Death in a White Tie

CHAPTER TWENTY Rose Birnbaum

Mrs Halcut-Hackett dabbed at the pouches under her eyes as if her handkerchief was made of blotting-paper.

“You frighten me,” she said. “You frighten me so. I’m just terrified.”

Alleyn turned the cigarette-case over in his long hands.

“But there is no need to be terrified, none at all. Don’t you see that if you can give me proof that you and Captain Withers motored straight from Marsdon House to the Matador, it clears you at once from any hint of complicity in Lord Robert’s death?”

He waited. She began to rock backwards and forwards, beating her hands together and moving her head from side to side like a well-preserved automaton.

“I can’t. I just can’t. I won’t say anything more. I just won’t say another thing. It’s no good. I won’t say another thing.”

“Very well,” said Alleyn, not too unkindly. “Don’t try. I’ll get at it another way. This is a very magnificent case. The medallion is an old one. Italian Renaissance, I should think. It’s most exquisitely worked. It might almost be Benvenuto himself who formed those minute scrolls. Do you know its history?”

“No. Maurice picked it up somewhere and had it put on the case. I’m crazy about old things,” said Mrs Halcut-Hackett with a dry sob. “Crazy about them.”

Alleyn opened the lid. An inscription read “E. from M. W.” He shut the case but did not return it to her.

“Don’t lose it, Mrs Halcut-Hackett. The medal is a collector’s piece. Aren’t you afraid to carry it about with you?”

She seemed to take heart of grace at his interest. She dabbed again at her eyes and said: “I’m just terribly careless with my things. Perhaps I ought not to use it. Only last night I left it lying about.”

“Did you? Where?”

She looked terrified again the moment he asked her a question.

“Some place at the ball,” she said.

“Was it in the green sitting-room on the top landing?”

“I — yes — I think maybe it was.”

“At what time?”

“I don’t know.”

“During the supper hour didn’t you sit in that room with Captain Withers?”

“Yes. Why not? Why shouldn’t I?” She twisted the handkerchief round her hands and said: “How do you know that? My husband — I’m not — he’s not having me watched?”

“I don’t for a moment suppose so. I simply happened to know that you sat in this room some time just before one o’clock. You tell me you left your cigarette-case there. Now when you came out of that room what did you do?”

“I went into the cloakroom to tidy. I missed the case when I opened my bag in the cloakroom.”

“Right. Now as you went from the green sitting-room to the cloakroom two doors away, did you happen to notice Lord Robert on the landing? Please don’t think I am trying to entrap you. I simply want to know if you saw him.”

“He was coming upstairs,” she said. Her voice and manner were more controlled now.

“Good. Did you hear the dialling sound on the telephone extension while you were in the cloakroom?”

“Yes. Now you remind me I did hear it.”

“When you came out of the cloakroom did you go back for your case?”

“No. No, I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Why? Because I forgot.”

“You forgot it again!”

“I didn’t just forget but I went to the head of the stairs and Maurice was in the other sitting-out room at the stairhead, waiting for me. I went in there, and then I remembered my case and he got it for me.”

“Had the telephone rung off?” asked Alleyn.

“I don’t know.”

“Was anyone else on the landing?”

“I guess not.”

“Not, by any chance, a short rather inconspicuous lady sitting alone?”

“No. There wasn’t anybody on the landing. Donald Potter was in the sitting-room.”

“Was Captain Withers long fetching your case?”

“I don’t think so,” she said nervously. “I don’t remember. I talked to Donald. Then we all went downstairs.”

“Captain Withers did not say whether there was anyone else in the telephone-room when he got the cigarette-case?”

“No, he didn’t say anything about it.”

“Will you be very kind and let me keep this case for twenty-four hours?”

“Why? Why do you want it?”

Alleyn hesitated and at last he said: “I want to see if anybody else recognises it. Will you trust me with it?”

“Very well,” she said. “I can’t refuse, can I?”

“I’ll take great care of it,” said Alleyn. He dropped it in his pocket and turned to Fox who had remained at the far end of the room. Fox’s notebook was open in his hand.

“I think that’s all, isn’t it?” asked Alleyn. “Have I missed anything, Fox?”

“I don’t fancy so, sir.”

“Then we’ll bother you no longer, Mrs Halcut-Hackett,” said Alleyn, standing before her. She rose from her chair. He saw that there was a sort of question in her eyes. “Is there anything you would like to add to what you have said?” he asked.

“No. No. But you said a little while ago that you would find out about what you asked me before. You said you’d trace it another way.”

“Oh,” said Alleyn cheerfully, “you mean whether you went from Marsdon House to the Matador in Captain Withers’s car, and if so, how long it took. Yes, we’ll ask the commissionaire and the man in the office at the Matador. They may be able to help.”

“My God, you mustn’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“You can’t do that. For God’s sake say you won’t. For God’s sake…”

Her voice rose to a stifled, hysterical scream, ending in a sort of gasp. Fox sighed heavily and gave Alleyn a look of patient endurance. Mrs Halcut-Hackett drew breath. The door opened.

A plain girl, dressed to go out, walked into the room.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t know—”

Mrs Halcut-Hackett stared round her with the air of a trapped mastodon and finally blundered from the room as fast as her French heels would carry her.

The door slammed behind her.

The plain girl, who was most beautifully curled, painted and dressed, looked from Alleyn to Fox.

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated nervously. “I’m afraid I shouldn’t have come in. Ought I to go and see if there’s anything I can do?”

“If I were you,” said Alleyn, “I don’t think I should. Mrs Halcut-Hackett is very much distressed over last night’s tragedy and I expect she would rather be alone. Are you Miss Birnbaum?”

“Yes, I am. You’re detectives, aren’t you?”

“That’s us. My name is Alleyn and this is Mr Fox.”

“Oh, how d’you do?” said Miss Birnbaum hurriedly. She hesitated and then gave them her hand. She looked doubtfully into Alleyn’s face. He felt the chilly little fingers tighten their grip like those of a frightened child.

“I expect you’ve found it rather upsetting too, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she said dutifully. “It’s dreadful, isn’t it?” She twisted her fingers together. “Lord Robert was very kind, wasn’t he? He was very kind to me.”

“I hope your toothache’s better,” said Alleyn.

She looked at her hands and then up into his face.

“I didn’t have toothache,” she said.

“No?”

“No. I just wanted to go home. I hate coming out,” added Miss Birnbaum with extraordinary vigour. “I knew I would and I do.”

“That’s bad luck. Why do you do it?”

“Because,” said Miss Birnbaum with devastating frankness, “my mother paid Mrs Hackett, I mean Mrs Halcut-Hackett, five hundred pounds to bring me out.”

“Hi!” said Alleyn, “aren’t you talking out of school?”

“You won’t tell anybody I said that, will you? I’ve never breathed a word about it before. Not to a single soul. But you look my kind of person. And I’m absolutely fed up. I’m simply not the social kind. Golly, what a relief to get that off my chest!”

“What would you like to do?”

“I want to be an art student. My grandfather was a painter, Joseph Birnbaum. Have you ever heard of him?”

“I think I have. Didn’t he paint a thing called ‘Jewish Sabbath’?”

“That’s right. He was a Jew, of course. I’m a Jewess. My mother isn’t, but I am. That’s another thing I’m not supposed to say. I’m only sixteen. Would you have thought I was older?”

“I think I should.”

“That,” said Miss Birnbaum, “is because I’m a Jewess. They mature very quickly, you know. Well, I suppose I mustn’t keep you.”

“I should like to keep you for a minute, if I may.”

“That’s all right then,” said Miss Birnbaum and sat down. “I suppose Mrs Halcut-Hackett won’t come back, will she?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t mind so much about the General. He’s stupid, of course, but he’s quite kind. But I’m terrified of Mrs Halcut-Hackett. I’m such a failure and she hates it.”

“Are you sure you’re such a failure?”

“Oh, yes. Last night only four people asked me to dance. Lord Robert, when I first got there, and a fat man, and the General, and Sir Herbert Carrados.”

She looked away for a moment and her lips trembled.

“I tried to pretend I had a soul above social success,” she said, “but I haven’t at all. I minded awfully. If I could paint and get out of it all it wouldn’t matter, but when you’re in a thing it’s beastly to be a failure. So I got toothache. I must say it is queer me saying all this to you.”

“The General took you home, didn’t he?”

“Yes. He was very kind. He got Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s maid, whom I hate worse than poison, to give me oil of cloves and Ovaltine. She knew all right.”

“Did you go to sleep?”

“No. I tried to think of a way to write to mother so that she would let me give it up. And then everything began to go through and through my head. I tried to think of other things but all the failure-parties kept coming up.”

“Did you hear the others return?”

“I heard Mrs Halcut-Hackett come in. It was frightfully late. She goes past my door to her room and she’s got diamante shoe buckles that make a clicking noise with every step. I had heard the clock strike four. Did the General go back to the dance?”

“He went out again, I think.”

“Well, then it must have been the General I heard come along the passage at a quarter-past three. Just after. I heard every clock chime from one till six. Then I fell asleep. It was quite light then.”

“Yes.”

Alleyn took a turn up and down the room.

“Have you met Agatha Troy?” he asked.

“The painter? She was there last night. I wanted awfully for someone to introduce us but I didn’t like to ask. I think she’s the best living English painter, don’t you?”

“Yes, I believe I do. She teaches, you know.”

“Does she? Only geniuses, I suppose.”

“I think only students who have gone a certain distance.”

“If I were allowed to go a certain distance first, I wonder if she would ever have me.”

“Do you think you would be good?” asked Alleyn.

“I’m sure I would be able to draw. I’m not so sure of paint. I see everything in line. I say.”

“Hallo?”

“D’you think this will make any difference to the coming-out game? Is she going to be ill? I’ve thought so lots of times lately. She’s so bloody-minded.”

“Don’t say ‘she’ and don’t say ‘bloody-minded’. The one’s common and you’re too young for the other.”

Miss Birnbaum grinned delightedly.

“Well,” she said, “it’s what I think anyway. And she’s not even virtuous. Do you know the Withers person?”

“Yes.”

“He’s her boy-friend. Don’t pretend to be shocked. I wrote and told mother about it. I hoped it’d shake her a bit. My father wrote and asked me if he was called Maurice and was like a red pig — that’s a frightful insult, you know — because if he was I wasn’t to stay. I like my father. But mother said if he was a friend of Mrs Halcut-Hackett he must be all right. I thought that frightfully funny. It’s about the only thing that is at all funny in the whole business. I don’t think it can be very amusing to be frightened of your boy-friend and your husband, do you?”

Alleyn rubbed his head and stared at Miss Birnbaum.

“Look here,” he said, “you’re giving us a good deal of information, you know. There’s Mr Fox with his notebook. What about that?”

The dark face was lit with an inward smouldering fire. Two sharp lines appeared at the corners of the thick lips.

“Do you mean she may get into trouble? I hope she does. I hate her. She’s a wicked woman. She’d murder anyone if she wanted them out of the way. She’s felt like murdering me pretty often. She says things to me that twist me up inside, they hurt so. ‘My dear child, how can you expect me to do anything with you if you stare like a fish and never utter?’ ‘My God, what have I done to be saddled with a burden like this?’ ‘My dear child, I suppose you can’t help looking what you are, but at least you might make some effort to sound a little less like Soho.’ And then she imitates my voice. Yesterday she told me there was a good deal to be said for the German point of view, and asked me if I had any relations among the refugees because she heard quite a number of English people were taking them as maids. I hope she is a murderess. I hope you catch her. I hope they hang her by her beastly old neck until she’s dead.”

The thick soft voice stopped. Miss Birnbaum was trembling very slightly. A thin line of damp appeared above her upper lip.

Alleyn grimaced, rubbed his nose and said:

“Do you feel any better for that?”

“Yes.”

“Vindictive little devil! Can’t you get on top of it all and see it as something intensely disagreeable that won’t last for ever? Have you tried drawing as a counter-irritant?”

“I’ve done a caricature of Her. When I get away from here I’ll send it to her if she’s not in gaol by that time.”

“Do you know Sarah Alleyn?”

“She’s one of the successes. Yes, I know her.”

“Do you like her?”

“She’s not bad. She actually remembers who I am when she sees me.”

Alleyn decided to abandon his niece for the moment.

“Well,” he said, “I dare say you’re nearer to escape than you imagine. I’ll be off now. I hope we meet again.”

“So do I. I suppose you think I’m pretty ghastly.”

“That’s all right. Make up your mind everybody hates you and you’ll always be happy.”

Miss Birnbaum grinned.

“You think you’re clever,” she said, “don’t you? Goodbye.”

They shook hands in a friendly manner, and she saw them out into the hall. Alleyn had a last glimpse of her standing stocky, dark and truculent against a background of restrained and decorous half-tones and beautiful pseudo-Empire curtains.