False Scent

Chapter seven Re-entry of Mr. Marchant

The scent-spray, the bottle and the Slaypest tin had assumed star-quality. There they stood in a neat row, three inarticulate objects, thrust into the spotlight. They might have been so many stagehands, yanked out of their anonymity and required to give an account of themselves before an unresponsive audience. They met with a frozen reception.

Timon Gantry was the first to speak. “Have you,” he asked, “any argument to support your extraordinary assumption?”

“I have,” Alleyn rejoined, “but I don’t propose to advance it in detail. You might call it a reductio ad absurdum. Nothing else fits. One hopes,” he added, “that a chemical analysis of the scent-spray will do something to support it. The supposition is based on a notion that while Mrs. Templeton had very little reason, after what seems to have been a stormy interview, to deluge her plants and herself with insecticide, she may more reasonably be pictured as taking up her scent-spray, and using that.”

“Not full on her face,” Bertie said unexpectedly. “She’d never use it on her face. Not directly. Not after she was made-up. Would she, Pinky? Pinky — would she?”

But Pinky was not listening to him. She was watching Alleyn.

“Well, anyway,” Bertie said crossly. “She wouldn’t.”

“Oh yes she would, Mr. Saracen,” Florence said tartly. “And did. Quite regular. Standing far enough off to get the fine spray only, which was what she done, as the Colonel and Mr. Templeton will bear me out, this afternoon.”

“The point,” Alleyn said, “is well taken, but it doesn’t, I think, affect the argument. Shall we leave it for the time being? I’m following, by the way, a very unorthodox line over this inquiry and I see no reason for not telling you why. Severally, I believe you will all go on withholding information that may be crucial. Together I have hopes that you may find these tactics impracticable.” And while they still gaped at him he added, “I may be wrong about this, of course, but it does seem to me that each of you, with one exception, is most mistakenly concealing something. I say mistakenly because I don’t for a moment believe that there has been any collusion in this business. I believe that one of you, under pressure of an extraordinary emotional upheaval, has acted in a solitary and an extraordinary way. It’s my duty to find out who this person is. So let’s press on, shall we?” He looked at Charles. “There’s a dictionary of poisons in Mr. Dakers’s former study. I believe it belongs to you, sir.”

Charles lifted a hand, saw that it trembled, and lowered it again. “Yes,” he said. “I bought it a week ago. I wanted to look up plant sprays.”

“Oh my goodness me!” Bertie ejaculated and stared at him. There was a general shocked silence.

“This specific spray?” Alleyn asked, pointing to the Slaypest.

“Yes. It gives the formula. I wanted to look it up.”

“For God’s sake, Charles,” Warrender exclaimed, “why the devil can’t you make yourself understood?” Charles said nothing and he waved his hands at Alleyn. “He was worried about the damned muck!” he said. “Told Mary. Showed it…”

“Yes?” Alleyn said as he came to a halt. “Showed it to whom’/”

“To me, blast it! We’d been trying to persuade her not to use the stuff. Gave it to me to read.”

“Did you read it?”

“ ’Course I did. Lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo but it showed how dangerous it was.”

“What did you do with the book?”

“Do with it? I dunno. Yes, I do, though. I gave it to Florence. Asked her to get Mary to look at it. Didn’t I, Florence?”

“I don’t,” said Florence, “remember anything about it, sir. You might have.”

“Please try to remember,” Alleyn said. “Did you, in fact, show the book to Mrs. Templeton?”

“Not me. She wouldn’t have given me any thanks.” She turned round in her chair and looked at Old Ninn. “I remember now. I showed it to Mrs. Plumtree. Gave it to her.”

“Well, Ninn? What did you do with the book?”

Old Ninn glared at him. “Put it by,” she said. “It was unwholesome.”

“Where?”

“I don’t recollect.”

“In the upstairs study?”

“Might have been. I don’t recollect.”

“So much for the book,” Alleyn said wryly and turned to Warrender. “You, sir, tell us that you actually used the scent-spray, lavishly, on Mrs. Templeton before the party. There were no ill-effects. What did you do after that?”

“Do? Nothing. I went out.”

“Leaving Mr. and Mrs. Templeton alone together?”

“Yes. At least…” His eyes slewed round to look at her. “There was Florence.”

“No, there wasn’t. If you’ll pardon my mentioning it, sir,” Florence again intervened. “I left, just after you did, not being required any further.”

“Do you agree?” Alleyn asked Charles Templeton. He drew his hand across his eyes.

“I? Oh yes. I think so.”

“Do you mind telling me what happened then? Between you and your wife?”

“We talked for a moment or two. Not long.” ”

“About?”

“I asked her not to use the scent. I’m afraid I was in a temper about it.” He glanced at Pinky. I’m sorry, Pinky, I just — didn’t like it. I expect my taste is hopelessly old-fashioned.”

“That’s all right, Charles. My God,” Pinky added in a low voice, “I never want to smell it again, myself, as long as I live.”

“Did Mrs. Templeton agree not to use it again?”

“No,” he said at once. “She didn’t. She thought me unreasonable.”

“Did you talk about anything else?”

“About nothing that I care to recall.”

“Is that final?”

“Final,” Charles said.

“Did it concern, in some way, Mr. Dakers and Colonel Warrender?”

“Damn it!” Warrender shouted. “He’s said he’s not going to tell you, isn’t it!”

“It did concern them,” Charles said.

“Where did you go when this conversation ended?”

“I went downstairs to my study. Richard came in at about that time and was telephoning. We stayed there until the first guests arrived.”

“And you, Colonel Warrender? Where were you at this time? What did you do when you left the bedroom?”

“Ah — I was in the drawing-room. She — ah — Mary— came in. She wanted a re-arrangement of the tables. Gracefield and the other fella did it and she and I had a drink.”

“Did she seem quite herself, did you think?”

“Rather nervy. Bit on edge.”

“Why?”

“Been a trying day, isn’t it?”

“Anything in particular?”

He glanced at Richard. “No,” he said. “Nothing else.”

Fox returned. “Mr. Marchant will be here in about a quarter of an hour, sir,” he said.

There were signs of consternation from Pinky, Bertie and Timon Gantry.

“Right.” Alleyn got up, walked to the far end of the table and picked up the crumpled paper that still lay where Richard had thrown it down. “I must ask Colonel Warrender and Mr. Dakers to give me a word or two in private. Perhaps we may use the study.”

They both rose with the same abrupt movement and followed him from the room, stiffly erect.

He ushered them into the study and turned to Fox who had come into the hall.

“I’d better take this one solus, I think, Fox. Will you get the exhibits sent at once for analysis. Say it’s first priority and we’re looking for a trace of Slaypest in the scent-spray.They needn’t expect to find more than a trace, I fancy. I want the result as soon as possible. Then go back to the party in there. See you later.”

In Charles Templeton’s study, incongruously friendly and comfortable, Warrender and Richard Dakers faced Alleyn, still not looking at each other.

Alleyn said, “I’ve asked you in here, without witnesses, to confirm or deny the conclusion I have drawn from the case-history, as far as it goes. Which is not by any means all the way. If I’m wrong, one or both of you can have a shot at knocking me down or hitting me across the face or performing any other of the conventional gestures. But I don’t advise you to try.”

They stared at him apparently in horrified astonishment.

“Well,” he said, “here goes. My idea, such as it is, based on this business of the letter, which, since you seem to accept my pot shot at it, runs like this.”

He smoothed out the crumpled sheet of paper. “It’s pieced together, by the way,” he said, “from the impression left on the blotting-paper.” He looked at Richard. “The original was written, I believe, by you to Mrs. Templeton when you returned, finally, to the house. I’m going to read this transcription aloud. If it’s wrong anywhere, I hope you’ll correct me.”

Warrender said, “There’s no need.”

“Perhaps not. Would you prefer to show me the original?”

With an air of diffidence that sat very ill on him, Warrender appealed to Richard. “Whatever you Say,” he muttered.

Richard said, “Very well! Go on. Go on. Show him.”

Warrender put his hand inside his coat and drew out an envelope. He dropped it on Charles Templeton’s desk, crossed to the fireplace and stood there with his back turned to them.

Alleyn picked up the envelope. The word “Mary” was written on it in green ink. He took out the enclosure and laid his transcription beside it on the desk. As he read it through to himself the room seemed monstrously quiet. The fire settled in the grate. A car or two drove past and the clock in the hall told the half-hour.

He folded the two papers and put them aside. “So they do correspond,” he said. “And the handwriting is Mr. Dakers’s.”

Neither Richard nor Warrender moved or spoke’.

“I think,” Alleyn said, “that when you came back for the last time, you went up to your study and wrote this letter with the intention of putting it under her door. When you were about to do so you heard voices in the room, since two of my men were working there. So you came downstairs and were prevented from going out by the constable on duty. It was then that you came into the room where I was interviewing the others. The letter was in your breast pocket. You wanted to get rid of it and you wanted Colonel Warrender to know what was in it. So you passed it to him when you were lying on the sofa in the drawing-room. Do you agree?”

Richard nodded and turned away.

“This evening,” Alleyn went on, “after Mr. Dakers left the Pegasus Bookshop, you, Colonel Warrender, also paid a call on Octavius Browne. Dusk had fallen but you were standing in the window when Octavius came in and seeing you against it he mistook you for his earlier visitor, who he thought must have returned. He was unable to say why he made this mistake, but I think I can account for it. Your heads are very much the same shape. The relative angles and distances from hairline to the top of the nose, from there to the tip and from the tip to the chin are almost identical. Seen in silhouette with the other features obliterated, your profiles must be strikingly alike. In full-face the resemblance disappears. Colonel Warrender has far greater width and a heavier jawline.”

“In these respects,” he said, “Mr. Dakers, I think, takes after his mother.”

“Well,” Alleyn said at last, after a long silence, “I’m glad, at least, that it seems I am not going to be knocked down.”

Warrender said, “I’ve nothing to say. Unless it’s to point out that, as things have come about, I’ve had no opportunity to speak to”—he lifted his head—“to my son.”

Richard said, “I don’t want to discuss it. I should have been told from the beginning.”

“Whereas,” Alleyn said, “you were told, weren’t you, by your mother this afternoon. You went upstairs with her when you returned from the Pegasus and she told you then.”

“Why!” Warrender cried out. “Why, why, why!”

“She was angry,” Richard said. “With me.” He looked at Alleyn. “You’ve heard or guessed most of it, apparently. She thought I’d conspired against her.”

“Yes?”

“Well — that’s all. That’s how it was.”

Alleyn waited. Richard drove his hands through his hair. “All right!” he cried out. “All right! I’ll tell you. I suppose I’ve got to, haven’t I? She accused me of ingratitude and disloyalty. I said I considered I owed her no more than I had already paid. I wouldn’t have said that if she hadn’t insulted Anelida. Then she came quite close to me and — it was horrible — I could see a nerve jumping under her cheek. She kept repeating that I owed her everything — everything, and that I’d insulted her by going behind her back. Then I said she’d no right to assume a controlling interest in either my friendships or my work. She said she had every right. And then it all came out. Everything. It happened because of our anger. We were both very angry. When she’d told me, she laughed as if she’d scored with the line of climax in a big scene. If she hadn’t done that I might have felt some kind of compassion or remorse or something. I didn’t. I felt cheated and sick and empty. I went downstairs and out into the streets and walked about trying to find an appropriate emotion. There was nothing but a sort of faint disgust.” He moved away and then turned to Alleyn. “But I didn’t murder my”—he caught his breath—“my brand-new mother. I’m not, it appears, that kind of bastard.”

Warrender said, “For God’s sake, Dicky!”

“Just for the record,” Richard said, “were there two people called Dakers? A young married couple, killed in a car on the Riviera? Australians, I’ve always been given to understand.”

“It’s — it’s a family name. My mother was a Dakers.”

“I see,” Richard said. “I just wondered. It didn’t occur to you to marry her, evidently.” He stopped short and a look of horror crossed his face. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he cried out. “Forgive me, Maurice, it wasn’t I who said that.”

“My dear chap, of course I wanted to marry her. She wouldn’t have it! She was at the beginning of her career. What could I give her? A serving ensign on a very limited allowance. She — naturally — she wasn’t prepared to throw up her career and follow the drum.”

“And — Charles?”

“He was in a different position. Altogether.”

“Rich? Able to keep her in the style to which she would like to become accustomed?”

“There’s no need,” Warrender muttered, “to put it like that.”

“Poor Charles!” Richard said and then suddenly, “Did he know?”

Warrender turned a painful crimson. “No,” he said. “It was — it was all over by then.”

“Did he believe in the Dakers story?”

“I think,” Warrender said after a pause, “he believed everything Mary told him.”

“Poor Charles!” Richard repeated, and then turned on Alleyn. “He’s not going to be told? Not now! It’d kill him. There’s no need — is there?”

“None,” Alleyn said, “that I can see.”

“And you!” Richard demanded of Warrender.

“Oh for God’s sake, Dicky!”

“No. Naturally. Not you.”

There was a long silence.

“I remember,” Richard said at last, “that she once told me it was you who brought them together. What ambivalent roles you both contrived to play. Restoration comedy at its most elaborate.”

Evidently they had forgotten Alleyn. For the first time they looked fully at each other.

“Funny,” Richard said. “I have wondered if Charles was my father. Some pre-marital indiscretion, I thought it might have been. I fancied I saw a likeness — the family one, of course. You and Charles are rather alike, aren’t you? I must say I never quite believed in the Dakers. But why did it never occur to me that she was my mother? It really was very clever of her to put herself so magnificently out of bounds.”

“I don’t know,” Warrender exclaimed, “what to say to you. There’s nothing I can say.”

“Never mind.”

“It need make no difference. To your work. Or to your marrying.”

“I really don’t know how Anelida will feel about it. Unless…” He turned, as if suddenly aware of him, to Alleyn. “Unless, of course, Mr. Alleyn is going to arrest me for matricide, which will settle everything very neatly, won’t it?”

“I shouldn’t,” Alleyn said, “depend upon it. Suppose you set about clearing yourself if you can. Can you?”

“How the hell do I know? What am I supposed to have done?”

“It’s more a matter of finding out what you couldn’t have done. Where did you lunch? Here?”

“No. At the Garrick. It was a business luncheon.”

“And after that?”

“I went to my flat and did some work. I’d got a typist in.”

“Until when?”

“Just before six. I was waiting for a long-distance call from Edinburgh. I kept looking at the time because I was running late. I was meant to be here at six to organize the drinks. At last I fixed it up for the call to be transferred to this number. As it was I ran late and Mary — and she was coming downstairs. The call came through at a quarter to seven just as I arrived.”

“Where did you take it?”

“Here in the study. Charles was there. He looked ill and I was worried about him. He didn’t seem to want to talk. I kept getting cut off. It was important, and I had to wait. She — wasn’t very pleased about that. The first people were arriving when I’d finished.”

“So what did you do?”

“Went into the drawing-room with Charles and did my stuff.”

“Had you brought her some Parma violets?”

“I? No. She hated violets.”

“Did you see them in her room?”

“I didn’t go up to her room. I’ve told you — I was here in the study.”

“When had you last been in her room?”

“This morning.”

“Did you visit it between then and the final time when you returned from the Pegasus and this disturbing scene took place?”

“I’ve told you. How could I? I…” His voice changed. “I was with Anelida until she left and I followed her into the Pegasus.”

“Well,” Alleyn said after a pause, “if all this is provable, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be, you’re in the clear.”

Warrender gave a sharp outcry and turned quickly, but Richard said flatly, “I don’t understand.”

“If our reading of the facts is the true one, this crime was to all intents and purposes committed between the time (somewhere about six o’clock) when Mrs. Templeton was sprayed with scent by Colonel Warrender and the time fixed by a press photographer at twenty-five minutes to eight, when she returned to her room with you. She never left her room and died in it a few minutes after you had gone.”

Richard flinched at the last phrase but seemed to have paid little attention to the earlier part. For the first time, he was looking at his father, who had turned his back to them.

“Colonel Warrender,” Alleyn said, “why did you go to the Pegasus?”

Without moving he said, “Does it matter? I wanted to get things straight. With the gel.”

“But you didn’t see her?”

“No.”

“Maurice,” Richard said abruptly.

Colonel Warrender faced him.

“I call you that still,” Richard went on. “I suppose it’s not becoming, but I can’t manage anything else. There are all sorts of adjustments to be arranged, aren’t there? I know I’m not making this easy for either of us. You see one doesn’t know how one’s meant to behave. But I hope in time to do better: you’ll have to give me time.”

“I’ll do that,” Warrender said unevenly.

He made a slight movement as if to hold out his hand, glanced at Alleyn and withdrew it.

“I think,” Alleyn said, “that I should get on with my job. I’ll let you knew when we need you.”

And he went out, leaving them helplessly together.

In the hall he encountered Fox.

“Peculiar party in there,” he said. “Boy meets father. Both heavily embarrassed. They manage these things better in France. What goes on at your end of the table?”

“I came out to tell you, sir. Mr. Templeton’s come over very poorly again, and Dr. Harkness thinks he’s had about as much as he can take. He’s lying down in the drawing-room, but as soon as he can manage it the doctor wants to get him into bed. The idea is to make one up in his study and save the stairs. I thought the best thing would be to let those two — Florence and Mrs. Plumtree — fix it up. The doctor’ll help him when the time comes.”

“Yes. All right. What a hell of a party this is, by and large. All right. But they’ll have to bung the mixed-up playwright and his custom-built poppa out of it. Where? Into mama-deceased’s boudoir, I suppose. Or they can rejoin that goon-show round the dining-room table. I don’t know. Nobody tells me a thing. What else?”

“None of them will own up to knowing anything about the Parma violets. They all say she had no time for violets.”

“Blast and stink! Then who the devil put them on her dressing-table? The caterer in a fit of frustrated passion? Why the devil should we be stuck with a bunch of Parma violets wilting on our plates.”

Like Scheherazade, Fox discreetly fell silent.

“Pardon me, sir, but did I hear you mention violets?”

It was Gracefield, wan in the countenance, who had emerged from the far end of the hall.

“You did indeed,” Alleyn said warmly.

“If it is of any assistance, sir, a bunch of violets was brought in immediately prior to the reception. I admitted the gentleman myself, sir, and he subsequently presented them to madam on the first floor landing.”

“You took his name, I hope, Gracefield?”

“Quite so, sir. It was the elderly gentleman from the bookshop. The name is Octavius Browne.”

“And what the merry hell,” Alleyn ejaculated when Gracefield had withdrawn, “did Octavius think he was up to, prancing about with violets at that hour of the day? Damnation, I’ll have to find out, and Marchant’s due any minute. Come on.”

They went out at the front door. Light still glowed behind the curtains at the Pegasus.

“You hold the fort here, Fox, for five minutes. Let them get Templeton settled down in the study, and if Marchant turns up, keep him till I’m back. Don’t put him in with that horde of extroverts in the dining-room. Save him up. What a go!”

He rang the bell and Octavius opened the door.

“You again!” he said. “How late! I thought you were Anelida.”

“Well, I’m not and I’m sorry it’s late, but you’ll have to let me in.”

“Very well,” Octavius said, standing aside. “What’s up, now?”

“Why,” Alleyn asked, as soon as the door was shut, “did you take violets to Mrs. Templeton?”

Octavius blushed. “A man with a handcart,” he said, “went past the window. They came from the Channel Islands.”

“I don’t give a damn where they came from. It’s where they went to that matters. When did the cart go past?”

Octavius, disconcerted and rather huffy, was bustled into telling his story. Anelida had sent him downstairs while she got ready for the party. He was fretful because they’d been asked for half-past six and it was now twenty-five to seven and he didn’t believe her story of the need to arrive late. He saw the handcart with the Parma violets and remembered that in his youth these flowers had been considered appropriate adjuncts to ladies of the theatre. So he went out and bought some. He then, Alleyn gathered, felt shy about presenting them in front of Anelida. The door of Miss Bellamy’s house was open. The butler was discernible in the hall. Octavius mounted the steps. “After all,” he said, “one preferred to give her the opportunity of attaching them in advance if she chose to do so.”

He was in the act of handing them over to Gracefield when he heard a commotion on the first landing and a moment later Miss Bellamy shouted out at the top of her voice. “Which only shows how wrong you were. You can get out whenever you like, my friend, and the sooner the better.”

For a moment Octavius was extremely flustered, imagining that he himself was thus addressed, but the next second she appeared above him on the stairs. She stopped short and gazed down at him in astonishment. “A vision,” Octavius said. “Rose-coloured or more accurately, geranium, but with the air, I must confess, of a Fury.”

This impression, however, was almost at once dissipated. Miss Bellamy seemed to hesitate, Gracefield murmured an explanation which Octavius himself elaborated. “And then, you know,” he said, “suddenly she was all graciousness. Overwhelmingly so. She”—he blushed again—“asked me to come up and I went. I presented my little votive offering. And then, in point of fact, she invited me into her room: a pleasing and Gallic informality. I was not unmoved by it. She laid the flowers on her dressing-table and told me she had just given an old bore the sack. Those were her words. I gathered that it was somebody who had been in her service for a long period. What did you say?”

“Nothing, Go on. You interest me strangely.”

“Do I? Well. At that juncture there were sounds of voices downstairs — the door, naturally, remained open — and she said, ‘Wait a moment, will you?’ And left me.”

“Well?” Alleyn said after a pause.

“Well, I did wait. Nothing happened. I bethought me of Nelly, who would surely be ready by now. Rightly or wrongly,” Octavius said, with a sidelong look at Alleyn, “I felt that Nelly would be not entirely in sympathy with my impulsive little sortie and I was therefore concerned to return before I could be missed. So I went downstairs and there she was, speaking to Colonel Warrender in the drawing-room. They paid no attention to me. I don’t think they saw me. Warrender, I thought, looked very much put out. There seemed nothing to do but go away. So I went. A curious and not unintriguing experience.”

“Thank you, Octavius,” Alleyn said, staring thoughtfully at him. “Thank you very much. And now I, too, must leave you. Good-night.”

As he went out he heard Octavius saying rather fretfully that he supposed he might as well go to bed.

A very grand car had drawn up outside Miss Bellamy’s house and Mr. Montague Marchant was climbing out of it. His blond head gleamed, his overcoat was impeccable and his face exceedingly pale.

“Wait,” he said to his chauffeur.

Alleyn introduced himself. The anticipated remark was punctually delivered.

“This is a terrible business,” said Mr. Marchant.

“Very bad,” Alleyn said. “Shall we go in?”

Fox was in the hall.

“I just don’t quite understand,” Marchant said, “why I’ve been sent for. Naturally, we — her management — want to give every assistance but at the same time…” He waved his pearly gloves.

Alleyn said, “It’s simple. There are one or two purely business matters to be settled and it looks as if you are our sole authority.”

“I should have thought…”

“Of course you would,” Alleyn rejoined. “But there is some need for immediate action. Miss Bellamy has been murdered.”

Marchant unsteadily passed his hand over the back of his head. “I don’t believe you,” he said.

“You may as well, because it happens to be true. Would you like to take your coat off? No? Then, shall we go in?”

Fox said, “We’ve moved into the drawing-room, sir, it being more comfortable. The doctor is with Mr. Templeton but will be coming in later.”

“Where’s Florence?”

“She helped Mrs. Plumtree with the bed-making and they’re both waiting in the boudoir in case required.”

“Right. In here, if you will, Mr. Marchant. I’ll just have a look at the patient and then I’ll join you.”

He opened the door. After a moment’s hesitation, Marchant went through and Fox followed him.

Alleyn went to the study, tapped on the door and went in.

Charles was in bed, looking very drawn and anxious. Dr. Harkness sat in a chair at a little distance, watching him. When he saw Alleyn he said, “We can’t have any further upsets.”

“I know,” Alleyn rejoined and walked over to the bed. “I’ve only come in to inquire,” he said.

Charles whispered, “I’m sorry about this. I’m all right. I could have carried on.”

“There’s no need. We can manage.”

“There you are, Charles,” Harkness said. “Stop fussing.”

“But I want to know, Harkness! How can I stop fussing! My God, what a thing to say! I want to know what they’re thinking and saying. I’ve a right to know. Alleyn, for God’s sake tell me. You don’t suspect — anyone close to her, do you? I can stand anything but that. Not — not the boy?”

“As things stand,” Alleyn said, “there’s no case against him.”

“Ah!” Charles sighed and closed his eyes. “Thank God for that.” He moved restlessly and his breath came short. “It’s all these allusions and hints and evasions…” he began excitedly. “Why can’t I be told things! Why not? Do you suspect me! Do you? Then for Christ’s sake let’s have it and be done with it.”

Harkness came over to the bed. “This won’t do at all,” he said and to Alleyn, “Out.”

“Yes, of course,” Alleyn said and went out. He heard Charles panting, “But I want to talk to him,” and Harkness trying to reassure him.

When Marchant went into the drawing-room Timon Gantry, Colonel Warrender, Pinky Cavendish and Bertie Saracen were sitting disconsolately in armchairs before a freshly tended fire. Richard and Anelida were together at some remove from the others and P.C. Philpott attended discreetly in the background. When Marchant came in, Pinky and Bertie made a little dash at him and Richard stood up. Marchant kissed Pinky with ritual solemnity, squeezed Bertie’s arm, nodded at Gantry, and advanced upon Richard with soft extended hand.

“Dear boy!” he said. “What can one say! Oh my dear Dicky!”

Richard appeared, to permit, rather than return, a long pressure of his hand. Marchant added a manly grip of his shoulder and moved on to acknowledge, more briefly, Anelida and Colonel Warrender. His prestige was unmistakable. He said any number of highly appropriate things. They listened to him dolefully and appeared to be relieved when at last Alleyn came in.

Alleyn said, “Before going any further, Mr. Marchant, I think I should make it quite clear that any questions I may put to you will be raised with the sole object of clearing innocent persons of suspicion and of helping towards the solution of an undoubted case of homicide. Mary Bellamy has been murdered; I believe by someone who is now in this house. You will understand that matters of personal consideration or professional reticence can’t be allowed to obstruct an investigation of this sort. Any attempt to withhold information may have disastrous results. On the other hand information that turns out to be irrelevant, as yours, of course, may, will be entirely wiped out. Is that understood?”

Gantry said, “In my opinion, Monty, we should take legal advice.”

Marchant looked thoughtfully at him.

“You are at liberty to do so,” Alleyn said. “You are also at liberty to refuse to answer to any or all questions until the arrival of your solicitor. Suppose you hear the questions and then decide.”

Marchant examined his hands, lifted his gaze to Alleyn’s face and said, “What are they?”

There was a restless movement among the others.

“First. What exactly was Mrs. Templeton’s, or perhaps in this connection I should say Miss Bellamy’s, position in the firm of Marchant & Company?”

Marchant raised his eyebrows. “A leading and distinguished artist who played exclusively for our management.”

“Any business connection other than that?”

“Certainly,” he said at once. “She had a controlling interest.”

“Monty!” Bertie cried out.

“Dear boy, an examination of our shareholders list would give it.”

“Has she held this position for some time?”

“Since 1956. Before that it was vested in her husband, but he transferred his holdings to her in that year.”

“I had no idea he had financial interests in the theatre world.”

“These were his only ones, I believe. After the war we were in considerable difficulties. Like many other managements we were threatened with a complete collapse. You may say that he saved us.”

“In taking this action was he influenced by his wife’s connections with the Management?”

“She brought the thing to his notice, but fundamentally I should say he believed in the prospect of our recovery and expansion. In the event he proved to be fully justified.”

“Why did he transfer his share to her, do you know?”

“I don’t know, but I can conjecture. His health is precarious. He’s — he was — a devoted husband. He may have been thinking of death duties.”

“Yes, I see.”

Marchant said, “It’s so warm in here,” and unbuttoned his overcoat. Fox helped him out of it. He sat down, very elegantly and crossed his legs. The others watched him anxiously.

The door opened and Dr. Harkness came in. He nodded at Alleyn and said, “Better, but he’s had as much as he can take.”

“Anyone with him?”

“The old nurse. He’ll settle down now. No more visits, mind.”

“Right.”

Dr. Harkness sat heavily on the sofa and Alleyn turned again to Marchant.

“Holding, as you say, a controlling interest,” he said, “she must have been a power to reckon with, as far as other employees of the Management were concerned.”

The lids drooped a little over Marchant’s very pale eyes. “I really don’t think I follow you,” he said.

“She was, everyone agrees, a temperamental woman. For instance, this afternoon, we are told, she cut up very rough indeed. In the conservatory.”

The heightened tension of his audience could scarcely have been more apparent if they’d begun to twang like bow-strings, but none of them spoke.

“She would throw a temperament,” Marchant said coolly, “if she felt the occasion for it.”

“And she felt the occasion in this instance?”

“Quite so.”

“Suppose, for the sake of argument, she had pressed for the severance of some long-standing connection with your management? Would she have carried her point?”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow that either.”

“I’ll put it brutally. If she’d demanded that you sign no more contracts with, say, Mr. Gantry or Mr. Saracen or Miss Cavendish, would you have had to toe the line?”

“I would have talked softly and expected her to calm down.”

“But if she’d stuck to it?” Alleyn waited for a moment and then took his risk. “Come,” he said. “She did issue an ultimatum this afternoon.”

Saracen scrambled to his feet. “There!” he shouted. “What did I tell you! Somebody’s blown the beastly gaff and now we’re to suffer for it. I said we should talk first, ourselves, and be frank and forthcoming and see how right I was!”

Gantry said, “For God’s sake hold your tongue, Bertie.”

“What do we get for holding our tongues’?” He pointed to Warrender. “We get an outsider giving the whole thing away with both hands. I bet you, Timmy. I bet you anything you like.”

“Utter balderdash!” Warrender exclaimed. “I don’t know what you think you’re talking about, Saracen.”

“Oh pooh! You’ve told the Inspector or Commander or Great Panjandrum or whatever he is. You’ve told him.”

“On the contrary,” Gantry said, “you’ve told him yourself. You fool, Bertie.”

Pinky Cavendish, in what seemed to be an agony of exasperation, cried out, “Oh why, for God’s sake, can’t we all admit we’re no good at this sort of hedging! I can! Freely and without prejudice to the rest of you, if that’s what you’re all afraid of. And what’s more, I’m going to. Look here, Mr. Alleyn, this is what happened to me in the conservatory. Mary accused me of conspiring against her and told Monty it was either her or me as far as the Management was concerned. Just that. And if it really came to the point I can assure you it’d be her and not me. You know, Monty, and we all know, that with her name and star-ranking, Mary was worth a damn sight more than me at the box-office and in the firm. All right! This very morning you’d handed me my first real opportunity with the Management. She was well able, if she felt like it, to cook my goose. But I’m no more capable of murdering her than I am of taking her place with her own particular public. And when you hear an actress admit that kind of thing,” Pinky added, turning to Alleyn, “you can bet your bottom dollar she’s talking turkey.”

Alleyn said, “Produce this sort of integrity on the stage, Miss Cavendish, and nobody will be able to cook your goose for you.” He looked round at Pinky’s deeply perturbed audience, “Has anybody got anything to add to this?” he added.

After a pause, Richard said, “Only that I’d like to endorse what Pinky said and to add that, as you and everybody else know, I was just as deeply involved as she. More so.”

“Dicky darling!” Pinky said warmly. “No! Where you are now! Offer a comedy on the open market and watch the managements bay like ravenous wolves.”

“Without Mary?” Marchant asked of nobody in particular.

“It’s quite true,” Richard said, “that I wrote specifically for Mary.”

“Not always. And no reason,” Gantry intervened, “why you shouldn’t write now for somebody else.” Once again he bestowed his most disarming smile on Anelida.

“Why not indeed!” Pinky cried warmly and laid her hand on Anelida’s.

“Ah!” Richard said, putting his arm about her. “That’s another story. Isn’t it, darling?”

Wave after wave of unconsidered gratitude flowed through Anelida. “These are my people,” she thought. “I’m in with them for the rest of my life.”

“The fact remains, however,” Gantry was saying to Alleyn, “that Bertie, Pinky, and Richard all stood to lose by Mary’s death. A point you might care to remember.”

“Oh lawks!” Bertie said. “Aren’t we all suddenly generous and noble-minded! Everybody loves everybody! Safety in numbers, or so they say. Or do they?”

“In this instance,” Alleyn said, “they well might.” He turned to Marchant. “Would you agree that, with the exception of her husband, yourself and Colonel Warrender, Miss Bellamy issued some kind of ultimatum against each member of the group in the conservatory?”

“Would I?” Marchant said easily. “Well, yes. I think I would.”

“To the effect that it was either they or she and you could take your choice?”

“More or less,” he murmured, looking at his fingernails.

Gantry rose to his enormous height and stood over Marchant.

“It would be becoming in you, Monty,” he said dangerously, “if you acknowledged that as far as I enter into the picture the question of occupational anxiety does not arise. I choose my managements; they do not choose me.”

Marchant glanced at him. “Nobody questions your prestige, I imagine, Timmy. I certainly don’t.”

“Or mine, I hope,” said Bertie, rallying. “The offers I’ve turned down for the Management! Well, I mean to say! Face it, Monty dear, if Mary had bullied you into breaking off with Dicky and Timmy and Pinky and me, you’d have been in a very pretty pickle yourself.”

“I am not,” Marchant said, “a propitious subject for bullying.”

“No.” Bertie agreed. “Evidently.” And there followed a deadly little pause. “I’d be obliged to everybody,” he added rather breathlessly, “if they wouldn’t set about reading horrors of any sort into what was an utterly unmeaningful little observation.”

“In common,” Warrender remarked, “with the rest of your conversation.”

“Oh but what a catty big Colonel we’ve got!” Bertie said.

Marchant opened his cigarette case. “It seems,” he observed, “incumbent on me to point out that, unlike the rest of you, I am ignorant of the circumstances. After Mary’s death, I left the house at the request of—” he put a cigarette between his lips and turned his head slightly to look at Fox —“yes, at the request of this gentleman, who merely informed me that there had been a fatal accident. Throughout the entire time that Mary was absent until Florence made her announcement, I was in full view of about forty guests and those of you who had not left the drawing-room. I imagine I do not qualify for the star role.” He lit his cigarette. “Or am I wrong?” he asked Alleyn.

“As it turns out, Monty,” Gantry intervened, “you’re dead wrong. It appears that the whole thing was laid on before Mary went to her room.”

Marchant waited for a moment, and then said, “You astonish me.”

“Fancy!” Bertie exclaimed and added in an exasperated voice, “I do wish, oh how I do wish, dearest Monty, that you would stop being a parody of your smooth little self and get down to tin-tacks (why tin-tacks, one wonders?) and admit that, like all the rest of us, you qualify for the homicide stakes.”

“And what,” Alleyn asked, “have you got to say to that, Mr. Marchant?”

An uneven flush mounted over Marchant’s cheekbones. “Simply,” he said, “that I think everybody has, most understandably, become overwrought by this tragedy and that, as a consequence, a great deal of nonsense is being bandied about on all hands. And, as an afterthought, that I agree with Timon Gantry. I prefer to take no further part in this discussion until I have consulted my solicitor.”

“By all means,” Alleyn said. “Will you ring him up? The telephone is over there in the corner.”

Marchant leant a little further back in his chair. “I’m afraid that’s quite out of the question,” he said. “He lives in Buckinghamshire. I can’t possibly call him up at this time of night.”

“In that case you will give me your own address, if you please, and I shan’t detain you any longer.”

“My address is in the telephone book and I can assure you that you are not detaining me now nor are you likely to do so in the future.” He half-closed his eyes. “I resent,” he said, “the tone of this interview, but I prefer to keep observation — if that is the accepted police jargon — upon its sequel. I’ll leave when it suits me to do so.”

“You can’t,” Colonel Warrender suddenly announced in a parade-ground voice, “take that tone with the police, sir.”

“Can’t I?” Marchant murmured. “I promise you, my dear Colonel, I can take whatever tone I bloody well choose with whoever I bloody well like.”

Into the dead silence that followed this announcement, there intruded a distant but reminiscent commotion. A door slammed and somebody came running up the hall.

“My God, what now!” Bertie Saracen cried out. With the exception of Marchant and Dr. Harkness they were all on their feet when Florence, grotesque in tin curling pins, burst into the room.

In an appalling parody of her fatal entrance she stood there, mouthing at them.

Alleyn strode over to her and took her by the wrist. “What is it?” he said. “Speak up.”

And Florence, as if in moments of catastrophe she was in command of only one phrase, gabbled, “The doctor! Quick! For Christ’s sake! Is the doctor in the house!”