn’t make up my mind to turn in.”

“You didn’t glance at the clock on the mantelpiece there?”

Again the General became acutely self-conscious.

“I may have done so. I fancy I did. Matter of fact, I remember now I did doze off and woke with a bit of a start. The fire had gone out. It was devilish chilly.” He glared at Alleyn and then said abruptly: “I felt wretchedly down in the mouth. I’m getting an old fellow nowadays and I don’t enjoy the small hours. As you say, I looked at the clock. It was half-past two. I sat there in this chair trying to make up my mind to go to bed. Couldn’t. So I took a walk round the Square.”

“Now that’s excellent, sir. You may be able to give us the very piece of information we’re after. Did you by chance notice anybody hanging about in the Square?”

“No.”

“Did you meet anybody at all?”

“Constable.”

Alleyn glanced at Fox.

“PC Titheridge,” said Fox. “We’ve got his report, sir.”

“All right,” said Alleyn. “Were people beginning to leave Marsdon House when you passed, sir?”

The General muttered something about “might have been,” paused for a moment and then said: “It was devilish murky. Couldn’t see anything.”

“A misty night; yes,” said Alleyn. “Did you happen to notice Captain Maurice Withers in the mist?”

“No!” yelled the General with extraordinary vehemence. “No, I did not. I don’t know the feller. No!”

There was an uncomfortable pause and then the General said: “Afraid that’s all I can tell you. When I got in again I went straight to bed.”

“Your wife had not returned?”

“No,” said the General very loudly. “She had not.”

Alleyn waited for a moment and then he said:

“Thank you very much, sir. Now, we’ll prepare a statement from the notes Inspector Fox has taken, and if you’ve no objection, we’ll get you to sign it.”

“I — um — um — um — I’ll have a look at it.”

“Yes. And now, if I may, I’d like to have a word with Mrs Halcut-Hackett.”

Up went the General’s chin again. For a moment Alleyn wondered if they were in for another outburst. But the General said: “Very good. I’ll tell her,” and marched out of the room.

“Crikey!” said Fox.

“That’s Halcut-Hackett, that was,” said Alleyn. “Why the devil,” he added rubbing his nose, “why the devil is the funny old article in such a stew over his walk round the Square?”

“Seems a natural thing for a gentleman of his kind to do,” Fox ruminated. “I’m sure I don’t know. I should have thought he’s the sort that breaks the ice on the Serpentine every morning as well as walking round the Square every night.”

“He’s a damn bad liar, poor old boy. Or is he a poor old boy? Is he not perhaps a naughty old boy? Blast! Why the devil couldn’t he give us a nice straight cast-iron alibi? Poking his nose into Belgrave Square; can’t tell us exactly when or exactly why or for exactly how long. What did the PC say?”

“Said he’d noticed nothing at all suspicious. Never mentioned the General. I’ll have a word with Mr PC Titheridge about this.”

“The General is probably a stock piece if he walks round Belgrave Square every night,” said Alleyn.

“Yes, but not at half-past two in the morning,” objected Fox.

“Quite right, Fox, quite right. Titheridge must be blasted. What the devil was old Halcut-Hackett up to last night! We can’t let it go, you know, because, after all, if he suspects—”

Alleyn broke off. He and Fox stood up as Mrs Halcut-Hackett made her entrance.

Alleyn, of course, had met her before, on the day she came to his office with the story of Mrs X and the blackmailing letters. He reflected now that in a sense she had started the whole miserable business. “If it hadn’t been for this hard, wary, stupid woman’s visit,” he thought, “I shouldn’t have asked Bunchy to poke his head into a deathtrap. Oh, God!” Mrs Halcut-Hackett said:

“Why, Inspector, they didn’t tell me it was you. Now, do you know I never realized, that day I called about my poor friend’s troubles, that I was speaking to Lady Alleyn’s famous son.”

Inwardly writhing under this blatant recognition of his snob-value Alleyn shook hands and instantly introduced Fox to whom Mrs Halcut-Hackett was insufferably cordial. They all sat down. Alleyn deliberately waited for a moment or two before he spoke. He looked at Mrs Halcut-Hackett. He saw that under its thick patina of cream and rouge her face was sagging from the bones of her skull. He saw that her eyes and her hands were frightened.

He said: “I think we may as well begin with that same visit to the Yard. The business we talked about on that occasion seems to be linked with the death of Lord Robert Gospell.”

She sat there, bolt upright in her expensive stays and he knew she was terrified.

“But,” she said, “that’s absurd. No, honestly, Mr Alleyn, I just can’t believe there could be any possible connection. Why, my friend—”

“Mrs Halcut-Hackett,” said Alleyn, “I am afraid we must abandon your friend.”

She shot a horrified glance at Fox, and Alleyn answered it.

“Mr Fox is fully acquainted with the whole story,” he said. “He agrees with me that your friend had better dissolve. We realize that beyond all doubt you yourself were the victim of these blackmailing letters. There is no need for you to feel particularly distressed over this. It is much better to tackle this sort of thing without the aid of an imaginary Mrs X. She makes for unnecessary confusion. We now have the facts—”

“But — how do you —?”

Alleyn decided to take a risk. It was a grave risk.

“I have already spoken to Captain Withers,” he said.

“My God, has Maurice confessed?”

Fox’s notebook dropped to the floor.

Alleyn, still watching the gaping mouth with its wet red margin, said: “Captain Withers has confessed nothing.” And he thought: “Does she realize the damage she’s done?”

“But I don’t mean that,” Mrs Halcut-Hackett gabbled. “I don’t mean that. It’s not that. You must be crazy. He couldn’t have done it.” She clenched her hands and drummed with her fists on the arms of the chair. “What did he tell you?”

“Very little I’m afraid. Still we learned at least that it was not impossible—”

“You must be crazy to think he did it. I tell you he couldn’t do it.”

“He couldn’t do what, Mrs Halcut-Hackett?” asked Alleyn.

“The thing — Lord Robert…” She gaped horridly and then with a quick and vulgar gesture, covered her mouth with her ringed hand. Horrified intelligence looked out of her eyes.

“What did you think Captain Withers had confessed?”

“Nothing to do with this. Nothing that matters to anyone but me. I didn’t mean a thing by it. You’ve trapped me. It’s not fair.”

“For your own sake,” said Alleyn, “you would be wise to try to answer me. You say you did not mean to ask if Captain Withers had confessed to murder. Very well, I accept that for the moment. What might he have confessed? That he was the author of the letter your blackmailer had threatened to use. Is that it?”

“I won’t answer. I won’t say anything more. You’re trying to trap me.”

“What conclusion am I likely to draw from your refusal to answer? Believe me, you take a very grave risk if you refuse.”

“Have you told my husband about the letter?”

“No. Nor shall I do so if it can be avoided. Come now.” Alleyn deliberately drew all his power of concentration to a fine point. He saw his dominance drill like a sort of mental gimlet through her flabby resistance. “Come now. Captain Withers is the author of this letter. Isn’t he?”

“Yes, but—”

“Did you think he had confessed as much?”

“Why, yes, but—”

“And you suppose Lord Robert Gospell to have been the blackmailer? Ever since that afternoon when he sat behind you at the concert?”

“Then it was Robert Gospell!” Her head jerked back. She looked venomously triumphant.

“No,” said Alleyn. “That was a mistake. Lord Robert was not a blackmailer.”

“He was. I know he was. Do you think I didn’t see him last night, watching us. Why did he ask me about Maurice? Why did Maurice warn me against him?”

“Did Captain Withers suggest that Lord Robert was a blackmailer?” In spite of himself a kind of cold disgust deadened Alleyn’s voice. She must have heard it because she cried out:

“Why do you speak of him like that? Of Captain Withers, I mean. You’ve no right to insult him.”

“My God, this is a stupid woman,” thought Alleyn. Aloud he said: “Have I insulted him? If so I have gone very far beyond my duty. Mrs Halcut-Hackett, when did you first miss this letter?”

“About six months ago. After my charade party in the little season.”

“Where did you keep it?”

“In a trinket-box on my dressing-table.”

“A locked box?”

“Yes. But the key was sometimes left with others in the drawer of the dressing-table.”

“Did you suspect your maid?”

“No. I can’t suspect her. She has been with me for fifteen years. She’s my old dresser. I know she wouldn’t do it.”

“Have you any idea who could have taken it?”

“I can’t think, except that for my charade party I turned my room into a buffet, and the men moved everything round.”

“What men?”

“The caterer’s men. Dimitri. But Dimitri superintended them the whole time. I don’t believe they had an opportunity.”

“I see,” said Alleyn.

He saw she now watched him with a different kind of awareness. Alleyn had interviewed a great number of Mrs Halcut-Hacketts in his day. He knew very well that with such women he carried a weapon that he was loath to use, but which nevertheless fought for him. This was the weapon of his sex. He saw with violent distaste that some taint of pleasure threaded her fear of him. And the inexorable logic of thought presented him to himself, side by side with her lover.

He said: “Suppose we get the position clear. In your own interest I may tell you that we have already gathered a great deal of information. Lord Robert was helping us on the blackmail case, and he has left us his notes. From them and from our subsequent enquiries we have pieced this much together. In your own case Captain Withers was the subject of the blackmailing letters. Following our advice you carried out the blackmailer’s instruction and left your bag in the corner of the sofa at the Constance Street Hall. It was taken. Because Lord Robert deliberately sat next to you and because Captain Withers had, as you put it, warned you against him, you came to the conclusion that Lord Robert took the bag and was therefore your blackmailer. Why did you not report to the police the circumstances of the affair at the concert? You had agreed to do so. Were you advised to let the case drop as far as the Yard was concerned?”

“Yes.”

“By Captain Withers? I see. That brings us to last night. You say you noticed that Lord Robert watched you both during the ball. I must ask you again if Captain Withers agrees with your theory that Lord Robert was a blackmailer.”

“He — he simply warned me against Lord Robert.”

“In view of these letters and the sums of money the blackmailer demanded, did you think it advisable to keep up your friendship with Captain Withers?”

“We — there was nothing anybody could — I mean—”

“What do you mean?” asked Alleyn sternly.

She wetted her lips. Again he saw that look of subservience and thought that of all traits in an ageing woman this was the unloveliest and most pitiable.

She said: “Our friendship is partly a business relationship.”

“A business relationship?” Alleyn repeated the words blankly.

“Yes. You see Maurice — Captain Withers — has very kindly offered to advise me and — I mean right now Captain Withers has in mind a little business venture in which I am interested, and I naturally require to talk things over so — you see —?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn gently, “I do see. This venture of Captain Withers is of course the club at Leatherhead, isn’t it?”

“Why, yes, but—”

“Now then,” said Alleyn quickly, “about last night. Lord Robert offered to see you home, didn’t he? You refused or avoided giving an answer. Did you go home alone?”

She might as well have asked him how much he knew, so clearly did he read the question in her eyes. He thanked his stars that he had made such a fuss over Withers’s telephone. Evidently Withers had not rung her up to warn her what to say. Frightened his call would be tapped, thought Alleyn with satisfaction, and decided to risk a further assumption. He said:

“You saw Captain Withers again after the ball, didn’t you?”

“What makes you think that?”

“I have every reason to believe it. Captain Withers’s car was parked in a side street off Belgrave Square. How long did you sit there waiting for him?”

“I don’t admit I sat there.”

“Then if Captain Withers tells me he took a partner to the Matador last night after the ball I am to conclude that it was not you?”

“Captain Withers would want to protect me. He’s very, very thoughtful.”

“Can you not understand,” said Alleyn, “that it is greatly to your advantage and his, if you can prove that you both got into his car and drove to the Matador last night?”

“Why? I don’t want it said that—”

“Mrs Halcut-Hackett,” said Alleyn: “Do you want an alibi for yourself and Captain Withers or don’t you?”

She opened her mouth once or twice like a gaping fish, looked wildly at Fox and burst into tears.

Fox got up, walked to the far end of the room, and stared with heavy tact at the second print in the Nightcap series. Alleyn waited while scarlet claws scuffled in an elaborate handbag. Out came a long piece of monogrammed tulle. She jerked at it violently.

Something clattered to the floor. Alleyn darted forward and picked it up.

It was a gold cigarette-case with a medallion set in the lid and surrounded by brilliants.