Final Curtain

CHAPTER XV New System

i

As Troy waited for Alleyn’s return her thoughts moved back through the brief period of their reunion. She examined one event, then another; a phrase, a gesture, an emotion. She was astonished by the simplicity of her happiness; amused to find herself expectant, even a little sleek. She was desired, she was loved, and she loved again. That there were hazards ahead she made no doubt, but for the moment all was well; she could relax and find a perspective.

Yet, like a rough strand in the texture of her happiness, there was an imperfection. Her thoughts, questing fingers, continually and reluctantly sought it out. This was Alleyn’s refusal to allow his work a place in their relationship. It was founded, she knew, in her own attitude during their earliest encounters which had taken place against a terrible background; in her shrinking from the part he played at that time and in her expressed horror of capital punishment.

Troy knew very well that Alleyn accepted these reactions as fundamental and implicit in her nature. She knew he did not believe that for her, in love, an ethic unrelated to that love could not impede it. It seemed to him that if his work occasionally brought murderers to execution, then surely, to her, he must at those times be of the same company as the hangman. Only by some miracle of love, he thought, did she overcome her repulsion.

But the bald truth, she told herself helplessly, was that her ideas were remote from her emotions. “I’m less sensitive than he thinks,” she said. “What he does is of no importance. I love him.” And although she disliked such generalities, she added: “I am a woman.”

It seemed to her that while this withdrawal existed they could not be completely happy. “Perhaps,” she thought, “this business with the Ancreds will, after all, change everything. Perhaps it’s a kind of beastly object lesson. I’m in it. He can’t keep me out. I’m in on a homicide case.” And with a sensation of panic she realized that she had been taking it for granted that the old man she had painted was murdered.

As soon as Alleyn came in and stood before her she knew that she had made no mistake. “Well, Rory,” she said, going to him, “we’re for it, aren’t we, darling?”

“It looks a bit like it.” He walked past her, saying quickly: “I’ll see the A.C. in the morning. He’ll let me hand over to someone else. Much better.”

“No,” Troy said, and he turned quickly and looked at her. She was aware, as if she had never before fully appreciated it, of the difference in their heights. She thought: “That’s how he looks when he’s taking statements,” and became nervous.

“No?” he said. “Why not?”

“Because it would be high-falutin, because it would make me feel an ass.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I look upon this case,” Troy said, and wished her voice would sound more normal, “as a sort of test. Perhaps it’s been sent to larn us like acts-of-God; only I must say I always think it’s so unfair to call earthquakes and tidal-waves acts-of-God and not bumper harvests and people like Leonardo and Cézanne.”

“What the devil,” Alleyn asked in a mild voice, “are you talking about?”

“Don’t snap at me,” said Troy. He made a quick movement towards her. “No. Please listen. I want, I really do want you to take this case as long as the A.C. lets you. I really want you to keep me with you this time. We’ve got in a muddle about me and your job. When I say I don’t mind your job you think I’m not telling the truth, and if I ask you questions about these kinds of cases you think I’m being a brave little woman and biting on the bullet.”

She saw his mouth twist in an involuntary smile.

“Whereas,” she hurried on, “I’m not. I know I didn’t relish having our courtship all muddled up with murder on the premises, and I know I don’t think people ought to hang other people. But you do, and you’re the policeman, not me. And it doesn’t do any good trying to pretend you’re dodging out to pinch a petty larcener when I know jolly well what you are up to, and, to be perfectly honest, am often dying to hear about it.”

“That’s not quite true, is it — the last bit?”

“I’d infinitely rather talk about it. I’d infinitely rather feel honestly shocked and upset with you, than vaguely worried all by myself.”

He held out a hand and she went to him. “That’s why I said I think this case has been sent to larn you.”

“Troy,” Alleyn said, “do you know what they say to their best girls in the antipodes?”

“No.”

“You’ll do me.”

“Oh!”

“You’ll do me, Troy.”

“I thought perhaps you’d prefer me to remain a shrinking violet.”

“The truth is, I’ve been a bloody fool and never did and never will deserve you.”

“Don’t,” said Troy, “let’s talk about deserving.”

“I’ve only one excuse and logically you’ll say it’s no excuse. Books about C.I.D. men will tell you that running a murderer to earth is just a job to us, as copping a pickpocket is to the ordinary P.C. It’s not. Because of its termination it’s unlike any other job in existence. When I was twenty-two I faced its implications and took it on, but I don’t think I fully realized them for another fifteen years and that was when I fell most deeply in love, my love, with you.”

“I’ve faced its implications, too, and once for all, over this Ancred business. Before you came in I even decided that it would be good for both of us if, by some freak, it turned out that I had a piece of information somewhere in the back of my memory that’s of vital importance.”

“You’d got as far as that?”

“Yes. And the queer thing is,” Troy said, driving her fingers through her hair, “I’ve got the most extraordinary conviction that somewhere in the back of my memory it is there, waiting to come out.”

ii

“I want you,” Alleyn said, “to tell me again, as fully as you possibly can, about your conversation with Sir Henry after he’d found the writing on the looking-glass and the grease-paint on the cat’s whiskers. If you’ve forgotten how it went at any particular stage, say so. But, for the love of Mike, darling, don’t elaborate. Can you remember?”

“I think so. Quite a lot, anyway. He was furious with Panty, of course.”

“He hadn’t a suspicion of the egregious Cedric?”

“None. Did Cedric—?”

“He did. He lisped out an admission.”

“Little devil,” said Troy. “So it was grease-paint on his fingernail.”

“And Sir Henry—?”

“He just went on and on about how much he’d doted on Panty and how she’d grieved him. I tried to persuade him she hadn’t done it, but he only made their family noise at me: ‘T’uh!’ you know?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Then he started to talk about marriages between first cousins and how he disapproved of them, and this got mixed up in no time with a most depressing account of how he was”—Troy swallowed and went on quickly“—was going to be embalmed. We actually mentioned the book. Then I think he sniffed a bit at Cedric as his heir, and said he’d never have children and that poor Thomas wouldn’t marry.”

“He was wrong there, I fancy.”

“No! Who?”

“The psychiatrist, or should it be ‘psychiatriste’?”

“Miss Able?”

“She thinks he’s quite satisfactorily sublimated his libido or something.”

“Oh, good! Well, and then as he would keep talking about when he was Gone, I tried to buck him up a bit and had quite a success. He turned mysterious and talked about there being surprises in store for everybody. And upon that Sonia Orrincourt burst in and said they were all plotting against her and she was frightened.”

“And that’s all?” Alleyn said after a pause.

“No — no, it isn’t. There was something else he said. Rory, I can’t remember what it was, but there was something else.”

“That was on Saturday the seventeenth, wasn’t it?”

“Let me see. I got there on the sixteenth. Yes. Yes, it was the next day. But I wish,” Troy said slowly, “I do wish I could remember the other thing he talked about.”

“Don’t try. It may come back suddenly.”

“Perhaps Miss Able could screw it out of me,” said Troy with a grin.

“In any case we’ll call it a day.”

As they moved away she linked her arm through his. “First instalment of the new system,” she said. “It’s gone off tolerably quietly, hasn’t it?”

“It has, my love. Thank you.”

“One of the things I like about you,” Troy said, “is your nice manners.”

iii

The next day was a busy one. The Assistant Commissioner, after a brisk interview with Alleyn, decided to apply for an exhumation order. “Sooner the better, I suppose. I was talking to the Home Secretary yesterday and told him we might be on his tracks. You’d better go right ahead.”

“To-morrow then, sir, if possible,” Alleyn said. “I’ll see Dr. Curtis.”

“Do.” And as Alleyn turned away: “By the way, Rory, if it’s at all difficult for Mrs. Alleyn—”

“Thank you very much, sir, but at the moment she’s taking it in her stride.”

“Splendid. Damn’ rum go — what?”

“Damn’ rum,” Alleyn agreed politely, and went to call on Mr. Rattisbon.

Mr. Rattisbon’s offices in the Strand had survived the pressure of the years, the blitz and the flying bomb. They were, as Alleyn remembered them on the occasion of his first official visit before the war, a discreetly active memorial to the style of Charles Dickens, with the character of Mr. Rattisbon himself written across them like an inscription. Here was the same clerk with his trick of slowly raising his head and looking dimly at the inquirer, the same break-neck stairs, the same dark smell of antiquity. And here, at last, shrined in leather, varnish and age was Mr. Rattisbon, that elderly legal bird, perched at his desk.

“Ah, yes, Chief Inspector,” Mr. Rattisbon gabbled, extending a claw at a modish angle, “come in, come in, sit down, sit down. Glad to see yer. M-m-maah!” And when Alleyn was seated Mr. Rattisbon darted the old glance at him, sharp as the point of a fine nib. “No trouble, I hope?” he said.

“The truth is,” Alleyn rejoined, “my visits only arise, I’m afraid, out of some sort of trouble.”

Mr. Rattisbon instantly hunched himself, placed his elbows on his desk and joined his finger-tips in front of his chin.

“I’ve come to ask about certain circumstances that relate to the late Sir Henry Ancred’s Will. Or Wills.”

Mr. Rattisbon vibrated the tip of his tongue between his lips, rather as if he had scalded it and hoped in this manner to cool it off. He said nothing.

“Without more ado,” Alleyn went on, “I must tell you that we are going to ask for an exhumation.”

After a considerable pause Mr. Rattisbon said: “This is exceedingly perturbing.”

“May I, before we go any further, say I do think that instead of coming to us with the story I’m about to relate, Sir Henry’s successors might have seen fit to consult their solicitor.”

“Thank yer.”

“I don’t know, sir, of course, how you would have advised them, but I believe that this visit must sooner or later have taken place. Here is the story.”

Twenty minutes later Mr. Rattisbon tipped himself back in his chair and gave a preparatory bay at the ceiling.

“Ma-m-ah!” he said. “Extraordinary. Disquieting. Very.”

“You will see that all this rigmarole seems to turn about two factors, (a) It was common knowledge in his household that Sir Henry Ancred was to be embalmed, (b) He repeatedly altered his Will, and on the eve of his death appears to have done so in favour of his intended wife, largely to the exclusion of his family and in direct contradiction to an announcement he made a couple of hours earlier. It’s here, I hope, Mr. Rattisbon, that you can help us.”

“I am,” said Mr. Rattisbon, “in an unusual, not to say equivocal, position. Um. As you have very properly noted, Chief Inspector, the correct procedure on the part of the family, particularly on the part of Sir Cedric Gaisbrooke Percival Ancred, would have been to consult this office. He has elected not to do so. In the event of a criminal action he will scarcely be able to avoid doing so. It appears that the general intention of the family is to discredit the position of the chief beneficiary and further to suggest that there is a case for a criminal charge against her. I refer, of course, to Miss Gladys Clark.”

“To whom?”

“—known professionally as Miss Sonia Orrincourt.”

“ ‘Gladys Clark,’ ” Alleyn said thoughtfully. “Well!”

“Now, as the solicitor for the estate, I am concerned in the matter. On consideration, I find no objection to giving you such information as you require. Indeed, I conceive it to be my professional duty to do so.”

“I’m extremely glad,” said Alleyn, who had known perfectly well that Mr. Rattisbon, given time, would arrive at precisely this decision. “Our principal concern at the moment is to discover whether Sir Henry Ancred actually concocted his last Will after he left the party on the eve of his death.”

“Emphatically no. It was drawn up, in this office, on Sir Henry’s instruction, on Thursday, the twenty-second of November of this year, together with a second document, which was the one quoted by Sir Henry as his last Will and Testament at his Birthday dinner.”

“This all sounds rather erratic.”

Mr. Rattisbon rapidly scratched his nose with the nail of his first finger. “The procedure,” he said, “was extraordinary, I ventured to say so at the time. Let me take these events in their order. On Tuesday, the twentieth November, Mrs. Henry Irving Ancred telephoned this office to the effect that Sir Henry Ancred wished me to call upon him immediately. It was most inconvenient, but the following day I went down to Ancreton. I found him in a state of considerable agitation and clothed — m-m-m-ah — in a theatrical costume. I understood that he had been posing for his portrait. May I add, in parentheses,” said Mr. Rattisbon with a bird-like dip of his head, “that although your wife was at Ancreton, I had not the pleasure of meeting her on that occasion. I enjoyed this privilege upon my later visit.”

“Troy told me.”

“It was the greatest pleasure. To return. On this first visit of Wednesday the twenty-first of November, Sir Henry Ancred showed me his rough drafts of two Wills. One moment.”

With darting movements, Mr, Rattisbon drew from his filing cabinet two sheafs of paper covered in a somewhat flamboyant script. He handed them to Alleyn. A glance showed him their nature. “Those are the drafts,” said Mr, Rattisbon. “He required me to engross two separate Wills based on these notes. I remarked that this procedure was unusual. He put it to me that he was unable to come to a decision regarding the — ah — the merits of his immediate relatives, and was, at the same time, contemplating a second marriage. His previous Will, in my opinion a reasonable disposition, he had already destroyed. He instructed me to bring these two new documents to Ancreton when I returned for the annual Birthday observances. The first was the Will witnessed and signed before the dinner and quoted by Sir Henry at dinner as his last Will and Testament. It was destroyed late that evening. The second is the document upon which we are at present empowered to act. It was signed and witnessed in Sir Henry Ancred’s bedroom at twelve-twenty that night — against, may I add, against my most earnest representations.”

“Two Wills,” Alleyn said, “in readiness for a final decision.”

“Precisely. He believed that his health was precarious. Without making any specific accusations he suggested that certain members of his family were acting separately or in collusion against him. I believe, in view of your own exceedingly lucid account,” Mr. Rattisbon dipped his head again, “that he referred, in fact, to these practical jokes. Mrs. Alleyn will have described fully the extraordinary incident of the portrait. An admirable likeness, if I may say so. She will have related how Sir Henry left the theatre in anger.”

“Yes.”

“Subsequently the butler came to me with a request from Sir Henry that I should wait upon him in his room. I found him still greatly perturbed. In my presence, and with considerable violence, he tore up the, as I considered, more reasonable of the two drafts, and, in short, threw it on the fire. A Mr. and Mrs. Candy were shown in and witnessed his signature to the second document. Sir Henry then informed me that he proposed to marry Miss Clark in a week’s time and would require my services in the drawing up of a marriage settlement. I persuaded him to postpone this matter until the morning and left him, still agitated and inflamed. That, in effect, is all I can tell you.”

“It’s been enormously helpful,” Alleyn said. “One other point if you don’t mind. Sir Henry’s two drafts are not dated. He didn’t by any chance tell you when he wrote them?”

“No. His behaviour and manner on this point were curious. He stated that he would enjoy no moment’s peace until both Wills had been drawn up in my office. But no. Except that the drafts were made before Tuesday, the twentieth, I cannot help you here.”

“I’d be grateful if they might be put away and left untouched.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Rattisbon, greatly flustered, “by all means.”

Alleyn placed the papers between two clean sheets and returned them to their drawer.

That done, he rose, and Mr. Rattisbon at once became very lively. He escorted Alleyn to the door, shook hands and uttered a string of valedictory phrases. “Quite so, quite so,” he gabbled. “Disquieting. Trust no foundation but nevertheless disquieting. Always depend upon your discretion. Extraordinary. In many ways, I fear, an unpredictable family. No doubt if counsel is required… Well, good-bye. Thank yer. Kindly remember me to Mrs. Alleyn. Thank yer.”

But as Alleyn moved, Mr. Rattisbon laid a claw on his arm. “I shall always remember him that night,” he said. “He stopped me as I reached the door and I turned and saw him, sitting upright in bed with his gown spread about him. He was a fine-looking old fellow. I was quite arrested by his appearance. He made an unaccountable remark, too, I recollect. He said: ‘I expect to be very well attended, in future, Rattisbon. Opposition to my marriage may not be as strong in some quarters as you anticipate. Good night.’ That was all. It was, of course, the last time I ever saw him.”

iv

The Hon. Mrs. Claude Ancred had a small house in Chelsea. As a dwelling-place it presented a startling antithesis to Ancreton. Here all was lightness and simplicity. Alleyn was shown into a white drawing-room, modern in treatment, its end wall one huge window overlooking the river: The curtains were pale yellow, powdered with silver stars, and this colour, with accents of clear cerise, appeared throughout the room. There were three pictures — a Matisse, a Christopher Wood, and, to his pleasure, an Agatha Troy. “So you still stick around, do you?” he said, winking at it, and at that moment Jenetta Ancred came in.

An intelligent-looking woman, he thought. She greeted him as if he was a normal visitor, and, with a glance at the painting, said: “You see that we’ve got a friend in common,” and began to talk to him about Troy and their meeting at Ancreton.

He noticed that her manner was faintly and recurrently ironic. Nothing, she seemed to say, must be insisted upon or underlined. Nothing really matters very much. Over-statement is stupid and uncomfortable. This impression was conveyed by the crispness of her voice, its avoidance of stresses, and by her eyes and lips, which constantly erected little smiling barriers that half-discredited the frankness of her conversation. She talked intelligently about painting, but always with an air of self-deprecation. He had a notion she was warding off the interview for which he had asked.

At last he said: “You’ve guessed, of course, why I wanted you to let me come?”

“Thomas came in last night and told me he’d seen you and that you’d gone down to Ancreton. This is an extremely unpleasant development, isn’t it?”

“I’d very much like to hear your views.”

“Mine?” she said, with an air of distaste. “They can’t possibly be of the smallest help, I’m afraid. I’m always a complete onlooker at Ancreton. And please don’t tell me the onlooker sees most of the game. In this instance she sees as little as possible.”

“Well,” said Alleyn cheerfully, “what does she think?”

She waited for a moment, looking past him to the great window. “I think,” she murmured, “that it’s almost certain to be a tarradiddle. The whole story.”

“Convince us of that,” Alleyn said, “and we’re your slaves for ever in the C.I.D.”

“No, but really. They’re so absurd, you know, my in-laws. I’m very attracted to them, but you can’t imagine how absurd they can be.” Her voice died away. After a moment’s reflection she said: “But Mrs. Alleyn saw them. She must have told you.”

“A little.”

“At one time it was fifth columnists. Pauline suspected such a nice little Austrian doctor who’s since taken a very important job at a big clinic. At that time he was helping with the children. She said something told her. And then it was poor Miss Able who was supposed to be undermining her influence with Panty. I wonder if, having left the stage, Pauline’s obliged to find some channel for her histrionic instincts. They all do it. Naturally, they resented Miss Orrincourt, and resentment and suspicion are inseparable with the Ancreds.”

“What did you think of Miss Orrincourt?”

“I? She’s too lovely, isn’t she? In her way, quite flawless.”

“Apart from her beauty?”

“There didn’t seem to be anything else. Except a very robust vulgarity.”

“But does she really think as objectively as all that?” Alleyn wondered. “Her daughter stood to lose a good deal through Sonia Orrincourt. Could she have achieved such complete detachment?” He said: “You were there, weren’t you, when the book on embalming appeared in the cheese-dish?”

She made a slight grimace. “Oh, yes.”

“Have you any idea who could have put it there?”

“I’m afraid I rather suspected Cedric. Though why… For no reason except that I can’t believe any of the others would do it. It was quite horrible.”

“And the anonymous letters?”

“I feel it must have been the same person. I can’t imagine how any of the Ancreds — After all they’re not — However.”

She had a trick of letting her voice fade out as if she had lost faith in the virtue of her sentences. Alleyn felt that she pushed the suggestion of murder away from her, with both hands, not so much for its dreadfulness as for its offence against taste.

“You think, then,” he said, “that their suspicion of Miss Orrincourt is unfounded and that Sir Henry died naturally?”

“That’s it. I’m quite sure it’s all a make-up. They think it’s true. They’ve just got one of their ‘things’ about it.”

“That explanation doesn’t quite cover the discovery of a tin of rat-bane in her suitcase, does it?”

“Then there must be some other explanation.”

“The only one that occurs to me,” Alleyn said, “is that the tin was deliberately planted, and if you accept that you accept something equally serious: an attempt to place suspicion of murder upon an innocent person. That in itself constitutes—”

“No, no,” she cried out. “No, you don’t understand the Ancreds. They plunge into fantasies of their own making, without thinking of the consequences. This wretched tin must have been put in the suitcase by a maid or have got there by some other freakish accident. It may have been in the attic for years. None of their alarms ever means anything. Mr. Alleyn, may I implore you to dismiss the whole thing as nonsense? Dangerous and idiotic nonsense, but, believe me, utter nonsense.”

She had leant forward, and her hands were pressed together. There was a vehemence and an intensity in her manner that had not appeared before.

“If it’s nonsense,” he said, “it’s malevolent nonsense.”

“Stupid,” she insisted, “spiteful, too, perhaps, but only childishly so.”

“I shall be very glad if it turns out to be no more.”

“Yes, but you don’t think it will.”

“I’m wide open to conviction,” he said lightly.

“If I could convince you!”

“You can at least help by filling in some of the gaps. For instance, can you tell me anything about the party in the drawing-room when you all returned from the little theatre? What happened?”

Instead of answering him directly she said, with a return to her earlier manner, “Please forgive me for being so insistent. It’s silly to try and ram one’s convictions down other people’s throats. They merely feel that one protests too much. But, you see, I know my Ancreds.”

“And I’m learning mine. About the aftermath of the Birthday Party?”

“Well, two of our visitors, the rector and a local squire, said good night in the hall. Very thankfully, poor darlings, I’m sure. Miss Orrincourt had already gone up. Mrs. Alleyn had stayed behind in the theatre with Paul and Fenella. The rest of us went into the drawing-room and there the usual family arguments started, this time on the subject of that abominable disfigurement of the portrait. Paul and Fenella came in and told us that no damage had been done. Naturally, they were very angry. I may tell you that my daughter, who has not quite grown out of the hero-worship state-of-affairs, admires your wife enormously. These two children planned what they fondly imagined to be a piece of detective work. Did Mrs. Alleyn tell you?”

Troy had told Alleyn, but he listened again to the tale of the paint-brush and finger-prints. She dwelt at some length on this, inviting his laughter, making, he thought, a little too much of a slight incident. When he asked her for further details of the discussion in the drawing-room she became vague. They had talked about Sir Henry’s fury, about his indiscretions at dinner. Mr. Rattisbon had been sent for by Sir Henry. “It was just one more of the interminable emotional parties,” she said. “Everyone, except Cedric and Milly, terrifically hurt and grand because of the Will he told us about at dinner.”

“Every one? Your daughter and Mr. Paul Ancred too?”

She said much too lightly: “My poor Fen does go in a little for the Ancred temperament, but not, I’m glad to say, to excess. Paul, thank goodness, seems to have escaped it, which is such a very good thing, as it appears he’s to be my son-in-law.”

“Would you say that during this discussion any of them displayed singular vindictiveness against Miss Orrincourt?”

“They were all perfectly livid about her. Except Cedric. But they’re lividly angry with somebody or another a dozen times a month. It means nothing.”

“Mrs. Ancred,” Alleyn said, “if you’ve been suddenly done out of a very pretty fortune your anger isn’t altogether meaningless. You yourself must surely have resented a little your daughter’s position.”

“No,” she said quickly. “I knew, as soon as she told me of her engagement to Paul, that her grandfather would disapprove, Marriage between cousins was one of his bugbears. I knew he’d take it out of them both. He was a vindictive old man. And Fen hadn’t bothered to hide her dislike of Miss Orrincourt. She’d said…” She stopped short. He saw her hands move convulsively.

“Yes?”

“She was perfectly frank. The association offended her taste. That was all.”

“What are her views of all this business — the letters and so on?”

“She agrees with me.”

“That the whole story is simply a flight of fancy on the part of the more imaginative members of the family?”

“Yes.”

“I should like to see her if I may?”

The silence that fell between them was momentary, a brief check in the even flow of their voices, but he found it illuminating. It was as if she winced from an expected hurt, and poised herself to counter it. She leant forward, and with an air of great frankness made a direct appeal.

“Mr. Alleyn,” she said, “I’m going to ask a favour. Please let Fenella off. She’s highly strung and sensitive. Really sensitive. It’s not the rather bogus Ancred sensibility. All the unhappy wrangling over her engagement and the shock of her grandfather’s death and then — this horrid and really dreadful business: it’s fussed her rather badly. She overheard me speaking to you when you rang up for this talk and even that upset her. I’ve sent them both out. Please, will you be very understanding and let her off?”

He hesitated, wondering how to frame his refusal, and if her anxiety was based on some much graver reason than the one she gave him.

“Believe me,” she said, “Fenella can be of no help to you.”

Before he could reply Fenella herself walked in, followed by Paul.

“I’m sorry, Mummy,” she said rapidly and in a high voice. “I know you didn’t want me to come. I had to. There’s something Mr. Alleyn doesn’t know, and I’ve got to tell him.”