False Scent

Chapter four Catastrophe

It might be argued that the difference between high tragedy and melodrama rests in the indisputable fact that the latter is more true to nature. People, even the larger-than-life people of the theatre, tend at moments of tension to express themselves not in unexpected or memorable phrases but in clichés.

Thus, when Florence made her entrance, one or two voices in her audience cried out, “My God, what’s happened?” Bertie Saracen cried out shrilly, “Does she mean Mary?” and somebody whose identity remained a secret said in an authoritative British voice, “Quiet, everybody. No need to panic,” as if Florence had called for a fireman rather than a physician.

The only person to remain untouched was Dr. Harkness, who was telling a long, inebriated story to Monty Marchant and whose voice droned on indecently in a far corner of the dining-room.

Florence stretched out a shaking hand towards Charles Templeton. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, sir!” she stammered. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, come quick.”

“—And this chap said to the other chap…” Dr. Harkness recounted.

Charles said, “Good God, what’s the matter! Is it…?”

“It’s her, sir. Come quick.”

Charles thrust her aside, ran from the room and pelted upstairs.

“A doctor!” Florence said. “My God, a doctor!” It was Marchant who succeeded in bringing Dr. Harkness into focus.

“You’re wanted,” he said. “Upstairs. Mary.”

“Eh? Bit of trouble?” Dr. Harkness asked vaguely.

“Something’s happened to Mary.”

Timon Gantry said, “Pull yourself together, Harkness. You’ve got a patient.”

Dr. Harkness had forgotten to remove his smile, but a sort of awareness now overtook him. “Patient?” he said. “Where? Is it Charles?”

“Upstairs. Mary.”

“Good gracious!” said Dr. Harkness. “Very good. I’ll come.” He rocked slightly on his feet and remained stationary.

Maurice Warrender said to Florence, “Is it bad?”

Her hand to her mouth she nodded her head up and down like a mandarin.

Warrender took a handful of ice from a wine-cooler and suddenly thrust it down the back of Dr. Harkness’s collar. “Come on,” he said. Harkness let out a sharp oath. He swung round as if to protest, lost his balance and fell heavily.

Florence screamed.

“I’m a’right,” Dr. Harkness said from the door. “Tripped over something. Silly!”

Warrender and Gantry got him to his feet. “I’m all right!” he repeated angrily. “Gimme some water, will you?”

Gantry tipped some out of the ice bucket. Dr. Harkness swallowed it down noisily and shuddered. “Beastly stuff,” he said. “Where’s this patient?”

From the stairhead, Charles called in an unrecognizable voice, “Harkness! Harkness!”

“Coming,” Warrender shouted. Harkness, gasping, was led out.

Florence looked wildly round the now completely silent company, wrung her hands and followed them.

Timon Gantry said, “More ice, perhaps,” picked up the wine-cooler and overtook them on the stairs.

The party was left in suspension.

In Mary Bellamy’s bedroom all the windows were open. An evening breeze stirred the curtains and the ranks of tulips. Dr. Harkness knelt beside the pool of rose-coloured chiffon from which protruded, like rods, two legs finished with high-heeled shoes and two naked arms whose clenched hands glittered with diamonds. Diamonds were spattered across the rigid plane of the chest and shone through a hank of disarranged hair. A length of red chiffon lay across the face and this was a good thing.

Dr. Harkness had removed his coat. His ice-wet shirt stuck to his spine. His ear was laid against the place from which he had pulled away the red chiffon.

He straightened up, looked closely into the face, reveiled it and got to his feet.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing whatever to be done,” he said.

Charles said, “There must be. You don’t know. There must be. Try. Try something. My God, try!”

Warrender, in his short-stepped, square-shouldered way, walked over to Harkness and looked down for a moment.

“No good,” he said. “Have to face it. What?”

Charles satt on the bed and rubbed his freckled hand across his mouth. “I can’t believe it’s happened,” he said. “It’s there—it’s—happened. And I can’t believe it.”

Florence burst noisily into tears.

Dr. Harkness turned to her. “You,” he said. “Florence, isn’t it? Try to control yourself, there’s a good girl. Did you find her like this?”

Florence nodded and sobbed out something indistinguishable.

“But she was…” Harkness glanced at Charles. “Conscious?”

Florence said, “Not to know me. Not to speak,” and broke down completely.

“Were the windows open?”

Florence shook her head.

“Did you open them?”

She shook her head again. “I didn’t think to — I got such a wicked shock — I didn’t think…”

“I opened them,” Charles said.

“First thing to be done,” Warrender muttered.

Gantry, who from the time of his entry had stood motionless near the door, joined the others. “But what was it?” he asked. “What happened?”

Warrender said unevenly, “Perfectly obvious. She used that bloody spray thing there. I said it was dangerous. Only this morning.”

“What thing?”

Warrender stooped. The tin of Slaypest lay on its side close to the clenched right hand. A trickle of dark fluid stained the carpet. “This,” he said.

“Better leave it,” Dr. Harkness said sharply.

“What?”

“Better leave it where it is.” He looked at Gantry. “It’s some damned insecticide. For plants. The tin’s smothered in warnings.”

“We told her,” Warrender said. “Look at it.”

“I said don’t touch it.”

Warrender straightened up. The blood had run into his face. “Sorry,” he said, and then, “Why not?”

“You’re a bit too ready with your hands. I’m wet as hell and half frozen.”

“You were tight. Best cure, my experience.”

They eyed each other resentfully. Dr. Harkness looked at Charles, who sat doubled up with his hands on his chest. He went to him. “Not too good?” he said. Timon Gantry put a hand on Charles’s shoulder.

“I’m going to take you to your room, old boy. Next door, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Dr. Harkness said. “But not just yet. In a minute. Good idea.” He turned to Florence. “Do you know where Mr. Templeton keeps his tablets? Get them, will you? And you might bring some aspirin at the same time. Run along, now.” Florence went into the dressing-room. He sat beside

Charles on the bed and took his wrist. “Steady does it,” he said and looked at Gantry. “Brandy.”

“I know where it is,” Warrender said, and went out.

Gantry said, “What about the mob downstairs?”

“They can wait.” He held the wrist a little longer and then laid Charles’s hand on his knee, keeping his own over it. “We’ll move you in a moment. You must let other people think for you. It’s been a bad thing.”

“I can’t…” Charles said. “I can’t…” and fetched his breath in irregular, tearing sighs.

“Don’t try to work things out. Not just yet. Ah, here’s Florence. Good. Now then, one of these.”

He gave Charles a tablet. Warrender came back with brandy. “This’ll help,” Dr. Harkness said. They waited in silence.

“I’m all right,” Charles said presently.

“Fine. Now, an arm each and take it steady. His room’s next door. Lie down, Charles, won’t you?”

Charles nodded and Warrender moved towards him. “No,” Charles said quite strongly, and turned to Gantry. “I’m all right,” he repeated, and Gantry very efficiently supported him through the door into his dressing-room.

Warrender stood for a moment, irresolute, and then lifted his chin and followed them.

“Get him a hot bottle,” Harkness said to Florence.

When she’d gone he swallowed three aspirins, took up the bedside telephone and dialled a number.

“This is Dr. Frank Harkness. I’m speaking from Number 2 Pardoner’s Place. Mr. Charles Templeton’s house. There’s been an accident. A fatality. Some sort of pest killer. Mrs. Templeton. Yes. About fifty people — a party. Right. I’ll wait.”

As he replaced the receiver Gantry came back. He stopped short when he saw Harkness. “What now?” he asked.

“I’ve telephoned the police.”

“The police!”

“In cases like this,” Harkness said, “one notifies the police.”

“Anybody would think—”

“Anybody will think anything,” Dr. Harkness grunted.

He turned back the elaborate counterpane and the blankets under it. “I don’t want to call the servants,” he said, “and that woman’s on the edge of hysteria. This sheet’ll do.” He pulled it off, bundled it up and threw it to Gantry. “Cover her up, old boy, will you?”

Gantry turned white round the mouth. “I don’t like this sort of thing,” he said. “I’ve produced it often enough, but I’ve never faced the reality.” And he added with sudden violence, “Cover her up yourself.”

“All right. All right,” sighed Dr. Harkness. He took the sheet, crossed the room and busied himself with masking the body. The breeze from the open windows moved the sheet, as if, fantastically, it was stirred by what it covered.

“May as well shut them, now,” Dr. Harkness said and did so. “Can you straighten the bed at least?” he asked. Gantry did his best with the bed.

“Right,” said Dr. Harkness, putting on his coat. “Does this door lock? Yes. Will you come?”

As they went out Gantry said, “Warrender’s crocked up. Charles didn’t seem to want him, so he flung a sort of poker-backed, stiff-lipped, Blimp-type temperament and made his exit. I don’t know where he’s gone, but in his way,” Gantry said, “he’s wonderful. Terrifyingly ham, but wonderful. He’s upset, though.”

“Serve him bloody well right. It won’t be his fault if I escape pneumonia. My head!” Dr. Harkness said, momentarily closing his eyes.

“You were high.”

“Not so high I couldn’t come down.”

Old Ninn was on the landing. Her face had bleached round its isolated patches of crimson. She confronted Dr. Harkness.

“What’s she done to herself?” asked Old Ninn.

Dr. Harkness once more summoned up his professional manner. He bent over her. “You’ve got to be very sensible and good, Nanny,” he said, and told her briefly what had happened.

She looked fixedly into his face throughout the recital and at the end said, “Where’s Mr. Templeton?”

Dr. Harkness indicated the dressing-room.

“Who’s looking after him?”

“Florence was getting him a hot bottle.”

“Her!” Ninn said with a brief snort, and without another word stumped to the door. She gave it a smart rap and let herself in.

“Wonderful character,” Gantry murmured.

“Remarkable.”

They turned towards the stairs. As they did so a figure moved out of the shadows at the end of the landing, but they did not notice her. It was Florence.

“And now, I suppose,” Dr. Harkness said as they went downstairs, “for the mob.”

“Get rid of them?” Gantry asked.

“Not yet. They’re meant to wait. Police orders.”

“But…”

“Matter of form.”

Gantry said, “At least we can boot the press off, can’t we?”

“Great grief, I’d forgotten that gang!”

“Leave them to me.”

The press was collected about the hall. A light flashed as Gantry and Harkness came down, and a young man who had evidently just arrived advanced hopefully. “Mr. Timon Gantry? I wonder if you could…”

Gantry, looking down from his great height, said, “I throw you one item. And one only. Miss Mary Bellamy was taken ill this evening and died some minutes ago.”

“Doctor er…? Could you…?”

“The cause,” Dr. Harkness said, “is at present undetermined. She collapsed and did not recover consciousness.”

“Is Mr. Templeton…?”

“No,” they said together. Gantry added, “And that is all, gentlemen. Good evening to you.”

Gracefield appeared from the back of the hall, opened the front door and said, “Thank you, gentlemen. If you will step outside.”

They hung fire. A car drew up in the Place. From it emerged a heavily built man, wearing a bowler hat and a tidy overcoat. He walked into the house.

“Inspector Fox,” he said.

It has been said of Mr. Fox that his arrival at any scene of disturbance has the effect of a large and almost silent vacuum cleaner.

Under his influence the gentlemen of the press were tidied out into Pardoner’s Place, where they lingered restively for a long time. The guests, some of whom were attempting to leave, found themselves neatly mustered in the drawing-room. The servants waited quietly in the hall. Mr. Fox and Dr. Harkness went upstairs! A constable appeared and stood inside the front door.

“I locked the door,” Dr. Harkness said, with the air of a schoolboy hoping for praise. He produced the key.

“Very commendable, Doctor,” said Fox comfortably.

“Nothing’s been moved. The whole thing speaks for itself.”

“Quite so. Very sad.”

Fox laid his bowler on the bed, knelt by the sheet and turned it back. “Strong perfume,” he said. He drew out his spectacles, placed them and looked closely into the dreadful face.

“You can see for yourself,” Dr. Harkness said. “Traces of the stuff all over her.”

“Quite so,” Fox repeated. “Very profuse.”

He contemplated the Slaypest but did not touch it. He rose and made a little tour of the room. He had very bright eyes for a middle-aged person.

“If it’s convenient, sir,” he said, “I’ll have a word with Mr. Templeton.”

“He’s pretty well knocked out. His heart’s dicky. I made him lie down.”

“Perhaps you’d just have a little chat with him yourself, Doctor. Would you be good enough to say I won’t keep him more than a minute? No need to disturb him; I’ll come to his room. Where would it be?”

“Next door.”

“Nice and convenient. I’ll give you a minute with him and then I’ll come in. Thank you, Doctor.”

Dr. Harkness looked sharply at him, but he was restoring his spectacles to their case and had turned to contemplate the view from the window.

“Pretty square, this.” said Mr. Fox.

Dr. Harkness went out.

Fox quietly locked the door and went to the telephone. He dialled a number and asked for an extension.

“Mr. Alleyn?” he said. “Fox, here. It’s about this case in Pardoner’s Place. There are one or two little features…”

When Superintendent Alleyn had finished speaking to Inspector Fox, he went resignedly into action. He telephoned his wife with the routine information that he would not after all be home for dinner, summoned Detective Sergeants Bailey and Thompson with their impedimenta, rang the police surgeon, picked up his homicide bag and went whistling to the car. “A lady of the theatre,” he told his subordinates, “appears to have looked upon herself as a common or garden pest and sprayed herself out of this world. She was mistaken as far as her acting was concerned. Miss Mary Bellamy. A comedienne of the naughty darling school and not a beginner. It’s Mr. Fox’s considered opinion that somebody done her in.”

When they arrived at 2 Pardoner’s Place, the tidying-up process had considerably advanced. Fox had been shown the guest list with addresses. He had checked it, politely dismissed those who had stayed throughout in what he called the reception area and mildly retained the persons who had left it “prior,” to quote Mr. Fox, “to the unfortunate event.” These were Timon Gantry, Pinky Canvendish, and Bertie Saracen, who were closeted in Miss Bellamy’s boudoir on the ground floor. Hearing that Colonel Warrender was a relation, Mr. Fox suggested that he join Charles Templeton, who had now come down to his study. Showing every sign of reluctance but obedient to authority, Warrender did so. Dr.

Harkness had sent out for a corpse-reviver for himself and gloomily occupied a chair in the conservatory. Florence having been interviewed and Old Ninn briefly surveyed, they had retired to their sitting-room in the top story. Gracefteld, the maids and the hired men had gone a considerable way towards removing the debris.

Under a sheet from her own bed on the floor of her locked room, Miss Bellamy began to stiffen.

Alleyn approached the front door to the renewed activity of the camera men. One of them called out, “Give us a break, won’t you, Super?”

“All in good time,” he said.

“What d’you know, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Damn all,” Alleyn said and rang the bell.

He was admitted by Fox. “Sorry you’ve been troubled, sir,” Fox said.

“I daresay. What is all this?”

Fox told him in a few neatly worded sentences.

“All right,” Alleyn said. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”

They went upstairs to Miss Bellamy’s bedroom.

He knelt by the body. “Did she bathe in scent?” he wondered.

“Very strong, isn’t it, sir?”

“Revolting. The whole room stinks of it.” He uncovered the head and shoulders. “I see.”

“Not very nice,” Fox remarked.

“Not very.” Alleyn was silent for a moment or two. “I saw her a week ago,” he said, “on the last night of that play of Richard Dakers’s that’s been running so long. It was a flimsy, conventional comedy, but she filled it with her own kind of gaiety. And now — to this favour is she come.” He looked more closely. “Could the stuff have blown back in her face? But you tell me they say the windows were shut?”

“That’s right.”

“The face and chest are quite thickly spattered.”

“Exactly. I wondered,” Fox said, “if the spray-gun mechanism on the Slaypest affair was not working properly and she turned it towards her to see.”

“And it did work? Possible, I suppose. But she’d stop at once, and look at her. Just look, Fox. There’s a fine spray such as she’d get if she held the thing at arm’s length and didn’t use much pressure. And over that there are great blotches and runnels of the stuff, as if she’d held it close to her face and pumped it like mad.”

“People do these things.”

“They do. As a theory I don’t fancy it. Nobody’s handled the Slaypest tin? Since the event?”

“They say not,” Fox said.

“Bailey’ll have to go over it for dabs, of course. Damn this scent. You can’t get a whiff of anything else.”

Alleyn bent double and advanced his nose to the tin of Slaypest. “I know this stuff,” hesaid. “It’s about as highly concentrated as they come, and in my opinion shouldn’t be let loose on the public for all the warnings on the label. The basic ingredient seems to be hexaethyl-tetra-phosphate.”

“You don’t say,” Fox murmured.

“It’s a contact poison and very persistent.” He replaced the sheet, got up and examined the bank of growing plants in the bay window. “Here it is again. They’ve got thrips and red spider.” He stared absently at Fox. “So what does she do, Br’er Fox? She comes up here in the middle of her own party wearing her best red wisp of tulle and all her diamonds and sets about spraying her azaleas.”

“Peculiar,” Fox said. “What I thought.”

“Very rum indeed.”

He wandered to the dressing-table. The central drawer was pulled out. Among closely packed ranks of boxes and pots was an open powder bowl. A piece of cotton-wool coloured with powder lay on the top of the table near a lipstick that had been imperfectly shut. Nearby was a bunch of Parma violets, already wilting.

“She did have a fiddle with her face,” Alleyn pointed out. “She’s got a personal maid, you say. The woman that found her.”

“Florence.”

“All right. Well, Florence would have tidied up any earlier goes at the powder and paint. And she’d have done something about these violets. Where do they come in? So this poor thing walks in, pulls out the drawer, does her running repairs and I should say from the smell, has a lavish wack at her scent.” He sniffed the atomizer. “That’s it. Quarter full and stinks like a civet cat, and here’s the bottle it came from, empty. ‘Formidable.’ Expensive maker. ‘Abominable’ would be more like it. How women can use such muck passes my understanding.”

“I rather fancy it,” said Mr. Fox. “It’s intriguing.”

Alleyn gave him a look. “If we’re to accept what appears to be the current explanation, she drenches her azaleas with hexaethyl-tetra-phosphate and then turns the spray-gun full in her own face and kills herself. D’you believe that?”

“Not when you put it like that.”

“Nor I. Bailey and Thompson are down below and Dr. Curtis is on his way. Get them up here. We’ll want the complete treatment. Detailed pictures of the body and the room, tell Thompson. And Bailey’ll need to take her prints and search the spray-gun, the dressing-table and anything else that may produce dabs, latent or otherwise. We don’t know what we’re looking for, of course.” The bathroom door was open and he glanced in. “Even this place reeks of scent. What’s that on the floor? Broken picture.” He looked more closely. “Rather nice tinsel picture. Madame Vestris, I fancy. Corner of washbasin freshly chipped. Somebody’s tramped broken glass over the floor. Did she drop her pretty picture? And why in the bathroom? Washing the glass? Or what? We won’t disturb it.” He opened the bathroom cupboard. “The things they take!” he muttered. “The tablets. For insomnia. One with water on retiring. The unguents! The lotions! Here’s some muck like green clay. Lifting mask. ‘Apply with spatula and leave on for ten minutes. Do not move lips or facial muscles during treatment.’ Here is the spatula with some nice fresh dabs. Florence’s, no doubt. And in the clothes basket, a towel with greenish smears. She had the full treatment before the party. Sal volatile bottle by the handbasin. Did someone try to force sal volatile down her throat?”

“Not a chance, I should say, sir.”

“She must have taken it earlier in the day. Why? Very fancy too, tarted up with a quilted cover, good Lord! All right, Fox. Away we go. I’d better see the husband.”

“He’s still in his study with a Colonel Warrender, who seems to be a relative. Mr. Templeton had a heart-attack after the event. The doctor says he’s subject to them. Colonel Warrender and Mr. Gantry took him into his dressing-room there, and then the Colonel broke up and went downstairs. Mr. Templeton was still lying in there when I came up, but I suggested the Colonel should take him down to the study. They didn’t seem to fancy the move, but I wanted to clear the ground. It’s awkward,” Mr. Fox said, “having people next door to the body.”

Alleyn went into the dressing room, leaving the door open. “Change of atmosphere,” Fox heard him remark. “Very masculine. Very simple. Very good. Who gave him a hot bottle?”

“Florence. The doctor says the old nurse went in later, to take a look at him. By all accounts she’s a bossy old cup-of-tea and likes her drop of port wine.”

“This,” Alleyn said, “is the house of a damn rich man. And woman, I suppose.”

“He’s a big name in the City, isn’t he?”

“He is indeed. C. G. Templeton. He brought off that coup with Eastland Transport two years ago. Reputation of being an implacable chap to run foul of.”

“The servants seem to fancy him. The cook says he must have everything just so. One slip and you’re out. But well-liked. He’s taken this very hard. Very shaky when I saw him but easy to handle. The Colonel was tougher.”

“Either of them strike you as being the form for a woman-poisoner?”

“Not a bit like it,” Fox said cheerfully.

“They tell me you never know.”

“That’s right. So they say.”

They went out. Fox locked the door. “Not that it makes all that difference,” he sighed. “The keys on this floor are interchangeable. As usual. However,” he added, brightening, “I’ve taken the liberty of removing all the others.”

“You’ll get the sack one of these days. Come on.” They went downstairs.

“The remaining guests,” Fox said, “are in the second room on the right. They’re the lot who were with deceased up to the time she left the conservatory and the only ones who went outside the reception area before the speeches began. And, by the way, sir, up to the time the speeches started, there was a photographer and a moving camera unit blocking the foot of the stairs and for the whole period a kind of bar with a man mixing drinks right by the backstairs. I’ve talked to the man concerned and he says nobody but the nurse and Florence went up while he was on duty. This is deceased’s sitting-room. Or boudoir. The study is the first on the right.”

“Where’s the quack?”

“In the glasshouse with a hangover. Shall I stir him up?”

“Thank you.”

They separated. Alleyn tapped on the boudoir door and went in.

Pinky sat in an armchair with a magazine, Timon Gantry was finishing a conversation on the telephone, and Bertie, petulant and flushed, was reading a rare edition of ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. When they saw Alleyn the two men got up and Pinky put down her magazine as if she was ashamed of it.

Alleyn introduced himself. “This is just to say I’m very sorry to keep you waiting about.”

Gantry said, “It’s damned awkward. I’ve had to tell people over the telephone.”

“There’s no performance involved, is there?”

“No. But there’s a new play going into rehearsal. Opening in three weeks. One has to cope.”

“Of course,” Alleyn said, “one does, indeed,” and went out.

“What a superb-looking man,” Bertie said listlessly, and returned to his play.

Warrender and Charles had the air of silence about them. It was not, Alleyn fancied, the kind of silence, that falls naturally between two cousins united in a common sorrow; they seemed at odds with each other. He could have sworn his arrival was a relief rather than an annoyance. He noticed that the study, like the dressing-room, had been furnished and decorated by a perfectionist with restraint, judgment and a very great deal of money. There was a kind of relationship between the reserve of these two men and the setting in which he found them. He thought that they had probably been sitting there for a long time without speech. A full decanter and two untouched glasses stood between them on a small and exquisite table.

Charles began to rise. Alleyn said, “Please, don’t move,” and he sank heavily back again. Warrender stood up. His eyes were red and his face patched with uneven color.

“Bad business, this,” he said. “What?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Very bad.” He looked at Charles. “I’m sorry, sir, that at the moment we’re not doing anything to make matters easier.”

With an obvious effort Charles said, “Sit down, won’t you? Alleyn, isn’t it? I know your name, of course.”

Warrender pushed a chair forward.

“Will you have a drink?” Charles asked.

“No, thank you very much. I won’t trouble you longer than I can help. There’s a certain amount of unavoidable business to be got through. There will be an inquest and, I’m afraid, a post-mortem. In addition to that we’re obliged to check, as far as we’re able, the events leading to the accident. All this, I know, is very distressing and I’m sorry.”

Charles lifted a hand and let it fall.

Warrender said, “Better make myself scarce.”

“No,” Alleyn said. “I’d be glad if you waited a moment.”

Warrender was looking fixedly at Alleyn. He tapped himself above the heart and made a very slight gesture towards Charles. Alleyn nodded.

“If I may,” he said to Charles, “I’ll ask Colonel Warrender to give me an account of the period before your wife left the party and went up to her room. If, sir, you would like to amend or question or add to anything he says, please do so.”

Charles said, “Very well. Though God knows what difference it can make.”

Warrender straightened his back, touched his Brigade-of-Guards tie, and made his report, with the care and, one would have said, the precision of experience.

He had, he said, been near to Mary Bellamy from the time she left her post by the door and moved through her guests towards the conservatory. She had spoken to one group after another. He gave several names. She had then joined a small party in the conservatory.

Alleyn was taking notes. At this point there was a pause.

Warrender was staring straight in front of him. Charles had not moved.

“Yes?” Alleyn said.

“She stayed in there until the birthday cake was brought in,” Warrender said.

“And the other people in her group stayed there too?”

“No,” Charles said. “I came out and — spoke to two of our guests who — who were leaving early.”

“Yes? Did you return?”

He said wearily, “I told Gracefield, our butler, to start the business with the cake. I stayed in the main rooms until they brought it in.”

Alleyn said, “Yes. And then…?”

“They came in with the cake,” Warrender said. “And she came out and Marchant — her management is Marchant & Company — Marchant gave the birthday speech.”

“And did the other people in the conservatory come out?”

“Yes.”

“With Miss Bellamy?”

Warrender said, “Not with her.”

“After her?”

“No. Before. Some of them. I expect all of them except Marchant.”

“You yourself, sir? What did you do?”

“I came out before she did.”

“Did you stay in the main rooms?”

“No,” he said. “I went into the hall for a moment.” Alleyn waited. “To say goodbye,” Warrender said, “to the two people who were leaving early.”

“Oh yes. Who were they?”

“Feller called Browne and his niece.”

“And having done that you returned?”

“Yes,” he said.

“To the conservatory?”

“No. To the dining-room. That’s where the speech was made.”

“Had it begun when you returned?”

Still looking straight before him, Warrender said, “Finished. She was replying.”

“Really? You stayed in the hall for some time then?”

“Longer,” he said, “than I’d intended. Didn’t realize the ceremony had begun, isn’t it.”

“Do you remember who the other people were? The ones who probably came out before Miss Bellamy from the conservatory?”

“Miss Cavendish and Saracen. And Timon Gantry, the producer-man. Your second-in-command went over all this and asked them to stay.”

“I’d just like, if you don’t mind, to sort it out for myself. Anyone else? The two guests who left early, for instance. Were they in the conservatory party?”

“Yes.”

“And left…?”

“First,” Warrender said loudly.

“So you caught them up in the hall. What were they doing in the hall, sir?”

“Talking. Leaving. I don’t know exactly.”

“You don’t remember to whom they were talking?”

“I cannot,” Charles said, “for the very life of me see why these two comparative strangers, who were gone long before anything happened, should be of the remotest interest to you.”

Alleyn said quickly, “I know that sounds quite unreasonable, but they do at the moment seem to have been the cause of other people’s behaviour.”

He saw that for some reason this observation had disturbed Warrender. He looked at Alleyn as if the latter had said something outrageous and penetrating.

“You see,” Alleyn explained, “in order to establish accident, one does have to make a formal inquiry into the movements of those persons who were nearest to Miss Bellamy up to the time of the accident.”

“Oh!” Warrender said flatly. “Yes. Possibly.”

“But — Mary — my wife — was there. Still there! Radiant. There, seen by everybody — I can’t imagine…” Charles sank back in his chair. “Never mind,” he murmured. “Go on.”

Warrender said, “Browne and his niece had, I think, been talking to Saracen and Miss Cavendish. When I came into the hall… They were — saying goodbye to Gantry.”

“I see. And nobody else was concerned in this leave-taking? In the hall?”

There was a long silence. Warrender looked as if somebody had tapped him smartly on the back of the head. His eyes started and he turned to Charles, who leant forward, grasping the arms of his chair.

“My God!” Warrender said. “Where is he? What’s become of him? Where’s Richard?”

Alleyn had been trained over a long period of time to distinguish between simulated and involuntary reactions in human behaviour. He was perhaps better equipped than many of his colleagues in this respect, being fortified by an instinct that he was particularly careful to mistrust. It seldom let him down. He thought now that, whereas Charles Templeton was quite simply astounded by his own forgetfulness, Warrender’s reaction was much less easily defined. Alleyn had a notion that Warrender’s reticence was of the formidable kind which conceals nothing but the essential.

It was Warrender, now, who produced an explanation.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just remembered something. Extraordinary we should have forgotten. We’re talking about Richard Dakers.”

“The playwright?”

“That’s the man. He’s — you may not know this — he was…” Warrender boggled inexplicably and looked at his boots. “He’s — he was my cousin’s — he was the Templetons’ ward.”

For the first time since Alleyn had entered the room, Charles Templeton looked briefly at Warrender.

“Does he know about this catastrophe?” Alleyn asked.

“No,” Warrender said, “he can’t know. Be a shock.”

Alleyn began to ask about Richard Dakers and found that they were both unwilling to talk about him. When had he last been seen? Charles remembered he had been in the conservatory. Warrender, pressed, admitted that Richard was in the hall, when Browne and his niece went away. Odd, Alleyn thought, that, as the climax of the party approached, no less than five of Miss Bellamy’s most intimate friends should turn their backs on her to say goodbye to two people whom her husband had described as comparative strangers. He hinted as much.

Warrender glanced at Charles and then said, “Point of fact they’re friends of Richard Dakers. His guests in a way. Naturally he wanted to see them off.”

“And having done so, he returned for the speeches and the cake-cutting ceremony?”

“I — ah… Not exactly,” Warrender said.

“No?”

“No. Ah, speaking out of school, isn’t it, but I rather fancy there’s an attraction. He — ah — he went out — they live in the next house.”

“Not,” Alleyn ejaculated, “Octavius Browne of the Pegasus?”

“Point of fact, yes,” Warrender said, looking astonished.

“And Mr. Dakers went out with them?”

“After them.”

“But you think he meant to join them?”

“Yes,” he said woodenly.

“And is perhaps with them still?”

Warrender was silent.

“Wouldn’t he mind missing the ceremony?” Alleyn asked.

Warrender embarked on an incomprehensible spate of broken phrases.

“If he’s there,” Charles said to Alleyn, “he ought to be told.”

“I’ll go,” Warrender said and moved to the door.

Alleyn said. “One minute, if you please.”

“What?”

“Shall we just see if he is there? It’ll save trouble, won’t it? May I use the telephone?”

He was at the telephone before they could reply and looking up the number.

“I know Octavius quite well,” he said pleasantly. “Splendid chap, isn’t he?”

Warrender looked at him resentfully. “If the boy’s there,” he said, “I’d prefer to tell him about this myself.”

“Of course,” Alleyn agreed heartily. “Ah, here we are.” He dialled a number. They heard a voice at the other end.

“Hullo,” Alleyn said. “Is Mr. Richard Dakers there by any chance?”

“No,” the voice said. “I’m sorry. He left some time ago.”

“Really? How long would you say?”

The voice replied indistinguishably.

“I see. Thank you so much. Sorry to have bothered you.”

He hung up. “He was only with them for a very short time,” he said. “He must have left, it seems, before this thing happened. They imagined he came straight back here.”

Warrender and Templeton were, he thought, at peculiar pains not to look at each other or at him. He said lightly, “Isn’t that a little odd? Wouldn’t you suppose he’d be sure to attend the birthday speeches?”

Perhaps each of them waited for the other to reply. After a moment Warrender barked out two words. “Lovers’ tiff?” he suggested.

“You think it might be that?”

“I think,” Warrender said angrily, “that whatever it was it’s got nothing to do with this — this tragedy. Good Lord, why should it!”

“I really do assure you,” Alleyn said, “that I wouldn’t worry you about these matters if I didn’t think it was necessary.”

“Matter of opinion,” Warrender said.

“Yes. A matter of opinion and mine may turn out to be wrong.”

He could see that Warrender was on the edge of some outburst and was restrained, it appeared, only by the presence of Charles Templeton.

“Perhaps,” Alleyn said, “we might just make quite sure that Mr. Dakers didn’t, in fact, come back. After all, it was a biggish party. Might he not have slipped in, unnoticed, and gone out again for some perfectly explainable reason? The servants might have noticed. If you would…”

Warrender jumped at this. “Certainly! I’ll come out with you.” And after a moment, “D’you mind, Charles?”

With extraordinary vehemence Charles said, “Do what you like. If he comes back I don’t want to see him. I…” He passed an unsteady hand across his eyes. “Sorry,” he said, presumably to Alleyn. “This has been a bit too much for me.”

“We’ll leave you to yourself,” Alleyn said. “Would you like Dr. Harkness to come in?”

“No. No. No. If I might be left alone. That’s all.”

“Of course.”

They went out. The hall was deserted except for the constable who waited anonymously in a corner. Alleyn said, “Will you excuse me for a moment?” and went to the constable.

“Anybody come in?” he asked under his breath.

“No, sir.”

“Keep the press out, but admit anyone else and don’t let them go again. Take the names and say there’s been an accident in the vicinity and we’re doing a routine check.”

“Very good, sir.”

Alleyn returned to Warrender. “No one’s come in,” he said. “Where can we talk?”

Warrender glanced at him. “Not here,” he muttered, and led the way into the deserted drawing-room, now restored to order but filled with the flower-shop smell of Bertie Saracen’s decorations and the faint reek of cigarette smoke and alcohol. The connecting doors into the dining-room were open and beyond them, in the conservatory, Dr. Harkness could be seen, heavily asleep in a canvas chair and under observation by Inspector Fox. When Fox saw them he.came out and shut the glass door. “He’s down to it,” he said, “but rouseable. I thought I’d leave him as he is till required.”

Warrender turned on Alleyn. “Look here!” he demanded. “What is all this? Are you trying to make out there’s been any — any…” he boggled, “any hanky-panky?”

“We can’t take accident as a matter-of-course.”

“Why not? Clear as a pikestaff.”

“Our job,” Alleyn said patiently, “is to collect all the available information and present it to the coroner. At the moment we are not drawing any conclusions. Come sir,” he said, as Warrender still looked mulish, “I’m sure that, as a soldier, you’ll recognize the position. It’s a matter of procedure. After all, to be perfectly frank about it, a great many suicides as well as homicides have been rigged to look like accidents.”

“Either suggestion’s outrageous.”

“And will, we hope, soon turn out to be so.”

“But, good God, is there anything at all to make you suppose…” He stopped and jerked his hands ineloquently.

“Suppose what?”

“That it could be — either? Suicide — or murder?”

“Oh, yes,” Alleyn said. “Could be. Could be.”

“What? What evidence…?”

“I’m afraid I’m not allowed to discuss details.”

“Why the hell not?”

“God bless my soul!” Alleyn exclaimed. “Do consider. Suppose it was murder — for all I know you might have done it. You can’t expect me to make you a present of what may turn out to be the police case against you.”

“I think you must be dotty,” said Colonel Warrender profoundly.

“Dotty or sane, I must get on with my job. Inspector Fox and I propose to have a word with those wretched people we’ve cooped up over the way. Would you rather return to Mr. Templeton, sir?”

“My God, no!” he ejaculated with some force and then looked hideously discomfited.

“Why not?” Alleyn asked coolly. “Have you had a row with him?”

“No!”

“Well, I’m afraid it’s a case of returning to him or staying with me.”

“I… God damn it, I’ll stick to you.”

“Right. Here we go, then.”

Bertie, Pinky, and Timon Gantry seemed hardly to have moved since he last saw them. Bertie was asleep in his chair and resembled an overdressed baby. Pinky had been crying. Gantry now was reading ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. He laid it aside and rose to his feet.

“I don’t want to be awkward,” Gantry said, “but I take leave to ask why the hell we’re being mewed up in this interminable and intolerable fashion.”

He used what was known in the theatre as the Terrifying Tone. He moved towards Alleyn, who was almost his own height.

“This room,” Bertie faintly complained as he opened his eyes, “would appear to be inhabited by angry giants.”

“You’re being mewed up,” Alleyn said with some evidence of toughness, “because of death. Death, for your information, with what are known as unexplained features. I don’t know how much longer you’ll be here. If you’re hungry, we shall arrange for food to be sent in. If you’re stuffy, you may walk in the garden. If you want to talk, you may use the telephone, and the usual offices are last on the right at the far end of the hall.”

There was an appreciable pause.

“And the worst of it is, Timmy angel,” Bertie said, “you can’t tell him the casting’s gone wrong and you’ll let him know if he’s wanted.”

Pinky was staring at Alleyn. “I never,” she muttered, “could have thought to see the day.”

There can be no dictator whose discomfiture will not bring some slight degree of pleasure, to his most ardent disciples. Bertie and Pinky, involuntarily, had given this reaction. There was a suggestion of repressed glee.

Gantry gave them the sort of look he would have thrown at an inattentive actor. They made their faces blank.

He drew in his breath. “So be it,” he said. “One submits. Naturally. Perhaps one would prefer to know a little more, but elucidation is evidently not an ingredient of the Yardly mystique.”

From his ramrod station inside the door, Warrender said, “Foul Play. What it amounts to. They’re suggesting foul play.”

“Oh my God!” cried Pinky and Bertie in unison. They turned sheet-white and began to talk at the tops of their voices. Fox took out his notebook.

Alleyn raised his hand and they petered out. “It doesn’t,” he said crossly, “amount to anything of the sort. The situation is precisely as I have tried to define it. There are unexplained discrepancies. They may add up to accident, suicide or homicide, and I know no better than any one of you what the answer will be. And now, if you please, we will try to arrive at a few possibly unimportant facts.”

To his surprise he found himself supported.

Timon Gantry said, “We’re being emotional and tedious. Pay no attention. Your facts?”

Alleyn said patiently, “Without any overtones or suggestions of criminal intention, I would rather like to trace exactly the movements of the group of people who were in conversation with Miss Bellamy during the last ten minutes or so of her life. You have all heard, ad nauseam, I daresay, of police routine. This is an example of it. I know you were all with her in the conservatory. I know each one of you, before the climax of her party, came out into the hall with the intention, Colonel Warrender tells me, of saying goodbye to two comparative strangers, who for some reason that has not yet been divulged, were leaving just before this climax. Among you was Mr. Richard Dakers, Miss Bellamy’s ward. Mr. Dakers left the house on the heels of those two guests. His reason for doing so may well be personal and, from my point of view, completely uninteresting. But I’ve got to clear him up. Now, then. Any of you know why they left and why he left?”

“Certainly,” Gantry said promptly. “He’s catched with Anelida Lee. No doubt he wanted to see more of her.”

“At that juncture? All right!” Alleyn added quickly. “We leave that one, do we? We take it that there was nothing remarkable about Octavius Browne and his niece sweeping out of the party, do we, and that it was the most natural thing in the world for Miss Bellamy’s ward to turn his back on her and follow them? Do we? Or do we?”

“Oh Lord, Lord, Lord!” Bertie wavered. “The way you put things.”

Pinky said, “I did hear the uncle remind her that they had to leave early.”

“Did he say why?”

“No.”

“Had any of you met them before?”

Silence.

“None of you? Why did you all feel it necessary to go into the hall to say goodbye to them?”

Pinky and Bertie looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes and Warrender cleared his throat. Gantry appeared to come to a decision.

“I don’t usually discuss this sort of thing outside the theatre,” he said, “but under the circumstances I suppose I’d better tell you. I’ve decided to hear Miss Lee read the leading role in…” he hesitated fractionally, “in a new play.”

“Really? Wonderful luck for her,” Alleyn said. “What play?”

“Oops!” Bertie said involuntarily.

“It’s called Husbandry in Heaven.”

“By…?”

Warrender barked, “Does it matter?”

“Not that I know,” Alleyn murmured. “Why should it? Let’s find out.”

Pinky said boldly, “I don’t see a bit why it should matter. We all heard about it.”

“Did you?” Alleyn asked. “When? At the party?”

She blushed scarlet. “Yes. It was mentioned there.”

“In the conservatory?”

Bertie said in a hurry, “Mentioned. Just mentioned.”

“And we haven’t had the author’s name yet, have we?”

Pinky said, “It’s a new play by Dicky Dakers, isn’t it, Timmy?”

“Yes, dear,” Gantry agreed and refrained with some difficulty, Alleyn thought, from casting his eyes up to heaven. “In the hall I had a word with her about reading the part for me,” he said.

“Right. And,” Alleyn pursued, “might that not explain why Dakers also wanted to have a further word with Miss Lee?”

They agreed feverishly.

“Strange,” he continued, “that this explanation didn’t occur to any of you.”

Bertie laughed musically. “Weren’t we sillies?” he asked. “Fancy!”

“Perhaps you all hurtled into the hall in order to offer your congratulations to Miss Lee?”

“That’s right!” Bertie cried, opening his eyes very wide. “So we did! And anyway,” he added, “I wanted the loo. That was really why I came out. Anything else was purely incidental. I’d forgotten.”

“Well,” Alleyn remarked, “since you’re all so bad at remembering your motives I suppose I’d better go on cooking them up for you.”

Pinky Cavendish made a quick expostulatory movement with her hands. “Yes?” Alleyn asked her. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Not really. Only — I wish you wouldn’t make one feel shabby,” Pinky said.

“Do I? I’m sorry about that.”

“Look!” she said. “We’re all of us shocked and horrified about Mary. She was our friend — a great friend. No, Timmy, please let me. She was tricky and temperamental and exacting and she said and did things that we’d rather forget about now. The important thing to remember is that one way or another, at one time or another, we’ve all loved her. You couldn’t help it,” Pinky said, “or I couldn’t. Perhaps I should only speak for myself.”

Alleyn asked gently, “Are you trying to tell me that you are protecting her memory?”

“You might put it like that,” Pinky said.

“Nonsense, dear,” Gantry said impatiently. “It doesn’t arise.”

Alleyn decided to dig a little further.

“The farewells being accomplished,” he said, “and the two guests departed, what did you all do? Miss Cavendish?”

“Oh dear! What did I do? I know! I tried to nip upstairs, but the camera men were all over the bottom steps so I returned to the party.”

“Mr. Saracen?”

“The gents. Downstairs. Last, as you’ve observed, on the right. Then I beetled back, bright as a button, for the speeches.”

“Mr. Gantry?”

“I returned to the drawing-room, heard the speeches, and helped Templeton clear the way for the…” he jibbed for a moment, “for what would have been the last scene. The opening of the presents.”

“Colonel Warrender?”

Warrender was staring at some part of the wall above Alleyn’s head. “Went back,” he said.

“Where?”

“To the party.”

“Oo!” Bertie said.

“Yes, Mr. Saracen?”

“Nothing,” Bertie said hurriedly. “Pay no attention.”

Alleyn looked round at them all. “Tell me,” he said, “hasn’t Richard Dakers, up till now, written his plays exclusively for Miss Bellamy? Light comedies? Husbandry in Heaven doesn’t suggest a light comedy.”

He knew by their silence that he had struck home. Pinky’s face alone would have told him as much. It was already too late when Warrender said defensively, “No need to put all his eggs in one basket, isn’t it?”

“Exactly,” Gantry agreed.

“Did Miss Bellamy hold this view?”

“I still fail to understand…” Warrender began, but Bertie Saracen cried out in a sort of rage:

“I really don’t see, I don’t for the life of me see why we should fiddle and fuss and fabricate. Honestly! It’s all very well to be nice about poor Mary’s memory and Dicky’s dilemma and everybody madly loving everybody else, but sooner or later Mr. Alleyn’s going to find out and then we’ll all look peculiar and I for one won’t and I’m sorry, Timmy, but I’m going to spill beans and unbag cats galore and announce in a ringing head tone that Mary minded like hell and that she made a scene in the conservatory and insulted the girl and Dicky left in a rage and why not, because suppose somebody did do something frightful to Mary, it couldn’t be Dicky because Dicky flounced out of the house while Mary was still fighting fit and cutting her cake. And one other thing. I don’t know why Colonel Warrender should go all cagey and everything but he didn’t go straight back to the party. He went out. At the front door. I saw him on my way back from the loo. Now then!”

He had got to his feet and stood there, blinking, but defiant.

Gantry said, “Oh, well!” and flung up his hands.

Pinky said, “I’m on Bertie’s side.”

But Warrender, purple in the face, advanced upon Bertie.

“Don’t touch me!” Bertie shouted angrily.

“You little rat!” Warrender said and seized his arm.

Bertie gave an involuntary giggle. “That’s what she called me,” he said.

“Take,” Warrender continued between his teeth, “that damned impertinent grin off your face and hold your tongue, sir, or by God I’ll give you something to make you.”

He grasped Bertie with his left hand. He had actually drawn back his right and Alleyn had moved in, when a voice from the door said: “Will somebody be good enough to tell me what goes on in this house?”

Warrender lowered his hand and let Bertie go, Gantry uttered a short oath and Pinky, a stifled cry. Alleyn turned.

A young man with a white face and distracted air confronted him in the doorway.

“Thank God!” Bertie cried. “Dicky!”