Death In Ecstasy

CHAPTER XII Alleyn Takes Stock

“Dear me!” said Alleyn as he laid the book on the table. “This is a quaint coincidence.” He paused a moment and then murmured: “I wonder if coincidence is quite the right word.”

“H’m,” said Fox, deeply.

“I’d call it the Hand of — of Fate, or Providence, or Nemesis or something,” said Nigel.

“I dare say you would — on the front page. Not this time, however.” But Nigel was reading excitedly.

“Do listen, Alleyn. It says you can make sodium cyanide from wool and washing soda.”

“Really? It sounds a most unpalatable mixture.”

“You have to heat them terrifically in a retort or something. It says: ‘It is, perhaps, a fortunate circumstance that this simple recipe is not generally known. The tyro is advised to avoid the experiment as it is attended by a certain amount of danger, so deadly is the poison thus produced.’ ”

“Yes. Don’t blow down my neck and don’t touch the book, there’s a good chap. Bailey will have to get to work on it. Not nearly so much dust on this as on the other hidden books, you notice, Fox, and the brown paper cover is newer. The others are stained. Blast! I don’t like it at all.”

Bailey reappeared and was given the book.

“I don’t think the results will be very illuminating,” said Alleyn. “Try the open page as well as the cover. What is it these books smell of?”

He sniffed at them.

“It’s those stains, I seem to imagine. It’s very faint. Perhaps I do imagine. What about you, Bailey?”

Alleyn examined the Curiosities closely.

“It smells faintly. There’s no stain on the cover.” He slipped the blade of his pocketknife beneath the brown paper and peered under it: “And there is no stain on the red cover of the book. There you are, Bailey.”

“But, Alleyn,” interrupted Nigel, “surely it’s of the first importance. If the pathologist finds cyanide — sodium cyanide — and Garnette has this book and—”

“I know, I know. Extraordinary careless of him to leave it there, don’t you think? Stupid, what?”

“Do you mean you think it is coincidence?”

“Bless my soul, Bathgate, how on earth am I to know? Your simple faith is most soothing, but I can assure you it’s misplaced.”

“Well, but what do you think? Tell me what you think.”

“I ‘think naught a trifle, though it small appear.’ ”

“That has the advantage of sounding well and meaning nothing.”

“Not altogether. Look here. We know Miss Quayne was probably murdered by cyanide poisoning. We believe that it must have been done by one of eight persons.”

Nigel counted beneath his breath.

“Only seven, six Initiates and Garnette.”

“Mr. Wheatley, sir,” Fox reminded him. “The young fellow that handed round, you know.”

“Oh — true. Well?”

“Well,” Alleyn went on composedly, “we have reason to suppose the stuff was dropped into the cup in a cigarette-paper. The paper was later found on the place where the cup fell. So much for the actual event. We have learned that Miss Quayne had deposited bearer-bonds, to the tune of five thousand, in the safe. We have found a parcel that appeared to be the original wrapping of these bonds. If so the bonds have been taken and newspaper substituted. We have found a message in Cara Quayne’s writing, addressed yesterday, presumably to Garnette. This message says she must see him at once as she had made a terrible discovery. I think the odds are he has not read the message. Whether it referred to the bonds or not we have no idea. We have found an antique work on chemistry hidden among Garnette’s books. It falls open at a recipe for homemade cyanide. So much for our tangible data.”

“What about motive?” suggested Nigel.

“Motive. You mean Garnette’s motive, don’t you? I gather you are no longer wedded to Mr. Ogden as the villain of the piece.”

“I wasn’t really serious about Ogden, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he and Garnette were rogues together in the States.”

“What’s your view, Fox?” asked Alleyn.

“Well, sir, I must say I don’t think so. Father Garnette was very frank under the influence and he said he met Mr. Ogden crossing the Atlantic. That tallies with Mr. Ogden’s statement.”

“Exactly, Fox.”

“And I must say, sir, Mr. Ogden isn’t my notion of a Chicago racketeer.”

“Nor mine either. Perhaps we are too conservative, Brer Fox. But because two men come from the United States of America and one’s a rogue, it doesn’t mean they are old associates.”

“If you put it like that,” said Nigel, “it does sound a bit far-fetched.”

“Of course they are associates now,” ruminated Fox, “but Mr. Ogden seems more like a victim than a crook.”

“Well, then — Garnette,” urged Nigel.

“If,” said Alleyn, “Mr. Garnette stole the bonds and killed Miss Quayne with a jorum of sodium cyanide, he set about it in a most peculiar manner. He chose a moment when he and seven other persons would be equally suspected. He must have known that a search would be made of these rooms, yet he left his recipe book in a place where it was sufficiently concealed to look furtive, and not well enough hidden to escape discovery. He destroyed, so far as we know, none of her letters. He left, inside a cigarette-box, her note, suggesting that she had discovered something very upsetting.”

“But you said he never found it,” objected Nigel.

“If that’s so why did he think it necessary to kill her?”

“She may have rung up or something.”

“She may, certainly, but wouldn’t she have mentioned the note?”

“Perhaps,” said Nigel doubtfully.

“I quite agree it’s not cast-iron,” Alleyn continued. “I am breaking my own rule and going in heavily for conjecture. So far, I am convinced, we have only scratched the surface of an extremely unsavoury case.”

“What about the others?” said Fox. “They are a very strange lot — very strange indeed. There may be motives among them, Chief.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Such as jealousy,” began Nigel eagerly. “Jealousy, you know, and passion, and religious mania.”

“Now you’re talking exactly like the Dormouse. Really, Bathgate, you are a perfect piece of pastiche this evening.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Let us take the others in turn.”

“Very well,” said Alleyn resignedly. “It’s hideously late but let us. A. Mrs. Candour.”

“There you are!” cried Nigel. “A warped nature if ever there was one. Did you notice how she behaved when you said you supposed Miss Quayne was very beautiful? She fairly writhed. She’s even jealous of that little squirt Wheatley. There are those two bits of paper Fox got from the grate. Obviously a letter beginning: ‘This is to warn you—’ and then later on M — S and C A and what might be the top of an N. Mrs. Candour again. And did you notice her face when she said: ‘Cara doesn’t look so pretty now?’ It was absolutely obscene.”

“It was,” said Alleyn quietly. “You do see things, Bathgate.”

“I suppose you are making mock of me as usual.”

“My dear fellow,” said Alleyn quickly, “indeed I am not. Please forgive me if I am odiously facetious sometimes. It’s a bad habit I’ve got. I assure you that if I really thought you slow in the uptake I should never dream of ragging you. You’re kind enough to let me show off and I take advantage of it. Do forgive me.”

He looked so distressed and spoke with such charming formality that Nigel was both embarrassed and delighted.

“Chief Detective-Inspector,” he said, “I am your Watson, and your worm. You may both sit and trample on me. I shall continue to offer you the fruits of my inexperience.”

“Very nicely put, Mr. Bathgate,” said Fox.

Alleyn and Nigel stared at him, but he was perfectly serious.

“Well,” said Alleyn hurriedly, “to return to the Candour. She gave, as you say, a very nasty little exhibition. Would she have done so if she’d killed Miss Quayne? It’s possible. She certainly tried to ladle out sympathy later on. She was the first to take the cup. That’s a naught that may be a rifle. So much for her. B. M. de Ravigne.”

“Ah, now, the French gentleman,” said Fox. “He was in love with the deceased and owned up quite frank to it. Well now, it would have come out anyway, so there’s not a great deal in his frankness, you may say. There seem to have been some nice goings-on between deceased and the minister. Mr. Pringle evidently was an eyewitness. Now monsieur never hinted at anything of the sort.”

“And therefore thought the more,” murmured Alleyn. “Yes, Fox, he was very cool, wasn’t he?”

“Remarkable,” said Fox, “until I handled deceased’s photograph and then he blazed up like a rocket. What about this crime passionel the French jokers are always dragging in? They let ’em off for that sort of thing over there. Did you notice what Miss Wade said about the handkerchief?”

“I did.”

“He’s a very cool hand is monsieur,” repeated Fox.

“We’ll have to trace their friendship back to Paris, I dare say,” said Alleyn wearily. “Oh, Lord! C. Miss Wade. I’m taking them in the order in which they knelt. She comes next.”

“Nothing there,” said Nigel. “She’s just a little pagan church-hen with a difference. Rather a nice old girl, I thought.”

“She spoke very silly to the chief,” pronounced Fox with unexpected heat. “ ‘Have you been through the Police College, officer?’ These old ladies! You could write a book on them. She’s the sort that makes point-duty what it is.”

“I adored the way she said she had her eyes shut all through the cup ceremony, and then told you what each of them did,” said Nigel. “Didn’t you, Alleyn?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “It was extremely helpful and rather interesting.”

“D. will be Mr. Pringle,” observed Fox. “And here we go again. To my way of thinking he’s the most likely type. Neurotic, excitable young gentleman and dopes, as you found out, sir.”

“I agree,” said Alleyn. “He is a likely type. He’s in a bad way. He’s had a violent emotional jolt and he’s suffering from the after-effects of unbridled hero-worship. Silly young dolt. I hope it’s not Pringle.”

“Obviously,” ventured Nigel, “he would look on Miss Quayne as Garnette’s evil genius.”

“Yes,” murmured Alleyn. “I don’t pretend to speak with any sort of authority, but I should expect a person in Pringle’s condition to turn against the object of his worship rather than against the — what shall I call her? — the temptress. I should expect him in the shock of his discovery to direct his violence against Garnette there and then, not against Miss Quayne some three weeks later. I may be quite wrong about that,” he added after a minute or two. “However — there is Pringle. He’s neurotic, he’s dopey, and he’s had a severe emotional shock. He hero-worshipped Garnette and made a hideous discovery. He’s probably been living in an ugly little hell of his own for the last three weeks. By the way, we haven’t sampled Mr. Garnette’s cigarettes, have we? Another little job for the analyst.”

“Now Miss Jenkins,” said Fox. “She’s E.”

“She struck me as being a pleasant creature,” said Nigel. “Rather amusing I should think. Not a ‘lovely’ of course, but moderately easy to look at. Intelligent.”

“Very intelligent,” agreed Alleyn.

“How she got herself mixed up in this show beats me,” confessed Fox. “A nice young lady like that.”

“She practically said herself,” Nigel interrupted. “She’s attached to that ass Pringle. Women are—”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Alleyn hastily. “We needn’t go into all that, I think. As far as we’ve got there’s no motive apparent in Miss Jenkin’s case. We are back at Ogden.”

“F. Mr. Ogden,” said Fox solemnly. “It seems to me, sir, the only call we’ve got for suspecting Mr. Ogden more than anybody else is that he’s an American, and it seems as if Father Garnette’s another. It don’t amount to much.”

“It don’t,” said Alleyn. “Personally I fancy the Atlantic meeting was their first one. I agree with you, Fox.”

“As regards Father Garnette’s later utterances,” said Nigel, “we had a clear case of in vino veritas.”

“Someone was bound to say in vino veritas sooner or later,” said Alleyn, “but you are quite right, Bathgate.”

“That’s the lot, then,” said Nigel.

“No. Again you’ve forgotten Opifex.”

“Opifex? What do you mean?”

“Another classical touch. Don’t you remember the rhyme in the Latin textbooks:

“Quite good names for Lionel and Claude.”

“Really, Inspector!” protested Nigel, grinning broadly.

“Artifex was busy with the censer and seems unlikely. Opifex had, of course, less opportunity than the others. I understand he did not handle the cup?”

“I don’t think he did,” said Nigel. “Of course he was bending over the Initiates while they passed it round.”

“Meaning Mr. Wheatley?” asked Fox.

“Yes. Mr. Claude Wheatley.”

“Hardly got the guts to kill anybody, would you think, sir?”

“I’d say not,” agreed Nigel heartily.

“They call poison a woman’s weapon, don’t they?” asked Alleyn vaguely. “A dangerous generalisation. Well, let’s go home. There’s one more point I want to clear up. Any prints of interest, Bailey?”

Detective-Sergeant Bailey had returned from the bedroom and had been at work on the parcel and the book. He had not uttered a word for some time. He now said with an air of disgruntled boredom: “Nothing on the book. Reverend Garnette’s on the parcel, I think, but I’ll take a photograph. There’s some prints in the bedroom beside the Reverend’s. I think they are Mr. Pringle’s. I got a good one of his from that rail out there. Noticed him leaning on it.”

“Did you find out how the torch is worked?”

“Yes. Naphtha. Bottle in the vestry.”

“Can you ginger it up for a moment, Bailey?”

“Very good, sir.”

“Have you got any cigarette-papers on you?”

Bailey, looking completely disinterested, produced a packet and went out. Alleyn got a silver cup from the sideboard, half filled it with some of Father Garnette’s Invalid Port, emptied some salt into a cigarette-paper, stuck the margins together, and screwed up the end. Meanwhile, Fox locked the safe and sealed it with tape and wax. Alleyn pocketed the keys.

“Come on out,” he said.

They all returned to the sanctuary. Bailey had got the torch flaring again. The hall had taken on a new but rather ghastly lease of life. It looked like a setting for a film in extremely bad taste. The nude gods, the cubistic animals, the velvets and the elaborate ornaments flickered in the torchlight with meretricious theatricality. It was, Nigel told himself, altogether too much of a good thing. And yet, over-emphasised as it was, it did make its gesture. It was not, as it might well have been, merely silly. As the light flared up, the faces of the plaster figures flushed and seemed to move a little. The shadows under the eyes and nostrils of the Wotan wavered and the empty scowl deepened. One god seemed to puff out his cheeks, another to open and close his blank eyes. It was very still; there was no sound at all but the roar of the naphtha. The men’s voices sounded forlorn and small. It had grown very cold.

Alleyn walked down to the chancel steps and peered out into the body of the hall.

“I want you all up here for a moment,” he said.

His voice seemed to echo a little. A plain-clothes man came out of the vestry and another appeared in the aisle. A constable came out of the porch.

When they were all assembled under the torch Alleyn asked them to kneel in a circle. They did this, the constable and Fox very stolidly, Bailey with morose detachment, the two plain-clothes men with an air of mild interest. Nigel was unpleasantly moved by this performance. His imagination fashioned out of shadows the figure of Cara Quayne.

Alleyn knelt with them. All their hands were shadowed by the sconce. They held them folded as Nigel showed them. They passed the cup from hand to hand, beginning with Fox who knelt in Mrs. Candour’s place. Alleyn made them send it twice round the circle. Then they all stood up.

“Notice anything?” asked Alleyn.

Nobody spoke.

Alleyn suddenly flung the cup from him. It fell with a dull thud and the wine seeped into the carpet. Alleyn bent down and invited them all to look. In the bottom of the cup were the dregs of the wine and a tiny piece of paper.

“You see it’s stuck to the side,” said Alleyn.

“When did you put it in, sir?” asked Fox.

“The first time round. You see, none of you noticed it. It’s much too dark. The little tube tipped up, the salt slipped out of the open end, the paper went transparent. I hadn’t coloured mine red, but still you didn’t see it.”

“By Gum,” said Fox.

Bailey said: “Cuh!” and bent down again to examine the paper.

“Yes,” added Fox suddenly, “but how did the murderer know it would be so safe?”

“That,” said Alleyn, “is another matter altogether. I rather think it’s the crux of the whole case.”