Death in a White Tie

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Climax

“You did what, Sir Herbert?”

It was the AC’s voice, very quiet and matter-of-fact.

“I kept the letter.” Carrados looked directly at his wife. “You know why. If ever you had spoken of him, if ever you had compared me to that fellow, if I had found you — You know why.”

“Yes,” said Lady Carrados. “I know why.”

“For God’s sake,” Carrados said, “for God’s sake, gentlemen, let this go no further. It’s a private matter between my wife and myself.”

“It has gone much further than that,” said Alleyn. “Did you not in fact write blackmailing letters to your wife purely in order to torture her mind? Did you not do this?”

“You fool,” shouted Carrados. “You fool! It’s I who have suffered. It’s I who have dreaded what might happen. The letter was stolen. It was stolen. It was stolen.”

“Now,” said Alleyn, “it seems we are going to get the truth. When did you miss the letter?”

Carrados looked from one face to the other. For a frightful moment Alleyn thought he was going to burst into tears. His lips were shaking. He seemed an old man. He began to speak.

“It was when we came back from Newmarket. That evening I was alone in my study. Bridget had been very inconsiderate all day, leaving us and going off with a young man of whom I could not approve. My wife had taken her part against me. I was alone in my study. I found myself looking at the French writing-cabinet. There was something different in the arrangement of the pieces in front of it. I went to re-arrange them, and being there I tried the hidden drawer. It was empty! I tell you the letter was there the day before. I saw it there. The day before I had been very angry with my wife. She had been cruel to me. I am very sensitive and my nerves are shattered. I am alone. Terribly lonely. Nobody cares what becomes of me. She was so thoughtless and cruel. So I looked at the letter because the letter gave me comfort. It was there the night before. And do you know who was alone in my room on May the ninth?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “I am glad you, too, remember. It was Mr Colombo Dimitri.”

“Ah,” said Carrados shakily. “Ah, now we’re getting at it. Now, we’re getting at it.”

“I am afraid I do not understand,” said Dimitri. “Is Sir Herbert perhaps ill?”

Carrados slewed round and again he pointed at Dimitri.

“You stole it, you filthy dago. I know you stole it. I have suspected it from the first. I could do nothing — nothing.”

“Excuse me, Mr Alleyn,” said Dimitri, “but I believe that I may charge Sir Herbert Carrados with libel on this statement. Is it not so?”

“I don’t think I advise you to do so, Mr Dimitri. On the other hand I shall very strongly advise Lady Carrados to charge you with blackmail. Lady Carrados, is it a fact that on the morning of May twenty-fifth, when Lord Robert Gospell paid you a visit, you received a blackmailing letter?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe that the only source from which the blackmailer could have got his information was the letter lost on the day of Captain O’Brien’s accident?”

“Yes.”

Alleyn took an envelope from his pocket, handed it to her.

“Was the blackmailing letter written in a similar style to this?”

She glanced at it and turned her head away.

“It was exactly like that.”

“If I tell you that the lady to whom this letter is addressed had been blackmailed as you have been blackmailed and that we have positive evidence that the man who wrote this address was Colombo Dimitri, are you prepared to charge him with blackmail?”

“Yes.”

“It is completely false,” said Dimitri. “I shall certainly sue for libel.”

His face was ashen. He put his bandaged hand to his lips and pressed it against them.

“Before we go any further,” said Alleyn, “I think I should explain that Lord Robert Gospell was in the confidence of Scotland Yard as regards these blackmailing letters. He was working for us on the case. We’ve got his signed statement that leaves no doubt at all that Mr Dimitri collected a sum of money at a concert held at the Constance Street Hall on Thursday, June the third. Lord Robert actually watched Mr Dimitri collect his money.”

“He—” Dimitri caught his breath, his lips were drawn back from his teeth in a sort of grin. “I deny everything,” he said. “Everything. I wish to send for my lawyer.”

“You shall do so, Mr Dimitri, when I have finished. On June the eighth, two nights ago, Lady Carrados gave a ball at Marsdon House. Lord Robert was there. As he knew so much about Mr Dimitri already, he thought he would find out a little more. He watched Mr Dimitri. He now knew the method employed. He also knew that Lady Carrados was the victim of blackmail. Is that right, Lady Carrados?”

“Yes. I had a conversation with him about it. He knew what I was going to do.”

“What were you going to do?”

“Put my bag containing five hundred pounds in a certain place in the green sitting-room upstairs.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “Now, Lord Robert saw Mr Dimitri return her empty bag to Lady Carrados shortly before one o’clock. At one o’clock he rang me up and told me he now had enough evidence. The conversation was interrupted by someone who must have overheard at least one very significant phrase. Two and a half hours later Lord Robert was murdered.”

The quiet of the room was blown into piercing clamour. Dimitri had screamed like a woman, his mouth wide open. This shocking rumpus lasted for a second and stopped. Alleyn had a picture of an engine-driver pulling a string and then letting it go. Dimitri stood, still with a gaping mouth, wagging his finger at Alleyn.

“Now then, now then,” said Fox and stepped up to him.

“False!” said Dimitri, frantically snapping his fingers in Fox’s face and then shaking them as if they were scorched. “False! You accuse me of murder. I am not an assassin. I am innocent. Cristo mio, I am innocent, innocent, innocent!”

For a moment it looked as if he’d try to bolt from the room. He might have been a tenor giving an excruciatingly bad performance in a second-rate Italian opera. He mouthed at Alleyn, tore his hair, crumpled on to a chair, and burst into tears. Upon the five English people in the office there descended a heavy aura of embarrassment.

“I am innocent,” sobbed Dimitri. “As innocent as a child. The blessed saints bear witness to my innocence. The blessed saints bear witness—”

“Unfortunately,” said Alleyn, “their evidence is not acceptable in a court of law. If you will keep quiet for a moment, Mr Dimitri, we can get on with our business. Will you ask Mrs Halcut-Hackett to come in, please, Fox?”

The interval was enlivened by the sound of Dimitri biting his nails and sobbing.

Mrs Halcut-Hackett, dressed as if she was going to a Continental restaurant and looking like a beauty specialist’s mistake, came into the office. Fox followed with an extra chair which he placed for her. She sat down and drew up her bust until it seemed to perch like some superstructure on a rigid foundation. Then she saw Lady Carrados. An extraordinary look passed between the two women. It was as if they had said to each other: “You, too?”

“Mrs Halcut-Hackett,” said Alleyn. “You have told me that after a charade party you gave in December you found that a document which you valued was missing from a box on your dressing-table. Had this man, Colombo Dimitri, an opportunity of being alone in this room?”

She turned her head and looked at Dimitri who flapped his hands at her.

“Why, yes,” she said. “He certainly had.”

“Did Lord Robert sit near you at the Sirmione Quartette’s concert on June the third?”

“You know he did.”

“Do you remember that this man, Colombo Dimitri, sat not very far away from you?”

“Why — yes.”

“Your bag was stolen that afternoon?”

“Yes.” She looked again at Lady Carrados who suddenly leant forward and touched her hand.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I, too. Indeed you have nothing to fear from us. We have suffered, too. I have made up my mind to hide nothing now. Will you help by also hiding — nothing?”

“Oh, my dear!” said Mrs Halcut-Hackett in a whisper.

“We need not ask for very much more,” said Alleyn.

“Would it have been possible for Dimitri to have taken your bag while you were out of the concert-room?”

“Lord Robert might have seen,” said Mrs Halcut-Hackett.

“Lord Robert did see,” said Alleyn.

“The dead!” cried Dimitri. “I cannot be accused by the dead.”

“If that was true,” said Alleyn, “as it often is, what a motive for murder! I tell you we have a statement, written and signed by the dead.”

Dimitri uttered a sort of moan and shrank back in his chair.

Alleyn took from his pocket the cigarette-case with the medallion.

“This is yours, isn’t it?” he asked Mrs Halcut-Hackett.

“Yes. I’ve told you so.”

“You left it in the green sitting-room at Marsdon House?”

“Yes — only a few minutes.”

“A minute or two, not more, after you came out of that room you heard the dialling tinkle of the telephone?”

“Yes.”

“You had seen Lord Robert coming upstairs?”

“Yes.”

Alleyn nodded to Fox who again left the room.

“After you had joined your partner in the other sitting-out room, you discovered the loss of your case?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Your partner fetched it.”

She wetted her lips. Dimitri was listening avidly. Carrados had slumped down in his chair with his chin on his chest. Alleyn felt he was giving, for anybody that had time to notice it, a quiet performance of a broken man. Lady Carrados sat upright, her hands folded in her lap, her face looked exhausted. The AC was motionless behind the green lamp.

“Well, Mrs Halcut-Hackett? Your partner fetched your case from the green sitting-room, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

The door opened and Withers walked in after Fox. He stood with his hands in his pockets and blinked his white eyelashes.

“Hallo,” he said. “What’s the idea?”

“I have invited you to come here, Captain Withers, in order that the Assistant Commissioner may hear your statement about your movements on the night of the ball at Marsdon House. I have discovered that although you left Marsdon House at three-thirty you did not arrive at the Matador Night Club until four-fifteen. You therefore have no alibi for the murder of Lord Robert Gospell.”

Withers looked at Mrs Halcut-Hackett with a sort of sneer.

“She can give me one,” he said.

She looked at him and spoke to Alleyn. Her voice was quite expressionless.

“I’d made up my mind it would have to come out. Between the time we left the ball and the time we got to the Matador, Captain Withers drove me about in his car. I was afraid of my husband. I had seen him watching me. I wanted to talk to Captain Withers. I was afraid to say this before.”

“I see,” said Alleyn. “You accept that, Captain Withers?”

“It’s true enough.”

“Very well. Now, to return to Marsdon House. You told me that at one o’clock you were in the sitting-room at the head of the stairs.”

“So I was.”

“You did not tell me you were also in the telephone-room.”

Withers stared at Mrs Halcut-Hackett. She had been watching him like a frightened animal but as soon as his eyes turned towards her she looked away from him.

“Why should I?” said Withers

“You were in the telephone room with Mrs Halcut-Hackett before you went to the other room. You returned to it from the other room to fetch this.”

Alleyn’s long arm shot up. Seven heads followed the movement. Seven pairs of eyes were concentrated on the gold cigarette-case with the jewelled medallion.

“And what if I did?”

“Where did you find this case?”

“On a table in the room with the telephone.”

“When I asked you yesterday if you overheard Lord Robert telephoning in this room, as we know he did at one o’clock, you denied it.”

“There wasn’t anybody in the room when I fetched the case. I told you I heard the dialling tinkle on the extension a bit before then. If it was Gospell I suppose he’d gone when I got there.”

“Is there any reason why anybody, say Mr Dimitri in the corner there, should not have gone into the telephone-room after you left it with Mrs Halcut-Hackett, and before you returned for the case?”

“No reason at all as far as I’m concerned.”

“Dimitri,” said Alleyn, “have you seen this case before? Look at it. Have you seen it before?”

“Never. I have never seen it. I do not know why you ask. I have never seen it.”

“Take it in your hands. Look at it.”

Dimitri took the case.

“Open it.”

Dimitri opened it. From where Alleyn stood he could see the little cutting taken from The Times. Dimitri saw it too. His eyes dilated. The case dropped through his hands to the floor. He pointed a shaking finger at Alleyn.

“I think you must be the devil himself,” he whispered.

“Fox,” said Alleyn, “will you pass the case round?”

It passed from hand to hand. Withers, Evelyn Carrados and Carrados all looked at it. Withers handled it as if he had done so before, but seemed quite unmoved by the cutting. The Carradoses both looked blankly at it and passed it on. Mrs Halcut-Hackett opened the case and stared at the scrap of paper.

“This wasn’t here before,” she said. “What is it? Who put it here?”

“I’m sorry,” said Alleyn. “It’s done no damage. It will come off quite easily.”

He took the case from her.

Dimitri suddenly leapt to his feet. Fox who had never taken his eyes off him moved in front of the door.

“Sit down, Mr Dimitri,” said Alleyn.

“I am going. You can keep me here no longer against my will. You accuse, you threaten, you lie! I say I can endure it no longer. I am an innocent man, a man of standing with a clientèle of great excellence. I will see a lawyer. My God, let me pass!”

He plunged forward. Alleyn caught him by one arm. Fox by the other. He struggled violently. The AC pressed a bell on his desk, the door was opened from the outside and two plain-clothes men walked into the room. Beyond, in the brightly lit secretary’s room three startled faces, Bridget’s, Davidson’s and Miss Harris’s, peered over the shoulders of more Yard men, and through the doorway.

Dimitri, mouthing and panting, was taken over by the two officers.

“Now then,” they said. “Now then.”

“Lady Carrados,” said Alleyn, “will you formally charge this man?”

“I do charge him.”

“In a moment,” said Alleyn to Dimitri, “you will be taken to the charge-room, but before we talk about the exact nature of the charge—” He looked through the door: “Sir Daniel? I see you’re still there. May I trouble you again for a moment?”

Davidson, looking very startled, came through.

“Good God, Alleyn!” he said, staring at Dimitri. “What’s this?”

Alleyn said: “You can, I believe, give me the final piece of evidence in an extremely involved affair. You see this cigarette-case?”

Davidson took it.

“My dear fellow,” he said, “that’s the abortion. I told you about it. It’s part of the collection at Marsdon House. You remember?”

He moved to the light and after another startled glance at Dimitri, who had gone perfectly still and stared at him like a lost soul, Davidson put up his glasses and examined the case.

“You know, I believe it is Benvenuto,” he said, looking over his glasses at Alleyn.

“Yes, yes, I dare say. Will you tell us where you saw it?”

“Among a collection of objets d’art on a pie-crust table in an upstairs room at Marsdon House.”

“At what time, Sir Daniel?”

“My dear Alleyn, I told you. About eleven-thirty or so. Perhaps earlier.”

“Would you swear you noticed it no later than eleven-thirty?” insisted Alleyn.

“But of course I would,” said Davidson. “I did not return to that room. I am quite ready to swear it.”

He held the cigarette-case up in his beautifully shaped hand.

“I swear I saw this case on the table in the green sitting-room not later than eleven-thirty. That do?”

The silence was broken only by Dimitri’s laboured breathing.

And then, surprisingly clear and firm, Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s voice:

“But that can’t be true.”

Alleyn said: “Will you open the case?”

Davidson, who was gazing in amazement at Mrs Halcut-Hackett, opened the cigarette-case and saw the notice.

“Will you read that press cutting?” said Alleyn. “Aloud, please.”

The deep expressive voice read the absurd message.

“What in the name of all wonders is this?”

“We believe it to be a murderer’s message,” said Alleyn. “We think this man, Dimitri, can translate it.”

Davidson shut the case with a snap.

Something had gone wrong with his hands. They shook so violently that the diamonds on the gold case seemed to have a separate flashing life of their own.

“So Dimitri is a murderer,” he said.

“Look out!” said Alleyn loudly.

Dimitri flung himself forward with such extreme and sudden violence that the men who held him were taken off their guard and his hands were at Davidson’s throat before they had regained their hold on him. In a moment the room was full of struggling men. Chairs crashed to the floor, a woman screamed. Fox’s voice shouted urgently: “Get to it. What are you doing?” There was a concerted upheaval against the edge of the desk. The green-shaded lamp smashed into oblivion.

“That’s better,” said Alleyn’s voice. “Now then. Hands together.”

A sharp click, a cry from Dimitri, and then the figures resolved themselves into a sort of tableau: Dimitri, hand-cuffed and held by three men, against the desk; Davidson in the centre of the room with Alleyn, Fox and a plainclothes man grasping his arms behind his back; the Assistant Commissioner, between the two groups, like a distinguished sort of referee.

“Murderer!” screamed Dimitri. “Treacherous, filthy assassin! I confess! Gentlemen, I confess! I have worked for him for seven years and now, now, now he will stand aside and let me go to the gallows for the crime he has himself committed. I will tell you everything. Everything.”

“Speak up, Rory,” said the AC.

“Daniel Davidson,” said Alleyn, “I arrest you for the murder of Lord Robert Gospell, and I warn you…”