False Scent

Chapter five Questions of Adherence

The most noticeable thing about Richard Dakers was his agitation. He was pale, his face was drawn and his hands were unsteady. During the complete silence that followed Bertie’s ejaculation, Richard stood where he was, his gaze fixed with extraordinary concentration upon Colonel Warrender. Warrender, in his turn, looked at him with, as far as his soldierly blueprint of a face could express anything, the same kind of startled attention. In a crazy sort of way, each might have been the reflection of the other.

Warrender said, “Can I have a word with you, old boy? Shall we…?”

“No!” Richard said quickly and then, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand. What’s that dammed bobby doing in the hall? What’s happened? Where’s everybody? Where’s Mary?”

Alleyn said, “One moment,” and went to him. “You’re Mr. Richard Dakers, aren’t you? I’m from Scotland — Yard — Alleyn …At the moment I’m in charge of a police inquiry here. Shall we find somewhere where I can tell you why?”

“I’ll tell him,” Warrender said.

“I think not,” Alleyn rejoined and opened the door. “Come along,” he said and looked at the others. “You will stay here, if you please.”

Richard put his hand to his head. “Yes. All right. But — why?” Perhaps out of force of habit he turned to Timon Gantry. “Timmy?” he said. “What is this?”

Gantry said, “We must accept authority, Dicky. Go with him.”

Richard stared at him in amazement and walked out of the room, followed by Alleyn and Fox.

“In here, shall we?” Alleyn suggested and led the way into the deserted drawing-room.

There, he told Richard, as briefly as possible and without emphasis, what had happened. Richard listened distractedly, making no interruption but once or twice wiping his hand over his face as if a cobweb lay across it. When Alleyn had finished he said haltingly, “Mary? It’s happened to Mary? How can I possibly believe it?”

“It is hard, isn’t it?”

“But—how? How did it happen? With the plant spray?”

“It seems so.”

“But she’s used it over and over again. For a long time. Why did it happen now?” He had the air, often observable in people who have suffered a shock, of picking over the surface of the matter and distractedly examining the first thing he came upon. “Why now?” he repeated and appeared scarcely to attend to the answer.

“That’s one of the things we’ve got to find out.”

“Of course,” Richard said, more, it seemed, to himself than to Alleyn, “it is dangerous. We were always telling her.” He shook his head impatiently. “But — I don’t see — she went to her room just after the speeches and…”

“Did she? How do you know?”

Richard said quickly, “Why because…” and then, if possible, turned whiter than he had been before. He looked desperately at Alleyn, seemed to hover on the edge of an outburst and then said, “She must have. You say she was found there.”

“Yes. She was found there.”

“But why? Why would she use the plant spray at that moment? It sounds so crazy.”

“I know. Very strange.”

Richard beat his hands together. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I can’t get hold of myself. I’m sorry.”

Looking at him, Alleyn knew that he was in that particular state of emotional unbalance when he would be most vulnerable to pressure. He was a nice-looking chap, Alleyn thought. It was a sensitive face and yet, obscurely, it reminded him of one much less sensitive. But whose?

He said, “You yourself have noticed two aspects of this tragic business that are difficult to explain. Because of them and because of normal police procedure I have to check as fully as possible the circumstances surrounding the event.”

“Do you?” Richard asked vaguely and then seemed to pull himself together. “Yes. Very well. What circumstances?”

“I’m told you left the house before the birthday speeches. Is that right?”

Unlike the others, Richard appeared to feel no resentment or suspicion. “I?” he said. “Oh, yes, I think I did. I don’t think they’d started. The cake had just been taken in.”

“Why did you leave, Mr. Dakers?”

“I wanted to talk to Anelida,” he said at once and then: “Sorry. You wouldn’t know. Anelida Lee. She lives next door and…” He stopped.

“I do know that Miss Lee left early with her uncle. But it must have been a very important discussion, mustn’t it? To take you away at that juncture?”

“Yes. It was. To me. It was private,” Richard added. “A private matter.”

“A long discussion?”

“It didn’t happen.”

“Not?”

“She wasn’t — available.” He produced a palpable understatement. “She wasn’t — feeling well.”

“You saw her uncle?”

“Yes.”

“Was it about her part in your play—Husbandry in Heaven, isn’t it? — that you wanted to talk to her?”

Richard stared at him and for the first time seemed to take alarm. “Who told you about that?” he demanded.

“Timon Gantry.”

“He did!” Richard exclaimed and then, as if nothing could compete with the one overriding shock, added perfunctorily, “How extraordinary.” But he was watching Alleyn now with a new awareness. “It was partly to do with that,” he muttered.

Alleyn decided to fire point-blank. “Was Miss Bellamy displeased with the plans for this new play?” he asked. Richard’s hands made a sharp involuntary movement which was at once checked. His voice shook.

“I told you this was a private matter,” he said. “It is entirely private.”

“I’m afraid there is very little room for privacy in a police inquiry.”

Richard surprised him by suddenly crying out, “You think she did it herself! She didn’t! I can’t believe it! Never!”

“Is there any reason why she should?”

“No! My God, no! No!”

Alleyn waited for a little, visited, as was not unusual with him, by a distaste for this particular aspect of his job.

He said, “What did you do when Miss Lee couldn’t receive you?”

Richard moved away from him, his hands thrust down in his pockets. “I went for a walk,” he said.

“Now, look here,” Alleyn said, “you must see that this is a very odd story. Your guardian, as I believe Miss Bellamy was, reaches the top moment of her birthday party. You leave her cold, first in pursuit of Miss Lee and then to go for a stroll round Chelsea. Are you telling me that you’ve been strolling ever since?”

Without turning, Richard nodded.

Alleyn walked round him and looked him full in the face.

“Mr. Dakers,” he said. “Is that the truth? It’s now five to nine. Do you give me your word that from about seven o’clock when you left this house you didn’t return to it until you came in, ten minutes ago?”

Richard, looking desperately troubled, waited for so long that to Alleyn the scene became quite unreal. The two of them were fixed in the hiatus-like figures in a suspended film sequence.

“Are you going to give me an answer?” Alleyn said at last.

“I–I—don’t — think — I did actually — just after — she was…” A look of profound astonishment came into Richard’s face. He crumpled into a faint at Alleyn’s feet.

“He’ll do,” Dr. Harkness said, relinquishing Richard’s pulse. He straightened up and winced a little in the process. “You say he’s been walking about on an empty stomach and two or three drinks. The shock coming on top of it did the trick for him, I expect. In half an hour he won’t be feeling any worse than I do and that’s medium to bloody awful. Here he comes.”

Richard had opened his eyes. He stared at Dr. Harkness and then frowned. “Lord, I’m sorry,” he said. “I passed out, didn’t I?”

“You’re all right,” Dr. Harkness said. “Where’s this sal volatile, Gracefield?”

Gracefield presented it on a tray. Richard drank it down and let his head fall back. They had put him on a sofa there in the drawing-room. “I was talking to somebody,” he said. “That man — God, yes! Oh God.”

“It’s all right,” Alleyn said, “I won’t worry you. We’ll leave you to yourself for a bit.”

He saw Richard’s eyes dilate. He was looking past Alleyn towards the door. “Yes,” he said loudly. “I’d rather be alone.”

“What is all this?”

It was Warrender. He shut the door behind him and went quickly to the sofa. “What the devil have you done to him? Dicky, old boy…”

“No!” Richard said with exactly the same inflexion as before. Warrender stood above him. For a moment, apparently, they looked at each other. Then Richard said, “I forgot that letter you gave me to post. I’m sorry.”

Alleyn and Fox moved, but Warrender anticipated them, stooping over Richard and screening him.

“If you don’t mind,” Richard said, “I’d rather be by myself. I’m all right.”

“And I’m afraid,” Alleyn pointed out, “that I must remind you of instructions, Colonel Warrender. I asked you to stay with the others. Will you please go back to them?”

Warrender stood like a rock for a second or two and then, without another word, walked out of the room. On a look from Alleyn, Fox followed him.

“We’ll leave you,” Alleyn said. “Don’t get up.”

“No,” Dr. Harkness said. “Don’t. I’ll ask them to send you in a cup of tea. Where’s that old Nanny of yours? She can make herself useful. Can you find her, Gracefield?”

“Very good, sir,” Gracefield said.

Alleyn, coolly picking up Richard’s dispatch case, followed Gracefield into the hall.

“Gracefield.”

Gracefield, frigid, came to a halt.

“I want one word with you. I expect this business has completely disorganized your household and I’m afraid it can’t be helped. But I think it may make things a little easier in your department if you know what the form will be.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“In a little while a mortuary van will come. It will be better if we keep everybody out of the way at that time. I don’t want to worry Mr. Templeton more than I can help, but I shall have to interview people and it would suit us all if we could find some place that would serve as an office for the purpose. Is that possible?”

“There is Mr. Richard’s old study, sir, on the first floor. It is unoccupied.”

“Splendid. Where exactly?”

“The third on the right along the passage, sir.”

“Good.” Alleyn glanced at the pallid and impassive face. “For your information,” he said, “it’s a matter of clearing up the confusion that unfortunately always follows accidents of this sort. The further we can get, now, the less publicity at the inquest. You understand?”

“Quite so, sir,” said Gracefield with a slight easing of manner.

“Very well. And I’m sorry you’ll be put to so much trouble.”

Gracefield’s hand curved in classic acceptance. There was a faint crackle.

“Thank you, Gracefield.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” said Gracefield. “I will inform Mrs. Plumtree and then ascertain if your room is in order.” He inclined his head and mounted the stairs.

Alleyn raised a finger and the constable by the front door came to him.

“What happened,” he asked, “about Mr. Dakers? As quick and complete as you can.”

“He arrived, sir, about three minutes after you left your instructions, according to which I asked for his name and let on it was because of an accident. He took it up it was something about a car. He didn’t seem to pay much attention. He was very excited and upset. He went upstairs and was there about eight to ten minutes. You and Mr. Fox were with the two gentlemen and the lady in that little room, sir. When he came down he had a case in his hand. He went to the door to go out and I advised him it couldn’t be done. He still seemed very upset, sir, and that made him more so. He said, ‘Good God, what is all this?’ and went straight to the room where you were, sir.”

“Good. Thank you. Keep going.”

“Sir,” said the constable.

“And Philpott.”

“Sir?”

“We’ve sent for another man. In the meantime I don’t want any of the visitors in the house moving about from room to room. Get them all together in the drawing-room and keep them there, including Colonel Warrender and Mr. Templeton, if he’s feeling fit enough. Mr. Dakers can stay where he is. Put the new man on the door and you keep observation in the dining-room. We can’t do anything about the lavatory, I suppose, but everywhere else had better be out of bounds. If Colonel Warrender wants to go to the lavatory, you go with him.”

“Sir.”

“And ask Mr. Fox to join me upstairs.”

The constable moved off.

A heavy thumping announced the descent of Old Ninn. She came down one step at a time. When she got to the bottom of the stairs and saw Alleyn she gave him a look and continued on her way. Her face was flaming and her mouth drawn down. For a small person she emanated an astonishingly heavy aura of the grape.

“Mrs. Plumtree?” Alleyn asked.

“Yes,” said Old Ninn. She halted and looked into his face. Her eyes, surprisingly, were tragic.

“You’re going to look after Mr. Richard, aren’t you?”

“What’s he been doing to himself?” she asked, as if Richard had been playing roughly and had barked his knee.

“He fainted. The doctor thinks it was shock.”

“Always takes things to heart,” Old Ninn said.

“Did you bring him up?”

“From three months.” She continued to look fixedly at Alleyn. “He was a good child,” she said, as if he was abusing Richard, “and he’s grown into a good man. No harm in him and never was.”

“An orphan?” Alleyn ventured.

“Father and mother killed in a motor accident.”

“How very sad.”

“You don’t,” Old Ninn said, “feel the want of what you’ve never had.”

“And of course Miss Bellamy — Mrs. Templeton — took him over.”

“She,” Old Ninn said, “was a different type of child altogether. If you’ll excuse me I’ll see what ails him.” But she didn’t move at once. She said very loudly, “Whatever it is it’ll be no discredit to him,” and then stumped heavily and purposefully on to her charge.

Alleyn waited for a moment, savouring her observations. There has been one rather suggestive remark, he thought.

Dr. Harkness came out of the drawing-room, looking very wan.

“He’s all right,” he said, “and I wish I could say as much for myself. The secondary effects of alcoholic indulgence are the least supportable. By the way, can I go out to the car for my bag? It’s just opposite the house. Charles Templeton’s my patient, you know, and I’d like to run him over. Just in case. He’s had a bad knock over this.”

“Yes, of course,” Alleyn said and nodded to the constable at the door. “Before you go, though — was Mrs. Templeton your patient too?”

“She was,” Harkness agreed and looked wary.

“Would you have expected anything like this? Supposing it to be a case of suicide?”

“No. I wouldn’t.”

“Not subject to fits of depression? No morbid tendencies? Nothing like that?”

Harkness looked at his hands. “It wasn’t an equable disposition,” he said carefully. “Far from it. She had ‘nervous’ spells. The famous theatrical temperament, you know.”

“No more than that?” Alleyn persisted.

“Well — I don’t like discussing my patients and never do, of course, but…”

“I think you may say the circumstances warrant it.”

“I suppose so. As a matter of fact I have been a bit concerned. The temperaments had become pretty frequent and increasingly violent. Hysteria, really. Partly the time of life, but she was getting over that. There was some occasion for anxiety. One or two little danger signals. One was keeping an eye on her. But nothing suicidal. On the contrary. What’s more, you can take my word for it she was the last woman on earth to disfigure herself. The last.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “That’s a point, isn’t it? I’ll see you later.”

“I suppose you will,” Harkness said disconsolately, and Alleyn went upstairs. He found that Miss Bellamy’s room now had the familiar look of any area given over to police investigation: something between an improvised laboratory and a photographer’s studio with its focal point that unmistakable sheeted form on the floor.

Dr. Curtis, the police surgeon, had finished his examination of the body. Sergeant Bailey squatted on the bathroom floor employing the tools of his trade upon the tinsel picture, and as Alleyn came in, Sergeant Thompson, whistling between his teeth, uncovered Mary Bellamy’s terrible face and advanced his camera to within a few inches of it. The bulb flashed.

Fox was seated at the dressing-table completing his notes.

“Well, Dr. Curtis?” Alleyn asked.

“Well, now,” Curtis said. “It’s quite a little problem, you know. I can’t see a verdict of accident, Alleyn, unless the coroner accepts the idea of her presenting this spray-gun thing at her own face and pumping away like mad at it to see how it works. The face is pretty well covered with the stuff. It’s in the nostrils and mouth and all over the chest and dress.”

“Suicide?”

“I don’t see it. Have to be an uncommon determined effort. Any motive?”

“Not so far, unless you count a suspected bout of tantrums, but I don’t yet know about that. I don’t see it, either. Which leaves us with homicide. See here, Curtis. Suppose I picked up that tin of Slaypest, pointed it at you and fell to work on the spray-gun — what’d you do?”

“Dodge.”

“And if I chased you up?”

“Either collar you low or knock it out of your hands or bolt, yelling blue murder.”

“Exactly. But wouldn’t the immediate reaction, particularly in a woman, be to throw up her arms and hide her face?”

“I think it might, certainly. Yes.”

“Yes,” said Fox, glancing up from his notes.

“It wasn’t hers. There’s next to nothing on the hands and arms. And look,” Alleyn went on, “at the actual character of the spray. Some of it’s fine, as if delivered from a distance. Some, on the contrary, is so coarse that it’s run down in streaks. Where’s the answer to that one?”

“I don’t know,” said Dr. Curtis.

“How long would it take to kill her?”

“Depends on the strength. This stuff is highly concentrated. Hexa-ethyl-tetra-phosphate of which the deadly ingredient is TEPP: tetra-ethyl-pyro-phosphate. Broken down, I’d say, with some vehicle to reduce the viscosity. The nozzle’s a very fine job: designed for indoor use. In my opinion the stuff shouldn’t be let loose on the market. If she got some in the mouth, and it’s evident she did, it might only be a matter of minutes. Some recorded cases mention nausea and convulsions. In others, the subject has dropped down insensible and died a few seconds later.”

Fox said, “When the woman — Florence — found her, she was on the floor in what Florence describes as a sort of fit.”

“I’ll see Florence next,” Alleyn said.

“And when Dr. Harkness and Mr. Templeton arrived she was dead,” Fox concluded.

“Where is Harkness?” Dr. Curtis demanded. “He’s pretty damn casual, isn’t he? He ought to have shown up at once.”

“He was flat-out with a hangover among the exotics in the conservatory,” Alleyn said. “I stirred him up to look at Mr. Richard Dakers, who was in a great tizzy before he knew there was anything to have a tizzy about. When I talked to him he fainted.”

“What a mob!” Curtis commented in disgust.

“Curtis, if you’ve finished here I think you’ll find your colleague in reasonably working order downstairs.”

“He’d better be. Everything is fixed now. I’ll do the p.m. tonight.”

“Good. Fox, you and I had better press on. We’ve got an office. Third on the right from here.”

They found Gracefield outside the door looking scandalized.

“I’m very sorry, I’m sure, sir,” he said, “but the keys on this landing appear to have been removed. If you require to lock up…”

“ ’T, ’t!” Fox said and dived in his pocket. “Thoughtless of me! Try this one.”

Gracefield coldly accepted it. He showed Alleyn into a small pleasantly furnished study and left Fox to look after himself, which he did very comfortably.

“Will there be anything further, sir?” Gracefield asked Alleyn.

“Nothing. This will do admirably.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Here,” Fox said, “are the other keys. They’re interchangeable, which is why I took the liberty of removing them.”

Gracefield received them without comment and retired.

“I always seem to hit it off better,” Fox remarked, “with the female servants,”

“No doubt they respond more readily to your unbridled body-urge,” said Alleyn.

“That’s one way of putting it, Mr. Alleyn,” Fox primly conceded.

“And the other is that I tipped that antarctic monument. Never mind. You’ll have full play in a minute with Florence. Take a look at this room. It was Mr. Richard Dakers’s study. I suppose he now inhabits a bachelor flat somewhere, but he was adopted and brought up by the Templetons. Here you have his boyhood, adolescence and early maturity in microcosm. The usual school groups on one wall. Note the early dramatic interest. On the other three, his later progress. O.U.D.S. Signed photographs of lesser lights succeeded by signed photographs of greater ones. Sketches from unknown designers followed by the full treatment from famous designers and topped up by Saracen. The last is for a production that opened three years ago and closed last week. Programme of Command Performance. Several framed photographs of Miss Mary Bellamy, signed with vociferous devotion. One small photograph of Mr. Charles Templeton. A calender on the desk to support the theory that he left the house a year ago. Books from E. Nesbit to Samuel Beckett. Who’s Who in the Theatre and Spotlight and cast an eye at this one, will you?”

He pulled out a book and showed it to Fox. “Handbook of Poisons by a Medical Practitioner. Bookplate: ‘Ex Libris C. H. Templeton.’ Let’s see if the medical practitioner has anything to say about pest killers. Here we are. Poisons of Vegetable Origin. Tobacco. Alkaloid of.” He read for a moment or two. “Rather scanty. Only one case quoted. Gentleman who swallowed nicotine from a bottle and died quietly in thirty seconds after heaving a deep sigh. Warnings about agricultural use of. And here are the newer concoctions including HETP and TEPP. Exceedingly deadly and to be handled with the greatest care. Ah, well!”

He replaced the book.

“That’ll be the husband’s,” Fox said. “Judging by the bookplate.”

“The husband’s. Borrowed by the ward and accessible to all and sundry. For what it’s worth. Well, Foxkin, that about completes our tour of the room. Tabloid history of the tastes and career of Richard Dakers. Hullo! Look here, Fox.”

He was stooping over the writing desk and had opened the blotter.

“This looks fresh,” he said. “Green ink. Ink on desk dried up and anyway, blue.”

There was a small Georgian glass above the fireplace. Alleyn held the blotting-paper to it and they looked at the reflected image:

Alleyn copied this fragmentary message on a second sheet of paper, carried the blotter back to the desk and very carefully removed the sheet in question.

“We’ll put the experts on to this,” he said, “but I’m prepared to take a sporting chance on the result, Br’er Fox. Are you?”

“I’d give it a go, Mr. Alleyn.”

“See if you can find Florence, will you? I’ll take a flying jump while you’re at it.”

Fox went out. Alleyn put his copy of the message on the desk and looked at it.

The correct method of deciphering and completing a blotting-paper impression is by measurement, calculation and elimination but occasionally, for persons with a knack, the missing letters start up vividly in the mind and the scientific method is thus accurately anticipated. When he was on his game, Alleyn possessed this knack and he now made use of it. Without allowing himself any second thoughts, he wrote rapidly within the copy and stared with disfavour at the result. He then opened Richard Daker’s dispatch case and found it contained a typescript of a play, Husbandry in Heaven. He flipped the pages over and came across some alterations in green ink and in the same hand as the letter.

“Miss Florence Johnson,” said Fox, opening the door and standing aside with something of the air of a large sporting dog retrieving a bird. Florence, looking not unlike an apprehensive fowl, came in.

Alleyn saw an unshapely little woman, with a pallid, tear-stained face and hair so remorselessly dyed that it might have been a raven wig. She wore that particular air of disillusionment that is associated with the Cockney and she reeked of backstage.

“The Superintendent,” Fox told her, “just wants to hear the whole story like you told it to me. Nothing to worry about.”

“Of course not,” Alleyn said. “Come and sit down. We won’t keep you long.”

Florence looked as if she might prefer to stand, but compromised by sitting on the edge of the chair Fox had pushed forward.

“This has been a sad business for you,” Alleyn said.

“That’s right,” Florence said woodenly.

“And I’m sure you must want to have the whole thing cleared up as soon and as quietly as possible.”

“Clear enough, isn’t it? She’s dead. You can’t have it much clearer than that.”

“You can’t indeed. But you see it’s our job to find out why.”

“Short of seeing it happen you wouldn’t get much nearer, would you? If you can read, that is.”

“You mean the tin of Slaypest?”

“Well, it wasn’t perfume,” Florence said impertinently. “They put that in bottles.” She shot a glance at Alleyn and seemed to undergo a slight change of temper. Her lips trembled and she compressed them. “It wasn’t all that pleasant,” she said. “Seeing what I seen. Finding her like that. You’d think I might be let alone.”

“So you will be if you behave like a sensible girl. You’ve been with her a long time, haven’t you?”

“Thirty years, near enough.”

“You must have got along very well to have stayed together all that time.”

Florence didn’t answer and he waited. At last she said, “I knew her ways.”

“And you were fond of her?”

“She was all right. Others might have their own ideas. I knew ’er. Inside out. She’d talk to me like she wouldn’t to others. She was all right.”

It was, Alleyn thought, after its fashion, a tribute.

He said, “Florence, I’m going to be very frank indeed with you. Suppose it wasn’t an accident. You’d want to know, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s no good you thinking she did it deliberate. She never! Not she. Wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t mean suicide.”

Florence watched him for a moment. Her mouth, casually but emphatically painted, narrowed into a scarlet thread.

“If you mean murder,” she said flatly, “that’s different.”

“You’d want to know,” he repeated. “Wouldn’t you?”

The tip of her tongue showed for a moment in the corner of her mouth. “That’s right,” she said.

“So do we. Now, Inspector Fox has already asked you about this, but never mind, I’m asking you again. I want you to tell me in as much detail as you can remember just what happened from the time when Miss Bellamy dressed for her party up to the time you entered her room and found her — as you did find her. Let’s start with the preparations, shall we?”

She was a difficult subject. She seemed to be filled with some kind of resentment and everything had to be dragged out of her. After luncheon, it appeared, Miss Bellamy rested. At half-past four Florence went in to her. She seemed to be “much as usual.”

“She hadn’t been upset by anything during the day?”

“Nothing,” Florence muttered, after a further silence, “to matter.”

“I only ask,” Alleyn said, “because there’s a bottle of sal volatile left out in the bathroom. Did you give her sal volatile at any stage?”

“This morning.”

“What was the matter, this morning? Was she faint?”

Florence said, “Overexcited.”

“About what?”

“I couldn’t say,” Florence said, and shut her mouth like a trap.

“Very well,” he said patiently. “Let’s get on with the preparation for the party. Did you give her a facial treatment of some kind?”

She stared at him. “That’s correct,” she said. “A mask.”

“What did she talk about, Florence?”

“Nothing. You don’t with that stuff over your face. Can’t.”

“And then.”

“She make up and dressed. The two gentlemen came in and I went out.”

“That would be Mr. Templeton and — who?”

“The Colonel.”

“Did either of them bring her Parma violets?”

She stared at him. “Vi’lets? Them? No. She didn’t like vi’lets.”

“There’s a bunch on her dressing-table.”

“I never noticed,” she said. “I don’t know anything about vi’lets. There wasn’t any when I left the room.”

“And you saw her again — when?”

“At the party.”

“Well, let’s hear about it.”

For a second or two he thought she was going to keep mum. She had the least eloquent face he had ever seen. But she began to speak as if somebody had switched her on. She said that from the time she left her mistress and during the early part of the cocktail party she had been with Mrs. Plumtree in their little sitting room. When the gong sounded they went down to take their places in the procession. After the speeches were over Old Ninn had dropped her awful brick about candles. Florence recounted the incident with detachment, merely observing that Old Ninn was, in fact, very old and sometimes forgot herself. “Fifty candles,” Florence said grimly. “What a remark to pass!” It was the only piece of comment, so far, that she had proffered. She had realized, Alleyn gathered, that her mistress had been upset and thinking she might be wanted had gone into the hall. She heard her mistress speak for a moment to Mr. Templeton, something about him asking her not to use her scent. Up to here Florence’s statement had been about as emotional as a grocery list, but at this point she appeared to boggle. She looked sideways at Alleyn, seemed to lose her bearings and came to a stop.

Alleyn said, “That’s all perfectly clear so far. Then did Miss Bellamy and the nanny — Mrs. Plumtree, isn’t it? — go upstairs together?”

Florence, blankly staring, said, “No.”

“They didn’t? What happened exactly?”

Ninn, it appeared, had gone first.

“Why? What delayed Miss Bellamy?”

“A photographer come butting in.”

“He took a photograph of her, did he?”

“That’s right. By the front door.”

“Alone?”

“He came in. The chap wanted him in too.”

“Who?”

Her hands ground together in her lap. After waiting for a moment he asked, “Don’t you want to answer that one?”

“I want to know,” Florence burst out, “if it’s murder. If it’s murder I don’t care who it was, I want to see ’er righted. Never mind who! You can be mistaken in people, as I often told her. Them you think nearest and dearest are likely as not the ones that you didn’t ought to trust. What I told her. Often and often.”

How vindictive, Alleyn wondered, was Florence? Of what character, precisely, was her relationship with her mistress? She was looking at him now, guardedly but with a kind of arrogance. “What I want to know,” she repeated, “is it murder?”

He said, “I believe it may be.”

She muttered, “You ought to know: being trained to it. They tell you the coppers always know.”

From what background had Florence emerged nearly thirty years ago into Miss Bellamy’s dressing-room? She was speaking now like a Bermondsey girl. Fly and wary. Her voice, hitherto negative and respectable, had ripened into strong Cockney.

Alleyn decided to take a long shot. He said, “I expect you know Mr. Richard Dakers very well, don’t you?”

“Hardly help meself, could I?”

“No, indeed. He was more like a son than a ward to her, I daresay.”

Florence stared at him out of two eyes that closely resembled, and were about as eloquent as, boot-buttons.

“Acted like it,” she said. “If getting nothing but the best goes for anything. And taking it as if it was ’is right.”

“Well,” Alleyn said lightly, “he’s repaid her with two very successful plays, hasn’t he?”

“Them! What’d they have been without her? See another actress in the lead! Oh dear! What a change! She made them, he couldn’t have touched it on ’is own. She’d have breathed life into a corpse,” Florence said and then looked sick.

Alleyn said, “Mr. Dakers left the house before the speeches, I understand?”

“He did. What a way to behave!”

“But he came back, didn’t he?”

“He’s back now,” she said quickly. “You seen ’im, didn’t you?” Gracefield, evidently, had talked.

“I don’t mean now. I mean between the time he first left before the speeches and the time when he returned about half an hour ago. Wasn’t there another visit in between?”

“That’s right,” she said under her breath.

“Before the birthday speech?”

“That’s right.”

“Take the moment we’re discussing. Mrs. Plumtree had gone upstairs, Miss Bellamy was in the hall. You had come out to see if she needed you.” He waited for a moment and then took his gamble. “Did he walk in at the front door? At that moment?”

He thought she was going to say “No”; she seemed to be struggling with some kind of doubt. Then she nodded.

“Did he speak to Miss Bellamy?” She nodded again.

“What about, do you know?”

“I didn’t catch. I was at the other end of the hall.”

“What happened then?”

“They were photographed and then they went upstairs.”

“And you?”

“I went up. By the back stairs,” said Florence.

“Where to?”

“I went along to the landing.”

“And did you go in to her?”

“Mrs. Plumtree was on the landing,” Florence said abruptly. Alleyn waited. “They was talking inside — him and the Lady. So I didn’t disturb her.”

“And you could hear them talking?”

She said angrily, “What say we could? We weren’t snooping, if that’s what you mean. We didn’t hear a word. She laughed — once.”

“And then?”

“He came out and went downstairs.”

“And did you go in to Miss Bellamy?”

“No,” Florence said loudly.

“Why not?”

“I didn’t reckon she’d want me.”

“But why?”

“I didn’t reckon she would.”

“Had you,” he asked without emphasis, “had a row of some sort with Miss Bellamy?”

She went very white. “What are you getting at?” she demanded and then, “I told you. I understood her. Better than anyone.”

“And there’d been no trouble between you?”

“No!” she said loudly.

He decided not to press this point. “So what did you do?” he asked. “You and Mrs. Plumtree?”

“Stayed where we was. Until…”

“Yes?”

“Until we heard something.”

“What was that?”

“Inside her room. Something. Kind of a crash.”

“What was it, do you think?”

“I wouldn’t know. I was going in to see, whether or no, when I heard Mr. Templeton in the hall. Calling. I go down to the half-landing,” Florence continued, changing her tense for the narrative present. “He calls up, they’re waiting for her. So I go back to fetch her. And…” for the first time her voice trembled. “And I walk in.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Before we go on, Florence, will you tell me this? Did Mr. Richard at this time seem at all upset?”

“That’s right,” she said, again with that air of defiance.

“When he arrived?” She nodded. “I see. And when he came out of Miss Bellamy’s room?”

And now there was no mistaking Florence’s tone. It was one of pure hatred.

“ ’Im? ’E looked ghasterly. ’E looked,” said Florence, “like death.”

As if, by this one outburst, she had bestowed upon herself some kind of emotional bloodletting, Florence returned to her earlier manner — cagey, grudging, implicitly resentful. Alleyn could get no more from her about Richard Dakers’s behaviour. When he suggested, obliquely, that perhaps Old Ninn might be more forthcoming, Florence let fall a solitary remark. “Her!” she said. “You won’t get her to talk. Not about him!” and refused to elaborate.

He had learned to recognize the point at which persistence defeats its own end. He took her on to the time where she entered the bedroom and discovered her mistress. Here, Florence exhibited a characteristic attitude towards scenes of violence. It was, he thought, as if she recognized in her own fashion their epic value and was determined to do justice to the current example.

When she went into the room, Mary Bellamy was on her knees, her hands to her throat and her eyes starting. She had tried to speak but had succeeded only in making a terrible retching noise. Florence had attempted to raise her, to ask her what had happened, but her mistress, threshing about on the floor, had been as unresponsive to these ministrations as an animal in torment. Florence had thought she heard the word “doctor.” Quite beside herself, she had rushed out of the room and downstairs. “Queer,” she said. That was what she had felt. “Queer.” It was “queer” that at such a moment she should concern herself with Miss Bellamy’s nonappearance at her party. It was “queer” that a hackneyed theatre phrase should occur to her in such a crisis but it had and she remembered using it, “Is there a doctor in the house?” though, of course, she knew, really that Dr. Harkness was one of the guests. On the subject of Dr. Harkness she was violent.

“Him! Nice lot of help he give, I don’t think! Silly with what he’d taken and knew it. Couldn’t make up his mind where he was or what he was wanted for till the Colonel shoved ice down his neck. Even then he was stupid-like and had to be pushed upstairs. For all we know,” Florence said, “ ’e might of saved ’er. For all we know! But when ’e got there it was over and in my opinion ’e’s got it on ’is conscience for the rest of ’is days. And that’s no error. Dr. Harkness!”

Alleyn asked her to describe, in detail, the state of the room when she first went into it. She remembered nothing but her mistress and when he pressed her to try, he thought she merely drew on what she saw after she returned.

He said, “We’ve almost finished, but there’s one question I must ask you. Do you know of anyone who had cause to wish for her death?”

She thought this over, warily. “There’s plenty,” she said, “that was jealous of her and there’s some that acted treacherous. Some that called themselves friends.”

“In the profession?” Alleyn ventured.

“Ah! Miss Kate Cavendish, who’d never have got further than Brighton Pier in the off-season without the Lady hadn’t looked after ’er! Mr. Albert Smith, pardon the slip, I should of said Saracen. But for her ’e’d of stuck behind ’is counter in the Manchester department. Look what she done for them and how do they pay ’er back? Only this morning!”

“What happened this morning?”

“Sauce and treachery was what happened.”

“That doesn’t really answer my question, does it?”

She stood up. “It’s all the answer you’ll get. You know your own business best, I suppose. But if she’s been murdered, there’s only one that had the chance. Why waste your time?”

“Only one?” Alleyn said. “Do you really think so?”

For the first time she looked frightened, but her answer was unexpected. “I don’t want what I’ve said to go no further,” she said with a look at Fox, who had been quietly taking notes. “I don’t fancy being quoted, particularly in some quarters. There’s some that’d turn very nasty if they knew what I said.”

“Old Ninn?” Alleyn suggested. “For one?”

“Smart,” Florence said with spirit, “aren’t you? All right. Her for one. She’s got her fancy like I had mine. Only mine,” Florence said, and her voice was desolate, “mine’s gone where it won’t come back, and that’s the difference.” A spasm of something that might have been hatred crossed her face and she cried out with violence, “I’ll never forgive her! Never. I’ll be even with her no matter what comes out of it, see if I’m not. Clara Plumtree!”

“But what did she do?”

He thought she was going to jib, but suddenly it all came out. It had happened, she said, after the tragedy. Charles Templeton had been taken to his dressing-room and Ninn had appeared on the landing while Florence was taking him a hot bottle. Florence herself had been too agitated to tell her what had happened in any detail. She had given Mr. Templeton the bottle and left him. He was terribly distressed and wanted to be left alone. She had returned to the landing and seen Dr. Harkness and Timon Gantry come out of the bedroom and speak to Mrs. Plumtree, who had then gone into the dressing-room. Florence herself had been consumed with a single overwhelming desire.

“I wanted to see after her. I wanted to look after my Lady. I knew what she’d have liked me to do for her. The way they’d left her! The way she looked! I wasn’t going to let them see her like that and take her away like that. I knew her better than anybody. She’d have wanted her old Floy to look after her.”

She gave a harsh sob but went on very doggedly. She had gone to the bedroom door and found it locked. This, Alleyn gathered, had roused a kind of fury in her. She had walked up and down the landing in an agony of frustration and had then remembered the communicating door between the bedroom and dressing-room. So she had stolen to the door from the landing into the dressing-room and had opened it very carefully, not wishing to disturb Mr. Templeton. She had found herself face to face with Mrs. Plumtree.

It must, Alleyn thought, have been an extraordinary scene. The two women had quarrelled in whispers. Florence had demanded to be allowed to go through into the bedroom. Mrs. Plumtree had refused. Then Florence had told her what she wanted to do.

“I told her! I told her I was the only one to lay my poor girl out and make her look more like herself. She said I couldn’t. She said she wasn’t to be touched by doctor’s orders. Doctor’s orders! I’d of pulled her away and gone through. I’d got me hands on ’er to do it, but it was too late.”

She turned to Fox. “He’d come in. He was coming upstairs. She said, ‘That’s the police. D’you want to get yourself locked up?’ I had to give over and I went to my room.”

“I’m afraid she was right, Florence.”

“Are you! That shows how much you know! I wasn’t to touch the body! Me! Me, that loved her. All right! So what was Clara Plumtree doing in the bedroom? Now!”

“What!” Fox ejaculated. “In the bedroom? Mrs. Plumtree?”

“Ah!” Florence cried out in a kind of triumph. “Her! She’d been in there herself and let her try and deny it!”

Alleyn said, “How do you know she’d been in the bedroom?”

“How? Because I heard the tank filling and the basin tap running in the bathroom beyond. She’d been in there doing what it was my right to do. Laying her hands on my poor girl.”

“But why do you suppose this? Why?”

Her lips trembled and she rubbed her hand across them. “Why! Why! I’ll tell you why. Because she smelt of that scent. Smelt of it, I tell you, so strong it would sicken you. So if you’re going to lock anybody up, you can start on Clara Plumtree.”

Her mouth twisted. Suddenly she burst into tears and blundered out of the room.

Fox shut the door after her and removed his spectacles. “A tartar,” he observed.

“Yes,” Alleyn agreed. “A faithful, treacherous, jealous, pig-headed tartar. You never know how they’ll cut up in a crisis. Never. And I fancy, for our pains, we’ve got a brace of them in this party.”

As if to confirm this opinion there was a heavy single bang on the door. It swung violently open and there, on the threshold, was Old Ninn Plumtree with P.C. Philpott, only less red-faced than herself, towering in close attendance.

“Lay a finger on me, young man,” Old Ninn was saying, “and I’ll make a public example of you.”

“I’m sure I’m very sorry, sir,” said Philpott. “The lady insists on seeing you and short of taking her in charge I don’t seem to be able to prevent it.”

“All right, Philpott,” Alleyn said. “Come in, Ninn. Come in.”

She did so. Fox resignedly shut the door. He put a chair behind Ninn, but she disregarded it. She faced Alleyn over her own folded arms. To look in his face she was obliged to tilt her own acutely backwards and in doing so gave out such an astonishingly potent effluvium that she might have been a miniature volcano smouldering with port and due to erupt. Her voice was sepulchral and her manner truculent.

“I fancied,” she said, “I knew a gentleman when I saw one and I hope you’re not going to be a disappointment. Don’t answer me back. I prefer to form my own opinion.”

Alleyn did not answer her back.

“That Floy,” Old Ninn continued, “has been at you. A bad background, if ever there was one. What’s bred in the child comes out in the woman. Don’t believe a word of what she tells you. What’s she been saying about the boy?”

“About Mr. Dakers?”

“Certainly. A man to you, seem he may; to me who knows him inside out, he’s a boy. Twenty-eight and famous, I daresay, but no more harm in him than there ever has been, which is never. Sensitive and fanciful, yes. Not practical, granted. Vicious, fiddle! Now. What’s that Floy been putting about?”

“Nothing very terrible, Ninn.”

“Did she say he was ungrateful? Or bad-mannered?”

“Well…”

“He’s nothing of the sort. What else?”

Alleyn was silent. OLd Ninn unfolded her arms. She laid a tiny gnarled paw on Alleyn’s hand. “Tell me what else,” she said, glaring into his face, “I’ve got to know. Tell me.”

“You tell me” he said and put his hand over hers. “What was the matter between Mr. Richard and Mrs. Templeton? It’s better I should know. What was it?”

She stared at him. Her lips moved but no sound came from them.

“You saw him,” Alleyn said, “when he came out of her room. What was the matter? Florence told us…”

“She told you! She told you that!”

“I’d have found out, you know. Can you clear it up for us? Do, if you can.”

She shook her head in a very desolate manner. Her eyes were glazed with tears and her speech had become uncertain. He supposed she had fortified herself with an extra glass before tackling him and it was now taking full effect.

“I can’t say,” she said indistinctly. “I don’t know. One of her tantrums. A tyrant from the time she could speak. The boy’s never anything but good and patient.” And after a moment she added quite briskly, “Doesn’t take after her in that respect. More like the father.”

Fox looked up from his notes. Alleyn remained perfectly still. Old Ninn rocked very slightly on her feet and sat down.

“Mr. Templeton?” Alleyn said.

She nodded two or three times with her eyes shut. “You may well say so,” she murmured, “you — may — well…” Her voice trailed into silence and she dozed.

Fox opened his mouth and Alleyn signalled him and he shut it again. There was a considerable pause. Presently Old Ninn gave a slight snore, moved her lips and opened her eyes.

Alleyn said, “Does Mr. Richard know about his parentage?”

She looked fixedly at him. “Why shouldn’t he?” she said. “They were both killed in a motor accident and don’t you believe anything you’re told to the contrary. Name of Dakers.” She caught sight of Fox and his notebook. “Dakers,” she repeated and spelt it out for him.

“Thank you very much,” said Fox.

Alleyn said, “Did you think Mr. Richard looked very much upset when he came out of her room?”

“She had the knack of upsetting him. He takes things to heart.”

“What did he do?”

“Went downstairs. Didn’t look at me. I doubt if he saw me.”

“Florence,” Alleyn said, “thought he looked like death.”

Ninn got to her feet. Her little hands clutched at his arm. “What’s she mean? What’s she been hinting? Why didn’t she say what I heard? After she went downstairs? I told her. Why didn’t she tell you?”

“What did you hear?”

“She knows! I told her. I didn’t think anything of it at the time and now she won’t admit it. Trying to lay the blame on the boy. She’s a wicked girl and always has been.”

“What did you hear?”

“I heard the Lady using that thing. The poison thing. Hissing. Heard it! She killed herself,” Ninn said. “Why, we’ll never know and the sin’s on her head forever. She killed herself.”

There was a long pause during which Ninn showed signs of renewed instability. Fox put his arm under hers. “Steady does it,” he said comfortably.

“That’s no way to talk,” she returned sharply and sat down again.

“Florence,” Alleyn said, “tells us Miss Bellamy was incapable of any such thing.”

The mention of Florence instantly restored her.

“Florence said this and Florence said that,” she barked. “And did Florence happen to mention she fell out with her lady and as good as got her notice this morning? Did she tell you that?”

“No,” Alleyn murmured, “she didn’t tell us that.”

“Ah! There you are, you see!”

“What did you do after Mr. Richard left the room and went downstairs? After Florence had gone and after you’d heard the spray?”

She had shut her eyes again and he had to repeat his questions. “I retired,” she said with dignity, “to my room.”

“When did you hear of the catastrophe?”

“There was a commotion. Floy with a hot bottle on the landing having hysterics. I couldn’t get any sense out of her. Then the doctor came out and told me.”

“And after that, what did you do?”

He could have sworn that she made a considerable effort to collect herself and that his question had alarmed her. “I don’t remember,” she said and then added, “Went back to my room.” She had opened her eyes and was watching him very warily.

“Are you sure, Ninn? Didn’t you have a look at Mr. Templeton in the dressing-room?”

“I’ve forgotten. I might have. I believe I did. You can’t think of everything,” she added crossly.

“How was he? How did you find him?”

“How would you expect him to be?” she countered. “Very low. Didn’t speak. Upset. Naturally. With his trouble, it might have been the death of him. The shock and all.”

“How long were you in the dressing-room?”

“I don’t remember. Till the police came and ordered everybody about.”

“Did you,” Alleyn asked her, “go into the bedroom?”

She waited for a long time. “No,” she said at last.

“Are you sure? You didn’t go through into the bathroom or begin to tidy the room?”

“No.”

“Or touch the body?”

“I didn’t go into the bedroom.”

“And you didn’t let Florence go in either?”

“What’s she been telling you?”

“That she wanted to go in and that you — very properly — told her that the doctor had forbidden it.”

“She was hysterical. She’s a silly girl. Bad in some ways.”

“Did Mr. Templeton go into the bedroom?”

“He had occasion,” she said with great dignity, “to pass through it in order to make use of the convenience. That is not forbidden, I hope?”

“Naturally not.”

“Very well then,” she stifled a hiccough and rose. “I’m going to bed,” she said loudly, and as there was nothing further to be collected from her, they let her out.

Fox offered assistance but was rebuffed. She tacked rapidly towards the door.

He opened it quickly.

There, on the landing, looking remarkably uncomfortable, was Richard Dakers.

He had been caught, it was evident, in the act of moving away from the door. Now, he stood stock-still, an uncomfortable smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. Old Ninn stopped short when she saw him, appeared to get her bearings and went up to him.

“Ninn,” he said, looking past her at Alleyn and speaking with most unconvincing jauntiness, “what have you been up to!”

She stared into his face. “Speak up for yourself,” she said. “They’ll put upon you if you don’t.”

“Hadn’t you better go to bed? You’re not yourself, you know.”

“Exactly,” Ninn said with hauteur. “I’m going.”

She made off at an uncertain gait towards the backstairs. Alleyn said, “Mr. Dakers, what are you doing up here?”

“I wanted to get into my room.”

“I’m afraid we’re occupying it at the moment. But if there’s anything you need…”

“Oh God!” Richard cried out. “Is there to be no end to these indignities? No! No, there’s nothing I need. Not now. I wanted to be by myself in my room where I could make some attempt to think.”

“You had it all on your own in the drawing-room,” Fox said crossly. “Why couldn’t you think down there? How did you get past the man on duty, sir?”

“He was coping with a clutch of pressmen at the front door and I nipped up the backstairs.”

“Well,” Alleyn said, “you’d better nip down again to where you came from and if you’re sick of the drawing-room, you can join the party next door, Unless, of course, you’d like to stay and tell us your real object in coming up here.”

Richard opened his mouth and shut it again. He then turned on his heels and went downstairs. He was followed by Fox, who returned looking portentous. “I gave that chap in the hall a rocket,” he said. “They don’t know the meaning of keeping observation these days. Mr. Dakers is back in the drawing-room. Why do you reckon he broke out, sir?”

“I think,” Alleyn said, “he may have remembered the blotting-paper.”

“Ah, there is that. May be. Mrs. Plumtree wasn’t bad value, though, was she?”

“Not bad. But none of it proves anything, of course,” Alleyn said. “Not a damn thing.”

“Floy getting the sack’s interesting. If true.”

“It may be a recurrent feature of their relationship, for all we know. What about the sounds they both heard in the bedroom?”

“Do we take it,” Fox asked, “that Floy’s crash came before Mrs. Plumtree’s hiss?”

“I suppose so. Yes.”

“And that Florence retired after the crash?”

“While Ninn remained for the hiss. Precisely.”

“The inference being,” Fox pursued, “that as soon as Mr. Dakers left her, the lady fell with a deafening crash on the four-pile carpet.”

“And then sprayed herself all over with Slaypest.”

“Quite so, Mr. Alleyn.”

“I prefer a less dramatic reading of the evidence.”

“All the same, it doesn’t look very pleasant for Mr. Dakers.” And as Alleyn didn’t reply, “D’you reckon Mrs. Plumtree was talking turkey when she let out about his parentage?”

“I think it’s at least possible that she believes it.”

“Born,” Fox speculated, “out of wedlock and the parents subsequently married?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Wait a bit.” He took down the copy of Who’s Who in the Theatre. “Here we are. Bellamy. Sumptuous entry. Birth, not given. Curtis says fifty. Married 1932, Charles Gavin Templeton. Now, where’s the playwright? Dakers, Richard. Very conservative entry. Born 1931. Educated Westminster and Trinity. List of three plays. That’s all. Could be, Foxkin. I suppose we can dig it out if needs must.”

Fox was silent for a moment. “There is this,” he then said. “Mrs. Plumtree was alone on the landing after Florence went downstairs?”

“So it seems.”

“And she says she heard deceased using the Slaypest. What say she went in and used it herself? On deceased.”

“All right. Suppose she did. Why?”

“Because of the way deceased treated her ward or son or whatever he is? Went in and let her have it and then made off before Florence came back.”

“Do you like it?”

“Not much,” Fox grunted. “What about this story of Mrs. Plumtree going into the bedroom and rearranging the remains?”

“She didn’t. The body was as Harkness and Gantry left it. Unless Harkness is too much hungover to notice.”

“It might be something quite slight.”

“What, for pity’s sake?”

“God knows,” Fox said. “Could you smell scent on Mrs. P?”

“I could smell nothing but rich old tawny port on Mrs. P.”

“Might be a blind for the perfume. Ah, forget it!” Fox said disgustedly. “It’s silly. How about this crash they heard after Mr. Dakers left the room?”

“Oh that. That was the lady pitching Madame Vestris into the bathroom.”

“Why?”

“Professional jealousy? Or perhaps it was his birthday present to her and she was taking it out on the Vestris.”

“Talk about conjecture! We do nothing else,” Fox grumbled. “All right. So what’s the next step, sir?”

“We’ve got to clear the ground. We’ve got to check, for one thing, Mr. Bertie Saracen’s little outburst. And the shortest way with that one, I suppose, is to talk to Anelida Lee.”

“Ah, yes. You know the young lady, don’t you, Mr. Alleyn?”

“I’ve met her in her uncle’s bookshop. She’s a charming girl. I know Octavius quite well. I tell you what, Foxkin, you go round the camp, will you? Talk to the butler. Talk to the maids. Pick up anything that’s offering on the general setup. Find out the pattern of the day’s events. Furious Floy suggested a dust-up of some sort with Saracen and Miss Cavendish. Get the strength of it. And see if you can persuade the staff to feed the troops. Hullo — what’s that?”

He went out into the passage and along to the landing. The door of Miss Bellamy’s room was open. Dr. Curtis and Dr. Harkness stood just inside it watching the activities of two white-coated men. They had laid Miss Bellamy’s body on a stretcher and had neatly covered it in orthodox sheeting. P.C. Philpott from the half-landing said, “O.K. chaps,” and the familiar progress started. They crossed the landing, changed the angle of their burden and gingerly began the descent. Thus Miss Bellamy made her final journey downstairs. Alleyn heard a subdued noise somewhere above him. He moved to a position from which he could look up the narrower flight of stairs to the second-floor landing. Florence was there, scarcely to be seen in the shadows, and the sound he had heard was of her sobbing.

Alleyn followed the stretcher downstairs. He watched the mortuary van drive away, had a final word with his colleagues, and went next door to call on Octavius Browne.

Octavius, after hours, used his shop as his sitting-room. With the curtains drawn, the lamp on his reading table glowing and the firelight shining on his ranks of books, the room was enchanting. So, in his way, was Octavius, sunk deep in a red morocco chair with his book in his hand and his cat on his knee.

He had removed his best suit and, out of habit, had changed into old grey trousers and a disreputable but becoming velvet coat. For about an hour after Richard Dakers left (Anelida having refused to see him), Octavius had Been miserable. Then she had come down, looking pale but familiar, saying she was sorry she’d been tiresome. She had kissed the top of his head and made him an omelette for his supper and had settled in her usual Monday night place on the other side of the fireplace behind a particularly large file in which she was writing up their catalogue. Once, Octavius couldn’t resist sitting up high in order to look at her and as usual she made a hideous face at him and he made one back at her, which was a private thing they did on such occasions. He was reassured but not entirely so. He had a very deep affection for Anelida, but he was one of those people in whom the distress of those they love begets a kind of compassionate irritation. He liked Anelida to be gay and dutiful and lovely to look at; when he suspected that she had been crying he felt at once distressed and helpless and the sensation bored him because he didn’t understand it.

When Alleyn rang the bell Anelida answered it. He saw, at once, that she had done her eyes up to hide the signs of tears.

Many of Octavius’s customers were also his friends and it was not unusual for them to call after hours. Anelida supposed that Alleyn’s was that sort of visit and so did Octavius, who was delighted to see him. Alleyn sat down between them, disliking his job.

“You look so unrepentantly cosy and Dickensian,” he said, “both of you, that I feel like an interloper.”

“My dear Alleyn, I do hope your allusion is not to that other and unspeakable little Nell and her drooling grandparent. No, I’m sure it’s not. You are thinking of Bleak House, perhaps, and your fellow-investigator’s arrival at his friend’s fireside. I seem to remember, though, that his visit ended uncomfortably in an arrest. I hope you’ve left your manacles at the Yard.”

Alleyn said, “As a matter of fact, Octavius, I am here on business, though not, I promise, to take either of you into custody.”

“Really? How very intriguing! A bookish reference perhaps? Some malefactor with a flair for the collector’s item?”

“I’m afraid not,” Alleyn said. “It’s a serious business, Octavius, and indirectly it concerns you both. I believe you were at Miss Mary Bellamy’s birthday party this evening, weren’t you?”

Anelida and her uncle both made the same involuntary movement of their hands. “Yes,” Octavius said. “For a short time. We were.”

“When did you arrive?”

“At seven. We were asked,” Octavius said, “for six-thirty, but Anelida informed me it is the ‘done thing’ nowadays to be late.”

“We waited,” Anelida said, “till other people had begun to stream in.”

“So you kept an eye on the earlier arrivals?”

“A bit. I did. They were rather intimidating.”

“Did you by any chance see anybody go in with a bunch of Parma violets?”

Octavius jerked his leg. “Damn you, Hodge,” he ejaculated and added mildly, “He makes bread on one’s thigh. Unconscionable feline, be gone.”

He cuffed the cat and it leapt indignantly to the floor.

Alleyn said, “I know you left early. I believe I know why.”

“Mr. Alleyn,” Anelida said. “What’s happened? Why are you talking like this?”

Alleyn said, “It is a serious matter.”

“Has Richard…?” she began and stopped. “What are you trying to tell us?”

“He’s all right. He’s had a shock but he’s all right.”

“My dear Alleyn…”

“Unk,” she said, “we’d better just listen.”

And Alleyn told them, carefully and plainly, what had happened. He said nothing of the implications.

“I wonder,” he ended, “that you haven’t noticed the comings and goings outside.”

“Our curtains are drawn, as you see,” Octavius said. “We had no occasion to look out. Had we, Nelly?”

Anelida said, “This will hurt Richard more than anything else that has ever happened to him.” And then with dismay, “I wouldn’t see him when he came in. I turned him away. He won’t forgive me and I won’t forgive myself.”

“My darling child, you had every cause to behave as you did. She was an enchanting creature but evidently not always prettily behaved,” Octavius said. “I always think,” he added, “that one does a great disservice to the dead when one praises them inaccurately. Nil nisi, if you will, but at least let the bonum be authentic.”

“I’m not thinking of her!” she cried out. “I’m thinking of Richard.”

“Are you, indeed, my pet?” he said uncomfortably.

Anelida said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Alleyn. This is bad behaviour, isn’t it? You must put it down to the well-known hysteria of theatre people.”

“I put it down to the natural result of shock,” Alleyn said, “and believe me, from what I’ve seen of histrionic behaviour, yours is in the last degree conservative. You must be a beginner.”

“How right you are!” she said and looked gratefully at him.

The point had been reached where he should tell them of the implications and he was helped by Octavius, who said, “But why, my dear fellow, are you concerned in all this? Do the police in cases of accident…”

“That’s just it,” Alleyn said. “They do. They have to make sure.”

He explained why they had to make sure. When he said that he must know exactly what had happened in the conservatory, Anelida turned so pale that he wondered if she, too, was going to faint. But she waited for a moment, taking herself in hand, and then told him, very directly, what had happened.

Timon Gantry, Montague and Richard had been talking to her about her reading the leading role in Husbandry in Heaven. Mary Bellamy had come in, unnoticed by them, and had heard enough to make her realize what was afoot.

“She was very angry,” Anelida said steadily. “She thought of it as a conspiracy and she accused me of — of—” Her voice faltered but in a moment she went on. “She said I’d been setting my cap at Richard to further my own ends in the theatre. I don’t remember everything she said. They all tried to stop her, but that seemed to make her more angry. Kate Cavendish and Bertie Saracen had come in with Mr. Templeton. When she saw them she attacked them as well. It was something about another new production. She accused them, too, of conspiracy. I could see Unk on the other side of the glass door, like somebody you want very badly in a nightmare and can’t reach. And then Mr. Templeton went out and spoke to him. And then I went out. And Unk behaved perfectly. And we came home.”

“Beastly experience,” Alleyn said. “For both of you.”

“Oh horrid,” Octavius agreed. “And very puzzling. She was, to meet, you know, so perfectly enchanting. One is quite at a loss…!” He rumpled his hair.

“Poor Unky!” Anelida said.

“Was Colonel Warrender in the conservatory?”

“That is Templeton’s cousin, isn’t it? One sees the likeness,” said Octavius. “Yes, he was. He came into the hall and tried to say something pleasant, poor man.”

“So did the others,” Anelida said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t as responsive as I ought to have been. I — we just walked out.”

“And Richard Dakers walked out after you?”

“Yes,” she said. “He did. And I went off to my room and wouldn’t see him. Which is so awful.”

“So what did he do?” Alleyn asked Octavius.

“Do? Dakers? He was in a great taking-on. I felt sorry for him. Angry, you know, with her. He said a lot of hasty, unpleasant things which I feel sure he didn’t mean.”

“What sort of things?”

“Oh!” Octavius said. “It was, as far as I recollect, to the effect that Mrs. Templeton had ruined his life. All very extravagant and ill-considered. I was sorry to hear it.”

“Did he say what he meant to do when he left here?”

“Yes, indeed. He said he was going back to have it out with her. Though how he proposed to do anything of the sort in the middle of a party, one can’t imagine. I went to the door with him, trying to calm him down, and I saw him go into the house.”

“And that was the last you saw of him?”

“In point of fact, yes. The telephone rang at that moment. It’s in the back room as you’ll remember. I answered it and when I returned here I thought for a moment he had done so, too. I suppose because he was so much in my mind.”

Anelida made a small ejaculation, but her uncle went on:

“A ludicrous mistake. It was dark in here by then — very — and he was standing in silhouette against the windows. I said, ‘My dear chap, what now?’ or something of that sort, and he turned and then, of course, I saw it was Colonel Warrender, you know.”

“What had he come for?” Anelida asked rather desperately.

“Well, my dear, I suppose on behalf of his cousin and to repeat his vicarious apologies and to attempt an explanation. I felt it much better to make as little of the affair as possible. After all we don’t know Warrender and in any case it was really nothing to do with him. He meant very well, no doubt. I was, I hope, perfectly civil, but I got rid of him in a matter of seconds.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “I see. To sidetrack for a moment, I suppose you’re by way of being an authority on Victorian tinsel pictures, aren’t you? Do you go in for them? I seem to remember…”

“How very odd!” Octavius exclaimed. “My dear fellow, I sold one this morning to young Dakers, as a birthday present for — oh, well, there you are! — for his guardian.”

“Madame Vestris?”

“You saw it then? Charming, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Charming.”

Anelida had been watching Alleyn, as he was well aware, very closely. She now asked him the question he had expected.

“Mr. Alleyn,” Anelida said. “Do you think it was not an accident?”

He gave her the inevitable answer. “We don’t know. We’re not sure.”

“But what do you believe? In your heart? I must know. I won’t do anything silly or make a nuisance of myself. Do you believe she was murdered?”

Alleyn said, “I’m afraid I do, Anelida.”

“Have you told Richard?”

“Not in so many words.”

“But he guessed?”

“I don’t know,” Alleyn said carefully, “what he thought. I’ve left him to himself for a little.”

“Why?”

“He’s had a very bad shock. He fainted.”

She looked steadily at him and then with a quick collected movement rose to her feet.

“Unk,” she said, “don’t wait up for me and don’t worry.”

“My dear girl,” he said, in a fluster, “what do you mean? Where are you going?”

“To Richard,” she said. “Where else? Of course to Richard.”